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Senate panel approves reinstatement of assault weapons ban

Jennifer Steinhauer
NY Times
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:41 UTC
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© SUSAN WALSH/AP
The Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley (left), voted against the assault weapons ban with the rest of his party, while the Democratic chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (right), voted in favor.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a measure to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, the first Congressional vote on the issue since the ban expired in 2004.

The vote to approve the measure - now ostensibly headed for the full Senate - went firmly along party lines; the 10 Democrats on the committee voted aye, and the 8 Republicans of the committee rejected it. The legislation would also limit the size of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

In debating the measure - as well as amendments offered by Senator John Cornyn of Texas designed to chip away its provisions - the committee laid bare the essence and emotions of the debate over how to prevent gun violence and the meaning of the Second Amendment, a fight that is likely to continue on the Senate floor.

The measure, the fourth and most controversial passed by the committee, is almost certain to fail if brought before the entire Senate and has almost zero chance of even receiving a hearing in the House.
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Eye 2

Egyptian police 'killed almost 900 protesters in 2011 in Cairo'

Patrick Kingsley
Guardian
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:06 UTC
Image
© Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS
Protesters demonstrate in Tahrir Square in 2011. Leaked papers reveal police killed almost 900.
Leaked report commissioned by president is the first time Egyptian police and senior officials have admitted killings in 2011

Egyptian policemen were to blame for the deaths of more than 800 protesters during Egypt's 2011 uprising, according to a leaked report commissioned by president Mohamed Morsi.

At least 846 protesters were killed during the uprising in early 2011, but Egypt's interior ministry - which controls the police force - has repeatedly denied responsibility. Only two policemen have been jailed for their behaviour during the revolution.

According to the leaked report police were responsible for most of the deaths - many at the hands of police snipers shooting from the roofs surrounding Tahrir Square.

The report's findings are significant because the Egyptian establishment has previously been reluctant to admit the full extent of police responsibility. While the 16-man committee that wrote the report is nominally independent it was set up by the president himself, and contained members of the judiciary and the military. The report may also have implications for the April retrial of Hosni Mubarak and members of his regime.
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Vader

Obama plan would give spymasters access to Americans' bank accounts

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:37 UTC
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© Shutterstock
The Obama administration is planning a proposal to open up the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Center (FinCEN) to spies at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, Reuters reported Wednesday.

The move would ensure that counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering efforts conducted by the nation's spy agencies have access to the Treasury's database, which is designed to identify unusual financial transactions and strange account structures that could be indicative of criminal activity.

Reuters noted that financial institutions file more than 15 million reports of unusual transactions every year to keep from being accused of under-reporting, under rules set forward in the Patriot Act. The vast majority of these reports are triggered by innocent activity like large cash deposits or money transfers.
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TV

The new propaganda is liberal, the new slavery is digital

John Pilger
johnpilger.com
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:41 UTC
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What is modern propaganda? For many, it is the lies of a totalitarian state. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her epic films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerized Germans; her 'Triumph of the Will' cast Hitler's spell.

She told me that the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above," but on the "submissive void" of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? "Everyone," she said.

Today, we prefer to believe that there is no submissive void. "Choice" is ubiquitous. Phones are "platforms" that launch every half-thought. There is Google from outer space if you need it. Caressed like rosary beads, the precious devices are borne heads-down, relentlessly monitored and prioritised. Their dominant theme is the self. Me. My needs. Riefenstahl's submissive void is today's digital slavery.

Edward Said described this wired state in 'Culture and Imperialism' as taking imperialism where navies could never reach. It is the ultimate means of social control because it is voluntary, addictive and shrouded in illusions of personal freedom.
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USA

Gohmert: 'Vietnam was winnable,' but 'people in Washington decided' to lose

David Edwards
Raw Story
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:11 UTC
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Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Thursday asserted that the U.S. war in "Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!"

"One of the things that we've heard over and over again since Vietnam is, you know, we don't want to get in another un-winnable war like Vietnam," Gohmert told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). "I'm not going to debate the merits of whether we should or should not have gone to Vietnam, but what I will tell you is, Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!"

"Folks, when you hear people talk about the lesson of Vietnam, it ought to be this: You don't send American men or women to to harm's way unless you're going to give them the authority and what they need to win and then bring them home!"
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Cult

Texas megachurch pastor on gay sex: Plug into wrong outlet and get blown to 'smithereens'

David Edwards
Raw Story
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:59 UTC
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Texas megachurch Pastor Robert Jeffress is warning LGBT members of his flock that they could be blown to "smithereens" if they plug their equipment into the wrong outlet by having homosexual sex.

Right Wing Watch on Wednesday obtained a video of Jeffress last week telling the Trinity Broadcasting Network that he didn't understand why critics had accused his church of spreading hate after it was announced that Christian football player Tim Tebow was going to attend the grand opening of the new $130 million facility.

"People ask, how could you got speak at such a hateful church such as First Baptist Dallas?" Jeffress recalled to host Bil Cornelius. "If you're listening tonight, it doesn't matter what your faith is or isn't, it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're a homosexual, an adulterer, a liar or a cheat. It doesn't matter. Christ is able to forgive you of your sin. That's the message of hope that we have, but the media has turned that into a hateful message."
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Bulb

Mexican town finds more security and peace by throwing out the police


Raw Story
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:53 UTC
Image
© Alan Ortega/Reuters
Lidia Romero (c.), a member of the Community Police, stands guard on a road at the entrance to the town of Cherán one week ago. Residents of remote regions have taken up arms to patrol and defend their communities from organized crimes and gangs.
The indigenous town of Cherán used to be like many places in Mexico, caving under the weight of drug-related crime and a police force that did little to stop it.

But about two years ago, citizens here threw out the police, and took over their local government, running the town according to indigenous tradition. So far, they've had remarkable success.

Indigenous autonomy movements, like the one in Cherán, are a trend throughout Latin America, scholars say, from movements like the Zapatistas in Chiapas in the 1990s; to communities seeking to self-govern today in places like Chile and Bolivia.

The response from national governments can vary wildly, says Shannon Speed, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.

"Cherán has been in part so successful because of the particular context in which it happened, one in which government doesn't have much control to begin with. So it's pretty happy to say, 'Sure, go govern yourself,'" says Ms. Speed, who specializes in indigenous issues, human rights, and the law.

As Mexico's drug violence progresses, and more citizen self-defense groups spring up, what makes Cherán unique is its focus on a formal system of indigenous autonomy, rather than vigilante justice, and the fragile peace that persists.
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Health

21 killed in series of attacks in central Iraqi capital


Xinhuanet News
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:08 UTC
Image
© AP
Black smoke from a car bomb attack is seen in Baghdad on Thursday.
Up to 21 people were killed and some 50 wounded in a series of car bombings and shootings in central the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest report said that 21 people were killed, including seven policemen, while some 50 wounded, including 15 policemen, by the blasts and gunmen attacks in downtown Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attacks took place around 1:00 a.m. local time (1000 GMT) within five minutes when gunmen blew up three car bombs and another believed to be a suicide bombing near some government buildings in downtown the capital, the source said.

One of the car bombs was close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and another went off outside the nearby building of the Telecommunication institute in Alawi district, while the third car bomb ripped through the area near the Ministry of Culture, a few hundred meters away from the Ministry of Justice in the district of a-Salhiyah, the source added.
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Eye 1

Senators critical of military's 'convening authority' system to punish sex assault

Karen McVeigh
Guardian
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:52 UTC
Kirsten Gillibrand 'extremely disturbed' by leaders' defence of a justice system that grants commander ability to nullify verdicts


US military leaders have defended a key component of the military justice system which has been widely criticised amid growing concern at the way the armed services deal with cases of sexual assault.

Affording military commanders the "convening authority" - the ultimate power to nullify convictions by military juries - is necessary for "good order and discipline", military leaders told a Senate armed services committee hearing on Wednesday. It is the first time in 10 years that Congress has examined the issue of military sexual assault.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the hearing, told a panel of judge advocate generals from the army, navy and air force that she was "extremely disturbed" by their answers.

The power of individual commanders to have final say on prosecutions has been thrown into the spotlight by a case at Aviano air base in Italy, in which the commander of the third air force, Lt General Craig Franklin, overturned the conviction for sexual assault of a senior fighter pilot last month. The case has fuelled concerns that the military does not do enough to protect members from sexual assault or act forcefully enough to prosecute offenders.
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Crusader

The sins of the Argentinian church

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Guardian
Fri, 04 Jan 2013 03:20 UTC
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
© Natacha Pisarenko/AP
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
The Catholic church was complicit in dreadful crimes in Argentina. Now it has a chance to repent

Benedict XVI gave us words of great comfort and encouragement in the message he delivered on Christmas Eve.

"God anticipates us again and again in unexpected ways," the pope said. "He does not cease to search for us, to raise us up as often as we might need. He does not abandon the lost sheep in the wilderness into which it had strayed. God does not allow himself to be confounded by our sin. Again and again he begins afresh with us".

If these words comforted and encouraged me they will surely have done the same for leaders of the church in Argentina, among many others. To the judicious and fair-minded outsider it has been clear for years that the upper reaches of the Argentinian church contained many "lost sheep in the wilderness", men who had communed and supported the unspeakably brutal western-supported military dictatorship that seized power in that country in 1976 and battened on it for years. Not only did the generals slaughter thousands unjustly, often dropping them out of aeroplanes over the River Plate and selling off their orphan children to the highest bidder, they also murdered at least two bishops and many priests. Yet even the execution of other men of the cloth did nothing to shake the support of senior clerics, including representatives of the Holy See, for the criminality of their leader General Jorge Rafael Videla and his minions.

As it happens, in the week before Christmas in the city of Córdoba Videla and some of his military and police cohorts were convicted by their country's courts of the murder of 31 people between April and October 1976, a small fraction of the killings they were responsible for. The convictions brought life sentences for some of the military. These were not to be served, as has often been the case in Argentina and neighbouring Chile, in comfy armed forces retirement homes but in common prisons. Unsurprisingly there was dancing in the city's streets when the judge announced the sentences.
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