Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots

Yet another case where torture yielded bad information - while undercutting US position abroad.

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UPS Announces It Will Stop Advertising on O'Reilly

This the way to counter hate speech. Insist that corporations stop sponsoring it!

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Drugs, war, and democracy

I've been traveling a lot -and staying in places without good Internet connections. So - I've gotten behind on blogging and other activities requiring good connections.

Things such as making surveys.

So - here is my latest survey. I'll post some of the results from previous surveys a little later.....

GOP Budget Proposal: Massive Tax Cut For Wealthy

House Republican leaders called a press conference Thursday to unveil their "alternative budget." The document is thin, but includes one major policy proposal: a huge tax cut for the wealthy. Hmm. I thought we tried that.

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Little notice of the grim news from Azerbaijan

You don’t read much about Azerbaijan in the USA. You don’t read much about many other countries here. Maybe you read about China. Or Venezuela. Occasionally Russia or Mexico. But - the truth is that so much attention of the US media whirls around things that aren’t really that important. Are other Republicans apologizing too much to Rush Limbaugh? Who is getting kicked off “Dancing with the Stars?”

And, legitimately, everyone is watching the economic storm clouds. Are things getting better? Will Obama’s plans work? Will the Republicans be successful in their bid to stifle economic recovery and prove Obama to be a failure.

The Christian Science Monitor did write a nice article on the referendum. This is the longest piece I’ve seen in the US news media - not counting a piece by the Voice of America. According to the Central Elections , the turnout for the vote last week was 71 percent, and 92 percent of the voters approved scrapping the term limits on the president.

Effectively, this means that President Ilham Aliyev can stay in power as long as he likes. He is in charge of the New Azerbaijan Party. The media is nearly completely owned or muzzled by the government. The opposition parties are fragmented and weak. At one point, it seemed to me like the president might have over reached, that his opponents were finding new strength and unity in their opposition to the referendum. That hope now seems naive.

Since the vote, I’ve been in touch with friends in Azerbaijan. The climate there seems discouraging for people who seek some democracy in that country. I look closely for signs of hope in their correspondence, but I don’t find it.

Not yet.

The ocean needs no words

My travels continue. After spending a few days on the coast of Maine with my mother, I traveled west yesterday, through New Hampshire & into the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Unlike my travels in Azerbaijan, my travels have yielded no great sociological or political insights. Spending this time with my mother has prompted plenty of personal reflections - but this blog is not the place for those musings.

For those of you who have not visited Maine, I can highly recommend visiting it in March. It's not the depth of winter - but it's far from the tourist season. (I used to live in Maine, so I know a little bit on the subject.) In the July, the two-lane roads are clogged with slow traffic - motor homes or vehicles pulling boats. Off season, however, the restaurants and the roads are uncrowded. It's easy to find a beach where you can roam, with only the raucous gulls for company.

Election results

According to Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines the results of the referendum on the constitution changes in Azerbaijan have been released already.

Actually, the results could have been released before the voters went to the polls. It was a manifestly anti-democratic vote in every sense of the word. The goal of the constitutional change was to reduce the threat of democratic change. The decision to hold the referendum was rushed through. And the actual conduct of the vote was apparently held without recourse to democratic niceties.

What will the US Embassy say this time? Will the US government acquiesce to yet another move to consolidate an anti-democratic regime?

Probably.