The Agonist - thoughtful, global, timely

Pres. Obama Says "My Sons" in a Speech -- TWICE! -- and THEN He Says "YOUR sons!"

Sat, 26 May 2012 13:56:27 -0400

This article is the purest illustration of 'So? And your point is ... what?' I've ever seen. At least, I can't remember one more perfect:

In two campaign speeches over the last two days, President Barack Obama has twice mistakenly mentioned “my sons” when defending his administration’s regulation requiring virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women, without any fees or co-pay, with sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

Obama, of course, has two daughters--10-year-old Sasha and 13-year-old Malia--but no sons.

On Monday, 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations across the country--including the archdioceses of New York and Washington, D.C. and the University of Notre Dame and Catholic University of America—filed 12 different lawsuits against the Obama administration arguing that because the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith it violates the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

At the Iowa State Fair Grounds on Thursday, Obama said: “We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood or taking away affordable birth control. We don’t need that. I want women to control their own health choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same economic opportunities as my sons. We’re not turning back the clock. We’re not going back there.”

Both the transcript of the Iowa speech distributed by the White House and a video of it posted by the Des Moines Register indicated that Obama mistakenly said “my sons.”

The video of the speech posted by the Des Moines Register also shows that despite his slip about "my sons," the president was speaking with the help of a teleprompter.

On Wednesday at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, Calif., Obama made the same mistaken reference to “my sons.”

“We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood, or taking away access to affordable birth control,” Obama said, according to the White House transcript of his speech. “I want women to control their own health care choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as my sons. We’re not rolling back the clock.”

In other recent speeches, Obama delivered virtually the same line as he did at the Iowa State Fair Grounds and at the Fox Theatre but said "your sons" instead of "my sons."

Is the media trumpeting these slips because they think Barack Obama has become delusional and actually believes he has sons? Or what? Can you say, slow news day?

Memorial Weekend Music

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:38:32 -0400

It'd feel wrong to me to have the usual jukebox post, but post your musical Memorial weekend thoughts here.

Who guards the guardians? IMF and Standard and Poor's

Sat, 26 May 2012 02:06:56 -0400

By Michael Collins

"The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens." Guardian, May 25

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Standard and Poor's are highly placed guardians of the world economy. IMF is supposed to teach developing nations how to be just like us, i.e., onerously indebted to the big banks. Standard and Poor's is the keeper of the credit, ratings that ripple through the economy and impact hundreds of millions. Nobody elected these folks. They were begotten, not made.

After IMF finished helping Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya with privatization and free markets, those nations descended into chaos and they're now broke, all of them, with lower living standards to boot. (See IMF Rates Up Dictatorships Just Before Revolutions)

When Standard and Poor's (S&P) downgraded the credit rating of the United States, money stayed tight although Fed Chairman Bernanke said he was ignoring the change.

Who are these folks anyway?

IMF is headed by Christine Lagarde. (Image: WikiComons) She is still under judicial investigation for settling a law suit in favor of her boss's pal. President Sarkozy appointed Lagarde as Finance Minister. When Sarkozy supporter Bernard Tapie lost a big court case to state owned bank Credit Lyonnais, Lagarde intervened and got the decision reversed. Instead of losing the case, mltimillionaire Tapie walked off with $280 million.

The vaunted S&P relies on integrity and competence. How can that stand after S&P agreed to a consent decreed when the Connecticut State Attorney General charged credit rating company with fraud in rating municipal bonds. Standard and Poor's agreed to all sorts of corrections in their policies, essentially admitting guilt. As if that weren't bad enough, Standard and Poor's played a central role in the inflation and collapse of the real estate bubble. Quite a record!

How arrogant these guardians are. They are the ones in need of guarding.

The Mundanity Of Anarchism

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:06:09 -0400

"From the outside, anarchy might look threatening and scary and exciting. From the inside, anarchy can seem quite boring. But it is a profoundly hopeful type of boring." This more nuanced account of what anarchism is and what anarchists do is a refreshing change from the usual shrill MSM version. A must-read. "

Poetry open thread for Memorial Day weekend

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:57:29 -0400

Team Agonist | Blogistan | May 25

As you all know the only poetry thread rules are: no original poetry unless you just happen to be Maya Angelou or an up and coming poet that has been published. Otherwise stick to what has proven to be good poetry.

originally posted Memorial Day May 29, 2006. Please add your favorites.

Friday Cat Blogging (16 Hours Late Edition)

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:58:59 -0400

Sorry 'bout that, Chief!

A difference so small it's no difference at all

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:45:09 -0400

The Guardian has two good peices that need to be read together today. First, Mehdi Hasan points out that Barack Obama, like Mitt Romney, is an apologist for the 1%. Then Gary Younge writes that while the white working class is often said to 'vote against its own interests' by rejecting Democrats, we could equally ask why poor black and latino folk consistently vote against their interests by turning out for Dems.

Those who are struggling and believe Romney will improve their economic lot are wrong, regardless of their race. Eight years of George W Bush proved that. But it does not follow automatically from that that their home should be supporting Democrats under whom things have gotten less bad less quickly. True, those are the only two choices on offer. But if you're poor they are not great choices. What they need is a party that represents their interests. In a country where corporate money chooses the candidates and therefore shapes the debate that will demand a change in politics, not just politicians.

Or as one of my friends crudely put it: "the difference is that the Dems at least offer to buy you dinner before they date-rape you. But you still don't get that dinner."

Fiddling While The World Burns

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:11:05 -0400

Quote of the day comes from Tove Maria Ryding, of Greenpeace, talking about the depressingly futile latest round of climate talks in Bonn.

"It's absurd to watch governments sit and point fingers and fight like little kids while the scientists explain about the terrifying impacts of climate change."

More here.

Dear A.P., Get Off Your Iran War Horse

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:50:32 -0400

What a shockingly bad lede from A.P. this is:

The U.N. nuclear has found traces of uranium enriched at an Iranian site to a level that is slightly closer to the threshold needed to arm nuclear missiles.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says in a report that its experts have found particles enriched up to 27 percent. That is higher than the 20 percent declared by Iran and closer to the weapons-grade material used in the fissile core of such missiles.

Argh, Iran has stepped over the line! Panic! Start the bombing right now!

Oh wait:

The restricted report says Iran explains the find as a technical glitch. The agency says it is assessing that explanation and has asked for more details, while analysts and diplomats say Iran’s version sounds plausible.

Even David Albright, no stranger to concocting scary Iran stories himself, admits that the trace amounts found are almost certainly a quality control issue and are "embarrassing but not nefarious". Cancel the bombers!

George Jahn, who leads reporting on Iran for the A.P. and wrote this piece, has a long history of banging war drums at every opportunity and a track record of revealing spanner-in-the-works scoops sourced to "an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program" which is a "member of the International Atomic Energy Agency" - that is, Israel. Others like the team of man-Judys at the NYT, Broad and Sanger, or Reueters' Deihl, are hardly any better. They usually force themselves to get the truth in there somewhere, but they'll spin it as negatively as possible.

When reading Western media on Iran, it's best to remember the Spanish-American War and that Pullitzer was one of the pioneers of yellow journalism.

But...we should definitely fear Iran's Oompa-Loompa engineers.

The Man Who Started Libyan War Wants War On Syria Too

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:28:54 -0400

The French Tom Friedman, Bernard-Henri Lévy, is calling for war again. Infamous as the man who convinced his pal Sarkozy that a short, victorious war in Libya would help his election chances - leading Sarko to drag in the Brits and Cameron to drag in the US - he's now looking to the UK's Cameron to lead the charge against Syria. The platform is his new nacissistic movie about how he started the Libya intervention.

According to Lévy the film shows why intervention worked in Libya and not Iraq and how the conditions are present in Syria. “In Iraq we had no international mandate, there was no demand on the ground of the people, there was no representative leader for the forces against Saddam Hussein, in Iraq it was Western versus Arab country in Libya there was a real coalition with Arab countries involved in coalition with Emirati and Qatar forces. Intervention is justified if you have these conditions.”

Luckily - since Syria is a very different and far harder proposition than Libya both militarily and socially and in any case the whole notion of "humanitarian intervention" is on a shaky footing - I doubt Cameron will be so easy to fool.

Canada student protests erupt into political crisis with mass arrests

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:42:01 -0400

Adam Gabbatt | Montreal | May 24

The Guardian - More than 500 people were arrested in Montreal on Wednesday night as protestors defied controversial new law Bill 78

Protests that began in opposition to tuition fees in Canada have exploded into a political crisis with the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators amid a backlash against draconian emergency laws.

More than 500 people were arrested in a demonstration in Montreal on Wednesday night as protesters defied a controversial new law – Bill 78 – that places restrictions on the right to demonstrate. In Quebec City, police arrested 176 people under the provisions of the new law.

Demonstrators have been gathering in Montreal for just over 100 days to oppose tuition increases by the Quebec provincial government. On Tuesday, about 100 people were arrested after organisers say 300,000 people took the streets.

But what began as a protest against university fee increases has expanded to a wider movement to oppose Bill 78, which was rushed through by legislators in Quebec in response to the demonstrations. The bill imposes severe restrictions on protests, making it illegal for protesters to gather without having given police eight hours' notice and securing a permit.

[...]

Martine Desjardins, who represents more than 125,000 students in her role as president of the federation of university students in Quebec, said protesters had been "peaceful" on Wednesday's march.

"It makes a lot of people angry," she said. "We fear that tonight, because there will be more demonstrations going on, people will become a bit more violent, because as you saw yesterday, when you are peaceful, you get arrested."

[...]

Mathieu Murphy-Perron, who has been helping to organise demonstrations against tuition fees since last year, saod: "I would say that I've seen more individuals come out and say: 'You know what? I was neutral on the question of tuition fees, but to bring this draconian law has revolted me and I will take to the streets with you.

[...]

In the meantime the daily marches would continue, she said, adding that protesters were also planning a protest in Ottawa, around 150 miles west of Montreal, on 29 May. Ottawa is in a different province from Montreal, and so safe from the clutches of Bill 78 – introduced only in Quebec.

"It's something to ridicule the bill," she said. "If we are restricted to have a demonstration in Montreal, or in the province, we are going to go outside the province, to Ontario, and have a big demonstration there."

Previously:
90 arrested at Plan Nord protest in Montreal
Massive Montreal rally ends with police clashes

Also:

National Post: Charest brings back old aide as Quebec faces ‘worst social crisis in its history’
National Post: Barbara Kay: Quebec’s mindless mobs reflect French/English divide

CBC: Quebec faces mounting pressure amid student crisis - 694 arrested in Montreal and Quebec City protests

Montreal Gazette: 518 arrested in nightly Montreal student protest
Montreal Gazette: Pot-banging against Bill 78, Quebec law limiting protests, is catching on

BBC: In Pictures. - Quebec currently has the lowest tuition rates in Canada. The government's proposal would raise the fees by 80%, in increments of $254 per year (£160) for seven years.

BBC: Quebec protests: Student rebel with a cause

Rupert Watch, Leveson Testimony Spells Doom for Cameron and Hunt

Thu, 24 May 2012 16:36:32 -0400

By Michael Collins

"Cameron continues to insist that the inquiry is the best forum to evaluate Hunt’s actions. This signals the beginning of the end for Cameron. He’s proposing a solution for the Hunt investigation that is outside the rules of Parliament, in a forum that has rejected him. Upon closer examination, existing evidence will lead to even stronger condemnation of Hunt’s behaviour. Any new materials produced by the inquiry will bury him.

"Where will that leave Cameron? Finished!" Michael Collins, Independentaustralia.net May 10, 2012

Queens Counsel Robert Jay unearthed a devastating piece of evidence that will surely create calls for the resignation of both culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and Prime Minister David Cameron.

In afternoon testimony at the Leveson Inquiry today (5/24), Jay confronted News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel with an email rendition of a Hunt to Cameron memo of November 19, 2010 (see testimony/full memo at end of article). Hunt is clearly cheerleading for the News Corp acquisition of immensely profitable pay TV network BSkyB. News Corp owned 39% of the network and wanted to purchase the remaining 61%. This acquisition was absolutely critical to News Corp profitability and as a sign that Rupert and James Murdoch actually knew what they were doing.

One month after he got the biased memo, Cameron appointed Hunt as the government minister in charge of approving the bid. Hunt portrayed his role as "quasi-judicial" and claimed he was an objective judge. The bid was opposed by an alliance of news organizations.

Now we know, without any doubt and from Hunt's own words that he was biased in favor of approving the News Corp bid before he even got the authority to judge.

We also know that PM Cameron knew Hunt's bias and appointed him anyway.

The Guardian piece by Leigh and Nick Davies (who broke the phone hacking scandal) diplomatically noted that, "It is not known what Cameron did as an immediate result[after receiving the memo from Hunt]."

That's correct, technically. But we do know and the authors mentioned what Cameron did a month after receiving the memo. He put the man who wrote it in charge of a decision making process that was supposed to be inductive, based on reason and evidence. Hunt was one of the last people in Cameron's Conservative government qualified to claim these credentials.

It is not hard to conclude that Cameron and Hunt conspired to push through the Murdoch News Corp BSkyB bid without regard to the facts and through a process that was fraudulently presented to the public and Parliament.

Therefore, they are both subject to calls for resignation, which should start very soon and persist for quite a while.

END

This article may be reproduced with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

The Money Party – Rupert Watch

Appendix: Guardian Breaking News & Leveson Inquiry testimony of Frederic Michel May 24, 2012

Jeremy Hunt urged PM to allow BSkyB deal weeks before taking charge of bid

David Leigh and Nick Davies

Culture secretary told David Cameron the 'media sector would suffer for years' if News Corp's bid for BSkyB was blocked
The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, wrote privately to the prime minister urging him in strong terms to back Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid for BSkyB just a month before David Cameron appointed him to take charge of the bid himself in a "quasi-judicial" capacity.

The intervention by Hunt, who is facing calls for his resignation, was revealed for the first time in a document shown to the Leveson inquiry on Thursday. Hunt urged Cameron not to allow the business secretary, Vince Cable, to block the BSkyB bid despite strong advice to the culture secretary from his own officials that he should not involve himself in the process.

The culture secretary claimed to the prime minister that if the Murdoch bid was blocked "our media sector will suffer for years". He asked for a meeting with Cable and Cameron to discuss the handling of the deal.

The document appears to corroborate the picture that emerges from earlier email exchanges between Hunt's aide Adam Smith and the News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel. Those emails document an apparently collusive relationship with the Murdoch empire and have already put Hunt's cabinet position in peril.

=====================

Leveson Inquiry - Frederic Michel confronted with memo sent by culture secretary Hunt to Prime Minister Cameron - recommending approval of the News Corp bid for 100% ownership of BSkyB. Hunt was supposed to be an objective analyst and judge of this issue. The memo shows extreme bias.

Frederic Michel. That's certainly what the email suggests but it's only from looking at that that I would guess that. I can't actually remember.

QC Robert Jay. What it says is: "James Murdoch is pretty furious at Vince's referral to Ofcom." That had occurred a few days beforehand, hadn't it?

Michel. Yes, I believe so.

Jay. "He doesn't think he will get a fair hearing from Ofcom. I am privately concerned about this because News Corp are very litigious and we could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy. Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping and create the world's first multi-platform media operator, available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad. Isn't this what all media companies have to do ultimately? And if so, we must be very careful that any attempt to block it is done on genuine plurality grounds and not as a result of lobbying by competitors.

"The UK has the chance to lead the way ... but if we block it our media sector will suffer for years. In the end I am sure sensible controls can be put into any merger to ensure there is plurality, but I think it would be totally wrong to cave in to the Mark Thomson/ Channel 4/Guardian line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all kno Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway.

"What next? Ofcom will issue their report saying whether it needs to go to the Competition Commission by 31 December. It would be totally wrong for the government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arm's length. However I do think you, I, Vince and the DPM should meet to discuss the policy issues that are thrown up as a result."

Q What did you gather from this memorandum?

Page 74-57 Transcript of Afternoon Hearing 24 May 2012 (pdf, 154KB)

US To Vet Syrian Rebel Arms Recipients - Really?

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:02:40 -0400

I guess the Saudis, Quataris, Libyans and Turks all want that special rubber stamp of American approval...just in case they need someone to blame later.

As one diplomatic effort after another fails to end more than a year of brutal violence in Syria, the Obama administration is preparing a plan that would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.

The effort, U.S. officials told The Associated Press, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad government and to ensure that weapons don’t wind up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked terrorists or other extremist groups such as Hezbollah that could target Israel.

...Privately, officials say that as conditions continue to deteriorate, it would be irresponsible not to weigh in with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and others such as Turkey that have indicated interest in arming the rebels.

By some accounts, those nations already have begun to ship weapons with tacit U.S. agreement.

So if this vetting will prevent Saudis funding arms for Al Qaeda (yeah, right) how far beyond that will it go? The chances of arming some pretty nasty people that have the only virtue of being not-AQ are pretty high.

A United Nations investigation said Syrian government forces and rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad had both committed serious human rights abuses despite an attempted ceasefire in the conflict and opposition activists reported fighting in several regions on Thursday.

...The rebels, who are increasingly armed and well-organized, have executed or tortured captured soldiers and government supporters, it said. They have also abducted civilians in an apparent bid to secure prison exchanges or ransoms.

It doesn't matter how many bad ideas you pile on top of other bad ideas, the result will never be a good idea.

Iran Talks - On To Moscow In June

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:50:52 -0400

The EU's Ashton says the next round of talks will be in Moscow on June 18-19. Forget all the did-they-didn't-they-make-progress media reports - those are just reporters looking for an easy and headlineable narrative (and in some cases, working the agenda of those who'd rather see talks fail). The truth is captured perfectly by Ashton's spokes: "If there wasn’t progress, we wouldn’t still be holding the talks," Mann told reporters in the Iraqi capital. "Progress has been made." The process is the progress. That's a whole 'nother month there won't be war.

Israeli Racism Turns Violent - Again.

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:41:49 -0400

Racist attacks on black Africans - they're not just for Libyans.

Demonstrators have attacked African migrants in Tel Aviv in a protest against refugees and asylum-seekers that indicates an increasingly volatile mood in Israel over what it terms as "infiltrators".

Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament, told the crowd "the Sudanese are a cancer in our body". The vast majority of asylum-seekers in Israel are from Sudan and Eritrea.

Around 1,000 demonstrators took part in the demonstration on Wednesday night, waving signs saying: "Infiltrators, get out of our homes" and "Our streets are no longer safe for our children." A car containing Africans was attacked and shops serving the refugee community were looted. Seventeen people were arrested.

A reporter for the Israeli daily Maariv described it as an "unbridled rampage" and explosion of "pent-up rage".

Seems to me everyone in the North has it in for sub-Saharans. But I do wonder whether the Israeli bigots have a heirarchy of racism which ranks Arabs and black Africans on a scale of hateability. The bigots would doubtless complain that their hate is also about "infiltrators" taking jobs and causing crime. As Ta-Nehisi Coates notes today though, "Complicating racism with other factors doesn't make it any better. It just makes it racism. Again." That's as true in Israel as it is anywhere else.