Justice for New York City

Senator Dianne Feinstein argues in a letter to President Obama that the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should be moved out of New York City "to a less prominent, less costly, and equally secure location.”   Feinstein writes:

First, the concerns of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other local government officials should be taken seriously. The mayor’s concerns, raised earlier this week in a departure from his initial views, focused on the costs associated with the trial....

Certainly, New Yorkers should not have to bear the anticipated costs of such a trial.   Having endured so much, New Yorkers should neither have to pay dearly for justice, nor be denied it.  A country that will spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting terrorism with guns can surely afford to pay the relatively small cost of fighting terrorism with Justice.

Continued here. . . .

Fox News Award winner: Forbes Magazine

This week, journalism's most uncoveted prize* goes to Forbes for having declared a litigious junk food ingredients monopolist "Company of the Year" in its January 18 issue.  Anyone who has seen the documentary Food, Inc. is likely to recoil that Monsanto would be singled out for such distinction.

Mercola, a physician, lists some of the "improprieties and outright crimes committed by Monsanto."  Top of his list: "Suing small farmers for patent infringement after Monsanto’s GM seeds spread wildly into surrounding farmers’ fields, contaminating their conventional crops." These lawsuits were of no concern to  Forbes Magazine, which observed: "Farmers complain about Monsanto's prices, but they still buy the seeds."  As if they have a choice.   Monsanto enjoys a virtual monopoly:  "Ninety percent of the U.S. soybean crop and 80% of the corn crop and cotton crop are grown with seeds containing Monsanto's technology." 

Shari Danielson of SGT has drawn up a list of ways to fight back against Monsanto.  We might consider boycotting foods containing Monsanto products.  What foods?  Well that's easy.  "Packaged foods with corn syrup or soybean oil likely contain the fruits of Monsanto's gene-modified agriculture," notes Forbes.  In other words, most processed foods.  To fight Monsanto is to save our health.
___
*The Fox News Award is a feature at Jotman.com that began early 2008. It goes to a media organization that has gone the extra mile during the course of the week to make the public more stupid. (Otherwise corrupting the ethic of creativity and global citizenship.)  Some past winners.

Censorship? Wordpress silences UK political blog

WordPress has prevented Rick B., the popular UK human rights blogger at Ten Percent, from posting.  According to Rick, WordPress expressed "concern about some of the content on your blog" in a message five days ago.  Rick's many emails to the company have since gone unanswered.

Continued....

A most futile quest

Google provides a toolkit that allows you to view those search terms which bring your site to top of Google's search engine results page.  I just noticed that lots of people are googling:

sarah palin leadership qualities

As it happens, Jotman provides the top two results for this unlikely search term.  Perhaps once these dear visitors have read the color-coded "Sarah Palin Timeline" they will realize the futility of their search.

Top three priorities of Americans for 2010

The results of a PEW study of the priorities of the US public for 2010 (h/t Sully):

 % rating each a top priority

• 83% - Economy
• 81% - Jobs 
  
• 80% - Terrorism

Other priorities

• 45% - Financial regulation
• 36% - Lobbyists
• 28% - Global warming

I think it's remarkable that almost ten years after 9/11 and only one year after Wall Street shenanigans put millions of Americans out of work, US citizens worry as much about terrorism as jobs and the economy.  To think that fewer than half of Americans (45%) say "stricter regulation of financial institutions should be a top priority for the president and Congress"!   These results must be music to the ears of Goldman Sachs.

Fewer Americans prioritize quality of life issues

Some pollsters have suggested that Americans have become less concerned in the post 9/11 era about "quality of life issues," and more concerned about "survival."

According to my reading of the recent PEW poll, the number of Americans who prioritize fundamental quality of life issues has dropped markedly  since 2001:

 % rating each a top priority in 2001 Vs 2010:

• 78% (2001)  65% (2010) - improving educational system
• 63% (2001)  44% (2010) - protecting the environment
• 63% (2001)  53% (2010) - addressing problems of the poor

During this same period, consider the priorities that have not changed.

• 83% (2001)  80% (2010) - fighting terrorism
• 48% (2001)  49% (2010) - strengthening the military.

Two wars and billions of dollars later: still scared.

State of the Union: decision opened floodgates to foreign corporations

Commenting on last week's US Supreme Court decision, I blogged that four questions, once crazy, now had to be seriously addressed:  These questions were: 1) Had the US Supreme Court put US democracy at risk?; 2) Are humans different than corporations?; 3) Did the "Founding Fathers" believe corporations should have the same rights as people?; and concerning 4) I blogged

a fourth question . . . sounds a bit xenophobic, but I think asking it will go a long way toward waking Americans up to the crisis:  Can foreign agents now use companies to buy American politicians?

Last night in his 2010 State of the Union speech, Obama honed-in on that fourth question:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.

Because -- as Justice Stevens noted, so many companies are "multinational" and so many US companies have foreign shareholders -- I suspect that legislation targeting "foreign companies" is unlikely to resolve the problem of foreign influence.  I believe this will remain the case until those other crazy questions raised by the Supreme Court decision have been answered.

Lower carbon emissions = healthier population

U of Wisconsin researchers report that the public health benefits of reducing carbon emissions pay for the cost of reducing them.

Obama's "Derailment of the Union" speech

UPDATED

In his State of the Union speech Obama said, "There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products."  But there are reasons!

You just had to listen to Obama's own answer to this conundrum last night.  Obama talked some more about the $8 billion out of last year's stimulus of $787 billion that was being allocated for high-speed rail.   As it happens, I blogged about this $8 billion back in April 2009:

Look at it this way: the stimulus package approached $800 billion. Not even 1% of this spending will go into such a smart and environmentally-friendly transportation initiative!  As usual, Obama's thinking is more or less on the right track, but he continues to think small and move too slow. These times call for a for bolder approach. 

Obama's still talking about the $8 billion!  Meanwhile, Transportation Guru reports that across the big pond:

 As of March 31, China has committed $259 billion to building its high-speed rail network project, and plans to spend nearly a half trillion dollars more in the next three years, boosting the total investment to $730 billion by 2012.

Moreover, it was disingenuous for Obama to have claimed that even $8 billion has been allocated for high-speed rail.   HufPost reports "In the U.S., only the projects in California and Florida are planned to reach maximum speeds of 150 mph or more, what most transportation experts consider high-speed rail." (The money is to be divided-up among dozens of rail initiatives.)  Quoting a congressman, the article noted "Midwest lines awarded grants will achieve top speeds of only 110 mph and were "'selected more for political reasons than for high-speed service."

No reason?

UPDATE:  Spain plans to spend $100 billion over the next 10 years on high speed rail (PBS h/t Tobias)

Bomb detectors scam

Your taxi pulls up at a major hotel in Bangkok, Mumbai, or Jakarta. A security guard waves an electronic wand over the trunk and around the carriage of your vehicle.

In the back of your mind is a question: Does this do any good?  The answer might surprise you.

Dymovsky, popular Russian whistle-blower arrested

It seems to me that some kind of public backlash is probably to be expected over this -- apparently blatant -- act of revenge against a popular whistle-blower.

Global citizen of the day

Opium production increases in Northern Burma

I blogged about my visit to Burma's remote Shan State in 2006 here and here.  By the fall of 2006, the opium-based gangster economy of the Golden Triangle seemed on its way to becoming relic of history.  The remaining drug lords of Northern Myanmar had turned to manufacturing synthetic drugs for the Thai market.  The region had also become a transit zone for Chinese-made goods and fake drugs.

However, according to a new report, with government backing, the economy of Shan State appears to have reverted back to some of its former ways. 

Continued here.

From Khattiya's war to rumors of a Thai coup

Conceivably, various recent developments -- two concerning Maj. Gen Khattiya (alias Seh Daeng) could be intended to justify a rumored army coup.  More here.

"Nurgaliyev authorized!" Russians organize to combat police brutality

More from JOTMAN.COM Russian contributor Sanjuro concerning new developments with regards to  "the most widely discussed topic in the Russian society over the past year."  

In a previous post, we looked at the long list of shocking police brutality incidents that occurred in Russia in  2009.  Today, Sanjuro reports on how the issue is likely to get more attention in 2010, noting six recent major developments that are evidence of the Russian public's bold new resolve to resist corrupt police.

Continued here.

Is Thailand really on the brink of civil war?

A quote from the update to my recent post, "Maj Gen Khattiya declares war against Thai military":

What timing:  Within a fortnight of the appearance of an article warning of civil war --  a polemic publicized by the man some Thais consider to be the country's highest-ranking Yellow Shirt --  a high-ranking Red Shirt army officer is quoted in the press having declared civil war.  And the same high-ranking officer suddenly becomes a suspect in a bombing -- a bombing for which there seems to be no evidence.

Shaker Aamer among 50 slated for indefinite detention?

Marking the one year anniversary of Obama's executive order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a Justice Task Force has recommended that 50 prisoners be held indefinitely without trial. Obama first spoke out in support of  a policy of "indefinite detention" on May 22, 2009.

Scott Horton, in his groundbreaking Harper's Magazine story about the cover-up of three murders at Gitmo, suggested that the US government's primary motive for holding certain prisoners indefinitely may have been to prevent these inmates from implicating US government officials in crimes.

Horton's comments about one prisoner in particular, a Saudi born British resident named Shaker Aamer, renders the recommendation of the Justice Task Force all the more unsettling.... Continued here.

Is police brutality the legacy of hosting a global summit?

Prior to and during the Pittsburgh G20 summit in September 2009, there were reports of unidentified police attacking and arresting  citizens.  Has this pattern of police brutality continued in Pittsburgh long after the summit?   This CNN story has me asking the question: 

Terez Miles said her son, Jordan Miles, who is black, thought his life was in jeopardy when three white men jumped out of a car on the night of January 11 as he walked not far from his home [the men were"undercover police officers"].

"My son tried to run thinking his life was in jeopardy," Terez Miles said. "He made three steps before he slipped and fell." After that, she said, the police used a stun gun and beat him, pulling out a chunk of his hair.

Three ununiformed guys jump out of a car, Miles tries to "run away," so the they taser "and beat" him.  This kid's reaction the situation was entirely natural.  Miles, a viola player at the performing  arts high school, was carrying a can of  Mountain Dew that "looked suspicious" to the police.    Of course, African-Americans have often been subject to harassment by police, but rarely in America have such incidents involved undercover agents.

Secret police routinely stop and assault citizens of countries such as Zimbabwe, Egypt, Syria, and Iran.   And as of September 2009, Pittsburgh.  Jordon Miles' story sounds familiar -- to anyone who remembers this video:



President Obama praised the Pittsburgh police for their fine work at the Pittsburgh G20 summit, despite the fact that sonic weapons had been used against nonviolent protesters and bystanders (perhaps for the first time ever in the US). 

Next time an American city announces plans to host a world summit meeting (Honolulu is scheduled to host the 2011 APEC meeting), citizens might look to Pittsburgh to consider the potential impact that hosting a summit could have on their local police force.

In a democratic country, the main role of the police is to protect the lives and property of citizens.  In authoritarian countries like Iran, the main role of the police is to protect the political leaders.   One outcome of hosting a global summit may be to transform how a local police force conceives its role within society. 
___
Top photo by JOTMAN.COM correspondent Tawan, shows police marching in formation at Pittsburgh G20 in September 2009.   Bottom photo, by Jots, depicts an unidentified man in a police state.

Maj Gen Khattiya declares war against Thai military

3 UPDATES
Does Thailand want to see a civil war break out?  One anti-government army leader sounds as if he is determined to start one.  The Nation, Bangkok

Suspended Army officer Maj Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol announced Saturday that he is a leader of the red-shirt movement and is training the movement's fighters for fighting against the military.

He called a radio programme to say that he had not escaped into Malaysia but he went to Hat Yai on Thursday to train the red-shirt people there.

"We are now at war with the military and I appointed myself a leader of the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship to fight for democracy and the red-shirt people accepted this," Khattiya said.

He said he will return to Bangkok Saturday.

Khattiya, alias Seh Daeng, a leader of Thailand's anti-royalist UDD "red shirts" movement, apparently wants to start a war.   The development comes just as high tensions appeared to have begun calming:  Suporn Atthawong, another red shirt leader, had decided to call off a protest scheduled to take place at the Suvarnabhumi airport.  The UDD had seemed poised to copy a terribly disruptive protest held by the yellow shirts in November 2008.  (One yellow shirt leader who supported the storming of Bangkok's international airport just over a year ago today serves as Thailand's foreign minister.)

Who is Maj. Gen. Khattiya (Seh Daeng)?

Wikipedia reports Khattiya went undercover to fight the Vietcong in Laos and later, rebel groups in Ache.  And he's written a number of novels.

Prior to the new (pro-military, pro-royalist) government taking office, Khattiya had vowed to defend the previous government against any coup.   N. Ghosh observed:  "Seh Daeng is a larger than life figure in Thailand - a notorious, fearless maverick who famously laughs in the face of enemy fire. He said if it was up to him, he would clear Government House of the PAD protestors in no time. He would first cut off all supplies including water and electricity, then use water cannons on the thousands camped there -  and drop snakes on them from helicopters."

Things began to go seriously downhill for Maj. Gen Khattiya in Nov. 2008 when he was ordered to teach aerobics classes:

Maj-Gen Khattiya said his new job was not suitable for him, as he considered himself a fighter.

"It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets," he said. He also blasted the army chief for breaking a gentleman's agreement to promote him after Gen Anupong became the army leader.

Khattiya was suspended.in December 2009 for making an unauthorized trip outside the country in November to visit  former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Cambodia.  (November 2009 was a bad month for Khattiya.  He was also sentenced to 12 months in jail in a defamation lawsuit against a former police chief).

Khattiya became a suspect this week, accused of having masterminded a grenade attack against Thai Army Headquarters (Jotman photo, above, taken night of 2006 coup, shows the gateway to Thai Army HQ):

The grenade, probably fired from an M79 launcher no more than 400 metres away - the maximum range -  hit the kitchen next to the Gen Anupong's office on the sixth floor of the building.  The grenade exploded causing damage to the wall and the glass window.  (Important: see UPDATE 2)

According to an earlier article today (same paper), Khattiya was to surrender "in a few days":

Speaking in a phone interview, Khattiya said he was not running away and was staying in Songkhla to "wait and see". He denied being behind the grenade attack, saying he was not in the city at the time it took place - around 3am on January 14.

"I need to see whether my arrest warrant is issued at the request of a civilian or a military unit. I will have my lawyers seek to have it voided on Monday. Under normal procedures, an arrest warrant can be issued for a commissioned Army officer only after two summons are issued," he said.   Khattiya said he did not own any illegal explosives and war weapons found in his house could have been planted there by military policemen participating in the raid.

Understandably, "Security at all Army barracks and arms depots has reportedly been heightened to prevent possible attacks or sabotage following the Army's action against Khattiya."    Accusations are likely to fly that Khattiya is acting and speaking with the approval of Thaksin. 
  
UPDATE 1: It should be noted that Saturday was not the first time Khattiya has threatened to wage war.  On Jan. 13 The Nation reported, "Khattiya, better known as Seh Daeng, yesterday threatened to 'get even' with his bosses for suspending him from duty. 'A suspension means I become a civilian. So I will be ready to wage a guerrilla warfare in fighting against the powers-that-be,' he said."

UPDATE 2: It seems the story of the attack on the Thai Army Headquarters may not be true.   PTT blogger examines the conflicting news reports, the absence of photos, disappearing evidence, and a denial of the attack by the military.  Nanuam of the Bangkok Post also surveys the conflicting claims, noting that after quickly making repairs and cleaning up the debris in his office, General Anupong reported the incident to the Bangkok police chief and police investigators.

UPDATE 3:  Perhaps relevant to events discussed in this post, in December, Prem, who heads HM the King's Privy Council, distributed copies of an article warning that Thailand was already in the early stages of "civil war."   The alarmist article, published on Dec. 28 at Naew Na was written by Chimsak Pinthong, a critic of Thaksin (h/t Philip Golingai).  PTT has summarized the article which, notably, warns of "General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh and the Class 10 army officers who are 'on the march' for Peua Thai and loyal to Thaksin. They are a minority, unlike the police who remain loyal to Thaksin, as evidenced by their failure to investigate the attacks on “peaceful PAD rallies, causing several deaths.”

Events since the publication of Chimsak's article prompt various questions:  Might the Royalist faction want to make it look as if civil war is breaking out?  Would exaggerating the threat of war not make it easier justify a major crack down on the UDD/Red Shirts?   Where does Khattiya stand in all this?  Might he have been framed?  What about his statements to The Nation quoted above?    Perhaps quotes attributed to Khattiya are no more accurate or reliable than the various news reports of the grenade attack and suggestions Khattiya's involvement (See Stig's comment).  

What timing:  Within a fortnight of the appearance of an article warning of civil war --  a polemic publicized by the man some Thais consider to be the country's highest-ranking Yellow Shirt --  a high-ranking Red Shirt army officer is quoted in the press having declared civil war.  And the same high-ranking officer suddenly becomes a suspect in a bombing -- a bombing for which there seems to be no evidence!

Timeline of police brutality in Russia

It's time for an update on Russia. Sanjuro, JOTMAN.COM readers' eyes and ears on the situation over there, reports via email:

As far as I can see, the most widely discussed topic in the Russian society over the past one year - and increasingly so in 2010, has been that of the police situation. There's grief, there's concern, there's outrage - now felt perhaps at the very top. I told you about the the Maj. Dymovsky affair and the particularly sad incident of Maj. Yevsyukov that made the news last year and illustrated a picture of thorough systemic decay and even implosion... Every week, or even every day brings new of another police brutality from various corners of the Russian Federation, and the "video confessions" seem to have become a genre in its own right. In response to the MVD (Ministry Interior) statement that the instances of police britality and lawlessness are "isolated incidents", the Russian edition of the Esquire, now aggregates daily (!) reports of such incidents into a monthly calendar: 

RFE reported on a 2007 study by the Russian Academy of Sciences that "every 25th person in Russia is tortured, beaten, or harassed by law enforcement officials each year."   More to come from Sanjuro on this subject. 


Here's a rough translation -- just for the month of December 2009 -- of the police brutality tracking list published in Russian Esquire.   To view the entire "2009 Russian Police Brutality Timeline" in translation, see here.  

DECEMBER 2009

1 |  Bryansk traffic cop caught and beat a pedestrian.
2 |  militiaman caught in establishing his own airline.  Head of SAI in the Urals caught selling cards that would exempt from inspections on the roads.
3 |  policeman who criticized the actions of the authorities put in a psychiatric hospital.
Togliatti police officers on trial for turning stolen cars into scrap metal.
4 | Kirovohrad policeman forced some Tajiks to build a house.
In Orenburg,  life sentence for policeman who killed 10-year-old boy and his parents. 
5 |  In an Internet video in which drunken Permian traffic cops beat up driver and his wife in the middle of the street.
6 |  Policeman raped a 13-year-old daughter of his friend.
In Moscow, the Interior Ministry colonel shot down a cop.
7 |  In Moscow, a police captain was extorting money from a janitor, having identified him as an  "illegal immigrant".
Police officer forced the residents of the Rostov region to write a non-existent debt.
8 | Zabaikal'e police Major's relative closed the case on a girl's death under the wheels of timber.
In the Tyumen police officers brought to justice for having stolen from a warehouse light bulbs and inflatable boats in excess of 1 million rubles.
9 | militiamen raped women detained on the road.
The police demanded that the parents 10-year-old girl pay 400 thousand rubles for the failure of a narcotics deal. Policeman sentenced for having helped Chinese listen to telephone conversations.
10 |  Podmoskovny traffic cop suspected of 20 rapes.
A policeman from Tuva accidentally shot a teenager and then tossed him a gun.
11 |  policeman stole bearskin and electric drill.
12 |  In Bashkiria local policeman apprehended for bribery of the 20 thousand rubles. For this money, he wanted to "cover up" a criminal case.
13 | Four policemen were found guilty of fraud.
14 |  Policemen brutally beat up to Tverskaya model for the broken glass in a restaurant.
In Saratov, a district judge, brutally killed two hard workers. Policeman burned evidence for a bribe.
15 | Pskov policeman killed his passenger.
16 | policemen illegally confiscated the passports of a Ukrainians and one of them broke his nose.
17 | In Togliatti, two policemen stole half a ton merchant watermelons.  Kidnapping of mistress, 18 thousand rubles and 200 euros demanded, buried the money in a shoe.
18 | Krasnodar policeman with his mama took a lonely old man's apartment.
19 | Head to combat illicit trafficking in alcohol police department in the UK "krysheval" illegal business.
20 | AC in Togliatti will judge police officers who beat a suspect.
21 |  Policemen brutally beat and defrauded real estate investors who had organized a peaceful picket in front of the State Duma.  Traffic police officer fired a gas gun in the face violator.
22 | Surgut policeman shot in the head a suspect under interrogation.
Podmoskovny traffic cop brutally beaten by the driver and his passengers.
The policeman, a student and an unemployed stealing money from citizens of Vietnam.
23 | Policemen given a suspended sentence for stealing building materials from the courtyard apartment building in Moscow. Militia chief inspector beaten for refusing to hide the incident.  Police dealt harshly with pensioners at a protest.
24 | Policeman shot 18-year-old boy in the eye. Dismissed metropolitan traffic policeman who had brutally beaten up three women pretended to be a victim.
25 | Deputy Chief ATS Muscovites took revenge for a failed fraud.
A policeman was going to kill five men for the sake of 50 million rubles.
26 | Policeman shot down 17-year-old girl and fled the scene.
27 | Mayor police suspected of bribing a substitute for boards of slot machines in Buryatia.
The official mayor's office and the police tried to disperse the picket environmentalists in Volgograd.
28 | In Kamchatka convicted policeman, who was involved in fraud with caviar.
29 |  Tatarstan a policeman killed a businessman on the order of a judge struck a deal with the investigation.
30 | Sakhalinskie police beat detainees and used electric shock machine.
31 | In Orenburg police suspect of forcing false accusation of witnesses.

Click here to view a translation of the entire 2009 Russian police corruption timeline.

Obama gets tough on Wall Street

Just talk, or do you suppose he means it?

Three questions, once crazy, turn serious

This is what I have been blogging about today:

• Did the US Supreme Court just murder democracy? 
• How are persons different than corporations?
• Did the framers of the US Constitution believe corporations should have free speech?

A fourth question -- like the others, once ridiculous, now serious -- sounds a bit xenophobic, but I think asking it will go a long way toward waking Americans up to the crisis.    

• Can foreign agents now use companies to buy American politicians?

How are persons different than corporations?

The dissenting opinion to today's most troubling US Supreme Court decision is worth reading, especially as the majority's decision will strengthen the most destructive legal concept of the modern era: the fiction that corporations are persons.

Justice Stevens, in his dissenting opinion, explains (for the benefit of his conservative colleagues), precisely how how corporations differ from persons:

The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it. Austin set forth some of the basic differences. Unlike natural persons, corporations have “limited liability” for their owners and managers, “perpetual life,” separation of ownership and control, “and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets . . . that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments.”494 U. S., at 658–659. Unlike voters in U. S. elections,corporations may be foreign controlled.70 Unlike other interest groups, business corporations have been “effectively delegated responsibility for ensuring society’s economic welfare”;71 they inescapably structure the life of every citizen. “ ‘[T]he resources in the treasury of a business corporation,’ ” furthermore, “ ‘are not an indication of popular support for the corporation’s political ideas.’ ” Id.,at 659 (quoting MCFL, 479 U. S., at 258). “ ‘They reflect instead the economically motivated decisions of investors and customers. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, even though the power of the corporation may be no reflection of the power of its ideas.’ ” 494 U. S., at 659 (quoting MCFL, 479 U. S., at 258).72

It might also be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.

These basic points help explain why corporate electioneering is not only more likely to impair compelling governmental interests, but also why restrictions on that electioneering are less likely to encroach upon First Amendment freedoms. One fundamental concern of the First Amendment is to “protec[t] the individual’s interest in self-expression.” Consolidated Edison Co. of N.Y. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530, 534, n. 2 (1980); see also Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 777, n. 12. Freedom of speech helps “make men free to develop their faculties,” Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 375 (1927)

Obvious stuff, when you think about it.    I wrote up two other posts highlighting Justice Stevens dissenting remarks:

• Did the framers of the US Constitution believe corporations should have free speech?
• Does US Supreme Court decision permit foreign corporations to buy influence in elections?

__
*Opinion of STEVENS, J.SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 08–205 CITIZENS UNITED, APPELLANT v. FEDERALELECTION COMMISSIONON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FORTHE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA[January 21, 2010]JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG,JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Did the framers of the US Constitution believe corporations should have free speech?

Wars, environmental degradation, and growing economic disparity -- not only in the US but abroad -- may be attributed to the traditional legal status of corporations under American law.  Over the years, US courts have accorded corporations many of the rights of persons.  Among these is the right to a limited degree of political free speech.

However, even in the United States, the ability of corporations to campaign, sponsor political candidates, or advertise in elections has long been subject to limitations. To the extent the courts have granted corporations  limited political rights, many corporations find themselves compelled to exercise this right. "Business corporations" discover they "must engage the political process in instrumental terms if they are to maximize shareholder value."  (Justice Stevens)   As we saw with the health care debate, limitations on a corporate political speech have not prevented insurance companies from buying candidates (so-called "Blue Dog" democrats) representing sparely populated rural states such as Montana or Nebraska.

Today, the US supreme court -- by a narrow 5-4 majority -- took away what few restrictions existed on the ability of big companies to manipulate the outcome of the democratic political process.

Justice Stevens, in his dissenting opinion, explains that that the framers of the United States Constitution did not have corporations in mind when they accorded Americans the right of free speech. Corporations are not even mentioned in the US Constitution.  This fact is particularly salient because the five-vote majority -- which included the court's four most conservative judges -- have long claimed to opposed "judicial activism" --  a sin US conservatives attribute to liberal-minded judges.  Conservatives such as Justice Scalia claim, as a matter of principle, that "founder's intent" (original meaning theory) ought to guide the high court.   Hence, the conservative majority's ruling in this case is glaringly inconsistent with the professed ideology.  Stevens: 

The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.

Continued...

Will decision allow foreigners to buy US politicians, election results?

1 UPDATE

This post follows-up on today's historic -- and frightening -- Supreme Court decision (see here).

Persons and corporations are different, explains Justice Stevens,* a distinction that seems lost on the majority.  Justice Stevens, in his dissenting opinion,  points out that although it's relatively easy to identify whether or not a person is an American or a foreigner, the distinction is gets fuzzy with respect to corporations. 

.In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society,corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure,and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process.  Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

A corporation may be foreign, domestic, or multinational.  Why should the court have granted these entities have the same political rights as American citizens?   Stevens writes:

If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions. . . . . pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans: To do otherwise, after all, could “ ‘enhance the relative voice’ ” of some (i.e., humans) over others (i.e.,non humans).  Ante, at 33 (quoting Buckley, 424 U. S., at49).51 Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.

In short, the Court dramatically overstates its critique of identity-based distinctions, without ever explaining why corporate identity demands the same treatment as individual identity. Only the most wooden approach to the First Amendment could justify the unprecedented line it seeks to draw.

Stevens says the 5-4 vdecision marks a dramatic break with past rulings:

The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act. . . .We have unanimously concluded that this [the Tillman Act]  “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process,” . . . and have accepted the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation,” . ... The opinion of STEVENS, J. Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the distinction between corporate and individual campaign spending as an invidious novelty. . .  Relying largely on individual dissenting opinions, the majority blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a body of case law. .. .

Stevens writes the footnotes:

• "The majority never uses a multinational business corporation in its hypotheticals."
  
  
• "In state elections, even domestic corporations may be “foreign”- controlled in the sense that they are  incorporated in another jurisdiction and primarily owned and operated by out-of-state residents."
  

Essentially, America's highest court has put the political future of the United States in the hands of entities that may or may not be owned Americans or, in the case of state elections, in-state residents.  

What is to prevent agents of foreign powers -- Saudis, Iranians, Russians, or Chinese -- from using corporations as a means of buying favorable American election outcomes?   Policies that favor foreign  industries?   Maybe posing this question will wake Americans up to what has happened today.

Obama and the present Congress  may be the last occupants of these institutions not entirely beholden to corporations.

Two other Jotman posts concern Justice Steven's dissenting opinion:

• How are persons different than corporations? 
• Did the framers of the US Constitution believe corporations should have free speech?

UPDATE 1:  You might want to check out this post: State of the Union: decision opened floodgates to foreign corporations
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*Opinion of STEVENS, J.SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 08–205 CITIZENS UNITED, APPELLANT v. FEDERALELECTION COMMISSIONON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FORTHE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA[January 21, 2010]JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG,JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurringin part and dissenting in part.

UPDATE:   Politico's Gerstein has written an article addressing the question raised in this post.

Did the US Supreme Court just murder democracy?

Today the US Supreme Court declared many of the country's campaign finance laws -- laws going all the way back to 1907 -- unconstitutional.  There are no longer to be any checks on the ability of corporations to spend money on elections.  WSJ:

The Supreme Court Thursday made it easier for entities to influence elections for Congress and the White House by stripping away rules that limited their ability to fund campaign advertisements.

NYT:

In its sweeping 5-4 ruling, the court set the stage for a wave of likely repercussions -- from new pressures on lawmakers to heed special interest demands to increasingly boisterous campaigns featuring highly charged ads that drown out candidate voices.

Perhaps these newspapers understate the case. One of the dissenting Supreme Court justices, John Paul Stevens, said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."   Congressman Barney Frank points out, "No other functioning democracy allows unrestricted speech by corporations."

Related posts examine Justice Stevens' dissenting opinion:

•  How are persons different than corporations?
•  Did the framers of the US Constitution believe corporations should have free speech?
• Does US Supreme Court decision permit foreign corporations to buy influence in elections?

Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet Freedom

In the wake of Google's blow up with China, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today delivered probably the most significant statement on the importance of defending Internet freedom ever made by an American leader. You can watch whole speech on video or read the full text of the speech.  Clinton said:

But amid this unprecedented surge in connectivity, we must also recognize that these technologies are not an unmitigated blessing. These tools are also being exploited to undermine human progress and political rights. Just as steel can be used to build hospitals or machine guns and nuclear energy can power a city or destroy it, modern information networks and the technologies they support can be harnessed for good or ill. The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al Qaeda to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent. And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights.

In the last year, we've seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained. One member of this group, Bassem Samir - who is thankfully no longer in prison - is with us today. So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and welfare of much of the world's population.. . . .

On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress. But the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world's information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it.

This challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to the Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone.

Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941. At the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence. But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the trouble of his day.

Years later, one of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to have these principles adopted as a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have provided a lodestar to every succeeding generation - guiding us, galvanizing us, and enabling us to move forward in the face of uncertainty.

As technology hurtles forward, we must think back to that legacy. We need to synchronize our technological progress with our principles. In accepting the Nobel Prize, President Obama spoke about the need to build a world in which peace rests on the "inherent rights and dignity of every individual." And in my speech on human rights at Georgetown I talked about how we must find ways to make human rights a reality. Today, we find an urgent need to protect these freedoms on the digital frontiers of the 21st century... 

Now, ultimately, this issue isn’t just about information freedom; it is about what kind of world we want and what kind of world we will inhabit. It’s about whether we live on a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits and unites us all, or a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors.

Hillary Clinton goes on to propose the US government sponsor new technologies to allow global citizens to fight back against censorship.

The prepared text of U.S. of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech, delivered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., is available here.  WaPo's Schonfeld summarizes what Clinton said in regards to Roosevelt's Four Freedoms.  James Fallows provides further commentary.

Penguin Awareness Day

On Jan. 20, Americans celebrated National Penguin Awareness Day.  The great thing about PAD is that it has yet to become overly commercialized.   In commemoration of the day, it is customary to tell penguin jokes.

If you don't know any penguin jokes, I suggest that you watch this funny video instead:

What do Democrats stand for?

TPM quotes an email from an anonymous -- and disillusioned -- Democratic Party staffer on Capitol Hill:

I believe President Clinton provided some crucial insight when he said, "people would rather be with someone who is strong and wrong than weak and right." It's not that people are uninterested in who's right or wrong, it's that people will only follow leaders who seem to actually believe in what they are doing. Democrats have missed this essential fact.

As I blogged here, the Democratics have not stood up for values that they can call their own.   Instead, they seem content to dish out watered-down Republican ones. And voters sense this. 

The stimulus bill in the spring showed us what was coming. In the face of a historic economic crisis, Democrats negotiated against themselves at the outset and subsequently yielded to absurd demands from self-described "moderates" to trim the package to a clearly inadequate level. No one made any rational argument about why a lower level was better. It would have been trivial to write "claw-back" provisions if the stimulus turned out to be too much or we could have done a rescission this year to give these moderates their victory, but none of this was on the table. We essentially looked like we didn't know what the right answer was so we just kinda went for what we could get. This formula was repeated in spades in both the Climate and Health Care debacles.

This is my life and I simply can't answer the fundamental question: "what do Democrats stand for?"

We know why the staffer can't answer the question.  The Democrats nominated the wrong candidate in 2008.  Barack Obama got to where he is today by speaking the language of the middle class, yet going the extra mile for Wall Street and big corporations.

The Democratic Congress will likely be decimated in November    If this happens, Obama may have to fight hard for his party's nomination in 2012.

UPDATE:   Krugman, reflecting on the president's seemingly lackadaisical response to events, blogs, "I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in. "

Why leaders respond to terrorist attacks with "security theater"

I happened to be flying around quite a bit over the holidays, and I was appalled by the stepped-up emphasis on security theater at various airports.  The sorry spectacle compels me to draw attention to something the attack of the underwear terrorist on Christmas Day had in common with the attacks of 2001.

In a previous post I called the Bush Administration's reaction to 9/11 "scatter shot."   In the aftermath of those attacks, the perceived need to protect the administration from accusations of incompetence must have been overwhelming.  Unsurprisingly, the Bush Administration propagated the notion that the attacks of 9/11 were not something US leaders could possibly have foreseen.*   Assailants with inconceivable motivations had carried out the inconceivable.   

To defend itself from seemingly inevitable criticism, the US government embraced hitherto inconceivable approaches (torture, spying on citizens,  assassinations, preemptive war) in the name of preventing future terror attacks.  Over time, in the public imagination, the inconceivable response -- theatrical, outrageous, lethal, onerous --  validated the inconceivability of the attack.   

Now that another administration has been caught off-guard by an attack that had also been widely anticipated,  we should watch that the same motivation does not dictate its response. 

Americans have come to expect that every attempted terror attack leads to novel counter-measures: new acts of "security theater."   It ought not look this way. The root of every terrorist attack is an intelligence failure.   Intelligence failures invariably connote leadership failures.  Why?  Because making decisions on the basis of intelligence is the essence of what a leader does. 

On the other hand, taking novel action -- the more outrageous and theatrical the better -- is the tried and proven approach to diverting attention from a failure of leadership/intelligence.   That's why in the aftermath of terrorist attacks an elected leader may favor unprecedented measures over  incremental ones.  That also helps to explains why, even years following a major terror attack, systems for coping with intelligence may actually function worse than before as we are coming to realize in the aftermath of the Christmas bomber.
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* An absurd claim

Murder cover-up of the century

Here is an MSNBC interview with Harper's Scott Horton concerning his horrifying report on the three faked suicides at Guantanamo Bay, and the Obama Justice Department's refusal to investigate the murders.   As Greenwald blogs today, "anyone who wants to keep that concealed and protected is, by definition, complicit in those crimes...."

For more on this issue, see yesterday's post, Gitmogate.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE: Interestingly, few, if any US newspapers consider this story front page news.  I suppose they are waiting for the White House to approve.

Gitmogate

On Jan 29, 2008 I wrote:   "Obama would be well advised to declare what we all know to be the case: that today's Republican Party is bankrupt."  Of course, Obama didn't do that.  He spent the rest of 2008 seeking "bipartisanship."  Whether health care, national security, or the economy, the new US president behaved as if the Republicans actually had ideas worth listening to.  Today Paul Krugman observed, "Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations."  Tomorrow, in a Senate by-election in the liberal state of Massachusetts, a Republican is considered likely to win. 

Not only concerning the economy, but also the question of detainees, Obama declined to make a clean break with the Bush Administration.  One decision in particular may really come to haunt Obama. In "The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle" Harper's Scott Horton reports today:

... new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Late in the evening on June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

I suggest you read the whole story.  No summary can do it justice.

I agree with Andrew Sullivan that there needs to be an independent investigation. Sullivan writes, "among those who need to be subpoenaed are the former president and vice-president of the United States."

But a cover-up has occurred under Obama's watch as well.  Should members of the current administration not also be compelled to testify?

Redundant humans

The NY Times points to the multiple intelligence failures leading up to the Christmas bombing.   "Mr. Obama this month presented his government’s findings on how the plot went undetected. But a detailed review of the episode by The New York Times . . .shows that there were far more warning signs than the administration has acknowledged."  Of course, the same criticism was made of the system in the aftermath of 9/11.

What happened?  Instead of striving to improve a system than almost worked in 2001, the Bush Administration's approach was scatter-shot.  Let's fire some missiles. Let's water-board that guy 80 times and see what he says.  Let's invade  there and there.  Let's invent new gadgets.  Let's collect more data.  As for human intelligence? 

It established redundant layers of terrorism analysts to ensure that disparate clues to the next attack would not be ignored or overlooked.

I wonder where they intended to recruit all these talented professionals who aspire to "redundant" careers.   What was the plan to keep them motivated?

Sunstein's conspiracy

Here's a quote from a 2008 paper written by a close confident of Putin Obama:

The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be ....

What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions.

 I previously noted University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein's influence on Barack Obama here.
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h/t Greenwald

Faces of Alexandria

The joker's gift to Haiti

A televangelist's comments about Haiti remind us why the court of public opinion needs its fools.  

As I noted here, Rev. Pat Robertson has a long track record of saying offensive things.   In 2005 John Chuckman, a Canadian resident, suggested  in Couter Punch that the American televangelist ought to face criminal prosecution for some such remark:

At the very least, Robertson should be charged under hate-speech laws. But such laws are weak in the United States, and many Americans fear the idea of hate-speech laws. So radio and television broadcasters continue spewing hate and dishonest claims in the exalted name of free speech.

Continued. . .

The real devil in Haitian history

In the previous post I quoted Pat Robinson's crazy remark about Haiti, and the Haitian ambassador's smart response.    CB commented:

Well it doesn't matter what the Hatians did for America they still made a deal with the devil.

Actually, CB has a point.  It turns out there was a "devil" -- several devils in fact.   There was also a "deal."  In a post (h/t Joseph) that surveys two centuries of Haitian history, Violet unmasks the devils and the deal.

After 1791, when Haiti became the second independent nation in the Americas,

[US Treasury Secretary Alexander] Hamilton helped draft the Haitian constitution -- but . . .  [President Thomas] Jefferson reneged on Adams’s deal with [Haitian revolutionary leader] Toussaint L’Ouverture, cut off trade and contact, and offered Napoleon help in putting down the revolt. We can’t possibly have a black republic down in the Caribbean, he wrote. What will our slaves think? They might get ideas!

So Haiti was isolated: no diplomatic recognition, official embargoes on trade. “You don’t really exist,” said the French. And the Americans. And the British. And the Spanish. The economy foundered. Then the Bourbons started making noises about re-conquering the island. Finally, in 1825, the Haitians signed a deal with France: recognize us diplomatically, call off the gunboats, and in return we will reimburse you for the loss of us as your slaves. The price? One hundred and fifty million francs.

Haiti spent the next 122 years paying off that indemnity.  The final installment was in 1947. . . .

See the end of the next post for a recommendation about where to donate for Haitian earthquake relief.  See  here for a list of those who have live-blogged the disaster.

Haitian ambassador gives Pat Robertson US history lesson

It's difficult to say if the stupid comment Pat Robertson made about Haiti today was, in fact, the dumbest of the many stupid remarks Robertson has uttered in his long career.  But surely Haiti's response to the American televangelist was the finest of replies.   Raymond Joseph, the Haitian Ambassador to the United States, gave Pat Robertson an American history lesson.

PAT ROBERTSON, AMERICAN EVANGELIST:  “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. . . .  They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil.  They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French’.  True story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ They kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” (Christian Broadcasting Network)

RAYMOND JOSEPH, HAITIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: "I would like the whole world to know - America especially - that (after) the independence of Haiti, when the slaves rose up against the French, and defeated the French army, powerful army, the U.S. was able to gain the Louisiana Territory for $15 million.  That's three cents an acre. That's thirteen states west of the Mississippi that the Haitian slaves revolt in Haiti provided America. Also, the revolt of the rebels in Haiti allowed Latin America to be free. It is from Haiti that Simon Bolivar left with men, boats, to go deliver grand Colombia and the rest of South America. So, that pact the Haitians 'made with the devil' has helped the U.S. become what it is."  (MSNBC)

The map (via Wikipedia) shows the dates when countries in the Americas gained independence.  Only two countries are colored navy blue:   United States and Haiti.  Haiti is "the second oldest nation in the New World after the United States and the oldest independent nation in Latin America."  

Unfortunately, independence did not prevent more powerful countries from taking advantage of Haiti.

Donating to the relief effort

MSF (Doctors Without Borders), recipient of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, is certainly one of the most experienced international organizations on the ground in Haiti. According to Wikipedia, MSF had been "offering the only free surgery available in Port-au-Prince."  Additionally, MSF "rebuild water and waste management systems and treated survivors of major flooding caused by Hurricane Jeanne; and treated patients with HIV/AIDS and malaria. . ."   Prior to the earthquake MSF had been operating 3 hospitals with a staff of 800.  

• USA donations
• International donations