In my view, even the president doesn’t go nearly far enough in the direction most Americans would approve. His plan doesn’t really increase taxes on the rich. It merely ends the Bush tax windfalls for the wealthy – which were originally designed to be ended in 2010 in any event – and closes a few loopholes.
But if we’re in a budget crisis, why shouldn’t we go back to the tax rates we had 30 years ago, which required the rich to pay much higher shares of their incomes? One of the great scandals of our age is how concentrated income and wealth have become. The top 1 percent now gets twice the share of national income it took home 30 years ago.
If the super-rich paid taxes at the same rates they did three decades ago, they’d contribute $350 billion more per year than they do now – amounting to trillions more over the next decade. That’s enough to ensure that every young American is healthy and well educated and that the nation’s infrastructure is up to world-class standards.
…
If Americans understood how much they’re paying for defense and how little they’re getting, they’d demand a defense budget at least 25 percent smaller than it is today.
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I’d wager that if Americans also knew that the Ryan plan would channel hundreds of billions of their Medicare dollars into the pockets of private for-profit heath insurers, more would be against it.
If people knew that two-thirds of Ryan’s budget cuts would come from programs serving lower- and moderate-income Americans while more than 70 percent of the savings would fund tax cuts for the rich, even more would oppose it.
And if they knew that combining the tax cuts for the rich with the budget-cuts plan would produce almost no deficit reduction at all, just about everyone would be against it. The plan is little more than a giant transfer from the less advantaged to the super advantaged.
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Finally, the president’s proposed budget – which, again, is considered the extreme liberal end of the field – doesn’t begin to remedy the scandal of the nation’s schools in poor and middle-class communities. Most teachers in these schools are paid less than $50,000 a year, and classrooms are crammed.
…
According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 78 percent of Americans oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to reduce the budget deficit. Meanwhile, raising taxes on the wealthy is supported by 72 percent. That includes 68 percent of independents. Even a majority of registered Republicans – 54 percent – say taxes should be raised on the rich. A majority of Republicans!
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The Ryan Republican plan shouldn’t be considered one side of a great debate. It shouldn’t be considered at all. Americans of all political persuasions – including a large percentage of registered Republicans – don’t want it.
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JAMES RISEN, The New York Times
Published: May 1, 2011
The money paid to Mr. Arafat bought neither security nor the highway that American officials have long envisioned as a vital route to tie remote border areas to the Afghan government. Instead, it added to the staggering cost of the road, known as the Gardez-Khost Highway, one of the most expensive and troubled transportation projects in Afghanistan. The 64-mile highway, which has yet to be completed, has cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million – or about $2.8 million a mile – according to American officials. Security alone has cost $43.5 million so far, U.S.A.I.D. officials said.
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Despite the expense, a stretch of the highway completed just six months ago is already falling apart and remains treacherous. The unfinished portion runs through Taliban territory, raising questions about how it can be completed. Cost overruns are already more than 100 percent, all for a road where it was never certain that local Afghans wanted it as badly as the American officials who planned it.
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Within weeks of starting work, a construction camp was hit with rocket-propelled grenades, said Steve Yahn, the former chief engineer for the Gardez-Khost Highway project. Afterward, the provincial governor and the police chief told the Americans that if they had hired the right people for security, the attack would never have happened. “We got the message,” Mr. Yahn said.
That is when Mr. Arafat and 200 of his men were brought in to protect work crews. He was recommended by tribal elders from the Zadran tribe, said Paktia’s governor, Juma Khan Hamdard.
…
“On paper, the G.K. road was paying an enormous security detail of local-hire Afghans,” said one United States official. The highway contractors “would make a big deal out of their camps’ getting hit from time to time, and some of their guys would get shot in night attacks, but every instance I ever heard about coincided with payment negotiations with the Afghan security detail, of whom Arafat was the chief point of contact,” the official said.
It is impossible to determine how many of the attacks on the highway may have been staged by Mr. Arafat or his men. Despite all the money spent on security, however, there have been 364 attacks on the Gardez-Khost Highway, including 108 roadside bombs, resulting in the deaths of 19 people, almost all of them local Afghan workers.
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“Since I have left the security of the road, it’s chaos there,” Mr. Arafat said. In fact, security officials have not seen any significant incidents since Mr. Arafat’s departure, they said.
A military officer who asked not to be identified said that contractors working in remote stretches of Afghanistan constantly faced such dilemmas. Do you keep paying off insurgents, or others, to keep the peace, even though they could use the money to buy weapons and sustain the insurgency?
“It’s a tradeoff,” said the officer. “It’s Afghanistan; there is never a good answer.”
May 3 is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 242 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1919, Pete Seeger, folk singer, activist, environmentalist was born in NYC.
On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete’s darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “And Quie Flows the Don”. Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as “Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?” Shortly after she sang it in German. The song’s impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It’s universal message, “let there be peace in the world” did not get lost in its translation. To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.
1715 – “Edmund Halley’s” total solar eclipse (the last one visible in London, United Kingdom for almost 900 years).
1791 – The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1815 – Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830 – The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened. It is the first steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837 – The University of Athens is founded.
1849 – The May Uprising in Dresden begins – the last of the German revolutions of 1848.
1860 – Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
1867 – The Hudson’s Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
1877 – Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world has its first game.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1915 – The poem In Flanders Fields is written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
1916 – The leaders of the Easter Rising are executed in Dublin.
1920 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
1921 – West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax.
1924 – Aleph Zadik Aleph is formed in Omaha, Nebraska
1928 – Japanese atrocities in Jinan, China.
1933 – Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the United States Mint.
1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1951 – London’s Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain
1951 – The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
1951 – The Kentucky Derby is televised for the first time.
1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.
1960 – The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City’s Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
1960 – The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the “Birmingham campaign” protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
1973 – The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world’s tallest building.
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987 – A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop restrictor plate racing the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is devastated by an F5 tornado killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This is the strongest tornado ever recorded with wind speeds of up to 318 mph.
2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2002 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.
2003 – New Hampshire’s famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.
2006 – Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea, killing 113 people on board, with no survivors.
2006 – Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison in Alexandria, Virginia.
Robert Fisk: Was he betrayed? Of course. Pakistan knew Bin Laden’s hiding place all along
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
A middle-aged nonentity, a political failure outstripped by history – by the millions of Arabs demanding freedom and democracy in the Middle East – died in Pakistan yesterday. And then the world went mad.
Fresh from providing us with a copy of his birth certificate, the American President turned up in the middle of the night to provide us with a live-time death certificate for Osama bin Laden, killed in a town named after a major in the army of the old British Empire. A single shot to the head, we were told. But the body’s secret flight to Afghanistan, an equally secret burial at sea? The weird and creepy disposal of the body – no shrines, please – was almost as creepy as the man and his vicious organisation.
FUKUSHIMA, Japan – On a windy, chilly day near the top of a volcano known as “little Mount Fuji,” the Ryan family of Florida described the fuss at home before they left.
“People thought we were crazy,” said Kerry Ryan, 52, of Cape Coral, Fla.
“They said we’d come back glowing,” 10-year-old granddaughter Isabelle Ryan added.
But the Ryans, who had never before traveled overseas, decided to stick to their destination: Fukushima.
Canada’s Conservatives in crushing election victory
• Prime minister Stephen Harper wins a majority government
• Shattering defeat for the opposition Liberals
• Leftist New Democrats projected to be main opposition party
Associated Press guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 May 2011 06.14 BST
The Conservative prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has won a majority government in Monday’s parliamentary elections which also marked a shattering defeat for Michael Ignatieff’s opposition Liberals.
In another significant shift, the leftist New Democrats are projected to become the main opposition party for the first time in Canadian history with 106 seats, in a stunning upset over the Liberals who have always been either in power or leading the opposition.
Harper, who took office in 2006, has won two elections but until now had never held a majority of parliament’s 308 seats, forcing him to rely on opposition support to pass legislation.
Germany, Austria open doors to EU’s migrant workers
Germany and Austria became the last two EU members to lift labor market restrictions on workers from Eastern Europe on May 1.
The doors to Germany and Austria have opened wider to foreign workers after the two European Union nations lifted restrictions on migrant laborers from Eastern Europe
On May 1, these last two “old” EU member states removed labor market restrictions keeping out workers from “new” members Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia.
While recognizing that Germany’s aging workforce could benefit from a few fresh pairs of legs, many politicians and trade unionists on this side of the River Oder are looking eastward with mixed feelings, wondering if the new “open door” policy will fuel economic growth or strain the social system. The move is further charged by the growing debate in Europe over the merits of multiculturalism.
Outrage over Israel’s decision to freeze Palestinian revenue
Isabel Kershner May 3, 2011
JERUSALEM: Israel is delaying the transfer of almost $US90 million ($82 million) in tax revenue owed to the Palestinian Authority in a move against the emerging reconciliation between Fatah, the party that dominates the authority, and its Islamic rival, Hamas.
The step came as both sides appealed to international powers to back their positions on the unity deal expected to be signed in Cairo this week. It is intended to end a four-year schism between the West Bank government led by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah chief, and Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas.
Boers are moving north
May 03 2011 07:28
White South African farmers are now being courted by the north, by countries who believe their agricultural expertise can kickstart an agrarian revolution across the continent. They are being offered millions of hectares of allegedly virgin rainforest and bush, as well as land already farmed by smallholders or used as pastures by herders.
In the biggest deal to date, Congo-Brazzaville has offered South Africa farmers long leases on up to 10m hectares of land, an area that includes abandoned state farms and bush in the remote south-west of the country. The first contracts, which put 88 000 hectares in the hands of 70 farmers, were signed at a ceremony in the country last month.
I usually do not write about pure politics because many others here do it much better than I. Whilst I keep up with politics, those of you who read my three regular, weekly series know that I am much more of and academic and a storyteller. However, this is different.
He, and the despicable Sean Hannity have decided that it was wrong to give a proper burial, following the Muslim tradition, of Usama bin Laden was the wrong thing to do. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I shall use their own favorite catch phrase to nail them.
Grahan and Hannity, and others of a similar mind, are drunk with the passion for revenge. That is not supposed to be our way. Justice, not revenge, is the American way, or at least is purported to be so.
This all boils down to the right wingers’ catch phrase, American Exceptionalism. I actually DO believe in that concept. Although far from perfect, our original concept of how we interact with both our citizens and others has been based on honesty, respect, and the judicious use of force when absolutely necessary. We have, many times, fallen short of those ideals but I really believe that we try. Remember, the Framers did not say “In order to for a perfect Union…”, but rather “In order to form a more perfect Union…”. Perfection is an ideal and can never be attained. Striving towards it is the prime motivator that we individually and as a nation should pursue.
I do not desire to grapple with the moral issue of sending in SEALS with the specific purpose of killing someone. I have personally conflicting feelings about that, but have set them aside to come the the conclusion that in an imperfect world, the decision by the President was correct because of lots of other issues. I am gratified that the choice to perform the mission was done with probably the most skilled and talented warfighters that have ever existed, rather than the ham handed approach of just dropping a big bomb. The best information at present (10:28 PM Eastern) indicates that only a very few people were actually killed, including the intended target. If we (and I mean US, the United States) had dropped a bomb, everyone would have perished. This IS American Exceptionalism well shown. There is also the issue of not being able to identify the corpse of bin Laden if we had just bombed it, so there was some finesse involved politically as well.
The fact is that we went in, killed bin Laden, and extracted his corpse for further use. Samples were taken for DNA analyses, and the preliminary results indicate that he was indeed the victim. This is important for documentary purposes. Of course, there is the live video stream that went to Washington, but I really do not think that we need to see it. First, it would be inflammatory to many, but second, and perhaps more important, revealing our abilities to capture and project real time images in high resolution in a combat situation is not a good idea from a national security perspective.
The corpse was then airlifted to an awaiting naval vessel, where, after the DNA samples were taken, it was prepared for burial at sea observing Muslim tradition. Someone, presumably a Muslim chaplain in US military service, washed the corpse and then wrapped it in the required burial garment. Then prayers were held and the body buried at sea. Graham, Hannity, and their ilk say that this is, to quote one commentator on Hannity’s horrible excuse for a show, says that this was “…political correctness run amok.” What a crock! Hannity argues that the 20010901 victims were not respected insofar as their corpses go, so neither should be bin Laden’s.
Here is where Graham, Hannity, and all of them of common mind violate their own belief in American Exceptionalism: we showed respect by following Muslim traditions whilst the killers so long ago did not have any intention to assist us to follow ours. We respected the time interval for burial that Muslims hold (Hannity wanted us to keep the body longer, but never said why, so I can only guess to disrespect it), gave it the proper ceremony (Hannity did not like that either), and buried it at sea.
Actually, the actions that we took were brilliant from both a tactical and a strategic basis. Certainly, killing bin Laden will not make a lot of friends in the Islamic world. That is a given. But by respecting the customs that just about all Muslims believe are sacrosanct insofar as burial in concerned, we prevented inflaming potentially millions, or hundreds of millions of rank and file, regular people of that faith. But Graham and Hannity, and others, say that we just should have either kept the corpse for gloating or just thrown it away without any other consideration.
Please do not get me wrong. I sincerely believe that Usama bin Laden was a horrible criminal and justice needed to be found. Personally, I struggle with the death penalty, but the deed is done. The important thing is that, after the assassination, WE treated the corpse with dignity in accordance to custom. Those who have issues with that show themselves for just what they are: hypocrites. They sing American Exceptionalism over and over, but do not really believe in it. I do.
I know that this is sort of a stream of consciousness piece, but I really became angry with the nonsense spewed by Graham and his mouthpiece, Hannity.
One final thought: burial at sea makes it impossible for any shrine with remains to be constructed. That was smart. I hope that they used plenty of weights to prevent his corpse from washing ashore. I suspect that we are monitoring the spot for those who would come and try to exhume the corpse as well.
Please feel free to agree, disagree, or criticize me.
DAMASCUS (AFP) – The Syrian authorities on Monday set a deadline of 15 days for people who had committed “unlawful acts” to surrender, as 180 people were rounded up in the latest wave of arrests.
The ultimatum came as activists planned fresh anti-government demonstrations following the deaths of dozens of people in weekend protests.
In a statement, the interior ministry told “citizens who have participated in or committed unlawful acts such as bearing arms, attacking security or spreading lies to surrender by May 15 and hand their weapons in to the competent authorities.”
MISRATA, Libya (AFP) – Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi launched a new armoured incursion into the besieged rebel city Misrata on Monday as his son, killed in a NATO-led air strike, was buried in Tripoli.
AFP correspondents heard heavy shelling throughout the morning as loyalist tanks thrust into the western suburbs of Libya’s third largest city.
At least four people were killed and some 30 wounded in the fighting, medical sources said. Clashes overnight had killed another six and wounded dozens more.
NEW YORK (AFP) – Nasdaq OMX and IntercontinentalExchange on Monday declared a hostile takeover bid for NYSE Euronext, which has twice rejected their offers in favor of a tie-up with Germany’s Deutsche Boerse.
Nasdaq and ICE said in a joint statement that each of their respective boards of directors had approved a cash-and-stock offer to buy all of the outstanding shares of NYSE Euronext for about $11 billion.
The two companies said they would take the offer directly to the shareholders of NYSE Euronext, after the New York Stock Exchange-led company turned down earlier offers at the level of the board of directors.
NEW YORK (AFP) – Chrysler’s chief executive said Monday that the troubled Fiat-controlled US automaker was on a comeback after posting its first quarterly profit since emerging from bankruptcy in June 2009.
Laden with debts to the US and Canadian governments for saving it from collapse during the 2008-2009 recession, the number-three US automaker reported $116 million in net profit for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $197 million in the year-ago period.
Revenue leaped 35 percent to $13.24 billion as global sales jumped 18 percent jump: 394,000 vehicles were sold, and at higher prices.
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AFP) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead deep inside Pakistan in a night-time helicopter raid by US commandos, ending a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
President Barack Obama on Monday hailed bin Laden’s death, saying the “world is safer, it is a better place”, a day after he announced the success of the operation in a dramatic televised address, noting “justice has been done.”
DNA tests confirmed the body was that of bin Laden a senior US official said after the daring raid on the Al-Qaeda leader’s compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, less than two hours’ drive north of Islamabad.
ATHENS (AFP) – Greece on Monday appointed a former anti-terror prosecutor to spearhead its latest tax evasion crackdown in a bid to boost its depleted state coffers by a hoped 11.8 billion euros within two years.
The naming of 55-year-old Ioannis Diotis as head of the Greek fraud squad came as government ministers unveiled a raft of measures to combat a shadow economy that costs the state up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year in lost revenue.
“There are studies by many organisations that give a shadow economy range from 25 to 35 percent of GDP. Based on that and with simple calculations, one can assume that 10 to 15 billion euros are lost to tax evasion every year,” Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a news conference.
AMMAN (Reuters) – Security forces on Monday rounded up hundreds of pro-democracy sympathizers, including prominent human rights campaigner Diana for the second time during Syria’s uprising, witnesses said.
The arrests came in the wake of the shelling of Deraa, cradle of the unrest, by a force led by President Bashar al-Assad’s feared brother Maher.
“I am Dana Jawabra from Deraa,” Jawabra shouted as she was forced into a white Kia secret police car outside her home in the Mezza West District of Damascus.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Crowds chanting support for Muammar Gaddafi gathered in Tripoli on Monday for the funeral of his son, killed in a NATO air strike that has raised questions about the West’s role in the uprising against the Libyan leader.
Gaddafi’s forces halted their bombardment of the port in the rebel-held city of Misrata after NATO air strikes but the port remained closed, a rebel spokesman said, thwarting efforts to bring supplies in by sea to the besieged city.
NATO planes also struck overnight on positions held by Libyan government forces near the rebel-held town of Zintan.
WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) – World leaders warned of revenge attacks after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. assault in Pakistan on Monday that brought to a dramatic end the long manhunt for the al Qaeda leader who had become the most powerful symbol of Islamist militancy.
President Barack Obama hailed bin Laden’s death, saying: “The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.” But the euphoria that drew flag-waving crowds to “Ground Zero” of the New York attacks the Saudi-born militant masterminded a decade ago was tempered by calls for vigilance against retaliation by his followers.
Vows to avenge his death appeared quickly in Islamist militant forums, a key means of passing on information from al Qaeda leaders. “God’s revenge on you, you Roman dog, God’s revenge on you crusaders… this is a tragedy brothers, a tragedy,” one forum member wrote.
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) – Warren Buffett believes his reputation is intact, the U.S. economy needs more jobs and that Donald Trump is not going to be the next president.
He offered those and dozens of other opinions in a wide-ranging news conference on Sunday that capped off the annual meeting weekend for Berkshire Hathaway, his ice-cream-to-insurance conglomerate.
Buffett also told Reuters Insider in an interview that none of the people on Berkshire’s secret CEO succession list know they are on the list — but the top candidate for the job will not need any convincing to take it.
By DEB RIECHMANN and KARL RITTER, Associated Press
1 hr 10 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan – News of Osama bin Laden’s death stirred strong emotions Monday, from a profound sense of relief across much of the globe to outrage among sympathizers who vowed to avenge the al-Qaida leader.
Most world leaders welcomed President Barack Obama’s announcement of the helicopter raid on a compound in Pakistan, congratulating the U.S. for killing bin Laden or expressing satisfaction that the search for the world’s most wanted terrorist was over.
“This is the fate that evil killers deserve,” said outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, deploring the harm that bin Laden did to “the image of Islam and Arab causes.”
SIKESTON, Mo. – The Army Corps of Engineers pumped liquid explosives into an earthen levee Monday as demolition crews prepared to blow a two-mile-wide hole in the barrier – part of a desperate bid to save an Illinois town imperiled by rising floodwaters.
Engineers went on with their work, even though the agency did not plan to announce a final decision on the plan until later Monday.
But doubts persisted about whether breaking open the levee will provide the relief needed. How much water would the blast really divert from the Mississippi River? And will authorities have to do the same thing at other trouble spots downstream?
SIKESTON, Mo. – At the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh will make a call that likely means devastation on one side of the waters or the other.
The 55-year-old officer, whose nearly two decades of command in the Army Corps of Engineers includes a stint in Iraq and helping oversee the restoration of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, is choosing now whether to blow a massive hole in the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri. Doing so will drown 130,000 acres of rich farmland and destroy 100 homes. Opting not to risks that flooding will wipe away the entire town of Cairo, Ill.
While waters and emotions rise, the straight-talking Walsh has maintained a business-like demeanor. He’s met with people on both sides of the river, some of them angry or upset about the plan, which aims to relieve pressure on the flood wall at Cairo, a long-struggling community of 2,800 residents. In answering people’s questions, he’s often cited statistics or protocol. And he’s shown empathy, if not emotion.
TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyans shouting for revenge buried Moammar Gadhafi’s second youngest son to the thundering sound of anti-aircraft fire Monday, as South Africa warned that the NATO bombing that killed him would only bring more violence.
Libya’s leader did not attend the tumultuous funeral of 29-year-old Seif al-Arab, but older brothers Seif al-Islam and Mohammed paid their respects, thronged by a crowd of several thousand. Jostling to get closer to the coffin, draped with a green Libyan flag, mourners flashed victory signs and chanted “Revenge, revenge for you, Libya.”
Three of Gadhafi’s grandchildren, an infant and two toddlers, also died in Saturday’s attack, which NATO says targeted one of the regime’s command and control centers. Gadhafi and his wife were in the compound at the time, but escaped unharmed, Libyan officials said, accusing the alliance of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader.
WASHINGTON – It’s all but impossible to glean from the political rhetoric, but government borrowing will grow by trillions of dollars over the next decade if the budget backed by House Republicans translates into law.
And by a few trillion more if President Barack Obama gets his way.
Call it the unpleasant truth behind a political struggle over raising the debt limit that is expected to intensify as lawmakers return Monday from a two-week break.
HACKLEBURG, Ala. – Every morning since the beginning of the year, Hackleburg High School senior Wynn Knowles woke up thinking about his graduation. He already had a rough draft of his salutatorian speech in his head.
Exactly one month before the biggest day of his life, he was helping his mom address invitations for graduation when one of the most powerful tornadoes Mother Nature can summon plowed through his town, destroying his home, his father’s church and his school in a few ugly minutes last Wednesday.
“Graduation and college are still going to be there. But they have moved way down the priority list,” Knowles said.
By CRISTIAN SALAZAR and RANDY HERSCHAFT, Associated Press
Mon May 2, 6:12 am ET
NEW YORK – A trove of papers and photographs documenting the lives of Holocaust victims and survivors includes notable names like Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel and former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. But Benzion Baumrind’s name might have stayed forgotten to his descendants without the records kept by a humanitarian aid agency.
A genealogist discovered Baumrind, one of 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust, was in her family with one stray document buried in a database of historic papers and photos kept by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
With over 500,000 names, and more than 1,000 photographs, the searchable collection documents the relief organization’s vast efforts during World War II and the postwar era in 24 countries, from China and Japan to the Dominican Republic and Bolivia. The records, being made available online for the first time on Monday, open a singular view into the lives of survivors that the JDC aided during that cataclysmic period.
MINNEAPOLIS – Its players again barred from coming to work, the NFL told a federal appeals court Monday it believes the appeal over whether the lockout is legal can “readily be resolved” during the offseason.
The NFL filed a brief with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, arguing that the lockout should remain on hold permanently while the two sides hash their conflict out in court.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court put U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson’s order lifting the 45-day lockout on hold temporarily last week. The owners reinstated the lockout a few hours later, and they want Nelson’s order eventually overturned altogether.
TOKYO – Japan’s parliament passed a $48 billion tsunami recovery budget Monday that will only start to cover the cost of what was the most expensive disaster ever.
As more budgetary battles lie ahead, mounting frustrations over the government’s response to the tsunami and the still-unfolding nuclear crisis at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant are threatening to topple the country’s prime minister.
The 4 trillion yen budget supplement to the fiscal year that started in April was unanimously approved by parliament’s upper house budget committee Monday morning and was made into law at the chamber’s plenary session later in the day. The more powerful lower house had approved the plan Saturday.
MILWAUKEE – Millions of demonstrators around the world marched for labor rights Sunday, including thousands in Wisconsin who continued their divisive battle over collective-bargaining rights that began in February and had prompted huge masses of protesters to pour into the Madison Capitol.
Wisconsin demonstrators marched two miles through downtown Milwaukee, waving U.S. and Mexican flags and holding signs showing a raised fist in the shape of the state. Similar scenes played out across the nation and around the world, as millions of workers from Havana to Berlin and Istanbul took to the streets.
Milwaukee demonstrators pounded drums, blared through vuvuzelas and chanted, “Si se puede,” Spanish for “yes, it can be done.” They also held signs saying, “It’s about freedom,” and “Working hard is not a crime.”
BOSTON – Cameras rolled Monday in one of the busiest courtrooms in Massachusetts, recording murder arraignments, traffic and drug cases in a new experiment: how bloggers and other citizen journalists can cover courts using new media and social media.
The business of a bustling courtroom in Quincy District Court began streaming live over the Web for anyone to see. The courtroom, which usually does not allow reporters to use even computers, will now welcome laptops, iPads and smartphones, and will encourage live blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking.
It’s all part of an experiment court officials around the country hope will help establish suggested guidelines for courts as they grapple with how to use digital technology and how to accommodate citizen journalists and bloggers.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Atlantic City is the nation’s second-largest gambling market, but it’s America’s third choice among all casino destinations, according to a new poll.
The Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind poll puts the seaside casino resort behind Las Vegas and New Orleans when it comes to where gamblers would like to spend their time and money.
Not surprisingly, Las Vegas was the first choice of 47 percent of respondents who were asked which casino destination they’d most like to visit. New Orleans was second at 10 percent, followed by Atlantic City at 8 percent, Reno, Nev., at 5 percent, and St. Louis at 4 percent.
LEMOORE, Calif. – Sarah Palin returned to Central California’s agricultural region Sunday and lambasted the federal government for limiting the amount of water the state’s farmers can get for their crops.
The former Alaska governor told more than 1,400 people at West Hills College in Lemoore that endangered species regulations protecting the Delta smelt and limiting pumping are “destroying” the lives of those in the Central Valley.
“A faceless government is taking away their lifeline, water, all because of a 3-inch fish,” Palin said. “Where I come from, a 3-inch fish, we call that bait. There is no need to destroy people’s lives over bait.”
Canada kinda kicks off their election today eh?, and I’m hesitant to speak about it since I don’t know much aboot Canada except they have great beer and it’s called back bacon (and it’s not ham, eh?).
Scott Harper is reliably reported to be a right wing asshole of the Reagan variety (it is Canada, eh?), but his Conservative Party is likely to be the leading party at the polls (Palimentary districts are called ‘Ridings‘ and there are 308 of them).
Victory in each seat is a first past the post plurality and for years and years the Liberal Party (think of them like Third Way Democrats) have been the opposition party. This year that will change.
The NDP is pretty sure to eclispe the Liberals by dozens of seats
There’s a slim possibility the New Democratic Party (Social Democrats) and the Bloc Quebecois (those cheese eating French secessionists) will be able to put together a majority. Far more likely is that the so-called Liberals form a majority with the Conservatives (who’d a thunk?) BUT it’s also probably the end of the Liberal Party as a force in Canadian politics.
It’s not just the UK Liberal Democrats austerity thing that kills them, it’s because there are fiddly little advantages to being the #2 party like appearing second on ballots which will advantage the NDP the next time around whether the Liberals sell out or not.
So Osama bin Laden is dead and buried at sea. I’m sure there will be those who will not accept any evidence of that, even if they were standing there when it happened. Such are the conspiracy theory skeptics.
What amazes me is that the DNA testing confirming the body was indeed bin Laden was done so quickly, within hours. Yet, death row prisoners are often denied that testing to prove their innocence. One would think that an honest judicial system would ant to be sure they had the right person, the key word being honest. In NYC, the remains of the 9/11 victims still are unidentified after 10 years. Around the country rape kits go untested and the rapists go free because of statute of limitations in many states.
This comment from TalkLeft fairly sums up my thoughts on the events of the last 24 hours:
1. There is one less evil person in the world; that’s not a bad thing, but if I removed one eyedropper of water from a full bathtub, would it look any different?
2. Are we now officially an eye-for-an-eye society now, where when we kill someone who killed others, “justice” has been done? It appears so, which is both offensive and frightening. I am troubled by the expression of this sentiment from the president, who is supposed to be a defender of the Constitution.
3. The real legacy of Osama bin Laden may not lie in the numbers of deaths he was responsible for, but in the erosion of freedoms, the loss of privacy and the perversion of our system of justice, which I do not believe will ever be restored.
4. Dancing in the streets in front of the White House to celebrate the killing of bin Laden is a scene I could have done without; a candlelit vigil in memory of all the lives lost and lives affected would have been a more fitting way to mark the occasion – in my opinion.
5. “Now is not the time to let down our guard” is the watchword of the day, just as I expected it would be; bin Laden’s death is not the end of anything, just another data point on a spectrum that continues to move away from strengthening and protecting our individual rights. Who will the new Face of Evil be, and what will we have to give up in that fight?
6. Lots of questions about Pakistan: how could Osama have been hiding in plain sight of the Pakistani equivalent of West Point? Is their intelligence that bad, have they been paid to look the other way – or worse – and what will the repercussions be, if any?
Finally, I said last night that for me, this is anticlimactic; bin Laden’s death is never going to see the restoration of all that we have lost as Americans.
That being said, I am not so jaded and cynical that I don’t understand that this may have brought some kind of closure to those who lost loved ones in the many bin Laden-engineered attacks both here and around the world, and it isn’t my intention to try to deny that to them; we all have to handle this in our own way – we all feel what we feel for our own reasons.
On a lighter note, this IT guy, trying to find a safe place from the chaos, fled to the hills with his lap top for some peace and quiet in Abbottabad, when he was disturbed from sleep by helicopters hovering near by and began Tweeting. Unbeknown to him, he was Tweeting the biggest news since Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” thus making Sohaib Ather, “the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid”. He is now a much sought after media darling and has over 66,000 followers on Twitter. Nice job, Sohaib.
*Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am (is a rare event).
*Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter.
*A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty.
*All silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6km away too … the helicopter is gone too.
*Seems like my giant swatter worked!
*The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani …
*Moving to Abbottabad was part of the ‘being safe’ strategy.
*Since Taleban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not “ours”, must be a complicated situation #abbottabad
*Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. ISI has confirmed it. Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood.
*Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.
I apologize for reporting the operation ‘unwittingly/unknowingly’ – had I known about it, I would have tweeted about it ‘wittingly’ I swear.
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”Jessica Dovey, student, University of Pennsylvania
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”
Last year the G.O.P. pulled off two spectacular examples of bait-and-switch campaigning. Medicare, where the same people who screamed about death panels are now trying to dismantle the whole program, was the most obvious. But the same thing
happened with regard to financial reform.
As you may recall, Republicans ran hard against bank bailouts. Among other things, they managed to convince a plurality of voters that the deeply unpopular bailout legislation proposed and passed by the Bush administration was enacted on President Obama’s watch.
And now they’re doing everything they can to ensure that there will be even bigger bailouts in years to come.
In a dramatic, yet sober, Sunday night address to the American people, President Obama announced the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. He reminded us of the horror, the grief, the tragedy and senseless slaughter of September 11, 2001. He reminded us of how, in those grim days, “we reaffirmed our unity as one American family…and our resolve to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice.”
The President spoke of how the capture and killing of bin Laden was the “most significant effort to date in our efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda. ” And he reaffirmed that this country will never wage a war against Islam. For that reason, Obama said, bin Laden’s “demise should be welcomed by all those who welcome peace and human dignity.”
His call to Americans to remember what unifies us, to remember that “justice has been done,” is a defining opening to seize. It is time to end the “global war on terror” we have lived with for this last decade. It is time to stop defining the post 9/11 struggle against stateless terrorists a “war.” And it is time to bring an end to the senseless war in Afghanistan that has cost this nation so much in lives and money.
Starting this week, the talk in our nation’s capital will be dominated by whether Congress should raise the debt ceiling – as if we have any choice but to pay off our obligations. It will be a colossally foolish and self-destructive battle, another sign of how fanaticism and ideological obsession are rendering our country ungovernable.
Republicans, joined, it seems, by some terrified Democrats, are trying to use the debt-limit vote to force cuts in spending that they could not win on the merits. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the government could face the possibility of defaulting. Even if default doesn’t happen, global markets could punish us by demanding higher interest rates on our debt.
The economy still needs help and, specifically, a sustained focus on jobs and income. Instead, policy makers are gearing up for deep spending cuts, ignoring the damage they are likely to cause. Last quarter, cutbacks by governments at all levels took a chunk out of overall growth. If cuts of similar or greater magnitude become the norm, the slow economic pace of the first quarter also could very well become the norm. It’s nice to believe slowing growth is transitory. But as long as spending, jobs and incomes are at risk and policy priorities are skewed, it’s hard to believe in a turnaround.
The epidemic of foreclosures that began in 2008 has been devastating America’s families, communities and the state economy.
Nowhere is this more true than in California, where one in five U.S. foreclosures has taken place. Since 2008, more than 1.2 million Californians have lost their homes, and the number is expected to exceed 2 million by the end of next year. More than a third of California homeowners with a mortgage already owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
What amazes me is that the DNA testing confirming the body was indeed bin Laden was done so quickly, within hours. Yet, death row prisoners are often denied that testing to prove their innocence. One would think that an honest judicial system would ant to be sure they had the right person, the key word being honest. In NYC, the remains of the 9/11 victims still are unidentified after 10 years. Around the country rape kits go untested and the rapists go free because of statute of limitations in many states. 
Paul Krugman: 
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