The Political Notebook

May 25

“This is about equity. Civilian women who depend on the federal government for health insurance — whether they are postal workers or Medicaid recipients — have the right to access affordable abortion care if they are sexually assaulted. It is only fair that the thousands of brave women in uniform fighting to protect our freedoms are treated the same.” — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the sponsor of an amendment to the Senate’s version of the defense budget removing some of the restrictions on abortion funding in military medical facilities (only in the cases of rape or incest, but this is a start), which was approved Thursday by the Senated Armed Services Committee.

People that Tumblr Says I Think Are Great (Tumblr is right):

• nedhepburn
• mehreenkasana
• thenoobyorker
• azaadi
• kohenari
• freelancerrealtalk
• notnadia
• cjchivers
• futurejournalismproject

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

• Prominent Palestinian writer Salameh Kaileh spent three weeks in detention in various Syrian prisons over suspicion that he was handing out leaflets calling for Assad’s downfall. Kaileh described the prisons as a “human slaughterhouses” and “hell on earth.”
• UN Sec’y General Ban Ki-Moon told Christiane Amanpour that there is “no Plan B” for Syria at this moment.
• The violence in Syria spilled further over the border into Lebanon, igniting clashes throughout the week.
• Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a deal that will lead to elections and a unity government in the West Bank and Gaza.
• A huge suicide bombing in Sana’a, Yemen, on Monday, killed more than 100 and was claimed by militants connected with Al Qaeda.
• The Lockerbie bomber died in Libya on Sunday.
• Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi, who assisted the CIA in ascertaining bin Laden’s whereabouts, has been sentenced in Pakistan to 33 years for treason.
• It’s been another very bloody week in Karachi.
• On Tuesday, the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid voted to cut aid to Pakistan by 58% and threatened further cuts if Pakistan doesn’t reopen supply lines. 
• At the Chicago summit, NATO leaders decided on a permanent timetable in which Afghan forces will take over combat command in mid-2013 and NATO combat forces will leave by 2014. 
• US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, will be leaving his post this summer.
• Five kidnapped aid workers are apparently being held for ransom in Shahr-e Bozorg, Afghanistan. Negotiations are ongoing. 
• The State Dept. spent $1800 per student per day in 2010 for its Anti-Terrorism Training program in North Africa, the Middle East and South and Central Asia. The total money spent on programs like this since 9/11 is $1.4b. The State Dept’s Inspector General released a report on these programs for public consumption this week.
• Talks over the Iranian nuclear program resumed in Baghdad this week, hitting a snag on negotiations over sanctions.
• The military junta in Guinea-Bissau has handed over power to a civilian government.
• Dioncounda Traoré, the interim president of Mali, was beset by protesters on Monday, who stormed the presidential palace and beat him unconscious.
• A yearlong probe identified 1800 cases of fake parts in US military equipment. A suspected million such fake parts are out there, and 70% of these parts can be traced back to China.
• CNAS released a policy report outlining suggestions for reforming the structure and operation of the military.
• A 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room shows that the Army has had extensive concerns about the long-term health risks associated with the combat burn pit operated at Bagram Airfield. Service-members have been coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with puzzling health problems, most likely associated with exposure to these burn pits. A recent animal study also came to light showing that burn pits not only adversely affects lungs in the short term, but has serious long-term impacts on the immune system.
• Two female Army reservists have filed suit in district court to remove the restriction on combat service in the military based “solely on sex,” saying the restriction violates their 5th amendment right to due process.
• A new GAO report says that wounded service-members are now waiting an average of a year for their official disability evaluation. This is a big increase, and the wait time has been on the up for the last three years.
• Congressional investigators want an explanation within 10 days from the Defense Logistics Agency as to why the military was double-billed and excessively charged to the tune of $750m for food supplies.
• One of the owners of a firm involved in propaganda operations for the Pentagon has publicly admitted to creating a series of websites in a misinformation campaign attacking two USA Today journalists who had reported on the contracting company.
• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the ACLU’s challenge to the 2008 FISA Amendments, the warrantless wiretapping legislation which grants the NSA the power to tap the international phone calls and emails made by US citizens. Just this Tuesday, a Senate panel voted to extend these provisions, which the White House hopes to extend beyond its year-end expiration date.

(Source: TIME)

May 24

Why am I a freelance writer?

freelancerrealtalk:

Picture of the Day: Cairo, Egypt. A boy looks out the window of a building papered with posters for presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh.

Credit: Suhaib Salem/Reuters. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

Two female Army reservists have filed suit in district court against combat restriction policies. -

May 23

freelancerrealtalk:

nedhepburn:

Calvin was totally a freelancer.

Truth. We feel you, Calvin. 

(Source: hey-june)

Terrible Statistic of the Day: -

• The Justice Department statistics report that 1 in 3 Native American women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape, a number more than twice the national average.

Incidentally, House Republicans are against a bipartisan-supported provision in the Senate’s version of the Violence Against Women Act which would grant tribal courts greater authority to prosecute who are not Native American for abusing their Native American spouses and domestic partners. They have not included it in the House version of the bill and consider it a unacceptable expansion of tribal authority. 

When I’m in hour three of edits:

freelancerrealtalk:

Always relevant.

May 22

Picture of the Day: Karachi, Pakistan. After a rally organized by the smaller Awami Tehrik Party, but backed by several other parties, eleven people were killed and more than thirty injured in gunfire. Above, a young man, visibly wounded by a gunshot, flees the shooting.  Those responsible for opening fire are not yet known. More from Dawn and AFP.

Credit: Faysal Mujeeb/Whitestar. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

(Source: dawn.com)

Thanks for sharing your summer reading, y'all... -

Lots of worthy and interesting-sounding titles in there - check everyone’s recs out! You all have such smart and varied and super cool reading choices. (And I’m quite impressed by the number of you choosing to tackle Caro’s LBJ biographies… no small feat.)

My own tentative early reading list includes finishing up what I have left of David Cole and James X. Dempsey’s Terrorism and the Constitution and Saadia Toor’s State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan. I also have on tap Anthony Shadid’s posthumously released memoir House of Stone andLeila Ahmed’s A Border Passage among about, oh, a trillion others. But I may have to revise and expand the list given all your awesome recommendations.

C’est moi:

Free Morocco’s political prisoners!

• Mouad Belghouat, who raps under the name El Haqed (The Indignant), recently imprisoned for a one year sentence, his trial based on the criticism of security forces in his song “Kilaab Addawla (Dogs of the State).”
• Younes Belkhedim, considered the poet of the February 20 Movement, recently sentenced to two years in prison.
• Nadia Yassine, noted Islamist activist and opponent of the monarchy.

As well as a great deal of others and amnesty for those previously convicted and sentenced. 

Check out Mamfakinch’s article (FR.) on the launch of their campaign to obtain amnesty for Morocco’s political prisoners.

(Source: mamfakinch.com)

May 21

The One-Percentification of Higher Ed

It’s graduation season in an economic downturn, so it’s time to reflect on the sorry state of college affordability, student loans and job prospects in the US. Being a twentysomething here in the US, I take discussions like these incredibly personally.

This afternoon I read this comment piece by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker about the increasingly elite nature of higher education in the US, spurred on by an ever-growing class divide and the fact that paying for an Ivy League education amounts to paying for social capital, not just actual learning (which isn’t enough). The attached dollar sign for social mobility is huge, and education remains the great guarantor of class mobility, social clout and lifelong earning potential.

The end quote of the piece sums up the current trend:

…higher education is becoming more like other areas of American life, with the fortunate few institutions distancing themselves ever further from the many. All those things which commencement speakers talk about—personal growth, critical-thinking skills, intellectual exploration, breadth of learning—will survive at the top institutions, but other colleges will come under increased pressure to adopt the model of trade schools. Student loans open access to students, and give colleges more freedom. Obama and Romney will have plenty to disagree about, and it’s good that the interest rate on student loans isn’t on the list. For the federal government to pump extra tuition money into the system, in the form of low-cost loans, in order to spread opportunity more widely, and to allow more schools to provide more than skills instruction, seems like a small price to pay for the kind of society it buys.

In conclusion, as I tweeted a few moments ago: the one-percentification of higher ed in the US really does make me want to kick things. Things owned by the one-percent, of course. Three cheers for straight-up class rage on a Monday afternoon.