The dirty $3.5 million at PBS

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pbs-logoAccording to a very damning report by David Sirota, WNET/PBS allegedly solicited $3.5 million from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to produce a two-year series on the need to reform and/or slash public employee pension benefits, entitled “Pension Peril.” John Arnold and his foundation have become noteworthy in recent years because of their support for those who advocate exactly that agenda.

The Foundation, in agreeing to fund the series, reserved the right to cut funding at will, at any time, guaranteeing a lack of objectivity — against PBS rules. Following the release of the report linked above, PBS returned the money.

But the series already began airing late last year, using the Foundation’s policy positions heavily. For example, it emphasized the “need” to cut pensions to balance state and local budgets, even in cases where the purportedly near-bankrupt state/local governments were actually spending far more on discretionary corporate and “economic development” subsidies than on non-discretionary pensions. The program also advocated a California ballot initiative being bankrolled by John Arnold himself. Consistently, the show is presented as part of the news division and not an opinion show.

Episodes consistently failed to disclose the Arnold Foundation funding, despite the conflict of interest, in stark contrast to the prominent disclosure of much less directly conflicted donations of David Koch to, say, NOVA.

As Sirota points out, unfortunately (and partly as a legacy of the George W. Bush Administration), this is just the tip of the iceberg on PBS corruption by conservative money.

Italy still not on board with democracy, really

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italian-republic-emblemAnother ten months, another failed Italian prime minister. The next prime minister is expected to be the Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi of the ruling Democrat Party, who has been summoned to the presidential palace to see about trying to cobble together a new governing majority coalition and cabinet.

Because, as you may have realized from the above, he’s not actually a member of parliament, he will presumably be proclaimed a “Senator-for-Life,” the appointed position granted to Mario Monti at the end of 2011 so he could become Prime Minister. Under the constitution, the President can appoint anyone to the Senate and then invite them to form a cabinet as prime minister. It’s more or less undemocratic, but it’s constitutional.

Monti, a former career EU official at the time with no elected experience, proceeded to select a cabinet composed entirely of other non-elected “technocrats” (apolitical experts), so he could enact austerity measures. He was succeeded by the now-outgoing Enrico Letta, just last year, after losing an election. Letta wasn’t exactly elected either by the country, but he was at least an elected member of parliament who managed to form a majority from within his fellow members across the three largest parties.

He was brought down by a no confidence vote Mayor Renzi instigated last week. Both Letta and Renzi are Democratic Party members but Renzi took control of the party leadership in December 2013 and didn’t feel like waiting his turn — or even being elected to parliament first.

Post-World War II Italian politics have been increasingly wracked by instability due to having several major parties in parliament — usually 3 or 4 at a time — often with strong geographic alignments in the second tier parties. This all adds up to no one party usually being able to form a majority and certainly not one that can survive no confidence votes easily.
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Kony 2012: Never forget (the damage you did)

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Remember when Invisible Children, a young American group with barely-concealed ties to U.S. evangelical organizations, tried to get everyone to lobby Congress to provide more support to the (undemocratic) Ugandan government, including increased military aid?

Not much policy action came of it, in part because the U.S. already provides the regime with a lot of weapons and military advisers anyway (and because Joseph Kony is nowhere near Uganda anymore).

But it was definitely great anyway to rally a bunch of American students to support the violent and regressive agenda of the U.S. evangelical-backed dictatorship in Uganda and its evangelical Christian president, Yoweri Musevini, who took power in January 1986. Nice boost of moral support for their agenda, which included seeking gay executions several years before the Kony 2012 campaign.

Oddly, that agenda of criminalizing homosexuality (along with a much more extensive multi-decade campaign of general repression supported by Westerners) didn’t disappear. And because I’m the Secretary of the Department of Told-You-So, I’ll just drop the latest on that here:

The anti-gay legislation cruised through Uganda’s parliament in December after its architects dropped an extremely controversial death penalty clause.

The measure, which has been greeted with international condemnation, would criminalize the promotion or recognition of homosexual relations.

Obama suggested that the Ugandan president — a key regional ally for both the United States and the European Union — risks damaging his country’s ties with Washington if he signs the bill into law.

“As we have conveyed to President Museveni, enacting this legislation will complicate our valued relationship with Uganda,” Obama said.

Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice wrote in a series of tweets on Sunday that enacting the law “will put many at risk and stain Uganda’s reputation.”

She added that on Saturday, she “spoke at length with President Museveni… to urge him not to sign anti-LGBT bill.”

Museveni, a devout evangelical Christian, has expressed the view that gays are “sick” and “abnormal.” He suggested in a letter to parliament that homosexuality was caused by a genetic flaw, or a need to make money.

 
So on the one hand, the pressure campaign advocated increasing support for this monstrous pseudo-democracy and provided visuals of thousands of young Americans rallying behind the regime and its agenda. On the other hand, they shook a strong finger at a coked-up self-styled prophet who hasn’t been in Uganda in years.

But, of course, that was probably the point.

bush-mission-accomplished

Egypt: Don’t speak your mind, kids.

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In every mass arrest by Egyptian security forces at political protests, an estimated 10-30% of those detained now are children, whether teens or younger. They are held indefinitely and often beaten.

This is what it looks like when the military “saves” democracy. Everyone who cheered the coup d’état last July should be ashamed of themselves.

What if you threw a coup and nobody came?

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libya-flagFormer longtime Virginia resident and past/present Libyan military general Khalifa Hifter attempted to seize power in Libya on Friday, claiming he had suspended parliament and initiated a military takeover to put the country back on the right path. Then what happened?

Then, nothing happened. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called the supposed coup “ridiculous.” A military spokesman called it “a lie.” None of the Libyan Army’s few tanks or soldiers made any visible moves. The empty Parliament was quiet.
[…]
Mr. Zeidan, who has also struggled to organize and control a government, quickly shot down the idea. “Libya is stable,” he told Reuters. Parliament “is doing its work, and so is the government,” he added.

“The army is in its headquarters, and Khalifa Hifter has no authority,” Mr. Zeidan said. “No military units have moved to touch any institutions.”

 
Put another way: U tried it tho, buddy.
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Jamming the works in Indiana

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After much suspense since Republican legislators in 2011 passed a bill to put a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage on the Indiana ballot, marriage equality supporters could breathe a sigh of relief today. The legislature, still firmly Republican and opposed to marriage equality, blocked its own momentum on a technicality which will delay the effort by at least another two years — possibly giving more time to stop it for good.

Indiana requires legislators to pass exact same text in two different legislative assemblies before a constitutional amendment can go on the ballot. 2011’s measure, much like the North Carolina Amendment passed in May 2012, banned both same-sex marriage and civil unions. This was extreme at the time but seems to have been a bridge too far for legislators just a few years later. Earlier, the House passed a different version of the text (dropping the civil unions prohibition), and today the Senate approved that new text without amending it back. There did not appear to be significant objection within the legislative membership to keeping out the old version, even if it meant a delay.
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Egypt: If civilian men don’t get you, the state will

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flag-of-egyptRegional experts agree (discussed here previously): Egypt is, by far, the worst place to be a woman in the entire “Arab World” right now.

They’ve hidden that nasty reputation by distractingly pointing to real but less substantive issues like driving bans and clothing requirements in the Gulf states. But in terms of basic human rights, being female in Egypt is a pretty heinous experience right now. And when anything bad happens, their families often abandon them.

The latest affront is state-backed “virginity tests” on women detained by security services. This euphemism itself hides the reality of the situation: members of state security and quasi-medical professionals aggressively and intrusively “examining” (read: violating, since it’s not optional) women they believe have crossed some moral boundary, usually after having been assaulted by civilian men (an extremely frequent and ever-present threat since the fall of the Mubarak regime). These examinations are neither medical in nature nor scientifically based (unfortunately, in the West, many myths persist also about the topic — so don’t feel too superior, American readers).

To top it all off, the new dictator and future president is a vocal supporter of this violation as a regular tactic. 
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