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US Feature: Bad Business --- A Tale of Baseball, Video Games, and a Falling Hero (Miller)

James Miller — Sun, 27 May 2012 07:36:45 +0000

Before the Fall: Curt SchillingIn 2004, Curt Schilling became a legend in Boston. Playing on a badly-injured ankle, he helped the Red Sox achieve one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history to defeat the hated New York Yankees in the semi-finals. The Red Sox then won the "World Series" --- Boston's first title in 86 years --- over the St Louis Cardinals.

And then was more: in 2007, Schilling's pitching took the Sox win to another World Series, finally changing the course of the Sox/Yankees rivalry after decades of cursed frustration for Bostonians.

Imagine the frustration, then, of many Boston fans when their hero badmouthed some of their best-loved politicians and used his fame to campaign for Republican candidates. And then you can appreciate the Schadenfreude at Schilling's failure to launch a successful computer game company.

As Robert Miller points out on The Boston Gamer, however, the reaction to Shilling's recent failure is a lot more than gloating or political squabbling. The collapse of 38 Studios has exposed the hypocrisy of politically-active citizens, the unscrupulous behavior of famous people with more money than brains, and the deeply flawed inner-workings of State Government and its business practices.

We all know the story of 38 Studios by now. Curt Schilling helped win two world series championships for the Boston Red Sox and now he had a dream: to create a gaming company and make a groundbreaking MMO that will be the best anyone has ever seen. What resulted, however, was more like a nightmare.

Schilling left the Red Sox after making $8 million in his last full season. He started 38 studios and began to hire people to work on his new (and only) IP: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. He invested $3 million of his own money in order to get the company started (his net worth is $60 million) and set up shop in Massachusetts. In short order, 38 studios grew to over 400 employees and the company was in the end-run of the development of the game.

In November 2010, Schilling moved the company to Rhode Island to utilize a $75 million loan from the government at low interest (but, apparently, extremely high risk). Finally, the game was released on February 7, 2012 and sold 1.2 million copies. By May, however, unable to repay their loan to Rhode Island, and unable to make payroll, the entire staff of 38 studios was laid off.

Enter the first, and perhaps most glaring, problem - According to the Governor of Rhode Island, 38 Studios would need to sell 3 million copies of the game in order to have any return on investment. To put this in perspective, Final Fantasy XIII, a successful installment of an historically franchise, sold 4.82 million copies and is the thirteenth game in the series. For any startup company to expect to sell 3 million copies of a game with a new IP is, quite frankly, an insane notion.

There are lots of questions regarding where the studio went wrong, but there are a few things that have stuck out as red flags for the entire situation.

What does this show about what type of person Schilling truly is? While he was still playing for the Red Sox, he spoke out about his personal beliefs during the 2004 elections (Schilling actively campaigned for then President Bush’s reelection). His endorsement of such politicians as former President Bush, Senators Scott Brown and John McCain clearly indicate his Republican-leaning beliefs. The standpoints that all of these politicians have in common is the want for a smaller government. They believe that the government should stay out of people’s personal lives and shouldn’t be interfering with private businesses.

This completely contradicts Schilling’s history with 38 Studios, as his company not only willingly accepted, but campaigned to receive $75 million from the government. Furthermore, once Schilling received the money from the loan, he immediately repaid himself the $3 million that he initially put in. As a result, his company’s failure doesn’t affect him financially whatsoever. Now, while it is perfectly understandable that reimbursement should be given over the course of time, Schilling has shown that he values his own financial gains over those of his company or its employees. Instead of re-investing cash into his company to continue his “dream” of creating this new world of Amalur, he made decisions that bankrupted his company, failed to repay the state of Rhode Island, and has led to the layoff of more than 400 employees.

This development will put huge economic strain on not only the employees themselves, but the government as well. The state of Rhode Island now has to pay 400 people unemployment for upwards of 99 weeks, has given a company $75 million for investments that it cannot pay back (money which could be allocated to paying unemployment for said employees), and increases the unemployment rate in a state that is already under tremendous financial and economic stress.

Oh, and how did he let the employees know they were fired? A cold, calculated email to inform all of his employees that they are officially laid off as of that day:

"The Company is experiencing an economic downturn. To avoid further losses and possibility of retrenchment, the Company has decided that a company-wide lay off is absolutely necessary.

These layoffs are non-voluntary and non-disciplinary.

This is your official notice of lay off, effective today, Thursday, May 24th, 2012."

The outcome of this calamity is that Curt Schilling is the only person who has made out at all from the failure of his company. He has recently taken to twitter to promote the upcoming game in the Armalur series (code named Copernicus) and to try and make the case that he never received a bailout. Jason Mayo (@jay_mayo) asked, “Does that mean you're going to pay back your govt bail out money?” His response: Haven't received a penny of it, and have not asked for any.” The hypocrisy of this statement is astounding.

As an avid gamer and a Red Sox fan, I find myself enraged on multiple levels. Why didn’t 38 Studios start out with a smaller project (ala Minecraft, Braid, or I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1)? Why didn’t they sell themselves out to other game companies to aid with the creation of their own games (Treyarch with Call of Duty: World at War, DICE with Battlefield 3, etc.)? Why didn’t Schilling invest more of his own money or seek funding from other professional athletes who also enjoy gaming? There are a million different things he could have done with his company to keep it afloat. The reality is that there are nearly 400 people who are unemployed in Rhode Island right now while their boss sits comfortably on a bed made of $60 million. If the game made money, he was set to make millions. It didn’t and Curt Shilling shares absolutely none of that pain. While some may make the argument that Schilling may have just been a bad businessman, this goes FAR beyond that.

Schilling isn’t the only one who deserves criticism, however. The state of Rhode Island loaned this money to the company without doing enough investigating into the business model of the company. By all accounts, the game’s reviews ranged from above-average to great, and its sales were extremely competitive for an initial release. Furthermore, the game received widespread publicity before this calamity just because of Curt Shilling’s name being associated with it. Anyone who knew what the company was planning to do and how much the company had spent on creating this game (which the government would have access to during the negotiations for the loan) and didn’t question the business model of 38 Studios deserves to be fired immediately.

The victims of this hypocrisy and insanity are the employees and the citizens of Rhode Island who had nothing to do with the collapse and mismanagement of this company. Thankfully, other companies are contacting former employees and telling them to apply to gaming jobs with them. However, that is not a guarantee of work. I truly hope that Schilling does the right thing and make amends with his past, but my hopes are not high. I, for one, will go out of my way to never support anything that Curt Schilling does for as long as I have breath in my lungs and a pulse in my body.

To quote Thomas Jefferson, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Let us not be silent on this matter… while too many workers are unemployed, there may be many other famous people looking to 38 Studios as the perfect model, as opposed to a fantastic nightmare.

US Politics Analysis: The Recall Challenge to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Lee Haddigan — Sun, 20 May 2012 09:53:30 +0000

Protest Inside Wisconsin State Capitol, February 2011In November 2010, the Democratic Party took a shellacking in congressional and gubernatorial elections nationwide. In Wisconsin, the Governor's office was taken by Republican Scott Walker, who promised to abolish state budget deficits and stimulate the economy by cutting both taxes and public spending.

Once in office, Walker adhered to this campaign promise and introduced a Budget Repair Bill in February 2011. However, this measure not only aimed to cut state spending; it also required state employees to contribute more to their health and retirement funds. Furthermore, the bill eliminated collective bargaining rights for most union employees, other than wage increases capped by other means, and tried to restrict the unions by limiting their ability to collect dues from members.

Wisconsin erupted in protest, with large crowds besieging the State Capitol building in Madison. Governor Walker's union-busting legislation also agitated interest groups across the US, who saw the fight as publicity for the intrinsic differences between conservative Republicanism and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Wisconsin's Democratic Senators attempted to stop passage of the Budget Repair Bill by leaving the state, preventing the necessary quorum needed to enact the law. Their resistance ultimately failed from implementation of most of the proposed reforms, but it inspired, along with the crowds that thronged Madison, an attempt to remove Walker from office through a recall election.

After a lengthy wait to meet the strict requirement of valid signatures to initiate the election, the contest is nearly here. On 5 June, Walker faces once again his 2010 Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, the Mayor of Milwaukee.

If Walker wins, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney will point to the electoral success of an executive politician who committed himself to unpopular decisions to help stop runaway spending and deficits. If Walker loses, Democrats will promote the theme that cutting spending, while cutting the taxes of the wealthy, has been tried and proved a loser.

In recent days the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, and other Tea Party groups, have been sending fund-raising emails stressing the critical nature of defending Gov. Walker's record in office. They have also made the link to the race for the White House:

But here's something else that excites us - the newest polls show that Barack Obama's support has plunged in Wisconsin, and Mitt Romney is now tied with Obama in Wisconsin. We are not only going to DEFEAT the RECALL, we are going to win Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes in November!

We now have only have 18 days left to DEFEAT the RECALL.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, unions, and the liberal nournal The Nation have sent out national fundraising emails of their own supporting Tom Barrett:

If Scott Walker and his allies are recalled from office in Wisconsin on June 5, the results will be seen across the country as a rejection of the idea that cutting taxes for the rich while attacking unions and slashing services will somehow spur job growth.

However, a quick look at the media in Wisconsin reveals that more mundane matters are influencing the recall chalenge. Comments in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel regularly mock "flabbergastic" nature of the Democratic Barrett. These parody Barrett's remarks on 12 May about a video showing Walker in discussion of a "divide and conquer" strategy toards the unions: “I was flabbergasted. I was flabbergasted at his language.”

Then there was Mayor Barrett's absence last week at two important events hosted by Milwaukee law enforcement officers, one of which honoured the sacrifice of those killed in the line of duty:

Newsradio 620 WTMJ's John Mercure caught up with the Mayor Thursday and asked where he had been during the events. The Mayor and his staff couldn't remember where they were at the time. "I was working. I was… I'll have to get back to you about the specifics," the mayor told John.

It turned out that Barrett was appearing at another event. Critical media pounced: “On Wisconsin's Afternoon News today, you'll hear what the Mayor was saying to union leaders in Oshkosh as his police department was remembering officers who were killed in the line of duty.”

Walker currently enjoys a slender lead in the polls, and there are other reasons to avoid predictions. The volatility of local politics undermines any conclusion about the significance for national politics. While the result on 5 June will give one of the parties and Presidential candidates a boost come November --- except within Wisconsin --- this "critical" election will be a distant memory./p>

A postscript for something you may not know. Wisconsin is well-known for its connection to beer, being the spiritual home of the Miller, Pabst and Schlitz brands, but there is more in the way of alcohol:

Wisconsin's long-standing love affair with brandy, as embodied in the ubiquitous brandy old-fashioned cocktail. According to "Flavor of Wisconsin," during the 1960s Wisconsinites drank nearly half of all the brandy consumed in the U.S.; today state residents still drink three times more than the average American.

Relevant to the race for the White House? Probably not --- just like the recall of Scott Walker.

A completely irrelevant fact, as is the fact that Milwaukee is a creative centre in the recent nationwide boom in new cocktails, but ultimately as relevant to the re-election of President Obama as the recall of Governor Walker.

Britain, US & Beyond Feature: Occupy Seeks A Creative "Global Spring"

Lee Haddigan — Sat, 12 May 2012 09:15:25 +0000

Occupy London protesters in Liverpool Street underground station (Photo: HeardInLondon/Demotix/Corbis)

Today in London, New York, and cities throughout the world, the Occupy movement will attempt to launch a "Global Spring" of protests against economic inequality. Making the one-year anniversary of the 15-M Movement, when indignados took to the streets in 58 Spanish cities, these demonstrations, and other planned events through May, may determine whether Occupy will help or hinder the growing opposition in Europe and elsewhere to the politics of austerity.

London's contribution to today's International Day of Action is a "Meet the 1%" tour of some of the financial institutions “who gambled with our pensions and savings, created financial nonsense to make money out of thin air, paid hundreds of thousands to wine and dine with our ‘elected’ representatives, were bailed out, evaded billions in taxes and secured 40% of the world’s wealth for themselves".

Participants have been invited to bring a tent, so it is an easy guess that they are planning to stage a physical occupation as part of their commitment to direct action --- though it is unlikely to be the beginning of a permanent encampment. The experience of St Paul's Cathedral, where the message of the protesters got lost among concerns over health and safety and the social responsibilities of the Church, might deter the estabishment of a the central focus of their campaign. Instead, the language around the tour is creativity: “Come dressed as your least favorite banker, tax evader, corporate tycoon, politician, vampire squid, and company CEO. Bring stickers, monopoly money, caution tape, placards, faux awards, pots, pans, bullhorns, conches, tents, stereos, war horns or any other 'random acts of kindness' you like.”

Quite what impact this carnival parade style of direct action will have is debatable; most of the buildings the demonstrators aim on visiting will be almost empty on a Saturday. But Occupy London see today's event as just the start of similar protests designed to build support for their objectives of a fairer economy. On Tuesday, the target will be the British Bankers Association, the group that lobbies Parliament on behalf of their members. Attendees are again urged to:

Be creative! Form your own guerilla theatre group, come in fancy dress, and turn the BBA into something beautiful. Bring glitter, stickers, banners, posters, balloons, and noise makers of all kinds! Guerilla garden – bring seeds and garden in any space available! Foreclose on the BBA! Be ridiculous! Dress as a radical clown and put on a show! Deny them any peace and quiet! Bring drums, instruments, pots, pans, sound systems of all sorts – make your presence known!

For the moment, Occupy's call in Britain for a fairer economy and a more democratic politics is not gaining much traction. The reasons for that are many, but foremost is the problem that, even for those who support their message, there is no political means of expressing that desire for change.

Still, their theatrical use of direct action tactics, whilst not novel, is different. If Occupy can 'make their presence known' this summer, and keep the issue of an elitist-controlled political and economic system in the spotlight, there is a chance that they can begin to influence the political landscape. It might not be Occupy's vision, but the reality is that reform in Britain happens through the ballot box --- and slowly.

Occupy's main strength is in its constant questioning of the right of the 1% to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. There is a growing sense in Britain that an elite, aided by a political class of public school boys and girls who all went to Oxford and live in a Westminster 'bubble' of privilege and entitlement, have lost touch with the rest of the country. See, for instance, George Monbiot's attack in The Guardian on a “government that supports the privilege of a plutocratic class", with his call for the closure of all private schools for perpetuating this elitist system of rule.

This is not a criticism reserved for the coalition government, but for the Labour opposition as well. And it is supplemented by the impression that Britain's current crop of politicians are just plain incompetent.

The incompetency argument is not hard to prove. In British politics, one hard and fast rule is to back the police force as an institution. This government,however has decided to decimate the service. So Police Federation of England and Wales Chairman Paul McKeever has condemned the announcement by the Home Secretary Theresa May in March:

[This] demonstrates the contempt this government displays towards police officers. Previously Mrs May promised to always back us and to support us. These were clearly just hollow words; meaningless soundbites in her early months in office. Theresa May has forced the hand of police officers across England and Wales to call for a ballot on whether they want industrial rights. They no longer have any trust or faith in the Home Secretary or this government.

Alan Johnson, a former Home Secretary in the previous Labour administration, appeared on the BBC on Thursday after 40,000 off-duty police officers marched through London protesting the government's reforms of the service. He was incredulous that senior positions in the police were opened up to direct entry for university graduates, instead of retaining the working-class roots of the force through the principle working your way up from the front line. Johnson predicted that this blunder by the Government would be the biggest issue of the next election.

A serving police officer remarked about the effects of encouraging direct entry:

Divide and conquer!! That’s what this one is all about, setting up a two tier system such as the Army with a ‘Them and Us’ culture, the officer class or ‘Ruperts’ as they are affectionately known in the military, supervising serious incidents, which could affect you and your family. A snobby, fresh out of University, green behind the ears Inspector, making decisions that will affect you and yours when you call the police, because you have been the victim of a sexual assault perhaps, something which you may want kept confidential, and dealt with efficiently.

It is this divorce from reality displayed by the elites --- for the US example, see Alex Pareene's America's Idiot Rich --- that makes Occupy London's strategy of creative ridicule of the 1% so intriguing. There is ample material to mock, and, while the "tactics of frivolity" have not always been successful in the past, this use of satirical humour by Occupy could encourage more people to listen to their underlying message.

These two days of global action are followed next week by protests in the US, at a NATO meeting in Chicago and a G-8 summit at Camp David, that promise to be less light-hearted. The G-8 conference was moved to Maryland because of the greater security available at the Presidential retreat, and in Chicago, the police have spent $1 million on updated riot gear. There are even uncorroborated reports that some of the police in Chicago see this NATO demonstration as the chance, as their earlier colleagues did in 1968, to beat a few protesters with billy clubs.

Last week electors in Europe signalled their dissatisfaction with the politics of austerity, and the elites who are trying to implement them. Barring a miracle of an economic recovery, politics for the near future will revolve around that austerity --- or thrift as the British government are now trying to call it.

This week the success or failure of Occupy, and their affiliated groups, to draw attention to growing income inequality will help determine their relevance to these coming political struggles over the world's economic future. Can they deliver on their promise of a Global Spring?

US Politics Feature: What A Conservative Surge in the 2012 Elections for Congress Could Mean

Lee Haddigan — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:21:29 +0000

This November, America goes to the ballot box to elect not only the President but also the Congress that will either implement or obstruc, the White House programme. The House of Representatives is likely to remain in the control of Republicans, but the Senate --- where Democrats currently enjoy a slight majority, aided by the support of the chamber's two Independents --- is a less predictable story. Conservative Republicans believe they have the opportunity to overturn the Democrats' slender advantage, and, just as importantly, return new Senators who will align with the Tea Party Caucus.

That strategy took on the shape of the possible on Tuesday in Indiana when Richard Mourdock, a conservative heavily backed by pro-market and Tea Party groups from outside the state, defeated six-term Senator Dick Lugar in the GOP primary. Only four months ago the conservative Washington Examiner, in an editorial proclaiming conservatives can build an un-bossable Senate, ranked Mourdock's campaign as a “long-shot challenge” to an incumbent.

The Examiner article held out the same chances of success for conservatives in Utah in defeating Orrin Hatch, another six-term Senator, in a June primary. The polls currently suggest that Hatch should retain the Republican nomination, but his rival, former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, is beginning to make headway with the argument "It's Time" --- which proved effective against 80-year-old Lugar --- for the 78-year-old Hatch to retire.

The Examiner is more bullish about the chances of conservatives winning primaries, or taking open seats where incumbents have retired, in Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, and North Dakota. And they have left out Ohio, where Josh Mandel, a favourite of Sen. Jim DeMint's leadership PAC Senate Conservatives Fund, is trying to unseat Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Conservative Republicans replacing establishment Republicans does not mean that they will automatically win against Democratic rivals in November. Democrats are optimistic that Sen. Lugar's defeat offers them hope in taking the Senate seat in Indiana. Still, Mourdock's victory over his veteran opponent illustrates that conservatives unhappy with, or distrustful of, their Presidential candidate are making gains in their attempt to move the Senate to the Right.

Dan McLaughlin RedState argues that Mourdock's victory signals that conservatives have won the opening skirmish of Operation Counterweight.

The term was coined in June 2011, but the idea has been mooted in different forms since the successes of conservative candidates in the 2010 mid-term elections. McLaughlin's conclusion summarises why some conservatives see the Senate as a more important prize than the White House this November:

In the presidential race, we go to war with the nominee we have. And we should unite behind him, because he’s the only thing standing between us and another term of Obama. But this is not Mitt Romney’s party, it’s ours. We deserve a Senate that will stand up to both Romney and Obama.

With six months to go, Mourdock's victory in Indiana GOP primary may not be a harbinger of an increased conservative presence in the Senate, but it is a powerful reminder that the Tea Party, and the national organisations that financed Mourdock's win, are still a force in American politics.

A consequence of this sustained effectiveness of the Tea Party message is that current Republican legislators are using policy differences to keep their conservative base fired up. On Monday, Rep. Paul Ryan's House Budget Committee marked up legislation that includes cuts to welfare programmes like food stamps and Meals on Wheels. Senate Republicans on Tuesday meanwhile, used the filibuster to prevent a vote on extending an interest rate reduction on student loans, paid for by increased taxes on some small businesses.

Ryan's measure will not pass the Senate, and Republicans will come to an accommodation that extends student loan rates. But a more conservative Senate after November will only entrench these partisan differences. Even with a Mitt Romney victory and a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, Democrats are likely to maintain a minority capable of filibustering conservative legislation. And with an Obama victory, but with a more conservative Senate, it is a struggle to see what meaningful legislation he can pass though a hostile Congress without conceding unpalatable changes to programmes like Social Security.

This matters because of the crucial policy decisions that must be made by a new Congress and President. Peter Orszag, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama Administration, has laid out the January scenario: “The nation is hurtling toward what has been called 'taxmageddon', the enormous tax increases and spending cuts scheduled for the beginning of 2013. At around the same time, we will also be spending some more quality time with our old friend: the debt limit.”

It would take a crystal ball to know what the full ramifications of a more conservative Senate would be, but a return to compromise as a guiding principle is not one of them. Iff it does become 'un-bossable,' especially with a Democratic President, and with 'taxmegeddon' approaching where the two parties have irreconcilable differences, it is increasingly hard to see what the next Congress can do to avoid a potentially catastrophic gridlock.

And the implications of Lugar's loss in Indiana go beyond the consequences of a conservative Senate. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House Majority Leader, angered conservatives with his support for Sen. Lugar's establishment candidacy, as he has done with his backing of other "moderate" candidates, at least in the eyes of the Tea Party. Once a favourite of Tea Party enthusiasts, Cantor's commitment to the conservative cause is now openly questioned. Without going as far as to accuse him of a betrayal of Tea Party principles, RedState recently noted that Cantor “wants a more docile, pliable, controllable caucus — one that will do as it is told by its party leaders, not its constituents".

The troubling implication of those words is that along with a conservative Senate convinced of its electoral mandate to be a counterweight to the Presidency, we could see a conservative House prepared to rebel against the policy decisions of the Republican establishment leadership, even if that comes from a Republican President.

Abraham Lincoln once claimed that a “House divided against itself cannot stand". He used the biblical quotation in the context of an America that could not continue half-slave and half-free, but it raises the question of how long this Republican Party can stay united in the face of its fundamental differences over the role of the Federal Government.

US Feature: Six Months to Go --- Why a "Re-Recession" Might Put Obama Back in Office

Lee Haddigan — Sun, 06 May 2012 07:43:58 +0000

This week marked the six-month countdown to the election for the next President of the United States, and it would take a brave man or woman to place a wager on the eventual outcome. Neither candidate has yet to promote policies that seem destined to draw the support of the crucial Independent swing vote. Just as importantly, and rather more unusually, both candidates are struggling to stoke the enthusiasm of their core supporters.

Mitt Romney's inability to attract conservatives to his cause, or the lack of a credibly conservative cause to be more accurate, was well-documented in his primary campaign to become the Republican candidate. President Obama has faced similar discontent from his progressive allies, who regard him as a disappointment for not pushing hard enough to implement the change he promised in his 2008 campaign.

There are two related consequences of this lack of fervour for both candidates amongst their party faithful. One is that this election will be fought almost exclusively on negative grounds, with a deluge of attack ads designed to remind the base support of each party, "Hey, I might not be your favourite politician. But at least I'm better than the other guy."

Demonisation of your opponent in politics is nothing new, but this election, because of the rise of Super PACs, will see more money spent than ever before on campaign advertising. As importantly, with the rise of social media, these advertisements will be everywhere to anyone with a computer or phone can turn.

The second consequence follows. Both candidates will try to combat the perception that they are "negative" by promoting a message of a brighter future for the American economy. Obama will hammer away at his mantra that everyone must pay a "fair share" to reduce the deficit. Romney will hold to Republican orthodoxy that only tax cuts will stimulate the investment needed for a growing economy. Those two positions are now set in stone.

As the American economy currently stands, with weak growth predicted for the near future, this will be a close election with neither candidate displaying a vision that will sweep them to victory. There is nothing novel enough in either candidate's ideas to overcome a voter's natural inclination for simpler choices such as "for" or "against" the Bush-era tax cuts.

But what if the economy changes enough between now and November to shift the fortunes of the two candidates?

Despite the flutters of this week, in November not many people will cast their ballots based on May's headline news, such as whether President Obama has over-celebrated the anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden. Instead, their immediate concern will be their personal circumstances.

In that light, let's note a warning by Jeffrey Snider, "Europe Is in Recession, The US Isn't Far Behind". Much of the article is a technical explanation of why bailing out the banks, instead of boosting demand in the real economy, was a mistake, but Snider makes a strong case for his concluding argument:

Europe is already in re-recession, one that will, in my opinion, be worse than predicted by economic professionals (admittedly a low bar). The U.S. is not that far ahead, and by summer I have little doubt we will again, for the third time in as many years, be joining Europe in the re-recession chatter.

The logical initial reaction to that prediction is that Obama is doomed to lose the election in a slumping economy. But, paradoxically, an economy that is threatening to go back into recession may more opportunity for the President than the current insipid growth in GDP and employment.

If the economy does enter a re-recession, after the recent, brief optimism over a rebound in growth, the President can argue that the slump is due to the end of the effects of his stimulus package. The spurt in growth, he will maintain, was a result of government spending on investments. The subsequent dip is the result of cuts in spending forced upon him by Republicans in the Congress.

That argument is never going to convince Republicans to vote for Obama, but if he campaigns on a promise to increase government spending on essential infrastructure and programmes to help low-income and middle-class families, Obama's supporters from 2008 will come out for him in droves. And while this might not seem an approach to attract Independent voters, Obama has this advantage: the conservative belief that cuts and austerity can promote economic growth has failed spectacularly in Europe.

As Paul Krugman recently wrote in The New York Times:

This was the month the confidence fairy died. For the past two years most policy makers in Europe and many politicians and pundits in America have been in thrall to a destructive economic doctrine. According to this doctrine, governments should respond to a severely depressed economy not the way the textbooks say they should — by spending more to offset falling private demand — but with fiscal austerity, slashing spending in an effort to balance their budgets.

What Krugman calls the “confidence fairy" the belief that cutting government spending and business taxes alone can promote growth, the BBC's Paul Mason has likened to Fantasy Island. In an even more harrowing warning of the roblems caused by the politics of austerity, Mason sees a danger of traditional centre-oriented politics disintegrating into support for extremist positions, as in the 1930s. Mason notes this weekend's elections in Greece:

In the last opinion poll, the combined ratings of the two main parties, socialist and conservative, was 36%; the combined poll ratings of the Communists, Eurocommunists, Trotskyists and Greens was 37%. A new, more effective nationalist right-wing grouping has been formed, and is polling 11% (the old right party LAOS is languishing at 3% after it eviscerated itself by supporting the austerity plan). And Greeks will soon get to see a 45-minute primetime interview with the candidate of Golden Dawn, whose flag looks like [the Nazi swastika in 1930s Germany].

This is not to suggest that a similar splintering of political allegiances will occur in the US, but to highlight what may be the economic story as the Presidential election nears. Social chaos and breakdown in Europe, caused by an adherence to the Fantasy Island politics of austerity by European governments, and a corresponding slip into another US recession: this could be the catalyst Obama needs to convince Independents that his pro-growth economic policies, and not the austerity politics of Mitt Romney, are the best hope for a brighter economic future for America.

US Audio & Analysis: Scott Lucas with BBC "The Politics Around the Bin Laden Documents"

Scott Lucas — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:48:36 +0000

Amidst the flutter today about the release of 17 of 6000 documents seized by US forces when they killed Osama bin Laden, I spoke with BBC television and radio about the information in the documents and --- far more importantly for me --- the politics behind their release.

Although the documents have juicy details such as Bin Laden's worry about the fraying influence of Al Qa'eda and his close attention to media strategy --- to the point of considering which US outlets would be useful (clue: not Fox) --- they only confirm a conclusion which could have been made years ago. Al Qa'eda, as a central organisation with global impact, was long gone; instead, there was a decentralised network of movements who were more often motivated by local concerns.

Meanwhile, the politics:

1. President Obama's domestic opponents will no doubt claim that the release is meant to burnish, in an election year, the polish of a Commander-in-Chief who killed The World's Most Wanted Terrorist;

2. I'm more interested, however, in how the gloss of the document supports Obama's presentation yesterday of a Mission Accomplished --- even if that is far from the truth --- in Afghanistan;

3. And I'm most interested in how the spin on the documents of success in covert and special operations comes only days after the White House authorised an expansion of target killings by drones --- from Pakistan to Yemen to possibly Somalia.

The BBC Radio 5 Live item starts at the 9:30 mark; my contribution is from about 16:35.

The BBC Radio Wales discussion begins at the 8:00 mark.

US Politics Feature: The "Separation of Powers" is Crumbling (and Why It Matters)

John Matlin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:14:59 +0000

There is a fondness on both sides of the Atlantic to refer to the President of the United States as “the most powerful man in the world".

An article in Monday’s New York Times, “GOP Lawmakers and Romney Face a Delicate Tango", brought that “power” issue front and centre. Far from seeing the "most powerful man in the world", Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer argued that, if Romney wins the election in November, he will find an impediment: fellow Republicans in Congress, who argue that the legislature should drive the policy agenda.

This importance of separation of powers is not necessarily recognised by those used to Parliamentary systems, with a blurring of the distinction between legislature, judiciary, and executive. In Britain, for example, all members of the executive sat in Parliament, either in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. The current Law Lords are members of the House of Lords and can vote on the measures that they will subsequently consider as judges.

The American system of government is quite different. Acts of Congress and initiatives by Presidents have often been ruled as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Franklin Roosevelt’s first New Deal legislation crumbled because of these errors. In only two cases is this principle of separation set aside: the Vice President presides over the Senate and has a casting vote in a tie, and all three branches meet in Congress for the President's State of the Union message.

The framers of the Constitution envisaged that laws would be made by the legislature and implemented by the President. In 2012, how the times are a’changing. House Republicans are saying that the order of the past 80 years, when the President called the tune is over; the Chief Executive cannot expect to have his legislative agenda passed by nodding dogs.

When a freshman Representative from Louisiana, Jeff Landry, describes the role of the House Republicans as the conductor driving the train, not the cheerleading squad on the sidelines, are we meant to be enthusiastic or appalled? If a President were now to cede the legislative agenda and authority to Congress, how will the strength of his leadership be gauged? Is the American public prepared for such a sea change?

And looking forward, on the big assumption that Mitt Romney can seize the President, his agenda could get short shrift in Congress, not from his Democratic opponents but from his supposed Republican allies. If a fight between the two develops and is properly reported in the media, what will the consequences be?

US War-On-Terror Opinion: A "Liberal" Betrayal? (Davis)

Scott Lucas — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 04:20:29 +0000

Bradley ManningCharles Davis writes for Salon:

More than three years into the presidency of Barack Obama, it’s almost a cliché now to ask: What if George W. Bush did it? From dramatically escalating the war in Afghanistan to institutionalizing the practice of indefinite imprisonment, Obama has dashed hopes he would offer a change from the Bush’s national security policies – but he hasn’t faced a whole lot of resistance from liberals who once decried those policies as an affront to American values.

Like those on the right who now crow about fascism but spent the Bush years gleefully declaring left-wing celebrities “enemies of the state,” many of those on the liberal-left treat issues of war and civil liberties as useful merely for partisan purposes. When a Democrat’s in power those issues become inconvenient. And usually ignored.

Former dean of the Yale Law School Harold Koh, for instance, used to rail against the imperial presidency, speaking of the horror of torture and “indefinite detention without trial.” Now a legal adviser for the Obama State Department, he recently declared that “justice” can be delivered with or with out a trial. Indeed, “Drones also deliver.” Don’t expect much more than a yawn from Democratic pundits, though, much less any calls for impeachment. It’s an election year, after all. And what, would you rather Mitt Romney be the guy drone-striking Pakistani tribesmen?

“Obama and the Democrats being in power in Washington defangs a lot of liberal criticism,” Chase Madar, a civil rights attorney in New York, told me in an interview. Indeed, but with a few exceptions --- Michael Moore, Dennis Kucinich, The Nation --- those who would be inclined to defend Manning were Bush still in office are the ones either condemning him or condoning his treatment, which has included spending the better part of a year in torturous solitary confinement, an all too common feature of American prisons. Even his progressive defenders, remaining loyal to the Democratic Party, tend to downplay Obama’s role in the Bradley Manning affair; his authorizing the abuse of an American hero is certainly no means not to vote for him again.

“The whole civil libertarian message only really seems to catch fire among liberals when there’s a Republican in the White House,” says Madar. When there’s not a bumbling Texan to inveigh against, all the sudden issues that were morally black and white become complex, and liberal media starts finding nuance where there wasn’t any before.

That much is clear in the case of Manning, the young soldier accused of leaking State Department cables and evidence of war atrocities to WikiLeaks. Under different conditions, he might be a liberal hero. After all, much – though certainly not all --- of what he exposed, from the killing of Iraqi civilians to US complicity in torture by the Iraqi government, happened during the Bush years. But it is the Obama administration that is imprisoning him. It is Barack Obama who pronounced him guilty before he so much as had a trial (which he’s still waiting for after almost two years in captivity). And so justifications must be made.

One popular way is by attacking Manning’s character, by arguing that unlike Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked top secret Pentagon documents detailing U.S. failures in Vietnam, Manning – who, if the charges against him are true, didn’t leak a single piece of top secret information – was simply a troubled young man. The New York Times, for instance, published a piece that spent several thousand words to essentially say he did it because he had “delusions of grandeur.” And because he was gay, probably.

Alyssa Rosenberg, a blogger for the Center for American Progress,declared her “main opinion of Bradley Manning” to be that “it sounds like he has pretty serious emotional problems and turned out not to be a particularly effective whistleblower.” Conveniently, Manning is to blame for the fact the WikiLeaks revelations did not alter the behavior of the American empire, not the institutions of state power so often fawned over by Rosenberg and her colleagues as fundamentally good and just.

Joy Reid, a Democratic pundit who often appears on MSNBC, likewise dwells on Manning’s alleged emotional problems and gayness. Because he allegedly divulged to a hacker-turned-informant that he was struggling with his gender identity, Reid – ignoring all the inconvenient comments about being outraged by torture and civilian deaths --- argued that Manning was no hero at all, but rather “a guy seeking anarchy as a salve for his own personal, psychological torment” caused by his sexuality. In this case one might well ask: What if Rick Santorum said it?

When the Nixon administration sought to discredit Ellsberg back in 1971, it played by the same book as Reid and other Obama loyalists unwilling to believe their president is persecuting a hero, breaking into his psychiatrist’s office in a vain attempt to uncover evidence of mental illness. Today, the liberal media does the government’s work for it.

Read full article....

US Politics Analysis: Santorum Drops Out, But Can Romney Win?

Lee Haddigan — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:29:29 +0000

On Tuesday afternoon, Rick Santorum suspended his campaign to become the Republican nominee for this November's US Presidential election. His effective withdrawal from the race --- while his run is suspended, Santorum can still raise money to pay off campaign debts --- leaves Mitt Romney as the GOP candidate to face President Obama.

That passive expression, "leaves Mitt Romney", sums up the work the former Massachusetts Governor has to do in the next 6 months to persuade wavering American voters he has the conviction to be elected President. The overriding impression from the last few months of Republican primaries is that Mitt is the last man standing, a victor because of his overwhelming superiority in finances and campaign organisation. He will not enjoy those advantages in a contest with President Obama and what is sure to be a withering assault from the Democratic Party.

It does not take much imagination to predict that the brunt of the attacks against Romney will concern his wealthy elite background, as well as his party's ideological defence of lower taxes and entitlement changes that erode the security of the middle classes. For the last six months, President Obama has been proclaiming his populist "fair share" message across the nation, and the next six months will only see that campaign narrative intensify. It is the club that the President and his staff intend to bludgeon Romney with incessantly until his campaign is left bleeding and on the floor.

Recent polls suggest that Obama's emphasis on economic fairness will not necessarily deliver him the support of undecided and Independent voters, but the progressive groups that provide the enthusiasm for his grassroots campaigning style will not let him abandon this stance. With Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts as his point woman, President Obama will go the polls in November committed to policies like the Buffett Rule and to no further extension of the Bush tax cuts in January 2013.

Six months is a lifetime in politics, and it is anyone's guess if, let alone how, Mitt Romney can turn around some of the specific demographic problems his campaign faces. Polls suggest that women were not impressed with the social issues raised in the GOP nomination contest and are backing President Obama for the general election by a margin of 60-40%.

Yet while women are historically less likely to vote Republican than men, there is not an automatic gender advantage for Democrats. Women voted in the majority for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and again in 1984 when Democrats ran Geraldine Ferraro as the Vice-presidential candidate. It is hard to see how President Obama will lose his current advantage with female voters, but Romney has the time to sway many to his side.

And perhaps Romney will get an unexpected boost from a potential 2012 election wild card. The Occupy movement burst on the scene last autumn with a number of high -rofile events, but during the winter the movement seemed to lose the enthusiasm that brought it to national attention. A few progressive journals still cover Occupy, but the national media has largely lost interest as the headline-grabbing occupations of city centres have dwindled.

Occupy, however, have promised a Spring resurgence for the "We are the 99%" movement. On May Day, they are holding a protest to "Take The Streets!" in New York, where “workers, students, immigrants, professionals, houseworkers --- employed and unemployed alike --- will take to the streets to unite in a General Strike against a system that does not work for us. Don't go to work. Don't go to school. Don't shop. Take the streets!”

May Day parades have a long history in New York, and not just as a socialist celebration of International Workers Day. And they have a history of reaction. At the height of the Cold War in 1948, patriotic Americans, led by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, organised an annual counter-rally dubbed Loyalty Day. A media battle ensued as to which march had attracted most participants and supporters, but a VFW sponsor proclaimed the following year, “The eyes of the world are on the Fifth Avenue Loyalty Demonstration to see how it outdraws and by how much the Eighth Avenue May Day crowd.”

It will be interesting to see if Occupy re-stage the route of the traditional socialist march, south on Eighth Avenue from 56th Street and then east on 17th to Union Square. But the larger point is whether it can achieve the resurgence it promises with its pledge to Take The Streets.

If this General Strike, and other Occupy events planned in May do not capture the support of most Americans then Mitt Romney may have the chance to benefit. Occupy will not just disappear: if their protests become generally unpopular, Obama --- with his recent populist turn --- will suffer from his perceived connection to them.

Rick Santorum made much during his campaign that he was the only candidate who could attract blue-collar "Reagan Democrats" to vote Republican in this election. But if Occupy becomes the disliked counterpart of the anti-Vietnam War protesters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, then Romney could win that Reagan Democrat vote by default, as Nixon did in 1972 with his "hard hat" appeal to blue-collar workers.

One drama is over. It remains to be seen if another one is to be written.

US Politics Analysis: Obama Brings Out His "Fair Share" Campaign (and Why It's Important)

Lee Haddigan — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:43:14 +0000

On Tuesday afternoon, at an Associated Press luncheon in Washington, President Obama criticised the Republican budget, passed on a party line vote 228-191 in the House of Representatives last week. Doing so, the President outlined the basic message of his re-election campaign, contrasting his "fair share" economic plan for America's future with the radical Social Darwinist politics of the GOP.

Every Presidential campaign yearns to find a short and catchy phrase that captures the appeal of its candidate. Obama's "Hope and Change" from 2008 is the most recent example, but "I Like Ike" was credited by some Robert Taft supporters in 1952 for delivering the Republican nomination to his rival Dwight Eisenhower, and well before that, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", was turned into a song that was “in the political canvas of 1840 what the 'Marseillaise' was to the French Revolution. It sang [William Henry] Harrison into the Presidency.”

That brings us to Obama and a "Fair Share". Here is the opening statement from his weekly address from the White House on Saturday:

Over the last few months, I’ve been talking about a choice we face as a country. We can either settle for an economy where a few people do really well and everyone else struggles to get by, or we can build an economy where hard work pays off again – where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. That’s up to us.
Today, I want to talk to you about the idea that everyone in this country should do their fair share.

This is the blurb from the White House website that introduced Obama's remarks on his proposed "Buffett Rule":

In this week’s address, President Obama calls on Congress to pass the Buffett Rule, a principle of fairness that ensures that millionaires and billionaires do not pay less in taxes as a share of their income than middle class families pay. The President believes our system must ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share, while protecting 98 percent of Americans from seeing their taxes go up at all. That is why the President proposed the Buffett Rule, which will help make our system reflect our values so that all Americans get a fair shot, play by the same rules, and pay their fair share.

After the President concluded his speech in Washington on Tuesday, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer released "Three Charts Illustrating Two Different Visions For Our Nation":

The President believes this is a make or break moment for the middle class and those working to reach it. That’s why he has put forward a blueprint for an economy built to last - one where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules.

Pfeiffer concluded, “At this critical moment for our economy and the middle class, the President will continue to stand by a policy of fairness that reflects our core values as a nation.”

"Fair Share' rhymes; always a good start for a campaign slogan, and it echoes the punchier "Fair Deal", used by President Truman in 1948. The slogann needs some work to catch the imagination of voters, but that's what well-paid advisers are for. And, if the health proposals of Obamacare are overturned by the Supreme Court, there will be a few of those advisers striving to capture the essence of "Fair Share and Obamacare" in a mantra that propels Obama to a second term.

It was this "fair share" contrast that Obama highlighted Tuesday as he lambasted the Republican budget, inspired by Representative Paul Ryan. Last year Obama took on Ryan's plans to reform Medicare in a "Path to Prosperity". This time Obama also seized the opportunity to berate Ryan, and all the Republicans who passed their budget, for their smoke and mirrors proposals for tax reform.

The Ryan budget would eliminate the six current income tax brackets, and replace them with two lower bands of 10% and 25%. To maintain the revenue needed to finance government programmes and services, the budget would reform the tax code by “closing loopholes, and putting hardworking taxpayers ahead of special interests". These tax deductions, or preferences, cost $1 trillion a year, and in Rep. Ryan's words “were lobbied for and are mainly used by a relatively small group of mostly higher-income individuals". Unfortunately, he does not suggest which of these subsidies should be ended, preferring to leave this to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Here are the big ticket tax breaks enjoyed by Americans which contribute to that $1 trillion a year in tax preferences. Ryan argues, “[They[ were lobbied for and are mainly used by a relatively small group of mostly higher-income individuals"; however, tax-free employer provided health insurance costs $2 trillion in lost income tax over a 10-year period. Tax subsidies that encourage retirement planning take up $1.8 trillion, and the deduction for mortgage interest takes $1.6 trillion from the budget.

Ryan would argue that these deductions currently enjoyed by many middle-class Americans would not be needed with a lower income tax rate of 10%. But that is not the picture President Obama painted. He concentrated on a Republican future where the wealthy enjoy massive tax cuts, funded by an end to the help that the middle class receives to build a secure lifestyle.

And the tax cuts for the wealthy are massive. As The Hill #http://tinyurl.com/cjpy3we, “A Tax Policy Center analysis of the Ryan budget in the year 2015 found that those making $1 million or more would enjoy an average tax cut of $265,000 and their after-tax income would increase by 12.5 percent. By comparison, half of those making between $20,000 and $30,000 would get no tax cut at all.”

Liberals might not like it, but there is a case that tax cuts on that scale for the wealthy are justified. They already pay their "fair share" towards he cost of government through the application of progressive tax rates, and these tax cuts merely allow them to retain more of the property that they have earned.

Meanwhile Republicans like Ryan and Mitt Romney, who has expressed his support for this budget, may hide behind the argument that tax cuts are designed to encourage growth in the economy. Fundamentally, however, their case for reducing taxes relies upon their ideological interpretation of the fairness of redistribution of wealth.

In plainer words, why should the wealthy, with their high tax rates, pay to subsidise the home ownership aspirations of those who could not afford it without the mortgage interest deduction? Or, for that matter, why should someone who has succeeded pay for the food stamps of millions who have failed?

President Obama would disagree, as he did on Tuesday, as he did in the State of the Union Address earlier this year, and as he did in the first of his populist firebrand speeches in Osawatomie, Kansas, in November 2011. For the next seven months he will continue to bludgeon the Republican Party for their law-of-the-jungle economic theory, where the successful and the fittest survive and the less fortunate fail.

As Obama declared in Tuesday's speech:

Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well, while a growing number struggle to get by? Or are we better off when everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules?

This is not just another run-of-the-mill political debate. I've said it's the defining issue of our time, and I believe it. It's why I ran in 2008. It's what my presidency has been about. It's why I'm running again. I believe this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and I can't remember a time when the choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear.

US Politics: After 3 Wins, Is Romney "Almost-Certain Republican Nominee"? (Balz/Rucker)

Scott Lucas — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:32:32 +0000

Dan Balz and Philip Rucker write for The Washington Post:

Mitt Romney captured presidential primaries in Maryland, the District and battleground Wisconsin, the biggest prize of the day, to complete a momentum-building, three-contest sweep Tuesday that cemented his status as the almost certain Republican nominee and put new pressure on rival Rick Santorum to reassess his candidacy.

With his campaign increasingly focused on President Obama and the general election, the former Massachusetts governor’s victories in Maryland and the District were never in doubt. He won both by crushing margins. In Wisconsin, where Romney and Santorum devoted most of their energies, the margin was narrower but nonetheless decisive.

With Tuesday’s primaries behind them, the candidates now look ahead to April 24, when Pennsylvania and four other states hold their primaries. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, can ill-afford to lose his home state and has keyed the future of his campaign to success there, a reality openly acknowledged by his advisers.

The urgency for Romney to pivot away from intraparty warfare toward the general election contest became even more apparent on Tuesday. On a day he formally clinched the Democratic nomination, Obama delivered a speech clearly designed to frame the fall choice. He sharply attacked the budget approved by House Republicans, calling it a “radical vision” and “thinly veiled Social Darwinism” that amounted to “a prescription for decline” in the country.

On Tuesday night, Romney fired back, calling the president out of touch with the suffering in society and saying that on Obama’s watch America isn’t working.

“This campaign is going to deal with many complicated issues but there is a basic choice we’re going to face,” he said in his victory speech in Milwaukee. “The president has pledged to transform America and he has spent the last four years building a government-centered society. I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of an opportunity society led by free people and free enterprise.”

Already there is a rising chorus of party leaders urging that Republicans rally around Romney, while carefully avoiding direct calls for Santorum to get out. Party leaders fear that an extended contest that includes a continuation of the negative attacks that have been pervasive throughout the primaries will only weaken the party and its likely nominee for the fall.

Santorum runs the risk of either embarrassment, if he loses Pennsylvania, or becoming seen within his party as a spoiler if he stays in the race indefinitely and continues to attack Romney.

But on Tuesday night, he sounded a defiant note in his concession speech.

Saying the race was only at its halfway point, he vowed to keep campaigning and threatened to take his candidacy all the way to the GOP convention in Tampa. He laced his remarks, delivered in Pennsylvania, with criticisms of Romney, calling his rival a moderate who lacks true convictions.

“If we’re going to win this race we can’t have little differences between our nominee and President Obama,” he said. “We have to have clear contrasting colors.” He said people have gotten behind his candidacy “because they see someone who has a clear positive vision, someone whose convictions are also forged in steel, not on an Etch A Sketch.”

Read full article....

War on Terror Feature: Don't Tell the US Border Police You Do Islamic Studies (Stewart)

Scott Lucas — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:04:50 +0000

Pascal AbidorAndreanne Stewart, writing for The McGill Daily, describes a Canadian Ph.D. student's Constitutional fight against his search and interrogation by US border police:

On May 1, 2010, Pascal Abidor was riding an Amtrak train from Montreal to New York. His parents live in Brooklyn, and he was on his way to visit them. The school year at McGill had just ended, and he felt relieved and calm as the train rolled south towards America.

At about 11 a.m., the train arrived at the U.S. border and made a routine stop. A team of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers boarded the train and advanced through each car, questioning passengers. Pascal had made this trip countless times before, so when a customs officer approached him, he didn’t give it a second thought.

But Pascal had never met Officer Tulip.

After looking over Pascal’s U.S. passport and customs declaration, Officer Tulip asked two simple questions: Where do you live, and why?

Pascal answered that he lived in Canada. He lived in Canada because that’s where he was pursuing a PhD in Islamic Studies.

Next, she asked him where he had traveled in the previous year, and he answered Jordan and Lebanon. He showed her his French passport (he’s a dual citizen) with the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” stamp, and the Lebanese stamp with the little cedar tree on top.

That didn’t help. Officer Tulip immediately told him to grab his things and follow her to the train’s cafe car. Pascal gathered his luggage, but Officer Tulip carried the bag containing his laptop. At the time, he thought she was just being helpful.

In the cafe car, they were joined by five or six more CBP officers. Pascal sat across from Officer Tulip as she took out his laptop, turned it on, and asked him to enter his password, which he did.

As she scrolled through the contents of his computer, Pascal could only see her reaction. Officer Tulip signaled to her colleagues and pointed at something on the screen. She then turned to Pascal and demanded an explanation.

Pascal was now surrounded by half a dozen suspicious American border police, staring at photos --- on his laptop --- of Hamas and Hezbollah rallies.

Where had he gotten “this stuff,” Officer Tulip asked. Pascal explained that his PhD research is on the Shiites of modern Lebanon. This was not, in her books, a good answer. Finally, the officers told Pascal that he would have to leave the train with them.

“Take me off the train, I’ll walk back to Montreal,” Pascal offered. Given what he would go through in the next few hours, Pascal might well have preferred the walk.

Instead, he was frisked, with particular vigor around his genitals. Then he was handcuffed. Pascal winced.

As they led him off the train, the officers draped a coat over his bound wrists. They claimed it was to spare him the embarrassment of a perp walk. But as Pascal walked past the train’s windows, he tried to show the passengers that he was cuffed. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and he wanted witnesses.

Pascal was then loaded into the back of a van. Oddly, as one of the officers tried to close the van’s side door, it fell clean off. It could have been a moment of levity in a grim situation. But Pascal didn’t dare laugh.

When they arrived at the Champlain Port of Entry, Pascal was put in a five-by-ten foot cell with cinder block walls and a steel-reinforced door. He was told to wait. He stayed in the cell for about an hour. Officers came in at random intervals to ask him questions.

“I thought I was going to throw up,” he said. “I thought I was going to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.”

Pascal was then removed from the cell and brought to an interrogation room, complete with florescent lighting and a two-way mirror. He sat across from two CBP officers – Officer Tulip and a man named Officer Sweet – while another officer sat at the end of the table, seemingly in case Pascal got violent.

“They thought I was straight-up dangerous,” Pascal said.

Then the real interrogation began, an hour and a half of intensive questioning. Where was he born? Where were his parents born? What religion was he raised with? Had he ever been to a rally in the Middle East? Had he heard any anti-American statements in the Middle East? Had he ever seen an American flag burned? Had he ever been to a mosque? But the questions always came back to the same point – why Islamic Studies?

“I want to be an academic – this is just what I happen to be an academic in,” Pascal told them.

His answers seemed to fall on deaf ears. The interrogation continued. It was the same questions, over and over. They were looking for him to make a mistake.

They soon fell into a good-cop, bad-cop routine.

“He thought I was cool,” Pascal said of Officer Sweet. Officer Tulip, on the other hand, “thought I was the most evil person. She thought I was a movie villain or something.”

They claimed Pascal’s dual citizenship made him untraceable. They suggested he was attractive “to both sides.” Pascal was baffled. Both sides of what?

Read full article....

US Politics Opinion: Getting Mad at the Supreme Court Over ObamaCare

Lee Haddigan — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:03:55 +0000

On Wednesday afternoon, after three days of closely-watched argument, the Supreme Court ended its hearings on the question of whether certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act --- colloquially known as Obamacare --- are constitutional. Their verdict is not expected for several months, but if the analysis in the media from dedicated court-watchers is a reliable indicator, then the signal achievement of President Obama's first term is doomed to defeat.

Other analysts, however, are urging caution in predicting the result, warning that it is impossible to know what individual Justices are thinking from the questions they ask of the lawyers before the Court. A number of other commentators, including Lyle Denniston at the widely respected SCOTUS website, see some hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the President's sweeping reform of America's health insurance market.

This divergence in contending views is no surprise. What was diverting, however, was the wider political bickering as it became clear over the three days that the future of the ACA was in doubt. If no one knows how the Court will rule, this has not stopped some newspapers from taking an almighty swipe at the objectivity of the Justices.

In Wednesday's print edition, The New York Times published an editorial lambasting certain judges for daring to question the constitutionality of the "individual mandate" of the Act: these Justices were “willfully” rejecting “established constitutional principles that have been upheld for generations". An editorial on Tuesday was not quite so critical of individual judges, but concluded by warning the Court, “It is imperative that the justices interpret the anti-injunction law so that the ruling in this case is consistent with what makes sense in conventional tax cases.”

At The Washington Post, the editorial team was quieter, but the opinion pieces published by the paper have predominantly attacked the Court for its claimed bias with the prospect that the ACA will be struck down. Immediately after the hearings concluded, the Post led its opinion section with a piece by E. J. Dionne, "Judicial Activists in the Supreme Court". It began, "Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature", and concluded that if the law is declared unconstitutional...

...a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology.

And liberals wonder why conservatives froth at the mouth when they accuse the mainstream media of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party?

Far from being on the fringe of ideology, any Court scepticism matches polls that consistently show most Americans believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation 'Data Note claimed, “While the precise share of the public with a favorable or unfavorable view of the individual mandate varies slightly between polls, each survey finds that overall sentiment is about two to one in opposition to the mandate.”

Yet Katrina van den Heuvel writes, "Republicans Are Causing a Moral Crisis in America", and argues:

It’s hard to point to a single priority of the Republican Party these days that isn’t steeped in moral failing while being dressed up in moral righteousness. This week, for example, they are hoping the Supreme Court will be persuaded by radical (and ridiculous) constitutional arguments to throw out some or all of the Affordable Care Act.

Progressives have always tended to be enraged when their will is thwarted by the Courts, and if the law is actually struck down it will be interesting to see what remedy they propose to restrain an obstructionist Supreme Court. Theodore Roosevelt wanted to recall Justices who thwarted the will of the legislature. For Franklin Roosevelt, the remedy was "Court-packing" with the naming of more, presumably correct-thinking Justicies. Who knows what President Obama, in a second term, might put forward?

Then again, the other noteworthy development is about the means Obama could employ to reform healthcare without having to worry about the Supreme Court. For example, he could institute universal access to health care, paid for by a tax. As with the current system of Medicare, this would be perfectly constitutional under the taxing authority of Congress.

Liberal media outlets have been quick to promote this alternative vision. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich promoted the virtues of Medicare for all --- but only achievable after a bit of political jujitsu by the President -- in The Huffington Post. George Zornick posted a piece in the Nation which headlined the case succinctly, "If the Mandate Fails, Single Payer Awaits": “That’s no doubt going to be a focus for progressives in coming years --- and, paradoxically, the death of the individual mandate might aid that effort.”

And as E.J. Dionne noted in comment about the supposed activism of the Court:

The irony is that if the court’s conservatives overthrow the mandate, they will hasten the arrival of a more government-heavy system. Justice Anthony Kennedy even hinted that it might be more “honest” if government simply used “the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single-payer.” Remember those words.

It has been a distressing three days in the Supreme Court for liberals who, two years ago, initially scoffed at the suggestion of a constitutional challenge to the ACA. They have not reacted in with the consideration that they so often mock conservatives for lacking.

The reality is that there is a credible case for the individual mandate being unconstitutional. Condemning the Court, before it has even made a decision, is an evasion of the legal process --- whatever the eventual decision --- and it is poor politics, especially in an election year. There are alternatives for those seeking wider provision of health care, but they will disappear without an Obama second term.

US Video Special: Obama "Our Hardest-Hitting Ally is Denmark...and Norway...and the Netherlands...and the Philippines...and..."

Scott Lucas — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:41:55 +0000

Detektor, a programme of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, highlights President Obama's favourite phrase of praise for Presidents and Prime Ministers: his/her country "punches above its weight" in international relations.

But Detektor asks, "Is it possible to feel special when each and every visitor is the 'closest, strongest ally'?":

US Politics: Santorum Wins Republican Primary in Louisiana (Farnan and Blake)

Scott Lucas — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:41:02 +0000

Rick Santorum's speech in Wisconsin after winning the Louisiana primary

T.W. Farnam and Aaron Blake report for The Washington Post:

Rick Santorum won the Louisiana primary on Saturday, boosting his claim as the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party even as his odds of beating Mitt Romney in the overall delegate race appear slim.

With nearly 95 percent of precincts reporting, Santorum led Romney 49 percent to 27 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was third with 16 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was taking 6 percent.

Santorum said in remarks from Wisconsin, which is one of the next states in the GOP nomination contest, that his victory shows his campaign should keep going.

“This race is long and far from over,” Santorum said.

Romney’s defeat represented the latest setback in the South for the front-runner, who has lost primaries in six Southern states this month and also lost a key primary earlier this year in South Carolina.

Santorum, meanwhile, can again claim momentum based on a strong showing in a heavily conservative state. He has won seven contests for the Republican presidential nomination this month, including five in the South.

Nonetheless, Romney’s other victories, especially a big win Tuesday in the Illinois primary, appear to have cemented his status as the likely nominee. After taking several large, industrial states in the Midwest, Romney has enjoyed a new level of acclaim from Republican leaders in recent days, including the endorsement of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, as Santorum and Newt Gingrich have struggled to clear a path to the nomination.

Gingrich congratulated the night’s winner but emphasized that he was still in the game.

“Rick Santorum deserves credit for coming in first in Louisiana,” Gingrich said. “I am very grateful for the thousands of Louisianians who voted for me tonight. The theme of $2.50 per gallon of gasoline or less, and an American energy policy that ensures no American president will ever again bow to a Saudi king were clearly popular . . . This is clearly still an open race. So . . . I will carry our solution-oriented campaign to Tampa” — site of the Republican convention in August.

The results in Louisiana illustrated Romney’s chief remaining weakness: his standing among the most conservative voters.

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