Fascism in Greece • Pepper Spray Retailing • Insane Republicans • US Kills Kids • Climate Change, Meat Farming and the Spread of Disease • Pepper Spray Creator Decries Use on Protesters •

- Dead Afghan Kids Still Not Newsworthy

On November 25, the New York Times reported--on page 12--that six children were killed in one attack in southern Afghanistan on November 23. This news was, as best I can tell, not reported on ABC, CBS, NBC or the PBS NewsHour.

There were, on the other hand, several pieces about U.S. soldiers eating Thanksgiving dinners.

- The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week...

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists.

- Mark Ames: Austerity & Fascism In Greece – The Real 1% Doctrine

See the guy in the photo there, dangling an ax from his left hand? That’s Greece’s new “Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks” Makis Voridis captured back in the 1980s, when he led a fascist student group called “Student Alternative” at the University of Athens law school. It’s 1985, and Minister Voridis, dressed like some Kajagoogoo Nazi, is caught on camera patrolling the campus with his fellow fascists, hunting for suspected leftist students to bash. Voridis was booted out of law school that year, and sued by Greece’s National Association of Students for taking part in violent attacks on non-fascist law students.

With all the propaganda we’ve been fed about Greece’s new “austerity” government being staffed by non-ideological “technocrats,” it may come as a surprise that fascists are now considered “technocrats” to the mainstream media and Western banking interests. Then again, history shows that fascists have always been favored by the 1-percenters to deliver the austerity medicine.

- Next Stop on the GOP Crazy Train: 'Newtsville'

The respectful response of the media to the batshit-crazy statements one hears from the second-tier Republican candidates—candidates who occasionally rise to the first tier and then just as quickly sink down again, having never been serious contenders in the first place—is doing definite damage to this country. How many credulous Americans may have decided to shun the HPV vaccine for their daughters after hearing Bachmann’s nutty suggestion that it causes mental retardation? What of the insistence of that ignorant idiot Herman Cain that the “objective” purpose of Planned Parenthood’s founding was to “kill black babies before they came into the world. It’s planned genocide.” Now we’ve got a new front-runner, Gingrich, who holds, among other crazy notions, that the Obama administration’s “secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did,” when his diseased brain is not focusing on his moronic (and racist) contention that “only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together” the inspiration for Obama’s foreign policies.

- Pepper-Spray Creator Decries Use of Chemical Agent on Peaceful Occupy Wall Street Protesters

We speak with Kamran Loghman, the expert who developed weapons-grade pepper-spray, who says he was shocked at how police have used the chemical agent on non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters nationwide

- Pepper-Spray Cop Begets Pepper-Spray Shopper

First we had the Pepper-Spray Cop. Now we have the Pepper-Spray Shopper, an as-yet unidentified woman who allegedly sprayed open an avenue for herself amid crowds grasping for Black Friday bargains in an LA-area Walmart. Apparently, she needed an Xbox at half off.

Of course, big box stores have long encouraged “competitive shopping.” After an employee was trampled to death at a Long Island Walmart on Black Friday in 2008, stores vowed to improve their crowd control. But they don’t advertise their sales with the words “door busters”—with that hint of drug-raid-level violence—for nothing. They know that hysteria can drive higher sales. It works so well that stores have been moving door busters back earlier and earlier, so that this year Black Friday at Walmarts across the country began on Thanksgiving night, forcing employees to work on the holiday in order to sow the itching powder of urgency among customers.

- Climate Change Boosts Lethal Hendra Virus

Heavy rains and floods in Australia may have helped the deadly disease cross from bats to humans and that has doctors concerned about climate change

- Fukushima Radiation Risks "Severely Underestimated": Greenpeace

Greenpeace today renewed its demand for the Japanese government to keep its nuclear reactors offline as simulation maps of potential accidents at Japan’s nuclear plants - used in the development of nuclear emergency response efforts - "are completely inadequate, and have not been updated since the Fukushima disaster."

- Ringling Brothers Agree To USDA Fine For Allegedly Violating Animal Welfare Act

Life's no circus for the Ringling Brothers these days.The USDA announced Monday that an agreement was reached where Feld Entertainment, Inc., doing business as Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Feld), will pay a $270,000 fine for allegedly violating the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).

- Is the pet food you are serving up killing your four-legged friend? (and making your vet rich)

Few people are aware of the little-publicized concerns about processed pet foods

- Scientists say Kenai Peninsula getting drier and warmer

Climate change is taking place on the Kenai Peninsula, slowly but surely.

The victims the NYT Editors forgot
To justify the killing of Pakistani troops, the paper of record regrets all those killed by the war - except some
By Glenn Greenwald
Published Nov 29 2011 at Salon.com

The New York Times Editors chime in today on the border killing of two dozen Pakistani soldiers by the U.S., and offer up a formulaic both-sides-have-some-explaining-to-do sermon. It’s their first paragraph that is notable:

It’s not clear what led to NATO strikes on two Pakistani border posts this weekend, but there can be no dispute that the loss of lives is tragic. At least 24 Pakistani troops were killed. We regret those deaths, as we do those of all American, NATO and Afghan troops and Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed by extremists.

This opening from the pro-Afghan-War NYT Editors is meant to provide balance and justifying context to the deaths of these soldiers by pointing to the deaths caused by The Other Side: sure, it’s regrettable that these Pakistanis are dead, but let’s remember that it’s not just these soldiers who have been killed, but also “American, NATO and Afghan troops and Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed by extremists.” Therefore, the American war against these “extremists” (a war we’ve been supporting for more than a decade and still support as much as ever) is just despite this week’s little regrettable incident.


Except when constructing their general statement of regret for all those killed in the war they support, the NYT Editors forgot to mention one rather large category of victims: namely, “Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed” not “by extremists” but by the American military (unless, that is, they used “extremists” to refer to the invading U.S. army, which seems highly unlikely). That’s a particularly striking omission given that it was just this week that the United States extinguished the lives of six more Afghan children from the air. But it’s as though the NYT Editors can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge that it isn’t only the “extremists” but also their own country’s army, fighting a war they’ve long cheered, which regularly kills civilians. But that’s par for the media course: American war media narratives, as Ashleigh Banfield was demoted and then fired by NBC News back in 2003 for pointing out, specialize in erasing the existence of America’s war victims, and this is a perfect example of how that’s done.

Ongoing American killing of Pakistani civilians is a major cause of the tension between those two nations: that’s because governments and their citizenries tend not to like it and generally become quite angry when foreign nations kill their civilians (though there is one major exception to that rule when it comes to American citizens). America’s constant killing of numerous Afghan children independently inflames anti-American rage. If the NYT Editors are going to purport to provide context and balance to the conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan by listing (and expressing cursory regret for) all the killing beyond just this one border incident, perhaps they should include — rather than awkwardly ignore — this category of deaths (and those justifying the war in the name of what’s good for The Afghan People should also take that into account, along with polling data about what they actually think). It might also be good to start thinking about the cumulative effects of those ongoing civilian killings by the U.S. when deciding whether this war should continue even though Al Qaeda — the original justification for this war more than a decade ago — is, according to U.S. officials, “operationally ineffective” and virtually non-existent in that region.

Sean

Endless War and Empire - Corporations Hiding Animal Suffering - Obama the Conservative - more

- Fighting for a People's Budget

 While the president speaks eloquently of his vision of “shared sacrifice,” in reality it is still a budget that hits the poor and the middle-class hardest while wealthy Americans and the military are asked to sacrifice far less.

- Stuck in the Center-Right With Obama: The President Who Still Won't Take a Stand

The fight over whether the United States maintains a social-safety net for seniors and our most vulnerable citizens is, by any reasonable measure, a "which side are you on struggle?" The Republicans know that; they are ready to shred the safety net in order to advance a privatization agenda that enrichs their wealthiest donors. But President Obama is still having trouble taking a stand.

- What a Joke! Walker Claims to Be “Truly Progressive”

[Despite trying to destroy worker's unions] Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker testified today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and he had the chutzpah to say: "In Wisconsin, we are doing something truly progressive."

- If A Pig Lives And Dies Grotesquely In A Gestation Cage But Nobody Sees It, Did It Happen?

Iowa legislators, working hand in cozy hand with [meat industry] lobbyists, are set to become the first state to solve the problem of factory farms that abuse animals - not by fixing or regulating them, but by banning whistleblowers who might tell us about the barbaric things they're doing there.

- U.S.-Backed Bloodshed Stains Bahrain’s Arab Spring

Three days after Hosni Mubarak resigned as the long-standing dictator in Egypt, people in the small Gulf state of Bahrain took to the streets, marching to their version of Tahrir, Pearl Square, in the capital city of Manama. Bahrain has been ruled by the same family, the House of Khalifa, since the 1780s—more than 220 years. Bahrainis were not demanding an end to the monarchy, but for more representation in their government.

One month into the uprising, Saudi Arabia sent military and police forces over the 16-mile causeway that connects the Saudi mainland to Bahrain, an island. Since then, the protesters, the press and human-rights organizations have suffered increasingly violent repression.

- Pakistan Moves to Curb More Aggressive U.S. Drone Strikes, Spying

The Pakistani military's recent demands on the United States to curb drone strikes and reduce the number of U.S. spies operating in Pakistan, which have raised tensions between the two countries to a new high, were a response to U.S. military and intelligence programmes that had gone well beyond what the Pakistanis had agreed to in past years.

Endless War and Empire: Your Tax Dollars at Work
By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis
Published 4/14/11 at PinkTank

Death and taxes are the only certainties in life. And these days, they go hand in hand.

While our fiscal woes have led Congress to slash food aid this year to the world’s poor — rest assured, fellow Americans — the U.S. government will keep using your tax dollars to kill them. For while John Boehner and Barack Obama might disagree on some things, there’s one area they can agree on: War. And the need for more of it.

“Money for bombs, not bread,” might be a good bipartisan slogan.

And when it comes to dropping its citizens’ tax dollars on flying killer robots and foreign military occupations, no country comes close to the United States. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — more than $150 billion in direct spending this year alone — exceeds what China, the U.S.’s closest military rival, spends altogether on its armed forces. Overall, the Obama administration will spend more than $700 billion next year on the military.

That’s more than George W. Bush ever spent. And figures released this week by SIPRI show that since Obama took office, the U.S. has been almost entirely responsible for the global rise in military spending: $19.6 billion of $20.6 billion since 2008. What a difference a Nobel laureate makes.

And the actual figure spent on war – the fighting of it, the preparation for it and the consequences of it – is substantially higher than acknowledged, with spending on military programs often buried in places like the Department of Energy, which oversees the U.S.’s massive stash of nuclear weapons. Counting those hidden costs, including veterans benefits, aid to foreign militaries and interest payments on defense-related debt, economist Robert Higgs estimates the U.S. government spends more than $1 trillion a year on empire.

But you wouldn’t grasp the enormity of the U.S.’s commitment to militarism if you listened to its politicians. Remarking last week on the deal he struck that slashes $38.5 billion in federal spending, President Obama said the agreement “between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history.”

Sounds lovely. But the reality, not the rhetoric, is that Obama and his allies in Congress aren’t cutting Pentagon waste and investing in rainbows and unicorns – unless, perhaps, there’s some way to harness their power for weapons. Rather, they’re investing in war at the cost of community health centers, local development projects and Medicare. In Washington, you see, money for killing people is safe from the cutting board; it’s the money that actually helps them that‘s not.

“We will all need to make sacrifices,” Obama reiterated in his speech on the national debt this week — just not the Pentagon, which is guaranteed more money every year under this president’s watch. “I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world,” Obama said. As for cuts to domestic spending, including to “programs that I care deeply about”? Well, that’s a different story.

And if you’re a U.S. taxpayer, forget welfare programs: bombing and occupying countries that pose no credible threat to America — Obama has so far authorized attacks in at least six countries since taking office, including Yemen, Somalia and the latest and greatest $8.3-million-a-day war for peace, Libya — is your single greatest expense as a citizen. Indeed, over half of federal discretionary spending — what Americans will pay for with their incomes taxes on April 18 — goes to the armed forces and their legion of private contractors.

Now imagine what that money could do if it went to something more productive. Imagine if, instead of paying for bombs to be dropped around the world, those tax dollars went toward fulfilling actual human needs — toward creating friends, not enemies.
For the cost of just one minute of war we could build 16 new schools in Afghanistan. For 60 seconds of peace, we could fund 36 elementary school teachers here at home. This year’s funding for the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — $172.4 billion — could provide health care for 88.4 million poor American children.

The obvious wastefulness of war has even some politicians beginning to talk of investing in America instead of arms manufacturers. Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul recently convened a task force that produced a detailed report with specific recommendations for cutting Pentagon spending by approximately $1 trillion over the next decade.

But lawmakers — all of whom have military contractors in their districts — rarely do anything good of their own volition. Rather, they have to be forced into action by those they purport to represent. At the local level, communities are doing just that by pressuring mayors to sign a resolution calling on Congress to redirect military spending to domestic priorities. A similar resolution, spearheaded by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will be considered at the June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Pressuring politicians is not the only route to affect change, of course. The War Resisters League, for instance, suggests principled civil disobedience: refusing to pay taxes to fund unjust wars. That route is fraught with risk, including the prospect of jail time, but it’s one that would have made great Americans like Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau proud.

Not everyone can accept those risks, especially for those with families to worry about. But another option, living simply and reducing one’s taxable income, has the added benefit of not just starving the warfare state, but curbing one’s contribution to mindless consumerism and global climate change. And forgoing a new iPhone is a small price to pay to save a life.

Be it refusing to pay for war or speaking out against the injustice of bombing and killing poor people on the other side of the globe, the important thing is to recognize one’s role in the war machine and commit to doing something about it — to quit complacently accepting the world as it is and to work toward making it what it should be. The greatest enabler of the military-industrial complex isn’t really taxes: it’s apathy.

Sean

US Army Uses Psy-Ops on US Politicians to Support War; The Right Lies About and Attacks On Unions; Republican Racists; Blood Type Means Nothing; more

- US Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

- The Case For Not Ignoring Beck and Palin

I understand what Lind is getting at, and there's something to be said for taking the high road and cultivating an accessible progressive media culture to explain "how liberalism is rooted in American values and history." But that's not mutually exclusive of documenting the eccentricities of the right's blowhards and malcontents. Actually, I think those two concepts work pretty well in concert with one another. But in the end, whatever blowback the left receives from mocking Palin and Beck will be insignificant compared to the damage that could be done by ignoring them.

- You are What You Bleed: In Japan and Other East Asian Countries Some Believe Blood Type Dictates Personality

Although researchers have established that no scientific basis exists for ketsueki-gata [the belief that blood type dictates personality], why does the theory continue to pervade popular Japanese culture? According to Tokyo Woman’s Christian University psychology professor Kiyoshi Ando, blood types could be a convenient topic of conversation, hold appeal as a predictor of destiny and behavior, and can serve as an outside authority for people to rely upon in order to avoid complex thinking and judgment. At extremes, blood typing can influence how people understand and describe their world, how they define themselves, and shape how decisions are made.

- 'Chamber Gate 2011':  Leaked E-mails Validate Aggressive Tactics

opponents of the [Republican supporting] Chamber of Commerce and its pro-business agenda, the aggressive push-back described in the documents served both as confirmation of the hardball tactics employed by conservatives and as a backhanded validation of the kind of guerrilla strategy they hope to employ to undercut the Chamber and other big-spending, corporate-funded groups in the next election cycle.

- 'Growing Anger in Pakistan Over US CIA/Blackwater Killings

New revelations about a CIA contractor in custody for shooting two men dead heaped pressure on Pakistan's fragile government Tuesday and exposed burning public mistrust of Washington.

- American Who Sparked Diplomatic Crisis Over Lahore Shooting was CIA Spy

The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time.

- Limbaugh Falsely Claims Wisconsin's Union-Busting Proposal Will Help Resolve State's Budget Deficit

Rush Limbaugh claimed that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposed union-busting bill is designed to "save union jobs" from a budget crisis that would necessitate layoffs. In reality, the parts of the bill restricting collective bargaining would not affect Wisconsin's budget shortfall.

- Egypt offers Support to US Workers Facing Republican Attacks

With protesters holding firm in Wisconsin and rockers showing up in support, a stirring statement of solidarity from Egyptian activist Kamal Abbasand, head of an umbrella organization of independent unions. From Michael Moore.

- Uprisings: From the Middle East to the Midwest

As many as 80,000 people marched to the Wisconsin state Capitol in Madison on Saturday as part of an ongoing protest against newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to not just badger the state’s public employee unions, but to break them. The Madison uprising follows on the heels of those in the Middle East. A sign held by one university student, an Iraq War vet, read, “I went to Iraq and came home to Egypt?” Another read, “Walker: Mubarak of the Midwest.” Likewise, a photo has circulated in Madison of a young man at a rally in Cairo, with a sign reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin workers: One world, one pain.”

- Torturing Detroit's Kids for Racist Fun and Profit

Corporate America and its servants in the [conservative] Democratic and [entire] Republican parties care nothing for the education of Black, inner city school children, and the proof is in Detroit, for all to see. The State of Michigan, controlled, like every other state in the country, by business interests, has ordered Detroit to close down half of its public schools, and increase class sizes to 60 students. That’s double the number that any respectable educator considers suitable for classroom work, and tantamount to a declaration that Detroit’s public school students will not be provided an education. In a modern society, this is the equivalent of declaring Detroit – an overwhelmingly Black metropolis – a failed state.

[Right Wing Climate Change Deniers and Tea Party Organizers] Koch Brothers "Prank" No Laughing Matter
by Mary Bottari
Published February 24, 2011 on PRwatch.org

Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker came under fire today after news broke about statements he made in a 20-minute phone call from a Boston-area alternative news reporter posing as David Koch, a billionaire whose PAC directly supported Walker and who has given millions to groups that have run ads to aid Walker's rise to the state's highest office. (Listen to the call here.)

As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the Koch PAC not only spent $43,000 directly on Walkers race, but Koch personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association which spent $5 million in the state. Besides the Governor, the Koch brothers have other “vested interests" in the state.

They include Koch Pipeline Company, which operates a pipeline system that crosses Wisconsin. It also owns Flint Hill Resources, which distributes refined fuel through pipelines and terminals in Junction City, Waupun, Madison and Milwaukee. Koch Industries also owns the C. Reiss Coal Company, a power plant company located in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan.

The Koch brothers opened a lobby shop in Wisconsin two days after Walker was elected, and many protesters have suspected that the “budget repair bill” provisions allowing the no-bid sell-off of any state-owned heating, cooling, or power plant, plus new rules on pipeline transport may be of interest to Koch. The company has denied any interest in these assets.

Pink Slips as Poker Chips Raises Legal Concerns

At the start of the conversation Walker eagerly reports on all he is doing: 

 First, he tells the fake Koch brother about a plan to change Senate rules on pay to reel-in the out-of state Democratic senators who are holding out to protect collective bargaining. The new rule would force the Senators to pick up their paychecks in person. This rule was passed in a partisan vote in the Senate yesterday -- a move that went unnoticed by the mainstream press. 

The fake Koch asks Walker how they might get others in Senate to vote to stop collective bargaining. Walker responds that he's involved the Justice Department in investigating whether the union is paying the absent Democratic senators to remain out of state, or providing them with food, shelter, etc., saying it would be an ethics violation or potentially a felony. Wisconsin legislators are well aware of these rules and have already stated they are using their own money while they are out of state.

But the Governor also explains how he is going to lay off thousands of Wisconsin workers as a tactic to get the Democrats to cooperate: "So, we’re trying about four or five different angles. Each day we crank up a little bit more pressure. The other thing is I’ve got layoff notices ready, we put out the at-risk notices, we’ll announce Thursday, they’ll go out early next week and we’ll probably get five to six thousand state workers will get at-risk notices for layoffs. We might
 ratchet that up a little bit too."

The move has been called “despicable” and “ruthless “ and “sickening.” But most importantly, if Walker is choosing to lay off workers as a political tactic when he wasn’t otherwise planning to do so, then it is not just morally repugnant, but legally questionable. State and federal contract and labor law has protections against this type of abusive behavior and inappropriate quid pro quo.


This morning the Capital Times quotes the state’s former Attorney General: “There clearly are potential ethics violations, and there are potential election-law violations and there are a lot of what look to me like labor-law violations,” said Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat who served as Wisconsin’s Attorney General after serving for many years as a U.S. Attorney. The head of the state teacher's association, Mary Bell, reminds us: “He literally planned to use five to six thousand hardworking Wisconsin taxpayers as political pawns in his political game. He actually thought through a strategy to lay people off -- deny them the ability to feed their families -- and use it as leverage for his political goals."

Kids and Hired Thugs

Walker also says he considers then rejected the idea of hiring trouble makers to disrupt the rallies which have been packed with elementary school children and highs schoolers. When fake Koch says "We’ll back you any way we can. But what we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers." Walker says: "we thought about that," but he rejected the idea in case it back-fired. He didn’t want to "scare the public into thinking maybe the governor as to settle to avoid all these problems."

Wisconsin Ethics Rules



Wisconsin has the toughest ethics law in the nation. Public officials are prohibited from soliciting or receiving anything of value if it could reasonably be expected to influence or reward official actions. The rules against “pay-to-play politics” say a public official is prohibited from taking official action in exchange for political contributions, or anything else of value for the benefit of a candidate, political party, or any person making certain candidate-related communications. You can’t even take a cup of coffee from a lobbyist.

Earlier in the call, Walker had asked the fake Koch for help “spreading the word,” especially in the "swing" districts, in defense of his determination to break the unions, and help get calls in to shore up his Republican allies in the legislature. Walker benefited from a high-dollar "issue ad" campaign by groups funded by Koch group before the election. Americans for Prosperity, which Koch chairs, promoted and funded a couple thousand counter-protestors last Saturday.

On the same day that the scandal broke here in Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity went up with a $342,000 TV ad campaign in support of Walker –- an enormous sum in a state like Wisconsin. If such ads are effectively coordinated with the Governor's office, they may be subject to rules requiring greater disclosure of expenditures and contributors.

Toward the end of the call, the fake Koch offers to fly Walker out to California, after they "crush the bastards," and show him "a good time," to which Walker responds enthusiastically, "All right, that would be outstanding." But,Wisconsin rules bar state officials from taking action for something of value. After Walker agrees to the junket, the fake Koch adds, "And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well" to which Walker responds, "Well that's just it."



Conclusion

So while Walker did not apparently not recognize Koch's voice, he certainly recognized his name, eagerly recounting his efforts to crush collective bargaining in Wisconsin to an out-of-state billioniare backer and thanking him for all Koch had done for him. The entire conversation raises ethical concerns that warrant much closer examination, especially with Wisconsin's tough pay-to-play rules. A week ago the Center for Media and Democracy filed an open records request for the Governor's phone records, email records, and other communications. Perhaps these records will help us understand all the influences behind the Governor's recent radical actions.

Wisconsin is not Illinois, it has a reputation for being a squeaky clean state where lesser scandals than this have brought down political officials. Governor Walker likes to complain of “outside agitators.” It's hard to imagine an agitator with more influence and money than the Koch-family.

Sean

Fake Tax outrage; US Creates Havoc in Latin America, and more! (posted 04/15/09)

Obama's South American Reality Check "Barack Obama needs to face up to the fact that existing US policies have caused havoc throughout South America" 


Fake Teabaggers Are Anti-Spend, Anti-Government: Real Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering America "And whatever the Tea Party organizers scream today while standing on tea boxes, their sponsors at FreedomWorks have no intention of ending the plunder. Instead, FreedomWorks and its clients want to ensure more of the national wealth is at their disposal -- which for them means more deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, fewer government programs for distressed homeowners and no pricey national health insurance.
The suckers in the Tea Party movement have no idea that while their anger is genuine, they're doing the king's bidding, not their own."

USA Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan "The U.S. program of drone aircraft strikes against higher-ranking officials of al Qaeda and allied militant organizations, which has been touted by proponents as having eliminated nine of the 20 top al Qaeda leaders, is actually weakening Pakistan's defence against the insurgency of the Islamic militants there by killing large numbers of civilians based on faulty intelligence and discrediting the Pakistani military, according to data from the Pakistani government and interviews with senior analysts."

Will Obama Block Release of Key Bush-Era Torture Memos? "As has been pointed out by several diligent journalists, human rights lawyers and critics, President Obama has continued-and continued defending-some of the Bush administration's most repressive "War on Terror" policies, although Obama prefers to not use that term anymore"

The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt "CNBC Correspondent Rick Santelli called for a "Chicago Tea Party" on Feb 19th in protesting President Obama's plan to help homeowners in trouble. Santelli's call was answered by the right-wing group FreedomWorks, which funds campaigns promoting big business interests, and is the opposite of what the real Boston Tea Party was. FreedomWorks was funded in 2004 by Dick Armey (former Republican House Majority leader & lobbyist); consolidated Citizens for a Sound Economy, funded by the Koch family; and Empower America, a lobbying firm, that had fought against healthcare and minimum-wage efforts while hailing deregulation."

Iraqi Refugees need U.S. help, advocates say "America must invest more time, money, and human resources to help those displaced by the ongoing Iraq War, according to human rights advocates from the Washington, D.C.-based Refugees International."

US funding for Iraq, Afghan wars exceeds Bush era "As Americans prepared to pay their taxes Wednesday, a new report shows that the Obama administration's request from congress for an increase in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the spending of the previous administration."

The Ultimate Reaping of What One Sows: Right-Wing Edition

Published on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by Salon.com. 
Written by Glenn Greenwald

Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing "right-wing extremist activity." The report (.pdf) identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration" and "groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they're on the train to FEMA camps. The Right's leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says: "Here we go Again," protesting that "this seems so nakedly ideological." Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it's "Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!" Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS -- as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years) -- now considers the Constitution to be a "subversive manifesto." Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents. Malkin's Hot Air stomps its feet about all "the smears listed in the new DHS warning about 'right-wing extremism.'"

It's certainly true that federal police efforts directed at domestic political movements -- even ones with a history of inspiring violence in both the distant and recent past -- require real vigilance and oversight, and it's also true that the DHS description of these groups seems excessively broad with the potential for mischief. But the political faction screeching about the dangers of the DHS is the same one that spent the last eight years vastly expanding the domestic Surveillance State and federal police powers in every area. DHS -- and the still-creepy phrase "homeland security" -- became George Bush's calling card. The Republicans won the 2002 election by demonizing those who opposed its creation. All of the enabling legislation underlying this Surveillance State -- from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, from the various FISA "reforms" to massive increases in domestic "counter-Terrorism" programs -- are the spawns of the very right-wing movement that today is petrified that this is all being directed at them.

When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you. If you create a massive and wildly empowered domestic surveillance apparatus, it's going to monitor and investigate domestic political activity. That's its nature. I'd love to know how many of the participants in today's right-wing self-victim orgy uttered a peep of protest about any of this, from 2005:

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

"It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."

I was in Minneapolis and St. Paul during the 2008 GOP Convention and witnessed first-hand massive federal police raids and "preventive" arrests of peaceful, law-abiding protesters and even the violent arrests of journalists, and I don't recall any complaints from Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. I don't recall Glenn Reynolds or Mark Steyn complaining that the FBI, for virtually the entire Bush administration, was systematically abusing its new National Security Letters authorities under the Patriot Act to collect extremely invasive information, in secret, about Americans who had done nothing wrong.

Russ Feingold's efforts to place limits and abuse-preventing safeguards on these Patriot Act powers in 2006 attracted a grand total of 10 votes in the Senate -- none Republican.

Indeed, thanks to the very people who are today petulantly complaining about politically-motivated federal police actions (now that they imagine it's directed at them rather than at people they dislike), the Federal Government today has the power to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read the emails of American citizens without warrants; monitor bank records without court approval; obtain all sorts of invasive personal records, medical and financial, without Subpoenas; and obtain and store a whole host of other personal information about American citizens who have not been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong. Also thanks to them (and things like the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc. etc), most of this is carried out without any real oversight or safeguards, left entirely to the judgment and good faith of federal officials to wield these powers carefully and for proper ends. And, better still, federal officials can hide behind sweeping claims of secrecy and National Security to prevent courts from scrutinizing what they did and determine if it was illegal (we call that "the state secrets privilege").

So what's the problem? As the National Review/Bush-following-Right has been telling us for years now, there's nothing to worry about if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. The first duty of the Government is to protect us all -- keep us safe and warm from all the scary things out there, like a Good Daddy does -- and if they need to trample on some lofty privacy ideals and so-called civil liberties concerns and supposed Constitutional safeguards, well: that's just how it is. It takes a real paranoid hysteric to think that federal government officials have nothing better to do than target domestic political opponents. And besides, what good is the Constitution if we're all dead at the hands of domestic McVeigh-like Terrorists? After all, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact.

Remember all of that? I certainly do.

This is all as laughable as it is predictable. Just a couple months out of power and they have suddenly re-discovered their fear of the Federal Government and their belief in the need to limit its powers. As I wrote in February about the Glenn Beck Movement that is taking over the Limbaugh/National Review Right:

What was most remarkable about this allegedly "anti-government" movement was that -- with some isolated and principled exceptions -- it completely vanished upon the election of Republican George Bush, and it stayed invisible even as Bush presided over the most extreme and invasive expansion of federal government power in memory. Even as Bush seized and used all of the powers which that movement claimed in the 1990s to find so tyrannical and unconstitutional -- limitless, unchecked surveillance activities, detention powers with no oversight, expanding federal police powers, secret prison camps, even massively exploding and debt-financed domestic spending -- they meekly submitted to all of it, even enthusiastically cheered it all on. . . .
But now, only four weeks into the presidency of Barack Obama, they are back -- angrier and more chest-beating than ever. Actually, the mere threat of an Obama presidency was enough to revitalize them from their eight-year slumber, awaken them from their camouflaged, well-armed suburban caves.

I can't wait until these limited-government, super-principled "conservatives" start putting these bumper stickers back on their cars:

For now, though, one can't help but note that these "conservatives" seem so very angry about a federal government program designed to do nothing other than protect the glorious Homeland from Terrorists. And we know that this is the purpose of the DHS program because that's what the Government said its purpose is. So what else is there to know? That's the lesson we all learned over the last eight years: Bush said that all of his secret surveillance programs were only directed at Al Qaeda, so how can anyone say otherwise?

Apparently, though, the Right has forgotten these important lessons about Trusting Our Political Leaders and instead is now embracing a newfound and quite disturbing devotion to Terrorist Rights. To borrow from Sarah Palin, they are apparently more worried about whether the Timothy McVeighs and Eric Rudolphs of the world can plan their next violent attack without interference from the DHS than they are in having the Government keep us all Safe. What kind of twisted, warped, subversive political movement prioritizes Terrorist Rights over the Safety of Americans like this?

UPDATE: In comments, e_five perfectly summarizes the Bush-following Right (as distinct from the small faction of Ron-Paul/Bruce-Fein/Bob-Barr conservatives who stayed true to their limited-government principles during the Bush era): "When they have a club in their hands, no one is more sadistic. When the club is removed, no one is more whiney." Precisely.

And Brendan Calling has some very related thoughts on this right-wing scandal du jour that are worth reading.

UPDATE II: The Right's self-victimizing outbursts are always as fact-free as they are self-pitying. Just marvel at this (h/t sysprog):

Jonah Goldberg, today:

Yes, DHS has done reports on anti-war, environmental, and other groups. But my understanding is that they didn't - and wouldn't - use the all-purpose term "left-wing" to describe those threats. . . . If the Bush administration had issued a sweeping indictment of "left-wing" groups in America, arguing that they needed to be monitored, something tells me we'd be hearing a lot about it.

From the very same Washington Times article he linked to that started the whole scandal:

In January, the same DHS office released a report titled "Leftwing extremists likely to increase use of cyber attacks over the coming decade."

That was in the precise article that he linked to. Also, the Bush Department of Energy published an April, 2001 document entitled "Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat."
The woe-is-us whining (this would never happen to the Left -- only us!) is just revolting.

Meanwhile, Drudge -- who never bothered objecting in the slightest to the extreme surveillance abuses under Bush -- adds fuel to the fire with big screaming headlines featuring scary pictures of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, playing the role of Janet Reno, with this warning: "She is watching you." But Drudge doesn't mention that preparation of the report began more than a year ago -- when Bush was still in office -- and that similar reports have been issued about, and actual surveillance programs directed to, so-called "Leftwing extremists." As I said, they're as fact-free as they are unprincipled, hypocritical and self-pitying.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.

Sean