Last Call

So while you're watching the big game, Robert Lipsyte argues with the coming NFL labor dispute almost certainly leading to a lockout, our failed effort in Afghanistan approaching a decade, and our economy all but down for the count that this may be the last truly super Super Bowl America has.

As spectators we rarely see the young people die in either volunteer legion.Restrictions during the Bush years on journalists filming combat deaths or even showing returning caskets kept the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a comfortable remove until they became distant and routine. Old news. Maybe even a little boring for people without loved ones on active duty.

On NFL broadcasts, players with broken bones and torn tissues are quickly carted off lest their teammates lose heart. For those of us watching on TV, the collisions seem almost like cartoon hits. How can those players just pop back up? Is it the pride, the adrenaline, that allows them to pretend they are made of steel? Of course, the real damage, the dementia brought on by head trauma, is years, even decades, away.

It’s hard to believe how recently the concussion discussion began in earnest, as if players hadn’t been hit in the head for more than a century. It was launched several years ago by the revelation that former pro football players were being diagnosed with dementia, and even dying from suspected long-term brain trauma, at disproportionate rates for their age.  It was helped along by a number of workers’ compensation cases and the superb reporting of Alan Schwarz of the New York Times.

The concussion discussion has replaced steroids as the NFL health topic, although the issues are joined: larger players seem to be at greater risk for early death, and bulking up via steroids probably contributes to harder hits. The discussion has also raised the question of whether parents should allow their children to play the game -- years of small, unreported traumas to the head can’t be good for developing brains. It even occasioned a rare but telling ESPN column on abolition.

Lest you consider this enough piling on the all-American game, labor troubles loom with a lock-out possible in March. Because the main issue is money -- the teams want to share less revenue (currently 60%) with the players -- the media tends to characterize the conflict as “billionaires versus millionaires.”  Actually, most owners are rich from other businesses and would not have been allowed into the NFL unless they were financially secure, while few players survive more than about three years in the league. The owners also want to increase production (adding two games to the regular season) without taking more responsibility for health-care costs.

If any of this sounds depressingly like real life, how could you not watch what might be the last Super Bowl, the endgame of empire, the two-minute warning before America finally beats itself?

Just so.  There's no bigger circus in America than the Super Bowl each year, and considering NFL cities are going to be facing massive budget shortfalls this year, the looming lockout over the league, the global economy on the edge of disaster and food prices rocketing up as resources become more scarce, by the time the next Super Bowl rolls around, who knows where we will be.

Here's a hint:  it won't be a better position than we're in now.

Enjoy the game.

Advocacy Versus Impartiality

It's hard to be a Supreme Court Justice when your spouse is a professional political lobbyist.  Or, you would think that, anyway.  Apparently you'd be right for once.

According to its website, Liberty Consulting is dedicated to "effective advocacy and assistance on behalf of those liberty-loving citizens and organizations who wish to preserve limited government, free enterprise, national security, individual liberty and personal responsibility."

Virginia Thomas "plans to leverage her 30 years of experience as a Washington 'insider' to assist non-establishment 'outsiders' who share her belief in our core founding principles and values," the website states.

In an email sent to congressional chiefs of staff last week, Thomas described herself as “a self-appointed ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement,” Politico reported.

Thomas is indeed an "insider," having worked as an attorney for the US Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s and a policy analyst for then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey in the 1990s, before becoming involved in the tea party movement in recent years.

It was as the head of the tea party group Liberty Central that Virginia Thomas began attracting high-profile criticism. She stepped down from the group last fall, after a public spat with Anita Hill, the lawyer who accused Thomas' husband of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearings in 1991.

Thomas sparked controversy when she demanded, in a phone call, that Hill apologize for her testimony. After Hill refused to do so, Thomas admitted it was "probably a mistake" to have made the request. She stepped down from Liberty Central soon thereafter, but denied the move had anything to do with the Hill controversy.

Common Cause last month filed a request with the Department of Justice to investigate Thomas' role in the Citizens United ruling, arguing that the justice's ties to conservative groups such as those run by the billionaire Koch brothers may have compromised his objectivity. The group leveled the same allegations against Justice Antonin Scalia. They hope to have the two justices disqualified from the ruling.

Justice Thomas found himself yet again at the center of unfriendly attention when it was revealed that for 13 years he had failed to report his wife's earnings on annual disclosure forms he is required to file. Thomas amended the statements going back to 1997.

Whether or not Virginia Thomas' latest venture will be successful remains to be seen. Politico reports a level of hostility among Republicans towards the supreme court justice's wife, with some viewing her as an opportunist cashing in on her husband's high-profile name.

Translation:  Yeah, see, even Republicans think this is going to crash and burn because there's no way anyone can do business with Virginia Thomas without the appearance of a serious a conflict of interest.  Corporate types don't like that, because it invites much more careful scrutiny of their activities.  A lot of uncomfortable questions get asked, the kind that are bad for corporate PR.

So yeah, people are beginning to see Ginny Thomas as a train wreck, especially after the drunk phone call to Anita Hill.  Increasingly, they don't want anything to do with her.

Can you blame them?

Getting Dicked Over

You know, given former VP Dick Cheney's record, I'm not at all surprised on where he is on Mubarak.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday as "a good man" and a strong friend of the United States, but said the Egyptian people will decide his fate as leader.

"He's been a good man, he's been a good friend and ally to the United States, and we need to remember that," Cheney said during a question-and-answer session at a tribute to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

"In the end whatever comes next is going to be decided by the Egyptian people," he said.

Here's my question:  why isn't anyone asking the obvious about why when Cheney was so adamant about invading Iran and Afghanistan that we overlooked Egypt?   After all, Saddam Hussein was "a good man" in the eyes of the US at one point too.

Overlooking The Obvious

Republicans are quick to take Florida Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that the entire health care bill is unconstitutional as cold hard fact, but that ignores the over a dozen federal judges -- some appointed by Republicans -- that have tossed lawsuits against the bill based on the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses in the Constitution.  The latest of those happened Thursday.

A federal judge on Thursday sided with the Obama administration on the sweeping health care reform law, throwing out a challenge to its constitutionality.


Keith Starrett, a George W. Bush- appointed US District Court judge in southern Mississippi, said opponents of the individual mandate had offered "insufficient" basis to challenge the government's ability to regulate health insurance coverage.

The 23-page decision, obtained by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, read: "The Court finds that the allegations of Plaintiffs' First Amended Petition, as stated therein, are insufficient to show that they have standing to challenge the minimum essential coverage provision of the PPACA [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act]. Therefore, the Court dismisses Plaintiffs' First Amended Petition without prejudice."

It concluded, "the Court finds that the ten primary Plaintiffs have not plead sufficient facts to establish that they have standing to challenge the Constitutionality of the minimum essential coverage provision of the PPACA."

The lawsuit was filed by Mississippi Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and 10 other state residents, according to the Hattiesburg American, who argued that the law would grant Congress "unlimited power to regulate, prohibit, or mandate any or all activities in the United States."

Starrett offered them 30 days to amend their complaint.

Judge Starrett found that Mississippi didn't even have standing to sue.   Once again, this law will be decided by the Supreme Court, but looking at the dozens of cases filed by the states against the PPACA, only two have come out against the government, one against the mandate, one against the entire law.

The rest have been thrown out across the board.

Something to keep in mind.

Denial Really Is A River In Egypt, Part 6

Egyptian banks are open for the first time in over a week, but massive lines reminiscent of old school bank runs are making plenty of Egyptians nervous.

Hundreds of Egyptians queued outside banks to withdraw funds as lenders opened for the first time in more than a week amid protests demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The pound dropped to the lowest level since 2005.

At a Cairo-based branch of Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, the nation’s biggest publicly-traded lender, one man stood at the main door taking names of customers. “Banks need to open more branches,” Mahmoud Eliwa, a 68-year-old retiree who wanted to withdraw 5,000 pounds, said in an interview outside the bank. Eliwa left after learning he needed to wait for about 100 people before him.

The central bank moved 5 billion pounds ($854 million) of cash into the financial system as depositors gained access to their savings. The regulator, which has $36 billion in reserves and guarantees deposits, used military cargo planes to bring in the funds, Governor Farouk El-Okdah said yesterday on state-run television.

The demonstrations, which left at least 300 people dead according to the United Nations, roiled financial markets worldwide and sent yields on Egyptian bonds higher. The stock market remained closed for a sixth day after the benchmark EGX 30 Index tumbled 16 percent in the week to Jan. 27. 

Egypt's stock market and currency have taken a beating in the last week, too.  But if the banks are opening and people aren't protesting as much, it's quite possible that Mubarak may survive until September...or longer.  People in Egypt have bigger things to worry about, namely food, water, and income.

The window to oust Mubarak has all but passed.

[UPDATE]  The US is now backing the "gradual transition plan".  Mubarak will stay in power until September.   Coin flip on whether or not he "wins" re-election then.

Last Call

The United Nations is hoping for quick action on the Nagoya Biodiversity Treaty.

The Nagoya Protocol enters into force 90 days after it is signed by 50 states.

"We hope to get them (the 50 signatures) before the end of the year," the Montreal-based organization's spokesman David Ainsworth told AFP.

Adopted in October 2010 at a conference in Nagoya, Japan, the protocol sets out new rules for the collection of genetic resources such as wild plants to make medicines, cosmetics and other products.

It also calls for a fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

Coveted by drug and other companies in developed nations, these materials are mostly found in developing nations such as Brazil with its treasure trove of resources in the Amazon basin.

The legally binding protocol ensures that countries with genetic resources enjoy some of the profits of the assets' commercial development.

However, many details of the protocol, such as how much this may cost pharmaceutical companies and developed nations, were left for later negotiations.

It's that "later negotiations" which may turn into a serious problem.   Republicans of course will make sure the United States isn't a signatory to Nagoya and will refuse to ratify it, which will of course cause major headaches down the road for both the government and for pharmaceutical companies here in the US.  The next batch of breakthrough medicines will not come from the US, but from countries where drugmakers worth with nature, not conquer it.

Big Pharma knows this, so they may be able to tame the GOP on this out of enlightened profit motive.  We'll see.

Oh The Places You'll Go! Not.

Clearly George W. Bush is going to need to either A) stay in Texas forever or B) grow a mustache.  Gawker:

George W. Bush has cancelled an appearance at a Swiss charity gala after human rights groups put pressure on the government to arrest him for war crimes when he arrived. This is the exact opposite of a Roman Polanski situation.

Oops.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.

Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against Bush in the Swiss city on Monday for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba where captives from Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in the so-called War on Terror were interned.

Leftist groups had also called for a protest on the day of his visit next Saturday, leading Keren Hayesod's organizers to announce that they were cancelling Bush's participation on security grounds -- not because of the criminal complaints.

But groups including the New York-based Human Rights Watch and International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said the cancellation was linked to growing moves to hold Bush accountable for torture, including waterboarding. He has admitted in his memoirs and television interviews to ordering use of the interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

We can't send this guy anywhere.

Maybe if he had a hat or something.  Or a book.  Nobody would ever recognize him if he was wearing a beret and holding a copy of Anna Karenina.  It would be the perfect disguise!  "That can't be him, he's holding Tolstoy!"  And he could go visit whatever country he wanted to without all this messy war crime tribunal and international human rights violations crap.

Totally worth it, Dubs.

Denial Really Is A River In Egypt, Part 5

The Obama administration is officially behind showing Mubarak the door, according to Hillary Clinton's latest diplomatic meetings in Munich.

The Obama administration on Saturday formally threw its weight behind a gradual transition in Egypt, backing attempts by the country’s vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, to broker a compromise with opposition groups and prepare for new elections in September.


Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking to a conference here, said it was important to support Mr. Suleiman as he seeks to defuse street protests and promises to reach out to opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Administration officials said earlier that Mr. Suleiman and other military-backed leaders in Egypt are also considering ways to provide President Hosni Mubarak with a graceful exit from power.

“That takes some time,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare.”

Her message, echoed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, was a notable shift in tone from the past week, when President Obama, faced with violent clashes in Cairo, demanded that Mr. Mubarak make swift, dramatic changes.

Now, the United States and other Western powers appear to have concluded that the best path for Egypt — and certainly the safest one, to avoid further chaos — is a gradual transition, managed by Mr. Suleiman, a pillar of Egypt’s existing establishment, and backed by the military. 

It's a good plan, certainly better than months of chaos with Mubarak at the helm.   The question is will Suleiman be any better?

My answer is "no".

The intelligence chief tapped by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as his vice president and potential successor aided the U.S. with its rendition program, intelligence experts told ABC News, and oversaw the torture of an Al Qaeda suspect whose information helped justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In the midst of Egypt's protests, Omar Suleiman went on television Monday to say that President Mubarak had ordered him to launch reforms and begin talking to opposition parties. But for the U.S., the CIA, Israel, and Egypt's Islamist opposition, 74-year-old Suleiman, who has been the head of Egyptian intelligence since 1993, represents a continuation of the policies of the old regime.

"Mubarak and Suleiman are the same person," said Emile Nakhleh, a former top Middle East analyst for the CIA. "They are not two different people in terms of ideology and reform."

And I'm pretty sure the people aren't going to be terribly excited about Suleiman being in charge, either.   Should this backfire and the Egyptian people see this as the US replacing one dictator with another, things are going to go very, very badly.  All indications are this guy is as rotten as Mubarak is.

The other choice is Mohamed Elbaradei, and there are a number of questions about him as well.  He has a Nobel Peace Prize and headed the UN's nuclear watchdog agency for a time, but many on the right think he's just a puppet for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Republicans will make all sorts of trouble for him if he's in charge.

Either way, American-Egyptian relations aren't going to improve anytime soon.

We'll see.

The Worst Thing I've Heard All Year Part V

A woman who desperately wanted to be a grandmother was arrested after allegedly arranging for her daughter to be raped.
The 51-year-old South African mother has appeared in court after being accused of employing a local man to carry out the attack in the hope that her 24-year-old daughter would conceive.

Both the woman and the alleged attacker were arrested when the victim reported the plot to police after she was raped on Sunday near her home in South Africa's Limpopo province.

That is so the front runner so far this year.  I'm just boggled and shaken. 

There's Just Something Wrong Here

I'm convinced that Republicans just don't like women.  At all.  Take this new bill by GOP Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania for example (with the Orwellian name of the "Protect Life Act".)

"The Protect Life Act simply extends these provisions to the new law by inserting a provision that mirrors Hyde-Weldon," the spokesperson added, referring to current federal law banning spending on abortion and allowing anti-abortion doctors to refrain from performing them while still receiving federal funds. "In other words, this bill is only preserving the same rights that medical professionals have had for decades."

A bit of backstory: currently, all hospitals in America that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are bound by a 1986 law known as EMTALA to provide emergency care to all comers, regardless of their ability to pay or other factors. Hospitals do not have to provide free care to everyone that arrives at their doorstep under EMTALA -- but they do have to stabilize them and provide them with emergency care without factoring in their ability to pay for it or not. If a hospital can't provide the care a patient needs, it is required to transfer that patient to a hospital that can, and the receiving hospital is required to accept that patient.

In the case of an anti-abortion hospital with a patient requiring an emergency abortion, ETMALA would require that hospital to perform it or transfer the patient to someone who can. (The nature of how that procedure works exactly is up in the air, with the ACLU calling on the federal government to state clearly that unwillingness to perform an abortion doesn't qualify as inability under EMTALA. That argument is ongoing, and the government has yet to weigh in.)

Pitts' new bill would free hospitals from any abortion requirement under EMTALA, meaning that medical providers who aren't willing to terminate pregnancies wouldn't have to -- nor would they have to facilitate a transfer.

The hospital could literally do nothing at all, pro-choice critics of Pitts' bill say.

"This is really out there," Donna Crane, policy director at NARAL Pro-Choice America told TPM. "I haven't seen this before."

So, I'm failing to see how this proposed legislation protects life when it's based on allowing hospitals to say "Yeah, we'd rather risk your death than perform a medically necessary abortion to save your life.  Sorry about that."

Talk about your death panels.  These guys have no problem regulating the uterus of every woman in the country, but Obama's the fascist.

It Depends On How You Define Extremist

It appears UK Prime Minister David Cameron is a bit upset with immigrants, in a reminder that going after folks who don't look like you certainly isn't just an American phenomenon.

Mr Cameron suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism.

Ministers should refuse to share platforms or engage with such groups, which should be denied access to public funds and barred from spreading their message in universities and prisons, he argued.

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," the prime minister said.

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.

Going after Muslims here on their civil rights record is one thing, there are those who don't take kindly to European liberalism and do strive to abrogate the rights of women and non-Muslims.  But if you look at Cameron's words, the first thought that crosses my mind is "Well, he must not be a fan of the Republican Party here, then."

I'm sure that's news to the Republicans.   They fail all four of Cameron's questions, having voted against women's rights and calling America a Christian nation, doing everything they can to disenfranchise gays and other minorities legally, wanting to get rid of the 17th Amendment allowing people to elect Senators, and well, they're not real big fans of integration, either.

Does this mean that American Republicans are an extremist group in Britain?  Someone should ask him.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Egyptian protestors continue to call for President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, with hundreds forming a human chain to block tanks trying to enter Cairo's Tahir Square.
• Melting snow and ice ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl struck stadium clean-up workers, sending six to Dallas hospitals.
• Democrats vow to not take corporate cash at the 2012 Convention in Charlotte...except for the loopholes.
• How bad are the remnants of Cyclone Yasi?  Days after hitting the Australian coast, flood warnings stretch across the Outback.
• Apple plans to drop a valentine later this month with iOS 4.3 hitting on February 14.

Last Call

Yeah, see, now things are getting downright scary in Cairo.

Al Jazeera's office in Cairo was stormed by a "gang of thugs" and set on fire along with all the equipment inside it, the Arab news network said Friday.

"It appears to be the latest attempt by the Egyptian regime or its supporters to hinder Al Jazeera's coverage of events in the country," the news network said in a statement.

"In the last week its bureau was forcibly closed, all its journalists had press credentials revoked, and nine journalists were detained at various stages. Al Jazeera has also faced unprecedented levels of interference in its broadcast signal as well as persistent and repeated attempts to bring down its websites."

"We are grateful for the support we have received from across the world for our coverage in Egypt and can assure everyone that we will continue our work undeterred," the statement added.

Al Jazaeera also said its website "has been under relentless attack since the onset of the uprisings in Egypt." A banner advertisment on the news network's Arabic-language website was hacked Friday and replaced with a slogan reading, "Together for the collapse of Egypt." The banner linked to a page critical of the network.

The international free press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said there appears to be "an all-out witch-hunt against news media" in Egypt.

Just remember thatas much as I give our media a hard time, there are a lot worse things you can do to even a corporate press, and a lot worse places to try to discuss the news from than an armchair in front of a computer.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Another day, another gobsmacking example of the staggeringly ignorant people running this country.

A fun nugget buried in this story about Rep. Ann Buerkle's (R-NY) first town hall meeting as an elected member of Congress. Constituents repeatedly asked a puzzled Buerkle about her health benefits. She couldn't figure out why. But her staff sure could.

Buerkle, who voted to repeal the health care reform act, was twice asked about the health insurance she receives as a government employee. At first she said she couldn't understand why people were so interested in her health insurance, and that taxpayers didn't pay anything for it. She later corrected herself after being handed a note from a staffer. Like most employees, she pays for a portion of her insurance and her employer, the government, pays the rest, she said.

Buerkle's argument was her health insurance was "employer-provided".  She just forgot who her employer was, apparently.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not that Republicans are simply ignoring the half of the facts that make their positions constitute blatant hypocrisy, it's that they really don't know what the hell is going on, because asking questions and going outside the talking points only gets you punished.

Ignorance, in other words, is bliss.

Brave Enough To Make Them Suffer

Via Greg Sargent I see my junior GOP Senator Rand Paul isn't too happy with his fellow Republicans about not wanting to fully embrace his $500 billion Galtian torture package massive draconian spending cuts "compassionate conservatism".  Of course, that means everyone has to feel the pain, and I mean everyone:

Paul has proposed his own plan to cut spending by $500 billion this year. Paul's plan would impose deep across-the-board spending cuts -- including a reduction of 83 percent from the Department of Education, 6 percent from the Department of Defense and the elimination all foreign aid. He considers it just a start.

"I go to a tea party and you know what they say to me? It's not enough. It's not enough. Where's the other trillion you need?" Paul said.

Paul defended his call to end to all foreign aid -- including the $3 billion the U.S. gives to Israel every year.
"I'm not singling out Israel. I support Israel. I want to be known as a friend of Israel," Paul said, "but not with money you don't have. We can't just borrow from our kids' future and give it to countries even if they are our friends."

Paul has come under fire from supporters of Israel, but said Israel has enough financial resources to fend for itself.

"I think they're an important ally, but I also think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world," Paul said. "Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don't think so."

And military resources, as well.

"I think they're probably 10 years ahead of any neighboring country," he said. "I think that their defense is very significant and probably well in advance of any of their particular enemies." 

Yeah, see,  I'm wondering how long it's going to take before Israel decides they aren't too happy with Rand Paul and that he needs to get with the program.  I put the over/under on that at March 15 or so.  If Paul was a Democrat he'd be getting hammered, but even Israel's staunchest American allies aren't going to go after a Senate Republican without heavy bipartisan backup.

Still, I can't say I 100% disagree with him on the issue of military aid and defense spending cuts, and getting out of Afghanistan.  It's the other, oh, 97%+ cuts or so I have a problem with.  Like defunding the entire Department of Education outside of Pell Grants...and capping those.