Rulers of the Ancient Water Systems

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Before the first civilizations appeared in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, human populations were drawn to ancient water systems. Rivers and lakes came under the control of local chiefs. The water systems were a source of wealth for these early lords, and places where religious rites were performed. Water came to be regarded as a substance of life, healing, fertility, and cleansing. 

As technology advanced, local rulers relied on the skills of boatbuilders, masons, smiths, and scribes to build and expand their territories. The early Hebrew ruler-priests were in the service of the early kingdom builders such as Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen. 10). 

Nimrod left the Nile Valley and through marriage to the daughter of a Sumerian king named Asshur he became established in the region of Mesopotamia. Nimrod’s Sumerian wife may have served as a singer or dancer at the water temple of Uruk/Erech which was initially constructed around 5500 B.C. The later “Stone-Cone Temple” was built over it. Among Nimrod's descendants were other kingdom builders such as Arpachshad, Asshur, Nahor the Elder, and Abraham’s father Terah. 

The advances of the early civilizations were under the powerful leadership and authority of "the mighty men of old" (Gen. 6). These "first lords of the earth" were governed by sacred law codes as early as 3200 B.C. They established commerce, built temples, patronized masons, metal workers, priest-physicians, and astronomers. Royal scribes were conversant in multiple languages and able to write using the various scripts of the Fertile Crescent and the Ancient Near East.

The royal water shrines were tended by priests who used the water to tend their flocks and herds. The water shrines were under the control of regional lords, but visitors were welcome to the water. Wells and water shrines were neutral ground and natural gathering places. Biblical narratives speak of Hebrew men meeting their future wives at wells, water shrines, or oases.

Royal Women and Water Shrines

Royal mothers ensured that their sons received the best foods available, the best medical attention, and training in kingship so that they would be prepared to rule and maintain power. The queen mother’s role was never separate from the identity of the royal house and its political strategy. She played an important role in securing proper marriage partners for her sons. These marriages formed political alliances. Hebrew mothers were instrumental is preserving the caste’s unique identity by arranging caste endogamous marriages for their sons and daughters. They were consummate matchmakers.

Royal mothers exerted authority in their own rite. They engaged in rituals at royal temples and shrines and attended royal banquets. These queen mothers held royal titles such as eresh (queen), šarratum (queen), gore/kore (a female head of state), gibrah (from the Hebrew gibor, meaning powerful), and ra-bitu.

The wives and daughter of these early Hebrew ruler-priests served at the royal water shrines. One title for royal ladies who served at Bronze Age water shrines was rabitu. The term is likely related to an Ancient Egypt word bity and to the earlier Akkadian words for water (raatu) and house/shrine (biitu). The emblem of the rabitu was the spindle. In the Ugaritic story of Elimelek, the queen mother holds the title rabitu and her emblem is the spindle.

Many women had names associated with Neith as she was the patroness of water shrines, rivers, pregnant women, and women in childbirth. It is likely that Neith was a holy woman who lived at one of the early water shrines along the Nile before Egypt emerged as a political entity (c.3000 B.C.). Joseph's wife Aseneth was named after her. She was the daughter of a priest at Heliopolis, a prestigious shrine city on the Nile River.

Earlier in history, a queen named Merneith (Beloved of Neith) gave birth to a son known as Hor-Den. Hor-Den was his Horus name and testifies that he was a devotee of God Father (Ra) and God's son (Horus/HR). This was when the Upper and Lower Nile regions were first united (c. 3000 B.C.), and Den was the first ruler depicted as wearing the double crown as the sovereign over the Upper and Lower Nile regions.

Hebrew wives and daughters who were associated with water shrines include Abraham's wife Keturah at the Well of Sheba (Beersheba), Sarah at Hebron which had four water sources, Asenath at Heliopolis (biblical On), and Moses' wife Zipporah who he met at the well of her priest father in Midian. Likewise, Jacob met Rebekah at the well of her father. Judah had sexual relations with Tamar at Enaim, the cult site of Two Springs (Gen. 38:14).

These women grew up at rivers, wells, and oases over which their fathers ruled. Though these were women of high social standing within their communities, they did not live pampered lives. Rebekah and Zipporah drew water for the livestock, a physically demanding task.

Because water is universally perceived as necessary for life, women seeking to conceive and deliver healthy children visited water shrines where they prayed and made offerings. Water shrines could be at rivers, lakes, wells, or oases. They might even be a ritual bathhouse such as the mikveh. The mikveh is associated with natural water systems. By law, it must be composed of stationary waters and must contain a percentage of water from a natural source such as a lake, river, sea, or rain.

Related reading: The Hebrew Were a Caste; A Woman at a Well; Wells and Brides; Cousin Brides Among the Hebrew; Think Like a Biblical Anthropologist!; The First Lords and Their Authority

Thoughts on Democracy

 

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government ... is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum,..., being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. .... In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves--the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed. ”

― G.K. Chesterton

I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they are not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a henroost, much less a nation. Nor do most people - all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reserve. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows...."

― C.S. Lewis

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is a force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

― George Washington

Lost Lives and Lost Livelihoods

Governments across the globe are facing difficult decisions. Economist John Robertson has written about the challenges facing governments. Here are excerpts from his article


The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping the nature of political decision making as government leaders are compelled to link changes in their policies to the number of lives lost or gained.

The toughest public policy challenges since the Second World War will confront governments in the next few months as they strive to save lives while simultaneously restarting businesses shuttered by their coronavirus fighting policies.

Despite the seriousness of the consequences, governments take great care to camouflage the trade-off between life and livelihood in day-to-day policymaking, counting on policy impacts being sufficiently diffused so as to make direct attribution unclear.

In the face of natural disasters or calamitous accidents, every effort is thrown at finding survivors, or even saving properties, no matter how improbable the task. Only when the risk of survival is deemed to be zero does the effort subside.

The Covid-19 crisis is on a different scale. The chance of eliminating fatalities is zero. The upper limit of deaths could be in the millions. Bad, bleak and catastrophic are the three daunting scenarios confronting those in charge.

The lowest possible death toll, government leaders of every political hue and temperament agree, involves knowingly imposing unprecedentedly severe and widespread economic hardship.

However reluctantly, the most well meaning governments now have to decide how many lost lives and how much financial pain can be tolerated. There is no ducking the responsibility. Even procrastination is a choice.

Read the entire article here.

Buhari and Nigeria's Future

Buhari’s victory in Nigerian election has global significance. BY RICHARD A. JOSEPH

Muhammadu Buhari’s convincing defeat of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan in the Nigerian presidential election is an event of global significance. To his credit, President Jonathan promptly conceded defeat, thereby discouraging any attempt to impede the transfer of power.

The election was held even as the world’s attention was further drawn to the gruesome brutalities committed by the Boko Haram insurgency. Inexplicably, Africa’s largest armed force, which has been given enormous financial outlays, has not been able to subdue a ragtag militia.

The world desperately needs a victory against cultist jihadism. Nigeria can provide it. As commander-in-chief, Buhari can oversee a coordinated effort to squelch the insurgency.

His victory is also significant because it has been achieved via democratic elections.

In no other large country, with an almost equal number of Muslims and Christians, is such a process conceivable. The subsiding of the Arab Spring deflated hopes for a new concordance between Islam and democracy.

A Nigerian constitutional democracy, led by a former military dictator and avowed supporter of Shari’a law, will be a powerful counterpoint to the autocratic upswing symbolized by Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

New hope that corruption will be reduced

A third notable fact about Buhari’s victory is the hope it rekindles for drastically reducing corruption. You cannot build capable state institutions when the prime motivation of office-holders is to drain the public purse into their pockets, and those of their cronies and kinfolk.

Three decades ago I called this bane of Nigerian political life “prebendalism.” Goodluck Jonathan, with no claim to high office except his luck in finding himself in the chain of regionalized political patronage, was unable to get off this tiger. The more his administration sought to accomplish, the bigger the problem became, until the surfeit of financial scandals and depletion of government revenues eroded his presidency.

Buhari first came to power in December 1983 in a coup d'état as a military disciplinarian determined to punish those accused, and then summarily convicted, of corruption.

In the three decades since he was toppled from the presidency in 1985, he has demonstrated that his passion for public service is not fueled by greed. For example, as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund in the 1990s, he oversaw the use of its resources primarily for development projects. At 72 years of age, he has the opportunity to accomplish something that few of his predecessors, military or civilian, have even attempted: serving the nation and its citizens rather than members of the political-business-military class.

Politics in Nigeria often resembles a game of musical chairs. When the music stops, seats are snatched, and the looting commences. In the past, martial tunes would sometimes be heard, and the constitutional edifice would be constructed anew – all at enormous cost to the treasury.

This time around, after the ballot box became the music box, corruption can again be rigorously but lawfully tackled.


Plaudits to the Nigerian people

Among the champions of the 2015 national elections, the Nigerian people, collectively, must be saluted.

As Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka once stated: “The Nigerian people have always approached democracy and the elites have always turned them back.” Nigerians have often been enticed to the polls by the promise of holding elected officials accountable and even changing them. But politicians, with their well-heeled patrons, thugs-for- hire, and the complicity of electoral staff could usually warp the process.

To obtain more than an “election-like event,” to quote the words of the former US ambassador to their country, John Campbell, Nigerians needed an electoral commission that lived up to its name of being “independent” and “national.”

Thanks to Professor Attahiru Jega, an American-trained political scientist who served as Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerians are finally endowed with such a commission.

Professor Jega withstood unimaginable pressures as the Jonathan political and security team realized that their man’s prospects were dimming. In the face of the acute tensions of catering to nearly 30 million voters, including displaced communities, Jega conducted himself with grace and high professionalism. The Nigerian nation owes him a great debt of gratitude.

Campaign money tossed around like confetti

The election campaigning itself, as Soyinka declared, was “an embarrassing exercise,” with money thrown about like confetti.

Despite the Boko Haram atrocities, the sharp decline of oil income, missing billions in government revenue and two-thirds of the population mired in poverty, Nigerians were deluged incessantly with campaign giveaways.

In the midst of it all, however, they saw that the gates of political freedom were opening. They came to believe that a born-again democrat, who thrice sought the presidency and now led an historic reconfiguration of political forces, was their best chance to shed the carcass of a crippled giant.

They also took Goodluck Jonathan at his word that, if he lost the election, he would be the first Nigerian president to yield power peacefully to the opposition.

No one should expect that the way forward will be smooth.

Nigeria remains a complex and contentious polity. Nevertheless, the Jonathan administration had become a bridge to nowhere. The manner of his going can now match in dignity how he skillfully wrested power five years ago.

Meanwhile, the victor, Muhammadu Buhari, can begin restoring the tattered image of Nigerian governance at home and abroad.

Professor Richard A. Joseph teaches at Northwestern University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

In February 2020, 5 million people marched in Nigeria in protest of the 10 years of attempted genocide against Nigerian Christians by Islamic terrorists. Buhari, a Muslim, has failed to unite and protect his people.

Sequestration fallout and damage

Air Force leaders announced July 15 that flying training would resume at numerous units, bringing an end to the three-month halt that resulted from the budget sequestration reductions.

Congress approved a $1.8 billion reprogramming request that transferred money from several programs to pay for near-term shortfalls in war funding, which allowed flight training to resume.

In total, the budget sequestration triggered by Congress' inability to reach a broader deficit reduction agreement has cost the Air Force $10 billion in fiscal 2013. Absorbing that cut in just seven months forced many damaging steps beyond the halt to flying training, including a near freeze on repairs to buildings, significant reductions in maintenance of aircraft, and the 11 days of civilian furlough that began last week.

The halt to flying reduced expenditures by $857 million for fiscal 2013, but restoring readiness will require major additional investments in 2014 and beyond.

'We all understand that the Air Force has a part to play in the efforts to get the federal deficit under control,' said Dr. Jamie Morin, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller. 'The updated defense strategy as well as the drawdown in overseas operations will let us make some reductions. But these arbitrary, across the board cuts from sequestration are undermining the Air Force's efficiency and effectiveness.'

Congressional approval of this reprogramming request, coupled with efforts under the 'Every Dollar Counts' campaign and belt tightening at bases around the world has allowed the Air Force to begin to undo some of the worst damage from sequestration. However, a recovery of flying proficiency will take several months.

According to Air Force officials, the damage will worsen if Congress does not act to avoid a further round of automatic cuts in time for fiscal 2014, which begins Oct.1. In that case, the Air Force would have to reduce training across an even wider swath of units, including likely more than half the Combat Air Forces.

Units across the Air Force are also feeling the effects of the 11 days of civilian furlough, which is reducing crucial services at bases around the world and is projected to cost the average Air Force civilian $3,000 in pay cuts.

'We rely on our civilian Airmen to keep the Air Force in the fight,' said Acting Secretary of the Air Force Eric Fanning. 'Their absence is felt across the board and it impacts our ability to accomplish the mission. General Welsh and I are committed to working with the Secretary of Defense to find a way to bring this disruptive furlough to an early end if at all possible.'

While flying operations will begin the long path to recovering readiness, many other areas of Air Force operations remain seriously degraded. The largest funding reductions came in areas like facilities maintenance, where many installations are addressing only emergency work orders.

'Right now, most bases only have the resources to do emergency facility and infrastructure repairs in order to avoid imminent mission failure or threats to life, health or safety,' said Maj. Josh Connell, who is assigned to Headquarters Air Force Office of the Civil Engineer. 'Therefore, vital preventive maintenance is being deferred. Just like with your car, you can save money by not changing the oil, but at some point, it's going to cost a lot more to repair the damage caused by that lack of maintenance.'

Similarly, the three Air Logistics Centers' depots have seen their workload reduced by $700 million, meaning that aircraft and engines will not be overhauled on schedule. A broad civilian hiring freeze remains in effect, resulting in thousands of vacant positions across the Air Force. Few of these reductions will be reversed even with approval of the reprogramming action, and the effects are projected to deepen if the sequester reductions last into 2015.

Major Air Force modernization projects were also hit by the sequestration. Some programs were targeted for even further reductions in order to transfer dollars to war requirements, and these cuts will have enduring consequences.

'When we have to disrupt complex acquisition efforts to find near-term savings, we almost always end up costing the taxpayer more for less capability in the long run,' said Lt. Gen. Charles R. Davis, the military deputy to the Air Force Service Acquisition Executive.

'We appreciate Congress' support for realigning dollars to meet wartime requirements so that we could restore our most critical flying training,' Morin said. While the flying stand down was one of the most visible actions we've had to take to reduce spending, no one should be under any illusion that this return to flight means the damage from sequestration has stopped.'

For more information on how sequestration is impacting the Air Force, visit http://www.af.mil/sequestration2013.asp

Egypt's Removal of Morsi not a Military Coup

"Australians and people worldwide should be in no doubt whatsoever that this was the will of the people. Millions of Egyptians were unhappy that Muslim Brotherhood backed-Morsi was not following democratic processes as expected and instead was imposing Sunni Muslim ideology on the entire Egyptian nation."-- Bishop Suriel of Australia

Australia's highest ranking Coptic cleric, Bishop Anba Suriel and leader of Australia's 80,000 Coptic Christians says it is critical Foreign Minister Bob Carr and the international community understand the overthrow of Egypt's elected President Mohammed Morsi was not a military coup but a response to the will of more than 33 million Egyptians who signed a petition for his removal.

Read more here.

Obama calls Morsi as deadline approaches

U.S. President Barack Obama has called Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi to express concerns over Egypt's escalating political crisis.

The White House said on July 2 that Obama asked Morsi "to take steps to show that he is responsive" to the concerns of his political opponents.

Millions of Egyptians began protests against Morsi across the country this week.

Morsi's office says he will stick to his own political reconciliation plan despite the July 1 ultimatum from the military demanding the government and the opposition find a compromise within 48 hours. If they don't, the military said it would offer its own road map.

Read it all here.

Rowhani wins in Iran

TEHRAN, June 15: Moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani was declared Iran’s new president on Saturday in a surprise and outright election victory that ended eight years of conservative grip on the top office.

“This victory is a victory for wisdom, moderation and maturity… over extremism,” local media reported Mr Rowhani as saying in the first statement after his win.

A former top nuclear negotiator who championed more constructive engagement with world powers, Mr Rowhani, age 64, won outright with 18.6 million votes, or 50.68 per cent of those cast.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website congratulated Mr Rowhani on his victory and urged the people to work with him.

“Congratulations to the people and to president-elect Hojatoleslam Hassan Rowhani,” Mr Khamenei’s website leader.ir reported.

“I urge everyone to help the president-elect and his colleagues in the government, as he is the president of the whole nation.”

Crowds marched through Vali-Asr Square in central Tehran carrying pictures of the winner and chanting pro-Rowhani slogans.

In northwest Tehran, people in Kaj Square cheered as passing cars sounded their horns in approval.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Tony Blair on the Problem Inside Islam

Tony Blair


There is only one view of the murder of Lee Rigby: horrific.

But there are two views of its significance. One is that it is the act of crazy people, motivated in this case by a perverted idea about Islam, but of no broader significance. Crazy people do crazy things. So don’t overreact.

The other view is that this act was indeed horrible; and that the ideology which inspired it, is profound and dangerous.

I am of this latter view.

So of course we shouldn’t overreact. We didn’t after 7 July 2005. But we did act. And we were right to. The actions by our security services will undoubtedly have prevented other serious attacks. The ‘Prevent’ programme in local communities was sensible.

The new measures of the Government seem reasonable and proportionate.

However we are deluding ourselves if we believe that we can protect this country simply by what we do here. The ideology is out there. It isn’t diminishing.

Read it all here.

NSA Snooping Strains US-Pakistan Relations

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has sought explanation from the United States over reports that its citizens have been a major target of intelligence surveillance and asked the latter to respect the privacy of its citizens.
The apprehensions were conveyed to US Chargé d’Affaires Richard Hoagland by senior Foreign Office officials at a recent meeting.

“We have taken up the matter with the US to ascertain veracity of the news and obtain facts of the matter. We are awaiting their response,” Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said at the weekly briefing on Thursday.

A Guardian report earlier this week claimed that information obtained from the US National Security Agency’s data-mapping tool ‘Boundless Informant’ had shown that Pakistan was second among the countries most subjected to US intelligence surveillance with almost 13.5 billion reports in just one month — March.

`Boundless Informant’ catalogues the volume of intelligence being collected from different countries. Most of the intelligence has been gathered from computer and telephone networks. The tool, however, did not detail what intelligence had been collected by the NSA.

The country subject to more intense watch was Iran where 14 billion reports were obtained during the same period.

A senior official told Dawn that the Foreign Office, though unsure about the authenticity of the leak, was concerned about the intelligence, if any, being used against the Pakistanis living in the US and about violation of their privacy. The official said Pakistan considered the intelligence scam to be an internal matter of the United States.

Washington is facing growing international pressure to explain the previously undisclosed surveillance programme identified in the documents leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as ‘Prism’.

The disclosure is also likely to complicate relations with the US as the new government tries to build a working relationship with Washington.

Pakistani intelligence agencies, a source said, were particularly upset over the revelation about the intensity of the surveillance.

When US Secretary of State John Kerry visits Pakistan this month, he will be confronted with tough questions over drone war and the paranoid snooping programme.

Mr Kerry is due in Islamabad either on June 25 or 26.

The new government has taken a hard line on the drone attacks which have always been resented by Pakistan.

“There is an across-the-board political consensus with regard to Pakistan’s position on the issue of drone strikes. ...this matter is receiving priority attention of the government,” the FO spokesman said.

Source: Pakistan Dawn

Myanmar's 2-Child Policy for Muslims

Michael Cook

It is hard to imagine a more inhumane policy than China's one-child policy. But there is one: the two-child policy imposed on Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. Late last month government authorities in the largely Buddhist country reaffirmed a 2005 policy which punishes Rohingya women who bear more than two children with hefty fines and loss of legal rights for the children.

After a long silence on the issue, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned the measures. She has told the media that if reports of the policy were true, it was illegal. "It is not good to have such discrimination. And it is not in line with human rights either."

According to al-Jazeera, a government spokesman, Win Myaing, explained that the regulations were meant to dampen sectarian tensions. The Rohingya live mostly in two town, which are islands in a sea of Buddhists. "The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," he said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."

The Rohingya number between 800,000 and 1 million, most of them living near the border with Bangladesh. They have been the target of legal discrimination and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Myanmar government of conducting a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya.

Tensions between Buddhist Burmese and the Muslim Rohingya go back centuries but were greatly heightened during the British colonial period and the Japanese occupation in World War II. Since 1982 Myanmar has not even acknowledged that they are citizens.

In 2005 local authorities began to enforce a two-child policy. Rohingya couples who wish to marry must seek government approval - a process which can take up to two years. They must agree to have no more than two children. More children are punishable with fines and imprisonment. As a result unsafe abortions are common among women who become pregnant before they are legally married or who are carrying a third child.

According to Human Rights Watch, "Rohingya children born out of wedlock or in a family that already has two children do not receive any status whatsoever from the government, making them ineligible for education and other government services, unable to receive travel permissions, and they are later not permitted to marry or acquire property. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention."

Source: BioEdge

"Sweeping" Immigration Bill Approved

A Senate committee approved a sweeping immigration reform bill Tuesday that would provide a path to citizenship for up to 11 million illegal immigrants, setting the stage for the full Senate to consider the landmark legislation next month.

After five days of debate over dozens of amendments, the Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 5 in support of the bill, with three Republicans joining the committee’s 10 Democrats. The legislation emerged with its core provisions largely intact, including new visa programs for high-tech and low-skilled workers and new investments in strengthening border control.

Read it all here.

Ron Radosh on IRS Scandal

"One must remember that many liberals and leftists see their actions as non-partisan. After all, they are only serving the public interest by stopping conservatives from organizing and expressing their views."--Ron Radosh


The story of the IRS’s policy of targeting right-leaning groups, which played out over several years in Cincinnati, Washington, and dozens of other cities and towns, was one of a bureaucracy caught in a morass of uncertainty and outside pressure. The actions also confirmed the suspicions of many conservatives after they had complained for years of harassment by the tax agency.

According to the inspector general’s report, as IRS officials in Cincinnati tried to decide what to do about the groups — political advocacy organizations seeking what is known as 501 (c)(4) status — they sent out intrusive questionnaires seeking donor lists, copies of meeting minutes and reams of other documents. Applications sat around for months, sometimes years; some organizations ended up folding while awaiting answers that never came.

Read it all here.

You too may experience IRS harassment

The Internal Revenue Service's watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president's re-election campaign.

The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. He said he didn't reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages, and his disclosure came as part of a routine update to Treasury leaders. At the time, Republican lawmakers were complaining publicly about alleged IRS targeting of tea-party groups.

Read it all here.

Lots of people seem indifferent to this scandal. I find that a cause of anxiety.  Perhaps we need to hear these wise words from Eli Wiesel:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

“Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.” 

Justice Department collected 2012 AP records

The Associated Press (AP) has revealed that the U.S. Justice Department secretly collected telephone records of 20 of its phone lines from April and May 2012. The records may contain communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by the AP.

Read it all here.

Messy Second Term: Incompetence, Ignorance or Indifference?

Too much golf and too many White House parties (on the tax payer's dime) may be affecting the President's focus.  He shows signs of slacking, maybe from indifference.

By Dan Balz

After answering questions Monday morning about two of the controversies that have undermined his administration, President Obama flew off to New York to raise money for the Democratic Party. There, before partisan donors, he reflected on his second term and said he will continue to reach out to Republicans. “I sure want to do some governing,” he explained.

Obama’s words suggest that he believes there is a way to compartmentalize the business of his second term: legislative and other business here, scandals over there. But things are too messy for that right now. A politician who has counted good luck as part of his skill set will need all the breaks he can muster to pull off that bit of political jujitsu.

Even in the best of times, Obama’s outreach to Republicans produced little in return — and these are no longer close to the best of times. The question is whether the barely civil relationship between the White House and the opposition party has been irreparably damaged. A related question is how much the controversies will weaken Obama’s standing with the public. Together, the answers will decide how effectively he can govern.

It is too early to draw any broad conclusions about the long-term damage to Obama’s presidency from the news that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups and that the Justice Department collected two months of phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors. But in the moment, these controversies — along with the ongoing congressional investigation of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya — have created major challenges for the administration.

The president and his advisers have tried to insulate the White House from the actions of the IRS and the Justice Department, claiming ignorance. The IRS, officials argued Friday, is quasi-independent. It took the president three days to express his outrage at the agency’s actions. As for the Justice Department’s leak investigation, White House officials said Monday night that it was a department decision that was not forwarded to the president.

Those are temporary responses that probably will not be sufficient over time. The White House may have known nothing about either, but both are now the president’s problem. And both reflect questions about the administration that predate the revelations of the past few days.

Read it all here.

Related reading: Another diplomatic mistep: Promoting gay rights abroad; Libya attacks reveal failure of Administration; IRS officials knew of Conservative harassment in 2011

IRS Acting Director said what ?

President Obama said on Tuesday that the acting commissioner of the IRS, Steve T. Miller, would resign in his administration’s first action in response to the disclosure that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny.

Read it here.


Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller said that partisanship was not the motivating factor behind his agency's targeting of conservative groups. "I do not believe partisanship motivated" the political and donor questions posed to Tea Party and other applicants, Miller told the panel. "Foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient."

Nope! I'm not buying that.

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

Read it all here.

"Fuelling Poverty" Banned in Nigeria

A film documenting corruption in the management of oil profits has been banned in Nigeria.

“Fuelling Poverty” examines the mismanagement of Nigeria's oil wealth in the context of protests against fuel subsidy suspensions in 2012.

Produced in partnership with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), filmmaker Ishaya Bako told Media Rights Agenda (MRA) that the film examines “real issues, on everyday life."

Issues, it seems, that are too real for the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) to want to share. In a letter dated 8 April 2013, the NFVCB states that “Fuelling Poverty” is not permitted to be distributed, aired or exhibited, due to contents that "are highly provocative and likely to incite or encourage public disorder and undermine national security”, according to the Media Rights Agenda (MRA).

The film was released in November 2012, but was only banned when Bako submitted a request to show the film publically, the Associated Press reported.

In NFVCB's letter to Bako, the young filmmaker was warned that "all relevant national security agencies are on the alert" to ensure that he does not exhibit or distribute the film, said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

 



"Instead of banning the documentary 'Fuelling Poverty,' authorities should look into the important questions it raises about corruption and impunity in the country's oil sector and at the highest levels of government," said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita from New York. “We urge Nigeria's National Film and Video Censors Board to overturn this censorship order."

Contrary to the NFVCB's intentions, however, the ban has only increased the popularity of the documentary. News reports cited by CPJ says that activists have been sharing the film on social media since the ban was issued; as of 24 April the video has over 57, 000 views on YouTube.

The film has also gained international recognition. CPJ notes that “Fuelling Poverty” was screened at the 20th New York African Film Festival this month. It also recently won “Best Documentary” at the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards.
Media Rights Agenda is still seeking to understand the reasoning behind the ban.

On 18 April, the group submitted a Freedom of Information request to the director-general of the NFVCB, asking for detailed information about the decision-making process that led to the ban.

Bako himself is also considering appealing the board's decision, says CPJ.

From here.


Related reading: Britain and Nigeria Cooperate on Energy; Nigeria and Corruption

Justice Dept Launches LGBT Emphasis

The United States Department of Justice has launched a “Special Emphasis Program” to recruit and provide professional development to gay and transgender employees according to an internal memo obtained by PJ Media. The institutionalization of the Special Emphasis Program will ensure an “annual LGBT special observance event in June, outreach and awareness events, and professional development seminars (for LGBT employees).” Apparently the sequester was no obstacle to implementing this program.

See the document here.