Month: June 2013

The beard gives it away


by digby

Now this is funny:

The Far North Dallas Tea Party posted a video this week of a PowerPoint presentation that Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, gave recently on “Radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.” 

Unsurprisingly, Adams sees the influence of “stealth jihad” everywhere in American society – including in the Republican Party. In her speech, Adams claimed credit for personally bringing down the candidacy of Amir Omar, an Iranian-American Republican who ran for Congress in Texas in 2006. She also railed against former Bush administration official and conservative activist Suhail Khan, wondering, “Where did he come from? How did this man get here? Did he overstay a visa?” (The short answer, if she really wants to know, is that he was born in Colorado, so no.) 

But Adams saved her true vitriol for anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, who has provoked the wrath of anti-Muslim activists for his marriage to a Muslim woman and his efforts to reach out to Muslim conservatives. Adams warned that although “oftentimes we like what he says about economic issues,” Norquist is in fact “Trouble with a capital T” and is “showing signs of converting to Islam himself.” 

Her evidence for Norquist’s secret conversion? “As you see, he has a beard.”

Just like this famous jihadist:

This has been going on for some time and not just among wacky Tea-Partiers from Texas. There’s a full blown right wing cult around this idea, led by some people who were once considered to be establishment Republicans:

If Frank Gaffney gets his way, Grover Norquist won’t be at a high-profile conservative gathering known as the Conservative Political Action Conference in October. Not only that, but the anti-tax crusader and his allies will be totally discredited and branded as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gaffney is head of the Center for Security Policy and committed to raising the alarm about what he sees as the growing influence of Islam in American politics. Most recently, his work inspired Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and four other conservative lawmakers to write to federal agencies and ask them to investigate whether the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the U.S. government.

Oh, by the way — this is Frank Gaffney:

Ooops.

h/t to John Aravosis

Yes, force-feeding is torture

by digby

Joe Nocera wrote a great column the other day that deserves wider circulation. He is rightfully exercised at the torture going on in Guantanamo:

Fundamentally, hunger strikes are a form of speech for prisoners who have no other way to communicate their concerns. Hunger strikes give them the means to protest their confinement and to send a message about that confinement. During the “troubles” in Ireland, for instance, Irish Republican Army prisoners went on hunger strikes to protest their detention by the British — and some ended up being force-fed.

For decades, the international community, including the International Red Cross, the World Medical Association and the United Nations, have recognized the right of prisoners of sound mind to go on a hunger strike. Force-feeding has been labeled a violation on the ban of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The World Medical Association holds that it is unethical for a doctor to participate in force-feeding. Put simply, force-feeding violates international law.

Whatever triggered the hunger strike at Guantánamo — the detainees say that the military had begun searching their Korans and instituted a series of harsh new measures, which the military denies — the underlying issue is that the detainees are in despair of ever getting out.

I think that’s a fair assumption, don’t you? What, exactly, are these people supposed to do? Simply accept that fact that they exist in a no-man’s land in which they are imprisoned indefinitely for no good reason by the most powerful nation on earth? It’s barbaric. Of course that’s why they’re starving themselves.

And there is simply no doubt that this force-feeding is a form of torture. None:

The military claims that it is force-feeding the detainees in order to keep them safe and alive. According to The Miami Herald, about one-third of the detainees on strike — at least 35 men, though possibly more — are being force-fed. A handful are in the hospital.

But not long ago, Al Jazeera got ahold of a 30-page document that detailed the standard operating procedures used by the military to force-feed a detainee. The document makes for gruesome reading: the detainee shackled to a special chair (which looks like the electric chair); the head restraints if he resists; the tube pushed painfully down his nose; the half-hour or so of ingestion of nutritional supplements; the transfer of the detainee to a “dry cell,” where, if he vomits, he is strapped back into the chair until the food is digested.

Detainees are also apparently given an anti-nausea drug called Reglan, which has a horrible potential side effect if given for more than three months: a disease called tardive dyskinesia, which causes twitching and other uncontrollable movements. “This drug is very scary,” said Cori Crider, the legal director of Reprieve, a London-based group that represents more than a dozen detainees. “My fear is that it is being administered without their consent,” she added. Although the military refuses to discuss the use of Reglan — or any aspect of force-feeding — that’s a pretty safe bet.

And anyway, the courts will sort all this out eventually, right? So, it’s no biggie if these desperate men are “kept safe and alive” by torturing them.

All the international human rights organizations agree that this is torture, by the way:

Even before the force-feeding procedures were leaked, international organizations were protesting the practice. The United Nations Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement in early May calling the continued detention in Guantánamo a “flagrant violation of international human rights law” and categorizing the force-feeding at the prison as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.” Dr. Steven Miles, a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, who has done a great deal of research into the practice of force-feeding, said: “The persistence of the military’s force-feeding policy in the face of international law, and the manner in which it is done, constitutes torture.”

Nocera makes a point about all this that I don’t think most people are willing to make. This is not something that is subject to the usual legislative constraints:

Without question, any effort [President Obama] might make to shut down the prison would be met with resistance in Congress; it’s already begun. But the practice of force-feeding detainees, which virtually every international body condemns as a violation of international law — and which they decry as cruel and inhuman? He could stop that in a heartbeat, with one call to the Pentagon.

After all, he is the commander in chief.

That’s right. He could order it to stop. I imagine he doesn’t want to do this for fear of “martyring” these prisoners should they die. But at this point, he is just being cruel. The torture will them martyr them anyway. At least let them have the basic human dignity of being allowed to make their protest.

Guantanamo may be one of America’s most irrational policies ever and we’ve had some doozies. It’s as irrational as the Spanish Inquisition in its own way, sick and twisted inside out from one bad decision building on another. This force-feeding torture is right up there with the worst of them.

President Obama needs to take control of this situation. At the moment he is in great danger of being remembered as a “torture president” right up there with George W. Bush. The irony of him also being a Nobel Peace Prize winner is almost too much to bear.

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Saturday Night at the Movies

Headline ‘o the day

by digby

Far-Right Extremists Chased Through London by Women Dressed as Badgers

Personally, I prefer not to know what was going on there — Id rather let my imagination run wild. But it’s up to you.

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Beatriz: why are they ok with a C-Section?

by digby

When I read yesterday that El Salvador had decided that it was ok to give Beatriz a C-Section for a “premature delivery” I was puzzled.  She is a very sick woman who may not make it through such major surgery and her fetus is anencephalic and will not live. but they are willing to put her through it rather than use the other available, less traumatic methods that are much less dangerous. How does this make any sense?

This article in Rh Reality Check suggests an answer:

She will be “allowed” to have a caesarean section, described as a “premature delivery.” Why a c-section, why surgery? Is this justified because it is the safest possible form of delivery for her? Can someone explain this please? What is wrong with either a dilatation & evacuation, or induction with mifepristone and misoprostol? Both surely carry fewer risks?

Please recall the case of “Aurora” in Costa Rica, at the end of 2012, who was also carrying a fetus with no chance of life, a fetus whose heartbeat stopped only at 29 weeks of pregnancy. She also was then given a c-section. Some of us asked why that was necessary at the time, but no one raised the question or challenged it publicly. It is time to ask publicly: why is a c-section the delivery method of choice? Is it only because it is the only form of termination of the pregnancy that they think cannot be labelled abortion?

Are these two cases representative of a new “Catholic health policy” for pregnant women with an emergency obstetric situation involving a non-viable embryo/fetus – that they are imprisoned in a hospital, in some cases for months, denied a life-preserving abortion until the fetal heartbeat stops, and then delivered of the dead baby by the highest risk procedure possible for the woman, a caesarean section??

Beatriz’s treatment should be considered cruel and degrading treatment and a violation of the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. The protest here is not finished; it is only beginning because cases like Beatriz’s and Aurora’s are only just coming to light through the vigilance and action of human rights and women’s abortion rights groups.

There was a reason why doctors perform late term abortions with the methods they use — it’s to preserve the health and life of the woman. What seems to be happening here is that the authorities are willing to risk the woman’s life and health for months on end, making her sicker in fact, until such time as they can pretend to be “delivering” a fetus via caesarean section, even though it is destined for an early death (or in some cases, already dead.)

Recall, these are not ordinary healthy women who have brought their fetus to term who need to have a C-Section because of complications in delivery. These are women who have very serious health problems. To risk their lives in order to essentially pretend they are not violating their ban on abortion is not only cruel, it’s stupid. After all, if they’re worried about God, I think he’s probably figured out what they’re doing.

The post concludes:

Reproductive Health Matters has just published my paper analyzing Catholic health policy on emergency obstetric care involving termination of pregnancy which discusses all the cases I could find that have come to light up to several months ago. The paper is entitled: Termination of pregnancy as emergency obstetric care: the interpretation of Catholic health policy and the consequences for pregnant women: An analysis of the death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland and similar cases

This is a common problem. If health professionals systematically put the lives of their patients at risk for any other ideological non-clinically justifiable reason, it would not be tolerated. I believe any Catholic health professionals and/or hospitals refusing to terminate a pregnancy as emergency obstetric care should be stripped of their right to provide maternity services… At issue is whether a woman’s life comes first or not at all.

That’s exactly right. Does being pro-life really mean that a dead fetus comes before a living woman? That’s what we’re talking about here.

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Zuccotti Again


by digby

By popular request, here is the live stream of events in Zuccotti Park today:

Obamacare implementation: it’s all about how people are supposed to perceive it

by digby

There is a lot of chatter about how people are supposed to react to the new health care exchanges. Hostile pundits seem to think that everyone’s going to scream bloody murder at the potential rate increases while supporters of the plan think people who have to pay more will be fine with it because they are getting more for their money.

Hostile analysts like Avik Roy put it this way, writing about the new analysis of the Health Care exchanges that came out of California this week, showing that rates will go up, but not as much as experts had expected:

One of the most serious flaws with Obamacare is that its blizzard of regulations and mandates drives up the cost of insurance for people who buy it on their own.

Ezra, who I’m calling a supporter for these purposes, responds:

Some people will find the new rules make insurance more expensive. That’s in part because their health insurance was made cheap by turning away sick people. The new rules also won’t allow for as much discrimination based on age or gender. The flip side of that, of course, is that many will suddenly find their health insurance is much cheaper, or they will find that, for the first time, they’re not turned away when they try to buy health insurance.

That’s why the law is expected to insure almost 25 million people in the first decade: It makes health insurance affordable and accessible to millions who couldn’t get it before. To judge it from a baseline that leaves them out — a baseline that asks only what the wealthy and healthy will pay and ignores the benefits to the poor, the sick, the old, and women — well, that is a bit shocking.

According to the hostile analyst, Obamacare will hike rates because of added regulations and mandates. According to the supporter, Obamacare will hike rates because it makes the system more fair and offers better coverage. It’s simply different interpretations of the same thing — you’ll notice that both agree that rates will be hiked. And both agree that it will be because the policies offered will be better due to the requirements of Obamacare and the elimination of pre-existing conditions — also known as regulations.  (They also agree elsewhere that some of these rate hikes will be mitigated by the fact that poorer people will have subsidies that will help them.)

So the argument appears to be around how people are supposed to interpret these changes, not what’s actually happening. And it’s concentrated around those people who are in the private insurance market already, many of whom will not qualify for subsidies but will see their premiums go up.

I will use myself as an example of how this plays out. I’m an older Californian, a decade away from medicare. A person my age needs health insurance but it tends to be quite expensive on the private market. My husband and I are lucky to be very healthy and had no pre-existing conditions. Nonetheless, we had to go without insurance for a time and when we became financially healthy enough to afford to buy it we went to an online “exchange” called eInsurance to compare rates. (This functions in similar fashion to the exchange the government is setting up, subject to Obamacare’s new rules and regulations.)

The thought process was this, and it wasn’t complicated: how much insurance can I afford? In a perfect world, we would have bought the insurance with the low deductibles, co-pays and out of pocket maximums. We knew that the odds of one of us getting very ill over the next few years is higher than before and that it was likely to be extremely expensive. We weren’t living in denial. So, it’s not that we didn’t want the higher priced, full-service plan. We simply couldn’t afford it. I am going to guess that’s true for many people, certainly those who are older, middle class people like us.

At this point, I’m not even sure if the subsidies are tied to gross income or adjusted gross income so I’m not going to guess how it will work out for us. Maybe we’ll qualify for subsidies, in which case, huzzah. And I’d be thrilled if our coverage is better and our out-of-pocket maximums are lower. Right now, the deductible is so high that it doesn’t pay for us to use our insurance a good part of the time so we get some routine tests done through health fairs and the like because it’s cheaper. It would be nice to have that whole thing streamlined.

If it turns out that we have to pay more (and yes, get better coverage) I’m going to be able to tell myself that it’s for the greater good, that poorer people are now going to have health coverage, that those with pre-existing conditions are now getting the care they need. And for me, the bleeding heart liberal, that’s something I am willing to accept. Indeed, during the health care debate I signed on to this knowing that was likely to happen.

But somehow, I don’t think that argument is going to work on everyone. Appealing to the better angels in people who are going to find their rates have gone up and then pointing out that they’re getting more for their money is actually fairly insulting. People who buy their own insurance know exactly what they’re getting for their money — most of them invested hours and hours learning all about that when they bought it. We’re the most educated people in the country about the private insurance market. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that all of those who are going to be paying more will be happy about it and lecturing them about how other people are now going to be covered is likely to make a good number of them very angry since that’s exactly what they hate about all government programs.

I can guarantee you that the Avik Roy explanation that their rates have gone up because of “mandates” and “regulations” is going to sound very convincing to an awful lot of people. And they’ll hate the fact that poor people are getting subsidies and not them. I don’t know how many of them are out there — the private insurance market is fairly small, after all. It’s possible that a few naysayers will be so drowned out by the millions of low-income people with subsidies and the beneficiaries of the medicaid expansion that nobody will hear them.

But I really don’t think that those who are trying to explain the virtues of Obamacare should count on that. If this is a debate that goes beyond one’s personal needs and extends into citizenship, egalitarian principles, universality and the common good, it would have been smart to have made it about that from the beginning rather than obsessing about “bending the cost curve” and otherwise implying that people would be paying less. I never thought advocates were very honest about that and it’s going to be a shock to some of those who will pay the price.

As I said, I’ll have to find a way to pay the higher price if that’s what happens. But I made my choices before knowing exactly what the trade-offs were and I don’t need to be told that my “better coverage” under Obamacare will be worth it. I always knew better coverage was a good thing. I just didn’t have the money. California is an expensive place to live. And I’m personally happy that we will all be pitching in to make it possible for the poorest and sickest among us to have health care. I don’t need convincing on that — I’ll do my part without complaint.

But I’m going to guess that only the 20% of people in this country who identify as liberal like me will automatically accept that explanation as reasonable. It’s going to take a more compelling argument from personal interest to convince the other 80% that the middle class paying higher rates was what Obamacare was all about. Luckily most people are covered by the government or their employers so this won’t affect them. But the enemies of Obamacare are sure to exploit anyone who makes a fuss. I wouldn’t be sure that these arguments I’m hearing from supporters will carry the day.

Update:  If I were the one making the wonkish argument for Obamacare, I think I’d emphasize the fact that while premiums may go up in the private market initially, the plan will eventually do something about this, which will likely lower costs all around eventually. A few of the more open-minded types who are usually hostile to government regulation might find it convincing.
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Toxic rightwing economics and religion are causing revolt in Turkey

by David Atkins

Want to understand what’s going on Turkey right now? It’s not just anti-authoritarian protests against an increasingly autocratic regime. It’s much deeper and more interesting than that. It’s a protest against privatization, right-wing economics and religious conservatism. The Guardian helps explain:

This morning, Turkish police surrounded protesters in Taksim Gezi park, the central square in Istanbul, blocked all exits and attacked them with chemical sprays and teargas.

An Occupy-style movement has taken off in Istanbul. The ostensible issue of conflict is modest. Protesters started gathering in the park on 27 May, to oppose its demolition as part of a redevelopment plan. But this is more than an environmental protest. It has become a lightning conductor for all the grievances accumulated against the government.

Police have waited until the early hours of each morning to attack, just as police in the US did when dealing with Occupy protesters. They set fire to the tents in which protesters were sleeping and showered them with pepper spray and teargas. A student had to undergo surgery after injuries to his genitals.

The occupiers adapted and started to wear homemade gas masks. More importantly, they called for solidarity. In response to yesterday’s assault, thousands of protesters turned up, including opposition politicians. But this morning’s attack allowed no defence or escape. The park, and the area around it, is still closed, and still under clouds of gas.

In April, a Justice and Development party (AKP) leader warned that the liberals who had supported them in the last decade would no longer do so. This was as good a sign as any that the repression would increase, as the neoliberal Islamist party forced through its modernisation agenda.

The AKP represents a peculiar type of conservative populism. Its bedrock, enriched immensely in the last decade, is the conservative Muslim bourgeoisie that first emerged as a result of Turgut Özal’s economic policies in the 1980s. But, while denying it is a religious party, it has used the politics of piety to gain a popular base and to strengthen the urban rightwing.

It has spent more than a decade in government building up its authority. The privatisation process has led to accelerated inequality, accompanied by repression. But it has also attracted floods of international investment, leading to growth rates of close to 5% a year. This has enabled the regime to pay off the last of its IMF loans, so that it was even in a position to offer the IMF $5bn to help with the Eurozone crisis in 2012.

Behold the unholy combination of IMF loans, corporate power, privatization and conservative religion. A Turkish blogger has more:

This is how it started. A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens camped out in the last green space of the city centre to save it from being sold out. Two nights in a row, authorities sent in the police to disperse them with massive use of tear gas and water cannons, as if they were disinfecting it from a harmful infestation.

There were dozens of wounded, tents were burned, there was blood on the streets. The park was closed and fenced in.

The people refused to accept it. Gezi Park has become a symbol for many more of their grievances. It’s not just against the private sector taking over the public space. It’s also against the assault on civil liberties under pressure from the religious right. And it’s a personal matter, with Reçep Erdogan.

The prime minister is being accused of behaving like some kind of postmodern Ottoman sultan, who is not to be questioned, but to be obeyed. He has led the country for ten years now, he has always been a fierce opponent of the left and a friend of the islamists. Because of this, he has been losing support from the liberals, and from the kemalists, who defend the secular nature of the state. Even big business seems to be frowning on him now, since some big Turkish investors have stated they won’t open a shop in the new mall as a result of the public outcry.

We have been following and rebroadcasting the events day and night. I’m so proud of my brother Memed for the visual coverage he has been providing. Throughout the afternoon there were clashes with police. As the gruesome pictures of the wounded came in via Twitter, all over Turkey people took the streets. When evening fell, barricades were erected in the Istanbul, and police attacked with gas, bullets and bulldozers.

The police crackdown has led to events like this, in which a woman bravely stands up in the face of a fire hose:

One is reminded of that chilling scene in Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine in which the Iraqi worker at a state-run facility tells a reporter that he will convert to radicalism rather than watch the people’s utility be privatized.

There is nothing that says that Islamism is in any way opposed to neoliberal economics. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But more often than not, conservative religion abroad plays right into the hands of the multinational powers just like it does here at home, with precisely the same effects.

Resistance is key. Resistance against religious fundamentalism. Resistance against neoliberalism. Resistance against privatization of gains and socialization of losses. Resistance against the subjugation of green spaces, renewable energy and the environment to the profits of a very few.

A few brave Turks are showing that resistance. That’s a great thing. Now it’s up to the world to join them.

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Your moment of zen

by digby

Russian scientists claim to have discovered blood in the carcass of a woolly mammoth, adding that the rare find could boost their chances of cloning the prehistoric animal.

An expedition led by Russian scientists earlier this month uncovered the well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean.

Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the expedition, said the animal died at the age of around 60 some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, and that it was the first time that an old female had been found.

But what was more surprising was that the carcass was so well preserved that it still had blood and muscle tissue.

“When we broke the ice beneath her stomach, the blood flowed out from there, it was very dark,” Professor Grigoryev, who is a scientist at the Yakutsk-based Northeastern Federal University, said.

“This is the most astonishing case in my entire life. How was it possible for it to remain in liquid form? And the muscle tissue is also red, the colour of fresh meat,” he added.

Prof Grigoryev said that the lower part of the carcass was very well preserved as it ended up in a pool of water that later froze over. The upper part of the body including the back and the head are believed to have been eaten by predators, he added.

“The forelegs and the stomach are well preserved, while the hind part has become a skeleton.”

The discovery, Prof Grigoryev said, gives new hope to researchers in their quest to bring the woolly mammoth back to life.

“This find gives us a really good chance of finding live cells which can help us implement this project to clone a mammoth,” he said.

Is that a good idea?

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