Blog

  • Uprisings: Online Resouces

    With protests continuing, here is a partial list of online resources: For Libya: #Feb17; CNN’s Ben Wedeman; @EnoughGaddafi; For Bahrain: #Feb14, @OnlineBahrain; For Yemen: #Feb3; @JNovak_Yemen; Palestinian: #Mar15 Gulf: @dr_davidson, @tobycraigjones For Saudi Arabia: on Twitter: #Mar11; Webpages and blogs: rasid.com, ysoof.com/blog/?p=242, saudiwoman.wordpress.com, alasmari.wordpress.com, saudijeans.org To translate: translate.google.com Based in the U.S., but with extensive contacts…

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  • “A New Bipartisan Consensus Against Low Income People”

    The president’s budget is a prosaic austerity plan that inflicts disproportionate pain on low income Americans. Fundamental questions about the costs of war and the fairness of tax cuts for the rich have been avoided by the decision to narrowly target non-security “discretionary” spending to bear the weight of deficit reduction. It used to be…

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  • Challenges for Change in Algeria

    Tunisia and Egypt are relatively centralized states, Algeria not so, neither politically, nor culturally, nor geographically. Historically, the interior has been difficult to control, and there is no guarantee that the rest of the country would rally to the protests taking place in the capital as in the case of Egypt. The Algerian regime is…

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  • “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t”

    CAIRO — Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killing. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including…

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  • Time to forge new, democratic system

    CAIRO — Last night, February 11, Cairo was the scene of what may well have been the largest street party in world history.  It was incredibly powerful and moving.  Of course, the night’s festivities marked both an end and a beginning. Now is the time for Egypt’s judges, other legal professionals, diplomats, other negotiators, intellectuals,…

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  • Our Man in Cairo

    With Mubarak’s departure, the focus now falls on his chosen successor, Omar Suleiman. According to a classified American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman was Israel’s pick to succeed Mubarak. But there’s little doubt that he was also the choice of the United States, or at least of one particular American agency with which he…

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  • Online Resources on Egypt and Beyond

    With protests against the Egyptian regime continuing, here is a partial list of resources: A critical Facebook page is “We are all Khaled Said” — also see the associated webpage elshaheeed.co.uk. (For background on Khaled Said, see IPA news release.) See: egyprotest-defense.blogspot.com; live updates at guardian.co.uk; Al-Jazeera English live blog and video, or via YouTube:…

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  • Hungry Gazans Feed Egyptian Troops

    RAFAH, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side. [See at Inter Press Service]

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  • Egypt’s military-industrial complex

    With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings…

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  • Uprising Pays Off -– Sort of

    Today I went to a town only 23 kilometers south of Tahrir Square. The plan was to see if the 11-day uprising in Egypt has produced any benefits so far – just by way of finding something different from the insecurity and chaos in Cairo. Kirdasa, a small town known for its flower nurseries and…

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  • For First Time Ever, Ranked Voting for Presidential Race: Maine is Set to Have It, Why Won’t Everyone?

    “Every voter in Maine will be able to vote for the candidate they like the most without fear of helping electing the candidate they like the least. And Mainers will be sure their electoral votes go to candidates who have truly earned them.”

  • Bolivia: Nearly One Year After Coup, Democracy, and the Left, Appears to Triumph

    “De facto president Jeanine Anez has posted a message on Twitter congratulating Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca [of Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism party] on their apparent victory in today’s election.”

  • Barrett and Injustice: Jesuit Priest Being Sentenced for Nuclear Weapons Protest

  • Barrett: Farcical Roots of “Originalism” — Bork Precedent

    “Barrett promises to be Scalia on steroids. She has criticized his ‘faint-hearted’ version of ‘originalism.'”

  • “Justice” Barrett?

    “Donald Trump rushed to nominate Barrett and enlisted his consigliere, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), to ram [Barrett’s] nomination through the Senate so she can support Trump’s legal challenges to any election results that favor Joe Biden.”

  • * Problems with Nobel Peace Prize * CRISPR: Engineering Future People?

  • Are they “Debates” or Joint Televised Appearances?

    “The debate rules and moderators are dictated by the two major parties — operating behind the fig leaf of a ‘Debate Commission’ set up to remove control over debates from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters.”

  • Questions on SCOTUS Nominee: What Version of Christianity?

    “With the nomination of a new supreme court judge, some are being accused of ‘anti-catholicism’ for posing questions about your religious beliefs. I, however, think questions like the following are important and I am sure that you are open to discussing them with the American public whose job it is [for you] to serve.”

  • How the Gates Foundation Is Killing Open License Pandemic Remedies

    “In a pandemic, when there is a vacuum of leadership, people that move fast and seem to know what they’re doing, they just acquire a lot of power.”

  • Will Schumer Try to Stop Trump SCOTUS Pick?

    “The person with the power to organize top Democrats to confront this confirmation is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. … We all know that if the roles were reversed, McConnell would do all in his power to whip the Republican Conference into line and slow things down. …”

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