U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-Tx), who singlehandedly changed the course of Afghan history, dead at 76

Charlie Wilson, lawmaker of movie fame, dies at 76

by Chris Baltimore – Reuters, February 10, 2010

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson, the swashbuckling Texan chronicled in film for helping secure billions of dollars to fund covert U.S. operations against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, died on Wednesday of cardiac arrest. He was 76.

Wilson, a Democrat, served 12 consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, and was known as the "Liberal from Lufkin," the town in mostly conservative east Texas where he lived.

He had complained of chest pains on Wednesday and was pronounced dead when he arrived at Memorial Health System of East Texas in Lufkin, the hospital said in a statement.

In the 2007 movie "Charlie Wilson's War," actor Tom Hanks portrayed Wilson as a boozy womanizer who found his life's cause in helping mujahideen in Afghanistan fight and eventually repel occupying Soviet forces.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson quietly helped steer billions of dollars to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which distributed the funds to buy Afghan fighters high-tech weapons like Stinger missiles used to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships.

"I just saw the opportunity to grab the sons o'bitches by the throat," the fiercely anti-communist Wilson told The Dallas Morning News in a 2007 interview.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was at the CIA during the covert campaign, said Wilson's life showed how "one brave and determined person can alter the course of history."

"His efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people, and bring the Cold War to a close," Gates said.

After the Soviet withdrawal, Wilson expressed reservations about U.S. lawmakers' decisions to cut funds to Afghanistan, blamed for creating a void that led to the rising influence of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, the Islamic militant group accused of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"Charlie kept fighting for the Afghan people and warned against abandoning that traumatized country to its fate -- a warning we should have heeded then, and should remember today," Gates said.

On a less flattering side, the movie opens with Wilson in a hot tub in a Las Vegas hotel, flanked by two strippers who are high on cocaine. The U.S. Justice Department in 1980 investigated Wilson for possible drug use, but the probe came up empty.

"The feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale, and I ain't telling," Wilson told author George Crile, who included the material in his book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.

Wilson was known for hiring attractive young women to staff his congressional office in Washington, where they were known as "Charlie's Angels" after the then-popular TV show.

While known as a defense hawk, Wilson had a liberal voting record on social issues, despite his district's conservative leanings.

Wilson was born in Trinity, Texas, in 1933, attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and served in the U.S. Navy.

He was elected to the Texas legislature and went on to serve in the U.S. House from 1973 to 1997. He is survived by his wife Barbara and sister Sharon Allison.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington, editing by Vicki Allen)

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100211/people_nm/us_wilson

From Dan Rather in Haiti:

"It is the rare congressman who by dint of personality, persistence and country smarts did something that literally altered history on the global stage. What Charlie Wilson did in Afghanistan changed the course of world events.

Charlie Wilson was all Texan and all American.  He dreamed big, lived large.  He was a member of the pantheon of Texas heroes from Sam Houston to Jim Bowie."

Author of Charlie Wilson's War, George Crile once said, "Invariably, when reporters wrote features about Joanne Herring they invoked Scarlett O'Hara...But to appreciate her full impact, it helps to add Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dolly Parton and even a bit of Arianna Huffington."


When I sent word to Ms. Herring I wanted to interview her, she sent me this simple message:

Ok honey call me now I am to do dr debakeys eulogy and am terrified

A woman of grace and candor, Joanne Herring is a reporter's dream.

Texan on the Potomac: Joanne King Herring

Age: 80

Past life: She did extensive lobbying work with her husband (she's had three) in Washington and became the "it" girl for party planning. She hosted KHOU "News at Noon with Joanne King" and hosted the "Joanne King Show." The first Houston female to receive national recognition as a successful TV personality, her show ranked sixth in national daytime programming.

Politically, Herring was known for her staunch opposition to communism and her close ties to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

After her first husband died, she hooked up with Texas congressman Charlie Wilson (literally) and together they waged a covert war on Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, sending weapons and other aid to Afghan rebels. Wilson proposed and Herring declined. Herring told me "we were more in love with the war than with each other...you know what I mean, honey." Yes, I know. But did Charlie?

According to The Daily News last year, Ms. Herring and Congressman Wilson--and a band of high-powered attorneys--quashed any suggestion in the movie that their little war was somehow responsible for 9/11. Ms. Herring's response? "The important thing for people to realize: Who did we go to fight? Russia. Did we beat them? Yes. You cannot predict future wars; if you could, we wouldn't have them."

Ms. Herring is a woman who gets what she wants. Not only did she help convince Mr. Wilson to give weapons to Afghans to fight the Soviets, she got through to Hollywood and they edited every four-letter word that came out of Julia Roberts' mouth.

Her take on Charlie Wilson's War: Herring hired a top Texas lawyer, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, to prevail upon the film's director, Mike Nichols, to make Julia Roberts more wholesome. "He agreed to cut out all the swearing from me as long as I went along with the rest of it...They wanted hanky-panky and so that's what they got. Anyone who knows me will realize that I don't behave like that."

The film was "pretty accurate but I never got up in the middle of a party and jumped in a bathtub with someone," she clarifies. What's more, "Republicans were more involved than what they were given credit for...And I did more than Julia was given credit for."

Her parties: The parties she threw in Washington were so big she was asked to extend her skills to Houston, entertaining heads of state when they visited the U.S. She explained to me, saying "Houston was the middle city," but we know that she was asked to do them not because of Houston's geographic location, but because Herring was the hostess with the mostest. She once built the 29-year-old King of Sweden a disco.

She thought, "I have four boys. We will use it over and over." So Herring kicked one of her sons out of his bedroom and built a disco room in her Houston mansion. (The house was later bought by Ken Lay of ENRON, who got rid of the disco. Party pooper.) And Ms. Herring used the disco room to throw parties for the Shah of Iran, the King of Morocco and her sons' fraternity parties. What a cool mom.
 
For King Hussein of Jordan, she put together a special gust list. "He brought all men, so I invited the most beautiful women I knew." She insists she "did it in a fun way" and they all came because of King Hussein's entourage. Of course. And when talk arose that Herring was playing matchmaker at the party, she called it a "scream" and laughed at the thought of these "princesses" (name-drop: a Vanderbilt) going home with King Hussein or his men.

Why she left public life: She never really has...

Best known for: A film about her exploits, Charlie Wilson's War, her character portrayed by Julia Roberts. Raising big money, being an expert of Middle Eastern affairs and for her reputation as a fabulous Houston socialite and fashionista--with substance.

Where she is now: Still fighting for Afghanistan and raising money all around the country. "I am working with Ms. Caroline Firestone and Ms. Laura Bush to start a college for Afghan women." Last month she spoke at a $1,000-a-head dinner at Bobo in New York City hosted by the Rebuilding Afghanistan Foundation. Herring also funds a group of 100 single mothers in five counties in Texas. When we spoke she was penning the late Dr. Michael DeBakey's eulogy. DeBakey was a dear friend of Herring's. (She invited him to many of her parties throughout the years.) Herring said she was "astonished to find out he had chosen me to do his eulogy--out of all these distinguished people." When I suggested it was probably her humor that reminded DeBakey of Herring, she replied, "You have to laugh. Because you might cry...a lot."

Fun facts and quotes: Oscar de la Renta is one of her favorite designers and she likes to shop at Neiman Marcus. She drives a red Jaguar convertible and her two black poodles wear bandanas. "I was driving in traffic and someone gave me the finger. I smiled and blew him a kiss." "People think it's Joanne, the social queen. That's not me at all. I get bored to death when people talk about nothing."

Click here for a Chron article about Herring at Charlie Wilson's L.A. premiere.

Posted by Mackenzie Warren at July 16, 2008


Link:  http://blogs.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/07/where_are_they_now_1.html

Naked Capitalism blog: Quelle Surprise! Health Insurers Pretended to Play Nice, Lobbied Against Reform

Quelle Surprise! Health Insurers Pretended to Play Nice, Lobbied Against Reform

by Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, January 13, 2009

The headline above would normally be seen as “dog bites man” save for the fact that during the health reform debate, the insurers went to considerable lengths to profess they really, really had changed their ways and were now going to be good corporate citizens.

But it was pretty clear that this change of heart was just a charade. After all, if Obama was going to give the industry the store, they had to look like nice guys. You don’t give massive subsidies to people who are obviously predatory, unless they are from the financial services industry and thus can credibly threaten to destroy the economy. And from the insurance industry’s standpoint, what’s not to like about the new program? Tens of millions of formerly uninsured people will be required to buy policies from them, plus the percent of premiums they are mandated to pay out in benefits is considerably less than what they spend now (meaning the legislation in no way threatens their margins; in fact, it legitimates them and would even permit them to enlarge them). And as we will discuss soon, some of the advantages claimed for the bill are hollow.

We were very leery of the industry’s charm offensive. As we wrote last August:

My bullshit meter went into high alert earlier this week with this New York Times story, “For Health Insurers’ Lobbyist, Good Will Is Tested,” which was clearly a PR plant. It featured Karen Ignagni, a $1.6 million-a-year earning lobbyist to the health insurance industry as a heroine (I started getting nauseaous as soon as I saw the deliberately low-key picture of her in her office). And why should we see a representative of one of the biggest forces undermining democracy in America, the usually-successful efforts of well-funded industry groups to steam-roll legislative process, as a good guy, or in this case, gal? Because she supposedly talked a mean and obstructionist industry into playing nice.

This NYT article thus manages to be a two for one, trying to re-image both the health insurance industry and lobbyists. Consulting my Divine Comedy, I find lobbyists are relegated to the eight circle of hell no matter how you cut and slice it, as either flatterers (second bolgia) or false advisors (bolgia eight) or falsifiers (bolgia ten, along with alchemists and perjurers). This puts them on the same general level as corrupt politicians (bolgia 5), although one could make a case they belong in the ninth circle, traitors.

To the Times’ puff piece:

For the insurance industry, long an opponent of health care reform, it was a striking change: with a new administration coming to Washington, insurers agreed to abandon some of their most controversial practices, like denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing medical conditions.

The truly offensive bit of the piece was the Grey Lady running full bore with the line that they were being unfairly castigated, they really had turned a new leaf, and those people who were Calling Them Bad Names were risking breaking up Ms. $1.6 million woman’s fragile coalition:

For a while, it seemed to be working — until recently, when the insurance industry re-emerged as Washington’s favorite target. “Villains,” Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, called health insurers. And Mr. Obama derided the industry for pocketing “windfall profits.” 

Taken aback, Ms. Ignagni, the 55-year-old chief executive of the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, wondered on Tuesday why insurers were being singled out when, in her view, they had accepted that change was necessary.

“Attacking our community will not help get anyone covered,” she said.

The last statement was very revealing. It’s tantamount to “We still hold the whip hand.” And it appears they do.

Back to today’s update. Notice that the big concession that the industry supposedly made was its stand on pre-existing conditions. But the bill has a giant loophole: insurers can continue to cancel policies in the case of “fraud or intentional misrepresentation” as they do now. Readers have no doubt hear of or read about how low the permitted bar is now for insurers to rescind policies. And when are insurers most likely to look to find grounds not to pay for treatment? When you most need it, of course, when you have a serious, expensive ailment.

National Nurses United, a 150,000 member organization, opposes the bill. Some of its reasons:

As Jean Ross, NNU co-president noted, “the bill seems more likely to be eroded, not improved, in future years due to the unchecked influence of the healthcare industry lobbyists and the lessons of this year in which all the compromises have been made to the right.”….

Individual mandate was the top priority of the insurance industry, which also succeeded in fending off meaningful restraints of its predatory pricing practices. The likely outcome is that far too many people will still face healthcare insecurity or medical bankruptcy due to ever rising out-of-pocket costs, or continue to skip needed medical care because of the high prices.

Indeed, discouraging provision of care as the preferred way to control costs, rather than rein in the pricing practices of the insurance and drug giants, is a central tenet of the insurance industry and conservative policy wonks.

So the story thus far is that Team Obama was handing the insurance industry everything it wanted on a silver platter (recall the shameful incident in which the public option was dropped despite Congressional support; it was a mere trading chip, not something Obama was ever serious about). The industry was supposed to play nice.

Well it didn’t even hold up that part of the bargain. Admittedly, Congress started calling the insurers bad names. Please. The dealings with Team Obama had been so cozy that a little roughing up would have good PR value for both sides. It would create the appearance that the powers that be had not caved in to the insurers.

And a general rule: in a good negotiation, both sides come out feeling a little bruised and unhappy. No one gets everything they want. But the insurers weren’t about to adhere to the new posture they had pretended to adopt to win over the public. As soon as they started encountering opposition, they cranked up the attack ads. But rather than fund them directly, they channeled money through the Chamber of Commerce. From the National Journal:

Just as dealings with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats soured last summer, six of the nation’s biggest health insurers began quietly pumping big money into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying the major health reform bills moving through Congress…

The fundraising started last September and continued through December using AHIP as a conduit to avoid a repeat of the political flak that hit the insurance industry after it famously ran its multimillion-dollar “Harry and Louise” ads to help kill health care reforms during the Clinton administration…

Publicly, the group has stressed repeatedly that it supports health care reform legislation…
Since last summer, the chamber has poured tens of millions of dollars into advertising by the two business coalitions that it helped assemble: the Campaign for Responsible Health Reform and Employers for a Healthy Economy.

In late October, the chamber helped cobble together a larger coalition, Employers for a Healthy Economy, which became the key advertising vehicle for attacking provisions in the House and Senate bills being developed…The ads sharply criticized the high costs of the separate bills, especially the House version. The commercials warned the legislation would raise taxes for Americans and hurt the economy as it tries to recover from the recession. And some chamber-financed commercials attacked setting up a government run plan to compete with private insurers — a special sore point for the insurance industry — which is part of the House measure.

The U.S. Chamber has spent approximately $70 million to $100 million on the advertising effort….Sources say that the chamber-backed ads will likely continue as the two bills are combined in coming weeks.

Yet if any bill passes, the industry will show greater earnings, which will allow them to spend even more on lobbying and advertising, which will enable them to secure even more favorable legislation.

Link:  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/01/quelle-surprise-health-insurers-pretended-to-play-nice-lobbied-against-reform.html

Speech of the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the informal Plenary Session on 18 December 2009 at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen

Speech of the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the informal Plenary Session on 18 December at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-15) in Copenhagen.

"Mister President, Mister General-Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen Heads of State, Ladies and Gentlemen Heads of Government, and friends.

I confess to all of you that I am a bit frustrated. Because we have been discussing the issue of climate for a long time and we came to the conclusion that the problem is more serious than we can imagine. Thinking about it´s contribution to the discussion in this conference, Brazil had a very ambitious position. We presented our targets until 2020. 

  

We assumed a commitment and approved through the National Congress, transforming in law, that Brazil, until 2020, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions between 36.1% and 38.9%, based on what we consider important: changes in the Brazilian agriculture system; changes in the Brazilian metallurgical system; changes and improvement of our energy balance, already one of the world’s cleanest, and we assumed the commitment to reduce deforestation in the Amazon in 80% until 2020. 

  

And we made this building an economic engineering that will force a developing country, with many economic difficulties, to spend US$ 166 billion until 2020, equivalent to US$ 16 billion a year. This is not an easy task, but it was necessary to define those measures to show the world that, just with words and bargains, we would not reach a solution in this Conference of Copenhagen. 

  

Last night, I had the pleasure to participate, until two-thirty in the morning, in a meeting where, sincerely, I did not expect to participate, because it was a meeting with many Heads of State, some of the most prominent personalities of the political world and, sincerely, to submit Heads of State to certain discussions such as we had yesterday, I did not see for a long time.

Yesterday, I was in the meeting and remembered my time as trade union leader, when we were negotiating with the entrepreneurs. And why did we have all those difficulties? Because we did not care about the responsibility that it was necessary to work with. The issue is not just money. Some people think that money solves the problem. But money did not solve in the past, it will not solve in the present and, even less, it will solve in the future. Money is important and the poor countries need money to ensure their development, to preserve the environment, to take care of their forests. It is true. 

But it is important that we, the developing countries and the rich countries, when we think about money, we should not think that we are doing a favor, we should not think that we are distributing alms, because the money that will be put on the table is the payment for greenhouse gas emissions made during two centuries of those who had the privilege of industrializing first. 

  

It is not a bargain of those who have money or those who do not have money. It is a more serious commitment, it is a commitment to know if it is true or not what the scientists are saying, that global warming is irreversible. And, therefore, who has more resources and more possibilities needs to guarantee the contribution to protect the people who need most.

  

Everybody agreed that we need to ensure the 2% of global warming until 2050. On that, we all agree. Everybody is aware that it is only possible to reach this agreement if the countries assume, with huge responsibilities, their targets. And even the targets, that should be a simple issue, there are many people who want to bargain the targets. All of us could offer a bit more if we had assumed good will during the last months.

All of us know that it is necessary, to ensure the commitment of the targets and the commitment of financing, that we, in any document that will be approved here, that we defend the principles adopted in the Kyoto Protocol and the principles adopted in the Framework Convention. Because it is true that we have common responsibilities, but it is true that they are differentiated. 

  

I will never forget that when I assumed the Presidency, in 2003, my commitment was to try to guarantee that all Brazilians could have breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the developed world, that was something of the past. For Africa, for Latin America and for many Asian countries, it is still something of the future. And it is linked to the discussion that we are having here, because it is not just a discussion on the issue of climate. 

  

It is about discussing development and opportunities for all countries. I talked to important leaders and came to the conclusion that it was possible to build a political base to explain to the world that we, Presidents, Prime Ministers and specialists, are very responsible and would find a solution. I still believe, because I am excessively optimist. But it is necessary that we play a game, not thinking about winning or losing. It is true that the countries that give money have the right to ask for transparency, they even have the right to ask for the implementation of the policy that was financed. But it is true that we need to take care with that kind of intrusion in developing and the poorest countries. The experience that we have, of the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank in our countries, should not be repeated in the 21^st century.

What we need... and I will say, publicly, something that I did not even say yet in my country, not even to my party and not even to my Congress: if it is necessary to do one more sacrifice, Brazil is willing to put money also to help the other countries. We are willing to participate in the financing if we reach an agreement on a final proposal, here in this meeting.

  

Now, something we disagree is that the most important people of planet Earth sign any document, just to say that we signed a document. I would love to leave this place with the most perfect document of the world signed. But if we did not have conditions to do this up to now - I do not know, my dear friend Rasmussen, my friend Ban Ki-moon - if we did not manage to get this document up to now, I do not know if some angel or some wise person will come down to this plenary and put in our heads the intelligence we lacked until now. I do not know. 

  

I believe, as I believe in God, I believe in miracles, it can happen, and I want to be part of it. But, for that miracle to happen, we need to take into account that there were two groups here working on the documents, which we cannot forget. Therefore, the document is very important, of the groups here. 

Second, that we can get a political document to serve as umbrella base, this is also possible if we understand three things: first, Kyoto, the Framework Convention, MRV, they shall not threaten the sovereignty of the countries - each country has to keep the competence of auto-inspecting - and, at the same time, that the money is given to the indeed poorest countries. 

  

Brazil did not come here to bargain. Our targets do not need external money. We will do with our resources, but we are willing to do a step more if we success solving the problem that will serve, in the first place, the development of the developing countries. We spent one century without growing, while others grew a lot. Now that we started to grow, it is not fair to make sacrifices again. 

  

In Brazil there are still many poor people. In Brazil there are many poor people, in Africa there are many poor people, in India and in China there are many poor people. And we also understand the role of the richest countries. They cannot be, neither, those who will save us. What we want is, simply, together, the rich and the poor, to establish a common point that allows us to get out of here, proudly, telling to the world that we are worried with the preservation of the future of planet Earth without sacrificing its main species, the men, women and children who live in this world. 

Thank you very much."

Amir Taheri, WSJ: Iran's Democratic Moment : Protestors now demand an 'Iranian Republic, not Islamic Republic'

Iran's Democratic Moment

Protestors now demand an 'Iranian Republic, not Islamic Republic'

by Amir Taheri, Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2009

A month ago, Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, vowed to stop further antiregime demonstrations in Iran and break what he termed "this chain of conspiracies." But this week the "chain" appeared to be as strong as ever: Students across the nation defied the general and his political masters by organizing numerous demonstrations on and off campus.

The various opposition groups that constitute the pro-democracy movement have already called for another series of demonstrations on Dec. 27, 2009, a holy day on the Muslim Shiite calendar. Meanwhile, the official calendar of the Islamic Republic includes 22 days during which the regime organizes massive public demonstrations to flex its muscles. Since the controversial presidential election last June, the pro-democracy movement, in a jujitsu-style move, has used the official days to undermine the regime.


Antigovernment demonstrators at Tehran University, Dec. 7, 2009. Getty Images

On Jerusalem Day, Sept. 18, officially intended to express anti-Semitism, the opposition showed that Iranians have no hostility toward Jews or Israel. One popular slogan was "Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah! I give my life for Iran!" Another was "Forget about Palestine! Think about our Iran!"

On Nov. 4, 2009, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, the opposition distanced itself from the regime's anti-American rhetoric. The democrats instead expressed anger against Russia and China, which are perceived as allies of the Islamic Republic. One slogan was "The Russian Embassy is a nest of spies!"

Most significantly, the movement that started as a protest against the alleged rigging of the election that gave a second term to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been evolving. The crowds' initial slogan was "Where Is My Vote?" and the movement's accidental leaders, including former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, tried hard to keep the protest confined to demands such as a recount of the votes and, ultimately, a runoff in accordance with the law.

The slogans of the protestors are no longer about election fraud. Today they include "Death to the Dictator," "Freedom Now," and "Iranian Republic, Not Islamic Republic!" One slogan is a direct message to President Barack Obama: "Obama, Are You With Us or With Them?"

In short, the protestors no longer regard the present regime as the legitimate government of the country.
Both Mr. Mousavi and Ayatollah Mahdi Karroubi, another defeated presidential candidate, tried to prevent attacks on the "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the hope of eventually making a deal with him. As part of such a deal, they promised to defend the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, according to sources close to the opposition. The crowds have rejected that by shouting: "Abandon uranium enrichment! Do something about the poor!"

It is clear the democracy movement is in no mood for deals with Mr. Khamenei, who they castigate for having betrayed his constitutional role of arbiter by siding with Mr. Ahmadinejad even before the official results of the election were declared. The demonstrators now burn his effigies, tear up posters showing his image, and chant violent slogans against him. One popular slogan goes: "Khamenei is a murderer! His guardianship is invalid!"

By cracking down ruthlessly on the protestors, the regime has only radicalized the movement. Even such notorious dealmakers as Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president now opposed to Mr. Ahmadinejad, have made it clear they would not accept any formula that would leave the "landslide winner" in place.

Last week, Mr. Rafsanjani refused to attend a much-publicized "reconciliation event" concocted by Ali Ardeshir Larijani, the speaker of Iran's ersatz parliament. The reason? Mr. Rafsanjani did not wish to be seen under the same roof as Mr. Ahmadinejad. Later, in a speech in Mash'had, Mr. Rafsanjani spoke of the regime's "long, deep and, potentially lethal crisis."

To judge by their most popular slogans, demonstrators across Iran are bent on regime change. Even rumors that the regime is working on scenarios for ditching Mr. Ahmadinejad—ostensibly on "health grounds"—after the Iranian New Year in March, have failed to halt the spread of regime-change sentiments.

Given the nation's mood, Messrs. Mousavi and Karroubi have abandoned their earlier talk of "realizing the full potentials of the existing constitution." An adviser to Mr. Mousavi tells me that "They wanted to make an omelet without breaking eggs. They now realize that [the people] have moved faster than imagined." More significantly, perhaps, Mr. Mousavi appears to have put his plans for an ill-defined "green organization" on the backburner. He is beginning to understand that the antiregime movement is too wide to fit into a centrally controlled framework.

Over the past six months, thousands of people have been arrested and hundreds killed in the streets. And yet, despite promises to squash the movement by Gen. Jaafari, it persists. To make matters worse for the regime, the Shiite clergy, often regarded as the backbone of the Islamic Republic, is beginning to distance itself from the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad tandem. Some ayatollahs, such as Messrs. Montazeri, Bayat, San'ei, Borujerdi and Zanjani, are especially annoyed at Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim of being in contact with the "Hidden Imam"—a messiah-like figure of Shiism whose second coming is supposed to occur at the end of times.

Mr. Ahmadinejad claims that the "return" is imminent and that he, as one of the "pegs" designated by the Hidden Imam to prepare the ground for the advent, has a mission of chasing the "Infidel" out of Muslim lands and liberating Palestine from "Zionist occupiers." In a speech in Isfahan last week, Mr. Ahmadinejad claimed that the pro-democracy movement was created by the Americans to sabotage his mission and thus prevent the return of the "Hidden Imam."

In response, a mid-ranking cleric in Qom tells me: "The way Ahmadinejad talks, he must be a sick man . . . by backing such a man, Khamenei has doomed the regime."

The Ahmadinejad-Khamenei tandem is also coming under attack for its alleged incompetence. The regime is now plagued by double-digit inflation, a massive flight of capital, and unprecedented levels of unemployment. Divisions within the ruling clique mean that the president has been unable to fill scores of key posts at middle levels of government. Rapidly losing its popular base, the regime is becoming increasingly dependent on its coercive forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Revolutionary Guard commanders appear on TV almost every night, presenting themselves as "guardians of the system." Gen. Jaafari himself says he is attracted by the "Turkish model" in which the army acts as a bulwark of the republic.

However, the general may not have all the time in the world to ponder his next move. The pro-democracy movement is deepening and growing. Much work is under way to connect it to independent trade unions and hundreds of formal and informal associations that lead the civil society's fight against the evil of the Islamic Republic.

Iran has entered one of those hinge moments in history. What is certain is that the status quo has become untenable.

Mr. Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is published by Encounter Books. 

Link:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574585853987954522.html 

We all know what happened the last time a "let them eat cake" strategy was employed.

Public must learn to 'tolerate the inequality' of bonuses, says Goldman Sachs vice-chairman

Bankers' soaring pay is an investment in the economy, Lord Griffiths tells public meeting on City morality

by Kathryn Hopkins, The Guardian, October 21, 2009

Conservative peer Lord Griffiths said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding staff. Photograph: Rex Features

One of the City's leading figures has suggested that inequality created by bankers' huge salaries is a price worth paying for greater prosperity.

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all."

He added that he knew what inequality felt like after spending his childhood in a mining town in Wales. Both his grandfathers were miners who had to retire from work through injury.

With public anger mounting at the forecast of bumper bonuses for bankers only a year after the industry was rescued by the taxpayer, he said bankers' bonuses should be seen as part of a longer-term investment in Britain's economy. "I believe that we should be thinking about the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good ... We should not, therefore, be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people," he said.

Griffiths said that many banks would relocate abroad if the government cracked down on bonus culture. "If we said we're not going to have as big bonuses or the same bonuses as last year, I think then you'd find that lots of City firms could easily hive off their operations to Switzerland or the far east," he said.

Goldman Sachs is currently on track to pay the biggest ever bonuses to its 31,700 employees after raking in profits at a rate of $35m (£21m) a day.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said today that City bonuses could soar to £6bn this year.

The chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), Lord Turner, who was also present at the meeting, called once again for a global tax on financial transactions. He said that such a so-called "Tobin tax" could redistribute bank profits to help fight world poverty and climate change.

"The role of regulation is to bring a concordance between private actions and beneficial results," he said.

Link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/21/executive-pay-bonuses-goldmansachs

New York Times absence of journalistic integrity becomes ever more appalling -- now they shill for the health insurance industry, as well as ExxonMobil

Dear Readers,

It is getting to the point that the New York Times has become a simple prostitute for corporate interests (i.e., ExxonMobil, other fossil-fuel companies, and the health insurance industry, just for starters).

The NYTimes has so lost its journalistic integrity that it is hard to know which articles are puff pieces and which are not.

If the NYTimes believe they have a long-term future doing this, they are very mistaken.

All that remains is for Fox News to buy them out.

From the Naked Capitalism blog -- the best in describing what is really going on in the financial world. (Bold face emphases are mine.)

Naked Capitalism, Tuesday, October 13, 2009

New York Times: Missing in Action on Health Insurance Lobby Duplicity

In the early days of this blog, I would often wind up comparing coverage of news between the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal because the offender (almost without exception the Journal) had done a job so poor or misleading that it merited comment. Then the credit crisis forced the Journal to up its game, and the FT appeared to slip a bit (I wondered if it was catering, as in pandering, to US readers).

This time, the dubious reporting object lesson is the New York Times, on what is supposedly its most prized beat: Washington, DC, political reporting. The Times ran two articles that verged on sycophantic in its coverage of the health insurance industry as it moved its chess pieces on the health care reform game board. The Times acted as close to a PR outlet. From an early August post:

A similar charade is in motion on the health care front. My bullshit meter went into high alert earlier this week with this New York Times story, “For Health Insurers’ Lobbyist, Good Will Is Tested,” which was clearly a PR plant. It featured Karen Ignagni, a $1.6 million-a-year earning lobbyist to the health insurance industry as a heroine (I started getting nauseaous as soon as I saw the deliberately low-key picture of her in her office). And why should we see a representative of one of the biggest forces undermining democracy in America, the usually-successful efforts of well-funded industry groups to steam-roll legislative process, as a good guy, or in this case, gal? Because she supposedly talked a mean and obstructionist industry into playing nice.

Towards the end of August, in “New York Times Runs Yet Another Fawning Story on Health Insurance Industry,” I noted:

The latest salvo in the health care industry charm offensive is another story humanizing the health insurance industry, this one on the front page of the New York Times website, “Dealing With Being the Health Care ‘Villains’ ”

 So what is the story about? The author, Kevin Sack, interviewed a bunch of employees at Humana, the fourth-largest insurance company.

Let’s start with the basics. Why is this even a reasonable premise for a story? This is a perverse twist on a type of story the Times runs periodically, of dropping into a particular community, often in the heartland, to get the populace’s view on a pressing political or social issue.

Since when is it legitimate, much the less newsworthy, to get a company’s perception on its embattled status, at least without introducing either some contrary opinion or better yet, facts, to counter the views of people who will inevitably see what they are doing as right? I hate to draw an extreme comparison to make the point, but staff in Nazi concentration camps also thought they were good people. It is well documented that for all save the depressed, people’s assessments of their own behavior is biased in their favor.

Similarly, I don’t recall many examples of industries under attack having prominent members get flattering front page pieces. The now-famous AIG Financial Products “I Quit” letter was an op-ed. I will admit I could have missed it, but I did not see any New York Times front page pieces during the auto bailouts featuring GM or Chrysler execs and workers saying they were misunderstood. and were being maligned.

So what do we have here? You have a bunch of people whose livelihood depends on Humana. Of course they are gong to see the industry as benign.

And nowhere in this fawning piece do you see mention made of the ugly fact that as recently as the early 1990s, 95% of every dollar spent on insurance claims went to medical care. It is now only 80%. That is a simply stunning change, and shows how completely fact free the industry’s defenses are. The insurers are a major culprit in America’s high medical costs. But no, we are supposed to take the mere opinion of employees who are deeply vested in the current system as views worth considering.

Back in the days when I did M&A, one of my clients was a frighteningly good negotiator. He knew part of his reason for success was that he did not look the part: he was short, genial, a bit rotund, and bespectacled. He would (to those who he was certain would not spill the beans on him) describe himself as the Antichrist and say things like: “I rub their bellies and only years later do they realize what I have done to them.” And I have to say, he was masterful in getting people to think his self-serving view of things was the only sensible way to see a situation.

The insurance industry is not so adept, or more accurately, is less concerned about appearances than my old client. The Financial Times reports tonight that the health insurance industry, after its great show of making nice to the Obama administration, backstabbed it on the eve of a key vote. Do we see any coverage of this duplicity in the US media, much less the New York Times?

From “Health insurance lobby attacks reforms” in the Financial Times:

The White House and the health insurance industry on Monday descended into open conflict on the eve of a critical Senate vote that could determine the fortunes of Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans.

Supporters of President Obama accused the health insurance industry of attempted “sabotage” after it issued a report by PwC, which estimated that premiums would rise much faster under the proposed reforms than they would have done otherwise.

The 26-page report marked an abrupt end to the unlikely alliance between Mr Obama and America’s Health Insurance Plans – the main industry lobby group, which has spent about $100m on advertising to support the reforms….

A spokesman for Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which is to hold a key vote on Tuesday on its $829bn, 10-year, healthcare reform plan, described the report as a “hatchet job, pure and simple.”

The Wall Street Journal did report on the insurer “push back” and indicated that the industry had cooperated earlier, “attracted to the effort, in part, by the prospect of gaining millions of new customers.” So the Journal’s staff recognized this as a mere marriage of convenience from the get-go.

Update 4:30 a.m.: Robert Reich is more optimistic about the implications than I am, see “The Audacity of Greed: How Private Health Insurers Just Blew Their Cover.”

Link:   http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/10/new-york-times-missing-in-action-on-health-insurance-lobby-duplicity.html

Thomas Friedman: Where did "we" go?

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Where Did ‘We’ Go?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: New York Times, September 29, 2009

I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman

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I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.

And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.

Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.

The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.

Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.

I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.
We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/opinion/30friedman.html

Lin

L

Judge Jed S. Rakoff deserves to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor

This guy should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor!

Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Bonuses

The New York Times, September 14, 2009, 12:33 pm

A Federal District judge on Monday overturned a settlement between the Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission over bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives just before the bank took over Merrill last year.

The $33 million settlement “does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality,” wrote Jed S. Rakoff, the judge assigned to the case in federal court in Lower Manhattan, The New York Times’s Louise Story writes. (Read the decision after the jump.)

The ruling forces the commission to go back to the drawing board in its case against the bank, which focused on $3.6 billion bonuses paid out by Merrill Lynch late last year, just before that firm was taken over by Bank of America. Neither company provided details of the bonuses to their shareholders, who voted on Dec. 5 to approve the merger.

The judge focused much of his criticism on the fact that the fine in the case would be paid by the bank’s shareholders, those supposed to have been injured by the lack of disclosure around the bonuses.

“It is quite something else for the very management that is accused of having lied to its shareholders to determine how much of those victims’ money should be used to make the case against the management go away,” the judge wrote.

Bank of America has argued in its filings with the judge that it did nothing wrong in its disclosures.

The case before Judge Rakoff is just one of several investigations into the bank’s deal with Merrill. Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, is also investigating the bank’s disclosures of bonuses and of Merrill’s surprise losses late last year. The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform is also looking into the merger.

Judge’s Rejection of S.E.C.-Bank of America Settlement
Judge's Rejection of S.E.C.-Bank of America Settlement

Reintegração de posse de terreno da Viação Campo Limpo no Capão Redondo

Link to images of 570 families being forcibly moved off of the land they have occupied illegally since 2007:

http://www.estadao.com.br/interatividade/Multimidia/ShowGaleria.action?idGaleria=2110

Excellent blog on responsible urban renewal -- Blog da Raquel Rolnick

You know it is really nice to see a Brazilian blog that offers up some concrete solutions to urban problems in Brazil, instead of the usual endless litany of complaints.

Parabéns Raquel!!!

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  Raquel é urbanista, professora da Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo e relatora especial da Organização das Nações Unidas para o direito à moradia adequada.

We need to focus much more attention on urban renewal in the U.S., as well -- after all, that is where most people live today and will live tomorrow.

Link: http://raquelrolnik.wordpress.com/