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Wikileaks, Twitter, Cable News Fuel Tunisia Uprising Perfect Storm

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It is not everyday you get off a plane to visit friends and your second night in a country is attending a reception for national human rights activists at the British High Commissioner’s office and later in the week, to privately meet one of the main leaders of the opposition in my friends’ home, an official U.S. embassy residence. But in 2002, I traveled to Tunisia during spring break of graduate school to visit dear friends who were posted to the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia’s capital.  This was not a typical tourist vacation, although visiting the ruins of Carthage and walking through the pristine excavation of a classic Roman-era gladiator stadium was one part of my trip.

I was smitten by Tunisia’s beauty and history that belied the everyday misery of living under autocratic dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose photograph was published every day on the front pages of  Tunisian newspapers, above the fold, by unspoken decree. Opposition political parties barely existed, and in name only because the government went out of its way to ensure that no business would rent a meeting room to them, and by making group meetings nearly impossible organizations outside of the government could not take root, due to oppressive security forces.

Tunisia, a country of less than eleven million people located in the upper-most Northern Arabic Africa, is a former French colony and an outpost of the Roman Empire where its officers retired on the Mediterranean Sea. U.S.-Tunisia ties are deep, forged in U.S. and Tunisian bloodshed during the World War II invasion of North Africa where more than 2,800 of our war dead are buried in consecrated ground.

In recent days, the Tunisian people, dominated by the young, educated and under or unemployed, known as the Middle East and North Africa “youth bulge,” ran its former “president for life”–Ben Ali–out of the country, only to have his political ally, the former Prime Minster Mohamed Ghannouchi, declare he was in charge. But less than 24 hours later, he also stepped away, as 10,000 rioters hit the Tunisian streets, emboldened by their success in sacking Ben Ali, determining  Ghannouchi unacceptable, tarnished by his close alliance to Ben Ali, who wisely turned over Tunisia’s spinning presidency to Fouad Mebazaa, former speaker of the parliament, the constitutionally designated successor to the presidency.

So today, at least for the moment, Ghannouchi has been asked by the new president to form a government.  Ghannouchi, so lacking in charisma and political backbone, became known as “Monsieur Oui Oui” (“Mr. Yes Yes,” and no, you can’t make this up) during Ben Ali’s 23-year tenure, and has indicated that he will open up the political process to everyone by forming a national unity government expected to be announced today.

He is the only figure who now stands between official Tunisia and a political and social abyss.

What is going on here? Rioters in streets throughout the country, accompanied by outraged masses of young men, who plundered, sacked and burned mansions belonging to Ben Ali’s self-engorged, corrupt family members, reflected a boiling-over on the Arab streets that mustered a massive push-back against Ben Ali’s punitive, coercive, dictatorial leadership and ran him out.  Ben Ali appealed to France’s Sarkozy for succor and was told “non,” but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia agreed to take him in. What were they thinking in Riyadh, as the internet piled up with criticism from Saudi citizens of its Royal family?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uJgRsND8iIw%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

Yes, the internet played a central role in Tunisia’s uprising, by using Facebook and Twitter, people gathered on the streets throughout the country, even though the government tried to shut it down. But in Tunisia’s case, unlike Tehran, an added weapon in the quills of the opposition was Al Jazzera Television, the “24/7,” all encompassing and ubiquitious Arabic language broadcaster, followed by the entire Arab world.

And Al-Jazzera is a big factor. The Financial Times Middle East Editor wrote an opinion editorial published on Saturday, advising Arab leaders to watch Al-Jazzera if they really want to know what is going on in their respective countries.

A third factor was Wikileak’s release of U.S. State Department cables on Tunisia, which was picked up by cyber activists in Tunisia. State Department officers had extensively reported the extreme government corruption and egregious human rights abuses carried out by the Ben Ali government that galvanized the rioters.

But the fact remains that Tunisia’s young, educated  population has no hope of gaining employment that will provide a decent quality of life; with few resources to bribe corrupt officials, anger boiled over into pure rage on Tunisia’s streets when college graduate and unemployed Mohammed Bouazizi burned himself to death on Dec. 17, in response to security forces who took away his vegetable cart in a Sidi Bouzid market because he did not have a proper license.  Since then at least 60 others have died–many by the sniper rifles shot by security forces.

There have been food riots in Algeria during the past two weeks in response to rocketing prices and unemployment there that has resulted in the deaths of at least three people and many more injured, because a standard food basket for a family of four now costs nearly 60 percent of monthly income.  Last night and earlier today, following Mohamed Bouazizi’s electrifying act of civil disobedience in Tunisia by killing himself, two other men have lit a match in self-sacrifice in Algiers and Cairo. Arab capitals in Morocco, Jordan, Syria and Egypt are nervous for good reasons. It appears that an Arab youth led revolution has been unleashed in the fires of Tunisia.

Their respective leaders should tune their televisions to Al-Jazzera and track Twitter for further developments. But left to their own devices, they are likely to confront primal urges for freedom with thuggery and violence–a cautionary tale.

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs atColumbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Instituteaffiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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