Libyan rebels won't hand over Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi

Fine. Then Libya shouldn't expect a penny from the US to rebuild. It's great that Gaddafi is on his way out but let's not get too excited about the new regime quite yet.

New York senators on Aug. 22 asked the Libyan transitional government to hold Abdel-Baset al-Megrahi fully accountable for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.

But the transitional government Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi told journalists in Tripoli that the request by American senators had "no meaning" because al-Megrahi had already been tried and convicted.

"We will not hand over any Libyan citizen. It was Gadhafi who handed over Libyan citizens," he said, referring to the government's decision to turn al-Megrahi over to a Scottish court for trial.

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Wash Post: How badly did Obama Ed Secretary Duncan want to talk to Matt Damon?

Via the Washington Post, it looks like someone is paying attention to Matt Damon's increased visibility. And that someone has a name: the Obama Administration.

Damon has recently made a splash with his smart, sharp comments about education (his mother's a teacher, a college professor in fact).

And a splash has been made for him by Michael Moore, who suggested Damon as a third-party candidate to run against Obama.

(For my money, Damon would make a better primary candidate. For a short explanation of the strategic difference, see here.)

So this is the Post's Valerie Strauss noticing that Obama has noticed:

It turns out that people in the Obama administration made several attempts to reach actor Matt Damon just before he spoke at last month’s Save Our Schools rally in Washington D.C., blasting education policies that focus on high-stakes standardized tests.

According to two people familiar with the efforts, the administration tried to arrange a meeting with Damon and government officials, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan, before the July 30 march. ... Damon declined all of the requests.

This is not too long after President Obama took a shot at Damon in his Correspondents Dinner address. Again, Valerie Strauss reporting:

Damon, during a March interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, said he was “disappointed” with Obama’s presidency for a number of reasons. ... Last Saturday night, Obama, who targeted a number of his critics in his speech, said this in mocking response to Damon’s “disappointed” remark:

“I’ve even let down my key core constituency: movie stars. Just the other day, Matt Damon -- I love Matt Damon, love the guy -- Matt Damon said he was disappointed in my performance. Well, Matt, I just saw ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ so...right back atcha, buddy.”

Back to the original issue — the administration's desire to meet with Damon — the Post has this to say:

I’ve said before that it is fair to wonder if the sudden interest was akin to the administration’s efforts last summer to blunt criticism of Obama policies when a coalition of civil rights groups released a framework for education reform. In the few days before the framework was released, administration officials met with some of the coalition leaders, and a few of them backed off their criticism. [emphasis added]

If that was what the officials had in mind with their outreach before the teachers march, it didn’t work.

This is not the first time that Obama has used Cabinet-level surrogates to pressure opponents.

Most recently, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan was charged with putting pressure on NY AG Eric Schneiderman to support the BoA settlement "whitewash" and, in effect, back off his whole mortgage fraud investigation.

Tick, tick, tick.

GP
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Arizona to fight Voting Rights Act

If the GOP loves our democracy so much, why are they always fighting against it and trying to block voters? Attorney General Holder has quickly responded and is fighting back. NBC News:

Arizona is challenging the law's requirement that the state seek Justice Department approval for any changes in how elections are conducted. Many states are subject to the law's pre-clearance requirement, generally to remedy past restrictions that discouraged minority voting.

"Arizona is still penalized for archaic violations that were corrected with the implementation of bilingual ballots prior to the 1974 elections," said the state's Attorney General Tom Horne. He noted that in 1974, Arizona became the second state to elect a Hispanic governor.

The state's lawsuit claims the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, Horne said, "because it suspects all changes to state election law, however innocuous, until pre-clearance is given by the federal government."

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Glenn Beck: Hurricane Irene "a blessing"

What is it with right wing extremists who see catastrophic events as "blessings?" CNN:

How many warnings do you think you’re going to get, and how many warnings do you deserve? This hurricane that is coming thorough the East Coast, for anyone who’s in the East Coast and has been listening to me say ‘Food storage!’ ‘Be prepared!’

… If you’ve waited, this hurricane is a blessing. It is a blessing. It is God reminding you — as was the earthquake last week — it’s God reminding you you’re not in control. Things can happen. Be prepared and be someone who can help others so when disaster strikes, God forbid, you’re not panicking.

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Fox News: Do we really need a national weather service?

Say that louder because the hurricane winds are making a lot of noise. Fox News, of course.

While Americans ought to prepare for the coming storm, federal dollars need not subsidize their preparations. Although it might sound outrageous, the truth is that the National Hurricane Center and its parent agency, the National Weather Service, are relics from America’s past that have actually outlived their usefulness.

The National Weather Service (NWS) was founded in 1870. Originally, the NWS was not a public information agency. It was a national security agency and placed under the Department of War. The Service’s national security function has long since disappeared, but as agencies often do, however, it stuck around and managed to increase its budget.

Today the NWS justifies itself on public interest grounds. It issues severe weather advisories and hijacks local radio and television stations to get the message out. It presumes that citizens do not pay attention to the weather and so it must force important, perhaps lifesaving, information upon them. A few seconds’ thought reveals how silly this is. The weather might be the subject people care most about on a daily basis. There is a very successful private TV channel dedicated to it, 24 hours a day, as well as any number of phone and PC apps. Americans need not be forced to turn over part of their earnings to support weather reporting.

If given the choice between organizations such as Fox News who have a history of distorting the truth and lying versus scientists from the US government, who are you going to choose? Read the rest of this post...

Leadbelly & Woody Guthrie - We Shall Be Free

Two American classics. Read the rest of this post...

African Union summit falls short of famine relief goal

This is pathetic. Oil rich Angola did manage to do the right thing but the other oil producing countries such as Nigeria fell dramatically short. The target numbers were already low so this is beyond shameful. The wealthy African Union countries really needs to step things up to help their neighbors. Not every country in Africa has the financial capabilities to assist but some definitely could and should do more.

African leaders have come under fierce criticism after a much-delayed African Union summit to tackle the food crisis in the Horn of Africa raised less than 4 per cent of the shortfall needed. Only four heads of state – from Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Equatorial Guinea – attended the meeting, designed to gather urgently needed funds to help save the nearly 13 million people now at risk of starvation on the continent.

Only 21 out of the 54 countries in the AU made pledges, with $20m of the $46m promised coming from three states – Algeria, Angola and Egypt. Aid groups say they need $1.4bn to meet the shortfall in tackling the emergency. Jean Ping, chairman of the AU commission, announced the summit had raised more than $350m, but the bulk of the sum was in fact a $300m loan from the African development bank and not a grant at all.

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"Dead Peasant Insurance" — A comment on the Rick Perry dead teacher’s scheme

We wrote here about the Rick Perry scam in which he tried to create what sounds like derivatives — insurance-policy-backed bets — on the deaths of elderly Texas teachers.

Shares in those bets would then be sold to the giant European bank UBS, who would market them as investments. Perry and Texas would get a kind of "finder's fee" or creator's fee. UBS would get commissions on the sale. UBS hack Phil Gramm (of Gramm-Leach-Bliley) would get a fee for coming up with the scheme in the first place and pulling it off for his client.

And the investors would see cash if and when these elderly teachers triggering insurance payouts by joining the "choir invisible." To sweeten (hasten) the deal, Perry simultaneously proposed reducing health insurance overage for these teachers. It came apart when the teachers refused to sign up.

I can't imagine a worse form of predation. Cold; near sociopathic, at least in appearance.

In fact, this kind of scheme has a name: "Dead Peasant Insurance". The lord of the manor takes out insurance on his peasants, works them to the bone, pockets their created wealth, then gets a nice little present when they die. It's a win-win.

Here's Michael Moore on Dead Peasant Insurance, from his film Capitalism: A Love Story (h/t Digby):



A short, powerful, scary clip. Your "job creators" in action, ladies and gentlemen; here till you drive them out of business.

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