The Power of Nightmares

In light of the popular uprising in Tunisia and Egypt, now is another good moment to step back and watch the documentary The Power of Nightmares. The movie dives into the parallel growth of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East and the Neoconservatives in the US. It's all available to watch via the link here. What always impressed me about this documentary was the unproductive approach of both the radical fundamentalist Islamic groups such as al Qaeda as well as the anti-fundamentalists such as Mubarak. Most people in the middle aren't impressed with the outer edges and only want to live life without hassle in peace.

Moving forward, we need to find a balance but will our own extremists (including the military industrial complex) allow such common sense? Read the rest of this post...

During the worst housing crisis in decades, Obama administration proposing changes to make buying more difficult

Here we go again. The administration is playing into the hands of the GOP who wants to dismantle Freddie and Fannie so another company can cash in. Reforming those institutions is fine but moves like this help the GOP ignore the reality that Freddie and Fannie did not cause the recession. Contributed sure, but they were not at the center of the crisis. It was a recession caused by the banks. Can we not stop pretending as though Wall Street didn't do this?

The Obama administration’s much-anticipated report on redesigning the government’s role in housing finance, published Friday, is not solely a proposal to dissolve the unpopular finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It is also a more audacious call for the federal government to cut back its broadly popular, long-running campaign to help Americans own homes. The three ideas that the report outlines for replacing Fannie and Freddie all would raise the cost of mortgage loans and push homeownership beyond the reach of some families.

That fact is already generating opposition in Congress and among groups like community banks and consumer advocates.

There doesn't seem to be a subject where Obama isn't trying to be GOP-Lite, including now the budget. Now they're repeating the Republican talking points about the federal budget being just like a family budget. Um, no, it's not. Temporarily increasing the deficit for the stimulus was the right thing to do to help keep the economy drop dropping even harder. It also helped to keep income tax revenues coming in which is a lot more critical than small budget cuts. A family budget doesn't work that way. Much like Obama's plan to slash heating oil assistance for the poor, it's more and more difficult to understand where this administration is going, besides a hard turn to the right. Read the rest of this post...

Obama Justice Dept. continues Bush program of access phone records without oversight

Why bother voting when the end result is so often the same? The illusion of democracy just doesn't cut it. McClatchy:

The Obama administration's Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy.

That assertion was revealed — perhaps inadvertently — by the department in its response to a McClatchy request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo.

Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006.

Read the rest of this post...

Alaska warming at three times the rate of the lower 48

But climate change doesn't exist, of course. We know this because the half-term former Alaska governor Sarah Palin says so. "It's a snow job" according to Palin. Get it? Huh? Get it? Oh that scamp.

Scientists or Palin? Who do you believe?

Thawing permafrost is triggering mudslides onto a key road traveled by busloads of sightseers. Tall bushes newly sprouted on the tundra are blocking panoramic views. And glaciers are receding from convenient viewing areas, while their rapid summer melt poses new flood risks.

These are just a few of the ways that a rapidly warming climate is reshaping Denali, Kenai Fjords and other national parks comprising the crown jewels of Alaska's heritage as America's last frontier.

These and some better-known impacts -- proliferation of invasive plants and fish, greater frequency and intensity of wildfires, and declines in wildlife populations that depend on sea ice and glaciers -- are outlined in a recent National Park Service report.

Read the rest of this post...

Telegraph: Mubarak used last 18 days to secure his fortune

Isn't that what most politicians do during their time in office? For Mubarak, he only had to speed up the process before heading out for retirement. After all, the chances of signing big consulting contracts with banks and foreign governments are limited. The Telegraph:

On Friday night Swiss authorities announced they were freezing any assets Mubarak and his family may hold in the country's banks while pressure was growing for the UK to do the same. Mr Mubarak has strong connections to London and it is thought many millions of pounds are stashed in the UK.

But a senior Western intelligence source claimed that Mubarak had begun moving his fortune in recent weeks.

"We're aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets," said the source, "And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now."

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'28 hours in the dark heart of Egypt's torture machine'

This report comes from The Guardian, and it's striking. The author is Robert Tait, a senior correspondent for RFE/RL (an American radio station in Prague) and a former Guardian reporter.

This is a first-hand account of 28 hours inside an Egyptian security facility, after being stopped at a police checkpoint, identified as a journalist, and taken into custody. It was a harrowing experience (my emphasis, so you spot the names you should recognize):

The sickening, rapid click-click-clicking of the electric shock device sounded like an angry rattlesnake as it passed within inches of my face. Then came a scream of agony, followed by a pitiful whimpering from the handcuffed, blindfolded victim as the force of the shock propelled him across the floor.

A hail of vicious punches and kicks rained down on the prone bodies next to me, creating loud thumps. The torturers screamed abuse all around me. Only later were their chilling words translated to me by an Arabic-speaking colleague: "In this hotel, there are only two items on the menu for those who don't behave – electrocution and rape."

Cuffed and blindfolded, like my fellow detainees, I lay transfixed. My palms sweated and my heart raced. I felt myself shaking. Would it be my turn next? Or would my outsider status, conferred by holding a British passport, save me? I suspected – hoped – that it would be the latter and, thankfully, it was. But I could never be sure.

I had "disappeared", along with countless Egyptians, inside the bowels of the Mukhabarat, President Hosni Mubarak's vast security-intelligence apparatus and an organisation headed, until recently, by his vice-president and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, the man trusted to negotiate an "orderly transition" to democratic rule.

The Mukhabarat (al-Mukhabarat Al-'Ammah) is described here, and yes, Suleiman ran it from 1993—2011. (Other elements of the Egyptian security and police apparatus are detailed here.) According to Jane Mayer, Suleiman was the U.S. go-to guy for rendition-and-torture trips to Egypt.

While Tait was not harmed, his story is pretty graphic. He concludes: "I had flown to Cairo to find out what was ailing so many Egyptians. I did not expect to learn the answer so graphically."

Keep this in mind as the days and weeks unfold. None of this is unknown in Egypt. If Suleiman wins, Egypt loses (despite what Tamron Hall thinks).

GP Read the rest of this post...

Greenwald on 'unified axis of government and corporate power'

It's not possible to keep going with the "revolving door" and not expect such problems. Obama has maintained the status quo with the problem (Orszag to Citi out, Daley from JP Morgan in) but the problem is much older than his administration and much more pervasive than just the White House. Corruption runs deep in Washington which has led to the overlap between government and business. It's scary to even imagine that Obama's US Justice Department is providing assistance and consulting to the Bank of America because of WikiLeaks. As Greenwald says, it's even worse that these organizations are able to so easily operate above the law. Glenn Greenwals at Salon:

But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power. I've written many times about this issue -- the full-scale merger between public and private spheres -- because it's easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics. Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former. The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.

That's what this anti-WikiLeaks campaign is generally: it's a concerted, unified effort between government and the most powerful entities in the private sector (Bank of America is the largest bank in the nation). The firms the Bank has hired (such as Booz Allen) are suffused with the highest level former defense and intelligence officials, while these other outside firms (including Hunton & Williams and Palantir) are extremely well-connected to the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government's obsession with destroying WikiLeaks has been well-documented. And because the U.S. Government is free to break the law without any constraints, oversight or accountability, so, too, are its "private partners" able to act lawlessly. That was the lesson of the Congressional vesting of full retroactive immunity on lawbreaking telecoms, of the refusal to prosecute any of the important Wall Street criminals who caused the 2008 financial crisis, and of the instinctive efforts of the political class to protect defrauding mortgage banks.

This is such a critical issue and highly complex so be sure to click through and read it all. It's that important. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: The Republican spending cuts will 'eat the future'

The title of the Professor's recent blog post is "Eat the Future" and the metaphor is apt. Because no one wants to sacrifice in the present, eating the future is the only choice left:

The public says it wants to see government spending cut — and the Tea Partiers really, really want spending cut — but people don’t want to cut any program they like; and they like almost everything. What’s a conservative to do?

The obvious answer, once you think about it, is to eat the future: to cut spending in a way that undermines the nation’s long-run prospects, but doesn’t impose all that much pain on voters right now.

And that, as best as I can tell, is the running theme in the cuts proposed by House Republicans. The proposal is, deliberately I think, hard to read and interpret; I hope and assume that the good folks at CBPP will do the detail soon. But on a quick read, here are some of the cuts that jumped out at me[.]

And he follows with a list of proposed cuts. Check it out; it's stunningly cynical. (Want a taste? How about trimming almost a billion from the Center for Disease Control.)

Paraphrasing Tom Waits, the future's not around to defend itself. That makes it a terribly easy target.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Neil Young - Comes a Time

Mubarak has moved on but it's still hard to believe that it happened. That it happened without a full scale violent revolution is even more amazing. The big question now is what happens next? Will the new team turn out to be as corrupt as the old team or will they control themselves? Mandela remains one of the rare examples that we have in the world of true change. He also managed to keep his integrity and his hand out of the coffers. The world would be a better place with more like him. Any other examples from the last fifty years? Read the rest of this post...

Broad majority of Brits believe Conservative cuts unfair

Imagine that. This is why the Democrats should not offer any assistance with the GOP gutting of any programs in the US. People can accept some cuts but when you slash and burn across the board, people aren't going to be happy. Let the GOP own that problem. Bailing out state GOP governors is also a mistake as the governors will take all of the credit and the Republicans will still bash Obama. If voters insisted on having a taste of GOP rule, let them figure it out on their own what the cost is of supporting such bad policy.

Almost two out of three voters now believe that the Government's spending cuts are unfair, according to a new opinion poll.

The ComRes poll for The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror found 63% thought the impact would be felt more by poorer households than the better off - up from 57% in December.

Almost as many, 57%, thought that the Government was cutting too far and too fast in its efforts to tackle the deficit - again up from 54% previously.

And 69% thought that they would be worse off personally as a result of the coalition's measures, compared with 66% in the last poll.

And no, even now, people probably don't realize how painful it still will get in the UK with the cuts. Read the rest of this post...