Egypt has shown independence from the US by improving relations with Iran and changing its approach to Palestine. Must be those new 'democrats' in charge in Cairo. The Obama-inspired ones...
Egypt faces many uncertainties after the revolution, but two surprisingly swift changes in its foreign policy have demonstrated that the post-Mubarak era may produce change for the wider region too.
The foreign minister, Nabil al-Araby, has already overseen significant and assertive shifts on the Palestinian question as well as an easing of decades of tensions with Iran. Both moves signalled greater independence from the US, which gives Egypt $1.3bn in annual aid -- more than any other country except Israel. I guess they really don't need our money after all. Just like Pakistain doesn't...
Egypt's ordering brokering of a long-awaited reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is the most eyecatching of the innovations, and one which could prove a game-changer for the region's most intractable conflict. The Palestinian factions had their own domestic reasons for signing, but Cairo was still able to take the credit.
#1
Liu was extraordinarily unqualified and has radical ideals: Liu was as good a target as any for the GOP. A legal scholar who has never been a judge and has little experience practicing law, Liu occupies a place on the far left side of the legal spectrum. To take just one example, Republicans are fond of repeating Liu's assertion that the Constitution guarantees the right to "expanded health insurance, child care, transportation subsidies, job training, and a robust earned income tax credit."
"I must have missed that," Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a former Texas state supreme court justice, said dryly in floor remarks Thursday afternoon
It wasn't just Liu's legal positions that did him in. Republicans were particularly rankled by the professor's testimony during the 2006 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Appearing to model his remarks on Ted Kennedy's infamous 1987 "Robert Bork's America" speech, Liu said Samuel Alito's America would be one in which cops kill young suspects over minor crimes, all-white juries send black men to their deaths, and federal agents terrorize innocent civilians. After his own nomination, when he had gotten a taste of criticism himself, Liu apologized, saying his language had been "unduly harsh." But the damage was done. .
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
05/20/2011 10:16 Comments ||
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Barack Obama thinks he must incessantly talk about Middle Eastern events that he can affect only marginally, if at all. But before firing up his teleprompter, he should have something helpful to say. Thursday, he did not.
"We face an historic opportunity." "There will be good days and bad days." Consent is good, coercion is bad. Women should be emancipated. Yes, and an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Syria's President Assad "must" do this or that? And if he does not?
Regarding the Arab Spring, the president should remember Burke's axiom: Before we congratulate people on their freedom, we should see what use they make of it.
#1
Obama: "Such tolerance is particularly important when it comes to religion. In Tahrir Square, we heard Egyptians from all walks of life chant, Muslims, Christians, we are one.
I'd love to hear someone ask O-disaster whether he believes if those Copts who left persecution of Muslims years ago feel its the right time to return.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
05/20/2011 8:50 Comments ||
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#2
I have never become aware of a politician so consistently WRONG than "President" O'Bumble.
George Will's article would be more aptly titled as
"Obama jumps the gunshark on Arab Spring".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/20/2011 17:40 Comments ||
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#1
Explains scholar Benny Morris: "One of the characteristics of the Palestinian national movement has been the Palestinians' view of themselves as perpetual victims of others: Ottoman Turks, British officials, Zionists, Americans - and never to appreciate that they are, at least in large part, victims of their own mistakes and iniquities."
Obviously, Benny has had some influence here. What's your Rantburg nym, Benny?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/20/2011 6:25 Comments ||
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#2
Replace the words "Palestinians" with "Muslims" in the first comment and you have the continuing saga of the Muddled East wrapped up in a single sentence.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/20/2011 17:43 Comments ||
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Not a baby boomer issue, but an entitlement mindset issue. It goes back to the FDR babies, who were taught they had suffered and deserved government support.
#1
But from his standpoint, he did what he was supposed to do - he informed the state, and the state said he could keep using the card. The problem is with the state.
Not what he was supposed to do - what he was entitled to do, by interpretation of the federal law, but unfettered by any conscience or feelings of guilt about having $2 million in the bank while still receiving food stamps.
Millionaires on welfare. It's their right.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/20/2011 6:16 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] Judy Ancel, a Kansas City, Mo., professor, and her St. Louis colleague were teaching a labor history class together this spring semester. Little did they know, video recordings of the class were making their way into the thriving sub rosa world of right-wing attack video editing, twisting their words in a way that resulted in the loss of one of the professors' jobs amidst a wave of intimidation and death threats. Fortunately, reason and solid facts prevailed, and the videos ultimately were exposed for what they were: fraudulent, deceptive, sloppily edited hit pieces.
Right-wing media personality Andrew Breitbart is the forceful advocate of the slew of deceptively edited videos that target and smear progressive individuals and institutions. He promoted the videos that purported to catch employees of the community organization ACORN assisting a couple in setting up a prostitution ring. He showcased the edited video of Shirley Sherrod, an African-American employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which completely convoluted her speech, making her appear to admit to discriminating against a white farmer. She was fired as a result of the cooked-up controversy. Similar video attacks have been waged against Planned Parenthood. ...has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. It is sometimes described as the gynecololgical wing of the Democratic party. Ancel has been the director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Institute for Labor Studies since 1988. Using a live video link, she co-teaches a course on the history of the labor movement with professor Don Giljum, who teaches at University of Missouri-St. Louis. The course comprises seven daylong, interactive sessions throughout the semester. They are video-recorded and made available through a password-protected system to students registered in the class. One of those students, Philip Christofanelli, copied the videos, and he admits on one of Breitbart's sites that he did "give them out in their entirety to a number of my friends." At some point, a series of highly and very deceptively edited renditions of the classes appeared on Breitbart's website. It was then that Ancel's and Giljum's lives were disrupted, and the death threats started.
A post on Breitbart's BigGovernment.com summarized the video: "The professors not only advocate the occasional need for violence and industrial sabotage, they outline specific tactics that can be used." Ancel told me, "I was just appalled, because I knew it was me speaking, but it wasn't saying what I had said in class." She related the attack against her and Giljum to the broader attack on progressive institutions currently:
"These kinds of attacks are the equivalent of electronic brownshirts. They create so much fear, and they are so directed against anything that is progressive--the right to an education, the rights of unions, the rights of working people--I see, are all part of an overall attack to silence the majority of people and create the kind of climate of fear that allows for us to move very, very sharply to the right. And it's very frightening."
Ancel's contact information was included in the attack video, as was Giljum's. She received a flurry of threatening emails. Giljum received at least two death threats over the phone. The University of Missouri conducted an investigation into the charges prompted by the videos, during which time they posted uniformed and plainclothes police in the classrooms. Giljum is an adjunct professor, with a full-time job working as the business manager for Operating Engineers Local 148, a union in St. Louis. Meanwhile, ...back at the wrecked scow, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow... the union acceded to pressure from the Missouri AFL-CIO, and asked Giljum to resign, just days before his May 1 retirement after working there for 27 years.
Gail Hackett, provost of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, released a statement after the investigation, clearing the two professors of any wrongdoing:
"It is clear that edited videos posted on the Internet depict statements from the instructors in an inaccurate and distorted manner by taking their statements out of context and reordering the sequence in which those statements were actually made so as to change their meaning."
The University of Missouri-St. Louis also weighed in with similar findings and stated that Giljum was still eligible to teach there.
On April 18, Andrew Breitbart appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program, declaring, "We are going to take on education next, go after the teachers and the union organizers." It looks as if Ancel and Giljum were the first targets of that attack.
In this case, the attack failed. While ACORN was ultimately vindicated by a congressional investigation, the attack took its toll, and the organization lost its funding and collapsed. President Barack B.O. Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized to Shirley Sherrod, and Vilsack begged her to return to work. Sherrod has a book coming out and a lawsuit pending against Breitbart.
Let's hope this is a sign that deception, intimidation and the influence of the right-wing echo chamber are on the decline.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2011 00:00 ||
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#3
Thanks, another marxist information outlet exposed. Goebbels would be proud. Be ever vigilant 'cause just because you might be paranoid it don't mean the bastards aren't plotting to get you.
#4
Brownshirts = Sturm Abteilung (SA), element of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [National Socialist Workers Party]. The party of Goebbels.
#5
Interesting that the course's on-line videos are password protected, intended to be locked away from the world at large. In contrast, MIT and a number of other universities in the U.S. and around the world offer thousands of courses for free on the internet.
Bluntly, the professors' best defence, if they truly believe the the videos have been deceptively edited, is to release the videos in full, pointing out how the deception was accomplished.
#6
Bluntly, the professors' best defence, if they truly believe the the videos have been deceptively edited, is to release the videos in full, pointing out how the deception was accomplished.
Unfortunately, TW, if they did that, they'd be exposed to even greater scrutiny, and probably found wanting. I think this is much ado about nothing, pushed by the teachers' unions to counter the hits they're taking elsewhere. Expect to see a lot of this kind of ^%$&^%$7 between now and November 2012. Let's just keep exposing it for the fraudulent whining of the "important" class of people. Most people don't like whiners. The Democheats have a patent on it for political purposes. Let's hope it does them in completely.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/20/2011 17:33 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By George Will
[Iran Press TV] Judy Ancel, a Kansas City, Mo., professor, and her St. Louis colleague were teaching a labor history class together this spring semester. Little did they know, video recordings of the class were making their way into the thriving sub rosa world of right-wing attack video editing, twisting their words in a way that resulted in the loss of one of the professors' jobs amidst a wave of intimidation and death threats. Fortunately, reason and solid facts prevailed, and the videos ultimately were exposed for what they were: fraudulent, deceptive, sloppily edited hit pieces.
