The spreading Occupy movement has seen one after another sit-in, protest camp or march brutally and inexcusably assaulted by paramilitary police actions, using chemical agents and other weapons of war, against unarmed, nonviolent citizens exercising their basic constitutional rights. The result has been a rash of unfettered violence across the world against pro-democracy advocates.

In Egypt, officials have openly said they should be allowed to use military violence against civilian demonstrators, because it is being done across the United States. After the atrocities of Oakland, when police fired rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters at point-blank range at penned-in, unarmed demonstrators, sending ex-Marine Scott Olsen to the hospital with a fractured skull and brain injuries, the use of paramilitary tactics seems only to have spread.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week staged an unannounced, midnight raid on the original Occupy Wall Street protest site, using chemical weapons, LRAD combat sound cannon, and police officers in riot gear swinging wildly with billy clubs against anyone in sight, regardless of threat or posture. There has been no penalty, and no punishment, for officers engaged in aggravated assault against civilians.

Mayor Bloomberg deployed counter-terrorist police helicopters to the scene of the violent assault, to prevent news helicopters from filming what occurred. Press were banned from the site, by what authority it remains unclear. At least 26 journalists were assaulted, beaten, injured, and/or detained, on the night of the Zuccotti Park raid. There was a planned, deliberate use of violence and combat tactics against unarmed, nonviolent, even sleeping and prone demonstrators.

The brutality of the raid was so severe that when City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Washington Heights) rushed to the site to observe and to make the case against the use of violence to disperse the protesters, he was assaulted by police and arrested for disorderly conduct. According to the New York Daily News: Several people detained with him told me Rodriguez was bleeding badly from a gash in his forehead. Still, by 6 p.m., he had not been arraigned and his lawyer, Leo Glickman, had not been allowed to see him.

Glickman says his client is not even being afforded the basic due process protections afforded to any arrestee and that the citys treatment of the protest and of the councilman is an effort to silence the movement. At least one retired state Supreme Court justice also found her attempts to provide legal observation to the raid obstructed. The Daily News reports the scene as follows:

Retired Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith can’t believe what she saw this week. At the urging of her son, who joined the Zuccotti Park protests weeks ago, Smith had volunteered to be a legal observer in case of mass arrests.

She received a text message early Tuesday that a bust was imminent, so she got to Zuccotti around 1:30 a.m. As she exited the subway at Broadway and Dey St., she met a wall of cops in riot gear who were preventing people from getting anywhere near the park.

“There was a black woman standing next to me,” Smith said. “She kept frantically telling the cops her daughter was in the park and she wanted to make sure the girl was okay.”

“All of a sudden, a cop takes his baton and cracks her in the head,” Smith said. “She hadn’t done a thing. Then they started chasing people down the street.”

Smith’s efforts to get police to recognize her as a legal observer proved futile. Likewise, several reporters who were arrested while covering the protest found their press credentials worthless.

Crimes were committed by authorities that directly violate the Constitution of the United States and its fundamental protections for free speech, freedom of the press and the freedom of the people to peaceably assemble. The denial of access to counsel for some and the barring of press and legal observers from the scene is a clear attempt to circumvent the right of the people to petition their government for the redress of grievances. Some First Amendment advocates have accused the city of barring press and legal observers in order to 1) undermine the evidentiary process and 2) allow for impunity in the use of extreme force by police.

Across the United States, we are witnessing, sadly, one after another mayor decide that the free exercise of constitutional liberties is a threat to public order, only to deploy paramilitary tactics to crush peaceful protests.

There are accusations of a coordinated planning strategy among mayors to determine what level of force they will deploy, and by what means, to crush the demonstrations. Some mayors offices have claimed the right to secrecy for security reasons, and there are Freedom of Information filings being made to learn who knew what when, and who gave which order that led to police firing on demonstrators, or using chemical weapons in unprovoked attacks against citizens.

In Egypt, where the nonviolent Tahrir Square uprising brought down the dictator Hosni Mubarak, in just 18 days between January 25 and February 11 of this year, authorities are now openly citing the actions of American mayors and police forces as justification for their use of extreme violence against nonviolent civilian demonstrators calling for genuine democratic reform. Mayors Bloomberg, Emanuel, Quan and others, are aiding and abetting the use of extreme violence to crush pro-democracy movements across the world.

This is not hyperbole. This is not interpretation. This is what is happening:

• In the streets of New York City, paramilitary forces were deployed, using tactics designed for armed combat in a warzone, using weapons designed specifically for combat in a war zone, deploying chemical weapons against unarmed civilians and banning all press coverage of the event.
• In the streets of Oakland, police shot a former Marine in the face at point-blank range, while he was penned in, and despite his having no weapon of any kind, posing no threat to anyone, and doing nothing of any kind in violation of any law. When he fell to the ground, gushing blood and good samaritans rushed to his aid, which not one of the police present did, an Oakland police officer fired a flash-bang grenade apparently loaded with tear gas directly into the huddle of people trying to help him, as if to finish off the protest with one last shot.
• At UC Davis, police walked along a row of nonviolent student protesters linking arms, and deployed a chemical weapon directly into their faces, with reckless and abject disregard for their health, their wellbeing, their rights, the rule of law or their own obligation to protect and serve.

In each case, the authorities behaved in direct contravention of the Constitution of the United States, and carried out brutal, wanton, physical assault against unarmed civilians. The violence against journalists in New York City is among the most worrying developments, because it suggests a depraved disregard for American law at the highest levels and directly mirrors the kind of planned atrocities being carried out in countries where corrupt regimes are actively trying to stamp out all pro-democracy protest.

In Egypt, the escalation of official violence against protesters has left 33 people dead since Saturday. The lesson of military impunity taught by Mayor Bloombergs assault on demonstrators has been learned, and is being treated almost as legal precedent by corrupt regimes unwilling to consent to any genuine open democratic process. The consequences are increased impunity, increased suffering, the deaths of innocents and an attempt across the region to roll back the democratic gains of the Arab spring.

People across the United States should stand together, regardless of party or ideology, and demand that there never again be even one instance of law enforcement being deployed to use force against any civilians exercising their basic rights.

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Related:

• The Oakland Crackdown (discussion)
• What is the Meaning of This?
• Occupy Wall Street, with a People-centered Investment Bank

Robert Reich explains how big money is taking over the privileges of democratic rights, to the exclusion of ordinary people, and to the detriment of citizens who seek to exercise their basic civil liberties. The violence of police against unarmed civilians is absolutely inexcusable, and it is motivated in part by a systemic disregard for the value of the human individual, of basic rights, of citizenship and of the obligation public servants have to work for, not against, the people they are elected to serve. Says Reich: “WE NEED TO OCCUPY OUR DEMOCRACY.”

Today, the 20th of September, 2011, the discriminatory US military policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which required thousands of gay personnel to serve their country while keeping their private life secret. Honorable people were discharged only because someone else found out they were not heterosexual. In some cases, the ideal military officer for a highly skilled, difficult-to-fill position were discharged despite being the most qualified person for operationally vital positions.

“The strength of America is her ability to undo her faults,” said Alexis de Tocqueville. For nearly two decades, the United States military has lived with a law that hampered its readiness, undermined the shared trust of its service members, and threatened to ruin the professional lives of some of its most committed and selfless patriots. From today, those committed professionals and selfless citizen volunteers, will be able to serve honorably, and openly, improving the readiness and excellence of our military.

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ends a tragic example of prejudice ordained by federal law, and helps to restore the dignity and integrity of a nation of law, founded to uphold the equal, natural, universal rights, of all people.

Across the eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine, there is an intense and well-ordered preparation underway to brace against and limit the fallout from Hurricane Irene. In North Carolina, 300,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the Outer Banks and low-lying coastal areas. The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas in all five boroughs.

New York City evacuations are underway—the first mandatory evacuation in the city’s history. This afternoon, mass transit will be entirely shut down. 370,000 New Yorkers are in the evacuation zone. With a substantial amount of the city expected to be subject to severe flooding if the storm makes a direct hit, the Bloomberg administration is taking care to do everything that was not done in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans.

The highest winds yet recorded were 110 mph, at Cedar Ferry Terminal, North Carolina. MSNBC is reporting that hurricane-force winds are extending 90 miles out from the eye of the storm, even several hours after landfall.

There have been reports of at least one tornado touching down in Maryland, and a federal tornado wach zone now covers eastern parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey. The latest satellite modeling suggests the storm’s most intense winds will rake the coasts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, hitting New York City with winds in excess of 70 mph. Delaware’s governor has ordered mandatory evacuations.

The state of New Jersey is under a blanket state of emergency, with some coastal areas under mandatory evacuation. The counties are issuing evacuation updates, including official state-backed shelters for evacuees. The NJ Office of Emergency Management has posted pdf documents with advised coastal evacuation routes. New Jersey storm surge maps have also been made available through the Office of Emergency Management.

New Jersey Transit will be entirely shut down as of noon today. New York’s public transit will be shut down at noon, as well. Five New York area airports will be closed, with thousands of flights canceled.

Hospitals and nursing homes are also being evacuated, a first for many of them. Some of the world’s most powerful financial institutions are in the mandatory evacuation zone, including Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Nomura Securities, RBC Capital Markets and the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Map: Click here for a pdf map of New York City’s mandatory evacuation zones.

Planning: Click here for a pdf guide to hurricane readiness, evacuation and response, for NYC.

This morning, Mayor Bloomberg issued the following statements, with a press release:

“During the storm, please stay off streets and sidewalks to prevent injury, and stay away from the windows if you live on the tenth floor of a high rise or above that. The risk of window damage is greater, so it’d be smart to stay away from the windows or go to a lower floor.

“If the low-lying areas of our city begin to flood, I mentioned the Con Ed may have to shut down their power lines. NYCHA buildings will be shutting down their elevators, as will other buildings. And if you’re using generated power, please do not have a generator inside your house or your apartment. Carbon monoxide fumes kill.

“In terms of our city buildings: All construction has been stopped. Our inspectors are working to make sure that construction sites are locked down.

“Homeowners and residents: If you haven’t done so already, please bring outdoor furniture inside – plywood, trashcans, any loose items that can blow around.

“So in conclusion: If you live in a low-lying Zone A areas or in the Rockaways, you have to leave, and you should start right now. Do not delay. Do not wait for the weather to be bad. It’s starting to rain here in Coney Island right now. This is just the beginning. You say it’s a few drops – this is going to be a very serious storm. No matter what the track is, no matter how much it weakens, this is a life threatening storm to people here.”

The city’s maps and readiness guide are also available in the following ten languages:

An additional 470,000 people live in the mandatory evacuation zones on Long Island, one of the most densely populated areas of the country.

Nassau County: Evacuation notice and resources

Suffolk County: Emergency preparedness resources

Most will likely have to evacuate inland or to official shelters, as New York City’s evacuation procedures and public transit shutdown will make it difficult to get through to the mainland. Some ferries may be able to move people from Long Island’s coastal areas to Connecticut, but these services will shut down when heavy winds and rough seas arrive, if they have not already. Evacuees should check with local authorities and transport services.

Fox 29 Philadelphia is reporting that the 8+ inches of rain expected to hit Philadelphia and New York would be equivalent to more than 60 inches of snow, a measure better understood by residents of the northeast. Some worst-case estimates are for twice that amount of precipitation. The National Hurricane Center is warning that before the storm relents, at least 15 inches of rain are expected to have fallen on North Carolina.

FEMA’s Craig Fugate is warning that tornadoes are expected to accompany the storm, and that anyone outside evacuation zones should remain indoors and keep away from doors and windows. The tornado warnings will last longer than usual, because the risk is tied to the full cyclone.

Storm surges have already been seen in North Carolina, roadways are beginning to see serious flooding, and Fugate also reminded the public that some of the worst floods ever seen came with tropical storms, not hurricanes. Hurricane category ratings are linked to wind-speeds and storm surge projections, not to rain volume.

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Hurricane Emergency Maps for New Jersey:

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New York

Suffolk County links:

• To find a list of open shelters, please click here.
• To find a Red Cross Shelter near you, please click here
• To see the coastal evacuation routes for Suffolk County, click here.
• To see the storm surge zones for Suffolk County, click here.

Nassau County:

• Evacuation notice and list of shelters
• Evacuation routes, maps and instructions
• County evacuation route map

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More links and emergency planning and evacuation resources:

Washington, DC, area

• News releases from the Mayor’s Office
• Follow Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Twitter and Facebook
• Register for Alert DC

• DDOT website information and on Twitter
• DPW website information and on Twitter
• HSEMA and 72hours.dc.gov
• DISB provides flood insurance information and tips on storm recovery
• MPD website information
• DCOA offers tips for preparing
• Evacuation route planning tool

Federal Government

• Ready.gov – hurricane preparedness and response resources
• NOAA Watch – tracking maps for Hurricane Irene
• National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Irene Public Advisory
• NOAA / NHC - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook

Two days after taking control of most of the capital, and a day after two of Qadhafi’s sons escaped house arrest as pro-Qadhafi forces staged a challenge to the rebel onslaught, Libya’s pro-democracy rebels swept into Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. Reports from the Libyan capital spoke of scenes of rebels destroying images of Qadhafi and symbols of his regime, and seizing much of the extravagant wealth he had accumulated over four decades of authoritarian rule.

Beyond Libya’s borders, the capture of Qadhafi’s own main compound is being touted as the true collapse of his regime, though it has not yet brought word of outright surrender by his closest supporters. The whereabouts of Col. Qadhafi himself are as yet unknown, with reports and rumors suggesting he may be hiding in Tripoli itself, or that he may have fled to remote southern Libya, near the Chad border region.

There is also concern the pro-Qadhafi forces’ shelling of civilian areas in Tripoli and Misrata may cause some among the armed rebels to become more radical in the post-Qadhafi era. But the Transitional National Council has reiterated its intention to establish the rule of law, refrain from revenge-oriented actions, and prosecute regime leaders according to recognized standards of due process.

There is optimism that the fall of Bab al-Azizya—Qadhafi’s heavily fortified compound inside Tripoli, guarded by sharpshooters and special forces, and where he survived US airstrikes nearly three decades ago—to Libyan freedom fighters means Libya will see the end of the bloodshed of Qadhafi’s last days. But the mystery of Qadhafi’s whereabouts became all the more urgent this evening, when the missing leader reportedly broadcast a message, saying he would accept only victory or “martyrdom”.

Al Jazeera reported:

“After what we have seen today, after what Mahmoud Jibril (a leader of the rebel National Transitional Council) said, and the international recogntion of NTC as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, it means that Gaddafi is now just a sought after criminal. The idea of Gaddafi as ‘the Libyan leader’, is over.

Meanwhile, 30 journalists remained holed up in Tripoli’s Rixos hotel on Tuesday. The New York Times reported that journalists from the BBC, CNN and other international news organisations were stuck inside the hotel with no electricity and described the hotel as a “prison”.

The capital is still very much a war zone, and pro-Qadhafi soldiers and mercenaries are reportedly threatening the lives of civilians and journalists, in an effort to hold onto the little terrain that has not been taken by the rebel forces. There had been rumors Qadhafi was holed up in a bunker beneath the Rixos Hotel, and there is concern the civilians inside the hotel might be in danger if they are not allowed to leave.

Seif al-Islam, Qadhafi’s 38-year old son, once thought of as a reformer and now a committed combattant fighting to defend his father’s dictatorship, said his father is safe and inside Tripoli. Observers have expressed skepticism about that possibility, and worry a prolonged manhunt could ensue, disrupting the potential for a peaceful transition to democracy. Others say Qadhafi should be treated as an international fugitive, to be arrested on sight, under indictment from the International Criminal Court, as soon as he emerges, wherever he emerges.

There was also fighting reported today in Ajelat, and in Ageila, along the coast outside Ras Lanuf, a key oil facility. It was reported that Qadhafi loyalists were attacking Ajelat with missiles and tanks and that scud missiles were fired from Sirte, Qadhafi’s hometown, toward Misrata, a city besieged by Qadhafi for four months, and only recently liberated by the rebel forces.

UPDATE: Rebel forces have taken much of Tripoli, celebrate with civilians in Green Square and control the Tripoli airport

Reports from Tripoli, the capital of Libya, suggest rebel forces have taken territory inside the capital, and captured one of Qadhafi’s sons, after a top security official ordered troops to lay down arms and let the rebels in. There are reports of convoys of rebel soldiers moving into the capital, being welcomed and celebrated by unarmed civilians. Some news reports have talked of “uprisings” in the suburbs, and possibly within Tripoli itself.

According to Reuters:

In a coordinated revolt that rebels have been secretly planning for months to end Gaddafi’s 41-year rule, shooting started on Saturday night across Tripoli moments after Muslim clerics, using the loudspeakers of mosque minarets, called people on to the streets.

The fighting inside Tripoli, combined with rebel advances into the outskirts of the city, appeared to signal the decisive phase in a six-month conflict that has become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings and embroiled NATO powers.

A source inside the regime reportedly told Reuters that 376 people were killed, on both sides, in overnight clashes inside the capital. In the village of al-Maya, pro-Qadhafi forces reportedly clashed with the rebels, who took the town, painted the walls to declare their presence and their march to Tripoli, then continued with the convoys flowing into the capital.

According to CNN and the Baltimore Sun:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) — Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, a son of Libya’s ruler Moammar Gadhafi and a top official in the regime, has been captured by opposition forces, a rebel official said Sunday night.

Ali Said, general secretary of the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, said that the arrest had taken place in Tripoli. The head of the same rebel group also confirmed the capture in an Al Jazeera interview. There was no immediate reaction from Libyan government officials to the report.

Al Jazeera English reported, on its Libya Live Blog this evening, that one of Qadhafi’s sons, Mohammed, “has surrendered” to the rebels. That marks the closest any of the top-level defections has come so far to Qadhafi himself. With two of his sons now in custody, and his family apparently splitting over whether to fight or surrender, it is expected Qadhafi himself may attempt to negotiate his own surrender.

But Muammar Qadhafi has been defiant, stating as recently as this morning that he would “fight to the end”. This evening he repeated calls for residents of Tripoli and other cities to rush to his defense and to fight the rebel “rats”.

On Twitter, the news is pouring in, with anecdotal reports mixing with video, audio and official news reports. @ArabRevolution posted this re-tweet: “RT @LibyanLion17 AJA Caller – BREAKING – NATO is taking out the walls of Bab alAziziya so that FFs can move in. #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“. (“FF” has become Twitter code for freedom fighter.)

@LibyanLion17 posted this update around the same time: “BREAKING – Saadi, Mohammed and Saif al-Islam have ALL been captured by FF. 4 more to go. #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“, around 6:00 pm EDT, midnight in Tripoli. Less than half an hour later, reports broke that Muammar Qadhafi himself had fled the country and was in hiding in Algeria. That report has not been confirmed, and NATO’s secretary general was unable to answer questions about whether Qadhafi had left Libya or not.

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UPDATES

At 12:01 am, 1:01 am Monday, Tripoli time, London’s Guardian newspaper reports:

Tripoli resident Hakeem Guja has told the BBC: “We celebrate the victory. The people are very happy and want to thank the Nato forces for helping us.”

A few minutes before 1:00 am, Tripoli time, @LibyanLion17 tweeted “BREAKING – ALJAZEERA – THERE IS NEWS THAT GADDAFI HIMSELF HAS BEEN CAUGHT #Libya #Feb17 #Tripoli“. But Al Jazeera reported only minutes later that “The ICC has confirmed that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been detained, and NOT his father, Muammar Gaddafi.”

The BBC is reporting the International Criminal Court has confirmation that at least one of Qadhafi’s sons, Saif al Islam, has been taken into custody. CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeted, also shortly after 1:00 am Tripoli time: “When the Rixos minders run away, it means the regime has given up on trying to mold the message. Game over. #Libya #Feb17“.

(1:11 am, Tripoli) From the Guardian’s Libya Live Blog:

12.11am: The International Criminal Court prosecutor’s spokeswoman says it has been confirmed that Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam has been detained, Reuters reports.

12.09am: The Libyan rebels reach Green Square in the centre of Tripoli, Sky News reports.

The US State Dept. is urging Libya’s rebels, and the governing authority under the Transitional National Council, to begin planning for the post-Qadhafi period. According to Reuters:

“Clearly the offensive for Tripoli is under way,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

“We continue efforts to encourage the TNC to maintain broad outreach across all segments of Libyan society and to plan for post-Gaddafi Libya. Gaddafi’s days are numbered. If Gaddafi cared about the welfare of the Libyan people, he would step down now.”

A spokesman for the Council, which has been recognized as Libya’s legitimate governing authority, said in recent days that mistakes had been made in the early days after rebel takeovers in the east, and that a plan for secure, non-violent government would be in place once Tripoli falls.

Shortly after 1:00 am, Tripoli time, Reuters reported the rebels had reached Green Square. Other reports suggested the fighting there had ceased and civilians were welcoming the rebels.

At 1:42 am, Tripoli time, Al Jazeera English reported that the rebels had taken control of the Tripoli airport. There have been intermittent reports that fighting had ceased, but news continues to pour in of skirmishes, rebel advances, with no clear sign the regime has fallen, but no clear sign of a forceful ongoing resistance. At 1:44 am, Tripoli time, AJE reported that Libyan state television is “blacked out”, not active.

Reports from journalists in Tripoli that regime “minders” had fled have been taken as a suggestion that the regime is no longer actively seeking to fight the rebel offensive or control the media message. There are rumors the rebels seek to detain fleeing government officials at the Tripoli airport, but no confirmed reports at present of top-level detentions there.

1:48 am Tripoli time: Libya’s ambassador to the UAE (representing the Transitional National Council) tells AJE there is an atmosphere of “jubilation and relief” as cities across Libya celebrate what appears to be the last night of the Qadhafi regime. He said the transitional stabilization team was working to build a non-violent democratic transition process “according to the best practices of stabilization and reconstruction work”.

The ambassador also pledge that there would be no campaign of vengeance against former loyalists or loyalist enclaves and specified that a peaceful post-war was necessary to ensure that the “suffering and pain of so many Libyans and Libyan families does not go in vain”. There are reports at this hour of contacts between US and European officials and representatives of the transitional Libyan government regarding ways to manage the peace.

At 1.59 am, Tripoli time, ThinkProgress posted this report on Twitter: “RT @Reuters: REBELS SAY ALL TRIPOLI IS UNDER THEIR CONTROL EXCEPT GADDAFI’S STRONGHOLD OF BAB AL-AZIZIYAH”.

Representatives of the rebel movement say the Transitional National Council will replace the Qadhafi-era name Green Square with Martyrs’ Square, in honor of the Libyan democracy advocates who died fighting to defend civilian populations against the regime.

2:04 am: @SultanAlQassemi, commentator on Arab affairs, tweets: “Al Jazeera: Sources: Libyan Revolutionaries have taken control of the State TV & Radio building in Tripoli #Libya“. The capture of state media is being treated as an important development for the democracy movement, as Egyptian protest leaders have expressed concern they have not been able to better guide the public debate in the post-Mubarak era.

Unconfirmed cell-phone images are now emerging purporting to show celebrations in the streets of Tripoli.

2:14 am: There are reports on CNN that regime snipers are still holding key positions inside Tripoli, even as rebel forces are said to be holding all territory surrounding Qadhafi’s compound. A statement has been made suggesting the compound is now being seen by rebels as “a five-star prison” for Qadhafi, if he remains inside. There is no confirmed information in the global media about whether clashes continue at the site of Qadhafi’s compound.

11:45 pm EDT, 5:45 am in Tripoli: Al Jazeera is now reporting:

Euphoric Libyan rebels have moved into the centre of the capital, Tripoli, as Muammar Gaddafi’s defenders melted away and thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air.

The rebels’ surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall on Sunday, they had advanced more than 32km to Tripoli.

Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said from the Green Square: “There’s a party in the Libyan capital tonight. The people are in charge of the city. They’ve decided the square is now called Martyr’s Square, the original name. They’re shouting ‘we’re free’ and shooting at a poster of Gaddafi.”

11:17 am EDT, 5:17 am in Tripoli: Update from Mother Jones’ Hamed Aleaziz and Asawin Suebsaeng:

Deborah Haynes, an editor at London-based newspaper The Times, is on the ground in Tripoli. Haynes just sent out an unsettling tweet, indicating that the battle for Tripoli may be far from over: “Just been in Green Square. Gunfire erupted, sending rebels scattering. Then saw eight fresh corpses on way out. Tripoli ain’t secure.”

Also, Sarah Sidner, a reporter for CNN, tweeted around 5:15 a.m. Monday in Tripoli that “Green square nearly empty. We were warned to get out. Rebels say Gadhafi troops advancing toward square.”

12:03 am EDT, 6:03 am in Tripoli: The BBC is reporting there are fierce battles raging in the area around the Tripoli Hotel, where the Qadhafi regime has been basing its media operations. Al Libya TV is reportedly offline, but pro-Qadhafi forces are defending the Tripoli Hotel, and there are reports Qadhafi spokespeople claim as many as 35,000 troops may be in and around the capital, “ready to fight” to fend off the rebels.

The Transitional National Council has said rebels will not occupy the city militarily, if Qadhafi and his family leave power.

12:35 am EDT, 6:35 am in Tripoli: US president Barack Obama has called on Col. Muammar Qadhafi to “relinquish power once and for all.” He added that “Qadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end”. He said “The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people,” and said the US would work closely with the Transitional National Council, which it recognizes as the legitimate governing authority.

Obama went on to say that “We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected. We will continue to work with our allies and partners in the international community to protect the people of Libya, and to support a peaceful transition to democracy.”

12:49 am EDT, 6:49 am in Tripoli: Al Jazeera English Live, tweeting as @AJELive, reports: “Nasser, #Tripoli resident, says they will let NTC take care of anything, are forming local security battalions, won’t take revenge #Libya“. Reports suggesting rebels are ready to establish law and order and to institute a transition guided by the rule of law are winning encouragement, and optimism that the six-month Libyan war may be ending.

More reporting on the Libyan liberation movement:

• Qadhafi Under Siege as Rebels Move into Tripoli – updates - Aug. 20, 2011
• Libyan Rebels Advance on Tripoli, Take Key Cities - Aug. 20, 2011
• US Now Recognizes Transitional Council as Legitimate Libyan Government - July 15, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime Abuse of al-Obeidi Crime Against Humanity - Apr. 4, 2011
• UN Action in Libya is Bid to Rescue Democracy Movement - Mar. 27, 2011
• Airstrikes Underway Against Libya, as Qadhafi Refuses to Pull Back - Mar. 19, 2011
• UN Security Council Votes to Support Strikes Against Qadhafi - Mar. 17, 2011
• Qadhafi ‘has lost the legitimacy to rule’ - Feb. 27, 2011
• Protesters in Central Tripoli Fired on by Irregular Army Loyal to Qadhafi - Feb. 26, 2011
• Ban calls for action to stop Qadhafi killing… - Feb. 26, 2011
• Qadhafi Declares War on His People - Feb. 25, 2011
• Qadhafi Regime on Brink of Collapse - Feb. 22, 2011
• Qadhafi’s Son Warns of Civil War, as Libyan Military Appears Split - Feb. 21, 2011
• Violent Crackdown in Libya; Bahrain Protesters Take Pearl Square - Feb. 20, 2011
• Qadhafi Crackdown Has Killed at Least 84 - Feb. 19, 2011
• Spirit of Democratic Revolution Spreads Across Mideast - Feb. 15, 2011

Most of the Republican candidates for their party’s presidential nomination debated last night in Iowa, two days ahead of the crucial Ames Straw Poll, thought to be a leading indicator of which candidates are credible and which are less likely to win in January. Rick Perry, who has not yet announced his candidacy, was not in attendance, and Fred Karger—who met all the criteria for attendance—was not allowed to participate, some say because he is openly gay.

The questions were direct, tough and probing. Challenged on her claim that she could turn the US economy around in just three months, Michelle Bachmann fielded the first of many tough questions. She backtracked somewhat, claiming that she could not fix the economy in three months, but that she could enact policies that could eventually have a positive impact. She then trailed off into a “one term president” rant against Obama, which opened her to the critique that her policy plans lack substance.

Mitt Romney attempted to deliver an economic-policy stump speech. He launched into a Republican talking point, calling for a steep reduction in “corporate tax rates”, which are either the lowest in the industrialized world or the highest, depending how they are defined. He called for energy independence, suggesting new drilling, but not openly saying so, and vaguely said we need “the rule of law” to shore up our economy.

Romney’s reference to “rule of law” struck many as odd and off-topic, in part because the Obama record has been one of trying to force major corporate interests to follow existing law and end the regulatory non-action of the Bush years. But Romney’s meaning was far more likely to be about taxes: he has been facing criticism for having “raised taxes” while governor of Massachusetts, but has said he was able to bring in “new revenues” by “closing loopholes”, i.e. enforcing the law.

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty got off to a very rocky start, showing either plain ignorance of active government policy and recent political history or a willingness to tell very big fibs in order to make difficult rhetorical points—alleging that Barack Obama has never presented a plan to reform Medicare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—which Pawlenty likes to call “Obamneycare”—included Medicare reform specifically designed to cut $500 billion of “waste, fraud and abuse” from Medicare, without reducing benefits or access to care.

In fact, while it achieves those cost savings, it also establishes that no insurance managers, public or private sector, can interfere with doctor-patient decisions on appropriate course of treatment. So Pawlenty missed the mark dramatically, while saying little about his own plan, getting the facts wrong and leading research-minded voters to look up Obama’s already in place and very specific Medicare reform plan. The president has called for an expansion of that reform plan, again without cutting benefits.

Rick Santorum announced his plan to “cut the corporate tax rate to zero, for manufacturers”, and he did so with a smile, as if anticipating major new corporate financing for his campaign. Santorum seemed eager, throughout the night, to glisten with new ideas of this kind which he hoped would capture new support and new momentum, going into Saturday’s straw poll.

Chris Wallace—who consistently asked aggressive, difficult questions—asked Pawlenty if Bachmann was really unqualified, as he had claimed, and had no achievements, but he added the quip that Pawlenty might be attacking her simply because “she’s beating you in the polls”. Pawlenty repeated that her record is simply lacking, that she has no accomplishments at all as a legislator.

Referring to the Bachmann’s catch-line that she has a “titanium spine” and will never relent on her ideological demands, Pawlenty said “It’s not her spine we’re interested in; it’s her record of achievement.” He then addressed her directly, saying “If that’s your view of leadership with effective results, please stop, because you’re killing us,” implying that by sabotaging deals that get much of what Republicans seek, she is losing the wider policy war for the party.

Romney faced his toughest question when he was challenged on his record at Bain Capital, which acquired American Paper, closed two plants, and imposed 2,000 layoffs. Romney says not all of the companies Bain invested in while he was there worked, and so some had to fail. He sought to paint this record of experience as an education in what works to allow businesses to grow and create jobs, but he offered no specifics on how that education would play out in presidential policy.

Wallace asked Gingrich if his record on the campaign trail—top advisers resigning en masse—shows he is not fit for the presidency. Gingrich bristled and decried what he called “gotcha questions”. He criticized the press corps generally, for focusing on “campaign minutia” and ignoring the basic ideas that distinguish Republicans from Pres. Obama.

He made the most specific policy suggestion of the evening, saying the government should make “Lean Six Sigma”—a combination of Toyota’s Lean manufacturing model and Motorola’s Six Sigma production process—the national manufacturing standard.

He asked Huntsman if his record of service as Barack Obama’s representative to China means he is not a true Republican. He said he is proud to serve and that when your country calls, you step up and serve. Huntsman repeated throughout the night that he is proud of his record of public service and that he believes that experience is the best sign that he is prepared to be president.

Herman Cain was asked if his extreme statements—like calling on communities to ban mosques—and saying he knew little about the war in Afghanistan made him too ignorant to be president. Cain seemed to agree with Gingrich’s critique of unfair questions, and said he has learned, that as a businessman he knows the ability to learn and to develop more complex understanding of such complex issues makes a good leader.

On immigration, Cain said legal immigration is the already existing and appropriate “path to citizenship”. In what might be his most memorable remark of the campaign, he artfully threaded the needle of ethnic and ideological tensions relating to immigration, saying “America can be a nation with high fences and wide open doors.”

Gingrich took an extreme tack to the hard right, calling for moving millions of people to the southern states to police the borders, the establishment of English as “the official language of government”—a radical position that ignores the First Amendment and holds that we will not inform anyone who does not understand English of their rights, or what they may need to do in an emergency.

Gingrich also added that he would “distinguish between people who have been here a very long time and people who have come more recently”. This last comment seemed to some to mean he would allow for something like amnesty for those who have been here longer, while others were chilled by what seemed to be a nativist rejection of immigrants’ rights.

Romney was asked about how he used new revenues to fix the Massachusetts state budget, and whether he would raise taxes to balance the budget. By simple arithmetic, it looks nearly impossible to balance the federal budget any time soon without raising taxes, but Romney defended his record in Massachusetts, explaining that he balanced the budget every year, and that he only needed to close loopholes, not to raise taxes, while imposing sharp cuts.

Pawlenty was asked about his having increased the cigarette tax in his state, in order to balance the budget. He made reference to whether it was a “fee” or a “tax” and to court rulings on the subject, and said he would later regret having done it, but it seemed clear that this was instrumental to his budget policy and a sticking point that could be to his favor or to his disadvantage, depending on whether GOP primary voters include the majority of Republicans who favor raising revenues to balance the budget.

Bachmann said she had opposed the cigarette tax hike, when she was in the state legislature, and that she was determined not to support it. But she did in fact vote to increase the cigarette tax. She claimed Pawlenty forced her to do so, by attaching a rider that would “protect the rights of the unborn”, so that she was forced to choose between voting against rights for the unborn and voting to raise taxes.

Bachmann said her view was that you can get things wrong when it comes to money but not when it comes to life. The exchange, however, seemed to play into Pawlenty’s argument, that he is better at getting results than Bachmann, who is a hapless prisoner to her own ideological priorities, and who—despite this, and contrary to what she says—will vote against her principles.

Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania, appeared to agree with Pawlenty’s critique of Bachmann, saying that a leader needs to know how to get a good deal and get results. Santorum sought to tout his record of “leadership” at the state and federal level, and argued that he was better able to serve the conservative ideals than Bachmann, because he knows how to negotiate.

When the question was posed if the candidates felt so strongly about opposing any increase of any kind in tax rates, would they oppose even a deficit reduction deal that made $10 in cuts for every $1 in new revenues, every member of the debate panel raised their hands. After-debate analysis suggested this moment may become “iconic”, indicating that the Republican party is only interested in tax cuts, not in deficit reduction, fiscal responsibility or protecting Medicare and Social Security.

The image of the Republican candidates dutifully—some with reluctance—raising their hands to support Grover Norquist’s radical anti-tax pledge could become the signal moment of the primary campaign, when Republican candidates announced their intention to enforce the tea party radical position of obstructing deficit reduction in order to prioritize tax breaks, at a time of historically low tax rates, perilously low revenues and escalating debt.

Santorum took issue with Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann’s reference to the 10th Amendment, and the question of states’ rights, saying their theories were “the 10th Amendment run amok”, and that “Our country is based on moral laws, ladies and gentlemen. Abraham Lincoln said the states don’t have the right to do wrong.” It was a moment of passion and principle that stood out, but which will require Santorum to make clear how he would deal with issues like same-sex marriage or abortion, where prevailing law conflicts with his views.

Asked about the entrance of Rick Perry into the race, Ron Paul said Perry “represents the status quo” and that he will make Paul’s own unique views stand out more. Herman Cain agreed, saying Perry would dilute the vote for “politicians” and make his business record stand out. Bachmann said there is room for another conservative in the race, though many strategists believe Perry will cut into her vote-getting ability.

Newt Gingrich was asked if he has a clear vision of what should be done in Libya, after taking two diametrically opposing views within a few days, at the start of the conflict. He said he recently spoke to Gen. Abizaid, who speaks Arabic, is one of the foremost security policy experts on the region, and who said we have a “strategic deficit” that needs to be closed through intelligent, persistent diplomatic engagement.

In what is perhaps an interesting angle, politically, Abizaid has been a supporter of the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts in the region, which taken with Gingrich’s characterization of the state of affairs, suggests the Obama administration’s policies are potentially closing that deficit.

Gingrich did not offer a clear policy position on the current situation in Libya, but complained that the press were criticizing him for Pres. Obama’s having coordinated a humanitarian crisis response in Libya.

Huntsman was asked what it meant that China has been hacking into US corporations and US government servers. He said he has long experience with China, and believes the United States needs to have a robust, informed, collaborative and secure relationship with the rising world power. He also said it would be naïve to expect China not to behave like a rival, and that we nee a president who understands the relationship.

Ron Paul decried sanctions against Iran, saying that military threats and sanctions are precursors to real military conflict, costly policy mistakes and would only worsen the security situation worldwide. Paul believes that foreign wars that are not of absolute defensive necessity are contrary to democratic values, undermine the principles of liberty and create enmities that would continue to threaten US interests far into the future.

Cain was asked by Wallace about his comment that US energy independence would be the best way to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The suggestion was that it might be irrational to claim that drilling for oil in North America would persuade Iran’s hardline regime not to develop nuclear weapons. Cain explained that he views economic policy as one element of a complex foreign policy, where economic pressures can be brought to bear to incentivize the behavior of even extreme governments.

When Ron Paul was asked why he disagreed with Michelle Bachmann’s view that accused terrorists should not have due process rights, he said “she turns our rule of law on its head.” Paul explained that for individuals accused of terrorist activity to be treated as terrorists, “They have to be ruled a terrorist. Who rules them a terrorist?” He said the Constitution requires due process and a court ruling based on evidence. Bachmann, he said, is rejecting the rule of law and the traditions of American democracy, instead proposing “mob rule”.

Santorum said that under the regime of the Shah, the Iranian people were “free”—disregarding the police state, disappearances and torture used by that regime. He then complained that the “mullocracy” in Tehran “tramples the rights of gays”—a remark that surprised many, given his relentless pursuit of a national ban on same-sex marriage.

Gingrich was asked why he proposed a “loyalty test” for any Muslim that might serve in his administration. He said he would impose a loyalty test on every person who would serve in government, but gave no specifics as to how that test would be carried out. He cited incidents of Cold War espionage, where people that seemed above suspicion turned out to be foreign spies, and one case where an alleged terrorist conspirator said he “lied” when asked how he could take an oath of loyalty and then behave as America’s enemy.

Herman Cain was asked what it was he believes southerners “find objectionable about Mormonism”? He said that he, personally, has no problem with it, but that he believes many southerners simply don’t understand how Mormonism fits into the culture of protestant Christianity that they are familiar with.

Asked about her having said she hated her husband’s idea that she should study tax law, “But the Lord said, be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands,” Rep. Bachmann seemed genuinely embarrassed and stunned. She paused for an uncomfortable length of time, then offered the explanation that she meant by this term “respect” and that her husband respects her as well.

Romney may have waded into waters that will hurt him in the general election, when he shed the moderate tone of his campaign, saying “our marriage status relationship should be consistent at the national level” and he supported a national law to define marriage as between a man and a woman. He justified this by expressing concern that some same sex couples might have a hard time divorcing if they are in states that have different marriage laws from those where they married.

Huntsman supports civil unions, and spoke of “reciprocal beneficiary rights”. He said “I believe in traditional marriage, but subordinate to that, I believe that we haven’t done a good enough job at equality.” This helped to define Huntsman’s position as the true moderate conservative in the field, and a pragmatist. Many critics have been wary of the conservative candidates’ unwillingness to admit that any injustice could be in need of correction that does not need conservative ideological solutions.

Paul took a position that many find hard to grasp, given his arch-libertarian tendencies. He said “just so long as they don’t impose their vision of marriage on you”, that his priority was to ensure that no one had their private life defined by the government. This was in line with his libertarian principles, but he also specified that he believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, a concession to the conservative ideology he is known for criticizing.

Bachmann offered the awkward statement that “I have an absolutely unblemished record when it comes to this issue of man-woman marriage”. She has not supported same-sex marriage, certainly, but there have been questions about “blemishes” to her record, including alleged support for the extreme and discredited “treatment” option of prayer to cure homosexuality. Questions have also been raised about whether she and her husband have been spokespeople for this policy.

Romney may have made his most significant slip-up of the night—in line with his statement the previous day that “corporations are people”—when he said that “We’ve got to find a way to reduce our spending on a lot of anti-poverty programs”. He said this in responding to a question about whether he would extend unemployment benefits.

Romney has sought to blame both general economic pathologies and the president’s policy response for prolonged unemployment, which would suggest those who are suffering the impact are not in any way responsible for their predicament, so his admonition that in times of economic hardship the government should roll back its anti-poverty efforts seemed more than a bit awkward.

He said he would “go to Congress with a new plan for unemployment benefits”, but that he would not extend the current program of unemployment benefits. He was not pressed on what he would do should Congress fail to give him the option he prefers.

Huntsman took issue with the regulatory system and made what might be his most immoderate policy assertion of the night, saying that “If you want to build a facility in this country, you can’t, because of the EPA’s regulatory reign of terror“. He was defending the Huntsman company’s chemical operations, and by implication was suggesting chemical plants need more leeway to release dangerous toxins into the environment.

The use of the phrase “reign of terror”—a reference to the French revolutionary period and a campaign of torture and mass execution of “enemies of the revolution”—echoed the much maligned rhetoric of bloodshed and exaggeration increasingly used by Republicans since the summer of 2008, and through the 2010 elections. Huntsman did not backtrack, but repeated his allegation of a “reign of terror”, without giving any specifics about how that “terror” was imposed.

Newt Gingrich was asked to explain why he does not favor Ron Paul’s demand that the Federal Reserve Bank be “abolished”. “Having some sort of central bank”, he said, is necessary for dealing with the money supply “in the modern world”. He added, “I think the fact that the Fed is secret is a scandal” and repeated his demand that the Federal Reserve Bank be audited, that its books be open to public scrutiny.

Ron Paul celebrated what he called an awakening of the mainstream to the need to audit the Fed, but said we need to phase out the Fed, and that it is important to “understand the business cycle” in order to prevent recessions.

On education, Huntsman was firm, saying “No Child Left Behind hasn’t worked for this country; it ought to be done away with.” He called for a greater emphasis on governance at the local level, and said there is no one so interested in schools succeeding as the communities they serve. Herman Cain seconded this response, saying he would abandon NCLB and focus on local control of schools.

Huntsman added that he stood against letting the nation default, because the United States is 25% of the world’s GDP and by far the largest financial services industry in the world. This was a critique of the radical factions in his party, including Bachmann, who have said that they believe default could be beneficial for long-term fiscal solvency, acting as a kind of spur to activate serious budget reform.

The debate showed new rifts between and among the candidates and allowed them to stake out certain clear positions: Gingrich emerged as the “ideas” candidate, demanding that everyone focus more on ideas and less on rhetoric, style and the “minutia” of what goes on along the campaign trail. Romney sought to remain largely above the fray, and managed to do so, but gave few specifics. Ron Paul staked out a position of radical reform, in language many voters support.

Herman Cain talked up his business record, but mostly offered what he considered common-sense ideas. Rick Santorum promised bold leadership, offered some radical positions on taxation, and confounded some of the most problematic critiques of his ideas. Huntsman stood as the principled moderate, and a conservative problem solver.

Bachmann was on the defensive, but was poised; she moderated some of her most hardline views, but gave few specifics. Pawlenty became something of an attacker, and began what could be the most effective argument for his campaign: getting things done. It was not clear if anyone “won” the debate, though Romney, Bachmann and Gingrich were all given praise for their demeanor, for different reasons. Pawlenty may have made a dent in Bachmann’s armor, however, and some now expect him to be a tougher campaigner.

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Report and analysis from Independents of Principle

As early as one day after the March 11 tsunami sparked the (still ongoing) nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan’s government had advanced radiation fallout and atmospheric modeling showing the area most likely to be hit by fallout from the explosions and the ongoing seepage. The government allegedly concealed this information, to prevent mass panic, but the result may have been the evacuation of large numbers of people to the most dangerous zones.

According to the New York Times:

Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing south and carrying away any radioactive emissions. For three nights, while hydrogen explosions at four of the reactors spewed radiation into the air, they stayed in a district called Tsushima where the children played outside and some parents used water from a mountain stream to prepare rice.

The winds, in fact, had been blowing directly toward Tsushima — and town officials would learn two months later that a government computer system designed to predict the spread of radioactive releases had been showing just that.

But the forecasts were left unpublicized by bureaucrats in Tokyo, operating in a culture that sought to avoid responsibility and, above all, criticism. Japan’s political leaders at first did not know about the system and later played down the data, apparently fearful of having to significantly enlarge the evacuation zone — and acknowledge the accident’s severity.

Officials of the Japanese government have admitted there was a pattern of concealing information, denying known facts, even of releasing data that were modified to achieve more politically expedient outcomes, even as the nation and the world were waiting for a thorough and serious crisis response. The government reportedly withheld crucial modeling projections from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, also known as SPEEDI.

According to the Times, Seiki Soramoto, a former nuclear engineer who was asked for information by the prime minister, said “In the end, it was the prime minister’s office that hid the SPEEDI data, because they didn’t have the knowledge to know what the data meant, and thus they did not know what to say to the public, they thought only of their own safety, and decided it was easier just not to announce it.”

Though at least three of the six reactors were in meltdown, and were known to be, and the government was permitting the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) to dump huge volumes of radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean, the status of meltdown was repeatedly denied, and was not acknowledged for several months.

In June, it was revealed that tellurium 132, an isotope that indicates a meltdown has occurred, was detected on the second day of the crisis, but the readings were kept from the public for three months. It is not clear how the alleged campaign of distorted data and concealed modeling might have impacted the crisis response, but scientists and engineers have expressed concern that the nuclear emergency response was stunted by inadequate information and poor decisions.

There are also likely to be new investigations into the public health consequences of the concealed information.

After the shooting of an unarmed man by London’s Metropolitan Police force, in Tottenham, the community organized a peaceful protest, which through a series of events that remains difficult to trace, turned into clashes between police and youths. A rash of riots have now spread across greater London, with arson attacks, looting, and violent clashes between masked youth and armored police.

Prime Minister David Cameron has, after three nights of the worst violence in London since World War II, returned from his family vacation in Tuscany to deal with the crisis. The prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home secretary, were all out of the country, as the violence erupted. Cameron has now called Parliament into special session for hearings on the violence.

More than 500 people have been arrested, and buildings across London have been burned, including furniture company run by the same family for five generations, and a warehouse holding major inventory for independent record labels. Several independent labels may have seen their entire UK inventory destroyed in the fire.

The violence has now spread not only across London, but to other major cities across England, including Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. In some areas, curfews have been imposed, and cities are mobilizing large numbers of police to secure the streets. Fires have been set, buildings burned to the ground, and there are videos splashed across the Internet showing rioters attacking police lines.

In London, the effort to clean up the damage, after three nights of looting and arson, have brought people together. The hashtags #prayforlondon and #riotcleanup have been top trends on Twitter today, and residents are posting photos that show the solidarity of citizens joining together to counter the violence and erase the scars of the rioting.

Police are now being deployed en masse, with Prime Minister Cameron promising massive numbers of arrests. As many as 16,000 police will be deployed to “flood” the streets of London, in order to prevent a fourth night of arson and looting. On Monday night, police in London used armored vehicles and anti-riot squads to disrupt the violence and clear the streets.

According to the Guardian:

Senior officers say the violence and looting on Monday night was the worst in living memory; eclipsing the 1980s inner city riots in Toxteth, Brixton and Tottenham at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

Armoured vehicles – known as Jankels – were brought in during the early hours of Tuesday morning in Clapham Junction where much of the worst looting and arson took place. The vehicles were driven on to Lavender Hill to push back a crowd of 150 looters who had smashed up Debenhams and other stores and businesses in the area. Jankels were also out in Hackney.

That the riots are occurring now, under the most extreme austerity measures imposed on public services since the Thatcher premiership, has raised criticisms of the Cameron government, suggesting that his policies have been socially unfair, politically biased and economically ill-conceived. Critics are now expressing concern that the UK is undergoing the beginning phases of the “austerity riots” that are threatening to bring down the Greek economy and government.

In Athens, the rioting has been only one element of the response to austerity measures. The protest movement of the “indignants”—similar to the encampments in cities across Spain—is staging massive, persistent, peaceful demonstrations, and urging the ouster of the government, in favor of a new administration focused on healing economic inequities and fostering generalized prosperity.

According to the Montreal Gazette:

Politicians, including Lammy, have been quick to blame the riots and looting on Saturday night and “copycat” outbreaks of violence elsewhere in London on Sunday and Monday on small groups of criminals.

But locals and commentators warn that high levels of long-term and youth unemployment and cuts in services like youth centres in places like Haringey – the borough where Tottenham sits – are creating a tinder box for unrest.

There are concerns that the dysfunctional and obsessive focus of the American political system on austerity may lead to street violence there as well, and some say recent violent assaults by large “flash mobs” in central Philadelphia are the early example. A report from the credit rating agency Moody’s warns that austerity measures in the US could undermine “social cohesion” and lead to outbreaks of violence. The Telegraph reports:

The stock market is a driver of economic activity, not a mood ring

It has become a standard of political and economic commentary that the stock market is a “reflection” of the general economic mood or of wider economic health and wellbeing. It is not. The stock market is not a mood ring and it was not designed to be. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow/DJIA) was not designed to stand alone as an economic indicator, but rather as part of a fabric of tools and analyses that would, taken together, give a more insightful, more complete picture of generalized economic balance.

Specifically, the Dow was designed to measure the stability and progress of major industrial corporations—a narrow but highly relevant interest within a much wider pool of economic interests. And there are numerous examples of the stock market’s divorce from economic and political reality, which makes sense, because it is not focused on the whole economy, but rather on what investors can do with a certain subset of economic interests.

During the 1930s, to take an extreme example, numerous Wall Street firms fought to avoid national divestment from Nazi Germany, so they could continue to profit from the regime’s aggressive military build-up and industrial expansion; they were on the wrong side of history, and they opposed the war, because  they believed it ran counter to their narrow profit interests. Their vision of what was economically sound was, to be polite, deeply flawed.

In fairness, not everyone on Wall Street shared that narrowly interested view, but that the flawed metrics of what was economically or politically wise, what was in the nation’s best interests, and what served the national interest of maintaining a vibrant, free democracy, intervened in the calculus of some firms, for some years, is not in dispute.

For much of the last decade, Wall Street’s top banks actively modeled, incentivized and promoted a business model whereby insurers were rewarded for failure to provide insurance or to hold down costs—their two reasons for being. They also modeled, incentivized and promoted “toxic” derivatives that could never have yielded what was promised and which brought about the near collapse of the global financial system.

We do not hear much in the way of self-criticism or public apology for the intense commitment to gravely mistaken investment priorities. We do not hear the major firms on Wall Street urging their current managers, clients and/or lobbyists, to reverse the gravely mistaken interpretation of reality, whereby anything that could “generate profit” could be justified and consequences—some very serious and very foreseeable—were largely ignored or obscured.

The myth of the stock market protest vote—”the market is reacting negatively to express its displeasure”—is very specifically part of a refusal to take responsibility for the active role the stock market’s leading agents play in motivating economic activity. The market’s failure to perform is partly—to be fair—related to economic factors, partly related to the financial maneuvering of investors and the traders who represent them, but it is also partly attributable to what is, at the end of the day, the market’s own failure to perform.

The “mood ring” myth is a way of deflecting blame: We have not failed; we have not lost money; we did not make bad judgments—the world did it to us.

That is not the picture of an institution at the height of its relevance or the peak of its abilities. It is the kind of attitude that arises in an atmosphere of irresponsibility, confusion, misrepresentation and flawed logic. The complexity of high-risk derivatives has been widely talked up as a key source of confusion leading to poor judgment across the financial services sector. But others have argued there was deliberate obfuscation involved, rooted in a belief that as long as it was never understood that there might not be any substance to some of those products, they would not collapse.

That’s not to say that everyone in finance was engaged in a sordid criminal conspiracy. It is more a problem of access, responsibility and attitudes: for one, there is too much automatic trading built into the financial sector, so human agents do less of the thinking for each trade than used to be the case. This limits access—to information, to the reasoning behind trading trends, and to corrective measures—and it expands the territory for the spread of the attitude that the market is not responsible for what happens in connections with its activities.

Today’s stock market makes almost incomprehensible volumes of automatic trading, managed by computers using advanced algorithms to judge what is sold or bought and when—not always with any deep human intellectual examination of the real promise or risk inherent in the enterprises, or even the sector, in question.

Glenn Hall, editor in chief of The Street, wrote last week that:

Machines don’t understand the responsibilities of ownership. They obviously don’t care about the fundamentals behind the numbers or understand the power of responsible and responsive corporate leadership.

Beyond that, what’s wrong with high-tech trading? In my opinion, it’s too fast and too stupid. I like to think humans are smart enough to avoid a massive selloff like we had yesterday, when there was no particular news or event that merited such a drop.

Hall cites Doug Kass as observing that “high-frequency-trading funds are very active and have taken the role as the dominant investor in the U.S. stock market. The market’s spastic action reflects, in part, the disproportionate role of high-frequency-trading funds on the market over the past few weeks.”

An July 2010 article by Matt Krantz, published in USA Today, warned that computerized trading was now dominating overall stock trading activity:

Most of those trades aren’t coming from trigger-happy day traders and mutual fund managers with billions of dollars at their disposal. It’s a flood of machine-gun speed fury coming from an army of computers programmed to obey complicated algorithms that are hyperactively buying and selling.

What does that mean to you, the individual investor? The next time you buy or sell a stock, forget the quaint idea that there is a living, breathing human being on the other side of the transaction. You’re trading with a computer.

Not only are the markets completely computerized, more than half of the market’s volume is churned by computers programmed to spot certain patterns in trading. These machines see stocks not as securities used by companies to raise money, but rather, symbols, numbers and bits that are traded, swapped and exchanged.

And now, traders say, humans are responding to machines rather than the other way around. Increasingly, too, the machines are reacting to each other, trying to second-guess what their next moves might be on how to take advantage of an edge that might be gone in milliseconds.

That automaticity takes much of the intelligence out of the stock market, but it also demonstrates the extent to which the market is not a mood ring and does not serve as some sort of game theory real-time poll of the nation’s economic attitudes, health status or even prevailing trend lines.

The stock market is not, and cannot be, a reflection of the human-scale economic landscape, because it is specifically designed to be an abstract realm in which abstract values are traded, and where profit is to be gained from gambling on the trends in those numbers, not in the long-term economic relevance or resiliency of a particular enterprise.

There are now thousands of different automated “trading systems”, each looking to predict, trace and capitalize on trends that may have little to do with the long-term economic promise or viability of a given financial product. It is the zealous pursuit of automatic wealth creation that cuts off stock trading and the financial services sector from the rest of the economy, and gives us such deeply flawed metrics and such inexplicable trading variations.

There are important differences between stocks and bonds, of course, and the two often comprise opposing and complementary trends for major investment, but it is worth noting that while stocks plunged in value after the S&P downgrade, the bonds themselves hit record demand, suggesting the S&P finding was very much off the mark.

There is informational confusion in the financial services sector, at the moment, and this is due to, more than anything else, the persistent and pervasive disconnect between the present day realm of high finance and the overall economy. We need to forget about the idea that the market rises and falls as a commentary on the events of the day, and get back to a model whereby human beings plan and commit to investments that make sense, because they have real economic promise on their side.

TheHotSpring.net :: With the objectivity and commitment to fact of S&P now seriously in question, and allegations now revived that it and other rating agencies were paid to give AAA ratings to junk securities derivatives, it is clear that we need a 100% not-for-profit (NFP) cooperative bond rating agency. The independent NFP agency could be one of several, staffed by top economists, stakeholders and public servants, and standing somewhere between the public and the private sectors.

The role of such a new cooperative agency would be to take the profit motive and the complication of day to day financial dealings out of the rating agency portfolio. While Standard and Poors is owned by the publishing conglomerate McGraw Hill, its analysts have been accused of incestuous relationships with the entities they are tasked with rating, sometimes taking huge profits in financial services fees while evaluating risky products put out by their patrons.

A not-for-profit rating agency would allow for greater transparency, a more aggressive process of analysis, and more unbiased foundation for that analysis. It would allow for a wider-ranging and more flexible input of data to ensure that evaluations correspond in some clear way to genuine long-term value. It would, in short, ensure that private interests don’t interfere with the straightforward process of factual analysis.

It would also, maybe more than any other single factor, help to contribute to a virtuous cycle of transitioning back toward separation of interests, diversification of markets, and decentralization of financial sector influence and wealth creation. How would this benefit society at large? It would allow for a more democratic, more evidentiary, more pragmatic reading of bonds and other financial services products.

The first step is to remove the profit motive from the evaluation process. The reason for this is that the assumption that narrow profit motives somehow spark virtuous behavior, “efficiency” and “performance” loses relevance when the incentive to produce a given rating—like AAA on high-risk subprime mortgage-backed derivatives—conflicts with the evidence-based analysis, which indicates that there is no way that product can be a safe bet for most investors.

- – - A brief aside: The same can be true in reverse: a bond rating agency that made such catastrophically bad misjudgments when there was a conflicting interest in play could seek to be more aggressive, in a highly visible way, to restore its reputation for seriousness of purpose, when—by coincidence—there is no direct accounts receivable windfall in play.

There is enough room for doubt that on the first day of trading since S&P’s downgrade of US Treasury bonds, those same bonds have hit an all-time record for demand, as investors seek shelter in the very product that was just downgraded. That suggests the S&P evaluation was flawed, or was issued for mathematically inconsistent reasons, or simply that—as one analyst suggested today—their poor performance during the mortgage bubble has left them less relevant and less well regarded generally. 

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, wrote today that “they may be a prestigious organization for some reason, but their track record is ludicrously bad.” In fact, he is not the only prominent economist expressing concern that the Wall Street firms and the financial services sector more broadly are becoming perilously divorced from the wider economy. – - -

The American economic system has artfully grappled for generations with the problematic tension between narrow, well-funded interests, and the wider landscape of stakeholder interests. A strong regulatory system and vibrant democratic marketplace have been able, periodically, to rein in abusive behavior and make it visibly profitable for powerful interests driving economic behavior to line up their interests with those of the wider economy.

Some now believe that time may have passed. A generation’s worth of deregulation and financial experimentation have led to the widest wealth gap since before the Great Depression, and credible economic analysis suggests the stagnant economic trendlines are the result of having a post-Depression system, with meaningful checks and balances, and a Depression-era economic dynamism. In other words, we should be experiencing a depression, but we have deployed failsafe measures to make it less likely.

The stakeholder problem is a very real bone of economic contention, and very much worthy of close scrutiny. Where financial instruments are based on bad investments, then pitched as good investments, and tens of trillions of dollars in private wealth evaporate, even the most minute activities within the financial services sector have high-stakes consequences for people and institutions throughout the economy.

A genuinely useful, wholly relevant and economically optimally constructive rating system requires real independence. It requires a commitment to fact, and a commitment to economic balance and generalized prosperity. It requires a substantive, transparent measure of the major economic drivers that induce periods of “irrational exuberance” for bad investments, which by extension bring widespread economic hardship in their wake, when banks shut down many of their financial support services to the middle class and small businesses.

The proposed NFP cooperative bond rating agency would be:

• fully independent of ties to Wall Street firms;
• required to publish source material and white-paper reports detailing internal discussions;
• required to publish information regarding all meetings with any interested parties;
• focused on stakeholder interests across the economy;
• responsible for public comment fora, at least one per month, to gather anecdotal guidance;
• staffed with independent economists, former financial services professionals, public service veterans—each without active ties to interested parties;
• required to pay only base stipends, with no bonuses except for consistent accuracy over the long term;
• a model for similar NFP financial analysis projects.

The four central ideas motivating this new model, and which should then be emulated by competing institutions are:

1. eliminating professional conflict of interest;
2. comprehensive transparency of process, sourcing and aims;
3. focus on overall stakeholder interest;
4. reliable precision, based on health modeling, not profit forecasting.

The simplest way to institute a project on this scale, with this level of responsibility and in a visible enough way to give it active influence and long-term viability is, of course, a public-private partnership. It should be funded in part by the federal government, and in part by the financial services sector, and top schools of economics should hold competitions to bring on board some of the world’s most visionary, flexible and precise economic minds.

The process should begin this fall and winter, with the goal of holding public hearings for the creation of the first independent NFP cooperative rating agency in the spring and fall of 2012. The fully functional institution could be active by the end of 2012, in time to play a constructive role in the landscape of analysis surrounding the 2013 negotiations on the 2014 federal budget, and the financial planning of major banks, insurers, governments and industry.

In order to win support from radical Tea Party freshmen, most of whom voted against the legislation anyway, Congressional leaders imposed stiff new tax penalties on radiate students across the country. Specifically, subsidized loans for grad students were cut—the government provides all student loans, so this effectively eliminates funding for post-graduate education—and a tax credit for borrowers who repay student loans on time for 12 consecutive months was eliminated.

The tax credit eliminated costs far less than the massive subsidies going to oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power companies, yet the Tea Party freshmen, who have touted their opposition to any and every tax increase, did nothing to oppose the tax hikes on students. And while the tax credits may be much smaller than fossil fuel subsidies, or nuclear, eliminating them will cost far more.

Eliminating the on-time repayment credit will reduce the likelihood of on-time repayment significantly, potentially costing the government billions, over time, as well as subjecting more borrowers to fines and fees, depleting their personal economic footprint, and serving as a drag on growth.

The logic is simply astonishing: while the radical anti-tax Tea Partiers, backed by billionaire partisans, claim as an article of faith the absolute truth that any and all tax cuts incentivize the wealthy to create jobs—though we have ten years of evidence this is often not the case—, they reject the idea that a direct cash incentive for repayment will pay off—despite the evidence that it does.

In fact, the particular kind of tax increase the Tea Partiers have demanded and are supporting is more costly and will exacerbate not only budget shortfalls but also the negative economic trends whereby the American people are unnecessarily disadvantaged in the face of far more powerful economic forces.

Allegations that the so-called Tea Party caucus has degenerated into little more than a lobby for the wealthy interests that back them gain credibility when they support tax hikes on the vulnerable, and which will have a direct negative impact on the middle class. It should be well understood by all: the House Tea Party Republicans have pushed for and supported—the anti-student provisions in the failed Republican-only House bills were far worse—tax hikes that will make college more expensive and eat way at middle class wealth.

In a triumphant and surprise return to the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords received a 10-minute standing ovation from her colleagues, before casting her first vote since surviving an assassination attempt in January. Giffords voted for the debt-ceiling deal, effectively making her return to the House a show of leadership and a commitment to do the thing that is better for the country, even if it is a tough vote to take.

Throughout the day, there had been griping and sniping, and there was concern the forceful “no” votes might draw some moderates away from passage and sink the “grand compromise”. Giffords return, and her support for the measure, helped to “change the mood”, according to many in the chamber. Her example, as a principled, devoted public servant who illustrates what is sacred in the oath of office, remains a forceful example to her colleagues.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said there is no name that inspires as much love, or serves as such an example to the daughters of families across the nation, as that of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. The debt ceiling negotiations have devastated the political reputations of nearly everyone involved, so Giffords’ arrival at the Capitol immediately elevated the profile and the purpose of the entire House of Representatives.

List of Legislative Riders on H.R.2584, The Interior & Environment Approps bill for FY12
39 provisions in the bill specifically eliminate environmental protections in service of big polluters and GOP campaign donors

*In order as they appear in the bill, with section numbers cited.

Blocks Endangered Species Act Designations [Language on page 8]: Prohibits funding for Endangered Species Act listings or critical habitat designations.

Blocks NPS Boat Checks on Yukon River [Section 116]: Prohibits the National Park Service from carrying out boat inspection or safety checks on the Yukon River within the Yukon-Charley National Preserve in Alaska.

Blocks Agency Appeal of Grazing on Public Lands [Section 118]: Amends administrative appeal procedures for grazing on public lands to require parties to exhaust all administrative appeals before they may file suit in Federal Court.

Blocks Judicial Review of De-listing Wolves in Wyoming/Great Lakes [Section 119]: Protects from judicial review any decision of the Secretary of the Interior to de-list wolves in Wyoming or the Great Lakes region.

Blocks NEPA Review of Livestock Movement across Public Lands [Section 120]: Provides that for FY 2012 through FY 2014 the movement of livestock across public lands shall not be subject to NEPA review.

Requires BOEMRE Oil & Gas Permit Reporting [Section 121]: Requires Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement to keep detailed records and provide quarterly reports on any oil and gas permit or plan that was not approved by the agency.

Blocks Wild Lands Secretarial Order [Section 124]: Prohibits funding for the Wild Lands Secretarial Order announced by Interior Secretary Salazar last December. Proponents of the Secretarial Order argue that the Order is a reiteration of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 requirements for BLM management of federal lands with wilderness characteristics.

Allows for Export of Alaskan Western Cedar [Section 414]: Allows Alaskan western red cedar and yellow cedar to be sold for export. Current law requires such cedar to be used domestically.

Blocks NEPA Review of Extended Grazing Permits [Section 415]: Allows grazing permits to be extended without the required NEPA review in FY 2012 through FY 2016. In prior year’s appropriations, the extension of grazing permits was only for one year.

Extension of Forest Service Stewardship Program [Section 427]: Allows the Forest Service stewardship contracting program which under current law does not expire until September 30, 2013 to be extended through September 30, 2023.

Blocks Livestock Emissions Regulation [Section 428]: Prohibits funds for the promulgation or implementation of any regulation requiring a permit for emissions resulting from the biological processes of livestock production.

Blocks Greenhouse Gas Rule on Manure Management [Section 429]: Prohibits EPA from implementing a rule requiring reporting of greenhouse gases from manure management systems.

Blocks Greenhouse Gas Rule on Stationary Sources [Section 431]: Severely limits EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. For a one-year period EPA is prohibited from proposing or promulgating regulations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources. The language also prevents civil tort or common law lawsuits during this one-year period. Furthermore the language states that any permit applied for during the one-year period shall not be federally enforceable.

Blocks Update to Mountaintop Removal Mining Rule [Section 432]: Prohibits the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) from updating the Stream Buffer Rule. This is for the benefit of companies engaged in Mountaintop Removal Mining.

Blocks Mountaintop Removal Mining Policy at Multiple Agencies [Sec. 433]: Prohibits EPA, the Corps of Engineers, and OSM from implementing or enforcing any policy or procedure contained in two specified documents on Mountaintop Removal Mining.

Blocks Coal Ash Regulation [Section 434]: Prohibits EPA from regulating Fossil Fuel Combustion Waste (coal ash) under the Solid Waste Disposal Act.

Blocks Modification of Clean Water Act [Sec. 435]: Prohibits EPA from changing or supplementing guidance or rules related to the scope of the Clean Water Act.

Blocks Clean Water Act Regulations on Cooling Water Intake Structures [Section 436]: Prohibits EPA from developing, finalizing, implementing, or enforcing rules for facilities with cooling water intake structures.

Limiting Public Appeals [Section 437]: Changes the general administrative appeal process for the Forest Service to the less rigorous one contained in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

Blocks Storm Water Discharge Regulations [Section 439]: Prohibits regulations or guidance that would expand the storm water discharge program under the Clean Water Act to post-construction commercial or residential properties until after the EPA administrator submits a study to the Appropriations and authorizing Committees. The study must include overall cost as well as a cost-benefit analysis for various options.

Financial Break for Big Mining Companies [Section 440]: Amends the 1993 law establishing the Hardrock Mining Claim Maintenance Fee to provide a financial break for placer claims held by an association of two or more persons.

Allows for Texas’ Cap-and-Trade System [Section 441]: Provides that the EPA shall take no action to disapprove or prevent implementation of any flexible air permitting program. This provision was for the benefit of the State of Texas.

Blocks Grazing Management of Bighorn Sheep [Section 442]: Provides that through FY 2016 no action can be taken to manage Bighorn Sheep if such action would result in a reduction in the number of livestock allowed to graze upon a parcel.

Waives Clean Air Act Requirements for Big Oil Companies [Section 443]: Amends the Clean Air Act to (1) preclude EPA from requiring offshore sources to demonstrate compliance with health-based air quality standards anywhere but in a single onshore area; (2) reduce the length of time during which exploration platforms and drill ships are considered emission sources under the CAA, thereby limiting the time when emissions would be controlled; (3) make it impossible to use the permitting program to set emission control requirements for service vessels associated with offshore sources; and (4) replace a relatively fast, inexpensive process for citizens to challenge government action with a longer, more expensive review process in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. This legislation passed the House on June 22, 2011 by a vote of 253-166.

Blocks Arsenic Cancer Study & Formaldehyde Risk Assessments [Section 444]: New authorization language requiring EPA to improve its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) seeking to draw doubt to the program that highlights health implications from environmental contaminants. The language stops the release of draft or final risk assessments that are not based on improvements in IRIS based on a National Research Council assessment of formaldehyde. Further requires the National Academy of Science to review EPA’s changes to IRIS and review risk assessments undertaken by EPA. The language goes on to limit funds for any action that would lower exposure levels below or within background concentration levels in ambient air, drinking water, soil, or sediment. Report language directs EPA to take no further action to post its draft cancer assessment of inorganic arsenic until the completion of the NAS study.

Removes Protection of Grand Canyon from Uranium Mining Claims [Section 445]: Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior from implementing a land withdrawal to protect the Grand Canyon from new uranium mining claims.

Blocks Forest Service Travel Management: [Section 446]: Prohibits the Forest Service from implementing Travel Management Plans in California until completion of an assessment of unauthorized routes. It further limits the classification of certain forest roads.

Blocks EPA Opinions on Pesticides [Section 447]: Prevents the EPA from using biological opinions related to pesticides and the Endangered Species Act, with a focus on ESA-listed salmon.

Blocks Clean Air Act Regulations of Cement Industry [Section 448]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to implement Clean Air Act regulations on the manufacture of Portland cement.

Blocks EPA Enforcement of Florida Water Quality Standards [Section 452]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to implement or enforce numeric Florida Water Quality Standards even though the state receives millions in federal funds for water projects.

Blocks EPA Greenhouse Gas Standard for Automobiles [Section 453]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to develop or finalize a new greenhouse gas standard for automobiles after model year 2016.

Blocks Clean Air Act Regulations of Fine Particles/Soot [Section 454]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to regulate certain levels of particulate matter in the air under the Clean Air Act.

Blocks EPA Regulation of Hard Rock Mining Operations [Section 455]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to develop additional financial assurance requirements for hard rock mining operations.

Requires BLM Notification of Land Exchanges [Section 458]: Amends the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 to require BLM and the Forest Service to provide written notification of land exchanges to adjacent landowners.

Blocks EPA Funds to Great Lake States due to Ballast Water Requirements [Section 459]: Prohibits certain Great Lakes states from receiving any EPA funding if they have adopted ballast water requirements that are more stringent than Coast Guard requirements. The Coast Guard believes this will block at least four Great Lake States from receiving any EPA funds.

Blocks EPA Guidelines on Misleading Pesticide Labels [Section 460]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to finalize guidelines on misleading information provided on pesticide labels.

Blocks Fictitious EPA Action on Ammonia Emissions[Section 461]: Prohibits funding for the EPA to develop or implement regulations related to ammonia emissions under the secondary standard for NOx and SOx.   EPA has already stated that it has no intention of doing so.

Blocks Clean Air Rules for Power Plants and Requires a Study That Ignores Public Health Benefit of the Clean Air Act [Section 462]: Directs the EPA to do a cumulative assessment of the impacts of EPA regulations, and prohibits funding for the “Utility MACT” and “Transport” rules.

Blocks Permit Requirements for Pesticide Discharge in Waterways [Title V]: Amends the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Clean Water Act to eliminate requirements for chemical companies and agriculture to obtain permits for pesticides entering waterways.

• From the Democratic minority of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations

While House and Senate leaders are now moving away from Pres. Obama’s $4 trillion debt deal, proposing far less in real long-term debt and deficit reduction, Standard and Poors is threatening to downgrade the nation’s credit rating for bond sales. The rating agency is demanding $4 trillion in deficit reduction, calling for a plan that will put the debt trajectory on a “sustainable path”.

The Boehner plan, which aims for $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, with the possibility of $1.8 trillion later, will not meet the S&P standard for sustainable deficits. The Reid plan, which calls for $2.7 trillion in spending cuts, also falls short, but is thought to operate in part on the assumption that some of the Bush tax cuts will expire next year, leading to at least $1 trillion in additional revenue.

Pres. Obama is caught in a difficult spot, as he will likely have to sign whatever emerges from Congress, or else take unilateral action under the so-called constitutional option (Article II, bolstered by the 14th Amendment). He is almost certain to use any Congressional failure to bring in new revenues as grounds for an aggressive campaign to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

But that is not certain to calm concerns at credit rating agencies about the solvency of the American government, in terms of meeting its bond-repayment obligations. There is also the problem of collateral economic damage, which will further slow revenue growth and put still more pressure on the government’s ability to repay.

What seems clear at this stage, as the Congressional switchboard is overwhelmed with calls and web servers are crashing, is that the Boehner plan falls desperately short of what is required, and is unlikely to win support in the Senate. Reid’s plan is also insufficient, and sure to alienate much of the Democratic party’s base, by not asking for any new revenues to complement the massive proposed spending cuts.

Observers have expressed dismay and amazement at the slow pace of negotiations, with Speaker Boehner quitting negotiations last Thursday evening, and scheduling no vote for his new plan, which essentially rules out any compromise, until Wednesday at the earliest, leaving just three business days before default and virtually guaranteeing a credit downgrade, whatever final agreement is made.

In a bizarre interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, House Speaker John Boehner appeared embattled, distracted and without a firm grip on any solution to the debt ceiling crisis. He seemed to be unable to speak about the debt ceiling crisis in any truthful manner, repeatedly attacking Pres. Obama for not being willing to make a deal, despite Obama offering far more than any president, Democratic or Republican, in debt and deficit reduction, in fact offering far more than Boehner himself was seeking.

Boehner seemed to be bound by certain hostile factions within his caucus, and insisted that he would not accept any plan that was not some variation of “cut, cap and balance.” He appeared frustrated, even shaken, by the failure the House Republican plan—crafted with no consultation with Democratic members of either chamber—failed to pass the Senate.

Wallace reminded him: “The Senate resoundingly tabled the idea of a balanced budget amendment; you’re not going to insist on that again, are you?” Boehner repeated, almost robotically, that he would insist, come what may, on a “framework” based on “cut, cap and balance”, Boehner refused to answer whether he would attempt to force a balanced budget amendment—which, incidentally, could not be made law by August 2 and would, in and of itself, do literally nothing to reduce debt or deficits—as part of a bipartisan framework.

The speaker insisted repeatedly that he was aiming to achieve a “bipartisan framework”, only to specify that his bipartisan framework would not and could not stray in any way from the Republican plan. There is no Democratic support for the so-called “cut, cap and balance” proposal, which has been evaluated as potentially exacerbating spending and deficits, making borrowing more costly in the future and making government spending more wasteful.

Chris Wallace reminded Boehner that he was willing to agree to $800 billion in new revenues, despite his pledge not to raise tax rates. Boehner claimed to know that with specific adjustments to the tax rates would yield $800 billion in new revenues without any tax increase. In fact, he seemed to indicate he was able to reduce expected government revenues by law to as much as $2.7 trillion, and yet take in as much as $800 billion in additional revenues, due to the economic viability of that new tax policy.

“There is considerable criticism among House Republicans”, said Wallace, that Boehner was too eager to make a “grand bargain” with Pres. Obama, and to raise taxes. Boehner seemed to indicate frustration with his own party, for the first and only time during the interview, explaining that his only aim was to do “what is right for the country.”

Boehner added: “I didn’t come here to be a Congressman; I came here to do something for my country… I’m going to do everything I can to do the right thing for our country.” Though he had indicated that he and Obama might be “from different planets”, he said “I always work with the glass half full. I’m always an optimist. It’s about finding common ground,” said Boehner.

Boehner’s commitment to “finding common ground” is now widely in question, as a result of his repeated walking out of talks, his insistence that “bipartisan” means Democrats must adopt a Republican plan, and his irrational claim that the president’s plan, the Gang of Six plan, the bipartisan Senate plan, the recommendations of the deficit commission, were not plans at all, and that only the House’s “cut, cap and balance” plan had any validity.

Ron Paul gave Fox News’ Neil Cavuto the latest in a series of Republican presidential campaign advertisements, posing as interview, today as the nation waited to see Congressional leaders gather with Pres. Obama in the White House Cabinet Room. While Cavuto labored to spin the issue toward a Tea Party interpretation of reality, Mr. Paul made the astonishing claim that the least damaging outcome of the debt ceiling negotiations would be a national default.

He then went on to claim that his view represents “American tradition”. While Paul is often a credible and passionate voice in the wilderness, defending individual liberties against the encroachment of modern government and corporate tendencies, his claim that great nations “always default” when they get to a place where default is possible, or that it is American tradition to let entire government agencies collapse, for failure to negotiate a responsible solution, is unfounded and reckless.

When Ron Paul attempted to explain that part of his appeal to independent voters is related to his revulsion to departures from American civil liberties traditions, such as the so-called USA PATRIOT Act, which enabled domestic spying and other constitutionally dubious security powers, Cavuto cut him off and said bluntly he didn’t want to discuss “those issues”.

Even as Fox News ran its “Fox Facts” at the lower right of the screen, revealing its people know and understan that 44% of all government bills will go unpaid, if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2, Cavuto made the incredible statement that the wealthy “are already paying a lot”—they are paying historically low levels of taxes—and that they have no reason “to pay more for a lousy product”. The network that wrapped itself in the flag to promote war in Iraq, and the USA PATRIOT Act, now says the United States of America is “a lousy product”.

There is an undercurrent of reveling in what some perceive as the demise of a form of government, so-called “big government”, which they believe is a threat to American democracy. There is a trend among far-right conservative ideologues that favors advocating for and trying to bring about the sabotage of the American system of electoral government, on the grounds that it is dangerously “liberal” and that it somehow disregards “traditional” values.

Mr. Cavuto and Mr. Paul today showed themselves both to be guilty of the unfortunate—and one hopes unintentional—failure to recognize when extremist far-right euphemisms penetrate into their more moderate conservative rhetoric. This crossover has been happening for too long, and is an irresponsible attack on informed discourse. It mirrors the false claim that all issues of public controversy are just “opinion”, and radical, factually unfounded smears as legitimate as sincere dealing with circumstance.

In a subsequent interview, Cavuto immediately interrupted his interlocutor, when the consensus position that responsible debt and deficit reduction requires an upward adjustment of tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Cavuto interrupted in order to shout that the wealthy are “already paying a lot”, then to state his “lousy product” blanket smear against the American government.

That there is intense logical incoherence in this method of reporting—where facts are brushed aside in favor of metaphor, hyperbole and counter-to-fact claims, designed to further a world view, not a solution—is obvious. That this logical incoherence matters to viewers or to editors is not so obvious. Mr. Cavuto’s deliberate manipulation of his interviews, to convey a biased, counter-to-fact line of argument, is indicative of the morally bankrupt tabloid culture promoted by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids in the United Kingdom.

That is not to say Mr. Cavuto is himself so unworthy of respect, but he, like any other journalist or news analyst, must earn what respect is given, by dealing intelligently with the reality of the world before him. To refute the very facts everyone at the table agrees to, to argue that the failure of the US government to pay 44% of its bills would be of negligible importance, to invite collapse as somehow courageously patriotic, is irresponsible and suggests a lack of seriousness about the responsibility of the press to foster actual understanding of events.

Whether he has been directed, by Bill Sammon—whose emails instructing reporters to slant their reporting for ideological and partisan reasons have shocked and concerned media analysts, citizens and journalists—to slant his reporting, or whether he is voluntarily doing so in order to further the culture that prevails at his network is impossible to know, unless Mr. Cavuto chooses to express his genuine thinking.

Mr. Paul, for his part, must improve the way he manages the unwieldy set of passions that inform his rhetoric. If we were to give him the benefit of the doubt, that he believes honestly that the United States of America does not need its government, or most or much of it, then he would do better to learn specifics, and to explain what, precisely, he would eliminate and how, precisely, he would secure the same services and from whom.

The right-wing doctrine, for instance, that the EPA is some sort of hostile force with no productive value does not contemplate any means of any kind to protect the air and water the American people need to survive. No one argues that function should be militarized, and the very idea that there should be an actual police component to environmental regulation is anathema to the anti-EPA hardliners.

Yet those people need clean water and clean air, in order to avoid the literally thousands of carcinogenic chemicals and compounds that are released into the environment by American industry, all the time. Their children and grandchildren will be less able to live in a nation that has the health security to function as an advanced nation, if clean air and water services are not performed by any entity, with enforcement powers. Yet they profess it is patriotic to throw caution to the wind and allow industries whose entire methodology requires them to release these chemicals into the environment, unless otherwise constrained, to “regulate themselves”.

It is this kind of gap between Mr. Paul’s words and the real world that make him a less serious candidate than he might otherwise be. It is this kind of flippant, sometimes irrational, politicking that wins him the affection of passionate supporters, but not necessarily the respect of the wider electorate or the press and the parties.

In short, Mr. Paul again revealed himself to be more of a rhetorician than a leader, more a critic than a president. After so many years of presenting himself as eligible for the nation’s highest office, he has yet to communicate a credible vision for what he wants the United States of America to be. To get a grip on administrative specifics and how they affect real people’s lives, would go a long way to making his rhetoric more credible.

Saying that default is acceptable, or that it somehow represents “American tradition” is just an astonishing failure to reason with clarity.

Truth-First.com :: Today, the Speaker of the House of representatives abandoned debt ceiling negotiations, while putting the entire House on recess for the weekend. He did not return White House phone calls until after 5 pm, only to explain that he was now rejecting any plan of any kind that would raise taxes by any amount. After moving toward a credible compromise that would involve serious debt and deficit reduction, Boehner suddenly returned to the radical “starve the beast” anti-tax policy of Grover Norquist.

Shortly after 6 pm EDT, Pres. Obama addressed the press, and took questions, explaining his plan to get back to the negotiating table. Somewhat incredibly, CNN followed its analysis of the press conference by holding a phone interview with Grover Norquist, who acted as spokesperson for Speaker Boehner. Norquist explained that for seven months, it has been clear that Boehner was not willing—or empowered—to accept any tax increases.

The only “compromise”, according to Norquist, that Boehner would be able to accept—he did not clarify if this was from political pressure or due to Boehner holding views he was not making clear during the negotiations toward a “grand bargain”. Norquist all but admitted that the entire debt ceiling negotiation process is an electoral maneuver, designed to harm the Democratic party, possibly by harming the nation, to elect more Republicans to Congress and to take control of the White House.

TheHotSpring.net :: Borders Books and Music was a place of pilgrimage for book lovers, music lovers and people who loved to sit with coffee and read, chat or peruse magazines they might or might not buy. It has played a vital role in the distribution of books of both wide and narrow market interest, and has driven the cathedral-warehouse paradigm of big bookstore chains. Its failure, however, opens the field for more innovative, more reader-friendly experiments in book selling.

Some have argued that Barnes and Noble was changed by its competition with Borders. Barnes and Noble has long been a leader in the big bookstore sector. But Borders, in many places, went bigger. It stocked everything that might fit into the mainstream book, magazine and music market, and was aggressive in putting full-size cafes in its bookstores, where patrons could sit and read books, whether they bought them or not.

But Barnes and Noble made two crucial decisions whose value Borders seemed not to understand. First, it built its own site for online sales, and built the BN.com brand to sustain it. Second, it saw the power of the Kindle reader and made sure not to cede mass-market e-book distribution to its online rival. By making its Nook and Nook Color readers available in its stores, Barnes and Noble successfully merged electronic and print media in a way that appealed to bricks-and-mortar bookstore browsers.

Borders could have done the same, but instead of building its own website early on, it made a deal with Amazon, and avoided—or so it seems to outside observers—learning too much about how to sustain its overall business through online sales and marketing. When it made the switch, serious book readers had already figured out it was better to just use BN or Amazon.

They forfeited their leadership position and radically increased the costs of getting to parity, when they finally decided to make a run for it.

Borders also lagged in the e-book revolution. Though in 2001, small publishers—like the publisher of this publication, Casavaria—were experimenting with independent e-books and early global distribution formats, Borders treated e-books as a question of stocking electronics that might be of interest to readers. They did not—again, as it would seem to outside observers—understand that e-books were about the direct text-to-eyeball relationship publishers, and booksellers, could develop with readers.

They did not understand—though in fairness, few major industry players did—what Amazon figured out early on: an optimal e-book platform required a screen that would feel more like print on paper than a screen. Though Joseph Epstein, and many other publishing luminaries, had said the book was a technology that was almost impossible to improve upon, Amazon and e-Ink figured out that the convenience of digital technology with the feel of a book, would be the next step.

Borders did not see this crucial moment coming. Its Kobo e-book reader is not actually a Borders product. Kobo is its own enterprise, and Borders’ plan was to piggyback on Kobo’s innovation. Like its Amazon deal, Borders’ Kobo deal clearly showed that Borders did not understand that the Kindle and the Nook are not books; they are bookstores and libraries, personalized for the convenience of the reader.

Kobo is now having to defend its reputation and advertise its independence and its survival. This may be good for Kobo, because it will no longer be linked with the big bookstore chain, and that may give it some cachet among bibliophiles. But it will have to compete for quality, and Borders may not have done Kobo a great service by channeling its development through a failing chain bookstore.

Kobo, to its credit, figured out that e-Ink was the right way to make electronic text enjoyable.

While a very cogent, and legitimate, analysis suggests print publishers may now commit to lower print runs for many, if not most, of their titles, the collapse of Borders may be, for writers, readers and publishers, something more of an opportunity than a calamity. A massive economy of scale is not always best for quality innovation. In Borders’ case, it appears to have been an obstacle. The size of the giant enterprise blinded its directors to the most meaningful developments swirling around them.

Small bookstores survive not because of the scalability of a global business plan. They survive when their bottom line, and their ability to fund their operations, reflect three things: discipline, sensitivity and good fortune. This last comes from clients, location and other hard-to-manage variables that cannot easily be planned for.

What is most important about small bookstores is that they cannot survive by just hawking gold-print embossed bestsellers and books that have been made into movies. They cannot even survive just by stocking the headier titles on the New York Times bestseller list or which have been reviewed in the major publications. They have to know their readers, and treat their clients as readers, not as cash machines.

It is this knowledge element that may now gain more traction. Knowledge… sensitivity to the lay of the land, and to reader interest… and innovation.

What might some innovations be?

The true cafe/bookstore: A more balanced relationship between the bookstore and cafe sections of a retail space, with high quality coffee, with events and music, gatherings and opportunities to sit down with authors, and a bookstore that echoes this quality with content.

The information oasis: Bookstores can reposition themselves as trusted sources of information, a more robust 21st century newsstand, stocking quality publications, some new to newcomers, and unique titles with real depth and scope, understood by intelligent, engaged buyers and salespeople. Mainstream media may be an echo-chamber, but bookstores can be places where the individual is free to think for herself.

The genius bar: One of the reasons Apple’s stores are popular with Mac lovers is that they provide information and knowledge that is useful; customers can learn from staff. Bookstores could make sure to be a source of guidance to the reading public, taking back that role from distributors and advertisers and being more pro-active about deciding what they stock.

The cyber-paper crossover: Barnes and Noble, BN.com and the Nook, have made for an impressive collaboration. Small bookstores can take Borders’ market share, collectively, if they learn the lesson Borders missed: assist your readers in all media, and they will stand by you. Wifi is useful, but dedicated new-fangle web access, whatever that looks like, could help bricks-and-mortar independents sell print books.

These are just a few ideas, but there is no mistaking the fact that as we enter the age of hyper-convergence, oversized enterprises won’t make it if they don’t innovate, and independent bookstores can do what microbreweries and coffee houses have done: become creative micro-distributors invested in the knowledge and emotion that naturally flow from, and to, the products they love.

When comedians are keeping watch over the deliberate falsehoods dispensed by “mainstream media”, there is something rotten in the culture of our free press. Not because comedians shouldn’t do that work—all citizens should—but because the mainstream media should be committed, at every level, to truth-telling and citizenship. Fox News, in light of the bribery, spying and coercion, scandal engulfing its parent company, has definitively shown how far from that mission its news operation is.

Despite engaging in radical, unfounded and coordinated ideologically-driven crusades against organizations that foster unbiased, non-partisan citizenship and service to the American people, despite its adopting tabloid-style tactics for TV news reporting, despite its relentless accusations, smears and borderline hate speech, against the nation’s chief executive, Fox News is now defending pervasive criminality at News Corp.’s UK tabloids and accusing unbiased media of “piling on” and blowing the scandal out of proportion.

For the record, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, and his son, James, were called to testify before a select committee of the British Parliament, regarding mounting evidence of a pervasive campaign, over many years, at multiple News Corp. publications, to bribe public officials, illegally spy on innocent civilians, and harass and—according to some reports—intimidate members of the government.

That testimony was anomalous, in part because of the commitment to a free and independent press. But, it was necessary, because the information coming to light so far, throughout years of this developing scandal, suggest there has been a concerted effort to conceal information, kill investigations and use personal, political and commercial influence to obscure the truth. The prime minister of the United Kingdom was forced to extend the current session of Parliament, cut short a trip to Africa, and answer questions about his own personal and professional involvement with key figures involved in the tabloids’ illegal spying.

But Fox News, which has long established its faith-position that all media who do not devoutly, blindly and without remorse, uphold and promote specific tenets of right-wing ideology, are not “balanced” and are in fact part of a vile—use any adjective that fits the animus of the moment (“left-wing”, “communist”, “socialist”, “jihadist”, “terrorist”)—conspiracy to destroy America. Women who claim that women should have rights and privileges of citizenship equal to men are compared to Nazis; Democrats, and the tens of millions of voters that support them, are compared to terrorists and mass murderers.

The level of irrational vitriol and single-party bias at Fox News is now so legendary that around the world, including in tabloid-soaked Great Britain, there is an openly professed fear among public officials and journalists that something as insidious and corrosive as Fox News might emerge there. Laws designed to protect freedom of the press actually include specific provisions designed to reduce the likelihood of the kind of concentration-of-power and intimidation agenda that many believe is the corporate mission at Fox News.

But that aside, the issue of the Fox News reputation for purely biased news reporting aside, it is Fox News that has engaged in a coordinated, persistent and unfounded campaign to smear, undermine, defund and stamp out NPR, the nation’s only public radio service, calling it a socialist conspiracy, a “jihadist inquisition” and accusing it—despite serious analysis showing it to be the least biased radio service in the nation—of pervasive “liberal bias”.

Journalism experts and media analysts are increasingly looking at the anomalous view that there is a “liberal media bias”, which some extreme ideologues on the right have a hard time penetrating. And the clearest explanation emerging from a number of serious studies is literally the problem that extreme ideological conservatives face: that their world view does not correspond to reality, and so serious, credible, unbiased reporting often illustrates a landscape of reality which they cannot tolerate and within which they are not well equipped to debate workable policy solutions.

The Fox News game is a tabloid game—distort, smear, fabricate and exaggerate, remorselessly, and profit from the visceral, primal reaction of an audience which prefers such titillating distortions to information requiring growth, thought, and/or awareness that things can and should be made better in our society. It is the principle of entertaining the public, instead of empowering them. It is Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned.

Another way to put this is that serious news reporting is about what is actually going on in the world, and though much of the facts to be reported are sad, even tragic, and may indicate extremely disheartening and negative trend-lines, they are reported with solemn respect for the tragedy of human failing. The Fox News tabloid style of reporting deliberately seeks out points of conflict that can be distorted into horrors and threats, and reports on them with glee, passion and hubris, as if to invite the destruction of others in society.

Jon Stewart is not so severe as to allege that Fox News rides an undercurrent of sadistic tendencies, but the absurdity and the tragedy of what the network devotes its airtime to speaks for itself: NPR is, if anything, so unbiased that all you can get there are facts, information and a view of the landscape—some would like to hear more passionate critique and analysis. It is absolutely, and in no way that anyone who is not a diagnosed psychotic could assert, a “jihadist inquisition”.

It is the very soul of what American media should be, if we are all to be citizens of a free republic.

The News Corp. phone-hacking scandal has already come ashore in the United States. The FBI is investigating allegations that News Corp. personnel tried to or did bribe police and/or spy on the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks. Whether there was any such illegal activity at Fox News is not known, and no such evidence has yet come to light. But it would be wiser to distance itself and all of its operations from Mr. Murdoch and those now in police custody than to defend the indefensible or make light of the perverse crime of spying on 9/11 victims.

Cafe Sentido has gone through various incarnations—first ContourNews, then Sentido.tv, including two supplements: CafeSentido.com, an art and exhibits forum, and The Global Intercept, a headline-linking and rapid-review forum—before taking on its current format as the broadsheet online magazine CafeSentido.com, which combines all of the prior incarnations in one forum. On Tuesday, July 19, we reached our 400,000th reader.

Cafe Sentido is still a small, independent publication, with a vision to grow, over time, and establish a new kind of online news source, integrating culture, commentary, science, economics, political analysis and straight news reporting. We look forward to continued growth and thank our readers for their participation, their interest and their attention, respect for which we hold as a sacred commitment. We believe a free and vigorous press is the frame on which a democracy is built.

Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister and chancellor of the Exchequer denounces “the systematic criminality of News International”, accusing the media conglomerate of “lawbreaking on an industrial scale” and of abusing the rights of citizens, crime victims and the families of soldiers who lost their lives in war, for financial gain by the most cynical methods. He added that Murdoch’s UK tabloids had “brought the rats out of the sewer” and acted in league with the “criminal underworld” to attack the innocent and vulnerable.

Brown accused News International not only of using criminal activity to target and to persecute innocent and vulnerable citizens, but of attempting to engineer a systematic sabotage of the BBC, and to establish a de facto monopoly over British media and politics. He accused top News Corp. executives of using their influence and their personal relationships to intimidate public officials. He alleged there was constant resistance by News Corp. to Labour’s view that the UK needed a diverse media, including financially disinterested news sources, in order to have a free media.

Rupert Murdoch has, today, told a Parliamentary committee in London that he was “clearly” misled by unknown persons within News Corp. Several of the committee members have sought to clarify who may have been responsible for misleading him. His son James told the committee that “What happened at News of the World was wrong”, adding that “the company has admitted liability, and we have set up the appropriate compensation schemes”.

The first question was directed to the son, James Murdoch, who was asked what new information had come to light, since the time he had said, in 2008, that there was no apparent information relating to further illegal phone hacking. He prefaced his response with a brief explanation that he and his father were cooperating fully with police, that they took this matter extremely seriously and that they wanted to make sure that all evidence came to light.

Rupert Murdoch interjected, before his son’s response to the question, saying that he wanted to add “This is the most humble day of my life.” He was thanked by the minister asking the question, and the hearing continued.

When asked if he recognizes that as chief executive of News Corp. he is ultimately “responsible”, Rupert Murdoch said flatly “No.” The question was repeated, and Mr. Murdoch specified “The people I trusted, and the people they trusted.” He added “I have known Mr. Hinton for 52 years, and I would trust him with my life.”

Mr. Hinton resigned from News Corp. last week.

Rupert Murdoch also said the decision to close the 168-year-old newspaper News of the World was “far from” commercial in nature, and stemmed from his family’s being “ashamed” of what the paper had done.

When asked about payments made to victims of the illegal spying, James Murdoch said the legal settlements included payments that did not, in his estimation, require any approval from the global company or the board of directors.

James Murdoch was asked about what standards were in place to allow for hiring individuals who would file no invoices. He said he had no knowledge of any established practice for doing so, and said reporters and staff could use cash for such contacts but would normally have to report having done so.

He was also asked whether News Corp. had any practice in place allowing for other forms of remuneration, aside from cash, cheque or bank transfer. He said he had no knowledge of any.

His father said “reporters have no authority to make payments”, in cash or any other form, and that this authority rests with the managing editor.

Rupert Murdoch as asked if after having been raked over the coals in the UK press, he could think differently in future about using his news outlets to do the same to other, potentially innocent people. He declined to say whether he would change his practices, saying “it’s not deliberate” when his newspapers and news outlets cause harm or discomfort to subjects of their reporting.

Critics may bristle at this suggestion, given allegations that News Corp.’s tabloids not only spied on and/or harassed potentially thousands of individuals, but that there may be a tendency to report without evidence or even fabricate accusations, in order to pressure public figures or profit from unfounded gossip.

The elder Murdoch then added, tapping his hand repeatedly on the table, “This country does benefit greatly from having a free press, and so having a transparent society, though it may be inconvenient for some people.”

James Murdoch, when asked for a third time what the nature of the information was that he said came to light only after prior litigation was closed and police had closed their prior investigation, he said that he had been led to believe that there was no additional information to be sought.

He had testified earlier that three sources of information regarding the investigation into illegal phone hacking led News Corp.’s managerial executives, himself included, to conclude that there was no need for further investigation:

• The finding of police that no further evidence of wrongdoing was known to exist;
• The PCC finding that the situation had been properly dealt with;
• The conviction of two individuals for criminal phone hacking, with no evidence of further wrongdoing.

He also said that had he know then, in 2008, what he now knows, he would have supported further internal investigation by News Corp. He also repeatedly

He was asked yet again: “What do you know now that you did not know then?” Murdoch cited the civil litigations underway “at the end of 2010, which indicated to us that there was wider involvement”. He did not specify what information, aside from the fact that “there was wider involvement” of News Corp. media properties and personnel in illegal spying.

The question was posed to both Messrs. Murdoch what sort of coaching they had before testifying today. James Murdoch answered that they consulted counsel on the nature of such hearings, and what to expect, as they were new to the forum, and that they were eager to cooperate, to show that they take the allegations seriously and want to get to the bottom of what went on.

Rupert Murdoch was asked if he in fact had such a “hands off” approach to management as he had suggested in his earlier testimony. He responded that “hands off” was probably not the appropriate way to describe his style of management, but that he felt it was possible he had “lost sight of” some activities and developments at News of the World, “because it was such a small” part of the overall News Corp. business—roughly 1% of global revenues, according to some reports.

He denied speaking once or even twice daily, as has been alleged, to the editor of one or more of his UK newspapers.

There were probing questions regarding payouts to alleged victims of illegal spying activity. There was, for instance, a difference as wide as compensation paid in the amount of £20,000 and £600,000, for the same sort of illegal spying, according to the committee’s questioning.

James Murdoch was then asked to answer whether News Corp. paid the legal fees for Clive Goodman, who was convicted of criminal wrongdoing in the prior phone hacking investigations.

“I was very surprised to hear that the company had made contributions to certain legal fees.” When asked who authorized the payments, he answered that they were done in consultation with the firm’s legal officers, and “the management of the legal cases”.

Rupert Murdoch said “it could have been” Les Hinton, or “the chief legal officer”, and that whoever made the decision, “it would have been on the advice of the chief legal officer”.

Murdoch said it was “sad” that Les Hinton stepped down, after “52 years service”, and that Mr. Hinton resigned, saying that though he was not involved in what took place, he was in charge when it took place, and he felt it was better for him to step down.

He was asked how much “all of these characters”, including Mr. Hinton, Ms. Brooks and others who have resigned, received as compensation upon their resignation. He noted Mr. Hinton’s “would be considerable”, given his many decades of accumulated pension benefits, but said such information was “confidential”.

James Murdoch was again asked whether he could accept or believe that News Corp. was paying legal fees for an employee convicted of illegal phone hacking.

“These are serious litigations, and it was important for all of the evidence from all involved to get to the court at the right time.” He said the “strong advice” was that it was “customary” to cover costs for co-defendents, in order to ensure compliance with legal requirements.

Rupert Murdoch, when asked if was time to cut someone like Clive Goodman loose, to let the prosecution ‘do their worst’, said he “would like to do that”, but that he was not aware of the specifics of what News Corp. was in fact doing, with regard to Mr. Goodman’s legal fees or what the terms of his contract had been regarding such issues.

James Murdoch was again asked about the question of what is now known, specifically with regard to an outside legal review having written an opinion that there was no further evidence to be examined and no indication of further wrongdoing.

It is now known that several cubic meters’ worth of documents and evidence were not yet examined by Scotland Yard, at the time the police investigation, the PCC findings and the legal review were issued, suggesting that there was nothing further to look into. Critics have been pressing for information as to whether undue influence of some kind was used to secure those findings and ‘wipe the slate clean’, even before an exhaustive investigation had been concluded.

One of the questions asked regarded whether Rupert Murdoch had entered Number 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence, “through the back door”. He said he had, and that he had been asked by the prime minister or the prime minister’s staff to do so. The questioning was contentious, almost as if attempting to draw him out emotionally, as it was suggested that heads of state and others enter through the front door, and he was asked to enter through the back door.

He said he had made many visits to Number 10, during the tenures of various prime ministers, including Gordon Brown, where he had been asked to enter through the back door. It was unclear at first, whether the question was intended to bring to light suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of Prime Minister David Cameron or whether it was simply meant to embarrass Mr. Murdoch.

Nothing explicitly suggestive of wrongdoing was revealed in that line of questioning.

Much of the hearing was devoted to personnel issues: How did information become known to News Corp. management, regarding the involvement of various editors, executives and contractors, and when? Who was paid what, and when, and by what means? How was compensation calculated? Were internal investigations thwarted by an effort to mislead top executives? Is there evidence of lying or giving false evidence?

The most significant sticking point seemed to be, throughout the hearing, that a file with emails suggesting wider wrongdoing was given to the outside law firm Harbottle and Lewis. The Harbottle and Lewis file, repeatedly referred to as “the file” or “the emails” during today’s questioning, was reported by the BBC to be a “smoking gun” making evident that News Corp. was aware of wider criminal activity as early as 2007.

Neither Rupert nor James Murdoch seemed willing to reveal who at News Corp. had direct knowledge of the information contained in the Harbottle and Lewis file. The question was posed repeatedly throughout the hearing what information came to light that was not known to top executives in 2007 and 2008, and who might have been responsible for hiding that information. It was also repeatedly asked what the two top executives thought could explain how the outside law firm had issued a report finding no extant evidence, while in possession of this “smoking gun” bundle of documents.

Neither offered an explanation of how that would have happened, though they both said it was important to understand that News Corp. relied on the advice of Harbottle and Lewis as evidence that there was no further wrongdoing to look into.

Rupert Murdoch’s personal connection to the people at the top of his organization was evident, when he was asked whether the close relationships with top officers of the News Corp. family of media properties blinded him or his son to what they may have been doing. Mr. Murdoch was more animated in his response to that question than to any other and vigorously defended Les Hinton by name, saying he did not believe Mr. Hinton misled him or abused his trust in any way.

Asked if people under him might conceal information “in order to curry favor” with the boss, he said “not my trusted advisers”, but that such behavior would be human nature, and “it’s my responsibility to see through that.”

“No, I think it’s terribly wrong. There is no excuse for breaking the law at any time.” He added that it is legitimate for journalists and news outlets to campaign to change the law, but never to break it.

Rupert Murdoch said that he often had contact with prime ministers over the years, and that perhaps his closest relationship was with Gordon Brown, when he was chancellor of the exchequer. He lamented that his relationship with Brown was now so strained and broken, after news came to light News Corp. reporters had spied on Brown’s family. He said he hoped in time he could repair that friendship.

Brown gave an impassioned denunciation of the “sewer” culture that seemed to have taken over the tabloid publications of News International, Murdoch’s UK subsidiary.

UPDATE, 11:55 am EDT: At 4:52 local time, there was a disturbance that appeared to include an attempt, which caused a sudden reflex response from all present, to reach Rupert Murdoch. It is not clear whether something was thrown or whether an individual attempted to breach security and/or attack Mr. Murdoch. As the disturbance occurred, James Murdoch jumped to his feet to defend his father.

The hearing was immediately suspended, for 10 minutes, and cameras were pointed to the wall and/or ceiling, in keeping with protocol.

Security appear to have detained at least one individual, and the BBC reported that a “white substance” of some kind, now perhaps confirmed to be a “pie of foam” thrown at Murdoch. Twitter had come alive with comments regarding foam, a pie in the face attempt and Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng leaping to his defense, swatting at the protester.

UPDATE, 12:10 pm EDT: The BBC is now reporting the item thrown at Rupert Murdoch was “a plate of shaving foam”, or the like, and that the incident constitutes an extremely serious and improbable breach of security. A former volleyball player, Ms. Deng reportedly smacked her husband’s attacker and hurled the foam pie back at him.

According to the BBC, police detained, and cleaned up the assailant, then escorted him out of the building, taking him into custody.

The hearing resumed at 5:09 local time, with Rupert Murdoch no longer wearing the jacket that had been smeared with the foam from the assailant’s pie.

UPDATE, 12:26 pm EDT: The questioning was some of the toughest of the day, when it resumed. James Murdoch was asked whether settlements that cost News Corp. significantly more included non-disclosure clauses and whether that was an indication of an attempt by the corporation “to buy silence”. Murdoch said that suggestion would not be true.

Murdoch said the illegal hacking of murder victim Milly Dowler’s voicemail was “a total shock”. He said it was totally unacceptable and something News Corp. would not and cannot justify. He later added that “Illegal activity has no place in this company [and] that goes for the whole company.”

The allegation made by the actor Jude Law that his phone was hacked, while he was on American soil, was raised, as a possible indication that News Corp. employees may in fact have engaged in police bribery and/or illegal spying in order to gain access to private information of victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families.

Citing a litany of revelations about illegal and unethical activity by British tabloid journalists, including an admission by CNN’s Piers Morgan, who used to edit Murdoch’s News of the World, that he had, while working for the Daily Mirror, used phone hacking to win a scoop, the last minister to question the Murdoch’s asked, pointedly: ”Is it not the fact, is it not the truth of the matter, that journalists at the News of the World felt entitled to go out there and use blagging, deception and phone hacking, because that was part of the general culture of corruption in the British tabloid press, and that they didn’t kick it up the chain to you, because they felt they were entitled to use the same methods as everybody else.”

She then asked Rupert Murdoch whether or not he had considered suing Harbottle and Lewis for having failed to reveal evidence of serious criminal wrongdoing, allegedly in its possession. James Murdoch answered that they had not yet explored that possibility. When pressed as to why he had not read through the entire file containing evidence of widespread criminal wrongdoing, James Murdoch answered he had seen enough of it, but that he would “be happy to” read more, looking somewhat quizzical and disgruntled for the first time in the hearing.

Rupert Murdoch was asked, given his testimony that he was not a “hands off” chief executive, whether he had considered resigning. He said no, but that those who misled him, whose identity he did not know or would not reveal, should be the ones “to pay”. He added, “I think I am the best person to clean this up.”

UPDATE, 12:30 pm EDT: Rupert Murdoch made a closing statement, which the committee agreed to, apparently after Mr. Murdoch continued his appearance, despite the assault he underwent.

“At no time do I remember being as sickened as when I heard what the Dowler family had to endure.” He added that he wanted “to thank the Dowlers for graciously giving me the opportunity to apologize in person. I would like all the victims of phone hacking to know how deeply and personally sorry I am… the depth of my regret for the horrible invasion into their lives.”

He denounced paying police bribes and using illegal phone hacking as “wrong” and said they had no place in the company he runs. He added that “It is our duty not to prejudice the outcome of the legal process.” He also noted that he had been led to believe by executives at News International, and others, that with the convictions of Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, in 2007, the phone hacking issue had been fully exposed and resolved.

In a shocking development, a former News of the World reporter and key whistleblower in the phone-hacking scandal now sweeping the News Corp. media empire and British political landscape has been found dead at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. Sean Hoare was the first named journalist to have alleged that Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor and top media officer for Prime Minister David Cameron, knew of and openly encouraged illegal phone hacking and other corrupt practices.

The death is not, at present, being treated as suspicious. But, the investigation is ongoing, and police have yet to publicly confirm the identity of the deceased. A cause of death is not yet known. The news comes as Mr. Hoare’s testimony lends weight to several ongoing inquiries into alleged illegal spying and corruption, and just one day before Rupert Murdoch, his son and the former head of his UK newspaper operations, are scheduled to testify before Parliament.

According to the Guardian:

[Hoare] told the [New York Times] that not only did Coulson know of the phone hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.

In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson’s insistence that he didn’t know about the practice was “a lie, it is simply a lie”.

Mr. Coulson was arrested on July 8, for questioning in connection with the alleged campaign of illegal hacking, bribery and attempted influence or intimidation of public officials. Specifically, Coulson was suspected of lying during previous inquiries into the alleged illegal activity at News International’s tabloid publications, under his management.

Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and his recently arrested protégée, Rebekah Brooks, are scheduled to testify before Parliament, tomorrow. With more than ten people now arrested on allegations of corruption and illegal hacking into private files, the scandal that closed the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid is now threatening to metastasize to the rest of the News Corp. news media properties, and to high-ranking public officials. For the second time in as many days, a top-ranking police official has stepped down, due to alleged connections to the News Corp. scandal.

John Yates, the London police commissioner, who was in charge of a 2006 investigation into the same alleged illegal activity, has resigned, as criticism mounts over his alleged intervention to end the investigation on the grounds that there was no evidence of further illegal activity. The arrest of Rebekah Brooks, who resigned last week, raised speculation there could be evidence of higher-level corruption, not yet revealed in the reporting on phone hacking allegations.

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“The scandal is letting out a lot of anger that has been built up for years in the British public,” says Jasmine Birtles, who runs the Moneymagpie website in London. “Brooks has been arrested on the same day as the British public is hearing she told [Prime Minister] Cameron he had to hire Andy Coulson as chief press officer.”

Whether there was undue influence applied to Mr. Cameron to place Mr. Coulson at Number 10 Downing Street, or whether promises were made regarding access to information that might not otherwise change hands between the Prime Minister’s office and the tabloids, unless it were first made public, is an increasingly widely asked question both Mr. Cameron and Ms. Brooks will be expected to answer.

Cameron has been careful to side with the rest of the Parliament in expressing extreme revulsion at the crimes alleged to have been committed by the News of the World and other Murdoch tabloids. The files of just one private investigator used by the Murdoch tabloids to illegally hack into private phone accounts suggests nearly 4,000 people were targeted. There is at least one other investigator whose files police have not yet begun to parse, and so the possibility that many more people were targeted over what is thought to be at least a decade of illegal spying.

Mr. Yates was under increasing pressure, due to what is now thought to be the incredible claim that police did not have evidence of widespread illegal spying at News of the World and/or other Murdoch tabloids. As long ago as 2003, if not longer, police were aware of efforts by Murdoch employees to spy on the family of Gordon Brown, the eventual and now former prime minister. That information came to light as part of a wider investigation in which the names of some of the victims cited in the current investigation may have already been known to police.

Mr. Yates is not, so far, officially alleged to have engaged in wrongdoing. He says his resignation was necessary, because he had become the target of “inaccurate, uninformed and … malicious gossip”, and that he needed to step down to put a stop to the distraction from preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games. He was, however, to be suspended, and is now thought to have been “too close to” the journalists and editors he was to be investigating.

CNN International is reporting that for Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, their testimony before Parliament tomorrow may turn out to be the single most crucial moment of their entire careers in media. Lord John Prescott has said Murdoch “is responsible” and must be called to account for the alleged crimes committed by more than one of his publications. Others have alleged that the illegal spying may have been used to exert political pressure on key figures.

The Wall Street Journal is an historic and storied publication, known for top-quality journalism and meticulous reporting of facts relevant to financial markets and economic activity more broadly. It is a mainstay of American print media, and has long been known for honoring the bright line that must be drawn between editorial viewpoints and news reporting. Since 2007, however, it is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., and not all of that legacy remains certain to everyone.

And Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is rapidly losing journalistic and commercial cachet, as the scandal over bribery and illegal phone hacking deepens. Now, at least three members of the Bancroft family, which sold the Wall Street Journal and other DowJones properties to Murdoch in 2007, say they would not have done so, were they aware of the corruption and illegal spying allegedly rampant at his UK-based tabloids.

According to ProPublica and the Guardian:

The downward spiral of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has deepened, as Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World tabloid, accused of bribery and illegal hacking of private phone messages and other documents, has now been arrested. Now, the multinational News Corp., which owns not only the now closed News of the World, and other British newspapers, but also Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, in the US, is facing criminal investigation in the UK and the US. There is mounting expectation that concrete evidence of police bribery will come to light, as the chief of the London Metropolitan Police, has now stepped down.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Late Sunday, the head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service, known as Scotland Yard, resigned due largely to connections between the police and the phone-hacking scandal. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson cited intense media scrutiny and the hiring of a former News Corp. tabloid editor to advise police on public relations; that editor, Neil Wallis, was arrested in connection with the criminal investigation last week.

The arrest of Brooks is the most serious development to date in the ongoing investigation into alleged pervasive corruption and spying at Murdoch’s UK tabloids. She had been considered to be a “firewall” for the media boss, and he had pledged to protect her. The Scotsman is now reporting that Murdoch’s firewall has burned through.

Her arrest also makes the situation still more uncomfortable for Prime Minister David Cameron, whose former media director was also arrested in connection with the scandal. According to the Scotsman:

The arrest of somebody who was a personal friend of the Prime Minister David Cameron has also put the focus back on him. Mr Cameron met Brooks up to 14 times in the 14 months since he became Prime Minister, Downing Street revealed last week, including social occasions, private meals and two stays at his official country retreat, Chequers.

And the Tories yesterday had to deny reports that Brooks had told Mr Cameron to take on Andy Coulson, her successor at the News of the World, as his director of communications so that he would have a direct line into News international.

The New York Times has reported on the intense media fixation on Ms. Brooks’ arrest, as she has long been a figure of controversy, intensely criticized for the methods of the newspapers she edited:

The blogosphere was awash with taunts on Sunday for Ms. Brooks, who once edited The News of the World, a News International tabloid that has been accused of hacking into the phones of celebrities, politicians and others, including a 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, who was abducted and murdered. The paper was Britain’s best-selling Sunday tabloid until it closed last week.

“Rebekah Brooks will be allowed one phone call after her arrest. By rights, we should all be able to listen in on it,” Toby Hadoke, a British comedian, tweeted sardonically on Sunday. Some questioned whether the arrest, just two days before Ms. Brooks was scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee with Mr. Murdoch and his son James, was little more than a pretext to avoid being eviscerated in public.

The Independent is reporting that the arrest caught some by surprise, including Ms. Brooks herself, and appears to indicate that the fortunes of News Corp. generally might be steadily declining:

While she was still chief executive of News International and the “fifth daughter” of the Murdoch clan last week, Rebekah Brooks wrote to Scotland Yard offering to be interviewed as a witness in its intensifying investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.

The extent to which the fortunes of the former editor of The Sun and the News of the World have been transformed in the space of 72 hours was underlined at midday yesterday when she arrived at a London police station in the expectation that she would be helping police with their inquiries – only to find herself under arrest.

Brooks is the second top executive to step down in recent days who spent most of her life working for Rupert Murdoch. It had been widely considered crucial to Murdoch’s effort to contain the scandal to keep his top-ranking allies inside the corporation. On the outside, and now facing extreme legal pressure, Brooks, Hinton and others, are expected to provide more useful information about what is now widely perceived as a culture of routine corruption and illegal spying, at least across multiple News Corp. publications.

The resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Service chief, has led observers to speculate that police involvement in the scandal may be more widespread, and reach higher into the ranks, than was previously suspected. Stephenson was firm in his claim that this was not the case:

I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr. Wallis in phone hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not and had no reason to have done so. I do not occupy a position in the world of journalism; I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging; nor of its apparent reach into senior levels. I saw senior figures from News International providing evidence that the misbehavior was confined to a rogue few and not known about at the top.

One can only wonder about the motives of those within the newspaper industry or beyond, who now claim that they did know but kept quiet. Though mine and the Met’s current severe discomfort is a consequence of those few that did speak out, I am grateful to them for doing so, giving us the opportunity to right the wrong done to victims – and here I think most of those especially vulnerable people who deserved so much better from us all.

He took pains to make clear that he knows of nothing improper in a contractual business relationship with Neil Wallis, a former editor for News of the World, who some suspect of having been involved in the illegal hacking. Wallis was arrested last week in connection with the investigation, and there have been questions raised about the coincidence of Stephenson’s treatment at a spa where Wallis worked.

Murdoch has hired the public relations firm Edelman to manage “damage control” for News Corp., which is steadily losing ground both in terms of public reputation and the confidence of investors. There are allegations of illegal hacking and bribery in the United States, and calls from some to break up the media conglomerate. There are also questions about what the firm was hired to do, and whether this indicates a potential strategy aimed at limiting the release of facts about what took place at News Corp.’s publications.

News Corp., the New York-based multinational media conglomerate whose majority shareholder is the controversial billionaire Rupert Murdoch, is now facing an FBI investigation for illegal activity in news gathering. Long maligned by press advocacy groups as a leading source of biased and abusive media activity, and even of attacks on genuine news sources, News Corp. is now being accused of having authorized bribery and/or hacking activity to gain illegal access to the private files of victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Murdoch hacking scandal has been rapidly spreading across the Atlantic, since it was revealed last week in Britain that the News of the World tabloid had not only hacked into the private voicemail of a 13-year-old murder victim, but had deleted messages, interfering with criminal evidence and a police investigation. Some raised concerns that the illegal hacking was not only obstruction of justice, but that it may have made it more difficult to identify and mount an effective legal case against the murderer.

Since then, the scandal has widened, as news has come to light of investigations into illegal hacking at numerous News Corp. publications, going back to 2002. Prime Minister Cameron’s hand-picked (and now former) media director Andy Coulson, who had Murdoch’s UK operations, has been taken into custody. Several other employees of the media company have been arrested, and now Mr. Murdoch and his son will be required to give sworn testimony to the British Parliament, this coming week.

Rebekah Brooks, whom Murdoch had said he would protect, come what may, has now resigned, under significant pressure from inside the Murdoch family, from among her former staff and from Britain’s political elite. According to the Washington Post:

IndependentsOfPrinciple.com :: The House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) recently published an op-ed, in which he argued that “If Washington actually had the discipline to live within its means over the long term, every American citizen would not owe $46,000 toward the national debt.” The rhetoric is effective, but the logic is flawed; not every American “owes” an equal share of the national debt.

The national debt is what the federal government owes in long-term interest on government-backed bonds, Treasury bonds. Long-term Treasury bonds pay out over several decades, and have (thanks to the high credit rating of the United States government) a very low rate of interest. The bonds are used to finance spending in the short term for which there are no sufficient tax revenues in reserve.

Over the life of a given Treasury bond, the interest accruing behaves, in a sense, as government debt. It requires that future budgets cover the cost of putting sufficient funds into a pool of revenues that will eventually be paid out as interest on those bonds. The rate of interest is often not as high as the rate of inflation, making it easy to “finance” the bonds without actually spending extra cash.

At the present time, the rate of interest is actually negative on some Treasury bonds. That means investors are paying more than they expect to get back, in order to have the security of investing in US Treasury bonds, the most secure investment product in the world. The national debt is what it will cost, over time, as all interest is paid out, to finance all bond payments.

The total is not necessarily more than all the revenue that can be expected to be taken in, over the life of the securities in question, and is not necessarily unsustainable, even when it reaches such high levels as 50%, or 80% or 100% of GDP. The comparison is something of a red herring, because GDP is annual (and more than 20% of it is government spending anyway), and long-term Treasury bonds pay out over several decades. More than the percentage of current-year GDP, it is the combination of inflation, GDP growth and tax policy that will determine the viability of such debt.

There are short-term T-bills as well, which “mature” in as few as three to six months, but the full scope of the “national debt” is more about long-term borrowing than short. Deficits are not healthy, unless the level of borrowing stays within the range that credit analysts and credit issuers (bond investors) view as likely to yield a reliable return.

But the key to understanding who actually “owes” money to pay down the national debt is understanding two key components of how it is financed: first, who owes what share of the tax burden, and second, who is actually benefitting from the debt itself, or rather, who is being financed by the government’s borrowing.

In the United States, at present, there is a tragic wealth divide that has, for decades, been eroding the middle class. The wealthy hold most of the wealth and take in most of the income. The top 20% own as much as 90% of all the investment income in the country (this includes Treasury bonds), as well as 84% or more of all the wealth.

It is the wealthy who invest in stocks which benefit directly from government spending (the bottom 50% of the “income ladder” hold virtually no investments of any kind). This could be the record Defense and war spending, or record subsidies to the most profitable corporations in history, the big oil companies. Or, it could be investments that benefit from the massive direct and indirect subsidies that flow to nuclear energy generation, coal production and natural gas drilling. It could be Medicare and Medicaid spending that helps to make the private health insurance model profitable, by covering the most costly segments of the population.

The wealthy enjoy many collateral benefits of government borrowing, not least of which is the direct financing of their own investments, whether through government spending, subsidies or bond payments. Many high-end private-sector investments simply would not be viable as a secure investment, without the government’s activities doing something to support that sector or that type of financial activity.

The fact is, the national debt is made up of a cycle of borrowing and of investment income, which benefits the wealthy far more than it benefits the poor. They benefit from every one of the public services the poor struggle to benefit from, and they do so not only on the personal level, but also as an indirect subsidy to the entire scope of their private investment portfolio, which depends on the stability of the American economy and of its government’s ability to borrow and to finance borrowing.

A scientific calculation of the overall cost-to-benefit ratio of national debt financing for the wealthy or for the poor, specifically, may be too complex to flesh out without a dedicated study. But when you consider that the working poor, and much of the middle class, enjoy relatively little investment income related to government borrowing, yet must pay a significant portion of their taxes each year to finance it, the national debt is actually a system of transfer of wealth from the middle class and working poor to the wealthy.

What motivates such hostile and vitriolic rhetoric on the tax-cuts-for-the-rich side of the political spectrum, in the United States, when discussing the national debt, is the very clear fact that it is their preferred constituency that in fact owes the majority share of the national debt. The populist rhetoric of the Tea Party is often driven by the misconception that everyone in the country will be working off tens of thousands of dollars in irresponsible government borrowing, which is simply not the case.

It is a fundamentally unfair and misleading calculation to say that the national debt should be divided equally among every man, woman and child in the United States, because the equation does not balance out. Indirect beneficiaries of government borrowing cannot owe more, relative to income, than direct beneficiaries. And those who pay more in pre-tax cash to finance government borrowing than they receive in after-tax cash returns on investment, cannot owe more than those who receive more in return than they pay in.

This is not a question of class warfare or of a socialist-minded redistribution of wealth. It is just simple arithmetic: if you are reaping complex financial rewards from the system of government borrowing, you cannot ask those who are paying out of pocket to help you, but getting nothing concrete in returns, to share your burden equally.

In other words, you cannot ask a military enlisted family of four, with one low-ranking military salary and one part-time private-sector salary, and two children, to pay $46,000 to help billionaires and hedge funds manage their profits. That every single American owes $46,000 to finance the national debt is a distortion: each owes his or her own share, and those shares depend on how the pie was divided up to begin with.

TheHotSpring.net :: As the Pentagon issues its official cyber-security posture, it is imperative that we move into the era of strategic cyber-security with one paramount aim: that cyberspace not be militarized in any substantive way by any nation. Cyberspace should operate much the way our space exploration has worked: aiming for technological superiority and peaceful, international cooperation.

The Pentagon’s publicly released policy report suggests that were a military-type cyber attack to lead to damage and casualties comparable to a conventional military attack, it might be treated as an act of war and warrant a military or cyber-military response. But wisely, at least as is publicly known, there is no existing plan to organize a “cyber force” to militarize cyberspace as already exist with land, sea and air.

The Internet was developed in large part by Pentagon advanced research as a communications tool, to help improve the chances of ably protecting against an intercontinental or sea-borne attack during the Cold War. But as a tool of civilian communication it has far outstripped the projected value and productivity of its original design.

So much so, there is a growing legal movement, across the world, to treat Internet access as a basic human right, on a par with access to clean air and clean water. Knowledge, of course, has nearly the same value, in terms of determining whether an individual or a population will have the ability to compete and to stave off oppression, in a technologically organized global civilization.

Cyber-security is an issue of human rights and democracy. If governments, foreign or domestic, are able to use the Internet to impose their will on otherwise free people, real freedoms can be infringed and democratic societies can become vulnerable to the whims of tyrants. But cyber-security is in many ways like environmental security: just as we have a right to clean drinking water, we have a right to unobstructed access to information.

This should be the aim of any regime of national cyber-security, not the application, or projection, of centuries old military force doctrine to the world of digital information and communication. In the atmosphere of true hyper-convergence, the web beyond Facebook and gMail, the integrated freedom of the individual depends on the integrated civil liberty of the world wide web.

Just as we expect to go about our days without tanks rolling down our streets, we must demand we have the liberty to use the Internet as we choose, and safely, without military intervention or monitoring.