Archive - Jan 2010

Source: Reuters (For full coverage of Pakistan & Afghanistan, click [ID:nAFPAK])

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Pakistani forces backed by helicopter gunships have killed 15 Taliban in clashes that ...

Reuters - President Barack Obama will seek on Monday to strike a balance between taming skyrocketing U.S. budget deficits and giving the economy a boost to ease the pain of double-digit unemployment.

7:45am – Alex Isenstadt, Politico, Congressional Reporter & John Kornacki, George Washington University, Professor of Political Management

8:30am – Steven Mufson, Washington Post, Financial Reporter

9:15am – Dr. Joe Thompson, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity Director

Length: 3 hr.

Published: Today at 7am (ET)

This is the first of four profiles of congressional campaign committee executive directors.

A little more than 10 years ago (Jan. 17, 2000, to be exact), I began writing my “Dangerous Dozen” columns about open House seats, and the recent flurry of retirements means there finally are enough to fill a list for the 2010 cycle.

Glenn Greenwald writes:

To see how radical our establishment consensus in this area has become, just consider two facts.  First, look at the Terrorism policies of what had previously been the most right-wing administration in America's history:  the Reagan administration.  In this post yesterday, Larry Johnson does quite a good job of documenting how Terrorism by Islamic radicals had been a greater problem in the 1980s than it is now.  There was the 1983 bombing of our Marine barracks in Lebanon, a 1982 and 1984 bombing of Jewish sites in Argentina, numerous plane hijackings, the blowing up of a Pan Am jet, the Achille Lauro seizure, and what the State Department called "a host of spectacular, publicity-grabbing events that ultimately ended in coldblooded murder" (many masterminded by Abu Nidal).  

Despite that, read the official policy of the Reagan Administration when it came to treating Terrorists, as articulated by the top Reagan State Department official in charge of Terrorism policies, L. Paul Bremer, in a speech he entitled "Counter-Terrorism:  Strategies and Tactics:"  

Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are -- criminals -- and to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against them.

It was also Ronald Reagan who signed the Convention Against Torture in 1988 -- after many years of countless, horrific Terrorist attacks -- which not only declared that there are "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever" justifying torture, but also required all signatory countries to "ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law" and -- and Reagan put it -- "either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."  And, of course, even George W. Bush -- at the height of 9/11-induced Terrorism hysteria -- charged attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid with actual crimes and processed him through our civilian courts.

How much clearer evidence can there be of how warped and extremist we've become on these matters?  The express policies of the right-wing Ronald Reagan -- "applying the rule of law to terrorists"; delegitimizing Terrorists by treating them as "criminals"; and compelling the criminal prosecution of those who authorize torture -- are now considered on the Leftist fringe.  Merely advocating what Reagan explicitly adopted as his policy -- "to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against" Terrorists -- is now the exclusive province of civil liberties extremists.  In those rare cases when Obama does what Reagan's policy demanded in all instances and what even Bush did at times -- namely, trials and due process for accused Terrorists -- he is attacked as being "Soft on Terror" by Democrats and Republicans alike.  And the mere notion that we should prosecute torturers (as Reagan bound the U.S. to do) -- or even hold them accountable in ways short of criminal proceedings -- is now the hallmark of a Far Leftist Purist.  That's how far we've fallen, how extremist our political consensus has become.

src=http://newsaura.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/paul-krugman.jpg align=right title="Paul Krugman to Fox News CEO: Deliberate misinformation" alt="paul krugman Paul Krugman to Fox News CEO: Deliberate misinformation" />In an interview Sunday, New York Times economist Paul Krugman hammered conservative talk show host Glenn Beck for spreading blatantly false information about the Democrats' health care bill -- and put the blame squarely on Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.

"Glenn Beck doesn't, you know," Krugman began, "what bothers me is the fact that people are not getting informed, that we are going through major debates on crucial policy issues; the public is not learning about them. And you know, you can say, well, they can read the New York Times, which will tell them what they need to know, but you know, most people don't. They don't read it thoroughly.... People did not know what was in the plan, and some of that was just poor reporting, some of it was deliberate misinformation. I have here in front of me when President Obama said, you know, why -- he said rhetorically, why aren't we going to do a health care plan like the Europeans have, with a government-run program, and then proceeds to explain whey he's different. On Fox News, what appeared was a clipped quote, "why don't we have a European-style health care plan?" Right, deliberate misinformation."

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes interjects: "Wait a minute, wait a minute..."

And Krugman replies, "I can show you the clip, and you can..."

"The American people are not stupid," Ailes says.

Source: Reuters (For more on the budget, click on [ID:nN30164446])

By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's new budget, to be unveiled on Monday, is likely to prompt a fresh round of ...

Source: Reuters By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday will propose a three-year freeze on many domestic government programs to help tame U.S. budget deficits that ...

Source: Reuters (For more on the budget, click on [ID:nN30164446])

* White House to project $1.6 trillion deficit in 2010

* Deficits seen hovering near World War Two highs

* Obama ...