This blog is meant to continue the discussion of public issues that begins on the WCNY-TV Show The Ivory Tower Half Hour (8 p.m. on Friday evenings). I (David Rubin) and my fellow regular panelists (Lisa Dolak, Tara Ross, Kristi Andersen, Bob Spitzer, Tim Byrnes, and Bob Green) will contribute to this blog from time to time as the subject moves them. If you have something you want us to share with viewers on the air, let us know. And please tell us what you think of the show and what subjects you'd like us to discuss. We may also debate with each other, and with you, online.
If you missed the show, or want to see it again, you may click on The Ivory Tower Half Hour link above and it will take you to the station's site.
Congrats on your first post!
ReplyDeleteHello David, I've created an account, and signed in, I think.
ReplyDeleteSECRECY NEWS
ReplyDeletefrom the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 29
March 28, 2011
Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
INTELLIGENCE AND THE DECLINE OF US MANUFACTURING
The U.S. intelligence community will prepare a National Intelligence
Estimate on the implications of the continuing decline in U.S.
manufacturing capacity, said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) citing recent news
reports.
"Last month Forbes reported that the continued erosion of the U.S.
manufacturing base has gotten so serious that the Director of National
Intelligence has begun preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate...
to assess the security implications of the decline of American
manufacturing," said Rep. Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence
Committee.
"Our growing reliance on imports and lack of industrial infrastructure has
become a national security concern," said Rep. Schakowsky. She spoke at a
March 16 news conference (at 28:10) in opposition to the pending U.S.-Korea
Free Trade Agreement.
http://www.box.net/shared/ine62nl969
The Forbes report referenced by Rep. Schakowsky was "Intelligence
Community Fears U.S. Manufacturing Decline," by Loren Thompson, February
14:
http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2011/02/14/
The decision to prepare an intelligence estimate was first reported by
Richard McCormack in "Intelligence Director Will Look at National Security
Implications of U.S. Manufacturing Decline," Manufacturing & Technology
News, February 3:
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/11/0203/intelligence.html
More info:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33733.pdf
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan were documented in new detail based on
the release of internal military databases to Science Magazine, which published them this month: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6022/1256/suppl/DC1
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
AFGHAN WAR CASUALTIES
ReplyDeleteDespite a requirement of law, the U.S. State Department has failed to produce two retrospective volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series documenting U.S. covert action in Iran (1952-54) and the Congo (1960-68). See Stephen R. Weissman, "Why is US withholding old documents on covert ops in Congo, Iran," Christian Science Monitor, March
25, 2011.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/%28view%29/all
Lignator
STATE SECRETS AND CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS
ReplyDeleteAn extensive online collection of judicial rulings involving the state secrets privilege and other related resources has been compiled by the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law. http://www.law.georgetown.edu/cnsl/ssa/
Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar formerly at the Congressional Research Service and the Law Library of Congress, has posted many of his
writings on the state secrets privilege, war powers, and others aspects of constitutional interpretation on a new web site here: http://www.loufisher.org/
A recent law review paper entitled "Intolerable Abuses: Rendition for Torture and the State Secrets Privilege" by D.A. Jeremy Telman is available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1776464
"The False Choice Between Secrecy and Transparency in US Politics" by Clare Birchall appeared in the March 2011 issue of Cultural Politics.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/cpij/2011/00000007/00000001/
Lignator
According to The New York Times, last year General Electric (GE) made over $14.2 billion in profit, but paid NO federal tax.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, thanks to the millions GE spent lobbying Congress, we American taxpayers actually owed GE $3.2 billion in tax credits.
Now GE is slashing health benefits and retirement benefits for new employees among non-union workers and is expected to push unions to accept similar cutbacks3, while its CEO, Jeff Immelt, gets a 100% pay raise.
What's worse?
Immelt now sits as chair of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Jobs Council), representing corporate America to the President on matters like job creation and corporate taxation. One of the chief ways GE avoids paying taxes is by shifting a large portion of its profits overseas, and jobs follow.5 Now GE's CEO is the person charged with helping the President create jobs here in America.If the American people got back just the $3.2 billion GE took in tax credits, it would pay for the programs that House Republicans want to gut, like community health centers providing care to over three million low-income people and food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children. We'd even have enough left to save the jobs of over 21,000 teachers across the country.
The American deficit is being weighed down by hundreds of billions spent on bailing out major corporations.
The federal government has to pay back the $2.6 trillion it took from the Social Security trust fund. Before Congress even thinks about cutting Social Security benefits, the government must pay back the money it owes the trust fund. We cannot accept that the government has the money to bail out Wall Street banks, but not to pay back Social Security.
ReplyDeleteFinancial crooks brought down the world's economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216?print=true
IS AMERICA BECOMING THE LAND OF THE PART-TIME JOB?
ReplyDeleteDo you need a good job? If so, there are millions of other Americans that are just like you. Unfortunately, most of the jobs that are available in America today are either part-time jobs, temp jobs or are “independent contractor” jobs. The “full-time job with benefits” is a dying breed.
POINT YOUR BROWSER TO:
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/04/08/is-america-becoming-the-land-of-the-part-time-job/
EVERYTHING YOU OWN IS SYSTEMATICALLY TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU IN 65 WAYS
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason why the wealthiest one percent of all Americans control 40 percent of all the wealth in the United States.
The system is designed to funnel all of the wealth to them and to the government.
Average Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living and it is not by accident.
Just check out some of the ways that our wealth is being taken from us….
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/04/12/65-ways-that-everything-that-you-think-that-you-own-is-being-systematically-taken-away-from-you/
OBAMA CLASSIFICATION REFORM EFFORT FAILS TO TAKE HOLD
ReplyDeleteAn Obama Administration initiative to curb overclassification of national security information that was announced in December 2009 has produced no known results to date.
April 12th, 2011 by Steven Aftergood at
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/04
April 15, 2011
ReplyDeleteProf. Rubin, At the end of tonight’s “Ivory Tower Half-hour You mentioned something about our politicians actually saving some money with the latest budget battle for 2011.
The following are two references indicating the hypocrisy of our “honorable” politicians relative to cutting the deficit.
From Representative Michael Capuano’s (D-MA) email
Subject: H.R. 1473
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed this bill and concluded it will only reduce this year’s deficit by $352 million. That may seem like a big number, but certainly not when viewed through the almost $40 BILLION in cuts to budget authority contained in this bill. In terms of the federal budget and our staggering deficit, it is actually a very small savings. The reason for the savings difference is that although there are clearly funding cuts in this bill, there are also spending increases such as in the Defense Department, cuts to reserve funds and cuts to projects that were funded but not initiated yet.
An article entitled “Congress’ Bogus $38 Bil In Cuts” in the “Issues and Insights” section of the April 15, 2011 “Investor’s Business Daily” (IBD) was even more confounding. This article indicated that the action taken by congress actually caused spending to increase by $4 billion. Here’s their description.
According the Congressional Budget Office:
1. The agreement will result in the federal government spending a total of $1,365 Trillion.
2. If the congress had done nothing the government would have spent $1,361 Trillion.
The $38 billion that the politicians say they have saved is the difference in “non-emergency budget authority” that the Democrats put in place for 2011 when they ran the congress, and the “non-emergency budget authority” in the new plan.
Budget authority is just a license to spend – actual outlays are the only things that matter when it comes to deficits and debt.
The (IBD) article is on-line at:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/569150/201104141826/Congress-Bogus-38-Bil-In-Cuts.htm
Happy teeth gritting. ☺
Keeping debate alive,
Doug MacDonald
Now that you've got me started, your headliner for the blog has " We welcome vigorous exchanges with our audience". Here's one I have been fussing over in my mind for some time.
ReplyDeletePoliticians do more harm than good. They virtually always fail to take into consideration the side effect of their legislation, some of which can be quite serious. Also, there is a common characteristic among all the unacknowledged side effects, they are all hard to monitor and control.
Let’s start with what, in my opinion, is the greatest piece of legislation in the history of our republic, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We finally achieved the promise of the constitution that “all men/women are created equal”. But, ignoring the side effects of a lack of corresponding Civil Responsibility and Civil Accountability is arguably leading us forward to disaster. With the right lawyer we have the “Right” to legally do virtually anything.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 certainly provided a boon for corporate profits and cheap products for the consumer. Well what did the politicians think would take over for the huge loss of jobs for the most prosperous middle class ever assembled in the history of the world from 1945 to 2000.
Then there is the “Community Reinvestment Act” or “Affordable Housing Act” of 1977 through 2007 that threw money at the homebuyers to get their dream home. Well what did the politicians think the home sellers were going to do when they saw buyers with all the money they needed to buy the home?
There is the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the crippling of the Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC) freeing banks from regulation that was supposedly hindering their ability to make a profit. Well what did the politicians think allowing a group of greedy, narcissistic egomaniacs to combine into organizations too big to fail and create and sell, at great profit, worthless paper disguised as “derivatives” would do?
Now we have the “Affordable Healthcare Act” which is throwing money at the people to buy their dream health care. Well what do you think the doctors, hospitals and insurance companies are going to do when they see these people out there with all this money looking to buy health insurance.
Keeping debate alive.
Doug
I meant to cite the "Declaration of Independence" in the "All Men/women are created equal" in my previous post.
ReplyDeleteReally keeping debate alive :-)
Doug
Here is a C-SPAN video that talks about how money is corrupting our democracy. Prof. Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Harvard Law School and the founder of Stanford University Center for Internet and Society. I’ll let you decide where his ideological preferences lay but, he definitely feels this corruption issue is multi-partisan and he references Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. It is an hour and a half long but I think it is worth watching whether you agree with it or not. The talk takes place at a Coffee Party convention.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/297647-3
THE COSTS OF WAR, AND MORE FROM CONGRESSONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
ReplyDeleteAs of March 2011, Congress had approved a total of more than $1.2 trillion dollars for costs associated with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other post-9/11 "war on terror" operations, the Congressional Research Service reported in its most recent update on the subject. See "The Cost of Iraq,Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," March 29, 2011:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
Nearly 1/10th of the 13 trillion dollars debt ceiling?
MORE:
ReplyDeleteOther new or newly updated CRS reports include the following.
"Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians," April 6, 2011:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41084.pdf
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations," April 27, 2011:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R41780.pdf
"U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress," March 28, 2011: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS21048.pdf
"Sensitive Covert Action Notifications: Oversight Options for Congress," April 6, 2011:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R40691.pdf
"Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions," April 6, 2011:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33715.pdf
REPORT ON KABUL BANK CORRUPTION IS CLASSIFIED, TAKEN OFFLINE
ReplyDeleteAn eye-opening report on corruption in the Afghan Central Bank that was issued last March by the Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for
International Development was recently removed from the USAID web site after the Agency decided to classify some of its published contents.
The now-classified IG report focused on the failure to discover a widespread pattern of fraudulent loans at the Kabul Bank which led to the diversion of $850 million, the near collapse in 2009 of the bank, and an ensuing national crisis.
Employees of the Deloitte accounting firm, who
were serving as advisers to the bank under contract to USAID, could and should have alerted the U.S. government to early signs of fraud, the Inspector General found, but they did not. (Instead, the U.S. government
learned of the bank corruption thanks to a February 22, 2010 story in the Washington Post.)
For more info point your browser to:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
It's so sad to see this concept brought to a page, and then find that it's a long-decomposed skeleton that was never updated and therefor never given a chance to live.
ReplyDelete