“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”
The Triangle Shirtwaste Factory Fire changed so much, not just fire codes but safety regulations and work conditions for women. Its significance now in light of the right wing attacks on labor is even more important. We now have all their names. The 100th Anniversary of this tragedy is March 25.
In The Times’s grim, vivid account on March 26, 1911 – the day after the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire – these words appear: “The victims who are now lying at the Morgue waiting for some one to identify them by a tooth or the remains of a burned shoe were mostly girls from 16 to 23 years of age.” There were 146 victims in all, 129 of them women.
Nearly a century later, the names of the last unidentified victims have been discovered, thanks to the work of a historian named Michael Hirsch. They are Maria Giuseppa Lauletti, Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Josephine Cammarata, Dora Evans and Fannie Rosen, all buried together beneath a single monument in the Cemetery of the Evergreens on the border of Brooklyn and Queens. This completes the roll of the dead in one of the city’s worst and most important fires.
Wednesday is turning into Ladies’ Day. The guys are below the fold
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)-the people’s agency and cop on the beat to protect consumers-is now a reality. Its website is live, you can sign-up for updates, and check out a sleek Arrested Development-style video narrated by Ron Howard that explains the bureau’s mission.
But as Elizabeth Warren made clear in a speech at the Consumers Union 75th anniversary celebration last week, the battle to establish a strong and independent CFPB is far from over.
As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them. The Madison uprising follows on the heels of those in the Middle East. A sign held by one university student, an Iraq War vet, read, “I went to Iraq and came home to Egypt?” Another read, “Walker: Mubarak of the Midwest.” Likewise, a photo has circulated in Madison of a young man at a rally in Cairo, with a sign reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin workers: One world, one pain.” Meanwhile, Libyans continue to defy a violent government crackdown against masses seeking to oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and more than 10,000 marched Tuesday in Ohio to oppose Republican Gov. John Kasich’s attempted anti-union legislative putsch.
Just a few weeks ago, solidarity between Egyptian youth and Wisconsin police officers, or between Libyan workers and Ohio public employees, might have elicited a raised eyebrow.
The mainstream media has always, shall we say, struggled to understand that the anti-choice movement is anti-contraception, anti-STD prevention, and anti-sex education. It just doesn’t fit the official narrative, which posits that anti-choicers are somehow “pro-life,” people who are deeply invested in fetal life, but who, for some mysterious reason, mostly don’t extend their concern for life into opposition to war or support for life-saving health insurance reform. Even in explicitly pro-choice media outlets, the narrative tends to be about abortion, without little acknowledgment that attacks on contraception are part of the larger agenda of the anti-choice movement, even as news stories about abstinence-only and conscience clauses keep trickling out.
Sen. Al Franken, (D-MI) has called Internet Freedom the most important free speech issue of our time. That Freedom is now being threatened by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) who have introduced a bill that would essentially give the President the authority to shut down the internet with new national emergency powers, aka a “kill switch”:
President Obama would be given the power to “issue a declaration of a national cyberemergency.” Once that happens, Homeland Security would receive sweeping new authorities, including the power to require that so-called critical companies “shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action” decreed.
No “notice” needs to be given “before mandating any emergency measure or actions.” That means a company could be added to the “critical” infrastructure list one moment, and ordered by Homeland Security to “immediately comply” with its directives the next.
The U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs, appears to believe that it’s not necessary to include explicit judicial review of the president’s emergency authority once exercised, believing it’s implicit. Any such lawsuit filed by a targeted company would likely focus on language saying the emergency decrees should be “the least disruptive means feasible.”
The president may declare a “cyberemergency” for 30 days, and extend it for one 30-day period, unless Congress votes to approve further extensions.
Homeland Security will “establish and maintain a list of systems or assets that constitute covered critical infrastructure” and that will be subject to those emergency decrees.
(emphasis mine)
The ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson said”It still gives the president incredible authority to interfere with Internet communications.” If the Department of Homeland Security wants to pull the plug on Web sites or networks, she said, “the government needs to go to court and get a court order.” I light of the recent erroneous seizure of 84,000 web sites by the Department of Homeland Security that took them off line even Bob Barr has weighed in with this statement:
No government – no matter how benign or well-meaning – should be empowered to control the Internet. Moreover, the Congress should take a long, hard look at how federal agencies are using – and abusing – their existing powers to control parts of the Internet.
Holy FSM. They’re even calling this bill “Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act.”
Here’s some of the other news that gets missed or relegated to the inner pages by our ratings fixated media and what some of the loonies have been “plotting”.
The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials – including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz – in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture.
Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate.
(emphasis mine)
Is New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on the White House payroll? Sure sounds like it. Again Keller, at the request of the White House withheld information from a news story. On January 27, Raymond Davis, who works at the US Embassy, killed two Pakistani men alleging they were threatening him. The White House has claimed that Davis is a diplomat and Pakistan cannot hold him. What was known but not released by the NYT, at the Obama administrations request, was that Davis, a former special forces soldier, was actually working for the CIA and, in fact, worked for Xe, aka Blackwater.
This is not the first time that the NYT has done the bidding of the administration in power. Keller even boasted in a BBC interview that the NYT had earned the praise of the U.S. Government for withholding materials which the Obama administration wanted withheld.
Arizona may be overboard on a few issues like guns, immigration and denial of transplants under Medicare but the criminal justice system got it right in two cases.
Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, also was convicted of aggravated assault for injuries suffered by the mother of his daughter’s boyfriend during the October 2009 incident in a suburban Phoenix parking lot, and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.
Prosecutors told jurors during the trial that he mowed down 20-year-old Noor Almaleki with his Jeep Cherokee because she had brought the family dishonor by becoming too Westernized. He wanted Noor Almaleki to act like a traditional Iraq woman, but she refused an arranged marriage, went to college and had a boyfriend.
Forde was convicted Feb. 14 of first-degree murder in the May 30, 2009, deaths of Raul “Junior” Flores, 29, and his daughter, Brisenia Flores, 9. She was also found guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of Gina Gonzalez, Flores’ wife and Brisenia’s mother.
Prosecutors said Forde decided to target the house in Arivaca, Ariz., because she believed Flores was a drug smuggler and would have cash in the house. She wanted money to fund her border protection group, Minutemen American Defense, prosecutors said.
What do you end up with when you close half the public schools because you don’t want to tax the wealthy? Masses of uneducated, not fit to hold down anything but low paying menial jobs, more homeless, more crime but hey, lalalalalala, they have beans in their ears.
The Detroit public school system has been ordered to close half its schools to make up for a $327 million deficit. The schools will be shuttered over the next four years, causing class sizes to bulge to 60.
The plan, mandated by state education officials, will reduce the number of schools in the district from 142 to 72. . . . . .
Census figures on Detroit show a bleak reality. Incomes in the city are half the national average, and one third of the population is in poverty. Michigan’s unemployment rate is 12 percent, and from 2000 to 2010, it was the only state in the country where population decreased.
Data released today shows that only 10 percent of the state’s high school graduates this year are ready for college.
“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”
Wisconsin is in a showdown. Washington is headed for a government shutdown.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won’t budge. He insists on delivering a knockout blow to public unions in his state (except for those, like the police, who supported his election).
In DC, House Republicans won’t budge on the $61 billion cut they pushed through last week, saying they’ll okay a temporary resolution to keep things running in Washington beyond March 4 only if it includes many of their steep cuts – among which are several that the middle class and poor depend on.
Republicans say “we’ve” been spending too much, and they’re determined to end the spending with a scorched-earth policies in the states (Republican governors in Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey are reading similar plans to decimate public unions) and shutdowns in Washington.
There’s no doubt that government budgets are in trouble. The big lie is that the reason is excessive spending.
President Obama has decided that the failure of last year’s comprehensive climate bill does not have to mean the death of climate policy. Instead of imposing a mandatory cap and stiff price on carbon emissions, as the bill would have done, the president is offering a more modest approach involving sharply targeted and well-financed research into breakthrough technologies, cleaner fuels and more efficient cars and trucks.
This is all part of a broader investment-for-the-future strategy that he outlined in his State of the Union address, and it all makes sense as a way of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, creating more green jobs and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.
Buried deep beneath the stories about executive bonuses, the stock market surge and the economy’s agonizingly slow road to recovery is the all-but-silent suffering of the many millions of Americans who, economically, are going down for the count.
A 46-year-old teacher in Charlotte, Vt., who has been unable to find a full-time job and is weighed down with debt, wrote to his U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders:
“I am financially ruined. I find myself depressed and demoralized and my confidence is shattered. Worst of all, as I hear more and more talk about deficit reduction and further layoffs, I have the agonizing feeling that the worst may not be behind us.”
It is early morning in North Africa and the Middle East, the main news focus is on Libya and much has happened since yesterday. During the day Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, made a 15 minute appearance on state TV denying he had not fled the country to Venezuela and called exiles and expatriates attacking him as al-kelab eddalla, “lost dogs.” Charming.
Let me say here the difference between Egypt and Libya is where Mubarak went fairly quietly into the night, Gaddafi is a psychopathic madman who will spill the blood of every Libyan man, woman and child to the last bullet. I believe him.
One last point, we should not forget what started this, Wikileaks and Anonymous. When it was revealed through leaked diplomatic cables just how corrupt the Tunisian regime under Ben Ali was, the Tunisian youth took to the streets. It was a revolution that sprang from the cyber-age of texting, Twitter and Facebook. The youth were joined by the unemployed and under paid that took down a government and it spread to Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and more. Now the repressive dictatorship of Libya is on the brink of extinction. These are not Islamic radicals that so many in the West fear to the point of irrationality. No, they are not religious. They want what the same thing that the youth of Europe and America want, education, jobs and most of all a say in the way they are governed. Yes, Democracy.
Up Date 1430 hrs EST:Gaddafi again took to TV giving an hour long, defiant speech stating that he would not step down and would die in Libya. Pounding his fists and shouting the US was to blame and drugged had caused the violence. He called for called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters.
“You men and women who love Gaddafi …get out of your homes and fill the streets,” he said. “Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs … Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them.”
Gaddafi said “peaceful protests is one thing, but armed rebellion is another”.
“From tonight to tomorrow, all the young men should form local committees for popular security,” he said, telling them to wear a green armband to identify themselves. “The Libyan people and the popular revolution will control Libya.”
The UN Security Council met behind closed doors this morning at the request of Libyan Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, who along with most of the UN mission had denounced Gaddafi and called for his resignation. Dabbahi requested a “no-fly” zone over Libya but that would require a formal resolution. There was some confusion when the Ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgham arrived at the end of the meeting stating he stood with Gaddafi and would appeal for the end of the violence against the demonstrators. Shalgham was not in NYC on Monday and did not sign onto the anti-Gaddafi statement issued by Dabbashi and others.
A popular Egyptian Imam, the Muslim version of a televangelist, Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, has called for a Fatwah against Gaddafi. Along with a group of Islamic scholars, he called for the Libyan army to kill Gaddafi.
Two Iranian warships have entered the Suez Canal to make a passage to the Mediterranean Sea, canal officials say.
Iranian officials have said the warships are headed to Syria for training, a mission Israel has described as a “provocation”.
“They entered the canal at 0545 (0345 GMT),” Suez Canal officials said.
It is believed to be the first time since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iranian warships have passed through the Suez Canal.
Iran’s request stated the vessels would have no military equipment, nuclear materials or chemicals on board, the Egyptian defence ministry is quoted as saying.
The ships involved are the frigate Alvand and a supply vessel, the Kharg.
Libyan security forces fired on crowds of protesters in Tripoli as Muammar Gaddafi struggled desperately to hold on to power in what has become the bloodiest crackdown yet on pro-democracy protesters in the Arab world.
With diplomats resigning en masse and two senior fighter pilots defecting to Malta after refusing to attack demonstrators, the Libyan leader looked beleaguered at home and unwelcome anywhere abroad.
“What’s going on in Libya is a real genocide,” said the country’s deputy UN ambassador, Ibrahim al-Dabashi.
One Tripoli resident told al-Jazeera TV: “Death is everywhere,” as he described air attacks on the terrified city. “Why is the world silent?”
Gaddafi appeared briefly on Libyan state TV to deny reports that he had fled the country. “I want to show that I’m in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs,” he said, reported by the station as speaking outside his house. He was holding an umbrella in the rain and leaning out of a vehicle.
“I wanted to say something to the youths at the Green Square [in Tripoli] and stay up late with them but it started raining. Thank God, it’s a good thing,” Gaddafi said in a 22-second appearance.
Libyan state TV earlier said military operations were under way against “terrorist nests” and there were predictions of a bloodbath by a desperate regime which feels the end approaching.
[http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011221222542234651.html Libyan pilots and diplomats defect
Group of army officers have also issued a statement urging fellow soldiers to “join the people” and help remove Gaddafi]
Diplomats resign and air force officers defect as Gaddafi government resorts to shooting and bombing to crush uprising.
Two Libyan air force jets landed in Malta on Monday and their pilots have asked for political asylum.
The pilots claimed to have defected after refusing to follow orders to attack civilians protesting in Benghazi in Libya.
The pilots, who said they were colonels in the Libyan air force, were being questioned by authorities in an attempt to verify their identities.
Meanwhile, a group of Libyan army officers have issued a statement urging fellow soldiers to “join the people” and help remove Muammar Gaddafi.
The officers urged the rest of the Libyan army to march to Tripoli.
Diplomats side with protesters
Libya’s ambassadors at several stations, including the US and the UN, have said that they are siding with protesters and have called for Gaddafi to quit.
Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to the United States, became the latest diplomat to call for the Libyan leader’s resignation, telling the Associated Press news agency on Monday night that Gaddafi must step down and give Libyans a chance “to make their future”.
He said he was not resigning, as he worked for the Libyan people.
Also late on Monday, A.H. Elimam, Libya’s ambassador to Bangladesh, resigned to protest against the killing of his family members by government soldiers.
Earlier on Monday, diplomats at Libya’s mission to the United Nations sided with the revolt against their country’s leader and called on the Libyan army to help overthrow “the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi.”
In a statement issued as protests erupted across Libya, the mission’s deputy chief and other staff said they were serving the Libyan people, demanded “the removal of the regime immediately” and urged other Libyan embassies to follow suit.
An extraordinary meeting of the Arab League will also take place on Tuesday as leaders express alarm over crackdown.
The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Libya, diplomats said.
They said the meeting, known as consultations, had been requested by Libyan deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi and would start at 1400 GMT.
Dabbashi and other diplomats at Libya’s mission to the UN announced on Monday that they had sided with protesters in Libya and were calling for the overthrow of long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, called for an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League to take place on Tuesday.
The aim is to discuss the current crisis in Libya and to put additional “pressure” on the government, Al-Thani told Al Jazeera.
With reports of a large-scale crackdown on protesters under way in Tripoli, a spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon said the UN chief held extensive discussions with Muammar Gaddafi on Monday.
Ban condemned the escalating violence in Libya and told Gaddafi that it “must stop immediately”.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her part said it was “time to stop this unnacceptable bloodshed” in Libya.
Army sets up field hospitals on Libyan border to receive returning Egyptians.
Egypt’s army has set up two field hospitals on the border with Libya near the Salloum border-crossing town to receive returning Egyptians.
Libyan guards have withdrawn from their side of the boundary following anti-government protests, the army said on its Facebook page on Monday.
Hossam Zaki, Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman, said at least one million Egyptians reside in Libya where increasingly bloody battles between Libyan security forces and protesters have been taking place.
At least 100 buses carrying Egyptians are making their way to the Libya-Egyptian border, Zaki said.
CAIRO – The military and civilian leadership controlling Egypt in the wake of a popular revolution took several high-profile steps on Monday to reassure Egyptians that it shared their fervor for change and to signal to foreign leaders that the move to full civilian rule would be rapid.
The prime minister of Britain, David Cameron, held talks here with the leaders, becoming the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Egypt since the longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, was ousted after 18 days of widespread protests.
At the same time, the country’s top prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, said he would request that the Foreign Ministry ask governments to freeze any assets of Mr. Mubarak, his family and a handful of top associates. The Associated Press, citing unnamed security officials, said Mr. Mubarak’s local assets were frozen as soon as his government fell.
“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”
Democracy does not end on Election Day. That’s when it begins. Citizens do not elect officials to rule them from one election to the next. Citizens elect officials to represent them, to respond to the will of the people as it evolves.
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker – demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday – Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did – after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
John Drew believes, quaintly, that we are our brother’s keeper.
President Obama does not seem to believe this quite as strongly. And, of course, many of the Republicans in Congress do not believe it at all.
Mr. Drew is the president of Boston’s antipoverty agency, called Action for Boston Community Development, which everyone calls ABCD. In today’s environment, people who work with the poor can be forgiven if they feel like hunted criminals. Government officials at all levels are homing in on them and disrupting their efforts, sometimes for legitimate budget reasons, sometimes not.
Our writer, who was in Cairo as the revolution took hold in Egypt, reports from Bahrain on why Islam has little to do with what is going on
Mubarak claimed that Islamists were behind the Egyptian revolution. Ben Ali said the same in Tunisia. King Abdullah of Jordan sees a dark and sinister hand – al-Qa’ida’s hand, the Muslim Brotherhood’s hand, an Islamist hand – behind the civil insurrection across the Arab world. Yesterday the Bahraini authorities discovered Hizbollah’s bloody hand behind the Shia uprising there. For Hizbollah, read Iran. How on earth do well-educated if singularly undemocratic men get this thing so wrong? Confronted by a series of secular explosions – Bahrain does not quite fit into this bracket – they blame radical Islam. The Shah made an identical mistake in reverse. Confronted by an obviously Islamic uprising, he blamed it on Communists.
Bobbysocks Obama and Clinton have managed an even weirder somersault. Having originally supported the “stable” dictatorships of the Middle East – when they should have stood by the forces of democracy – they decided to support civilian calls for democracy in the Arab world at a time when the Arabs were so utterly disenchanted with the West’s hypocrisy that they didn’t want America on their side. “The Americans interfered in our country for 30 years under Mubarak, supporting his regime, arming his soldiers,” an Egyptian student told me in Tahrir Square last week. “Now we would be grateful if they stopped interfering on our side.” At the end of the week, I heard identical voices in Bahrain. “We are getting shot by American weapons fired by American-trained Bahraini soldiers with American-made tanks,” a medical orderly told me on Friday. “And now Obama wants to be on our side?”
Michael Moore has asked that we spread this message from the trade unions and workers in Egypt to the unions and workers in Wisconsin. Also, wear something RED today in support of the Wisconsin state workers.
The poster in the background shows photographs of some of the recent young victims of the Mubarak government. The writing says they are among the martyrs of the 25 January Revolution.
KAMAL ABBAS: I am speaking to you from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo, “Liberation Square”, which was the heart of the Revolution in Egypt. This is the place were many of our youth paid with their lives and blood in the struggle for our just rights.
From this place, I want you to know that we stand with you as you stood with us.
I want you to know that no power can challenge the will of the people when they believe in their rights. When they raise their voices loud and clear and struggle against exploitation.
No one believed that our revolution could succeed against the strongest dictatorship in the region. But in 18 days the revolution achieved the victory of the people. When the working class of Egypt joined the revolution on 9 and 10 February, the dictatorship was doomed and the victory of the people became inevitable.
We want you to know that we stand on your side. Stand firm and don’t waiver. Don’t give up on your rights. Victory always belongs to the people who stand firm and demand their just rights.
We and all the people of the world stand on your side and give you our full support.
As our just struggle for freedom, democracy and justice succeeded, your struggle will succeed. Victory belongs to you when you stand firm and remain steadfast in demanding your just rights.
We support you. we support the struggle of the peoples of Libya, Bahrain and Algeria, who are fighting for their just rights and falling martyrs in the face of the autocratic regimes. The peoples are determined to succeed no matter the sacrifices and they will be victorious.
Today is the day of the American workers. We salute you American workers! You will be victorious. Victory belongs to all the people of the world, who are fighting against exploitation, and for their just rights.
The protests against repressive regimes has taken a violent turn over the last three days with police, the military and some armed counter protesters shooting and beating the unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in Bahrain, Libya and other countries in the region. Yesterday Human Rights Watch has reported at 173 protesters have been killed over the last five days in Libya and reports from hospitals there say 20 more were killed on Sunday. Other sources are putting the death toll at over 200. Reporting is hampered because journalists and the news media has been barred. The US is relying on reports from the HRW and other observers. News coming in from CNN say that [Benghazi now in the hands of Libyan protesters and that some of the military has now gone over to supporting the protest. CNN has reports coming from citizens, on the ground in Libya, calling the network.
Saif el Islam, Gaddafi’s son spoke on Libyan state TV. It is unknown if the telecast was live or taped.
Clashes between anti-government protesters and Gaddafi supporters escalate, as army unit ‘defects’ in Benghazi
Saif el Islam, Gaddafi’s son speaking live on Libyan television says there is a plot to break Libya into small Islamic states.
While admitting that the army and police made mistakes during protests, he said reported death tolls were exaggerated.
He warned of a civil war that will burn Libya’s oil wealth and of a “foreign conspiracy by fellow Arabs” set in motion against Libya.
He said protesters have seized control of some military bases and tanks.
Appearing on Libyan state television Sunday night, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi warned of civil war in the country that would burn its oil wealth.
He also acknowledged that the army made mistakes during protests because troops were not prepared to battle demonstrators.
Address comes as security forces have shot dead scores of protesters in Libya’s second largest city, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause.
An official of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said her organization is increasingly concerned and seriously alarmed about what she described as the ongoing murder of unarmed protesters who are demanding reforms in Libya.
Heba Fatma Morayef, researcher for the Rights Organization for Egypt and Libya, told VOA it appears is behind the shootings deaths of the unarmed protesters since the Tunisian and Egyptian-inspired protests in the North African country.
“The overall death toll now is at 223 and that is just in the previous days. Regardless of who is doing the shooting, in this case, whether its mercenaries, whether its plainclothes individuals with weapons, the responsibility remains (for) the state to protect the demonstrators,” said Morayef.
Oil for April delivery rose for a fourth day in New York as violence escalated in Libya, bolstering concern supplies will be disrupted as turmoil spreads through the Middle East and North Africa.
Crude gained as much as 2.2 percent after Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son warned that a civil war would risk the country’s oil wealth. Security forces have launched attacks on anti-government protesters, killing more than 200 people, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. The North African nation, holder of the largest crude reserves on the continent, pumped 1.6 million barrels a day of oil in January, equivalent of about 8 percent of U.S. consumption.
Top US and EU diplomats denounce violence against protesters but stop short of calling for a change of government.
Western countries have expressed concern at the rising violence against demonstrators in Libya.
The United States said it was deeply concerned by credible reports of hundreds of deaths and injuries during protests in Libya, and urged the government to allow demonstrators to protest peacefully.
“The United States is gravely concerned with disturbing reports and images coming out of Libya,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “We have raised to a number of Libyan officials … our strong objections to the use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators.”
The State Department said US embassy dependents were being encouraged to leave Libya and US citizens were urged to defer nonessential travel to the country.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice spoke out against brutal crackdowns on protesters in Libya and Bahrain but stopped short of calling for a change of government in any of the countries facing large protests.
Appearing on Libyan state television, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi says his father is in the country and has support of army.
A son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has promised a programme of reforms after bloody protests against his father’s rule reached the capital, Tripoli.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi also hit out at those behind the violence. He said protests against his father’s rule, which have been concentrated in the east of the country, threatened to sink Libya into civil war and split the country up into several small states.
Libya has become a key player despite decades-long image of political pariah.
A weedy, overgrown backyard in Englewood, New Jersey seemed likely for a time last week to become the scene of the latest flashpoint in Libyan-US relations.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is planning his first visit to the US since he seized power in a military coup 40 years ago. He is set to address the yearly UN General Assembly in September.
Now, wherever the long-time Libyan leader goes, he likes to take a little bit of Libya with him – in the form of a huge, air-conditioned Bedouin-style tent. He pitched his pavilion in the Kremlin during a visit to Moscow. In Rome, the tent sat prominently in a public park.
Gaddafi initially planned to set up camp in Manhattan’s Central Park, but Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, said no dice. So a squadron of gardeners and construction workers descended on the dilapidated estate of Libya’s UN ambassador in lovely Englewood, a suburb of 30,000 people with a large Orthodox Jewish community.
You can guess what happened next. Protests were organised. Petitions were passed around. Lawsuits flew hither and yon.
Perhaps unexpectedly, Gaddafi backed down. There will be no tent party in Englewood, and the Colonel will stick to Manhattan on his visit.
Demonstrators demand large-scale political and economic reforms in the North African kingdom.
Calls for change sweeping the Arab world have now spread to the kingdom of Morocco, where thousands of people have taken to the streets in the capital to demand a new constitution.
The demonstrators shouted slogans calling for economic opportunity, educational reform, better health services and help in coping with rising living costs during the march on central Hassan II Avenue in Rabat on Sunday.
A protest organiser said the turnout at the rally was more than 5,000. But police said fewer than 3,000 people had marched.
Many in the crowd waved Tunisian and Egyptian flags, in recognition of the uprisings that toppled the two country’s long-standing rulers.
Several people are injured and others are arrested as police thwart pro-democracy rally in capital Algiers, reports say.
Algerian police in riot gear have used batons to break up a crowd of hundreds of opposition supporters trying to take part in a protest march inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
Police brandishing clubs, but no firearms, weaved their way through the crowd in central Algiers on Saturday, banging their shields, tackling some protesters and keeping traffic flowing through the planned march route.
Security forces clashed with anti-government protesters and briefly detained the daughter of Iran’s former president.
There are reports of renewed anti-government protests in Iran, with demonstrators taking to the streets in several cities across the country.
There have also been clashes between protesters and security forces, posts on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter said on Sunday. There were also reports of one protester being shot dead in Tehran, a story denied by government official in state media.
The official IRNA reported that Faezeh Rafsanjani, the daughter of ex-president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been among those arrested for particiapting in the protest. Fars news agency reported that she was released shortly thereafter.
Leader of Yemen’s separatist movement arrested in Aden amid countrywide protests against President Saleh.
Shots have been fired at a demonstration in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, as anti-government protests in the impoverished Arab country entered their 11th consecutive day.
Thousands of people also staged sit-ins in the cities of Ibb and Taiz on Sunday, demanding the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who renewed his call for opposition parties to pursue a dialogue with the government.
“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”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joins Christine in a “This Week” exclusive discussing the uprisings and unrest in the Middle East and the spending showdowns in Wisconsin and the fight over federal spending in Congress that could end in a shut down of the federal government
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This weeks guests are Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), House Budget Committee Ranking Democrat and David Sanger, New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent.
Plus, reports from CBS News correspondents in the Middle East
The Chris Matthews Show: This weeks guests are Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor, John Harris, Politico
Editor-in-Chief, and Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Columnist.
Under consideration are these questions:
Will Obama and the GOP Jump off the Cliff Together on a Sweeping Debt Package?
Can Republicans Convince Chris Christie To Take On Obama?
Meet the Press with David Gregory: The budget fight in Congress is discussed with guests Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice discusses how the protests and unrest in the Middle East are affecting US policy in the region
On the roundtable to discuss budget reforms are former governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm (D), former congressman from Tennessee, Harold Ford (D), Republican strategist, Ed Gillespie and CNBC’s Rick Santelli.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) discusses the budget and reform. The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar discussing the Middle East Also, an interview with former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld
And finally, with President’s Day around the corner, we’ll close with interviews with two former commanders-in-chief.
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: An exclusive interview with billionaire, George Soros plus Fareed’s take on the Middle East conflicts, the Muslim Brotherhood and a look at the art from Baghdad
While were distracted by the events in Wisconsin, there was other “stuff” happening, some of it not so good.
During an all night session on Friday, early Saturday morning the House passed a spending bill with massive budget cuts. The bill passed 235 to 189 without one Democrat voting “yay” and would slash $60 billion, mostly discretionary spending, from government spending between now and September. The Democratic led Senate has made it clear that it will not back the draconian cuts that the House bill imposes and sets up a confrontation with the Obama administration that would shut down the government.
Deja vu all over again ala Bill Clinton v Newt Gingrich 1995. The clear winner back then was Clinton and Gingrich eventually resigning from the House with his tail between his legs.
Congress is in recess for the Presidents’ Day holiday. Heh, They get a week off. If we peasants are lucky if get a three day weekend. They they return on March 4 with a mere four day to reconcile the differences and send a bill to the President’s desk.
Some of the cuts this bill proposes:
It killed funding to a Pentagon program to build duplicate fighter jet engines. That amendment, which was supported by the Pentagon, passed on Wednesday in a 233-198 vote with bipartisan support despite House Speaker John Boehner’s opposition to its passing.
A longtime Republican target, Planned Parenthood, would be banned from receiving funding under an amendment. Democrats called this an “all-out war on women.” The measure would prevent the organization from receiving any federal funding because it performs abortions, even though using government money for abortions is already illegal, undermining programs for reproductive health and pregnancy prevention.
The Environmental Protection Agency, already facing $3 billion in cuts from the main bill, would lose an additional $8.4 million for its greenhouse gas registry thanks to a measure introduced by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.), which was added in a 239-185 vote.
Also targeted the EPA’s regulations on cement plants, approving in a 250-177 vote an amendment prohibiting the agency from using funds to implement or enforce the rule.
Blocks ATF request for emergency anti-gun trafficking authority that would have required gun dealers in southern border states to report bulk purchases of assault weapons
It prohibited funding for so-called czars on health care, climate change, global warming, green jobs, automobiles, Guantanamo Bay Closure, Pay and Fairness Doctrine.
Blocked funding to implement health care reform and prohibit agencies from hiring staff to implement the law, effectively rendering its protections against insurance companies unenforceable.
One of the amendments that failed was an amendment to end a tax loophole for major oil companies, introduced by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). It failed in a 251-174 vote on Friday. Democrats aimed to end subsidies to Big Oil as a revenue-booster to protect social programs.
“Republicans once again sided with BP, Exxon and the oil companies, not with the American taxpayer and the poorest Americans most in need of help,” Markey said in a statement. “This legislation focuses on just the kind of special interest loophole that should be closed before we open attacks on programs for the poorest Americans.”
President Obama has already indicated that he would veto this bill. We shall see.
Sen. Al Franken, (D-MI) has called Internet Freedom 
Here’s some of the other news that gets missed or relegated to the inner pages by our ratings fixated media and what some of the loonies have been “plotting”.
While were distracted by the events in Wisconsin, there was other “stuff” happening, some of it not so good.
Recent Comments