Click here to view this media About a thousand women turned out to march on International Women’s Day Tuesday in Cairo to demand “fair and equal opportunity for all Egyptian citizens — beyond gender, religion or class.” The activists in Egypt, who had called for a “Million Woman March,” were disappointed when some men chanting anti-feminist slogans caused the rally to degenerate into a shouting match. “Men are men and women are women and that will never change and go home, that’s where you belong,” was one of the chants heard at the march. “As the women stood there and they chanted, suddenly this group of young men started chanting things, that women should go home, that they should stay in the home and the proof of that is that God didn’t make any female prophets,” NBC’s Anne Thompson reported from Cairo Tuesday. In a Facebook post, organizers of the March said they were not after minority rights. “We are not after symbolic political representation,” they said. “The bodies of women, so often used as ideological battlegrounds, have withstood all kinds of police violence, from tear gas to live bullets. The real battleground did not differentiate between women and men.” Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s revolution, was chosen for the march because the women demand to be part of the new Egyptian government. Only one woman was included when Egypt’s new cabinet was sworn in Monday. “When the prime minister came to Tahrir to speak to the people, was he blind?” Nehad Abu El Komsan, head of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, asked upon hearing the news . “Did he not see that half of the people filling the square were women?” “If we’re not involved in building the constitutional and legislative future of this country now, then when? Why do we see women, who were almost 50 percent of the protesters in Tahrir, not represented in decision-making rooms?” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared Tuesday that women must get a role in the new government. “The United States will stand firmly for the proposition that women must be included in whatever process goes forward,” she said. “They have now insisted that their voices be heard,” Clinton added. “And in the coming months and years, the women in Egypt and Tunisia and other nations have just as much right as the men to remake their governments — to make them responsive, accountable, transparent.” Tuesday marked the 100th anniversary of the first International Women’s Day.
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Click here to view this media Rachel Maddow had a great segment last night where she called out embarrassing Republican moments. Of course, Alan Simpson was at the top of the segment, but the best moment in the whole thing was when she nailed Megyn Kelly for trolling on Twitter. Go ahead. Watch the video. It’s short and classic. It seems that Megyn Kelly trolled Twitter with this tease for her show yesterday morning: enlarge Well, of course he could be right in that world where it’s totally fine for men to beat women (regardless of size and weight) into a pulpy coma, right? I join Rachel in wishing Megyn Kelly a happy International Women’s Day. What a bizarre woman that Megyn is. But wait, there’s more. Rachel had a text poll to decide who was most embarrassing: Simpson with his Snoopy Snoop Poop Dog, Simpson with his reference to “enema”, or Kelly. Here are the results: enlarge FTW.
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Click here to view this media Rachel Maddow had a great segment last night where she called out embarrassing Republican moments. Of course, Alan Simpson was at the top of the segment, but the best moment in the whole thing was when she nailed Megyn Kelly for trolling on Twitter. Go ahead. Watch the video. It’s short and classic. It seems that Megyn Kelly trolled Twitter with this tease for her show yesterday morning: enlarge Well, of course he could be right in that world where it’s totally fine for men to beat women (regardless of size and weight) into a pulpy coma, right? I join Rachel in wishing Megyn Kelly a happy International Women’s Day. What a bizarre woman that Megyn is. But wait, there’s more. Rachel had a text poll to decide who was most embarrassing: Simpson with his Snoopy Snoop Poop Dog, Simpson with his reference to “enema”, or Kelly. Here are the results: enlarge FTW.
Continue reading …If we need to hold hearings on Muslim domestic terrorists, why not the same on right-wing domestic terrorists?
March 9, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If you want to see conservatives get all twisted into knots, try asking them why, if it makes sense for Peter King to hold his Islamophobic hearings on the supposed threat of domestic terrorism from Muslim Americans, we shouldn’t hold similar hearings examining why we’re seeing a real surge in domestic terrorism by right-wing extremists. Take, for example, Bill O’Reilly last night. He got all bent out of shape over Mark Potok’s exchange with CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux earlier this week: MALVEAUX: If you can from your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now? POTOK: Well, I think it’s not our biggest domestic terror threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country. Although I would certainly not minimize the threat of jihadist terrorism in this country. Obviously, we have seen a fair amount of it. Of course, O’Reilly deceptively edited out the last two sentences, and then replied: O’REILLY: Are you kidding me? The radical right? The last terror act assigned to them was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I mean, think about what the guy just said. Muslim terrorists have killed tens of thousands of people all over the world, correct? How many people have the radical right killed? Well, Bill, just to get you up to speed: There have been many, many more right-wing terrorist acts on American soil since 1995 — including the bombing of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, just for starters. All told, there were over 60 major cases of right-wing domestic terrorism in the ten years after Oklahoma City. Even more important, let’s talk about just the past two and a half years: We’ve documented, to date, 22 cases of domestic terrorism since July 2008 involving right-wing extremists of various stripes, all inflicting (or attempting to inflict) violence on a variety of “liberal” and government targets. Which not only raises the question, “Why not hold hearings to explore the growing radicalization of far-right extremists?”, but a similarly pertinent: “Where are the media?” This is especially the case, given that the SPLC recently released a fresh report finding that the number of hate groups in America, for the first time ever, now exceeds a thousand. This was a key point Potok discussed in his appearance on Cenk Uygur’s MSNBC show . Potok also had the audacity to point out that if a Muslim lawmaker were to hold hearings on right-wing fundamentalist Christians’ roles in the radicalization of far-right extremists, the pitchforks would be out en masse. Of course, Dana Perino disagrees, claiming (in the source of this week’s biggest belly laugh): “If there was a hearing on radicalization amongst Christianity, there would have been no protesters”. Yeah, those of us who remember the endless right-wing shrieking over the Department of Homeland Security’s bulletin for law enforcement about the threat of increasing right-wing extremism — they were insulting mainstream conservatives and veterans and calling them terrorists! — got a good long laugh over that one. Exhibit A that Potok was on the money was O’Reilly’s outrage — which bubbled up beyond his opening Talking Points Memo segment, attacking both Potok and Ezra Klein for bringing up Christian extremists (though frankly, Klein’s remarks about “Christian kids” supposedly involved in school shootings as part of the domestic-terrorism picture was in fact off-base). But O’Reilly thought it was outrageous, just outrageous, that anyone would think the radical right still posed a significant terrorist threat to Americans, and had on both Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley to talk it over some more. Click here to view this media [H/t Karoli] It is not to conservatives’ credit that they so eagerly and adamantly try to whitewash away the existence of right-wing extremism — even though such hysterics have demonstrably made law-enforcement officers less safe in the field, because it short-circuits the flow of needed intelligence. And it’s really shameful on O’Reilly’s case, because one of the more vivid terrorist acts of the past couple of years committed by a right-wing extremist was the assassination of Dr. George Tiller by in Kansas — a murder for which O’Reilly bore no small chunk of culpability. But then, it has since become an article of faith among right-wingers that domestic terrorists who assassinate abortion providers are not terrorists at all. Sarah Palin, we recall, refused to acknowledge that abortion-clinic attacks were domestic terrorism. Along similar lines, there was Palin this weekend, claiming that Gerald Loughner’s lethal attack on Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January was in any way related to terrorism: Click here to view this media [H/t Digby ] PALIN: Why is the administration so naive in assuming the American public is going to accept a comment like P.J.’s that essentially equates a crazed maniac in Arizona, shooting Gabbie Giffords to this terrorist who tried to and was successful in gunning down our servicemen overseas as he did yell out Allahu Akbar? O’Reilly and Crowley similarly dismissed such notions. But the reality is that Loughner’s act was clearly terrorist in intent, and it’s similarly clear that his twisted worldview came straight out of the radical right, including most notably the paranoid alternative universe of Alex Jones. It seems that conservatives’ mania for whitewashing away the existence of far-right domestic terrorism is reaching a fever pitch just at the same time that it’s actually becoming resurgent — and it never seems to occur to them that they in doing so, they are creating cover and giving them implicit permission to proceed apace. Funny how that works.
Continue reading …If we need to hold hearings on Muslim domestic terrorists, why not the same on right-wing domestic terrorists?
March 9, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If you want to see conservatives get all twisted into knots, try asking them why, if it makes sense for Peter King to hold his Islamophobic hearings on the supposed threat of domestic terrorism from Muslim Americans, we shouldn’t hold similar hearings examining why we’re seeing a real surge in domestic terrorism by right-wing extremists. Take, for example, Bill O’Reilly last night. He got all bent out of shape over Mark Potok’s exchange with CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux earlier this week: MALVEAUX: If you can from your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now? POTOK: Well, I think it’s not our biggest domestic terror threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country. Although I would certainly not minimize the threat of jihadist terrorism in this country. Obviously, we have seen a fair amount of it. Of course, O’Reilly deceptively edited out the last two sentences, and then replied: O’REILLY: Are you kidding me? The radical right? The last terror act assigned to them was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I mean, think about what the guy just said. Muslim terrorists have killed tens of thousands of people all over the world, correct? How many people have the radical right killed? Well, Bill, just to get you up to speed: There have been many, many more right-wing terrorist acts on American soil since 1995 — including the bombing of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, just for starters. All told, there were over 60 major cases of right-wing domestic terrorism in the ten years after Oklahoma City. Even more important, let’s talk about just the past two and a half years: We’ve documented, to date, 22 cases of domestic terrorism since July 2008 involving right-wing extremists of various stripes, all inflicting (or attempting to inflict) violence on a variety of “liberal” and government targets. Which not only raises the question, “Why not hold hearings to explore the growing radicalization of far-right extremists?”, but a similarly pertinent: “Where are the media?” This is especially the case, given that the SPLC recently released a fresh report finding that the number of hate groups in America, for the first time ever, now exceeds a thousand. This was a key point Potok discussed in his appearance on Cenk Uygur’s MSNBC show . Potok also had the audacity to point out that if a Muslim lawmaker were to hold hearings on right-wing fundamentalist Christians’ roles in the radicalization of far-right extremists, the pitchforks would be out en masse. Of course, Dana Perino disagrees, claiming (in the source of this week’s biggest belly laugh): “If there was a hearing on radicalization amongst Christianity, there would have been no protesters”. Yeah, those of us who remember the endless right-wing shrieking over the Department of Homeland Security’s bulletin for law enforcement about the threat of increasing right-wing extremism — they were insulting mainstream conservatives and veterans and calling them terrorists! — got a good long laugh over that one. Exhibit A that Potok was on the money was O’Reilly’s outrage — which bubbled up beyond his opening Talking Points Memo segment, attacking both Potok and Ezra Klein for bringing up Christian extremists (though frankly, Klein’s remarks about “Christian kids” supposedly involved in school shootings as part of the domestic-terrorism picture was in fact off-base). But O’Reilly thought it was outrageous, just outrageous, that anyone would think the radical right still posed a significant terrorist threat to Americans, and had on both Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley to talk it over some more. Click here to view this media [H/t Karoli] It is not to conservatives’ credit that they so eagerly and adamantly try to whitewash away the existence of right-wing extremism — even though such hysterics have demonstrably made law-enforcement officers less safe in the field, because it short-circuits the flow of needed intelligence. And it’s really shameful on O’Reilly’s case, because one of the more vivid terrorist acts of the past couple of years committed by a right-wing extremist was the assassination of Dr. George Tiller by in Kansas — a murder for which O’Reilly bore no small chunk of culpability. But then, it has since become an article of faith among right-wingers that domestic terrorists who assassinate abortion providers are not terrorists at all. Sarah Palin, we recall, refused to acknowledge that abortion-clinic attacks were domestic terrorism. Along similar lines, there was Palin this weekend, claiming that Gerald Loughner’s lethal attack on Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January was in any way related to terrorism: Click here to view this media [H/t Digby ] PALIN: Why is the administration so naive in assuming the American public is going to accept a comment like P.J.’s that essentially equates a crazed maniac in Arizona, shooting Gabbie Giffords to this terrorist who tried to and was successful in gunning down our servicemen overseas as he did yell out Allahu Akbar? O’Reilly and Crowley similarly dismissed such notions. But the reality is that Loughner’s act was clearly terrorist in intent, and it’s similarly clear that his twisted worldview came straight out of the radical right, including most notably the paranoid alternative universe of Alex Jones. It seems that conservatives’ mania for whitewashing away the existence of far-right domestic terrorism is reaching a fever pitch just at the same time that it’s actually becoming resurgent — and it never seems to occur to them that they in doing so, they are creating cover and giving them implicit permission to proceed apace. Funny how that works.
Continue reading …If we need to hold hearings on Muslim domestic terrorists, why not the same on right-wing domestic terrorists?
March 9, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If you want to see conservatives get all twisted into knots, try asking them why, if it makes sense for Peter King to hold his Islamophobic hearings on the supposed threat of domestic terrorism from Muslim Americans, we shouldn’t hold similar hearings examining why we’re seeing a real surge in domestic terrorism by right-wing extremists. Take, for example, Bill O’Reilly last night. He got all bent out of shape over Mark Potok’s exchange with CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux earlier this week: MALVEAUX: If you can from your study of tracking radical groups, potentially hate groups, what do you think of this hearing? Is al Qaeda radicalizing Muslims? Is that our biggest homegrown terrorism threat right now? POTOK: Well, I think it’s not our biggest domestic terror threat. I think that pretty clearly comes from the radical right in this country. Although I would certainly not minimize the threat of jihadist terrorism in this country. Obviously, we have seen a fair amount of it. Of course, O’Reilly deceptively edited out the last two sentences, and then replied: O’REILLY: Are you kidding me? The radical right? The last terror act assigned to them was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I mean, think about what the guy just said. Muslim terrorists have killed tens of thousands of people all over the world, correct? How many people have the radical right killed? Well, Bill, just to get you up to speed: There have been many, many more right-wing terrorist acts on American soil since 1995 — including the bombing of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, just for starters. All told, there were over 60 major cases of right-wing domestic terrorism in the ten years after Oklahoma City. Even more important, let’s talk about just the past two and a half years: We’ve documented, to date, 22 cases of domestic terrorism since July 2008 involving right-wing extremists of various stripes, all inflicting (or attempting to inflict) violence on a variety of “liberal” and government targets. Which not only raises the question, “Why not hold hearings to explore the growing radicalization of far-right extremists?”, but a similarly pertinent: “Where are the media?” This is especially the case, given that the SPLC recently released a fresh report finding that the number of hate groups in America, for the first time ever, now exceeds a thousand. This was a key point Potok discussed in his appearance on Cenk Uygur’s MSNBC show . Potok also had the audacity to point out that if a Muslim lawmaker were to hold hearings on right-wing fundamentalist Christians’ roles in the radicalization of far-right extremists, the pitchforks would be out en masse. Of course, Dana Perino disagrees, claiming (in the source of this week’s biggest belly laugh): “If there was a hearing on radicalization amongst Christianity, there would have been no protesters”. Yeah, those of us who remember the endless right-wing shrieking over the Department of Homeland Security’s bulletin for law enforcement about the threat of increasing right-wing extremism — they were insulting mainstream conservatives and veterans and calling them terrorists! — got a good long laugh over that one. Exhibit A that Potok was on the money was O’Reilly’s outrage — which bubbled up beyond his opening Talking Points Memo segment, attacking both Potok and Ezra Klein for bringing up Christian extremists (though frankly, Klein’s remarks about “Christian kids” supposedly involved in school shootings as part of the domestic-terrorism picture was in fact off-base). But O’Reilly thought it was outrageous, just outrageous, that anyone would think the radical right still posed a significant terrorist threat to Americans, and had on both Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley to talk it over some more. Click here to view this media [H/t Karoli] It is not to conservatives’ credit that they so eagerly and adamantly try to whitewash away the existence of right-wing extremism — even though such hysterics have demonstrably made law-enforcement officers less safe in the field, because it short-circuits the flow of needed intelligence. And it’s really shameful on O’Reilly’s case, because one of the more vivid terrorist acts of the past couple of years committed by a right-wing extremist was the assassination of Dr. George Tiller by in Kansas — a murder for which O’Reilly bore no small chunk of culpability. But then, it has since become an article of faith among right-wingers that domestic terrorists who assassinate abortion providers are not terrorists at all. Sarah Palin, we recall, refused to acknowledge that abortion-clinic attacks were domestic terrorism. Along similar lines, there was Palin this weekend, claiming that Gerald Loughner’s lethal attack on Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January was in any way related to terrorism: Click here to view this media [H/t Digby ] PALIN: Why is the administration so naive in assuming the American public is going to accept a comment like P.J.’s that essentially equates a crazed maniac in Arizona, shooting Gabbie Giffords to this terrorist who tried to and was successful in gunning down our servicemen overseas as he did yell out Allahu Akbar? O’Reilly and Crowley similarly dismissed such notions. But the reality is that Loughner’s act was clearly terrorist in intent, and it’s similarly clear that his twisted worldview came straight out of the radical right, including most notably the paranoid alternative universe of Alex Jones. It seems that conservatives’ mania for whitewashing away the existence of far-right domestic terrorism is reaching a fever pitch just at the same time that it’s actually becoming resurgent — and it never seems to occur to them that they in doing so, they are creating cover and giving them implicit permission to proceed apace. Funny how that works.
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March to coincide with International Women’s Day intimidated by group opposed to calls to allow a female president in Egypt There have been ugly scenes in Tahrir Square as hundreds of women, many of whom had recently faced tear gas alongside men during the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak, attempted to hold a “Million Women’s March” in Cairo to highlight their hopes of playing an active part in building a new Egypt. They were harassed and intimidated by a counter-protest made up of mainly men objecting to the call for a new constitution allowing women to stand for the Egyptian presidency. As the women, who were marching on International Women’s Day, found themselves surrounded they chanted “the people want to bring down women” – a variation on the “the people want to bring down the regime” chant that became the Egyptian revolution’s battle cry. “Women were caught in the middle and groped,” witness Ahmad Awadalla said. “When I tried to defend them they said, ‘why are you defending women? Are you queer?’” These scenes were repeated until the army dispersed the crowd. In the Sudanese capital Khartoum, riot police armed with batons and tear gas arrested more than 40 women as they protested against rape and rights abuses following the arrest and alleged rape of Safiya Eshaq, 24, a supporter of anti-government activist group Girifna. A planned march in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions to mark the day was also disrupted, despite the organisation gaining a high court order saying it could take place, when police arrested 16 women at the ZCTU offices. The women were released after being briefly detained. In Iran pro-opposition protesters gathered in scattered groups in Tehran to mark the day clashed with the riot police who used tear gas and wielded batons to disperse the crowd. International Women’s Day Women Egypt Middle East Protest Iran Zimbabwe Sudan Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media I’m not sure what “LessGovernment” has to do with Al Jazeera, but Judge Napolitano and Glenn Beck’s bookers took the opportunity to let their spokesmouth, Seton Motley (yes, that IS his name), come on and “analyze” them after Hillary Clinton’s remarks and praise of their broadcasts. Mr. Motley starts out with some incoherence about campaigning in prose and broadcasting in Arabic before launching into an indictment of Hillary Clinton as a “leftist” who likes “leftist reporting”. Oh, and then there’s that thing about how Al Jazeera is no different than any US mainstream outlet because they all bash the Tea Party. NAPOLITANO: …can get real news around the clock. Is Secretary Clinton right? Is Al Jazeera one of the few sources left for real news and should we welcome it here in America? Here now to discuss is Seton Motley, president of Less Government. Well that’s a great name for your organization – Less Government. Seton, welcome back to the Glenn Beck program. What is she talking about? Is Al Jazeera to be trusted? In English? Or in another language? MOTLEY: Well, there’s an old campaign saw. You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose, and Al Jazeera campaigns in English and governs in Arabic. And if you’re watching Al Jazeera Arabic you get a whole different perspective on what’s going on over there than what you do over here. Part of the reason it hasn’t taken off greater here in America – the English version – is because it’s just like ABC, NBC, CBS. I watched segments today where they’re just bashing the Tea Party just like NBC does, ABC does, so there’s no difference. Alrighty then. It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with the refusal of all cable providers to actually CARRY Al Jazeera, right? No, it’s just because they’re no different than the others. I’m truly not sure that this guy has ever really watched Al Jazeera for any length of time, but get a load of his next “analysis”. NAPOLITANO: All right, but do they have a message that they convey about behavior that goes over there that either we don’t get from our own home-grown media — Fox or CNN or whoever might be there — and are they trustworthy? Or is this a propaganda arm of some government? MOTLEY: I get this — there’s station Qatar and there’s station Kuwait and they’re based out of those two countries. And I — I think it’s a propaganda arm. I mean if you watch — uh, there’s a great website, MEMRI.org, Middle East Media and Research Institute — If you watch Al Jazeera’s Arabic language clips, it’s presenting all kinds of crazy. You’ve got people saying jihadist things all the time, they reported on a British citizen who joined the Taliban and said “death to Americans”. If they presented that here, I think they would get ratings, I think they would get viewership, I think there would be a clamor for what they’re doing. But they’re not presenting that over here. They’re presenting it over there and not giving it to us here. So that I understand him, I read it twice after I transcribed it myself. I think he is saying that IF they presented video that painted Arabs as crazy people who are out to kill Americans they’d get ratings. But because they don’t do that on AJE, they’re not viable? Is that really what he’s saying? Well, it takes a propagandist to know one, after all, but I think he should actually WATCH what they do on both. I’ve watched AJE and AJArabic, and when it’s live, it’s often the very same video. One in English, the other in Arabic. While I don’t speak Arabic, I’m not really inclined to believe the Arabic version is a propaganda version that Americans would love, are you? And finally, all Fox/Beck viewers are admonished to beware that raving leftist, Hillary Clinton. NAPOLITANO: All right, last question since we have 30 seconds. Why is Hillary Clinton saying this? Why is she, of all people, telling Americans to watch it? MOTLEY: Because I think they have a similar agenda to what leftists like Hillary Clinton want to see advanced here. So this is another network that does what MSNBC, CNN and ABC does. NAPOLITANO: Got it. I’m glad Napolitano got it, because I’m still scratching my head. There’s propaganda all right, but it’s not being aired on Al Jazeera. I’m starting to think maybe I should’ve stayed with the whales and fish another week.
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• Gaddafi forces in ‘final battle’ for rebel-held Zawiyah • Witnesses say onslaught has ‘flattened’ the town • Opposition calls on Gaddafi to quit in 72 hours • New airstrikes near oil port of Ras Lanuf • Read the latest summary of today’s events 6.28pm: As the Gaddafi regime deploys tanks and hundreds of troops in all-out effort to take the town of Zawiya, my colleague Peter Beaumont reports from nearby Tripoli on an escalation in the Libyan conflict : If it is confirmed, the defeat of opposition forces in Zawiyah, just 30 miles from Tripoli – already claimed twice by the regime in recent days – would mark a significant psychological moment for Gaddafi. Although most sources were suggesting the rebellion in Zawiyah had been crushed, a resident named Ibrahim claimed combat was continuing. The Gaddafi regime has cut all mobile and landline communications with the town and accounts of today’s fighting came from witnesses who had driven out of the combat area and one who had climbed on a roof to find a phone signal. Residents described a hail of bullets, with women and children being killed and families trapped within their homes. The violence of this assault marks a disturbing escalation in the developing civil war in Libya, suggesting that the regime has now decided to pursue a no-holds barred strategy to crush the rebellion, despite the growing threats of international action. Witnesses in Zawiyah said many buildings, including mosques, had been destroyed and rebel forces had used loudhailers to call on residents to help defend positions in the town centre. 6.00pm: Good evening and welcome to our evening coverage of events in Libya. Here is a summary of what we know so far. • Forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have launched what is being described as a “final assault” on the town of Zawiyah, 50km from the capital, Tripoli. Accounts from the town report a sustained battle, and there are reports of significant damage and many injuries. • Sky News, whose correspondent Alex Crawford and her crew were trapped in Zawiyah over the weekend, said it witnessed Gaddafi forces firing on unarmed civilians and ambulances . These accounts were corroborated from Tripoli by the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont, who reports: “Residents described a hail of bullets with women and children being killed and families trapped within their homes by the ferocity of the fighting.” • The Libyan National Council in Benghazi, set up by the opposition, claims Gaddafi sent a representative to negotiate a peaceful exit for the Libyan leader, which would see him retain assets and avoid prosecution. A spokesman for the council said it would not negotiate with “someone who spilled Libyan blood and continues to do so”. But a Libyan foreign ministry official described the reports as “absolute nonsense”. • In Egypt, a march by women to mark international women’s day and to call for greater female participation in post-revolution political developments, was marred by a counter-demonstration by men. The scenes at the Cairo march turned ugly, and there were reports of scuffles. Arab and Middle East protests Libya Muammar Gaddafi Yemen Egypt Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Alan McCrankypants Simpson Chastises Kids for Listening to ‘Enema Man’ and ‘Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg’
March 8, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media The head of President Obama’s now defunct deficit commission apparently decided to see if he could outdo himself after his offensive “milk cows” statement on Fox’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. Alan Simpson Invokes ‘Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg’ In Scolding Fears Of Cuts To Social Security : Alan Simpson, co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s debt commission, furthered his penchant for colorful commentary Monday when he unleashed a rambling diatribe targeting what he characterized as a generation of disrespectful youth and their confused grandparents. “This is a fakery,” the former Wyoming senator said on Fox News, referring to retirement-age Americans expressing fears about having Social Security funds slashed. “If they care at all about their children or grandchildren, and sometimes I doubt that — I think, you know, grandchildren now don’t write a thank-you for the Christmas presents, they’re walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg, and they don’t like them!” In February, Simpson exhibited his flair for the dramatic when he called the White House’s spending cut effort a “sparrow belch in the midst of the typhoon.” The deficit, he later said, was “a stink bomb in the garden party and it’s never going to go away.” Amazingly a little later in the segment as the topic turned to raising the debt limit, even Simpson admitted here that if there is a government shutdown, it will be the Republicans who end up taking the blame for it.
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