Observations on current events

Politics As Usual:

AP: Gregg had stake in, won aid for base
"President Barack Obama's former nominee to become commerce secretary, Sen. Judd Gregg, steered taxpayer money to his home state's redevelopment of a former Air Force base even as he and his brother engaged in real estate deals there, an Associated Press investigation found..."


Better Living Through Chemistry?

Democracy Now! - US Lags Behind Europe in Regulating Toxicity of Everyday Products
"...AMY GOODMAN: Talk about makeup. When a woman puts on mascara or lipstick or powder—I mean, someone’s tested it, haven’t they?

MARK SCHAPIRO: Well, I’d like to think so, since I just had a little bit put on myself backstage there. Unfortunately, this is an illusion that a lot of Americans have, basically, that somebody out there in the government is assessing the safety of the ingredients in the cosmetics that they put on their body. And I think this strikes really at this kind of—there’s a deep mythology I think people have here in this country that the government is looking out for their health and safety, when it comes to chemicals. And what I talk about in the book is really how that is unfortunately not the case and what the consequences are for our health, but also for our economic and political status in the world..."

Economics:

Robert Kuttner: The Deficit Hawks' Attack on Our Entitlements
"...The private-equity investor Peter G. Peterson, who launched a billion-dollar foundation last year to warn that America faces $56.4 trillion in 'unfunded liabilities,' is a case in point. Supposedly, these costs will depress economic growth and crowd out other needed outlays, such as investments in the young. The remedy: big cuts in programs for the elderly.
The Peterson Foundation is joined by leading 'blue dog' (anti-deficit) Democrats such as House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina and his counterpart in the Senate, Kent Conrad of North Dakota. The deficit hawks are promoting a 'grand bargain' in which a bipartisan commission enacts spending caps on social insurance as the offset for current deficits...
...Medicare really does face big deficits. But that's because Medicare is part of a hugely inefficient, fragmented health insurance system. It makes no sense to 'reform' Medicare in isolation.If we just cap Medicare, needy seniors would get bare-bones care while more affluent people could supplement their insurance out of pocket. The decent cure for Medicare's cost inflation lies in comprehensive universal health insurance so that the entire system is more efficient and less prone to inflation. You don't hear many budget hawks supporting that brand of reform..."

Bill Scher: Irresponsible, Thy Name Is Peterson
"...on yesterday's media conference call hosted by Campaign for America's Future - listen to the audio here - economist Dean Baker further illustrated the point:

...we don't have an entitlement crisis. we have a health care crisis ... the horror stories that the Peterson foundation and others have put out there, talking about $54 trillion unfunded liability - this is a health care story...if we could zero out Medicare and Medicaid, we could just go 'OK Mr. Peterson, you win, we're getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid tomorrow,' our economy would still be devastated because we haven't fixed health care.

(UPDATE: Baker's Center for Economic and Policy Research offers graphical proof, showing what our long-term budget would look like if we had the per capital health care costs of most other nations.)
What's more irresponsible than using one's massive wealth to misinform the public and pressure politicians to make life worse for senior critizens? Maybe doing it in the name of 'responsibility,'..."


Stacking The Deck:

...against The People and the laws designed to protect them.

Matt Renner: Financiers Used 'Hotline' to SEC Examiners
"In a hearing which exposed failures by the government's financial police, Congressman Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) highlighted the existence of a 'hotline,' which he said could be used by Wall Street firms to call off government inspectors. The existence of a 'hotline' has been confirmed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), though its purpose has been disputed...
...During the hearing, Congressman Lynch said that current and former SEC employees complained to him about the existence of a 'hotline' used by Wall Street firms to call directly to top SEC officials to 'stop an investigation or slow it down.'
'The other thing that I keep hearing from some current SEC and former SEC is that there is a hotline. I was told that senior SEC management had actually gone to a financial services industry conference and basically said to the firms out there 'If you feel that you are being too aggressively investigated, then I want you to call this office,'' Lynch said.
A February 2005 speech by then director of the SEC Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) Lori A. Richards before an industry conference appears to back up Lynch's statement.
'One unrelated final note I want to mention, we've implemented what we call the 'Exam Hotline.' The Exam Hotline will be dedicated to receiving calls from members of the regulated community who have a complaint or a concern about an SEC examination,' Richards said to the Investment Adviser Compliance Best Practices Summit, adding 'if a member of the regulated community has a complaint or a concern about an examination, they should know where to call for immediate attention.'
Lynch said that the existence of this 'hotline' sent a signal to career employees at the SEC. 'And I know that these employees took that message as meaning 'we've gotta back off a little bit' and that senior management at the SEC was actually captured by the industry and that it wasn't doing the intense investigating that we would expect from them.'SEC whistleblower Mark J. Novitsky, who tracks the actions of the financial regulatory system, tipped Truthout off to Lynch's comments."

Adding Insult To Injury?

Why are the states agreeing to run their Unemployment Insurance through these banks?

AP: Jobless Hit With Bank Fees on Benefits
"...For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there's a new twist to their financial pain: Even when they're collecting unemployment benefits, they're paying the bank just to get the money — or even to call customer service to complain about it.
Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card..."

Economics:

Bill Moyers Journal: High Noon: Geithner v. the American Oligarchs
"...Bill Moyers: What are you signaling with that headline, 'Geithner vs. the American Oligarchs'?

Simon Johnson: I think I'm signaling something a little bit shocking to Americans, and to myself, actually. Which is the situation we find ourselves in at this moment, this week, is very strongly reminiscent of the situations we've seen many times in other places.
But they're places we don't like to think of ourselves as being similar to. They're emerging markets. It's Russia or Indonesia or a Thailand type situation, or Korea. That's not comfortable. America is different. America is special. America is rich. And, yet, we've somehow find ourselves in the grip of the same sort of crisis and the same sort of oligarchs.

Bill Moyers: Oligarchy is an un-American term, as you know. It means a government by a small number of people. We don't like to think of ourselves that way.

Simon Johnson: It's a way of governing. As you said. It comes from, you know, a system they tried out in Greece and Athens from time to time. And it was actually an antithesis to democracy in that context.
But, exactly what you said, it's a small group with a lot of power. A lot of wealth. They don't necessarily - they're not necessarily always the names, the household names that spring to mind, in this kind of context. But they are the people who could pull the strings. Who have the influence. Who call the shots.

Bill Moyers: Are you saying that the banking industry trumps the president, the Congress and the American government when it comes to this issue so crucial to the survival of American democracy?

Simon Johnson: I don't know. I hope they don't trump it. But the signs that I see this week, the body language, the words, the op-eds, the testimony, the way they're treated by certain Congressional committees, it makes me feel very worried.
I have this feeling in my stomach that I felt in other countries, much poorer countries, countries that were headed into really difficult economic situation. When there's a small group of people who got you into a disaster, and who were still powerful. Disaster even made them more powerful. And you know you need to come in and break that power. And you can't. You're stuck..."


On Torture:

Harper's Magazine: Former Guantanamo Guard Tells All
"Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. 'The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,' he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed..."


Trading Privacy For Internet 'Presence'

I had a funny feeling about Facebook/My Space, and how they use information, but I never could express it. The intent of the changes described below reveals a great deal about how these companies think.

AP: Facebook backtracks on terms of use after protests
"In an about-face following a torrent of online protests, Facebook is backing off a change in its user policies while it figures how best to resolve questions like who controls the information shared on the social networking site.
The site, which boasts 175 million users from around the world, had quietly updated its terms of use — its governing document — a couple of weeks ago. The changes sparked an uproar after popular consumer rights advocacy blog Consumerist.com pointed them out Sunday, in a post titled 'Facebook's New Terms Of Service: 'We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.''
Facebook has since sought to reassure its users — tens of thousands of whom had joined protest groups on the site — that this is not the case. And on Wednesday morning, users who logged on to Facebook were greeted by a message saying that the site is reverting to its previous terms of use policies while it resolves the issues raised.
Facebook spelled out, in plain English rather than the legalese that prompted the protests, that it 'doesn't claim rights to any of your photos or other content. We need a license in order to help you share information with your friends, but we don't claim to own your information.'
Tens of thousands of users joined protest groups on Facebook, saying the new terms grant the site the ability to control their information forever, even after they cancel their accounts..."

Economics & Government:

Joe Brewer: Ending the Hidden Agenda Behind Tax Cuts
"It's time to tell the truth about tax cuts. This phrase dominates political discourse and is coughed out every time a conservative public figure opens his mouth. It is treated like the basis of sound reasoning, yet no one points out what should be obvious - that 'tax relief' and 'tax cuts' are just code words for destroying the capacity of government to serve the public..."

William Greider: Looting Social Security:
"Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever 'grand bargain' they want President Obama to embrace in the name of 'fiscal responsibility.' The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.
These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as 'fiscal reform.' In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud...
...To understand the mechanics of this attempted swindle, you have to roll back twenty-five years, to the time the game of bait and switch began, under Ronald Reagan. The Gipper's great legislative victory in 1981--enacting massive tax cuts for corporations and upper-income ranks--launched the era of swollen federal budget deficits. But their economic impact was offset by the huge tax increase that Congress imposed on working people in 1983: the payroll tax rate supporting Social Security--the weekly FICA deduction--was raised substantially, supposedly to create a nest egg for when the baby boom generation reached retirement age. A blue-ribbon commission chaired by Alan Greenspan worked out the terms, then both parties signed on. Since there was no partisan fight, the press portrayed the massive tax increase as a noncontroversial 'good government' reform..."

Economics:

Michael Winship: The Oligarchy's Bailout Ball
"...This week, on The Baseline Scenario, a blog he co-founded, MIT professor of global economics and management and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson wrote, 'There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that - they say - will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?'
That question caught the attention of my colleague Bill Moyers, who interviewed Johnson on the current edition of Bill Moyers Journal on public television.
The problem, Johnson told him, is that via millions spent for political contributions and lobbying efforts, the revolving door that sees elites shuttle between jobs in government and business, and by creating a situation in which technical knowledge is limited to a privileged few, the banking and financial services industry has become a kind of ruling oligarchy that stifles attempts to shake up the status quo and make the real change necessary to get us out of the current crisis. 'Either you break the power,' Johnson said, 'or we're stuck for a long time with this arrangement....
'The policy that we seem to be pursuing, of being nice to the banks, is a mistake. Both from a technical/economic point of view, and from a deeper political point of view ... [The banks] think that we're going to pay out ten or 20 percent of GDP to basically make them whole. It's astonishing.'
Johnson has written on The Baseline Scenario blog what he thinks needs to be done: 'Reboot the financial system. Find out immediately which banks are insolvent using market prices. Allow private owners to fully recapitalize, if they can. Have the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, take over all banks that cannot raise enough private capital, and try to re-privatize those banks quickly, while making sure the taxpayer has strong participation in the upside.'
Unfortunately, Johnson fears the oligarchy will prevail..."


On Torture:

Michael Isikoff: A Torture Report Could Spell Big Trouble for Bush Lawyers
"An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former Bush administration officials. H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department's ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos 'was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.' According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials - Jay Bybee and John Yoo - as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
But then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, strongly objected to the draft, according to the sources. Filip wanted the report to include responses from all three principals, said one of the sources, a former top Bush administration lawyer..."

Privacy:

The Professor's description of the use of judicial warrants to (silently) change the firware on one's cell phone, allowing it to function as a listening device, took me by surprise.

Democracy Now! - Harry Lewis: 'Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion'
"Almost everything we now do on a regular basis, from sending emails, taking photographs, writing text messages, calling on our cell phones, downloading music, typing on our computers, and using our credit and ATM cards, all of it generates information. And every single day the endless information generated by our ever-expanding digital footprints is recorded, tracked, searched through, sold, analyzed, and saved forever. Some might call this hyper-networked digital explosion and its potential for collaboration and innovation a kind of utopia. But others warn that it also raises important concerns about privacy, identity, freedom of expression, accountability, and the future of democracy."


On Torture:

McClatchy Newspapers: More accuse Britain in torture of Guantanamo detainee
"Despite years of denials, new questions are being raised about Britain's possible involvement in the torture of a detainee now on a prolonged hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
Both an American military lawyer who's seen classified documents on the case and the head of a special parliamentary committee said Tuesday that the British government might have been complicit in the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed. The former British resident was seized in 2002 and held in several countries — including Morocco, where he claims he was tortured — before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2004..."

The Guardian (UK) - Binyam Mohamed torture evidence 'hidden from Obama'
"US defence officials are preventing Barack Obama from seeing evidence that a former British resident held in Guantánamo Bay has been tortured, the prisoner's lawyer said last night, as campaigners and the Foreign Office prepared for the man's release in as little as a week.
Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal charity Reprieve, which represents Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, sent Obama evidence of what he called 'truly mediaeval' abuse but substantial parts were blanked out so the president could not read it.
In the letter to the president [PDF] , Stafford Smith urges him to order the disclosure of the evidence.
Stafford Smith tells Obama he should be aware of the 'bizarre reality' of the situation. 'You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.'
It is understood US defence officials might have censored the evidence to protect the president from criminal liability or political embarrassment..."

The Raw Story: Unredacted documents reveal prisoners tortured to death
"The American Civil Liberties Union has released previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously unreported pages detail repeated use of 'abusive' behavior, even to the point of prisoner deaths.
The documents, obtained by the ACLU under a Freedom of Information Act request, contain a report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, who was tapped to conduct a comprehensive review of Defense Department interrogation operations. Church specifically calls out interrogations at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan as 'clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance.'
The two unredacted pages from the Church report may be found here.
The ACLU's release comes on the same day as a major FOIA document dump by three other leading human rights groups: Documents which reveal the Pentagon ran secret prisons in Bagram and Iraq, that it cooperated with the CIA's 'ghost detention' program and that Defense personnel delayed a prisoner's release to avoid bad press..."

Iraq:

Maya Schenwar: States Push to Take Back National Guard
"Going on its seventh year, the Iraq war has taken its toll on not only the US military, but also on the states's National Guard units, which were called up when Congress passed the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq. Now a growing state-level movement is working to keep the Guard at home.
Its logic: The AUMF's goals have been fulfilled. The authorization's explicit purposes were to defend the US against the 'threat posed by Iraq' and to enforce UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq's alleged ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein - along with his supposed threat - is gone, and the UN resolutions are no longer relevant, so there's no longer a mandate to keep troops in Iraq.
The president can call up the states's Guard units in a time of war. But when the mandate for war becomes obsolete, say members of the Bring the Guard Home: It's the Law (BTGH) campaign, sending those troops overseas is illegal. BTGH members and their allies are now sponsoring a chain of bills and resolutions in states across the country, demanding an investigation into the legality of deploying the Guard to Iraq, and a refusal to comply with any illegal federal orders..."


Net Neutrality:

The Register (UK) - US lawmaker injects ISP throttle into Obama rescue package
"US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of 'reasonable network management.'
Clearly, a lobbyist whispering in Feinstein's ear has taken Comcast's now famous euphemism even further into the realm of nonsense.
According to Public Knowledge, Feinstein's network management amendment did not find a home in the stimulus bill that landed on the Senate floor. But lobbyists speaking with the Washington DC-based internet watchdog said that California's senior Senator is now hoping to insert this language via conference committee - a House-Senate pow-wow were bill disputes are resolved.
'This is the most backdoor of all the backdoor ways of doing things,' Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky told The Reg. 'Conference committees are notorious for being the most opaque of all legislative processes.'
Obama's stimulus bill sets aside between $6bn and $9bn for expanding American broadband into rural areas, and Senator Feinstein hopes to (PDF) augment this Broadband Technology Opportunities Program so that it 'allows for reasonable network management practices such as deterring unlawful activity, including child pornography and copyright infringement.'
On one level, Obama's bill is an effort to boost the American economy. On another, it's an opportunity for lobbyists to make a mockery American government.
According to Public Knowledge, the Motion Picture Association of America is behind Feinstein's language. The MPAA doesn't like copyright infringement. And you can bet the child pornography bit was tossed in for added effect.
But the 'network management' bit sounds like ISP speak.
As Art Brodsky and his colleagues pointed out, network management is used to manage networks - not filter content. Content filters are used to filter content. But American ISPs - particularly cable ISPs - will take any excuse they can find to throttle certain traffic..."

Economics:

Democracy Now! - Economist James Galbraith: Bailed-Out Banks Should Be Declared Insolvent
"...JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, the crucial question is, on what terms does the Treasury plan to guarantee or to repurchase or to otherwise deal with the bad assets that the banks have? These assets are mortgage-backed securities. They are securities derived from subprime loans that were made in an atmosphere of regulatory laxness and complicity and fraud, basically, during the Bush administration, which came to take over the system of housing finance and to infect it with assets which nobody trusts, which nobody can value. And nobody really knows what’s in the files, what’s on the loan tapes of those—that underlie those securities. So the question that I think we need to ask is, before we issue a public guarantee, does the Treasury of the United States plan to conduct a meticulous audit of the assets that underlie the securities that they’re expecting to take off the banks’ books, so that we, the taxpayer, can have an idea of what, if anything, these securities are worth?
And the problem is that when you—the little bit of checking that has been done appears to reveal that a very large fraction of these securities contain, on the face of it, misrepresentation or fraud in the files. And so, we are looking at an asset which nobody, no outside investor doing due diligence on behalf of a client for whom they have some responsibility, would touch. And that is the issue. That’s the problem.
If that is indeed the case, then I think it’s fair to conclude that the large banks, which the Treasury is trying very hard to protect, cannot in fact be protected, that they are in fact insolvent, and that the proper approach for dealing with them is for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to move in and take the steps that the FDIC normally takes when dealing with insolvent banks.
And the sooner that you get to that and the sooner that you take these steps, which every administration, including the Bush administration, actually took in certain cases—replacing the management, making the risk capital take the first loss, reorganizing the institution, guaranteeing the deposits so that there isn’t a run, reopening the bank under new management so that it can begin to function again as it should have all along as a normal bank—the sooner you get to that, the more quickly you’ll work through the crisis.
The more you delay and the more you try to essentially prop up an institution whose books have already been poisoned, in effect, by this—the practices of the past few years, the longer it will take before the credit markets begin to function again. And as I said before, the functioning of the credit markets is absolutely essential to the success of the larger package, of the stimulus package and everything else, in beginning to revive the economy...

...AMY GOODMAN: [question] about the title of your book and what it means, 'The Predator State'.

JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, the Predator State refers to the takeover of state power by private interests masquerading behind conservative principle and basically acting for private clients and private profit. That was the Bush administration in a nutshell. The title goes back to Veblen and a bit to my father’s New Industrial State, and it’s an attempt to capture in two words a phenomenon that I think really has transformed our economy, much for the worse in the last several decades..."


Middle East:

MJ Rosenberg: Why Did Obama Diss Helen Thomas?
"I love Helen Thomas. During the past eight years she was the only reporter who stood up to Bush, took on this rotten war, and, in general, acted like a journalist. Last night, the great hall looked like it was populated by a president, a reporter, and 11th graders from local high school newspapers. I think I saw a cub reporter from the Dillon, Texas high school paper. (sadly, not Lilah Garrity).
Ms. Thomas' moment came when she asked the president about nuclear proliferation. Her question ended with the query: does he know of any Middle Eastern state with nukes?
Why did she ask that? She asked it to see if Obama would refuse to respond as previous presidents have. The answer is Israel, of course. And everyone knows it. In fact, the State Department has published reams of material about JFK's concern about the Israeli bomb. Israeli politicians talk about it. Every Arab in the world knows about it. And Israel's nukes are its number one deterrent against attack by Iran -- and everyone knows that too.
But Israel has a policy of not talking about its nukes in any official capacity because acknowledging them might lead to Israel having to sign the NPT and opening itself up to nuclear inspection.
So Israeli Prime Ministers try (not always successfully) not to acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear arsenal while ensuring that everyone knows it does.
That may be a sensible policy...for Israel.
But why is it our policy? Why is the American president forbidden from being honest on such a critical subject. Answer: there is no reason, unless we are to believe that Israeli policy guidelines, by definition, apply here as well.
So why did Obama refuse to answer? Simple. Because if he did, the media would have reported it as a gaffe. Reporters either know nothing about the Middle East or, for the most part, have adopted Israel's perspective.
Had Obama spoken the truth, the media would have made his 'blunder' the story of the night.
He cannot afford that because, frankly, we have more important things to worry about, like rescuing the economy..."


Afghanistan:

Democracy Now! - Former UN Human Rights Investigator Cherif Bassiouni: Despite Obama Claims, No Military Solution for Afghanistan
"AMY GOODMAN: ...What about the Obama administration’s approach to Afghanistan?

CHERIF BASSIOUNI: Well, I’m not really sure there is an approach yet. I think that there is an evaluation that is ongoing and that—I get the feeling that there is a sort of a distinction between the way the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense sees things and the way Holbrooke and the State Department experts see things. I think on the defense side, the military would be much more comfortable with having a specific military mission of simply going after the Talibans, al-Qaeda and their supporters in Pakistan. I think that they are very averse to fulfilling the function of a police support force to help in the economic development of the country.
On the other hand, the country has been basically under occupation, for all practical purposes, by US and NATO forces, and the Karzai government has basically been responsive to instructions from the US. And yet, there has been very little of a peace dividend, very little economic development in the provinces. The result has been, over the last five years, in particular, that the government has really shrunk, in terms of its control, to the Kabul area, and the rest of the provinces are just left out there.
I am convinced that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. There is an economic development solution, but I don’t see that as coming.
Hello?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we hear you just fine.

CHERIF BASSIOUNI: Yeah. I think that an economic development solution is what needed to be done five years ago. But as I have been there and worked there for the last five years, I can see a substantial, if not total, lack of coordination among the donor countries and the United States. Each one is going their separate way.
I mean, let me give you an example. I was very much involved in the coordination of the donor countries at the Rome Conference of donors. In fact, I was the rapporteur for the conference. And I urged everybody that it was very important to have a comprehensive approach in the justice sector. And I gave an example of the fact that USAID had built forty-one courthouses at a cost of over $200 million, and the day the US ambassador went to the minister of justice to sort of hand over these courthouses, the minister of justice knew nothing about it and said, 'Well, that’s very nice, that’s wonderful, but what am I going to do with these courthouses?' And so, obviously, the ambassador said, 'Well, you can use them for, you know, conducting hearings and things like that.' And the minister says, 'Well, how about the furniture?' And the ambassador says, 'Well, that wasn’t included in the contract we gave out for building the courthouses.'
And the minister thought for awhile and said, 'Well, how am I going to get the money to hire the personnel, for staffing the clerks, for maintaining the electricity, water?' And the ambassador says, 'I don’t know. We’re just giving you the buildings.' And the minister says, 'Well, I don’t have the money to run them. And why didn’t you ask us first what we needed and what else we would have needed to make use of the buildings?' So the result was that for quite a bit of time the buildings weren’t used, and now only some are used for courthouses, others are still closed.
That’s a small example, but you can multiply that by thousands of similar examples at all levels. You can’t have economic development and nation building unless you have a centralized control based on a comprehensive plan with a timetable in order to achieve the type of peace dividend that would result in the population itself rejecting the Taliban..."

The New Definition of 'Bipartisanship'

Of, course, now the shoe is on the other foot...

Robert Parry: The GOP's Filibuster Hypocrisy
"Though seemingly forgotten by most TV talking heads, it was only three years ago, when the Republicans had control of both the White House and Congress - and 'filibuster' was a dirty word.
It was usually coupled with 'obstructionist' amid demands that any of George W. Bush's proposals deserved 'an up-or-down vote.'
Yet now, with the Democrats holding the White House and Congress, the Republicans and the Washington press corps have come to view the filibuster fondly, as a valued American tradition, a time-honored part of a healthy legislative process..."


Nuclear Weapons:

The Guardian (UK) - US Using British Atomic Weapons Factory for Its Nuclear Program
"The US military has been using Britain's atomic weapons factory to carry out research into its own nuclear warhead programme, according to evidence seen by the Guardian.
US defence officials said that 'very valuable' warhead research has taken place at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire as part of an ongoing and secretive deal between the British and American governments.
The Ministry of Defence admitted it is working with the US on the UK's 'existing nuclear warhead stockpile and the range of replacement options that might be available' but declined to give any further information..."

Economics:

Reuters: Regulators Close Three More US Banks
"Regulators closed banks on Friday in Georgia and California, bringing the total of U.S. bank failures to nine this year.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said County Bank of Merced, California, was closed by the California Department of Financial Institutions, and the FDIC was appointed as a receiver.
County Bank, which operated 39 offices, had $1.7 billion in assets and $1.3 billion in deposits, according to regulators. Westamerica Bank of San Rafael, California, will assume all of the deposits of the failed bank.
The FDIC said in a release the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund would be $135 million.
The FDIC also said it became a receiver of Culver City, California-based Alliance Bank and entered into an agreement with California Bank & Trust, a subsidiary of Zions Bancorp, to assume all the deposits.
Alliance Bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Institutions. The bank had $1.14 billion in assets and $951 million in deposits. The cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $206 million, the FDIC estimated..."


The For-Profit Health Care Industry:

Reuters: Doctors: Under the Drug Industry's Influence?
"Reports of undisclosed financial ties between researchers and drugmakers have eroded public confidence, and restoring it will require an end to some 'free' perks, health policy experts said on Tuesday.
Doctors may have to give up not just pens and prescription pads, but cozy seminars put on by drug companies in the guise of education, while the companies may need to give up direct-to-consumer ads, the experts wrote in a series of commentaries in the British Medical Journal.
Concern over research integrity in the United States has become more pronounced following accusations last year by Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley that prominent Harvard University psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Biederman and others failed to fully disclose payments from drug companies..."


Iraq:

Dahr Jamail: Full Circle
"Among things that have not changed in Iraq is one that I hope never changes. After a four-year-long absence, each of my meetings here with former friends and fresh acquaintances seems to suggest that adversity has taken its toll on everything except Iraqi hospitality and Iraqi generosity. I am awestruck to find the warmth of the Iraqi people miraculously undiminished through grief, loss and chaos..."


War, Inc.

AP: KBR Wins Contract Despite Criminal Probe of Deaths
"Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's 'continuing quality deficiencies' and said KBR executives were 'not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground,'..."

Economics:

Joseph Stiglitz: Nationalized Banks Are 'Only Answer'
"Nationalized banks are the 'only answer,' economist Stiglitz says. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz talks about nationalizing banks, the outlook for developing countries, and the need for an international financial regulator..."


Healthcare:

David Lazarus: Health Savings Accounts Are Ill-Advised
"Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's decision Tuesday to withdraw as nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services was a setback for President Obama's goal of reforming the U.S. healthcare system.
What could that mean for you? Three words: health savings account.
As healthcare costs for employers continue to soar, and as hopes fade for quick relief from Washington, a growing number of businesses are expected to stop offering costly insurance benefits and push workers instead into tax-free health savings accounts.
Proponents of the accounts, which operate like 401(k)s for medical expenses, say they give people more control over their healthcare spending. They also say people become savvier medical consumers when they're more aware of the costs of treatments and procedures.
Critics of health savings accounts counter that the plans favor the healthy and wealthy, and can increase medical costs for everyone else by requiring people to take out high-deductible insurance policies that kick in only after thousands of dollars in healthcare expenses have been rung up..."

The Environment:

Apparently, Chevron thinks lying is only bad if you get caught.
Deliberate actions like this ought to be grounds for their corporate charter being revoked.

Amazon Watch: New Evidence Shows Chevron Manipulated Lab Results in Landmark Environmental Trial

"Scientists in the $27 billion class action lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador's Amazon have discovered that the company manipulated laboratory results to evade a judgment at trial, lawyers for indigenous tribes announced today.
Chevron's misleading lab results have been presented by the company as a defense to the environmental lawsuit, brought by 30,000 rainforest residents in Ecuador over the dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in the rainforest from 1964 to 1990. An independent court expert recently estimated damages at $27 billion with a final judgment expected later this year.
Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, used the test results to obtain a limited legal release from Ecuador's government that should absolve it of liability. Texaco was the sole operator of a large concession in Ecuador's rainforest from 1964 to 1990.
'The new evidence definitively proves that Chevron has lied to the courts and the Ecuadorian people about an environmental remediation that failed miserably to deliver the results promised,' said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs..."

Economics:

Frank Rich: Herbert Hoover Lives
"...The current G.O.P. acts as if it — and we — have all the time in the world. It kept hoping in vain that the fast-waning Blago sideshow would somehow impale Obama or Rahm Emanuel. It has come perilously close to wishing aloud that a terrorist attack will materialize to discredit Obama’s reversals of Bush policy on torture, military tribunals and Gitmo. The party’s sole consistent ambition is to play petty politics to gum up the works.
If anything, the Republican Congressional leadership seems to be emulating John McCain’s September stunt of 'suspending' his campaign to 'fix' the Wall Street meltdown. For all his bluster, McCain in the end had no fixes to offer and sat like a pet rock at the White House meeting on the crisis before capitulating to the bailout. His imitators likewise posture in public about their determination to take action, then do nothing while more and more Americans cry for help.
The problem is not that House Republicans gave the stimulus bill zero votes last week. That’s transitory political symbolism, and it had no effect on the outcome. Some of the naysayers will vote for the revised final bill anyway (and claim, Kerry-style, that they were against it before they were for it). The more disturbing problem is that the party has zero leaders and zero ideas. It is as AWOL in this disaster as the Bush administration was during Katrina...
...The Republicans’ other preoccupation remains Rush Limbaugh, who is by default becoming their de facto leader. While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.
These pratfalls commenced after Obama casually told some Republican congressmen (correctly) that they won’t 'get things done' if they take their orders from Limbaugh. That’s all the stimulus the big man needed to go on a new bender of self-aggrandizement. He boasted that Obama is 'more frightened' of him than he is of the Republican leaders in the House or Senate. He said of the new president, 'I hope he fails.'
Obama no doubt finds Limbaugh’s grandiosity more amusing than frightening, but G.O.P. politicians are shaking like Jell-O. When asked by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News on Wednesday if he shared Limbaugh’s hope that Obama fails, Eric Cantor spun like a top before running off, as it happened, to appear on Limbaugh’s radio show..."

Domestic Surveillance:

Wired Magazine: NSA Whistleblower: Wiretaps Were Combined with Credit Card Records of U.S. Citizens
"NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program Thursday [Jan. 22, 2009] evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as 'tens of thousands' of other Americans.
Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.
Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.
'This [information] could sit there for ten years and then potentially it marries up with something else and ten years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won't have a clue why,' Tice said.
In most cases, the person would have no discernible link to terrorist organizations that would justify the initial data mining or their inclusion in the database.
'This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream-up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate,' Tice said. 'And once that information gets to the NSA, and they start to put it through the filters there . . . and they start looking for word-recognition, if someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says 'potential terrorist'.'
The revelation that the NSA was involved in data mining isn't new. The infamous 2004 hospital showdown between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General James Comey over the legality of a government surveillance program involved the data mining of massive databases, according to a 2007 New York Times article.
But there was always a slight possibility, despite the suspicions of many critics, that the NSA's data mining involved only people who were legitimately suspected of connections to terrorists overseas, as the Bush Administration staunchly maintained about its domestic phone wiretapping program..."

But the reverse (citizen surveillance of the police) shall not be legal, at least not in the UK...

British Journal of Photography: Taking photos of police officers could be considered a crime
"Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.
The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.
A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.
The law is expected to increase the anti-terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places. 'Who is to say that police officers won’t abuse these powers,' asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis, who was threatened by an officer last week.
Tallis, a London-based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer. Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.
According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis 'shouldn’t have taken that photo, you were intimidating me'. The incident was caught on camera by photojournalist Marc Vallée.
Tallis is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the British Press Photographers’ Association. 'The incident lasted just 10 seconds, but you don’t expect a police officer to try to pull your camera from your neck,' Tallis tells BJP.


Economics:

Foreign Policy: The Next Iceland
"FP looks at five countries on the verge of following Iceland to economic ruin and political meltdown..."

Well, it looks like the Bush economy worked for some people...

The Raw Story: Income of 400 richest Americans doubled during Bush era
"The 21st century Gilded Age party really got going before the U.S. economy went bust.
It was a party disproportionately enjoyed by high-income Americans, the 400 wealthiest of which actually doubled their share of all U.S. income between 1996 and 2006, new statistics released by the Internal Revenue Service show.
And during the first six years of George W. Bush's presidency, the average income of those 400 people actually doubled to $263.3 million, according to the data.
Between 2005 and 2006, those 400 Americans saw their income rise nearly 23 percent, and through the first six years of the Bush administration their average tax rate fall by a third, to 17.2 percent, Bloomberg reported.
That 17.2 percent tax rate was the lowest the group has paid on average since the IRS began keeping track of the country's 400 biggest taxpayers in 1992, the agency's data shows.
The big reduction -- from 2001's 22.9 percent tax rate for the group -- was 'due largely' to ex-President George W. Bush’s push to cut tax rates on most capital gains to 15 percent in 2003, Bloomberg reported. Bush administration tax cuts that benefit the wealthy will expire by 2011, unless extended or made permanent by Congress and the president..."


Energy:

New Scientist: Cheap, super-efficient LED lights on the horizon
"Incandescent tungsten-filament light bulbs face a global switch-off as governments push for energy efficient fluorescent lamps to become the standard. But the light could soon go out on those lamps too, now that UK materials scientists have discovered a cheaper way to produce LED bulbs, which are three times as efficient as fluorescent lamps.
Although the ultimate dominance of LED lights has long been predicted, the expense of the super-efficient technology has made the timescale uncertain. The researchers now say LED bulbs based on their new process could be commercially available within five years..."

AutoblogGreen: First stage of Nevada algae biodiesel completed successfully
"One of the most promising biofuel feedstocks in recent years has been algae. Algae is high in oil content, potentially providing much higher yields of fuel than any other current crop - as much as 100 times more than soy, for example. Researchers at the University of Nevada-Reno have been testing a pair of outdoor algae ponds to evaluate the viability of growing fuel algae in the region. The first phase was a success with algae growing in a pair of 5,000 gallon ponds even with overnight temperatures in the 20s.
The ability to grow algae in the open ponds in Nevada means that it could be much more economical than building enclosed bioreactors that might require heating and pumping. Professor John Cushman has been collaborating with Enegis, LLC and Bebout and Associates and the school could share in any profits derived from new patents that come out of this research. The first batch of algae grew from a 'starter' culture to a stable equilibrium in less than three weeks. The team are moving forward with developing robust algae species that can thrive in the salty water of the region."


Food:

Democracy Now! - Food Safety: Study Links Corn Syrup to Toxic Mercury
"DR. DAVID WALLINGA: Well, let me just lay a little context first for the two studies that came out. Really at the core of it is that there are large chemical plants, chlorine alkali plants worldwide, that make a variety of chemicals, and many of them are used commonly in food production, including in the production of high-fructose corn syrup and some other things.
And the first study, which came out Monday, was a scientific study. It was in a peer-reviewed journal. And it talked about high-fructose corn syrup samples that were collected when the lead author was at the FDA as a public servant and then tested for total mercury. And lo and behold, what they find was about half of the twenty samples that were collected of the high-fructose corn syrup had detectable mercury at varying levels.
And then the second study was one that my own group did that tried to extend on this problem and finding and go out to supermarkets and actually look for common brand-name food and beverage products and test them for total mercury, as well. And we found that about one-in-three of the fifty-five products that we sampled had detectable mercury in them.

AMY GOODMAN: How does it happen? How does the mercury contaminate the corn syrup?

DR. DAVID WALLINGA: Well, how it happens is like this. These huge chlorine plants, many of them continue to use a really outdated technology that’s based on mercury cells. It’s not the only technology they could use. It’s only one of three, but many still use it, despite the fact that we’ve known for a long time that they are big polluters of mercury into the environment.
What was kind of an open secret in the industry, though, was that the food-grade chemicals that came out of these plants could also be contaminated with mercury. And so, what these new studies shed the light on is the possibility that we’re getting significant exposure to mercury through these contaminated food chemicals.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the FDA doing about this?

DR. DAVID WALLINGA: Well, unfortunately, you know, like the previous speaker said, the FDA’s problems kind of speak for themselves. Their response this week was basically, 'We’re dealing with salmonella. We don’t have time to worry about high-fructose corn syrup.'
I think it reflects a bigger problem, though, in that not only is the FDA kind of asleep at the switch, but they’ve probably been underinvested. In other words, society has just decided that public health investments to protect the food supply or to look for salmonella are not a good investment, and so we’re suffering the consequences now, I think, from that lack of oversight and investment...

...AMY GOODMAN: The Corn Refiners Association has rejected the mercury study. Audrae Erickson of the Corn Refiners Association said in a statement, quote, 'This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance. Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years. […] It is important that Americans are provided accurate, science-based information. They should know that high fructose corn syrup is safe. In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed high fructose corn syrup as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996.'

DR. DAVID WALLINGA: Yeah, well, I think there’s two important points from that statement. The first is, the data that came out this week is the only public data available. So, neither the FDA nor the Corn Refiners Association has come forward with any data. The scientific study collected high-fructose corn syrup samples in 2005 and tested them, so that’s the only data we have to go on. Our report dealt with supermarket foods that were collected this fall in the Twin Cities. So that’s pretty up-to-date, I think..."