The boys in blue react to a potential good time demonstration at the Jefferson Memorial.
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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In the News
Mostly women and children. In our names. The families will be 'compensated'.
By Anthony Shadid, New York Times Week in Review, May 29, 2011
In cities and villages where an empire's traffic flowed, glimmers of a new sense of self, larger than local feuds and identities.
By Steve Lohr, New York Times Business, May 29/30, 2011
Maybe Japan is not as crucial to the global supply chain as those first weeks after the earthquake made it seem.....
“The global supply chain has been able to weather the storm,” said Hau Lee, a professor at Stanford University’s graduate school of business. Barring further unexpected shocks, Mr. Lee said, “This has not been as bad as most people initially worried it might be.”
The resiliency of global supply networks and quick action by companies are part of the reason. But another explanation was provided by a study published last week, led by Mr. Lee and Kevin O’Marah, a supply chain specialist at Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company.
Their report used data from a survey of 750 supply chain managers across a spectrum of industries worldwide,....
By Julia Preston, New York Times, May 29/30, 2011
TUCSON — Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves.
After months of criticism from Republicans who said President Obama was relaxing immigration enforcement in workplaces, the scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions.
In a break with Bush-era policies....
By Iona Craig, Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2011
Reporting from Sana, Yemen—
The political opposition blames President Ali Abdullah Saleh for losing control of Zinjibar; some even allege it's a set-up. But others fear Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken advantage of months of protests to gain ground.
Also see:
Yemen Opposition Accuses President of Handing City to al-Qaida
By Edward Yeranian, Voice of America News, May 29, 2011
Top Yemeni opposition leaders are accusing embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh of handing the provincial capital of Zinjibar to al-Qaida militants, after fighters from the group seized the town overnight.
And:
Yemen opposition 'willing to tackle al-Qaeda'
Al Jazeera, May 29, 2011
Yemen's opposition would be willing to sign an agreement with the West to combat al-Qaeda in Yemen, if Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's president, steps down, according to an opposition official. Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Abdel Rahman Ba Fadel, a member of Yemen's opposition Islah party, said that the country's opposition had contacted the office of the US ambassador in Yemen to this effect....
Hint, he doesn't blame who you think he blames. Drums thesis supports exactly what Genghis has been writing about in Blowing Smoke, and in his many comments and questions to bloggers right here at DAG. Kevin Drum as always is a great read.
Ellen Brown gives a cogent expose on the fallacies inherent in the deficit hawk arguments, thoughts on inflation, taxes, servicing debt, as well as some proposed solutions to being held captive by the bond market. I'm not able to cut and paste excerpts for some reason, so read the article here:
http://truthout.org/inviting-chaos-perils-toying-debt-ceiling/1306515903
(Reuters) - The State Department on Thursday named career diplomat Victoria Nuland as its new spokesperson, filling a vacancy left when the former incumbent resigned in a flap over the soldier accused of leaking secret WikiLeaks documents.
Nuland was a national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney and served as U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2005-2008. She has been the special envoy for conventional armed forces in Europe since February 2010.
Pretty funny altogether. Guess this won't even be playing in Peoria, so...who cares?
By Issandr el Amrani, Arabist.net, May 27, 2011
The NYT covers the Saudi-led counter revolution, starting with a lede that is a hodgepodge of bombastic adjectives and mixed metaphors:....OK, now that my writerly criticism is out of the way, to the meat of the story:....
"The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that penalizes businesses for hiring workers in the country illegally, buoying the hopes of supporters of state crackdowns on illegal immigration.
They predicted the ruling would lead to many other states passing laws that require employers to use the federal E-Verify system to check that workers aren’t illegal immigrants. And some said the ruling bodes well for the prospects of a much broader and more controversial immigration law in Arizona, known as SB1070, to be found constitutional.
The state is appealing a ruling blocking portions of that law from taking effect.
But some legal experts said the ruling should not be read as a broad validation of such tactics. While they acknowledge that other states will now pass similar employer sanctions, they cautioned that the court did not make any sweeping endorsement of states’ rights to enforce federal immigration laws.
“It’s a very careful and narrowly reasoned opinion, so it doesn’t really tip the court’s hand one way or the other with respect to SB1070,” said Peter Spiro, a Temple University law professor who specializes in immigration law. “That being said, the court here is validating a state measure that implicates immigration enforcement. The court today has rejected an argument that the states have no business in immigration enforcement. That’s off the table.”
Where are all the keyboard activists now? So far none of the anti-war critics of the President have bothered to mention that the White House is threatening a veto of the House committee version of the defense authorization bill. This bill attempts to launch a worldwide war without specific targets or reasons, block detainee transfer from Guantanamo, and mess with the president's efforts to reduce active nuclear warheads under the new START treaty and trying to kill the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.
The question has to be asked, why hasn't the preeminent blogging war critic written about this? Oh, right it just doesn't fit the appropriate narrative of Obama = Bush III = Vlad the Impaler = Pol Pot = the Cloverfield Monster.
In her 25 years hosting her eponymous show, Oprah Winfrey changed lives, most notably her own, but she did not change American culture. Rather, she revived and extended an old American phenomenon: the tradition of middlebrow self-improvement that many observers assumed had died in the anti-authority turmoil of the 1960s. While anything but radical, this achievement was nonetheless remarkable.
To understand its significance, positive and negative, consider two other media institutions that also debuted in 1986. The first is Spy magazine, defunct since 1998. Enormously influential, particularly in New York media circles, Spy pioneered the snobby, snarky cynicism that many writers under 50 still equate with sophistication. Spy did change the culture.
Thousands of immigrants lured to Spain by dreams of a better life now live in encampments in the woods with little food and unsafe water
By Suzanne Daley, New York Times, May 25/26, 2011
PALOS DE LA FRONTERA, Spain— Back home in Gambia, Amadou Jallow was, at 22, a lover of reggae who had just finished college and had landed a job teaching science in a high school. But Europe beckoned.....
“We are not bush people,” he said recently as he gathered twigs to start a fire. “You think you are civilized. But this is how we live here. We suffer here.” ....But for Mr. Jallow and for many others who arrived before them.... Europe has offered hardships they never imagined. These days Mr. Jallow survives on two meals a day, mostly a leaden paste made from flour and oil, which he stirs with a branch. “It keeps the hunger away,” he said.
The authorities estimate that there are perhaps 10,000 immigrants living in the woods in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia, a region known for its crops of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and there are thousands more migrants in areas that produce olives, oranges and vegetables. Most of them have stories that echo Mr. Jallow’s.....
“There is everything in there,” said Diego Cañamero, the leader of the farm workers’ union in Andalusia, which tries to advocate for the men. “You have rats and snakes and mice and fleas."....
Occasionally, the police bring bulldozers to tear down the shelters. But the men, who have usually used their family’s life savings to get here, are mostly left alone — the conditions they live under are an open secret in the nearby villages....
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2011
Chinese authorities fearful of unrest try to smother reports of three bomb blasts set off by a farmer who was apparently upset about his house being demolished. The bomber and one other person are killed.
Reporting from Beijing—
....Angry reporters in Fuzhou complained that police confiscated their notebooks and cellphones and deleted photographs from cameras. An early report posted on the official New China News Agency site that described the attack as retaliation against local government was later removed....
Highly recommended documentary free for download or streaming video from a number of sources.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2011
Reporting from Washington—In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces....
At the same time:
CIA team allowed to examine bin Laden compound
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent, May 26, 2011
Washington -- A CIA team of forensics specialists has been granted permission by the Pakistani government to visit the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, to search for possibly hidden or buried documents, a U.S. official confirms to CNN. [....]
The agreement was reached several days ago by CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell and the Pakistani government. The official declined to say when the visit will happen and if more than one trip is planned.
and
32 killed in Hangu suicide bombing
Daily Times (Pakistan,) May 27, 2011
* 60 people injured as bomber detonates explosives-laden vehicle near DPO office
* Most of those killed are policemen
* 450 kg of explosives used in attack
* Taliban threaten bigger attacks to avenge killing of Osama bin Laden
PESHAWAR/ ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber blew up a car laden with explosives at a checkpoint close to the Hangu Police Station and Hangu DPO Office on Thursday evening, killing 32 people and wounding 60 others, as the Taliban vowed no reprieve in their quest to avenge the US killing of Osama bin Laden.
It was the second attack in as many days in the country’s northwest [....]
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not like wasteful spending. He made that much clear upon his election last fall by returningmore than $800 million in federal funding for a high-speed rail line through the state (some of which he later asked for back). In Marchhe reaffirmed this stance by proposing deep budget cuts to public schools and local government.
These moves and others were made in the service of balancing Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion deficit. So why is Gov. Walker now pushing four non-essential major highway construction projects that may cost the state up to $2 billion? That’s the question posed in a new report released yesterday (pdf) by the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
PIRG charges that Walker’s new transportation spending plan irresponsibly favors highway construction at the expense of public transit and road maintenance. Walker is proposing to cut 10 percent of the transit budget, roughly $10 million, despite recent research suggesting that service reductions have made workplaces harder to access in metropolitan Milwaukee. He also plans to cut $48 million in local road maintenance funding, although 43 percent of the state’s roads received a “less than good” rating in a 2008 report. (Its bridges could use some work too, with over 8 percent deemed “structurally deficient.”) Meanwhile Walker intends to increase highway construction spending by 13 percent, which PIRG describes as an unfair trade to the people of Wisconsin ...
French Finance Minster Christine Lagarde has emerged as the front-runner in the race to replace ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She is a champion swimmer, an accomplished attorney, and a competent bureaucrat. She's also a friend of Wall Street who will ferociously defend the interests of big capital. Research assistant for the far-right American Enterprise Institute Jurgen Reinhoudt notes that under "France's free-market oriented economics minister"..."the top income tax rate was cut and, in a frontal assault on the 35-hour workweek, overtime work for hourly workers was made tax-free."
BAGHDAD — Tens of thousands of followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr staged a military-style parade Thursday in Baghdad to demand that U.S. troops leave the country as scheduled by Dec. 31, a show of force intended to intimidate Iraqi officials who favor asking that some American troops stay on....
The Decider, the war profiteers, the nitwit Bush supporting voters and our mass media enablers gave Iraqi's shock, awe, terror, torture, bribery, Bremer walls, the mass exodus of doctors and the educated from Iraq, poverty, Saddam at the end of a rope, and freedom to make Moqtada al Sadr, the anti-American death squad running Iranian backed radical Mullah the most powerful and frightening figure in Baghdad. GWB also gave America tens of thousands of dead or wounded US troops, and a few trillion more in war costs and debt. Now, the Iraqi's want us to exit on time, as agreed to by George W. in 2007!
Where is the love for what The Great White War President called spreading God's Gift of freedom?
Madison - In a move that hastens a larger showdown, a Dane County judge has struck down Gov. Scott Walker's legislation repealing most collective bargaining for public employees.
In a 33-page decision issued Thursday, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said she would overturn the legislation because GOP lawmakers on a committee broke the state's open meetings law in passing it March 9. The legislation limits collective bargaining to wages for all public employees in Wisconsin except for police and firefighters.
On March 18, Sumi had placed a temporary hold on the law, but Thursday's ruling voided it entirely - at least until the Supreme Court decides whether to act in the case.
"It's what we were looking for," said Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat.
Ozanne sued to block the law after Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) filed a complaint saying that GOP legislative leaders had not given proper notice to the public in convening a conference committee of lawmakers from both houses to approve Walker's budget-repair bill.
By Jennifer Steinhauser, New York Times, May 25, 2011
WASHINGTON — Less than 24 hours after their surprising victory in the race for a vacant House seat, Democrats forced Senate Republicans on Wednesday to vote yes or no on a bill that would reshape Medicare, signaling their intent to use the issue as a blunt instrument against Republicans through the 2012 election.
Democrats staged the vote to press their advantage coming out of their victory on Tuesday in the contest, fought in large part over Medicare, for a House seat in upstate New York that had long been in Republican hands. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, brought the legislation to the floor so that Senate Republicans would either have to vote for it, exposing them to attacks from Democrats and their allies, or against it, exploiting growing Republican divisions on the issue.
Five of 47 Senate Republicans voted against it — four because they said it went too far, one on the ground that the budget measure that contained it did not go far enough fast enough to address the budget deficit....
BBC News, May 25, 2011
President Obama has told British politicians that, despite the rise of new global powers, the time for US and European leadership "is now". He said the influence of the US, UK and allies would remain "indispensable," in a speech in Parliament on the second day of his UK state visit. But he said that leadership would need to "change with the times" to reflect economic and security challenges.....
....he rejected arguments that the rise of superpowers like China and India meant the end for American and European influence in the world. "Perhaps, the argument goes, these nations represent the future, and the time for our leadership has passed. That argument is wrong. The time for our leadership is now," he said.....
Also see:
Obama redefines US-UK axis in speech to parliament
Obama throws the weight of the west behind freedom in the Middle East
By Patrick Wintour, Guardian.co.uk, May 25, 2011
The president redefines the role of the US and its allies with a stirring speech to both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall.
MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A sharp devaluation of the Belarusian ruble has spread panic across the country, with people rushing on Wednesday to buy dollars, euros, toasters and canned goods — anything that will not lose its value as quickly as the national currency. Belarusians swept store shelves and queued for entire days at currency exchange offices in a desperate attempt to protect their savings from the country's sinking fortunes. President Alexander Lukashenko promised that the national currency will remain stable following the devaluation ordered a day earlier, but experts warned it will continue its nosedive if Russia doesn't provide a quick bailout. Confidence in the ruble, whose value is fixed in Belarus, has dropped for weeks amid fears over the country's finances and the country's lack of support from its neighbors, both the EU and Russia.
Belarusian officials on Tuesday cut the ruble's official value against the dollar almost in half Tuesday — to 4,930 rubles per dollar from the previous 3,155. The perceived value of the local currency is much lower, however — on the black market it takes 6,000 rubles to buy a dollar. To make matters worse, there is a physical shortage in the country of dollars and euros, which companies and households desperately want to own to protect themselves from a worse devaluation in the future. The government's own reserves are badly depleted and exchange offices have run out of foreign currency because they are allowed only to sell what they buy from clients.
Andrei Krylevich, 42, has spent a week in lines outside an exchange booth in downtown Minsk without a chance to buy a single dollar. The computer company he works at has sent its employees on an unpaid leave, and he urgently needs to pay back a $9,000 loan to a bank. "In just one month, I have virtually turned bankrupt, the entire country has gone bankrupt," Krylevich said. "Even during the Soviet collapse we didn't go through such nightmare."