Sunday Roundup - September 21, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ebola, Ukraine, rebuilding Gaza, Islamic State, and, in brief, Scotland, Obamacare, and the impact of unemployment benefits.

Ebola

Map is from WHO website

The death toll in the Ebola outbreak afflicting west Africa has now surpassed 2,600.  Besides the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal.  Healthcare workers, already in very short supply in the impoverished countries hardest-hit by the outbreak, have paid an especially heavy price. 318 of them have been infected across four west African countries, 151 of whom have died.     Al Jazeera reported on Thursday: More than 700 more Ebola cases have emerged in West Africa in the past week week, a statistic that showed the outbreak was rapidly accelerating, the World Health Organisation has said....Later on Thursday, the UN Security Council declared the outbreak a "threat to international peace and security" and called on all states to provide urgent resources and assistance to help tackle the crisis. The alarm came as Sierra Leone readied for an unprecedented three-day nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the Ebola in a controversial move which experts claimed could worsen the epidemic. The population of six million will be confined to their homes from midnight on Thursday as almost 30,000 volunteers go door-to-door uncovering patients and bodies hidden in people's homes.  The US has pledged to send 3,000 troops to help in the fight the disease. In addition, Cuba, Uganda, and China are all sending medical teams to the afflicted area.   As reported in The Guardian on September 16: President Barack Obama called the Ebola epidemic in west Africa a potential threat to global security as the White House pledged to send 3,000 troops to fight the worst ever outbreak of the disease in history...Almost $1bn (£620m) is needed to contain the Ebola epidemic raging across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which could infect up to 20,000 people if unchecked by the end of the year, the UN warned..."If not dealt with effectively now, Ebola could become a major humanitarian crisis in countries currently affected," Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief, told reporters in Geneva. The capacity of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to provide even the most basic necessities was, she warned, "on the brink of collapse".  Scientific American posted a response to a NYT op-ed that raised the specter of the virus mutating to an airborne pathogen: Interviews with several infectious diseases experts reveal that whereas such a mutation—or more likely series of mutations—might physically be possible, it’s highly unlikely.  Let's hope so.

Ukraine

Map is from Al Jazeera February 27 article

The September 5 ceasefire in the Ukraine appears to be holding in spite of sporadic violations. The Independent reported on September 15: The conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk had a rare day of jubilation yesterday as pro-Russian fighters paraded military vehicles victoriously through city streets – as other areas saw continued shelling in the conflict between government forces and the rebels...Luhansk’s population of about 250,000 people, reduced because of the war, emerged to celebrate “city day” yesterday, which opened on a sombre note as priests led hundreds of residents in prayer in commemoration of those killed during a government-mounted siege of the city.  Speaking at the open-air service by the Mother of Sorrows Church, local separatist leader Igor Plotnitsky mourned those that had been killed and in an unusually conciliatory public statement called for forgiveness for those responsible. Luhansk has suffered more casualties and damage from the conflict than any other city.  Alec Luhn, in a September 16 Foreign Policy dispatch, writes of the rebuilding effort there.  The pause in fighting has...been the first chance to assess the damage to the city and hopefully begin reconstruction. Residents have been trying to rebuild their homes, but most workplaces and banks have shut down, and many government benefits and pensions have not been paid for months. Construction materials, especially glass and artificial roofing, are in short supply. Winter is coming, but the gas pipes in many places have been shredded by shelling. And there's no guarantee that the fragile peace will last....If the cease-fire holds, the task of rebuilding will be the first test of the separatist government's ability to not just foment rebellion but also to run a state. "Life is returning to normal," the new head of the self-declared [Luhansk People's Republic], Igor Plotnitsky, told journalists after sharing a glass of champagne with a newly married couple accompanied by rebel groomsmen in camouflage. Not all residents are so optimistic.  Luhn quotes a woman selling spices in the midst of a burned out marketplace.  "We're hoping for the best, but we expect the shelling to start again...The number of [Ukrainian] troops outside the city is increasing." 

Gaza Reconstruction
Haaretz reported on Tuesday's announcement that the United Nations had brokered an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would allow reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip to proceed.  [UN Middle East envoy Robert] Serry told the UN Security Council that the United Nations had brokered the deal "to enable work at the scale required in the strip, involving the private sector in Gaza and giving a lead role to the Palestinian Authority in the reconstruction effort, while providing security assurances through UN monitoring that these materials will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose."  Damage to Gaza from the Israeli siege has been estimated to be as high as $7.8 billion.  On September 18, Haaretz also carried a Reuters report on Saudi Arabia's pledge of $500 million to help rebuild Gaza.  Saudi Arabia's commitment comes ahead of a conference in Cairo on Oct. 12 when Palestinian leaders hope other donors, including Turkey, Qatar, the European Union and United States, will step forward with promises of support. 

Islamic State

On September 18, the US Congress completed its approval of Obama's plan to provide arms and training for Syrian rebel forces, primarily Sunnis in a civil war with Syria's primarily Shia government.  Sunni Saudi Arabia lobbied Congressional leaders prior to the vote.  As the US begins its military action against Islamic State, getting ourselves into a sectarian fight that we should have no part in, many commentators see a danger of escalation.  Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian  argues that unclear military goals have been an American tradition for decades - resulting in the loss of countless lives and dollars.  A military lesson the United States seems doomed to constantly forget and painfully re-learn: unclear goals invite escalation.  Referring to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's testimony before Congress that US military may engage in "close combat advising", Ackerman writes: Dempsey’s euphemism bursts the seams of Barack Obama’s insistence that US troops will not return to combat in Iraq. That was itself a rhetorical escalation from the White House’s earlier assurance against troops on the ground, full stop, which has proved difficult to square with the current 1,700 US troops now in Iraq, 1,600 more than were there in June. Perhaps more candidly, Dempsey said Obama has asked the general to come back for “case-by-case” authorization on involving US troops in combat, even as the president again forswore ground combat in a speech at MacDill air force base on Wednesday.  Obama's stated objectives in this third Iraq war are not clearly defined and there may be no way of knowing when they are achieved.  Ackerman continues: Obama follows in an ignominious presidential tradition. George W Bush’s goals for the second Iraq war pivoted from the mirage of eliminating weapons of mass destruction to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to the preservation of something resembling democracy....The pattern has held, with few exceptions, since the second world war ended. Korea’s “police action” resulted in a gruesome stalemate once Douglas MacArthur reinvented the war from the preservation of a US ally in Seoul to the destruction of Moscow’s ally in Pyongyang. As many as two generations of US policymakers wish to get over Vietnam, their unrealistic guarantees to foreign proxies and preference for military solutions to entrenched, obscure political challenges repeat the central mistakes contributing to a traumatizing escalation.  US wars are more likely to end through an exogenous event – such as Russia’s diplomatic restraint of Serbia to end the 1999 Kosovo air war or Libyan rebels’ killing of Muammar Gaddafi to end the 2011 Libya air war – than through the deliberate application of military force.  

In Brief/Links

Scottish voters rejected independence from the UK on Thursday by a 55 - 45 percent vote.  The Scotsman reported on the promises from Labour and the Conservatives on greater autonomy for Scotland and on the resignation of Scotland's First Prime Minister, Alex Salmond, "after his lifelong dream of an independent Scotland was rejected by the people."  In the last weeks before the referendum. numerous British politicians came to Scotland to argue for a "no" vote.   The Independent had an interesting list of "eight things you never realized were Scottish". [The Independent, Sep 17]

Finally, here are two (more) stories that put the lie to fallacious GOP talking points.
Re: "People insured through the state and federal health care exchanges are not paying their premiums" - More than 90% of the estimated 8 million people originally signed up to get  their health insurance through the state and federal healthcare exchanges (7.3 million) are paying their premiums and remain in the program. [Kaiser Health News, Sep 19]
Re: "Extending unemployment benefits makes people lazy and drop out of the labor force."
Extending benefits to unemployed workers beyond the 26 weeks provided by most states has little effect on the unemployment rate and essentially no impact on labor force participation, a recent working paper released by the Federal Reserve Board found.  [Daily Kos, Sep 12]   Daily Kos blogger Dartagnan adds: Republicans have blocked every attempt to provide extended  benefits to the long- term unemployed since 2013...[and] haven't passed a single piece of job-creating legislation.  So what has been the result of this "experiment?"  The Labor Force participation rate is at a record low in this country: A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Let's Repeal the Second Amendment

One of the many pieces of legislation bottled up by the do-nothing-Republican-controlled-and-Republican-filibustered Congress is gun control regulation.  Even after Sandy Hook, Republicans managed to prevent meaningful Federal gun legislation from being enacted - not even the requirement for universal background checks or a ban on assault rifles.  Recourse to the courts for a common sense interpretation of the Second Amendment for the common good is useless.  The Republican majority on the Supreme Court refuses to recognize "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" as the clearly dependent introductory clause that it is.

While some states have advanced tougher gun laws, others are moving into the deep end of the bizarre.  Georgia's State House of Representatives has drafted what's been called the "most extreme gun bill in America" by Americans for Responsible Solutions.  "Georgia lawmakers could soon make broad changes to the state’s gun laws to allow firearms in bars, churches, airports, and certain government buildings." [MSNBC/March 14]  What in hell could these fools be thinking?  In Georgia, no permit is needed to purchase a handgun and the state has the 9th highest firearm homicide rate in the country. 

NRA money continues to flow into Colorado to upend the stronger gun laws passed there last year.  The NRA has been able to defeat two state senators instrumental to the passage of the gun legislation in recall elections.  But so far they have had little success in overturning the laws as Democrats are holding on to a majority in the state legislature.  Seven of the eight bills introduced by the pro-gun industry  have been defeated - Concealed Handgun Carry without a Permit, Ammunition Magazine Prohibition. Concealed-Carry in Public Schools, Governor Cannot Restrict Firearms During Emergencies, No Background Check for Step-Relations, Concerning Background Checks and Fees for Gun Transfers, Repeal Large-Capacity Ammunition Magazine Ban.  One (Repeal Regulations on Firearms Purchases in Contiguous States) passed the State Senate and is pending in the House. This last bill, according to John Morse of Americans for Principled Leadership. "actually addresses an outmoded 1969 state statute that has subsequently been eclipsed by the Brady Bill and other federal legislation passed more recently....No harm is being done with this clean up measure."

According Slate.com's gun death tally, more than 12,000 people were killed by guns in the US between the time of the Sandy Hook shooting and Dec. 31, 2013.  Add to this the 20,000 suicides per year and the need for common sense regulation of guns becomes clear.  Mental illness, socio-economic factors, gang violence, guns in the hands of felons - these all contribute to the totals. But taking guns out of the hands of those prone to use them against others or themselves and taking assault rifles out of everybody's hands would make the totals significantly lower.

Every study and every statistic point to the connection between the availability of guns and gun-related deaths.  The gun homicide rate in the US with its relatively lax gun laws is vastly higher than that in other developed countries - 10 times that of Italy and 90 times that of the United Kingdom, for example.  [Wikipedia]  The largest study of gun violence in the United States, released in September 2013, "confirms a point that should be obvious: widespread American gun ownership is fueling America’s gun violence epidemic...[The authors found] “for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,...firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent." [Think Progress website]  A Harvard study found that states with the strongest/most gun laws had a firearms death rate 42% lower than the states with fewest controls on guns.  The authors take pains to note that "You can’t necessarily say one absolutely led to the other … but you can say those things are related.”   I found one of the reasons for their hesitation absolutely incredible.  “One of the major challenges that has existed over the past 15 years is that basically all avenues of federal funding – either the CDC or the NIH – have been cut off from studying firearm fatalities,” [the author Dr. Eric] Fleegler said. ”I’m a pediatric emergency medicine doctor. If there are ten children who die from a toy or some sort of injury, there is an incredible human cry that we make sure that we stop those types of deaths. Here on the other side you have 31,000 people who die every single year from firearms. That is a number of deaths on virtually an unprecedented level, and nothing is being done to understand this or reduce it.” [Here & Now webpage, Boston Public Radio website]

I cannot get the objection of those who oppose universal background checks.  If you personally have nothing to hide, why are you reluctant?  I cannot get the point of those who would make possession of high capacity magazines and assault rifles the right of every mentally unstable American.  Under what circumstances other than mass murder or civil insurrection would you ever need these?  Please don't say hunting.  And I really can't get why Federal funding has been cutoff from studies of gun violence. What are they afraid we'll find out?

Maybe it's time to repeal the outmoded second amendment or at least interpret it in a manner consistent with the amendment authors' intent.  It was written at a time when muskets had to be powdered and reloaded after every shot, when America was a rural nation, when some were worried that the country would be reclaimed by Great Britain and, probably most importantly, when the militia were the only means of defense.  As Dan Heaton writes at Yahoo Voices: "After the Revolutionary War, the standing army of the new country essentially ceased to exist and the various state militias were again the primary means of national defense." .In other words, the militia granted the right to bear arms was the equivalent to today's armed forces.  No other Western democracy has anything like this enduring anachronism from the eighteenth century and they are surviving just fine, thank you.

In Brief - Updates on Issues We've Been Following
U.S. Accidental Shootings mid-February to early March

Oregon and Montana became the fourth and fifth states to restore Congressional food stamp cuts. They joined New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.  Of the 14 states and the District of Columbia affected by the cuts, at least seven states (Connecticut, Montana, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont) plus D.C. are moving or have already moved to block them, according to a Stateline survey. The remaining "heat and eat" states  — California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin — are considering doing the same.

Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal on March 13 that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.  The bill could come up for a vote in the Senate by the end of March but its fate in the Republican-controlled House is up in the air.

President Obama rolled out his plan to "force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated."

The people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia on Sunday.  On Monday the US and EU announced announced personal sanctions against Russian and Crimean officials.

Louisiana's lawsuit against MoveOn's billboards advocating Medicaid expansion

Sunday Round-Up - January 5, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the expiration of long-term unemployment benefits, the Tea Party-controlled states of North Carolina and Florida, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the violence in South Sudan, and Australia's record heat wave.

Thanks to Congressional inaction, long-term unemployment benefits expired the weekend after Christmas.  To see what might happen nationally if this remains the case, take a look at what's happened in North Carolina, which is in the process of becoming one of the most regressive states in the nation. A December 17 piece on the Bloomsberg website by Evan Soltas does just that.  North Carolina Republicans cut long-term unemployment benefits earlier this year. The result: "The state is experiencing the largest labor-force contraction it's ever seen -- 77,000 fewer people were working or searching for work this October than a year ago. This should, but won’t, settle a partisan debate. Cutting unemployment insurance apparently hasn’t encouraged the unemployed to look harder for work: It has caused them to drop out of the labor force altogether."  When there are no jobs to be had, cutting unemployment benefits does nothing but add to the burdens of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. 

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum in a December 23 article gives 10 reasons why the long-term unemployment constitutes a national catastrophe.  Besides the widespread human effects, "it turns cyclical unemployment into structural unemployment."  Cutting off long-term unemployment benefits makes the situation worse by causing people to drop out of the job market as they did in North Carolina.  Drum concludes with a faint hope for the restoration of long-term unemployment benefits. "Republicans in Congress have declined to extend unemployment benefits further, and they show no sign of changing their minds when Congress reconvenes in January. Democrats have a plan to fight for further benefits by linking them to a farm bill that Republicans want to pass, and right now that's pretty much the best hope we have to offer the workers who have been most brutally savaged by the Great Recession."

(Image from the Mother Jones article)

 

 

As the country prepares for the 2014 elections, things are looking up (believe it or not) for Republicans.  Some polls show them taking control of the Senate for the last two years of Obama's Presidency.  With the huge number of gerrymandered, safe Republican Congressional districts brought about in red states since the 2010 census and with the voter suppression laws about to take full effect, I expect Democrats to pick up very few, if any, seats in the House without a major Republican meltdown. 

 

So let's imagine what a Tea Party country would look like.  In an article appearing earlier this year, Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer asked "What's It Like to Wake Up From a Tea Party Binge? Just Ask Florida!"  She writes: "In just one year, Scott and his conservative allies slashed state spending by $4 billion even as they cut corporate taxes. They've rejected billions in federal funds in one of the states hardest hit by the recession. They've axed everything from health care and public transportation initiatives to mosquito control and water supply programs."  Mencimer provides the following sidebar in her article:

"From high-speed trains to care for terminally ill kids: a few of the federal grants Florida has turned down:
$2.4 billion: High-speed rail

$37.5 million: Support for people moving out of nursing homes

$31.5 million: Home visits for new mothers
$11.1 million: Teen pregnancy and STD prevention
$8.3 million: Three county health centers
$2.1 million: Helping Floridians navigate the health insurance industry
$2 million: Hospice care for children
$2 million: Aid for seniors to pay for Medicare premiums and buy prescription drugs
$1 million: Strengthening state review of insurance premium increases
$1 million: Insurance exchange to help consumers compare plans and buy subsidized coverage
$875,000: Cancer prevention"

Florida, the state with the second highest number of medically uninsured, has been in the lead in the fight against the Affordable Care Act.  The demon has been let out of the proverbial box.  Even though Governor Scott reversed his initial position and supported expansion of Medicaid, the Republicans in the legislature turned him down.  The Kaiser Foundation has estimated that about 4.8 million low-income people in states choosing not to expand Medicaid would have been covered had they lived in another state.  For Florida this number is over 750,000. 

The MJ article was written at a time when Scott was down by high double digits to a generic Democrat in the 2014 election.  Scott made his way back to as close as 4 points during the healthcare.gov rollout debacle and a November Quinnipiac poll has him trailing by just 7 points.  And that's before the big money starts to flow in. 

In Brief - Links to Other Stories of Interest

From The Guardian, Dec. 31
Rightwing Israeli government ministers have stepped up their opposition to a peace deal with the Palestinians before US secretary of state John Kerry's visit to the region this week by backing a parliamentary bill to annex a strategically significant swath of the West Bank.

From The Guardian, Jan. 3
South Sudan's government and rebels finally began talks to end weeks of bloodletting on Friday after days of delay as the United States ordered out more of its embassy staff.  However, there was no face-to-face meeting, and fighting was reported near the key town of Bor, suggesting that a halt to fighting between President Salva Kiir's SPLA government forces and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar is still a long way off. At least 1000 people have died in the fighting that began last month.

From Informed Comment website, Jan. 3
Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, the Bureau of Meteorology said Friday, enduring the longest heat wave ever recorded Down Under as well as destructive bushfires.

From The Guardian, Jan. 4
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, is engaged in intense efforts to coax reluctant Israeli and Palestinian leaders towards an agreement to end their decades-old conflict, against the unhelpful backdrop of mounting political pressure on both sides to reject concessions.

More dastardly doings

As the year ends, Congressional Republicans are once more demonstrating why they do not deserve to govern in a democracy.  Over the past couple of weeks:

• House Republicans passed the REINS bill.  This bill would allow either house of Congress to veto executive branch rules (e.g., EPA, OSHA) that cost $100 million or greater to implement.  If the rules are not approved by a majority in both houses they would not be implemented.  So if the Party of No decides that its okay to release let's say certain toxins to the atmosphere rather than implement an EPA rule that would control the release, well then if they have a majority in either chamber, they could just go ahead and vote no and the Executive Branch could not implement the rule.  I haven't read anything about financial industry regulations but I assume this law would apply there also.  As a NYT editorial stated this is an undemocratic, terrible piece of legislation that would undermine the executive branch: "The bill is the fullest flowering of the Republicans’ antiregulatory philosophy."  When will the right-wing understand that the problems that led to the financial meltdown was too little, not too much, regulation.  The good news is that the Senate will likely not bother to take up the measure and Obama will veto it if it makes it that far.
• Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...just as they had previously done to Elizabeth Warren.  As the Star-Ledger (Newark) put it: "Senate Republicans are suffering collective amnesia about the banking and mortgage loan mess that trashed the American economy."  Republicans have as their stated aim to substantially weaken the agency before they allow someone to head it, rendering it less effective.  I guess Obama will have to appoint a CFPB head when the Congressional clowns go home on recess.  I mean if "W" could appoint someone as unqualified as John Bolton to be the US representative to the UN, why can't a person clearly qualified to protect consumers be appointed head of an agency meant to head off the next financial meltdown? 
• House Republicans passed a payroll tax extension that has several "poison pills" in the legislation that will surely result in a White House veto.  These toxic provisions include:  requiring a fast track review of a controversial tar sands pipeline project, reducing by 40% the maximum time emergency unemployment benefits could be extended (99 weeks to 59 weeks), and delaying EPA regulations on industrial boiler emissions.  For this last one, the EPA has estimated that the new regulations would prevent 8100 premature deaths and 52,000 asthma attacks annually.  I'm of two minds when it comes to the payroll tax extension.  It is necessary now as a means of providing additional stimulus to the economy - it's about the only stimulus Republicans will allow. BUT continually extending the payroll tax cut would eventually undermine the Social Security system.  So  a one-time extension of the tax cut would be useful but additional extensions would be dangerous.   In any case, the vote should be on the merits of the extension and not contaminated with other issues.
• Still to come: will unemployment benefits be extended in time to prevent 5 million people from losing their benefits in 2012.  And who will pay the price?  If Republicans hold true to form - it will be domestic programs and other parts of the social safety net that will suffer.