First, in a brief commentary from Al-Iraq News, in an article headlines Having Sown the Wind … America Reaps the Whirlwind, columnist Filah Al Mishaal expresses disgust at what the U.S. has done to his country, and asserts that the coming wave of terrorist attacks on America are a direct result of U.S. policies that created ‘Islamist political terrorist organizations’ in the first place.

America created al-Qaeda and extreme Islamist political terrorist organizations in many countries, to have them sow discord and sectarian conflict with left wing and nationalist parties in countries that were subject to its aggression. That includes Iraq, which is still paying the bill for America’s crimes and errors in the blood of innocent lives. The victims in Boston and other places are suffering as a result of a ball of fire striking back at America for its ever-increasing involvement in terror, according to the proverb: “they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind”!

Then, in a velvet-glove version of the same narrative, columnist Jihad Al Muhaysin of Jordan’s Al Ghad, in an article headlined Bostonians Hit By the ‘Plague of the Century, writes that it was regrettable that innocent people were being killed in ‘counter-productive’ terrorist attacks before Boston, and it is just as regrettable now. And he lays responsibility for all of it at the foot of American foreign policy since the September 11 attacks.

Nowhere in the world is immune from this outrageous cycle of violence. The day before yesterday, Boston was the target. It is a sad thing indeed that the victims were helpless innocents who didn’t deserve to bear the burden of America’s global policies, and are not responsible for its consequences. The same applies to Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Britain, France, and any place on the surface of the earth. … The plague of blood unleashed after September 11 is now striking everywhere.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC, OR READ MORE OF THE GLOBAL REACTION TO THE BOSTON BOMBINGS AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

And on point d), they are doing a great job.

So, Mr. Levin to the contrary, Scarborough has again voiced the likely views of many Americans — like the 90 percent who wanted background checks to pass. And he warns, in our video Quote of the Day, that the Republican Party in its 2013 incarnation is headed for extinction. His key quote: “We’re the 90 percent — and we’re going to win. This is just the first battle.” Via Crooks and Liars:

FOOTNOTE: I agree with Scarborough that somewhere along the line the current Republican Party will likely suffer a huge defeat and Republicans more willing to compromise or vote against the NRA will fill the vacuum.

The one qualifier I add here. I keep hearing on progressive talk shows people suggesting Democrats might stay home if Barack Obama’s doesn’t take a stronger line with the GOP on the budget. Democrats have frittered away their New Deal/New Frontier/Great Society political dominance by staying home to teach their party a lesson during key elections while GOPers turned out. In 2000, if you recall, many Democrats weren’t happy with Al Gore and said they’d vote for Ralph Nader. In 2010 some Democrats said they weren’t happy with Obama so they stayed home. In the end, they punished themselves. And then when the GOP would gain a hold on the levers of power nationally or in state, Democrats would blame their party for not doing enough.

So the GOP may be giving its enemies ammunition by the segment now effectively running the party — but the Democrats are their own worst enemy. Left to their own devices, Republicans could be in for a rough ride. Aided by Democrats who won’t get on the horse to ride and instead want to teach their party a lesson, the current incarnation of the GOP’s ride will be far easier.

In the wake of the shameful surrender to the N.R.A. by cowardly members of what should be the most powerful, courageous and decent legislative institution in the free world, a person who has seen gun violence up-close-and-personal, a person who narrowly survived gun violence and who will probably suffer the consequences for the rest of her life, has spoken up against those cowards.

You must read it here.

This is some of what Gabrielle Giffords has to say:

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

[::]

These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

[::]

[The Senators] will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

[::]

Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

Note: This post has been edited to include the opening paragraph — perhaps the most emotional part –of Gabrielle Giffords’ powerful Op-Ed in today’s New York Times.

Given the U.S. response to the September 11 attacks, which was considered destructive and self-defeating by large numbers of people around the world, there is a good deal of concern that something similar could happen in the wake of the Boston bombings. This editorial from Mexico’s La Jornada recalls what it perceives as the misplaced aggression of the Bush Administration, and expresses hope that the Obama White House will act differently.

The La Jornada editorial says in part:

It is pertinent here to recall that after the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington, the White House focused on terrorist threats from foreign organizations, mainly Islamic ones, as well as on governments that it deemed to be politically hostile, like the one headed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq – even if that Arab country had never launched an attack on American targets. Thus, Washington provided an answer to its own question [why do they hate us?], leaving in its wake devastation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and vast and fully justified anti-American resentment.

Another consequence of the security policy adopted after 9-11 – which was in fact a strategic repositioning of Washington in Central Asia and the Middle East – was to forget the multi-faceted and prolific history of domestic terrorism in the United States, formed by a mixture of White supremacists, ultra right wing groups, fundamentalist Christians and even radical formations of environmentalists and animal rights activists. In fact, up until 9-11, the worst terrorist attack within the continental United States had been the blowing up of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people died and some 700 were wounded. This act was perpetrated almost 18 years ago (April 19, 1995) by a small group of ultra right wing conspirators headed by Timothy McVeigh, a decorated soldier who had fought in the first U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH, OR READ MORE OF THE GLOBAL REACTION TO THE BOSTON BOMBINGS AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

In the fog surrounding disasters [disaster fog: hundreds if not thousands of clear reports, but also conflicting reportages by citizens, the press, law enforcement, health and hospital, and more], there has to be time for the smoke to clear to see what is truly so, about whom, what, where, how, and why.

It is easy in that fog that comes from literally thousands of souls on the ground doing their radar scoping, that errors are made in estimate of numbers of persons involved, numbers of homes lost, extent of damage, who did what, and where, when, how and why.

It is more usual than not, that first reports on any event within the larger event need to be updated, often more than once, to be accurate ‘in the moment’… althought whatever was just updated in terms of fact, may need to be updated again just a moment later.

[Yesterday, from newswires, I posted that there was an explosion at JFK Library in Boston. I corrected it as soon as it came over the wire that it was a fire, not an explosion. And thus we who are listening to updates, update our articles too. That's the time-honored newspaper /journalist way.]

My own .02 from being a post-trauma recovery specialist at disaster sites– and seeing the fog that many souls across the world try to report on, is this:

At a disaster site, even far across the world from where one lives: It goes without saying that many persons want to do good and help…
– some are qualified and work themselves to the bone without adequate sleep and food in order to give real time helps,
–some helpers without realizing they take up resources of food and water and shelter come flooding in without being solicited, and have to be turned away or else operate on the fringes where they will not get in the way of critical care and first responder persons;
–some come to grandstand before the cameras or to fill their resumes,
–some few are pretenders and scam artists who are not what they say they are.
– some come as ‘tourists’ wanting to take pictures of the site or of themselves standing at the site.
– many many come to pray and leave mementos, and to give a word of encouragement to official helpers and investigators.

Many law enforcement jurisdictions are deeply committed to finding the criminal[s],
–they are most often cooperative, the point being to find/bring to light as soon, but also as carefully as possible
a suspicious person
via reliable sources,
a person of interest,
a person identified
a person sought
a person in custody
a person arrested
a person verified
a person charged

All the above ought, for all media, carry precise and different meanings.

For journalists, likely the most wary kind of newswire sourcing is “from a source who wishes to remain anonymous” or ‘from an un-named person who is with the highest echelon’… these might or might NOT hold water.

Some say that ‘wrong reporting’ comes from the competitive rush between big news agencies, both cable and paper, to ‘get the story’, to get the scoop. Yes. And maybe. I’ve seen reporters stampede to get the story, and they can be highly aggressive about it, but not at any cost. However, there are ever a few who attempt to sidestep journalistic ethics, including hacking into victims’ cell phones, invading their privacy in unethical ways, in their mania to get ahead of their peers. But the latter are in the distinct minority.

On another hand, updating to add to, correct disaster stories is usual in the fast media throw down we have in our time. And also, as here at TMV, the idea is to try to update the reader insofar as we can with facts and with analyses. That’s our mission. And within that mission is the commitment to add to, to delete, to update information as it unfolds [as CNN is doing at the moment, backing off from and correcting their prior report that a person had been arrested in the Boston massacre. They are now processing also on air how they ran with the 'arrest' story, which is good.]

In large disasters, to be as accurate as is humanly possibly, this requires speaking, I think, as much about the fog surrounding disasters, and the difficulty of seeing through that fog [meaning literally hundreds if not thousands of conflicting reports] by any one person, especially when all good hearts drive so deeply ‘to catch the bad guy’ for many emotional, spiritual, legal and defense reasons. As is right and proper in the deaths and maimings of innocents.

Let us continue.

–
see also Kathy Gill’s article yesterday on media coverage

Here’s a cross section of world cartoonists’ takes on the Boston Marathon terrroist bombings:

Boston Marathon:

Emad Hajjaj, Jordan

Boston Marathon Memeorial:

Daryl Cagle, CagleCartoons.com

Boston Tragedy:

Christopher Weyant, The Hill

Boston Bombing:

Yaakov Kirschen, Dry Bones

Good Wins in Boston:

Jeff Parker, Florida Today and the Fort Myers News-Press

Boston:

Aislin, The Montreal Gazette

False Flag:

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

Tears of Sorrow:

Olle Johansson, Sweden

Do News Corp and The Far Right Have No Shame?

Maybe if I lived in New York I’d be more sanguine.

Pandering is a kind adjective to describe the editorial management at the New York Post, the 13th-oldest and seventh-most-widely circulated newspaper in the U.S. and one that is owned by News Corp. And losing money.

If you get your news from the NY Post, you’d be forgiven for thinking that yesterday’s tragedy was orchestrated by someone from Saudi Arabia. For the second day, the NY Post is trumpeting made-up headlines:

Police took a 20-year-old Saudi national into custody near the scene of yesterday’s horrific Boston Marathon bomb attack, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

These anonymous sources contradict every public statement from local and federal law enforcement.

The story also contradicts the NY Post’s own Twitter stream:

Investigators rule out Saudi national as a suspect in Boston bombing after searching his apartment nyp.st/Zougoy

— New York Post (@nypost) April 16, 2013

Even the Gateway Pundit — a conservative blog! — has corrected its headline!

The more accurate headline comes from the Washington Post. Even though this story only cites two anonymous sources, these sources mirror the official comment from the Boston Police Department.

I wish I could say that the hounding like that going on in America’s far right echo chamber were the exception. But as Karen McVeigh reports in The Guardian, our mainstream (“trusted”) news organizations don’t have a great record when it comes to following anonymous sources and fixating on the first “suspect.”

In this case, the NY Post and FOX provided soundbites and fodder for the professional far right blogosphere. And these “conservative media” have published photos, full name and the address of a man who is studying here — legally — and who is not a suspect in the tragedy.

See Photos Of Saudi National Suspected In Boston Terrorist Attack Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi bit.ly/Zo8CRc #tcot #tgdn #lnyhbt

— Patrick Dollard (@PatDollard) April 16, 2013

Moreover, part of the fringe still insists that there is a Saudi connection:

Saudi terror cell, possibly al Qaeda, behind Boston Marathon bombings. Manhunt for escaped suspect debka.com/article/22901/

— marirw (@marirw) April 16, 2013

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used the tragedy to speak out against immigration reform.

GOP Rep Warns Against Immigration Reform, Speculates That Boston Attacker Was Saudi With Student Visa | Mediaite mediaite.com/online/gop-rep…

— Rick Cooley (@rcooley123) April 16, 2013

But there is enough pushback on Twitter to have hope than reason can prevail.

BREAKING: “Saudi national” on student visa is no longer a suspect in Boston Marathon bombing. Many a Fox News viewer still pushing theory

— DC Debbie (@DCdebbie) April 16, 2013

Saudi student caught up in #Boston manhunt cleared lat.ms/15j4TsB @jtanfani

— Ron Lin, LA Times (@ronlin) April 16, 2013

Injured Saudi is a witness, not a suspect, in Boston bombing: wapo.st/12k1rus

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 16, 2013

Saudi man injured in bombing in Boston. Saudi man called a terrorist suspect. Saudi man found to be a witness. #MediaFail

— Remi Kanazi (@Remroum) April 16, 2013

4:30 pm : @kegill
Screen caps from Memeorandum

Updated 4:50 pm

What About MSNBC?

On Twitter, Edward von Bear asked me about the Chris Matthews Monday night show:

Just hours after explosions rocked the Boston Marathon on Monday, Chris Matthews speculated, “Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right.” He then reconsidered and suggested, “…That’s not a good category, just extremists, let’s call them that.”

No cable company has a monopoly on extreme “analysts.” The more extreme, the more audience; the bigger the audience, the more money for everyone. This was Bill O’Reilly’s take on that truism during his “Rumble” with Jon Stewart:

O’Reilly said the problem [of political discourse] is “capitalism” because “you can make a lot of money by being an assassin…. you’re a hater, you get paid. They don’t even believe half the stuff they say. And they get paid a lot of money.”

O’Reilly: “The problem with the media is CAPITALISM.” Say what? What world am I living in? #HeadExplodes #rumble2012

— Erica Payne (@EricaPayneAP) October 7, 2012

Amazing that #BillOreilly acknowledges that capitalism corrupts media, & he milks hate for what it’s worth. #Rumble2012

— Dahlia Eissa (@dahlia_eissa) October 7, 2012

In fairness to Matthews, he did back track something the NYPost has yet to do, at least in its headlines and stories. And I didn’t see him or MSNBC continuing that line of rhetoric today.

Finally, I’m more offended by reporters citing anonymous sources under the guise of “news” than I am of cable TV pundits – people who are hired to hold an opinion – putting their feet in their mouths. They are not the same infraction. Not even close.

Peter Broelman, Australia

Boston Bombs Prompt Twitter Toxicity

By Dick Polman

Shortly after Boston’s annual idyll devolved into mayhem, I posted a tweet. “Worst thing: People died…Second worst thing: The upcoming blame game.” And sure enough, it was game on.

I get it that we’re all upset. The urge to lash out is strong, and we’re only human. But way too often, pundits and armchair primitives, free of all filters, treat Twitter as their own personal sewer. So it went yesterday, oh so predictably.

Fox News regular Erik Rush said that Muslims were clearly to blame: “Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones confidently said, “[t]he FBI has been behind every domestic terror plot.”

Anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller declared “Jihad in Boston,” and when another tweeter dared question her theory, Geller replied, “Blood on your hands.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said the GOP was partly to blame, because it has refused to ratify President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms: “Explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment.” (Kristof subsequently tweeted, “I take it back.”)

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, a conservative commentator, sought to score a partisan point: “Obama is going to make a statement. Boehner is going to have a moment of silence. Advantage GOP.” (Taranto subsequently deleted it.)

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger, took the opportunity score a partisan point and mock a colleague. She’s miffed that Post health policy reporter Sarah Kliff has declined to cover the Philadelphia murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell; Kliff says she covers policy, “not local crime.” So here’s what Rubin tweeted yesterday about the bombings: “Not writing about Boston. It is a local crime story for now.”

Various tea-party partisans got it into their heads that Wolf Blitzer had blamed the bombings on their movement, so they let their fingers fly: “Wolf Blitzer already blaming Tea Party” and “Way to Wolf Blitzer! Pathetic” and “Wolf Blitzer is REALLY blaming the tea party for the Boston explosions? What a partisan douchebag” and “Wolf Blitzer just speculated if tea party groups were behind the bombing WITH ZERO EVIDENCE” and (this is my favorite) “Looks like I’m off to workout and then punch the Fu-k outta the first liberal asstard I run across. He can thank Wolf f—ing Blitzer.”

Did Blitzer specifically finger the tea party? Nope. What he actually said, while quizzing a guest expert, was merely this: “It is a state holiday in Massachusetts called Patriots Day, and, uh, who knows if that had anything to do with these explosions.” (A foe of Patriots Day could be anyone from an al Qaeda wannabee to an aggrieved local nutcase.)

And I won’t even bother to list all the re-tweets about how the Boston police had supposedly taken into custody a “Saudi” suspect. The police, in reality, had no such person. The fake report came to us courtesy of a Murdoch outlet, the New York Post.

So here’s a suggestion for the denizens of Twitter: Show some respect for the dead and the injured. Observe a virtual moment of silence. Give the authorities some space, let them do their job. And until such time that there is actually something worth saying, Please. Shut. Up.

Last night, one admirably sane guy went on Twitter and asked, “Why does every event these days require an accompanying conspiracy theory? What is the matter with people?”

Hey, pal. You tell me.

Copyright 2013 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks.org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Philadelphia. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.

Is American use of Wahhabi terrorists as a foreign policy tool behind the Boston Marathon bombings? For Iraq’s Sotal Iraq, columnist Ahmad Kazem sees the attacks as a fork in the road for the United States, and worries that the American people are so caught up in ‘petty soap operas and mind-numbing television talk shows’, they are easy to convince that they are in danger, and that ‘wars are necessary for their own protection.’

For Sotal Iraq, Ahmad Kazem starts off this way:

Will the Boston bombings be the start of a terrorism transition for America, and an end to America’s support for Wahhabi terrorism and its masterminds in the Gulf? Or will it serve as a pretext to launch a new war, as occurred after September 11, 2001?

In the first instance, it would mean that America has learned from its mistake of supporting terrorism; The second would mean that America is becoming increasingly violent. After the events of 2001 in the era of the Bush presidency, America launched wars directly against Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing great destruction and death to civilians. During the Obama presidency, it has brought less direct destruction and death to civilians by relying on Gulf Wahhabism and its backers. To execute its savagery, America has paved the way for barbarians dressed as Wahhabis, Salafists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, delegating influence to the idiot Erdogan, the senile Saudi Prince Abdullah, and the prince of the Banana emirate Qatar.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC, OR READ MORE OF THE GLOBAL REACTION TO THE BOSTON BOMBINGS AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Updated: Four months ago (almost to the day), I lamented the massive missteps committed by mainstream media in the Sandy Hook shooting.

Then, as now, misleading headlines are often unchanged. And anonymous sources dominate.

1. There is no Saudi national in custody (and never has been)

This inflammatory story from the NY Post continues to be the top story at Memeorandum:

“Authorities ID person of interest as Saudi national in marathon bombings, under guard at Boston hospital.” Posted: 4:28 PM Eastern, April 15, 2013; Last Updated: 9:14 PM, April 15, 2013.

The very brief (200 or so words) report provides NO sources by name (or by link).

Investigators have a suspect — a Saudi Arabian national — in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.

NBC tweeted similar unsourced “news” at 5:30 pm:

Officials say that Boston PD are “guarding” a wounded man at a Boston hospital as a “possible suspect” – @jimmiklaszewski

— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 15, 2013

And yet at a 6 pm press conference, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said, “Those reports are not true, there is no suspect in custody.” Talking Points Memo has several denials from a Boston Police spokesperson (also unnamed).

Boston police commissioner just said there is no suspect at hospital, contrary to reports.

— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) April 16, 2013

And local Boston Globe reporters elaborated (with more anonymous and third hand sourcing):

The person questioned in the hospital was a Saudi national, who was report­edly tackled and held by a ­bystander after he was seen running from near the scene of the explosion, said a law enforce­ment source who spoke with someone involved in the FBI’s investigation. The Saudi man, believed to be a university student in Boston, is cooperating with the FBI and told agents that he was not involved in the explosions, and that he ran only because he was frightened. Investigators did not characterize the man as a suspect. No one had been arrested or charged as of late Monday night.

At 6:39 pm Eastern, the LA Times reported (more anonymous sourcing, emphasis added):

A federal law enforcement official said authorities were questioning a Saudi national who was taken to a Boston hospital with injuries. The person was not identified as a suspect.

Later, in a story timestamped 8:07 pm Eastern, CBS also asserted that a Saudi national was “in custody”. And like everyone else, with no named source.

Enough already. From the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics:

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

It’s a rumor if there is no named source.

It’s worse than a rumor if the police chief — the only person speaking on the record — denies the claim.

It’s a breach of professional ethics. For what? A few retweets and click-throughs on the web? Pennies.

And it encourages crap like this: Petition: Waterboard the Boston Marathon Suspect.

To everyone who has spread this tale, often with some comment about a male Saudi national “running away” — I urge you to watch this video from the Boston Globe. Yes, people were running away! That is the normal fight-or-flight response kicking in. Brave first responders “run to” because that’s how they are trained (and wired?).

There are two things traditional media need to do. One: timestamp your stories in a breaking/developing news situation like this one, even if your content management system doesn’t do it for you. Two: name your sources or make it clear that you are trafficking in rumor.

And here’s a tip for readers: go local. Just say no to CNN and FOX and the screaming cable talking heads. You’ve got the internet. Get the story from the source.

3:23 am Pacific
Follow me (@kegill) on Twitter

Update : 01:03 pm Pacific

Napolitano: No evidence of broader plot tied to bombings at Boston Marathon: apne.ws/ZvrQRQ -CC

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 16, 2013

CNN BREAKING: pentagon official says there is no indication of al Qaeda or any foreign connection in #Boston bombings.

— Rick Sanchez (@RickSanchezTV) April 16, 2013

2. How many devices were there? Only 2, not 7

In the last graph of a long update on Tuesday, the NY Times notes:

On Tuesday morning officials said that the only explosive devices found were the ones that exploded at the marathon — clarifying conflicting statements that were given Monday in the chaotic aftermath of the blast, when some law-enforcement officials had said that other devices were found. “There were no unexploded devices found,” Gov. Deval Patrick said Tuesday morning.

Media reports of multiple (unexploded) bombs were rampant yesterday.

The NY Times had reported that an anonymous LEO said that two unexploded devices had been found. But the reporters also noted that there were “conflicting reports.”

Breaking: Officials found what they believe are five additional, undetonated explosive devices in Boston area.on.wsj.com/15aYSxH

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 16, 2013

3. And about that “bomb” at the JFK Library? Non-existent.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis noted in a press conference Monday that information about the JFK Library could be “premature.”

See any restraint on the part of reporters? (Note: more anonymous sources.)

Authorities confirm a third explosion at the Boston JFK Library

— WJTV (@WJTV) April 15, 2013

MORE: Boston police say 3rd explosion at JFK Library; no injuries reported: apne.ws/117X41D -CC

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 15, 2013

Piers Morgan deleted his tweet, which had been retweeted more than 4,000 times:

And after an official tweet from the Boston PD (per Topsy, 23 hours ago, as of this writing):

Update JFK incident appears to be fire related #tweetfromthebeat via @cherylfiandaca

— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 15, 2013

When we get to the other side of this story, will ANY of the anonymous sources have been proved accurate? Help me keep a tally.

Edited to aid reading by adding sub-heads and deleting duplicate tweets.

In a move that was certain to be controversial, and as one of his last acts as Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta authorized a new Medal, the Distinguished Warfare Medal (DWM), to be awarded to service members whose extraordinary achievements, regardless of their distance to the traditional combat theater, deserve distinct department-wide recognition.

Some of the recipients of this new medal who Panetta had in mind were the operators, or “pilots,” of remotely piloted platforms, or drones.

Criticism was swift to come, not only from outside the military — from those opposed to the use of drones — but also from troops and veterans when it became known that the new medal honoring drone pilots would rank above some traditional combat valor medals such as the Bronze Star and just below the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Through the White House’s “We the People — Your Voice in our Government” petition process, thousands of signatures were gathered for a petition to the Obama Administration to lower the precedence of the new Distinguished Warfare Medal.

The Petition read in part:

Under no circumstance should a medal that is designed to honor a pilot, that is controlling a drone via remote control, thousands of miles away from the theater of operation, rank above a medal that involves a soldier being in the line of fire on the ground. This is an injustice to those who have served and risked their lives and this should not be allowed to move forward as planned.

Many other groups and organizations joined in the protest.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, according to Military.com, fully concurred “that those far from the fight are having an immediate impact on the battlefield in real-time, but medals that can only be earned in direct combat must mean more than medals awarded in the rear.” VFW National Commander John E. Hamilton said in a statement released on February 14, “The VFW urges the Department of Defense to reconsider the new medal’s placement in the military order of precedence.” Hamilton added that the new medal and its ranking “could quickly deteriorate into a morale issue.”

Perhaps stung by the controversy created by the announcement of the new medal, and especially by the “precedence” of the medal over other decorations, Juliet Beyler, the acting director of officer and enlisted personnel management in the Pentagon, on February 15, attempted to clarify some aspects by providing “qualifying” examples such as:

… a service member who is involved in a cyber attack on a specific military target.

… an unmanned aerial vehicle operator who takes out a specific military target.

… a service member who is orchestrating and moving troops on a battlefield, but perhaps, is not physically present, but does something that contributes in some extraordinary way to the battle

Reacting to the criticism, the Pentagon put out statements such as this one by Pentagon Press Secretary George Little:

We are not diminishing at all the importance of the Bronze Star — that remains an important award for our combat troops and will remain so…We expect this award to be granted pretty rarely, and that factored in to the decision [on its precedence].

The explanations and clarifications have been to no avail. The outcry and backlash continued.

On March 12, the new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, ordered a review of the award, “in light of recent discussions concerning the new Distinguished Warfare Medal and its order of precedence relative to other military decorations” and directed Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to conduct the review. Hagel said that he expected to make a decision about the medal’s fate after assessing the findings.

Today, the Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum acknowledging that “the character of modem warfare has changed, and will continue to evolve,” expressing appreciation to his predecessor, Leon Panetta, for being “acutely aware of how remotely piloted vehicles and cyber operators were directly and significantly impacting combat operations” and for realizing as Hagel does “that the extraordinary and meritorious achievements of our Service men and women who employ this technology deserve distinct recognition.”

However, Hagel says:

Based on the April 9, 2013 recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and concurred in by the Military Department Secretaries, I agree that such recognition is best accomplished through the creation of a distinguishing device that may be affixed to existing medals at various levels rather than through award of the DWM. I direct that within 90 days, final award criteria and the specifics of the distinguishing device, as referenced in the April 9 recommendations, be developed and presented to me for final approval.

Hagel continues:

Utilizing a distinguishing device to recognize impacts on combat operations reserves our existing combat medals for those Service members who incur the physical risk and hardship of combat, perform valorous acts, are wounded in combat, or as a result of combat give their last full measure for our Nation. This memorandum supersedes the memorandum dated February 13,2013, that announced the creation of the DWM.

In a separate statement Hagel says:

When I came into office, concerns were raised to me about the Distinguished Warfare Medal’s order of precedence by veterans’ organizations, members of Congress, and other stakeholders whose views are valued by this department’s leadership.

After consulting with the service secretaries, along with Gen. Dempsey and the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I directed them to review the Distinguished Warfare Medal. The medal was originally conceived to be awarded only to those men and women who, while serving off the battlefield, have an extraordinary impact on combat operations. While the review confirmed the need to ensure such recognition, it found that misconceptions regarding the precedence of the award were distracting from its original purpose.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the concurrence of the service secretaries, have recommended the creation of a new distinguishing device that can be affixed to existing medals to recognize the extraordinary actions of this small number of men and women. I agree with the Joint Chiefs’ findings, and have directed the creation of a distinguishing device instead of a separate medal.

[::]

The service men and women, who operate and support our remotely piloted aircraft, operate in cyber, and others are critical to our military’s mission of safeguarding the nation. I again want to thank my predecessor, Leon Panetta, for raising the need to ensure that these men and women are recognized for their contributions.

Should the United States apologize to Iraqis and pay their country reparations? Now, ten years after an invasion that was illegal under international law and based on mistaken pretexts, Al-Iraq News columnist Jamal Muhammad Taqi argues that it’s time for America to make amends – but he has little expectation that it will.

For Al-Iraq News, Jamal Muhammad Taqi starts off this way:

To turn the page on the past, the least America and Britain can do for the Iraqi people is apologize and compensate them for the catastrophic material damage inflicted on themselves, their natural environment and their infrastructure. This is damage that will leave its mark for a century. The most practical punishment would be to see the U.S.-British agenda for which the invasion and occupation were carried out – thwarted. That would be the only reasonable punished for a crime unequaled by any in the world.

On the anniversary of the invasion, the above suggestion seems like some kind of dream or small talk between acquaintances, since the people who currently rule Iraq consider the invasion and occupation to have been necessary to liberate the country from those that used to rule! According to them, the Americans and British deserve thanks, gratitude, and sometimes compensation for what they lost in Iraq during the invasion and occupation. This is understandable coming from a group that collaborated from the beginning, and for which the invasion and occupation are the reasons for their hold on power. Naturally they owe everything to the occupiers and will inevitably stand against any of the above-listed demands. In any event, we’re not counting on those appointed to govern by the occupiers, but on all free patriots who are organizing themselves and shifting from armed resistance to political and legal resistance. And thanks to Allah, they are many!

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Back in 1971 when the hippie revolution’s Pied Piper, Abbie Hoffman, authored “Steal This Book” he got the very outrage he sought. Thirty publishing houses rejected it and, when the book finally came out, more than a dozen newspapers refused to print ads to promote it.

According to Hoffman’s inverted reasoning, it was immoral “to not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire.” His manual included advice on stealing many things–including movies.

Ah, the times and the media are a changin’. But what about the morals?

The title of a column this month in The New York Times Sunday business section read: “No TV? No Subscription? No Problem.” It wasn’t merely a summary of widespread theft that plagues the entertainment industry in the digital age–a topic covered in many places, including in The Times–it was a pro-stealing treatise by a Times staffer, Jenna Wortham, that Abbie Hoffman probably couldn’t have articulated better himself.

Wortham began by recounting how she and her friends planned to watch the season premiere of HBO’s hit drama “Game of Thrones.” Only one member of the group would use a valid subscription; the others would each rely on what Wortham described as “a crafty workaround.” In her case, that meant stealing the program by using the password of “a guy in New Jersey that I had once met in a Mexican restaurant.”

Reporter Wortham even wrote that she “hesitated” before seeking a comment from HBO, fearing that it might prompt “a crackdown” and “I’d become the most-hated person on the Internet.”

With 30 million paying subscribers, HBO isn’t exactly hurting. In fact, Wortham’s “research” led her to conclude that HBO and other video providers “seemed to have little to no interest in curbing our sharing behavior–in part because they can’t.”

That last bit of phrasing packs quite a wallop. It’s beyond Hoffmanesque to describe the theft of proprietary material as “sharing.” It’s also conveniently misleading to conclude that the entertainment industry is indifferent to being robbed simply because, for the time being at least, there isn’t a practical way to stop it.

Content owners in all media, from music to newspapers, have struggled to overcome the perception that the Internet, and everything that flows through it, is inherently “free.” Of course it’s not–and the two media cited have paid dearly for allowing such a faulty premise to take hold for more than a decade, before finally taking steps to correct it.

At least Abbie Hoffman focused on a political objective. He wasn’t concerned with getting something for free as much as he was with changing the balance of power in society. And Hoffman’s title was ironic since over a quarter of a million people willingly paid for his book, making it a best seller.

HBO, in particular, has frustrated some consumers by declining to offer its mobile app, known as HBO Go, as a standalone product. The only way to get the app is to be a paying subscriber to the regular cable or satellite service. That business decision angers some viewers who feel it is not in the spirit of the digital age.

Wortham believes many media companies fail “to grasp the future of television as a shared social experience online.” The buzzwords “shared” and “social experience” seem to overlook the needs of businesses to function as profit-making enterprises, protected from those who would steal their products.

And finally, Wortham has the juice to complain that when she tried to log on illegally to HBO Go, “the site was buckling under the load of many others who, just like me, were tuning in at 10 p.m.”

Modern media, especially those with shallower pockets than HBO, have the unenviable task of marketing their content while also convincing potential customers that stealing it is uncool.

“We all mellow with age,” Abbie Hoffman told me, 13 years after writing his unlikely best seller. For him, thievery was a means to an end, not part of a shared social experience.

Peter Funt can be reached at www.CandidCamera.com. His new book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” will be published next month. ©2013 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

thor.

UPDATE II:

Excerpts from comments by Secretary of State John Kerry on questions about the Korean situation during a joint press conference with Republic of Korea Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se on April 12, 2013:

Well, if North Korea decides to fire the Musudan missile, which they have threatened to, and which people have been following, it would really be one more unnecessary, unfortunate, unwanted contribution to an already volatile, potentially dangerous situation. And so it would indicate, really, who is being provocative with an exclamation point yet again.

[::]

So it’s up to Kim Jong-un what he decides to do. It’s not going to change our current position, which is very, very clear. We will defend our allies. We will stand with South Korea, Japan, and others against these threats. And we will defend ourselves. And Kim Jong-un needs to understand, as I think he probably does, what the outcome of the conflict would be…

[::]

… If Kim Jong-un decides to launch a missile, whether it’s across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing, willfully, to ignore the entire international community, his own obligations that he has accepted, and it will be a provocative and unwanted act that will raise people’s temperature with respect to this issue. It should – I would say ahead of time that it is a huge mistake for him to choose to do that, because it will further isolate this country and further isolate his people who, frankly, are desperate for food, not missile launches, for people who are desperate for opportunity, not for a leader who wants to flex his muscles in this manner, that takes everybody to a bad place.

Now, with respect to the type of weapon or what they may have and the threats that he is making, let me make it clear – and this is the Pentagon’s assessment that I’m giving you – it is inaccurate to suggest that the DPRK has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated capabilities that are articulated in that report. So we do not operate under the presumption that they have that fully tested and available capacity. But obviously, they have conducted a nuclear test, so there’s some kind of device. But that is very different from miniaturization and delivery and from tested delivery and other things.

Does it get you closer to a line that is more dangerous? Yes. And that is precisely why we are standing here together at this moment, talking about the need to move in a better and different direction. And our hope is that in the next days, in my conversations in China and conversations in Japan, that we will find the unity necessary to provide a very different set of alternatives for how we can proceed and ultimately defuse this situation.

Final comment: I couldn’t make it more clear from our point of view. President Obama ordered a number of exercises not to be undertaken. I think we have lowered our rhetoric significantly, and we are attempting to find a way for reasonableness to prevail here. And we are seeking a partner to deal with in a rational and reasonable way. Our hope is that the vision expressed by President Park for negotiations and for a peaceful track is a vision that we can move too quickly. Because let’s face it, everybody here knows this: we’ve got enough problems to deal with around the world, and we don’t need some individual activities by one particular person threatening destruction and mayhem, chaos, in the ways that we’re seeing, no matter how based in reality it may be.

The greatest danger here, we all agree, is for a mistake. The greatest danger is that something happens and there’s a response to that something, and then things somehow inadvertently were to get out of control. And so we call on Kim Jong-un to recognize that this is a moment for responsible leadership and it’s a moment to try to reach for the good possibilities, not try to guarantee the bad ones.

Read more here

===
UPDATE I:

Department of Defense Press Secretary George Little has issued the following statement on North Korea’s Nuclear Capability

In today’s House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of Defense budget, a member of the committee read an unclassified passage in a classified report on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. While I cannot speak to all the details of a report that is classified in its entirety, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage. The United States continues to closely monitor the North Korean nuclear program and calls upon North Korea to honor its international obligations.

Added: The Congressman in question is Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo. According to an AP report, “The reading seemed to take Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by surprise, who said he hadn’t seen the report and declined to answer questions about it.”
===

Original Post:

Most know that North Korea has developed a nuclear weapons capability. Most believe that North Korea has the capability of launching long-range ballistic missiles that can reach U.S. territory.

Today, the New York Times reports the breaking news that North Korea may have been able to “marry” those two capabilities, i.e. that North Korea “has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency has reached such a conclusion with “moderate confidence” and has delivered this assessment to senior administration officials and members of Congress.

If it is any consolation, the assessment “cautions that the weapon’s ‘reliability will be low,’ apparently a reference to the North’s difficulty in developing accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target,” according to the Times.

It may also be a consolation — of a different kind — to some that:

It is unclear whether other American intelligence agencies agree with the assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations. In the case of Iraq, a decade ago, the agency was among those that argued most vociferously that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons.

Read more of this breaking news here

Image: www.shutterstock.com

The party has moved so far to the right that it is in danger of falling apart.

For decades, they’ve made a devil’s bargain with the Religious Right, and now they’re finding that they can’t reach out to moderate voters without totally alienating the base,” said Michael Keegan, the president of People for the American Way, about the GOP’s struggles. “There’s no question that continuing to pander to the Religious Right is a recipe for becoming a permanent minority party. We’ll see this week if the RNC is ready to contemplate making some tough changes or if they’re just going to keep drifting towards irrelevance.” …NBCNews, h/t Political Wire

Result? The RNC is trying to rebuild. That is, tame its radicals. Doesn’t appear to be a done deal. The far right is threatening to pull out of the party altogether.

Mitch McConnell may use the FBI to punish the Democratic activists who managed to get video evidence of McConnell saying nasty stuff about his prospective rival, Ashley Judd, but there also seems to be plenty of evidence that McConnell’s reelection to the Senate isn’t something the party can count on. Still, the worst of the damage may fall on David Corn and Mother Jones rather than McConnell.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t invest a dime in the probability of McConnell’s reelection. The dislike of McConnell — and not just among Democrats — has been growing. And the Republican party is, itself, in pretty bad shape.

Cross-posted from Prairie Weather

cliff photo via shutterstock.com

Our political Quote of the Day comes from First Read which notes how news that people connected to the liberal group Progressive Kentucky were behind the secret audio taping of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy session have helped the country’s most unpopular Senator enormously and damaged the group — which some say has pretty much self destructed.

*** McConnell couldn’t have asked for a better outcome: After yesterday’s developments in the Mitch McConnell/Ashley Judd/possible bugging story in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader McConnell couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. As one of us wrote yesterday, “A local liberal group has become the target of scrutiny in a probe into the surreptitious recording published earlier this week capturing a campaign strategy session with Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election team. A local Democratic Party official told NBC News Thursday that two members of the activist group Progress Kentucky claimed that they were responsible for a recording published this week on the website of the progressive magazine Mother Jones.” When McConnell originally accused Progress Kentucky on Wednesday, he had no evidence to back it up; in fact, his office later walked back the accusation. But now it appears that he could very well be correct. More importantly, the story has become all about process (who recorded it, how was it done?) and not about the substance (the McConnell camp’s tough talk about Ashley Judd). And it really does put the Democrats in a tougher position in this race, simply because as tough of a campaigner as McConnell is, he can claim he’s playing by the rules while his opponents are not.

This may also now change the image of Mother Jones a bit with at least some voters. On one hand, a controversial scoop bolsters the magazine’s credibility. On the other hand, the (in)famous Romney tape was done by someone working the event as a bartender who had no idea when he started taping that he’d eventually release it to the magazine due to what he heard. In this instance, it was clearly political operatives seeking to get something on McConnell. That changes the dynamic.

All reporting using anonymous sources always runs the real risk that a news source’s ulterior motive may be great and could taint the reporting. This is so clearly a political hit that this report on what McConnell and company said will a)be cheered by Democrats b)will confirm what may already thought about McConnell c)will be seen as sleazy by some voters (this is a gift to conservative talk show hosts) d)will confirm McConnell’s original suggestion that it was “the left” out to get him e)will make Mother Jones more suspect among some independents if they see it leaping at material political operatives want to get out and collected specifically to damage someone who is an opponent.

The fact that McConnell is not a nice political guy and ruthless is not a huge revelation and polls suggest many voters may feel the same way. And he hasn’t run campaigns painting himself as Mr. Touchy Feely. So, in the end, this boomerangs — and the media and political narrative is HOW this was collected and WHY.

Growing momentum in the Senate for new gun-control legislation has failed to flow down to the House, where just a handful of House Republicans have embraced a deal to expand background checks for firearm purchases.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and multiple Republican members of the Pennsylvania delegation are backing a compromise brokered by the Keystone State’s Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that advanced in the Senate on Thursday.

Yet in interviews, those lawmakers said they have had no discussions with the House GOP leadership and don’t know what the prospects for the legislation would be in a chamber dominated by conservatives.

While party leaders have made a concerted effort to prepare their rank-and-file for a major immigration push this year, they have not done so on the gun issue.

Doesn’t this sound to you as if John Boehner & Co plan to water it down, kill it or — another good way to kill it — slow it down, way down, so enough time passes to weaken it so what emerges is change in name only (if that)?

Senior aides say the topic has rarely come up in leadership meetings, as top Republicans stick to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) plan to wait on Senate action on gun control.

For a second straight day, Boehner refused Thursday to commit to holding a full House vote on Senate-passed gun legislation. But he said the House would not ignore an issue thrust into the spotlight by the December shooting of 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn.

“Listen, our hearts and prayers go out to the families of these victims,” Boehner said. “And I fully expect that the House will act in some way, shape or form.”

Any Senate bill, he said, would be referred first to the Judiciary Committee for hearings.

Meanwhile, if Democrats dream of things changing in the House, they are indeed dreaming. The National Journal’s Charlie Cook:

For Democrats, the additional bad news is that the range of what ought to be called a true swing seat might be shrinking. In 1998, Democrats held 15 of the 53 districts rated between R+2 and R+5, and Republicans held nine of 43 districts rated between D+2 and D+5. In other words, candidates on the wrong side of the “lean” of these “leaning” districts used to win a quarter of the time. But in 2013, Democrats hold just four of the 36 districts between R+2 and R+5, and Republicans hold zero of the 19 seats between D+2 and D+5—just a 7 percent crossover success rate.

By any measure, the House is now more sorted along partisan lines than ever. Using 2012 presidential results, only 17 Republicans represent districts carried by President Obama, and only nine Democrats represent districts carried by Mitt Romney. Using PVI scores, 18 Democrats hold districts that are more Republican than the national average, and only five Republicans hold seats that are more Democratic—a level of exposure that should sober Democrats who want to focus all of their party’s energies on offense in 2014.

Why aren’t voters splitting their tickets like they used to? Many theories, backed with compelling arguments, are floating around. But here’s one: As local print-news readership has declined precipitously in the Internet age, fewer voters are gaining exposure to individual candidates’ backgrounds and qualifications, and party labels have become an even-more-salient cue at the ballot box. To win on GOP terrain in 2014, Democrats need to localize a lot of races, but that has become much more difficult than it was just 10 years ago.

Our survey found one silver lining for Democrats in the new batch of PVI data: At the statewide level, 272 Electoral College votes—a majority—are now in Democratic-leaning states, to just 253 in Republican-leaning states, because Colorado shifted from Even to D+1 and Virginia moved from R+2 to Even. But at the congressional-district level, the tightening vise around swing seats is mostly squeezing Democrats.

So the political goose may be cooked. And a political goose to swing district may no longer work, since there are so few swing districts — unless you’re talking about districts with a high proportion of pre-schools.

Has American non-intervention in Syria reached the point of diminishing returns? For Saudi Arabia’s Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, columnist Tariq Alhomayed expresses extreme disappointment with the Obama Administration, which he contends is jeopardizing global economic stability and physical security across the Middle East by not stepping to help the Syrian rebels before Bashar al-Assad is toppled – and a dangerous power vacuum emerges.

For Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Tariq Alhomayed writes in part:

To say that what is happening in Syria poses no risk to American security is nonsense, because the crisis in Syria affects the security of Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and the entire Mediterranean. The failure in Syria means that the Arab world is confronted with its own Afghanistan in the Mediterranean, which means that a sectarian war is in the cards that will burn everything and everyone in the region, while fueling terrorism and destabilizing the whole of the Middle East, which in turn will deliver a blow to global economic stability. Just consider the damage pirates in Somalia have caused to the shipping industry – not to mention the position of al-Qaeda in Yemen, which has obliged Washington to repeatedly intervene there.

So the positions taken by the Obama Administration, not just today but yesterday as well, demonstrate both a lack of foresight and weak political leadership – especially with the rebels advancing and Assad besieged in Damascus. … Obama has the power to do all of this now. The problem we face is that he and his administration lack vision, are hesitant to act, and fail to see the danger of what’s coming. Assad is so close to falling. The danger is lies in what will come after him. So who is going to act? That is the question!

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

A vast majority of men (and women) — 91 percent — who know most about guns, who are best with guns, who have used guns in the line of duty, support requiring “a criminal background check of every person who wants to buy a firearm, including 74 [percent] who strongly support it,” according to Politico.com.

In addition, 61 percent of these military veterans surveyed “back banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, and 58 percent said they support banning assault-style weapons,” according to a survey commissioned by the organization Vote Vets and the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund.”

Politico:

Those surveyed viewed the National Rifle Association favorably, 43-36 percent.

Eighty-five percent of veterans surveyed said it is “important” for leaders in Washington to address gun violence. The same number said that “we can protect responsible gun owners’ Second Amendment rights while still making it more difficult for criminals and other dangerous people to obtain guns.”

The survey of 804 military veterans, who are also registered voters, was conducted April 2-4 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percent.

Read more here

Image: DOD

Is the war in Afghanistan now a pointless exercise that entails murdering people until the time for withdrawal arrives next year? For Germany’s Der Spiegel, Jakob Augstein expresses consternation about how this war is ending, and wonders if Germany might have been better off before its military, the Bundeswehr, was talked into once again becoming ‘accustomed to war.’

For Der Speigel, Jakob Augstein starts off this way:

On Saturday, in northeastern Afghanistan’s Kunar Province: American and Afghan troops battled their enemies. After several hours, as reported by The New York Times, the Americans called in air support. The house of the opposing commander was to be destroyed. When it was all over, the Taliban are dead. And according to the provincial government, ten children also lose their lives. Five women were also said to be injured. This is the reality of the war in Afghanistan – a war in which the Bundeswehr is participating. A war that is completely nonsensical. Because by the end of 2014 it should all be over. The foreign troops will pack up their things and withdraw – the way a circus packs up and moves on when a performance is over. But this is no game. Truth be told, it is murder. Because a senseless war can be called nothing but murder.

There was a similar attack in February. On that occasion, five children, four women and a man were killed. Afghan President Hamid Karzai subsequently forbade his own security forces from calling in NATO air support. Bombs from the air bring an indiscriminate death. And ISAF had already determined that it would no longer target residential buildings.

But apparently, that is no concern of the Americans. ISAF troops, among them Germans, are waging this war based on a meaningless routine. It is no longer about a goal – about victory or defeat, or about anything at all. It is just a matter of killing time until the troops pull out. One day, at midnight, the fight will simply end. This is surreal. Until then, only the dead who fall victim to this madness are real.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR GERMAN AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

As tensions on the Korean peninsula rise, with the next “milestone” and possibly key event being the imminent launch of a medium range (2,100 miles) missile — possibly multiple missiles is now being reported — by North Korea, and while we are hoping for the best, we should not forget the more than 28,000 US troops based throughout South Korea.

We should also keep in our thoughts the “command-sponsored” families accompanying approximately 4,500 of those troops.

TIME also mentions that “roughly 150,000 Americans” are now in South Korea, most of them within range of the North’s 13,000 artillery tubes.

Should readers want to express their support for and solidarity with these troops and their dependents, that great organization, the USO, is providing just such a venue.

By going to this USO web site you can add your name “to an urgent Pledge of Support that will be displayed at the six USO Centers throughout South Korea which receive more than 14,000 visits every month from troops and their families.”

The USO:

This is your chance to let our troops and their families stationed in the region know that, whatever they confront in the days and weeks ahead, the American people and the USO will be always by their side.

None of us can predict what will happen in the days ahead and all of us hope for an easing of the tension. But, whatever happens, we need to make sure our troops serving in this difficult situation know that they are in our thoughts and prayers.

Image: Courtesy USO

One is 46, the other one is 33.

One is a Republican, the other one is a Democrat.

One is the daughter of a vice president, the other one is the daughter of a president.

One is seriously considering running for political office, the other one is open to running for political office one day.

If both women decide to pursue political careers and if both of them are successful, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that one day Americans could be choosing for their next president one of two women, one named Liz Cheney, the other named Chelsea Clinton.

What a presidential campaign that would be.

I probably won’t be here, but I’ll be following every bit of it from afar and I’ll be commenting on it, and voting — somehow.

Read more here, here and here

Image: www.shutterstock.com

UPDATE:

The BBC, one of the first to report on the story, now reports that a Saudi justice minister has “tweeted” that the judge in the case has decided to dismiss demands for the surgical paralysis of the man accused of causing paralysis of a friend.

Earlier, Princess Basmah Bint Saud, of the Saudi royal family, condemned the sentence in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

She said: “Whether that be Christianity, Islam or other religions… we have misunderstood the core of humanity itself. It is all about being human…even in our punishments.”

Watch the princess here.

Original Post:

The following question, and “answer,” from a State Department daily press briefing (today) caught my attention:

Question: “What is the U.S. response to reports that a Saudi judge gave a court order for a prisoner to be surgically paralyzed?”

Answer: “If these reports are true, they would be incredibly disturbing. We expect the Saudi Government to respect international human rights norms. We regularly make this point as part of our bilateral dialogue.”

According to the UK Guardian, the British Foreign Office is being a little more direct. Some, including this author, will say, a little more forthright:

The reported sentencing to paralysis for a Saudi man for a crime he committed as a 14-year-old has been condemned as “grotesque” by the Foreign Office.

The punishment, which was reportedly handed down to 24-year-old Ali al-Khawahir for stabbing his friend in the back 10 years ago, should not be carried out, the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] said.

[::]

An FCO spokesman said: “We are deeply concerned by reports that a Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to be paralysed in retribution for causing the paralysis of a friend when he was 14 years old.

“We urge the Saudi authorities to ensure that this grotesque punishment is not carried out. Such practices are prohibited under international law and have no place in any society.”

Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director Ann Harrison has also condemned the proposed punishment as “utterly shocking”

She said:

“Paralysing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture.

“That such a punishment might be implemented is utterly shocking, even in a context where flogging is frequently imposed as a punishment for some offences, as happens in Saudi Arabia.

“It is time the authorities in Saudi Arabia start respecting their international legal obligations and remove these terrible punishments from the law.”

CNN reports:

This is not the first time a “paralysis as punishment” sentence has made headlines in Saudi Arabia.

In 2010, local media reported the case of a 22-year-old man who was paralyzed in a fight, saying he had subsequently requested paralysis as punishment for the man he’d fought with.

According to CNN, the Saudi Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment on the present case, “despite repeated attempts.”

In the 2010 case, CNN adds that “After the initial reports, the Saudi Ministry of Justice denied that paralysis had ever been considered as punishment in that case.”

Hopefully, this will be again be the case with this latest incident. That is the least we should expect from a country we call an ally, from a country that is a state party to UN Convention against Torture — albeit it still has not accepted the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights — and from a country that has established, at least on paper, a “National Society for Human Rights.”

I lived and worked in Saudi Arabia in the early 80s and was aware of the serious and cruel methods of physical punishment imposed by the Sharia Courts then — up to and including public beheadings — but I had hoped that today, 30 years later, “justice” would have also moved into the 21st century.

Image: www.shutterstock.com

Image from Newsosaur

That’s the doom-and-gloom story.

The one that’s not making any waves that I can see is this: the $3.4 billion in digital ads reported by NAA is more than the $2.6 billion in display ad revenue reported by Google last year.

However, over at Newsosaur, Alan D. Mutter compares newspaper ad revenue ($22.3 billion) to total Google ad revenue, calling the disparity a “stunning reversal of fortune for the newspaper industry.”**

I think Mutter is waving a red herring.

First, Craigslist, Monster.com and eBay have decimated classified ad sales.

For 2012, NAA estimates that classified ads continued the downward spiral, declining another 9% compared to 2011. In 2012, classifieds accounted for only 18% of total ad sales. In 2000? That was 40%.

It’s not like newspaper leadership was unaware of impending digital disruption. In the mid-1990s, NAA economist Miles Groves “warn[ed] the newspaper industry of the growing challenge to its monopoly on classified advertising. ‘Newspapers had time to take control of the digital world and be the owner of that franchise,’ he says, ‘and we didn’t do it’.”

Second, display ads account for a nominal part of Google’s revenue, only $2.6 billion. A display ad sits alongside editorial content, contrasted with a search ad that appears on search results pages.

That $2.6 billion is about one-tenth of newspaper ad revenue (82% of which is from display ads).

Google’s total revenue for 2012 was $50 billion. Most of that is coming from a business — search — that did not exist (directly) prior to the World Wide Web. There were directory services, of course. The Yellow Pages guided us to businesses, and librarians directed us to information.

In 2012, businesses invested $6.9 billion in Yellow Pages ads, which is a fraction of Google and Microsoft’s search ad revenue. Yellow Pages revenue peaked in the mid-2000s at less than $15 billion. What will finally send that paper directory cum doorstop to the ultimate dump: local mobile ads, which are projected to ring up $9.1 billion within four years. That’s where Google is jousting with Facebook.

Third, Google isn’t the only competitor for ad dollars. And TV is bigger than Google.

TV ad spending was up in 2012 compared to 2011, probably due to the Presidential election. It was a staggering $74 billion, about 50% more than Google’s total revenue.

Total U.S. digital ad sales for 2012, according to eMarketer, hit $37.31 billion.

But Mutter writes:

As illustrated in the green line in the chart above, the digital sales at newspapers and Google started out almost even in 2003 at $1.2 billion for newspapers and $1.5 billion for Google. Google’s sales doubled in 2004, handily outstripping newspapers, and then kept compounding to the point that Google’s sales were nearly 15 times greater than newspaper digital revenues in 2012.

You can’t argue with the data but you can argue with his implication.

Total ad spending for 2012 was $140 billion, according to Kantar Media. Google accounts for about 40% of the total online ad market. There are a lot of businesses in a lot of channels competing for those dollars.

Google and newspapers are not in the same business.

Using Google’s gross revenue as a benchmark is a worse choice than picking television , but even the comparison with TV is flawed.

Ostensibly, most of the content in a newspaper (print or online) is news. Yes, some news is entertainment, but the content isn’t, in the main, fictional. Most of the content on TV is made-up. News — particularly reporting — is a teeny fraction of total air time for any network except sports, if you were to call a live sporting event “news.”

Mutter continues his flawed framing:

Instead of investing in the technology necessary to gather customer data and target advertising on the emerging digital platforms, legacy publishers and broadcasters  – whether for want of insight, resources, skill or conviction – ceded the opportunity to Google and a host of other digital natives who understand that targetable customer data – not masses of unknown and undifferentiated eyeballs – is the Holy Grail of digital publishing.

Google isn’t a publisher.

From State Of The News Media, 2013

Yes, it’s trying to be a publisher of sorts with Google+. But Google’s core business is delivering advertising around search results.

Google helps us find relevant “published” material — words, images, moving pictures, sound — in an information space that dwarfs the combined output of US newspapers and includes content by current and former newspaper advertisers.

But Google is not the publisher.

Mutter is correct that Google’s founders figured out how to make targeted ads profitable. But first they developed a product that millions of people wanted.

It’s not possible to “save” your way to profitability, but too many newspaper publishers seem to have forgotten that.

In 2012, we had fewer than 40,000 full-time professional employees in the newspaper newsroom, the smallest number in 35 years. And it matters. According to the 2013 State of the News Media report:

Nearly a third of U.S. adults, 31%, have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting.

I call it a lack of local relevance.

I don’t know how newspapers will be able to remain solvent until they figure out a new business model. But we won’t get there by thinking of Google as either the whipping boy or as the road not taken.

* NAA methodology: projections based on data provided by 17 public and privately-held companies representing approximately 40% of the weekday print circulation in the United States (about 330 papers) and almost half of all U.S. newspaper media revenue.

** No explanation as to why Mutter’s claim for Google’s ad sales exceeds the estimated industry total by 25%. This IAB report from 2011 reinforces eMarketer’s data (pdf).

 
:: Cross-posted from WiredPen : Follow me on Twitter

Texas college student and staunch science advocate Zack Kopplin has done some Guest Voices on TMV (go HERE for his take on Bobby Jindal and creationism, and HERE for his call to stop funding creationism in schools in his home state of Louisiana). Here’s his recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher:

As I’ve said before, it’s reassuring to see someone dedicated to offering serious debate and ideas on issues and dedicate himself to it at a young age. I suspect Zack Kopplin will be on Maher’s show and many others for many years to come. (I wouldn’t be surprised to see CNN or MSNBC call on him often as a talking head or eventually a regular contributor). He discusses serious issues seriously.

Would Fidel Castro have some pull with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un? The former Cuba dictator has a message for North Korea’s young ‘revolutionary’ leader. In this special edition of Reflections of Fidel, a column that Castro stopped writing in June 2012, the Cuban icon reminds his younger charge that he knew his grandfather Kim Il-sung, and that jeopardizing people at the heart of the world’s most densely populated region is as ‘absurd’ as it is unthinkable.

From the pages of the Juventud Rebelde, Fidel Castro starts off rather cosmically:

A few days ago, I referred to the great challenges currently confronting humanity. Intelligent life on our planet emerged approximately 200,000 years ago. More recent finding might demonstrate something else.

This is not to confuse the existence of intelligent life with the existence of life, which, in its elemental form, emerged in our solar system millions of years ago.

A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists, the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds that followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.

This would be too long an introduction if it wasn’t to explain the gravity of an event as incredible and absurd as the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which is part of a geographic area that contains close to five billion of the seven billion people currently inhabiting the planet.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH – OR READ MORE ON THE NORTH KOREA CRISIS AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Emad Hajjaj, Jordan

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Our Quote of the Day comes from Fox News’ Sean Hannity who defended fired Rutger’s basketball coach Mike Rice for getting rough with his players — something caught on video that has also now led to the resignation of Rutger’s athletic director:

“Maybe we need a little more discipline in society. Maybe we don’t have to be a bunch of wimps for the rest of our lives,” he added. “My father hit me with a belt. I turned out okay.”

DMML. (Don’t make me laugh.)