Blog

  • Mubarak, Army, U.S., Israel vs Egyptian People

    [As government forces have attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square, Emad Mekay from Cairo reports] Mubarak is clearly backed by the Americans. He took some moves after speaking with Obama and a visit by a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner. Mubarak, the army, the Americans and the Israelis are clearly on one side.…

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  • Unrest Spreads to Sinai

    A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. “I will leave when Mubarak leaves,” he says. [Full piece from Inter Press Service]

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  • Chomsky: Strategic and Economic Objectives, Not Anti-Islamization, Drives U.S. Policy

    [While many are claiming that a central goal of U.S. policy is to minimize influence of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Noam Chomsky contributed this to our blog] It is well-established, including the major scholarly literature, that the U.S. supports democracy if and only if that accords with strategic and economic objectives.  Following…

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  • An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

    ————————————————————————————————————————— [To sign; for recent news releases on Egypt from the Institute for Public Accuracy] Dear President Obama: As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping…

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  • Report from Cairo

    From Alex Ortiz in Cairo: “The army is beginning to come into Cairo … tens of thousands converged in midan al-gala’ coming from three different protest marches. Total communication blackout. Reports of senior police officers ordering their men to stand down and not beat or fire tear gas at protesters in Midan al-gala an hour…

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  • Report on Latest from Cairo

    CAIRO, Egypt [11 p.m. local time] — 1-Some government media figures appear to be joining ranks with the protesters. Mahmoud Saad, a talk show host in the Egyptian state-run TV, has announced that he will no longer appear on TV starting tonight after he came under pressure from top government officials to report “untruths” about…

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  • Police in Cairo Beating up Jounalists

    [From 9:28 a.m. ET]: Police started beating up journalists protesting outside the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo. They beat up women journalists too who were screaming and crying for help. “Do not club women. Do not club women,” some of the men rushed to the police asking them not to target women. “You’ll make things…

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  • From Alex Ortiz in Cairo

    [The Egyptian government has apparently block Twitter, Facebook (as of Wed. morn U.S. ET) and other internet tools, though apparently some people are able to get around such restrictions. Email from 8:45 a.m. ET:] Downtown Cairo today remains in a state of high alert. There are many security forces and plainsclothed policemen visible on every…

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  • Video from Cairo

    Phone lines are intermittent and Twitter has reportedly been blocked in Egypt. Here is a live video feed: ustream.tv/channel/cairodowntown [update: ustream has been blocked, streaming now intermittently at livestream.com/cairowitness — further update, now at: www.justin.tv/cairowitness] Here is a YouTube video from earlier today:

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  • Ukraine’s Assault on a Free Press

    In Ukraine, where media diversity is often defined by which powerful oligarch controls which TV station, one network, TVi — known for its independent investigative style — is under intense legal pressure, with its owner not part of Ukraine’s power circles. TVi faces a court hearing on Tuesday over a legal claim that the station’s…

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  • Mexican President Skipping Summit of the Americas

  • Biden Trip to Saudi Arabia: “Blatant Hypocrisy”

  • A Dearth of Covid Storytelling

    Theater historian Debra Caplan argues that we “urgently need to tell the story of what happened––and what’s still happening––in this pandemic. We need to publicly grieve the [one] million Americans we lost, and make plans to try to prevent any more casualties. We need to tell the stories of Long Haulers and survivors.”

  • Fed’s Fix is Wrong: Inflation Caused by “Skyrocketing” Corporate Profits More Than Wages

    Senior Economist at “Institute for New Economic Thinking” Pia Malaney says, “Work by Servaas Storm for the Institute for New Economic Thinking and other analysts suggest that very little of the rise in inflation can be traced to wages. As most Americans know from their own experience, wages are running well behind inflation and have…

  • Insurers Collected Full Premiums But Paid Less for Care During the Pandemic

    A recent opinion article published by MedPage Today points out that in 2020, private insurer profits––largely from Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care––jumped 20-30%. At the time, private insurers were collecting full premiums even as claims from health care providers fell due to decreases in elective care. Meanwhile, the government was bailing out providers by…

  • Protesters Block Major Weapons Bazaar

  • Assessing Threat of Inflation and Slowing Wage Growth

    With the monthly Employment Situation scheduled for release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, June 3, Dean Baker, senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes: “In its latest report on the budget and the economy, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) sided clearly with those arguing the case for inflation being…

  • Racist Origins of Policing and the Second Amendment

    A chapter in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s book “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment” titled “Slave Patrols” explains the racist foundations of policing and gun laws in the United States. An excerpt published by Truthout on the chapter says, “Dunbar-Ortiz provides the historical context for how militias that killed and oppressed slaves and Indigenous persons…

  • Apologist for Tucker Carlson’s Racism: Glenn Greenwald

    Journalist Eoin Higgins writes, “There’s no plausible way to dispute that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is spreading racist conspiracy theories, but Glenn Greenwald has been trying anyway.”

  • Power of the NRA: Mass Organization, JROTC

    Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” said today that the NRA is a powerful, independent organization able to nullify any election candidate in the country who advocates for gun control

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