Tag: TMC Politics

“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: Christiane Amanpour has an exclusive interview with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty, both contending for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, will discuss the Egyptian Revolution.

The roundtable guest, also discussing events in Egypt, are Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy, and ABC News’ George Will.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Scheiffer’s scheduled guests are Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Egyptian Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei,  Egyptian Nobel Laureate and Activist Ahmed Zewail and Egyptian Ambassador to the U.S.

Sameh Shoukry

Editor’s note: As per Think Progress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was originally scheduled

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst, John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent, David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist, and Anne Kornblut, The Washington Post White House Correspondent.

The questions they will ponder are:

How Did President Obama Handle The Crisis In Egypt?

Can Jeb Bush Be Convinced He’s The GOP’s Best Bet in 2012?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: This week will feature an exclusive interview  with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).

Also guests Former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and former Middle East Correspondent Robin Wright will discuss Egyptian events.

The roundtable guests are mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed (D), freshman member of congress supported by the Tea Party, Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-IL), former Clinton White House press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks, and Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Edward S. Walker, the former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, and John Negroponte, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, join us for the third straight week to assess the last 19 days in Egypt and the days to come in the Middle East.

And South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham will join us for a discussion about what the Egyptian revolution means for American foreign policy.

Finally, Jacob Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and author of President Obama’s 2012 federal budget proposal, will join us exclusively on Sunday. He says “the easy cuts are behind us,” but will the Obama administration make enough hard cuts to satisfy a more fiscally conservative populace?

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: : A live special edition with the latest from the revolution in Egypt. The scenes from Tahrir Square and elsewhere around Egypt have captivated the world. The sense of joy and elation is breathtaking. But, the question is, what’s next? The road ahead to democracy is a long one.

Where do Egypt and the opposition movement go from here?

And the big question is: will the Egyptian military, an organization that has enjoyed over 50 years of essentially running the country, really hand over power now to a democratic Egypt? A GPS panel with Richard Haass and Steven Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations dig deeper into that question.

Also, the financial crisis destroyed the reputations of many banks and bankers. One baker who came out of the crisis with his reputation intact was JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Hear what he has to say about what caused the crisis and who made it worse. Could it have been YOU?

“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”

John Nichols: Kucinich Says Obama Should Face 2012 Democratic Primary Challenge From the Left

Congressman Dennis Kucinich will not challenge President Obama for in the 2012 Democratic primaries-“I’m focusing on being re-elected to the House of Representatives”-but he thinks Obama should face a foe for the presidential nomination.

“I think primaries can have the opportunity of raising the issues and make the Democratic candidate a stronger candidate,” Kucinich, who sought the party nod in 2004 and 2008, said Thursday. “I think it’s safe to predict that President Obama will continue to be the nominee of the Democratic primary, but he can be a stronger nominee if he receives a strong challenge in a primary.”

Nicholas D. Kristof: Avoiding a New Pharaoh

But the game isn’t over, and now a word of caution. I worry that senior generals may want to keep (with some changes) a Mubarak-style government without Mubarak. In essence the regime may have decided that Mubarak had become a liability and thrown him overboard – without any intention of instituting the kind of broad, meaningful democracy that the public wants. Senior generals have enriched themselves and have a stake in a political and economic structure that is profoundly unfair and oppressive. And remember that the military running things directly really isn’t that different from what has been happening: Mubarak’s government was a largely military regime (in civilian clothes) even before this. Mubarak, Vice President Suleiman and so many others – including nearly all the governors – are career military men. So if the military now takes over, how different is it?

Bob Herbert: When Democracy Weakens

As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.

While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, and the politicians dance.

Charles Blow: Repeal, Restrict and Repress

Republican state lawmakers, emboldened by their swollen ranks, have a message for minorities, women, immigrants and the poor: It’s on!

In the first month of the new legislative season, they have introduced a dizzying number of measures on hot-button issues in statehouses around the country as part of what amounts to a full-throttle mission to repeal, restrict and repress.

“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”

Mohamed ElBaradei: The Next Step for Egypt’s Opposition

WHEN I was a young man in Cairo, we voiced our political views in whispers, if at all, and only to friends we could trust. We lived in an atmosphere of fear and repression. As far back as I can remember, I felt outrage as I witnessed the misery of Egyptians struggling to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads and get medical care. I saw firsthand how poverty and repression can destroy values and crush dignity, self-worth and hope.

Half a century later, the freedoms of the Egyptian people remain largely denied. Egypt, the land of the Library of Alexandria, of a culture that contributed groundbreaking advances in mathematics, medicine and science, has fallen far behind. More than 40 percent of our people live on less than $2 per day. Nearly 30 percent are illiterate, and Egypt is on the list of failed states.

Paul Krugman: Abraham Lincoln, Inflationist

There was a time when Republicans used to refer to themselves, proudly, as “the party of Lincoln.” But you don’t hear that line much these days. Why?

The main answer, presumably, lies in the G.O.P.’s decision, long ago, to seek votes from Southerners angered by the end of legal segregation. With the old Confederacy now the heart of the Republican base, boasting about the party’s Civil War-era legacy is no longer advisable.

But sooner or later, Republicans were bound to notice other reasons to disavow Lincoln. He was, after all, the first president to institute an income tax. And he was also the first president to issue a paper currency – the “greenback” – that wasn’t backed by gold or silver. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its people than to debase its currency,” declared Representative Paul Ryan in one of two hearings Congress held on Wednesday on monetary policy. So much, then, for the Great Liberator.

Which brings me to the story of what went on in those monetary hearings.

Bernie Sanders: Organizing Help Wanted

We must defend America’s middle class before millionaires and billionaires own the entire country.

There is a war going on in this country and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am referring to the war waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth.

On the floor of the Senate, we discuss a lot of things. But one thing we fail to talk about is who is winning in this economy and who is losing, and what that means for parents struggling to survive while working longer hours with lower wages, and worrying about whether their children will have the same kind of standard of living they have.

Right now, the top 1 percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America. The top 1 percent controls more than the bottom 50 percent. It’s not only that the rich are getting richer. The very, very rich are getting richer. In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.

Update: Hosni Mubarak has resigned as announced on Egyptian State TV by Suleiman the torturer.  The Army has taken over the government.  Is this good news?  As Mao said about the invention of fire for China- too soon to tell. – ek

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and Al-Masry Al-Youm: English Edition

The Guardian has a Live Blog from their reporters in Egypt that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 11

Also follow the Live blog at mishima’s Ignoring Asia.

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English.

Last night’s announcement by President Hosni Mubarak that he was not leaving office infuriated the Egyptian people who immediately marched from Tahrir Square through dark Cairo streets to the building of the state run television station for a loud but peaceful demonstration. Today portends to be another day of peaceful marches and protests with a planned march from Tahrir Square to the Presidential Palace. Protests are planned throughout the country but everyone is anxious with the rise in anger and Vice President Omar Suleiman’s speech that was taken as an offensive. Al Jazeera is reporting that “Egyptian military’s supreme council has held an ‘important’ meeting and will issue a statement soon”. So far the military has remained on the sidelines. They were, however, embarrassed by Mubarak’s continued refusal to leave office since they had made public announcement that indicated that the protesters demands were going to be met. Day eighteen promises to be large and loud and let us all hope peaceful and successful.

Or the stuff you won’t hear from the MSM. The blogosphere is a big place and there is a lot going on that gets lost in all those pixels. The subtle background, the nuances to the top political news that don’t get aired in prime time. Lots of stories get buried or just ignored in news dumps. The White House does it all the time releasing stories late on Friday nights in hopes that in the rush to start the weekend and the media misses, or decides its not important enough.

* Not really under the radar but with all the news breaking about Egypt it is in a “holding pattern”. From Politico:

Sen. Jon Kyl announces his retirement from Senate

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl announced Thursday that he would retire after his current term, creating the fifth open seat Senate race of the 2012 cycle.

Speaking at a press conference in Phoenix, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate said, “There’s more to life than being a United States senator. I never anticipated I would be in public service for 26 years.”

* A list of the “insane” witnesses that testified before Ron Paul’s House Energy and Commerce committee. Be prepared, the next two years are going to be quite amusing.

The Parade of the Republican “Kooks” and Shills

Testifying on the GOP’s behalf today: A man who calls Lincoln a “horrific tyrant” and an all-star cast of polluters

The Koch brothers have bought the government on e congress critter at a time. The Koch Committee’s Big Oil Witnesses For Upton-Inhofe Pollution Act

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), who has received $9,000 from Koch Industries since 2008, will chair the subcommittee hearing on the Upton-Inhofe “Energy Tax Prevention Act,” hatched at a secret meeting between the bill’s sponsors and polluter lobbyists. The Republican witness list is a cavalcade of the nation’s worst polluters and oil-funded ideologues.

* The subjucation and legalized murder of women sponsored by the American Taliban.

‘Forcible Rape’ Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding

by Amanda Terkel

WASHINGTON — After significant public blowback, House Republicans last week promised to drop a controversial provision in their high-priority No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would redefine rape. But almost a week later, that language is still in the bill.

Last week, a spokesman for the bill’s principal sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), said, “The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment.” The Hyde Amendment bans taxpayer dollars from being used for abortions, except in cases of incest and rape — not just “forcible rape,” as the Smith bill, H.R. 3, would have it.

But as The New York Times first noted on Wednesday, the “forcible rape” language remains. Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the top-ranking Democrat on the House judiciary subcommittee focusing on constitutional issues, told The Huffington Post that while Nadler hopes the bill will soon be changed, they have been treating it as it’s written.

“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”

Essam El-Errian: What the Muslim Brothers Want

The Egyptian people have spoken, and we have spoken emphatically. In two weeks of peaceful demonstrations we have persistently demanded liberation and democracy. It was groups of brave, sincere Egyptians who initiated this moment of historical opportunity on Jan. 25, and the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to joining the national effort toward reform and progress.

In more than eight decades of activism, the Muslim Brotherhood has consistently promoted an agenda of gradual reform. Our principles, clearly stated since the inception of the movement in 1928, affirm an unequivocal position against violence. For the past 30 years we have posed, peacefully, the greatest challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak, while advocating for the disenfranchised classes in resistance to an oppressive regime.

Essam El-Errian is a member of the guidance council of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Roger Cohen: Wael Ghonim’s Egypt

CAIRO – The sea of people pulsated with energy, galvanized by the words of Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive who got the Mubarak treatment – 12-day disappearance, blindfolding, interrogation – before a tweet that will one day be etched in some granite memorial: “Freedom is a bless that deserves fighting for it.”

The fight goes on. In the Tahrir Square crowd, I ran into Ahmed el-Shamy, a Pfizer executive. He’s 54, and like many of his generation who have known only dictatorship since the coup of 1952, he can hardly believe his eyes. “Our youth makes fear history,” he said.

Ghonim’s tweet and a shattering TV interview afterward got Pfizer employees and much of Egypt re-energized in their quest for the dignity that comes with being actors in a nation’s destiny rather than its pawns. A sign I’ve seen sums things up: “Tahrir Square – closed for constitutional changes.”

(emphasis mine)

Robert Riech: Why the Republican Attack on “Job-Killing Regulations” Is Dumb

Republicans aim to end all “job-killing regulations” — especially those that, according to House Speaker John Boehner, are “strangling” business with detailed requirements over health, safety, the environment, corporate governance and finance.

Here’s another instance of where the White House’s attempt to preempt Republican rhetoric (the president said last week his administration would root out all nonsensical and inefficient regulation) ends up legitimizing it — and re-framing the public debate around an issue that’s hardly central to what ails America.

The reason we have continued sky-high unemployment has nothing to do with excessive regulation. There was no sudden outpouring of federal regulation in 2007 before the economy tanked and millions lost their jobs.

Robert Sheer: Hey Obama, Read WikiLeaks

After a good start, the Obama administration’s response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship. Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a “Mubarak consigliere.” The script is out of an all-too-familiar playbook: Pick this longtime chief of Egyptian intelligence who has consistently done our bidding in matters of torture and retrofit him as a modern democratic leader. But this time the Egyptian street will not meekly go along.

BREAKING: Reports indicate Mubarak will possibly step down in an address to the Egyptian people tonight.  It is unclear if he intends to hand over power to Suleiman or a Military Council and whether or not new elections will be held in 60 days.- ek

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and Al-Masry Al-Youm: English Edition

The Guardian has a Live Blog from their reporters in Egypt that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 10

Also follow the Live blog at mishima’s Ignoring Asia.

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English.

Up Date 2030hrs EST: Here is the written statement issued by the White House from President Obama regarding today’s events:

The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient. Too many Egyptians remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy, and it is the responsibility of the government to speak clearly to the Egyptian people and the world. The Egyptian government must put forward a credible, concrete and unequivocal path toward genuine democracy, and they have not yet seized that opportunity.

As we have said from the beginning of this unrest, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people. But the United States has also been clear that we stand for a set of core principles. We believe that the universal rights of the Egyptian people must be respected, and their aspirations must be met. We believe that this transition must immediately demonstrate irreversible political change, and a negotiated path to democracy. To that end, we believe that the emergency law should be lifted. We believe that meaningful negotiations with the broad opposition and Egyptian civil society should address the key questions confronting Egypt’s future: protecting the fundamental rights of all citizens; revising the Constitution and other laws to demonstrate irreversible change; and jointly developing a clear roadmap to elections that are free and fair.

We therefore urge the Egyptian government to move swiftly to explain the changes that have been made, and to spell out in clear and unambiguous language the step by step process that will lead to democracy and the representative government that the Egyptian people seek. Going forward, it will be essential that the universal rights of the Egyptian people be respected. There must be restraint by all parties. Violence must be forsaken. It is imperative that the government not respond to the aspirations of their people with repression or brutality. The voices of the Egyptian people must be heard.

The Egyptian people have made it clear that there is no going back to the way things were: Egypt has changed, and its future is in the hands of the people. Those who have exercised their right to peaceful assembly represent the greatness of the Egyptian people, and are broadly representative of Egyptian society. We have seen young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian join together, and earn the respect of the world through their non-violent calls for change. In that effort, young people have been at the forefront, and a new generation has emerged. They have made it clear that Egypt must reflect their hopes, fulfill their highest aspirations, and tap their boundless potential. In these difficult times, I know that the Egyptian people will persevere, and they must know that they will continue to have a friend in the United States of America.

US and world wrongfooted by Mubarak as White House tries to keep up

By refusing to leave office, the Egyptian president has exposed Obama’s inability to decisively influence the country

The Obama administration has been embarrassingly wrongfooted as Hosni Mubarak confounded expectations by refusing to stand down.

The Egyptian president’s speech came only hours after Barack Obama and the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, had appeared to give credence to rumours that he was heading for the exit.

The decision by Mubarak to transfer presidential power to his vice-president, Omar Suleiman, but not leave office caused dismay in the US and around the world. The British government issued a cautious statement saying it was looking closely at Mubarak’s and Suleiman’s speeches, but the disappointment felt by the White House was shared in private in London and elsewhere.

The Obama administration has been putting pressure on Mubarak since last week to stand down straight away, but Mubarak, in what appeared to be a direct snub to the US president, said he would not bow to international pressure.

This is mind bending. Faced with rising heating prices of oil and natural gas, the President wants to cut energy assistance for the poor by cutting $3 billion from LIHEAP funding. But, heaven forbid, we should cut from the sacred cow of defense spending or Homeland Security, or end the Bush tax cuts black holes of the budget deficit.

How many people, if any, might actually lose the assistance is difficult to determine. Officials were quick to point out that LIHEAP spending has grown significantly over the past several years as the government tried to keep up with rising gas prices. In 2008, the government spent $2.8 billion on LIHEAP. In 2009, thanks to the Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus bill, the figure jumped to $8.1 billion. So the cut from that high level restores LIHEAP to something close to where it was before Obama took office. Other circumstances, such as the weather and fuel prices, could effect the distribution of benefits.

Still, despite the uncertainties surrounding the proposed cut, it is dramatic. LIHEAP has been semi-sacred for most Democrats and many Republicans–a program that carries an emotional resonance as it was designed to keep poor people, particularly older poor people, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. “A lot of people in the Northeast are going to be unhappy,” an administration official briefed on the budget said.

This is what’s happening around the country;

N.H. gets additional $14m in heating aid; Maine to get another $23m

ROCHESTER – Thanks to help from the federal government, potentially thousands of New Hampshire and Maine households won’t be left out in the cold this winter.

On Tuesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced the Granite State will receive an additional $13,924,612 in funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides heating aid to households in need.

According to a release from Shaheen, the funds are in addition to the $19,767,875 HHS has already released to the state as of Dec. 10, and bring New Hampshire’s Fiscal Year 2011 total through March 4 to $33,692,487 – nearly equal to the total it received during the same period last year.

Community Advocates, Entergy Employees Seek Sustained Funding to Help Low-Income Customers in Need Pay Energy Costs

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7, 2011 PRNewswire — Entergy Corporation employees and advocates for low-income residents are in Washington, D.C., this week to ask Congress for funding to help low-income families, the elderly and the disabled pay energy costs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

On Feb. 9, Entergy employees and nonprofit group representatives will be among more than 140 advocates from across the country participating in the National Fuel Funds Network’s Washington Action Day for LIHEAP. Entergy employees are there as part of their ongoing commitment to help low-income customers. LIHEAP is America’s primary tool to help working-poor families pay for home energy costs, especially those families with preschoolers, elderly or disabled members.

Frigid winter weather forces poor to choose heat or rent

Poor face crunch as utility bills soar when temperatures plunge

A mother had her electricity cut off this week even as more snow and cold headed for Nashville.

The working woman had the choice, “pay the rent or pay the utility bill,” after she got behind with a large December power bill, said Tanya Gray of the Martha O’Bryan Center, where the woman sought help Wednesday.

Colder-than-normal temperatures last month and in January have sent utility bills spiraling up.

Local agency will be able to help poor heat their homes after all

An organization will be able to continue to help low-income families stay warm in the winter after all.

One week ago Mid Michigan Community Action got a letter notifying it would lose more than $500,000 in funding.  The state said it was taking the money back effective January 31, 2011 because the federal government cut funding to the state’s low income energy assistance program or LIHEAP.

snip

Then, late Monday the state notified Mid Michigan Community Action it would not be reclaiming the funding after all.  The federal government reinstated funding after many voiced concerns such cuts could be deadly.

This President keeps trampling on those who can least afford it and his supporters will make excuses for him. This isn’t the way create jobs or solve the budget problems. Disgusting

Or the stuff you won’t hear from the MSM. The blogosphere is a big place and there is a lot going on that gets lost in all those pixels. The subtle background, the nuances to the top political news that don’t get aired in prime time. Lots of stories get buried or just ignored in news dumps. The White House does it all the time releasing stories late on Friday nights in hopes that in the rush to start the weekend and the media misses, or decides its not important enough.

* The MSM is bored with events in Egypt but the protests continue larger and louder and protesters are telling the White house to “butt out” and are warning of a coup. Protesters have blocked Parliament and many workers have gone on strike throughout Egypt. (I will have an up date on this later.) Meanwhile you can follow the latest events at Al Jazeera and The Guardian.

* Not so much “under the radar”, this morning there is the news that Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) will not run for re-election in 2012. The election is setting to be up a re-run of 2006 with the Republican nominee, George “Macaca” Allen. Webb eked out that victory and most likely with his decision it will fall back into “red” hands. Josh Marshall at TPM thinks that that may not be the outcome and gives his take bases on a PPP poll.

Prior to Webb’s announcement, former Gov. Tim Kaine (D) had said repeatedly that he was not interested in running. However, in PPP’s poll, he polled even better than Webb and was beating Allen by 6 points. And that was back in November. So pretty much at the nadir of Dems’ fortunes.

Perhaps, Kaine will rethink and run.

* While we were all taken a back by the defeat of the Patriot Act renewal, the cold hard fact is that it will most likely pass later this week with a simple majority but with a lot more debate and some amendments. While 26 of the Tea Party caucus voted “nay”, this is the sad truth:

Only 26 Republicans voted against the bill, and there are 52 members of the Republican Tea Party Caucus, whose chairperson, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) voted for reauthorization along with most of the rest of her caucus. As Slate’s Dave Weigel  points out, only eight of the 26 were Republican freshmen elected last November.

* Bank of America has its woes of late and has been targeted by Wikileaks for its next big revelation. In a lame effort to bring down Wikileaks, BoA hired a security firm to investigate and bring down, Glenn Greenwald. Instead the firm, HBGary Federal, had the tables turned on them by that band of merry hackers, Anonymous, who “attacked the HBGary Federal computer system, defacing their website. They also took control of Aaron Barr’s personal twitter account where they posted his home address, telephone number, social security number, and an archive containing 50,000 messages from his HBGary email account”. This is part of the message sent to HBGary by Anonymous:

   You believe that you can sell the information you’ve found to the FBI? False. Now, why is this one false? We’ve seen your internal documents, all of them, and do you know what we did? We laughed. Most of the information you’ve “extracted” is publicly available via our IRC networks. The personal details of Anonymous “members” you think you’ve acquired are, quite simply, nonsense.

   So why can’t you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we’re going to give it to them for free. Your gloriously fallacious work can be a wonder for all to scour, as will all of your private emails (more than 44,000 beauties for the public to enjoy). Now as you’re probably aware, Anonymous is quite serious when it comes to things like this, and usually we can elaborate gratuitously on our reasoning behind operations, but we will give you a simple explanation, because you seem like primitive people:

   You have blindly charged into the Anonymous hive, a hive from which you’ve tried to steal honey. Did you think the bees would not defend it? Well here we are. You’ve angered the hive, and now you are being stung.

LMAO

* In the “we are against tax hikes, unless” category. TPM reports that, in a Republican version of Sharia law,  Republicans are proposing a massive tax hike on private insurance  and businesses should they cover any abortion, even in the case of the woman’s life. Yeah, let ’em bleed to death, there are more women than men anyway and most of those who will die are poor.  

“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”

Frances Fox Piven: The real threat of Glenn Beck’s fantasies

It’s harm not to myself, but to American democracy that I fear from the Fox News host’s paranoid theories of social collapse

When the process of governing is incomprehensible, manipulation and propaganda thrives. The strange stories that Glenn Beck creates with his chalkboard gain traction with Americans, who are made anxious by the large changes that have overtaken the United States, including the election of a black president and the increasing racial diversity of the population, deindustrialisation and the decline of American power abroad, as well as cultural changes in sexual and family norms.

By telling simple fairy tales that trace these big and complex changes to the machinations of particular people, Beck makes the changes comprehensible in a way, and also makes the people who are presumably responsible the targets of his listeners’ frustration and outrage. Partly because it is utterly irrational, and partly because it is an effort to bully and intimidate his political opponents, this is dangerous for democratic politics.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Needed: New national security thinking

The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen reveal some uncomfortable truths about this country’s foreign policy. The Obama administration – caught between not wanting to abandon Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, a cruel dictator who has been a loyal ally, and wanting to guide or support a popular uprising that will define the future – is caught in a replay of a scene we see over and over again.

America unfurls the flag of democracy and human rights rhetorically, but we ally ourselves with “stability” – that is, all too often, with dictatorship: Cuba’s Batista, Nicaragua’s Somoza, Chile’s Pinochet, South Africa’s apartheid regime, Egypt’s Mubarak, Iran’s shah, Indonesia’s Suharto, the Philippines’ Marcos and many more. When the people finally revolt, we flounder, usually concerned more about shoring up the existing regime than supporting democracy.

Katherine Gallagher: George Bush: no escaping torture charges

Sooner or later, Bush will step into a country where he will be prosecuted for authorising the abuses of the ‘war on terror’

Late last year, former US President George W Bush recounted in his memoir, Decision Points, that when he was asked in 2002 if it was permissible to waterboard a detainee held in secret CIA custody outside the United States, answered “damn right”. This “decision point” led to the waterboarding of that person 183 times in one month. Others were waterboarded, as well.

Waterboarding is torture. In the past, the US prosecuted and convicted Japanese officials who waterboarded US and allied prisoners. US Attorney General Eric Holder has unequivocally stated that waterboarding is torture.

The United States is under an absolute obligation under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) to investigate, prosecute and punish torturers. And yet, here was the former president of the United States admitting he authorised torture. And nothing.