Purveyor
Purveyor's JournalMcCain: Don't Filibuster Hagel
By MANU RAJU and DAVID ROGERS | 2/4/13 4:53 PM EST Updated: 2/4/13 6:13 PM EST
Sen. John McCain appears to have cleared the way Monday for Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense.
The Arizona Republican, who has been a prominent voice in the debate over Hagel, said Monday he would oppose any attempt to filibuster the nomination, likely dooming any attempt by Senate conservatives to sustain a protracted procedural fight to delay Hagel’s confirmation.
“I do not believe that we should filibuster,” McCain told POLITICO. “To vote against is entirely the judgment of each individual senator, but a filibuster I think would be inappropriate.”
Asked if he would vote for cloture if a filibuster were mounted, McCain answered, “Yes.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/mccain-dont-filibuster-hagel-87159.html#ixzz2Jyda7yrT
Media Hate Fest for Venezuela Keeps on Keepin' On
By Mark Weisbrot, Al Jazeera | Op-Ed
Last week there was a real media hate-fest for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, with some of the more influential publications on both sides of the Atlantic really hating on the guy. Even by the hate-filled standards to which we have become accustomed, it was impressive.
It's interesting, since this is one of the only countries in the world where the reporting of the more liberal media - NPR or even the New Yorker - is hardly different from that of Fox News or other right-wing media (more on that below).
The funniest episode came from El País, which on Thursday ran a front page picture of a man that they claimed was Chavez, lying on his back in a hospital bed, looking pretty messed-up with tubes in his mouth. The picture was soon revealed as completely fake. Oops! The paper, which is Spain's most influential publication (and with a lot of clout in Latin America, too), had to pull its newspapers off the stands and issue a public apology. Although, as the Venezuelans complained, there was no apology to Chavez or his family. Not surprisingly, since El Pais really hates Chavez.
The New York Times, for its part, ran yet another hate piece on its op-ed page. Dog bites man. Nothing new here, they have doing this for almost 14 years - most recently just three months ago. This one was remarkably unoriginal, comparing the Chavez government to a Latin American magical realist novel. It contained very little information - but being fact-free allowed the authors to claim that the country had "dwindling productivity" and "an enormous foreign debt load". Productivity has not "dwindled" under Chavez; in fact real GDP per capita, which is mostly driven by productivity growth, expanded by 24 percent since 2004 (for an explanation of why 2004 is a reasonable starting point, see here). In the 20 years prior to Chavez, real GDP per person actually fell. As for the "enormous foreign debt load", Venezuela's foreign public debt is about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is about 2 percent of GDP. If this is enormous - well let's just say these people don't have a good sense of quantity.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14343-media-hate-fest-for-venezuela-keeps-on-keepin-on
So, Just How Powerful Is The Israel lobby In The US?
As public grovels go, this one was pretty spectacular. Former Senator Chuck Hagel, who may or may not become the next US Secretary of Defense, was back in his old haunts on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearings, trying to explain a remark he made a few years back, that "the Jewish lobby intimidated Congress" and did some "dumb things".
Name a "dumb thing", he was asked by Lindsey Graham, his Republican colleague for six years until 2009 – though you wouldn't have guessed it from the venom of the exchanges on Thursday. Hagel couldn't. Graham persisted. "Name one person who's intimidated by the Israel lobby in the United States Senate." A taut silence, then Hagel limply responded, "I don't know."
Public hearings, especially confirmation hearings, are one of the great shows of Congress. Hagel's made especially good theatre, largely because the reek of treachery was in the air. Here was a Republican who had abandoned his party and colleagues like Graham and John McCain, his one-time friend and fellow Vietnam war hero, by turning against the Iraq war begun by a Republican president.
Worse still, Hagel had backed Barack Obama, not McCain, in the 2008 election, even accompanying the Democratic candidate on a high-profile campaign visit to Iraq and Israel. And now here he was, back on Capitol Hill as Obama's choice to lead the Pentagon, about to collect his 30 pieces of silver. If anything, McCain's own grilling of his former pal was even more poisonous.
In the end the public drama may make little difference. Hagel did pretty poorly, seeming to be taken aback by the hostility of the Republicans, even though the latter had made no secret of it beforehand. But performances at confirmation hearings rarely change minds – and even more rarely is a President's nominee to an important post actually rejected. The Democrats and their allies hold a 14-12 majority on the Armed Services Committee, and 55 of the 100 Senate seats. That should be enough. The only way Republicans can block Hagel is by using the filibuster to prevent a final vote on the floor.
MORE...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/so-just-how-powerful-is-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us-8478432.html
Stateless in the Age of Islamophobia
Twenty-eight-year-old Tareq Abufayyad was greeted by high-ranking American and Egyptian diplomats when he stepped off a private plane that had landed in Cairo's international airport, just after sunset on June 27, 2011. Tareq had spent the last four and half years - the years that might have been the heady time of his young adulthood - languishing in California county jails, although he was never convicted of a crime.
"I thought, freedom. I need freedom; I need fresh air and sun. Just give me my freedom," Tareq recollected in an intervew with Truthout via Skype from his home in Gaza in September, 2012.
Wearing the same clothes he had on when he had traveled to the United States for the first time in 2007 - blue jeans, a dark yellow jacket and collared shirt - Tareq waited in the Cairo airport through the night, waited for the sun to rise and the buses to begin operating. He, along with other travelers, would take a 10-hour bus trip from Cairo to Gaza's Rafah crossing, opened only weeks earlier by the then-new interim Egyptian government, put in place following the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
After arriving in Gaza, a place he had not been for nearly 10 years, Tareq would soon discover that he would not be allowed to leave the blockaded coastal enclave.
Back in 2007, all of the members of Tareq's family were US citizens of California, and he had been on his way to join them after finishing college. Tareq had been excited to reunite with his family, and, equipped with a US entry permit granted prior to his departure from Cairo, he anticipated no problems entering the States, where he intended to continue his schooling and work on his English.
That is not what happened
MORE...
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14191-stateless-in-the-age-of-islamophobia
Florence Arizona Student Suspended Over Picture Of Gun
FLORENCE, AZ - A high school student in Florence said he has been suspended because of a picture of a gun.
Daniel McClaine Jr., a freshman at Poston Butte High School, said he saved the picture as his desktop background on his school-issued computer.
A teacher noticed it and turned him in.
The picture shows an AK-47 on top of a flag.
McClaine said the school initially suspended him for three days Friday.
Since the laptop belongs to the school, the district policy states students are prohibited from “sending or displaying offensive messages or pictures,” and cannot access, send, create or forward pictures that are considered “harassing, threatening, or illegal.”
Read more: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_central_southern_az/florence/florence-student-suspended-over-picture-of-gun#ixzz2JsRpda6c
Ahmadinejad To Make First Egypt Visit By Iran Head In Decades
Source: REUTERS
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Cairo next week, becoming the first Iranian president to travel to Egypt since Iran’s 1979 revolution ruptured diplomatic ties between the two most populous countries in the Middle East.
Ahmadinejad will head Iran’s delegation to a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo, said Amani Mojtaba, head of Iran’s interest section in Cairo, which it maintains in the absence of an official embassy.
“I hope that Iranian-Egyptian relations return to the full diplomatic level,” he told Reuters.
The trip follows a visit by Egypt’s new Islamist President Mohammed Mursi to Iran in August last year, when the two leaders agreed to reopen official embassies.
Tehran broke off relations with Cairo in 1980, a year after both Iran’s revolution and Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel.
Read more: http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/02/264009.html
Scores Of Harvard Students Suspended In Cheating Scandal
Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Around 60 Harvard University students were suspended “for a period of time” after cheating on a final Congress exam, the school’s administration said on Friday. As many as 125 students were implicated when the scandal broke last year.
By News Wires (text)
Harvard University said Friday it issued academic sanctions against about 60 students who were forced to withdraw from school for a period of time in a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress, drawing criticism from a high-profile alumnus.
The school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year.
The inquiry started after a teaching assistant in a spring semester undergraduate-level government class detected problems in the take-home test, including that students may have shared answers.
Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20130202-dozens-students-harvard-university-suspended-cheating-scandal-usa
"Take home tests"...seriously? Wish we had 'take home tests' back in my day...
'King Bibi' Holds On To Israel Throne
Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
By Philippe Agret (AFP) – 9 hours ago
JERUSALEM — Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tapped on Saturday to form a new government for a third successive term, cuts a figure of admiration and loathing at home and abroad.
A May 2012 cover of Time magazine hailed him as "King Bibi," using his nickname, but former French president Nicolas Sarkozy branded him a "liar" in a private conversation with US President Barack Obama.
The hawkish Netanyahu has been tasked with a third successive term as prime minister, following an initial 1996-1999 mandate that made him the Jewish state's youngest ever premier.
--CLIP
Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpgirQqJ-OlaJ5o1zpxkglZn6FZg?docId=CNG.303c7998ea71dd6609f899412e4d1ab9.a71
What We Will Lose When Tom Harkin Leaves the Senate
Tom Harkin's decision to retire from the Senate at the end of his current term will create an immeasurable void in the chamber where he has served for more than a quarter century. A progressive populist with a history of defending organized labor, working farmers, public education and public services, the Iowan arrived in the Senate as a fighting FDR Democrat and he will leave as one.
As The Des Moines Register well recognized in its editorial on the Iowa Democrat's decision to retire:
"A variety of terms have been used to describe Harkin's politics. He has been called a progressive or a populist from the prairie school. He is that but more: He was a close friend of the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone who used to say he belonged to the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, meaning he was not ashamed to be called a liberal. That's the same wing of the party Harkin has represented without apology.
"Actually, Harkin's politics and his philosophy of government are rooted in the age of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which swept in a historic change in the role of government in the affairs of the nation."
On a national political landscape that could use a good deal more of FDR's ideological and political determination -- especially in the updated and extended form that Harkin employed it -- this is a retirement that will be felt by every American who recognizes that formation of a more perfect union requires the forging of a truly national, urban and rural progressive politics.
MORE...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-We-Will-Lose-When-Tom-by-John-Nichols-130201-202.html
A Second Republican Voices Support For Hagel To Lead Pentagon
WASHINGTON | Sat Feb 2, 2013 4:57pm EST
(Reuters) - Senator Mike Johanns said on Saturday he would support fellow Nebraskan Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense, becoming the second Republican in the Senate to express public support for President Barack Obama's embattled nominee.
The Lincoln, Nebraska, JournalStar reported on its website that Johanns, a former Nebraska governor who holds Hagel's old Senate seat, issued a statement supporting Hagel. An aide to Johanns confirmed the report.
Johanns' backing increases the likelihood of Hagel's confirmation, despite bitter opposition by some Republicans and the former senator's cautious performance during a contentious confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Critics said Hagel performed poorly at times during his hearing, speaking hesitantly, seeming tired and often unprepared for some of the sharpest queries about his past controversial statements on Israel, Iran and U.S. nuclear strategy.
MORE...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/02/us-obama-nominations-hagel-idUSBRE90U09P20130202
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