Tag: Politics

Oct 21 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Close the Overseas Torture Loophole

President Obama and the Convention Against Torture

One of the proudest moments of President Obama’s presidency took place on his second day in office, when he signed an executive order that banned torture and cruel treatment in the interrogation of terror suspects. [..]

The issue has come up because the United States is required to appear in Geneva next month before the United Nations committee that monitors compliance with the global Convention Against Torture, adopted in 1984 and ratified by the United States 10 years later. State Department lawyers want the administration to abandon the position of the George W. Bush administration and state plainly that it will not engage in torture or cruel treatment of prisoners anywhere in the world, including at detention camps on foreign soil.

But military and intelligence officials don’t want the administration to make that public statement. They’re worried that such a declaration could result in the prosecution of the Bush-era officials who did practice torture.

That fear seems misplaced. There should be legal accountability from those who tarnished the country’s reputation by ordering and practicing torture, but it’s hard to see how agreeing to a global ban on torture now would increase the chances for such a prosecution.

George Chidi: You might be a politician if … you tried to defund Ebola research, only to campaign on Ebola fear

It takes the perception of a crisis to make policymakers treat public health like a serious issue. Now that’s a tragedy

You are more likely to be struck by lightning this year (one in 960,000), killed by your dog (one in 11mn) or win the lottery than you are to die from Ebola.

Ebola is terrible. But three cases do not a national crisis make.

An election, however, is always a crisis. And the first rule of a political crisis is to look like you’re doing something.

Three weeks out from a US midterm election, Republicans and Democrats have both worked to make a political catastrophe for their opponents out of the western media’s hysteria in response to Ebola – which health experts believe could reach 10,000 new cases a week by December … in West Africa. [..]

Ebola is not coming to kill you – though the nonstop speculative hysteria about it on television might sting. The tragedy today is how it takes the perception of a crisis for policymakers to treat public health like a serious issue.

Ari Berman: The Supreme Court Eviscerates the Voting Rights Act in a Texas Voter-ID Decision

In 1963, only 156 of 15,000 eligible black voters in Selma, Alabama, were registered to vote. The federal government filed four lawsuits against the county registrars between 1963 and 1965, but the number of black registered voters only increased from 156 to 383 during that time. The law couldn’t keep up with the pace and intensity of voter suppression.

The Voting Rights Act ended the blight of voting discrimination in places like Selma by eliminating the literacy tests and poll taxes that prevented so many people from voting. The Selma of yesteryear is reminiscent of the current situation in Texas, where a voter ID law blocked by the federal courts as a discriminatory poll tax on two different occasions-under two different sections of the VRA-remains on the books. [..]

Then the Supreme Court gutted the VRA – ignoring the striking evidence of contemporary voting discrimination in places like Texas – which allowed the voter ID law to immediately go into effect. “Eric Holder can no longer deny #VoterID in #Texas after today’s #SCOTUS decision,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott tweeted minutes after the Shelby County v. Holder decision. States like Texas, with the worst history of voting abuses, no longer had to approve their voting changes with the federal government. Texas had lost more Section 5 lawsuits than any other state.

Steven W, Thrasher: The Whiteness Project will make you wince. Because white people can be rather awful

You’ve never seen privilege quite like this: ‘You can’t even talk about fried chicken or Kool-Aid without wondering if someone’s going to get offended’

White and black Americans see race from radically different perspectives, to the point that the white, world-saving New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has rung the alarm that “whites just don’t get it”. As someone who is half black and half white, I can certainly attest to the truth of that.

So I had misgivings about director Whitney Dow’s the Whiteness Project, the new interactive documentary launched over the weekend by POV. “I made this project for white people, not for people of color,” Dow told me on Tuesday, because “if white people are going to participate in changing the racial dynamic, we need to deal with our own shit first.” [..]

If the continued existence of white supremacy was the only thing Dow wanted to prove, he could’ve easily done so in his interviews. But he’s more interested in confronting the ways in which that supremacy plays out, even – or perhaps especially – in an economically decimated place in which segregation is both officially frowned upon and unofficially practiced. From the subject who proclaims “the white race is the one that is discriminated against anymore” to the woman who admits that “this country has been dominated by white male indoctrination”, Dow makes it hard to paint whiteness in broad strokes, and hard to dismiss racism as the anecdotal actions of a beleaguered few in the American south. He listens.

Once you start clicking through the interviews, it’s hard for viewers to stop listening – and it’s harder to dismiss what the Whiteness Project has to say.

Lee Fang: Mitch McConnell Will Say Anything for a Ham

In an election that could propel Senator Mitch McConnell to become Senate Majority Leader-a position that would give him wide sway over climate change policy, including influence over the Environmental Protection Agency-, the Kentucky politician declined to respond to a question earlier this month about whether he believes climate change is a real problem. “I’m not a scientist,” McConnell responded in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s editorial board.

But earlier in his career, when McConnell played a pivotal role on behalf of the tobacco industry against increasing government regulation and taxes, the Republican leader believed he had enough scientific knowledge to question public-health officials. [..]

Seen through another prism, McConnell’s reply echoes the overriding concerns of his new campaign benefactors: the fossil-fuel industry. Peabody Energy and Alliance Resource Partners, two coals firms, now rank among McConnell’s top campaign donors. Other campaign outfits designed to boost McConnell’s election prospects are funded by oil and coal interests. Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group backed by the oil and gas billionaire Koch brothers, set up a Kentucky chapter this year to boost get-out-the-vote efforts. Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a SuperPAC set up to help McConnell’s campaign, also counts oil and coal companies as major donors.

Dave Zirin: Stop Surgical Violence Against Women Athletes – and Let Dutee Run!

Imagine if four female Olympic athletes from extremely poor countries were told that if they wanted to compete, they’d have to undergo a surgical procedure on their genitalia-with lifelong health repercussions-to lower their testosterone levels. Imagine if they were informed by ruling officials that unless they went under the knife, their athletic dreams would go up in smoke. Imagine if the doctors also subjected them to procedures that had nothing to do with their testosterone levels, but were aimed at “feminizing” them, including “a partial clitoridectomy, and gonadectomy, followed by a deferred feminizing vaginoplasty.” This is not the plot of a new sports book by Margaret Atwood. This is an all all – too – true tale from the 2012 London Olympics.

Surgical violence of this kind is perpetrated against women with naturally high levels of testosterone, referred to in the medical world as “hyperandrogenism.” In other words, women, because of what their body naturally produces, are deemed to no longer be women. Instead, in the eyes of the ruling international bodies in sports, they are aberrations in need of correction. What’s not clear in any of these cases is whether these doctors revealed that this surgery can also lead to sterility, loss of sexual sensation and lifelong risks to their health.

Oct 21 2014

Dr. Howard Dean Calls Out the Stupidity About Ebola

Former Vermont governor and physician, Howard Dean discussed the Ebola crisis with Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s “All In”.

Dean: Republican’s Idea Of How To Practice Medicine Is To Listen To The National Rifle Association

h/t Heather @ Crooks & Liars

Oct 21 2014

Visas for Translators: Even Kafka Wouldn’t Put His Name on This

HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver tackled an issue that has gotten little attention from the mainstream media, helping to save the Iraqis and Afghans that helped the United States in the wars it started in their countries. The audience may have laughed but much of this is heartbreaking and anger inducing, anger at the United States for being so inhumane and heartless.

Translators

Translators who have aided the U.S. Military in Afghanistan and Iraq are in great danger in their home countries, but red tape is making it impossible for many of them to leave. John Oliver interviews Mohammad, one translator who made it out.

For more info on efforts to assist U.S.-affiliated refugees in Iraq and Afghanistan see http://thelistproject.org/, and http://refugeerights.org/.

“To Be a Friend is Fatal: the Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind,”

For the American public, the war in Iraq is over, receding quickly from our memory.

But for tens of thousands of Iraqis who have risked their lives in the service of America, it continues at a perilous clip.  They continue to receive death threats from militants who view them as traitors.  Some have been assassinated since our withdrawal.

Sadly, the current policy of the United States towards these is simple: submit your application and wait.  If you can survive for two years (the current amount of time an Iraqi must wait for their first interview to be scheduled), we might consider resettling you.

Even worse, the Afghans who stood beside us for the past decade are now coming up against the unmoving bureaucracy of the U.S. Government, which is only processing a small number of cases each month.

The List Project has helped nearly 2,00 U.S.-affiliated Iraqis make it to safety over the years, but our work continues. We continue to rely on small donors for operational support: please consider a small donation if you’re able.

On September 3, 2013, Scribner published “To Be a Friend is Fatal: the Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind,” Kirk W. Johnson’s memoir about the List Project’s seven-year long struggle to protect thousands of Iraqis on the list.  The book centers around the lives of four Iraqis who stepped forward to help the United States, following them as they flee from Iraq and come up against the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the U.S. refugee resettlement program.

An execuive order could ease the process. We need to take care of the people who put their lives at risk to help the US, that includes their families.

Oct 20 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola

Cuba is an impoverished island that remains largely cut off from the world and lies about 4,500 miles from the West African nations where Ebola is spreading at an alarming rate. Yet, having pledged to deploy hundreds of medical professionals to the front lines of the pandemic, Cuba stands to play the most robust role among the nations seeking to contain the virus.

Cuba’s contribution is doubtlessly meant at least in part to bolster its beleaguered international standing. Nonetheless, it should be lauded and emulated. [..]

It is a shame that Washington, the chief donor in the fight against Ebola, is diplomatically estranged from Havana, the boldest contributor. In this case the schism has life-or-death consequences, because American and Cuban officials are not equipped to coordinate global efforts at a high level. This should serve as an urgent reminder to the Obama administration that the benefits of moving swiftly to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba far outweigh the drawbacks.

Paul Krugman: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.

O.K., I know that was kind of abrupt. But I wanted to get the central point out there right away, because discussions of Amazon tend, all too often, to get lost in side issues.

For example, critics of the company sometimes portray it as a monster about to take over the whole economy. Such claims are over the top – Amazon doesn’t dominate overall online sales, let alone retailing as a whole, and probably never will. But so what? Amazon is still playing a troubling role.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s defenders often digress into paeans to online bookselling, which has indeed been a good thing for many Americans, or testimonials to Amazon customer service – and in case you’re wondering, yes, I have Amazon Prime and use it a lot. But again, so what? The desirability of new technology, or even Amazon’s effective use of that technology, is not the issue. After all, John D. Rockefeller and his associates were pretty good at the oil business, too – but Standard Oil nonetheless had too much power, and public action to curb that power was essential.

And the same is true of Amazon today.

Dean Baker: World’s richest man tries to defend wealth inequality

Bill Gates’ critique of Thomas Piketty is revealing for what it overlooks

A review of French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book “Capital in the 21st Century” by the world’s richest man is too delicious to ignore. The main takeaway from Piketty’s book, of course, is that we need to worry about the growing concentration of capital, in which people like Microsoft co-founder turned megaphilanthropist Bill Gates and his children will control the bulk of society’s wealth. Gates, however, doesn’t quite see it this way.

From his evidence, he actually has a good case. If the issue is the superrich passing their wealth to their children, who will become the next generation’s superrich, he is right to point out that the biographies of the Forbes 400 – the richest 400 Americans – don’t seem to support this concern. We find many people like Gates, who started life as the merely wealthy (his father was a prosperous corporate lawyer), who parlayed their advantages in life into enormous fortunes. The ones who inherited their vast wealth are the exception, not the rule. [..]

While philanthropy may prevent the direct inheritance of most multibillion-dollar fortunes, the charitable giving of billionaires is unlikely to go to efforts that could undermine the basis of their wealth or their peers’. We may not need to fear that the next generations’ Forbes 400 will all be descendants of this generation’s billionaires, but we do have to fear that the rules will continue to be rigged so that this group and its lackeys in the 1 percent continue to control the bulk of the country’s wealth. That is not a pretty picture, even if it is not the nightmare Piketty warns of.

Will Hutton: Ebola and failing markets tell us that we need to work together

Governments must heed the warnings of our brightest minds and reshape our societies to help those most in need

Last week, the world’s stock and bond markets swung wildly. They worried about the threat of world deflation, falling oil prices and further systemic weaknesses in the financial system. But perhaps they were most concerned about whether spooked governments had the will to do anything, even if those governments could agree on what that should be. If they can’t manage a co-ordinated response to Ebola or one against the cruelties of Isis, then it is hardly likely they are going to find common ground in managing the fissures in the world economy. [..]

Thus only last week, Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, joined one of her predecessors, Alan Greenspan, and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in arguing that the growth of inequality was not only wrong morally but having increasingly baleful economic consequences. Then there were the strictures of the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.

Inequality, they all say, fosters fear, creates too much demand for credit to compensate for squeezed living standards, drives asset price bubbles, catalyses financial instability, weakens banks and, by displacing too much risk on to those who cannot bear it, undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. You have to blink with incredulity – and then blink again at markets falling because they want to see purposeful government action.Thus only last week, Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, joined one of her predecessors, Alan Greenspan, and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in arguing that the growth of inequality was not only wrong morally but having increasingly baleful economic consequences. Then there were the strictures of the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.

Inequality, they all say, fosters fear, creates too much demand for credit to compensate for squeezed living standards, drives asset price bubbles, catalyses financial instability, weakens banks and, by displacing too much risk on to those who cannot bear it, undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. You have to blink with incredulity – and then blink again at markets falling because they want to see purposeful government action.

Rpbert Kuttner: A Revolt Against Austerity?

There was a bit of good news from Europe last week. Two of the nations that desperately need some respite from austerity essentially told German Chancellor Merkel to stuff it.

France, under pressure from Germany and the European Union to meet the E.U.’s straightjacket requirement of deficits of no more than three percent of GDP (whether or not depression looms) informed the E.U. that they will not hit this target until 2017. The government of President Francois Hollande, under fire for failing to ignite a recovery, now plans economic stimulus measures — and the target be damned. Under E.U. rules, France can be fined up to 0.2 percent of its GDP. The French seem to be saying, “So sue us!”

Italy, under Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has followed suit, with a budget that plans cuts in labor taxes. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is in open rebellion against the German austerity-mongers. The ECB would like to pursue a policy more like that of the Federal Reserve, giving direct support to government bonds to keep interest rates low. But the Merkel government remains adamantly opposed. Even the International Monetary Fund, traditionally the citadel of fiscal orthodoxy, has warned that Europe’s recovery policy is too tight, not too loose.

John Nichols: One Thing Hillary Clinton Understands About Politics in 2014

Hillary Clinton is never going to be confused for an economic populist. Her record as a key player in Bill Clinton’s administration, as a United States senator, as secretary of state and as a favorite on the corporate speaking circuit in recent years bends a lot more toward Wall Street than Main Street.

But Hillary Clinton understands something important-make that vital-about the politics of 2014.

Clinton recognizes that the issue that matters in 2014 is the economy (number one in the latest Gallup Poll) and that voters want “good jobs” that pay a family-supporting wage (number two in the latest Gallup survey). And Clinton knows that the clearest policy connection between where the economy is today and where it needs to be is made via support for a substantial hike in the minimum wage.

So when the presumed Democratic front-runner in 2016 swept into Kentucky this week to muscle up the US Senate campaign of Clinton-family favorite Alison Lundergan Grimes, Clinton was on message-far more on message, in fact, than most prominent Democrats who have hit the trail this month in an effort to save the Senate, win governorships and generally prevent the 2014 midterms from going the way of the 2010 midterms.

Oct 19 2014

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins; and Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

The roundtable guests areL Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol; Republican strategist Mary Matalin; EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock;and television and radio host Tavis Smiley.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); and CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.

The guests on a special panel discussing Ebola are: Richard Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association; Dr. Robert Wah, president of the American Medical Association; and Jean Ross co-president of National Nurses United.

The guests on his political panel are: Gerald Seib, The Wall Street Journal; Susan Glasser, Politico Magazine; and Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s MTP are: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases;  Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA); and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). The rest is anybody’s guess.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guest are Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX); and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Her panel guests are: Kevin Madden; Ana Navarro; LZ Granderson; and Penny Lee.

Oct 18 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

David Sirota: Fracking for the Cure?

Helping find a cure for cancer or “pinkwashing” carcinogenic pollution?

That is the question being raised upon the news that one of the world’s largest fossil fuel services firms is partnering with the Susan G. Komen Foundation on a breast cancer awareness campaign, despite possible links between fracking and cancer.

According to energy services firm Baker Hughes, “The company will paint and distribute a total of 1,000 pink drill bits worldwide” as a “reminder of the importance of supporting research, treatment, screening and education to help find the cures” for breast cancer. The firm, which is involved in hydraulic fracturing, is also donating $100,000 to the Komen Foundation in what it calls a “yearlong partnership.”

The announcement comes in the same month Baker Hughes agreed to begin disclosing the chemicals it uses in the fracking process, publishing them at fracfocus.org, the industry’s website. Health advocates and environmental activists have long prodded the industry for full disclosure – especially since scientific studies have raised the prospect of a link between oil and gas exploration and cancer.

Daphne Eviatar: Secret Order Cancels Guantanamo Hearing on FBI Spying — Government ‘Transparency’ in Action

I really hope family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks weren’t planning on attending the hearings scheduled at Guantanamo Bay this week. It’s bad enough that observers who planned to travel to Cuba to watch federal prosecutors try to explain why the FBI was spying on U.S. military defense lawyers had their travel plans cancelled. But it would be completely demoralizing to someone who suffered personally from the heinous mass murders that took place thirteen years ago to find that once again, all efforts to bring the five alleged perpetrators to justice had stalled, and once again, no one’s allowed to know why.

The judge’s order cancelling this week’s hearings remains under seal.

This is just the latest setback in the 9/11 prosecution odyssey, which also serves as Exhibit A of the colossal failure that is Guantanamo Bay. While the government has successfully prosecuted nearly 500 people on terrorism charges in federal courts since 9/11, only six military commission convictions have been upheld. The Pentagon said a 64-minute Guantanamo hearing in September cost the government nearly $150,000. The Guantanamo prison itself costs the U.S. government more than $443 million annually to operate — more than $2.9 million per detainee.

Joe Nocerna: Failures of Competence

For years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been the most trusted agency in the federal government. In 2003, when Gallup did a survey to determine what the public thought of various federal agencies, the C.D.C. topped the list, with 66 percent of respondents describing it as “excellent” or “good.”

Last year, a similar Gallup poll showed that the C.D.C.’s approval rating had dropped to 60 percent, which was still better than any other agency. The C.D.C. has seen the country through SARS and the swine flu virus. The general perception was not only that it did important, apolitical work, but that it was highly competent. “I used to call the C.D.C. the shining star of federal agencies,” says Lawrence O. Gostin, a global health expert at Georgetown Law.

And then came Ebola.

Gary Younge: With so many issues off the agenda, no wonder the midterms are a turn-off

Elections offer little chance of change as Republicans and Democrats steer clear of hot-button topics for party advantage

Midterm elections, or as Stephen Colbert calls them “the most tedious fall chore of all”, are a strange affair. Nationwide votes without national candidates (much like parliamentary elections) where the president’s performance is on the minds of voters even when he’s not on the ballot. Turnout drops but the consequences can be considerable and the outcomes memorable: 1994 brought us Newt Gingrich and welfare reform; 2006 was the beginning of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid; 2010 was the Tea Party and Obama’s “shellacking”.

But the forthcoming midterms seem stranger than most even when they should, theoretically, be as interesting as any. There is something at stake – a real chance the Republicans, who already have the House, could win the Senate. The key races are scattered across the country, from Alaska to North Carolina, and are and volatile. At the time of writing there are 10 states in play, in seven of which the two parties are essentially tied.

But precious few are interested. According to the Pew Research Center], in the first week of October fewer people followed stories about the midterms than they did stories about the bombing of Isis, the secret service scandal at the White House or the Ebola outbreak. Four years ago, when Pew conducted an identical poll at the same point in the cycle, twice as many were following the elections. A poll in 2006 revealed that 70% were talking politics with their family and friends, 43% were talking politics at work, and 28% were talking about it at church.

Joe Conason: Let Obama and the CDC Do Their Jobs

If the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind, then even the possibility of infection with Ebola should do the same-for all of us. Instead, we seem easily distracted by attempts to blame President Barack Obama and to scapegoat the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Republican politicians and media loudmouths have even demanded the resignation of Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC’s director, because he’s refused to endorse a West African travel ban.

They’re all dead wrong. [..]

we will need in the months to come is a fresh assessment of our foreign aid programs. We need to understand why our traditional stinginess does both our country and our children a terrible disservice. Our best hope for survival, in the long term, is to notice how small our world has become-and to recognize that protecting our fellow human beings everywhere is the only way to protect ourselves.

Oct 17 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Trevor Timm: The government wants tech companies to give them a backdoor to your electronic life

The FBI chief’s call for ‘clarity and transparency’ on surveillance wouldn’t be so laughable if the government wasn’t so aggressively secretive

FBI director James Comey wants a US government-mandated backdoor into your iPhone and your Google account. But Comey doesn’t want to call his proposed privacy invasion a backdoor. He doesn’t understand how it would work. And he expects everyone who has been horrified by the NSA’s mass surveillance to just sit back, weaken their personal security and trust that the government will never abuse it. [..]

We know there’s no real need to worry about Apple and Android’s move: law enforcement has a half-dozen other ways to get at all the data out of your phone if it needs to solve actual crimes. This is just a basic security protection that, if implemented by Facebook, Gmail, text messaging apps and others, could go a long way to solving America’s cybersecurity problem. And it would leave everyone living in countries with authoritarian governments like those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China or Russia from having to worry about being spied on.

But Jim Comey, like the NSA, sees encryption for the masses as the enemy – not the type of tool that keeps your medical and bank records safe. He was on 60 Minutes this week calling Apple and Google’s decision a threat to national security, and, on Thursday, he gave first major speech as FBI director, which focused entirely on the dangers of people controlling their own security.

Naomi Klein: Climate change: how to make the big polluters really pay

By dropping Shell, Lego shows new ways to target the astronomical profits of the fossil fuel industries

When the call came in that the University of Glasgow had voted to divest its £128m endowment from fossil fuel companies, I happened to be in a room filled with climate activists in Oxford. They immediately broke into cheers. There were lots of hugs and a few tears. This was big – the first university in Europe to make such a move.

The next day there were more celebrations in climate circles: Lego announced it would not be renewing a relationship with Shell Oil, a longtime co-branding deal that saw toddlers filling up their plastic vehicles at toy Shell petrol stations. “Shell is polluting our kids’ imaginations,” a Greenpeace video that went viral declared, attracting more than 6m views. Pressure is building, meanwhile, on the Tate to sever the museum’s longtime relationship with BP. [..]

Internationally, there are hundreds of active fossil fuel divestment campaigns on university and college campuses, as well as ones targeting local city governments, non-profit foundations and religious organisations. And the victories keep getting bigger.

Paul Krugman: What Markets Will

In the Middle Ages, the call for a crusade to conquer the Holy Land was met with cries of “Deus vult!” – God wills it. But did the crusaders really know what God wanted? Given how the venture turned out, apparently not.

Now, that was a long time ago, and, in the areas I write about, invocations of God’s presumed will are rare. You do, however, see a lot of policy crusades, and these are often justified with implicit cries of “Mercatus vult!” – the market wills it. But do those invoking the will of the market really know what markets want? Again, apparently not.

And the financial turmoil of the past few days has widened the gap between what we’re told must be done to appease the market and what markets actually seem to be asking for.

Hannah Giorgis: The problem with the west’s Ebola response is still fear of a black patient

Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of ‘African-ness’, ‘blackness’, ‘foreign-ness’ and ‘infestation’ – poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die of Ebola in the United States, was not the right kind of victim for the west: he wasn’t a pretty young woman smiling in sunglasses as a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Bentley licks her cheek; he didn’t have a young, benevolent doctor’s face that looks “appropriate” plastered on newspapers; he wasn’t a kindly older nurse who told reporters how God had spared her. He wasn’t the kind of person to whom primetime news specials would dedicate 20 minutes and glorify with quotes from loved ones about his kind spirit or ceaseless determination to overcome an unfair affliction.

Thomas Eric Duncan was black, he was poor, and he was African.

A Dallas hospital turned away the uninsured Liberian immigrant after an initial exam concluded he suffered only from a “low-grade viral disease“, and the media turned him into the unsympathetic, undeserving face of a contagion with which the west is frantically grappling.

Peter van Buren: Seven Worst-Case Scenarios in the Battle with the Islamic State

You know the joke? You describe something obviously heading for disaster-a friend crossing Death Valley with next to no gas in his car-and then add, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Such is the Middle East today. The U.S. is again at war there,  bombing freely across Iraq and Syria, advising here, droning there,  coalition-building in the region to loop in a little more firepower from a collection of recalcitrant allies, and searching desperately for some non-American boots to put on the ground.

Here, then, are seven worst-case scenarios in a part of the world where the worst case has regularly been the best that’s on offer. After all, with all that military power being brought to bear on the planet’s most volatile region, what could possibly go wrong?

Oct 16 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

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New york Times Editorial Board: A Deadly Legacy in Iraq

Another chapter has been added to the dismal legacy of America’s involvement in Iraq. An investigation by C.J. Chivers, published in The Times on Wednesday, found that American and American-trained Iraqi troops discovered thousands of abandoned and highly dangerous chemical weapons left over from the rule of Saddam Hussein. These weapons, found from 2004 to 2011, wounded troops from both armies. There are now fears that some could fall into the hands of fighters for the Islamic State, which now controls much of the territory where the weapons were found. [..]

The investigation exposes shocking failings by the Pentagon, among them a callous disregard for the safety and care of American and Iraqi troops and a disturbing pattern of secrecy that can only erode public confidence in government. [..]

One big concern is the facility known as Al Muthanna State Establishment, the former center of Iraq’s chemical warfare program, near Samarra, where there are two bunkers still filled with chemicals and related equipment. The contents should have been disposed of by now under the a treaty called the Convention on Chemical Weapons. But the Pentagon apparently lost interest in the chemical weapons problem, left it to the Iraqis and the Iraqis have failed to do so. This poses an unacceptable risk to civilians and the armies trying to fight a new enemy in Iraq.

Trevor Trimm: James Risen is not going to let the US fear-mongering machine win in secret

The reporter who exposed the NSA before Snowden will go behind bars to protect his source. But he will not let Obama’s Bushian addiction to power take us back to endless war without a fight

For a man who could be forced into jail by the US government, possibly within “a few weeks”, after becoming the only journalist to be subpoenaed by both the Bush and Obama administrations, James Risen sure is busy.

In the past year alone, the New York Times investigative reporter who originally blew the lid on NSA wiretapping has interviewed with Edward Snowden, reported on multiple NSA revelations with Laura Poitras, and uncovered the incredible story of a Blackwater executive who threatened to kill a US state department employee who was investigating corruption – along with the government cover-up that followed. All while keeping mum as The Most Transparent Administration in American HistoryTM attempted to back him into a legal corner for doing his job as a reporter: protecting his sources.

“Maybe the Obama administration, at some point, is going to begin to back off, you would hope,” Risen told me on Monday afternoon. Until then, he’s speaking out upon the release of a new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War, that takes us from the rise of the second Bush administration’s “homeland security-industrial complex” to an Obama administration that, in 2014, is more secret than ever, facing down yet another war in Iraq that could last years.

Amy Goodman: We Need Medical Boots on the Ground Now

The headlines shift hourly between Ebola and ISIS. The question is often asked, “Should we put boots on the ground?” The answer is yes-but not in the Middle East. We need tens of thousands of boots on the ground dealing with Ebola: boots of doctors, nurses, health professionals, dealing with this wholly preventable global health disaster.

Ebola is a small virus that is revealing very large problems with the world’s public health systems. The few known cases here in the United States have provoked a climate of fear and a growing awareness of just how vulnerable we are to a virulent illness let loose in our society. Imagine how people feel in the impoverished West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the number of cases is in the thousands, and the infrastructure is simply incapable of dealing with the burgeoning number of infected people. [..]

The small island nation of Cuba has sent more than 160 doctors to West Africa to treat patients and help stem the spread of this epidemic. We should learn from Cuba. Instead, President Barack Obama sent in the Marines. They will soon be building field hospitals. But who will staff these new facilities? United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has created an emergency task force to confront the Ebola crisis. The world must come together to save lives and stop this preventable catastrophe that threatens us all.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: When Government Was Good

Tom Wolf’s mood is sunny but his words are serious.

He’s answering teachers’ questions at an elementary school featured last year in a New York Times story about the costs of overcrowding and underinvestment. The Democratic nominee for governor, Wolf criticizes Pennsylvania incumbent Tom Corbett for education cuts, but he is not terribly partisan about it. Wolf is a businessman who also holds a Ph.D. in political science, and he offers a brief commentary on the importance of “public goods,” not a term typically invoked on the stump.

He ends a lengthy response about pensions with an apology. “Am I giving you more information than you want here?” he asks with a smile. [..]

Democrats may find solace in other governors’ races as well, but Wolf will stand out as an unusual politician who speaks to two of the main sources of popular discontent: unhappiness with the economic system over its failure to deliver for so many workers, and widespread alienation from government.

Dave Johnsom: Budget Cuts Don’t Save Money

Cutting federal spending doesn’t “save money” – certainly not the way conservatives in Congress and in the states have been doing it.

If you cut the Internal Revenue Service budget, that obviously increases the deficit because it lowers the government’s ability to collect tax revenue. If you cut the infrastructure budget, obviously after a while bridges start to fall down. That costs money. And lives.

And, of course, if you cut the health and research budgets, diseases can spread and cures are not found. An article in Scientific American magazine by an infectious disease specialist spells out the consequences as the United States deals with the threat of the Ebola virus; [..]

For all you Republicans out there, here’s the thing: When us “takers” get diseases, they can spread to you “makers.” We actually are all in this together.

Cutting Food For Seniors Puts Them In The Hospital

In last year’s “Here’s A Sequester Cut You’ll Feel In Your Gut,” I wrote about how Republican cuts in food aid for seniors actually causes the government to spend more, because of what happens to seniors when you stop giving them food.

Mairead Maguire: The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex

How can we explain that in the 2lst century we are still training millions of men and women in our armed forces and sending them to war?

There are more choices than war or peace, there are multi-optional choices and a civilian-based non-military diplomatic-political policy has more chance of succeeding in solving a violent conflict.

In war, the cost in civilian lives is incalculable, not to mention the many military personnel whose lives are destroyed.  Then there is the cost to the environment and the cost to human potential as our scientists waste their lives planning and researching even more horrific weapons which increasingly, in modern war, kill more civilians than combatants. [..]

But, why are we surprised at this cruelty of military when they are doing what they are trained to do – kill, at the behest of their politicians and some people?

Oct 15 2014

Ebola: A Challenge for US Healthcare System

Up Date: The second Dallas nurse infected with ebola will be transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA. The  Infectious Disease Unit is where the first two U.S. Ebola patients, both health missionary workers stationed in Liberia, were treated and released in August.

The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed that a second health care worker has tested positive for ebola. The hospital, although it claims it is “equipped to care for patients in isolation,” it has become fairly apparent that there is a flaw in its protocols. The hospital has admitted it doesn’t know how the two hospital workers contracted the virus. That’s huge problem that continues to put the staff at great risk.

Dallas nurses have now come forward citing the flawed conditions in Ebola care

Deborah Burger of National Nurses United, who convened a conference call with reporters to relay what she said were concerns of nurses at the hospital, said they were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments and worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for Duncan. [..]

The nurses allege that his lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital’s pneumatic tubes, possibly risking contaminating of the specimen-delivery system. They also said that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling. [..]

The nurses’ statement said they had to “interact with Mr. Duncan with whatever protective equipment was available,” even as he produced “a lot of contagious fluids.” Duncan’s medical records underscore that concern. They also say nurses treating Duncan were also caring for other patients in the hospital and that, in the face of constantly shifting guidelines, they were allowed to follow whichever ones they chose.

When Ebola was suspected but unconfirmed, a doctor wrote that use of disposable shoe covers should also be considered. At that point, by all protocols, shoe covers should have been mandatory to prevent anyone from tracking contagious body fluids around the hospital. [..]

The CDC said 76 staff members at the hospital could have been exposed to Duncan after his second ER visit. Another 48 people who may have had contact with him before he was isolated are being monitored.

This is unacceptable.

The CDC is now sending a team to oversee isolation procedures, especially the personal protection equipment (PPE) used by the staff, as well as, putting it on and removing it. It is the last part, removing the PPE, that is critical and, the most likely how these two nurses were infected. The PPE should be impervious to fluids. There should be no skin exposed and, as most news reporters have observed, it takes longer to take it off than don it. That’s the hard part and is done carefully, methodically and in multiple stages with decontamination at each stage.

The international medical aid organization, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, has been in the lead with taking care of ebola patients in Africa and has written the book on safety procedures.

Doctors without Borders training, Belgium photo DWB-Belgium_zps547e3b30.jpg

The New York City Department of Health has designated Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan as the center for treatment of the Ebola virus in the city. But if this picture is an example of the PPE the staff will be wearing, they are need to make so improvements and fast.

Bellview Hospital, New York photo Bellview-NY_zps5d6ccc75.jpg

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow examined the challenges for U.S. medical facilities of meeting the exacting protocols for handling Ebola, She pointed out how something as simple as a checklist can help as the rate of Ebola’s spread is forecast to increase rapidly.

In the day of i-pads and tablets, the use of a checklist in donning and removing PPE would help eliminate errors, make it easier to find flaws (human or mechanical) and lessen the possibility of a contagious disease like ebola from spreading to care givers and beyond.  

Oct 15 2014

Your Privacy Matters

The NSA, FBI and DOJ are upset with the new Apple and Google encryption apps that they can’t hack. The poor Director of the FBI, James Comey is “concerned” so he plays the “fear card”

“I am a huge believer in the rule of law, but I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law,” Comey told reporters at FBI headquarters in Washington. “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”

Apple said last week that it would no longer be technically feasible to unlock encrypted iPhones and iPads for law enforcement because the devices would no longer allow user passcodes to be bypassed. The move comes as tech companies struggle to manage public concerns in the aftermath of last year’s leak of classified National Security Agency documents about government access to private user data. [..]

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” the company said. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

Comey said that while he understood the need for privacy, government access to mobile devices may be needed in extreme circumstances, such as in the event of a terror attack.

“I like and believe very much that we should have to obtain a warrant from an independent judge to be able to take the content of anyone’s closet or their smart phone,” he said. “The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened — even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order — to me does not make any sense.”

Comey said FBI officials have had conversations with both Apple and Google about the marketing of their devices.

“Google is marketing their Android the same way: Buy our phone and law-enforcement, even with legal process, can never get access to it,” he said.

Why anyone would think that the guy who approved torture believes in the rule of law is beyond me. Trevor Timm at The Guardian dissects what Comey said:

Comey began:

  I am a huge believer in the rule of law, but I also believe that no one in this country is beyond the law. … What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.

First of all, despite the FBI director’s implication, what Apple and Google have done is perfectly legal, and they are under no obligation under the “the rule of law” to decrypt users’ data if the company itself cannot access your stuff. From 47 U.S. Code § 1002 (emphasis mine):

   A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government’s ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer, unless the encryption was provided by the carrier and the carrier possesses the information necessary to decrypt the communication.

Comey continued:

   I like and believe very much that we should have to obtain a warrant from an independent judge to be able to take the content of anyone’s closet or their smart phone.

That’s funny, because literally four months ago, the United States government was saying the exact opposite (pdf) before the US supreme court, arguing that, in fact, the feds shouldn’t need to get a warrant to get inside anyone’s smartphone after you’re arrested. In its landmark June ruling in the case, Riley v California, the court disagreed. So it’s great to see that Jim Comey, too, has come around to the common sense conclusion that cops need a warrant to search your cellphone data, but it would’ve been nice for him to express those sentiments when they actually mattered.

Comey doubled down in another statement with the absurd fear that criminals, like child kidnappers would be able to evade the law. On its face that’s insanely ridiculous since law enforcement has numerous ways tools to access your data. The Intercept‘s Micah Lee points out that Apple still has access to plenty of your data to feed to the Feds. He went on how bemoan the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden has caused the need to protect a person’s private information may have gone too far. How so, Mr. Comey? As Timm notes in his article

Congress has not changed surveillance law at all in the the nearly 16 months since Edward Snowden’s disclosures began, mostly because of the vociferous opposition from intelligence agencies and cops. The pendulum is still permanently lodged squarely on law enforcement’s side. If it has swung at all, it’s because of the aforementioned ruling by the supreme court of the United States, along with tech companies implementing more privacy protections unilaterally because US tech companies are losing billions of dollars because of the government’s spying scandals.

A week ago, The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald gave a Ted Talk in Rio de Janeiro on why your privacy matters

Crypto wars redux: why the FBI’s desire to unlock your private life must be resisted

In 1995, the US government tried – and failed – to categorise encryption as a weapon. Today, the same lines are being drawn and the same tactics repeated as the FBI wants to do the same. Here’s why they are wrong, and why they must fail again

Eric Holder, the outgoing US attorney general, has joined the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in calling for the security of all computer systems to be fatally weakened. This isn’t a new project – the idea has been around since the early 1990s, when the NSA classed all strong cryptography as a “munition” and regulated civilian use of it to ensure that they had the keys to unlock any technological countermeasures you put around your data.

In 1995, the Electronic Frontier Foundation won a landmark case establishing that code was a form of protected expression under the First Amendment to the US constitution, and since then, the whole world has enjoyed relatively unfettered access to strong crypto. [..]

The arguments then are the arguments now. Governments invoke the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse (software pirates, organised crime, child pornographers, and terrorists) and say that unless they can decrypt bad guys’ hard drives and listen in on their conversations, law and order is a dead letter.

On the other side, virtually every security and cryptography expert tries patiently to explain that there’s no such thing as “a back door that only the good guys can walk through” (hat tip to Bruce Schneier). Designing a computer that bad guys can’t break into is impossible to reconcile with designing a computer that good guys can break into.

If you give the cops a secret key that opens the locks on your computerised storage and on your conversations, then one day, people who aren’t cops will get hold of that key, too. The same forces that led to bent cops selling out the public’s personal information to Glen Mulcaire and the tabloid press will cause those cops’ successors to sell out access to the world’s computer systems, too, only the numbers of people who are interested in these keys to the (United) Kingdom will be much larger, and they’ll have more money, and they’ll be able to do more damage.

Long live The Republic.

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