No limit to defense needs; Egytians teach democracy; cut aid to cancers

Notes 53

REMARKABLE--Pentagon gets increase, funding for AmeriCorps, family planning assistance and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be wiped out. Might as well close the government down. Like Egypt. Only way to be rid of military.

House GOP Chairman outlines sweeping spending cuts
By Taylor, Associated Press – WASHINGTON –
The package of cuts totals $43 billion taken from domestic agency and foreign aid budgets when compared with levels enacted for 2010. Once increases for the Pentagon are accounted for, those savings are $35 billion.
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Will Obama sacrifice the loyal Egyptians who have suffered silently under Mubarak’s yoke to do our bidding for 30 years? Will he sacrifice their hunger for democracy to the 1,000 billionaire sheiks who have robbed their Bedouin compatriots and the King of Jordan? Time to see what he is made of.

Robert Scheer | Hey, Obama, Read WikiLeaks
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "After a good start, the Obama administration's response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship. Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a 'Mubarak consigliere.'"
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah told President Barack Obama there can be “no compromise” over the stability of Egypt, the official Saudi Press Agency reported today.


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One murder too many

The murder of Khaled Said
By Issandr El Amrani June 14
Egypt is abuzz with outrage after the death of Khaled Said, allegedly at the hands of the police. Here is a brief backgrounder:
“On Sunday, Khaled was at cyber café at around 11:30 in the evening. Two policemen asked him for money and when he said he didn’t have, they beat him,” Muhammad Abdel Aziz, lawyer with el-Nadeem, told al-Masry al-Youm. “As he was beaten up, his head hit a marble table and he started bleeding.”
According to Abdel Aziz, the policemen took Said out of the cyber café and continued to beat him. “He screamed at them saying ‘I am dying, leave me’, and he fell on the floor.” Abdel Aziz added that witnesses saw a yellow liquid coming out of Said’s mouth when he fell on the floor, after which there was bleeding. A pharmacist and a medic passing by confirmed he was shortly dead after they checked his tension.
Witnesses said a police car picked Said up. His family was later contacted and told he is in the morgue of Kom el-Dekka, to which they were denied access. At the prosecutor’s office, security told Said’s mother and brother that he swallowed a bag of drugs and that there were witnesses to the incident who confirmed seeing the bag. Ahmad Badawy, an activist in Alexandria with al-Ghad Party went on 11 June to the cyber café where the incident happened and said witnesses told him the drugs bag belonged to the two policemen who beat him up as he was shooting a video of them while making a deal.

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Google Executive Wael Ghonim Admits He Was El Shaheeed
by Mike Giglio Info
Mike Giglio is a reporter at Newsweek.
In his first interview with English-language media, the senior Google executive, Wael Ghonim, released Monday after twelve days in Egyptian custody, confirmed that he was the anonymous force behind the Facebook page that sparked Egypt’s revolt.
Named in honor of a blogger beaten to death by police this summer, the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said” became a rallying point for last week’s demonstrations. It was run anonymously by Ghonim, who referred to himself simply as “El Shaheeed,” which in Arabic means “the martyr.” Ghonim also created the Web page for Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize winner who has returned to Egypt to become one of the main leaders of the opposition.

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How to bring this thing to peaceful conclusion? We did it in 1787. The Indians did it in 1947. The Vietnamese did it in 1976. The Soviet Republics did it in the 90s.

Egyptian opposition defiant over VP's warning
AP – An Egyptian camel rider waits for tourists as he passes by the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt's most famous …
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Maggie Michael, Associated Press – 18 mins ago
CAIRO – Egypt's protesters were defiant Wednesday after a warning from Vice President Omar Suleiman that if protesters don't enter negotiations, a "coup" could take place causing greater chaos, raising alarm of crackdown. Organizers of the mass demonstrations, now in their 16th day, sought to widen their uprising.
Suleiman's sharply worded warning deepened protesters' suspicions of his U.S.-backed efforts to put together negotiations with the opposition over reforms. The protesters insist they will only enter dialogue after President Hosni Mubarak steps down, fearing the regime will manipulate talks and conduct only superficial changes without bringing real democracy.

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Time to start pulling our levers--including aid to Israel

Egypt protesters fear revenge if Mubarak holds on

CAIRO – The trappings of a determined protest movement — chanting, flags and raised fists — fill Tahrir Square, the hard-won enclave of those who seek a new Egypt. But some there fear an enemy in their midst.
After the initial euphoria over their defiance of a state once thought impregnable, protesters are increasingly uneasy that President Hosni Mubarak or leaders he has chosen may hang on to power.
If they do, there is a growing fear that the entrenched regime will try to exact revenge in the way it has done so many times before — mass arrests and abuse of detainees.

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Ass it turns out, the government shut down not only internet but airports, trains, banks, businesses to create threat of chaos and try to prevent public from supporting demonstrators
Egypt Government Shuts Down Country’s Internet To Stifle Protest
Written by Associated Press on January 28, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO — About a half-hour past midnight Friday morning in Egypt, the Internet went dead. Almost simultaneously, the handful of companies that pipe the Internet into and out of Egypt went dark as protesters were gearing up for a fresh round of demonstrations calling for the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule, experts said.

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Some sort of parallel between Obama supporting military against Egyptian revolution for freedom and American military trying to repress rejection of foreign control in Afghanistan

Petraeus predicts intensified fighting in 2011
By Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press – Wed Feb 9
BRUSSELS – General Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, warned that combat will likely escalate during the spring thaw as Taliban insurgents try to return to areas cleared by the international forces during the past several months.

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Corporate America a perfect archetype for Somali pirates enriching themselves at expense of everybody else in a sort of free wheeling, free enterprise endeavor. Anerucan’s should cheer.

Somali pirates free South Korean ship and 43 crew
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press – 1 hr 6 mins ago
NAIROBI, Kenya – Somali pirates on Wednesday released a South Korean ship seized four months ago while fishing for crabs, while another group of sea bandits captured a Greek-flagged supertanker carrying oil to the Gulf of Mexico.
The attack against the supertanker is the second successful attack against an oil tanker in two days. Such vessels can command higher ransoms because of the value of the crude on board.

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Finally somebody who won’t be bulldozed by allegations of sexual indiscretions--perhaps fomented by his pursuit of American C.I.A agents’ illegal rendition. Same ploy used against Assange. Titillate public with sex allegations and distract from heart of conflict.

Berlusconi: Sex trial aims to discredit my govt
AP – A placard referring to a recent sex scandal that involved Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, hangs from …
By COLLEEN BARRY and ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Colleen Barry And Alessandra Rizzo, Associated Press – 17 mins ago
MILAN – Italian prosecutors demanded Wednesday that Premier Silvio Berlusconi be put on trial over accusations he paid for sex with a 17-year-old Moroccan girl and used his influence to try to cover it up. The Italian leader blasted the "disgusting" action, saying it aimed to topple his government.

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Changing the way America travels. Reducing need for oil. The convergence of short distance electric cars and high speed long distance rail. Another revolution worth fighting for,


High-Speed Rail: Obama Pledges $53 Billion for Upgrades
TIME
By Michael Grunwald – Wed Feb 9
On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced a six-year, $53 billion plan to expand high-speed passenger trains, a surprisingly aggressive boost for Obama's fledgling effort to change the way we move around the country. Last year, the President requested just $1 billion for the program. He's requesting $8 billion for next year. (Can high-speed rail help make America green?)
He announced in his State of the Union address that he wants high-speed rail to serve 80% of the population by 2025, as part of his new push for infrastructure investments to promote American competitiveness and help "win the future."
Biden predicted that a national network of faster trains would help create jobs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and relieve congestion in highways and airports, while upgrading the long-term efficiency and productivity of the U.S. economy.
Biden said the Administration was proposing the largest rail investment since Abraham Lincoln began the intercontinental railroad - and promised a similar impact.
"If we don't seize this future, how will America ever have the opportunity to lead the world in the 21st century?" Biden asked.

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Playing with the Big Boys for the future of the American dream

Treasury to Punt on Fannie and Freddie Plan
contributors@theatlantic.com (Jim Tankersley), On Wednesday February 9, 2011
In his options for scrapping the rescued mortgage companies, Obama deflects political heat--with some risk.
The private sector has essentially fled the residential mortgage market; some 95 percent of new home loans are owned or backed by Fannie and Freddie. Many economists and housing experts worry that if Fannie and Freddie are phased out too quickly, or if no backstop remains when they disappear, the market will crumble further. Qualified buyers could find loans only sporadically available, or prohibitively expensive because of added insurance against default.
The biggest risk isn't political, it's economic. The housing market remains the weakest link, by far, in a national recovery that is strengthening by the day. Building activity has stagnated, prices have plunged, and the construction sector, in particular, has suffered the consequences.
The three options the Treasury Department will recommend to Congress on Friday, as described by an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity, will all phase out Fannie and Freddie as we know them.
The Administration is offering a three-item menu to Congress for mortgage-market life after Freddie and Fannie. One of the choices would remove government entirely from the business of backstopping home loans. The middle choice is a limited government guarantee, which lawmakers could broaden in the event of another housing collapse. Option Three amounts to a full government mortgage guarantee.
It pits the tea party and free-market-think-tank wing of the Republican Party, which opposes government guarantees, against some traditionally big GOP donors in the housing industry, Realtors and home-builders, who could have a lot of money riding on guarantees or a lack thereof.
Obama is forcing congressional leaders, including top Republicans in the House, to share the heat over whether or not the feds belong in the mortgage game. He's also forcing interest groups--builders, realtors, free-marketeers, and fair-housing advocates--to put a lot of lobbying muscle behind their preferred plans.
What the administration gives up in the process is a chance to drive the debate.