Tag: Opinion

The second-to-last witness in the government’s case against Jeffrey Sterling, FBI Special Agent Ashley Hunt, introduced a number of things she had collected over the course of her 7.5 year investigation into James Risen’s chapter on Operation Merlin. That included a few things – most notably two lines from Risen’s credit card records from 2004 – that in no conceivable way incriminated Sterling. [..]

But don’t worry, Eric Holder generously decided not to call Risen to testify against Sterling after having hounded him – in this and the warrantless wiretap investigation – for 6 years already, both Jack Goldsmith and Ben Wittes insist.

Both men seem to vastly underestimate how DOJ’s actions in the last decade impact journalism. And both men seem to misunderstand what just happened in the Jeffrey Sterling trial, where DOJ succeeded in exposing a man to 40 years in prison, based largely on metadata, without even having the key pieces of evidence at issue in the case (almost certainly because of CIA’s doing, not Sterling’s).

Joe Conason: Why Jeb Bush Can’t Escape Dubya’s Dubious Legacy

Being singled out as “the smart brother” in an American political and financial dynasty like the Bush family must be a heavy load. But Jeb Bush went far to dispel that burdensome description with his debut address on foreign policy. With its melange of mispronunciations, mistakes and casually ignorant utterances, Bush’s speech before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs instantly reminded listeners of the not-so-smart brother-the one who already became the second Bush president.

Such moments of recognition and remembrance are not auspicious for brother Jeb, whose burgeoning presidential ambition depends on persuading voters that he is emphatically not his brother George W.-or as he put it in an ad-libbed line: “I am my own man.” But his Chicago outing offered little to reassure Americans wary of the ruinous foreign policy record of the Bush-Cheney administration (an electoral subset that includes almost everyone).

David Sirota: Tax Fairness Could Mean More Resources

Roads are crumbling, bridges require repairs, schools need upgrades and public pension systems remain underfunded. How can states and cities find the money to address any of these problems? One way could be through their tax codes.

According to a new report, if the rich paid the same state and local tax rate as the middle class, states and cities would have hundreds of billions of dollars more a year in public revenue.  [..]

That preceded the new report from the left-leaning groups Good Jobs First and the Keystone Research Center which finds that if tax laws were changed to compel the highest income earners to pay the same rate as everyone else, states and localities would rake in up to $128 billion a year in new revenue. If just the top 1 percent of earners were compelled to pay the typical middle-class tax rate, the report says the change would raise more than $68 billion in new annual revenues.

Sophia Cope and Jeremy Gillula: AT&T is putting a price on privacy. That is outrageous

Poor customers should not have to choose between being spied on and forking over money

Imagine if the postal service started offering discount shipping in exchange for permission to scan every letter you receive and then target you with junk mail based on the contents of your personal mail.

One of the largest telecommunications companies in America, AT&T, is doing just that for customers of its super-fast gigabit broadband service, which is rolling out in select cities. Though a few months ago, it dropped the use of an undeletable “supercookie” that tracked subscribers’ web browsing activity, AT&T reportedly plans to track and monetize its broadband customers’ internet activity – “webpages you visit, the time you spend on each, the links or ads you see and follow, and the search terms you enter” – to deliver targeted “ads online, via email or through direct mail“. [..]

What if customers do not want to be spied on by their internet service providers? AT&T allows gigabit service subscribers to opt out – for a $29 fee per month.

But charging extra for privacy has significant social justice implications: broadband access is hard to come by for many communities, and subscribers on the lower rungs of the income ladder may not be able to afford an additional fee to protect their privacy. Privacy should not be reserved for the rich, and the poor should not be forced to choose between broadband, an essential tool in modern life, and their privacy.

Recently, Greece’s radical leftist party Syriza claimed victory in their national election. The party vowed to break ties with the European Central bank and roll back the EU’s neoliberal economic agenda. True to their word, they are already implementing some of those changes. From the birthplace of democracy, excitement is spreading across Europe and revitalizing the hope that real change may still be possible through the electoral arena.

The news from Greece also energized progressive circles in America. For many, the question arises: Can this rebirth of democracy happen in the U.S.? After Obama’s absolute betrayal of his promised “hope and change”, the Occupy Movement began in lower Manhattan as a response to the rigged system that has been creating economic inequality approaching the level of feudalism.

This was an awakening to a broken system of checks and balances and it pushed people outside of the electoral arena to find solutions to these problems. Yet, by 2012, with massive coordinated police brutality around the nation, the demise of Occupy became apparent and the movement lost momentum. Now it seems that the Greeks are doing what it appears Occupy intended to do and failed. What about Americans?

Lawrence Lessig: Something Is Going Right: Net Neutrality and the FCC

Imagine that when you plugged something into an electrical outlet, the outlet queried the device and demanded identification. Was it a Sony TV or Panasonic? Was it a Dell or an Apple? And then based on that identification, different levels of quality or reliability of electricity were served at different prices. No doubt such a regime would benefit utility companies. I’ve not yet met anyone who thinks it would benefit innovation. Thus, it would be something possibly good for network providers, but plainly bad for the market generally.  [..]

Defenders of the status quo are now frantically filling the tubes with FUD about the FCC’s decision. But as you work through this FUD, keep one basic fact clear. Relative to practically every other comparable nation, America’s broadband sucks. Seriously, sucks. Even France beats us in cost and quality. And as the genius Yochai Benkler established in the monumental report by the Berkman Center commissioned by the FCC after Obama was elected, the single most important reason our broadband sucks is the sell-out regulatory strategy of the prior decade at least. Nations that imposed neutrality-like rules beat us, in cost and quality. They have more competition, faster growth, and better access. So for anyone remotely connected to reality-based policy making, it has been clear forever that America made a wrong turn in its regulatory strategy, and that we needed an about face.

Peter van Buren: War Porn

In the age of the all-volunteer military and an endless stream of war zone losses and ties, it can be hard to keep Homeland enthusiasm up for perpetual war. After all, you don’t get a 9/11 every year to refresh those images of the barbarians at the airport departure gates. In the meantime, Americans are clearly finding it difficult to remain emotionally roiled up about our confusing wars in Syria and Iraq, the sputtering one in Afghanistan, and various raids, drone attacks, and minor conflicts elsewhere.

Fortunately, we have just the ticket, one that has been punched again and again for close to a century: Hollywood war movies (to which the Pentagon is always eager to lend a helping hand).American Sniper, which started out with the celebratory tagline “the most lethal sniper in U.S. history” and now has the tagline “the most successful war movie of all time,” is just the latest in a long line of films that have kept Americans on their war game. Think of them as war porn, meant to leave us perpetually hyped up. Now, grab some popcorn and settle back to enjoy the show.

Norman Lear: Don’t You Just Love People Who Love America?

I mean, how rare is that! Can we ever thank enough the red, white and blue patriots — the true America-lovers — like Rudy Giuliani for pointing the finger at those, like our president, who so clearly don’t love it. [..]

Anyway, the president may use the English language better, but it’s clear he wasn’t brought up as well as Giuliani was brought up, through love of America. And I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but I guess Rudy was brought up better than me, too. See, I can’t really tell when someone doesn’t love America. Unless I catch them stomping on a flag pin. Or on another American because he doesn’t love America enough.

Going after history classes that don’t teach “American Exceptionalism” is anything but patriotic

Oklahoma House Republicans on the Common Education Committee voted on Tuesday to ban advanced placement US history courses, because they think it shows “what is bad about America”. If I were Oklahoma, I’d want to forget about “what is bad about” American history, too, especially in my corner of it! [..]

Just last month, Education Week gave the state a D- on education and ranked it 48th in the nation. Clearly, Oklahoma could move up from being third dumbest, fourth most incarcerated, and sixth fattest state if it just ignored its unpleasant history, right?

Nationally, if history teachers were to banish everything “bad” about America from our classrooms [..] and to instead only teach about what was truly exceptional about America, what would be left to give lessons on?

Neil Armstrong, Toni Morrison, and the snuggie? [..]

This latest anti-education effort, which will only punish really smart kids (who are the ones who want to earn college history credits while in a high school AP course) came about because Republicans think the coursework doesn’t shill for “American exceptionalism” enough. But why would Oklahoma Republicans – who embrace education “options” – want to rob all of their brightest high school seniors of the choice to inexpensively earn college history credits just because their history lessons may be critical and not necessarily full of pro-American propaganda?

Ted Rall: Obama Destroyed Libya

Barack Obama destroyed Libya.

What he did to Libya is as bad as what Bush did to Iraq and Afghanistan. He doesn’t deserve a historical pass.

When Obama took office in 2009, Libya was under the clutches of longtime dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. But things were looking up.

Bush and Gaddafi had cut a deal to lift Western trade sanctions in exchange for Libya acknowledging and paying restitution for its role in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In a rare triumph for Bush, Libya also agreed to give up its nuclear weapons research program. Libyan and Western analysts anticipated that Gaddafi’s dictatorship would be forced to accept liberal reforms, perhaps even free elections and rival political parties, in order to attract Western investment.

Libya in 2009 was prosperous. As citizens of a major oil – and natural gas-exporting nation, Libyans enjoyed high salaries, low living expenses, generous social benefits, not to mention law and order. It seems like a mirage today.

Cenk Uygur: You Know You’re a Bigot When…

You know you’re a bigot when you can’t take out the word “Muslim” from a sentence you stated and replace it with “Jew” and still have it be socially acceptable. Let’s start out nice and easy. A sentence I get with great regularity:

“You’re a Muslim apologist.”

Ok, let’s try our simple test here:

“You’re a Jew apologist.”

Wow, that sounded ugly, didn’t it? Wait, let’s be fair and phrase it slightly differently and see if it gets any better:

“You’re an apologist for the Jews.”

Nope, that wasn’t any better.

So, why are you obviously bigoted when you say it about Jewish people and not equally bigoted when you say it about Muslims? It’s partly because there are very few people in America ready to stick up for Muslims. That’s, ironically, because they will be called Muslim apologists.

Robert L, Borosage: The Case for a Populist Challenger in the Democratic Primaries

A raft of reasons are floated for why someone should challenge the prohibitive favorite, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries, most of them spurious. Yes, polls show Democrats want a contest, not a coronation for their presidential nomination. The press and talking heads also yearn for a contest, if only to have something to cover. But this doesn’t justify a run.

Contrary to many pundits, Hillary (first name used as shorthand to distinguish her from her husband) doesn’t need a primary contest to get her campaign in shape. She’s already been central to three presidential campaigns, as underdog, incumbent and, disastrously, overwhelming favorite. She has every high-priced operative in the party. If she doesn’t know how to put together a campaign by now, an upstart challenger won’t help. [..]

There are two compelling reasons for a populist challenger to get in the Democratic primaries: a fundamental debate about the direction of the country has only just begun and must be expanded, and a growing populist movement would benefit from a populist challenge to Hillary.

The global newswire Associated Press announced this January that it will no longer refer to the app-based cab-hail service Uber as “ride-sharing.”

The move follows criticism that services like Uber and Lyft are very far from sharing; to the contrary, they are taking more than they’re giving.

That’s certainly the view of Bhairavi Desai co-founder and director of the National Taxi Worker’s Alliance. Desai told GRITtv this week that while it characterizes itself as an innovative disruption, Uber’s more like Walmart on wheels. They’re not democratizing the workplace, she said, they’re de-regulating it or rather, re-regulating it, to the benefit of app-owning bosses and the detriment of drivers.

Jessica Valenti: Why is bearing children seen as more important than surviving pregnancy?

There is nothing selfish about wanting to live – it’s the most simple, instinctive, human desire there is. Still, most of us – men and women – feel we would lay down our lives for our children; there’s an instinct in that, too.

But there is something about the spectacle of anti-abortion advocates celebrating women who die trying to save their unborn babies that feels a bit too gleeful – they’re shockingly unabashed in their pushing the idea that the lives of adult women aren’t nearly as important as their ability to bring children into the world. [..]

Why must the best mothers be dead mothers?

I am scared for women who have been taught to believe that the most important, beautiful thing they can do is perish. There are already so many ways in which women jump through hoops in order not to exist: we silence ourselves, making sure we’re quiet and unobtrusive; some of us starve ourselves, getting smaller and smaller as to not take up too much space. And this noble disappearing act has become so commonplace that there mere act of being alive – making our voices heard, taking up space, choosing to live – is seen as a disruption of natural order.

Lindy West: Could we please not forgive Sarah Palin? She is an unrepentant nightmare

Conservative pundit Sarah Palin made a cute, sporting little cameo on Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary show this weekend – winking at her own disastrous 2008 vice-presidential run, which was memorably skewered at the time by SNL’s Tina Fey. In the bit on Sunday night, Palin piped up during a Q&A with Jerry Seinfeld to ask, “Just curious, Jerry, how much do you think [SNL producer] Lorne Michaels would pay me if I were to run in 2016 with Donald Trump as my running mate?”

“I don’t think there’s a number too big,” Seinfeld replied.

Har har. Cute! See, Fey’s Palin impression was a big hit for the show back in 2008, got marvellous ratings, and will long be remembered as a seminal SNL moment – but not, as one might think, because Sarah Palin was some wacky, harmless goofball destined to be a delightful footnote in the annals of election history. No. Nope.

No. People loved those Tina Fey/Sarah Palin sketches because Sarah Palin is a terrifying, anti-intellectual, anti-choice, gun-toting ideologue who came within a hair’s breadth of one of the most powerful political offices in the world, a dystopian potentiality that could have tangibly affected the lives of literally billions of people. Watching her being flawlessly lampooned – her hypocrisy and pomposity laid bare with a clarity that only comedy can achieve – felt like a gossamer lifeline of hope and sanity to which we could all cling.

In short: Fey’s Palin impression wasn’t important because Palin is trivial and amusing. It was important because Palin is anything but. And we need to remember that.

Jess Zimmerman: Everything you need to know about the social media you’re too old to use

I’m going to assume that you already know how to use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: I’m sure you laughed at the commercial with the old lady and her “Facebook wall”; television has made the existence of Twitter unavoidable; and Instagram’s no-nipple-or-pubes policy is designed to be friendly for the elderly, like us. But people my age (including me; what the hell’s Yik Yak?) have a habit of dealing with new social networking options by gleefully, defensively declaring our ignorance. We don’t need to do that. Keeping up isn’t that hard – for now.

Suppose that by enacting a particular law we’d increase the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. But almost all that growth would go to the richest 1 percent.

The rest of us could buy some products cheaper than before. But those gains would be offset by losses of jobs and wages.

This is pretty much what “free trade” has brought us over the last two decades.

I used to believe in trade agreements. That was before the wages of most Americans stagnated and a relative few at the top captured just about all the economic gains.

Recent trade agreements have been wins for big corporations and Wall Street, along with their executives and major shareholders. They get better access to foreign markets and billions of consumers.

They also get better protection for their intellectual property — patents, trademarks, and copyrights. And for their overseas factories, equipment, and financial assets.

But those deals haven’t been wins for most Americans.

H. A. Goodman: How Jon Stewart Turned Conservative Lies Into Groundbreaking Comedy and Enlightened a Generation

Jon Stewart is a brilliant comedian, but like all entertainers, he needs material in order to create satire and comedy. The Daily Show isn’t a standup routine, it’s a natural consequence of America’s political culture. After all, when Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly represent patriotism and American exceptionalism, the fodder for laughs is endless.

Stewart’s brand of humor and political analyses has always been based on an amusing look at conservative media’s attempt to shape a national narrative. Insane quotes and odd viewpoints on everything from health care to where Obama was born can be found from conservatives today, and the GOP seems to know exactly what God is thinking and even why the good Lord thinks rape is a “gift.” [..]

If conservatives view Jon Stewart as an irresponsible political satirist, it could be because conservative ideology is often times bizarre. The notion of a Muslim president born in Africa, advocating Shariah law and the destruction of our capitalist system, isn’t just a perfect storyline for a comedian like Stewart. People around the country take this mentality seriously, which makes it even funnier. The Daily Show pounces upon this irrationality in our political system.

Gary Hart: Welcome to the Money Primary

The first presidential primary is underway, not simply because the political press cannot wait but because he or she who signs up the most megabucks wins that primary and is well on the way to a nomination. Step right up and participate–that is if you can write a very large check.

This is the saddest commentary on the state of American “democracy” a concerned citizen can think of. Campaigns cost money, a lot of money. Somewhere between 75% and 90% of that money goes to media advertising, even as media commentators (whose salaries it pays) deplore how mercantile campaigns have become. What’s left over goes to compensate increasingly highly paid “strategists”, consultants, media advisors, time buyers, professional organizers, and so forth.

This is fundamental corruption recognized as such by theorists of the republic since Athens. That corruption is not bribery; it is placing narrow, personal, or special interests ahead of the common good. By that definition, the 21st century American Republic is massively corrupt. The money contributed in the Money Primary buys access and access produces results.

I am writing this piece on the margins of a crucial negotiation with my country’s creditors – a negotiation the result of which may mark a generation, and even prove a turning point for Europe’s unfolding experiment with monetary union.

Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. Because I spent many years during my previous life as an academic researching game theory, some commentators rushed to presume that as Greece’s new finance minister I was busily devising bluffs, stratagems and outside options, struggling to improve upon a weak hand.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If anything, my game-theory background convinced me that it would be pure folly to think of the current deliberations between Greece and our partners as a bargaining game to be won or lost via bluffs and tactical subterfuge.

Wendall Potter: It’s Clear Now the Public Option Really Was Needed to Keep Insurers Honest

When members of Congress caved to demands from the insurance industry and ditched their plan to establish a “public option” health plan, the lawmakers also ditched one of their favorite talking points, that a government-run plan was necessary to “keep insurers honest.”

Getting rid of a government-run insurance option was the industry’s top objective during the health care reform debate. Private insurers set out to persuade President Obama and Congressional leaders that they were trustworthy. Lawmakers were led to believe, for one thing, that insurers could be trusted to offer policies that would continue to give Americans’ access to the doctors they had developed relationships with and wanted to keep. And they were persuaded that insurers wouldn’t think of engaging in bait-and-switch tactics that would leave folks with less coverage than they thought they were buying.

Robert Kuttner: Can Greece Force a New Deal?

Greece and the European Union could face a showdown in their debt talks as early as this week. And if you had to place odds right now, the likelihood is that the stubbornness of Europe’s senior leaders will create a catastrophe for both Greece and the EU.

Here is the state of play. The new Greek leaders, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, spent most of the past two weeks making the case for relaxed terms. They hit a stone wall.

Under the current agreement, EU financial institutions spoon-feed loans to Greece, 80 percent of which cycle right out of Greece to pay holders of Greek bonds. Greece itself gets little benefit.

In return, Greece is supposed to continue imposing crushing austerity terms. Most onerously, the Greek government is expected to run a “primary” budget surplus (excluding interest payments) equal to 4.5 percent of GDP. Greece is also supposed to keep cutting wages.

Thanks to this medicine, the Greek economy keeps shrinking and debt as a share of Greek GDP keeps increasing. The policy is madness. But Europe’s leaders refuse to relent.

The popularity of the new Greek government has soared at home, because Greece finally has leaders willing to take a stand. But will they prevail?

Mike Weisser: Stop Arguing With Guns: The Importance of Knowing When to Back Down

According to the FBI, less than 15 percent of homicides each year occur during the commission of a serious crime; i.e., robbery, larceny, burglary or rape. On the other hand, at least 4 out of 5 homicides grow out of arguments, and these arguments involve people who know each other. And we aren’t talking about casual acquaintances — we’re talking about people who knew each other on a continuous basis and had been arguing and fighting over a period of time. The personal connection between shooter and victim in domestic disputes accounts for virtually every single killing in which the victim is a female (who are 15 percent of all murder victims each year) and accounts for 100 percent of all suicide victims who, by definition, have allowed their anger at themselves or others to get out of control.

It’s important to remember that even when we are dealing with violence as a criminal offense, more than 1 million violent crimes were reported to the police in 2013, of which only 1 percent involved homicides using a gun. And the fact that someone has a propensity to behave violently doesn’t ipso facto mean that they would ever express this anger by using a gun. But there is no other form of personal behavior that is as dangerous and costly as pulling a trigger at yourself or someone else. And I don’t think we will get very far just by trying to identify the most violent among us and then figuring out how to keep guns out of their hands. Wouldn’t it be much easier to just get rid of the guns?

“Where will I get my news each night,” lamented Bill Clinton this week. This might have been a reaction to the fall from grace of Brian Williams, America’s top-rated news anchor, who was suspended for embellishing details of his adventures in Iraq. In fact the former US president was anticipating withdrawal symptoms for the impending departure of the comedian Jon Stewart, who – on the same day as Williams’s disgrace – announced that he will step down as the Daily Show host. [..]

Bill Clinton does not mourn alone.

Eugene Robinson: Obama’s Ambivalent War Logic

President Obama’s request to Congress for authority to use military force against the Islamic State explains his view of why to fight this war. But it doesn’t really tell us how.

Obama has asked to be liberated and constrained at the same time. He wants no geographical boundaries placed on his ability to go after the Islamic State and “associated persons or forces.” But he also asks that Congress rule out “enduring offensive ground combat operations” and wants the war authority to expire after three years.

This is walking an awfully fine line. One has to wonder whether the president is trying to satisfy both hawks and doves in Congress-or displaying his own ambivalence about using military force in a situation where, he has said, there is “no American military solution.”

David Sirota: Border Security Is Not an Immigration Cure-All

With the opening of the new Congress, Republican lawmakers have been promising a renewed focus on border security as a supposed cure-all for America’s broken immigration system. Left unaddressed, though, is a simple question: How does border security address the status of millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States?

The answer is that it probably won’t, according to a person who knows a thing or two about immigration: Felipe Calderon.

In a recent interview, the former Mexican president told me that he believes the crackdown on undocumented immigration combined with intensified border security has prompted large numbers of undocumented Mexican laborers to remain in the U.S. permanently-even as many prefer to go home-out of fear they will never be able to return.

Joe Conason: Big Lies, Little Lies and the Punishment of Brian Williams

The harshest penalties usually tend to be brutal, vengeful and excessive-even when the offender is a celebrity journalist like Brian Williams. Suspended without pay from his post as the “NBC Nightly News” anchor for six months, Williams may be facing the end of his career in television news, which would be roughly equivalent to capital punishment.

Williams is in the public dock for telling a false story about his experiences covering the American invasion of Iraq; the disclosure humiliated him, his colleagues and his network when exposed. For the time being, at least, he has lost the trust of many in his audience. Enforced absence from the job he loves-and wanted all his life-is a sanction that will sting far more than the barbed jokes, ugly headlines and lost millions in salary. Off air, he may find time to engage in serious introspection, issue a forthright apology and hope for redemption.

Troubling as his transgression was, I nevertheless hope for his redemption, too.

Yesterday, an outspoken white atheist murdered three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We don’t yet know for sure whether this was a hate crime or whether the killer, Craig Stephen Hicks, had some other motivation; police have said the crime may have grown out of a dispute over parking. We do know that had Hicks been a Muslim and his victims atheists, few would be waiting for all the facts to come in before declaring him a terrorist. We know that there would be the usual calls for other Muslims to condemn the killings, coupled with the usual failure to take note of the many Muslims who did. And we know that demands for Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins to distance themselves from Hicks are largely facetious, because no one really blames them. Violence perpetrated by Muslims is almost always seen as part of a global conspiracy, whereas white men like Hicks are usually seen as isolated psychopaths.

There is, of course, some truth there. An organized jihadist movement exists; an organized cadre of terroristic atheists does not. Yet in the United States, Islamophobia has been a consistent motivator of violence. Hicks’s killing of Yusor Mohammad, her husband, Deah Shaddy Barakat, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, should not be treated like a man-bites-dog story, a reversal of the usual pattern of terrorism. After all, Muslims in the United States are more often the victims of ideological violence than the perpetrators of it.

Maria Margaronis: The New Greek Government Refuses to Agree to Unpayable Debts

At times the conflict between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone looks like a duel to the death. Last night, a seven-hour meeting of Europe’s finance ministers about Greece’s immediate funding needs ended in tetchy silence. There was no common statement; there wasn’t even (to borrow Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’s phrase after his meeting last week with Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble) an agreement to disagree. On Twitter, Greece-watchers tried to come up with ways to marry Greece’s request for a bridge loan with the Eurozone’s insistence on an extension to the bailout memorandum, which the new governing party Syriza has promised to repudiate. Pier? Pontoon? Causeway? Schrödinger’s memorandum, simultaneously dead and alive?

Semantics will play an important part in any eventual solution, which will involve compromises and face-saving wording for both sides. But semantics can’t be all of it-something the Eurozone ministers may not yet have understood. The Syriza government is not just pushing for a better deal-they’re refusing to keep on playing the same self-destructive game, piling debt on unpayable debt tied to impossible conditions. The aim is to reclaim democracy and political possibility-and with them, human lives-from the failed and fatal dogmas of austerity. In this they are backed by 70 percent of the Greek people, twice the proportion that voted for them. Eighty percent also want to stay in the eurozone. The desire-perhaps quixotic, perhaps grandiose, but born of suffering and necessity-is not to abandon Europe but to change it.

Leslie Savan: Finally, Someone Pays for Iraq War Lies – Brian Williams

Everybody’s been asking whether Brian Williams can return as anchor of NBC Nightly News after his six-month suspension for exaggerating an attack on a helicopter ferrying him and an NBC camera crew to a military bridge site in Iraq back in 2003. It’s the big celebrity question of the week, totally replacing our collective wonderment over that weird hat Pharrell Williams (no relation) wore during his Grammys performance last weekend.

But just peaking above the surface in the past couple days is a far more important question: Will the media, prodded by what they’ve judged to be Williams’s “lies,” finally begin to question their own role in boosting the far more serious lies that led to hundreds of thousands of actual deaths in the Iraq war?

Jon Stewart, as usual, saw the ironies. After cracking some gentle jokes at his friend’s expense, Stewart allowed that he’s happy the media is piling on Bri Wi because ” finally someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq war.”