Combat the epidemic of misinformation that plagues the corporate media! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout and keep independent journalism strong.

The Postmaster General startled postal workers today by announcing that letter delivery will drop to five days a week in August. Packages, but not letters, will still be delivered on Saturdays.

Postal workers heard the news from their managers early this morning.

“Everyone’s been running up to me all morning really angry and scared, asking me what they can do,” said Manhattan letter carrier and shop steward Frank Couget.

“My response is we need to fight,” Couget said. He suggests workers should treat it as a lockout and show up to work as usual Saturday August 10, inviting community allies and news reporters along.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has made no secret of his ambition to cut Saturday service, but it is not clear whether he has the legal authority to make the move without Congressional action. He acknowledged he expects a legal challenge.

The cut is supposed to save 45 million work hours and $2 billion per year. Yet Donahoe said this morning that he hopes not to cut the hours of any “non-career” employees because “they’re young people. They need jobs.”

Instead, he plans to cut back on career workers’ overtime and offer them buyout incentives to retire–affecting 22,500 jobs altogether.

A growing share of postal work is already assigned to non-career employees, who work alongside career employees, doing the same work–but for much lower pay, and without health benefits, pensions, or even access to progressive discipline.

The one saving grace of these perma-temp positions is that they offer a way to accumulate seniority into a career position, Couget said. But cutting Saturday delivery further erodes the already dwindling chances that any career job opportunities will be available.

“This should be a wake-up call–for all the people in the community, and for the workers–that Donahoe has no qualms about destroying the post office,” Chicago letter carrier Melissa Rakestraw said.

Obama Could Solve with Stroke of Pen

All four postal unions–the American Postal Workers, Letter Carriers, Rural Letter Carriers, and Mail Handlers–condemned the move. The Letter Carriers called for Donahoe’s resignation.

But postal worker activists say that’s not enough.

“The strategy of the unions all along has been lobbying Congress and having polite rallies,” said New York mail handler John Dennie. “This strategy has failed.”

Communities and Postal Workers United (CPWU), a network of activists involved in grassroots fights against post office closings and other cuts, has been calling for a national, multi-union march in Washington, D.C.

Despite Donahoe’s bemoaning of falling mail volumes in the Internet era, the major causes of USPS’s financial troubles are simple accounting issues. In 2006 Congress required the Postal Service to prefund its retiree health benefits 75 years into the future–far beyond what other federal agencies or private companies do. Postal activists say the onerous requirement was meant to create a budget deficit, and thus opportunities to privatize profitable parts of the service. The Postal Service has also significantly overfunded its pensions, to the tune of billions of dollars.

So the unions call for Congress to repeal the prefunding mandate, and for President Obama to sign an executive order refunding the pension money, which would be enough to solve the immediate budget shortfall.

“[Obama] has the power to solve this crisis, at least for the short term, with the stroke of a pen,” Couget said.

Whack-a-Mole Attacks

The cuts are part of a multi-pronged attack on the postal service, including closing or cutting back hours at rural post offices and closing processing plants where mail is sorted. In local fights where postal workers and community activists have gotten organized, they’ve been able to stop some of the cuts.

CPWU members have staged rallies, civil disobedience actions, and two hunger strikes on the National Mall to call attention to their demands.

“It’s a whack-a-mole thing. If we are able to beat back an attack in one area, they just attack in a different area,” Rakestraw said.

USPS is pushing to close 99 more mail processing plants and sell off another batch of historic post offices this spring. An attempt to privatize postal truck driver jobs has been thwarted, at least for now.

Dennie is organizing a rally in Staten Island this Saturday to oppose the plant closures. Another postal activist started an online petition to preserve six-day delivery, and CPWU is calling for a national day of action March 17.

Cuts to postal service are one facet of a broader attack on federal public services that also includes curtailed hours at Social Security Administration offices, now closing at noon on Wednesdays, over the objections of the Government Employees union members who work there.

Couget, who delivers mail to a Social Security office on his route, finds “elderly and developmentally disabled people wandering in front of the office, asking me for help,” he said. “It breaks my heart.”

Saving the postal service, he argues, will require a coalition that can inspire people with a vision of an expanded public sector. CPWU has proposed that post offices–sometimes the only public buildings in low-income and rural communities–could offer needed services like nonprofit banking, wire transfers, or ad-free email.

“Just defending from cuts isn’t going to win this fight,” Couget said. “We actually need to make the postal service an inspiring thing, something people think can improve their lives.”

David Cameron has challenged Ed Miliband over whether Labour MEPs will vote against a cut in the EU Budget, amid fears the European Parliament may veto the deal.

Last week European leaders agreed to cut the EU’s budget for the next seven years to 908bn euros. Cameron has claimed the unprecedented decision as a personal victory, after assembling an alliance of “like minded” countries including Germany and Denmark.

However the budget first has to be approved by MEPs. European Parliament President Martin Schulz has said he intends to deploy a rarely used procedure that would result in a secret vote.

By allowing MEPs to vote anonymously, the move will effectively stop EU leaders galvanising their own members of the parliament to support the budget deal.

LIKE HUFFPOST UK POLITICS ON FACEBOOK | FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Speaking in the Commons on Monday, the prime minister said Tory MEPs would vote in favour of a cut in the budet. And Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes confirmed his party’s MEP’s would be ordered to do the same.

Cameron attacked the secret ballot as “completely wrong” and challenged Miliband as to whether his “socialist” MEPs would back the budget cut. The Labour leader, who had already used up his time to speak, was unable to respond.

“A secret ballot would be wrong we need an open ballot,” Cameron said. “I would encourage every MEPs from across the UK to support the deal.”

“MPs and MEPs should vote transparently so their constituents can hold them to account. They have to account not only to their electorates but to their own countries who will suffer if a deal isn’t passed.”

Last October eurosceptic Tory backbenchers joined with the Labour party in a Commons vote to demand the prime minster seek a real-terms cut. Cameron had initially urged his party to support his vision of a freeze in the budget rather than a cut.

Related on HuffPost:

Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer, at U.S. Postal Service headquarters in Washington, February 6, 2013. (Photo: Christopher Gregory / The New York Times)You are probably hearing that the Post Office is “in crisis” and is cutting back Saturday delivery, laying people off, closing offices, etc. Like so many other “crises” imposed on us lately, there is a lot to the story that you are not hearing from the “mainstream” media. (Please click that link.) The story of the intentional destruction of the U.S. Postal Service is one more piece of the story of crisis-after-crisis, all manufactured to advance the strategic dismantling of our government and handing over the pieces to billionaires.

Here are a few things you need to know about the Postal Service “crisis”:

• The Postal Service is the second largest employer in the United States after Walmart. But unlike Walmart, which gets away with paying so little that employees qualify for government assistance, the Postal Services is unionized, pays reasonable wages and benefits and receives no government subsidies. (Good for them!)
• Republicans have been pushing schemes to privatize the Postal Service since at least 1996. In 2006 Republicans in the Congress pushed through a requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund 75 years of retiree costs. The Postal Service has to pay now for employees who are not even born yet. No other government agency — and certainly no company — has to do this.
• Unlike other government agencies (like the military) since 1970 the Postal Service is required to break even. Once more: the Department of Defense is not required to break even.
• While required to break even the Postal Service has to deliver mail to areas that are unprofitable for private companies to operate in. A letter sent from a small town in Alaska is picked up and transported across the country to a farm in Maine for 46 cents. While the Internet and recession have eaten into some of the Postal Services letter business, magazines, books, newsletters, prescriptions, advertising, DVD services like Netflix and many other services still depend on the Postal Service for delivery. And many people for one reason or another still send letters. In a democracy these people are supposed to count, too.
• But along with requiring the Postal Service to break even, Congress has restricted the Service’s ability to raise rates, enter new lines of business or take other steps to help it raise revenue. In fact, while detractors complain that the Postal Service is antiquated, inefficient and burdened by bureaucracy, the rules blocking the Postal Service from entering new lines of business do so because the Postal Service would have advantages over private companies.For example, Republicans in Congress forced the Postal Service to remove public-use copiers from Post Offices and even blocked the Postal Service from setting up a secure online system that allowed Americans to make monthly bill payments.

The Postal Service is a public service for We, the People, not a business. The Service is hamstrung by people who pretend it is supposed to compete and then won’t let it. They won’t help with taxpayer dollars and say it has to compete in the marketplace (again: the Department of Defense is not required to break even.) Then they give it rules that no private company could survive. Then when it gets into trouble, say that government doesn’t work, start laying people off, selling off the public assets, and saying it has to be “privatized” (so all the gains will go to a few already-wealthy people instead of to the public).

Manufacturing A Crisis

So Republicans have hamstrung the Postal Service, forcing it into “crisis” and are now “solving” the crisis by working towards dismantling and privatizing it. Here is how it works:

1. Require the Postal Service to “break even.” (Again: the Department of Defense is not required to break even.)
2. Require them to serve all areas of the country. (Which is a service to democracy and should continue.)
3. Keep them from raising or lowering rates as needed.
4. Keep them from using their competitive advantages to compete with private businesses.
5. Require them to pre-fund 75 years of health benefits.
6. When the Postal Service has the inevitable resulting financial “crisis” complain about government and unions and demand their buildings be sold, employees laid off and the service be dismantled and given to private companies.

If you don’t see the pattern yet, try this:

1. Cut taxes,
2. Double military spending,
3. Obstruct all efforts to fix things,
4. Wait a few years, then scream loudly about a “deficit crisis” and say we have to severely cut back on government – the things we do to make our lives better.

This is not the way an informed democracy is supposed to operate.

Part Of Bigger Assault On Government

The postal service “crisis” is just one more instance of the ongoing pattern of government by lies, hostage-taking and manufactured crises. This is one more assault on a government service.

The “fiscal cliff” was a manufactured crisis, engineered to force cutbacks in the things We, the People do to make our lives better. The “debt ceiling” was a manufactured crisis, engineered to force cutbacks in the things We, the People do to make our lives better. The 2010 “tax deal” was a manufactured crisis, engineered to force cutbacks in the things We, the People do to make our lives better. Etc., etc., on and on…

And the Postal Service “crisis” is one more manufactured crisis.

Not Governing, But Destroying Government

Republicans don’t talk about governing, they talk about killing government, and when they get power they don’t govern, they destroy government. They appoint industry lobbyists to agencies that are supposed to oversee their own industries — and they don’t oversee their industries. They appoint polluters to the agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution — and they let the companies pollute. And they appoint people who have called for getting government out of areas like education, medical care, etc. to head up and dismantle those departments for the benefit of the companies they came from.

This is not the way our government is supposed to operate. This does not serve We, the People and does not help us make our lives better.

The Push To Privatize Public Assets

Privatization means dismantling government and public assets and turning them over to private companies. It involves “contracting out” or even ending the services that were performed by We, the People (government) to make our lives better. Instead these services are operated for profit, which the citizens (and certainly not the employees) share none of the gains.

To be clear about this: contracting out government services “saves money” by laying off people who have good wages with benefits, and rehiring them at minimum wage with no benefits, while removing the accountability that goes along with a government service. For example, when a city “contracts out” its garbage collection, what happens is all the city employees who had government jobs doing this work are laid off. The private company that contracts to do the service “saves money” by hiring employees at a much lower wage with no benefits. It doesn’t have to meet the standards of government agencies, doesn’t have to be transparent, doesn’t have to use well-maintained equipment, etc. Obviously the city employees and the places they used to shop are worse off, but their lower wages mean everyone else’s wages come under pressure, too. So the “money saved” comes at a great cost to the public.

This same process occurs in all instances of privatizing or “downsizing” government. The public receives less service, wages generally are lowered, but a few people make a bundle at the expense of the rest of us.

Cato Institute Push To Privatize The Postal Service

The Koch brothers’ Cato Institute has been pushing to privatize the Postal Service (and the rest of government) for many years. (Note: Frederick W. Smith, Chairman & CEO, FedEx Corporation was on the Board of Directors of Cato Institute. FedEx is also a funder of the Cato Institute.) In 1996, for example, Cato’s Edward L. Hudgins testified before Congress on Postal Service privatization.

Today Cato employees write about “freeing the mail from the government’s grip” and ” getting the government out of the mail business.” (from Cato’s “Stamp Out the Postal Service.”)

While part of Cato’s motivation for privatizing the Postal Service is their efforts to transfer all public assets to private hands, Their website, Privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, explains their reasoning,

The USPS is in deep financial trouble as a result of declining mail volume, bloated operating expenses, a costly and inflexible unionized workforce, and constant congressional meddling. At the same time, electronic communications and other technological advances are making physical mail delivery less relevant.

America’s postal system needs a radical overhaul. This essay … concludes that taxpayers, consumers, and the broader economy would stand to gain with reforms to privatize the USPS and open U.S. mail delivery up to competition.

Cato’s funders also oppose unions because they enable working people to bargain for a larger share of the pie, and the Postal Service is unionized – the largest remaining union. In “The Postal Service Can’t Afford Unions,” Cato’s Tad DeHaven writes, “A big drag on the USPS’s bottom line is the pesky postal unions.” DeHaven continues,

The USPS has been able to eliminate thousands of positions through attrition, but it still possesses the second-largest civilian workforce in the country, behind only Wal-Mart. With 85 percent of that workforce protected by collective bargaining agreement, the unions have become a giant anchor on an already sinking ship.

The Postal Service is a PUBLIC service, serving We, the People and our democracy. It is our second-largest employer. Like Social Security it demonstrates that government can and does serve We, the People. You should be outraged by what is being done to our Postal Service! It is time to step up and defend all of our democratic institutions.

Other Voices

Here are a few other voices on this issue:

John Nichols writes in The Nation, “Postal Cuts Are Austerity on Steroids“:

The austerity agenda that would cut services for working Americans in order to maintain tax breaks for the wealthy–and promote the privatization of public services–has many faces.

Most Americans recognize the threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as pieces of the austerity plan advanced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the rest of the Ayn Rand—reading wrecking crew that has taken over the Republican Party. But it is important to recognize that the austerity agenda extends in every direction: from threats to Food Stamps and Pell Grants, to education cuts, to the squeezing of transportation funding.

But the current frontline of the austerity agenda is the assault on the US Postal Service, a vital public service that is older than the country. And it is advancing rapidly.

Dean Baker at CEPR, “Killing the Messenger: The Downsizing and Death of the Postal Service”:

Congress also has to be prepared to allow the Postal Service to win. About a decade ago, the Postal Service had an extremely effective ad campaign highlighting the fact that its express mail service was just a fraction of the price charged for overnight delivery by UPS and FedEx.

The two companies actually went to court to try to stop the ad campaign. When the court told them to get lost, they went to Congress. Their friends in Congress then leaned on the Postal Service and got it to end the ads.

Sen. Tom Carper of Deleware has a good information page: “Postal Reform Myths vs. Facts” (click through for the details):

With all the information floating around about the U.S. Postal Service’s financial crisis and the possible Postal Service default at the end of September, it can be difficult to wade through what is fact and what is fiction. Below are 8 Myths about the current crisis and 8 facts explaining what can and must be done to reform this vital American institution and ensure its services remain for generations to come.

MYTH #1: The U.S. Postal Service is bankrolled by taxpayers.
MYTH #2: The U.S. Postal Service will inevitably see a total financial collapse in the coming months.
MYTH #3: Congressional action to save the U.S. Postal Service amounts to yet another government bailout of a failing industry.
MYTH #4: Allowing the U.S. Postal Service to default will simply force much-needed restructuring and reform.
MYTH #5: A new government control board could better take the dramatic steps necessary to fix the U.S. Postal Service.
MYTH #6: A new government commission — similar to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission — could help the U.S. Postal Service close or consolidate unnecessary processing and retail facilities free from political pressure.
MYTH #7: The U.S. Postal Service must raise rates on certain postal products to help cover its losses.
MYTH #8: Sen. Carper’s bill — the POST Act — wants to end Saturday mail delivery.

Think Progress, “Thanks To Congressional Incompetence, Saturday Mail Delivery Is History“:

Postal access is, ultimately, a rights issue for rural Americans; since they live in areas where internet coverage is inconsistent, post office closures and slowed-down delivery can mean big limitations on communication. A lack of access to postal services can lead to a growth in economic inequality. The new rules for Saturday delivery, set to take effect on August 1, 2013, will continue delivery of packages, but discontinue basic first-class mail.

From September 2011, Brigid OFarrell, writing at the Roosevelt Institute’s Next New Deal blog, “Ten Reasons That the U.S. Postal Service is Not a Failure – and is Vital to Our Country”:

There is a crisis, but it is not because the Postal Service is inefficient and its workers overpaid. It is because the Postal Service:

1. Receives no taxpayer dollars

2. Is funded by the products and services it sells

3. Working with its unions, has already reduced its workforce by 110,000 employees, improved efficiency, and introduced new products and services

4. Handles more than 40 percent of the world’s mail more efficiently and at lower cost than other services

5. Despite the growth of the digital world, continues to support a $1 trillion mailing industry with more than 8 million jobs

6. Has a workforce that is made up of 40 percent women, 40 percent minorities, and 22 percent veterans, many disabled

There is a crisis, but it is not because the Postal Service is inefficient and its workers overpaid. It is because the Postal Service:

7. Is the only federal agency or private company required to pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years
8. Is therefore required to pay $5.5 billion annually to the Treasury, an amount not required of any other agency or company

Without these unique requirements, it would have earned a surplus of over $600 million during the last four years. In addition, the USPS:

9. Has over-paid its obligations to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by an estimated $50 billion (and this money should be returned)
10. Has overfunded the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) by approximately $6.9 billion (and would be profitable if these funds were returned)

David Morris at AlterNet takes a good look at the history of the Postal Service and the current problems, in “Why We Must Rescue the U.S. Postal Service From the Brink of Death,” and concludes:

The Postal Service can still be saved. But the grave has been dug. The coffin has been built. And funeral music is in the air. Only the most aggressive effort by AARP, the NAACP, Consumers Union and other affected constituencies can save this most public of all public institutions.

Journalists at the BBC are to stage a one-day strike unless the corporation agrees to end compulsory redundancies, it was warned today.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said its members at the BBC will walk out on February 18 and launch a work-to-rule from Friday.

The action will go ahead unless talks between the two sides next week resolve a dispute over jobs.

BBC executives have come under serious budgetary constraint, with the licence-fee cap restricting new income.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “The BBC is prepared to waste public money on needless redundancies rather than secure redeployment opportunities for those at risk.

“This demonstrates the significant failures of some managers to uphold key aspects of the redeployment agreement, let alone the spirit of the deal.

“In the meantime we have meetings planned with the BBC and we want to engage in meaningful negotiations to resolve this dispute.

“I hope common sense prevails and a sensible solution is agreed which will mean that strike action is not necessary.”

The NUJ said the BBC was planning around 30 compulsory redundancies, affecting areas including BBC Scotland, the Asian Network, the World Service and English regions.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We understand how frustrating and difficult situations involving redundancies can be, but it is disappointing the NUJ have chosen to take this action.

“We are working hard to ensure that we succeed in getting staff redeployed wherever we can and will continue to work with the unions to ensure that their members receive the right redeployment support.”

Breaking news this morning:

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday he will step aside as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on Feb. 28, saying he no longer has the strength to carry out his duties.

Speaking in Latin, the 85-year-old announced his decision during an address at the “Concistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto”, a small event held early in the morning.

The decision makes him the first pope to resign since the Middle Ages.

His statement was posted on the Vatican Radio website. Carrying out the duties of being pope required “both strength of mind and body,” it said.

NBC New Vatican analyst George Weigel gives his thoughts on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his resignation, and explains how a new pope will be selected.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the pontiff’s statement said.

All original content on this site is copyright of The Real News Network. Click here for more

Problems with this site? Please let us know

Fox & Friends Weekend used the manhunt for alleged cop-killer Christopher Dorner as an excuse to play a thinly-veiled race card against Rep. Maxine Waters and other African Americans. The pretext was a discussion about how Dorner has garnered some fans on Facebook and Twitter as a result of his manifesto alleging racism and corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department, his former employer. But instead of doing any real work and reporting any real facts about the state of community relations with the LAPD or even relaying what the fans are saying, the three hosts dismissed any concerns about police brutality and racism and suggested that race-crazed African Americans are using the case to justify violence. For good measure, host Tucker Carlson baselessly suggested that Congresswoman Maxine Waters is part of Dorner’s fan base.

Huffington Post also reported on Dorner’s fans but — unlike Fox — also noted that there’s a sort of “Dark Knight Complex” that gives a kind of appeal to high-profile killers among certain people:

The vast majority of Americans are horrified that Dorner declared “war” on the LAPD and has allegedly killed three individuals so far. But the public disgust seems to add fuel to the fire for his followers, as it does with skeptics of 9/11, the Aurora massacre and the Newtown massacre.

However, it is clear that Dorner’s fans have a more issue-driven focus than, for example, the fans, or “Holmies,” of alleged Aurora shooter James Holmes.

Dorner’s supporters say the media should be focusing on police brutality and officer-involved deaths as much as they are on this alleged killer.

In other words, Dorner is obviously not the only public villain to gain fans and it is clear that the case has brought to the forefront a range of concerns about the LAPD. But Fox ignored the “Holmies” just as it disregarded the Dorner supporters’ issues – in order to paint them as racial demagogues.

Co-host Mike Jerrick offered up his decades-old observations and current suppositions instead of facts. He said he lived in Los Angeles “in the 90’s” when “there probably was corruption and racism… So, they have tried to stamp all that out and they’ve had a pretty darned good relationship with the public, the police out there, for the last 5-10 years and now all this starts up again.” He shook his head in disbelief.

And we knew who to blame even before Tucker Carlson said:

Who cares (what kind of racism Dorner endured in the LAPD)? You saw this in 1992 during the LA riots. And you saw members of Congress, including Maxine Waters who’s still in the Congress, make the case that this violence against innocent bystanders then and now was justified because it was a reaction against racism. Violence is not justified. Period… I don’t care what happened to Rodney King. You don’t have a right to shoot strangers.

Nobody pointed out that Rep. Waters’ comments about a riot 20 years ago have nothing to do with the murder spree now, nor that she expressly disavowed the violence then even as she sympathized with the sentiments of the community she represented. In fact, nobody even questioned whether Waters or any other members of Congress had voiced any support at all for Dorner, as Carlson had hinted.

Instead, Jerrick ran with the insinuation that she and any other (black) person with a real or imagined beef against the LAPD is probably a fan of Dorner’s: “So anybody who’s ever been wronged or feel that they were wronged by the LAPD is now somehow going online and showing this guy support.”

Disgraceful, even by Fox News standards.

February 11, 2013  |  

I have come to realize that there are actually three things in life that are inevitable. Death, taxes and professional sports. The second two items go hand in hand.

I care not a fig for glitzy, large-scale, athletic competitions, and yet I am bombarded with news of grown men getting paid to tackle and throw balls at each other almost daily. Through my newspaper subscription, I support entire sections devoted to games and scores that don’t concern me. I subsidize professional sports teams through my taxes. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, U.S. taxpayers have kissed goodbye $4 billion through tax exemptions and other schemes to build fancy sports structures with retractable roofs and whatnot since 1986. Structures I will likely never visit. Franchise owners make out like bandits, and I receive little in return.

Travis Waldron and Pat Garofalo at ThinkProgress have devoted several articles to explaining why these kinds of subsidies are poor investments for economic growth. Stadiums don’t pay for themselves, as promoters claim, and they divert resources from vital services, like roads and bridges, firefighters and public pensions.

David Sirota has just added a new layer of insult to my injuries. In a recent column, “ The Sports Tax,” he outlines the various ways I’m getting hustled, including one I hadn’t thought about much, because I only recently caved and got cable TV (I used to be able to get basic channels in my NYC apartment using deftly positioned rabbit ears, but no more). My Time Warner Cable bill, which combines phone and Internet — and doesn’t even buy me HBO — is nearly $200 per month. Flipping around the channels, I have a hard time comprehending what justifies this price. As Sirota explains, a large chunk of what I pay goes toward expensive sports channels like ESPN and Sports Net:

“The third Sports Tax is embedded in your cable television bill. Though this levy is not itemized on your bill, the Los Angeles Times reports that up to half of your total cable payment is ‘for the sports channels packaged into most services.’ That’s because the sports stations tend to charge significantly higher rates than other outlets, and yet are automatically included in most basic cable packages, thereby preventing ratepayers from opting out. The result is a tax obligating those who do not watch sports to subsidize those who do.”

Have you noticed your cable bill going up lately? Perhaps by as much as 40 percent? That’s because TV deals with big-name sports franchises are pushing them up, says the LA Times:

“’We’ve got runaway sports rights, runaway sports salaries and what is essentially a high tax on a lot of households that don’t have a lot of interest in sports,’ said John Malone, the cable industry pioneer and chairman of Liberty Media. ‘The consumer is really getting squeezed, as is the cable operator.’” Those who actually watch sports–and I don’t fault them for it — are not getting a better product for those higher prices, but “smaller slices at higher prices.”

While the LA Times puts the percentage of your cable bill that goes to sports channels at 50 percent, Derek Thompson at the Atlantic counters that it’s really only 15 percent. In any case, I’m getting bupkis for that cost. Thompson notes that while ESPN gets $5 a month from every household, MTV only gets 39 cents. Why is that?

On top of that, sports makes TV look like crap. I recently watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in high definition and it looked absolutely horrible. I could see the stage makeup on Steve Martin. The lighting was garish. The whole experience made it seem that I was watching an acting class, rather than a film. This is known as the “ soap opera effect” because it makes things look like the kind of cheap video used for soap operas. I am told it’s possible to fiddle with a labyrinth of settings and connections in order to mitigate this, but what a pain in the ass. And why does TV look like this? High definition is primarily exciting to sports viewers who want to see the minutia of every play. It’s absolutely awful for dramatic presentations where mood and nuanced lighting is critical. And it is particularly cruel to older actors and media figures who must struggle to conceal every wrinkle and often end up Botoxed out of recognition.

The government has insisted the UK will not be a “soft touch” on immigration after Conservative MPs raised concerns there will be a sharp jump in migration from Romania and Bulgaria.

Next year transitional controls placed on immigration from the two nations, which joined the EU in 2007, will be lifted, allowing Romanians and Bulgarians the same rights of free movement enjoyed by others in the union.

Immigration minister Mark Harper was repeatedly questioned on the issue by Conservatie MPs in the Commons on Monday, many of whom fear a “surge” in migration.

Bury St Edmunds MP David Ruffley said Britain should consider taking new powers to curb “benefit tourism undertaken by Romanians and Bulgarians”. He said such “welfare tourism” added to British public spending rather than reduced it.

And Basildon and Billericay MP John Baron said the fact the national minimum wage in the UK was “five or six times” higher than in Bulgaria and Romania could fuel a “surge” in mass migration.

LIKE HUFFPOST UK POLITICS ON FACEBOOK | FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Harper told his Conservative backbenches that the government had not made “speculative projections” about how many Romanians and Bulgarians would want to move to the UK as this could not be done with any degree of accuracy.

“We want to make sure when people look at access to our benefits and our services no one thinks we are a soft touch,” he said.

Earlier this month leading politicians from both Romania and Bulgaria said Britain was not first choice for their citizens who wished to move.

Bulgarian foreign minister Nikolay Mladenov said many of his compatriots would much rather travel to Germany, Spain and Italy, as his country has stronger business links with those countries.

In January it was reported the British government was considering running adverts to dissuade would-be immigrants from moving to the UK.

The rumour prompted a Romanian newspaper to hit back by posting adverts encouraging Britons to move to Romania instead. The adverts included the claim that “Half of our women look like Kate. The other half like her sister”.

The debate over immigration comes as the Romanian prime minister strongly denied allegations that abattoirs in his country were the source of horse meat found it beef products sold across the EU.

Related on HuffPost:

Maya Schenwar during a recent hospital visit. (Photo: Maya Schenwar)On a warm, breezy afternoon in early September 2004, I was leaning back on my elbows on a grassy hill in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, eating a cheese sandwich off a plastic tray, chatting with a couple of classmates. It was the beginning of my senior year of college, and we were already dizzy with happy anxiety. I turned my face upward and watched a white streak of sun shoot down across the canopy of the sky, dry grass prickling through my sandals.

But as I stared, that streak of sun kept coming, straight at me. I swallowed and couldn’t swallow; I was gulping at stars; I was outside my skin, watching my own face as it radiated, swirling galactically. And then I was lying flat and rolling backward, a million faces hanging over mine, staring down, their hands on my arms, my face. And then the faces slid together – there were only ten or seven or five faces, though I couldn’t catch hold of words like “ten” or “seven” or “five.”

“What’s your name?” a white-masked face said, into my eyes.

“I don’t know,” I said back. The “me” outside of myself was flailing: “Thinking of words is my thing!” that “me” thought. “Who am I if I can’t say words?” I thought the word “vegetable.”

But a few minutes later, the words rushed back. When the paramedics asked me what month it was and what country we were in, I got the answers right. My head was mine again, albeit aching like crazy. Yet the left temporal lobe of my brain had, apparently, reared up and announced its eccentricities, and it wouldn’t be shutting up anytime soon. My epilepsy had made its debut.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, who also had temporal lobe epilepsy, described his protagonist’s seizure experience in The Idiot:

He remembered that he always had one minute just before the epileptic fit when suddenly, in the midst of sadness, spiritual darkness and oppression, there seemed at moments a flash of light in his brain, and with extraordinary impetus, all his vital forces suddenly began working at their highest tension. The sense of life, the consciousness of self, were multiplied ten times at these moments, which passed like a flash of lightning. His mind and heart were flooded with extraordinary light…. But these moments, these flashes, were only the prelude of that final second in which the fit began.

Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin likened these “flashes” to “the highest form of existence” and “the acme of harmony and beauty.”

Well, my moment of oneness with the sun (my “aura,” as it’s called) may have been glorious, but the less-mystical reality of the seizure that hit me that September afternoon wasn’t harmonious or beautiful (especially when I looked at myself in the hospital mirror afterward and noticed I’d drooled all over my face and hands, and probably those of anyone who’d been helping me). Neither were the headache and shame that followed me around in the days afterward. I visited a string of neurologists over the next few years, lost my driving privileges intermittently, and was quickly prescribed a medication regimen that keeps my seizures in check most of the time.

When I do seize, unlike Dostoevsky, I do not tend to topple into radiant epiphany or collapse from the sheer force of my own ecstatic, perfect, devastating cosmic comprehension.

Instead, I blank out on a ratty couch in my old basement apartment in Chicago, or the shopping mall food court, or (eek!) emerging from a panel presentation at the Americans for Democratic Action convention, and wake up to find the paramedics touching my head and asking me questions like, “Who’s the president of the United States?” and “Do you know how to write your name?” Once in a while, I don’t know how to write my name.

And then there’s the other, less dramatic stuff – the “abnormal activity” buzzing around my brain on “normal” days. Since I had my first seizure, that “me” who floated outside myself and saw a separate version of reality has never really gone away. When I’m not concentrating hard on something – an engaging conversation, a good book, a challenging project, my wonderful wedding, my fast-paced job, an adorable dog, an extremely delicious sandwich – I’m sometimes flooded with a feeling of “derealization.” The world around me appears like a dream, or a movie, or a secondhand vision: a matrix inside a matrix. Sometimes, the world wiggles. At times, I think I’m seeing the fundamental unreality of things as they really are, as in the Hindu concept of “Maya,” in which the physical world is an illusion or projection that must be seen through in order to achieve enlightenment…. And at times, I just want to go to bed.

Two weeks ago, after a recent flare-up, I was admitted into the hospital for an extended video-monitored electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure my brain’s epileptiform activity. I was forbidden from going to the bathroom – or getting out of bed, for that matter – without paging a nurse. I couldn’t sleep at night under the camera’s constant glare, the electric nodes pulling at my hair and my neurons. I tried to work on my computer (you know, for this political news web site), but was interrupted by a series of doctors, residents and nurses asking me if I knew who the president of the United States was. At one point, I replied “Lindsay Lohan,” just for kicks. I went home with a glue-stained scalp, a report of “frequent spikes,” an increased medication dosage and few answers.

Why am I telling you all this?

First of all, I really wanted to share this glamour shot I took of myself in the hospital with my head tangled in wires (see above). I think the cyborg-Medusa look could be the next runway hit.

More importantly, though: For a long time, I didn’t want to tell anyone in my professional world about this unique feature of my brain. On the topics-that-are-fun-to-disclose-in-the-workplace-o-meter, epilepsy ranks somewhere between “I’ve been embezzling candy from the vending machine for the past 15 years” and “I am actually a camel.” I was worried about being viewed as an invalid, a workplace hazard, a weirdo. But above all, I was afraid that people would see me as stupid.

In the 19th century (when Dostoevsky was pouring his own experiences into the character of Prince Myshkin) and into the early 20th, seizure-prone people were often categorized as “epileptic idiots,” and viewed as unable to function outside of an institution. More than a hundred years later, the stigma’s still around. A report last year in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior found that social media have become a breeding ground for derogatory comments about epilepsy: 41 percent of seizure-related tweets were deemed “offensive.” Although nowadays, fewer folks view seizures as possession by the devil or evil spirits (as many, many cultures have throughout history), the palpable discomfort around the topic of epilepsy is pervasive – and it has tangible effects. Until the 1970s, it was legal in the US to deny people with epilepsy access to theaters and restaurants, and in China and India, epilepsy’s still an accepted reason to annul a marriage. Workplace discrimination is prevalent, and people who have epilepsy tend to earn less money than those who don’t. Consequently, there’s a clear incentive to avoid telling anyone you’ve got epilepsy, if you can get away with it.

“There is an ongoing, significant embarrassment level about it,” the director of NYU’s Epilepsy Center told The New York Times, stating that “the feeling, for a lot of people, is that it does carry a lot worse stigma than a cancer.” It follows that most people with epilepsy don’t like to talk about their condition publicly, and that, in turn, perpetuates the stigma … which makes it a whole lot more difficult to raise money for research and lobby for equal rights.

So, now I am telling all of you I have epilepsy. (I have epilepsy!) If the director of an independent, progressive news organization in which everyone works from home can’t say it, then how the hell can we expect anyone else to?

The truth is, I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very lucky. I am lucky to have had a swarm of ridiculous-looking nodes glued to my head and for being temporarily banned from going to the bathroom by myself, to assess my neuronal dysfunction. I’m lucky to have had my insurance cover 75 percent of my brain tests, even though I’m still paying thousands of sadly-forked-over dollars. I’m lucky to have those dollars to pay, regardless of how sadly I’m forking them over. I’m unspeakably lucky to have insurance at all. I’m lucky to occasionally experience a vague sense that reality is eluding me, instead of simply dropping, convulsing and endangering my life at a split-second’s notice, because I am lucky enough to be able to obtain the medications that (usually) keep me from seizing.

Fifty million people in the world have epilepsy. For 30 percent of them, their seizures can’t be controlled by treatment. Beyond that, 75 percent of people in “developing countries” do not have access to treatment in the first place.

In the United States alone, up to 50,000 people die from seizure-related causes every year.

This past fall, the acclaimed British medical journal The Lancet reported that the vast majority of epilepsy cases occur in low and middle-income countries where treatment is scarce, and called for a “global campaign against epilepsy.”

It’s encouraging to see The Lancet issuing an epilepsy-action cry to the world’s leaders. But a true “global campaign” must start with each of us making our worlds more friendly to disclosure. That means becoming conscious of epilepsy as a very common, albeit near-silent, reality. It means including it in our disability advocacy efforts and awareness campaigns (and, while we’re at it, curbing the seizure jokes on Twitter).

Today is European Epilepsy Day. It comes three days before the Feast of St. Valentine, epilepsy’s patron saint. (Who knew?) Even if you don’t live in Europe, you can celebrate! And what better way to celebrate than by checking out the Epilepsy Foundation’s web site to learn all about the condition, the people who have it and the fight for effective treatment – and equal rights – for all?

Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin proclaimed of his pre-seizure ecstasy, “Yes, for this moment, one might give one’s whole life!”

Much as I love Prince Myshkin, and much as I’ve learned from my own moments of auratic bliss, I sure wouldn’t want to give up my life (or my livelihood) for those few seconds – and I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to give up theirs, either.

Let the global campaign begin!

The Environment Secretary is to update MPs today on the horse meat scandal after warning that the next set of tests could produce more bad results.

Owen Paterson’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has sought to play down concerns that the scandal could pose a health risk, but there are fears that the full scale of the scandal has yet to emerge.

It comes as an experienced haulage worker shed new light on standards in the meat industry by telling Sky News that low standards are allowing meat to be transported in poor hygiene conditions.

Mr Paterson said yesterday that the Government was powerless to impose a ban on meat imports unless beef contaminated with horse meat is found to be a health risk.

He was speaking after the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee backed a ban on meat imports and urged the public to buy their meat locally.

Conservative MP Anne McIntosh said: “I believe there should be a moratorium on the movement of all meat until such time as we can trace the source of contamination.”

But shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said banning meat imports was a “knee-jerk reaction”.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said there is no evidence to suggest the horse meat detected in beef products poses a danger to humans, but confirmed that tests have been ordered for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone as animals treated with “bute” are not allowed to enter the food chain.

Findus, which has taken its beef lasagnes made by French food supplier Comigel off shelves after some were found to have up to 100% horsemeat in them, said it was considering taking legal action against its suppliers as an internal investigation “strongly suggests” that the contamination “was not accidental”.

Mr Paterson said no case for criminal action has been discovered in the UK yet but the FSA said it was “working closely” with police in case that changes.

The scandal has spread across Europe as details of the elaborate supply chain in the meat industry emerge.

French consumer safety authorities have said companies from Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands as well as its own firms were involved.

Romanian authorities have confirmed they are investigating while their Dutch counterparts said they are ready to do so if necessary.

One theory for the apparent increase in the presence of horse meat in the food chain is new restrictions on using horses on roads in Romania, which have led to a surge in numbers of animals being put down.

Mr. Obama, administration officials say, is unlikely to discuss specific numbers in the address, but White House officials are looking at a cut that would take the arsenal of deployed weapons to just above 1,000. Currently there are about 1,700, and the new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that passed the Senate at the end of 2009 calls for a limit of roughly 1,550 by 2018.

But Mr. Obama, according to an official who was involved in the deliberations, “believes that we can make pretty radical reductions – and save a lot of money – without compromising American security in the second term. And the Joint Chiefs have signed off on that concept.”

The big question is how to accomplish a reduction that Mr. Obama views as long overdue, considering that Republicans in the Senate opposed even the modest cuts in the new arms reduction treaty, called Start. The White House is loath to negotiate an entirely new treaty with Russia, which would lead to Russian demands for restrictions on American and NATO missile-defense systems in Europe and would reprise a major fight with Republicans in the Senate over ratification.

Instead, Mr. Obama is weighing how to reach an informal agreement with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for mutual cuts within the framework of the new Start – but without the need for ratification. Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, is planning to travel to Russia next month, officials say, to lay the groundwork for those talks. Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin will hold two summit meetings in the early summer.

Even as he revives a nuclear agenda that has been nearly moribund for two years, Mr. Obama is also expected to try to address new threats.

Within days of the State of the Union address, officials say, he plans to issue a long-anticipated presidential directive on combating cyberattacks aimed at American companies, financial institutions and critical infrastructure like the electric grid. The announcement comes at a moment of heightened attacks from China and, most recently, from Iran.

A lobbying effort by American companies last year defeated a bill in Congress that, in some versions of the legislation, would have required private companies to meet minimum standards of protection and to report attacks to the government. It died over objections that the bill would incur huge new costs and involve the government more deeply into private computer networks.

While Mr. Obama cannot impose the failed bill’s mandates by executive order, he is expected to give companies that control “critical infrastructure” access to an experimental government program that has been aimed at protecting defense contractors. The directive will also require the government to inform industry officials of cyberthreats detected by American intelligence agencies; that, in turn, may create some liability for companies that fail to react to the warnings.

The nuclear reduction plan has been debated inside the administration for two years, and the options have been on Mr. Obama’s desk for months. But the document was left untouched through the presidential election. The president wanted to avoid making the reductions a campaign issue with Mitt Romney, who declared at one point that Russia was now America’s “No. 1 geostrategic foe,” a comment that Mr. Obama later mocked as an indication that Mr. Romney had failed to move beyond the cold war.

Mr. Romney, in turn, leapt on a remark that Mr. Obama intended to make privately to Russia’s then president, Dmitri A. Medvedev. He was picked up by an open microphone telling Mr. Medvedev that “after my election I have more flexibility” on missile defense, which Republicans said was evidence that he was preparing to trade away elements of the arsenal.

Among the most outspoken advocates of a deep cut has been a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James E. Cartwright, whom Mr. Obama continues to turn to on strategic issues. General Cartwright has argued that a reduction to 900 warheads would still guarantee American safety, even if only half of them were deployed at any one time.

“The world has changed, but the current arsenal carries the baggage of the cold war,” General Cartwright said last year. The challenges of North Korea, which is preparing a third nuclear test, and the possibility that Iran will get the bomb pose very different kinds of threats to the United States, and do not require the ability to deliver the kind of huge first strike that was the underlying logic of a large arsenal to face off against the Soviet Union.

“What is it we’re really trying to deter?” General Cartwright asked. “Our current arsenal does not address the threats of the 21st century.”

It is unclear how much money would be saved by the nuclear reduction plan that Mr. Obama is about to endorse; partly that depends on how the cuts are spread among the three elements of America’s nuclear “triad”: land-based missiles in silos, missiles aboard hard-to-find nuclear submarines, and nuclear bombers.

“These cuts don’t require a radical change in the triad, and that makes it politically easier,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, which has argued for deep cuts. General Cartwright’s more radical plans, by some estimates, would have saved at least $120 billion over the next two decades.

But Mr. Obama is already moving quietly, officials acknowledge, to explore whether he can scale back a 10-year, $80 billion program to modernize the country’s weapons laboratories.

The White House agreed to the spending on the weapons labs as the price of winning Republican votes on the new Start three years ago, but one senior defense official said late last year that “the environment of looking for cuts in the national security budget makes this an obvious target.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers have said he is unlikely to simply announce American cuts unilaterally, though President George W. Bush took a similar step his first year in office before negotiating a short treaty with Mr. Putin that passed the Senate with little rancor.

Along with the executive order on cybersecurity, the administration plans to try again this year to get comprehensive cyberlegislation passed by Congress.

Last month, Senators Tom Carper, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduced a cybersecurity bill similar to the one that administration had hoped to pass in 2012.

“We want to foster notice and we want to foster information-sharing requirements,” Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a recent interview on the legislation. “We want to take care of some of the nuts and bolts like relaxing Civil Service requirements so we can hire more competitively. Really the things that can’t be done by an executive order.”

Ms. Napolitano said that she hoped it would be a high priority for Congress. But “in the meantime we can’t stand still,” she said.

A UK resident has contracted a potentially fatal Sars-like virus, health experts have confirmed.

The person, who has recently travelled to the Middle East and Pakistan, is being treated in an intensive care unit at a Manchester hospital after becoming infected with a new type of coronavirus, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said.

The latest case brings the total number of confirmed cases across the world to 10, the HPA added.

Last year British health officials identified another case of the novel coronavirus. A 49-year-old Qatari man was treated at St Thomas’ hospital in London after becoming infected.

The latest case is the second to be identified in the UK.

Professor John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the HPA, said: “The HPA is providing advice to healthcare workers to ensure the patient under investigation is being treated appropriately and that healthcare staff who are looking after the patient are protected. Contacts of the case are also being followed up to check on their health.

“Our assessment is that the risk associated with novel coronavirus to the general UK population remains extremely low and the risk to travellers to the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding countries remains very low.

“No travel restrictions are in place but people who develop severe respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, within 10 days of returning from these countries should seek medical advice and mention which countries they have visited.

“Since the first case of novel coronavirus was diagnosed in the UK in September 2012, the HPA has maintained increased vigilance for illness caused by this virus, working closely with national and international authorities including the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

“We have also produced updated guidance for health professionals in the UK on the investigation and management of possible cases.”

If you’re one of the 91 percent of Americans who opposes genetically engineered (GE) meat, you may have limited time to act: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed approval of the first-ever GE animal, called “AquAdvantage Salmon.” If this first approval proceeds, the process is likely to become top secret in the future: we won’t find out about new GE animals until after they’re approved for human consumption, and they won’t be labeled. Welcome to the new world of genetically engineered meat – unless we act now.

The Process

The problems begin with FDA’s bizarre decision to consider GE meat using its “New Animal Drug Approval” (NADA) process, a process designed for evaluation of new animal drugs (hence the name), not genetically engineered animals. The GE salmon themselves are, according to this analysis, the animal drug. As food blogger Ari LeVaux explains on Civil Eats, “the drug per se is AquaBounty’s patented genetic construct… Inserted at the animal’s one-cell stage, the gene sequence exists in every cell of the adult fish’s body.”

Of course, NADA was not designed to analyze the human health or environmental consequences of new animal drugs, and because the animals are the drugs in this process, their welfare is also ignored. In all three areas, there is ample reason for concern.

Human Health

Since they aren’t consumed by humans, new animal drugs are not evaluated for their human health impact, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that FDA’s analysis in this area has been almost nonexistent. Health and consumer rights advocates have raised alarms, noting among other concerns, that: 1) these animals will require massive doses of antibiotics to keep them alive in dirty, crowded aquaculture conditions, and we don’t know these antibiotics’ effect on human health; 2) the limited testing that has been conducted was carried out by or for AquaBounty and included shockingly small sample sizes; and 3) what studies have been done indicated increased allergic potential and increased levels of the hormone IGF-1, which is linked to various cancers – an outcome ignored in FDA’s approval according to the Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, and the Center for Food Safety.

Our Environment

The process of examining new drugs’ environmental impact is also lax, so it’s also not surprising that FDA bungled this analysis as well. As just one glaring example, the agency looked only at how one small pilot project in Canada and Panama will affect U.S. waters, ignoring its legal obligations to consider the likelihood of salmon escaping as the pilot program expands–an expansion the company has already announced. Similarly, FDA suggests that the GE salmon’s lack of fear and rapacious appetite means that they could not survive escape. Another possibility, ignored by FDA and feared by environmental groups including Friends of the Earth, is that escapees would “wreak havoc on the ecosystem.” The Center for Food Safety (CFS) points out that every year “millions of farmed salmon escape, outcompeting wild populations for resources and straining ecosystems.” Regarding GE salmon, CFS continues: “Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations.” FDA totally ignores this scenario and its vast implications for our aquatic ecosystems.

Animal Welfare

Animal welfare is the one area where we might expect NADA to do a passable job because the process is supposed to guarantee drug safety in the target animal. Sadly, FDA ignored animal welfare in its decision to recommend approval of GE meat, perhaps because it considers the GE animals to be drugs, not animals. In 2010, the American Anti-Vivisection Society and Farm Sanctuary detailed more than a dozen concerns with the AquAdvantage salmon, any one of which should have precluded approval. Yet, in its proposal, FDA ignored animal welfare concerns entirely.

Here are just a few of our concerns, none of which were addressed in FDA’s proposal:

1. Although AquaBounty supplied limited animal welfare data, its own application indicates that it engaged in “extensive culling” of deformed, diseased, dying, and dead fish from its analysis. This would be like studying smoking’s impact only on long-distance runners who had shown no signs of cancer or heart disease.
2. All aquaculture causes physical deformities and makes fish sick; nevertheless (and even after culling the sickest animals), the limited data supplied by AquaBounty indicates that AquAdvantage fish are even sicker and more prone to abnormalities and death losses than other farmed fish
3. Even within these parameters, there were problems with the studies. For example, sample sizes provided were tiny and included limited data, and all analysis was done by the company (do you recall how this worked out with the tobacco companies?).
4. Salmon in the wild are remarkable animals, swimming thousands of miles, including up streams and waterfalls; and of course, they feel pain and have similar cognitive, emotional, and behavioral complexity to other animals. AquAdvantage salmon will be crammed into tanks in grossly unnatural conditions, and slaughter will be completely unregulated (see video below). Imagine living your entire life, day and night, in an elevator with 20 other people – you can’t even stand up; you live in a pile of everyone else’s limbs and excrement. That’s aquaculture.

Brave New World

The scariest thing about approving GE animals through NADA is that once a type of technological drug advance is approved (here, genetic animal engineering), future approvals become much easier and much less transparent: the process that protects corporate drug development secrets will protect the GE process, resulting in reduced scrutiny and no transparency at all for future approvals. The American public will probably not even find out about future GE animals until after they’re approved for sale. As Friends of the Earth notes, FDA’s approval “will open the floodgates for other genetically engineered animals, including pigs and cows, to enter the food supply.” 

Conclusion

FDA’s process for approving genetically engineered meat is rotten to the core, and the effects of such a bad process on human health, our environment, and animals cannot be overstated. In the 2010 process, FDA received more than 400,000 comments and letters from more than 300 health, consumer advocacy, environmental, animal protection, and other organizations. All were ignored. We have one more chance before litigation becomes necessary. Click here to take action.

Bruce Friedrich is Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives for Farm Sanctuary.

Context: As yet there are no context links for this item.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay. And welcome to this week’s edition of The Black Financial and Fraud Report with Bill Black, who now joins us from Kansas City.

Bill’s an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri—Kansas City. He’s a white-collar criminologist, a former financial regulator, and author of the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.Thanks for joining us again, Bill.BILL BLACK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS & LAW, UMKC: Thank you.JAY: So what do you got for us this week?BLACK: I’ve got an obscure case that’s really important in two different ways. So this is the Flagstar case. And it was sued by what’s called a monoline insurer. So Flagstar was a big mortgage lender, and it lent among the riskiest kinds of mortgages and was a major user of liar’s loans. These are the pervasively fraudulent loans that I’ve talked about many times. And Assured–when we say a monoline insurer, that just means that it’s a specialized insurance company that specialized in guaranteeing the quality of these kinds of loans, once they were packaged, to back this kind of bond.So in itself this case isn’t all that important, but it turns out that this is the same methodology being used in an enormously bigger case against the Bank of America. And Assured just got a huge win against Flagstar, where Judge Rakoff has ruled that the lender basically lied repeatedly–in one year, 75 percent of the time–to the people that were insuring the quality of their loans. So that’s a big deal, because under that same methodology, Bank of America could face actually tens of billions of dollars of liability from other parties. And, of course, that could be a massive effect on Bank of America. But I also want to–.JAY: Just one sec. Where’s that case at, like, in terms of level of court and appeals?BLACK: That is a district court decision that has just come down within the last, you know, 36 hours or so. So this is hot off the presses. And, of course, your implicit question is an important one: there obviously will be an appeal, and there may well be a settlement. But this is a well-respected Judge, and if other judges followed and approved the same kind of methodology and some of the rulings on the law, then Bank of America is in a world of hurt.JAY: [inaud.] just make sure I understand it, the insurance companies are saying, you banks lied to us about how good these assets were, and we insured you, and now, I guess, we want our money back.BLACK: That’s right. We other people came and demanded their money back from us, because we guaranteed these bonds and said they were good bonds. And so now we’re turning around and suing you, because you’re the one who lied to us and induced us to provide that kind of insurance.And as I said, the methodology that the judge approved found that in 2005, 75 percent of the time, the lender misrepresented to the insurance company what was going on. And in 2006 they did so 65 percent of the time. In other words, this is in a massive business built on fraud. And the insurance players are, you know, a relatively moderate to modest group. The other folks who would have been defrauded in this fashion of course include Fannie and Freddie and all the investment banks and random cities in Norway and such. So all of those entities’ potential to win their cases just went up rather considerably if other judges approach the law the way Judge Rakoff did. Now, that’s the first thing.Here’s the second thing that is, however, getting absolutely no press and is completely insane. So remember there are only lawyers for the lender and lawyers for the insurance company arguing to the judge. And so a bizarre version of reality emerged from all of this in which 75 percent of the time the lender lies deliberately to the insurer, lies to the people who buy the bonds. All of these people are, you know, supposedly among the most sophisticated financial players in the world. But as soon as they get to fraud in the origination, in the making of the loan, with no discussion, everybody involved assumes that it must have been the borrowers that did all the lying, not the lenders. And of course this is completely insane, completely contrary to the accounting control fraud recipe, in which the lender deliberately makes–grows enormously by making incredible numbers of crappy loans at a premium yield with extreme leverage and next to no reserves against losses. And guess what? That’s exactly what the lender did in these cases. But because there is no one representing the borrower, and because there is no one bringing criminology theory and findings and research findings in front of the judge, they just all assume that all of this fraud had to arrive from the borrowers, even in a case where they’re saying that the lender repeatedly lied to everybody else involved.JAY: And by borrower they mean some ordinary person who’s told, here’s some money at subprime, you can go get a house, and we don’t even need to see any of your credit history.BLACK: Right. And, indeed, if you don’t give the right answer as a borrower, they often just made it up, and in extreme cases forged the borrower’s name. So that’s what the evidence overwhelmingly shows. But none of that evidence was presented in the court. And, of course, then you get a press report from Forbes. And what does Forbes take away? Whoa, those rotten Fred and Mary, those borrowers, those fraudulent borrowers ripping off people.JAY: Thanks for joining us, Bill.BLACK: Thank you.JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Comments

Our automatic spam filter blocks comments with multiple links and multiple users using the same IP address. Please make thoughtful comments with minimal links using only one user name. If you think your comment has been mistakenly removed please email us at contact@therealnews.com

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

They just can’t stop themselves. Here’s Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) on this week’s Fox News Sunday, explaining to host Chris Wallace why he doesn’t think it’s fair to be raising taxes on the rich and why we cannot make any cuts to defense spending, but cut away at domestic spending, or in his words “welfare”:

WALLACE: Congressman Cotton, I want you to react to that, and as you saw in the clip we played from the president’s weekend address, once again the president is trying to make Republicans pay the price politically. He’s basically saying, these cuts are going to affect the middle class in education and law enforcement, food inspectors. And once again, you guys want to protect your wealthy friends from any tax increase.

REP. TOM COTTON, R-ARK.: Chris, the bigger risk, I think, is the way they are going to impact the Department of Defense. It’s cutting almost $10 billion or 10 percent of the Department of Defense’s budget this year, and that is after four years where the Department of Defense has been the one agency of the federal government that has not had hundreds of billions of dollars stuffed into its budget. You go back and you look at domestic spending over the last four years that exploded under the stimulus and just annual resolutions funding the government, there is a lot more fat to cut there. So as Bill said, Republicans have proposed a responsible alternative to the sequester, which is what President Obama proposed in 2011, which are shift those cuts away from the Department of Defense and to domestic spending so we can ensure, for example, that we have two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, which we just stopped because of the sequester spending.

WALLACE: Let me ask you the question I asked Senator McCain — if it comes down to a choice, because you heard Nancy Pelosi, you heard the president there saying if we are going to kill the sequester, then you are going to have to have some tax increases, not through raise in rates, but through closing some of the loopholes and ending some of the deductions. Are you willing to go along with that?

COTTON: Well, I obviously disagree with Nancy Pelosi’s call for more tax increases, as well as Barack Obama’s. We just increased taxes by over $600 billion last month. We can’t keep increasing taxes every three months just because Barack Obama wants more welfare spending.

Here’s more on this wingnut from The Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore: Shine on Brightly. He’s bought and paid for by the Club for Growth, so I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of him on Fox.

We are Americans. Not just a continent, not just a melting pot. We are an idea, a set of dreams built on an idea. Yes, we are also a nation-state with the need and instinct to protect ourselves and our wealth — especially after we have been attacked and must look over our shoulders constantly to prevent the next attack. And, make no mistake about it: it is difficult to feel sorry for someone who threatens us with words and actions. So now it’s Pow! Poof! Gone! Good!

It is also hard to feel badly when a gangster is gunned down or a gang member is stabbed. But we don’t allow our police to do these things with impunity.

Because we are supposed to be different. The use of unmanned drones to commit murder overseas just doesn’t fit into our story. This is just not us. For decades our fictional superheroes have fought crime and always brought criminals to justice. They had superpowers and superior technology at their disposal, but they withheld it. The threat of force was always enough. These supermen and wonder women are our ideals, our prototypes of what people do when they have the power.

My fear of what happens to us by using drones is not ideological. This is neither a liberal nor conservative screed on my part. It is a plea for sanity. I am old enough to remember vividly the heated debates in the summer of 1968 between Gore Vidal on the left and William F. Buckley on the right. The name calling was shameless and they came very close to a fistfight on ABC during the Democratic National Convention. But this time they would be comrades. Vidal’s essays presciently warned about the United States becoming the “national security state” — billions for defense, an impenetrable infrastructure of unsustainable military bases to prop up an economy, the suspension of civil liberties during wars of words. Buckley was a cold warrior — but, importantly, he was first and foremost a libertarian. In his later years he waged campaigns to decriminalize marijuana and to free those wrongly accused of murder.

But what they both agreed upon was that this is America. Our power comes from being an idea that everyone wants. And for those who don’t want it? Freedom as long as they don’t threaten others. And if they do pose a threat? We defeat them with our most powerful weapons: justice in the form of policing, courts, and prison. We have departments of Homeland Security, Defense, intelligence, Justice, after all. And we have the weight of our idea in the world of public opinion.

Let me anticipate some criticism. This is terribly na�ve, some will say. Why should the United States be held to a different standard than anyone else? Answer: Because we are the United States of America and WE created that standard. Sadly, this is what others see and why some (many) resent us. We can drop the higher standard and just be another nation — but then we are not who we say we are.

Then there are a few who will say that I am just a pollster and I should just stick to the numbers. Frankly, I am not entirely sure what the numbers show on the US’ use of drones to kill civilians. But I am also an American and a human being — and an observer. If the numbers disagree with me I have never been afraid to show it.

In this column just a few weeks ago I suggested that President Barack Obama will be revered in history because of the barrier he has broken. Among the worst violators of our civil liberties are men with names like Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. President Harry Truman authorized the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are among our greatest Presidents and are honored for leadership during wars. Like them, Mr. Obama’s legacy may never be tainted at all.

We have been through this all before. Stunned by the assassination of our 35th President John F. Kennedy, the Senate Special Committee on Assassinations in the mid-70s revealed US complicity in two dozen attempts to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro and even checked out theories of differing pro-Castro and anti-Castro links to the death of JFK. And then there was US complicity in assassinations in Iran, Guatemala, and South Vietnam. These were all during the Cold War and this not a proud moment in our history. That is why the Committee recommended and a Democratic Congress voted to prohibit US involvement in political assassinations. A Republican President signed it. It is the law of the land — and it was the right thing to do.

But now our Justice Department justifies the use of impersonal unmanned drones to kill “suspected” terrorists on the streets of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. It is the wrong thing. It is the wrong message to burgeoning democracies.

It is just not who we are supposed to be.

Titled, “Girl’s gene-therapy estimate gives Children’s Hospital a shiner,” the article describes a clinical trial in which gene therapy was used to treat 10 adults and 2 children, most of whom have gone into remission, and the staggering bills the treatment incurred. Charities and insurance assisted at least one patient, while another, a 5 year old Croatian girl, was left with a $837,000 bill.

Medical care is expensive. It requires the absolute cutting edge in technology, skilled doctors and technicians to utilize it in the care of patients, all within an economic paradigm where demand vastly outnumbers supply. What could be done to reduce the disparity between supply and demand? And what can be done until then to ensure people get the absolute best treatment possible? Or should a 5 year old girl perish because she can’t afford experimental treatment when all other options were sure to fail?

Trillions for War

Soldiers fighting the fruitless decade long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t need to buy their own weapons, procure their own transportation to the warzone, buy their own meals, and when they were injured, pay for their own medical treatment. Indeed, these fruitless wars built openly on categorically false premises, were subsidized by trillions of dollars from American tax payers despite the wars having no public support. Since these two fruitless wars sold upon a pack of lies, the United States has conducted combat operations in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, inside Pakistan, Mali, and covertly in Iran. Again, subsidized by trillions of tax payer dollars.

Image: US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler was a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, and anti-war. He wrote “War is a Racket.” Despite the torrent of pro-war propaganda we are bombarded with, and all the pretexts and excuses used to sell endless global conflict, it is indeed a racket perpetrated by big-business interests at the rest of humanity’s expense, and has been for a long time.

….

For unpopular wars fought upon false premises, sold by practiced liars across the corporate media, there seems to be an endless torrent of cash. In turn, this money doesn’t simply go into a fiscal blackhole. Instead, it ends up in the profit margins of Fortune 500 corporations, from the big-defense contractors arming and supplying military operations, to big-oil and construction contractors building in the wake of these operations. It is a well understood racket that casts a dark shadow on Western society and has very real implications for modern human civilization.

Imagine if these trillions instead went somewhere else. Imagine if cancer research and treatment was subsidized with the same impetus as wars of profit. Imagine if improving education, infrastructure, and the means by which we could accelerate medical research and development and thereby reduce the disparity between supply and demand was done with the same fervor we pursue wars abroad.

Our Problem, Our Challenge 

We could hold our breath, march with signs, and continue to vote hoping eventually someone will come to office and fix this perpetual injustice. Or instead, we can realize that our faith and investments in time, money, energy, and attention to this corrupt system is why we have this problem in the first place.

There are several steps we can take now to begin tilting the balance away from the ruling class and their pet projects pursued at our expense and toward the things that really affect us, like our children dying from cancer and medical treatment that is too expensive to afford. And as we take these steps, people should continue fighting for medical care subsidies as a stop gap measure. If there is money for perpetual, unnecessary war, there is money for medical care.

1. Improve Education: Medical treatment is expensive because of immense demand for a small supply of both the technology used to treat people, and the skilled doctors and technicians that use that technology. That technology is in turn scarce, because of the lack of skilled designers and engineers working to develop it.

By improving real, relevant, technical education in the fields of design, engineering, science, and medicine, and by making such an education available to all, would be one step toward increasing the supply versus demand. Online, there are vast resources available for free, from some of the most prestigious universities in the world on subjects ranging from basic math and science, to more specific topics like biology, medicine, genetics, and their applications.

While there is no substitute for a proper medical school education, local organizations called DIYbio labs are springing up around the world and creating an environment where regular people can learn and practice techniques in modern biology, especially in the field of genetics. Just as hackerspaces have begun contributing to, and spinning off into small and medium businesses, while driving the advancement of technology, DIYbio labs can augment the existing medical infrastructure of a given society.

Additionally, people should not abandon efforts to improve traditional education.

2. Build Local Infrastructure: DIYbio labs are one way of bringing medical research and development, however small of a scale it may be on for now, into their local communities. Building up after-school and weekend programs to educate people in basic science and particularly biology, genetics, and medicine helps raise overall awareness of the issues at hand and their possible solutions.

Already, high schools are beginning to participate in MIT’s iGEM competition, an annual synthetic biology event where teams from around the world engineer biological components to solve a specific problem. Schools that become involved in iGem must build up both their physical infrastructure and their human capital to compete, and by doing so, lay the foundation for more permanent and relevant research and development when they return home.

3. Reclaim Our Institutions: With a well established infrastructure developing both technology and human capital, a community is better positioned not only to understand what state and national institutions are doing in terms of medical research and clinical trials, but are able to partner with them and augment their efforts. Furthermore, a human connection is established between institutions and the people they were designed in the first place to serve.

The day will come where technology makes medical care affordable for all, reducing or eliminating the need to subsidize it. Until that day comes, we must balance our pursuit for “health care policy” with developing real, pragmatic, technical health care progress.

How? 

It starts with something as simple as getting a few people around a single table and talking. Identify who may already have an interest in the particular fields you plan on tackling. Look for the nearest local groups already doing this, either as hackerspaces or as DIYbio labs. Look for schools nearby already participating in iGEM and see what you could to to help, or expand on their work.

If you are not interested in medicine, even a standard hackerspace working on a wide range of projects could help build local infrastructure that could be used to help advance DIYbio groups. Biomedical technology is grounded in the same fundamental design principles and manufacturing techniques as any other engineering discipline.

Start or join an after-school program that teaches real skills and practical knowledge to students — including science, math, design, engineering, etc. Look into OpenCourseWare online and raise awareness. Start a blog collecting your favorite courses.

Taking human capital out of the coffers of the ruling class, and placing it back where it belongs, amongst the people from which it was drawn, begins the rebalancing of power, and ends paradigms where trillions can be spend on endless wars of profit, and none is left for cancer-stricken children, even when we’ve developed cures.

The choice is ours, but unlike in faux-democracy, we will have to do more than simply cast a ballot to exercise this choice. It will be daily, patient, sometimes frustrating work to build the infrastructure and human capital we need to rebalance this equation and reclaim our destiny. Self-determination is not a spectator sport, it is something you either do, or do without. Don’t wait for your child to be the one struck by cancer and your family stuck with a million-dollar medical bill — that is — if you are lucky enough to get access to the latest treatment in the first place. Start working now to fix this immense injustice.

Hello, everyone, and a belated Happy New Year. Let’s get right into it:

The domestic terrorism outfit known as the Republican Party is at it again. The latest: McCain sidekick Lindsey Graham threatening to hold President Obama’s national security nominees hostage over Benghazi.

No More Mister Nice Blog: Nothing succeeds like Republican failure.

Ramona’s Voices: Transvaginal ultrasounds are back.

Brilliant at Breakfast: The rise and fall of prog-talk radio.

And from my place: There is no f—ing spending problem. (It’s the revenue, stupid.)

Round-up by Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction (@mjwstickings). I’ll be here all week.

Send tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

Bookmakers think the next Pope could come from Africa, following the resignation of Benedict XVI.

Up to 120 cardinals from all over the world will vote on who will succeed 85-year-old Benedict, who is standing down for health reasons.

Cardinal Francis Arinze: 2/1 with William Hill

Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze and Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana are the front-runners with William Hill and Ladbrokes respectively.

Arinze, seen as a staunch conservative on issues like birth control, was a hot favourite for the post last time around and is the 2/1 favourite with William Hill.

Turkson, the 5/2 favourite with Ladbrokes, is president of the Vatican’s council for justice and peace and has also been linked with the top job. Last year he was embroiled in a row over an ‘anti-Muslim’ video.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, pictured with former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne

Other contenders include Honduran Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is 20/1 with William Hill and 10/1 with Ladbrokes.

Meanwhile, Englishman Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is 150/1, according to comparison site Odds Checker.

Despite the Ghanaian and Nigerian front-runners, Paddy Power believes the next pontiff is most likely to come from Italy, followed by Africa and South or Central America.

• Pope Benedict Resigns: Full Statement From Vatican

• Pope Benedict XVI To Resign February 28, Vatican Says

• Seven scandals that rocked the Pontiff

• What will he do with all those presents?

The headline introducing a new poll conducted on behalf of The Hill newspaper reads: Voters: Obama no better than Bush on security vs civil liberties.

(Photograph: Reuters) But is that the real takeaway from the survey?

For long-time critics of Obama’s handling of numerous policies left over from his predecessor George W. Bush, that assessment won’t be especially shocking. From his failure to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, to his signing of the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the recent alarm caused by a leaked “white paper” summarizing aspects of key Office of Legal Council memos that describe the legal basis for targeting individuals for assassination by drone (both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens), the Obama administration has little to boast about regarding its record on civil liberties.

Perhaps more troubling than the disappointment of once hopeful Obama supporters, however, is the degree to which the poll reveals how comfortable many US citizens are with some of the most aggressive techniques that the government now justifies as being necessary to fight the so-called and ongoing ‘global war on terror.’

As The Hill reports, of the 1,000 Americans polled (a bipartisan group of likely voters) most were “inclined to support the government in its lethal attacks on citizens and non-citizens it deems to be terrorists.”

And continues:

The poll found that 53 percent of likely voters said it should be legal for the U.S. government to kill non-U.S. citizens who meet that description. Meanwhile, 44 percent said it should be legal for the U.S. government to kill American citizens who it believes are terrorists and present an imminent threat.

By contrast, 21 percent of respondents thought such an action should be illegal if the target is a non-U.S. citizen. A slightly higher percentage of voters, 31 percent, thought killing individuals whom the government believes are terrorists should be illegal when the target is an American citizen.

A significant proportion of respondents – 26 percent and 24 percent, respectively – said they were not sure if such attacks should be legal, regardless of whether the target was an American or not.

When asked whether they oppose or back the administration’s drone program, however, a significantly higher percentage of voters voiced their support. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they support the use of unmanned drones to kill “people in foreign countries whom the US government says are terrorists and present an imminent threat,” while just 19 percent of voters said they oppose the policy.

So what’s most troubling is not perhaps that Obama is “as bad as Bush” but that for a growing number of US citizens, the definition of “bad” has become as elastic as the Office of Legal Council’s use of the phrase “imminent threat”.

As Glenn Greenwald, legal blogger for The Guardian, wrote following the release of the assassination “white paper” obtained by NBC News last week:

If you believe the president has the power to order US citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it’s truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable.

And in a new column on Monday, Greenwald explores the issue even further, making the point that though public opinion is tracking in a terrible direction when it comes to these policies, it is too simplistic to derive that such policies thrive because the public endorses them. In fact, Greenwald argues, the true cause is fielty to the established parties that make a series of previously unconscionable policies acceptable only because Republican and Democratic leaders have used their own authority to abrogate legal norms and a media system — that coddles power and enables uncritical thinking on such matters — has largely pushed out opposing views.

In particular, whenever the two political parties agree on a policy, it is almost certain that public opinion will overwhelmingly support it. When Obama was first inaugurated in 2009, numerous polls showed pluralities or even majorities in support of investigations into Bush-era criminal policies of torture and warrantless eavesdropping.That was because many Democrats believed Obama would pursue such investigations (because he led them to believe he would), but once he made clear he opposed those investigations, huge numbers of loyal Democrats followed their leader and joined Republicans in opposing them, thus creating majorities against them.

Obama didn’t refrain from investigating Bush-era crimes because public opinion opposed that. The reverse was true: public opinion supported those investigations, and turned against them only once Obama announced he opposed them. We see this over and over: when Obama was in favor of closing Guantanamo and ending Bush-era terrorism policies, large percentages supported him (and even elected him as he advocated that), but then once he embraced those policies as his own, large majorities switched and began supporting them.

Progressive willingness to acquiesce to or even outright support Obama’s radical policies – in the name of partisan loyalty – is precisely what ensures the continuation of those policies. Obama gets away with all of this because so many progressives venerate leader loyalty and partisan gain above all else.

__________________

The headline introducing a new poll conducted on behalf of The Hill newspaper reads: Voters: Obama no better than Bush on security vs civil liberties.

(Photograph: Reuters) But is that the real takeaway from the survey?

For long-time critics of Obama’s handling of numerous policies left over from his predecessor George W. Bush, that assessment won’t be especially shocking. From his failure to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, to his signing of the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the recent alarm caused by a leaked “white paper” summarizing aspects of key Office of Legal Council memos that describe the legal basis for targeting individuals for assassination by drone (both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens), the Obama administration has little to boast about regarding its record on civil liberties.

Perhaps more troubling than the disappointment of once hopeful Obama supporters, however, is the degree to which the poll reveals how comfortable many US citizens are with some of the most aggressive techniques that the government now justifies as being necessary to fight the so-called and ongoing ‘global war on terror.’

As The Hill reports, of the 1,000 Americans polled (a bipartisan group of likely voters) most were “inclined to support the government in its lethal attacks on citizens and non-citizens it deems to be terrorists.”

And continues:

The poll found that 53 percent of likely voters said it should be legal for the U.S. government to kill non-U.S. citizens who meet that description. Meanwhile, 44 percent said it should be legal for the U.S. government to kill American citizens who it believes are terrorists and present an imminent threat.

By contrast, 21 percent of respondents thought such an action should be illegal if the target is a non-U.S. citizen. A slightly higher percentage of voters, 31 percent, thought killing individuals whom the government believes are terrorists should be illegal when the target is an American citizen.

A significant proportion of respondents – 26 percent and 24 percent, respectively – said they were not sure if such attacks should be legal, regardless of whether the target was an American or not.

When asked whether they oppose or back the administration’s drone program, however, a significantly higher percentage of voters voiced their support. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they support the use of unmanned drones to kill “people in foreign countries whom the US government says are terrorists and present an imminent threat,” while just 19 percent of voters said they oppose the policy.

So what’s most troubling is not perhaps that Obama is “as bad as Bush” but that for a growing number of US citizens, the definition of “bad” has become as elastic as the Office of Legal Council’s use of the phrase “imminent threat”.

As Glenn Greenwald, legal blogger for The Guardian, wrote following the release of the assassination “white paper” obtained by NBC News last week:

If you believe the president has the power to order US citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it’s truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable.

__________________

Bhutan plans to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilisers.

Stooping to conquer … Already an overwhelmingly agrarian state, Bhutan is aiming to become the world’s first completely organic country. (Photograph: Alamy) But rather than accept that this will mean farmers of the small Himalayan kingdom of 1.2 million people will be able to grow less food, the government expects them to be able to grow more — and to export increasing amounts of high quality niche foods to neighbouring India, China and other countries.

The decision to go organic was both practical and philosophical, said Pema Gyamtsho, Bhutan’s minister of agriculture and forests, in Delhi for the annual sustainable development conference last week.

“Ours is a mountainous terrain. When we use chemicals they don’t stay where we use them, they impact the water and plants. We say that we need to consider all the environment. Most of our farm practices are traditional farming, so we are largely organic anyway.

“But we are Buddhists, too, and we believe in living in harmony with nature. Animals have the right to live, we like to to see plants happy and insects happy,” he said.

Gyamtsho, like most members of the cabinet, is a farmer himself, coming from Bumthang in central Bhutan but studying western farming methods in New Zealand and Switzerland.

“Going organic will take time,” he said. “We have set no deadline. We cannot do it tomorrow. Instead we will achieve it region by region and crop by crop.”

The overwhelmingly agrarian nation, which really only opened its doors to world influences 30 years ago, is now facing many of the development pangs being felt everywhere in rapidly emerging countries. Young people reluctant to live just by farming are migrating to India and elsewhere, there is a population explosion, and there is inevitable pressure for consumerism and cultural change.

But, says Gyamtsho, Bhutan’s future depends largely on how it responds to interlinked development challenges like climate change, and food and energy security. “We would already be self-sufficient in food if we only ate what we produced. But we import rice. Rice eating is now very common, but traditionally it was very hard to get. Only the rich and the elite had it. Rice conferred status. Now the trend is reversing. People are becoming more health-conscious and are eating grains like buckwheat and wheat.”

In the west, organic food growing is widely thought to reduce the size of crops because they become more susceptible to pests. But this is being challenged in Bhutan and some regions of Asia, where smallholders are developing new techniques to grow more and are not losing soil quality.

Systems like “sustainable root intensification” (SRI), which carefully regulate the amount of water that crops need and the age at which seedlings are planted out, have shown that organic crop yields can be doubled with no synthetic chemicals.

“We are experimenting with different methods of growing crops like SRI but we are also going to increase the amount of irrigated land and use traditional varieties of crops which do not require inputs and have pest resistance,” says Gyamtsho.

However, a run of exceptionally warm years and erratic weather has left many farmers doubtful they can do without chemicals.

In Paro, a largely farming district in south-west Bhutan, farmers are already struggling to grow enough to feed their families and local government officials say they are having to distribute fertiliser and pesticides in larger quantities to help people grow more.

“I have heard of the plan to turn everything organic. But we are facing serious problems just getting people to grow enough”, said Rinzen Wangchuk, district farm officer.

“Most people here are smallholder farmers. The last few years we have had problems with the crops. The weather has been very erratic. It’s been warmer than normal and all the chilli crops are full of pests. We are having to rely on fertilisers more than we have ever had to in the past and even these are not working as well as they initially did.”

Dawa Tshering, who depends on his two acres of rice paddy and a vegetable garden, says that for decades his farming was chemical free.

“But its harder now because all our children are either in the capital or studying. Nobody wants to stay, which means we have to work harder. It’s just my wife an myself here. We cannot grow enough to feed ourselves and take crops to the market, so we have to use chemicals for the first time. We would like to go back to farming how we used to, where we just used what nature provided.”

But in a world looking for new ideas, Bhutan is already called the poster child of sustainable development. More than 95% of the population has clean water and electricity, 80% of the country is forested and, to the envy of many countries, it is carbon neutral and food secure.

In addition, it is now basing its economic development on the pursuit of collective happiness.

“We have no fossil fuels or nuclear. But we are blessed with rivers which give us the potential of over 30,000megawatts of electricity. So far we only exploit 2,000 megawatts. We exploit enough now to export to India and in the pipeline we have 10,000 megawatts more. The biggest threat we face is cars. The number is increasing every day. Everyone wants to buy cars and that means we must import fuel. That is why we must develop our energy.”

Agriculture minister Gyamtsho remains optimistic. “Hopefully we can provide solutions. What is at stake is the future. We need governments who can make bold decisions now rather than later.”

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited

Chancellor George Osborne is today holding a Treasury summit at his official country retreat in an attempt to prevent a repeat of last year’s Budget “omnishambles“.

Treasury ministers and officials have gathered together with Conservative Party HQ staff for an all-day meeting to go through the options for next month’s financial statement.

The meeting, at Osborne’s Dorneywood residence in Buckinghamshire, comes after the Chancellor was forced into a series of embarrassing climbdowns and reversals in the wake of last year’s Budget.

LIKE HUFFPOST UK POLITICS ON FACEBOOK | FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Plans for taxing caravan owners, hot food and removing some tax reliefs for charitable donations all had to be revised in the face of heavy criticism.

A Treasury source told The Independent: “This is going to be a very political Budget. George would be the first to admit he took his eye off the ball last year. He knows he can’t let that happen again.”

Related on HuffPost:

The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger has told Sky News she believes tougher sentences are needed to stop people who commit serious crimes from “getting away with it”.

Speaking on the eve of the 20th anniversary of her son’s murder, Denise Fergus says despite fighting for two decades she feels she has still not achieved justice.

James Bulger was just two years old when he was abducted from the Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside.

CCTV cameras captured 10-year-old schoolboys Jon Venables and Robert Thompson leading the toddler by the hand. They took him to a railway embankment in Walton, Liverpool, where they tortured him, inflicting 42 injuries before leaving him dead on the tracks where a train severed his body.

Venables and Thompson were convicted of murder and given life sentences in November 1993. Less than eight years later, in June 2001, the pair were released and given new identities.

Denise Fergus told Sky News she feels let down by the justice system and strongly believes a change in the law is needed so killers receive harsher punishments.

“They should make them realise what they’ve done is wrong. If they give them a hard enough time maybe they’ll think again before they go on to commit another crime.

“What I’m saying is stop giving them stupid sentences like five or 10 years or if they get a 10-year sentence stop dropping it to five years because of good behaviour. They’ve done bad in the first place to be there. Start giving them proper sentences, sentences that fit the crime and stop being so lenient on them.”

Venables was jailed again in 2010 for downloading and distributing dozens of indecent images of children. He is now making a new bid for release.

For the first time Mrs Fergus is expected to deliver a victim statement in person to his parole board. She has told Sky News she feels strongly he should remain behind bars. She has been concerned that a possible sexual motive for her son’s murder has never been properly investigated. She believes Venables still poses a risk to the public.

“I just urge them not to release him because I still believe he is a danger. He’s a ticking timebomb and he always has been. To get away with so much you know someone out there hasn’t been doing their job. He was meant to have been monitored on his release. To build up all those images on his laptop is unbelievable and just proves that he hasn’t been getting monitored at all.”

“I’m not saying lock him up forever. Until he’s got a stable mind then I think he should be locked up. But I don’t know if he’ll ever get that stable mind.”

Mrs Fergus also believes he shouldn’t be given a second new identity.

“If he gets another ID then he’s putting other people in danger because on his release people are going to be aware who moves into their area. If someone new moves in on his release then everyone’s going to be pointing fingers and it might not be him, it might be an innocent man.”

Mrs Fergus, her husband Stuart and three sons will visit James’s grave on the anniversary of his death.

She says she’ll never stop fighting for justice: “That’s something I’ll never give up. The day I give that up I’ll be letting a lot of people down. All the support that I’ve had over the past 20 years would be undone.

“I’d feel I was letting my family down, and I’d feel I’d be letting James down, I’d be letting myself down. You know if it takes another 20 years I’m going to keep on fighting.”

Elderly care bills are to be capped by the state in a £1bn move expected to be funded by dragging more people into inheritance tax, the coalition will announce today.

To the disappointment of many campaigners, the cap will be set at £75,000 – more than double the £35,000 recommended by the independent Dilnot Commission.

But thousands more people will be hit with inheritance tax bills because of a three-year extension of the freeze in the £325,000 threshold – £650,000 for couples – at which it kicks in at 40%.

Alongside the cap, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to announce a large rise in the assets threshold beneath which people receive means-tested support meeting care bills.

But the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has criticised the social care reforms as “about as credible as a Findus Lasagne”.

NPC general secretary Dot Gibson said: “The social care system needs urgent and radical reform, but these proposals simply tinker at the edges.

“The current system is dogged by means-testing, a postcode lottery of charges, a rationing of services and poor standards and nothing in the plan looks like it will address any of these concerns.

Shadow care and older people’s minister Liz Kendall said a “bigger and bolder response” was needed.

“This would be a small step forward for some people who need residential care in five or more years time,” she said.

The Association of British Insurers said the reforms were a potential “step forward”.

February 11, 2013  |  

The following is reprinted with permission from Religion Dispatches. You can sign up for their free daily newsletter here.

As the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade passed, evangelical leaders marked the occasion with histories of how their community took up the anti-abortion cause. Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, (with whom I engaged in a discussion-via-blog-post this past fall) has suggested the movement formed out of grassroots reflection on “the terrible and inevitable consequences of legalized abortion.” Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, insisted it arose from moral outrage triggered by Roe v. Wade.

Both histories provide pristine portraits of the origins of the evangelical right, suggesting its founders based their advocacy on scholarly assessments and aspired to noble political ends. But a history can be told that is significantly less flattering.

The right-wing evangelical movement was not an immediate backlash to Roe v. Wade. The evangelical community, unlike Roman Catholicism, showed little interest in combating abortion until almost 1980. As Jerry Falwell lamented in 1979, “The Roman Catholic Church for many years has stood virtually alone against abortion. I think it’s an indictment against the rest of us that we’ve allowed them to stand alone.”

Although evangelicals were mostly silent on abortion after Roe v. Wade, they were not silent on other political issues. Paul Weyrich, one of the evangelical right’s most influential founders, recalls that the movement initially emerged to defend racially segregated Christian schools from government intrusion:

[W]hat galvanized the Christian community was not abortion, school prayer, or the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]. I am living witness to that because I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed. What changed their minds was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation.

In other words, as Randall Balmer has succinctly put it: “the religious right of the late twentieth century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination.”

Only after the movement was underway did it begin advocacy on abortion. It did so, in large part, based on highly dubious arguments advanced by the popular writer Francis Schaeffer.

Schaeffer held a master’s degree from Westminster Theological Seminary (though he went by “Dr. Schaeffer”) and argued, in 1979’s Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (co-written with the surgeon C. Everrett Koop, and offered as both book and film series), that legalized abortion represented an abandonment of the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage. He is introduced in the film as “one of the world’s most respected thinkers”–a generous title given that Schaeffer plays loose with history, neglecting to mention that abortion was in fact legal when the nation was founded.

Schaeffer and Koop advance the argument that if evangelicals don’t mobilize to stop abortion, infanticide and involuntary euthanasia will soon become widespread.

They have to go back to Roman theologian Tertullian to reinforce their claim that the “orthodox position” is that life begins at conception, conveniently leaving out the fact that Church fathers Augustine and Aquinas–and most evangelicals up until the 1970s–are on the other side of the argument. As Aquinas put it (in a view that remained the official position of the Catholic Church from the medieval era to the mid-1800s), “The rational soul ought to be united to a body which may be a suitable organ of sensation… before the body has organs in any way whatever, it cannot be receptive of the soul.”

More sophisticated anti-abortion arguments were advanced once the movement was already underway, notably the 1982 publication of Michael Gorman’s Abortion and the Early Church or the 1984 publication of John Jefferson Davis’ Abortion and the Evangelical. But Schaeffer’s arugments are often cited by the founders of the evangelical right as what convinced them to take up the cause against abortion.

Many of the major Asian markets are closed for the Lunar New Year. This week’s G7/G20 meetings are drawing attention amid reports that officials may release a statement to address the fears of a currency war. Even a formal statement is not forthcoming, we expect 1) such statements to come from the G7 rather than the G20 and 2) for the usual boilerplate commitment to fx prices best set in the market and that certain exchange rates are not the objective of monetary or fiscal policies.

The reason that the statement is more likely to come from the G7 than the G20 is that there are too many countries in the G20 that do not really embrace floating exchange rates. Japan is more isolated in the G7 than the G20 on that issue. 

Japanese officials appear to have changed tactics over the past week or so. First, they are refraining from citing specific bilateral levels for the dollar-yen rate. Second, as Fin Min Aso comments before the weekend illustrated, Japanese officials are response to the push back by others, and noted that the yen’s recent decline may have been too rapid. Third, Econ Min Amari opened a new front by talking about a 13,000 target for the Nikkei by the end of March. This is an aggressive call as it would represent about a 3% rally a week.

To put that in perspective consider the price action since Nov 15, when the election was formally announced. The Nikkei has advanced nearly 30% through the middle of last week. The dollar has appreciated by about 17.5% against the yen in the same time. Assuming a similar gearing ratio, a 17% rise in the Nikkei could correspond to an 8% rally in the dollar toward JPY100. Of course, this exercise is for demonstrative purposes. The change in Japanese official rhetoric has not confused the underlying signal. 

The euro broke down to $1.3325 in exceptionally thin Asian activity, but managed to climb back to $1.3400 before running out of steam in the European morning. There remains one key driver for the euro that helps explain both its earlier strength and its more recent heaviness. The signal is emanating from the interest rate market and in particular the two-year interest rate differential or swap rate between the US and Germany.. Nearly 8.5 days out of 10, euro and differential move in the anticipated direction. When the US premium over Germany is reduced, dollar tends to fall. When the US premium increases the dollar tends to rise.

Drilling down into the respective components shows that the driver of the differential is the German side, not the US. Recall what has happened. In early December (10th), the Germany 2-year yield was near -9 bp. It proceeded to increase to almost +32 bp by late Jan (28th). It trended from there and was halved to almost 15 bp before the weekend. We anticipate some near-term consolidation for the German 2-year yield, suggesting a choppy consolidative phase is likely.

Sterling and the Australian dollar, which were out-performers before the weekend have come under strong pressure today. Softness in the Australian home loan data was the local excuse, but interest rate expectations for next month’s meeting seemed largely unchanged. Nevertheless, the Aussie has returned toward Friday’s lows, after staging a bit of an upside reversal.  A break of $1.0250 could see another cent decline before new attempts at bottom-picking emerges. We note that the dollar-bloc as a whole continues to trade heavily.

Sterling has already been sold through Friday’s lows. The proximate cause is a bit elusive. Gilts are under some pressure, and there is some talk about the “flexible inflation target” that was discussed last week by Carney. Initial support is now seen near $1.5680 and then $1.5630, the low form Feb 5. There is keen interest against the euro. The euro is staging a reversal against sterling. Last Monday, the cross was trading near GBP0.8700 and finished last week near GBP0.8445.  It initial traded through there briefly and has not rallied through the pre-weekend high. This set up a potential key reversal. The GBP0.8550 may offer initial resistance, but corrective gains could see the GBP0.8580-GBP0.8620 area. 

A stunning announcement to start the week from the Pope, who just a month ago was the first pontiff to enter twitter, and who just announced his resignation at the end of the month for “health reasons.” “I’m very shaken by this unexpected news,” outgoing Italian PM Mario Monti told reporters today on the sidelines of an event in Milan, as reported by Ansa. And so Pope Benedict XVI, f/k/a/ Joseph Ratzinger, April 19, 2005 – February 28, 2013.

Full Papal resignation letter below.

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said he plans on resigning the papal office on February 28th. Below please find his announcement.

Full text of Pope’s declaration

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Here is Pope Benedict’s resignation statement in full:

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

A four-week-old baby who was reportedly dragged from his cot by a fox and had his finger bitten off is said to be recovering well in hospital.

The boy was seriously injured after the animal crept into his bedroom in Bromley, southeast London.

His mother rushed into his bedroom after hearing his screams to find the fox dragging him out of the room, according to reports.

The animal had apparently got into the family home through an open backdoor.

Surgeons reportedly had to reattach one the baby’s fingers after the incident on Wednesday. He also had cuts to his face which needed stitches.

A hospital spokeswoman said: “The Evelina Children’s Hospital, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, can confirm that the baby has been moved from the High Dependency Unit to a ward and is recovering well.”

The baby’s aunt has described her nephew as the “perfect baby”.

She told the Times: “It was so traumatic. The family are devastated. I spoke to my brother at the hospital, but he couldn’t even talk.”

Neighbour Paula Wellington told Sky News: “I saw the mother a couple of days ago and she told me the fox had got into the house and grabbed the baby.

“She was fighting with it, trying to pull it away from the baby. She said it lasted a couple of minutes and she had to wrestle the fox off the baby.

“The fox had the baby she said and she was really shaken by it. It’s really scared everyone and the family have now moved out.”

The attack has reignited the debate over the growing problem of urban foxes living in Britain, prompting fresh calls for a cull.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “They may appear cuddly and romantic but foxes are also a pest and a menace, particularly in our cities.

“This must serve as a wake-up call to London’s borough leaders, who are responsible for pest control.

“They must come together, study the data, try to understand why this is becoming such a problem and act quickly to sort it out.”

A spokesperson from Lewisham Council, the local authority that covers the area, said: “Although rare, fox attacks can be devastating as this tragic case shows and our thoughts go out to the family at this difficult time.”

The spokesperson advised residents to make their homes and back gardens “less attractive to foxes” by using repellents and “making sure that waste food is always disposed of in secure, lidded bins and containers”.

Cass Barrett, of London Fox Control which uses humane methods to exterminate foxes, said he often heard of the animals coming through people’s cat flaps after being lured by the scent of pet food.

He said: “Foxes coming into people’s houses is nothing new in my experience. Foxes are quite accomplished climbers in that a ground floor window I wouldn’t imagine should cause too much of a problem for them to get in.”

An RSPCA spokeswoman said the only reason a fox would attack a human is due to fear and it is “extremely unusual” for them to hurt children.

The animal had got into the family home through an open backdoor.

The horse meat scandal is the result of a criminal fraud conspiracy, the government has said.

Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, said the abuse of the food industry could have been on an “extensive” scale throughout Europe.

His comments come as pressure mounts for a ban on meat imports until the crisis has been averted.

Owen Paterson will address MPs on the horse meat scandal

Paterson, who will address MPs on the scandal on Monday, has admitted the horse meat could turn out to be harmful to humans.

But he insisted: “At the moment, all the evidence is that these products are entirely safe.”

Meanwhile, concerns have been raised about poor levels of food hygiene when meat is transported.

And legal actions are expected as companies try to cope with the fallout from the scandal.

Findus lasagne contained up to 100% horse

Companies form Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands are thought to be involved, with warnings issued to 16 countries.

One theory for the apparent increase in the presence of horse meat in the food chain is new restrictions on using horses on roads in Romania, which have led to a surge in numbers of animals being put down.

Paterson said: “Reports today we have had from France looks as though it might have been pinned down to two abattoirs in Romania but I will be talking to authorities later in the day to establish that.

“I very much hope that these legal processes do flush out the criminals because it is completely unacceptable that British consumers should be sold a product marked as one thing which actually contains something else.”

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he added: “This is a case of fraud and a conspiracy against the public, this is a criminal action, substituting one material for another.

“If a British consumer goes into a retail store and buys a beef product, they should expect to get beef in that product, not horse.

“So this is a straight case of fraud and I think you will see legal actions beginning in certain continental countries today.
“I will be taking it up with certain ministers and also with the Commission in Europe, because this is overall a European Commission competence.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that consumers are being passed off with one product when they buy another.”

The chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee, Conservative MP Anne McIntosh said: “I believe there should be a moratorium on the movement of all meat until such time as we can trace the source of contamination.”

But shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said banning meat imports was a “knee-jerk reaction”.

The Food Standards Agency has said there is no evidence to suggest the horse meat detected in beef products poses a danger to humans, but confirmed that tests have been ordered for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone as animals treated with “bute” are not allowed to enter the food chain.

Frozen foods firm Findus, which has taken its beef lasagnes made by French food supplier Comigel off shelves after some were found to have up to 100% horse meat in them, said it was considering taking legal action against its suppliers as an internal investigation “strongly suggests” that the contamination “was not accidental”.

See also:

• Findus considers legal action over horse meat scandal

• Retailers responsible, Paterson says

• Twitter’s finest horse meat jokes

Vince Cable has said the UK’s future prosperity depends on opening its borders to Chinese investment and tourism.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the business secretary said the British must not be “economic nationalists” and look inwards.

“China is the new economic superpower and we must treat its re-emergence with respect: as an opportunity rather than a threat,” he said.

“Britain has the potential to benefit from Chinese growth and the flow of goods and services that has resulted. Our future prosperity will depend on it.”

Cable’s comments were welcomed by Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research who said the immigration rules were too tight.

“Vince Cable is quite right. Of course, the problem goes much wider than just the visa system for Chinese businessmen,” he told The Huffington Post UK.

“If we’re serious about the UK being ‘open for business’, we need a system that encourages, not discourages, skilled migrants and foreign students, as well as business visitors.”

Cable said that while the Chinese were keen to invest in and visit Britain, the current “bureaucratic” visa system was holding them back.

“In the past five years, our share of Chinese visitors has been dropping,” Cable warned. “With anecdotal evidence of people saying our visa system is unfriendly and inflexible.”

He added: “We cannot allow red tape to deter the very people that we want to come to the UK and help make the economy stronger.

“We want to create and promote an image of Britain which means and delivers what it says on the tin: open for global business.”

In November 2010, in the first year of the coalition, Cable joined a high-level delegation of British ministers including David Cameron to China to drum up trade.

The Lib Dem business secretary’s comments are unlikely to be welcomed by the Theresa May’s Home Office, which is under pressure to meet the Conservative Party pledge to cut net migration to under 100,000.

The government has already caused a minor spat with Romania and Bulgaria following reports the UK planned to place adverts in those countries to dissuade migration to the UK once they join the EU.

Related on HuffPost:

The NDAA and the Death of the Democratic State

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 11, 2013

Illustration by Mr. Fish

By Chris Hedges

On Wednesday a few hundred activists crowded into the courtroom of the Second Circuit, the spillover room with its faulty audio feed and dearth of chairs, and Foley Square outside the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan where many huddled in the cold. The fate of the nation, we understood, could be decided by the three judges who will rule on our lawsuit against President Barack Obama for signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The section permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, who “substantially support”–an undefined legal term–al-Qaida, the Taliban or “associated forces,” again a term that is legally undefined. Those detained can be imprisoned indefinitely by the military and denied due process until “the end of hostilities.” In an age of permanent war this is probably a lifetime. Anyone detained under the NDAA can be sent, according to Section (c)(4), to any “foreign country or entity.” This is, in essence, extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens. It empowers the government to ship detainees to the jails of some of the most repressive regimes on earth.

Section 1021(b)(2) was declared invalid in September after our first trial, in the Southern District Court of New York. The Obama administration appealed the Southern District Court ruling. The appeal was heard Wednesday in the Second Circuit Court with Judges Raymond J. Lohier, Lewis A. Kaplan and Amalya L. Kearse presiding. The judges might not make a decision until the spring when the Supreme Court rules in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, another case in which I am a plaintiff. The Supreme Court case challenges the government’s use of electronic surveillance. If we are successful in the Clapper case, it will strengthen all the plaintiffs’ standing in Hedges v. Obama. The Supreme Court, if it rules against the government, will affirm that we as plaintiffs have a reasonable fear of being detained.

If we lose in Hedges v. Obama–and it seems certain that no matter the outcome of the appeal this case will reach the Supreme Court–electoral politics and our rights as citizens will be as empty as those of Nero’s Rome. If we lose, the power of the military to detain citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military prisons will become a terrifying reality. Democrat or Republican. Occupy activist or libertarian. Socialist or tea party stalwart. It does not matter. This is not a partisan fight. Once the state seizes this unchecked power, it will inevitably create a secret, lawless world of indiscriminate violence, terror and gulags. I lived under several military dictatorships during the two decades I was a foreign correspondent. I know the beast.

“The stakes are very high,” said attorney Carl Mayer, who with attorney Bruce Afran brought our case to trial, in addressing a Culture Project audience in Manhattan on Wednesday after the hearing. “What our case comes down to is: Are we going to have a civil justice system in the United States or a military justice system? The civil justice system is something that is ingrained in the Constitution. It was always very important in combating tyranny and building a democratic society. What the NDAA is trying to impose is a system of military justice that allows the military to police the streets of America to detain U.S. citizens, to detain residents in the United States in military prisons. Probably the most frightening aspect of the NDAA is that it allows for detention until ‘the end of hostilities.’ ” [To see videos of Mayer, Afran, Hedges and other participating in the Culture Project panel discussion, click here.]

Five thousand years of human civilization has left behind innumerable ruins to remind us that the grand structures and complex societies we build, and foolishly venerate as immortal, crumble into dust. It is the descent that matters now. If the corporate state is handed the tools, as under Section 1021(b)(2) of the NDAA, to use deadly force and military power to criminalize dissent, then our decline will be one of repression, blood and suffering. No one, not least our corporate overlords, believes that our material conditions will improve with the impending collapse of globalization, the steady deterioration of the global economy, the decline of natural resources and the looming catastrophes of climate change.

But the global corporatists–who have created a new species of totalitarianism–demand, during our decay, total power to extract the last vestiges of profit from a degraded ecosystem and disempowered citizenry. The looming dystopia is visible in the skies of blighted postindustrial cities such as Flint, Mich., where drones circle like mechanical vultures. And in an era where the executive branch can draw up secret kill lists that include U.S. citizens, it would be naive to believe these domestic drones will remain unarmed.

Robert M. Loeb, the lead attorney for the government in Wednesday’s proceedings, took a tack very different from that of the government in the Southern District Court of New York before Judge Katherine B. Forrest. Forrest repeatedly asked the government attorneys if they could guarantee that the other plaintiffs and I would not be subject to detention under Section 1021(b)(2). The government attorneys in the first trial granted no such immunity. The government also claimed in the first trial that under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act (AUMF), it already had the power to detain U.S. citizens. Section 1021(b)(2), the attorneys said, did not constitute a significant change in government power. Judge Forrest in September rejected the government’s arguments and ruled Section 1021(b)(2) invalid.

The government, however, argued Wednesday that as “independent journalists” we were exempt from the law and had no cause for concern. Loeb stated that if journalists used journalism as a cover to aid the enemy, they would be seized and treated as enemy combatants. But he assured the court that I would be untouched by the new law as long as “Mr. Hedges did not start driving black vans for people we don’t like.”

1 2 NEXT PAGE >>>

The World As It Is:

Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress

A collection of Truthdig Columns
by Chris Hedges

Keep up with Chris Hedges’ latest columns, interviews, tour dates and more at www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges.

Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.

Previous item: Nothing Self-Made About Me

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Russian figure skater, Evgeny Pluschenko (RIA Novosti / Maksim Bogodvid)

Russia’s top figure skater, Evgeny Pluschenko, is planning to sue a TV commentator, who called reports about the athlete’s spine surgery fake.

­“That surgery never took place,” Andrey Zhurnakov said while commentating on the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships for Eurospot 2 channel on Saturday. “The way it was reported in the media, with only Channel One making a story on it… all this reminds of the strategy used to make PR-moves in show business.”

The statement offended Pluschenko, who said that he and his lawyers are going to file a lawsuit as soon as Monday.  

“I will defend my honor and dignity because it was an insult not only to me personally, but to my whole team,” the two-time Olympic champion told R-Sport news agency. “I don’t deserve such treatment after my career. Such things must be stopped. There should be no place for such scoundrels on television.”

Yevgeni Plyuschenko and his spouse, producer Yana Rudkovskaya (RIA Novosti / Maksim Bogodvid)

Pluschenko underwent a successful surgery on his spine in an Israeli clinic in the end of January, with the 30-year-old getting an intervertebral disc replaced.

When asked to comment on the possible lawsuit, Zhurnakov stressed that insulting the athlete’s honor and dignity wasn’t his intention.  

“I only gave my version and my view on how it was presented in the press, saying that it all reminds me of a PR stunt,” he explained.

Pluschenko is married to one of Russia’s leading music producers, Yana Rudkovskaya, who was behind singer Dima Bilan’s success at the 2008 Eurovision.

Nine miners killed in northern Russia blast — police

Nine people have been killed in a blast at the Vorkutinskaya mine in the northern Russian Republic of Komi, according to local police.

“Three people and nine bodies have been brought to the surface,” police sources told Itar-Tass.­

Earlier, reports emerged of 18 people trapped at the facility after the blast which took place at 06.28 GMT.

The fate of others remains unknown.

The blast was allegedly caused by methane ignition, Itar-Tass reported, although the mine’s administration has not confirmed this.

The mine belongs to a division of Severstal, one of Russia’s largest steel producers.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

A boy has died of bullet wounds in India-administered Kashmir, following an incident where he was shot by Indian security forces during protests against the execution of a Kashmiri separatist.

The 12-year-old boy succumbed to his wounds on Monday, a day after he suffered injuries in the village of Watergam near the hometown of executed separatist Mohammed Afzal Guru.

An investigation into the cause of the teen’s death has been started as initial reports show the boy died as a result of shooting by a paramilitary force, according to a senior hospital official.

All the roads to Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar remained blocked on Monday, and hundreds of Indian security forces were dispatched to the volatile streets of the area.

The execution of Guru on February 9 provoked angry demonstrations and clashes in India-controlled Kashmir, which led to two more deaths and several other injuries in the volatile region.

Following Guru’s execution, Indian security forces imposed a curfew in various parts of the region in an effort to restore security to the area.

Guru was hanged in a jail near New Delhi over his role in a deadly attack on the parliament in the Indian capital in 2001.

AO/HSN

A university professor in Turkey has prohibited a female teacher from entering an exam hall, where she was a proctor, for wearing a headscarf.

The proctor, identified as Ilham Duran, arrived at a school in the city of Kayseri, situated some 265 kilometers (164 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, on Sunday morning, and was prevented by Halit Yetisir, a professor who was overseeing the examinations, from entering the hall, Turkey’s newspaper Today’s Zaman reported.

Yetisir cited Duran’s headscarf as the reason for his decision, and also said he would write a report against the veiled Muslim teacher and send it to the Open Education Faculty (AOF) center in the city of Eskisehir.

There was no apparent dress code for teachers at the educational center in Kayseri.

The Turkish government’s controversial ban on hijab has outraged Muslim people who constitute over 97 percent of the country’s population.

The move has sparked anger among Turkish citizens, who believe the majority of the population is not allowed to exercise their religious freedoms.

Turkey’s government has also issued an order banning headscarves for schoolgirls. Parents are allowed to pick their children up while wearing hijab, but children may not wear it unless they are in private religious schools.

Only about 200,000 girls study at religious schools in Turkey, meaning that the new law forces some seven million girls across the country not to wear hijab at school.

MP/HSN

London has put up a major obstacle to Scotland over its independence bid, saying Scots have to renegotiate some 14,000 international treaties, including their EU and UN memberships, if they vote for independence in the 2014 referendum.

The British government said they have sought legal advice from Professor James Crawford of Cambridge University and Professor Alan Boyle of Edinburgh University on Scotland’s independence and the two said that a breakaway Scotland will be a “new state” under international law and, as such, has to renegotiate the treaties in a lengthy process.

The legal advice on the constitutional implications of a yes vote to Scottish independence in 2014, apparently intends to increase pressure on the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond as governments rarely publish such legal opinions.

Salmond set out plans to declare independence in March 2016 in the event of a vote in autumn 2014 in favor of separation a few days ago.

However, Scottish Secretary in the British cabinet Michael Moore said after the news on the advice that it is a “serious reality check” to Salmond’s claims that Edinburgh can negotiate Scotland’s EU membership within the union and in parallel with its independence talks with London.

In response, the Scottish government has also announced it will shortly publish its own legal advice, written partly by Nobel Prize winner for economics Joseph Stiglitz, that supports Edinburgh’s position.

AMR/HE

A powerful explosion has been heard outside the French embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus, amid ongoing clashes between the Syrian army and the foreign-sponsored militant groups near the city, Press TV reports.

The blast took place in the al-Afif neighborhood of Damascus on Monday. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Separately, several people sustained injuries when the militants detonated a car bomb near a police station in the Arnous Square of the Syrian capital. The bombing also damaged a number of vehicles parked in the area.

Many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the turmoil that began in Syria nearly two years ago.

On February 8, a Syrian cleric was killed in a mortar attack carried out by the militants on a mosque in the northwestern city of Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army continues to engage militant groups across the country.

Reports said on Saturday the militants suffered heavy losses in clashes with Syrian security forces over the control of a major highway in Damascus.

MP/HSN

February 11, 2013  |  

Editor’s note: America has a long history of treating the poor like criminals, from legislation banning the transportation of poor people across state lines to anti-vagrancy laws that could land you in jail if you didn’t have a job or a home. We’ve come to rely on the criminal justice system to deal with the poor, even as more and more Americans fall into poverty. The following article is part of a series that looks at the diverse ways our countrycriminalizes poverty, including laws targeting the homeless, the surveillance of welfare recipients, the re-emergence of debtor prisons, and extreme policing tactics like stop-and-frisk.

February 11, 2013  |  

The GOP has plans for a comeback. But it may cost you a lot. The idea is to capitalize on recent Republican state takeovers to conduct an austerity experiment known as the new “red-state model” and prove that faulty policies can be turned into gold.

There will be smoke. There will be mirrors. And there will be a lot of ordinary people suffering needlessly in the wake of this ideological train wreck.

We already have a red-state model, and it’s called Mississippi. Or Texas. Or any number of states characterized by low public investment, worker abuse, environmental degradation, educational backwardness, high rates of unwanted pregnancy, poor health, and so on.

Now the GOP is determined to bring that horrible model to the rest of America.

In Kansas, the Wall Street Journal reports that Governor Sam Brownback is aiming to up his profile “by turning Kansas into what he calls Exhibit A for how sharp cuts in taxes and government spending can generate jobs, wean residents off public aid and spur economic growth.” In remarks quoted in the same article, Brownback announced that “My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See, we’ve got a different way, and it works.’ “

Brownback’s economic inspiration is Reagan-era supply-side economist Arthur Laffer and the folks at Americans for Prosperity, the conservative outfit backed by the deep coffers of the Koch brothers.

This new austerity talk focused on “fiscal innovations” is emboldening Republicans in other states that have been gerrymandered into submission to the GOP, including Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and alas, my home state of North Carolina.

Republications have been eyeing the Tar Heel state with interest due to its recent swing status in presidential elections. The state was also the target of a gerrymandering strategy that worked out wonderfully for the Republicans, but not so well for democracy. Sam Wang, the founder of the Princeton Election Consortium, wrote recently in the New York Times about how Republican redistricting thwarted Democratic voters:

“Although gerrymandering is usually thought of as a bipartisan offense, the rather asymmetrical results may surprise you….I have developed approaches to detect such shenanigans by looking only at election returns. To see how the sleuthing works, start with the naïve standard that the party that wins more than half the votes should get at least half the seats. In November, five states failed to clear even this low bar: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. … In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans – a split that occurred in less than 1 percent of simulations. If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy would hardly ever occur.”

The lesson of North Carolina tells you that the GOP red-state model is based, first and foremost, on efforts to flagrantly disregard the will of the people. NC’s discount-store mogul Art Pope, a longtime GOP donor and champion of free-market fundamentalism, has been appointed state budget director by the new Republican governor, Pat McCrory. In an incredible display of money buying political influence, Pope has gone well beyond his donor-counterparts in other states. Instead of just funding the politicians he wants, he has gone for direct rule by occupying government himself. Tax repeal is the centerpiece of his announced plans, but his hatred of public investment means he has much more than that in store for one of the most progressive states in the South. Pope is said to be more powerful than the governor, giving rise to the term “Pope administration” to describe the new political reality.

February 11, 2013  |  

Editor’s note: America has a long history of treating the poor like criminals, from legislation banning the transportation of poor people across state lines to anti-vagrancy laws that could land you in jail if you didn’t have a job or a home. We’ve come to rely on the criminal justice system to deal with the poor, even as more and more Americans fall into poverty. The following is part of a series that looks at the diverse ways poverty is criminalized in America, such as laws targeting the homeless, the surveillance of welfare recipients, the re-emergence of debtor prisons, and extreme policing tactics like stop-and-frisk.

After suffering a stillbirth in South Carolina, 21-year-old Regina McKnight was arrested and charged with her fetus’ homicide because she used cocaine while pregnant. McKnight served eight years in prison for a loss that, as it turned out, she did not even cause. In 2008, with four years of her sentence left to serve, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the state used “outdated” research to make its case and overturned McNight’s conviction.

While prosecutors had claimed McKnight’s cocaine use caused her stillbirth, the Court said McKnight’s attorneys failed to secure testimony from experts who would have explained how “recent studies show[ed] that cocaine is no more harmful to a fetus than nicotine use, poor nutrition, lack of prenatal care, or other conditions commonly associated with the urban poor.”

McKnight’s case is not unusual. A recent study examining the outcome of pro-life policies since Roe v. Wade through 2005 identified more than 400 pregnant women who were arrested, incarcerated or forced into health “treatment” they did not want or need. As the data make clear, drug war stigma and racism were central to such prosecutions: 84 percent of these cases alleged that the woman, “in addition to continuing her pregnancy, had used an illegal drug,” particularly cocaine. Fifty-two percent of the women targeted are black.

Legal Rights for Fetuses 

The cases do not necessarily include the death of a fetus, as in McKnight’s case. Drug-using women can be punished for the assumption that they harmed their fetuses, even if there is no evidence other than drug use itself. In states where feticide or “personhood” measures define an egg, embryo or fetus as a child, “child abuse” can occur in the womb.

In South Dakota, a 12-weeks pregnant, homeless, 28-year-old Native American woman, Martina Greywind, was charged with “reckless endangerment” for using inhalants during her pregnancy. After two weeks in jail, she was able to obtain a release for a medical appointment where she received an abortion. Her case was dismissed, with the state noting that her pregnancy’s termination made her charges “no longer ripe for litigation,” while the prosecutor told media it was “no longer worth the time or expense to prosecute her.”

Lynn Paltrow of the National Advocates for Pregnant Woman, one of the groups that worked on the study, says the trend of incarcerating women for harming their fetuses with drug use is part of the larger effort to create separate legal rights for fertilized eggs and embryos. According to Paltrow, the legal principle that fetuses are separate entities with their own legal rights involves a “synergetic effect” established through case law.

One such precedent was established earlier this month in the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled that “the crime of chemical endangerment” — exposing a child to a controlled substance or the environment in which it was produced — applies to a fetus in a womb. The concurring opinion defined a fetus as a child, noting that the state has the responsibility to “protect life.” In these cases, the pro-life rhetoric works with equally flawed drug war stigma to criminalize women for crimes against an “unborn child.”

While the Alabama ruling rests firmly on the belief that a fetus is a child, it also stems from the notion that exposing infants to methamphetamine is so damaging it should be labeled a crime. Studies have repeatedly found that the developmental effects of prenatal exposure to methamphetamine are not clear.

According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s special information sheet about meth exposure in-utero, “the effects of maternal methamphetamine use cannot be separated from other factors” and there “is no syndrome or disorder that can specifically be identified for babies who were exposed in utero to methamphetamine.”

Heavy rains have caused serious flooding in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa, killing at least six people.

Local media said nearly 12.3 centimeters (about five inches) of rain fell on Peru’s second-largest city during a seven-hour period that began late on Friday.

Officials said three of the victims had been found in their vehicle trapped in high water on a flooded road underneath a bridge.

Police officer Cesar Villegas stated that hundreds of homes had been inundated in the city of about 800,000 residents.

Thousands of people have also been left without electricity and drinking water due to the flooding.

According to regional governor Miguel Guzman, the flooding has destroyed two bridges and cut off several outlying towns.

DB/HSN

A US airman has been arrested in Japan’s Okinawa Island over allegations of causing a car accident while drunk driving.

Japanese police said Eric Simmons was arrested on Sunday, after he caused an accident followed by a traffic pileup while driving under the influence of alcohol.

The 41-year-old airman is stationed at the Kadena base of the US Air Force in central Okinawa.

Over the past few months, several US soldiers stationed in Japan have been arrested for misconducts and defying a night-time curfew imposed by the US military after two US soldiers allegedly raped a Japanese woman in Okinawa on October 16, 2012.

On January 13, a drunken 24-year-old US officer was arrested in Yokosuka after he broke into a house. A US Marine was also arrested for allegedly entering an apartment building in Naha, the capital of Okinawa in December 2012.

Around 47,000 US military personnel are currently stationed in Japan. Some half of the US troops are stationed in Okinawa, where the soldiers have reportedly committed more than 5,700 crimes since Washington returned the island to Japan in 1972.

DB/HSN

Scotland’s position in the United Kingdom has come under scrutiny as the Government publishes legal opinion ahead of next year’s independence referendum.

Experts have suggested that Scotland would not continue to hold the same rights and powers in the event of a yes vote in 2014.

The document outlining their views follows work across Whitehall departments to try to explain how Scotland and the rest of the UK “benefit” from the union.

Cameron drew on Olympic glory to suggest breaking up the union would be damaging to Britain

It comes on the same day as advisers to First Minister Alex Salmond publish an economic framework for an independent Scotland.

The report looking at monetary, financial and fiscal policy recommends retaining sterling as a currency if Scotland votes to secede.

Salmond’s council of economic advisers brings together academics including Andrew Hughes Hallet and Alex Kemp as well as Nobel-prize winning economist Sir Jim Mirrlees.

According to the report: “Scotland’s economy is strong enough and sufficiently aligned with the rest of the UK that a separate currency would not be necessary.”

Meanwhile law specialists said that an independent Scotland would have to renegotiate its relationship with international organisations while the rest of the UK would continue as before.

Professors James Crawford and Alan Boyle set out their opinions on bodies from the European Union to Interpol as part of the analysis paper published on Monday.

It does not include specific advice from the European Commission on the implications of Scottish independence in the EU however.

The 57-page opinion finds that the “overwhelming weight” on precedent suggests Scotland will become a new state while the remainder of the UK will continue to hold its previous position.

“This means that if Scotland became independent, only the remainder of the UK would automatically continue to exercise the same rights, obligations and powers under international law as the UK currently does, and would not have to re-negotiate existing treaties or re-apply for membership of international organisations,” the summary states.

Professor Crawford of Cambridge University is an Australian State Counsel, similar to a QC, and is a nominee to be a judge of the international Court of Justice. Professor Boyle is an expert on international law-making and the settlement of international disputes.

The SNP has published a document outlining how the final transition to independence would take place

Their opinion was requested last year by the Foreign, Cabinet and Advocate General offices.

David Cameron launched a defence of the UK on Sunday prior to the publication of the report.

The Prime Minister said: “I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain’s success – so for me there’s no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation.

“The real question is whether it should – whether Scotland is stronger, safer, richer and fairer within our United Kingdom or outside it.”

Scotland’s deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon said the paper would only serve to boost support for an independent Scotland.

She said: “For the UK Government to argue that the UK will be a ‘continuing state’ and that an independent Scotland would have no rights betrays a near colonial attitude to Scotland’s position as a nation and gives lie to any suggestion that they see Scotland as an equal partner in the UK.

“The reality is that the status of Scotland and the rest of the UK following a ‘Yes’ vote in Autumn 2014 and before Scotland became independent in 2016 will be determined not by assertions of law, but by negotiation and agreement.

“That is the only and overwhelming lesson that can be drawn from the many international precedents that exist.”

Photo taken from McCarty Hall on campus by @j_hollimanPhoto taken from McCarty Hall on campus by @j_hollimanVideo courtesy Eric Price

(9.0Mb) embed video

A powerful twister has torn through the American state of Mississippi, leaving dozens hurt and hundreds of homes destroyed. The tornado comes hours after a major blizzard killed at least nine people across the northeast of the country.

­The weather service has counted three separate twisters throughout Mississippi, AP reported.

The disaster damaged mainly the city of Hattiesburg, including its university campus, with 10 people injured in the surrounding Forrest County. The university released a statement saying no one was hurt, but that it was under a state of emergency.

Three more people were reported injured to the west of Hattiesburg, in Marion Country, with no deaths from the disaster having been reported yet.

In the nearby town of Petal, the storm destroyed over 100 homes, with people sustaining only minor injuries.

from twitter by @studentprintz, photo by Jana Edwards

In the neighboring southwestern state of Alabama, authorities indicated that a series of seven tornadoes hit, including one that damaged 46 homes in Clark County.

However, emergency officials pointed out to AP that on the whole, the injuries weren’t really serious, with most of the people “walking wounded.”

Massive power outages were reported in the two states.

The disaster follows a massive blizzard that killed at least nine people in the American northeast, leaving hundreds of homes destroyed. Authorities declared an emergency in five states.

from twitter by @alastormspotter Scott McClellan

Hattiesburg’s university campus after the storm, from twitter by @studentprintz.

from twitter by @yaboydk

from twitter by @RyanMooreMS

Charlie Sheen has released an online video urging an ex-policeman accused of three killings to call him, after the actor was named in the man’s chilling online manifesto.

Police are hunting for Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer who threatened to go on a murder spree against police and their families to avenge his sacking five years ago.

In a rambling online statement – in which Dorner threatened “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against the LAPD – he at one point described Sheen as “awesome”.

Sheen – who was fired from the hit US sitcom Two And A Half Men in 2011 and has a long history of hard partying and scandal – addressed Dorner directly in a brief video posted on celebrity website TMZ.com.

“Christopher Dorner? Charlie Sheen,” the actor says.

“You mentioned me in your manifesto, so thank you for your kind words.

“I am urging you to call me. Let’s figure out together how to end this thing. Call me, I look forward to talking to you.”

Dorner, 33, is wanted for the killings of Monica Quan, the daughter of a former LAPD captain and her fiance, Keith Lawrence. They were found shot in their car at their apartment in Irvine on February 3.

Authorities also said Dorner opened fire early on Thursday on police in cities east of Los Angeles, killing one officer and wounding another.

Police found weapons in his burnt-out pick-up truck in the San Bernadino mountains, around 80 miles northeast of central LA.

They also revealed the truck had a broken axle, but it was unclear whether it had broken down or had been set on fire as a diversion.

Dorner singled out various celebrities and prominent people in his online manifesto, including Sheen, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Kate Winslet.

As the manhunt continues, the LAPD said it would reopen the investigation that apparently led Dorner to seek revenge against former LAPD colleagues who he believed cost him his career.

Police chief Charlie Beck said the department would thoroughly re-examine Dorner’s allegation to assure the public that the LAPD is fair and transparent. 

He said that if Dorner wants to surrender, the LAPD will “be happy to hear what he has to say”.

Indian railway travellers watch Indian authorities remove the body of a person that was killed during a stampede at the railway station in Allahabad, on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

Thirty-six people have been killed in a stampede in northern India, where millions of pilgrims flocked for a major Hindu festival. The victims died as the crowd rushed to a train arriving at a different platform than expected.

­Twenty-three of the victims of the stampede in the city of Allahabad were women, said Dr. P. Padmakar, medical superintendent of the main state-run hospital in the area. Dozens others were injured in the incident.

Tens of thousands of people were waiting to board a train in Allahabad’s main rail station on Sunday, when officials announced last-minute change of platform, according to eyewitness reports.

People rushed on to a footbridge when, according to some accounts, police tried to control the crowd using batons. This reportedly triggered the fatal stampede.

“People started tumbling over one another and within no time I saw people, particularly women and children, being trampled over by others,” passenger Shushanto Kumar Sen told AP.

A man denounces the police as the cause of the stampede that killed one of his relative at the main railway station serving India’s giant Kumbh Mela festival, in Allahabad on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Sanjay Kanojia)

­The police however denied the allegations, putting the blame on mismanagement by the railway.

“It was simply a case of overcrowding. People were in a hurry to go back and there were not enough arrangements by the railway authorities,” said Arun Kumar, a senior police officer.

India’s railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said an inquiry has been launched into the causes of the incident.

Indian authorities carry the bodies of two travellers killed in a stampede at the railway station in Allahabad on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

­Indian TV said police struggled to restore order at the rail station as the crowds continued jostling.

“There was complete chaos. There was no doctor or ambulance for at least two hours after the accident,” an eyewitness told NDTV news channel.

Relatives of people who died in a stampedem sit among the corpses of their relatives at the train station in Allahabad on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Sanjay Kanojia)

­The people were visiting Allahabad to take part in Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival held every three years. The city is one of four locations that rotate hosting the gathering in a 12-year cycle. According to Hindu belief, the nectar of immortality was spilled over the four Indian towns as gods and demons waged a battle for it.

The festival, which attracts tens of millions of devotees, lasts 55 days and includes bathing ceremony at the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers. The ritual is said to wash away the burden of lives past and present and further a soul on its path towards breaking from the cycle of reincarnation.

The pilgrimage, which is among the most important Hindu festivals, also includes religious discussions, singing and feeding of holy men and women.

The relative of a traveller (2R) that was killed during a stampede at the railway station in Allahabad, India points to the bodies as she stands next to Indian policemen on Februart 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Roberto Schmidt)

Hospital attendants carry an Indian woman injured in the stampede at the Railway Hospital in Allahabad on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Manan Vatsyayana)

A man is loaded into an ambulance after being injured during a stampede that killed at least 10 people at the main railway station serving India’s giant Kumbh Mela festival, in Allahabad on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Sanjay Kanojia)

The ten things you need to know on Monday 11 February 2013…

1) ‘INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY’

Could the scandal over horsemeat in our food end up being as big as the BSE controversy? From the Sun:

“Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said intensive tests are urgently being carried out on horsemeat found in supermarket ready meals.

“He warned: ‘We may find out as the week progresses, and the tests begin to come in, there is a substance which is injurious to human health.’

“But Mr Paterson, who will make a Commons statement today, admitted EU rules mean Britain CANNOT ban meat from other European countries – unless there is clear proof of a health risk.

“Mr Paterson said the scandal was the result of ‘an international criminal conspiracy’.”

2) SOCIAL CARE

The social care funding story is the splash in the Times (“Families to ‘foot bill for cost of care for elderly'”) and the Telegraph (“Cameron abandons inheritance tax pledge”).

The Telegraph reports:

“George Osborne, the Chancellor, will announce that the level at which inheritance tax becomes payable will be frozen at £325,000 until at least 2019 to fund reform of the social care system.

“The decision will mean that the owners of an average home across much of southern Britain and large areas elsewhere will be liable for inheritance tax. Critics said it was effectively a ‘double tax’ as it was a levy on assets already raided by the taxman and accused the Treasury of ‘picking people’s pockets’.”

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on a warning from the opposition:

“The average person in social care will not benefit from raising the cap on care home costs to £75,000, Labour has warned.

“As the government pledged to end the ‘scandal’, in which people have to sell their home to pay for social care, the shadow social care minister, Liz Kendall, said most people would die before they could benefit from the new cap.

“Jeremy Hunt will announce on Monday that the government will introduce a £75,000 cap on the costs of social care — excluding the costs of accommodation and food — in April 2017. The health secretary will also raise the threshold on assets below which patients are eligible for state help, from £23,000 to £123,000. The cap is to be funded by freezing the threshold for inheritance tax.”

3) VOTE YES, SIGN 14,000 TREATIES

Some bad news for Alex Salmond and co – from the Independent:

“A breakaway Scotland would be a ‘new state’ under international law and have to renegotiate membership of the European Union and the United Nations, according to legal advice obtained by the Government.

“The monumental challenges facing a newly independent Scotland are disclosed in a 57-page dossier published today that represents London’s opening shot against separation.

“The paper claims that Scottish ministers would need to wade through 14,000 separate treaties that have been signed by the United Kingdom, and apply afresh to join international bodies.

“… The new legal advice was drawn up by Professor James Crawford, of Cambridge University, and Professor Alan Boyle, of Edinburgh University, who are experts on international law.

“‘If Scotland became independent, only the remainder of the UK would automatically continue to exercise the same rights, obligations and powers under international law as the UK currently does,’ they say.”

The SNP’s response? “This is an act of breath-taking arrogance by this Tory-led UK Government, which completely shatters their claim that Scotland is an equal partner within the existing UK — it will only serve to boost support for an independent Scotland,” said Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

Bring on the referendum campaign, eh?

4) SLEEPY MIKE VS TORIES’ SARAH PALIN

The Eastleigh by-election campaign is heating up – from the Daily Mail:

“Within hours of Liberal Democrat Mike Thornton being chosen to fight disgraced ex-Cabinet minister Chris Huhne’s Eastleigh constituency, a photograph emerged of him apparently asleep on the job.

“The picture which seems to show Mr Thornton nodding off, was taken at a council meeting in 2011. As that photograph was gleefully circulated by opponents, the local Lib Dems moved quickly to delete from their website pictures they deemed far more damaging – showing the councillor with Mr Huhne, who quit Parliament after admitting he lied to police to escape a driving ban.”

The paper adds:

“Mr Thornton, married with a 19-year-old daughter, faces a challenge from a Tory described as her party’s ‘answer to Sarah Palin’.

“Maria Hutchings has been likened to the controversial US Republican politician because of her robust views on issues such as gay marriage and immigration, which potentially put her at odds with Conservative leadership.”

Deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg will be visiting Eastleigh today and has conceded that, due to a diary clash, he could, at some stage soon, end up campaigning in the constituency on the same day as the prime minister.

5) ‘APPALLING WASTE OF PRECIOUS MONEY’

Yet another report from the Public Accounts Committee – where do its members find the time? From the Sun:

“Millions of pounds in foreign aid is being squandered on fat cat consultants and wasteful bodies, a report by MPs warns.

The Department for International Development is blasted for shelling out £37million to advisory firm Adam Smith International.

“The company paid a £1MILLION dividend to managing director William Morrison – along with pay and perks of more than £250,000.

“Commons Public Accounts Committee chairman Margaret Hodge said: ‘That feels like an absolutely outrageous and appalling waste of this very precious money.'”

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR…

Watch this video of a disabled 4lb piglet who, because he has no use of his back legs, now gets around on a dog style wheelchair. Bizarre.

6) MIGRANT WARS

The Times (under the headline: “Influx of Romanian migrants ‘threatens to cause social unrest'”) says:

“As Britain prepares for an influx of Romanians and Bulgarians next year, schools in poorer parts of Germany are already struggling to cope with arrivals from the two states.

“Germans warn that ‘social peace’ is being endangered and British ministers are looking at ways to deter migrants heading to the UK.”

Meanwhile, the Independent (under the headline: “Not coming here. Not stealing our jobs”) reports:

“Right-wing politicians and media are stoking fears that Romanian Gypsies plan to flock to Britain. But the reality is very different…”

7) GIVE ME YOUR RICH, YOUR WEALTHY, YOUR CHINESE MASSES…

Forget Romanians and Bulgarians. It’s the Chinese that we really want to come over here. Why do you think that is?

From the Telegraph front page:

“Britain can and must do more to attract educated and wealthy immigrants, and ‘inflexible’ visa rules are threatening to undermine the economy, the Business Secretary warned today.

“In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Vince Cable said ‘Britain simply can’t afford to miss out’ on wealthy Chinese immigrants and tourists deterred by red tape.

“His intervention makes public an increasingly acrimonious Cabinet row over the immigration system — particularly as it is applied to Chinese applicants.”

8) LIB-LAB FOOTSIE UNDER THE TABLE

Cable is going all out to impress his Tory colleagues, it seems. From the Sun:

“Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have admitted they have a ‘sensible businesslike relationship’ with Ed Miliband and his Shadow Cabinet.

“In a move that will anger Tory MPs, Mr Cable said senior Lib Dems had discussed long-term policies, including pensions and industrial strategy, with their Labour counterparts. Asked if Mr Clegg and he spoke to Labour’s hierarchy, Mr Cable said: ‘Well, I think both of us do. I think the public would find this very narrow, tribal way of looking at politics very unhelpful – of course you’ve got to talk to opposition people.'”

9) ‘GOOGLE FOR SPIES’

That’s the headline to a rather disturbing story on the Guardian front page:

“A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

“A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an “extreme-scale analytics” system created by Raytheon, the world’s fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

“Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing “trillions of entities” from cyberspace.”

10) DAVE’S INSPIRATION?

Remember when David Cameron announced, at the October 2011 Conservative Party conference: “I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative”?

Writing in the Daily Mail, Andrew Pierce says:

“The words bear an uncanny resemblance to the writings of Peter Tatchell… In his blog at the beginning of October 2011, Tatchell wrote: ‘If marriage is a Conservative value, then same-sex marriage is consistent with this value. Far from undermining marriage, gay marriage strengthens it. Conservatives believe in marriage. They should therefore support same-sex marriage precisely because they are Conservatives.’ The Prime Minister spoke only days later. Tatchell is convinced he is the source. ‘That line about “I believe in gay marriage because I’m a Conservative” came directly from what I wrote,’ he says.

“Downing Street will deny it, of course. But who would have thought that Peter Tatchell, who left the Labour Party because it was not Left-wing enough, and is now a member of the Greens, could be the muse for a Conservative Prime Minister?”

PUBLIC OPINION WATCH

From yesterday’s Sunday Times/YouGov poll:

Labour 41
Conservatives 32
Lib Dems 11
Ukip 9

That would give Labour a majority of 96.

140 CHARACTERS OR LESS

@oflynnexpress Today prog should arrange radio debate between London mayor who wants a fox cull and Telegraph columnist who says don’t blame foxes…

@NicolaSturgeon UK gov legal expert says on Radio 4 that Scot Gov’s timescale for independence is realistic and that treaty accession wouldn’t be problem.

@iankatz1000 Former food boss Lord Haskins says on @BBCr4today Findus was under pressure to cut costs because of private equity ownership

900 WORDS OR MORE

Tim Montgomerie, writing in the Times, says: “Tories must keep talking about family values.”

Gary Younge, writing in the Guardian, says: “Barack Obama is pushing gun control at home, but he’s a killer abroad.”

Daniel Trilling, writing in the Mirror, says: “The rebranding of fascism: We need to be vigilant against the far right racists.”

Got something you want to share? Please send any stories/tips/quotes/pix/plugs/gossip to Mehdi Hasan (mehdi.hasan@huffingtonpost.com) or Ned Simons (ned.simons@huffingtonpost.com). You can also follow us on Twitter: @mehdirhasan, @nedsimons and @huffpostukpol

Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani says the establishment of an inter-parliamentary forum in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) will promote regional solidarity.

Larijani made the remarks on Monday at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport prior to his departure for the Pakistani capital Islamabad, where he is scheduled to attend a conference of the Parliamentary Assembly of Economic Cooperation Organization (PAECO).

The Iranian Majlis speaker said that during his visit he would hold talks with his counterparts from other ECO member states on the recent developments in the region.

Hailing Iran’s cooperation with ECO member countries, Larijani said, “Currently, there are ample capacities for cooperation among ECO member states in the technical field and the areas of technology, economy and politics.”

The first PAECO conference, to be presided by the Speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly Fahmida Mirza, will open on Monday and will run until February 13.

During the event, the representatives of the ECO member countries are scheduled to deliver speeches on the role of parliaments in overseeing the promotion of regional trade and investment to ensure sustainable social and economic development in the region.

ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical, and cultural cooperation among member states. The organization was expanded in 1992 to include seven new members, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

YH/HMV/HJL

RT Photo / Irina Vasilevitskaya

Russian stocks are likely to open in the black on Monday after Friday’s correction, depending though on news from European stocks. Global stocks showed moderate growth on Friday.

“Taking into consideration moods at the foreign stocks, the Russian market will try to recover from Friday’s correction on Monday, and Russian stocks are very likely to start the day in the black,” Yulia Voitovich from Investcafe says. However, Monday’s dynamic will be highly dependent on incoming news and European markets’ performances.

Both key Russian indices finished the Friday session in the red. The RTS was down 0.33% to 1,590.13, and the MICEX declined 0.39% to close at 1519.91. Russia’s Transneft was among leaders of the decline, while Sberbank managed to show some growth. Gazprom lost over 1% on Friday, as investors are still worried about decline in exports and the monopoly’s revenue, and the company’s preliminary results for 2012 are not optimistic enough.

Meanwhile, the Brent price reached its maximum in over than six months on Friday, up to US$118 a barrel, following reports on China’s trade balance and decline in production by OPEC countries. At the moment oil price indications show a minor correction, with Brent falling slightly by 0.22% and Light 0.04%.

In Europe, the Managers’ Index (PMI) for France for December is expected to show 0.3% decline compared to the previous month. And the Monday’s euro group meeting, to be attended by International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, will focus on the economic situation in Greece and financial aid to Cyprus. The finance ministers of the eurozone are also expected to discuss EU monetary policy.

American indices inched up on Friday with DJIA going up 0.35%, S&P500 adding 0.57% and NASDAQ — 0.91%, while major European stocks also showed positive dynamics, with FTSE100 of the UK up 0.57%, German DAX 0.81%, French CAC40 — 1.35%.

Markets got a positive lead from the US government, as record petroleum exports helped shrink the US trade deficit in December to the smallest in almost three years. The Commerce Department’s figures showed that US trade deficit narrowed to $38.5 billion in December from a revised $48.6 billion in November, versus forecasts for a deficit of $46.0 billion. According to the report, it is the smallest US trade deficit since the $37.1 billion deficit in January of 2010, and it can allow an upward revision to the disappointing Q4 GDP data. The initial report on Q4 GDP showed a 0.1% contraction compared to estimates for an increase of 1.0%.

Asian stocks are mostly up in early Monday trading, as Shanghai Composite is going up 0.57%, Hang Seng rising 0.16%, and only the Nikkei 225 dipping 1.8%.

The 31st Iran’s most important film presentation and competition, Fajr International Film Festival, has wrapped up during an award ceremony in Tehran’s Milad Tower.

Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini and the Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari, attended the ceremony held on Sunday evening, February 10.

The ceremony hosted the winners of national sections including ‘Looking for Simorgh (Iranian cinema)’, ‘Cinema Vérité’ and competition section of the festival.

This year’s Best Film Award went to Ali Ghaffari’s feature-length movie Refund while Parviz Shahbazi’s Darband received the Best Director Award.

Hamid Farrokhnejad picked up the Best Actor Award for his role in Refundand the Best Actress Award was presented to Hanieh Tavassoli for her role in The Corridor directed by Behrouz Shoeibi.

Behnam Behzadi also garnered the Best Screenplay Award for the movie Rule of Accident and Hamed Sabet was awarded with the Best Movie Soundtrack Prize for his work in Berlin-7.

Supervised by Iran’s Ministry of Culture, the annual event is comprised of two competitive sections as well as two non-competitive categories.

The 2013 Fajr film festival was held in different sections including ‘International section’, ‘Looking for Simorgh’ (Iranian cinema), ‘New Vision’ (the first films competition) and ‘Cinema Vérité’ (documentary competition).

“The 31st Fajr Film Festival was much better than its previous editions both in terms of quality and quantity of the participated films,” Hosseini said.

The 31st Fajr International Film Festival took place from January 31 through February 10, 2013.

Iran holds the international Fajr film, theater, music, visual arts and poetry festivals every year to commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

FGP/FGP

The gap between the very rich and the less fortunate in Britain has risen sharply since the 1990s, a study has found.

Analysis by the Resolution Foundation think tank shows that the top earners in Britain now take home 10 percent of every pound earned in the country that is a three percent growth in 15 years while the bottom half of earners’ have seen their share fall from 19 percent to 18 percent over the period.

“The growing gap in incomes is pronounced when you look at the top 10th of households, and overwhelming when you consider the position of the top 1%. The rest of society hasn’t kept up. It’s the squeezed majority, not just the squeezed middle,” Mathew Whittaker, a senior economist at the thinktank, said.

This comes as dealing with the gap between the rich and poor has turned into a deteriorating political issue.

Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband has called for a policy of “pre-distribution” to try to narrow the gap between the best and worst paid, while others from across the political spectrum, including the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, have praised the idea of employers promising to pay the Living Wage, which is currently £8.55 an hour in London, and £7.45 elsewhere.

The Resolution Foundation’s report, dubbed Squeezed Britain 2013, also highlights the misery of middle-earners as many of them have seen their incomes decline, due to high inflation and weak bargaining power in the workplace.

BGH/AMR/HE

Ahmadinejad: I’ll Negotiate When You Pull the Gun Away From My Face

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

Mark Rain (CC-BY)

The Iranian president has offered to negotiate personally with the United States over his country’s nuclear program–with one proviso.

“You pull away the gun from the face of the Iranian nation, and I myself will enter the talks with you,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

It’s an admission that the sanctions imposed on the country, pushed by the Obama administration in favor of direct military action, could be working. Although sanctions are a form of collective punishment that can also backfire.

The Guardian points out that this could all be a power play for Ahmadinejad where internal Iranian politics are concerned:

Ahmadinejad is in his final months of his term of office and his followers are weakened by a feud with the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment. His latest statement, which implies that he is an equal player with Khamenei in foreign policy matters, may simply be an attempt to appear as though he is still politically relevant.

“You pull away the gun from the face of the Iranian nation, and I myself will enter the talks with you,” Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony marking the 34th anniversary of the 1979 revolution that toppled a Western-backed monarch and ushered in the Islamic Republic.

Read more

–Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi has escaped an apparent assassination attempt in an incident where his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in the northern province of Nineveh.

A provincial police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bomb went off on Sunday in the al-Qayara district of Mosul, situated some 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad, Iraqi media reported.

Security officials said the bomb exploded near the convoy transporting Nujaifi, but his car was not hit and the parliament speaker was safe.

On January 13, Iraq’s Finance Minister Rafa al-Essawi also escaped a similar explosion between the towns of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, gunmen killed four people in three separate attacks in Mosul on Sunday.

Police said unknown assailants fired at a police checkpoint in the center of Mosul, killing two policemen. Later in the day, gunmen killed an off-duty soldier at a car repair shop in the city. In the third attack, gunmen fired at a van carrying oil workers, killing one and wounding three others.

MP/HSN

Adele has won best pop solo performance for her song Set Fire To The Rain at the 55th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

The British vocalist, who dominated the 2012 awards by winning six Grammys, took to the stage to collect her award wearing a striking red floral-design dress.

Speaking backstage after her win, Adele said she had been so busy singing nursery rhymes to her new baby son that: “I don’t really remember what’s cool and what’s not.”

She added that there had been little time lately to work on her new album.

“I’m not very far along at all. I’ve been out of the loop really,” she said.

The 24-year-old’s award came after a spectacular opening performance from Taylor Swift, who sang her hit song We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together while dressed as the Mad Hatter.

Swift wore a white top hat, tails, shorts and tall boots during the surreal version of her song.

Elton John and Ed Sheeran also performed a duet at the ceremony, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Following on from Adele’s success, Paul McCartney picked up his 15th Grammy by winning the best traditional pop vocal album for Kisses On The Bottom.

The Beach Boys, who reunited at last year’s show and launched a tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary, also won their first-ever Grammy for The Smile Sessions.

This year’s categories are dominated by male artists, with British folk band Mumford & Sons, the pop-rock trio FUN and R&B singer Frank Ocean heading into the show with six nominations each.

FUN has won the Grammy for song of the year for the group’s hit We Are Young.

Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and electronica star Skrillex have already taken out three wins apiece during the Grammys pre-telecast awards show.

The Grammy pre-telecast awards show at the Nokia Theatre had 70 trophies up for grabs, including rock, pop, rap and country categories.

Gotye, a Belgian-Australian artist, won best alternative album for Making Mirrors and best pop/duo performance for Somebody That I Used To Know, featuring Kimbra.

Mumford & Sons were among dozens of performers at the awards, including The Black Keys and former White Stripes frontman Jack White.

Former British Labour leader Neil Kinnock is warning Prime Minister David Cameron against insisting on a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union.

Speaking on the state-run BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement program, Kinnock warned that Cameron’s stance on the EU vote poses a risk to Britain.

Kinnock, who is also a former EU Commissioner, said that Cameron is “rolling the dice” and that the vision of leaving the EU would put off potential investors from Britain.

The former Labour leader described the British PM’s position as unstable due to the pressure put on him by eurosceptics in his Conservative party.

“He [Cameron] got himself into a corner, initially by courting the support of Europhobes in his own party and then finding that he was becoming obligated to them and trying to appease them. And of course he’s suffering the penalty that all appeasers end up suffering, or certainly should and that is to be eaten by his opponents,” Kinnock said.

This comes as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has also warned the coalition government that it would be a “huge problem” for Britain if it were to leave the EU.

Blair stressed that Cameron’s pledge for an in-out vote on membership in the bloc is not “sensible” and that the country could face prolonged “uncertainty” in the lead-up to the referendum.

This is while supporters of Cameron argue that the EU is out-of-touch, too expensive and unsupportive of Britain’s national interests.

BGH/AMR/HE

Context: As yet there are no context links for this item.

Transcript

Hassan Ghani

February 15th 2003 saw the largest protest in British history. Like millions of others across the world, the British public said no to the invasion of Iraq. Their government ignored them.So two million people marched on Britain’s cities, supported by millions more. But Tony Blair still took this country to war on what’s now apparent was flawed, or even fraudulent, intelligence. Since then Britain, much like the US, has entered an era of continuous warfare.Tariq Ali, Writer / Filmmaker“It pains me when good people, especially in the United States, who were hostile to wars when Bush was waging them, become passive when Obama wages them.Hassan GhaniToday, in a more complex world, and with a so called war on terror that has spread to many more fronts, Britain’s anti-war movement is taking stock.Tariq Ali, Writer / Filmmaker“Effectively what we noticed in the United States today is imperial continuity. More drone attacks on Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen and Somalia under Obama than there were under Bush. The President of the United States has now the power, legal power, to order the execution of any American citizen, leave alone citizens from the rest of the world. That is the world we live in.”Hassan GhaniSo despite boasting the support of millions, has the anti-war movement essentially failed in its objectives of stopping war, or even affecting change in foreign policy.Jeremy Corbyn“I think we did mobilize a lot of people who became very well educated as a result of it. I think we did probably do a lot to stop any direct attack taking place on Iran at that time, or indeed since that time. Of course we didn’t succeed in stopping the wars, but that’s not a reason to go away, it’s every reason to redouble our efforts and say to people ‘there is a different alternative way of doing things’. We don’t have to arm ourselves to the teeth, we don’t have to have global military reach, we don’t have to steal other people’s raw materials and resources, we don’t have to run round the world on behalf of corporate entities. We can instead be a force for moral good in the world by respecting international law and seeking to relate to people rather than the way we’ve increasingly got involved in wars largely on behalf of the United States.I can’t promise success, but I can say: doing nothing is not an option.”Hassan GhaniIt is true however, that while there is no public appetite for further wars abroad, and opposition to Britain’s ongoing military action in Afghanistan has grown, the numbers at public protests have shrunk in recent years.Owen Jones, Journalist, The Independent“There is certainly that opposition. The reality is that at the same time we’re going through a huge economic crisis where often people’s priorities are bread and butter issues like housing, jobs, and everyday issues. I think Western foreign policy is something most British people are actually concerned about, and they do oppose those interventions, including the occupation of Afghanistan. But at the same time, at the end of the day, if you’re struggling to heat your home or feed your kids, then there are other priorities.”Hassan GhaniPerhaps one of the most effective tools going forward for the anti-war movement is to highlight the link between the cost of wars abroad and cuts in public spending at home, building ties with the UK’s growing anti-austerity movement.Owen Jones, Journalist, The Independent“The government can always afford to shell out money for wars in Afghanistan, but cuts here where they say these services are not affordable. It just shows that actually we should fighting, instead of waging war on other people we should actually be defending our services here instead.”John Rees, Counterfire / Stop the War Coalition“As long as this system shows us the face of war and austerity, we will show in opposition an anti-war movement and an anti-austerity movement, which brings together, in unity, the only kind of forces that working people really have – their strength in numbers and their capacity to organise. That is what this movement has, in the end, always been about. The struggle for success in the working class movement is the struggle for unity. Without unity we cannot win. In unity we can take down the war mongers and the profiteers.”Hassan GhaniThere were also calls to do more to counter the increasing use of drone attacks, which often result in substantial civilian deaths, a tactic which anti-war campaigners argue is counter-productive, and will ultimately increase the risk of terrorism at home.John Rees, Counterfire / Stop the War Coalition“Let’s be clear. The drone wars are about making sure that there are no body bags of American and British and European troops coming back from the theatres of war. That’s what the drone wars are about. Now if they move to drone wars, we move after the drone wars.”Victoria Brittain, Journalist / Writer“What the Obama administration has done, worse than Bush, is sanitised killing. That’s what drones are, that you have men at computers away in America killing people in Pakistan, in Yemen, in Somalia. And the fact that we know, now, that the American President personally sanctifies most of these killings, ticks off the names, including of Americans, I think is an incredibly alienating process. Everybody I know who knows about Yemen and Pakistan says that is creating new terrorists all the time, it would be strange if it wasn’t.”Hassan GhaniSuccessive British governments have denied that UK foreign policy is one of the root causes of terrorism, despite the 2005 London underground train bombers specifically citing it as their motivation.Mohammad Sidique Khan, 7/7 Bomber“Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetrate atrocities against my people all over the world, and your support of them makes you directly responsible.”Hassan GhaniIt later also emerged that intelligence officials had warned of blowback from Iraq prior to the invasion.Also being discussed in London was the fresh push for consolidating western interests in Africa. Activist Explo Nani-Kofi for years oversaw the campaign against proxy wars in Africa, and says today’s conflict in Mali is the result of a bigger picture of decades old western interference in the region, and a scramble to exploit its resources.Explo Nani-Kofi, Kilombo Centre for Civil Society and African Self-Determination, Ghana“Because China was also coming in and trying to give, what appeared to be, more favourable conditions to the African countries, it threatened the West. So the West has to go in to ensure that the control they have over these resources over the years, since the Berlin conference, is not lost.We have to democratise our states, to strengthen the grassroots control on governments and direction of policy. And if we have grassroots organisation control, then we would be able to defend the state.”Hassan GhaniThere were several other issues also under the spotlight, but one central to many of them was the west’s continued support for Israel.Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian Authority’s Rep to UK“We do understand that the crux of the problem in the Middle East today is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and all other problems are transient, they’re not going to stay there, we know that. When is the international community going to understand that they cannot the victimiser and the victim on equal footing, when they talk about this conflict.”Hassan GhaniLooking back at Iraq and 2003, Sami Ramadani opposed the regime of Saddam Hussain. But he also opposed the invasion. Ten years on, he says the US and the UK have left a poisonous legacy behind. And looking forwards, he warns others seeking to overthrow despotic regimes not to allow their struggle to be hijacked by western interests.Sami Ramadani, Senior Lecturer, London Metropolitan University“I was an exile of Saddam’s regime. We struggled against his regime for 35 years of Ba’athist rule. But the question is always posed: would intervention and imperialist backed change bring anything good for the people, would it improve the situation? No. My view was, and the view of most Iraqis overwhelmingly, was no. Saddam’s regime is a terrible dictatorship, but this alternative of backing US-led intervention would bring an even bigger disaster to the Iraqi people. And similarly if that war is to be launched on Iran, and so on. And similarly their attempt to divert the struggle of the Syrian people for democracy into darker channels.So you have a choice, in a sense. You stay opposed to dictatorship, you stay with your people demanding democracy, but if you don’t link that to opposition to imperialist intervention then the struggle will be led into a bind alley.”Hassan Ghani, for the Real News, London.

Comments

Our automatic spam filter blocks comments with multiple links and multiple users using the same IP address. Please make thoughtful comments with minimal links using only one user name. If you think your comment has been mistakenly removed please email us at contact@therealnews.com

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Context: As yet there are no context links for this item.

Transcript

Artists in Gaza including Rappers are resisting in their own way, using lyrics and music. Music has after all always been a vehicle for human expression and emotion whose words can stir and pierce the hearts of their listeners, and Palestinian youth are no exception.

Stand up: Rap first emerged in the occupied territories as a response to Israeli practices against Palestinians, then it started to expand to include domestic and youth causes.Making music is a form of resistance to war, occupation, siege and internal problems and also a tool to communicate the reality of life in Palestine.(Interview: Nour Al-Dain, Gaza Team)Transcript: (I found myself in this music, I can explain many things, I begin Hip Hop in 2003, I can use this art to present myself and send a lot of messages. Hip Hop is a life style, how I’m living, because I write about everything I’m living everyday about the problem of the occupation, siege, electricity, civil problems.)The Street Band Rappers have managed in the past few years to perform a number of parties as part of a wider musical line-up, gaining the confidence and experience to organize their own ill-fated gig but now they are banned from performing by the local authorities in Gaza. The real news talked to Mohammad Antar who recorded five albums, some solo, others in collaboration with a band called DARG Team. He also held dozens of concerts, before the permit application and the decision to ban rap. Rappers in Gaza say that Hamas authorities in Gaza are not happy with their type of music, finding it unacceptable.(Interview: Mohammad Antar, Palestinian Rapper)Transcript: (Hipop for me is my life style, and rapping is the way I express my self, and present my issues, rap is really important for me, because it’s the message that I think is represent people here,, how they live and what they want, my songs talk about all the issues and difficulties that people face here, I’m not allowed to perform in gaza, and I got arrested for my political message in my tracks, their reason because it’s a western culture and they do not need it in Gaza,)At one point, there were three rap bands in Gaza, but most of them have left Gaza. The real news talked to the spokesperson of the Police department in Gaza and asked him why these rappers cannot perform in public and what are the conditions required to obtain a permit. In addition to why Gaza’s cinema houses are still defunct and closed under the name of social and ideological conservatism(Interview: Ayman Batnigi, spokesperson of the Hamas Police in Gaza)Transcript: (All applications for holding cultural events should be addressed to the head of the police to decide whether a permit should be given or not. Applications for other events organized by political groups are usually discussed by the internal security to determine the decision. We do not ban any events related to different cultural events if they are unique but we know that some elements who are affiliated to some cultural associations have some social and security problems for their involvement in suspicious acts. We as a conservative society under siege have our own customs and traditions and we are very careful when dealing with western cultural ideas and practices that could be very destructive more than weapons)Having fallen in love with the music of rappers, they draw rap graffiti, perform break dance and sing Arabic rap, composing their own melodies and lyrics, teaching themselves off the internet. Art and music is the medium through which they can express their frustration and send their message as most governments in Gaza and the West Bank have ignored rap and rappers(Interview: Hazem Balousha, Communication And Development Center)Transcript: (Youth in Gaza are representing the community, they have the energy, but the problem, they do not have the space, and the place to express themselves, they are busy with the daily problems, problems with occupation, restriction of movement, and they have problems with the local authorities, the restriction on freedom of expression affected them of expressing themselves in organizing whatever they want, for example, the rappers were restricted to conduct concerts in public, youth are not able to gather and to organize public events, for example, many NGO’s were shut down, the political problems influence the situation, the division, the local authorities are restricting some activities because concerning they belong to the rival, they do not have the institution backing them, the majority of youth unemployed, so they are busy looking for better future)(Interview: Asma Al-Ghoul, Youth activist)Transcript: (The situion of freedom of expression is very sad in Gaza, especially for rappers and for rap music, there are a lot of reason, the society, the traditions and of the course the government’s policy with them, I remember 3 years ago I saw Palestinian rapper team performing in Copenhagen, I saw of the concerts there and I cannot see them performing in Gaza! Young people in Gaza need new kind of music to express their energy, classic will not work with this energy, most of the words in these songs about Palestine, against occupation, it’s not about love, the words are very patriot words, their songs very strong ) Young people in Gaza make up about 55% of Gaza’s 1.7 million population, many have talents, striving like other youth in most parts of the world to have a better future. They take part in social events, to educate and express themselves. Stand up: Artistic events ranging from concerts, to workshops to art exhibitions, take place regularly in Gaza to tackle different issues, for example we are now going to see this play which talks about the suffering and resilience inside Gaza.The event took place at Al-Qattan foundation for the child in Gaza city, where it was attended by local and international activists, who advocate for human rights and justice.Attending such events, at least Gazans do not hear the sound of bombs, bullets or drones.Through holding such cultural activities, talented young people aim to send a message that Palestinians are and resilient despite all odds.Yousef Al-HelouThe Real NewsGaza

Comments

Our automatic spam filter blocks comments with multiple links and multiple users using the same IP address. Please make thoughtful comments with minimal links using only one user name. If you think your comment has been mistakenly removed please email us at contact@therealnews.com

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

A powerful explosion has been heard outside the French embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus, as Syrian soldiers continue battling foreign-sponsored militants on the outskirts of the city.

MP/HJL

Police in America have offered a \$1m (£632,000) reward for information leading to the capture of ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the reward as Dorner – suspected of three murders – remained at large for a fourth day.

“We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security, the tranquility of our neighbourhoods and our communities,” Mr Villaraigosa said at a news conference announcing the reward.

“We will not tolerate this reign of terror that has robbed us of the peace of mind that residents of southern California deserve. We will not tolerate this murderer remaining at large.”

The mayor said local leaders, businesses, unions, law enforcement and community groups had pooled resources to raise the reward money.

Police have been hunting the snow-blanketed California mountains for Dorner, 33, a disgruntled former officer.

He threatened to murder police in a chilling online manifesto.

More than 100 police have searched for Dorner after his car was found in a nearby area, reportedly with weapons and a broken axle.

The search has focused on cabins above the ski resort of Big Bear, two hours east of Los Angeles, where Dorner’s burnt-out pickup truck was found in nearby woods.

Dorner, a naval reservist, is suspected of killing a couple on February 3 and then ambushing two policemen early on Thursday, killing one. He is also suspected of injuring another officer in a separate incident.

In his internet manifesto threatening police and their families, Dorner pledged to “bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty”.

The LAPD, backed by agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is protecting over 40 possible targets, some of them identified in Dorner’s rambling manifesto.

Iran-hostage drama Argo continued its journey from awards-season outsider to favourite, winning three prizes, including best picture, at the Baftas.

Ben Affleck was named best director for film about a risky plot to rescue of a group of US diplomats from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The film also took the editing trophy.

It is now considered a front-runner for the best picture award at the Oscars on February 24, even though Affleck was not nominated for best director.

George Clooney, who co-produced the film, paid tribute to Affleck, saying: “You’re smart and you know what you want but more important, you love what you’re doing.”

And few were surprised when Daniel Day-Lewis picked up the best actor award for his title role in Lincoln.

Day-Lewis’ award was the only prize out of 10 nominations for Steven Spielberg’s historical biopic.

The British actor accepted the award and poked fun at his own reputation for immersing himself in his characters and his devotion to method acting.

“On the chance I might one day have to speak on an evening such as this I’ve stayed in character as myself for the last 55 years,” he said.

Day-Lewis, who has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for his performance, is also tipped to win an Oscar later this month.

Skyfall won Outstanding British Film, and its director Sam Mendes paid tribute to the “bravery and brilliance” of Daniel Craig and “the great” Ian Fleming, who created James Bond.

Speaking backstage, Mendes said he would love to make another Bond film.

He told reporters: “I’ve had a great time, it’s been a huge learning curve and we would want to make a better movie next time around, and if we thought we do that they might let me have another go again.”

Thomas Newman’s score also won the best-music prize.

Made-in-Britain French revolutionary musical Les Miserables won four prizes, including best supporting actress for Anne Hathaway. 

She also expressed sympathy for co-star Eddie Redmayne, who had been due to present an award but – co-presenter Sally Field informed the audience – was vomiting backstage.

“Feel better,” Hathaway said. “I mean I’d be holding your hair back, but, you know…”

Hitchcock actor Helen Mirren, who turned heads with a pink hairdo, lost to Emmanuelle Riva, the 85-year-old French film legend.

Riva was named best actress for her performance in Amour, which also won best foreign-language film.

Quentin Tarantino picked up the award for his western Django Unchained and thanked his actors for doing a “bang-up job with my dialogue”.

The film has attracted criticism for its liberal use of racial insults and Tarantino thanked his backers for standing by what he described as “a hot potato” film.

Django Unchained’s Christoph Waltz won the supporting actor gong, and the actor said his victory was entirely due to Tarantino – “you silver-penned devil, you.”

Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty was shut out of the prizes, despite five nominations.

Argo marks a change for Affleck, whose first two features as director – Gone Baby Gone and The Town – were set in his native Boston. 

“I wanted to get as far away from Boston as I could,” Affleck said.

“I ended up in Iran.”

Before the ceremony, stars including Clooney, Affleck, Hugh Jackman, Samuel L Jackson, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper braved a chilly rain that turned to snow outside the Royal Opera House.

Sunday’s ceremony also saw director Alan Parker receive a Bafta Fellowship, the academy’s highest honor, for a career that includes Midnight Express, Fame and Mississippi Burning.

Nothing Self-Made About Me

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

I disagreed with former President George W. Bush on many things. But on one issue, I admired him greatly: He was wise enough to marry a teacher and a librarian. I’m unabashedly biased about this, since my late mom was also a teacher and a librarian.

I have been thinking a good deal about her because she would have turned 100 on Friday. She died in 1995, and my sister and I have spoken often about the extraordinary social changes she came to terms with and was part of.

In talking about history, we break the story up into discrete chunks: the Depression, World War II, the 1960s and the like. But lives aren’t broken up; we live them continuously. Thinking now as a parent myself, I cannot imagine how I would have dealt with children of my own had I been a father in the 1960s. How strange those years must have seemed to adults like my mom. How spoiled did my generation look to those who had lived through depression and war? It was not illogical to ask, as many did: “What are these kids complaining about?”

In retrospect, I have been struck by how sensible my mom was through the social chaos, even though those were especially jarring times in our household. My dad, her husband of 29 years, passed away suddenly in the totemic year of 1968. Yet his death almost certainly made my sister and me less likely to rebel, and my mom cut us a bit of slack. The three of us were determined not to let the cultural hurricanes of the 1960s pull us apart.

My mother–her name, from her Quebec forebears, was Lucienne–was the sort of faithful Catholic who believed history was destined to leave us in a good place. So she was not the sort to close herself off to what she could learn from what was going on around her.

She was totally dedicated to being a parent because she fought so hard to become one. She lost four kids in childbirth or shortly thereafter. It took courage for her to keep trying so she could bring my sister and me into this world. (We never had the problem of feeling unwanted.) Family values defined her.

But as the first member of her family to go to college–and at a time when few women got the chance–she had an instinctive understanding of what feminism was about. She did not like the Vietnam War, so she sympathized with protests against it, though the movement’s most radical elements didn’t speak to her. She still honored my dad’s Army service in World War II. As I have written before, she was an early supporter of the gay rights cause, partly because her dear godson was gay and she could not abide bigotry against him, one of the most openhearted people she knew.

And she was squarely against government cutbacks when it came to schools or libraries. When federal funds were slashed in the early 1980s, she helped save the storefront branch library she presided over in my hometown of Fall River, Mass. She didn’t really need the job–she worked full time until she was 75 for very little, considering what she gave up in Social Security benefits. But she knew the literary haven she ran on Pleasant Street was the place where many low-income children first came in contact with books. One of the joys of her life was to foster love affairs between kids and reading.

My mom was no reflexive liberal. She started out a conservative and still held to most of her old-fashioned values even as her political views moved leftward. She was a public-employee union member but got impatient when the union blocked reforms she thought would improve services. (She complained to the union business agent about this.)

And she was very old school on matters of personal responsibility–in education, marriage, parenting, friendship and civic duty. When she died at age 82, she was serving on the board of our local community college. She loved the place for the opportunities it gave students from modest backgrounds who were willing to work hard.

Because of her and my dad, I always bridle when people declare themselves “self-made.” Such people may exist (socially if not biologically), but I’m skeptical, and would never make that claim for myself. We can never pretend that we were wise enough to have chosen great parents.

E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.
 
© 2013, Washington Post Writers Group

Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.

Previous item: Truthdigger of the Week: Anonymous Obamacare Explainer

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

A 30-year-old man is being questioned by police on suspicion of murdering a three-year-old girl.

An ambulance was called to an address on Beck Road in Shiregreen, Sheffield, on Friday.

The toddler was taken to Sheffield Children’s Hospital but died in the early hours of Saturday morning.

A South Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “A 30-year-old man from Beck Road, Shiregreen, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and inquiries are continuing.”

Detectives have appealed for anyone with information to call South Yorkshire Police on 101.

Hollywood bad boy Quentin Tarantino is celebrating after his controversial screenplay for the western Django Unchained was awarded a Bafta.

The film about a freed slave intent on revenge has attracted criticism for its liberal use of racial insults and Tarantino thanked his backers for standing by what he described as “a hot potato” as he collected the Original Screenplay gong.

Daniel Day-Lewis, who has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actor’s Guild award for his role in Lincoln and is hot favourite to carry off an Oscar, won the Bafta for Best Actor. Accepting his award, Day-Lewis poked fun at his reputation for immersing himself in his characters.

He joked: “Just on the chance I might one day have to speak on an evening such as this I’ve actually stayed in character as myself for the last 55 years and had a various selection of Bafta sets down-scaled, dating from the late fifties, placed in every single room of every house I’ve ever lived in and every time I rise from a chair it spontaneously unleashes a soundtrack of thunderous applause, with a few boos and some drunken hecklers.”

Day-Lewis was joined at Sunday night’s event by some of the biggest names in Hollywood, who braved the wind, rain and sleet to meet fans on the red carpet outside the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden.

Performers including Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence and Eddie Redmayne stopped to sign autographs and pose for pictures along with Jessica Chastain, George Clooney and Dame Helen Mirren, the latter sporting dyed pink hair.

Host Stephen Fry introduced the show with the first big award – for Outstanding British Film – going to the latest James Bond adventure, Skyfall. Its director Sam Mendes paid tribute to the “bravery and brilliance” of star Daniel Craig and “the great” Ian Fleming, who created the character of Bond.

The award for Special Visual Effects went to the 3D spectacular Life Of Pi before Clooney presented the award for Supporting Actress to Les Miserables star Anne Hathaway.

The actress thanked the “golden-hearted group” who made the film and wished her unwell co-star Redmayne well, saying: “Feel better. I mean I’d be holding your hair back, but, you know…”

Ben Affleck was named Best Director by Ian McKellen for his work on Argo, which was also named Best Film. Affleck, who rose to fame as an actor, said: “I want to say this is a second act for me and you’ve given me that, this industry has given me that and I want to thank you and I’m so grateful and proud.”

It was nice to see Chris Wallace get some push back on the assertion that we should be trying to balance our budget on the backs of our seniors or that it saves us a dime to be throwing more of them into the private insurance market by raising the age for Medicare eligibility.

Pelosi Stresses Need For Job Growth In New Budget:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defended Democrats’ desire to raise revenues by closing tax loopholes, during an interview which aired on “Fox News Sunday.”

Pelosi stressed the need for a budget which will create jobs and argued that the sequester would do too much harm to the economy. She also batted down the idea of saving money by raising the Medicare eligibility age.

“Don’t you think you ought to see if raising the age really does save money?” Pelosi said. “Those people are not going to evaporate from the face of the earth for two years. They’re going to have medical needs and they’re going to have to be attended to. And the earlier the intervention for it, the less the cost will be and the better the quality of life. I do think we should subject every federal dollar that is spent to the harshest scrutiny. And I do think the challenge to Medicare is not Medicare, the challenge is rising health care costs in general.”

Wallace was doing his usual bit where he was carping about how it wouldn’t do any good to raise taxes on the rich, because that would not completely solve the deficit problem. He had no response to this and simply moved on to the next subject.

To the vast (vast) majority of Americans, the Debt is a very abstract concept.  They hear the numbers and the warnings, but can’t phathom what it really means.  They haven’t really felt the pain, so its all just so much hot air.  But the really important thing is what they can get now:  the student loan, the EBT card, the free phone, the cut rate mortgage, etc.  Long term consquences mean nothing when weighted against the here and now.

And when it all turns to shit, the people will scream:  Why didn’t anyone tell us?

Critics can’t stop cringing, but the “Girls” star’s prolific nudity harks to a decades-old feminist art tradition.

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Center of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: publications@globalresearch.ca

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: publications@globalresearch.ca

US defense giant Raytheon has developed a controversial software that uses social networking sites to track your movements, able to predict where a person will be and their future behavior. The program has drawn criticism from civil rights groups.

A video obtained exclusively by The Guardian shows how software developed by the US defense contractor Raytheon, can gather vast amounts of personal information from social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon has admitted that the technology was shared with the US government as part of a joint research and development program in 2010, as part of an effort to build a national security system capable of analyzing trillions of entities from cyberspace.

But, the Massachusetts-based company says it has not sold the software, which is called Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology, to any clients.

The controversial software allegedly enables access to entire parts of a person’s life, their friends, any pictures of themselves they have posted online and places they have visited charted on a map.

In the video it is explained by Brian Urch, Raytheon’s ‘principal investigator’, exactly how the program can be used to track someone down.

“We’re going to track down one of our employees,” says Urch. He then proceeds to show, using information gathered from social networking sites, how “Nick” visited Washington National Park and a picture of Nick in the park with a blonde woman.

“We know where Nick is going, we know what Nick looks like, now we want to try to predict where he will be in the future,” Urch continues.

As Nick regularly uses Foursquare, a phone app that alerts friends to your whereabouts, it was possible for Riot to track the top ten places visited by Nick and the times at which they were visited.

It shows that Nick visits a gym every Monday at 6am. “So if you want to get hold of Nick, or maybe get hold of his laptop, you might want to visit the gym at 6am on a Monday,” says Urch.

Using public websites for law enforcement is considered legal in most countries, and Riot will be of interest to intelligence and national security agencies. In February last year the FBI requested that it wanted to develop ways of mining social media sites for monitoring “bad actors or groups”.

This has prompted concern from civil liberties groups about online privacy. Ginger McCall, an attorney at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Riot raised concerns about how an individual’s data could be collected covertly without oversight or regulation.

“Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead it is being used by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search,” McCall told The Guardian.

But Raytheon defended its product and in an email to the Guardian Jared Adams, a spokesman for the company’s intelligence and information systems department, said it would help to meet the US’s rapidly changing security needs.He also highlighted that it does not analyze personally identifiable information, such as bank details or social security numbers.

In December Raytheon indicated that Riot would be part of a patent the company is pursuing for a system designed to gather data from social networking sites and blogs to identify if someone is a national security risk.

The following rather stunning documentary provides a critical insight into what Europe (and Argentina once again) could well be progressing towards. There is a reason we highlight the ‘scariest chart in Europe’ as that of youth unemployment and with the central banks printing money at ever increasing paces and the next round of global competitive devaluation beginning, the debt slaves will suffer ever more. In 2001, Argentina collapsed; after many years of apathy in the country, the insurrection exploded. As TopDocumentary notes, the spontaneous revolt of ‘faceless’ people meant saucepans were being banged in every neighborhood.

What happened to Argentina? How was it possible that in so rich a country so many people were hungry? The country had been ransacked by a new form of aggression, committed in time of peace and in a democracy. A daily and silent violence that caused greater social disruption, more emigration and death than the terrorism of the dictatorship and the Falkland Islands war.

Ever since independence, almost 200 years ago, Argentina’s foreign debt has been a source of impoverishment and corruption and the biggest scandals. Since the first loan negotiated by Rivadavia in 1824 with the British Bank Baring Brothers, the debt was used to enrich Argentinean financiers, to control the finances and empty the country of its wealth.

This foreign debt always went hand in hand with big business, and with the complicity of nearly every government, from Miter and Quintana to Menem and De la Rua. The policy of indebtedness gave rise in Argentina to generations of technocrats and bureaucrats, who favored banks and international corporations over their own country. Educated at Harvard, Chicago, Oxford or Buenos Aires, their portraits hang in the official galleries.

Think of it as the story of two antagonists. One of them was an honest Senator who came to Washington to fight corruption. The other is an arrogant banker who’s so sure of his untouchability that he wore “FBI” cufflinks when he made a public appearance last month.

The Senator

Former Sen. Ted Kaufman, whose epic struggle to bring Wall Street to justice was depicted in PBS Frontline’s recent episode The Untouchables, made a striking observation on a press call today. “In a private case,” Sen. Kaufman said, the Dexia bank’s lawsuit “… uncovered reams of emails directly related to the fact that fraud was (allegedly) being committed by JPMorgan Chase.”

He was referring to headlines like “E-Mails Imply JPMorgan Knew Some Mortgage Deals Were Bad” in the New York Times and “JPMorgan Hid Reports of Defective Loans Before Sales” in Bloomberg News. Sen. Kaufman added:

“It is just hard to believe that if the Department of Justice had made Wall St fraud a major priority, with the resources they have, they could not have found these same emails and brought these cases.”

It’s not just that the government wasn’t bringing a case against JPMorgan Chase.  Everybody in Washington from the President on down was praising its CEO, Jamie Dimon, claiming he was our nation’s smartest and most ethical banker. So were a lot of reporters. Roger Lowenstein’s flattering profile of the dyspeptic Dimon remains a classic of the Wall Street flattery genre.

Even Alison Frankel, who has done some excellent reporting in this area, was somehow able to ask only last month (unless her editors wrote the headline for her): “Is JPMorgan Chase the new MBS (mortgage-backed securities) piñata?”

Sometimes a piñata turns out to be a real donkey.

FBI Cufflinks

Wall Street Journal reporter David Erlich sent this to his Twitter followers from the international finance soiree at Davos: “Jamie Dimon is sporting FBI cuff links at #Davos. Sadly he wouldn’t let me take a picture of them.”

But then, there are a lot of things Jamie Dimon doesn’t want coming to light. What message do you suppose he was trying to send with those cufflinks, especially in the wake of the criminal inquiries into his bank’s behavior in the “London Whale” scandal?  Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer noted last May that, based on the Justice Department’s record of hands-off attitude toward the bank, “JPMorgan Chase has nothing to fear from an FBI probe.”

Even after JPMorgan Chase entered into enormous financial settlements – for charges that ranged from sophisticated investor fraud to plain old-fashioned Alabama bribery – it was considered somehow déclassé to suggest that the crime wave which occurred on Mr. Dimon’s watch should in any way reflect badly on his character or managerial skills.

JPMorgan Chase was the “good” bank, and Dimon the “good” CEO. It was considered “unserious” to imagine that the bank’s crimes could be pursued – or, despite mountains of evidence, that they had even been committed.  But somehow Dexia and its attorneys were able to obtain evidence that the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the enormous machinery of our national security state could not – or would not – find for itself.

What did FBI-cufflink wearing Jamie tell the public about that criminal matter, the $6 billion dollar loss that he told investors was nothing? “We did have record profits. Life goes on.”

I think we can guess what the “F” stands for.

The Evidence

The information that Dexia assembled is breathtaking — and damning. The JPM section of their complaint begins by reminding us that JPMorgan Chase was lagging behind its Wall Street competitors in 2005. Dimon has tried to rewrite history since then by arguing that he was smarter than other bankers and stayed away from the short-term profits of mortgage-backed securities because he was wise enough to see how risky they were.

Nonsense. As the Dexia lawsuit recaps, they were just late to the game. Dimon was desperate to get it on the action, telling investors in the 2006 Annual Report that the unit handling MBS had “materially increased its product breadth and volume” – from virtually nothing to $25 billion in just a year.

Dimon also reassured investors that the unit “maintained its high lending standards” and had “materially tightened” its underwriting – much as he assured investors that the bank had tightened its standards after the 2008 crisis when the “London Whale” unit reporting directly to him wasn’t following published standards, and much as he told them that the “London Whale” losses were a “tempest in a teapot” when he secretly knew they amounted to billions.

The emails uncovered by Dexia show that JPMorgan Chase tried desperately to make up for its late entrance into the mortgage feeding frenzy by cutting corners and misleading investors. In fact, the Dexia suit includes documentation which suggests that Dimon had already told a senior executive to sell off the bank’s own ownership of these poorly-underwritten securities.

A Forbes magazine story cited in the suit also quote Dimon as saying “This stuff could go up in smoke!”

True Confessions

An internal JPMorgan Chase memo reportedly told staff how to cheat “Zippy,” the company’s underwriting system, by falsifying information in order to write bad loans. The memo was even entitled “Zippy Cheats & Tricks.”

The Dexia filing extensively documents JPMorgan Chase’s flouting of underwriting standards, its misrepresentations to investors, and its rewriting and falsification of independent analyses. These acts are strongly suggestive of criminal acts by individuals, as well as civil wrongdoing.

Sen. Kaufman spoke authoritatively about the deterrent effect that criminal indictments have against white-collar crime. Someone is much less likely to commit a white-collar crime, according to studies, if they know that they could be prosecuted. As Sen. Kaufman explained, this deterrent effect is much weaker for drug crimes, whose perpetrators have already faced the criminal justice system. But bank crimes aren’t drug crimes – except, of course, when they are.

Sen. Kaufman added: “There have been a number of us saying in the cases against JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the big banks was that one of the problems with the settlements … is that they never had to admit wrongdoing.”

The Badge

When JPMorgan Chase was sued over the actions of subsidiary Bear Stearns, it implied that it had only acquired that firm as a favor to the nation – a myth the press has often repeated – and made it clear that it felt it was unfair to be punished for the acts of an organization that was not under Mr. Dimon’s supervision at the time. Thanks to Dexia, that particular injustice has now been corrected.

It remains to be seen if the Justice Department will follow Dexia’s lead and investigate the compelling evidence of criminal actions at JPMorgan Chase.

Jamie Dimon may believe that he and his peers above the law, but there are still honest people trying to hold them accountable. And he may have those FBI cufflinks, but hey — Elvis Presley got Richard Nixon to give him a badge from the Narcotics Bureau, and we know how that story ended.

(The press call was part of the Campaign for a Fair Settlement’s call for prosecution of Wall Street crimes in the first 100 days of the President’s second term.)

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Lowering interest rate and making credit abundant doesn’t make employers hire more workers.

The Federal Reserve’s policy of targeting unemployment is based on a curious faith that low interest rates and lots of liquidity sloshing around the bank system with magically lead employers to hire more workers. I say this is a curious faith because it makes no sense. In effect, the Fed policy is based on the implicit assumption that the only thing holding entrepreneurs and employers back from hiring is the cost and availability of credit.

But as anyone in the actual position of hiring more staff knows, it is not a lack of cheap credit that makes adding workers unattractive, it is the lack of opportunities to increase profit margins by adding more workers.

If the economic boom of the mid-1980s proves anything, it is that the cost of credit can be very high but that in itself does not restrain real growth. What restrains growth is not interest rates, it is opportunities to profitably expand operations.

What the Fed cannot dare admit is that in a crony-capitalist, globalized, State/cartel-dominated economy, there are few profitable opportunities, regardless of the cost of credit. Yes, there is a natural-gas boom in the Dakotas, but outside of energy plays the harsh reality is that the only way for most businesses to increase profits is reduce labor, not hire more workers.

The second survival tactic is to lower labor costs by recycling full-time, full benefits jobs into part-time or lower-paid jobs. Rather than pay insanely high healthcare premiums on full-time jobs, businesses lay off full-benefit workers and replace them with a mix of part-time workers who receive no benefits or contract workers who handle their own healthcare costs.

Older workers often complain that they have been replaced with “cheaper” younger workers who will work for less, but the real trend to is to hire higher-productivity workers for less pay. In most cases, as revealed by the above chart, the older workers are higher productivity for a number of self-evident reasons: they won’t take maternity leave, they know their work well and have proven a work ethic that younger workers may not have had the opportunity to prove.

It is difficult to transition to a new career or get a job as an inexperienced worker for the reason that employers want someone who can be productive on Day One. Sadly, it is too costly and risky to take chances with on-the-job training or mentoring; it is lower-risk to find someone who can do the work immediately.

Older workers’ healthcare insurance costs are skyhigh, but the solution is to hire older workers as consultants and push the costs of healthcare onto them. In many cases, older workers are covered by a spouse’s insurance, so they can afford to take a job that offers no benefits.

The other trend the Fed cannot dare recognize is that cheap credit enables employers to reduce labor by investing in automation and software. If opportunities are scarce (and they are), or if the business is hanging on by a thread, then hiring more employees is the last thing an employer would do to boost productivity: the solution is reduce headcount and invest in tools that make the remaining employees more productive.

We can see this reality in the following charts: full-time employment has returned to levels reached 13 years ago, but median wages are lower, reflecting the “recycling” described above.

Meanwhile, labor’s share of the non-farm private economy has fallen off a cliff, along with money velocity, which measures the relative activity of cash and credit:

So exactly what mechanism is the Fed trying to boost with super-low interest rates and massive liquidity (free money) in the banking sector? Answer: push businesses into high-risk ventures.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans: “The investment climate seems to be one where people are increasingly understanding that very low interest rates on super safe assets are going to be around for a while. And if they’re worried by that they need to take on more risk – and taking on that more risk will help get the economy growing.”

In other words, the Fed’s policy is to push for more mal-investment. There is no other way to describe the flow of money into risky, marginal ventures.

Note to Fed: there is too much of everything. Too many restaurants, too many apps, too many empty dwellings (19 million at last count), too many malls, too many nail salons. There is too much junk for sale everywhere, from retail outlets to online to jumble/garage sales. The developed world is awash in overcapacity in every sector other than a relative handful of special equipment/services (deep-ocean drilling rigs, etc.)

Pushing businesses to borrow money to gamble in risky ventures is precisely what happened in Japan in the late 1980s. With interest rates low and credit in abundance, bank reps went around to enterprises small and large begging them to borrow money for essentially any reason.

The net result: massive bubbles across asset classes and an overhang of debt that remains 20+ years later, as unpayable now as it was in 1992. That is the result of pushing enterprises into risk-on bets: bubbles and collapses.

What those with access to the Fed’s free money–big banks and hedge funds–are doing with the zero-cost credit is invest in rentier skimming operations: buying 5,000 single family homes, buying $1 billion in apartments and homes to rent out, etc.

“It’s hard to find a private-equity firm on the planet that doesn’t have a strategy in this space,” Gary Beasley, chief executive officer at Waypoint Homes, said last week at the American Securitization Forum’s annual conference in Las Vegas. The Oakland, California-based company has bought homes in California, Arizona, Illinois and Georgia.

How many jobs are created by rentier skimming? Very few. Get the houses painted, hire a few handypeople to take care of maintenance and a few people to handle the property management.

The other way to make money with nearly-free credit is to chase risk-on assets, for example stocks. Why would any hedge fund or bank trading desk with easy access to the Fed’s free money bother taking risks in the real economy which is burdened with massive over-capacity and sclerotic State-mandated cartels (healthcare, defense, etc.) when the easy money is in chasing assets higher?

How many jobs are created by chasing assets higher? Maybe the Fed thinks that high-end Manhattan restaurants will add staff to handle the influx of new money skimmed from the stock and bond markets, but if they think rentier/speculative skimming is going to add millions of jobs to the economy, they are delusional.

Perhaps if any of the Fed governors had ever operated a real business in the real economy, the board might have a somewhat better grasp on reality.

China has been a very active purchaser of gold for its reserves in the last few years, as we extensively covered here and here, but another nation has taken over the ‘biggest buyer’ role (for the same reasons as China).

Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, and as Bloomberg reports, IMF data shows Russia added 570 metric tons in the past decade. Putin’s fears that “the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly,” are clearly being taken seriously as the world’s largest oil producer turns black gold into hard assets. A lawmaker in Putin’s party noted, “the more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency.”

Putin’s gold strategy fits in with his resource nationalism, statist agenda, as Bloomberg notes when Russia defaulted in 1998 it took 28 barrels of oil to buy one ounce of gold, was 11.5 barrels when Putin came to power and when in 2005 it had fallen to 6.5 barrels (less than half what it is now), he went all in, telling the central bank to buy.

Russia has gone through bouts of hoarding before – from 1867’s Tsar Alexander II to Lenin, for now, with more than five years left in Putin’s term, Russia plans to keep on buying – “The pace will be determined by the market,” First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 25. “Whether to speed that up or slow it down is a market decision and I’m not going to discuss it.”

Via Bloomberg,

Putin Turns Black Gold Into Bullion as Russia Out-Buys World

When Vladimir Putin says the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly, he’s not just talking. He’s betting on it.

Not only has Putin made Russia the world’s largest oil producer, he’s also made it the biggest gold buyer. His central bank has added 570 metric tons of the metal in the past decade, a quarter more than runner-up China, according to IMF data compiled by Bloomberg. The added gold is also almost triple the weight of the Statue of Liberty.

“The more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency,” Evgeny Fedorov, a lawmaker for Putin’s United Russia party in the lower house of parliament, said in a telephone interview in Moscow.

…

In 1998, the year Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt, it took as many as 28 barrels of crude to buy an ounce of gold, Bloomberg data show. That ratio tumbled to 11.5 by the time Putin first came to power a year later and in 2005, after it touched 6.5 — less than half what it is now — the president told the central bank to buy.

During a tour that November of the Magadan region in the Far East, where Polyus Gold International Ltd. and Polymetal International Plc have operations, Putin told Bank Rossii not to “shy away” from the metal. “After all, they’re called gold and currency reserves for a reason,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

Lucky Guy

At the time, gold was trading at an 18-year high of $495 an ounce and the Moscow-based central bank held 387 tons, or 2.2 percent of its $165 billion total reserves. The share reached 3.5 percent within a month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

An ounce of gold for immediate delivery traded at $1,670 as of 7:24 p.m. Moscow time on Feb. 8. It rose 7 percent last year, the 12th straight year of gains. Analysts expect the metal to advance again in 2013, to $1,825 by the end of the year, according to the median of 26 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.

“Putin’s gold strategy fits in with his resource nationalism, statist agenda,” said Tim Ash, head of emerging- market research at Standard Bank Plc in London. “It’s kind of a defensive play, but it worked, right?” Ash said in an interview in Moscow. “You need luck in politics and business, and clearly the guy has it.”

Brown’s Bottom

Other world leaders haven’t been as lucky. Gordon Brown, as U.K. finance minister, sold almost 400 tons of gold in the 30 months to March 2002, when prices were at two-decade lows. London tabloids have referred to the period as Brown’s Bottom.

Quantitative easing by major economies to support financial asset prices is driving demand for gold in the emerging world, said Marcus Grubb, head of investment research at the World Gold Council. Before the crisis, central banks were net sellers of 400 to 500 tons a year. Now, led by Russia and China, they’re net buyers by about 450 tons,

…

While Putin is leading the gold rush in emerging markets, developed nations are liquidating. Switzerland unloaded the most in the past decade, 877 tons, an amount now worth about $48 billion, according to International Monetary Fund data through November. France was second with 589 tons, while Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal each sold more than 200 tons.

No Hoard

Communist secrecy regarding the country’s gold holdings fueled speculation that party elites had amassed a huge hoard of bullion that they spirited out of the country before the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.

…

“When people ask about the party’s gold, my answer is always: Are you an idiot or something?” Gerashchenko, 75, told Afisha magazine.

For now, with more than five years left in Putin’s term, Russia plans to keep on buying.

“The pace will be determined by the market,” First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 25. “Whether to speed that up or slow it down is a market decision and I’m not going to discuss it.”

New Syrian National Coalition head Mouaz al-Khatib (Reuters / Benoit Tessier)

Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib, has said that he is willing to hold talks with representatives of the Assad government in the rebel-controlled north of the country.

“If the regime is so concerned about sovereignty and does not want to venture out of Syrian territories, then there is a suitable solution, which is the liberated land in northern Syria,” al-Khatib, the head of the Syrian National Coalition said in a statement on his Facebook page, Reuters reports.

According to the opposition leader the aim of the talks would be to find a way for the President Bashar Assad to step down with “the minimum of blood and destruction.”

Earlier last week given the dire situation in Syria, al-Khatib said he was ready to meet with Assad’s deputy Farouq al-Shara, in the hope of opening up a dialogue with the government.

The move towards negotiations was praised by the United Nations with the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, describing the offer as “the most promising thing we’ve heard on Syria recently.”

He added the UN and Arab league envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi was exploring how to use al-Khatib’s offer in efforts to find solution to the stalled crisis.

According to UN figures, more than 60,000 people have been killed since Syria plunged into bloody unrest nearly two years ago.

With China offline celebrating its New Year, and potentially mobilizing forces in (not so) secret, and not much on the global event docket, the upcoming G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Moscow at the end of the week will be the key event for FX markets, which these days define every other aspect of risk. It should surprise nobody the last couple of weeks have seen increased attention on exchange rates and the frequent use of the “currency war” label by policymakers in many countries. No news announcements are expected at the BoJ meeting on Thursday, following the formal announcement of a 2% inflation target and an open-ended asset purchase program.

On the data side, US retail sales on Wednesday will provide an important signal about the strength of the US consumer following the largest tax increase in decades. Although January auto and same store sales data was reasonably solid, new taxes will soon begin to weigh on spending. Also on Wednesday, Japan Q4 GDP will be released. On Thursday, Q4 GDP for France, Germany, Italy and the Euro area will be released. While Q4 contraction is assured, the key question mark is whether German can rebound in Q1 and avoid a full blown recession as opposed to a “brief, technical” one, as the New Normal economic term goes.

Key macro events in the coming week:

Monday 11th February

• Czech Republic CPI: Consensus: +2.1%, Previous: +2.4%.
• Also interesting: US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Yellen speaks on US labor recovery. The speech could shed light on which labor market indicators the Fed will be watching in addition to its 6.5% unemployment threshold.

Tuesday 12 February

• Indonesia Central Bank Meeting: Consensus: 5.75%, Previous: 5.75%.
• UK CPI: Previous: +2.7% yoy.

Wednesday 13 February

• Sweden Central Bank Meeting: Consensus 1.0%, Previous 1.0%.
• South Korea Central Bank Meeting: Consensus: 2.75%, Previous: 2.75%.
• US Retail Sales: Consensus +0.1%, Previous +0.5%.
• Japan Q4 GDP: Previous: -3.5%.
• Also interesting: Bank of England Inflation Report.

Thursday 14 February

• Japan Central Bank Meeting: no change in the discount rate or open-ended Asset Purchase Program.
• France Q4 GDP: Consensus: -0.2%, Previous: +0.1% qoq.
• Germany Q4 GDP: Consensus: -0.5%, Previous: +0.2% qoq.
• Italy Q4 GDP: Consensus: -0.6%, Previous: -0.2% qoq.
• Euro area Q4 GDP: GS: -0.2% qoq, Previous: -0.1% qoq.
• Czech Republic Q4 GDP: Consensus: -1.7% yoy, Previous: -0.2% qoq, -0.3% yoy.

Friday 15 February

• US February Consumer Sentiment: Consensus 74.8, Previous 73.8.
• UK Retail Sales ex autos: Previous: -0.3% mom.
• G20 Finance Ministers Meeting starts in Moscow: The statement and main events are scheduled for Saturday 16 February

* * *

And while the US may be boring, things in Europe are starting to heat up, in advance of the Italian elections in precisely two weeks:

• 9 February: Italian opinion polls embargoed. From 9 February opinion polls cannot be published.
• 11-12 February: Eurogroup/ECOFIN meetings. Latest meetings of the 17 euro area and 27 EU finance ministers. On the agenda will be the Annual Growth Survey conclusions. This is the exercise in which the Commission sets out the priorities for member states to follow in order to achieve growth. The AGS is part of the new ‘European Semester’, the integrated policy coordination framework. The AGS priorities for 2013 are: reducing national debts without harming growth; restoring normal lending to the economy; promoting growth and competitiveness; tackling unemployment and the social consequences of the crisis; modernising public administration.
• 12 February: Draghi to meet Spanish lawmakers.
• 12 February: Italy auction. Bills.
• 12 February: Spain auction. Bills.
• 13 February: (prelim) EMU Industrial production (Dec ’12).
• 13 February: Italy auction. Bonds.
• 14 February: Flash estimate of Q4 GDP. Eurostat will release its flash estimate for euro area GDP growth on the same day the majority of EMU members release their own estimates. We forecast euro area GDP to contract 0.4% qoq.
• 14 February: EU to proposal Financial Transaction Tax for 11 member states.
• 14 February: G20 deputy finance ministers and central bank governors meeting.
• 15-16 February: G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting.
• 17 February. Presidential election, Cyprus. Cyprus will hold its presidential election, and with the president holding executive power as head of government, this could play a role in the agreement on financial assistance for the country. With outgoing president, Demetris Christofias, expressing opposition to privatisation of state-owned enterprises that could be required under the terms of the bailout, it has been reported that finalisation the deal may have to wait until after the election. The consistent leader in the opinion polls is Nicos Anastasiades, the leader of the centre-right Democratic Rally party. He has publicly committed to implementing the terms of a bailout.
• 19 February: Rajoy to speak to Spanish parliament on economic and fiscal outlook.
• 19 February: Spain auction. Bills.
• 21 February: Spain auction. Bonds.
• 22 February: European Commission to release macro forecast update.
• 24 February. Presidential election, second round, Cyprus (tbc). If no candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote in the first round on 17 February, a run-off election between the top two candidates will be held on 24 February.
• 24-25 February: Italian elections from 7.00 am (UK time) on 24 February to 2.00pm (UK time) on 25 February. According to Bloomberg the first exit polls will be released shortly after 2.00pm UK time (9.00am in New York) on 25 February.
• 25 February: Italy auction. Bonds.
• 26 February: Italy auction. Bills.
• 27 February: 3Y LTRO prepayment window. Euro area banks that drew down the second 3Y LTRO liquidity in February 2012 will have the option to start prepaying the money. The ECB will publish weekly statistics on the total prepaid and the number of banks making the prepayments. Banks will inform the ECB in advance.
• 27 February: Italy auction. Bonds.
• 27 February: (prelim) EMU Business climate indicator for the Euro area (Feb ’13)
• By end February: Greek tax reform/tranche payment. EUR34.3bn of the EUR49.1bn instalment was paid to Greece in December. The remaining EUR14.8bn will be disbursed in Q1. Of this, EUR7.2bn covered bank recapitalisation and resolution costs and is due in January. The rest, to finance deficits, depend on ‘milestones’ being reached. In February, the milestone is an update Greece’s MTFS (Medium Term Fiscal Strategy), including setting binding 3-year spending ceilings on components of government spending.

Sources: GS and DB

Desperate L.A. Offers $1 Million Bounty for Accused Cop Killer

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

John Liu (CC-BY)

A week after former police officer Christopher Dorner is alleged to have begun killing those people he reportedly views as his enemies, authorities in Southern California–and even actor Charlie Sheen–are doing everything they can to bring the elusive man out of the shadows.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a $1 million reward for information leading to Dorner’s capture. Sheen, who was mentioned in a manifesto attributed to Dorner, released a video inviting the accused gunman to call and “figure out together how to end this thing.”

Dorner believes he was wrongfully dismissed from the police force, and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has ordered a review of the case. The chief has also promised to meet with the accused killer if he surrenders.

Dorner was last thought to be in the Big Bear mountain resort area about two hours east of downtown Los Angeles, but authorities have been unable to pick up his trail.

In two separate incidents, officers protecting people believed to be on a kill list shot at and injured innocent people they presumably mistook for the gunman.

–Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

(h/t Mediaite)

Saturday Night Live’s executive producer Lorne Michaels reserves the right to change his show right up to airing, the privilege of broadcasting live. Famously, Billy Crystal was part of the original cast and had a featured skit on the very first airing in October of ’75, until Michaels cut it the day of broadcast and it took years for Crystal to officially join the cast. I offer this up as a caveat that it is not necessarily anything political that caused Michaels to cut the original cold open for last night’s SNL episode, replacing it instead with a skit about CBS trying desperately to fill airtime during the 35 minute blackout during the Super Bowl. It is entirely possible that Michaels felt this was the funnier or more biting satire of which he likes to think SNL is capable. Whatever his reasoning, they did allow the dress rehearsal to be available online for comparison.

It is not hard to imagine the pearl clutching and cries of outrage (Outrage, I tell you!) had this skit gone out on the airwaves, depicting the blatant pandering and ridiculousness of the dialogue in Washington surrounding the hearing on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to the position of Secretary of Defense. I’m sure that Lindsey Graham and his BFF Grampy McCain would be issuing a proclamation of censure and a threat to deport Lorne Michaels back to Canada. How dare SNL mock the “When did you stop beating your wife?” line of questioning that the Republicans proffered to prove how much more they love the state of Israel? I’m still wondering if anyone in the Beltway media will ever wonder why blind obeisance to Israel is considered a requirement for holding an American political office.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend its borders. I’m just not sure that it should be a requirement that we have to act as an extension of that.

Personally, I thought Fred Armisen’s imitation of Bernie Sanders was perfect and the skit was worth airing for that alone.

A one-month-old baby who was dragged from his cot by a fox is said to be recovering well.

Denny Dolan was seriously injured after the fox entered his bedroom in Bromley, south east London, where he lives with parents, named in reports as Hayley Banks Cawley, 28, and Paul Dolan.

Lorraine Murphy, the child’s aunt, told the Times: “It was so traumatic. The family are devastated. I spoke to my brother at the hospital, but he couldn’t even talk. Denny’s lovely – he was a perfect baby.”

She said his mother rushed into his bedroom to find the fox dragging him out of the room. Surgeons reportedly had to reattach one the baby’s fingers after the incident on Wednesday. He also had cuts to his face which needed stitches.

A hospital spokeswoman said: “The Evelina Children’s Hospital, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, can confirm that the baby has been moved from the High Dependency Unit to a ward and is recovering well.”

The incident is not the first time foxes have attacked humans, prompting calls for a cull of the urban pests.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said more must be done to tackle the growing problem of urban foxes. He said: “They may appear cuddly and romantic but foxes are also a pest and a menace, particularly in our cities.

“This must serve as a wake-up call to London’s borough leaders, who are responsible for pest control. They must come together, study the data, try to understand why this is becoming such a problem and act quickly to sort it out.”

Cass Barrett of London Fox Control said residents should stop putting food out for foxes or leaving rubbish around. He said he often heard of the animals coming through people’s cat flats after being lured by the scent of pet food. He said: “Foxes coming into people’s houses is nothing new in my experience.”

An RSPCA spokeswoman said the only reason a fox would attack a human is due to fear and it is “extremely unusual” for them to hurt children.

The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger has said she hopes to personally address a parole hearing for killer Jon Venables.

Denise Fergus will argue that Venables, who was aged ten when he and classmate Robert Thompson abducted and murdered two-year-old James, is a psychopath who remains a danger to society.

Thompson and Venables were jailed for life but released on licence with new identities in 2001.

Venables, 30, had his parole revoked in 2010 and was jailed for two years after admitting downloading and distributing indecent images of children. Now he has made a fresh application for release and the hearing is expected to take place in the coming months.

Ahead of Tuesday’s 20th anniversary of her son’s death, Mrs Fergus, 45, spoke of her hopes to address the parole panel via a video link. Speaking alongside her second husband Stuart, 37, she said: “My message to them is don’t release him, I think Venables is still a danger to the public.”

Mrs Fergus, from Kirkby, Merseyside, believes there are indications that Venables is an “undiagnosed psychopath” who should be moved to a hospital unit.

“I have very serious concerns that the parole board’s approach to Venables is fundamentally flawed,” she added. “People say children are not born evil but I strongly believe that he was. He has proven this by offending after his first release, with all the things he had on his computer. He had indecent images of children who were as young as two.

“To have killed a child and been released on licence and then collected these images on a computer, he can’t be right in the head. I’m not saying he should never be released, I don’t believe that. But now is not the right time because he is a danger.”

Venables and Thompson abducted James from the Bootle Strand shopping centre on Merseyside before torturing and killing him. The two boys, who were truanting from school, walked James around the streets of Liverpool for more than two miles, stopping occasionally to kick and punch him.

After taking him to a nearby railway line, they left his body on the tracks in the hope it would be destroyed by a train. It was found two days later by children playing.

Ministers have announced plans to make special arrangements for benefit claimants who could be at risk of getting into greater financial difficulties under the coalition’s flagship welfare reforms.

“Vulnerable” claimants will be able to get personalised help managing their affairs and may even be exempted from certain features of the new Universal Credit, which is being introduced to replace the current complicated array of different benefits.

Housing groups have warned that many social tenants could end up in arrears because of the move to end direct payments to landlords and instead require claimants to settle bills themselves out of a new single monthly payment.

But Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud announced details of a system of bespoke support for claimants who need help budgeting or accessing the online Universal Credit system.

This will be provided via a partnership between JobCentre Plus, local authorities and other organisations. There will also be scope for alternative arrangements, such as continued direct payments to landlords, spreading out budget payments or splitting them between different members of a household.

Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis according to individuals’ needs. Examples of those who may qualify include people with addictions, mental health problems or at risk of domestic abuse.

Lord Freud said: “Universal Credit will prepare people for the world of work, by getting them to access the benefit online and budget their money in the same way people in work budget. But we know some people will need extra support to manage this, and we’re committed to ensuring that no one falls through the cracks.

“We are working with local authorities and local services to determine who will need this extra help – be it money advice services, face to face support or help to get online – and how best to deliver it.”

Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the Local Government Association which represents town halls, said: “Universal Credit represents a big change to the benefits system with different demands on how claimants manage their affairs. It makes sense to recognise that people will need help adapting to that new system, and that some will need ongoing support.

“The pilot areas are already showing that councils will be pivotal to drawing together the public, voluntary and private sectors to help people access benefits online, manage their finances and find work.”

Donald Byrd (1932 – 2013) — Fancy Free, recorded June 1969

For the second week in a row, there were no military casualties recorded in Afghanistan. The total number of allied service members killed in Afghanistan remains 3,257.

While we may be thankful for the lull in casualties in the Middle East, we must also say good-bye to the following notable names:
Schoolteacher (and illegitimate daughter of Strom Thurmond) Essie Mae Washington-Williams, singer/songwriter Reg Presley, jazz musician Donald Byrd (video above), Alabama school bus driver murderer and child abductor Jimmy Lee Dykes, movie make up artist Stuart Freeborn, jazz musician Paul Tanner, film producer Chris Brinker, artist Richard Artschwager, and professional table tennis player Zhuang Zedong.

via Alasdair Macleod, originally posted at GoldMoney.com,

The purpose of keeping accurate accounts is to quantify net worth at any given point in time — as well as the change from a prior date. It goes without saying that the measure used, money, should be constant if comparisons over time are to mean anything. Only then do prices of capital goods, consumer goods and services truly reflect their changing values, giving important signals to businessmen. With unstable fiat money market signals lose much of their meaning.

It is not normal for businessmen to fret over this. They tend to work from management accounts which are usually prepared monthly, and over that time-scale a depreciating currency is unnoticed — except in the case of monetary extremes. However, businessmen should pay attention to the problem, because the accumulation of entrepreneurial wealth is achieved over many years; its productive value can be significantly altered by fluctuations in the purchasing power of unstable money.

Governments in countries like the United Kingdom have destroyed much of their manufacturing industry through currency depreciation, while Germany contrasts with a history of engineering excellence and a firm currency. The German business owner in the post-war years had relative certainty of economic calculation, allowing him to build up his productive wealth; while the British business lobby resorted to encouraging successive governments to keep costs down by devaluing the pound, rather than investing their own resources in more efficient production.

Reducing costs by managing the currency is, to put it less politely, all about robbing the workforce of the purchasing power of its wages. But the workforce is, in economic terms, made up of individual entrepreneurs selling their skills and labour to employers. They are the unconscious victims of devaluation as indeed are small businesses, but at least in the short-term the central planners manipulating fiat money congratulate themselves that jobs have been saved.

The cost comes later, as consumers — who in turn are also entrepreneurs and savers — pay the bill through higher prices and lose on their savings through lower interest rates and monetary value. So where’s the benefit?

None. The history of nations whose governments respect sound money, such as Germany and Japan in the post-war years, has been one of persistent economic progress, despite otherwise economically incompetent governments. This is in contrast with the UK and some European countries, whose continual devaluations were always accompanied by economic underperformance. Since then all governments have increased their currency debasement efforts. Nevertheless, it is striking that businesses do better with a stable currency in the long run than with the supposed benefits of these continual devaluations.

This lesson is not so clear to today’s economists, because Japan blew up over 20 years ago; Germany ditched her currency for the euro; and now we have a worse set of problems. But those of us who understand that currency devaluation only serves to defraud the majority of society must be alarmed that the governments of nearly all the advanced economies are racing each other to rob their citizens in this way.

Instead of bringing about a Lazarene recovery in the economy, this approach is already failing, because the very basis of economic calculation is being destroyed. Who knows the value of anything anymore? We do however know the inevitable outcome of this lunacy, and it is not good.

A Kuwaiti lawmaker has filed a request in parliament to question the interior minister over accusations that the interior ministry has been unlawfully dealing with the Israeli regime.

On Sunday, MP Faisal al-Duwaisan said in his grilling request that the ministry bought a border security system to strengthen the Persian Gulf emirate’s border with Iraq from SENSTAR Corp in Canada, AFP reported.

The Shia lawmaker stated that SENSTAR is owned by Israel’s Magal Security Systems which means that Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Hamoud al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, has violated Kuwait’s Israel boycott laws.

Duwaisan alleged that the interior minister sent a delegation to SENSTAR plant in Canada to examine the security system.

He noted that the dealing with the Israeli company and disregarding the emirate’s national interests “amounts to treason…and to subjecting Kuwait’s national security to danger.”

The grilling is likely during the last week of February and could lead to a no-confidence motion which if passed would mean immediate dismissal of the minister.

Kuwait was the first Arab state in the Persian Gulf to establish an elected parliament in 1962. However, the Al Sabah family remained in control of key posts, including the premiership and the ministries of defense, interior, and foreign affairs.

GJH/HN

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says an official investigation into torture and ill-treatment in the country’s jails has found half of the interviewed prisoners complaining of abuse.

“According to the report of the commission of inquiry, half of the prisoners interviewed complained of mistreatment, harassment and even torture during their detention,” AFP quoted the president as saying in a statement.

Karzai ordered the probe after the United Nations issued a report in January, saying that Afghanistan used torture and abuse tactics against detainees who were transferred to Afghan control by US-led forces.

The 139-page report noted that over half of the detainees interviewed between October 2011 and October 2012 said that they experienced torture or abuse.

The report detailed fourteen types of torture, including beatings with cables and pipes, attacks on the genitals, threats of execution or rape, electric shocks, and forced stress positions.

Afghan government had earlier said that findings by its internal monitoring committee showed that “the allegations of torture of detainees were untrue and thus disproved.”

MN/HN

At least 20 people have reportedly been killed and several others injured in a stampede at a religious festival in India.

The incident occurred on Sunday evening in the northern Indian town of Allahabad when a large amount of people who gathered for the Kumbh Mela festival flooded the town’s train station, India’s Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said.

Two Indian television channels, NDTV and CNN-IBN reported that as many as 20 people died and some 30 others sustained injuries in the tragic incident.

Local officials added that the railings on a bridge at the town’s station collapsed due to the pressure from the large crowds of people.

“People were taking rest on these railings and the railings could not take the load. The joints broke,” a spokesman for the local Uttar Pradesh state was quoted by AFP as saying.

“There was complete chaos. There was no doctor or ambulance for at least two hours after the accident,” an eyewitness told NDTV news channel.

“My sister is lying here unattended to for the last two hours. Why is no-one coming?” a woman from the state of Bihar also told the channel.

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has issued a statement saying that he is “deeply shocked to learn of the unfortunate incident.”

The Kumbh Mela, as one of the world’s largest religious gatherings, is held every 12 years in Allahabad while smaller and similar events take place every three years in other locations around the South Asian country. The 55-day festival began last month and will end in March.

Some 45 people lost their lives in a stampede during the festival in the western Indian town of Nasik in 2003.

MR/HN

The main reason that health care reform became a national priority for Obama is because it was a priority for big business: corporations have long complained that their employee health care costs were too high. And they’ve always hated paying payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Obama has responded gallantly to these grievances, as he did to the banks when they demanded to be bailed out with taxpayer money.

Obama has remained mostly quiet about his Medicare plans, but has stated repeatedly ” all options are on the table” (his favorite Bushism). The secretiveness is based on the unpopularity of the options, all of which have already been openly discussed in the media in the last two years of bi-partisan “Grand Bargain” haggling.

The Washington Post recently reported:

The reason that Obama delayed the Medicare cuts is because he’s smart; better to first pose as the anti-corporate crusader by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire (which would have automatically expired in his first term had he not extended them). Now, Obama plans to pose as the “balanced” voice of reason, by balancing the national debt on the backs of working and retired people.

The most commonly discussed Medicare reform – among Republicans and Democrats – is raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. Such a drastic move would likely be phased in 10 years down the road, so that those approaching 65 don’t burn down the White House in response.

Where will the future Medicare-less 65-year-old’s go? They’ll remain captive to the insurance companies of course, at much greater expense to them and the rest of society, since Medicare costs are profoundly cheaper than the private sector that Obama has enshrined in his Obamacare policies.

Other possible attacks on Medicare include the innocuous sounding “means testing,” which at first appears as a well reasoned progressive tax on wealthier Medicare recipients. However, as a study by the Kaiser Foundation concluded, such a policy would likely create a mass exodus from Medicare into the private healthcare field for higher income individuals.

Aside from lining the pockets of the healthcare corporations, such a Medicare exodus would also raise the Medicare premiums for everyone else, while destroying Medicare’s universal status – the basis for its effectiveness. The right wing has long sought for ways to create private “individual accounts” for Social Security and Medicare, since breaking people away from participation in a popular single system is the best way to fragment it, and ultimately destroy it.

And while raising the Medicare eligibility age and “means testing” would both immensely benefit corporations, this consciously pro-corporate policy began with Obamacare. Although Obamacare was applauded for expanding Medicaid nationally – a state administered program – the state level austerity cuts have reduced Medicaid to a second rate health care service, which promises to further degenerate as the state-level austerity crisis grinds on.

Less advertised was Obamacare’s Medicare “savings” [cuts] in the hundreds of millions of dollars, by singling out the Medicare Advantage program for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, while also reducing payments to Medicare contractors by hundreds of millions of dollars (hospitals, clinics, etc).

Of course hospitals simply shift this cost burden onto the patients, who receive less care, while giving doctors greater incentive not to see Medicare patients. As Medicare is steadily defunded, a two-tier healthcare system is created, where wealthier seniors will opt for private insurance while the rest will get second rate treatment, undermining the popularity and universality of Medicare, and thus making it more vulnerable to further cuts.

Obamacare will also levy a heavy tax on employers who actually give their employees good health care, thus discouraging the practice. For workers with union contracts, this tax will give employers leverage over the unions to make deep cuts in health care benefits, or end them completely. For non-union workers, employers are using Obamacare as an excuse simply to drop their employer-based health insurance, leaving workers to fend for themselves in the private realm.

The fact that Obamacare gives employers a strong incentive to weaken their employees health care plan is not an accident, but a key provision in the plan that will fundamentally change health care in a negative way for millions of people, and who will then be mandated to buy shoddy insurance for themselves. Corporations will thus save billions of dollars, while the health care corporations will have tens of millions of new paying customers, Obamacare’s real intention.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that at least 7 million people will be dropped from their employer health plan because of Obamacare, but the CBO also said that the figure could well rise to 20 million. Of course employers will take advantage of Obamacare to shift the cost of health care onto individuals, in the same way that employers shifted away from defined pension plans and onto the 401(k) scheme. Several employer surveys have reported that companies plan to dump their employee health care plans by the millions.

The attack on Medicare and health care in general is consistent with the many other attacks against the living standards of working people, including wages and benefits, safety net programs, full time employment, privatization of the public sector, etc.

Corporations benefit from all of these policies. High unemployment allows them to leverage lower wages, which create higher profits. The destruction of social programs and the broader public sector means lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations, who’d rather they fund private services explicitly for them and their rich friends.

All of these policies are “good for the economy” of the 1%, since the economy is dominated by the big banks and other corporations, who are strip mining the public sector for any bit of profitable morsel, and will continue to do so until they are stopped by a united effort of labor, community, and student groups demanding health care and jobs for all, to be paid for by the 1%.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

Notes

It’s one of those stories that you had to listen twice when you heard the report on the radio, and then, still in a state of suspended disbelief, I rushed to the internet to check and see if indeed it was the case. With the good news, I could just about hear a faint pulse of the American heart beating again.

It’s safe to assume that after this week’s developments, corporate lobbyists, politicians, bureaucrats at the DHS, county sheriffs, city police — and maybe The President perhaps… should at least know by now — that Americans  do not want drones flying over their cities and towns. A wave of resistance is currently building…

In Seattle, where residents laid seige to the Seattle Police Department’s plans to use surveillance drones, it appears that following Wednesday night’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee hearing  – the program has been scrapped.

Washington residents take away expensive new police toys.

This news comes on the back of a week of controversy surrounding Obama’s CIA Director nominee, John O. Brennan, seen by many as a pioneer of sorts in the field of US military secret drone assassinations. This has presented an ethical dilemma for President Obama, who ascended to power on a liberal PR wave which is fundamentally at odds with this level of anti-constitutional and illegal policy.

Obama himself signed the bill in early 2012 that enabled some 30,000 drones in the domestic US, to be operated by the Department of Homeland Security and local police departments, Seattle being one such city scheduled for adoption of a junior ‘Skynet’ beta program.

Make no mistake about it — there is an Washington DC-based agenda to roll out drones all over the country. Seattle’s Police Department had obtained these two small drones through a federal grant. 

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn explained:

“Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department’s priority. (They) will be returned to the vendor.”

Public protesters gathered in for the October public meeting on the city’s new drone program, which prompted police to quickly retreat on the issue:

“The testimony opposing drones has been overwhelmingly clear that the 11 people who testified this afternoon, all of whom testified against the use of drones, was symbolic of the general reaction we are getting,” said Chairman Bruce Harrell.

Compared to other direct actions, this was a relatively modest effort, which should encourage other citizen groups keeping the encroaching police state at bay — for now at least. Mia Jacobson who represents the citizen group StandUP explains, “If 11 voices can protect the people from flying government robots watching their every move — what can 20 voices do? What can your voice accomplish?”.

In addition to Seattle, the city of Charlottesville, Va., also rejected drones by ordering a two-year moratorium on their use thanks to The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group.

According to FOX news: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security drones do enter Washington State airspace occasionally, patrolling the Canadian border east of the Cascade mountains. The two 10,000-pound Predator-B unmanned aircraft are based in North Dakota.

Back on Pennsylvania Ave, Sen. Diane Feinstein who was chairing Obama’s CIA directorate confirmation hearings for drone-master John Brennan, came under some similar pressure from crowds of protesters, some of whom were ‘Code Pink’ anti-war demonstrators who were able to ‘gatecrash’ the DC venue. Brennan defended US state-sponsored murders by unmanned drones abroad by claiming that drone strikes are used only against targets ‘planning to carry out attacks against the United States’, completely missing out on the extrajudicial nature of the killings (including an estimated 100 children) which is actually causing the whole controversy. Back to square one…

Two men have been charged over the death of a policewoman whose patrol car was hit by a stolen 4×4 in Northern Ireland.

Constable Philippa Reynolds, 27, from the Greater Belfast area, died when the unmarked car she was travelling in turned into the path of the vehicle in Londonderry in the early hours of Saturday morning.

One the men, aged 25, has been charged with 10 offences including causing death by dangerous driving, aggravated vehicle taking causing death or grievous bodily injury, burglary and driving while unfit.

The other man, aged 23, has been charged with aggravated vehicle taking causing death or grievous bodily injury, burglary, criminal damage and assisting an offender.

They are both due to appear in court in Londonderry tomorrow morning.

Ms Reynolds, a former teacher, had been in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for two years.

Her commander in Derry, Chief Superintendent Stephen Cargin, paid tribute to her in the wake of the crash.

“She was enthusiastic, bubbly and had a beautiful personality,” he said.

“She was just loved by her colleagues and she turned that love to the community she served.”

The EU has a future despite being in the grips of crisis, Robert Mundell, the Noble Prize winning economist told RT, adding that the struggling eurozone is key to the political union, which will rise or fall on the basis of major economic reforms.

RT: Robert Mundell, a Nobel Prize winner and — as many call you — the godfather of the Euro. It is great to have you with us today, sir.

Robert Mundell: Nice to be here.

RT: At the time of its inception euro was hailed as the catalyst for growth and employment in Europe. As of today, the unemployment rate in the Eurozone is 12% and also the economic prognosis is looking is pretty bad this year in terms of growth. What went wrong?

RM: What wrong is the current problem of very high debts combined with high deficits. The great chalk of the recession, the global slowdown starting in 2008 and then we became victims of it. Now, it is not the creation of the euro that caused the problem so much, because before the creation of the euro came into being, countries like Italy had 120% debt GDP ratios, Greece had 110%, Belgium had at one time in the 1990s 145%. So there is a lack of fiscal discipline; the movement to the left in Europe [and] big spending on social projects that couldn’t be financed in the long run. So now Europe also has a static population, and in some cases a declining population. And so you have more aged people, more pension bills to pay and fewer people to work to repay them so it created a big problem and the shock came.

RT: When you talk about debt I think there are two points to make. First of all Europe has always been plagued with debt. Greece rigged its budget deficit in order to qualify. So maybe it is not the debt but maybe that the Euro was too good or maybe too utopian for Europe?

RM: What it did to the creation of the Euro when those countries came in, like Italy, before the euro interest rates were around 12%-14%, that had a devaluation premium, when they joined the euro, suddenly [they all went down] to 4%. And this encouraged countries now with low debt you can add more to it gave the wrong message because what they should have realized is that these debts now are now euro debts, they’re no longer drachma or lira debts. You can’t devalue them away, you’re stuck with this and maybe in retrospect it might have been wise for countries with high debt not to lock themselves into that fixed debt or to have had devaluation and inflation before. But nobody wanted to do that, and if they had done it they might have risked not being able to make that deadline of 1999, of getting all those countries into the Eurozone. The political moment might have been missed, and it may not have ever come up again.

RT: Yes. Because when you think about it on the other hand Europe debt to GDP rates where always lower — let’s say compared to the US or Japan. Maybe what led to the crisis is not the debts, but the fact so many completely divergent economies were put together. You stitched up a Frankenstein and then injected blood into its veins.

RM: When Greece entered the monetary union its GDP per capita was about a third that of Germany’s. But then Greece started to increase its level of spending, and it increased it a great deal. If they had stayed out of the Eurozone, if they were in this position now with the Drachma, of course they could devalue, and that devaluation would cut their debt down. But in the process right now if people thought that was going to happen interest rates would soar and they wouldn’t be able to do it.

RT: But like you said countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal they kept loosing competitiveness once they joined the EU. That is because they had nothing to devalue too in order to make up for the loses. And that, of course, is also because of the euro. I mean they really had their hands tied with the euro. They couldn’t really stimulate their domestic economies.

RM: I made a plan for the euro in, I think it was the first plan for the euro in 1969. It wasn’t called the euro. I called it the Europa. In that plan, it was different from the Delors plan in 1989, 20 years earlier, my plan kept the European currencies in until they gradually moved in and replaced national currencies — not all at once. And countries would do it one by one. They would do it when the situation was right.

The first step would be, when the time is appropriate, to move to a currency board system but they still keep their currencies. If you can’t do a currency board, you can’t do a monetary union. Well that’s a lesson for countries that haven’t yet joined the Euro area, because the Czech Republic, Poland and those countries they should really — before going into that union- to see if they can get into it, and test it with the currency board system. It automatically gives you the monetary policy of being in the union but it doesn’t give up the currency yet. You still have an out in that case.

Anyways, that isn’t the way the European system worked so they locked into that and got all those difficulties. Now how to… get out of it is, they’ve got to get growth going, got to get the recovery back. I think it is going to depend on a much more aggressive policy on the part of European central bank, as well as more distribution because it’s got to be redistribution in some ways help with the deficits, pulling of debts and that will involve some implicit transfers from the northern countries to the southern countries. But it will save the union.

RT: I think I read in one of your interviews you’ve actually argued that if Greece were to leave the Eurozone, it will be better for Euro right now. Ok. Apart the fact that it would be disastrous for Greece, and it’s on the brink of collapse. Wouldn’t that trigger a domino effect? After Greece it would probably be Spain, Italy, Ireland…and then what’s the whole point of the European Union then?

RM: There is a risk of, you could say contagion that if one country left, there might be the expectations that the other countries might leave also…

RT: Should Greece leave then?

RM: If one country leaves, that country is then going to have to do adjusting on its own. It is going to be much more difficult than to do it under the auspices of the Eurozone or the EU. So this would be a big penalty if a country leaves, suppose it came to be, and it could happen. If the population gets fed up with the Eurozone — they don’t trust it they don’t like it, they don’t want it — and so they get government to leave, then they are on their own. Who is going to balance the budget? They’ll have to default and then their banks might collapse and whoever else holds their debts is going to be penalized. This going to be a terrible penalty. Much more austerity in a very unfortunate way. Maybe the burden would be pushed more on people who do hold assets, richer people.

RT: So you don’t think Greece should leave the Eurozone?

RM: I was in Greece the end of July, I had a big press conference — 300 people were at it. And they were asking me, ‘well CitiBank just said there’s a 90% chance that Greece will have to leave the Eurozone. What do you think of that?’

And I said I think it’s a ridiculous percentage. Maybe there is some chance but not more than 25%. Later on I think Citi changed…they reduced the [percentage]. Some bad things looked like they were going to happen and they didn’t happen. For Greece to leave, to want to leave would be ridiculous. I don’t think anyone in Greece really wants to leave now, they’ve been talked out of that. Maybe 65% at least want to stay in anyway. If Greece has to default, and I think people know that Greece is already in fact defaulted in some sense, they’ve already taken partial default, they are not going to solve the problem with the huge debt level they have now. And they can’t solve the problem. So they are going to default but it is much better to default under the auspices of the troika than otherwise.

RT: I want to talk to you about the broader picture that people outside the EU get. And everyone knows that the Eurozone and the EU go hand in hand. I mean that is the whole idea of the strong bloc, the strong union. From what it seems from the outside, because of the economic crisis there have been so many social problems that arose. For example, nationalism is on the rise in almost every single country of Europe right now. And people say that with euro it has brought the northern and southern parts of Europe farther apart- it only made rich countries richer like Germany and, the countries that are on the periphery, they made them even more incapable. Do you think, taking into consideration everything we’ve said, that the EU has a future?

RM: Oh I think it does. I think first of all the Euro, I agree with you, the euro is a key part of the European Union now. And if the Eurozone really broke up it might be the end of that. But I don’t believe that is going to happen because they’ve got to move more rapidly and that’s the best way to do it rather than letting the crisis drag out, you’ve got to get out of the recession. You won’t get the countries solvent in respect to their deficits. All you have to do is get back to budget balance for theses counties. And you have to do that through raising revenues but not through raising taxes, and by getting the economies back to full employment. Get Europe back to full employment and all those numbers are going to change about Eurozone with [not clear] solve it. But in the process you want to make, to use the pressure here to make the political changes that prevent it from happening again. Because if you just get back to full employment you are going to go back to have all those problems again in the next recession, and I’m sure there is going to be a recession that will come in the future — so you have to solve the problem of the centralization. You got to do that quickly. The quicker you do it, the quicker the Central Bank and other forces can get to put the economy back to where it should be. You need tax cuts. I think Berlusconi is right.

RT: Robert Mundell. Thank you very much for your time.

Headlines like this should shock: Suicides Outpace War Deaths. Surge in Military Suicides. Nearly Two Dozen Veterans Commit Suicide Daily.

These reports and similar ones reveal imperialism’s dark side. War takes its toll. Civilians suffer most. So do many combatants and veterans after returning home.

Most people don’t know. Little gets reported. Why do active duty personnel and vets take their own lives?

Unbearable emotional pain consumes them. Daily trauma builds. So does intolerable stress. Relief is desperately sought. Suicide is chosen. It’s a last option. Others were exhausted.

Preventable warning signs aren’t heeded. They include depression, withdrawal, lethargy, loss of interest in usual activities, appetite, weight, sleep and other behavioral changes, recurring suicidal thoughts, and feelings of hopelessness and despair.

Daily stress is bad enough. Combat exacerbates it. It’s intolerable for many. The little known human cost of war raises disturbing questions. America consumes its own.

E pidemic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) levels affect hundreds of thousands of combat forces and vets.

The VA estimates over 30% of Vietnam vets, around 10% of Gulf War forces, and up to 20% of America’s Afghanistan and Iraq troops.

VA and DOD officials consistently understate problems. Independent reports reveal more. Some say nearly half of Afghan and Iraq vets have emotional and/or physical combat injuries.

In May 2012, AP said America’s vets “are filing for disability benefits at (a) historic rate.” They’re the “most medically, mentally troubled generation in US history.”

War’s toll is one of the most underreported stories. Hundreds of thousands of combat vets won’t ever be the same again.

They come home sick. They stay that way. They’re traumatized. They’re unable to cope. Emotional damage done goes largely unrecognized. It’s an unseen wound. Many needing help don’t get it.

The emotional ordeal is overwhelming. It’s terrifying. War vets are gravely affected. PTSD causes emotional numbness. Left untreated, it worsens. Horrifying flashbacks are commonplace.

Images, sounds, smells and subconscious feelings trigger them. Emotions well up inside. They surface self-destructively. It can happen any time. Some victims recover in months. For others it’s much longer or never.

War is a destructive slippery slope. It drives victims to emotional hell. They’re sure what afflicts them. PTSD prevents normal functioning.

Victims say they’re too tired. They can’t think. They can’t function normally. Their brains are overwhelmed.

They lash out at others for no reason. They harm those they love. They can’t explain why. Diagnosing PTSD is tricky. Often it’s not done. Victims needing help don’t get it. Others get too little. There’s no cure.

Measurable physical/biological symptoms aren’t apparent. Those mentioned above are commonplace. Others include headaches, unexplained pain, inability to cope, severe anxiety, rage, and survivor guilt for those who lost buddies.

Toughing it out depends on developing coping mechanisms. It’s not easy without competent professional help. For many it involves longterm struggle. Too often it’s too much to bear.

Broken human psyches aren’t easily repaired. Shocking suicide numbers explain best. More on that below.

David Grossman analyzed the art of killing. His book titled “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society” explained an inherent aversion.

Doing so causes mental anguish and harm. For many it’s too much to bear.

Combatants have to be taught to kill. Many do it reluctantly. Others abstain or try to. Either way takes a toll.

Killing “comes with a price, and societies must learn that their soldiers will have to spend the rest of their lives living with what they have done,” said Grossman.

Jobs involved in harming others cut both ways. War is hell. Who knows better than combat vets. Understated VA data say plenty. Its 2012 Suicide Data Report said about 22 vets commit suicide daily.

Double the number wouldn’t surprise. Only 16 states indicate cause of veterans’ deaths. VA uses three-year old data.

Many deaths aren’t called suicide. They slip under the radar unnoticed. Many war zone-related suicides are misreported.

Those that are outnumber combat deaths. Officials numbers reflect nearly one a day. DOD and VA officials shun publicity. Getting it harms recruiting. Unwary kids are mislead. They’re unaware what awaits them.

Many suicide victims are age 50 or older. Combat-related trauma is long-lasting. According to a Center for a New American Security (CNAS) suicide report, veterans commit suicide every 80 minutes.

Study authors Margaret Harrell and Nancy Berglass said:

“America is losing its battle against suicide by veterans and service members. And as more troops return from deployment, the risk will only grow.”

Many vets return home feeling helpless. Marine Corps vet Jason Christiansen watched his life unravel. “At one point, I was sitting there with a gun in my mouth,” he said. A friend urged him to seek help.

The Veterans Crisis Line gets hundreds of thousands of calls. CNAS said from 2005 — 2010, “approximately one service member committed suicide every 36 hours.” Too little to late reflects DOD/VA policy.

In FY 2009, 1,868 vets made suicide attempts. Many who don’t succeed try again. Multiple war theater deployments increase the suicide incidence.

PTSD-affected service members are redeployed. Many cope with drugs and/or alcohol. Others sent on combat missions try to stay out of harm’s way. In war zones, it’s not easy.

Socio-economic conditions at home compound mental trauma. Unemployment, homelessness, and related issues affect thousands. Numbers compound annually. For many it’s too much to bear.

VA data through September 2012 reported 26,531 homeless vets. Double the number is more likely. Others risk losing their homes, rely on temporary housing, or get inadequate federal vouchers for rent.

Around 1.5 million vets risk homelessness. Numbers like this should shock. They go largely unreported. They, and others like it, reflect a time bomb of trouble.

It’s largely unaddressed. A small fraction of those needing help get it. Others get too little. America’s vets are hung out to dry. Funding prioritizes warmaking, not healing.

Since 2000, nearly a million vets were diagnosed with one or more mental health problems. The VA admits its data understate. Its own suicide hotline averages 10,000 calls a month.

More than a million vets await unaddressed disability claims. Many are PTSD-related. Months or years pass without help. They’re last in line to get. Most never do. No wonder suicides mount.

Despair holds out only for so long. Left unaddressed, it often succumbs. America treats its own with disdain.

In January, the Supreme Court turned a blind eye. It declined hearing a lawsuit. It challenging abusive VA treatment. The constitutional rights of vets with mental health disabilities were denied.

Tens of thousands of troubled vets are at risk. Expect suicides to mount. National epidemic levels are swept under the rug. Waging war comes first. Obama has lots more in mind. It’s the American way.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/record-numbers-of-us-military-and-veteran-suicides/

Governments Move to Destroy Online Anonymity

Some of the world’s leading social critics and political critics have used pen names.

As Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge points out (edited slightly for readability):

Though often maligned (typically by those frustrated by an inability to engage in ad hominem attacks), anonymous speech has a long and storied history in the United States. Used by the likes of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens) to criticize common ignorance, and perhaps most famously by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (aka publius) to write the Federalist Papers, we think ourselves in good company in using one or another nom de plume.

Particularly in light of an emerging trend against vocalizing public dissent in the United States, we believe in the critical importance of anonymity and its role in dissident speech.

Like the Economist magazine, we also believe that keeping authorship anonymous moves the focus of discussion to the content of speech and away from the speaker — as it should be. We believe not only that you should be comfortable with anonymous speech in such an environment, but that you should be suspicious of any speech that isn’t.

But governments — especially authoritarian governments — hate anonymity.

A soon-to-be-released book by Google executive Eric Schmidt – called “The New Digital Age” — describes the desire of authoritarian governments to destroy anonymity. The Wall Street Journal provides an excerpt:

Some governments will consider it too risky to have thousands of anonymous, untraceable and unverified citizens – “hidden people”; they’ll want to know who is associated with each online account, and will require verification at a state level, in order to exert control over the virtual world.

Last December, China started requiring all web users to register using their real names.

But the U.S. is quickly moving in the same direction. As Gene Howington reported last year:

Do you have a right to anonymous political free speech?

According to the Supreme Court, you do. According to the Department of Homeland Security, you don’t. They’ve hired General Dynamics to track U.S. citizens exercising this critical civil right.

The history of anonymous political free speech in America dates back to our founding. The seminal essays found in “The Federalist Papers” were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay under the nom de plume of “Publius” although this was not confirmed until a list of authorship complied by Hamilton was posthumously released to the public. As previously discussed on this blog, the right to anonymous political free speech has been addressed by the Supreme Court. Most notably in the cases of Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995). In Talley, Justice Hugo Black writing for the majority said that, “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.” In McIntyre, Justice John Paul Stevens writing for the majority said that, “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. [… ] an author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.” That seems clear enough in defining that citizens do have a Constitutionally protected right to anonymous political free speech.

The full DHS policy statement regarding its activities can be viewed in the DHS Privacy Compliance Review of the NOC Media Monitoring Initiative (November 15, 2011), but rt.com’s summary spells out the basics:

“Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.

Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.

The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.” — rt.com

This question about the right to anonymous political free speech is also asked over the background of the Electronic Privacy Information Center filing a FOIA request against the DHS to find out the details of the agency’s social network monitoring program.

***

As part of recent disclosures related to the EPIC suit, it is revealed that the DHS has hired and instructed General Dynamics to monitor political dissent and the dissenters. The range of websites listed as being monitored is quite impressive. Notably, jonathanturley.org is not on this list [Howington’s essay is a guest blog on constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley’s website], but equally of note is that this list is by the DHS’ own admission “representative” and not “comprehensive”.

***

Some of the more high profile and highly trafficked sites being monitored include the comments sections of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, Wired, and ABC News. In addition, social networking sites Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are being monitored. For the first time, the public not only has an idea who the DHS is pursuing with their surveillance and where, but what they are looking for as well. General Dynamics contract requires them to “[identify] media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government, DHS, or prevent, protect, respond government activities.” The DHS also instructed General Dynamics to generate “reports on DHS, Components, and other Federal Agencies: positive and negative reports on FEMA, CIA, CBP, ICE, etc. as well as organizations outside the DHS.” In other words, the DHS wants to know who you are if you say anything critical about the government.

Anybody thinking of the name “Goebbels” at this point is not out of line.

Indeed, valuing online privacy could even get you labeled as a potential terrorist.

Google Moving to Help Destroy Anonymity

Google’s motto is “Do No Evil“.  And Google notes in a patent application:

When users reveal their identities on the internet, it leaves them more vulnerable to stalking, identity theft and harassment.

So you might assume that Google is fighting to protect anonymity on the web.

But Schmidt’s new book reveals that Google will support the destruction of anonymity (via Wall Street Journal):

Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.

Search Engine Journal explains:

[Passages from Schmidt’s book] confirm what many industry writers have been passionately clattering away about for months now.  Google+ is an identity verification network.  As the network continues to grow, content associated with a verified identity will rise to the top of Google search rankings.

(Google+ is now the world’s second most popular social network.)

In other words, Schmidt acknowledges (in the first quote above) that authoritarians want to destroy anonymity … and Google will help them do so.

We are not saying that Google likes authoritarians. (Potential ties between Google and the government are beyond the scope of this essay.) However, Google will do business with anyone … and will cowtow to authoritarians they happen to do business with.

Google is doing this to make money. Remember, Google gathers information across all of its platforms, and personalizes search engine results based upon what you’ve looked for in past searches.

After all, Google is primary an advertising company … not a search company. See this, this, this and this.

As the Daily Mail reported last year:

A former Google executive has lambasted his ex-employer … claiming that the search company has been turned into an ‘ad company’ obsessed with harvesting people’s private information.

James Whittaker, a current Partner Development Manager at Microsoft and ex-Engineering Director at Google, posted the 1328-word attack on Google on his Microsoft blog this week.

‘Perhaps Google is right,’ writes Whittaker, ‘Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about people’s personal lives as possible.

‘The Google I was passionate about was a technology company. The Google I left was an advertising company.’

***

The move comes in the wake of Google’s controversial new ‘privacy policy’, which allowed the search giant to ‘pool’ information from 60 separate services including Gmail, Google Search and Android phones, to create ‘personalised’ advertising.

The bottom line is that anonymity reduces Google’s ability to monetize personal information and sell it to its advertisers. So Google is on a campaign to destroy anonymity … and unintentionally helping tyrants in the process.

As INeedHits laments:

We knew a day would come when privacy was a thing of the past, but Schmidt clearly spells out that day is sooner than we had expected.

This past week Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank held key lending rates steady, but he hinted at his displeasure at a rising EuroDollar. This sparked a sell off in the Euro and strength in the Dollar. More importantly, it brought forth the notion that currency wars are in our future as a rising Dollar is not what the Federal Reserve wants. As one commentator put it: the currency wars are just beginning. It is a race to the bottom.

Full story in the video (after the shameless plugs!)

cow.2.8.13.dollar from ARL Advisers, LLC on Vimeo.

TacticalBeta offers a free newsletter:

Drone

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

David Fitzsimmons, Cagle Cartoons, The Arizona Star

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Remember these words from Paul Krugman last week?

The threat to the recovery is Washington.

In anticipation of President Obama’s State of the Union address this coming Tuesday, Chris Hayes asked what economist Paul Krugman (who has been right about economic issues all along, mind you) what he would like to hear in the address. While acknowledging with resignation that he probably won’t get his wish, Krugman responds that he’d rather not hear the legitimization of deficit pearl clutching and advocation of austerity measures.

Like the rest of us liberals clamoring to be heard through the self-protecting insulation of the Beltway Bubble, Krugman makes the point that none of what he’s advocated is more sophisticated than Econ 101, a class one would assume that every college graduate (which would be most members of Congress ) has taken. Yet these very basic economic concepts are alien to the Beltway.

It’s a very insular culture in Washington. It’s one of people who hang out together, who talk to each other, who don’t listen…what’s odd about my position on this stuff is I am, for the most part, not doing any kind of odd, unorthodox economics. I’m doing Macroeconomics 101, but that is not what people in DC hear. It’s not that they just don’t accept it. For the most part, they haven’t even heard about it. The notion that oh, the budget deficit is not a problem when the economy is depressed is barely in the Washington discourse. And because I’m still in touch with Macroeconomics 101, I’m really sort of out of it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we already know the solutions to our economic woes. We’ve gotten out of them before and we know what works. It has never been cutting spending and lowering taxes, no matter how many Republicans get booked on the Sunday shows to flood the discourse.

But in a sad addition to the “both sides do it” meme, the fact remains that even though these basic economic concepts and solutions remain patently obvious to those of us outside the Beltway Bubble, even those who should understand and embrace Keynesian economics miss the point, continually, as Dan Pfeiffer proves with this White House blog:

With less than three weeks before devastating, across the board cuts – the so-called “sequester” – are slated to hit, affecting our national security, job creation and economic growth, we must make sure we are having a debate over how to deal with these looming deadlines that is based on facts- not myths being spread by some Congressional Republicans who would rather see these cuts hit than ask the wealthiest and big corporations to pay a little bit more.

First, the notion that President Obama hasn’t put forward a solution to deal with these looming cuts is false. In the fall of 2011, the President put forward a proposal to the Supercommittee for the specific purpose of laying out his vision to resolve the sequester and reduce our deficit by over $4 trillion dollars in a balanced way- by cutting spending, finding savings in entitlement programs and asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share. That proposal would have completely turned off the sequester while further reducing our deficit and ensuring we could still invest in the things we need to grow our economy and create jobs. That same approach was presented to Congress in the President’s budget last year. And the President’s last offer to Speaker Boehner in December remains on the table- an offer that meets the Republicans halfway on spending and on revenues, and would permanently turn off the sequester and put us on a fiscally sustainable path.

We should have a debate over how to best reduce the deficit. But with only three weeks until these indiscriminate cuts hit, Congress should find a short term package to give themselves a little more time to find a solution to permanently turn off the sequester. That package should have balance and include spending cuts and revenues.

Why on earth do we accept the framing of these ill-informed, petulant children on how the economy works instead of demanding that we adopt the measures that brought this country back into unprecedented levels of prosperity for most of its citizens after the Great Depression? When do the adults with the real solutions get their place at the table?

Saudi Arabian security forces have arrested dozens of women and at least five children as the regime has intensified the crackdown on opposition demonstrations in the country.

According to human rights activists, women and children were captured on Saturday after anti-government demonstrations were held in two Saudi cities, Riyadh and Buraida, CNN reported on Sunday.

The women and children were calling on the authorities to free their relatives, who have been held for years without access to lawyers or a trial, the activists said.

Mohammed Al-Qahtani, a prominent Saudi rights activist, said the protesters are “relatives of political prisoners.”

“They are asking the authorities to either take these prisoners to court,” said Al-Qahtani, “or set them free.”

Activists say there are over 30,000 political prisoners in Saudi Arabia.

In October 2012, Amnesty International called on the Saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against pro-democracy protestors.

“The Saudi authorities must end their repeated moves to stifle people’s attempts to protest against the widespread use of arbitrary detention in the country,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said on October 16.

“The right of people to peaceful protest must be respected and the security forces must refrain from detaining or using excessive force against people who exercise it,” he added.

There have been numerous demonstrations in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province since February 2011, with protestors calling for political reform.

Anti-government protests have intensified since November 2011, when security forces opened fire on protestors in Qatif, killing five people and leaving scores more injured.

GJH/HN

Russia says the fighters France is battling in northern Mali are some of the very same ones it helped arm in Libya.

“In Mali, France is fighting against those it armed in Libya against (Muammar) Gaddafi’s regime in violation of the UN Security Council (arms) embargo,” AFP quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying in extracts of a television interview published by Russian news agencies on Sunday.

In June 2011, Lavrov blasted France for violating a UN arms embargo on Libya by air-dropping weapons to fighters in Libya in order to help them fight against former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’ rule.

The UN 1970 resolution, adopted in February 26, 2011, imposed a comprehensive arms embargo on Libya.

France launched its war on Mali on January 11 under the pretext of halting the advance of fighters in the country. The war has left thousands of Malians homeless.

On February 1, 2013, Amnesty International condemned “serious human rights breaches” including the killing of children in the French war in Mali.

The rights organization said there was “evidence that at least five civilians, including three children, were killed in an airstrike” carried out by French forces against local fighters.

Analysts believe behind the military campaign are Mali’s untapped resources, including oil, gold, as well as the uranium in the region.

MN/HN

Sequester Budget Trim

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

Steve Sack, Cagle Cartoons, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Update: this just in – Authorities offer $1 million reward for information leading to arrest of ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner

We were hoping to evade coverage of the latest mass distraction du jour, that of the former LAPD officer Chris Dorner who recently went rogue following a three man murder spree and who has vowed to kill again as per his 6,000 word manifesto, but the US government had made it impossible following confirmation
that the search for Dorner is now the first official drone-hunt in US history.

The Express reports:

Yesterday, as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.

A senior police source said: “The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: “We are using all the tools at our disposal.”

The use of drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash for the Mexican border since his rampage began.

He said: “This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement. That’s all I can say at the moment.”

And once Dorner is found by remote-control, it will be again up to drones to secure his “elimination.” If for no other reason than to perform a ground test of just how the recently enacted drone-facilitated extermination of US citizens sits with various instances of the US judicial system.

The baby boomers now retiring grew up in a high returns world. So did their children. But, as Credit Suisse notes in their 2013 Yearbook, everyone now faces a world of low real interest rates. Baby boomers may find it hard to adjust. However, McKinsey (2012) predicts they will control 70% of retail investor assets by 2017. So our sympathy should go to their grandchildren, who cannot expect the high returns their grandparents enjoyed. From 1950 to date, the annualized real return on world equities was 6.8%; from 1980, it was 6.4%. The corresponding world bond returns were 3.7% and 6.4%, respectively. Equity investors were brought down to earth over the first 13 years of the 21st century, when the annualized real return on the world equity index was just 0.1%. But real bond returns stayed high at 6.1% per year. We have transitioned to a world of low real interest rates. The question is, does this mean equity returns are also likely to remain lower. In this compendium-like article, CS addresses prospective bond returns and interest rate impacts on equity valuations, inflation and its impact on equity beta, VIX reversions, and profiles 22 countries across three regions. Chart pr0n at its best for bulls and bears.

Over 113 years, the relative size of world stock markets has shifted significantly…

But the changes have been very cyclical…

The last 13 years have been somewhat special… as real yields around the world have collapsed…

and that has historically tended to mean low equity returns…

The busts of the dot-com era, LTCM & Russia, and Lehman/Credit Crunch had a very different profile to previous risk flares in VIX…

and while they suggest that mean-reversion has provided upside potential for stocks (in the past, staying in stocks at the start of the year when real rates are negative has proved a better bet that exiting), the concept of a shifted world paradigm (see VIX and global real rates) suggests perhaps it is different this time.

And the argument of equities as an inflation hedge is flawed due to its non-linearity…

Though valuations at the current inflation expectations seems to be ‘cheap’, one can only question the actual inflation expectations… as the official spot data diverges from market expectations…

And as CS notes, extrapolating from such a successful market can lead to “success” bias. Investors can gain a misleading view of equity returns elsewhere, or of future equity returns for the USA itself.

until recently, most of the long run evidence cited on historical asset returns drew almost exclusively on the US experience. Focusing on such a successful economy can lead to “success” bias. Investors can gain a misleading view of equity returns elsewhere, or of future equity returns for the USA itself. The charts opposite confirm this concern. They show that, from the perspective of a US-based international investor, the real return on the world ex-US equity index was 4.4% per year, which is 1.9% per year below that for the USA.

But what is clear from the above charts, in the 50 years since 1963, Bond and Stock returns are far more similar than different, no matter what your RIA tells you..

Because, it’s fiscally – for the USA – very different this time…

2013 Yearbook Final Web by

Nigeria’s defender and team captain Joseph Yob (C) and his teammates hold the trophy after they won the 2013 African Cup of Nations final against Burkina Faso on February 10, 2013 at Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg (AFP Photo / Issouf Sanogo)

After almost two decades of bad fortune at the African Cup of Nations, Nigeria has returned to the top of football on the continent beating Burkina Faso 1-0 in the decider.

Sunday Mba’s goal late in the first half made the difference in the final. The midfielder produced a master-piece in front of around 87,000-strong crowd at the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg with a left-foot volley into the far right corner after he collected a rebound and tossed the ball over a defender.

Nigeria did well even without its key striker Emanuel Emenike, who was forced to miss the game due to injury. It didn’t stop the Spartak Moscow star from becoming the best goal scorer of the tournament with 4 goals in 5 games.

Another man behind Nigeria’s success, Stephen Keshi, who captained Nigeria to its last African Cup crown in 1994, has now lifted the trophy as a coach.

As for Burkina Faso, underdogs before the tournament they fell short of repeating Zambia’s surprise win at the previous Cup of Nations. They progressed beyond the group stage for only the second time in the tournament’s history and then beat continental powers Togo and Ghana on their way to the final.

Nigeria’s forward Emmanuel Emenike celebrates after scoring a goal (AFP Photo)

On 27 January CBS aired an interview with the newly inaugurated President Barack Obama and his outgoing secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, during which the president faced accusations that under his watch America had retreated from its key role in world affairs. “The biggest criticism of this team,” said the interviewer,” has been [that there is] an abdication of the United States on the world stage, sort of reluctance to become involved in another entanglement.”

A supporter of Barack Obama’s gun control campaign holds up a sign as the president’s motorcade passes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)Obama interrupted. “Well, Muammar Gaddafi probably does not agree with that assessment,” he said. “Or at least if he was around, he wouldn’t agree with that assessment.” Quite. Gaddafi, to whom the US authorised $15m worth of arms sales in 2009, is not around because he was murdered by a mob shortly after being sodomised by a bayonet following his ousting by US-led Nato bombardment. In the minutes between the sodomising and the summary execution there just wasn’t time to reflect on US foreign policy.

The day after the interview was screened, Obama met with the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association and the Major County Sheriffs’ Association. The president, fresh from boasting about having Gaddafi “smoked”, wanted to discuss how to stop guns getting into the wrong hands, bolster the forces of law and order, and stem violence in US cities.

Over the last few weeks there has been a distinct incongruity — to say the least — between the agenda Obama is promoting at home and the one he defends abroad. His justification for targeted killings and drone strikes in foreign parts, prompted by his nomination of a CIA director, has coincided with his advocacy for stiffer gun control and appeals to respect human life following mass shootings. The result is an administration raising life and death issues in its actions and pronouncements but being unable to talk with any moral authority or ethical consistency on either.

In short, the credibility of a president in challenging lawless social violence in US cities is fundamentally undermined when he has his own personal kill list in violation of international law to terminate enemies elsewhere.

“The diplomatic historian traces foreign affairs as if domestic affairs were offstage disturbances,” writes Walter Karp in his book The Politics of War. “The historian of domestic politics treats the explosions of war as if they were offstage disturbances. Were that true, we would have to believe that presidents who faced a mounting sea of troubles at home have nonetheless conducted their foreign policy without the slightest regard for those troubles — that individual presidents were divided into watertight compartments, one labelled ‘domestic’ and the other ‘foreign’.”

Yet that is precisely how the Obama administration appears to have compartmentalised its response to violence and its victims. One moment the Obamas are mourning the tragic loss of Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old girl who attended his inauguration. She was shot less than a mile from their Chicago home while sheltering from the rain in a park. The first lady, Michelle Obama, who attended Hadiya’s funeral on Saturday, said, through a spokeswoman: “Too many times, we’ve seen young people struck down with so much of their lives ahead of them.”

The next, his administration is maintaining a stony silence over the murder of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old American born in Denver who was killed by a drone in Yemen in 2011. His father, Anwar (also American), was an Islamist cleric — killed by a drone a few weeks earlier. When asked about the incident during the election campaign, Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and senior adviser to Obama’s re-election campaign, essentially blamed Abdulrahman for having the kind of dad the US wanted to kill. “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the wellbeing of their children.”

On the one hand, we should not be surprised. These contradictions are inherent in the tension between the position to which he was elected and the forces that elected him. For all the global investment in Obama — peaking early, stratospherically and ridiculously, in the Nobel peace prize just nine months after he was voted in — he was elected to represent the interests of the most powerful and well-armed nation on Earth at a time of war. Murder was in the job description of the office he applied for and won to great fanfare. For all the claims of him becoming a great role model for young black men, he was always going to be responsible for the deaths of more innocents than Biggie and Tupac combined.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2004 and 2013 drone strikes have killed up to 893 civilians (including 176 children) in Pakistan, 178 civilians (including 37 children) in Yemen, and 57 civilians (including three children) in Somalia (while these started under Bush they were accelerated under Obama). According to the New York Times, his ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, complained to colleagues that “he didn’t realise his main job was to kill people”, a colleague said.

But Obama was returned to office by the votes of — among others — blacks, Latinos, youth and the poor, the very people and communities most likely to be blighted by gun violence. Michelle Obama came to Hadiya’s funeral after considerable pressure had been applied by black communities in Chicago and nationwide. Since the shootings of children at Sandy Hook elementary school Obama has led an audacious push to galvanise a majority, in the country and in Congress, for tougher gun controls.

The unfortunate timing has highlighted the discrepancy between his foreign and domestic policies, exposing them not only as hypocritical but deeply tragic. While shop windows all around Obama’s Chicago home hang posters saying “Stop killing people”, the man they sent to the White House is doing precisely the opposite. Having shown his ability to rally human empathy to progressive causes at home, he then fails to recognise the common humanity of the innocents he is killing abroad.

“[America can be] a moral power,” said Martin Luther King — on whose Bible Obama swore in as president — during the Vietnam war. “A power harnessed to the service of peace and human beings, not an inhumane power unleashed against defenceless people.” That’s as true on the streets of Chicago as it is in the border regions of Pakistan.

Twitter: @garyyounge

© 2013 The Guardian

Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist and feature writer based in the US

Path to Oblivion

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

David Fitzsimmons, Cagle Cartoons, The Arizona Star

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

February 10, 2013  |  

To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.

Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines. It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet. If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain.

Sometimes, what starts out as a minor skirmish can wind up determining the outcome of a war — and that seems to be the case when it comes to the mounting battle over the Keystone XL pipeline. If given the go-ahead by President Obama, it will daily carry more than 700,000 barrels of tar-sands oil to those Gulf Coast refineries, providing a desperately needed boost to the Canadian energy industry. If Obama says no, the Canadians (and their American backers) will encounter possibly insuperable difficulties in exporting their heavy crude oil, discouraging further investment and putting the industry’s future in doubt.

The battle over Keystone XL was initially joined in the summer of 2011, when environmental writer and climate activist Bill McKibben and 350.org, which he helped found, organized a series of non-violent anti-pipeline protests in front of the White House to highlight the links between tar sands production and the accelerating pace of climate change. At the same time, farmers and politicians in Nebraska, through which the pipeline is set to pass, expressed grave concern about its threat to that state’s crucial aquifers. After all, tar-sands crude is highly corrosive, and leaks are a notable risk.

In mid-January 2012, in response to those concerns, other worries about the pipeline, and perhaps a looming presidential campaign season, Obama postponed a decision on completing the controversial project. (He, not Congress, has the final say, since it will cross an international boundary.) Now, he must decide on a suggested new route that will, supposedly, take Keystone XL around those aquifers and so reduce the threat to Nebraska’s water supplies.

Ever since the president postponed the decision on whether to proceed, powerful forces in the energy industry and government have been mobilizing to press ever harder for its approval. Its supporters argue vociferously that the pipeline will bring jobs to America and enhance the nation’s “energy security” by lessening its reliance on Middle Eastern oil suppliers. Their true aim, however, is far simpler: to save the tar-sands industry (and many billions of dollars in U.S. investments) from possible disaster.

Just how critical the fight over Keystone has become in the eyes of the industry is suggested by a recent pro-pipeline editorial in the trade publication Oil & Gas Journal:

“Controversy over the Keystone XL project leaves no room for compromise. Fundamental views about the future of energy are in conflict. Approval of the project would acknowledge the rich potential of the next generation of fossil energy and encourage its development. Rejection would foreclose much of that potential in deference to an energy utopia few Americans support when they learn how much it costs.”

Opponents of Keystone XL, who are planning a mass demonstration at the White House on February 17th, have also come to view the pipeline battle in epic terms. “Alberta’s tar sands are the continent’s biggest carbon bomb,” McKibben wrote at TomDispatch. “If you could burn all the oil in those tar sands, you’d run the atmosphere’s concentration of carbon dioxide from its current 390 parts per million (enough to cause the climate havoc we’re currently seeing) to nearly 600 parts per million, which would mean if not hell, then at least a world with a similar temperature.” Halting Keystone would not by itself prevent those high concentrations, he argued, but would impede the production of tar sands, stop that “carbon bomb” from further heating the atmosphere, and create space for a transition to renewables. “Stopping Keystone will buy time,” he says, “and hopefully that time will be used for the planet to come to its senses around climate change.”

Governments Move to Destroy Online Anonymity

Gene Howington reported last year:

The history of anonymous political free speech in America dates back to our founding. The seminal essays found in “The Federalist Papers” were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay under the nom de plume of “Publius” although this was not confirmed until a list of authorship complied by Hamilton was posthumously released to the public. As previously discussed on this blog, the right to anonymous political free speech has been addressed by the Supreme Court. Most notably in the cases of Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995). In Talley, Justice Hugo Black writing for the majority said that, “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.” In McIntyre, Justice John Paul Stevens writing for the majority said that, “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. [… ] an author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.” That seems clear enough in defining that citizens do have a Constitutionally protected right to anonymous political free speech.

Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge points out (with slight editing):

Though often maligned (typically by those frustrated by an inability to engage in ad hominem attacks), anonymous speech has a long and storied history in the United States. Used by the likes of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens) to criticize common ignorance, and perhaps most famously by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (aka publius) to write the Federalist Papers, we think ourselves in good company in using one or another nom de plume.

Particularly in light of an emerging trend against vocalizing public dissent in the United States, we believe in the critical importance of anonymity and its role in dissident speech.

Like the Economist magazine, we also believe that keeping authorship anonymous moves the focus of discussion to the content of speech and away from the speaker — as it should be. We believe not only that you should be comfortable with anonymous speech in such an environment, but that you should be suspicious of any speech that isn’t.

But governments — especially authoritarian governments — hate anonymity.

A soon-to-be-released book by Google executive Eric Schmidt – called “The New Digital Age” — describes the desire of authoritarian governments to destroy anonymity. The Wall Street Journal provides an excerpt:

Some governments will consider it too risky to have thousands of anonymous, untraceable and unverified citizens – “hidden people”; they’ll want to know who is associated with each online account, and will require verification at a state level, in order to exert control over the virtual world.

Last December, China started requiring all web users to register using their real names.

But the U.S. is quickly moving in the same direction. Gene Howington explains:

Do you have a right to anonymous political free speech?

According to the Supreme Court, you do. According to the Department of Homeland Security, you don’t. They’ve hired General Dynamics to track U.S. citizens exercising this critical civil right.

***

The full DHS policy statement regarding its activities can be viewed in the DHS Privacy Compliance Review of the NOC Media Monitoring Initiative (November 15, 2011), but rt.com’s summary spells out the basics:

“Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.

Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.

The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.” — rt.com

This question about the right to anonymous political free speech is also asked over the background of the Electronic Privacy Information Center filing a FOIA request against the DHS to find out the details of the agency’s social network monitoring program.

***

As part of recent disclosures related to the EPIC suit, it is revealed that the DHS has hired and instructed General Dynamics to monitor political dissent and the dissenters. The range of websites listed as being monitored is quite impressive. Notably, jonathanturley.org is not on this list [Howington’s essay is a guest blog on constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley’s website], but equally of note is that this list is by the DHS’ own admission “representative” and not “comprehensive”.

***

Some of the more high profile and highly trafficked sites being monitored include the comments sections of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, Wired, and ABC News. In addition, social networking sites Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are being monitored. For the first time, the public not only has an idea who the DHS is pursuing with their surveillance and where, but what they are looking for as well. General Dynamics contract requires them to “[identify] media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government, DHS, or prevent, protect, respond government activities.” The DHS also instructed General Dynamics to generate “reports on DHS, Components, and other Federal Agencies: positive and negative reports on FEMA, CIA, CBP, ICE, etc. as well as organizations outside the DHS.” In other words, the DHS wants to know who you are if you say anything critical about the government.

Anybody thinking of the name “Goebbels” at this point is not out of line.

Indeed, valuing online privacy could even get you labeled as a potential terrorist.

Google Moving to Help Destroy Anonymity

Google’s motto is “Do No Evil“.  And Google notes in a patent application:

When users reveal their identities on the internet, it leaves them more vulnerable to stalking, identity theft and harassment.

So you might assume that Google is fighting to protect anonymity on the web.

But Schmidt’s new book reveals that Google will support the destruction of anonymity (via Wall Street Journal):

Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.

Search Engine Journal explains:

[Passages from Schmidt’s book] confirm what many industry writers have been passionately clattering away about for months now.  Google+ is an identity verification network.  As the network continues to grow, content associated with a verified identity will rise to the top of Google search rankings.

(Google+ is now the world’s second most popular social network.)

In other words, Schmidt acknowledges (in the first quote above) that authoritarians want to destroy anonymity … and Google will help them do so.

We are not saying that Google likes authoritarians. True, there are potential ties between Google and the government. For example, the head of DARPA now works for Google, and Internet powerhouse Vint Cerf has worked at both institutions. Wired reports:

Long before it reportedly enlisted the help of the National Security Agency to secure its networks, Google sold equipment to the secret signals-intelligence group. In-Q-Tel [the CIA’s investment arm] backed the mapping firm Keyhole, which was bought by Google in 2004 – and then became the backbone for Google Earth.

And a former high-level CIA officer alleges that the CIA funded Google with seed money.

However, the focus of this essay is on Google’s profit motive. Specifically, Google will do business with anyone … and will cowtow to authoritarians they happen to do business with.

Google is doing this to make money. Remember, Google gathers information across all of its platforms, and personalizes search engine results based upon what you’ve looked for in past searches.

After all, Google is primary an advertising company … not a search company. See this, this, this and this.

As the Daily Mail reported last year:

A former Google executive has lambasted his ex-employer … claiming that the search company has been turned into an ‘ad company’ obsessed with harvesting people’s private information.

James Whittaker, a current Partner Development Manager at Microsoft and ex-Engineering Director at Google, posted the 1328-word attack on Google on his Microsoft blog this week.

‘Perhaps Google is right,’ writes Whittaker, ‘Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about people’s personal lives as possible.

‘The Google I was passionate about was a technology company. The Google I left was an advertising company.’

***

The move comes in the wake of Google’s controversial new ‘privacy policy’, which allowed the search giant to ‘pool’ information from 60 separate services including Gmail, Google Search and Android phones, to create ‘personalised’ advertising.

The bottom line is that anonymity reduces Google’s ability to monetize personal information and sell it to its advertisers. So Google is on a campaign to destroy anonymity … and unintentionally helping tyrants in the process.

As INeedHits laments:

We knew a day would come when privacy was a thing of the past, but Schmidt clearly spells out that day is sooner than we had expected.

February 10, 2013  |  

Something interesting is happening in Australia.

A new study by the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has found that unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels like coal and gas.

In fact, it’s a lot cheaper.

Data shows that wind farms in Australia can produce energy at AU$80/MWh. Meanwhile, coal plants are producing energy at AU$143/MWh and gas at AU$116/MWh.

Unlike the United States, where energy companies can pollute and have the costs (from illness to environmental degradation) picked up by the taxpayers, Australia has a carbon tax, which partially explains why renewables have a price advantage. But the data shows that even without the cost of carbon tax factored in; wind energy is still 14-cents cheaper than coal and 18-cents cheaper than gas.

And this is in a nation that relies more heavily on coal than any other industrialized nation in the world. But that coal reliance will soon change, as companies in Australia are quickly adopting new, cheaper renewable energies. As the study found, banks and lending institutions in Australia are now less and less likely to finance new coal plants, because they’ve simply become a bad investment.

And, while Australian wind is cheapest now, by 2020 – and maybe sooner – solar power will also be cheaper than coal and gas in Australia. The energy game is rapidly changing in that country.

Michael Liebrich, the chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, noted, “The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date.”

Well, here’s a news flash: That perception has been out of date for a while now — even right here in the United States.

According to the Energy Information Administration, looking ahead to 2016, natural gas is the cheapest energy in the United States at roughly $66/MWh. Coal comes in second at $94/MWh. But right behind coal is renewable wind at $97/MWh, which in large part accounts for why U.S. wind energy production has tripled since 2000.

And, unlike in Australia, none of those US prices account for the externalities associated with fossil fuels like pollution, cancers, military protection, or global warming. In America, the fossil fuel industry has made sure those externalities are paid for not by the coal and gas energy producers, but instead by you and me.

The fossil fuel industry doesn’t pay a penny of the cost of rapidly accelerating climate change. Or the healthcare costs from exhaust- and refinery-driven diseases and deaths from air, water, and other pollution. Not to mention the community costs of decreasing property values when a coal plant is put in your backyard. Nor do they put a cent toward the cost of our Navy keeping the oil shipping lanes open or our soldiers “protecting” the countries that “produce” all that oil.

All of these externalities come with fossil fuel production, but pretty much don’t exist with renewable energy production. And those externality costs are not only not paid for by the fossil fuel industry — they’re never even mentioned in the corporate-run “news” media in America.

Research from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences concludes that the total cost of these externalities, if paid by the polluters themselves, would raise US fossil fuel prices by as much as nearly $3/MWh. And that’s an extremely conservative estimate. Which puts wind power on parity with coal in America.

The trend lines here are pretty clear: Buggywhip, meet automobile!  

Renewables are getting cheaper, and fossil fuels are getting more expensive.

Submitted by Martin Sibileau of A View From The Trenches,

“…The two pillars of the current global financial system are therefore (a) the illusion of the existence of a risk-free asset and (b) the repression of that market which demonstrates that the risk-free asset and its derivatives (stocks, bonds, the Euro, all bred in the repo market) are an illusion….”

During the past weeks I have been on the sidelines, waiting for a relevant event to take place but fully aware that I was wrong. I just wanted to hope. Sometimes, it feels good to hope. But since last September, nothing has really changed. At least not fundamentally and that which seems new, is simply the result of the tectonic shift we had back at the end of the summer (of 2012).

It is vox populi that the rise of Spanish and Italian sovereign yields was triggered by corruption scandals that may be of political consequence. They were not alone, as the Libor affair is still making news. I don’t think scandals by themselves bring consequences, but before I go further, let me discuss the topic of corruption itself, for as I will explain, the ongoing policies will bring nothing else but more corruption.

Corruption in government is simple arbitrage. Whenever governments intervene in a market either by restricting supply or demand, capping or flooring prices, the affected goods will have two prices: The government fixed price and the market price. And because prices are nothing else but critical signals for the process of social cooperation (also known as “market”) to work, markets get confused by two different signals from the same good.

If there is restricted supply of a good, or if the price of a good is capped, the market will be willing to bid more than the current price for that good. That bid will be noticeable and the only economic agent capable of acting on the signalled gap will be someone in power: a government official or a politician. This person’s responsibility will be to allocate scarce resources where they are most needed. The public will call him corrupt, but he will just be an arbitrageur. He will offer an additional quantity of that good which is restricted at a higher price, including his fees (also called “bribes”), of course. He will be simply taking over a function that a repressed market cannot perform at that time.

Government corruption is nothing else but the reflection of a repressed market. The immorality lies not in the act of corruption (i.e. arbitrage), but in the market repression that enables it. And as we all know by now, the repression in the financial markets has only grown exponentially in the past years. This may only mean that more corruption is underway. Above all, the two repressed markets we should all be very familiar with are the ones for US Treasuries and gold.

The US Treasuries market is not really a market. As I understand, about 75% of the issuance expected for February will be purchased by the Fed, whose SOMA account already represents about a third of the stock of Treasuries outstanding, across the curve. How an asset that requires that 3/4ths of its flow be purchased by a central bank to maintain its price can be deemed to have 0% risk and be used as collateral is beyond me! As well, I am completely amazed that we still have analysts from the main banks publishing research notes where they try to assess implied future rates…Implied??? By whom?

This brings me to the gold market. As I mentioned in past letters, Keynesians give a lot of weight to the role of expectations. If they manage expectations to make the public believe that the purchasing power of their salaries has not decreased in real terms, they believe they may get an economic system from recession back to growth. In the same fashion, if they already have a benchmark for real value, say gold, all they need is to suppress the price of this benchmark, to control their expectations. They need not lower the value of the benchmark. Making it volatile enough to discourage any inclination to have that asset used as a store of value is enough. Hence, the endless take down in the price of gold triggered by leveraged sales during thin trading. It has coincidentally taken place ever since the rating on the US Treasuries was challenged by those martyrs at S&P. Below, I show the interventions during the last month (source: Bloomberg).

The two pillars of the current global financial system are therefore (a) the illusion of the existence of a risk-free asset and (b) the repression of that market which demonstrates that the risk-free asset and its derivatives (stocks, bonds, the Euro, all bred in the repo market) are an illusion.

On the subject of a risk-free asset, back on September 16^th, I suggested that “… for all practical purposes (…) the European Central Bank would set the value of the world’s risk-free rate…”. The assumption behind this conclusion was that, thanks to Draghi’s offer to establish Open Monetary Transactions, “…the market (would) arbitrage between the rates of core Europe and its periphery, converging into a single Euro zone target yield…”. The two charts below (source: Bloomberg) help us visualize the status of the predicted convergence, as well as the relative stability in the long-term German sovereign debt vis-à-vis that of the United States.

With obvious “noise”, the underlying convergence (shown above left) is clear. On the right, we can appreciate how the yield in the 30-yr Treasuries is on the rise, thanks to in spite of billions being bought by the Federal Reserve, while the yield on the German bunds remains within range. We also still have the usual flags I have been calling collective attention to for the past year, and they are all related to repressed markets. The zero-interest rate policies were going to encourage share buybacks, dividend payments and any method to allow the extraction of whatever real value is still available to extract from corporations/businesses by their owners. This meant leverage was going to increase, unemployment would remain high, capital expenditures were going to decrease and the risk of defaults was to going to rise.

A year later, all these symptoms are starting to surface. One more reason to avoid stocks and be long gold. But in my view, it will take longer than many believe, for these imbalances to burst. This is the point I made at the start of 2013, when I wrote that “…during 2013, I expect imbalances to grow…”. Those who hold a view more bearish than mine point to inconsistencies, gaps between valuations expressed by different asset classes. But how can we point to such dislocations and at the same time sustain that markets are being repressed? We must be consistent: If the signals prices send to us are detached from fundamentals, we cannot at the same time call upon them to make our case! That would only be appropriate in a world where markets are not repressed.  So… If I am not that bearish but still believe that imbalances in the long term will burst, what will make them burst? On this point, I stick to what I said at the start of 2012:

“…As long as the people of the EU put up with this situation and the EU Council (…) effectively kills democracy at the national level AND as long as the Fed continues to extend US dollar swaps, this status quo will remain…(…)…Whenever the political sustainability of the EU is challenged, we will see a run for liquidity…(…)…The trend is for asset inflation, and will last as long as the people of the EU and the US do not challenge the political status quo…” . Unemployment and the tolerance of those unemployed will tell us when the time has come. If it is not that, it will be the wave of defaults the same unemployment produces. There will still be corrections in between, but they will be just that: corrections. That tolerance, of course, is always tested by corruption cases made public. And as I explained above, the more repressed markets become, the higher the number of corruption cases we will learn from.

Washington has a lot of influence on countries like Qatar, which is reportedly the main source of weapons and support for the Syrian rebels, so they are not absolved from responsibility, Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told RT.

­With a civil war raging in Syria, French intervention in Mali, the risk of a military strike against Iran and the increased threat of Islamic terrorism in North Africa, the international community is faced with a series of complex challenges that offer no simple solutions.

Ambassador Churkin explained to RT why diplomacy is the only way out of the crises in Syria and Iran, why Mali was a legitimate intervention, and how the rush to unilateral, military action cripples efforts at legitimate, multilateral solutions.

­RT: I’m very pleased to introduce Russia’s envoy to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin. Ambassador Churkin, thank you very much for making yourself available for this interview.

Vitaly Churkin: Thank you.

RT: Let me begin with Iran. Russia is about to sit down yet again for talks with five other world powers on Iran’s nuclear program. The negotiations are due at the end of February. The US Vice-President Joe Biden said that the US was ready for direct negotiations with Iran. Do you see it as a breakthrough, as a serious push for diplomacy on the part of Washington?

VC: Well, hopefully, and of course we are looking forward to the resumption of the talks of the six with Iran in Astana in late February. And we have always welcomed the possibility of direct contacts between the United States and Iran. Unfortunately, over the years there has been some back-and-forth: some positive statements on the one side were met by negative statements on the other side.

This time, I understand, there’s been a strong negative statement from a high level from Tehran which was saying that those talks were impossible. The Iranians are notoriously difficult negotiators, and of course the subject matter is very complex, so on each particular issue there are always very difficult discussions, and it is quite a challenge to make headway. But we believe that there has been some headway on the substance of those discussions, and we hope that there is a good point from which the negotiators can proceed with making some progress.

RT: Just speaking more generally, when talking about progress in relations with Russia, I heard many times members of the Obama administration say, “Well we’ve got Russia” — quote unquote — “on board — to put more pressure on Iran.” In what context, in what ways do you see Russia on board with the United States on Iran? Do you see points where Russia is on board with the US on Iran?

VC: Our American colleagues have an interesting way of describing the situation. They very often tend to talk, as you tried to quote them, in terms of the American positions and others coming over to those positions. This is not the case at all, this is not the way we see it. When we enter into some discussions with the United States and other partners in various situations we try to find a common position, so sometimes they move towards us, sometimes it’s a compromise where we have to come together midway, this is the way we find a compromise.

We’re prepared to continue working together within the format of the six, even though we make no secret of the fact that we think that some of the things which are being done by some members of the six are counterproductive because, in addition to Security Council sanctions, they piled up all sorts of unilateral sanctions, which we believe are not needed as a matter of principle. Because once we agree to work together, once we develop a certain system based on Security Council resolutions, to add anything on top of that is the wrong thing to do, and in our view this is creating some humanitarian problems in Iran which should not be there, and it’s creating some bad blood in the talks with Iran which is not really necessary.

RT: If the US and Israel, together or separately, were about to make the decision to strike Iran, is there anything that could stop them?

VC: I hope common sense and good reason will stop them because this would be the worst thing to do. First of all, the opportunities for a dialogue are there. Nobody, no member of the six, including the United States, maintains that the Iranians have already made the political decision to develop a nuclear weapon. They accept, they say, that as far as they know the Iranians have not yet made that decision. Since this decision has not yet been made — even according to them — then certainly there is room for diplomatic discussions, for diplomacy etc. etc.

A military strike would certainly make no further talks with Iran possible, so every opportunity for political discussions would be lost. I agree with those who believe that in fact that would give a great push to those in Iran — if that strike were to happen — who might be advocating building a nuclear bomb. So that would be an irrational dangerous step, to say nothing of the regional repercussions of the conflict with Iran because now we are facing instability in the region as one of the ‘standing on its own feet’ phenomenon. Until recently we were talking about common threats which we needed to face, like terrorism, international economic crisis. Now I would suggest a new common threat which we have to come to grips with and do something about it — it’s instability in a major region spreading from Mali and Libya in northwest Africa all the way to Iran.

RT: Speaking of Mali, how do you assess France’s military operation there?

VC: I believe the extremists of the north made a pretty bad miscalculation, they got carried away and they decided to make a military move to the south, heading towards the capital, Bamako. Then the government of Mali requested the French to send in the troops, and they did. And we understood; we had no objections, because in terms of international law it was a completely clear request of the government, because of a clear threat to its security and integrity of the country. So we supported that in our discussions in the Security Council.

Basically, everything that is happening — and now the African troops have moved in, too, in support of the French — is within the context of the resolution of the Security Council. We do have, let’s face it, sometimes quite acrimonious discussions in the Security Council, but this is not one of those situations. This is a situation where people understand the dangers, and also have a very frank exchange of views about what needs to be done in order to avoid finding ourselves, putting the United Nations in an overly precarious or dangerous situation.

RT:  What effects did the Arab Spring have on the situation that is unfolding in Mali right now?

VC: One repercussion of the Arab Spring was the dramatic events in Libya. In the course of that crisis lots of weapons were brought into Libya, and there were lots of weapons as it is. But still, many more weapons were brought into Libya. During the recent hearings, which then-Secretary of State Clinton had in the House of Representatives, one of the congressmen said that they had information that Qatar “with a wink and nod from the United States”, as he put it, brought in 20,000 tons of weapons into Libya. And, you know, [with] 20,000 tons — you can arm a small terrorist army. And of course, this is exactly what happened.

In Mali, we definitely see a spillover of the Libyan crisis to a neighboring country. And most likely, the spillover has affected other places as well. For instance, it may well be — there are many indications to that effect — that the terrorist attack in Algeria close to the Libyan border also had some sort of Libyan connection in terms of people, maybe weapons, terrorists emanating from Libya participating in that attack.

RT: Did you say “at the wink of the United States”?

VC: This is his expression. And I think, “at the wink and nod of the United States”. In my understanding of English, it means some kind of encouragement, so the United States was aware of that. And, incidentally, he…

RT: (interrupts) I want to ask, actually, about Syria. The US now insists that their support for the Syrian opposition is non-lethal. Could it be that the allies of the United States are providing weapons “at the wink and nod of the United States”?

VC: Well, this is definitely the case. I mean, the United States chose to stay clean of the bad guys. At some point of the crisis they realized that things were going very wrong, that terrorist groups were coming in, the radical Islamists were active. And they were beginning to realize, maybe before some of our other Western colleagues, that things were making a very dangerous turn, and that the original scenario that they had in mind — that it will take just a couple of months to topple the Assad regime and then democracy will triumph — was completely unrealistic and had nothing to do with the actual situation on the ground. But the United States is an extremely powerful country, definitely with a lot of influence on, for example, such a country as Qatar, which is, reportedly, the main source of weapons and support for armed opposition.

If the United States wanted to be logical and really take a stand, it certainly could make it clear to those who supply weapons to the Syrian armed opposition groups. So the fact that they simply say that they themselves are not doing that does not really absolve them completely from responsibility of what is happening there in terms of the activity of armed opposition groups.

RT: You said that at some point US officials started to realize… I think that is a sense that a lot of people are getting. Because the Obama administration seems to be a lot more cautious talking about Syria now as opposed to a year ago, for example. They talk about how complex the situation is on the ground. So have you noticed that change?

VC: Yes, this is what I am saying. This change is clear, and this change is clear here in our informal discussions in the Security Council. Clearly, one could feel that their understanding of the situation has become much closer to our understanding of the complexity of what is going on there. So this is what I think makes it important to continue our dialogue in that format. But there is one disconcerting thing, among other things. There is a lot of talk about chemical weapons in Syria, which is a valid concern, and we have also talked very seriously with the Syrian government and they’ve given us all sorts of assurances that, as they put it, if there are chemical weapons in Syria they do not intend to use those weapons. But to our liking there is too much talk about that in a sort of a threatening context — that should something happen, then all sorts of things will be done. So sometimes it does give us an impression that somebody is looking for a pretext for a military intervention, to say nothing of the fact that this kind of narrative, we fear, might provide an incentive for the opposition to do something extremely dangerous with chemical weapons.

RT: What kind of interference, what kind of an international effort would Russia support?

VC: Now I think what Syria needs is more diplomatic support. We were the only ones who were trying to work both with the government and the opposition to bring them to the table, to try to form that transitional body, which is referred to in the Geneva document. Now our partners keep saying that the Geneva document is indeed the only rational document, point of departure, which is there on the table in order to try to arrange a political dialogue between the government and the opposition.

RT: Why were they reluctant then?

VC: I suppose they were still clinging to their idea of toppling the government and the opposition was not prepared to go into dialogue with the government. Our Western partners made a mistake and sent a very bad signal when they recognized the newly formed National Coalition on the basis of a platform which rejected any dialogue with the government and which called for the destruction of the government structures. But on the basis of that platform they did recognize them.

However, recently there’s been potentially a very important development, and this is the statement by the leader of that coalition about which initially we were very skeptical, and still it has many problems with this coalition. It doesn’t have much of a unity within itself, it has some contradictions with other opposition groups. But still it’s there. We have to take it as a fact. And the leader of that opposition, Mr. Ahmed Muaz al-Khatib, recently made a statement which attracted a lot of attention, saying that he is prepared to enter into dialogue with the government. He gave some preconditions for that. But it was crucially important that for the first time from an important member of the opposition this statement was delivered.

So what the international community should do now is to encourage this kind of attitude. And of course, this statement came after a statement which was made by President Assad in early January, which was criticized by many, because it was not going far enough, because it was too tough, etc. And maybe much of that criticism was accurate but he did talk about dialogue with the opposition as well.

So in our view, the role of the international community working from various directions is to try to grab those threads from both sides and to see if they can meet.

RT: Thank you.

GOP War on USPS

Email   Print   Share

Posted on Feb 10, 2013

Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

French-led forces have clashed with local fighters in the northern Malian town of Gao as the war in the West African country enters its fifth week.

Reports say the two sides traded gunfire early on Sunday near the town’s central police station.

The street battles come a day after a bomber detonated his explosives at an army checkpoint there. A similar attack took place at the same spot the day before. French-led troops captured Gao last month.

On Saturday, Malian fighters issued a statement, saying that “We are dedicating ourselves to carrying out more attacks against France and its allies. We ask the local population to stay far away from military zones and avoid explosions.”

France launched its war on Mali on January 11 under the pretext of halting the advance of fighters in the country. The war has left thousands of Malians homeless.

On February 1, Amnesty International condemned “serious human rights breaches” including the killing of children in the French war in Mali.

The rights organization said there was “evidence that at least five civilians, including three children, were killed in an airstrike” carried out by French forces against local fighters.

Some political analysts believe that Mali’s abundant natural resources, including gold and uranium reserves, could be one of the reasons behind the French war.

MAM/PKH/SS

A lorry driver who delivers meat has exclusively revealed to Sky News the serious breaches of food safety regulations that he sees every day.

Ali, which is not his real name, has worked in the haulage industry for seven years and delivers to all kinds of organisations across the north of England. 

He approached Sky News and wanted to talk to us because he believes the breaches he sees every day represent a public health risk.

Ali said: “On some deliveries the person that is receiving the product sometimes struggles to identify a multi line order if there is three or four different types of meat.

“They’ll struggle to identify which meat is which.

“Sometimes they have to refer to the weights of the pallets being outlined on the delivery note

“I have seen cases where they have had to smell it to try and tell if it was lamb or beef.”

Meat that has been imported into the UK should be accompanied with the appropriate documents but Ali insists the paperwork is often missing.

“Most of the deliveries of meat don’t come with that paperwork – they come with a scribbled handwritten receipt out of a duplicate receipt book that has been attached to a piece of A4 paper and photocopied.

“Those sort of notes might have the product described just literally as ‘meat’ or ‘frozen meat’.

“On a lot of occasions we won’t have any documentation at all for that product.”

The driver says he is “scared” by the way cheap meat is delivered around the UK.

“It is going to the most vulnerable people, going into hospitals, schools, old people’s homes – there is a problem with the whole supply chain.”

Ali says there are regular abuses of the strict temperature controls that he and his company are supposed to adhere to.

Ali says he tries to flag up problems to the management of his company but often just has to get the job done.

The experienced driver believes there is a sloppy attitude across the industry towards food safety but names Morrisons and Waitrose as the two companies that impress him with the rigorous checks they make on every delivery.

“I used to be a carnivore, a meal wasn’t complete without meat – that is very different now. I only shop and feed my kids food from Morrisons and Waitrose because I see how they operate.

“In fact it is a joke amongst the drivers that it is a pain to deliver to Morrisons because they check everything – it takes ages and they often turn stuff away if it isn’t up to scratch.”

I am really excited that the long overdue battle over immigration reform and a path to citizenship has finally begun in earnest. While I am heartsick at the reason, it is good news that common sense gun safety laws are once again being discussed in this country almost two decades after we finally passed the Brady Bill. And the on-going, never ending budget fights remain urgently important in terms of stopping more damage to middle class and poor people in America. I know I will be engaging daily in the vitally important battles over all these issues, and I expect my progressive allies all over the country will be as well.

But I remain troubled, profoundly troubled, by the fact that fundamental economic issues seem to be the last thing on anybody’s minds in DC. Our economy may be slowly getting better, but we still have a very serious jobs crisis in this country- nowhere near to full employment and not on a path to get there for many years to come. Our manufacturing sector is still only limping along and our trade deficit remains catastrophically high. Our infrastructure is still badly in need of repair. Wages for most workers are still stuck in neutral or slipping compared to inflation, and a third of those who found new jobs after losing them in the great recession are being paid less than in the old job. Our housing market is getting stronger in some metro areas, but is still very weak overall in terms of prices, homeowners under water, and numbers of foreclosures and empty homes.

And looming over these economic problems is quite literally the elephant in the room: these gargantuan Too Big To Fail, and apparently Too Big To Jail, Wall Street financial conglomerates.

Because of their massive economic and political power, the financial sector swallows up more than 40% of the economy in this country, and because they can make more money doing speculative high-speed trading than by investing in manufacturing or infrastructure or making loans to small businesses, those sectors get starved for capital. Because of Wall Street’s obsession with short-term profit, workers are not invested in and wages keep getting driven down. Because these banks’ accountants have figured out that their short term stock prices will stay higher if they continue to show inflated housing assets on their books, they have been unwilling to work with homeowners to write down underwater debt. Because of tax policies such as low capital gains and the carried interest loophole that favor the financial sector, the federal budget is starved for resources, and because Wall Street wants to be able to speculate with senior citizens’ money, the pressure keeps building to cut or privatize Social Security, as well as state and local government workers’ pensions.

Financial sector problems have been in the news a lot lately. Standard and Poor’s is finally (finally, finally) being sued. New emails from JP Morgan traders and execs have come out showing that they engaged in very shaky and probably fraudulent practices in bundling mortgage securities together. Ted Kaufman and activists are demanding more bank investigations and prosecutions. Frontline raised hell about DOJ dropping the ball on Wall Street prosecution, and the guy in charge of that for DOJ resigned the next week. Elizabeth Warren is investigating weak settlements between regulators and bankers. LIBOR prosecutions are still ginning up.

Wall Street is not responsible for all the ills in our economy. I’m happy to give plenty of the blame to conservative politicians in the pocket of wealthy special interests, companies like Wal-Mart driving down wages and destroying small retailers, health industry companies driving our medical costs through the roof, carbon spewing polluters refusing to make way for the green jobs of the future, and big businesses driving their small business competitors out of business. But the damage Wall Street did to the economy, and the parasitic power they still hold over it, is at the very heart of why our economy has not been able to get back on the road to true prosperity and full employment. And all these stories make clear, the corruption on Wall Street stinks to high heavy. The biggest players there are playing a rigged game and screwing the rest of us badly.

The only answer to why all this is not getting fixed in spite of the flashing red warning signs is something America’s founders understood well: the problem of concentrated power. They constructed our entire system around the guiding principle of distributed power, checks and balances. They knew that there was no way a democracy would survive if any one politician, region, or business sector became too powerful for too long. That fear has been a real danger a few times over our country’s history- slave power in the years leading up to the Civil War and the Robber Barons’ power in the late 1800s being the two worst examples- but for most of our country’s history the pluralistic idea has kept our democracy healthy. But when something as central to a nation as its financial system is controlled by institutions that there are this monumentally huge, we have a serious problem. And if the problem doesn’t get fixed, it will crush either our economy or our democracy or- most likely- both.

When you have top officials like Lanny Breuer at the DOJ openly alluding to the fact that he won’t prosecute banks because of the harm it might do to the economy; when you have the most free market worshipping conservative President in modern history turning his philosophy upside down on a dime and handing out government bailouts like a drunken sailor; when you have a Democratic President presiding over record profits and bonuses for Wall Street banks less than a year after the biggest financial collapse in 80 years while the rest of the country’s economy is in terrible shape, and not seeming terribly upset by that dynamic; when you have the most blatant financial sector fraud in many decades, and not a single criminal prosecution of a major bank executive- when you have all that happening, it is clear enough to this old political guy that the guys at the top of the Wall Street system have amassed way too much power.

The only way to break that power is break these biggest banks up. Unless and until we do that, the economy will continue to limp along, and future financial collapses caused by their concentration of power and corruption will periodically occur. Thankfully, Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are gearing up for the battle. The rest of us need to fight by their side.

With the the U.S. economy having once again dropped into negative recessionary growth, currency wars around the world heating up through direct and indirect devaluations, and trillion dollar fiscal deficits piling on, how is it possible that the stock market, a key measure of economic health for many Americans, is touching near all time highs?

Marin Katusa, Chief Strategist at Casey Research, suggests that this effect can be traced to monetary machinations that are happening behind the scenes, where few people are willing to look.

“Because they’re printing and making the availability of money so easy, the market is really confused right now,” says Katusa.

The reality is that literally trillions of dollars have been borrowed and printed to bail out the United States and Europe, and much of that money has been injected into stock markets to give the appearance of recovery.

It is, at best, an illusory effect.

Given that more people than ever before are out of work, over half of American households are dependent on some form of government disbursement to survive, and prices for essential goods like food and energy are consistently rising, it’s only a matter of time before confusion in financial markets turns to panic.

And when it does, just as we’ve seen throughout history, only real, tangible assets will be of value.

One such asset that has always maintained real value in times of calamity is gold.

Despite arguments that gold doesn’t grow like typical modern day investments and simply sits in a vault gathering dust, according to Marin Katusa in a recent interview with Future Money Trends, there is one key reason for why it should be in your diversified basket of goods.

The number one reason to invest in gold is insurance.

Because of the massive liquidity and the dilution of, not just the US and not just Bernanke, but all of the major countries — they are a printing press… The main reason to invest is because gold is money.

Before they had fiat currencies — that’s the currencies like today… there was gold.

The Romans. The Egyptians. The Babylonians.

For thousands of years they used gold before they used these fiat currencies.

And, every time in history a fiat currency ends in disaster.

We have recent examples. If you look at what happened to Yugoslavia, or Zimbabwe, or even Germany with their fiat currencies… gold always holds true value.

That’s why we believe gold is a true, original money.

…

I think at least you can see with gold, it is the insurance policy to bet against the bankers.

Watch at Youtube

With all of this money — literally hundreds of billions of dollars — being thrown into stock markets by leading financial institutions that were just a few years ago on the brink of insolvency, there are massive price distortions happening across the board. This includes rising stock markets, one of the key benefactors of the Federal Reserve’s printing press.

Another not so positive effect (at least not for the American people) are ever increasing prices in the free market, something that Katusa says is going to continue:

[There is a] One hundred percent [chance of inflation].

You can guarantee these three things in life: Taxes, Death, and Inflation.

Inflation is coming… I just don’t know if it’s next week, or in six months, or twelve months.

But the reality is, it’s coming.

That’s why if you have a percentage in gold, you’re covered.

It’s an insurance policy.

When all fiat monetary exchange mechanisms fail, only one asset has stood the test of time as a store of wealth.

Gold is and always has been an insurance policy.

It will be the only thing left standing when the U.S. dollar, the Euro, the Yen, and other paper currencies are inflated to oblivion by their respective governments.

Make sure you have some when that happens.

Researcher using a GeneChip of US company Affymetrix which manufacturates DNA microarrays, in a laboratory of French biopharmaceutical company Genfit (AFP Photo / Philippe Huguen)

Police in Marseille have arrested identical twin brothers for a string of sexual assaults. Officers believe one, if not both men are to blame, but cannot be sure as the pair’s DNA is nearly indistinguishable.

Police have charged both men, identified as 24-year old unemployed delivery drivers Elwin and Yohan, over the rapes. Both are being held with bail.

Standard DNA tests are unable to differentiate between their DNA, only far more difficult and potentially cost prohibitive tests would be necessary to figure out who is the culprit.

The pair deny any involvement in the rapes of six women, aged 22 to 76, between September and January.

Police were able to track down the men after being identified by CCTV footage shot on a bus. A cell phone allegedly stolen from one of the victims was also found in the brothers’ possession. The victims were also able to identify their attacker, but not tell them apart.

“It’s a rather rare case for the alleged perpetrators to be identical twins,” chief investigator Emmanuel Kiehl told AFP.

Kiehl said DNA evidence was discovered at some of the crime scenes, though the cost of extensive-enough tests would be “onerous.”

Due to the highly complicated nature of the tests, it could reportedly cost up to $1.3 million dollars to carry them out.

One DNA expert told the French newspaper La Provence “For a normal analysis we compare 400 base pairs[of nucleotides].” In order to differentiate between the twins, “We would be looking at billions,” he added.

AFP Photo / Bertrand Guay

The UK’s super-rich, the top 1% of earners, now pocket 10 pence in every pound, while the bottom half have seen their share of the nation’s wealth drop in the last 15 years. Middle earners have also seen their earning power stagnate.

Inequality in the UK has increased sharply in the last decade and a half, according to a study by the think tank, the Resolution Foundation, ‘Squeezed Britain 2013’, which is to be published next week.

According to Resolution’s analysis the top 1% on earners have seen their share of the nation’s wealth jump from 7% in the mid-1990s to 10% today, meaning that the top 1% of earners now pocket 10p in every pound of income paid in Britain. The bottom 50% have seen their share of the pie drop from 19% to 18%, it was reported in the Observer.

Although there was a slight reduction in top earning between 2009 and 2011, the research concludes this is most likely because the highest paid employees have brought their earnings forward to benefit from reduced income tax rates, which come into force this April. The Chancellor, George Osborne, is lowering the top tax rate for all earnings over £150,000 from 50p to 45p.

Resolution’s analysis shows the polarization of the UK labor market, between the top earners vast salaries and stagnant wages for many at the bottom and in the middle of the pile. However, the study did not take into account the impacts of benefits, like housing benefit, or tax credits, which top up incomes of the very poor.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a statement last Wednesday warning of the dangers of increasing inequality in its annual health check of the UK economy.

“Labor market conditions are widening the income gap between fulltime employees and an increasing share of the workforce on part-time, insecure and low-wage jobs. This comes in a context where income inequality was already high and rising before the recession,” the statement said.

The gap between rich and poor is becoming a major political issue in Britain. Labour leader, Ed Miliband, wants to introduce a policy of ‘pre-distribution’ to try and narrow the gap between the best and worst paid.

The London Mayor, Boris Johnson, as well as various politicians from across the political spectrum, have praised the idea of the Living Wage, £8.55 an hour in London and £7.45 elsewhere. The Living Wage is not legally enforceable unlike the National Minimum Wage, which is significantly less, at £6.19 an hour. Ed Miliband has said he is in favor of making the Living Wage a legal requirement in his party’s manifesto for the next election.

While, Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, is pushing for a ‘mansion tax’ on all homes worth over £2 million.

‘Squeezed Britain’ focuses on the fortunes of the UK’s hard pressed middle earners, many of whom have seen their incomes stagnate over the past decade as a result of inflation and their reduced bargaining power in the work place, due partly to the shrinking in power of trade unions.

“The growing gap in incomes is pronounced when you look at the top 10th of households, and overwhelming when you consider the position of the top 1%. The rest of society hasn’t kept up. It’s the squeezed majority not just the squeezed middle,” Matthew Whittaker, senior economist at Resolution, told the Observer.

On this Sunday’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor if he was shifting his stance on immigration and the Dream Act after he said this at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute:

In a wide-ranging speech at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, Cantor said that when it comes to immigration reform, “A good place to start is with the kids.”

“One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents,” he said. ” It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home.”

When David Gregory tried to pin him down about whether he would actually be supportive of the Dream Act which would create a path to citizenship for these children, Cantor refused to answer him and claimed he didn’t know what the Dream Act was. And despite the fact that Gregory pressed him for a yes or no answer specifically on the path to citizenship, Gregory eventually allowed Cantor to get away with punting on the question and moved on to the next topic.

CANTOR: David, it’s been over ten years now where this problem has not been dealt with and we’ve been unable to find any common ground and what I said this week at the American Enterprise Institute was that I thought the best way to start was with children. […]

GREGORY: So you would support the Dream Act?

CANTOR: I have put out a proposal. I don’t know what the Dream Act at this point is. What I say is we’ve got a place, I think all of us can come together and that is for the kids. Now…

GREGORY: Can you bring conservatives along to supporting a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here without having to first leave the country?

CANTOR: There is a lot of movement right now in the House and the Senate and both sides of the aisle, with both having a lot of different ideas. I think…

GREGORY: But yes or no to that question, because you could really do it if you went all in, you could bring along the right in the House, couldn’t you?

CANTOR: I think that a good place to start is with children and listen, we’ve got some… look, here’s the difficulty in this issue I think, and it is because we’ve got families that are here that become part of the fabric of our country, right? And we want to make sure that we’re compassionate and sensitive to their plight, I mean, these kids know no other place as home. On the other hand, we are a country of laws. You know, we have a situation with the border security that we’ve got to get straight. We have to secure our borders and there is this balance that needs to take place. But the best place to begin I think is with the children. Let’s go ahead and get that under our belt, put a win on the board and so we can promise a better life for those kids who are here due to no fault of their own.

Sounds like a lot of weasel words to me. As Think Progress noted, Rep. Raul Labrador has proposed legislation that would create a permanent underclass of undocumented immigrants. Who want to take dibs that his legislation is what we’ll see Cantor and his fellow House members end up supporting? I don’t think we’ll ever see Republicans support a path to citizenship, because allowing these immigrants to become citizens means allowing them to vote and we all know they don’t want that. Right now their so-called “rebranding” effort just looks like smearing a whole lot of lipstick on the same old pig.

In a political era of corporate dominance it was inevitable that doublespeak would become the official language of Washington, DC. Now “cuts” to social programs are referred to as “savings,” while the destruction of these programs is “reform.” This is the essence of President Obama’s doublespeakish “Race to the Top” public education “reform,” as well as his yet-to-be-announced deficit plan based on Medicare “savings.”

The Medicare cuts are part of a larger “reform” of health care in the United States, which ultimately serves to shift the cost of health care off the backs of corporations, placing the burden firmly on the shoulders of working people.

The main reason that health care reform became a national priority for Obama is because it was a priority for big business: corporations have long complained that their employee health care costs were too high. And they’ve always hated paying payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Obama has responded gallantly to these grievances, as he did to the banks when they demanded to be bailed out with taxpayer money (thus creating a trillion dollars more in national debt).

Obama has remained mostly quiet about his Medicare plans, but has stated repeatedly “all options are on the table” (his favorite Bushism). The secretiveness is based on the unpopularity of the options, all of which have already been openly discussed in the media in the last two years of bi-partisan “Grand Bargain” haggling.

The Washington Post recently reported:

Obama said that he is committed to a broad effort [a grand bargain] to restrain the national debt and that past White House proposals to rein in Medicare costs… “are still very much on the table” as part of that effort” (February 5, 2013).

When Obama says “still on the table” he’s referring to the January 1st fiscal cliff “crisis,” where Medicare cuts were being considered – along with Social Security cuts – as part of a Grand Bargain deal.

The reason that Obama delayed the Medicare cuts is because he’s smart; better to first pose as the anti-corporate crusader by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire (which would have automatically expired in his first term had he not extended them). Now, Obama plans to pose as the “balanced” voice of reason, by balancing the national debt on the backs of working and retired people.

The most commonly discussed Medicare reform – among Republicans and Democrats – is raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. Such a drastic move would likely be phased in 10 years down the road, so that those approaching 65 don’t burn down the White House in response.

Where will the future Medicare-less 65-year-old’s go? They’ll remain captive to the insurance companies of course, at much greater expense to them and the rest of society, since Medicare costs are profoundly cheaper than the private sector that Obama has enshrined in his Obamacare policies.

Other possible attacks on Medicare include the innocuous sounding “means testing,” which at first appears as a well reasoned progressive tax on wealthier Medicare recipients. However, as a study by the Kaiser Foundation concluded, such a policy would likely create a mass exodus from Medicare into the private healthcare field for higher income individuals.

Aside from lining the pockets of the healthcare corporations, such a Medicare exodus would also raise the Medicare premiums for everyone else, while destroying Medicare’s universal status – the basis for its effectiveness. The right wing has long sought for ways to create private “individual accounts” for Social Security and Medicare, since breaking people away from participation in a popular single system is the best way to fragment it, and ultimately destroy it.

And while raising the Medicare eligibility age and “means testing” would both immensely benefit corporations, this consciously pro-corporate policy began with Obamacare. Although Obamacare was applauded for expanding Medicaid nationally – a state administered program – the state level austerity cuts have reduced Medicaid to a second rate health care service, which promises to further degenerate as the state-level austerity crisis grinds on.

Less advertised was Obamacare’s Medicare “savings” [cuts] in the hundreds of millions of dollars, by singling out the Medicare Advantage program for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, while also reducing payments to Medicare contractors by hundreds of millions of dollars (hospitals, clinics, etc).

Of course hospitals simply shift this cost burden onto the patients, who receive less care, while giving doctors greater incentive not to see Medicare patients. As Medicare is steadily defunded, a two-tier healthcare system is created, where wealthier seniors will opt for private insurance while the rest will get second rate treatment, undermining the popularity and universality of Medicare, and thus making it more vulnerable to further cuts.

Obamacare will also levy a heavy tax on employers who actually give their employees good health care, thus discouraging the practice. For workers with union contracts, this tax will give employers leverage over the unions to make deep cuts in health care benefits, or end them completely. For non-union workers, employers are using Obamacare as an excuse simply to drop their employer-based health insurance, leaving workers to fend for themselves in the private realm.

The fact that Obamacare gives employers a strong incentive to weaken their employees health care plan is not an accident, but a key provision in the plan that will fundamentally change health care in a negative way for millions of people, and who will then be mandated to buy shoddy insurance for themselves. Corporations will thus save billions of dollars, while the health care corporations will have tens of millions of new paying customers, Obamacare’s real intention.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that at least 7 million people will be dropped from their employer health plan because of Obamacare, but the CBO also said that the figure could well rise to 20 million. Of course employers will take advantage of Obamacare to shift the cost of health care onto individuals, in the same way that employers shifted away from defined pension plans and onto the 401(k) scheme. Several employer surveys have reported that companies plan to dump their employee health care plans by the millions.

The attack on Medicare and health care in general is consistent with the many other attacks against the living standards of working people, including wages and benefits, safety net programs, full time employment, privatization of the public sector, etc.

Corporations benefit from all of these policies. High unemployment allows them to leverage lower wages, which create higher profits. The destruction of social programs and the broader public sector means lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations, who’d rather they fund private services explicitly for them and their rich friends.

All of these policies are “good for the economy” of the 1%, since the economy is dominated by the big banks and other corporations, who are strip mining the public sector for any bit of profitable morsel, and will continue to do so until they are stopped by a united effort of labor, community, and student groups demanding health care and jobs for all, to be paid for by the 1%.

Over 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets Saturday in protest of six years of severe austerity cuts and rocketing costs of living since the financial crisis plunged the country’s banking system into an endless debt spiral.

(Photo @kierfoley via twitter) Organized by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), ‘Lift the Burden’ demonstrations were held across the island country in cites including Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford, with some 60,000 marching in the capital alone.

Speaking at the Dublin rally, ICTU General Secretary David Begg said that it was “hugely unfair that Irish people had paid 42 percent of the European banking debt burden”

“Campaign against the debt burden will continue until the European authorities fully honours the agreement reached last July to separate bank debt from sovereign debt,” he added.

According to financial adviser Marco Pietropoli, Ireland “ended up with a far bigger bill” than most countries who’ve had a bailout, causing their citizens “a great deal more” suffering.

“They want us to pay all their bills and we’re getting tired of it now,” said Patrick Healey, a teacher who has seen his wages cut by about 20 percent in the last five years.

Reuters reports that the demonstrations were held despite a recent bank debt deal with the European Central Bank which allows Ireland to stretch out the cost of bailing out Anglo Irish Bank.” They write:

For protesters struggling with cuts in living standards, mortgage arrears or unemployment, the deal is scant consolation.

“I’ve no confidence at all in the deal, it won’t make any difference to ordinary people,” said Alfie Murray, marching in Dublin with his 8-year-old grandson.

“It’s the next generation that’ll shoulder the cost,” he said.

Ted Asregadoo speaks to Christopher Petrella about his article on Truthout entitled, “The Legacy of Chattel Slavery: Private Prisons Blur the Line Between Real People and Real Estate With New IRS Property Gambit.” In this interview, Chris discusses how the GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America — two of the largest private prison corporations — have changed their corporate status that could classify prisoners in their private prisons as part of the corporation’s real estate holdings.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech during a rally in Tehran’s Azadi Square (Freedom Square) to mark the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution on February 10, 2013 (AFP Photo / Behrouz Mehri)

Iran’s president has said he is ready for directs talks with the US if the West stops pressuring his country. His comments directly contradict the words of the Supreme leader of Iran who rejected the US proposal of direct negotiations.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his statement at a rally to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“You pull away the gun from the face of the Iranian nation, I myself will enter the talks with you,” he said.

His statement is in stark contrast to the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of Iran, who has the final say on all key decisions, who said earlier this week that talking to the US would not solve any problems.

“Some naïve people like the idea of negotiating with America, however, negotiations will not solve the problems,” said Khamenei, who then accused the US of “holding a gun against Iran and saying you want to talk”.

The Ayotallah’s words follow an invitation by vice president Joe Biden to hold bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran.

The West and Israel suspect Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran denies these claims and insists its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

In an historic visit to Cairo last Wednesday, Ahmadinejad reiterated Tehran’s claim that Iran’s goals are purely defensive.

“[Israel] wants to attack Iran, but we’re not preparing any attack against them because the purpose of our program is purely defense,” he said in an interview with Al-Ahram newspaper, before leaving for Egypt.

While in Egypt, his first visit to the country in three decades, he said that the world should cooperate with Iran.

My fellow Americans, I have said in previous addresses on this occasion that the key to our future success is to make sure that the education we provide our young people is the best in the world. I have said that we must out-educate and out-innovate other nations.

Signs at an education rally in Austin, TX. (Photo: Cyberchuck2000 via Flickr)Over the past four years, I have learned what we need to do. First, we must end the pressure on teachers to teach to the test. I have said it before and I will say it again: We want teachers to teach with creativity and passion. I call on states not to pay bonuses to teachers to produce higher test scores and to stop evaluating teachers based on the test scores of their students. We now realize that this causes teaching to the test. That must stop now. Of course, teachers should be evaluated, but they should be evaluated by other professionals, not by their students’ test scores.

Too much testing crushes creativity and innovation, and that’s why we must stop it – now.

Second, we must strengthen and improve our public schools. We must end all efforts to privatize them. I am firmly opposed to vouchers. I will cancel federal subsidies to any charter school that does not seek out and enroll students with disabilities and students who have dropped out. I call on the states to prohibit for-profit schools and for-profit management of schools. Every dollar taken from taxpayers must go to classrooms, not to investors.

Let us recognize here and now that public education is an essential institution of our democratic society. We must make it better, not privatize it.

We will improve education by improving the lives of children. The United States leads the advanced nations of the world in child poverty. This is a scandal, and we must dedicate ourselves to reducing it.

We are #24 in the world in providing early childhood education. We must extend early childhood education to all children, especially those who are poorest.

A study last year by the March of Dimes said we are #131 out of 184 nations in assuring prenatal care for pregnant women. Women who don’t get prenatal care are at risk of having children with developmental deficiencies. That is unacceptable.

When all our children start school healthy and ready to learn, we will be a better society with better schools. Let’s start now.

© 2013 Public Affairs Television Inc.

Diane Ravitch is a historian of education at New York University. She is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. She has written many books and articles about American education, including: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform, (Simon & Schuster, 2000); The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (Knopf, 2003); The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know (Oxford, 2006), which she edited with her son Michael Ravitch.

Last week was a landmark week for the erosion of your civil liberties. While mouth breathing Americans joined with doomsday preppers and semi-automatic wielding quail hunters to dominate the airwaves with outrage over the perceived loss of their rights under the 2nd Amendment, the US government pressed ahead with measures that quietly dismantle the 5th.

On Monday, NBC News published an unclassified Justice Department document indicating that suspected al-Qaeda operators or their “associated forces” may be lawfully targeted and assassinated, even if they are US citizens, and even if they are not thought to be actively plotting an attack.

Then on Wednesday, the Obama Administration was back in court to defend its right to use the United States military against its own citizens. Section 1021 (b) (2) of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Obama, gives the military the right to arrest and indefinitely detain US citizens without due process of law.

The exact wording of the provision is as follows:

“A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces”

Plaintiffs in the case Hedges v. Obama (as in journalist and author Chris Hedges) argue that several terms including “substantially supported”, “associated forces” and “belligerent act” are overly vague. If they wanted to, the U.S. government could interpret them to include journalists who report on terrorist groups and political activists critical of the Obama administration’s policies.

The provision also states:

“Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”

The term “the end of hostilities” is hauntingly open-ended. Attorney Carl Mayer pointed out Wednesday that we are on day 4,163 of an open ended war against al-Qaeda. There are pitifully few signs that the defense industry will ever turn its $350 million F-22 fighters into $350 million plowshares anytime soon.‘Hostilities’ could arguably last forever.

Hedges described the NDAA as “The final battle between the restoration of due process and the imposition of a military state.”

Meanwhile, the corporate media attended to Beyonce’s sexy performance and incredible…voice. Nary a peep was mentioned about the NDAA case. The only news agencies at the courthouse were Democracy Now, RT, HispaniTV and rumor has it Reuters.

The panel discussion with the plaintiffs was covered exclusive by independent media outlets; again Democracy Now, an Occupy media presence, and myself covering for WBAI Radio in NY, the The Young Turks Online Network, and you.

You can find the full panels online. I was able to snag this powerful backstage interview with one of the plaintiffs. You may recognize him from a little controversy involving what’s come to be known as the Pentagon Papers. That’s right, legendary whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg said the following:

“They are reversing freedoms we’ve had since the Magna Carta.”

‘They’ve made (Wikileaks founder) Julian Assange an enemy of the state… and for that matter they really think of the public in those (same) terms.”

“The President hasn’t formally legalized the death squad part but (he) is pronouncing it as a proud aspect of his functions.”

The whole interview is here:

The Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

As of right now, a federal court in New York had issued a permanent injunction blocking the indefinite detention powers of the NDAA but the injunction was stayed pending Wednesday’s appeal by the Obama Administration.

Stay tuned.

(Photo: AFP)Tens of millions of Hindus have gathered in the Indian city of Allahabad on Sunday for a ritual bath in the sacred Ganges River in the “most auspicious day” of the world’s largest religious festival, the Kumbh Mela.

According to a government spokesperson, the population of the city had swollen from its normal 1.2 million to about 40 million, with about 20 million packed inside the vast sealed-off bathing area on the banks of the river.

Devotees believe that by entering the mighty rivers they are cleansed of sin and freed from the karmic cycle of rebirth. The bathing takes place in an area known as the Sangam at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers “and a third mythical waterway called the Saraswati.”

Known a “Mauni Amavasya,” the ritual bathing day is the “most auspicious” in the month-long festival which takes place every twelve years. 

The Kumbh Mela festival “has its origins in Hindu mythology, which describes how a few drops of the nectar of immortality fell on the four places that host the festival–Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar,” AFP reports.

“This is the time when the chances of spiritual salvation are at a peak,” added holyman Parushram Shastri.

Hindu devotees line up to dip in the Ganges River in India as part of the world’s largest religious festival (Photo: AFP)

Devotees dance in celebration after having taken a dip (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/ AFP/Getty)

Devotees light a candle on an offering at the waters edge. (Photo:Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty)

Sadhus, or holy men, walk past a sand decoration after performing a ritual prayer at the water’s edge at the Sangham. (Photo:Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty)

Five people have died after a lifeboat fell from a cruiseliner and capsized in the sea trapping its victims in the Canary Islands.

It happened during a safety drill this afternoon while the vessel was docked at the pier of the port of Santa Cruz in La Palma.

Those killed during the exercise were all reported to be crew, including three Indonesians, a Filipino and a man from Ghana.

A further three suffered injuries – two Greek nationals and a Filipino – and received treatment at a hospital on the holiday island, west of Tenerife.

Thomson Cruises issued a statement, saying it was “aware of an incident involving the ship’s crew on board Thomson Majesty”.

“We are working closely with the ship owners and managers, Louis Cruises, to determine exactly what has happened and provide assistance to those affected by the incident,” the statement added.

Spanish national broadcaster RTVE said the lifeboat fell while staff were conducting an evacuation drill on the cruise ship.

Television images showed a small, white two-hulled lifeboat capsized beside the ship.

Officials have not confirmed if there were any passengers on board the cruiseliner at the time.

However, one passenger, who did not wish to be named, told Sky News that passengers were being asked to stay off the deck.

He said the lifeboat was still in the sea, and that he had seen two bodies pulled from the water.

The 40,000-tonne cruise ship was due to sail to Funchal, the capital of Madeira, at 3pm, but is now being held in the dock.

More follows…

Recent data show that the Islamic Republic of Iran was the 15th largest steel producer in the world for the year 2012.

According to the latest report published by the World Steel Association, Iran produced 14.463 million tons of crude steel last year, and was named the 15th largest producer of crude steel in the world.

Iran is reportedly the biggest steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa. The country’s main steel mills are located in Isfahan and Khuzestan provinces.

The major raw steel producers of Iran are the Mobarakeh Steel Mill, with approximately 47 percent of the market share, the Khuzestan Steel Company with about 23 percent, the Isfahan Foundry with about 20 percent, and the Iran National Steel Industries Group with approximately 10 percent of the market share

Iran is among the 15 major mineral-rich countries of the world and exports its industrial and mineral products to 159 countries, including Iraq, China, the United Arab Emirates, India and Afghanistan.

MP/HGH

In an incendiary new report, “Rig the Vote: How a National Effort to Attack Voting Rights Landed in Wisconsin”, the Center for Media and Democracy and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund show how Republicans and rightwing groups across the country are working to undermine elections and ensure a Republican lock on electoral college votes in states that have historically voted Democratic.

A 2011 voting rights protest led by the NAACP. (Photo: Michael Fleshman via Flickr)Among the nefarious vote-rigging efforts explored in the report: Republicans hope to take their gerrymandered redistricting plans nationwide–changing the rules so that electoral votes in swing states are awarded based on Congressional districts, not popular vote totals.

This could guarantee that Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, even as they lose the popular vote, get enough electoral votes to become President against the will of the majority of American voters.

In 2010, Republican legislatures were able to redraw Congressional districts to heavily favor Republican candidates in states where the popular vote historically goes to Democrats.

Now, in Wisconsin, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, all of which went for Obama in 2012, Republican-controlled state legislatures are pushing forward plans to change the system to award electoral votes by Congressional district.

Had those plans been in place in 2012, the report finds, “Mitt Romney would have won the Presidency.”

In case there is any doubt about why Republicans are pursuing this scheme, the report quotes Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, who “stated explicitly that the plan is only intended for ‘states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red.'”

In red states like Texas, where the same strategy might yield a few electoral votes for Democrats, the legislature is not pursuing it.

The report focuses specifically on Wisconsin–but the vote-rigging schemes it outlines are the same across the country.

That’s because they are the product of a coordinated strategy by national rightwing groups–not homegrown politics.

Most of the bills discussed in the report were written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which pushes rightwing and corporate interests in all the states.

ALEC drafted voter I.D. legislation, which has come up in state after state, “shortly after the highest general election turnout in nearly 60 years swept America’s first black president into office with strong support from college students and people of color.”

In the guise of preventing election fraud, voter I.D.bills, along with bills to end same-day registration, aim to suppress the vote by these same groups.

The state of Wisconsin had both the second-highest voter turnout in the nation in 2008, and some of the best election practices in the United States for 2008 and 2010, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts which praised Wisconsin for the integrity, accuracy, and accessibility of its elections systems.

Yet Republican state officials are currently busy trying to change all that.

Governor Scott Walker has announced his intention to end same-day registration in the state, justifying it on the grounds that it would make life easier for elections clerks.

But, the report notes, municipal clerks throughout the state as well as the state’s chief elections officer have made clear that ending same-day registration would create a “bureaucratic morass.”

Voters would have to go to the DMV and social service agencies for provisional ballots, and return for a second visit with proof of eligibility.

This system, in addition to burdening voters and elections officials, would make Wisconsin more like the states that scored the lowest in the Pew measure of best election practices–with tens of thousands of provisional ballots delaying results, unresolved elections, and poor turnout.

The same issues arise with the new voter I.D. laws.

In-person voter fraud is practically nil. Yet voter I.D. laws continue to be a priority for state legislatures.

Two Wisconsin judges struck down voter I.D. in the state as an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote since, as the report notes “disenfranchising 300,000 people would not be outweighed by the ‘benefits’ of stopping a problem that is statistically insignificant.”

“The people’s fundamental right of suffrage preceded and gave birth to our Constitution,” Dane County District Judge Richard Niess wrote in his March decision striking down Wisconsin’s voter ID law. “Not the other way around.”

The same principle could be applied to all of the Republicans’ nefarious vote rigging schemes.

© 2013 The Progressive Magazine

Ruth Conniff covers national politics for The Progressive and is a voice of The Progressive on many TV and radio programs. Conniff was a regular on CNN’s Sunday Capital Gang and is now a regular on PBS’s To the Contrary. She also has appeared frequently on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and on NPR and Pacifica.

In an incendiary new report, “Rig the Vote: How a National Effort to Attack Voting Rights Landed in Wisconsin”, the Center for Media and Democracy and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund show how Republicans and rightwing groups across the country are working to undermine elections and ensure a Republican lock on electoral college votes in states that have historically voted Democratic.

A 2011 voting rights protest led by the NAACP. (Photo: Michael Fleshman via Flickr)Among the nefarious vote-rigging efforts explored in the report: Republicans hope to take their gerrymandered redistricting plans nationwide–changing the rules so that electoral votes in swing states are awarded based on Congressional districts, not popular vote totals.

This could guarantee that Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, even as they lose the popular vote, get enough electoral votes to become President against the will of the majority of American voters.

In 2010, Republican legislatures were able to redraw Congressional districts to heavily favor Republican candidates in states where the popular vote historically goes to Democrats.

Now, in Wisconsin, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, all of which went for Obama in 2012, Republican-controlled state legislatures are pushing forward plans to change the system to award electoral votes by Congressional district.

Had those plans been in place in 2012, the report finds, “Mitt Romney would have won the Presidency.”

In case there is any doubt about why Republicans are pursuing this scheme, the report quotes Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, who “stated explicitly that the plan is only intended for ‘states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red.'”

In red states like Texas, where the same strategy might yield a few electoral votes for Democrats, the legislature is not pursuing it.

The report focuses specifically on Wisconsin–but the vote-rigging schemes it outlines are the same across the country.

That’s because they are the product of a coordinated strategy by national rightwing groups–not homegrown politics.

Most of the bills discussed in the report were written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which pushes rightwing and corporate interests in all the states.

ALEC drafted voter I.D. legislation, which has come up in state after state, “shortly after the highest general election turnout in nearly 60 years swept America’s first black president into office with strong support from college students and people of color.”

In the guise of preventing election fraud, voter I.D.bills, along with bills to end same-day registration, aim to suppress the vote by these same groups.

The state of Wisconsin had both the second-highest voter turnout in the nation in 2008, and some of the best election practices in the United States for 2008 and 2010, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts which praised Wisconsin for the integrity, accuracy, and accessibility of its elections systems.

Yet Republican state officials are currently busy trying to change all that.

Governor Scott Walker has announced his intention to end same-day registration in the state, justifying it on the grounds that it would make life easier for elections clerks.

But, the report notes, municipal clerks throughout the state as well as the state’s chief elections officer have made clear that ending same-day registration would create a “bureaucratic morass.”

Voters would have to go to the DMV and social service agencies for provisional ballots, and return for a second visit with proof of eligibility.

This system, in addition to burdening voters and elections officials, would make Wisconsin more like the states that scored the lowest in the Pew measure of best election practices–with tens of thousands of provisional ballots delaying results, unresolved elections, and poor turnout.

The same issues arise with the new voter I.D. laws.

In-person voter fraud is practically nil. Yet voter I.D. laws continue to be a priority for state legislatures.

Two Wisconsin judges struck down voter I.D. in the state as an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote since, as the report notes “disenfranchising 300,000 people would not be outweighed by the ‘benefits’ of stopping a problem that is statistically insignificant.”

“The people’s fundamental right of suffrage preceded and gave birth to our Constitution,” Dane County District Judge Richard Niess wrote in his March decision striking down Wisconsin’s voter ID law. “Not the other way around.”

The same principle could be applied to all of the Republicans’ nefarious vote rigging schemes.

© 2013 The Progressive Magazine

Ruth Conniff covers national politics for The Progressive and is a voice of The Progressive on many TV and radio programs. Conniff was a regular on CNN’s Sunday Capital Gang and is now a regular on PBS’s To the Contrary. She also has appeared frequently on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and on NPR and Pacifica.

At least one person has been killed and eight others injured in Indian-controlled Kashmir as protests continue in the Muslim-majority region against the execution of a pro-independence figure Mohammad Afzal Guru, Press TV reports.

On Sunday, thousands of people in Kashmir rallied in the streets to condemn the execution of Guru where Indian police clashed with demonstrators.

This comes after a similar protest was held in Pakistani Kashmir on Saturday, where Indian police detained several protesters.

Protesters gathered in Muzaffarabad, burning the Indian flag and chanting slogans such as “Down with India,” “Down with India’s farce democracy,” and “We will continue Guru’s mission” to condemn the execution.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged in a jail near New Delhi on the same day over his role in a deadly attack on parliament in the Indian capital in 2001, an episode that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

He was executed after President Pranab Mukherjee turned down his mercy petition a few days ago.

Guru was charged with arming a military group to carry out the attack.

On December 13, 2001, five gunmen stormed into the parliament complex in New Delhi, but all were shot dead before entering the legislative chamber. Ten other people, mostly security guards, were also killed.

Guru’s hanging follows the execution of the one surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistani-born Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, who was executed on November 21 last year.

On November 26, 2008, 10 gunmen attacked multiple locations in India’s financial capital, killing more than 170 people, including 22 foreigners, and injuring hundreds in the worst terror attack in the country in over a decade.

MAM/PKH

National Iranian women’s skiing team is going to take part in the 2013 Alpine World Ski Championships in Austria.

The Iranian outfit, consisting of Mitra Kalhor, Ziba Kalhor, Marjan Kalhor and Fatemeh Kia-Darbandsari, will depart Tehran for Vienna on Tuesday to compete in various women’s events of the tournament, including Downhill and Slalom.

The 2013 Alpine World Ski Championships opened in the southeastern Austrian town of Schladming on February 4, and will wrap up on February 17.

A total 609 athletes from 70 countries are competing in the sports event. Malta is making its debut appearance.

MP/HGH

An Iranian lawmaker says minorities in Syria are supporting the country’s government and will never turn their backs on President Bashar al-Assad.

Member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Ahmad Shohani said the Syrian opposition has failed to gain the support of the country’s Christian minority.

“The situation on the ground in Syria is such that the opposition has become angry after successive defeats from the Damascus military, and is trying to find new leverage to pressure the popular government of Syria,” Shohani said on Sunday.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of security forces, have been killed in the violence.

Militant groups fighting against the Syrian government have in the past threatened to attack Christian towns if the residents do not expel government forces.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the head of Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic church, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai, prayed in an old Damascus church for an end to Syria conflict.

The Syrian government says certain Western states, especially the United States, and their regional allies are fueling the unrest.

A recent UN report has revealed that militants from 29 countries have so far infiltrated into Syria to fight against the Damascus government, most of whom are extremist Salafis.

PG/HGH/SS

PARIS (Reuters) – Six big French retailers said on Sunday they were recalling lasagne meals and other products suspected of being mis-labelled after the discovery of horsemeat in beef products.

The British unit of frozen foods group Findus began recalling its beef lasagne last week on advice from its French supplier, Comigel, and the French and British governments have since vowed to punish those found responsible for allowing horsemeat originating from Romania to be sold as beef.

French retailers’ federation FCD said on Sunday that French supermarkets were also pulling several products supplied by Findus and Comigel on concerns that they were mis-labelled. The supermarkets are Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Cora, Monoprix and Picard

An initial French investigation has revealed that the horsemeat ended up in a Luxembourg factory supplied by a French firm and that a Dutch and Cypriot trader had also been involved although the meat originally came from a Romanian abattoir.

French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon said in Le Parisien newspaper that the apparent fraud had generated profits of 300,000 euros and may have been going on since August.

He also said he expected further investigation to reveal whether French meat processing firm Spanghero at the heart of the supply chain was aware it had bought horsemeat or had been deceived.

Eating horsemeat is a taboo in Britain and although once common fare in France it has been out of fashion for decades.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

CIA Director-designate John Brennan’s assertion to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran is “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons” is precisely the kind of dangerous “mistake” made by his mentor, former CIA Director George Tenet, who made many such “mistakes” a decade ago in greasing the skids for war on Iraq.

Of course, the appropriate word is not “mistake” but “fraud.” And perhaps what should disqualify Brennan as much as anything is his intimate connection to the lies and abuses perpetrated by the thoroughly discredited Tenet. As one of Tenet’s former protégés, Brennan could not even bring himself to admit on Thursday that waterboarding was torture.

Brennan also engaged in other Tenet-like hairsplitting as he displayed the worst of his Jesuit education. Brennan, like me a Fordham graduate, seems to have absorbed the style of “jesuitical” argument that is defined as “practicing casuistry or equivocation, using subtle or over-subtle reasoning; crafty; sly; intriguing.”

Brennan’s misleading statement on Iran was both “sly” and “intriguing.” It also did not come as an off-the-cuff answer to a question, but rather was embedded in the written text of his “Opening Statement for the Record” for his confirmation hearing. His disingenuousness on this neuralgic issue is another reason to reject his nomination to be CIA director.

Brennan’s assertion about Iran’s nuclear ambitions stands on its head the unanimous intelligence community judgment in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — revalidated every year since — that Iran stopped working on nuclear weaponization at the end of 2003 and has not resumed that work.

One might have thought that an indication from the next CIA director-to-be that he was predisposed to overturn the considered judgment of the intelligence community’s top analysts — and take the politically preferred “tough-guy” position toward Iran — would have set off alarm bells with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which (commendably though belatedly) excoriated the politicization of intelligence that led to the Iraq War.

But committee members instead had their prepared posturing to do, and thus let the statement on Iran slide by without noticing — much less challenging — it. And, luckily for Brennan, by that point in his prepared testimony, committee chair Dianne Feinstein had removed from the hearing room the many Code Pink-led protesters, who would have been the only ones knowledgeable and courageous enough to call loud attention to Brennan’s dishonesty.

Anatomy of a ‘Mistake’

In that part of his testimony, Brennan warned the senators that the “regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang remain bent on pursuing nuclear weapons…” (Emphasis added)

When “practicing casuistry,” half-truths and conflating two very different situations often work better than straight-out lies. They are, as the Jesuits might attest, very old rhetorical tricks. Is North Korea “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons?” A definitive “Yes” has been the answer to that question for several years. Indeed, the North Koreans apparently already have a few.

But the case is different for Iran, as the U.S. intelligence community has asserted since 2007. For instance, let’s compare Brennan’s phrasing to the most recent congressional testimony of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Jan. 31, 2012:

“We judge North Korea has tested two nuclear devices. Its October 2006 nuclear test is consistent with our longstanding assessment that it produced a nuclear device, although we judge the test itself was a partial failure. The North’s probable nuclear test in May 2009 had a yield of roughly two kilotons TNT equivalent and was apparently more successful than the 2006 test. These tests strengthen our assessment that North Korea has produced nuclear weapons.”

But what about Iran? Are the Iranians, too, “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons?” Clapper’s words were much more conditional in that part of his testimony: “We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

“Iran nevertheless is expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, which can be used for either civil or weapons purposes.  … [We judge] that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses. … We judge Iran’s nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran.”

It is likely that Clapper, like Brennan a political appointee, is going as far as he can in presenting a frightening case regarding Iran, yet — unlike Brennan — is staying within the parameters of the less alarming assessment of professional intelligence analysts.

Brennan instead edged past that line with his rhetorical sleight-of-hand — lumping Iran in with North Korea — the sort of trickery that he witnessed up close as a Tenet favorite during the early excesses of the “war on terror” and the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

After all, Iran has been a front-burner issue for the past several years. It beggars belief that Brennan has forgotten the key judgment of the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 in which all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred, “with high confidence,” that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work in 2003 — a judgment reaffirmed every year since by the Director of National Intelligence in sworn testimony to Congress.

Careful Distinctions

Brennan also can hardly claim memory lapse. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reiterated that judgment as recently as Feb. 3 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Panetta, who also served as President Obama’s first CIA director, stuck to the NIE’s judgment despite goading from Chuck Todd:

TODD: “You have said a couple of times that you did not believe the Iranians were pursuing a nuclear weapon, that they have been pursuing the capabilities on – on nuclear energy …  not pursuing nuclear weapons. Are … you still confident they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon?”

PANETTA: “Right. What I’ve said, and I will say today, is that the intelligence we have is they have not made the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon. They’re developing and enriching uranium. …”

TODD: “Why do you believe they’re doing that?”

PANETTA: “I think – I think the – it’s a clear indication they say they’re doing it in order to develop their own energy source. I think it is suspect that they continue to – to enrich uranium because that is dangerous, and that violates international laws…”

TODD: “And you do believe they’re probably pursuing a weapon, but you don’t – the intelligence doesn’t know what…”

(Cross talk with JCS Chairman Martin Dempsey, who was also on the program.)

PANETTA: “I— no, I can’t tell you because— I can’t tell you they’re in fact pursuing a weapon because that’s not what intelligence says we— we— we’re— they’re doing right now. …” (emphasis added)

The contrast between Panetta’s careful distinction and Brennan’s careless distortion is no small matter. The difference suggests that Brennan, like his mentor Tenet, cares more about positioning himself within the favored contours of Washington’s group think than in standing up to those pressures and standing behind independent-minded analysts of the intelligence community.

Professional Analysts

Former Director of the National Intelligence Council Thomas Fingar, who supervised preparation of the landmark NIE saying Iran had stopped working on nuclear weaponization, was given the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence last month at a ceremony in Oxford, where he is now teaching in Stanford University’s overseas study program.

Fingar, who had been Director of Intelligence at the State Department, recruited analysts who had as much integrity as they had expertise. They jettisoned the “if-the-White House-says-two-plus-two-is-five-we-need-to-conjure-up-the-evidence-to-prove-that-it’s-true” behavior of Tenet and his deputy at CIA, John McLaughlin.

Fingar and his co-workers made a substantial contribution in restoring integrity to the challenging discipline of intelligence analysis after the debacle on Iraq. Acting with all deliberate speed (accent on the deliberate), they drafted an empirical, bottom-up assessment of all prior evidence about Iran’s nuclear program and, fortuitously, benefited from fresh intelligence acquired and analyzed in 2007.

The result was a tell-it-like-it-is conclusion that played a huge role in thwarting plans by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to attack Iran in 2008, their last year in office.

Since the Estimate marked such a sharp departure from earlier assessments of Iran’s nuclear program it was considered a sure bet to leak, so, on White House orders, the authors prepared an unclassified version of the key judgments for publication. Once that hit the streets, with the understandable public reaction at home and abroad, the effect was to fortify the longstanding opposition of the most senior military officers to war on Iran.

It became politically impossible for Cheney and Bush to have their war with Iran. Bush admits as much in his memoir, Decision Points, in which he laments that the “eye-popping” findings of the 2007 NIE stayed his hand: “How could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?” Indeed.

What does all this have to do with John Brennan? Brennan’s career path must be understood in its relation to Tenet, who served as President Bill Clinton’s last CIA director and was kept on in that job by President George W. Bush. Tenet made Brennan his chief of staff in 1999 and then elevated Brennan to be the CIA’s deputy executive director in March 2001. In 2003 and 2004, Brennan also served as director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which was criticized for distributing politicized threat assessments, such an infamous “Orange Terror Alert” over Christmas 2003.

Not long after Tenet left the U.S. government in 2004, Brennan followed in 2005, moving on to high-paying intelligence-related jobs in the private sector. He supported Barack Obama in Campaign 2008 and was considered a top choice to become CIA director after Obama’s victory. But the nomination was scrapped because of questions about Brennan’s work for Tenet. Instead, Brennan filled a White House post as President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.

Former colleagues of mine who were at the CIA during the lead-up to war on Iraq assure me that, given his protégé-mentor relationship with then-CIA Director Tenet and also Brennan’s very senior position as deputy executive director, it is almost certain that Brennan was aware of what Sen. Jay Rockefeller later called the “uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent” nature of the intelligence conjured up to “justify” war with Iraq. Rockefeller made this public comment on June 5, 2008, when, as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he announced the bipartisan findings of a five-year committee investigation.

Rockefeller all but said it outright. Not just “mistakes” — as Bush, Tenet and much of the mainstream news media insist — but outright intelligence fraud and a conspiracy to launch an aggressive war, what the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains the accumulated evil of the whole,” i.e. unleashing abuses like torture and other human rights violations.

The Iraq War conspiracy peaked ten years ago when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told a pack of lies to the UN Security Council. Were Brennan to have been asked about this at Thursday’s hearing, he probably would have disclaimed responsibility, saying (as he did on the torture issue) that, although he had “awareness” and “some visibility” into what was afoot, he was not in the “chain of command” and, thus, chose to do nothing.

But the reality is that John Brennan owed his major career advancements to Tenet, who personally gave Powell’s deceptive speech the CIA’s stamp of approval by physically sitting behind the Secretary of State as he delivered lies and distortions to the Security Council. If Brennan had spoken out against this fraud at that time, he would have surely seen his spectacular career grind to a halt.

VIPS’ Maiden Effort

When our fledgling Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (which was established in January 2003 to protest the obvious perversion of the intelligence on Iraq) learned that Powell would address the UN, we decided to do a same-day analytic assessment — the kind we used to do when someone like Khrushchev, or Gorbachev, or Gromyko, or Mao, or Castro gave a major address.

We were well accustomed to the imperative to beat the media with our commentary. Coordinating our Powell effort via e-mail, we put VIPS’ first Memorandum for the President on the wire at 5:15 p.m. — “Subject: Today’s Speech by Secretary Powell at the UN.”

Our understanding at that time was far from perfect. It was not yet completely clear to us, for example, that Saddam Hussein had for the most part been abiding by, rather than flouting, UN resolutions. We stressed, though, that the key question was whether any of this justified war: “This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell’s presentation does not come close to answering it.”

And we warned President Bush: “Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war.” And we voiced our distress at “the politicization of intelligence,” as well as the deep flaws: “Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.” [bold in original]

“Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.”

Dissociating VIPS from Powell’s bravado rhetoric claiming that the evidence he presented was “irrefutable,” we noted, “No one has a corner on the truth,” and warned the President: “But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

It’s clear today that nothing would have dissuaded President Bush and Vice President Cheney from plunging ahead with their “war of choice.” But that is no excuse for intelligence officials, like Brennan, or America’s leading newspapers abnegating their duty to ask tough questions and to speak truth to power whatever the consequences.

We also know today that the chief co-conspirators in the Iraqi intelligence fraud — like the torturers in the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program — have escaped accountability for their malfeasance. But that doesn’t mean now that their obedient subordinates, who kept quiet in the face of these crimes, should be rewarded with top jobs.

When officials are not held accountable — for crimes of both commission and omission — it is an invitation for others to follow in their footsteps. It remains to be seen how closely Brennan will retrace the path marked by his mentor Tenet — one of cooking the intelligence to the tastes of the White House — this time to facilitate war with Iran.

The Senate Intelligence Committee got a sampling of how Brennan might add some jesuitical spices to such recipes when he proffered a crafty explanation of why it was fine for President Obama to release the legal opinion on Bush-era “enhanced interrogations” but not the legal justification for the lethal drone program.

The former activity, Brennan noted, was over, while the latter one was ongoing. Yet, why the American people should be denied the constitutional arguments for such executive powers until they are no longer in use was never explained. It would seem the opposite logic should prevail, that it is more important to know the justification when something is occurring than when it is over, especially since the drone killings along with the “war on terror” may go on indefinitely.

But – as Brennan seems headed toward Senate confirmation – his deceptive comments on legal transparency as well as on Iran’s nuclear program are not a good sign.

Below is the full text of the first VIPS issuance, a Memorandum for the President, Feb. 5, 2003. (Links to this and the other 21 VIPS memoranda to date can be found at warisacrime.org/vips.)

SUBJECT: Today’s Speech by Secretary Powell at the UN

Secretary Powell’s presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an “A” for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a “C—” in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefi ng, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the
Pentagon calls a “cakewalk.”

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching–and complicated–than “UN v. Saddam Hussein.” And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting
in which sobriquets like “sinister nexus,” “evil genius,” and “web of lies” can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq’s flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell’s presentation does not come close to answering it.

One might well come away from his briefing thinking that the Iraqis are the only ones in flagrant violation of UN resolutions. Or one might argue that there is more urgency to the need to punish the violator of Resolution 1441 than, say, of Resolution 242 of 1967 requiring Israel to withdraw from Arab territories it occupied that year. More urgency? You will not find many Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims who would agree.

It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel’s continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein’s felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks. Secretary Powell dismisses this factor far too lightly with his summary judgment that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are “not for self-defense.”

Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of “material breach” is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a “material breach” of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a “grave threat to the United States,” and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that “the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network.”

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists–UNLESS: “Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.”

For now, continued the CIA letter, “Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States.” With his back against the wall, however, “Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.”

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don’t eliminate malaria by shooting mosquitoes. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall that pointed out that “the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed,” and that “the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist.” That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as “ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased.”

Chemical Weapons

With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons, it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Listing the indictment particulars, Secretary Powell said, in an oh-by-the-way tone, that sources had reported that Saddam Hussein recently authorized his field commanders to use such weapons. We find this truly alarming. We do not share the Defense Department’s optimism that radio broadcasts and leaflets would induce Iraqi commanders not to obey orders to use such weapons, or that Iraqi generals would remove Saddam Hussein as soon as the first US soldier sets foot in Iraq. Clearly, an invasion would be no cakewalk for American troops, ill equipped as they are to operate in a chemical environment.

Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill–many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who “have borne the battle.” Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today’s battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002, Congress’ General Accounting Office reported “seriousproblems still persist” with the Pentagon’s efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

Richard Beske, San Diego
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe
William Christison, Santa Fe
Patrick Eddington, Alexandria
Raymond McGovern, Arlington
STEERING GROUP/VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

A man was killed and another suffered serious head injuries after a metal door fell on them at a music venue.

Police were called to G Live in Guildford, Surrey, at about 11.45am on Saturday after a report that two men were trapped beneath the large door.

One of them men had serious leg injuries. He was treated by paramedics, but was pronounced dead at the scene.

The other man, who is a member of the popular singing band Fisherman’s Friends, was taken to St George’s Hospital in Tooting with serious head injuries. He has not been named.

The Cornish-based group had been due to perform at the venue just before midday on Saturday, but the gig was called off following the incident.

A spokesman for the 10-member band said: “Tragically, a member of the Fisherman’s Friends touring party died yesterday following an accident at the G Live venue in Guildford where the group were due to perform.

“One of the Fisherman’s Friends was also seriously injured in the accident and remains in hospital.”

In a statement Darcus Beese, president of Island Records, the group’s label, said: “Everyone here is shocked by this tragic event, our hopes and prayers go out to the friends and families of those involved.”

Saturday night’s event at the venue was also cancelled and G Live staff contacted all ticket holders.

Police say their inquiries are in the early stages.

The Health and Safety Executive has been informed of the death.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov’s dramatic announcement last Tuesday on the Bulgarian investigation of the July 2012 terror bombing of an Israeli tourist bus was initially reported by Western news media as suggesting clear evidence of Hezbollah’s responsibility for the killings.

The airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, near the site of the 2012 bombing. (Photo: Christian Rasmussen)But more accurate reports on the minister’s statement and the only details he provided reveal that the alleged link between the bomb suspects and Hezbollah was merely an “assumption” rather than a conclusion based on specific evidence.

Tsvetanov was quoted by various Western news outlets as saying, “We have established that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.” The minister also said, “There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects,” according to the BBC and Jerusalem Post.

Those statements implied that the Bulgarian investigators had uncovered direct evidence of Hezbollah’s involvement in the Burgas bombing.

But the New York Times on Wednesday quoted Tsvetanov as saying, in remarks to a session of Bulgaria’s Consultative Council on National Security Tuesday, “A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.” That statement appeared to acknowledge that he was merely speculating on the basis of data that doesn’t necessarily support that conclusion.

In a report on Wednesday by Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria’s largest English-language news provider, Tsvetanov was quoted as saying that the investigation had led to a “well-founded assumption” that two of the perpetrators of the deadly attack belonged to what the Bulgarian government is calling the “militant wing of Hezbollah.”

In an interview with Bulgarian National Radio Wednesday, the Bulgarian chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, emphasized that the investigation of the Burgas bus bombing had not been concluded and expressed concern about the term “well-founded assumption.”

The chief prosecutor implied that Tsvetanov’s conclusion about Hezbollah might have been swayed by political pressures. Tsatsarov said that the prosecutor’s office “could not be used to make political decisions or to justify them,” according to Sofia News Agency.

In a television interview for the morning broadcast of Bulgarian National Television, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov defended Tsvetanov’s use of the phrase “well-founded assumption.” Mladenov explained that it meant that Bulgaria had “good reason” to believe that the attack had been organized and inspired by members of the militant branch of Hezbollah at this stage of the investigation, Sofia News Agency reported. But Mladenov did not claim that any of those “good reasons” consisted of hard evidence.

In an interview with Associated Press on Tuesday, Europol Director Rob Wainright said, “The Bulgarian authorities are making quite a strong assumption that this is the work of Hezbollah.” But Wainright also cited only the most general arguments in support of Tsvetanov’s “assumption,” declaring, “From what I’ve seen of the case — from the very strong, obvious links to Lebanon, from the modus operandi of the terrorist attack and from other intelligence that we see — I think that is a reasonable assumption.”

Europol had sent several investigators to help the Bulgarian authorities on the Burgas bombing investigation, Wainwright told Associated Press.

None of the details provided by Tsvetanov, according to press reports, involved evidence showing that two of the alleged conspirators belonged to Hezbollah or to Hezbollah financing of the terror plot. The most important piece of evidence cited by Tsvetanov was the lengthy stays in Lebanon by two of the three alleged participants in the bombing and driver’s licenses that were forged in Lebanon.

Tsvetanov said the two alleged conspirators with Canadian and Australian passports who are believed to have helped the third member of the cell carry out the Burgas bombing lived in Lebanon between 2006 and 2010. He also indicated that two of driver’s licenses used by the conspirators were “forged in Lebanon,” and that Bulgaria was able to piece together the movements of two of the suspects from Lebanon to Europe.

Those connections between the alleged conspirators and the bombing by themselves could hardly support an assumption of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing. Al-Qaeda terrorist cells have been operating in Lebanon for years, and have the technical capability for such a bombing plot.

Members of one Al-Qaeda network of 13 men organized in different cells arrested in 2006 and 2007 confessed to having planned and carried out the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, although they retracted their confessions before trial.

Furthermore, Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist bombings involving Israeli tourists in the past, whereas there is no known case of a Hezbollah bombing of Israeli tourists, as a Hezbollah spokesman pointed out Wednesday.

In November 2002, Al-Qaeda carried out a terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in Mombasa, Kenya in November 2002 that involved an attempted shoot-down of an Israeli passenger aircraft and a triple suicide car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel.

Two years later, an Al-Qaeda affiliate took responsibility for bombings at three Red Sea resorts, killing 34 Israeli tourists. And in July 2005, the same Al-Qaeda-related organization took responsibility for suicide bomb attacks that killed at least 88 people at a shopping area and hotel packed with tourists, including Israelis, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheik.

Nevertheless, Tsvetanov offered no other specific evidence to support his conclusion about the assumed Hezbollah connection.

Another aspect of the Bulgarian investigation suggesting that information about the alleged participants is still very limited is the fact, reported by the Bulgarian daily newspaper Sega, that the investigators had found no direct communication and only “indirect indications” of ties between the Arab holding an Australian passport and the perpetrator of the attack.

The Bulgarian charge of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing based on little more than assumption has raised the suspicion in Bulgaria that the government was under pressure from the United States and Israel to reach a conclusion that aligned with the Israeli-American position.

Foreign Minister Mladenov denied that Bulgaria was pressured into issuing a statement on the progress of the investigation. But both Israel and the United States have given evidence of wanting such a statement. Bulgaria is a member of NATO and has expanded military and intelligence ties with Israel since Israeli relations with Turkey soured in 2009.

Israel also played a key role in the Bulgarian investigation, as Interior Minister Tsvetanov acknowledged in his presentation Tuesday. He specifically thanked the Israeli government for its support in regard to the investigation and said Israel had provided “relevant expertise” in regard to one of the indicators implicitly cited as pointing to Hezbollah — the identification of the false driver’s licenses used by the alleged bomb cell.

Ha’aretz reported Tuesday that Israel and the United States had both feared that, “while the investigation’s finding would be clear, Bulgaria’s public statement would be ambiguous and would not name Hezbollah responsible.”

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s primary adviser on homeland security and counter-terrorism, issued a statement that portrayed the Bulgarian investigation as having reached a definitive conclusion. Brennan praised the Bulgarian authorities for “their determination and commitment to ensuring that Hizballah is held to account for this act of terror on European soil.”

© 2013 Consortium News

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov’s dramatic announcement last Tuesday on the Bulgarian investigation of the July 2012 terror bombing of an Israeli tourist bus was initially reported by Western news media as suggesting clear evidence of Hezbollah’s responsibility for the killings.

The airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, near the site of the 2012 bombing. (Photo: Christian Rasmussen)But more accurate reports on the minister’s statement and the only details he provided reveal that the alleged link between the bomb suspects and Hezbollah was merely an “assumption” rather than a conclusion based on specific evidence.

Tsvetanov was quoted by various Western news outlets as saying, “We have established that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.” The minister also said, “There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects,” according to the BBC and Jerusalem Post.

Those statements implied that the Bulgarian investigators had uncovered direct evidence of Hezbollah’s involvement in the Burgas bombing.

But the New York Times on Wednesday quoted Tsvetanov as saying, in remarks to a session of Bulgaria’s Consultative Council on National Security Tuesday, “A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah.” That statement appeared to acknowledge that he was merely speculating on the basis of data that doesn’t necessarily support that conclusion.

In a report on Wednesday by Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria’s largest English-language news provider, Tsvetanov was quoted as saying that the investigation had led to a “well-founded assumption” that two of the perpetrators of the deadly attack belonged to what the Bulgarian government is calling the “militant wing of Hezbollah.”

In an interview with Bulgarian National Radio Wednesday, the Bulgarian chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, emphasized that the investigation of the Burgas bus bombing had not been concluded and expressed concern about the term “well-founded assumption.”

The chief prosecutor implied that Tsvetanov’s conclusion about Hezbollah might have been swayed by political pressures. Tsatsarov said that the prosecutor’s office “could not be used to make political decisions or to justify them,” according to Sofia News Agency.

In a television interview for the morning broadcast of Bulgarian National Television, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov defended Tsvetanov’s use of the phrase “well-founded assumption.” Mladenov explained that it meant that Bulgaria had “good reason” to believe that the attack had been organized and inspired by members of the militant branch of Hezbollah at this stage of the investigation, Sofia News Agency reported. But Mladenov did not claim that any of those “good reasons” consisted of hard evidence.

In an interview with Associated Press on Tuesday, Europol Director Rob Wainright said, “The Bulgarian authorities are making quite a strong assumption that this is the work of Hezbollah.” But Wainright also cited only the most general arguments in support of Tsvetanov’s “assumption,” declaring, “From what I’ve seen of the case — from the very strong, obvious links to Lebanon, from the modus operandi of the terrorist attack and from other intelligence that we see — I think that is a reasonable assumption.”

Europol had sent several investigators to help the Bulgarian authorities on the Burgas bombing investigation, Wainwright told Associated Press.

None of the details provided by Tsvetanov, according to press reports, involved evidence showing that two of the alleged conspirators belonged to Hezbollah or to Hezbollah financing of the terror plot. The most important piece of evidence cited by Tsvetanov was the lengthy stays in Lebanon by two of the three alleged participants in the bombing and driver’s licenses that were forged in Lebanon.

Tsvetanov said the two alleged conspirators with Canadian and Australian passports who are believed to have helped the third member of the cell carry out the Burgas bombing lived in Lebanon between 2006 and 2010. He also indicated that two of driver’s licenses used by the conspirators were “forged in Lebanon,” and that Bulgaria was able to piece together the movements of two of the suspects from Lebanon to Europe.

Those connections between the alleged conspirators and the bombing by themselves could hardly support an assumption of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing. Al-Qaeda terrorist cells have been operating in Lebanon for years, and have the technical capability for such a bombing plot.

Members of one Al-Qaeda network of 13 men organized in different cells arrested in 2006 and 2007 confessed to having planned and carried out the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, although they retracted their confessions before trial.

Furthermore, Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist bombings involving Israeli tourists in the past, whereas there is no known case of a Hezbollah bombing of Israeli tourists, as a Hezbollah spokesman pointed out Wednesday.

In November 2002, Al-Qaeda carried out a terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in Mombasa, Kenya in November 2002 that involved an attempted shoot-down of an Israeli passenger aircraft and a triple suicide car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel.

Two years later, an Al-Qaeda affiliate took responsibility for bombings at three Red Sea resorts, killing 34 Israeli tourists. And in July 2005, the same Al-Qaeda-related organization took responsibility for suicide bomb attacks that killed at least 88 people at a shopping area and hotel packed with tourists, including Israelis, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheik.

Nevertheless, Tsvetanov offered no other specific evidence to support his conclusion about the assumed Hezbollah connection.

Another aspect of the Bulgarian investigation suggesting that information about the alleged participants is still very limited is the fact, reported by the Bulgarian daily newspaper Sega, that the investigators had found no direct communication and only “indirect indications” of ties between the Arab holding an Australian passport and the perpetrator of the attack.

The Bulgarian charge of Hezbollah responsibility for the bombing based on little more than assumption has raised the suspicion in Bulgaria that the government was under pressure from the United States and Israel to reach a conclusion that aligned with the Israeli-American position.

Foreign Minister Mladenov denied that Bulgaria was pressured into issuing a statement on the progress of the investigation. But both Israel and the United States have given evidence of wanting such a statement. Bulgaria is a member of NATO and has expanded military and intelligence ties with Israel since Israeli relations with Turkey soured in 2009.

Israel also played a key role in the Bulgarian investigation, as Interior Minister Tsvetanov acknowledged in his presentation Tuesday. He specifically thanked the Israeli government for its support in regard to the investigation and said Israel had provided “relevant expertise” in regard to one of the indicators implicitly cited as pointing to Hezbollah — the identification of the false driver’s licenses used by the alleged bomb cell.

Ha’aretz reported Tuesday that Israel and the United States had both feared that, “while the investigation’s finding would be clear, Bulgaria’s public statement would be ambiguous and would not name Hezbollah responsible.”

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s primary adviser on homeland security and counter-terrorism, issued a statement that portrayed the Bulgarian investigation as having reached a definitive conclusion. Brennan praised the Bulgarian authorities for “their determination and commitment to ensuring that Hizballah is held to account for this act of terror on European soil.”

© 2013 Consortium News

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

An Iranian cleric says the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is the only authority who can decide on holding talks with the US.

“With regards to making peace and negotiations with the US, the only person who can make a decision is the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, and others can have no opinion on this,” Ahmad Khatami said on Sunday.

Khatami, who is a member of the Assembly of Experts, made the remarks during the rally marking the 34th anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in the city of Tabriz.

Referring to the hostile US measures against Iran such as the imposing sanctions, Khatami said negotiations would be only meaningful when the conditions are equal for both sides and as long as Washington maintains its arrogant nature and considers itself above other countries, no talks can be held with American officials.
On February 2, US Vice President Joe Biden said Washington was ready to hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear energy program.

On Wednesday, February 6, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenues. The sanctions prevent Iran from gaining access to earnings garnered through crude exports.

On Thursday, in a strong response, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei lashed out at the idea of any talks with the United States under pressure and threats .

“I am not a diplomat. I am a revolutionary and speak frankly, honestly, and firmly. An offer of talks makes sense only when the side [that makes the offer] shows its goodwill,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a Thursday meeting with the officials and commanders of Iran’s Navy.

“You (the Americans) point the gun at Iran and say either negotiate or we pull the trigger! You should know that pressure and negotiations don’t go together, and that the [Iranian] nation will not be intimidated by such things,” the Leader added.

“Negotiation with the United States does not solve any problem because they have not fulfilled any of their promises in the past 60 years,” the Leader added.

PG/HGH/SS

Former England football star Paul Gascoigne has been taken to intensive care in the United States after his health declined.

The 45-year-old went to a clinic to help his battle against alcohol addiction but was taken ill and needed hospital care.

Gascoigne’s former Tottenham Hotspur team-mate Gary Mabbutt told Sky Sports News he had a bad reaction to a detox treatment at a clinic in Arizona .

He has been admitted to hospital for observation, but the indications were he was recovering and would soon be well enough to return to the clinic.

Mabbutt said: “Unfortunately over the last few weeks Paul has had a relapse, which culminated finally, last Monday, in Paul asking for help.

“By Monday afternoon he was on a plane out to Arizona to a clinic specialising in dealing with Paul’s specific problems.

“The first thing he underwent was a detox, unfortunately Paul had a very bad reaction to the detox and the clinic decided that as a precaution it was best to transfer him to hospital.

“He was transferred to hospital in intensive care where they could monitor him 24-7.

“But I spoke to Paul’s medical team in the UK this morning, they had spoken to Paul and he’s recovering and hopefully soon he will be back into the clinic to continue his rehab.

“Over the years he has had a lot of support from the football family, but of course it could be a long road to recovery. Now Paul’s asked for the help we can focus on getting through this.”

Gascoigne’s former England and Tottenham team-mate Gary Lineker tweeted this morning: “Gazza is struggling, Let’s hope he can hang on in there. Others have generously offered help. #GetwellGazza.”

TalkSPORT presenter and former England cricketer Ronnie Irani and Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans, a long-term friend of Gascoigne, organised his flight to the centre in Phoenix.

The move came following a charity appearance in Northampton during which Gascoigne appeared unwell and shaking.

He then broke down and sobbed on stage in front of a room full of fans.

Irani said last week: “I had a chat with Chris Evans and he just asked how we could help him.

Gascoigne, who has spoken about alcoholism problems in the past, was sectioned five years ago under the Mental Health Act.

Leave it to Fox to do the bidding of the House Republicans and their allies, who are doing their best to try to destroy the U.S. Postal Service. Never mind the damage that would be done to the elderly who rely on the mail to receive their prescriptions, small businesses and Americans who live in rural areas with shoddy Internet service and the thousands of Americans who earn a decent middle class living from being employed there.

No, in the view of the majority of the panel members on this Saturday’s edition of Cashin’ In, that’s a terrible thing that those people are gainfully employed and heaven forbid have union representation and it’s all their fault that the Post Office is in financial straights. And par for the course with these “business block” shows of theirs, the only voice of reason was the one, poor, lonely outnumbered “liberal” Christian Dorsey, who did actually tell the truth about one of the problems — which is that Congress has “forced the USPS to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of pensions for its employees, a requirement not made of any other public or private institution.”

Instead we were treated to the rest of them screaming that we need to privatize the Postal Service, lying and telling the audience that other industries would provide the same services less expensively and ignoring, other than Dorsey again, that they have a mandate to serve all Americans which those other companies are not bound by. It really just boiled down to another shameful exercise in union bashing, which is what these Saturday shows on Fox do week, after week, after week, or at least when they’re not attacking the poor and demonizing liberals in general.

Here’s more on what’s really going on, counter to the nonsense being pushed in the clip above: Do You Want To Live Without The Postal Service?:

Recently, the U.S. Postal Service announced that – starting August 1, 2013 – they would eliminate Saturday service for all items except packages.

While this action may technically be unconstitutional, the Postmaster General is only pushing Congress to act after nearly 15 years of obstruction. In fact, USPS is taking this action as part of a broader cost-saving measure to save the postal service from extinction.

Extreme measures like this wouldn’t be necessary if Republicans (and a few corporatist Democrats) in Congress would remove the insane burden they placed on the Postal service with the Orwellian-named ‘Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act’ – an action that forced the postal service to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of pensions and health care coverage for retirees at a 100% rate, a burden no other public or private institution in America has to match.

If you think any private company anywhere in the world could do what the Postal Service does, for anywhere near the cost they charge, you need to watch this quick movie from Esquire’s Jesse Lichtenstein.

Thanks To Congressional Incompetence, Saturday Mail Delivery Is History:

The U.S. Postal Service announced on Wednesday that it will discontinue first class Saturday mail delivery, marking another milestone in the decline of the once-ubiquitous government service. But it isn’t a switch to online mail that’s causing the postal demise – it’s Congress.

Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Congress has for years forced the USPS to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of pensions for its employees, a requirement not made of any other public or private institution. That means that the Postal Service is footing the bill for employees it hasn’t even hired yet.

The USPS doesn’t actually receive money from the government, but still needs Congressional approval to make any changes to its structure. An analysis in July showed that the USPS, without its pension requirement, would have a $1.5 billion surplus. Read on…

3 Big Lies At the Heart of Republican Attacks On the Post Office:

House Republicans are aiming to dismantle the postal service, but their plans hinge on a few tall tales they’ve sold the American public.

September 22, 2011 | In nine months in office, the new Republican House majority has amply proven the emptiness of its early promises: to create jobs, run government more like a business and respect small-town America. But there’s no better object lesson in Republicans’ real priorities than their bid to end the Postal Service as we know it.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) transports hundreds of billions of pieces of mail a year to addresses everywhere in the United States. It does so with no government subsidies — if you don’t use the postal service, you don’t pay for it. Now, like the US economy, the USPS faces a crisis brought on by Republican policies, which Republicans insist only more right-wing policies can solve. USPS has informed Congress that it can’t pay $5.5 billion due to a federal retiree health fund September 30, raising prospects of default. Republicans, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, are demanding layoffs and service cuts. Here’s how the Republican plan — burning the Postal Service to save it — contradicts the stories Republicans tell us about themselves.

Much more there as well. The article is well over a year old, but it’s still relevant to what’s going on now.

These are real numbers that were carefully calculated. This is a real problem that is hurting people, hurting small and mid-sized companies, hurting communities, hurting our tax base and hurting our ability to make a living in the future. And there are real solutions available to fix the problem.

If you saw the movie “Roger & Me,” you saw what happened to Flint, Michigan when GM’s executives moved the jobs out of the country. That movie showed what a trade deficit does. “Roger & Me” came out in 1989 and was really only a small, local look at what was coming to much of the country. In the decades since then, the problem spread to entire regions. This is not some economic dislocation due to changes in the economy; this is regional and even national devastation that doesn’t have to happen and that no country should tolerate.

The trade deficit is huge. It transfers around $1 billion a day out of our country. For those well-to-do elites so worried about the budget deficit instead of American jobs, factories, industries and our ability to make a living in the future, the trade deficit increases our budget deficit by between $78.8 billion and $165.8 billion.

New Report From EPI

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute, “Reducing U.S. trade deficit will generate a manufacturing-based recovery for the United States and Ohio,” written by Robert E. Scott, Helene Jorgensen, and Doug Hall, shows that:

The U.S. goods trade deficit could be reduced by between about $190 billion and $400 billion over the course of three years (modeled in this paper as having started in 2011) by eliminating global currency manipulation. Without any increase in federal spending or taxation, the United States would reap enormous benefits. As this paper explains, over three years a reduction in the U.S. goods trade deficit of this magnitude would:

• Create between 2.2 million and 4.7 million U.S. jobs (equal to between 1.4 percent and 3.0 percent of total nonfarm employment)
• Reduce the national unemployment rate by between 1.0 and 2.1 percentage points
• Create about 620,000 to 1.3 million manufacturing jobs (27.5 percent of all jobs created by eliminating currency manipulation)
• Increase U.S. GDP by between $225.0 billion and $473.7 billion (an increase of between 1.4 percent and 3.1 percent)
• Shrink the federal budget deficit by between $78.8 billion and $165.8 billion (reductions that would continue as long as the trade balance remained stable), as growth in output expands tax receipts and reduces safety net payments

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Multinationals “like the system the way it works.”

On a Thursday call to discuss the report and efforts to fix the problems, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said that currency manipulation is the largest single cause of our trade deficit. He added,

“Our nation’s record trade deficit is more than just a statistic: it affects real jobs in important industries. When industry and the government get tough on cheaters and enforce our trade laws, America wins. That’s why we need to act now on the recommendations published in this new report–and stand up for Ohio’s workers and businesses.”

On the call I asked Senator Brown who in America is on the other side of this — who is encouraging (i.e. paying) Republicans to block things like the currency manipulation bill. Brown replied that in the last 20 years large companies have followed a different manufacturing strategy to move manufacturing to China and sell back into the U.S. The large multinational companies have benefited, always very large companies. “They like the system the way it works,” he said.

The companies get less expensive labor, less environmental and worker safety regulation, and the currency advantage. It works for these multinationals, and House Speaker John Boehner is listening to them. There is this economic benefit to them, at the expense of smaller companies, companies in the supply chain, American workers and their communities.

The Cause

The trade deficit is caused by one-sided trade agreements that were agreed to because, as Senator Brown referred to, they benefit a few already-wealthy interests in our country. But like when you sell the farm for a bunch of cash now, these trade deals give away our country’s manufacturing ecosystem, lack of enforcement of even those agreements, mercantilist policies in other countries that we do not respond to, violations like currency manipulation and subsidies of various kinds to strategic industries.

Currency manipulation alone is costing us between 2.2 million and 4.7 million U.S. jobs and between 1.0 point and 2.1 points of the unemployment rate. Right now.

A “Shot In The Arm” For Economy

Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing said of the report,

“Eliminating our trade deficit would be an incredible shot in the arm for the U.S. economy. We are pleased the EPI report sheds light on this overlooked deficit. We commend Sen. Sherrod Brown for his leadership in working to grow manufacturing jobs in Ohio and the rest of the nation, and we look forward to working with him to enact common-sense solutions.”

Fixes

Fixing currency manipulation would go a long way toward solving the problem. Currency manipulation is the single biggest factor in our huge trade deficit. According to the EPI report, currency manipulation by China and as many as 20 countries is responsible for between $190 billion and $400 billion of our trade deficit, in a single year.

From the EPI report, “Reducing U.S. trade deficit will generate a manufacturing-based recovery for the United States and Ohio,”

Fully eliminating the goods trade deficit requires implementing policies that will help restore demand for U.S. goods and boost supply-side supports. As detailed in this paper, such policies include:

• Greatly expanding investments in manufacturing R&D and technology diffusion programs
• Providing public financial support to small and medium-sized manufacturers
• Developing school-to-work job training systems for non-college-educated workers, including apprenticeship programs modeled on Danish and German models
• Developing new trade policies that support fair, balanced, and sustainable trade
• Planning and implementing manufacturing and traded industry strategies, including establishing an institution akin to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
• Making massive investments in infrastructure, for example by meeting the United States’ $2.2 trillion worth of infrastructure needs over the next five years
• Greatly expanding public and private investments in green and renewable energy technologies

Such steps could lead to the complete elimination of the U.S. goods trade deficit, which would allow U.S. manufacturing to recover most or all of the market share and employment lost since the late 1990s.

Why Act Now?

From the EPI report:

Why now is the time to act

The leading role played by manufacturing in the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession underscores the urgency of addressing the more than decade-long decline in manufacturing employment. Between February 2010, when U.S. employment fell to its lowest point, and October 2012, the nation created 504,000 manufacturing jobs, which constituted 11.1 percent of the 4.5 million jobs created in that period (BLS 2012a). But manufacturing employment declined slightly between July and October 2012. The recent slowing of U.S. manufacturing employment growth, evident also in Ohio and the Midwest, was expected as federal spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 wound down. The slowdown suggests that further growth in manufacturing will require additional demand stimulus.

Read the entire EPI report here.

Here are just a few recent articles and posts looking at this problem:

FT: How Berlin and Beijing tilted world trade,

Chinese bond-buying, he writes, is matched by increases in the supply of US bonds because Washington has boosted the fiscal deficit to counter the effect of jobs going abroad. If Chinese bond-buying falls, it will be because there are fewer savings to export, and that will happen only when China boosts consumption, creating demand for, among other things, US goods. US unemployment will fall and so will the fiscal deficit.

Ralph Gomory at Huffington Post, Jobs, Trade, and Mercantilism — Part I — Facing Reality

Our nation’s continuing massive trade deficits are destroying important sectors of American industry and eliminating desperately needed jobs; yet balancing trade is not even on our government’s agenda. This is happening because we are not facing reality, the reality that we are not living in a free trade world but that we are dealing with countries that practice mercantilism.

If we continue to turn a blind eye to this reality, we will become a poor nation.
[. . .]
Our global corporations do not wish to see the negative impact of their actions; they are profiting from the present situation, even if the country is not. They make their goods cheaply abroad aided by foreign subsidies, manipulated exchange rates, and cheap labor, and then import them very profitably into the U.S.

Wall Street is lined up with the global corporations because it too finds the present situation profitable.

Michael Stumo at Trade Reform: Germany uses VAT for export competitiveness. We don’t.

An increased VAT does several things.
* imports are part of the tax base, i.e. imports fund the domestic government;
* exports receive VAT refunds, so they are cheaper;
* allows reduction of other taxes, which is why other countries’ corporate tax rates, for example, are lower than the in the U.S.

Twenty one percent of China’s national government revenue is from border taxes. When imports pay over one-fifth of the taxes, the reduces the burden on domestic citizens and businesses, and enables them to subsidize exports in several ways including VAT rebates and other means.

The bottom line is that a VAT is a powerful tool to use for trade competitiveness.

Scott Paul at USA Today: Obama’s second term foe — China,

What did we get in return for this deal? A trade deficit with that country that keeps shattering records ($295 billion in 2011, $290 billion through November 2012), fueled by a glut of artificially cheap imports that are swamping stateside competition. But it’s hard for working families to benefit from the modestly lower prices on the shelves of retail chains when household incomes have been drastically reduced by the loss of a steady paycheck.

W. Raymond Mills at Trade Reform, Moving Towards Balanced Trade

… unbalanced trade requires cash to move from one country to the other. This can lead to problems if the cash needed to complete the transaction becomes scarce in the trade deficit country. It can also cause problems for the trade deficit country because domestic production of goods and services are the source of national wealth, as Adam Smith said. Sending money overseas to pay for exports (net) means that domestic production has not kept pace with domestic consumption — a situation that weakens the wealth creating capacity of the trade deficit country. Unbalanced trade is a beggar-thy-neighbor activity. Each nation should seek to avoid become a habitual trade deficit country.

More cases of contaminated meat may be revealed within days, the Government has warned as it raised fears that an international criminal conspiracy was behind the horse meat scandal.

The warning came as The Independent newspaper claimed up to one in 30 horses being exported to Europe for consumption could contain traces of a drug known as Bute which is harmful to humans.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said the next set of results on all retailers’ and manufacturers’ processed beef products could reveal further traces of horse meat.

“There may well be more bad results coming through, that’s the point of doing this random analysis,” Mr Paterson said.

The results, ordered by the Food Standards Agency ( FSA ), are due on Friday.

But David Clarke, chief executive of Red Tractor Assurance, a food guarantee scheme that covers British production standards, urged people to put the scandal into perspective.

He told Sky News: “The news in the last three weeks has been of great concern to consumers. But to get it in perspective it is only affected a small part of the food that is in the shops.

“I would hope that all of the fresh meat that people are eating for Sunday lunch today should not be affected by this.”

Mr Clarke added that the food industry had learnt lessons from the last few weeks, namely that “this very cheap processed meat produced with raw materials that are traded all across the world, all across Europe, is potentially a problem”.

Meanwhile, one of the food companies at the centre of the horsemeat scandal has said it is considering taking legal action against its suppliers.

Frozen foods firm Findus, which has taken its beef lasagnes off shelves after some were found to have up to 100% horse meat in them, said it was looking into legal action as an internal investigation “strongly suggests” that the contamination “was not accidental”.

The Ministry of Agriculture in Romania – to where the horsemeat has been traced – has launched an inquiry after two of its abattoirs were implicated in the scandal.

The Environment Secretary also revealed retailers have agreed plans to improve their food testing, adding that they hold the “ultimate responsibility” for making sure their products do not contain horse meat.

Mr Paterson was speaking after attending an emergency meeting with bosses from leading supermarkets, trade bodies and the FSA on Saturday to discuss the scandal which has seen chains including Tesco, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland withdraw some products.

He said supermarkets and trade bodies had already begun plans to carry out more testing and report their results on a quarterly basis.

They had also agreed that consumers should be compensated for buying withdrawn products with no questions asked, he said.

Mr Paterson added: “It’s a question of either gross incompetence, but as I’ve said publicly and I’ll repeat again, I’m more concerned there’s actually an international criminal conspiracy here, and we’ve really got to get to the bottom of it.”

Scotland Yard have met representatives from the FSA, although there is currently no official police investigation.

Prime Minister David Cameron has described the scandal as “shocking” and “completely unacceptable”, while Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was “appalling”.

The Trading Standards Institute has said the discovery of such high levels of horse meat suggests “deliberate fraudulent activity”.

Food safety experts have said there is no risk to public health.

Tesco and Aldi have also withdrawn a range of ready meals produced by Comigel over fears that they contained contaminated meat.

The GMB union said all hospitals, schools and meals-on-wheels services should verify that horse meat had not been served to vulnerable people.

Responding to fears that school dinners might be contaminated with horsemeat, the Department for Education said schools and councils were responsible for their food contracts.

A spokeswoman for the Local Authority Caterers Association said: “We are as sure as we can be that this is not affecting the school catering area.”

Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt-Market

China Surpasses U.S. As Number One Global Trading Power

Back in 2008, at the onset of the derivatives and credit collapse, I wrote several economic editorials discussing what I saw as the single most vital trend in the global fiscal system, and how it would cause a disastrous upheaval that would leave the U.S. and the dollar financially sunk. This trend, which seemed to take serious root in 2005, was the massive shift by China from an export dependent source of cheap manufacturing and labor, into a moderate exporter, and consumer hub, and currency powerhouse. In my view at the time, the evidence suggested that China was positioning itself to decouple from its dependence on U.S. markets and the dollar. I was, of course, attacked as a “doom monger” and “conspiracy theorist”. Five years later, the critics have changed their tune…

For the past decade, China has been slowly but surely issuing Yuan denominated bonds and securities around the globe, while simultaneously forming bilateral trade agreements with multiple nations and cutting out the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This process has gone mostly ignored by the mainstream financial media. However, I and many other independent analysts could not overlook the red flags. I tried to summarize as much of the situation and facts as I could in my article ‘How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced’, which was published in May of last year:

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/784-how-the-us-dollar-will-be-replaced

The biggest question for me was, if China is one of the largest holders of Forex reserves on the planet, and had the largest savings of any nation, WHY did they feel the need or desire in 2005 to begin issuing Yuan denominated debt? Why begin borrowing capital from foreign creditors? They certainly didn’t need the money. Why were they moving away from export dependency and building a consumer base? And why attempt to proliferate their currency? Wouldn’t the pursuit of global Yuan circulation lead to an eventual increase in valuation? Didn’t the Chinese want their currency cheap so that they could maintain export superiority? What did the Chinese know in 2005 that we didn’t?

Well, apparently they were either psychic, or SOMEONE gave them advanced warning. They knew that there would be a crisis in American consumption and that this would lead to severe reduction in imports, which is why they began building trade deals within the ASEAN trading bloc to insulate themselves. They knew that there would be considerable devaluation in the dollar, which is why they converted much of their long term treasury holdings to short term treasury bonds that they could dump with far more ease, and they knew that the IMF would be promoting Special Drawing Rights as a new reserve replacing the dollar, which is why they have been spreading the Yuan everywhere, earning them favor with the global banksters and inclusion in the basket currency. In fact, China has been pumping Yuan into global markets even faster than the Federal Reserve has been printing the dollar:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-08/china-accounts-nearly-half-worlds-new-money-supply

China is flooding the system with Yuan! This means only one thing; China is no longer seeking to maintain the traditional trade relationship it has had with the U.S.

To make my case even more clear, I would point out that China has not only become the world’s largest gold producer, but also its largest BUYER, recently surpassing India. Official estimates place Chinese gold purchases in 2012 at around 800 tons; an astonishing increase in their stockpile. 

The U.S. and the Federal Reserve can’t even deliver gold it is supposed to be holding for others, including Germany.

China has also recently quadrupled imports of rice and tripled wheat and corn imports in only one year. Why? Again, I ask, what do they know that we are not being told?

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/economy/business/AJ201302020056

As I have stated for many years, China is being groomed as an alternative economic engine in opposition to the U.S., and that this will lead to an eventual dump by them of the Greenback. This scenario is not only based on my opinion, it has also been spoken of openly by elitist financiers, including George Soros:

This past month, the same plan has been reiterated by Zhu Min, the deputy managing director of the IMF. In his statement, he proclaimed that the shift by China into a more consumer based system had been successful, and that the Yuan or RMB, was on the way to becoming a world reserve currency:

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130118000075&cid=1102

I believe that the moment for the epic changeover, and all the political and financial conflict that comes with it, has begun…

It has been announced this week that China surpassed the U.S. for the first time ever as the number one trading power in the world:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-09/china-passes-u-s-to-become-the-world-s-biggest-trading-nation.html

U.S. exports and imports last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s total trade in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion. China had a $231.1 billion annual trade surplus while the U.S. had a trade deficit of $727.9 billion:

“It is remarkable that an economy that is only a fraction of the size of the U.S. economy has a larger trading volume,” Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in an e-mail. “The surpassing of the U.S. is not because of a substantially undervalued currency that has led to an export boom,” said Lardy, noting that Chinese imports have grown more rapidly than exports since 2007.”

“According to O’Neill (Goldman Sachs Jim O’Neill), the trade figures underscore the need to draw China further into the global financial and trading architecture that the U.S. helped create.

“One way or another we have to get China more involved in the global organizations of today and the future despite some of their own reluctance,” O’Neill said, mentioning China’s inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights currency basket. “To not have China more symbolically and more importantly actually central to all these things is just increasingly silly.”

For those who are still not aware of why this is such a big deal, it is essentially a turning point moment in global trade. There is no doubt that China will now be inducted into the SDR, and that their importance as a trade and consumption center will quickly lead to a move away from the dollar. To put it simply, the dollar is going to lose its world reserve status VERY soon. Many will cheer this change as necessary progress towards a more “globally conscious” economic system. However, it’s not that simple. Total centralization is first and foremost the dream of idiots, and in any mutation (or amputation) there is always considerable pain involved. The proponents of this “New World Order” (their words, not mine) seem to have placed the U.S. squarely in their crosshairs as the primary recipient of this fiscal pain.

In my early analysis, I felt it possible that Japan would be inducted willingly into the new ASEAN trading bloc and that they would swiftly fall in line with a dump of the dollar, mainly because their export markets were suffering greatly due to the decline in American purchases. Now it appears that Japan has not been as pliable as the globalists wanted, and so, a war may be on the table in the Pacific.

Rhetoric in Chinese newspapers has been very heated and provocative, and the tensions surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is reaching a boiling point. The two countries have done everything so far EXCEPT shoot at each other, and that will be happening in due course now that China is allegedly locking offensive radar onto Japanese ships. Even Chinese films released in the past two years have been soaked with anti-Japan propaganda, most of them usually set during WWII around the brutal invasion and subjugation by the Japanese in Chinese provinces.

The recipe is one of inevitable disaster, with the U.S. at the center of a boiling pot. As I pointed in my last economic piece, we must now look to events rather than numbers to gain insight into where we are headed. The time has come. China is nearly ready for IMF inclusion. Volatility around the world is high. Our government has a final decision to make on the Fiscal Cliff in March, not to mention the sudden push for possible gun registration and confiscation. My instincts tell me that so many explosive aspects coalescing together at the same tenuous moment is not a coincidence. The next few months call for hyper-vigilance and every ounce of energy we can muster to educate as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.

I say again, China has surpassed the U.S. in global trade. A drop of the dollar is the obvious next step…

As citywide opposition to Mayor Emanuel’s massive school closing program comes into sharper focus every day, the rationale for the plan gets fuzzier and fuzzier.

Take the question of money.

When CPS chief Barbara Byrd Bennett accepted her utilization commission’s call for taking high school closings off the table, the potential savings from school closings was significantly reduced, says Dwayne Truss, organizer of the Save Our Neighborhood Schools coalition on the West Side.

That’s because high schools are a lot bigger and costlier to operate than elementary schools. Closing elementary schools saves you less.

Publicly, CPS has projected annual savings of $500,000 to $800,000 for each school closed. Privately, their estimates are lower — as low as $140,000 per school. And they estimate that upfront closing costs, including severance pay, security, and moving costs, could be as high as $4.5 million per school, potentially wiping out any savings for many years.

With only elementary school closings, we’d be smart to expect the savings to come in on the lower end – if at all.

Truss points to an additional cost that he insists must be taken into account — the loss of hundreds, maybe thousands of good jobs for African American teachers, principals, lunchroom workers and engineers.

Under a city administration hellbent on eliminating public service jobs that form the backbone of the black middle class — where black unemployment rates are more than double the rate for whites – and in a district facing civil rights compliants for targeting black teachers, he sees layoffs resulting from school closings as another drag on the economic vitality of the neighborhoods.

The sky is falling!

Then there’s the billion-dollar deficit, which we’re told time and again means we have to close schools.

Last week CTU blew the whistle on CPS’s budget manipulations, showing that instead of a deficit requiring the district to drain its reserve fund and deny teachers compensation for the longer day, the final audited budget showed a surplus of $344 million.

“Perhaps it’s time to have an honest budget discussion, before any schools are closed,” union president Karen Lewis said.

CPS responded that the additional $344 million came from early payments from the county and state, the Sun Times reported.

There’s more to it than that, according to union budget analyst Kurt Hilgendorf, a high school teacher on leave. In addition to underestimating revenue in its official budget, CPS also ended up spending $221 million less than it had budgeted.

Did that reduced spending result from “efficiencies”? The two biggest items where actual spending was below budget were teachers salaries and, after that, textbook purchases.

Perhaps cutting teaching positions to save $70 million is an “efficiency.” Perhaps budgeting $86 million for textbooks and then spending only $49 million is an “efficiency.” Hilgendorf suggests it might better be understood as “lying with math.”

The boy who cried wolf