McClatchy points out what has become disgustingly obvious

at least one major news outlet has decided to shine a spotlight on the vile, barbaric individual who has been the beneficiary of u.s. support for lo these many years...

Wednesday's crackdown was vintage Mubarak

Not long after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak pledged political reforms and promised not to run for a sixth five-year term, pro-government demonstrators with reported connections to the Egyptian security forces laid siege to a downtown square Wednesday and fought fierce battles with anti-government protesters.

The assault was so well planned that it suggested government orchestration, or at least complicity, according to political observers, who noted that Mubarak backers had been conspicuously silent during a week of massive demonstrations against him.

The strategy of sending in the thugs after making half-hearted promises was vintage Mubarak. The tactic is familiar to political observers, for he's employed the same approach in national elections — assuring Western allies of fair polls and instead rounding up opposition candidates and dispatching foot soldiers to rough up their supporters.

Samer Shehata, an Egypt expert at Georgetown University, said Mubarak has used such tactics for years to break up anti-government demonstrations and to prevent opposition supporters from casting ballots.

right on, mcclatchy...!

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Odds & ends, Sunday, 9 January

let's hear it for mcclatchy and its spot-on indictment of the u.s. news media for abandoning wikileaks...

i've been meaning to post a note about one of my favorites and a first-class character in his own right, joe bageant, who recently revealed his bout with terminal cancer but i think i may have been struggling with a little bit of denial...

in a previous life i was a frequent visitor to acapulco and even lived and operated a business there so it's particularly painful to read news like this...

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Afghanistan - "a free-for-all of corruption"... A follow-on to the previous "Talking to the Taliban" post

another perspective that supports what i witness first-hand every day here in kabul, this time from a woman with in-depth experience in afghanistan who runs a co-op in kandahar...

from the la times...

What ensued has been a free-for-all of corruption and abuse of power, with ordinary citizens paying the price. Our cooperative, for example, recently imported some solar energy equipment, which we needed because of the ongoing lack of electricity in Kandahar. We had to pay about $1,200 in bribes at seven different checkpoints on the road from the Pakistani border and at the Kandahar customs house. Judicial decisions are bought and sold, as is public office. Driver's licenses, death certificates and electricity meters come with a heavy surcharge. Lucrative contracts are monopolized by power brokers. The corruption infuriates ordinary Afghans, who do not see such abuses as part of their culture.

The result has been that a country that in 2002 enthusiastically welcomed the young government of Karzai and the international presence is now turning back to the Taliban. This is not out of affinity or ideological bent but because -- as was the case in 1994, when the Taliban first arrived on the scene -- it represents a practical alternative to the reigning chaos.

with the impending release of the obama administration's afghanistan policy (see below), a policy i fear will be sadly deficient and seriously misaligned, it's good to see some of what i consider to be reasonably accurate and informed perspectives creeping into the mainstream media...

Shifting U.S. objectives in Afghanistan away from the Bush administration's promise to build a Western-style democracy, President Barack Obama will announce on Friday that he's deploying thousands of additional American troops and civilians to achieve more modest goals, such as enhancing security and promoting economic development, U.S. officials said.

for the la times writer, quoted above, if indeed this shift comes to pass, it does not bode well... she does, however, have some constructive ideas to propose...

The answer is not to lower the bar but to raise it. What is needed is some of that patented Obama "Yes, we can!" energy.

We can, for example, work to ensure not just the security of the upcoming Afghan elections but a modicum of integrity, by observing, reporting and sanctioning instances of abuse and by distancing ourselves from those Afghan officials illegally exploiting their offices to ensure a Karzai reelection. We can insist on accountability on the part of Afghan officials, especially regarding the expenditure of international funds. We can help Afghans give teeth to what is perhaps the most important feature of American democracy -- one that was signally ignored by the Bush administration's Afghan design: checks-and-balances mechanisms.

Additional troops are desperately needed, and they should be deployed to protect the population rather than focused on hunting high-value targets or trying to seal off Afghanistan's borders. Development assistance, well targeted and monitored, is also crucial. But only with a concurrent full-court press on governance can the most limited U.S. goals in the region be accomplished.

i am very cool on the idea of additional troops, not because they shouldn't be utilized in the way the writer suggests, but because the u.s. is far from re-making its military might into a force of protection and peacekeeping rather than an instrument of death and destruction... if obama is to pull off THAT transition, he's going to need to do some major housecleaning at the pentagon in order to disembowel the "kick ass and take names" mindset that's been the history of the u.s. military, a history that was seriously reinforced through the bush/rumsfeld/gates era and continues to this day...

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Are the super-rich driving up oil prices to make themselves even richer...? Na-a-a-aaah... Perish the thought...

i've been increasingly suspicious that the dramatic rise in oil prices is just another orchestrated money grab by the super-rich, power elites... looks like i may not be the only person who harbors those dark thoughts...

mcclatchy...

A key federal regulator said Thursday that it's been probing whether speculators are manipulating the price of oil and gasoline and announced a series of measures to make the opaque world of oil trading more transparent.

In a surprise announcement, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) confirmed that since last December it's been investigating the trading of contracts for future deliveries of oil, commonly called futures contracts.

"Although the commission ordinarily conducts enforcement investigations on a confidential basis, the commission is taking the extraordinary step of disclosing this investigation because of today's unprecedented market conditions," the statement said. "The specifics of the ongoing investigation remain confidential. All commission enforcement inquiries are focused on ensuring that the markets are properly policed for manipulation and abusive practices."

la times...

"It shouldn't have taken oil and gasoline prices hitting Guinness-like record highs for the federal government to look into possible price manipulation by speculators, but it should also be looking at manipulation by oil companies and oil producers," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

[...]

A commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations publicly, said the commission's economists were fairly sure that there had been no criminal manipulation of the market.

that last paragraph as much as says that the investigation is principally for show, that there is no intention to get to the bottom of the matter... (like we thought for a moment that there would be...)

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"A stubborn, unseeing, unthinking man from Crawford, Texas"

mcclatchy's on fire...!

Galloway commentary: Bush still refuses to admit he was wrong
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

Well, now we’ve heard from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker and President George W. Bush, and it appears that the Surge has succeeded — succeeded in guaranteeing that the Iraq War will drag on for the last 16 months of the Bush presidency at a cost of another 1,600 American dead and $13 billion a month.

[...]

It’s a long journey from now to January 20, 2009, and the blood of many Americans and even more Iraqis will flow freely and stain the hands of those who allow this insane war to continue at the behest of a stubborn, unseeing, unthinking man from Crawford, Texas.

i've got nothing to add, believe me...

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McClatchy honors its motto

particularly in light of the pandering headlines generated by other media outlets (see previous post), perhaps mcclatchy takes journalism and its pledge, "truth to power," seriously...

Top Story
New Iraq plan recalls strategies past
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

The President declared success and said troops were coming home despite a range of government reports that says Iraqi civilian casualties remain high and that Iraqi security forces remain incapable of taking control.

[...]

There was no mention of a range of government reports, from a National Intelligence Estimate to a Government Accountability Office report and even the testimony this week of U.S. Iraq commander Army Gen. David Petraeus, that has said Iraqi civilian casualties remain high and that it will be years before Iraqi security forces can take control.

Other reports have stressed that Iraqis continue to flee their homes looking for safety at unprecedented rates and that Shiite militias continue to force Sunni Muslims from their homes. Baghdad residents complain that their city has become even more segregated than before the surge, divided now by hastily erected concrete walls to keep rival sects separate.

good on mcclatchy...

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McClatchy: wrong direction, dump Bush, help the poor

it's ugly out there, as well it should be...

The surveys point to one thing almost all Americans tend to agree on: They're deeply unhappy with the way things are going in the United States and eager to move on. There's virtually no appetite to extend the Bush era, as there was at the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency in 1988 or Bill Clinton's in 2000.

* Just 1 in 5 Americans think the country is going in the right direction, the worst outlook since the Reagan-Bush era ended in 1992.

* Less than one-third of Americans like the way the current President Bush is handling his job, among the lowest ratings in half a century. The people had similarly dismal opinions just before they ended the Jimmy Carter era in 1980, the Kennedy-Johnson years in 1968 and the Roosevelt-Truman era in 1952.

* The ranks of people who want the government to help the poor have risen sharply since the early 1990s — dramatically among independents, but even among Republicans.

The public mood is evident in Iowa, the heartland state that votes first for major-party presidential nominees and a pivotal swing state in the last two presidential elections.

"People are very unhappy, very unsettled,'' said Megan Phillips, a teacher from Centerville, a town of about 6,000 in southern Iowa.

[...]

"People don't trust anything coming out of Washington,'' she said. "When Bush says we're winning the war in Iraq, I say, 'Oh really?' The weapons of mass destruction weren't there. Why are we still there? We want our people to come home. There are so many things at home that need to be taken care of."

[...]

"It's a sour mood," said David Johnson, a former aide to Kansas Republican Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. His public relations firm, Strategic Vision, conducted the poll for corporate clients.

"There's a feeling that things are not going well. There are concerns about the economy, concerns about Iraq. ... They don't want a third term for Bush, not even Republicans. Among Democrats, I've never seen anything like it. And independents just want to be done with him."

well, people are definitely upset, and that's good... now, if they would just get upset over the most CRITICAL issue, one that trumps all the others, even as critical as they are, and that's the methodical destruction of our constitution, an issue that won't go away with the 2008 election...

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A big, bold, very serious McClatchy headline

Experts: Fixing Justice should be on Bush's agenda

it is to laugh... one of the most thankless jobs, as well as the one with the all-time worst record for achieving any results whatsoever, is offering advice to the bush administration... if bush had wanted a FUNCTIONAL - by any NORMAL definition of the term - department of justice, he wouldn't have appointed gonzo... therefore, you have to ask yourself, what IS bush's definition of "functional..." i propose that it looks very much like the doj looks right now... advising him to "fix" something he doesn't consider "broken" is an exercise in abject futility...

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McClatchy investigates a dropped DOJ fraud investigation and asks why?

mcclatchy is doing the work that few other full-bore print media news outlets are doing, and putting the ap and news corp. to shame in the process (not hard to to, i know)...

Two years into a fraud investigation, veteran federal prosecutor David Maguire told colleagues he'd uncovered one of the biggest cases of his career.

Maguire described crimes "far worse" than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal. Among those in his sights: executives from a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett.

In May 2006, he felt strongly enough about his case that he prepared a draft indictment accusing executives from a Virginia insurer, Reciprocal of America, of concocting a series of secret deals to hide its losses from regulators. Although he didn't name anyone from Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiary, he described the company as a participant in the scheme.

But Maguire never brought those charges.

Months after preparing the draft, he was removed as the lead prosecutor on the case and reassigned.

there's a lot more than what i have excerpted here, and i recommend you go read it all... if this indeed was bigger than arthur andersen, what in god's name would have shut it down, other than, of course, the possibilities mentioned in the article... good on mcclatchy for going in and digging this out...

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Ejército Popular Revolucionario, the little-known group that's blowing up Mexican natural gas pipelines

mcclatchy has an interesting report on the group claiming responsibility for the bombings of the mexican natural gas pipelines on july 5 and july 10...

When saboteurs blew up several natural gas pipelines in central Mexico this month, temporarily shutting down production for U.S. automakers and other important manufacturers, a small and shadowy Marxist guerrilla group called the Popular Revolutionary Army reportedly claimed responsibility.

[...]

General Motors and Nissan are said to have lost millions of dollars in production at their plants in the region.

[...]

The Mexican government hasn't officially blamed the Popular Revolutionary Army, which is known by its Spanish-language acronym EPR, although major Mexican newspapers reported that the group has claimed responsibility and has demanded the return of two colleagues imprisoned or missing in the southern state of Oaxaca.

the website of the PDPR-EPR (Partido Democrático Popular Revolucionario - Popular Democratic Revolutionary Party - and the Ejército Popular Revolucionario - Popular Revolutionary Army)...



is anybody else but me reminded of the ezln...?

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An Iraqi correspondent for a U.S. news agency survives a routine Baghdad traffic stop

mcclatchy offers several iraq blogs on its website, all interesting and informative... a post yesterday on the inside iraq blog details the horrifying possibility that, on any given day, the "authorities" might just shoot you dead on your way to work...

Terror at a traffic stop. If any digging was to take place into my identity and my profession, then I was dead. NOT a doctor, no, a correspondent for an AMERICAN news agency! I was left there waiting to hear my sentence for more than 20 of the longest minutes of my life.

imagine any resident of any u.s. city having to face something similar...

[UPDATE]

oops... i didn't realize that an iraqi journalist working for the nyt had indeed been killed on friday... i guess that puts the above into an immediate and concrete perspective...

the circumstances are particularly tragic...

Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist from The New York Times as he drove to work Friday, the third staffer of a Western news organization to be killed in the past two days. In his last moments, Khalid W. Hassan called his mother on his cell phone and told her he had been shot.

as i said above, can you imagine living like that on, not just a daily basis, but an hour-to-hour basis, dreading every time the phone rings, every time there's a knock at the door, every time you leave your house...? horrible...

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McClatchy tells less than HALF the Iraq oil law story

i've posted numerous times on the iraq oil law (over 10 times, at least, some of the major ones being here, here, here, and here, among others)... the key points that AREN'T getting reported in the so-called "news" outlets in the u.s. are these, compiled from both the uk independent and the inter press news service agency...

[The production sharing agreements - PSAs] envisioned by the Iraqi petrochemical law contained extremely favorable provisions for the oil companies, in which they would be entitled to 70 percent of profits until development expenses were amortized and 20 percent afterwards. This would have guaranteed them at least twice the typical profit margin over the long run and many times that figure during the initial years.

There are other elements in the law (and the possible PSA contracts) that have also roused resistance inside Iraq. Among the most controversial:

* Insofar as PSAs or their legal equivalent were enacted, Iraq would lose control over what levels of oil the country produced with the potential to substantially weaken the grip of OPEC on the oil market.

* The law would allow the oil companies to fully repatriate all profits from oil sales, almost insuring that the proceeds would not be reinvested in the Iraqi economy.

* The Iraqi government would not have control over oil company operations inside Iraq. Any disputes would be referred instead to pro-industry international arbitration panels.

* No contracts would be public documents.

* Contacting companies would not be obliged to hire Iraqi workers, and could pursue the current policy of employing American technicians and South Asian manual laborers.

Several African countries with vast mineral riches have been subjected to these sorts of conditions, with large multinational companies extracting both minerals and profits while returning only a tiny fraction of the proceeds to the local population. As the resources are taken out of the ground and the country, the local population actually becomes poorer, while the potential for future prosperity is drained.

i've developed some respect for mcclatchy over the past few months as being one of the few u.s. news outlets that's taking the risk to put out the truth... so, why the hell am i reading a story like this...?

Leading Sunnis in Iraq's parliament continued on Wednesday to snub a set of U.S.-supported oil laws many see as key to ending sectarian killing.

The laws would regulate Iraq's oil industry and govern how to distribute oil revenues. The Bush administration contends passage of an equitable oil-sharing law would draw Sunnis into the Shiite-led government and help heal the nation's deep religious rift.

U.S. lawmakers also see the oil provisions as a gauge that measures the effectiveness of President Bush's surge strategy. An influx of 28,500 troops has brought total force strength to 150,000.

[...]

Iraqis of all political and sectarian stripes have concerns about any provision that would call for sharing oil revenues with foreign oil companies.

Ministers from parliament's Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front have boycotted voting for the bills. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday predicted that parliament would begin debating the legislation. But on Wednesday an official for the group said no draft should be considered until the Sunnis return to session.

ok, mcclatchy, WHY ARE THEY SO DAMN CONCERNED...? HUH...? could it be about some of the things the independent and inter press service reported...? COULD IT...? yeah... i thought so... SO WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU MENTION THEM...?

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Patrick Rogers, David Iglesias, the American Center for Voting Rights, and the Republican National Lawyers Association

so, not only was rogers pushing for iglesias to get the ax while at the same time agitating to be his replacement, he was also an officer (secretary) for the bogus american center for voting rights legislative fund...

noteworthy items from the article...

• [Patrick Rogers, a] New Mexico lawyer who pressed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was [...] secretary of the non-profit American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund - an activist group that defended tighter voter identification requirements in court against charges that they were designed to hamper voting by poor minorities.

• Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.

• Rogers, a former general counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party and a candidate to replace Iglesias, is among a number of well-connected GOP partisans whose work with the legislative fund and a sister group played a significant role in the party’s effort to retain control of Congress in the 2006 election.

now, about that american center for voting rights, and its partner in voter suppression tactics, the republican national lawyers association...

• [T]he American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.

• The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.

• The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

• Public records show that the two nonprofits were active in at least nine states. They hired high-priced lawyers to write court briefs, issued news releases declaring key cities "hot spots" for voter fraud and hired lobbyists in Missouri and Pennsylvania to win support for photo ID laws. In each of those states, the center released polls that it claimed found that minorities prefer tougher ID laws.

• Of the 15 individuals affiliated with the two groups, at least seven are members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and half a dozen have worked for either one Bush election campaign or for the Republican National Committee.

• "Their job was to confuse the public about voter fraud and offer bogus solutions to the problem," said Michael Slater, the deputy director of Project Vote, "And like the Tobacco Institute, they relied on deception and faulty research to advance the interests of their clients."

but, check this...

Amid the controversy, the American Center for Voting Rights shuttered its Internet site on St. Patrick’s Day, and the two nonprofits appear to have vanished.

slate has more on the sudden disappearance of the american center for voting rights and its legislative fund...

Imagine the National Rifle Association's Web site suddenly disappeared, along with all the data and reports the group had ever posted on gun issues. Imagine Planned Parenthood inexplicably closed its doors one day, without comment from its former leaders. The scenarios are unthinkable, given how established these organizations have become. But even if something did happen to the NRA or Planned Parenthood, no doubt other gun or abortion groups would quickly fill the vacuum and push the ideas they'd pushed for years.

Not so for the American Center for Voting Rights, a group that has literally just disappeared as an organization, and for which it seems no replacement group will rise up. With no notice and little comment, ACVR—the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws—simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark "Thor" Hearne, has cleansed his résumé of affiliation with the group. Hearne won't speak to the press about ACVR's demise. No other group has taken up the "voter fraud" mantra.

mcclatchy is kicking butt in their news reporting... they're putting all the others to shame... atrios has suggested bookmarking their site or subscribing to their rss... i agree...

p.s. just for giggles and grins, this is a screen capture of the republican national lawyers association homepage...



did you happen to notice who the rnla is thanking for sponsoring their 2007 conference...?



if the name greenberg traurig doesn't ring any bells, it should...

In January 2001, lobbyist Jack Abramoff left Preston Gates & Ellis to join Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff brought a book of business then worth more than $6 million annually to Greenberg Traurig, according to his own estimates.

In 2000, before Abramoff joined the firm, Greenberg had $3.3 million in lobbying fees. After he joined in 2001, the firm took in $16.2 million in fees. By 2002, that number jumped to $17.7 million, and $25.5 million by 2003.[7] The firm became one of the top 10 of Washington lobbying firms, moving from 16th place to fourth, according to the National Journal.

it's SUCH a small world, isn't it...?

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From Air Force One today, two for one

there's two "OH, REALLYs" here, one in the first paragraph and the other in the second... can you pick 'em out...?

President Bush said yesterday he fears that the backlash against immigration being incited by opponents of his legalization proposal could result in the nation losing its soul.

His comments came in an intense interview aboard Air Force One with McClatchy Newspapers. "I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul," Bush said. "Immigration has been the lifeblood of a lot of our country's history." He added: "If we don't solve the problem it's going to affect America. It will affect our economy and it will affect our soul."

the first one is the easiest... bush is worrying about the nation "losing its soul...?" oh, c'mon, or, should i say, "OH, REALLY...!" the president who has presided over the most debasing, hate-filled, homophobic, religiously intolerant, race-baiting, accusatory, polarizing six and one-half years in the nation's history is worried about the nation losing its soul... < sigh > george bush must be the least self-examined man on the face of the earth...

didja catch the second one...? here's a hint...

Staffers at McClatchy's Washington, D.C., Bureau -- one of the few major news outlets skeptical of intelligence reports during the run-up to the war in Iraq -- claims it is now being punished for that coverage.

Bureau Chief John Walcott and current and former McClatchy Pentagon correspondents say they have not been allowed on the Defense Secretary's plane for at least three years, claiming the news company is being retaliated against for its reporting.

"It is because our coverage of Iraq policy has been quite critical," Walcott told E&P. He added, "I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they've decided they don't like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty."

i find it extremely ironic (or, should i say, "OH, REALLY!") that mcclatchy just happens to be the featured press outlet for this story... you can't tell me it's a coincidence...

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