A landmark bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration system cleared its first major hurdle Tuesday when the legislation was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee without any significant alterations. The bill, which includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, was passed with the support of Democrats and Republicans by a 13-5 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor, where debate is expected to begin early next month.

Politico:

The vote came after the committee deliberated for five days and considered more than 150 amendments. But the Gang of Eight, which drafted the legislation, held together and fended off all but minor changes.

The landmark immigration legislation cleared the committee after an emotional debate over a provision to allow gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born spouses for green cards. The measure was a top priority of several Democrats and the gay-rights community, but including it threatened to derail the entire legislation, as top Republican negotiators such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said they couldn’t support the Gang of Eight compromise if the amendment were included.

Approval of the bill from committee without the gay-rights amendment increases its overall chances of passage on the Senate floor. Meanwhile, a House group is struggling with producing a bill of its own.

Read more 

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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Is the desire to enter the U.S. television news market corrupting Al-Jazeera English’s journalistic integrity? The network’s silent retraction from its website of a controversial article criticizing Israel suggests it is, Glenn Greenwald writes at The Guardian.

In an op-ed the network published May 14, Columbia University professor and Middle East scholar Joseph Massad “highlighted the shared goal between the early Zionist movement and Europe’s anti-Jewish bigots (namely, the removal of Jews from the continent), detailed the cooperation between German Nazis and Zionists to facilitate the departure of Jews out of Europe (the existence of that cooperation is not in dispute, though the extent of it very much is), and highlighted the extensive disagreements among Jews themselves over the wisdom and justness of Zionism,” Greenwald notes.

Predictably, the article was answered with eruptions of bile from commentators sympathetic to Israel’s current leadership. Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic mockingly tweeted: “Congratulations, al Jazeera: You’ve just posted one of the most anti-Jewish screeds in recent memory,” while John Podhoretz, editor of the neoconservative magazine Commentary, wrote: “Congratulations, donors to Columbia University, for paying this monstrous ****head’s salary!”

As Greenwald writes, the piece did “what good journalism does.” In addition to the reactionary responses, it prompted an “intense debate” that involved forceful and aggressive criticisms of Massad’s arguments.

“But all of that changed on Saturday,” Greenwald points out. “Without issuing any comment or explanation of any kind, unknown officials at Al Jazeera ordered Massad’s Op-Ed to be deleted—in essence, silently retracted.” No link that previously sent readers to the article worked. Al-Jazeera withdrew the piece without comment. Greenwald asks:

How can a media outlet possibly publish an Op-Ed, quietly delete it six days later in response to controversy, and then fail to utter a single word about what happened? Was there a fabrication or some glaring, retraction-worthy error in Massad’s Op-Ed? Was it a mistake for Al Jazeera to have published it in the first place, and if so, who made that mistake, what was it, and why did it happen? Who made the decision to take the extraordinary step of deleting the Op-Ed, and what was the rationale for doing so?

No media outlet can possibly do something like this without publicly accounting for what happened and expect to retain credibility. How can you demand transparency and accountability from others when you refuse to provide any yourself? Refusing to comment on secret actions of this significance is the province of corrupt politicians, not journalists. It’s behavior that journalists should be condemning, not emulating.

What’s going on here? Greenwald reports that several Al-Jazeera employees said the network became “much more cautious and fearful ever since they purchased Current TV last December for $500 million and prepared to enter the US television market under the brand name ‘Al Jazeera America.’ ”

Greenwald adds that his sources, who refused to be identified for fear of reprisal, singled out Ehab al-Shihabi, the man recently named head of the American TV network, as the force behind the removal. They said al-Shihabi is scared of angering “pro-Israel” groups and giving U.S. audiences reason to believe the network is anti-American and anti-Israel, “thus dooming the network with both corporate advertisers and cable carriers and render it radioactive among mainstream politicians,” Greenwald writes.

“Al-Shihabi, they say, went to the network’s top executive in Doha, Director-General Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, and demanded the removal of the Massad Op-Ed,” Greenwald continues.

One source of pressure comes from the emir of Qatar, the owner of the network’s parent organization. His influence “has increasingly affected, and degraded, its journalism, rendering it a propaganda tool for the Qatari dictatorship’s foreign policy,” Greenwald argues. Most of that criticism has been directed at Al-Jazeera Arabic, while its English equivalent “has, by all appearances, remained largely independent, consistently producing truly outstanding and brave journalism,” he notes.

The network’s courageous work seems in jeopardy now that it is seeking to establish a serious presence in the U.S. The Qatari regime is close to the U.S., and it’s improbable that the network would produce journalism that is critical of its ally or offensive to powerful American political factions.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian:

The tensions here reflect a broader internal conflict about how Al Jazeera intends to position itself as it enters American television. Many (and I include myself in this) believe that Al Jazeera can be successful only if they provide something that no other US cable news outlet regularly provides: fearless journalism of the type the network has displayed in the past, unconstrained by (and liberated from) the orthodoxies of the two dominant political parties and the airing of a wide range of views, including those typically excluded by mainstream US political television.

But several Al Jazeera executives have adopted the view, seemingly the one that is prevailing, that it should instead replicate the failed CNN model of risk-averse, viewpoint-free, colorless, soul-less “straight news reporting”. That Al Jazeera’s first announced prime time host was the extremely uncontroversial, long-time CNN employee Ali Velshi, and is reportedly considering a horde of former CNN and NBC executives to run the network, illustrates the risk-averse, CNN-copying path they seem to be taking. Silently removing Massad’s Op-Ed and then refusing to comment on it is behavior perfectly in line with that mentality.

…It’s certainly possible that Al Jazeera America can provide unique and important journalism: networks owned by governments can and do produce real journalism. American cable news - drowning in mindlessly partisan outlets that are endlessly focused on trivial Beltway gossip, along with the fear-driven pointlessness of CNN - could certainly use an independent and intrepid journalistic competitor. Al Jazeera English has some outstanding, fearless journalists and produces some high-quality shows. But that will only happen if it remains independent of the Qatari regime’s foreign policy aims and is free to risk offending and alienating powerful people: the hallmark of good journalism. That’s what makes its silent deletion of Massad’s Op-Ed so alarming and disappointing: it signals that the network is being driven by exactly the corrupting fears that preclude meaningful, independent journalism.

Read more

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Here’s a modest idea to break the gridlock, the stupidity, the meanness, the partisan lying and irresponsible ineffectiveness of modern Washington. We should consider returning to the Middle Ages.

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Twister Logic: After the deadly and destructive tornado that struck his state Monday, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe attempted to make the argument that aid for his constituents and a massive Hurricane Sandy relief package he voted against are two “totally different” things. “Everyone was getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place,” Inhofe explained. “That won’t happen in Oklahoma.” Meantime, Oklahoma’s other Republican senator, Tom Coburn—who, by the way, also voted against Hurricane Sandy aid—says any funds that go to Oklahoma in the wake of the disaster must be deficit neutral. President Obama has already declared a major disaster in the state, paving the way for federal relief. FEMA officials are headed to Oklahoma to survey the damage. (Read more)

Seeds of Discontent: Finally, someone in the Senate is doing something that could potentially rid this country of the awful measure known as the Monsanto Protection Act. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., says he will introduce an amendment to repeal it in the 2013 Farm Bill. The controversial provision gives certain legal protections to companies like Monsanto that produce genetically modified seeds and crops, effectively negating the powers regulators have of keeping biotech companies in check. “The Monsanto Protection Act is an outrageous example of a special interest loophole,” Merkley said in an email statement. “This provision nullifies the actions of a court that is enforcing the law to protect farmers, the environment and public health. That is unacceptable.” (Read more)

IRS=‘Ignored Real Scandal’: According to legal expert Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker, the real scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tea party groups seeking to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the IRS Code (and therefore be exempt from paying taxes) is that the organizations were actively engaged in politics, despite the fact that such groups are supposed to be devoted to “social welfare” causes. In addition to not paying taxes, there are benefits to being classified as a 510(c)(4), including the fact that designated groups get to keep their donor lists anonymous, unlike ordinary political action committees that must disclose who they get their money from. However, the trade-off is that they’re not supposed to conduct partisan political activities, such as making endorsements. But as Toobin points out: “Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. ... Campaign finance operates by shaky, or even nonexistent, rules, and powerful players game the system with impunity. A handful of I.R.S. employees saw this and tried, in a small way, to impose some small sense of order. For that, they’ll likely be ushered into bureaucratic oblivion.” (Read more)

Southland Slate: As Angelenos head to the polls Tuesday to elect their next mayor, the latest poll shows L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti leading City Controller Wendy Greuel by a comfortable five-point margin, 49 percent to 44 percent. The Survey USA poll attributes much of the margin to Garcetti’s strength among male voters, where he has a 14 point lead. Garcetti is also favored by Republican and independent voters, while Greuel has the edge among Democrats. Election results could come as early as Tuesday night. (Read more)

Video of the Day: In the wake of all the scandals that have encircled the nation’s capital these last two weeks, “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart has had it with everyone in Washington, D.C.—the White House, Congress, the press ... you name it, he’s fed up with them. “Can anyone do their job in that town?” he asked on his program Tuesday night. If you have to even pose that question, the answer’s probably no.

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At least 24 people—including nine children—were killed, hundreds more were injured and numerous homes, schools and businesses were destroyed after a massive tornado barreled through the town of Moore, Okla., on Monday. The National Weather Service has classified it as a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister.

The weather service says the tornado was about 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide, packing maximum wind speeds of more than 200 miles per hour.

It was initially reported that 51 people had died in the storm, but those estimates were revised Tuesday. Rescuers are still combing through the rubble.

USA Today:

Amy Elliot, spokeswoman for the state medical examiner’s office, blamed the confusion on chaos after the storm cut a path more than a mile wide through this Oklahoma City suburb of 41,000 people. She said nine of the dead were children, and that the death toll could climb.

“We will rebuild, and we will regain our strength,” Gov. Mary Fallin said at an afternoon press conference.

Fallin said at least 237 people were injured and that officials are working to develop “firm” casualty numbers. Fallin also praised the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its administrator, Craig Fugate—and thanked first responders for a “job well done.”

The National Weather Service spokeswoman Keli Pirtle said Tuesday the agency upgraded the tornado from an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale to an EF-5 based on what a damage assessment team saw on the ground. The weather service uses the word “incredible” to describe the power of EF-5 storms.

Read more

Dramatic videos that have since been posted to YouTube show the storm from a number of different angles. Below is a sampling:

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In his latest “Easy Chair” column, Harper’s Magazine contributor Thomas Frank sarcastically eviscerates the business class’ most prized literary genre: creativity.

In a reading of the disgraced former New Yorker writer Jonah Lehrer’s book “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” Frank shows how a few tales of innovation are recycled among the genre’s mythmakers: Procter & Gamble’s development of the Swiffer, Bob Dylan’s recording of “Like a Rolling Stone” and 3M’s invention of the Post-it Note. So too are the group’s favorite heroes: Einstein, Gandhi, Picasso, Warhol and the Beatles.

The recurrence of these same stories and figures among the self-styled experts reveals that “Those who urge us to ‘think different’ ... almost never do so themselves.”

“Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed,” he continues. “Creativity, they all tell us, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on it. And by dint of careful study and the hardest science—by, say, sliding a jazz pianist’s head into an MRI machine—we can crack the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power.”

Unoriginality being the rule, Lehrer has his predecessors. An earlier book called “The Rise of the Creative Class” by American urban studies theorist Richard Florida alleged the primacy of creativity’s value to the marketplace. Creative people were society’s “dominant class,” the members of which were to be courted by social scientists, CEOs and financial experts. Thus could creativity fulfill its true role: bolstering and enhancing industry and its profits.

Never mind the fact that “newspapers, magazines, universities and record labels,” the institutions that made the lives of creative people possible, “were then entering a period of disastrous decline,” Frank writes. Artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals were in fact shunned by society. In the reality that Frank knew from years of experience, “for all its reverential talk about the rebel and the box breaker, society had no interest in new ideas at all unless they reinforced favorite theories or could be monetized in some obvious way.”

What to make of the fact that books like Florida’s and Lehrer’s reflect so little that is true about the lives and experiences of actual creative workers? This: Creativity literature isn’t about those people in the first place. It is about something completely different.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Thomas Frank in Harper’s Magazine:

... the banality, the familiar examples, the failure to appreciate what was actually happening to creative people in the present time. This was not science, despite the technological gloss applied by writers like Jonah Lehrer. It was a literature of superstition, in which everything always worked out and the good guys always triumphed and the right inventions always came along in the nick of time. In Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From (2010), the creative epiphany itself becomes a kind of heroic character, helping out clueless humanity wherever necessary:

Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.

And what was the true object of this superstitious stuff? A final clue came from Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1996), in which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges that, far from being an act of individual inspiration, what we call creativity is simply an expression of professional consensus. Using Vincent van Gogh as an example, the author declares that the artist’s “creativity came into being when a sufficient number of art experts felt that his paintings had something important to contribute to the domain of art.” Innovation, that is, exists only when the correctly credentialed hivemind agrees that it does. And “without such a response,” the author continues, “van Gogh would have remained what he was, a disturbed man who painted strange canvases.” What determines “creativity,” in other words, is the very faction it’s supposedly rebelling against: established expertise.[3]

Consider, then, the narrative daisy chain that makes up the literature of creativity. It is the story of brilliant people, often in the arts or humanities, who are studied by other brilliant people, often in the sciences, finance, or marketing. The readership is made up of us — members of the professional-managerial class — each of whom harbors a powerful suspicion that he or she is pretty brilliant as well. What your correspondent realized, relaxing there in his tub one day, was that the real subject of this literature was the professional-managerial audience itself, whose members hear clear, sweet reason when they listen to NPR and think they’re in the presence of something profound when they watch some billionaire give a TED talk. And what this complacent literature purrs into their ears is that creativity is their property, their competitive advantage, their class virtue. Creativity is what they bring to the national economic effort, these books reassure them — and it’s also the benevolent doctrine under which they rightly rule the world.

Read more (behind a paywall)

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Guatemala’s top court has thrown out the conviction of the general and former military dictator for genocide and crimes against humanity in what Amnesty International has called a “devastating blow for the victims of the serious human rights violations committed during the conflict.”

On May 10, Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1,771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group during his time in office in 1982-83, an act that he denies. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

Truthdig made the judges and prosecutors of Montt Truthdiggers of the Week earlier this month during the week of Montt’s conviction.

The 3-2 ruling Monday by a panel of constitutional judges tosses everything that happened in the trial since April 19 when Montt was briefly left without a defense lawyer, and resets the proceedings from that date.

Montt’s defense attorneys had walked out of court the previous day in protest of what they called “illegal proceedings.” The court then ordered that he be represented by a public defense lawyer, instead of one of Montt’s choosing.

Montt refused and instead sought attorney Francisco Garcia, had been expelled earlier for accusing the judges of “bias” and trying to have them dismissed. Garcia was expelled again April 19, and the panel said Monday that the trial should have been halted at that point.

The constitutional court said statements delivered before April 19 would still be admitted, but that closing arguments must be given again.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

BBC:

The BBC’s Will Grant in Guatemala City says Monday’s low-key press conference contrasted sharply with the day the verdict was announced, when indigenous campaigners and relatives of victims hugged and cried with relief in the packed courtroom.

But he adds that the decision to annul the sentence does not signal the end of the legal battle, as both sides will now start preparing to return to court to replay the final weeks of the trial.

The general’s lawyer said he would now demand his release from the military hospital where he was taken from prison after allegedly fainting.

Read more

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Austerity has caused more than 10,000 suicides (including the married couple pictured above) and as many as 1 million additional cases of depression across Europe and the United States, economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu estimate. Those findings are discussed in their new book, “The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills.”

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The WikiLeaks founder revealed internal conversations among employees of Britain’s intelligence agency in which agents apparently speculate that he is the target of a “fit-up” by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape charges.

Assange, who remains in London’s Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden, explained Sunday night in an interview with the Spanish television program “Salvados” that a run-of-the-mill request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by the Government Communications Headquarters agency.

Assange said a September 2012 message read: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ . ... It is definitely a fit-up. ... Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.”

The GCHQ confirmed that it released the instant messages to Assange, who claimed the agency had been unaware it might have any information on him that was not classified.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Guardian:

A second instant message conversation from August last year between two unknown people saw them call Assange a fool for thinking Sweden would drop its attempt to extradite him.

The conversation, as read out by Assange, goes: “He reckons he will stay in the Ecuadorian embassy for six to 12 months when the charges against him will be dropped, but that is not really how it works now is it? He’s a fool… Yeah … A highly optimistic fool.”

“This is what the spies are discussing amongst themselves,” Assange told the Spanish television presenter Jordi Evolé.

Read more

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If you take the long view, you’ll see how startlingly, how unexpectedly but regularly things change. Not by magic, but by the incremental effect of countless acts of courage, love and commitment, the small drops that wear away stones and carve new landscapes, and sometimes by torrents of popular will that change the world suddenly.

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