Click here to view this media ( Joe McCarthy – Crown Prince of Making It Up As He Went Along ) I’ve been hearing the name Joe McCarthy being bandied around in recent days – mostly misquoted and misrepresented by people living in a fact-free environment. Joe McCarthy probably represented one of the darker periods in American history – one based on fear and hysteria and paranoia. A period where innuendo carried weight and facts were so hazy and misquoted that shreds of truth were difficult, if not impossible to find – and it was McCarthy who held court during this reign of terror – one which destroyed and mutilated countless innocent lives. And all because the new-found power was intoxicating and McCarthy luxuriated in it. Portraying himself as the selfless crusader for Justice in America, he took advantage of the susceptible, the easily led, the malleable – much the same as the Teabag movement is doing now. Make up facts if they don’t subscribe to a certain ideology and repeat them over and over until they become true. McCarthy was master at it. Here he is at an Irish Fellowship meeting on the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago, speaking to a group of 1500 on March 17, 1954. Joe McCarthy: “There’s only one Communist Party. The Communist Party that puts out this pamphlet. Setting the line for the Communist Party in the United States, is the same Communist Party that tells 5th Amendment Communists how they should testify. It’s the same Communist Party , if you please, that ordered American boys, have their hands wired behind their backs, and their brains blown out with Communist machine guns. It’s one and the same party, my good friends. Now there are those who say ‘well, it’s all right to dig them out, but oh we don’t like your method. Well, my good friends, up to this date, to this very moment, none of those who said they don’t like the methods have told us any other method they could use that would be effective. And when you hear them crying that they don’t like the methods I suggest that you ask them when and where they ever exposed a Communist by their methods? They say, when they say ‘you don’t treat them like gentlemen’, I’d like to ask them, take the twenty, the twenty whom I’ve named to you. If they don’t give us general statements my good friends, say pick out one of those cases, and tell us where we ever mistreated any of those innocent Communists? You know, it’s easy to make those general comments. And when they say we don’t treat them like gentlemen, while we do I might say that if we did not, I would not cry for them. Traitors are not gentlemen, my good friends. They don’t understand being treated like gentlemen!” As ever – some things just never change. Only the names and the faces.
Continue reading …Even Neocon Robert Kagan Has Had Enough of Beck — Calls Him a Panic-Monger
February 5, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Apparently Glenn Beck has finally fallen off of the cliff so badly that even neocon warmongers like Robert Kagan have had enough of him. Sadly not quite badly enough for CNN’s resident hack John King to pretend like there was still some question about whether Beck’s recent rants are anything short of crazy out and out fear mongering with the way he framed this portion of the segment. KING: This is from a rival news network. It is something that I would describe, this is my opinion, as out there a little bit. It’s Glenn Beck yesterday. He’s standing in front of a map and he is essentially saying Egypt will fall, the Islamists will seize power and there will be a domino effect not only across the Middle East, but Glenn Beck’s conjecture is that it could go further. Let’s listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BECK: Now what is happens? You move over to Asia and you grab the ones, once this domino starts to fall, and the Muslims start to see, oh, my gosh, we might from a caliphate. We might be able to have Islam imposed and Sharia law all over the globe. You start to lose all of Asia. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Michele, to you first, any scenario in which you see anything like that possibly coming out of this? DUNNE: I think the Muslim Brothers are going to play a role in the political future of Egypt and I — but I don’t see any kind of a radical Islamist takeover. Let’s not forget. The Egyptian army are there and the Egyptian judiciary is there. There are some pillars of the system that have not fallen and will no necessarily fall with Mubarak. They show no signs of falling. So there are institutions, and so forth in Egypt to prevent a radical takeover. But, you know, I would also say this, I mean, what’s the alternative scenario? You know, what should the United States be doing? Are we supposed to — you know, this train is moving down the track, change is happening in Egypt. Should we throw ourselves in front of it just to try to stop the Muslim Brothers from getting into parliament? I mean it’s just a totally unrealistic scenario. The idea that somehow the United States should stop political change, and should do what it can to deny political rights and human rights to 85 million Egyptians, you know, because we’re concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood. KING: Is what you just saw, is that alarmist? Is it extreme? KAGAN: Of course, it’s panic-mongering of the worst kind. It’s not the first time in American history that kind of panic mongering has played well on TV or in the press. But I hope that people who have some sobriety and some good sense won’t look at a map like that and think that India, which I noticed was colored in, was about to become part of an Islamic caliphate. That shows a profound ignorance of India, as well as the rest of the world. I think we need to be intelligent about how we move forward. Not be guided by panic about some global Islamic takeover. And, in fact, that kind of panic leads to the worst kind of policies. KING: Bob Kagan, Michele Dunne, appreciate your insights.
Continue reading …Ed Schultz Unfamiliar With Widely-Read Document Known as the Bill of Rights
February 5, 2011 No Comment
Even though Ed Schultz has been told by MSNBC to refrain from further “Psycho Talk” segments, no such restraint is evident on his radio show, one of the top rated for liberals in the country. On Wednesday, for example, Schultz criticized former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for signing a bill into law in 2006 that includes an individual mandate for Bay State residents to buy health insurance, a provision also included in last year's health bill passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. Schultz played two clips of Romney, from 2009 and earlier this week on “Good Morning America,” talking about the individual mandate, followed by Schultz's criticism ( audio ) — SCHULTZ: Have you noticed the flip-flops that's been taking place in the conservative movement about health care reform, how the mandate was about the best thing since sliced bread when they came up with it back in the early '90s. We ran a montage of the sound bites and the lists of those on the conservative agenda who were in favor of the mandate and now all of a sudden, since it's been passed under a Democratic House and Senate and presidency, all of a sudden they're against it and it's a government takeover of health care and a job-crushing Washington takeover. That's their latest. But you don't have to look very far, you've got Mitt Romney here, number 7 there fellas (referring to audio clip), in 2009, Romney saying that what he had done in Massachusetts really should have been a model for the entire country. ROMNEY (source not cited): Massachusetts is a model for getting everybody insured in a way that doesn't break the bank and that doesn't put the government into the driver's seat and allows people to own their own insurance policies and not to have to worry about losing coverage. That's what Massachusetts did. SCHULTZ: That was the Mittster in 2009. This is the Mittster just yesterday. ROMNEY (on “GMA” with George Stephanopoulos): We are a federalist system. We don't need the federal government imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the entire nation. STEPHANOPOULOS: But what he (US District Judge Roger Vinson of Northern District of Florida, who ruled that individual mandate in Obamacare unconstitutional) was talking about specifically was this requirement that people buy health insurance and you had exactly that same requirement in Massachusetts. Why is it right for a state to impose that kind of a mandate and not the federal government? ROMNEY: Well, states have rights that the federal government doesn't have. Under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, the powers of the federal government
Continue reading …Egypt: Demonstrations and political pressure, but Hosni Mubarak clings on
February 5, 2011 No Comment
Barack Obama sends Mubarak his strongest message yet: it’s time to go Barack Obama today tried to nudge Hosni Mubarak towards the exit, sending his strongest message yet to the Egyptian president that it was time for him to quit. But Mubarak, even after hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere in Egypt to call on him to go, remained defiant and showed little sign of preparing to depart. Mubarak earlier this week promised to leave in the autumn but that has failed to satisfy the protesters who want him to go immediately. Obama, taking questions from the media for the first time since the crisis began, used a White House press conference to drop a series of heavy hints that the US regarded Mubarak as having outlived his usefulness and that it would be better if he went. “In light of what’s happened the last two weeks, going back to the old ways is not going to work,” Obama said. “Suppression is not going to work. Engaging in violence is not going to work.” He added that work on an orderly succession had to begin “right now”, had to be meaningful and broad-based, which meant involving opposition groups. The US president stopped short of calling unambiguously for Mubarak to stand down immediately but his comments went further in support of the protesters than his brief statement on Tuesday. He condemned the attacks on journalists, human rights activists and protesters and said he held the Egyptian government responsible for their safety. He appealed to Mubarak to make the right choice with regard to his departure and to think about his legacy. “I believe that President Mubarak cares about his country,” Obama said. “He is proud, but he is also a patriot.” Obama said Mubarak had made the “psychological breakthrough” by announcing he’d stand down in the autumn, seemingly suggesting that the president should not make a fuss about a few more months. US officials confirmed that while Washington publicly does not want to be seen to be interfering in Egyptian domestic affairs, it is engaged with senior Egyptian officers and politicians about life after Mubarak, assuming he leaves soon. The EU also kept up pressure on Egypt’s government for a swift, orderly and peaceful transition today on a day that saw hundreds of thousands rally on the streets. It is possible that after such a huge turnout produced no tangible effect at home or abroad the protests will become harder to sustain – unless the fragmented opposition formulates more detailed demands. Diplomatic sources signalled that if Mubarak was not going to leave and thus deprive the protest movement of a “symbolic victory,” it might still be possible to pursue a dialogue with the government. “There are people digging in around Mubarak but others who are edging in the right direction,” a western official said. European leaders called for an immediate transition to a “broad-based” government, but like the US declined to call explicitly for Mubarak’s resignation. An EU summit in Brussels wrestled over a response to the crisis, with David Cameron urging more robust action in line with Washington while leaders such as Silvio Berlusconi praised Mubarak, and suggested he should continue in office. The UN secretary-general, Ban ki-Moon, demanded new elections be held as soon as possible, and not in September. US officials are proposing that a transitional government fronted by the military invite members from a range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections. “We have discussed with the Egyptians a variety of different ways to move that process forward, but all of those decisions must be made by the Egyptian people,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. But the limits of US pressure were graphically illustrated by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, when he warned in an ABC interview against any move to reduce the $1.3bn (£800m) in annual US aid to Egypt – apparently in response to calls that the funding be cut if the governmental transition in Egypt does not happen soon. “There is a lot of uncertainty out there and I would just caution against doing anything until we really understand what’s going on,” Mullen said. “I recognise that ($1.3bn) certainly is a significant investment, but it’s an investment that has paid off for a long, long time.” The US and Egyptian military are closely intertwined through extensive joint training and exercises in support of US interests in the Middle East. The US would suspend aid immediately if the Egyptian army was to crack down on peaceful protesters in the way the Iranian Revolutionary Guard did in 2009 and the Chinese military did in 1989. Mullen, defence secretary Robert Gates and other senior Pentagon figures have been in regular contact with their Egyptian counterparts all week. The largely trouble-free rally in Cairo suggested the government had acted smartly to rein in the pro-Mubarak demonstrators who caused mayhem and attracted international condemnation this week. The defence minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, paid a very public visit to Tahrir Square and talked to protesters and military commanders — conveying the message that Egypt’s most powerful institution was sanctioning the rally. Egypt Middle East Hosni Mubarak Barack Obama United Nations European Union Ian Black Ewen MacAskill Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Hannity and Bozell bash media — especially Chris Matthews — for insffucient fearmongering over Egypt
February 5, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media The right-wing Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell was on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night to talk about how horrible the American media have been in covering the situation in Egypt. How have they been horrible? Why, apparently because they aren’t being sufficiently Becklike in fearmongering over an imminent radical Islamist takeover: BOZELL: What happens when the government crumbles? What happens when this country is reduced to utter anarchy? What happens when the killings begin and the death begins? Are they still going to credit Barack Obama’s soaring oratory for that, or are they going to separate them? What happens if an Islamic caliphate takes over? Are they going to credit his soaring oratory at that point? No they won’t. And what happens, Brent Bozell, if the government remains standing but reconstitutes itself as a democratic republic? What happens when the violence subsides? Will you and Hannity be going on the air and abjectly apologizing to your audiences and the American public and President Obama and to your media colleagues for needlessly fearmongering and spreading panic? Um, no. You won’t. But Bozell reserved his special reservoir of venom for Chris Matthews, who dared compare the Muslim Brotherhood to the Tea Party. This, of course, made Hannity’s an Bozell’s collective pea-sized brains explode: BOZELL: Look, I listen to Chris Matthews and I have two reactions to that. My first reaction is, ‘Let’s put aside civility for just a minute and to say, I’m just so sick and tired of these disgusting, horrible, despicable attacks, I’m going to slug you and deck you one of these days.’ But that’s wrong. That’s the wrong reaction. The right reaction is to listen to him, and to listen to him clearly, and just start laughing at the guy. Look, if a meteor came out of the heavens and hit New York City, he would blame the Tea Party for it. He would blame Michele Bachmann for it. HANNITY: No. He would probably blame George W. Bush or Sarah Palin. Let’s be honest. BOZELL: Yeah, but if it hit Fox News, he would say it’s OK. Yeah, and if it his NBC News instead, Bozell and Hannity would say it was OK. Especially because we know that “first reaction” is, for right-wing clowns like these two, the one we’re going to get most of the time. Especially when it’s being encouraged by top-tier pundits on a cable network with an audience of millions. Oh, but if a liberal protester is overheard saying nasty things, why, that’s proof positive that it’s the “left” that cannot be civil.
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Social media played in organising the uprising in Tunisia, and now, activists there are focusing their technical skills on helping anti-government protesters in Egypt. Tunisian hackers say they will attack website belonging to the Egyptian government in solidarity with the pro-democracy activists protesting there. Nazanine Moshir reports from Tunis.
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Moustafa Elgindy, a member of the Egyptian Coalition for the Opposition and a former member of Egypt’s parliament, said the pro-democracy protests will continue until president Hosni Mubarak leaves office. He said the solution is a parliamentary republic with a strong army and a prime minister voted on by the people. He spoke to Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.
Continue reading …It is right to be anxious about Egypt but not the weary, confused organisation that represents political Islam there Fear of political Islam is the pivot around which debate on Egypt’s future in the outside world often revolves. It is the spectre which a jittery Israel invokes, and it is still President Hosni Mubarak’s last card in arguing that the system which he and his predecessors created should survive more or less intact, even when he is no longer part of it. Al-Qaida’s Egyptian connections are remembered and the Iranian revolution’s tragic slide into religious fascism recalled. Thus it is that many who cheer on the Egyptian demonstrators feel anxiety when they ask themselves what comes afterward. Yet that anxiety is misplaced. It is misplaced in the very precise sense that it is right to be anxious about Egypt but not right to centre that anxiety on the rather weary, confused and unready organisation which represents political Islam in Egypt today. The Muslim Brotherhood will play a serious part in any new politics. But it is now less a radical organisation than a conservative one, striving to be relevant to modern needs, and divided on how far it can or should trim its policies. Its leadership looks back on several decades of hard decisions, as well as of hard times under a president whose instincts always tended toward persecution or exclusion rather than reconciliation. The most fundamental such decision was to abandon violence, both in practice and in theory, at least on Egyptian soil. Distancing itself from violent means was, quite apart from the question of morality, the right thing to do if the Brotherhood was to have standing among Egyptians, who have consistently shown that they find such means abhorrent. It earned the Brotherhood the hatred of al-Qaida, but that was a political help, not a hindrance. Since then the Brotherhood has
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Fund managers hoping for a repeat of profits that followed uprisings in Thailand and China following unrest in Egypt Speculators are hoping to make a fast buck from the crisis in Egypt by buying shares in companies whose stock market values have been hammered by recent events. One senior financial adviser told Guardian Money that investors who bought after the Tiananmen Square massacre profited hugely from China’s economic rise while, more recently, Thailand has been one of the world’s best-performing stock markets since last April’s Bangkok riots. Mark Mobius, arguably the most renowned investor in politically risky emerging markets, told Citywire.co.uk that he was “looking to buy” in Egypt when the stock market reopens. Shares in Egypt fell by 11% on the last day of trading before the crisis forced the exchange to close. Mobius told Citywire he was looking for stocks to fall a further 10-15% before he started buying. Before the crisis, the Middle East had become the focus of several fund launches aiming to exploit its growing economic strength. These “MENA” – Middle East and North Africa – funds have been called the final frontier in emerging markets investing. The funds were mainly targeted at institutional buyers, but in March 2010 Barings unveiled a MENA fund for small investors, where the minimum investment was £2,500. Its initial portfolio comprised a 29% investment in Egypt, with the manager optimistic about the country’s prospects. Barings said: “It is important to emphasise that changes like this can be positive for investors as well as society.” “We would highlight South Africa post-Apartheid, Indonesia post-President Suharto and much of Latin America … Given renewed tensions in the region, however, and the importance of the Suez Canal to the transportation of oil, we believe it’s important to ensure that we are positioned for potential strength in the oil price across equity portfolios.” But Mark Dampier, of Hargreaves Lansdown, the biggest UK investment funds seller, said: “The number one thing about these sorts of funds is political risk. When things go wrong, you can’t get your money out. These are very immature markets and often quite closed economies.” Other fund managers to hold Egyptian stocks in their funds include BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Investec and Schroders. Investments Investment funds Investing Financial sector Egypt Middle East Patrick Collinson guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Do you ever have the sense when you read news that there’s an orchestrated effort for the right wing to raise their middle finger high in the face of the Constitution while extolling it? If you don’t, prepare to experience it now. Virginia Thomas. You remember her? The wife of Clarence Thomas, head cheerleader at Liberty Central, foam crown and all? The one whose income Justice Thomas “forgot” to disclose ? That One. After leaving her gig with Tea Party front group Liberty Central, Virginia Thomas has moved on to start up her own lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, Inc (catchy name, that). According to that raving liberal site (NOT) The Politico , Ginni Thomas is on to the next venture: Now, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies. Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself “a self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement.” Interesting that these very same freshmen aren’t admitting to it or had no idea what Politico was talking about when asked if they had met with her. An interesting thing, though — Politico had a hard time finding a freshman who has actually met with Ginni Thomas. “This is the spouse of Justice Thomas?” said a seemingly surprised Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ). “No, I’ve never met her. It’s not something I’ve heard about. And I hang out with a lot of freshman,” he said. I sought info from some high-ranking GOP aides, who also have no idea what this is about. In addition, I have left a message with Ginni Thomas, but I doubt I’ll be any more successful than Politico’s efforts on that front: Reached by phone on Wednesday, Thomas said she was having trouble with the signal, telling a POLITICO reporter: “I would be happy to talk with you, but I really can’t understand clearly what you’re asking, so maybe this is not a good time to talk.” A visit to the website for Thomas’ new venture reveals things I never knew about her. Like how she’s connected to the “center-right movement.” If the Tea Party is “center right”, we’re all screwed. Just emigrate now. The endorsement page includes glowing reviews from Steve King, Donald Rumsfeld, Morton Blackwell, and the ever-annoying Rick Berman. Yeah. Center right. Is it just me, or is there something deeply unethical about the spouse of a Supreme Court justice being paid by conservatives to lobby against things like health care reform, and financial regulatory reform, and just about anything that might be called progress? In some ways, this is even more blatant than Liberty Central was. Liberty Central was astroturf advocacy aimed at ordinary people. This is another hack lobbying firm aimed at shaping legislation toward conservatives corporate persons, not citizens. You know, those people Justice Thomas legitimized in the Citizens United decision? Dave Weigel thinks her situation is a mess . I’m not so sure, but I’d like to think so. He puts it this way: So you can hire Ginni Thomas to help determine whether a bill will pass constitutional muster if it comes before, you know, her husband. And she’s having trouble getting work! It’s quite possible that a combination of media blackout and embarrassing gaffes that echo for weeks (the call to Anita Hill) is not a good way to build a consulting shop. About that drunk-dial late-night telephone call to Anita Hill. It seems to have displeased some conservative donors . Ohhh, can’t have that. But no worries. They’ve already got their bought-and-paid-for justice in place. No need to worry about the spouse, right? Perfectly consistent with the current conservative trend these days to shove women back into their “place” . Perhaps Ginni should spend some time listening to progressive women after playing handmaiden to conservative old men who use women and toss them aside routinely.
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