The Revolution Was Televised After All...

Gail Collins
Dana Milbank

“From Tahrir Square to our brothers in fellow countries ... is there anyone who has a president bothering them?” - protester's cellphone message

"Mubarak died and met the late presidents Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser in the afterlife. They asked him: Poisoned or assassinated? He replied: Neither, Facebook!"

Top Ten Hosni Mubarak Future Plans
10. Chill
9. Gonna look for a place in the Poconos
8. Check classifieds for job openings under "Ruthless Dictator"
7. Wander around the Sahara desert with his metal detector
6. Heard "The Office" needs a new boss to replace Steve Carell
5. Golf with Osama
4. Do some freestyle pickin'
3. Watch Snooki on Dave. It's gonna be sick!
2 .Hoping his intolerance and thuggish behavior will land him a job at Fox News
1. Launching pop career under the name "Hustin Mubieber"

Gill Scott-Heron was wrong, the Revolution WAS televised, complete with timed commercials for the Golden Globe Awards and what Lady Gaga would be wearing. It was planned on the Internet, and documented by cellphones through pictures and texts. It created history, that a non-violent mass of people could create change through their sheer will, with the result of a despotic strong man forced to step down as President, and hand his powers over to the military, who promise a smooth transition to a civilian democracy. Right now similar groups are gathered all over the Arabic world, either celebrating with the Egyptians or hoping to create similar changes in Yemen and Algeria. And it's good to remember what these people were protesting about: the suffering and indignity of living under a repressive regime, where poor people are beaten daily by the police, government employees ignore your requests unless you bribe them, people are not allowed to gather and talk freely, create political parties, criticize the government, cannot have a hundred other types of freedom that we take for granted every day..

It was an uprising that began with common folk, frustrated youth, and grew into something beyond anyone's imagination. In a time when it seemed like repressive forces were winning the war to damage people's souls, a small country ignited a spark that spread a large fire, irrevocably changing an entire region of our world, and winning a battle for the forces of truth and light where it was most needed. Perhaps it will begin a trend that will counteract the overwhelming negativity that was created during the Second World War by Nazi Germany, at least overcoming the mindset of having a strong, despotic overlord that was created by the British when they chose who would rule what colony for them...

For Egypt, the real danger will be during the next few months, trying to cultivate  honest leaders where none had been before, not letting any one group become dominant during the so-called transition process. The Palestinian people might be the neighbors affected the most, and hopefully they, too will be encouraged to develop leaders among themselves and replace al Fatah and Hamas... The Saudi princes are the ones scared the most, because their whole regime is based on corruption and stealing profits away from the Saudi people...

Americans responsible for our foreign policy are having a hard time accepting the Egyptian revolution. We start out any relationship feeling superior because we consider ourselves a democratic nation, and whatever country we are dealing with is not. So, we tend to dictate what we want them to do, in our interests of democracy, of course. Too often the diplomats we hire are arrogant and immoral, I doubt we have anyone currently capable to meet another country on an equal basis, one who could teach us a thing or two about democracy, since we seem to be losing ours with every Patriot bill passed and Supreme Court decision.

 People who make their living being negative and spreading fear can only see this through that prism, and you get weird interpretations like these:

"This is a rent-a-mob. I don't doubt that there are genuine grievances felt by some of the people in Egypt, but this is not a spontaneous, gee-nobody-knew-this-was-coming moment. This is the result of organizing." - Rush Limbaugh

"The protests in Egypt are being orchestrated by an alliance of Communists and Islamic fundamentalists who seek to overthrow capitalism and make a "new world order..." we are witnessing the birth of the new world order, and you want to call me crazy? Go to hell. Call me crazy all you want." - Glenn Beck

Rush wants to tie everything into hate speech about Obama, and spends hours belittling him and his policies. I still haven't figured out why socialism is such a scary word. After all, I doubt that Canada or Sweden will invade us anytime soon, eh... Glenn is combining Christian evangelical theories about the coming of the Antichrist and ensuing armageddon, and jumbling it together with paranoid conspiracy theories like those promoted by Texe Marrs and Alex Jones. The phrase "new world order" was coined by Annie Besant, who was a follower of that old lizard, Madame Blavatsky, and every few years is appropriated by some new group of schemers like George HW Bush... Which makes me wonder how Sean David Morton is going to claim that he had seen and predicted this...

 I went to a lot of right wing web sites, and most of them ignored Egypt, that it didn't have any impact on their worldview, then I realized that the extreme right wing Christians have been at war against the extreme right wing Islamic jihadists for over 1500 years, trying to seduce us into their world of hate and violence, turning our planet into a living Hell. This revolution that captures the heart, spirit and will of the people is the perfect answer to them because it makes them obsolete...

My apologies to Gill Scott-Heron:

The revolution will not be right back after a message

about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.

You will not have to worry about a dove in your

bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.

The revolution will not go better with Coke.

The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.

The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be facebooked, will not be twittered,

will not be facebooked, will not be twittered.

The revolution will be no re-run brothers;

The revolution will be live.

Here's hoping that the power rests with the people, and that there will be hope for a better future. If nothing else, the people of Egypt and Tunisia showed the rest of us how it can be done. Unfortunately, refugees are already arriving in boats from Tunisia, asking give us shelter, give us asylum and aid...

Mubarak Tells Egypt To F**K Off, He's Not Going Anywhere

David Ignatius

"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is the richest man in the world, with more than $70 billion in hidden assets. That will go up even more once his unemployment kicks in." – Jimmy Fallon

"Prince William’s nightclub owner friend is said to be planning a wild bachelor party. It must be weird stuffing a bill in a stripper’s g-string when it has a picture of your grandmother on it." – Jimmy Fallon

"Washington, D.C. is updating its traffic cameras to enforce traffic laws. How about enforcing bribery and corruption laws?" – Jay Leno

So, how out of touch with reality can a world leader be? Top of the list had to be Uganda's Adi Amin, who was known to eat the heart of his enemies, often inviting unsuspecting dignitaries and journalists to share a "special" lunch with him. Papa Doc Duvalier wielded voodoo rituals and created the dreaded tonton macute, his own special security force of crazed killers... But right up there has to be Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who today gave a "speech from his heart" telling the nation that he would not resign until his term ended in September. In doing so, he completely dismissed the hundreds of thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets during the past three weeks, and tried to spin it as holding strong against the desires of foreign powers like the US: "I can not and will not accept to be dictated orders from outside, no matter what the source is," Mubarak said."

He could have been a rock star, millions of people took time off to watch his speech. He could have retired gracefully, and instantly the anger of the protesters would have been changed into joy, and they would have forgiven him. Instead, he gave them an arrogant old man, clinging to the last vestiges of colonial style military rule, thinking that the few scraps he was going to give them would satisfy their hunger, and they would thank him: "Mubarak said that he is "totally committed to fulfilling all the promises" that he has earlier made regarding constituional and political reform. "I have laid down a vision ... to exit the current crisis, and to realise the demands voiced by the youth and citizens ... without undermining the constitution in a manner that ensures the stability of our society," he said. The problem here, is that thirty years ago Mubarak declared martial law, giving him and his security forces the power to detain people without a stated reason, and to put people in jail without trials. I think he got the idea from the CIA, who set up secret rendition camps in Egypt during the Iraq war. Anyway, he has promised to lift that several times before and never has done it, so his promises aren't worth spit. So far, there have been no proposals for change from the government. Mubarak's real vision is to wait until the protests have died down, then to ignore making any more changes, unless he absolutely is forced to. Come September, he might have enough people jailed and "disappeared" so that people will be scared to have another protest, much like the Iranian government has beaten down the spirit of its people...

"I will remain adamant to shoulder my responsibility, protecting the constitution and safeguarding the interests of Egyptians [until the next elections]. Except nobody wants him to continuing to shoulder any responsibility, he remains the biggest threat to the constitution, and he wants to safeguard the interests of his family and friends until they can get there money out of the country, this pesky revolution thing having caught them unaware...

My favorite part of his speech came when he was adamant that these people were not protesting against him personally: "Mubarak said the current "moment was not against my personality, against Hosni Mubarak", and concluded by saying that he would not leave Egyptian soil until he was "buried under it". This is where Bill O'Reilly interrupts him by asking why do you think they hate you so much? Be careful what you ask for, Hosni, because your speech satisfied no-one, everyone was predicting that you would resign and now they look foolish, so the next step may well be burying you beneath the Egyptian soil... Mubarak is hoping that this will be enough to carry him through the next few months, but I haven't seen how people have responded to his speech. We will find out tomorrow, on Friday, to see the weekend turnout in the streets and their mood. It's possible to drive the protesters over the edge, to turn the miracle of such a peaceful protest, into a very angry mob, and they quite literally, could tear the government apart. So far, they haven't wanted to give him any slack, get rid of him and his stooge Suleiman... I fear the next step is that Mubarak and his puppet will order the military to step in and make the crowds go home, with very bad results. For one brief, shining moment, Egypt showed the future for so many similar nations... Let this be a lesson of what can happen when we let mentally ill people remain in power, how having power can corrupt a person beyond reason and reality, and that corruption poisons a system over the years until it has to be surgically cut out...

The practice of one government trying to put all of its opponents in jail, especially when it's time to campaign again, is common all over the world. What always amazes mr is how open and in-your-face it often is, such as what is currently going on in the Ukraine: "Prosecutors appointed by the president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, are carrying out many investigations of opposition leaders, including the former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who was a hero of the Orange Revolution of 2004.


The United States and European Union, which had held up Ukraine as a post-Soviet model for relatively fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power between political parties, have expressed growing alarm over the Yanukovich government’s conduct.


Ms. Tymoshenko has been repeatedly interrogated by prosecutors who said they were examining official corruption during her tenure as prime minister. But so far they are focusing on an accusation that has not aroused much public outrage: they say she violated the law in 2009 by shifting hundreds of millions of dollars from environmental funds to pay pensions. (She is not accused of personally stealing any of the money.)"

“Yanukovich thinks that if he puts me behind bars, he will be able to go into the next campaign without competition,” Ms. Tymoshenko said in an interview. “He will have the same situation that exists in other former Soviet countries where there is no opposition.”

The spin, of course, is that each previous administration is corrupt, and they are just applying the rule of law: “When it comes to justice, the affiliation of this or that lawbreaker does not matter,” Mr. Yanukovich said last week during a trip to Poland. “The rule of law works in Ukraine.” The main philosophical difference between these two is that the current leader, Mr Yanukovich, is an old-school, conservative Russian style politician who is happy keeping Moscow happy. Ms Tymoshenko leans more towards the West and would like the Ukraine to join the European Union.


“Especially in the last five years, there was this impression in society that people in government were essentially immune from prosecution,” the Ukrainian foreign minister, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, said in an interview. “We need to send a serious signal to society that this behavior is unacceptable.” The type of corruption uncovered, such as hiring a driver who is past retirement age, was enough to arrest a former minister while he was walking his dog, and keep him in jail ever since...

Of course, it will get worse in Russia itself, once the presidential campaigns between Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin heats up. If Putin allows a contest, his ego may not allow it. In fact, Mr Putin would do well to pay attention to what is going on in Egypt, because he has the same brutal, autocratic personality that Mubarak does, and his may be a similar fate...

US Moves To Secure Suez In Case Of Military Coup

Bob Herbert
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Peter Beinart

"American workers are in a world of hurt. Anyone who thinks that politicians can improve this sorry state of affairs by hacking away at Social Security, Medicare and the public schools are great candidates for involuntary commitment." - Bob Herbert

"Our foreign policy is dominated by our military and intelligence agencies - the national security state. As a result, our ties with dictators tend to involve deep complicity with the most unsavory parts of these regimes - the military and the intelligence services that trample (and often repress) dissent." - Katrina vanden Heuvel

President Obama is more concerned with creating his pro-business coalition and working on our own economy than he is worried about how Egypt will end up; that is the job of the State Department. We might have been better off if Jimmy Carter were President during this moment, because Jimmy was very concerned about human rights. In matters where there is a military or intelligence aspect to it, Obama will drag his feet and often defer to whomever has the most brass in the room... Egypt's new Vice President has said that he doesn't think that Egyptians are ready for democracy, and doesn't "King Suleiman" have a nice ring to it? There are fears that we will once again take the wrong side of history because we were too timid to side with those desiring to be free. We brag about how we love liberty, but it must be ours and ours alone...

The Israeli Debkafile reports that US military have been stationed near the Suez Canal: "The arrival of US naval, marine and air forces in the Suez Canal's Greater Bitter Lake indicated that the crisis was quickly swerving out of control. DEBKAfile's military sources report that the American force consists of the USS Kearsarge Expeditionary Strike Group of six warships. Helicopters on some of their decks are there to carry and drop the 2,200 marines of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit which has been bolstered by two special operations battalions.


The flotilla has a rapid strike stealth submarine, the USS Scranton, which is designed to support special forces' operations.


The US strike force has taken up position at a strategic point opposite Ismailia between the west bank of the Suez Canal and its eastern Sinai bank. It is poised for rapid response in the event of the passage of about 40 percent of the world's marine freights through the Suez Canal being threatened or any other extreme occurrence warranting US military intervention."

Other chess pieces involve the Sinai peninsula, and the town of Ramallah, where there is a supervised checkpoint between Israel and Egypt. A natural gas pipeline was bombed by 4 men in two cars, cutting off the feeding of natural gas to israel and Jordan for several hours. Some rockets have been fired towards Israel, and Egyptian military have clashed with Bedouin tribes who control the flow of contraband through the tunnels beneath the border. If the Egyptian military decides to take over by coup, the Israeli military will move into Sinai and take out pesky terrorist groups roaming around, while the US guards the Suez Canal and keeps the free movement of shipping.

But with today's showing of thousands more people around Tahir Square, the military solutions may be put on hold for another few days. Every time there is a new outpouring of humanity here, rumours fly over where Mubarak can go for that quick retirement, though he wants to stay and live his last days out in Egypt, whether he is in power or not. And god forbid if we have to make relations further down the line with some educated, liberal official whom we have never met before, but we have to have relations just the same because he or she was elected to their office, this unknown part is what drives Israel and the US State Dept crazy, and why they are pushing the mini-me who would be tyrant Suleiman, or even the Muslim Brotherhood to the front of the class. Relax, dudes, take a few deep breaths...

Meanwhile, our new nest of Republicans are bent on showing us just how out of touch and irrelevant they are. The new head of Homeland Security Committee is Rep Peter King, who plans on having hearings on the danger of homegrown Muslims terrorists, a witch-hunt that will try and fracture any positive relationships and friendships made, just the opposite of what is happening now in Egypt: "He would rely on Muslims to make his case that American Muslim leaders have failed to cooperate with law enforcement officials in the effort to disrupt terrorist plots — a claim that was rebutted in recent reports by counterterrorism experts and in a forum on Capitol Hill on Monday.


Peter King believes that if people turn into CSPAN on his hearings, they will become revolted by the sight of Muslims being forced to justify the actions of extremists: “I believe it will have more of an impact on the American people if they see people who are of the Muslim faith and Arab descent testifying,” Mr. King said."

But it may backfire on Mr King: "As the hearings approach, the reaction from Muslim groups — initially outraged — has evolved into efforts to get Mr. King to enlarge the scope of the hearings beyond Muslims. They want to use the forum to reinforce the notion that the potential for terrorist violence among American Muslims is very marginal and very isolated.

“Our heads aren’t in the sand,” Alejandro J. Beutel, the government and policy analyst for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a national advocacy group, said at a forum his group sponsored on Monday on Capitol Hill. “The threat clearly exists, but I also want to put it in perspective. The threat exists, but it is not a pandemic.”

LOONY TOON WARNING!!! But Mr. King dismissed this line of criticism, saying: “I totally reject that. That, to me, is political correctness at its worst. If we included these other violent events in the hearings, we’d be sending the false signal that we think there’s a security threat equivalency between Al Qaeda and the neo-Nazi movement, or Al Qaeda and gun groups. There is none.”

Mr. King added, “I’m not going to dilute the hearings by including other extremists.” 

It turns out that many of these so-called non-compliant Muslims end up being undercover informants being paid to be unruly by Uncle Sam and Uncle Leon: "A report issued last week by an independent research group on national security found that 48 of the 120 Muslims suspected of plotting domestic terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, were turned in by fellow Muslims, including parents, mosque members and even a Facebook friend. The report was issued by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, which is affiliated with Duke and the University of North Carolina.


The report said, “In some communities, Muslim-Americans have been so concerned about extremists in their midst that they have turned in people who turned out to be undercover informants.” And these hearings, which will just embarrass you and make fools of fellow Republicans, are going to help us by creating how many jobs?

The price of copper wire has gone up from $1.25 per lb in 2009 to over $4 per lb, and people are tearing out the lighting all across our nation. They go into foreclosed homes and rip the wiring out of the walls, but the favorite past-time seems to be tearing the wiring out of street lights. It was costing the city of Fresno, Calif over $75,000 per month in repairs until they decided to seal over the manhole covers with cement... It's gotten so bad that in some states it has become more difficult to sell scrap wiring than it is to buy a handgun. In Oklahoma, scrap dealers are required to take your picture and copy your driver's license, then send them to the state for a background check. If you pass, then it takes three more days to get your check. At least we now know what made the lights go out in Georgia...

Monday Rant, Tear Down These Walls Mr Mubarak and Mr Netanyahu

Paul Krugman
Fareed Zakaria

"President Mubarak says he won’t step down until September, but that he won’t seek another rigged election. He plans to retire to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Is this guy really leaving in September, or is he just pulling a Leno?" – David Letterman

"The big rumor: Sarah Palin said she may run for president. I understand there's an opening in Egypt." – Jay Leno

"These days it seems like you can't have an armed street mob without it turning ugly."
 – Stephen Colbert

About half of the news analysis articles in the NY Times and Washington Post are trial balloons sent out by the State Department, waiting to see how the public reacts to the different spin scenarios it concocts. The latest tale of BS and condecention comes from the mouth of Hillary Clinton, saying how the immediate ouster of Hosni Mubarak will lead to further instability. Towards that end they are pushing the Muslim Brotherhood forward into the spotlight as the only opposition group that can be viably recognized, and so they will end up with more positions in the next government than if they tried to win them through an election... This instant recognition for the Muslim Brotherhood comes from them playing nice with our intelligence agencies the past few years. Last year they were even formally thanked when the senior officers came to Washington DC, and were wined, dined, and slam-bammed thank-you-maamed during their week's stay. This maybe their reward for becoming a nice, moderate political group that hasn't snuck in Iranian made rockets and munitions like their bad-boy cousins...

As for Mubarak, he still can't see how he has done anything wrong. Instead, the Egyptian people should be thanking him for being a patriot and keeping their country together and strong. The blindness of a dictator comes from their truly believing they are doing what is right for their country, and see any attack on themselves as an attack on the country. What doubly hurts/angers is that the regular people want him out, not some fringe group. Of course, any negotiations involving the US will be a win for Mubarak, because we will let him keep the over $70 billion that he has skimmed and plundered from the treasury.

Of all of the neighboring political groups that wrap themselves up in religion, Hezbollah has said all of the right things, proving why they have a lot of support in Lebanon and Syria: "In his address, Nasrallah praised what he termed the achievements of the protesters in Egypt, saying they had been as significant as the 2006 war between Hezbollah in and Israel in Lebanon.


He said he wished he could join protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which has been the epicentre of demonstrations. "What you have done is no less significant than the historic steadfastness the Islamic Resistance achieved in 2006 and the resistance in Gaza in 2008," he said, referring to the Israeli military assault on Gaza. "You are going through the battle of Arab dignity, restoring the dignity of Arab people." But, he can't join them because he's too chicken to match actions to his words, as he's a leader and not a fighter. But mostly, he's not Egyptian...

If Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the good Shiite revolutionary, then the Ayatollah Khamenei is the evil twin Shiite, who also has the blindness when it comes to listening to what his citizens are telling him... In his mind, what is going on in Tunisia and Egypt is all about Iran. Well his country did start it, but it was the Green Revolution against his own government, the Islamic Republic: "In his address, during Friday prayers at Tehran University in Iran's capital, he said that people are witnessing the reverberations of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.


"The awakening of the Islamic Egyptian people is an Islamic liberation movement and I, in the name of the Iranian government, salute the Egyptian people and the Tunisian people," he said. Khamenei has urged Egypt's protesters to follow in the footsteps of the Iranian revolution which toppled a pro-US leader and installed an Islamic Republic, calling on Egyptians to unite around religion. He said events in Tunisia and Egypt, were a sign of "Islamic awareness" in the region and that these movements will spell an "irreparable defeat" for the United States." Again, the Grand Ayatollah shows why he isn't wearing the tightest turban around, and probably didn't get very good marks while in school: these revolutions stem from a government treating its own people badly for no reason at all, and their success is a win for basic human dignity, and a desire to be treated honestly and politely. It has nothing to do with religion although the granting and exercising of these rights is the base for successful spiritual development. Nobody wants to emulate the style of government in Iran because they still repress people in the name of religion; there's no difference between a Hosni Mubarak, with his secret police, and the Ayatollah Khoamenei, with his basij para-military. Heck, we'll become Iran's New Best Friend Forever if they will sell us enough cheap oil...

So, in Egypt, we support the ex-head of the intelligence, nicknamed  Sheikh al Torture, and willingly accept him in place of the "despot." In the meantime, Israel may well become the only country in this region to end up living a lie. While calling themselves the only democratic country in the region, while maintaining barbed wire border crossings, and stationing its soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza....

Our Alzheimer's President Turns 100, The New DC Madam, Will I See Mubarak In September?

Tarek Masoud
Eugene Robinson

"It has often been said in recent days that the United States can do nothing to affect the progress of democracy in Egypt, but the military’s dependence on American money and matériel suggests that this is untrue." - Tarek Masoud

"Bargains with the devil never end well. For decades, successive U.S. administrations have embraced autocratic, repressive regimes in the Arab world -- and now, as we see in the bloody streets of Cairo, it's time to pay the price." - Eugene Robinson

This year the worm-eaten corpse of Ronald Reagan turns 100 years old, and like a creepy version of Weekend at Bernie's, conservative extremists are trotting him out for another display. I'm waiting for the new head of the GOP to tell us about the first miracle of healing credited to Ron, so there can be a race towards canonization between Reagan and the last pope. Together, their mythologizing is one of the largest public relations bunch of malarky I have ever heard... Or, as his official biographer put it: "The sentimental colossus his acolytes are trying to erect today, with gilded pecs, red-painted smile and an NRA-approved pistol in each manly fist, bears no resemblance to the man I knew: in private a person of no ego and little charisma, in public a statesman of formidable purpose." Politicians today who never met Reagan are trying to polish up the public performances , while anyone who ever met him in private knew that he was nothing like that.

Speaking of mythologizing, here's a link to the full article by Edmund Morris, the official biographer of Ronald Reagan, trying to dispel such rumors that Reagan was a bad actor... "I asked him once if he had any nostalgia for the years he was nuzzling up to Ann Sheridan and Doris Day on camera. He gestured around the Oval Office. "Why should I? I have the biggest stage in the world, right here!" The five myths Morris tried to dispel and doing quite a bad job if it, were:
1. He was a bad actor.
"Well, yes and no."
.
2. He was but a movie-set soldier in World War II.
"It's true that Reagan spent virtually all the war years flying a desk at the First Motion Picture Unit, USAAF, in Culver City."

3. He was warm-hearted.
"No... Reagan intimates have confessed to me that they were never sure he knew who the hell they were."


4. He was only a campaign Christian.
"He attended few church services as president. But on occasion, before critical meetings, you would see him draw aside and mumble prayers."


5. He was an "amiable dunce."
This is where Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin share the same characteristics. Not big on reading, often getting the facts wrong, yet able to focus on the lowest common denominator as their audience, and charming them as well.

The 800 pound gorilla that everyone wants to ignore is that Ronald Reagan was our first Alzheimer's president, and it manifested itself while he was in office, something that his three youngest children have said publicly. What is wrong with this picture: today's mentally ill right wing extremists putting someone with dementia up on a pedestal as someone to be admired and commemorated.

Speaking of right wing extremists, the NY Times reports that Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,  announced that she is "stepping aside as chief executive of the conservative organization she founded, but intends to keep ties to a new alliance between that group, Liberty Central, and the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty." Liberty Central is a tea party group that Virginia founded because she cannot find a real job in Washington that would put her name in the public's eye. It hasn't done anything, hasn't planned or produced any events, is just another empty shell that hires a couple of secretaries to pick up the mail and answer phones. The next step is to register as a lobbyist, so that you might rake in some big conservative bucks...

A few days later, the Times then reports that: "Ms. Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, will be a consultant to Liberty Central, is rebranding herself as a lobbyist and self-appointed “ambassador to the Tea Party movement.” Gee, who could have seen that one coming... Oh, well, as along as she doesn't try to cash in on being married to a Supreme Court Justice.


"Virginia Thomas, the justice’s wife, said on libertyinc.co, a Web site for her new political consulting business, that she saw herself as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens” who favored limited government, free enterprise and other core conservative issues. She promised to use her “experience and connections” to help clients raise money and increase their political impact. Ouch. First of all, who doesn't love liberty? Who doesn't want to be an advocate for liberty, only about a few hundred million people that are citizens of the US. By taking an abstract concept and turning it into public relation's market-speak, she's trying to narrow it down to those who agree with her are the liberty-loving citizens, while those who think she's a kook must be anti-liberty. It cheapens the discussion, as if liberty were a commodity, like beef, and she is serving a special today of creamed, chipped liberty on toast...

More worrisome is her public promise, that if you pay her money, she will use her "experience and connections" with her husband to help their cause. This sure sounds like a form of prostitution to me, and should be illegal. Yep, Supreme Court Justice and his wife arrested and jailed for forming a political prostitution ring, and all so that she can be thought of as a player in Washington DC...

"Ms. Thomas’s effort to take a more operational role on conservative issues could intensify questions about her husband’s ability to remain independent on issues like campaign finance and health care, legal ethicists said." To what issue will this come? Have we just watched the coronation of tea party royalty, or does this bode a deeper problem that has taken hold at the foundations and manifests itself throughout the rotten structure? After all, remember what happened to the last high priced pimp in Washington Dc, Ms Deborah Palfrey: "A federal jury convicted Palfrey of racketeering and money laundering for her operation of Pamela Martin & Associates, an escort service that catered to Washington clients like Senator David Vitter..."

Horatio:

He waxes desperate with imagination.

Marcellus:

Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.

Horatio:

Have after. To what issue will this come?

Marcellus:

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has negotiated with the powers that be to let him stay in power until September, long enough for things to quiet down and let his thugs find the so-called leaders of the democratic movement and beat the crap out of them, send them to a US site for rendition... The excuse being given is that there must be a gradual transition of government here, which is pure BS, as anyone on the street can tell you. The irony here is that countries like the US. Germany, and Israel are all trying to make change behind the scenes because they don't have faith in the democratic process.

After Barack Obama has given a cautious statement in favor of the protesters, he is fair game to get slammed in public. Sarah Palin tried to slam him, but she got the basic facts wrong that she sounded garbled and confused, once again making me thank everyone for not voting her into office... Dick Cheney also praised Mubarak, but that is to be expected, one dictatorial mind praising another.

So, as it stands right now, the Egyptian revolution has won, but it may lose a few months down the road. The one group that has the most at stake outside of Egypt are the Palestinians. For over 20 years, they had been getting support from the Arabic countries in name only, because a country like Egypt will not actively support the creation of a democratic state where the citizens can vote and have basic human rights, all the while suppressing those same things in their own country. If the reforms actually go through, then countries like Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria maybe more supportive of the Palestinian people, who have been totally screwed over by their own leaders and Israel these past 30 years...

Mubarak Cynically Manipulates Amanpour, Mitt Romney, Mormonism and the Cult of the Subgenius

Nicholas Kristoff
EJ Dionne
Fareed Zakaria

"Huge riots continue in Egypt. Experts say one of the problems over there is there is a huge difference in wealth between the extremely rich and the vast majority of the people who have nothing. Thank God that could never happen in this country, huh?" – Jay Leno

"Now the Egyptian crowds who are protesting have turned against the United States. Oh boy, I didn't see that coming." – David Letterman

"There was a huge snowstorm in New York yesterday. I was complaining about it all day to my friend in Egypt." – Jimmy Fallon

As expected, Egypt's dictator Hosni Mubarak cynically used the fighting yesterday between protesters and the hired thugs and secret policemen as an excuse why he should stay in power. "If I resign today,  there will be chaos." he whined to Christiane Amanpour.. The only people who would accept this scenario are those who prefer their own political agendas over the repression of a people, and those scaredycats who fear change of any kind, which includes John Boehner and certain members of the US State Department... Some other patent bs that he tried to feed her during an interview this morning: "He told me that he is troubled by the violence we have seen in Tahrir Square over the last few days but that his government is not responsible for it. Instead, he blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party here in Egypt.


He said he's fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos.


I asked President Mubarak about the violence that his supporters launched against the anti-government protestors in Liberation Square. He told me, "I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other." I doubt it that Mubarak will be able to find a job selling used cars after this, perhaps he can move to Nigeria and do some email scams: "Hello, this is Hosni Mubarak and I need your help. I recently moved over $100,000,000 out of my country and cannot get access to it..." In the meantime, fighting goes on all day today between the two forces, with the Army sitting in their tanks and watching the carnage. Really, today most folks are taking a breather, and tomorrow is when the crowds will be massive, both in Egypt and in Syria, where a similar uprising is being planned. The Syrian government is satisfied that it can clamp down quick enough to allow much of a groundswell, they will only be too glad to demonstrate how to repress its citizens...

I'm too much of a cynic to believe that Egypt will be allowed to get everything the protesters want, we will find some way to have a similarly repressive regime take Mubarak's place, be it the inept Muslim Brotherhood or some other group or person that represent the teeny tiny steps of change that the paranoid old farts that rule this part of the world will accept. Tunisia can have all the human rights and dignity it can muster for its citizens, it plays no part in the chess game involving Israel. All Tunisia will get out of it will be soaring tourist rates over the next few years...

In a perfect example of delusional paranoia, Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Knesset this morning, warning that if the Islamic Brotherhood took over Egypt, then it would play in to Iran's plans for the Middle East. I suddenly realize that half of the world's fear and paranoia over Iran comes directly out of Netanyahu's mouth, and picked up, parroted and amplified, by mindless dittoheads in the US... Israel should concentrate on how it treats its own Jewish population. It discriminates between Jews with heritage from the Caucasus, then down to Jews born in the Middle East, followed by the third class Jews born in Africa, like the Falasha. All look down on anyone who is Palestinian, and they all gang up and deny any rights to foreign workers, take away their passports and keep them like slaves in emulation of the Saudis and Emirates... So, even after the heat of rising emotions dies down, there is a ton of real work to do, the largest fear for countries like the US would be dealing with some unknown idealist who might like to lecture them on democracy! Again, maybe then I can find out why every newly democratic regime refuses to model their government on our democratic institutions, preferring our European brethren instead.

Mit Romney is appearing a lot on television lately, yet he refuses to announce if he will become a GOP candidate for president in 2012. He could well become a candidate, many see him as the current front-runner. But, he will never win the presidency because of his religious faith: He's a Mormon. To soften the blow for the American people, the Mormon church has been pouring millions of dollars into making commercials showing that Mormons come from all walks of life, are hard working and faithful people like all other Americans - we're just like you. This is meant to head off having a national debate over whether Mormonism is a "real" Christian religion or some sort of wacky cult that flourished and gained power from the harsh high desert outside of Salt Lake... In the book People Named Smith, author and humorist H Allen Smith contends that the Book of Mormon was originally a work of fiction that was stolen from the offices of a New York Publisher by Joseph Smith and his father, who were grifters and con men. This is a very different story on the origins than having visions from an angel and given some golden tablets to translate into English...

There are expose sites on the web for Mormonism just like there are for Scientology, and hopefully, the more wackier parts of their beliefs will start making their way towards sunlight, joining the heady political atmosphere of extreme conservatism and polygamous cultism. In the fairly recent past, it was OK to shoot and kill a Mormon in several states, so I guess we could discuss this in the light of our current gun laws. Instead of it being outlawed to shoot an US Congressman, would it be OK to shoot a Mormon? And how would electing Mit Romney change this attitude... I joke a bit, but our intolerance led us to shoot and kill the last Catholic president we had, and his brother, too. so is it fine to have a Mormon as a presidential candidate, or should we give him a head start and count to 100?.. The only problem with typing in Mormonism Exposed into a search engine like Yahoo, is that the websites that come up are even crazier and wackier, makes me long for the tongue-in-cheek humor of sites like the Church of the Subgenius from the 1990's... Actually, Mit does look quite a bit like Bob Dobbs, twins separated at birth? Wow, once you start asking questions on this stuff, it just leads to more and more questions...

David Letterman's "Top Ten Things You Don't Know About Mitt Romney"

10. Mitt is short for Mitt-thew.
9. I can't begin my day until I've read The Washington Post and Kim Kardashian's tweets.
8. I'm the guy in the photo that comes with your picture frame.
7. I spent six months in a Mexican prison for selling black-market Pillow Pets.
6. Do I smell as good as I look? No!
5. In high school, I was voted 'Mittiest.'
4. I got into politics for the piles and piles of paperwork.
3. Look for my best-selling biography 'They Call Me Baba Romney.'
2. I have absolutely no idea where my birth certificate is.
1. Oprah is my half-sister.

So Much For Peaceful Transitions, Secret Prisons In Iraq Keep al Maliki In Power

Thomes Friedman
David Ignatius
Michelle Goldberg

"Our eventual goal is to create an equal society, not a society of privileges and class distinctions. Social justice is the first rule for peace and stability in society." - Hosni Mubarak 1981

"But I fear Israel could make its situation even more perilous if it succumbs to the argument one hears from a number of senior Israeli officials today that the events in Egypt prove that Israel can’t make a lasting peace with the Palestinians. It’s wrong and dangerous." - Thomas Friedman

"It was never entirely clear how the right's support for political freedom in the Muslim world meshed with its overwhelming contempt for Muslim people... Now, as Egyptians pour into the streets and demand control of their political destiny, an interesting divide is opening up on the right. On one side are those who actually took all that democracy stuff seriously. On the other are those who see the Muslim world only as an enemy to be crushed and controlled. With a Republican primary approaching, it remains to be seen which view of Middle Eastern policy will triumph among conservatives."  - Michelle Goldberg

Well, so much for a peaceful transition of power in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak must have been watching late at night those old tapes of the Iranian government cracking heads in the streets of Tehran, which inspired him to release his own mob of "supporters" to go out there and beat the crap out of those peaceniks, focusing especially on foreign reporters, with the result of over 400 injured, as well as CNN's Anderson Cooper. What did you expect? Here's a man who had every vain whim catered to for over 30 years, with a penchant for putting his opponents in jail and violently suppressing other groups he found threatening. His version of a smooth transition of power is to go down in flames, taking as much as he can down with him, something Egypt's Army should have forseen. But the Army chose to be neutral, and went off to play with itself and guard a few museums, put out a few fires... Years of inaction has made them a force of wishy-washiness that will roll over Egypt like a drunk pissing in an alley...

Former US President George W Bush calls Mubarak, sympathizes and tries to cheer him up. :"Good job, Muby!" I can hear him say. Barack Obama calls him, too, and ten minutes after that phone call, Mubarak unleashes his supporters, who also might be Glenn Beck fans: "Signs that the pro-Mubarak forces were organized and possibly professional were abundant. When the melee broke out, a group of them tried to corner a couple of journalists in an alley to halt their reporting. Their assaults on the protesters seemed to come in well timed waves.


Some protesters reported that they had been approached with offers of 50 Egyptian pounds, about $8.50, to carry pro-Mubarak placards. “Fifty pounds for my country?” one woman said, in apparent disbelief


There is a contradiction between calling on the transition to begin now, and the calls which President Mubarak himself has made for an orderly transition,” an Egyptian official said Wednesday. “Mubarak’s primary responsibility is to ensure an orderly and peaceful transfer of power. We can’t do that if we have a vacuum of power.”

The official said that the Egyptian government has “a serious issue with how the White House is spinning this.” Evidently, Obama should have used Mr Bush as his proxy, as Bush had better luck in bonding with dictators. What about Saddam Hussein, I hear you say? Well, take down one dictator in the Middle East, give another $5 billion dollars, I always say...

Elsewhere, around the region: "King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his government on Tuesday after weeks of demonstrations challenging his regime..." Of course, the King changes his cabinet almost as often as he changes his socks, I guess it depends on which ones is getting smelly first. And: "In Yemen, the government, fearing new protests, offered concessions to the opposition, which promised to call a demonstration every Thursday until March, when it will evaluate whether its demands have been met." The Yemenese president has agreed not to seek re-election. He has been a follower and copycat of Mubarak's style of politics, so it's probably wise for him to make a smooth transition out of power... "In Syria, calls for a “day of rage” this weekend against the government of President Bashar al-Assad were spreading on Facebook, which is banned in the country, and on Twitter." Just yesterday, the Syrian government had been bragging how things were different in Damascus, because they were more stable. Syria could be the most interesting protests of all, because they have the double-whammy of repression, the government for secular repression, and Hezbollah for religious repression... Finally, the Palestinian Authority hastily called for new elections in the West Bank and Gaza. I had been wondering what it would take for them to do this, and it took the fear of their own people rising against them to do so...

That's quite a lot of major changes in a short time. Like any bloated and overweight region that loses a lot of pounds overnight, there will be the cellulite and overhanging skin to keep it from looking pretty... The biggest quandary faces dedicated jihadists, who are witnessing the largest revolution and they are not a part of it, they don't even share any of the same beliefs since jihadists don't believe in human rights or dignity. They face being swept away into the dustbin of history... The other major problem are the Israelis, but they can't do anything constructive until the right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu and his inept band of conservatives are also swept from office. Until then, they will always make the wrong decision and pretend to work towards a working peace with the Palestinians... This really is too much for the US intelligence and diplomatic bureaucracies to handle. Again, another series of world-shaking events that the CIA got wrong, and our endless think tanks that suck money like parasites from our universities and corporate America have done diddley...

Ironically, the only other two leaders in the region who are trying very hard to reach dictator status are Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Nuri alMaliki of Iraq, both propped up and supported by the US. How's that democracy thingy workin out for ya? Now comes a report on Iraq that would make Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld push out their chests and swell with pride, that al Maliki has kept open secret prisons for the purpose of rounding up and torturing his opponents. Seems he was taking more than notes when those shadowy US military intelligence spooks gave him instructions...

In 2008 al Maliki created his own private militia, whose job it was to round up certain "terrorists," detain them in special prisons where the persons may or may not ever be released or sent to trial. These: "... security forces controlled directly by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki continue to hold and to torture detainees in secret jails despite his vows last year to end such practices, according to a statement from Human Rights Watch released Tuesday.


The statement renewed longstanding criticism of Mr. Maliki that he has violated the Constitution by having some security forces in charge of pursuing terrorists report directly to his office. About 280 detainees are being held at Camp Justice, a military base in northern Baghdad, with no access to lawyers or their families, according to the report. They are being held by brigades that are supposed to report to the Defense Ministry, it said."

Maliki has his own militia, while other dictators like Baby Doc Duvalier had his Tonton Macutes. More civil countries use groups like the CIA, FBI, Mossad, and KGB that act beyond the law to further their country's ends. I guess Obama lacks his own militia, as our spy groups react more to what Hillary wants. The day that he and his family dons sunglasses and replaces the Secret Service with the Black Muslims is the day we can start worrying... Damn, there I go, giving Rush and Glenn ideas for their next 20 shows...

The President, he's got his war
Folks don't know just what it's for
Nobody gives us rhyme or reason
Have one doubt, they call it treason
We're chicken-feathers, all without one nut. God damn it!
Tryin' to make it real — compared to what? (Sock it to me)