The US midterm elections will be held in five days. The Senate is up for grabs and there is a strong possibility that, come January, Republicans will be the majority in both houses of Congress. The over-riding question for the election is: Will the vast sums of money being spent by the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers and other conservative groups along with voter suppression laws and tactics in Republican controlled states beat back the get-out-the-vote effort being mounted by Democrats and progressive organizations? Too bad US elections aren't more like those in Brazil or Australia where voting is mandatory for citizens of legal age. Oh, that's right, in our country there are some intent on making sure others do not easily exercise their democratic right to vote or, preferably, at all.
I've been calling progressive voters in swing states in MoveOn's get-out-the-vote effort. Reactions range from enthusiasm to apathy to weariness to just hanging up the phone. And these are the progressive voters! This week I've called voters in Colorado and New Hampshire - two states that voted for Obama in 2012 but whose Senate seats are "in play" and could easily be lost to Republicans. If, as has been predicted for the past couple of months, the Democrats do lose control of the Senate, at least we know that we tried to get people to the polls. There are still a few days left and if you want to help out, you can do so at the MoveOn Shift Sign-Up page. The system uses a "Hub-Dialer" and a brief training session is held at the start of each shift.
Wednesday night, the blue-state San Francisco Giants beat the red-state Kansas City Royals. It was the third time in five years that the Giants had won the World Series. That they did so was due in large part to their 25 year-old pitching ace, North Carolina native Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner now ranks as the all-time World Series ERA leader with an incredible 0.25 Earned Run Average. For comparison, pitching greats Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson and Mariano Rivera have career World Series ERA's between 0.95 and 0.99. What does this have to do with the elections? Probably nothing but, like many sports fans and ballplayers, I am slightly superstitious. Could this Giant victory be an omen of the Dems holding onto the Senate? Could Kay Hagan retain her North Carolina Senate seat? Or does the Giants' victory predict an outcome similar to the 2010 mid-terms, when the Giants also won the World Series. That year marked the biggest loss of Democratic Congressional seats in seven decades.
Tomorrow is Halloween. Halloween is an especially appropriate holiday for Republicans in an election year when their fear-mongering reaches a fever pitch. Is there anything the Republicans and their media mouthpieces don't want you to be afraid of? Death panels, a national gun registry, crime, Ebola, Guantanamo closing, immigrants, Muslims, people of color exercising their right to vote, people of color...the list is nearly endless. No, like most of the Republican agenda, these fears are just bullshit. What I find much more worrisome is the specter of total Republican control of Congress. Not so much because it will make an immediate, drastic change in our lives - it won't...Republicans already control the House and our centrist President Obama can serve as a firewall against any truly insane actions. Rather we should worry because of what a Republican victory in the Senate would say about the gullibility and apathy of the American electorate. True, there have been enormous roadblocks thrown in the path of democracy by way of Supreme Court voting rights and campaign financing decisions, by rampant gerrymandering, and by voter suppression. But these all happened because the conservative Republican agenda won in past elections, resulting in the court appointments and state legislatures that have turned American democracy into one that caters to the interests of the ruling class and where income inequality is among the greatest in the developed world. Republicans have done nothing positive in the four years they have been in the House majority. Congressional approval ratings are in the 11-12% range. And yet Republicans are on the doorstep of total Congressional control and all that means for Federal Court appointments. A scary thought indeed.
In the end, the Senate races may come down to something like the bottom of the ninth in the final game of the World Series. The Giants up by one run, two outs, a man on third, and Bumgarner on the mound, pitching his fifth inning of relief on just two days' rest, Let's hope the result is as good for the country as Bumgarner's final pitch was for the Giants.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Sunday Roundup - October 26, 2014
This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at Iran, climate change, voter suppression, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Iran
Progress was made in Iran's dilution of its uranium. Reuters reported on October 20: Iran is taking further action to comply with an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a monthly U.N. atomic agency report showed, a finding the West may see as positive ahead of a November deadline for clinching a long-term deal. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...made clear that Iran is meeting its commitments under the temporary deal, as it and major powers seek to negotiate a final settlement of a decade-old nuclear dispute. It said Iran had diluted more than 4,100 kg of uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of up to 2 percent down to the level of natural uranium.
Gareth Porter, in an October 22 Truthout article, lays out the story of the deception behind the Western claim that Iran was "stonewalling" investigations into alleged past nuclear weapons research. The accusation...has been a familiar theme in mainstream media coverage of Iran's relations with the IAEA for years. What remains virtually unknown, however, is how a brazen deception by the George W. Bush administration and a key official within the IAEA created the false narrative of Iranian refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and was used to justify harsh international sanctions. Based on conversations with former IAEA officials, Wikileaks documents, and the public record, Porter describes the background. His article includes the smear campaign against the agency's director Mohamed ElBaredei - who had cleared Iran of six issues of concern in spite of the West's pressure -and the misleading report of meetings between the IAEA's Olli Heinonen and Iranian officials. In one of those meetings, Heinonen asked Iran's Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, whether various names of people, organizations and addresses found in the documents were correct. Soltanieh confirmed that the people, organizations and addresses did exist, but added, "So what?"....The language in the [IAEA May 2008 report from those meetings] was carefully chosen to mislead the reader without technically telling an outright lie. The report said Iran "did not dispute that some of the information contained in the documents was factually accurate, but said the events and activities concerned involved civil or conventional military applications." ...Iran, in a letter to the IAEA secretariat a few months later, denied that [they] had ever acknowledged the accuracy of anything in the intelligence documents except for those incidental details. The misleading report formed the basis of the allegations that continue to this day.
The window of opportunity that would bring the Iran "in from the cold" may be closing. The US Congressional elections are in a couple of weeks and pressure from the hardliners in the Israel lobby to keep Iran isolated will probably ratchet up. Netanyahu has already started the rumblings with his anti-Iran comments at the UN in September. Writing in The Guardian. Christopher de Ballaigue notes that Netanyahu's comments may reflect a fear that a rehabilitated Islamic Republic could dislodge Israel from western affections – a process already well advanced by the widespread killing of Palestinian civilians during the recent violence in Gaza. De Ballaigue stresses the importance of closing the nuclear deal - perhaps the best hope of restoring stability to the Middle East. A deal that offers Iran a nuclear power industry not exceeding its needs and ambitions, and the rest of the world reassurance through intrusive inspections, would do more than bring Iran in from the cold. It would inaugurate a new relationship between the Islamic Republic and the west that could keep together a region that is, in every other particular, coming apart. [The Guardian, October 2]
Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and Gaza has been under Israeli military occupation for more than 47 years. The Gaza Strip has been crippled by a land, sea, and air blockade for 7 years. This summer Gaza endured an Israeli assault that left the enclave devastated and more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead. Even before the brutal Israeli siege, Gaza was deemed to become unlivable by 2020, and 80% of its people were receiving humanitarian aid of some type. The Palestinian Authority laid out its plans to achieve statehood in an address to the United Nations in September - going to the Security Council for a resolution to end the Israeli Occupation by a definitive date and, failing that (for example, because of a US veto), to join the International Criminal Court. Here are links to some stories relevant to Palestinian statehood and the Gaza War of 2014 that have developed since Abbas' speech at the UN.
October 3: Sweden announces its intention to recognise state of Palestine [Reuters, Oct. 3]
October 12: Donor conference co-hosted by Egypt and Norway raises 5.4 billion US dollars for rebuilding Gaza.[Al Jazeera, Oct. 12]
October 14: British parliament votes 274-12 in favor of recognizing Palestine [YNetNews, Oct. 14]
October 21: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he was setting up an investigation into the attacks on United Nations facilities [Daily Mail, Oct. 21]
October 22: Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky after his speech at the UN [Democracy Now!, Oct. 22]
October 23: Complicated mechanisms and restrictive measures risk prolonging the Gaza rebuilding effort [Al Jazeera, Oct. 23]
October 24: Irish upper house backs Palestinian state [Haaretz, Oct. 24]
October 24: Croatian Foreign Minister: "Croatia is likely to recognize Palestine as an independent state" [Daily Sabah, Oct. 24]
Iran
Progress was made in Iran's dilution of its uranium. Reuters reported on October 20: Iran is taking further action to comply with an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a monthly U.N. atomic agency report showed, a finding the West may see as positive ahead of a November deadline for clinching a long-term deal. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...made clear that Iran is meeting its commitments under the temporary deal, as it and major powers seek to negotiate a final settlement of a decade-old nuclear dispute. It said Iran had diluted more than 4,100 kg of uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of up to 2 percent down to the level of natural uranium.
 |
| From BBC News website |
Gareth Porter, in an October 22 Truthout article, lays out the story of the deception behind the Western claim that Iran was "stonewalling" investigations into alleged past nuclear weapons research. The accusation...has been a familiar theme in mainstream media coverage of Iran's relations with the IAEA for years. What remains virtually unknown, however, is how a brazen deception by the George W. Bush administration and a key official within the IAEA created the false narrative of Iranian refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and was used to justify harsh international sanctions. Based on conversations with former IAEA officials, Wikileaks documents, and the public record, Porter describes the background. His article includes the smear campaign against the agency's director Mohamed ElBaredei - who had cleared Iran of six issues of concern in spite of the West's pressure -and the misleading report of meetings between the IAEA's Olli Heinonen and Iranian officials. In one of those meetings, Heinonen asked Iran's Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, whether various names of people, organizations and addresses found in the documents were correct. Soltanieh confirmed that the people, organizations and addresses did exist, but added, "So what?"....The language in the [IAEA May 2008 report from those meetings] was carefully chosen to mislead the reader without technically telling an outright lie. The report said Iran "did not dispute that some of the information contained in the documents was factually accurate, but said the events and activities concerned involved civil or conventional military applications." ...Iran, in a letter to the IAEA secretariat a few months later, denied that [they] had ever acknowledged the accuracy of anything in the intelligence documents except for those incidental details. The misleading report formed the basis of the allegations that continue to this day.
The window of opportunity that would bring the Iran "in from the cold" may be closing. The US Congressional elections are in a couple of weeks and pressure from the hardliners in the Israel lobby to keep Iran isolated will probably ratchet up. Netanyahu has already started the rumblings with his anti-Iran comments at the UN in September. Writing in The Guardian. Christopher de Ballaigue notes that Netanyahu's comments may reflect a fear that a rehabilitated Islamic Republic could dislodge Israel from western affections – a process already well advanced by the widespread killing of Palestinian civilians during the recent violence in Gaza. De Ballaigue stresses the importance of closing the nuclear deal - perhaps the best hope of restoring stability to the Middle East. A deal that offers Iran a nuclear power industry not exceeding its needs and ambitions, and the rest of the world reassurance through intrusive inspections, would do more than bring Iran in from the cold. It would inaugurate a new relationship between the Islamic Republic and the west that could keep together a region that is, in every other particular, coming apart. [The Guardian, October 2]
Climate Change
With an eye on the global climate conference in Paris in 2015, the EU agreed on goals for greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Guardian reported on October 23: European leaders have struck a broad climate change pact obliging the EU as a whole to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030. But key aspects of the deal that will form a bargaining position for global climate talks in Paris next year were left vague or voluntary, raising questions as to how the aims would be realised. As well as the greenhouse gas, two 27% targets were agreed – for renewable energy market share and increase in energy efficiency improvement. Informed Comment carried a post on solar energy good news stories. Morocco, India, Tanzania, and Mexico all have programs to increase the use of solar energy. Solar will likely be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, when some 26% of world energy will come from solar panels.
Related Link
Spotlight on Green News and Views [Daily Kos, Oct. 23]
Voter Suppression
With an eye on the global climate conference in Paris in 2015, the EU agreed on goals for greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Guardian reported on October 23: European leaders have struck a broad climate change pact obliging the EU as a whole to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030. But key aspects of the deal that will form a bargaining position for global climate talks in Paris next year were left vague or voluntary, raising questions as to how the aims would be realised. As well as the greenhouse gas, two 27% targets were agreed – for renewable energy market share and increase in energy efficiency improvement. Informed Comment carried a post on solar energy good news stories. Morocco, India, Tanzania, and Mexico all have programs to increase the use of solar energy. Solar will likely be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, when some 26% of world energy will come from solar panels.
Related Link
Spotlight on Green News and Views [Daily Kos, Oct. 23]
Voter Suppression
With Republicans on the verge of taking over the US Senate in November, every vote that might prevent that disaster is important. Here's some of the past week's news on the status of voter suppression in two "solid red" states in the midst of a demographic shift.
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| Poll tax sign- Mineola Texas, 1939 - Appeared in Mother Jones article |
Overturning a Federal trial court's earlier decision, the Supreme Court upheld without comment the Texas Voter ID Law, one of the worst in the nation. The majority decision was unsigned but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg along with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor authored a blistering dissent. Salon.com carried an Alternet article on Ginsburg's dissent. “Texas did not begin to demonstrate that the Bill’s discriminatory features were necessary to prevent fraud or to increase public confidence in the electoral process,” Ginsburg wrote in her dissent. The article summarizes the key points of Ginsburg's dissent, among them: hundreds of thousands of Texans will have a hard time getting the required ID and "On an extensive factual record developed in the course of a nine-day trial, the District Court found Senate Bill 14 [the voter ID law] irreconcilable with Section 2 of the [federal] Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose and would yield a prohibited discriminatory result.” The law could potentially disenfranchise 600,000 Texas voters. [Salon.com, Oct. 21] The law falls in line with Texas' long history of discriminatory voting practices. Mother Jones presents a look at that history, based on expert testimony by Orville Vernon Burton, a professor of history at Clemson University, and Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an October 21 article. [Mother Jones, Oct. 21]
In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State is delaying approval of tens of thousands of minority applications secured by by the New Georgia Project on the grounds that fraud was involved. There is little evidence of any such thing. Republican candidates are hyping voter fraud fears and the reason is fairly obvious. Republican concerns about large numbers of black voters turning out this year have already roiled politics in the Peachtree State. One GOP state lawmaker said he opposed opening a new early voting location because it was in a heavily minority area. Georgia, which has seen big demographic shifts over the last decade, has nearly 900,000 unregistered minority voters. Mitt Romney’s 2012 margin of victory over President Obama in the state was just 305,000 votes. Michelle Nunn, the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race, is counting on a big minority turnout to propel her to an upset victory. [MSNBC, Oct. 21] NGP has introduced a lawsuit against 5 counties and has settled with one of them (De Kalb), The lawsuit is proceeding against the other 4 counties. Daily Kos reports: Earlier this month, NGP complained that the registrations in five counties—all of them surrounding large Democratic strongholds in Atlanta, Columbus and Savannah—had not processed some 40,000 of these registrations. Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the claim is wrong....Since most of those 40,000 people are likely to be Democrats, the consequences could have a major impact on the election, including the outcome in the tight open-seat Senate contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue. Given the potential for disenfranchisement, the NGP, together with the NAACP, filed suit against Kemp and the county election boards. [Daily Kos, Oct. 24]
Related Links
The Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and Gaza has been under Israeli military occupation for more than 47 years. The Gaza Strip has been crippled by a land, sea, and air blockade for 7 years. This summer Gaza endured an Israeli assault that left the enclave devastated and more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead. Even before the brutal Israeli siege, Gaza was deemed to become unlivable by 2020, and 80% of its people were receiving humanitarian aid of some type. The Palestinian Authority laid out its plans to achieve statehood in an address to the United Nations in September - going to the Security Council for a resolution to end the Israeli Occupation by a definitive date and, failing that (for example, because of a US veto), to join the International Criminal Court. Here are links to some stories relevant to Palestinian statehood and the Gaza War of 2014 that have developed since Abbas' speech at the UN.
October 3: Sweden announces its intention to recognise state of Palestine [Reuters, Oct. 3]
October 12: Donor conference co-hosted by Egypt and Norway raises 5.4 billion US dollars for rebuilding Gaza.[Al Jazeera, Oct. 12]
October 14: British parliament votes 274-12 in favor of recognizing Palestine [YNetNews, Oct. 14]
October 21: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he was setting up an investigation into the attacks on United Nations facilities [Daily Mail, Oct. 21]
October 22: Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky after his speech at the UN [Democracy Now!, Oct. 22]
October 23: Complicated mechanisms and restrictive measures risk prolonging the Gaza rebuilding effort [Al Jazeera, Oct. 23]
October 24: Irish upper house backs Palestinian state [Haaretz, Oct. 24]
October 24: Croatian Foreign Minister: "Croatia is likely to recognize Palestine as an independent state" [Daily Sabah, Oct. 24]
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
The Republican War on Science
Loss of the Senate to the Republicans will put both houses of Congress in the hands of a political party that prides itself on scientific ignorance. What we may have to look forward to can be seen in the ongoing actions of the House's Science, Space and Technology Committee. Look no further than the head of the committee, climate change skeptic Lamar Smith (R-TX). "He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, voted no several times on tax credits for renewable energy and incentives for energy production and conservation, voted against raising fuel efficiency standards, and rejected implementation of the Kyoto Protocol." [Daily Kos, October 20]
Besides his climate change position, he's also known for introducing SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in 2011. The bill was tabled after generating widespread condemnation for its radically harsh policy in dealing with copyright infringement and other issues. SOPA would have allowed the Justice Department to "pull foreign sites 'dedicated' to copyright infringement out of the DNS system and search engine results — effectively altering the way the internet works. It's a hugely controversial bill that takes a scorched-earth approach to solving the thorny problem of copyright infringement on the web." [The Verge, Dec. 2011]
For the past 18 months, Congressman Smith has spear-headed a program more suited to a totalitarian state than to a democracy. He has been waging an assault on the peer-review process for granting National Science Foundation grants. "He’s issued a barrage of press releases that ridicule specific awards, championed legislation that would alter NSF’s peer-review system and slash funding for the social science programs that have supported much of the research he has questioned, and berated NSF officials for providing what he considers to be inadequate explanations of their funding decisions." [Daily Kos, October 20] It's all part of the Republican attempt to slash non-military funding so they won't have to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Lamar is now applying the "national interest" criterion to his investigation of research grants - that is, national interest in his opinion. He evidently thinks this is a better way to conduct scientific research than the long-established peer-review process so critical to scientific progress.
Although Smith directs much of his wrath at research projects in the social sciences, Tim McDonnell points out in an October 17 Mother Jones post, "some of the biggest-ticket items up for public dissection focus on climate change. They include a $3 million grant awarded in 2008 to study how federal agencies can better communicate climate science to the public and a $5.6 million award to a Columbia University team to carry out public education work on the impacts of climate change at the poles. You know, totally frivolous questions that have nothing to do with the 'national interest' on things like rising sea levels, epic releases of methane, US military engagement in the Arctic, new areas for offshore oil drilling, and 35,000 stranded walruses."
What a surprise! Not only do they deny human-induced climate change, they want to make sure money is not "wasted" on giving people the facts. In the US, climate change has not yet reached the stage where public indignation against a lack of action will decide elections. For most, its effects are too far in the future - unlike in Brazil, where the record-breaking drought has caused some water reservoirs to drop to 4% of normal level and may decide the presidential election The Financial Times analyzes the situation in an October 19 article. São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, is experiencing water shortages, early closings of schools and health centers, and police escorts for emergency water trucks. FT reports: "...bars and restaurants in tourist areas have been urging their customers not to use the toilets...While the drought has already ravaged Brazil’s coffee and sugar crops and hit local companies,...it could weaken the business-friendly PSDB party ahead of Brazil’s tightly fought presidential elections next week."
Ignorance and misinformation have long been arrows in the quiver of Republican political tools. How else do you explain their ability to have anyone but the very rich vote for them? How else do you explain their ability to get poor and middle class whites to vote consistently against their own interests as well as the common good?
While the Republicans were still in the process of selecting a candidate for the 2012 Presidential election, Paul Krugman led off an op-ed piece quoting John Huntsman, Jr., a Republican who was "willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the anti-science party." After Krugman discusses then-candidate Rick Perry's views on evolution and climate change and eventual-candidate Mitt Romney's backtracking on climate change, he concludes that while we don't know who will "win next year's presidential election,...the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect." [NYTimes, August 28, 2011]
Related
For more on the confrontation between the NSF and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, see: Battle between NSF and House science committee escalates: How did it get this bad? [ScienceInsider, October 2]
For more on the political success of the Republicans' Southern Strategy in spite of the economic downside of their policies, see Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S.? [NYTimes, June 26]
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Sunday Roundup - October 19, 2014
This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US corporate mainstream media. Today we look at Gaza, Ebola, Turkey, Ukraine, the brightest pulsar, the Catholic synod's "midterm" statement on gays, and, in brief, the Argus II bionic eye.
Gaza
The Gaza Donor Conference held October 12 raised $5.4 billion for the reconstruction of the enclave devastated this summer by the Israeli assault. Global donors have pledged a sum of $5.4bn in aid to reconstruct the Gaza Strip amid warnings that the Palestinian territory remains a "tinderbox" following the summer war between Hamas and Israel. The pledged amount surpasses the $4bn which Palestinians had asked for during the conference to reconstruct the enclave, after the 50-day Israeli military campaign. "The participants pledged approximately $5.4bn," Boerge Brende, Norwegian foreign minister, said during the closing statement at the Cairo conference which Norway co-hosted. The pledged amount includes $1 billion from Qatar, $570 million from the European Union, and $212 million from the United States. [Al Jazeera, October 12]
The UN Human Rights Commission began its investigation into war crimes committed in this summer's conflict. A United Nations panel has started preliminary investigations into potential war crimes committed in the conflict between Palestinians and Israel this past July and August. The panel will submit its findings over to the UN Human Rights Commission. One incident in particular is drawing attention as some legal experts suspect it may constitute a war crime. On the morning of August 1, Israel invoked what is called the “Hannibal directive,” which directs its forces to take drastic measures to avoid the capture of an Israeli solider....In order to carry out the directive, the IDF intensely bombed the eastern portion of the heavily-populated city of Rafah in southern Gaza. Israel's bombing killed 150 people and wounded more than 200 in a matter of hours. The artillery fire was so heavy that at times a shell was fired once every 60 seconds. It was the deadliest day in the conflict. Because the Israeli attack came just as a ceasefire was supposed to come into effect, hundreds of civilians that had been taking cover had gone out under the impression that a cease-fire was indeed in place....Palestinians are set to join the International Criminal Court, which will open the door to proceedings against Israel. The head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission panel investigating the Gaza war has said any evidence it gathers could be used by the ICC in a war crimes case against Israel. [Telesur, October 13] Photo credit: August 4 file photo by Reuters;from Telesur article.
Ebola
As of October 15, the World Health Organization (WHO) put the official death toll from the Ebola virus at 4,493. But as the BBC reports, because of difficulties with the Ebola data from West Africa, 12,000 could be a better estimate. The BBC analysis notes that under-reporting, both of cases and of deaths, may be occurring. We know people are contracting the disease, and dying from it, without being noticed....Also, comparing current cases and current deaths does not take account of people living with the disease for some time before either dying or recovering. What you need is quality data and the best comes from a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. A team, including scientists at Imperial College London, looked at a sub-set of patients with full medical records from diagnosis through to either recovery or death. [Dr Christopher Dye, the director of strategy in the office of the director general at the WHO] told the BBC: "On the basis of this analysis, our best estimate is a 60-70% case fatality and it's sensible to use a range as there are variations from one place to another." [BBC News, October 15]
The U.S. Defense Department won permission to shift $750 million in war funds to fight Ebola in West Africa as a Republican senator on Friday lifted his remaining objections to the transfer. The action by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma will give the Pentagon enough funding for about six months of operations in West Africa, including the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and the establishment some 17 Ebola treatment facilities with 100 beds each. But key members of Congress are still withholding about $250 million of the Obama administration's original request to shift $1 billion to the Ebola effort under an arcane procedure known as a "reprogramming request." [Reuters, October 10]
See also: Ebola - the threat, the heroes, the politics
Turkey
The sectarian war flaring across the Middle East continues with Turkey becoming the latest country to be destabilized. Turkey and Kurdish military groups had been observing a ceasefire since 2013. That appears to be over for now. Turkey is bombing rebellious Kurds inside its own borders in a conflict over the country's refusal to let Kurdish fighters travel to Syria to fight ISIS, reports say....Turkey's conflict with its Kurdish population is long-running, and while the country has accepted refugees fleeing ISIS's attack on the city of Kobani—which is just over the border in Syria—it refuses to allow Kurdish fighters to cross the other way. [Slate, October 14]
Ukraine
The ceasefire in Ukraine is holding as the presidents of Russia and Ukraine met in Milan on Friday. On October 12, Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops to withdraw to their permanent bases after military exercises in Rostov region near the border with Ukraine, the Kremlin said, in a sign of some tension easing before a key meeting .... The troop pullout came before an expected meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko in Milan. The Russia Times reported that the meeting is to be held "on the sidelines" of the EU-Asia (ASEM) summit. The presidents of Russia and Ukraine are to meet at a business breakfast in Milan on Friday October 16, with the fragile peace in Ukraine and gas supplies to Europe expected to dominate. The summit carries hopes of further progress in resolving the crisis. Ukrainian President Poroshenko stressed the "high expectations" for the meeting in a statement before the meeting: "...the leaders of the European states and the European Union together with me, the president of Ukraine, will hold the talks with the leadership of the Russian Federation concerning extremely important issues: establishment of peace in Ukraine, securing the peace process, development of the political process, de-escalation of the situation in the east of the country." The morning meeting between Russia, Ukraine, and European governments lasted an hour later with various leaders...later telling reporters some progress had been made and promising further talks. "It was good, it was positive," a smiling Putin told reporters after the meeting, held on the margins of a summit of Asian and European leaders in Milan. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later poured cold water on hopes of any breakthrough, saying "certain participants" had taken an "absolutely biased, non-flexible, non-diplomatic" approach to Ukraine. [Reuters, October 17]
The Brightest Pulsar Ever Discovered
Astronomers using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) have found the most luminous pulsar ever discovered. Located 12 million light-years away in the galaxy Messier 82 (M82), a pulsar exists that is 10 million times brighter than the sun. The research was led by Matteo Bachetti of the University of Toulouse and the paper was published in Nature. As with many incredible discoveries, this one came by chance as the team was looking for something else entirely. While using NuSTAR to image a supernova in M82, they noticed two incredibly bright X-ray signatures. One of these sources was a medium-sized black hole, but the other signal was pulsing, indicating that they were looking at a pulsar. Pulsars are neutron stars that spin rapidly and are magnetized. As gas and dust are pulled inward, they are heated up and become illuminated. [IFLScience website, October 9]
Gays and the Catholic Church
A Vatican working document generated much discussion after it was introduced Monday at the Vatican's Synod on the Family. The so-called "midterm report" said that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. The document, prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops on the family, said the Church should challenge itself to find "a fraternal space" for homosexuals without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony. The document, reflecting "Pope Francis' desire to adopt a more merciful pastoral approach on marriage and family issues", asked, "...are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of proving that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?...Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners." [Huffington Post, October 13]
The publication of the controversial document summarizing the interventions made during the Synod on the Family’s first week brought both rapturous praise and fierce criticism.[Commonweal, October 15] Conservative groups and bishops have challenged the report and there will be continuing discussion and revisions before it is released from the Synod. Already the English language version has softened some of the language in the Italian original. Nevertheless, judging by the comments at Wednesday's press conference, writes dotCommonweal blogger Grant Gallicho, you'd scarcely be able to tell that yesterday a cardinal went in front of the world press and claimed their coverage of the synod's working document had put the bishops in "an irredeemable position." Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz--president of the U.S. bishops conference--did not show any displeasure with the [working document].
In Brief
The Best News of the Year post (December 2013) listed the Argus II bionic eye as one of the things to celebrate in 2013. After living in darkness for most of his life, a North Carolina man can now see thanks to a bionic eye. He is the seventh person to receive the FDA-approved device. [HuffPost Live, October 10]
Gaza
The Gaza Donor Conference held October 12 raised $5.4 billion for the reconstruction of the enclave devastated this summer by the Israeli assault. Global donors have pledged a sum of $5.4bn in aid to reconstruct the Gaza Strip amid warnings that the Palestinian territory remains a "tinderbox" following the summer war between Hamas and Israel. The pledged amount surpasses the $4bn which Palestinians had asked for during the conference to reconstruct the enclave, after the 50-day Israeli military campaign. "The participants pledged approximately $5.4bn," Boerge Brende, Norwegian foreign minister, said during the closing statement at the Cairo conference which Norway co-hosted. The pledged amount includes $1 billion from Qatar, $570 million from the European Union, and $212 million from the United States. [Al Jazeera, October 12]
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A Palestinian reacts after his mother's body was removed from the rubble in Rafah.
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Ebola
As of October 15, the World Health Organization (WHO) put the official death toll from the Ebola virus at 4,493. But as the BBC reports, because of difficulties with the Ebola data from West Africa, 12,000 could be a better estimate. The BBC analysis notes that under-reporting, both of cases and of deaths, may be occurring. We know people are contracting the disease, and dying from it, without being noticed....Also, comparing current cases and current deaths does not take account of people living with the disease for some time before either dying or recovering. What you need is quality data and the best comes from a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. A team, including scientists at Imperial College London, looked at a sub-set of patients with full medical records from diagnosis through to either recovery or death. [Dr Christopher Dye, the director of strategy in the office of the director general at the WHO] told the BBC: "On the basis of this analysis, our best estimate is a 60-70% case fatality and it's sensible to use a range as there are variations from one place to another." [BBC News, October 15]
The U.S. Defense Department won permission to shift $750 million in war funds to fight Ebola in West Africa as a Republican senator on Friday lifted his remaining objections to the transfer. The action by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma will give the Pentagon enough funding for about six months of operations in West Africa, including the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and the establishment some 17 Ebola treatment facilities with 100 beds each. But key members of Congress are still withholding about $250 million of the Obama administration's original request to shift $1 billion to the Ebola effort under an arcane procedure known as a "reprogramming request." [Reuters, October 10]
See also: Ebola - the threat, the heroes, the politics
Turkey
The sectarian war flaring across the Middle East continues with Turkey becoming the latest country to be destabilized. Turkey and Kurdish military groups had been observing a ceasefire since 2013. That appears to be over for now. Turkey is bombing rebellious Kurds inside its own borders in a conflict over the country's refusal to let Kurdish fighters travel to Syria to fight ISIS, reports say....Turkey's conflict with its Kurdish population is long-running, and while the country has accepted refugees fleeing ISIS's attack on the city of Kobani—which is just over the border in Syria—it refuses to allow Kurdish fighters to cross the other way. [Slate, October 14]
Ukraine
The ceasefire in Ukraine is holding as the presidents of Russia and Ukraine met in Milan on Friday. On October 12, Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops to withdraw to their permanent bases after military exercises in Rostov region near the border with Ukraine, the Kremlin said, in a sign of some tension easing before a key meeting .... The troop pullout came before an expected meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko in Milan. The Russia Times reported that the meeting is to be held "on the sidelines" of the EU-Asia (ASEM) summit. The presidents of Russia and Ukraine are to meet at a business breakfast in Milan on Friday October 16, with the fragile peace in Ukraine and gas supplies to Europe expected to dominate. The summit carries hopes of further progress in resolving the crisis. Ukrainian President Poroshenko stressed the "high expectations" for the meeting in a statement before the meeting: "...the leaders of the European states and the European Union together with me, the president of Ukraine, will hold the talks with the leadership of the Russian Federation concerning extremely important issues: establishment of peace in Ukraine, securing the peace process, development of the political process, de-escalation of the situation in the east of the country." The morning meeting between Russia, Ukraine, and European governments lasted an hour later with various leaders...later telling reporters some progress had been made and promising further talks. "It was good, it was positive," a smiling Putin told reporters after the meeting, held on the margins of a summit of Asian and European leaders in Milan. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later poured cold water on hopes of any breakthrough, saying "certain participants" had taken an "absolutely biased, non-flexible, non-diplomatic" approach to Ukraine. [Reuters, October 17]
The Brightest Pulsar Ever Discovered
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| photo credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss |
Gays and the Catholic Church
A Vatican working document generated much discussion after it was introduced Monday at the Vatican's Synod on the Family. The so-called "midterm report" said that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. The document, prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops on the family, said the Church should challenge itself to find "a fraternal space" for homosexuals without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony. The document, reflecting "Pope Francis' desire to adopt a more merciful pastoral approach on marriage and family issues", asked, "...are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of proving that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?...Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners." [Huffington Post, October 13]
The publication of the controversial document summarizing the interventions made during the Synod on the Family’s first week brought both rapturous praise and fierce criticism.[Commonweal, October 15] Conservative groups and bishops have challenged the report and there will be continuing discussion and revisions before it is released from the Synod. Already the English language version has softened some of the language in the Italian original. Nevertheless, judging by the comments at Wednesday's press conference, writes dotCommonweal blogger Grant Gallicho, you'd scarcely be able to tell that yesterday a cardinal went in front of the world press and claimed their coverage of the synod's working document had put the bishops in "an irredeemable position." Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz--president of the U.S. bishops conference--did not show any displeasure with the [working document].
In Brief
The Best News of the Year post (December 2013) listed the Argus II bionic eye as one of the things to celebrate in 2013. After living in darkness for most of his life, a North Carolina man can now see thanks to a bionic eye. He is the seventh person to receive the FDA-approved device. [HuffPost Live, October 10]
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Ebola - the threat, the heroes, the politics
On Friday of last week, the World Health Organization raised the number of confirmed or suspected deaths from the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak to 4,033 - greater than the death toll from all previous outbreaks. And unlike previous outbreaks, generally confined to the villages where the disease appeared, the 2014 outbreak has spread to cities and countries outside the epicenter. As reported by AP and carried by Huffington's World Post: "David Nabarro, the U.N. special envoy for Ebola, said the number of Ebola cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and the response needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October. He warned the U.N. General Assembly that without the mass mobilization of the world to support the affected countries in West Africa, 'it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever.' " Mathematical models performed by numerous researchers suggest that anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 people globally could contract the virus by December of this year. With the virus' 50% fatality rate, 10,000 to 50,000 could be killed by the epidemic. Hopefully, the world's governments will respond to this plea for mass mobilization and the worst case scenarios will be prevented.
There is no cure for the disease and no vaccine against the virus. Prevention and containment are the best defense. Basic interventions, when provided early enough, can increase an infected patient's chances of survival, From the CDC website: Symptoms of Ebola are treated as they appear. The following basic interventions, when used early, can significantly improve the chances of survival:
The heroes of this battle are the men and women fighting every day to save Ebola patients. They are the ones putting themselves at risk to keep the epidemic in check. The slightest imperfection in protective equipment or procedure can lead to infection and death. Even when procedures are followed and protective equipment is used, it's possible to become infected as happened with one of the nurses treating the Dallas Ebola patient. Whether they be part of the local response or the UN or Doctors Without Borders medical staff or the medical teams sent by countries like Cuba, they put their lives on the line every day. The US is sending at least 4,000 troops to West Africa improving the infrastructure, helping with logistics and building treatment units. The 101st Airborne is currently undergoing intensive safety training before joining the 350 troops already on the ground in West Africa.
Screening procedures are being put in place in many international airports - London's Heathrow, New York's JFK, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Newark Liberty International - to help stop the spread of the disease from countries with the highest level of infection. The Economist notes that "African and Asian countries have been screening air passengers for months, with some using infrared cameras to detect fevers. This is in addition to the screening of all departing air travellers in the affected countries." While these measures may help calm people, they will not completely stop the spread of the disease. The article concludes "...the best way to stop Ebola from spreading, say health experts, is to drain the reservoir of the disease, which means tackling it in west Africa. Doing that presents an entirely different set of challenges. When it comes to stopping Ebola, the rich world's self-interest aligns neatly with the needs of the developing world. But countries in a position to help have been slow to act."
Here in the US, politics has raised its ugly head. Most recently, a key Republican Senator was blocking the transfer of $750 million (of the $1 billion requested by Obama) in Department of Defense funds to fight the disease because, among other things, the Defense budget was "thin". After realizing how ridiculous his position was, he dropped his objections. Reuters reported Friday : "The U.S. Defense Department won permission to shift $750 million in war funds to fight Ebola in West Africa as a Republican senator on Friday lifted his remaining objections to the transfer. The action by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma will give the Pentagon enough funding for about six months of operations in West Africa, including the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and the establishment some 17 Ebola treatment facilities with 100 beds each." The bad news is that Republicans are still holding up $250 million of the original $1 billion request for transfer.
Inhofe says that "it will be difficult to support any further last-minute funding requests using military resources," Really? With 40% of the world's total military expenditures, we can surely find something we don't need in that bloated budget. Inhofe asks for a "more appropriate" source of funding while we are still feeling the impact of the domestic program budget cuts that Republicans love so much.
The main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're "hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester." Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research. Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease. Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, "argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... 'If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained.'" [Mother Jones, October 1]
The head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, pointed out the impact of a decade of stagnant funding for the agency (down 23% in current dollars). "has 'slowed down' research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe. 'NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,' Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. 'Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.' " [Huffington Post, October 12]
The US media have done a pretty good job of stirring up fears of a devastating outbreak of the virus here in the US despite statements from medical experts that there is little reason for that fear. Normally, the Surgeon General of the United States would be advising Americans and addressing the health concerns of the nation - what's real, what's not, what can be done, what precautions to take. But here too politics has had an impact. Thanks to the NRA, we are without a Surgeon General overseeing the Ebola threat. "Last November 14th, the President nominated Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an extremely qualified candidate to replace ‘acting’ Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. It took three months, but the Senate finally got around to holding a confirmation hearing for Dr. Murthy’s appointment. However, the National Rifle Association exerted its very substantial legislative prerogative and blocked Murthy’s confirmation because he...called for sane gun restrictions to prevent more Americans from dying unnecessarily from the gun violence epidemic. It is exactly what a real medical professional, and highly-qualified potential Surgeon General of the United States, is supposed to do; help prevent a deadly epidemic from spreading to save American lives." [PoliticsUSA, October 14] More than 30,000 people are killed by gun violence each year. The devastation caused by gun violence is order of magnitudes more devastating than the Ebola virus will ever be in this country.
There is no cure for the disease and no vaccine against the virus. Prevention and containment are the best defense. Basic interventions, when provided early enough, can increase an infected patient's chances of survival, From the CDC website: Symptoms of Ebola are treated as they appear. The following basic interventions, when used early, can significantly improve the chances of survival:
- Providing intravenous fluids (IV)and balancing electrolytes (body salts)
- Maintaining oxygen status and blood pressure
- Treating other infections if they occur
The heroes of this battle are the men and women fighting every day to save Ebola patients. They are the ones putting themselves at risk to keep the epidemic in check. The slightest imperfection in protective equipment or procedure can lead to infection and death. Even when procedures are followed and protective equipment is used, it's possible to become infected as happened with one of the nurses treating the Dallas Ebola patient. Whether they be part of the local response or the UN or Doctors Without Borders medical staff or the medical teams sent by countries like Cuba, they put their lives on the line every day. The US is sending at least 4,000 troops to West Africa improving the infrastructure, helping with logistics and building treatment units. The 101st Airborne is currently undergoing intensive safety training before joining the 350 troops already on the ground in West Africa.
Screening procedures are being put in place in many international airports - London's Heathrow, New York's JFK, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Newark Liberty International - to help stop the spread of the disease from countries with the highest level of infection. The Economist notes that "African and Asian countries have been screening air passengers for months, with some using infrared cameras to detect fevers. This is in addition to the screening of all departing air travellers in the affected countries." While these measures may help calm people, they will not completely stop the spread of the disease. The article concludes "...the best way to stop Ebola from spreading, say health experts, is to drain the reservoir of the disease, which means tackling it in west Africa. Doing that presents an entirely different set of challenges. When it comes to stopping Ebola, the rich world's self-interest aligns neatly with the needs of the developing world. But countries in a position to help have been slow to act."
Here in the US, politics has raised its ugly head. Most recently, a key Republican Senator was blocking the transfer of $750 million (of the $1 billion requested by Obama) in Department of Defense funds to fight the disease because, among other things, the Defense budget was "thin". After realizing how ridiculous his position was, he dropped his objections. Reuters reported Friday : "The U.S. Defense Department won permission to shift $750 million in war funds to fight Ebola in West Africa as a Republican senator on Friday lifted his remaining objections to the transfer. The action by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma will give the Pentagon enough funding for about six months of operations in West Africa, including the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and the establishment some 17 Ebola treatment facilities with 100 beds each." The bad news is that Republicans are still holding up $250 million of the original $1 billion request for transfer.
Inhofe says that "it will be difficult to support any further last-minute funding requests using military resources," Really? With 40% of the world's total military expenditures, we can surely find something we don't need in that bloated budget. Inhofe asks for a "more appropriate" source of funding while we are still feeling the impact of the domestic program budget cuts that Republicans love so much.
The main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're "hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester." Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research. Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease. Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, "argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... 'If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained.'" [Mother Jones, October 1]
The head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, pointed out the impact of a decade of stagnant funding for the agency (down 23% in current dollars). "has 'slowed down' research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe. 'NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,' Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. 'Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.' " [Huffington Post, October 12]
The US media have done a pretty good job of stirring up fears of a devastating outbreak of the virus here in the US despite statements from medical experts that there is little reason for that fear. Normally, the Surgeon General of the United States would be advising Americans and addressing the health concerns of the nation - what's real, what's not, what can be done, what precautions to take. But here too politics has had an impact. Thanks to the NRA, we are without a Surgeon General overseeing the Ebola threat. "Last November 14th, the President nominated Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an extremely qualified candidate to replace ‘acting’ Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. It took three months, but the Senate finally got around to holding a confirmation hearing for Dr. Murthy’s appointment. However, the National Rifle Association exerted its very substantial legislative prerogative and blocked Murthy’s confirmation because he...called for sane gun restrictions to prevent more Americans from dying unnecessarily from the gun violence epidemic. It is exactly what a real medical professional, and highly-qualified potential Surgeon General of the United States, is supposed to do; help prevent a deadly epidemic from spreading to save American lives." [PoliticsUSA, October 14] More than 30,000 people are killed by gun violence each year. The devastation caused by gun violence is order of magnitudes more devastating than the Ebola virus will ever be in this country.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Sunday Roundup - October 12, 2014
This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, America's longest war, Khorasan, gun law reform, Hong Kong, Ebola, and, in brief, recent Federal court decisions on voting rights.
Nobel Peace Prize
The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to 17 year-old Pakistani child education activist, Malala Yousafzai, and 60 year-old Indian child rights campaigner, Kailash Satyarthi. The Nobel Committee noted that it "regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism." At 17, Malala becomes the youngest recipient ever of the Peace Prize. The teenager was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education...The Committee spokesman said "Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai, has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education and has shown by example that children and young people too can contribute to improving their own situations...This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls' rights to education." For more than 30 years, Mr. Satyarthi has been at the forefront in the fight against child slavery and exploitation. Mr Satyarthi has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, "focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain," the committee said at the Nobel Institute in Oslo. The 60-year-old founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement, which campaigns for child rights and an end to human trafficking. [BBC News, October 10]
Afghanistan
Thirteen year ago on October 7, the US began bombing Afghanistan. That step marked the beginning of Bush's "war on terror", and the war in Afghanistan has become the longest in American history. Besides the loss of life, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars will eventually cost the US between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. This estimate was made before the latest American military operation in Iraq and Syria and assumes that nobody will listen to the Congressional hawks incredibly clamoring for tens of thousands more troops in the area. Sadly, nearly 40,000 international troops - about three-quarters of them American - are still there. The US recently signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan, which, as The Guardian reported on September 30, guarantees that US and NATO troops will not have to withdraw by year’s end, and permits their stay “until the end of 2024 and beyond.” The entry into force of the deal ensures that Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, will pass off both the Afghanistan war and his new war in Iraq and Syria to his successor. In 2010, his vice-president, Joe Biden, publicly vowed the US would be “totally out” of Afghanistan “come hell or high water, by 2014.” Almost 10,000 US troops will remain in Afghanistan after year-end.
Khorasan
Since ISIS was acknowledged to have no intention of bringing its jihad to the US, the Administration was having a hard time justifying its bombing campaign in Syria. Enter Khorasan - an unheard of jihadist group allegedly with designs to attack the "homeland" - to save the day for the militarists. Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain in a hard-hitting report in The Intercept disclose how the Administration and the military created a wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group"...Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.” Greenwald and Hussain document the growth of the "Khorasan threat" in the media. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war. So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”... But once it served its purpose of justifying the start of the bombing campaign in Syria, the Khorasan narrative simply evaporated as quickly as it materialized. Foreign Policy‘s Shane Harris, with two other writers, was one of the first to question whether the “threat” was anywhere near what it had been depicted to be...On September 25, The New York Times — just days after hyping the Khorasan threat to the homeland — wrote that “the group’s evolution from obscurity to infamy has been sudden.” And the paper of record began, for the first time, to note how little evidence actually existed for all those claims about the imminent threats posed to the homeland. Besides the exaggerated "imminent threat," there were serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner. Tom Englehardt in his October 7 post at TomDispatch "Inside the American Terrordome" takes aim at the terror-phobia and the "soundtrack of hysteria" that has gripped this country since the attacks of September 11. Referencing the Greenwald/Hussain report, he writes: the whole Khorasan story began to disassemble within a day or so of the initial announcement and the bombing strikes in Syria. It took next to no time at all for that “imminent threat” to morph into “aspirational” planning; for reporters to check with their Syrian sources and find that no one knew a thing about the so-called Khorasan Group... As ever, however, pointing out the real dangers in our world was left largely to non-mainstream sources, while the threat to our way of life, to Washington and New York, lingered in the air.
Gun Laws
In its October 6 issue, The Nation asks "Whatever happened to gun control?" The Newtown tragedy was supposed to change everything about gun politics. It hasn't. The Nation considers Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty's (D-CT) Congressional race. It's close and she is one of 25 Democratic Representatives considered at risk of an upset. Esty represents the district that includes Newtown and has been a champion of tougher gun control laws. She co-sponsored a raft of gun-violence prevention bills in the House, including the only gun-control measure to pass Congress after Newtown—a bill to provide $19.5 million to improve the federal background-check system...But twenty-one months after the shootings and with the midterm elections approaching, Esty is facing a situation that would have seemed absurd and even impossible [in the days after Newtown]: her opponent, Mark Greenberg, opposes new federal gun laws. Newtown was supposed to change everything—and for a moment, it appeared it had. Support inside Connecticut for stricter gun laws approached 60 percent in the months after the shooting. In April 2013, a package of reforms touted as the “toughest gun laws in the country” passed the Legislature with wide bipartisan support and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy. But now, most polls show Malloy trailing his Republican opponent, Tom Foley, who opposes new gun laws. How did it happen? And how did the proposals for reasonable measures to prevent gun violence get stymied at the Federal level? The NRA was even in negotiations on a universal background check bill. But persistent misinformation and agitation by far-right members of Congress and gun groups even more rigid than the NRA slowly doomed the effort. Republicans who said they’d support background-check legislation started to waver, often citing bogus fears of a national gun registry that the bill explicitly forbade. The NRA began feeling the heat from groups like Gun Owners of America, which urged a no-compromise approach, and its lobbyists dropped out of the negotiations. In spite of the unlikelihood of any Congressional action on preventing gun violence for the foreseeable, The Nation is encouraged by the laws passed at the state level. An untold story of the post-Newtown debate over gun control is how much happened at the state level: while the national media deemed gun control impossible after Congress failed to act, eight states made significant or sweeping changes to gun laws, while only four states significantly weakened them, according to analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Mark Follman at Mother Jones crunched the numbers and found that more than half of all Americans now live in a state with stronger gun control laws than existed before Newtown. Washington State, Nevada and Illinois have initiatives on the 2014 ballot so there may be even more progress. Many people are getting involved outside the electoral and legislative arenas as well by joining a wide-ranging movement to keep guns out of public spaces. Americans for Responsible Solutions is "micro-targeting" specific groups for support of reforming gun laws and there is real optimism among the various reform groups, But on the national level, for these mid-terms at least, candidates are treading cautiously with the result that in an election cycle with no overriding theme, gun control occupies a place somewhere alongside farm subsidies or the Export-Import Bank as an issue on the campaign trail.
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong student protests are petering out. With numbers shrinking rapidly, and hopes of winning meaningful reform fading even faster, the question now is what lies ahead for these “angry – but peaceful” young men and women. Will the unprecedented protests embolden them to fight for their beliefs in future, or convince them that resistance to Beijing’s will is futile? “People are criticising what we are doing as pointless and saying we won’t achieve anything, but history has shown us that is not the case,” student leader Joshua Wong told the crowd last week. “All our actions are like planting a seed.”...Beijing’s attempts to introduce a draconian national security law in 2003 and “patriotic education” in 2012 were turning points. Then came the decision to tightly restrict the long-promised universal suffrage. “People are finally saying: This is it – this is the end – and this has fuelled this sudden anger and frustration,” Hong Kong-based author Suzanne Pepper said. There are economic as well as political reasons for the protests. The emphasis on tourism and an influx of mainlanders has increased the competition for professional jobs, housing and seats on public transport. The salaries of young people are down, in real trerms, about 15-20% since 2000 housing prices are soaring, and income inequality is among the highest in the developed world. [The Guardian, October 7] Change, if any, will come slowly. Hong Kong officials had agreed to meet with student representatives but then called off a meeting [scheduled for] Friday with student leaders of the pro-democracy movement. Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said it would be "impossible to have a constructive dialogue" after protest leaders called for an increase in efforts to occupy main protest areas. [BBC, October 9]
Ebola
The (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a team to Nigeria to learn more about how Nigeria managed to contain the outbreak there so effectively. Ebola first arrived in Lagos, Nigeria—one of the largest cities in the world—on July 20. Global health officials feared the worst, warning that the disease could wreak untold havoc in the country. But it hasn't turned out that way. To date, Nigeria has reported only 20 confirmed or probable Ebola cases in a nation of 174 million people. Equally remarkable, there have only been eight deaths...In fact, Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free as early as October 12. The Nigerians' success resulted from early identification, isolation and treatment, a coordinated approach with a center of operations, and fast tracking of contacts of the infected person. [Mother Jones, October 10] Meanwhile, Republican Senators are blocking approval of the transfer of $1 billion in funds in the DOD budget to combat the disease - partly because it focuses on Africa rather than the US and partly because of the "thin" Defense budget (Note: the US military budget is nearly 40% of the global total spent on the military. $1 billion is less than 0.2% of our military budget). You can't make this stuff up. Read more on these latest obstructions at The Daily Kos. And at The Nation.
UPDATE: Senator Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services ranking Republican, lifted his objections and $750 million of the requested $1 billion will be transferred. [Reuters, Oct. 10]
In Brief - Voting Rights
"A Wild Week for Voting Rights" [Liz Kennedy at Demos, October 10] - The Supreme Court began its term by reinstating voting restrictions in Ohio and North Carolina after federal appeals courts put these laws on hold for unfairly burdening voting rights, particularly for people of color...[On October 9], the Court took action to stop Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement from going into effect only weeks before Election Day, and a federal court struck down Texas’s voter ID law after a trial on the merits, ruling for voters in both cases.
[Update: The US Supreme Court reversed the Texas trial court's decision on Saturday, October 18. The discriminatory Texas ID law will be in effect and could disenfranchise as many as 600,000 voters.]
Nobel Peace Prize
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| Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi. Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian |
Afghanistan
Thirteen year ago on October 7, the US began bombing Afghanistan. That step marked the beginning of Bush's "war on terror", and the war in Afghanistan has become the longest in American history. Besides the loss of life, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars will eventually cost the US between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. This estimate was made before the latest American military operation in Iraq and Syria and assumes that nobody will listen to the Congressional hawks incredibly clamoring for tens of thousands more troops in the area. Sadly, nearly 40,000 international troops - about three-quarters of them American - are still there. The US recently signed a Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan, which, as The Guardian reported on September 30, guarantees that US and NATO troops will not have to withdraw by year’s end, and permits their stay “until the end of 2024 and beyond.” The entry into force of the deal ensures that Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, will pass off both the Afghanistan war and his new war in Iraq and Syria to his successor. In 2010, his vice-president, Joe Biden, publicly vowed the US would be “totally out” of Afghanistan “come hell or high water, by 2014.” Almost 10,000 US troops will remain in Afghanistan after year-end.
Khorasan
Since ISIS was acknowledged to have no intention of bringing its jihad to the US, the Administration was having a hard time justifying its bombing campaign in Syria. Enter Khorasan - an unheard of jihadist group allegedly with designs to attack the "homeland" - to save the day for the militarists. Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain in a hard-hitting report in The Intercept disclose how the Administration and the military created a wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group"...Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.” Greenwald and Hussain document the growth of the "Khorasan threat" in the media. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war. So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”... But once it served its purpose of justifying the start of the bombing campaign in Syria, the Khorasan narrative simply evaporated as quickly as it materialized. Foreign Policy‘s Shane Harris, with two other writers, was one of the first to question whether the “threat” was anywhere near what it had been depicted to be...On September 25, The New York Times — just days after hyping the Khorasan threat to the homeland — wrote that “the group’s evolution from obscurity to infamy has been sudden.” And the paper of record began, for the first time, to note how little evidence actually existed for all those claims about the imminent threats posed to the homeland. Besides the exaggerated "imminent threat," there were serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner. Tom Englehardt in his October 7 post at TomDispatch "Inside the American Terrordome" takes aim at the terror-phobia and the "soundtrack of hysteria" that has gripped this country since the attacks of September 11. Referencing the Greenwald/Hussain report, he writes: the whole Khorasan story began to disassemble within a day or so of the initial announcement and the bombing strikes in Syria. It took next to no time at all for that “imminent threat” to morph into “aspirational” planning; for reporters to check with their Syrian sources and find that no one knew a thing about the so-called Khorasan Group... As ever, however, pointing out the real dangers in our world was left largely to non-mainstream sources, while the threat to our way of life, to Washington and New York, lingered in the air.
Gun Laws
In its October 6 issue, The Nation asks "Whatever happened to gun control?" The Newtown tragedy was supposed to change everything about gun politics. It hasn't. The Nation considers Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty's (D-CT) Congressional race. It's close and she is one of 25 Democratic Representatives considered at risk of an upset. Esty represents the district that includes Newtown and has been a champion of tougher gun control laws. She co-sponsored a raft of gun-violence prevention bills in the House, including the only gun-control measure to pass Congress after Newtown—a bill to provide $19.5 million to improve the federal background-check system...But twenty-one months after the shootings and with the midterm elections approaching, Esty is facing a situation that would have seemed absurd and even impossible [in the days after Newtown]: her opponent, Mark Greenberg, opposes new federal gun laws. Newtown was supposed to change everything—and for a moment, it appeared it had. Support inside Connecticut for stricter gun laws approached 60 percent in the months after the shooting. In April 2013, a package of reforms touted as the “toughest gun laws in the country” passed the Legislature with wide bipartisan support and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy. But now, most polls show Malloy trailing his Republican opponent, Tom Foley, who opposes new gun laws. How did it happen? And how did the proposals for reasonable measures to prevent gun violence get stymied at the Federal level? The NRA was even in negotiations on a universal background check bill. But persistent misinformation and agitation by far-right members of Congress and gun groups even more rigid than the NRA slowly doomed the effort. Republicans who said they’d support background-check legislation started to waver, often citing bogus fears of a national gun registry that the bill explicitly forbade. The NRA began feeling the heat from groups like Gun Owners of America, which urged a no-compromise approach, and its lobbyists dropped out of the negotiations. In spite of the unlikelihood of any Congressional action on preventing gun violence for the foreseeable, The Nation is encouraged by the laws passed at the state level. An untold story of the post-Newtown debate over gun control is how much happened at the state level: while the national media deemed gun control impossible after Congress failed to act, eight states made significant or sweeping changes to gun laws, while only four states significantly weakened them, according to analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Mark Follman at Mother Jones crunched the numbers and found that more than half of all Americans now live in a state with stronger gun control laws than existed before Newtown. Washington State, Nevada and Illinois have initiatives on the 2014 ballot so there may be even more progress. Many people are getting involved outside the electoral and legislative arenas as well by joining a wide-ranging movement to keep guns out of public spaces. Americans for Responsible Solutions is "micro-targeting" specific groups for support of reforming gun laws and there is real optimism among the various reform groups, But on the national level, for these mid-terms at least, candidates are treading cautiously with the result that in an election cycle with no overriding theme, gun control occupies a place somewhere alongside farm subsidies or the Export-Import Bank as an issue on the campaign trail.
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong student protests are petering out. With numbers shrinking rapidly, and hopes of winning meaningful reform fading even faster, the question now is what lies ahead for these “angry – but peaceful” young men and women. Will the unprecedented protests embolden them to fight for their beliefs in future, or convince them that resistance to Beijing’s will is futile? “People are criticising what we are doing as pointless and saying we won’t achieve anything, but history has shown us that is not the case,” student leader Joshua Wong told the crowd last week. “All our actions are like planting a seed.”...Beijing’s attempts to introduce a draconian national security law in 2003 and “patriotic education” in 2012 were turning points. Then came the decision to tightly restrict the long-promised universal suffrage. “People are finally saying: This is it – this is the end – and this has fuelled this sudden anger and frustration,” Hong Kong-based author Suzanne Pepper said. There are economic as well as political reasons for the protests. The emphasis on tourism and an influx of mainlanders has increased the competition for professional jobs, housing and seats on public transport. The salaries of young people are down, in real trerms, about 15-20% since 2000 housing prices are soaring, and income inequality is among the highest in the developed world. [The Guardian, October 7] Change, if any, will come slowly. Hong Kong officials had agreed to meet with student representatives but then called off a meeting [scheduled for] Friday with student leaders of the pro-democracy movement. Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said it would be "impossible to have a constructive dialogue" after protest leaders called for an increase in efforts to occupy main protest areas. [BBC, October 9]
Ebola
The (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a team to Nigeria to learn more about how Nigeria managed to contain the outbreak there so effectively. Ebola first arrived in Lagos, Nigeria—one of the largest cities in the world—on July 20. Global health officials feared the worst, warning that the disease could wreak untold havoc in the country. But it hasn't turned out that way. To date, Nigeria has reported only 20 confirmed or probable Ebola cases in a nation of 174 million people. Equally remarkable, there have only been eight deaths...In fact, Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free as early as October 12. The Nigerians' success resulted from early identification, isolation and treatment, a coordinated approach with a center of operations, and fast tracking of contacts of the infected person. [Mother Jones, October 10] Meanwhile, Republican Senators are blocking approval of the transfer of $1 billion in funds in the DOD budget to combat the disease - partly because it focuses on Africa rather than the US and partly because of the "thin" Defense budget (Note: the US military budget is nearly 40% of the global total spent on the military. $1 billion is less than 0.2% of our military budget). You can't make this stuff up. Read more on these latest obstructions at The Daily Kos. And at The Nation.
UPDATE: Senator Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services ranking Republican, lifted his objections and $750 million of the requested $1 billion will be transferred. [Reuters, Oct. 10]
"A Wild Week for Voting Rights" [Liz Kennedy at Demos, October 10] - The Supreme Court began its term by reinstating voting restrictions in Ohio and North Carolina after federal appeals courts put these laws on hold for unfairly burdening voting rights, particularly for people of color...[On October 9], the Court took action to stop Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement from going into effect only weeks before Election Day, and a federal court struck down Texas’s voter ID law after a trial on the merits, ruling for voters in both cases.
[Update: The US Supreme Court reversed the Texas trial court's decision on Saturday, October 18. The discriminatory Texas ID law will be in effect and could disenfranchise as many as 600,000 voters.]
Monday, October 6, 2014
THE question for the 2014 midterms: How can Democrats hold the Senate?
It's one month until the 2014 midterm elections. Much has changed since the 2010 midterms, the first held after the infamous Citizens United decision. In 2013 the Supreme Court conservatives gutted the Voting Rights Act. In their 2014 McCutcheon decision, they completed their Citizens United work to allow unlimited amounts of cash to be spent to influence elections. The well-organized and well-funded Republican campaign attacking voting rights bore fruit across the country - 22 mostly Republican-controlled states have passed restrictive voting laws. The House districts gerrymandered by state governments controlled by Republicans after the 2010 census and elections make it a foregone conclusion that Republicans will control the House of Representatives for the foreseeable future. This will happen in spite of Congress' 11 percent approval rating and in spite of Republicans' utter lack of programs to help the country (no jobs bill, failure to extend long-term unemployment benefits, cuts to social programs, no comprehensive action on immigration reform or the environment or gun control, a government shutdown, etc., etc.,) As for the state governor races, the Democrats may pick up a handful of seats held by Republicans but perhaps not enough to put them in the majority. The only remaining question on the November election results is: "How can the Democrats retain control of the Senate?" (For more detail on the recent polls for the House and state Governor races, see below.)
The Senate races are key for the Democrats. Democrats and Independents who caucus with them hold a 55-45 majority. There are 21 Democratic and 15 Republican seats to be decided. Loss of the Senate majority would ensure an end to what's left of Obama's agenda and, just as importantly, an end to any hope for progressive or even moderate appointments to the judiciary. Republicans continue to find ways to slow or prevent the approval of Obama's judicial nominees in the current Congress even with the Democratic majority in the Senate. There are currently 63 judicial vacancies in the Federal courts. It is unlikely that the Senate will be able to confirm judges for even a quarter of these vacancies before the next Congress is seated.
In August, I looked at the key seats in play in red or swing states currently with a Democratic incumbent or retiring Senator. I concluded then that the Senate would be evenly split between Democrats and Republicans and that Democrats would barely hold onto a "majority" by the grace of the Vice-Presidential tie-breaking vote. Here's an update on those races based on more recent polls. The August poll results are shown in parentheses. The end result is one seat (Alaska) swings from Democratic to Republican.
Louisiana - Cassidy (R) 48.0% (46.8%) v. Landrieu (D) 43.4% (45.8%) - Republican lead up by 3.6%.
Alaska - Sullivan (R) 45.7% (41.0%) v Begich (D) 41.0% (44.0%) - Republican lead of 4.7% in October vs. Democratic lead of 3% in August
Arkansas - Cotton (R) 45.8% (47.4%) v. Pryor (D) 42.2% (43.8%) - Republican lead remains same as in August.
North Carolina - Hagan (D) 45.0% (45.8%) v. Tillis (R) 40.8% (44.0%) - Democratic lead up by 4.2%.
Virginia - Warner (D) 49.3% (51.0%) v. Gillespie 35.7% (33.7%) - Democratic lead down by 3.7%
Montana - Daines (R) 54.0% (51.7%) v. Walsh (D) 35.0% (38.0%) - Republican landslide
South Dakota - Rounds(R) 40.3% (44%) v. Weiland (D) 27.7% (29.5%) - Republican lead still in double digits
Iowa - Ernst (R) 44.6% (44.8%) v. Braley (D) 41.8% (44.0%) - Republican lead up by 2%
Michigan - Peters (D) 44.0% (43.8%) v. Land (R) 37.5% (39.2%) - Democratic lead up by 1.9%
But there's more..since August, two Democratic candidates from "blue" states - Udall in Colorado and Shaheen in New Hampshire - have fallen into close races with several recent polls showing them losing in November. If we assume the loss of at least one of these seats, then in these 11 key Senate races, Democrats will hold onto 4 seats and Republicans would capture 7. This would give Republicans a 52-48 majority in the Senate.
So how can a Republican takeover of the Senate be prevented?
(1) Vote.
(2) Canvass.
Facts and being on the right side of issues will never overcome the fears, lies and, at times, hatred being generated by the right-wing echo chamber. These drums have been beating since Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008. By 2010, the lies about the Affordable Care Act, about the government coming for your guns, about the "failure" of the stimulus, etc., etc., had taken firm hold in the American political psyche. There's no turning that around in one month.
But Dems can still "get out the vote". Turnout will be critical if Democrats are to retain control of the Senate. But mid-term elections have notoriously poor turnout. Add to this the voter suppression laws that went into effect in many of the "Senate-crucial" states and the task in front of Democrats becomes daunting. If Democrats are to have any chance to hold the Senate, the electorate of 2014 needs to look like the electorate of 2008 rather than the electorate of 2010. Canvass, canvass, canvass. And, when you're thoroughly exhausted, canvass some more.
A number of organizations have set up "get out the vote" and "protect the vote" efforts. If you are in a state with a key Senate race, check with your local Democratic Committee or ACLU office. If you, like me, are in a safely Democratic state, volunteer for telephone canvassing shifts. Here's a link to the MoveOn effort:
MoveOn Home Shift signup - you can sign up for 2-1/2 hour shifts here
http://pol.moveon.org/2014calls/home_shift_signup.html?id=102563-4769646-0RY74Qx&t=5
And, of course, vote and encourage all like-minded progressives to vote.
ACLU Voter Information Page
Related
House of Representatives and Governor Races
Currently the Republicans hold a 34 seat majority in the House. Looking at the polls in August, I concluded that the best Democrats could hope for this year would be to reduce the Republican majority to 25 seats, but a more likely figure is that the Republicans majority would increase to 43 seats. So the more likely scenario would be that Republicans will pick up 9 seats in next month's elections. I see no reason to change that conclusion based on more recent polls, which show no noticeable change in voter sentiment.
In the same post, I looked at five governor's races - Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The governors of these states are all currently Republicans. Republicans currently govern 29 of 50 states. The conclusion now is the same as the conclusion then. Democrats should be able to pick up a few governor seats - but don't expect a dramatic change. (August poll results are in parentheses.)
Florida - Crist (D) 43.4% (43.8%) v. Scott (R) 42.0% (42.5%) Democratic lead grew by 0.1%. Tossup.
Wisconsin - Walker (R) 47.8% (47.0%) v. Burke (D) 46.0% (46.3%) Republican lead grew by 1.1%. Tossup but moving towards Republican.
Texas - Abbott (R) 52.0% (50.5%) v. Davis (D) 39.3% (36.8%) Republican lead shrunk by 0.5% but still firmly Republican.
Ohio - Kasich (R) 54.0% (47.0%) v. FitzGerald (D) 32.8% (38.8%) - Republican lead grew by 12%. Republican landslide.
Pennsylvania - Wolf (D) 52.0% (52.0%) v. Tom Corbett (R) 36.1% (39.0%) - Democratic lead grew by 2.9%. Democratic victory.
Polling information in this post is from the Real Clear Politics website.
The Senate races are key for the Democrats. Democrats and Independents who caucus with them hold a 55-45 majority. There are 21 Democratic and 15 Republican seats to be decided. Loss of the Senate majority would ensure an end to what's left of Obama's agenda and, just as importantly, an end to any hope for progressive or even moderate appointments to the judiciary. Republicans continue to find ways to slow or prevent the approval of Obama's judicial nominees in the current Congress even with the Democratic majority in the Senate. There are currently 63 judicial vacancies in the Federal courts. It is unlikely that the Senate will be able to confirm judges for even a quarter of these vacancies before the next Congress is seated.
In August, I looked at the key seats in play in red or swing states currently with a Democratic incumbent or retiring Senator. I concluded then that the Senate would be evenly split between Democrats and Republicans and that Democrats would barely hold onto a "majority" by the grace of the Vice-Presidential tie-breaking vote. Here's an update on those races based on more recent polls. The August poll results are shown in parentheses. The end result is one seat (Alaska) swings from Democratic to Republican.
Louisiana - Cassidy (R) 48.0% (46.8%) v. Landrieu (D) 43.4% (45.8%) - Republican lead up by 3.6%.
Alaska - Sullivan (R) 45.7% (41.0%) v Begich (D) 41.0% (44.0%) - Republican lead of 4.7% in October vs. Democratic lead of 3% in August
Arkansas - Cotton (R) 45.8% (47.4%) v. Pryor (D) 42.2% (43.8%) - Republican lead remains same as in August.
North Carolina - Hagan (D) 45.0% (45.8%) v. Tillis (R) 40.8% (44.0%) - Democratic lead up by 4.2%.
Virginia - Warner (D) 49.3% (51.0%) v. Gillespie 35.7% (33.7%) - Democratic lead down by 3.7%
Montana - Daines (R) 54.0% (51.7%) v. Walsh (D) 35.0% (38.0%) - Republican landslide
South Dakota - Rounds(R) 40.3% (44%) v. Weiland (D) 27.7% (29.5%) - Republican lead still in double digits
Iowa - Ernst (R) 44.6% (44.8%) v. Braley (D) 41.8% (44.0%) - Republican lead up by 2%
Michigan - Peters (D) 44.0% (43.8%) v. Land (R) 37.5% (39.2%) - Democratic lead up by 1.9%
But there's more..since August, two Democratic candidates from "blue" states - Udall in Colorado and Shaheen in New Hampshire - have fallen into close races with several recent polls showing them losing in November. If we assume the loss of at least one of these seats, then in these 11 key Senate races, Democrats will hold onto 4 seats and Republicans would capture 7. This would give Republicans a 52-48 majority in the Senate.
So how can a Republican takeover of the Senate be prevented?
(1) Vote.
(2) Canvass.
Facts and being on the right side of issues will never overcome the fears, lies and, at times, hatred being generated by the right-wing echo chamber. These drums have been beating since Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008. By 2010, the lies about the Affordable Care Act, about the government coming for your guns, about the "failure" of the stimulus, etc., etc., had taken firm hold in the American political psyche. There's no turning that around in one month.
But Dems can still "get out the vote". Turnout will be critical if Democrats are to retain control of the Senate. But mid-term elections have notoriously poor turnout. Add to this the voter suppression laws that went into effect in many of the "Senate-crucial" states and the task in front of Democrats becomes daunting. If Democrats are to have any chance to hold the Senate, the electorate of 2014 needs to look like the electorate of 2008 rather than the electorate of 2010. Canvass, canvass, canvass. And, when you're thoroughly exhausted, canvass some more.
A number of organizations have set up "get out the vote" and "protect the vote" efforts. If you are in a state with a key Senate race, check with your local Democratic Committee or ACLU office. If you, like me, are in a safely Democratic state, volunteer for telephone canvassing shifts. Here's a link to the MoveOn effort:
MoveOn Home Shift signup - you can sign up for 2-1/2 hour shifts here
http://pol.moveon.org/2014calls/home_shift_signup.html?id=102563-4769646-0RY74Qx&t=5
And, of course, vote and encourage all like-minded progressives to vote.
ACLU Voter Information Page
Related
House of Representatives and Governor Races
Currently the Republicans hold a 34 seat majority in the House. Looking at the polls in August, I concluded that the best Democrats could hope for this year would be to reduce the Republican majority to 25 seats, but a more likely figure is that the Republicans majority would increase to 43 seats. So the more likely scenario would be that Republicans will pick up 9 seats in next month's elections. I see no reason to change that conclusion based on more recent polls, which show no noticeable change in voter sentiment.
In the same post, I looked at five governor's races - Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The governors of these states are all currently Republicans. Republicans currently govern 29 of 50 states. The conclusion now is the same as the conclusion then. Democrats should be able to pick up a few governor seats - but don't expect a dramatic change. (August poll results are in parentheses.)
Florida - Crist (D) 43.4% (43.8%) v. Scott (R) 42.0% (42.5%) Democratic lead grew by 0.1%. Tossup.
Wisconsin - Walker (R) 47.8% (47.0%) v. Burke (D) 46.0% (46.3%) Republican lead grew by 1.1%. Tossup but moving towards Republican.
Texas - Abbott (R) 52.0% (50.5%) v. Davis (D) 39.3% (36.8%) Republican lead shrunk by 0.5% but still firmly Republican.
Ohio - Kasich (R) 54.0% (47.0%) v. FitzGerald (D) 32.8% (38.8%) - Republican lead grew by 12%. Republican landslide.
Pennsylvania - Wolf (D) 52.0% (52.0%) v. Tom Corbett (R) 36.1% (39.0%) - Democratic lead grew by 2.9%. Democratic victory.
Polling information in this post is from the Real Clear Politics website.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Sunday Roundup - October 5, 2014
This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at recent court decisions on voting rights, the Hong Kong protests, Syria, Israel's growing isolation, and Ebola.
Voting Rights (or lack thereof)
As the US midterm elections draw near, voting rights proponents have sued in Federal court, contesting various voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states. With SCOTUS's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and their unleashing of unlimited campaign money by the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the voter suppression laws are the third part of the shameful Troika of Plutocracy that promises to turn this year's election into the least democratic since the days of Jim Crow. As summarized by the Brennan Center for Justice: Since the 2010 election, new voting restrictions are slated to be in place in 22 states. Unless these restrictions are blocked — and there are court challenges to laws in six of those states — voters in nearly half the country could find it harder to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm election than they did in 2010. The new laws range from photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to voter registration restrictions. Partisanship and race were key factors in this movement. Most restrictions passed through GOP-controlled legislatures and in states with increases in minority turnout.
Ohio - “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Roberts wrote in the court’s main opinion in McCutcheon. Evidently that right does not extend to minorities in Ohio without cash to throw into campaigns. Think Progress reported on September 29: ...the Supreme Court returned from its summer vacation for the “Long Conference,” the day when the justices consider the backlog of petitions asking them to hear cases that built up while they were away for the summer. Yet, despite the fact that the justices typically face hundreds of petitions that they must consider during this conference, five of them still found time on Monday to make it harder for Ohio residents to cast a vote. In a 5-4 decision that divided entirely along partisan lines, the Court allowed cuts to Ohio’s early voting days to go into effect. Notably, this decision came down just 16 hours before polling places were set to open in that state.
Wisconsin - The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups are bringing Wisconsin's voter ID law to the Supreme Court. Arguing that one in ten voters already registered in Wisconsin may not actually get to cast their ballots this year, civil rights and citizens’ advocacy groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar a new requirement to produce a photo ID before voting. By a vote of five to five, a federal appeals court has permitted enforcement for this year’s general election, already underway with absentee voting. The plea for the Supreme Court to step in now was filed with Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Wisconsin. She can act on her own, or share the issue with her colleagues. [SCOTUS blog, October 2]
North Carolina - Several provisions of North Carolina's harsh voter suppression laws were struck down by a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's now headed to the Supreme Court. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked provisions of a North Carolina voting law that would have ended same-day registration and eliminated the counting of votes cast outside one's precinct. But it left intact a lower court decision that affirmed the law's reducing the number of early voting days, expanding what can be done to challenge voters and eliminating the discretion of county election boards from adding an extra hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances. [Daily Kos, Oct 1]
Hong Kong
In another "democracy" story, the Hong Kong student protests sparked by the announcement of the 2017 election framework continued. On Thursday the protesters were demanding the resignation of Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chung-Ying as Beijing hardened its line on the protests. Bolstered by a vote of confidence in the People's Daily, Leung shows no sign of resigning but has agreed to have a high ranking official in his administration meet with the protesters. Speaking at the end of a fifth day of protests, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying refused to meet demonstrators’ demands to resign but said his top official, Carrie Lam, would hold a meeting with students to discuss political reforms...The protests represent the biggest challenge to Chinese rule over its special autonomous region since its handover from the UK in 1997. They were sparked by dissatisfaction over a framework handed down by Beijing for the election of Mr Leung’s successor in 2017. Under the model, candidates would have to achieve the support of at least 50 per cent of a 1,200-strong committee, which opponents say is stacked with Beijing loyalists. [The Independent, Oct 2] On Friday, The Guardian reported that violent scuffles broke out in one of Hong Kong’s most famous and congested shopping districts..., as supporters of Chinese rule stormed tents and ripped down banners belonging to pro-democracy protesters. [The Guardian, Oct 3]
Syria
The Syrian Civil War has been raging for 3-1/2 years. As of the end of August, more than 191,000 Syrians had been killed in the conflict. More than 3,000,000 Syrians have sought refuge in other countries and 6,500,000 have been internally displaced. Neither the government nor the rebels have been able to defeat the other side and the continuing flow of arms to both sides has only prolonged the conflict. In a massive display of ignorance, the US Congress recently voted $500 million to arm and train the Syrian rebels. Military experts and others warn that arming the rebels will embolden and inadvertently aid ISIS. Writing in the Huffington Post on September 17 prior to the Congressional vote, Kate Gould and (retired) Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson warned "If Congress signs this check for the FSA, IS will help cash it. For years, IS has recruited former FSA fighters and seized weapons funneled to Iraq and Syria from the U.S. and other countries." That this aid to the rebels will worsen the civil war is an obvious and foregone conclusion. The organization Win Without War adds: "After more than a decade of war, it's clear that military force will not stop extremism in the region. Instead of dumping additional weapons into Syria, Congress should support alternatives to combat the threat of ISIS and to end the Syrian civil war." The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) published an article by Yezid Sayigh that argues that, in the face of the growing power of Islamic State, now is the time to seek a truce in the Syrian Civil War. Specifically Sayigh recommends that the two sides observe independent truces implemented in parallel. This approach would not require a formal diplomatic agreement, just robust endorsement and timely coordination by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—the government’s and the opposition’s external backers that are most engaged in Iraq...Now is the moment for [these] three outside actors in particular...to pressure the regime and rebels alike to commit to separate unilateral truces, coordinating the process indirectly to ensure these are implemented in parallel. A major advantage of this approach is that it sidesteps tortuous discussions about political preconditions and the status of the Syrian parties of the sort that rendered the otherwise commendable Geneva 1 communiqué of June 2012 stillborn.
Israel
Following on the heels of its brutal, war-crime-ridden assault on the Gaza Strip, the right-wing Israeli government announced its largest appropriation of Palestinian land in 30 years in September. Located as it is in the sensitive East Jerusalem area, the proposed settlement is one more indication of this government's lack of commitment to a just two-state solution and a viable Palestinian state. Even the United States may have finally had enough of this intransigence. Following a Wednesday meeting between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in which the 2600 home settlement was discussed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said "The United States is deeply concerned by reports the Israeli government has moved forward" with planning for settlements in a "sensitive area" of East Jerusalem...Earnest said Israel would send a "very troubling message" by following through with the settlement project, and in noticeably blunt language said that the step was contrary to Israel's stated goal of negotiating a permanent final status agreement with the Palestinians. "This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, [and] distance Israel from even its closest allies," Earnest said. He added that it would also "poison the atmosphere" - not only with the Palestinians but with "the very Arab governments" with which Netanyahu had said he wanted to build relations. All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law [Al Jazeera, October 2]
The EU likewise condemned the Israeli plan, calling it “highly detrimental” to diplomatic efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Brussels called on Israel to “urgently reverse” actions leading to settlement expansion in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state alongside Israel. “This represents a further highly detrimental step that undermines prospects for a two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” the EU’s diplomatic service said. The housing units, which have been slated for construction since 2012 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, were given final approval last week, according to the Peace Now watchdog. [Al-Arabiya/Agence France-Presse, October 3]
Meanwhile, Netanyahu was blaming the Israeli peace organization Peace Now for the United States' position on the new settlements, and he was appearing before the UN trying to conflate Hamas with ISIS. It didn't work. Nathan Brown, in a September 30 op-ed piece for CEIP, "Netanyahu's Convenient Lies About ISIS and Hamas", writes: Speaking at the General Assembly this week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated a refrain he has sounded for three decades (since his days as Israeli ambassador to the U.N.) — that all forms of terrorism are different sides of the same coin and have civilization as their target...But is it accurate? Well, yes of course — in the same sense that France’s François Hollande, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Israel’s HaPoel Tel Aviv all spring from the same socialist movement. It’s not clear how such claims aid understanding, analysis or policy. I'm not sure how to define terrorism. Perhaps we should look at the number of civilian deaths, all of which are inexcusable and should be considered war crimes. 1462 civilians in Gaza were killed by Israeli firepower. 6 civilians were killed by Hamas' flying pipe bombs (referred to in the press as "rockets"). Seems that the IDF assault against Gaza did a pretty good job of terrorizing the impoverished and blockaded enclave.
Ebola
[Mother Jones, October 1] On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester. Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research. Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease. Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... "If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."
Update: On Friday, the World Health Organization reported the latest Ebola figures: 3,431 people killed by the disease out of 7,470 confirmed or suspected cases in west Africa
Voting Rights (or lack thereof)
As the US midterm elections draw near, voting rights proponents have sued in Federal court, contesting various voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states. With SCOTUS's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and their unleashing of unlimited campaign money by the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the voter suppression laws are the third part of the shameful Troika of Plutocracy that promises to turn this year's election into the least democratic since the days of Jim Crow. As summarized by the Brennan Center for Justice: Since the 2010 election, new voting restrictions are slated to be in place in 22 states. Unless these restrictions are blocked — and there are court challenges to laws in six of those states — voters in nearly half the country could find it harder to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm election than they did in 2010. The new laws range from photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to voter registration restrictions. Partisanship and race were key factors in this movement. Most restrictions passed through GOP-controlled legislatures and in states with increases in minority turnout.
Ohio - “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Roberts wrote in the court’s main opinion in McCutcheon. Evidently that right does not extend to minorities in Ohio without cash to throw into campaigns. Think Progress reported on September 29: ...the Supreme Court returned from its summer vacation for the “Long Conference,” the day when the justices consider the backlog of petitions asking them to hear cases that built up while they were away for the summer. Yet, despite the fact that the justices typically face hundreds of petitions that they must consider during this conference, five of them still found time on Monday to make it harder for Ohio residents to cast a vote. In a 5-4 decision that divided entirely along partisan lines, the Court allowed cuts to Ohio’s early voting days to go into effect. Notably, this decision came down just 16 hours before polling places were set to open in that state.
Wisconsin - The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups are bringing Wisconsin's voter ID law to the Supreme Court. Arguing that one in ten voters already registered in Wisconsin may not actually get to cast their ballots this year, civil rights and citizens’ advocacy groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar a new requirement to produce a photo ID before voting. By a vote of five to five, a federal appeals court has permitted enforcement for this year’s general election, already underway with absentee voting. The plea for the Supreme Court to step in now was filed with Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Wisconsin. She can act on her own, or share the issue with her colleagues. [SCOTUS blog, October 2]
North Carolina - Several provisions of North Carolina's harsh voter suppression laws were struck down by a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's now headed to the Supreme Court. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked provisions of a North Carolina voting law that would have ended same-day registration and eliminated the counting of votes cast outside one's precinct. But it left intact a lower court decision that affirmed the law's reducing the number of early voting days, expanding what can be done to challenge voters and eliminating the discretion of county election boards from adding an extra hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances. [Daily Kos, Oct 1]
Hong Kong
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| Photo is by AP and appeared in The Independent The "Umbrella Revolution": Riot police launch tear gas into the crowd as thousands of protesters surround the government headquarters in Hong Kong |
Syria
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| April 2014 Photo is from The Independent |
Israel
Following on the heels of its brutal, war-crime-ridden assault on the Gaza Strip, the right-wing Israeli government announced its largest appropriation of Palestinian land in 30 years in September. Located as it is in the sensitive East Jerusalem area, the proposed settlement is one more indication of this government's lack of commitment to a just two-state solution and a viable Palestinian state. Even the United States may have finally had enough of this intransigence. Following a Wednesday meeting between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in which the 2600 home settlement was discussed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said "The United States is deeply concerned by reports the Israeli government has moved forward" with planning for settlements in a "sensitive area" of East Jerusalem...Earnest said Israel would send a "very troubling message" by following through with the settlement project, and in noticeably blunt language said that the step was contrary to Israel's stated goal of negotiating a permanent final status agreement with the Palestinians. "This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, [and] distance Israel from even its closest allies," Earnest said. He added that it would also "poison the atmosphere" - not only with the Palestinians but with "the very Arab governments" with which Netanyahu had said he wanted to build relations. All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law [Al Jazeera, October 2]
The EU likewise condemned the Israeli plan, calling it “highly detrimental” to diplomatic efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Brussels called on Israel to “urgently reverse” actions leading to settlement expansion in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state alongside Israel. “This represents a further highly detrimental step that undermines prospects for a two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” the EU’s diplomatic service said. The housing units, which have been slated for construction since 2012 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, were given final approval last week, according to the Peace Now watchdog. [Al-Arabiya/Agence France-Presse, October 3]
Meanwhile, Netanyahu was blaming the Israeli peace organization Peace Now for the United States' position on the new settlements, and he was appearing before the UN trying to conflate Hamas with ISIS. It didn't work. Nathan Brown, in a September 30 op-ed piece for CEIP, "Netanyahu's Convenient Lies About ISIS and Hamas", writes: Speaking at the General Assembly this week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated a refrain he has sounded for three decades (since his days as Israeli ambassador to the U.N.) — that all forms of terrorism are different sides of the same coin and have civilization as their target...But is it accurate? Well, yes of course — in the same sense that France’s François Hollande, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Israel’s HaPoel Tel Aviv all spring from the same socialist movement. It’s not clear how such claims aid understanding, analysis or policy. I'm not sure how to define terrorism. Perhaps we should look at the number of civilian deaths, all of which are inexcusable and should be considered war crimes. 1462 civilians in Gaza were killed by Israeli firepower. 6 civilians were killed by Hamas' flying pipe bombs (referred to in the press as "rockets"). Seems that the IDF assault against Gaza did a pretty good job of terrorizing the impoverished and blockaded enclave.
Ebola
[Mother Jones, October 1] On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester. Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research. Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease. Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... "If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."
Update: On Friday, the World Health Organization reported the latest Ebola figures: 3,431 people killed by the disease out of 7,470 confirmed or suspected cases in west Africa
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