Sunday, December 14, 2014

Same Old Politics Cartoon


A bully in Harvard Yard: What professor's $4 food fight tells us


If you think bullies are teenagers lurking on schoolyard playgrounds, think again.  At least one is a grown-up walking the hallowed halls of Harvard University.
His name is Ben Edelman.  He not only teaches there, but he earned several diplomas including a law degree at that storied institution of higher education.  But Edelman seems to have adopted the word “higher” as his personal calling card.  You see, he’s higher than you and me. Or at least he seems anxious to let you know it.    
A hardworking Chinese immigrant family found that out when the professor ordered a takeout meal of shredded chicken with spicy garlic sauce and three other dishes.   
The professor has now apologized for his treatment of Duan and his family, but his emails will leave you shaking your head in disbelief that someone so supposedly “learned” could be so seemingly insufferable.  
Edelman thought he was overcharged by $ 4 bucks ($ 1 dollar more for each dish), so he launched a relentless war on Ran Duan, who works with his parents at their restaurant, Sichuan Garden in Brookline.  You can read the sordid details in a story at Boston.com where the website also published the unbelievable litany of Edelman’s intimidating and condescending emails to Duan.  The prof’s remarks ooze with arrogance and conceit.  
Edelman’s exchange with Duan has become a viral sensation, as it should.  A Harvard professor vowing legal action over the sum of $ 4 dollars.  Come on.  
The professor has now apologized for his treatment of Duan and his family, but his emails will leave you shaking your head in disbelief that someone so supposedly “learned” could be so seemingly insufferable.  Maybe that’s what a Harvard education gets you these days –a degree in imperiousness.  
Arrogance aside, the professor’s persistent threats of legal action constitute a shameful campaign of bullying.  He uses his knowledge of the law --at least his tortured interpretation of it-- for a purpose that can only be described as abusive.  It turns out, he has done this before to a different restaurant.
Bullies tend to target the weak and vulnerable.  For Edelman to use his advantage as a lawyer to berate the Duan family who have come from nothing as immigrants and are trying their best to make a living running a restaurant is, in a word, unconscionable.  During one email exchange, Duan asked the professor, “you seem like a smart man…don’t you have better things to do?”  Bullies usually don’t.
For all I know, Edelman is a pretty good professor.  That does not make him a good person.  Clinical psychiatrists might find him to be an interesting case study in how living in the Harvard bubble can distort even the most agile of minds.  Sometimes intellectuals take themselves too seriously.  Sequestered from the experiences of the average man, they can lack common sense, kindness and decency.  Edelman seems bereft of them all.
There is a reason why places like Harvard are called “ivory towers”.  All too often, they envelop an artificial atmosphere where intellectuals are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life.  So, it should be no surprise when guys like Ben Edelman explode like a bomb on some poor immigrant family trying to make a buck with the sweat of their brow.  Fortunately, academic elitism is not contagious.  
Teaching at Harvard may be a lofty achievement in the egg-head world.  But professor Edelman seems to lack the one quality which elevates people above all other primates: compassion.  He might gain a measure of humility and understanding by getting a real job.  Might I suggest washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant?
The next time I visit the Boston area, I’ll skip Harvard Yard.  Instead, I plan to drop by the Sichuan Garden to try their sautéed prawns with roasted chili and peanut sauce.  
And I won’t check the bill. 

                                                                                                                     Ben Edelma

British soldiers told not to shout at, insult terror suspects, report claims


British soldiers have been told not to shout in terror suspects' ears, use "insulting words", or bang their fists on tables or walls during interrogations, according to a published report. 
Britain's Sunday Telegraph obtained court papers outlining regulations for military intelligence officers, and current and former commanders have warned that the guidelines are so strict as to make interrogation pointless. 
"The effect of the ambulance-chasing lawyers and the play-it-safe judges is that we have got to the point where we have lost our operational capability to do tactical questioning. That in itself brings risks to the lives of the people we deploy," Tim Collins, a retired British Army colonel who now runs a private security company, told the Telegraph. "These insurgents are not nice people. These are criminals. They behead people; they keep sex slaves. They are not normal people."
There is also concern, in the wake of this week's release of a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee documenting alleged torture of terror suspects by the CIA following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that soldiers will risk exposure to disciplinary action and legal claims. 
"While these insurgents are chopping people’s heads off and raping women, the idea they can take us to court because somebody shouted at them is ridiculous," Sir Alan West, former Minister for Security and Counter-Terrorism told the paper. 
The Telegraph reported that the new interrogation rules, known as the "Challenge Direct" interrogation technique, were introduced in 2012, and were laid out in a ruling by Her Majesty's Court of Appeal over the summer. The court's ruling upheld the technique after a challenge by lawyers for Haidar Ali Hussein, an Iraqi civilian arrested in 2004 who alleged that he had been subjected "to substantial periods of shouting" while detained and claimed damages from the Ministry of Defence over alleged mistreatment. 
Despite the ruling in favor of "Challenge Direct", the Telegraph reported that the three Court of Appeal judges identified several breaches while viewing videotaped interrogations of prisoners in Afghanistan. Among them were a questioner who "held the hand of the captured person ... a breach of the prohibition on physical contact" and another interrogator who suddenly moved forward from a crouching position so that his face was right in front of the captured person's." The judges described this maneuver as "physically intimidating."
The Challenge Direct technique was implemented amid public outcry over the 2003 death of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi who was fatally beaten while in British military custody. A 2011 inquiry report found that Mousa had suffered lengthy and repeated beatings by British soldiers.

NYC police union wants de Blasio banned from funerals

Another Al Sharpton who keeps racism alive?

New York City's rank-and-file police union is urging cops to tell Mayor Bill de Blasio not to attend their funerals in the event that they are killed in the line of duty.
The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association posted a link on its website telling members not to let de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito "insult their sacrifice" should they be killed. The union posted a “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver officers can sign requesting the two politicians not attend their funerals due to their "consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve."
The waiver says that attendance of the two elected officials “at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.”
The New York Post reports the mayor and council speaker are calling the effort "deeply disappointing."
"Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tactics," they said in a joint statement.
Sources told the Post the union is angry that the mayor did not show more support for the NYPD after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer involved in the death of Staten Islander Eric Garner.
In a press conference about the grand jury’s decision not to charge the officer, de Blasio announced that he had warned his 17-year-old, mixed-race son, Dante, to be careful around police officers, which caused PBA President Patrick Lynch to claim de Blasio had thrown NYPD officers “under the bus.”

Senate passes $1.1 trillion spending bill, averting partial gov't shutdown


The Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill late Saturday that funds the government through next September, averting a partial government shutdown and sending the measure to President Obama's desk.
The Senate voted 56-40 for the long-term funding bill, the main item left on Congress' year-end agenda. The measure provides money for nearly the entire government through the end of the current budget year Sept. 30. The sole exception is the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded only until Feb. 27.
Hours earlier, the Senate had approved a short-term bill funding the federal government through Wednesday night, easing concerns of a potential partial government shutdown. The stopgap bill, which passed by a voice vote, bought lawmakers more time to comb through the separate $1.1 trillion long-term funding bill. 
The votes capped a day of intrigue in the upper chamber of Congress that included a failed, largely symbolic Republican challenge to the Obama administration's new immigration policy, while Democrats launched a drive to confirm two dozen of Obama's stalled nominees to the federal bench and administration posts before their majority expires at year's end.
Several Republicans blamed tea party-backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for giving the outgoing majority party an opportunity to seek approval for presidential appointees, including some that are long-stalled.
"I've seen this movie before, and I wouldn't pay money to see it again," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., recalling Cruz' leading role a year ago in events precipitating a 16-day partial government shutdown that briefly sent GOP poll ratings plummeting.
Asked if Cruz had created an opening for the Democrats, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah said, "I wish you hadn't pointed that out," adding "You should have an end goal in sight if you're going to do these types of things and I don't see an end goal other than irritating a lot of people."
It was Cruz who pushed the Senate to cast its first vote on the administration's policy of suspending the threat of deportation for an estimated four million immigrants living in the country illegally. He lost his attempt Saturday night, 74-22, with 23 of the 45 GOP senators voting down the Texan's point of order.
"If you believe President Obama's amnesty is unconstitutional, vote yes. If you believe President Obama's amnesty is consistent with the Constitution, vote no," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rebutted instantly, saying Cruz was "wrong, wrong, wrong on several counts," and even Republicans who oppose Obama's policy abandoned the Texan.
The spending bill, which cleared the House on Thursday, was the main item left on Congress' year-end agenda, and exposed fissures within both political parties in both houses. The controversial package was opposed by conservative Republicans such as Cruz for not challenging Obama's immigration measures, as well as by leading liberals such as House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. who have criticized the bill for repealing banking regulation.
Despite the opposition from liberals, the package won a personal endorsement from Obama and was brought before the Senate. The legislation locks in spending levels negotiated in recent years between Republicans and Democrats, and includes a number of provisions that reflect the priorities of one party or the other, from the environment to abortion to the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia.
Despite protests from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, more than 70 House Democrats supported the measure, and Obama made clear that he didn't view the provision as a deal-killer.  Obama acknowledged that the measure has "a bunch of provisions in this bill that I really do not like," and said the bill flows from "the divided government that the American people voted for."
Obama has sided with old-school pragmatists in his party like Reid, but split from liberals such as Pelosi and Warren. Warren blasted the measure in a Senate speech for the third straight day, saying it was a payoff to Citigroup, whose lobbyists helped write a provision that significantly weakens new regulations on derivatives trading by Wall Street banks.
"Enough is enough. Washington already works really well for the billionaires and the big corporations and the lawyers and the lobbyists," Warren said. "But what about the families who lost their homes or their jobs or their retirement savings the last time Citi bet big on derivatives and lost?"
Another provision loathed by many Democrats -- though backed by the Democratic National Committee -- raises the amount of money that wealthy donors may contribute to political parties for national conventions, election recounts and headquarters buildings.
Democrats will lose control of the Senate in January because of heavy losses in midterm elections last month and will go deeper into a House minority than at any time in nearly 70 years.

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