No Bull. news service.

Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer highlighted Republicans’ successful efforts to obstruct President Obama from appointing judges to the federal courts. Despite these efforts, the Inquirer notes, Obama has had a higher “rate of appointing women and people of color…than those of any of his precessors during their first year of their terms”:

So far, nearly half of Obama’s 73 appointments to the federal bench have been women, 25 percent have been African American, 11 percent Asian American, and 10 percent Hispanic. About 30 percent of Obama’s nominees were white males. By contrast, two-thirds of George W. Bush’s nominees were white males.

Obama’s rate of appointing women and people of color is higher than those of any of his predecessors during the first year of their terms.

Unfortunately, Republicans have shown a historically high level of obstruction in blocking Obama’s appointees. While Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had 91 percent of their judicial appointees confirmed in their first year of office, Obama only had 36 percent of them approved by the U.S. Senate.

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A number of you have asked what I make of Siobhan Gorman’s latest story describing a program called “Perfect Citizen” that aims to monitor and map out attempted cyber-intrusions of our critical infrastructure.

Before I say anything about the content of the story, I should note that the nuclear power plant control room depicted with the story–from the plant at Limerick, PA–is just a few miles from where I spend Christmas and about 25 miles from where my mom lives. Maybe that has affected my thoughts on the matter.

But, given what Gorman has reported, I’m not all that bugged about Perfect Citizen. Here’s the operative bit:

Intelligence officials have met with utilities’ CEOs and those discussions convinced them of the gravity of the threat against U.S. infrastructure, an industry specialist said, but the CEOs concluded they needed better threat information and guidance on what to do in the event of a major cyber attack.

Some companies may agree to have the NSA put its own sensors on and others may ask for direction on what sensors to buy and come to an agreement about what data they will then share with the government, industry and government officials said.

While the government can’t force companies to work with it, it can provide incentives to urge them to cooperate, particularly if the government already buys services from that company, officials said.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but it seems that a somewhat coercive but nevertheless voluntary monitoring of cybersecurity for things like the nuclear plant near my Aunt’s home isn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps an analogy is whether or not it’d be okay to monitor health professionals and first responders during an epidemic for signs of sickness, as one of the best ways to track and minimize the spread of the disease. Or better yet, whether or not it’d be okay to pressure oil companies to put monitors on their drilling platforms to make it easier for Department of Interior to keep track and prevent spills.

That said, I do have a number of questions.

First, the NSA has been very squirrely about whether or not Congress has been briefed on this. If, as that squirreliness suggests, Congress has not been briefed, then this is a big problem. I’m particularly interested in the timing and the growth of this program. Gorman describes how this program started as a spring strawberry and then morphed into a perfect citizen.

The NSA years ago began a small-scale effort to address this problem code-named April Strawberry, the military official said. The program researched vulnerabilities in computer networks running critical infrastructure and sought ways to close security holes.

That led to initial work on Perfect Citizen, which was a piecemeal effort to forge relationships with some companies, particularly energy companies, whose infrastructure is widely used across the country.

The classified program is now being expanded with funding from the multibillion-dollar Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which started at the end of the Bush administration and has been continued by the Obama administration, officials said.

This suggests this program started blossoming long before the debate over which agency–NSA or DHS–would take the lead on cybersecurity had settled on the former. Which suggests it started with NSA out of its lane under the Bush Administration–not exactly good company to be in. So at that level, I endorse both aspects of Marc Ambinder’s rant on this program: that it shouldn’t be classified and maybe should be in DHS. Oh, and why not name it “infrastructure cybersecurity” rather than “George Orwell’s Baby”?

I’m also very interested in the relationship between the government, corporate partners, and Congress. Given the squirreliness about whether or not NSA briefed Congress, is it possible the government has once again partnered with corporations on a project without telling Congress they’re doing so? That would not be cool.

I await more information on this. But for now, I’m not all that bothered about this.

(Limerick cooling towers picture from WikiMedia)

Related posts:

1. “It’d be easier to launch a Hellfire missile at a non-citizen than a citizen”
2. The House Always Wins
3. SCOTUS Denies Cert for Maher Arar

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Consternation in Democratic ranks (including MSNBC) followed the triumph of Alvin Greene over Vic Rawl last month in the South Carolina Democratic primary for the right to face incumbent Republican Jim DeMint. Greene is an unemployed veteran using a public defender to deal with an obscenities charge. As Victorino Matus recounted, Greene not only mustered the filing fee of ,400 but also won handily with 58 percent of the vote.

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn is the House Majority Whip. Clyburn emphatically asserted that Greene’s victory resulted from wrongdoing of some kind and called for an investigation. “There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary,” Clyburn said. “I don’t know if [Greene] was a Republican plant; he was someone’s plant.”

Clyburn said the circumstances of Greene’s entry and eventual upset of the race were baffling. “What is an unemployed guy doing paying ,000 to run for the United States Senate? That just doesn’t add up,” Clyburn said of Greene.

Clyburn went on to say that a U.S. attorney should examine the possibility that his limited campaign was improperly funded by outside political interests. “I would hope the U.S. attorney down there would look at this,” Clyburn said. “I think there’s some federal laws being violated in this race…Somebody gave him that ,000 and he who took it should be investigated, and he who gave it should be investigated.”

I found Clyburn’s involvement in the story to be a particularly interesting sidebar. Clyburn is something of an expert in political conspiracy. He collaborated with fellow Democratic Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, John Lewis, and Andre Carson to concoct the widely disseminated story of the phantom n-word supposedly hurled at them by Obamacare protesters demonstrating on Capitol Hill on March 20. Clyburn thus has has first-hand experience with effective political conspiracy. No wonder Clyburn found the nonsensical conspiracy claim to be the key to the case of Alvin Greene.

Others offered more plausible explanations for Greene’s victory, including Matus. Matus thought that voters might have confused Alvin Greene with legendary soul singer Al Green. Matus asked: Who wouldn’t vote for the Right Reverend? Matus even suggested a campaign slogan to take advantage of the confusion: “Let’s Stay Together … with Al Green.” I think that should probably read “,,,with Al Greene.”

Last week came word that Greene has been cleared of wrongdoing by state law enforcement authorities. According to the authorities, there’s no evidence that anyone other than Greene paid his filing fee or that he lied to secure a public defender on the obscenity charge pending against him.

Erick Erickson observes that Greene’s triumph is a case of karma: Greene’s source of income for the filing fee was those unemployment benefits the Democrats keep extending.

Erickson asks: Will Jim Clyburn apologize to his Senate nominee? Erickson doesn’t answer the question, but I can answer it. The answer is obviously: No.

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The Chinese Uighurs are back in the news. The Uighurs are a separatist group from West China. A group of them, members of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), were among those captured in Afghanistan and detained at Gitmo. They have frequently been cited by those who oppose our detention policy as the type of detainee who can be safely released into the U.S. After all, the theory goes, their beef is with China.

This argument is misguided. As Tom Joscelyn has pointed out, the Uighur detainees are not master terrorists on par with the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but they are all affiliated with and/or members of a designated terrorist organization and they received training at a training camp in the al Qaeda/Taliban stronghold of Tora Bora. .

Late last week, the New York Times reported that Uighurs were implicated in a bombing plot in Norway, one that was connected to a similar plot to bomb the New York subway :

The arrests on Thursday of three men in Norway and Germany accused of orchestrating a terrorist bomb plot seemed like another routine raid by a Western government in the continuing campaign against groups linked to Al Qaeda. But one detail stuck out: Norwegian officials said one of the men was a Chinese Uighur, and all three supposedly belonged to a group that advocates separatism in western China.

If the Norwegian officials are right, the bomb plot was a rare instance in which the group, the Turkestan Islamic Party, had tried to carry out an attack in the West that was unrelated to its goal of gaining independence for the restive region of Xinjiang, in China’s hinterlands.

Terrorism experts say the plot in Norway indicates that Al Qaeda and the few members of the Turkestan Islamic Party, or TIP, who trained in the tribal areas of Pakistan see some mutual benefit in cooperating. The use of relatively obscure ethnic Uighur recruits could allow Al Qaeda to penetrate more deeply into the West.

Considering that there was talk of releasing the Uighurs held at Gitmo into the Washington, D.C. area, the last statement is even truer than the New York probably supposes.

Joselyn finds that the TIP’s evolution is typical for al Qaeda’s affiliates:

They start off as “local” terrorist and extremist groups, but are then folded into Osama bin Laden’s international jihad - pooling their resources, personnel, training facilities, and arms into one jihadist pot. These “local” affiliates invariably end up fighting on behalf of al Qaeda in conflicts that have little to do with their original purpose. The chief reason for this transformation is ideological. Once they become committed to fighting Islam’s supposed enemies in one area of the world, it is a short step to waging jihad against Islam’s supposed enemies elsewhere. Their ideology transcends local grievances.

Left-wing analysts, and perhaps some nerdy analysts who are overly impressed by their own erudition, like to construct arguments purporting to prove the near impossibility of collaboration among certain terrorist groups and/or states. Saddam Hussein would never cooperate with al Qaeda because he was a secularist; the Uighurs aren’t a threat to the U.S. because their target is the Chinese, etc.

It should be clear by now that these sorts of a priori arguments are too slender a reed upon which to basis real-life anti-terrorism policy.

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Spain continued its run of 1-0 victories, defeating Holland by that score in the World Cup final. Today, it took almost all of a 30-minute overtime period for Spain to get that goal.

The match was a poor one. As this was a World Cup final, not an exhibition game, Holland chose the tactics that gave it the best chance for victory, not those that might make for a pleasing match. The Dutch tried to keep Spain out of its short passing game by pressing up the field and by fouling when necessary. They thus assumed the risk of being carded. And, in fact, the yellow cards came in torrents from referee Howard Webb who doesn’t give them out lightly and did not do so today.

Holland reaped the rewards of its strategy for most of the regular 90 minutes. Goalie Martin Stecklenburg had to make a good save early in the match, but was not troubled much for a long time thereafter. And Holland could easily have snatched the goal that would have meant victory. Arjen Robben had several breakaway opportunities, one of which brought a terrific save from Spain’s Iker Casillas.

But at around the 65 or 70 minute mark, the strain of defending so aggressively (and the stress for many players of doing so under the burden of a yellow card) began to take its toll on Holland. Increasingly, Spain was able to get into its short passing game, and thereby control the match.

Holland held on through regulation time. In overtime, Gio Van Bronkhorst and Nigel de Jong, top defensive players you’d expect to be in the middle of an all-hands-on-deck defensive stand, both came off. Then, fatally, Johnny Heitinga picked up his second yellow card. The Everton man had played very well until then, and the yellow card that saw him off seemed a bit soft. The referee may have been influenced by the theatrical tumble of Iniesta.

As time ran down, though, it looked like Holland would hang on and make it to penalty kicks. But, in a rare moment of non-cynicism, the Dutch went forward to the edge of the penalty box, only to lose possession on a controversial non-call by referee Webb.

Spain counter-attacked and Holland, now a man short, struggled to get back in numbers. The Dutch nonetheless seemed to deal with the attack, but a poor clearance — the kind you see from exhausted legs — kept the attack alive. Fabregas found Iniesta on the right. With the left side of the Dutch defense nowhere in sight, Iniesta had only Stecklenburg to beat, which he accomplished with a sweet strike.

Spain undoubtedly deserved its victory, as has been the case throughout the knock-out matches. But with only 8 goals in 7 matches (a record low for a champion), and having needed extra time to defeat a flawed Holland side, this team will not be remembered as one of the outstanding World Cup winners. Not that anyone in Spain will care.

Nor, I think, will this be remembered as an outstanding World Cup. There were some thrilling matches, but the best of them came early in the tournament (and in the rather meaningless contest for third place) and involved relatively inconsequential teams — U.S. vs. Slovenia, U.S. vs. Algeria; Italy vs. Slovakia; Ghana vs. Uruguay. The match-ups we dreamed of either didn’t materialize (e.g. Spain vs. Brazil) or were disappointing (e.g. Germany vs. England, Germany vs. Argentina; Germany vs. Spain; Spain vs. Holland). Even Brazil vs. Holland lost some of its drama when Brazil was reduced to 10 men.

But at least only two matches went to penalty kicks, and neither involved true contenders for the title. And at least the title went to the best team.

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Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is a contender for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination. No secret there; he’s been spending time in both New Hampshire and Iowa. Pawlenty is, in my view, a serious competitor for the nomination. He has compiled a remarkable record of fiscal restraint in a blue state, despite battling a Democratic legislature on a daily basis. You could see him as a thinner Chris Christie. He is smart, competent and disciplined.

Pawlenty is often described as likable, and it’s true. That comes through in this video of his visit to the Stafford County (Dover) New Hampshire Republican Picnic, which took place this weekend. Tim is one of the best story-tellers in modern politics, a formidable talent, I think. You also see his wife Mary, without doubt his closest adviser and confidante. Mary Pawlenty is a former judge who is regarded by everyone, as far as I can tell, as a thoroughly delightful, and thoroughly conservative, woman. Check out this video; I think you will get a sense of what an appealing candidate Pawlenty can be:

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Fifty percent of likely voters now rate President Obama’s performance on the economy as “poor.” They’re right, unfortunately. That number will no doubt improve a little bit when the economy finally starts to improve, but the economy is a little like the oil spill: sure, it will get better someday, but by that time it will be too late for most Americans to see the administration as having acted effectively. At this point, it’s damage control.

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British charity Save the Children warns that the hurricane season could bring disaster for the thousands of people still left homeless after reconstruction has virtually come to a halt

The reconstruction of Haiti has virtually ground to a halt, six months after a devastating earthquake killed 230,000 people and made 1.5 million more homeless in the most impoverished country in the Americas.

Despite pledges of .3bn from the international community over the next two years to rebuild Haiti’s ruined infrastructure, only a tiny fraction has so far been delivered, as aid agencies and donor countries complain that Haiti’s government has not provided the necessary blueprint for recovery.

The reconstruction effort was described in a report by Senator John Kerry to Congress last month as “stalled” amid a lack of leadership and disagreements among donors and disorganisation. That verdict has been confirmed by a series of reports from major aid agencies, delivered in the last week ahead of the six-month anniversary tomorrow, painting a bleak picture of conditions in Haiti.

The British charity Save the Children, which has described the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti as the most challenging and complex emergency in its history, said last week: “Most people have little access to safe shelter, drinking water, electricity or healthcare.”

It warned that, given the conditions that so many are still living in, a major storm in the hurricane season could spell another disaster for the country and its people, requiring a renewed surge of humanitarian aid. The complaints – both public and private – over the stalling of the recovery effort confirm the Observer’s own observations in three trips to Haiti over five months.

While some aspects of normal life have returned, rubble appears to have been untouched in large areas of the most badly affected neighbourhoods, survivors have been hit by escalating rent and food prices and, most worrying, those made homeless are steadily trickling back from temporary shanties in Port-au-Prince to live among the rat-infested ruins in areas like Fort National – encouraged to move, they say, by Haiti’s government.

The dire state of affairs was underlined by a second report last week from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “The current situation,” it reported, “is not sustainable. The Red Cross and other agencies providing water and sanitation services are currently supplying services on behalf of the Haitian authorities and are stretched beyond their collective capacity and mandate. The current approach is of buying time while longer-term decisions are made. This situation cannot continue for ever.”

ActionAid declared on Friday that the country’s reconstruction plans were flawed and in need of an urgent rethink. It was harshly critical of how even the rebuilding that was being undertaken did not take into account the needs of the earthquake victims.

“The rebuilding, overseen by a special commission led by Bill Clinton and Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, reflects the wishes of donor countries – mainly the US and the EU – rather than the needs of Haitians themselves.”

Describing the deadlock, one major UK charity told the Observer yesterday: “It is a serious crisis. The Haitian government has been paralysed by inertia since the earthquake. There is a strong feeling that it is inappropriate to repeat the errors of the past decades of aid provision – by-passing Haiti’s government. The major donors who usually give money are not going to throw more money at Haiti without a coherent plan and for that the government needs to stand up quickly.”

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Backlash over threat to outlaw supporters of boycott movement aimed at ending the continued occupation of the West Bank

An academic backlash has erupted in Israel over proposed new laws, backed by the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, to criminalise a handful of Israeli professors who openly support a campaign against the continuing occupation of the West Bank.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has gained rapid international support since Israeli troops stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in May, killing nine activists. Israeli attention has focused on the small number of activists, particularly in the country’s universities, who have openly supported an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

A protest petition has been signed by 500 academics, including two former education ministers, following recent comments by Israel’s education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against the boycott’s supporters. A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters. Individuals who initiated, encouraged or provided support or information for any boycott or divestment action would be made to pay damages to the companies affected. Foreign nationals involved in boycott activity would be banned from entering Israel for 10 years, and any “foreign state entity” engaged in such activity would be liable to pay damages.

Saar last week described the petition as hysterical and an attempt to silence contrary opinions. While the vast majority of the signatories do not support an academic boycott of Israel, they have joined forces over what they regard as the latest assault on freedom of expression in Israel. The petition states: “We have different and varied opinions about solving the difficult problems facing Israel, but there is one thing we are agreed on – freedom of expression and academic freedom are the very lifeblood of the academic system.”

Daniel Gutwein, a history professor at Haifa University who is one of the signatories, described the minister’s intervention as an attempt “to make Israeli academia docile, frightened and silent”.

Although the BDS campaign – in various forms – has been running for over half a decade, it has become an increasingly fraught issue inside Israel in the past year since a small number of academics publicly declared support for a boycott, including Neve Gordon, author of Israel’s Occupation and a former paratrooper who was badly injured while serving with the Israeli Defence Force.

Speaking to the Observer last week, Gordon said that many Israelis saw support for the BDS as “crossing a red line”. Adding that he had received recent death threats, he said: “I am worried about what is happening to the space for debate in Israel. I find that there is a proto-fascist mindset developing. One of the slogans you hear a lot now is no citizenship without loyalty. It is an inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen.”

Israeli campaigners believe the Gaza flotilla incident represents a tipping point in raising support for boycotts. Musicians including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron and the Pixies have cancelled shows in Israel. Hollywood actors also snubbed Jerusalem’s international film festival and internationally acclaimed writers have supported the BDS movement, which is gaining support in dozens of countries.

“It’s a different world to what it was even a month ago,” says Kobi Snitz, member of an Israeli BDS group. “Suddenly, all sorts of people are supporting it – people that you wouldn’t expect.”

What is most interesting, however, has been the impact in Israel itself. Israeli journalist and blogger Noam Sheizaf wrote recently that such actions are now forcing Israelis “to think about the political issues and about their consequences… For a country in a constant state of denial regarding the occupation, this is no small thing.” Sheizaf does not promote the boycott, but says: “I will gladly return concert tickets if that is the price for making Israelis understand that the occupation cannot go on.”

Adi Oz, culture editor on the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir, appeared on Israeli national radio explaining her support for recent boycott activity. “When the Pixies cancelled their concert here I was disappointed,” she says. “But I was not critical of the Pixies, I was critical of our government, because they are responsible for Israel’s isolation.” She adds that, post-flotilla, the cultural boycott is “something that everyone has a stand on – and some people are realising that they are in favour of it, without having thought about it before.” There has also been a spate of boycott-related discussion in the financial press. The daily business newspaper Calcalist ran an uncritical profile of the Israeli campaigners behind Who Profits, an online database of Israeli and international companies involved in the occupation of the West Bank.

The project’s co-ordinator, Dalit Baum, of the Coalition of Women for Peace, says: “Every day there is an article about this issue in the Israeli media, which creates a discussion about the economy of the occupation and raises the fact that there’s a problem.”

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