Mitt Romney apologizes to terrorists who killed US ambassador

The fair way to interpret what Romney told Stephanopoulos today is to use Romney's own language.

Mitt Romney condemned the anti-Muslim film that incited the deadly attacks in Libya and Egypt, and used language that is awfully similar to the US embassy statement that Romney, Fox News, and a slew of Republicans have been calling "an apology."

Here's Romney today:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the film that seems to have sparked all this, the Innocence of Muslims film? Secretary Clinton today said she thought it was disgusting. How would you describe it?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, I haven’t seen the film. I don’t intend to see it. I you know, I think it’s dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say. And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn’t do it. Of course, we have a First Amendment. And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ve seen General Martin Dempsey call Pastor Jones to say, “Please don’t promote this film.” You think that’s a good idea?

MITT ROMNEY: I think the whole film is a terrible idea. I think him making it, promoting it showing it is disrespectful to people of other faiths. I don’t think that should happen. I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment– the good judgment– not to be– not to offend other peoples’ faiths. It’s a very bad thing, I think, this guy’s doing.

Now here's the US Embassy statement that Romney, and Fox and the GOP, called apologizing to terrorists:

“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”
— Embassy statement, issued 6 a.m. EST, some six hours before the attack.

So let's compare:

US embassy: "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims... We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."

Romney:  "I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment– the good judgment– not to be– not to offend other peoples’ faiths."

Romney just said exactly the same thing that the embassy did, but Romney went one more step.  He said that you should abuse the First Amendment.  Remember, Republicans were upset that the embassy didn't DEFEND the First Amendment.  Romney, went one step further and accused the filmmaker of abusing it.  So there are moral limits on the First Amendment, Romney says.  So is Romney saying the violence was justified?  Well, he's certainly suggesting that the filmmaker doesn't have clean hands here.

This is beyond belief.  If anything, Romney's statement is "worse" than the US embassy statement, because Romney made clear that there are moral limits to the First Amendment.

Under Romney's definition, and Fox's and GOP Chair Reince Priebus, Mitt Romney just apologized to the folks who killed our ambassador.

Just wait a few hours, Romney is going to be backtracking on this entire thing. Read the rest of this post...

More conservative lies about Libya/Egypt - Romney must be seriously in trouble

Judging by the level of vitriol from every propaganda organ, and politician, in the Republican party today, Mitt Romney must be losing the election badly.

They're in full panic mode.  Coming out with a lie a minute.   I wrote about one earlier tonight.  And another this morning.  But this one is particularly egregious.

According to a British tabloid - and this has already been debunked - everyone knew that the attacks in Libya and Egypt were going to happen and no one did a thing!

Uh right.  So now the "9/11 truthers" are after Obama too.

In fact, according to a spokesman for the head of the entire US intelligence establishment, there wasn't zip.

Shawn Turner, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, emailed: “This is absolutely wrong. We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”

But GOP propagandist Matt Drudge was happy to push the story, as will GOP partisan tomorrow.

Anything to change the story from how Mitt Romney pulled and Al Haig and apparently thought he was the head of the US government the other day in the middle of a national security crisis. Romney was roundly rebuked for his arrogance, and the danger he posed to US foreign policy by involving himself in an ongoing crisis. But in GOP-land, that means you find another even bigger lie in order to take attention off of the one you got caught saying earlier.

They are seriously panicking over in Romney-land.

How long until the Republicans bring up Obama's birth certificate again? Read the rest of this post...

Team Romney and the GOP are in full damage control mode

You have to give the GOP credit, they can organize a lie - or 100 of them - like no one else.

As was expected, the Republicans and their propaganda organ, Fox, coordinated a massive defense of Mitt Romney's abject failure as a foreign policy leader by launching a gazillion attacks against President Obama today, pretty much all of them lies.

Here's one big one they're pushing today: Everything went crazy in Libya and Egypt because Obama isn't getting his daily intelligence briefing, instead he's traveling to Vegas! OMG!

Yeah, except it's not true.

Obama is still geting his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) while on travel, the same way he always gets it on travel, by paper.  The PDB is a written, highly sensitive, intelligence document that the President gets every day.

Oh, but the Republicans say, Obama will be missing the oral briefing by a live person!

Let me tell you about that oral briefing.  It started during the GW Bush years because someone couldn't handle reading his daily briefing like all the other presidents before him, so he made an intelligence officer truck in every day to talk him through it, cuz big words are hard.

So let's not get started on why George Bush needed someone to hold his hand during the briefing and why Barack Obama, like President Bill Clinton, doesn't (and didn't).

But this is just one example of how big of liars the Republicans are, but more importantly, how freaked out they apparently are by Mitt Romney having embarrassed himself over this Libya/Egypt imbroglio.

In debate, we used to call this "spreading."  It didn't matter if your argument was any good, you'd just spit out as many accusations as possible in 8 minutes, in the hope that your opponent couldn't respond to everything, and something would stick.

Mitt Romney has the country scared, the Republicans panicked - so let the spreading begin.  Because after all, if you can't win an election with the truth, then win the Republican way. Read the rest of this post...

Editorial boards savage Romney over Egypt/Libya

A big thanks to CAP for the background research.

NYT: "An extraordinary lack of presidential character"

Mitt Romney, who wants Americans to believe he can be president but showed an extraordinary lack of presidential character by using the murders of the Americans in Libya as an excuse not just to attack Mr. Obama, but to do so in a way that suggested either a dangerous ignorance of the facts or an equally dangerous willingness to twist them to his narrow partisan aims.

Washington Post: "A discredit to his campaign"

Mr. Romney’s first rhetorical assault came Tuesday night in response to a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, which was also besieged by demonstrators Tuesday. His statement claimed that the administration’s first response was “to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” In fact the embassy statement was issued before the protests began; referring to an ugly anti-Islam film that was the focus of demonstrators, it condemned “those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious belief of others.”

Los Angeles Times: "An outrageous exercise in opportunism."

His statement on the anti-U.S. violence in Libya and Egypt was outrageous and ill-conceived.

In reacting to the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and some Republican members of Congress appropriately focused on mourning the dead and honoring their patriotism. Mitt Romney thinks he has a better idea: capitalizing on the attack to shore up his dubious campaign narrative that Obama is soft on radical Islam and apologetic about American values. It's an outrageous exercise in opportunism.

Boston Globe: “His statement was offensive on many other levels…Romney’s actions raise more doubts about himself than Obama.”

Not much is known about Romney’s views on foreign policy, and he benefits from the perception that, because he is bright and well-informed on other issues, he therefore would be a responsible steward of American diplomacy. But his actions on the campaign trail belie this image. He has been only too eager to revive the Bush-era approach of tough talk and military action as the default responses to threats in the world — an approach that proved utterly ineffective at thwarting guerrilla actions such as the one that killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in Libya.

Romney’s actions raise more doubts about himself than Obama.

Philadelphia Inquirer: “Mitt Romney didn't wait for expert assessments to use the four diplomats' deaths to launch his own verbal assault.”

Unfortunately, because it is election season, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney didn't wait for expert assessments to use the four diplomats' deaths to launch his own verbal assault.

Miami Herald: “Profoundly inappropriate”

Predictably, the attacks were quickly mired in political controversy at home. Candidate Mitt Romney jumped the gun in attacking Mr. Obama as an “apologist” because of a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo before the assaults took place. Reacting to the death of U.S. diplomats by seeking to take political advantage is profoundly inappropriate.

This is a time for unity, as much as it was when Americans rallied behind President Bush 11 years ago. Wednesday’s events are reminders that the war that began on 9/11 is far from over.

Tampa Bay Times: “The Republican nominee continued to exploit the situation”

There are unanticipated turns of events in every political campaign that provide insights about the candidates, their judgment and their grace under pressure. Romney's factual mistake, exploitation of an evolving situation in which Americans were killed, and poor timing is one of those moments.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel:

“Irresponsible. And totally unwarranted.”

GOP's criticism unwarranted

There are still almost two months left in the presidential campaign — plenty of time for Romney and other Republicans to make their points, and criticisms, of American foreign policy. There will be upcoming debates, where Romney can directly challenge the president on his actions. That's fair game.

But the immediate hours after a horrendous attack on American citizens abroad is not the time to further divide the American people in an attempt to push up poll numbers.

Irresponsible. And totally unwarranted.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune: “Prematurely lobbed off-base criticism”

When terrorists struck America on Sept. 11, 2001, the nation grieved together. Eleven years later, in the wake of another 9/11 attack -- which Tuesday claimed the lives of a U.S. ambassador and three other brave Americans at a consulate in Libya -- that spirit of unity was missing.

In its place was partisan finger-pointing by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who prematurely lobbed off-base criticism at the wording of the U.S. diplomatic response.

He would have been wiser to reserve judgment for another time.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Mitt Romney's trigger finger was so quick that he didn't even get it right”

Republican nominee Mitt Romney's trigger finger was so quick that he didn't even get it right. Tuesday night, his campaign released a statement calling it "disgraceful" that the Obama administration's first reaction was "to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," but erroneously based that on a U.S. embassy statement in Cairo that had preceded the assault. Far from sympathizing, the statement was a simple expression of religious tolerance aimed at defusing tensions. It was not, as Romney repeated Wednesday, "akin to apology."

Akron Beacon Journal: “Unfortunately, Mitt Romney chose to ignore the distinction.”

So it made sense that Americans facing the mob in Cairo issued a statement that signaled an understanding of what triggered the protests. That statement may have reflected fear. It certainly attempted to bring calm, the message similar to that issued by the Bush White House when protests followed Danish cartoons mocking Islam. What shouldn’t be missed is that the statement was released long before the attack and the killings in Benghazi.

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney chose to ignore the distinction. In a statement, the Republican presidential candidate expressed outrage at the attacks and the death of an American consulate worker. He then cudgeled the White House for a “first response” that did not condemn but showed sympathy “with those who waged the attacks.”

The idea of any American president, Republican or Democratic, taking such a stance is ludicrous. As it is, Romney strained in grabbing the moment to press a familiar campaign theme.

Boulder Daily Camera: “For someone whose campaign has been studded with tone-deafness abroad, this was stunning, undiplomatic and undemocratic rhetoric.”

Leading Republicans including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) -- some of the most strident voices against Obama's bid for a second term -- stood together as Americans. They decried the violence, mourned the dead, and expressed the resolve to continue to work for democratic peace in the region.

That democratic peace relies on tolerance of people with different beliefs. Without that tolerance for other beliefs, it all falls to pieces.

That couldn't be more clear in the wake of the deaths in Libya. And stating that commitment to one of our core values is not an "apology" as candidate Mitt Romney tried to portray it. Not only irresponsibly, when he was clueless as to the extent of the attack but even the next morning when more information was available to him. For someone whose campaign has been studded with tone-deafness abroad, this was stunning, undiplomatic and undemocratic rhetoric.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Yes, it was sad and pathetic to see such callous and uninformed statements from politicians who couldn't wait until they had the facts to use an international incident for political gain.”

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, was quick to criticize President Barack Obama, noting Tuesday night that he was "outraged by the attacks" and that it was disgraceful that "the administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus of Wisconsin, tweeted: "Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic."

Sad and pathetic? Yes, it was sad and pathetic to see such callous and uninformed statements from politicians who couldn't wait until they had the facts to use an international incident for political gain. The former Massachusetts governor doubled-down during a news conference on Wednesday even as leading Republicans refused to play politics over the deaths of four Americans.

Read the rest of this post...

Liars

I watched former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer on Anderson Cooper's show last night, talking about Mitt Romney's utter #FAIL on the Libya/Egypt crisis, and he really is a Republican. In the way that he's an utter liar, I mean.

Fleischer said that Romney criticizing Obama in the middle of a foreign policy crisis, that had only started hours before, and in which at least one America was already dead, is just like candidate Obama criticizing candidate McCain who wasn't president, who wasn't running American foreign policy, and who wasn't in the middle of a national security crisis where American lives were at risk. Amazing.

Then Fleischer goes on to say that John Kerry criticized George Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2004 campaign - two ongoing wars that Bush started and that were a disaster - and Fleischer said that that is the same thing as Romney commenting on the Egypt/Libya crisis only hours after it began, when we had no idea what was going on, other than that Americans were dead.

No, Ari, it's not the same thing.

You're just a liar, like most of your party leadership, and the natural thing for you to do is, well, lie and just assume that no one will notice.  Well, we noticed.

We're not idiots, Ari.  I know you assume a lot of your voters are. But we're not. There's a difference between undercutting the President only hours into a deadly national security crisis, and criticizing a war that's been going on for years.

Americans expect a presidential candidate to offer his views on an ongoing war.  They do not expect a presidential candidate to jump on a podium, with bunting and flags intended to make it look like he's speaking to the nation as president from the White House (yeah, we noticed), and start offering his opinions, and undermining the President, on a crisis that's just started, and about which the candidate has no idea what was even going on.

I'm surprised Romney didn't grab the mic and declare himself in charge of the entire federal government, a la Al Haig.

At that moment in time, when American lives were on the line in Libya and Egypt, no one in America gave a damn about what Mitt Romney was thinking.  But there he was, smirking like an idiot, getting his facts wrong, and treating the death of an American diplomat as "an opportunity."

Not very presidential.  But oh so Republican. Read the rest of this post...

AP: Romney lied, as advisers saw Libya/Egypt violence as "opportunity"

AP paints a devastating portrait of a man, Mitt Romney, who jumped the gun, didn't care that he was wrong, and whose staff was giddy that Americans were under attack abroad - while Americans saw death, Team Romney smelled "opportunity."

In Washington, Republican foreign policy veterans called Romney's initial statement premature and rushed, with limited facts and an incomplete understanding of what was happening in Egypt and Libya. Romney's team also was unclear about the timeline of when the Obama administration weighed in.

One Republican official advising Romney's campaign on foreign policy and national security issues painted a picture of a Romney campaign more focused on ensuring Romney's evening statement made it into morning news stories than on waiting for details about what had happened.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering Romney's campaign, said that as word of violence spread, campaign aides late Tuesday watched tweets coming out of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that were criticizing the filmmaker rather than condemning the attackers, and saw an opportunity to criticize Obama.

I've actually never seen this strong a criticism from AP in one of their fact checks. This is one of those times where even the media - which sometimes tries so hard to be objective that they're afraid to call a lie a lie - calls a lie a lie.

For example, AP points out that Romney lied when he claimed that the US embassy issued their statement after the attacks - it was hours before, that's why the statement didn't condemn the violence.  There hadn't been any violence yet.

A damning fact check from AP:

The gunfire at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had barely ceased when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seriously mischaracterized what had happened in a statement accusing President Barack Obama of "disgraceful" handling of violence there and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

"The Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," Romney said in a statement first emailed to reporters at 10:09 p.m. Eastern time, under the condition it not be published until midnight.

In fact, neither a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo earlier in the day nor a later statement from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered sympathy for attackers. The statement from the Cairo Embassy had condemned anti-Muslim religious incitement before the embassy walls were breached. In her statement, issued minutes before Romney's, Clinton had offered the administration's first response to the violence in Libya, explicitly condemning the attack there and confirming the death of a State Department official.

Oh my God. AP walks you through what happened in a timeline, moment by moment - and it's devastating. Romney got everything wrong, but boy was he willing to jump and be the first one heard on the issue, even as the crisis was unfolding and no one knew what was happening.  Read this entire piece by AP.  It's long, detailed and devastating. Read the rest of this post...

Everything Romney touches about foreign policy goes wrong

Once again, Mitt Romney wades into foreign policy, and once again Mitt Romney screws up.

The UK Olympics

First there was his visit to the UK for the Olympics, where he offended our top ally again, and again, and again. Romney's staff also used the occasion of the foreign trip to take a potshot at the President, something that has traditionally been frowned upon by politicians when traveling abroad.

Poland

Then he went to Poland, and his aide was caught on tape making a vulgar comment at a location holy to the Polish people.

Israel

And finally he went to Israel, where he insulted the Palestinians while suggesting that Jews have some innate talent for making money (in much of the world that's considered an anti-Semitic slur). And then he came back to the US and only days after visiting Israel, Sista Souljah'd the US' top ally in the Middle East by suggesting that the Jewish state was built by socialists, and socialist are very bad un-American people.

Libya/Egypt Violence

And now Mitt Romney wades into something serious. A foreign policy, national security crisis. American lives are on the line. Four Americans are dead. So what does Mitt Romney do? He jumps the gun, and before he has all the facts, he politicizes the crisis, only a few hours old, by taking a partisan potshot at the President. Then, in the face of growing criticism, he holds a press conference in which he smirks the entire time, while speaking of the murder of four Americans, including a US ambassador, and then Romney gets the capital of Libya wrong.

The Scandal Over His Own Foreign Policy Spokesman

The man is a walking time-bomb of foreign policy inexperience, insult, injury and inappropriateness.  Heck, Romney couldn't even hire a foreign policy spokesman with causing an unnecessary controversy.  To suggest that Mitt Romney is in over his head is putting it kindly.  If he has to run for president, he should turn in his passport, keep his mouth shut, and leave our national security to the experts. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post editorial blasts Romney for "crude political attacks" over Libya/Egypt violence

Washington Post editorial board:

Mr. Romney did not then know the extent of the Benghazi incident — his statement referred only to “the death of an American consulate worker.” So it was stunning to see the GOP nominee renew his verbal offensive Wednesday morning, when the country was still absorbing the news of the first death in service of a U.S. ambassador since 1988, as well as the loss of three other Americans. Though reports were still sketchy, it appeared that a militant jihadist group, Ansar al-Sharia, took advantage of the Benghazi protest to stage an armed assault that overwhelmed the Libyan security force at the consulate.

At a news conference, Mr. Romney claimed that the administration had delivered “an apology for America’s values.” In fact, it had done no such thing: Religious tolerance, as much as freedom of speech, is a core American value. The movie that provoked the protests, which mocks the prophet Mohammed and portrays Muslims as immoral and violent, is a despicable piece of bigotry; it was striking that Mr. Romney had nothing to say about such hatred directed at a major religious faith.

Read the rest of this post...

Social justice in the classroom? That's crazy talk

It's no secret that American education is in crisis.

So you'd think people would welcome any creative way to give our kids a break, as budgets get squeezed, teachers are laid off, class sizes grow and critical thinking skills give way to rote learning by textbook and standardized test. In fact, creativity is actually flourishing against the odds.

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has embraced the prestigious International Baccalaureate program in high schools as a way of expanding the educational horizons of the city's best and brightest. And rightly so: U.S. high schools offering the IB program often find themselves on lists of the best schools in the country.

Something else that's no secret, though, is that certain conservatives love a good culture war and rarely miss an opportunity to trumpet ignorance over learning -- on the basis, presumably, that being dumb as dirt is more authentically American than actually knowing anything.  And so, the Republican Party of Minnesota recently decided that it opposes any state or federal funding for IB. And in Idaho, the Coeur d’Alene School District has decided to pull the IB program altogether.

Why? A leading opponent, lawyer Duncan Koler, told the school board last week that the IB is full of “concepts that are politically charged, such as social justice, sustainability. These are code terms." Code for what? Social justice, that is some crazy talk.

What's really going on is a backlash against creativity in education. The International Baccalaureate, we are told, is some sinister UN-backed plot that promotes totalitarian concepts and seeks, in the words of one anti-IB activist, to “program our children’s minds with new loyalties.” Nicky Kram Rosen, the principal of PS 368 in Hamilton Heights in New York City who is putting Arabic on the curriculum next year, is -- according to one scathing local critic -- part of "a cesspool for panderers and anarchists with an international agenda".

The mindset here is so 2003, that miserable year when Arabs were all terrorists, the French -- originators of the Baccalaureate -- were surrender monkeys, and congressmen preferred freedom fries for their lunch. You could even say it's so 1856, when nativists and Know-Nothings fought against the immigrant melting pot in America's growing cities because they thought that foreigners had nothing to contribute but disease, corruption and suspect ideas. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.

The fact is, the IB program has won wide international recognition for its exacting standards and the breadth of knowledge and critical thinking it demands of its students. High-schoolers who participate are taught a second language -- really taught a second language. They are encouraged to engage in community service and develop understanding and respect for other cultures, not as an alternative to national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.

A recent University of Chicago study showed that students in the IB program were 40 percent more likely to go to college. Tell that to the New Hampshire legislature, which made a short-lived attempt earlier this year to introduce an anti-IB bill banning any public school curriculum "subject to the governance of a foreign body or organization". The bill passed the New Hampshire State House but died, thankfully, in the Senate.

To be against the International Baccalaureate is to be against learning itself, because that's the beginning and the end of what it offers. More than 1000 universities -- including the US Air Force Academy, the US Naval Academy, and institutions like Brown University, Columbia University, and Stanford University -- recognize the IB Diploma as a mark of academic excellence.

Last time I checked, these were pretty highly regarded national institutions. The Republican party, less so. Read the rest of this post...

I guess it's now okay for foreign govts to violate the sanctity of UK embassies

So Britain is no better than Iran.  At least now we know.

What a bizarrely ignorant thing for the UK to tell Ecuador, that it's actually thinking of violating the sanctity of the Ecuadorian embassy in order to take Julian Assange into custody.

First off, it's Julian Assange, not Osama bin Laden - so let's get a little perspective here.

Second, the Brits are seriously threatening one of the most serious breaches of international law - violating the territory of a foreign embassy?  That puts British diplomats, and embassies, at serious risk in the future.  For example, if the Brits actually think that it's okay for them to raid the Ecuadorian embassy, then it's also okay for the Americans to raid British embassies in the future the next time we want to carry out one of those beloved extraordinary renditions.

From Reuters:

"Under British law we can give them a weeks' notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."

If that's the case under British law, then I wouldn't want to be a British diplomat - because it's now fair game on Brits worldwide if their government truly takes international law this lightly. Read the rest of this post...

Islamists in Mali stone couple to death for having kids out of wedlock

It's not about Islam. It's about any religion, including Mormons, Catholics, and Evangelicals who not only think they own the copyright on God, but who vigorously shove their faith down the throats of non-believers.

I suspect things like this don't happen in America not because the far-right is more humane than the Islamists in Mali, but rather because we have laws against such things and they'd never get away with it here.  Then again, it's not particularly safe in American movie theaters either.

From NYT:

Islamists in control of a town in northern Mali stoned a couple to death after accusing them of having children outside of marriage, a local official who was one of several hundred witnesses to the killings said Monday.

The official said the bearded Islamists, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, brought the couple into the center of the town of Aguelhok from about 12 miles away in the countryside. The young man and woman were forced into holes about four feet deep, with their heads protruding, and then stoned to death at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the official said.

“They put them into the holes, and then they started throwing big rocks, until they were dead,” the official said, speaking by satellite phone from the remote desert town near the Algerian border.

Read the rest of this post...

A British perspective on Romney's visit to 'England'

If Romney wanted to start his visit to my home country, the UK, on the right foot he could at least get the name of the country right.

“I will leave Reno this evening on a trip abroad that will take me to England, Poland, and Israel.”

It may seem a trivial point, but Prime Minister Cameron is the leader of what used to be called the Conservative and Unionist Party. They changed the name, but its members still believe in maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom as one of their principal political goals.

The United Kingdom, while it is one country itself, also consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  When you say "England," instead of the United Kingdom, you leave out three of those countries.

To understand the political faux pas involved, imagine if a French Presidential candidate announced a visit to 'Quebec, Poland and Israel'.  Canadians who don't live in Quebec probably wouldn't be terribly amused.

This may seem a trivial point of diplomatic protocol, but this statement came in a speech on foreign policy in which Romney was trying to establish himself as a foreign policy expert.  While it may be a common mistake for many Americans to call the UK "England," people running for President should know better, especially when they visit the place.  Did the man get no briefings whatsoever?

Rather more serious was the gaffe by Romney's spokesperson that John posted earlier.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The problem here is not just the casual racism on the part of the speaker, but the assumption that these views are typical of the UK. Cameron and Clegg must be very offended by the suggestion that they could not work with a black US President. Such views may be acceptable in LDS circles, which only abandoned Brigham Young's loathsome 'Mark of Cain' racism in 1978 (under duress), in the UK they are not.

Try as they might to prove how they understand 'England' better than Obama, Romney's advisers only succeed in demonstrating how little they understand us at all. Take this passage in the original Telegraph piece, for example:

“Obama is a Left-winger," said another. "He doesn’t value the Nato alliance as much, he’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory'.”

"Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song that extolls the virtues of imperialism and colonialism.

"Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet."

It is not quite as explicitly jingoistic as Rule Britannia, and nowhere near as embarrassing as the third and fourth verses of the national anthem, God Save the Queen, but they're hardly sentiments that are widely shared in modern British society. It is a song that is very rarely heard outside the Last Night of the Proms, and on similar (rare) occasions.

I would not expect Obama or Romney to sing it any more than I, as a Brit, would recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact I would be rather offended if either of them did sing it. For better or worse, Land of Hope and Glory is a part of our heritage. It belongs to us. It certainly does not belong to either Romney or Obama. I would certainly hope that Americans would be outraged if their President did so, just as Brits would be outraged if their Prime Minister recited the
Pledge.

Finally, note the elegance of the last graph in the Telegraph piece, that neatly exposes the advisors as hypocritical liars:

The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mr Romney’s campaign requested that they not criticise the President to foreign media. After another adviser criticised Mr Obama in a German magazine last month, the President sharply instructed them that “America's political differences end at the water's edge”.

Read the rest of this post...

How Wikileaks helped foment a culture of investigative journalism in Brazil

A really neat story from the Nation about how Wikileaks strategically went through classified cables in order to create their own news, and how it ended up inspiring a culture of investigative journalism in Brazil.  This is an excellent story.  I'm posting a snippet, but do read the first part of the article that details "how" Wikileaks coordinated the release of its information in order to maximize the newsiness, and impact, of it.  Really smart.

By Natalia Viana in the Nation:

By the middle of January 2011, it was clear that the two Brazilian partners were losing interest in the cables and were dedicating less and less space to “Cablegate” stories. I started a blog, which attracted a strong readership. That’s how Phase II of the WikiLeaks coverage—engaging the nontraditional media—began.

Rather than deciding myself what to cover, I let the public select issues that were of interest to them. Using the WikiLeaks database of Brazil-related cables, I requested that my readers submit topics to search for in the collection. After conducting a search, I would send the relevant documents to a group of bloggers, who would then publish stories based on them. This generated some interesting articles—revealing, for example, the meetings between US officials and opposition leaders like presidential candidate José Serra, who hinted at a closer relationship with Washington should he win. Neither Folha nor O Globo, who were seen as harsh critics of the Lula government, published any stories about opposition leaders.

As the bloggers’ interest in the cables faded by mid-March, with hundreds of documents yet to be reviewed, I and a group of women journalists decided to create Brazil’s first nonprofit center for investigative journalism, called Publica. Based on similar US media organizations like ProPublica, it would publish stories that could be freely reproduced under a creative-commons license. Our first challenge was to review the remaining WikiLeaks documents and see what stories they held.

Staffing a temporary newsroom with fifteen volunteer journalists, we were able to publish another fifty articles based on the cables. My favorite new revelation was the secret transfer to Brazil by the United States of thirty Drug Enforcement Administration personnel who had previously been expelled from Bolivia for spying and aiding the opposition. The new stories created another stir in the Brazilian press. But more than that, they proved it was possible for an independent investigative group to match the traditional news outlets when it came to producing professional journalism—and to following the story where the mainstream media would not take it.

The impact of WikiLeaks on the Brazilian media community has been unmistakable: within a couple of months, articles based on documents from Brazil’s dictatorship period started popping up in the press. Folha de S. Paulo started its own WikiLeaks-type section, the “FolhaLeaks,” and established an investigative unit in Brasília. More investigative stories are being produced by both the traditional and the independent media. A year later, corporate media outlets such as Globo and Grupo Bandeirantes—major TV networks in Brazil—are fighting to sponsor the annual congress of the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism. And Publica is now up and running.

The response to the leaks also demonstrated that, more than twenty-five years after the end of military rule, the Brazilian public is ready and eager to advance toward a more transparent and accountable society. Brazil’s “Cablegate” generated a much-delayed debate about the lack of transparency in government and the need for a Freedom of Access Law. Journalists’ associations ramped up their demands for such a law to be adopted at once. Fernando Rodrigues, who was a director of the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism, wrote an article criticizing how slowly the law was being debated in Congress. When the president of the Senate, José Sarney, declared that documents should remain secret because “we cannot do a WikiLeaks of Brazilian history,” he was heavily criticized.

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Conservative mayor leads Londoners in pro-Obama chant

To understand just how badly the Romney tour of 'England' has gone, take a look at this video of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London

After making some remarks about 'a Mr Romney', Boris leads the crowd in a chant of 'Yes we can!". That isn't an accident, Boris knows that it was Obama's 2008 campaign slogan and so does most of the crowd he is addressing.

Mitt Romney is a clown who tries to appear clever. Boris Johnson is a clever man man who pretends to be a clown.

Its not just Boris who has gone rogue here. Cameron himself got in a jab, "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere."

Probably doesn't seem such a good idea to send your advance team out to suggest that Cameron's government would find it easier to get on with a white man right now.

Making a gaffe in London is one thing, the UK-US special relationship survived George W. Bush and it will survive Romney's campaign tour. But Romney is planning to visit Auschwitz and Israel next. A careless statement there could cost votes, and lives. Read the rest of this post...

"Mitt the twit": UK morning papers blast Romney visit

The DNC has a video summarizing the US and British coverage, then screen caps of 23 newspaper headlines in the UK:

And here's video of the mayor of London dissing Romney:

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Two guys, without clothes or money, set off on an adventure...

This is an ad for a documentary, I guess, that two young French guys made in which they set off into the wilderness, with no clothes, no money, nothing and tried to travel the country (apparently theirs, but perhaps others too) relying entirely on the kindness of strangers.

You don't need to speak French to understand the trailer. It looks quite fun and interesting.

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Romney appears to have concerns about UK austerity policy

Romney was already in enough trouble this trip, now this.

From ABC:

During a meeting with Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, a British reporter asked both Miliband and Romney for their views on current British economic policy.

"While I'm on foreign soil, I'm very careful not to be critical of my own government's policies," Romney said. "I would be even more remiss if I were to be critical to any other government's policies. I will instead look forward to an exchange of ideas."

Um, the only time you refuse to answer a question because you don't want to be critical is because you were planning on being critical.  He could have simply said "I agree with the Prime Minister."  But he didn't, because he didn't want to be critical of the conservative austerity program, which is the same thing that conservatives - Romney's own party - are pushing in the US.

In poker, we call that a "tell."

Quite the seasoned diplomat, that Romney.  I wonder if he can see London from his kitchen?

Okay I was just joking about the Palin thing, but apparently the Brits have already reached a verdict on Romney.  From the Daily Mail's political editor, James Chapman:

@jameschappers: Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. 'Worse than Sarah Palin.' 'Total car crash'. Two of the kinder verdicts #romneyshambles

Chapman has more:

Can this get any worse for Romney? Boris is now mocking him in front of 60,000 people in Hyde Park#romneyshambles

The Guardian now has a story out about all the Romney gaffes.

And LeftFootForward blog notes that Romney dissed the Brits in his 2010 book as well:

“England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy."

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Romney benefactor Sheldon Adelson and the Chinese mob

We've seen reports like this before (go here and read the paragraph starting "These days, Adelson's LVS").

But this one is quite recent, and includes additional documentation. From Think Progress (my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

Things are getting awkward for Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who pledged to spend a “limitless” amount of money to get Mitt Romney elected.

Adelson’s latest woes stem from business practices surrounding his lucrative casino in Macau, the only Chinese city with legalized gambling.

The Macau operation has long been under scrutiny but a new in-depth investigation from ProPublica and PBS focused on allegations of improper, and perhaps in some cases illegal, business dealings by Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands company in China.

While focusing on the possibility that Sands violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with a $700,000 payment to a Chinese associate, PBS also released documents that bolstered accusations of business ties between Adelson’s shop and Chinese organized crime figures.

The PBS report is here. There's more in the Think Progress article.

As you read, note that (a) the alleged ties are supported by documents; (b) tens of millions changed hands; (c) the men named are known to the U.S. government as Chinese mobsters; and (d) no one appears to be contesting the relationship.

PBS, first on the role of "junkets" in China:

William Weidner, president of Las Vegas Sands from 1995 to 2009, said he understood from the beginning that opening casinos in Macau meant dealing with “junkets” — companies that arrange gambling trips for high rollers.

Gambling is illegal in mainland China, as is the transfer of large sums of money to Macau. The junkets solve those problems, providing billions of dollars in credit to gamblers. When necessary, they [also] collect gambling debts, a critical function since China’s courts are not permitted to force losers to pay up.

Weidner said junkets are a natural result of China’s controls on the movement of money out of the country, channeling as much as $3 billion a month from the mainland to Macau.

“To Westerners, the junkets mean money laundering equated with organized crime or drugs,” he said. “In China where money is controlled, it’s part of doing business.”
Weidner resigned from the company after a bitter dispute with Adelson.

Now information on the ties between the Sands organization in Las Vegas and men with known mob ties. Note that "triad" is the term for "Chinese organized crime mob" according to PBS:

Nevada officials are now poring over records of transactions between junkets, Las Vegas Sands and other casinos licensed by the state, people familiar with the inquiry say. Among the junket companies under scrutiny is a concern that records show was financed by Cheung Chi Tai, a Hong Kong businessman.

Cheung was named in a 1992 U.S. Senate report as a leader of a Chinese organized crime gang, or triad. A casino in Macau owned by Las Vegas Sands granted tens of millions of dollars in credit to a junket backed by Cheung, documents show. Cheung did not respond to requests for comment.

Another document says that a Las Vegas Sands subsidiary did business with Charles Heung, a well-known Hong Kong film producer who was identified as an office holder in the Sun Yee On triad in the same 1992 Senate report. Heung, who has repeatedly denied any involvement in organized crime, did not return phone calls.

No one, including the Sands, is commenting, but the documents and money transfers are factual.

Sheldon Adelson runs a casino in a town (Las Vegas) that forbids doing business with organized crime. Sheldon Adelson is a making a good deal of money from deals in China that have raised serious questions about what, if any, role organized crime may have played in them.  And Sheldon Adelson's money is helping Mitt Romney run for president.

For more on Adelson, his cash cow in Macao, and his problems with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, click here.

Stay tuned to this investigation. Remember, there are two — violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and violations of Nevada's anti-mobster laws.

This will be another interesting test of Rule of Law for those in the Big Boy Club.

Tick tick tick.

GP

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How a conservative lost her fear of universal health care

A great article, that's been causing some buzz, from a conservative woman who moved to Canada and suddenly found herself in the land of universal health care.  Then a funny thing happened - she liked it.

When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada’s Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn’t choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted too. It also meant that abortion was covered by our taxes, something I had always believed was horrible. I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.

I started to feel differently about Universal government mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. When I mentioned to Canadians that I had been in a car accident as a teen and hadn’t gone into the hospital, they were shocked! Here, you always went to the hospital, just in case. And the back pain I had endured ever since would have been investigated and cared for with whatever X-rays, Physiotherapy or even Surgery that was needed, which would have been at no cost to me. In out particular province, even chiropractic care was provided after a car accident by the provincial care insurance.When I asked for prayers for my little brother who had been burned in an accident, they were all puzzled why the story did not include immediately rushing him to the hospital. When they asked me to clarify and I explained that many people in the States are not insured and they try to put off medical care unless absolutely needed, they literally could not comprehend such a thing.

I started to wonder why I had been so opposed to government mandated Universal Health care. Almost every western country in the world has Universal Insurance of some kind, except the USA. Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the Universal Health Care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even that didn’t seem to be that bad to me, in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage. Depending on where one lived and how rural the area was, one's access to care could be limited, and that was regardless of what country one lived in. The only people guaranteed immediate and full service in the USA, were those with the best (and most expensive) health coverage or wads of cash they could blow. In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth. If you were discontent with the wait time (and had the money to cover it) you could always travel out of the country to someplace where you could demand a particular service for a price.

Personally, I never experienced excessive wait times, I was accepted for maternity care within a few days or weeks, I was able to find a family care provider nearby easily and quickly, and when a child needed to be brought in for a health concern I was always able to get an appointment within that week.

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This just in... Syrian defense minister killed in suicide bombing

Wow. They also killed the president's brother in law. It was apparently a member of the security detail. Which is wild. From Reuters:

Syria's defense minister and President Bashar al-Assad's brother in-law were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Damascus on Wednesday, in the most serious blow to Assad's high command in a 16-month-old revolt.

TIME strikes a note of concern:

Besides a government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fray.

And, big surprise, who's one of the main impediments to peace? Russia.

The key stumbling block is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions and tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. After Security Council consultations late Tuesday on a revised draft resolution pushed by Moscow, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin said these remain “red lines.”

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