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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2013 7 Comments
Live video and Twitter feeds at bottom of post. If you want to mark a day when the Egyptian civil war started, this may be that day. Breaking reports indicate that pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters -- it's unclear if just protesters or an organized armed group -- attempted to storm an army barracks where Mohamed Morsi was being held, and the army responded with gunfire killing dozens of protesters. Via NBC News:
At least 42 were killed and 322 injured in clashes early Monday near the Republican Guard headquarters in the Egyptian capital, according to a Ministry of Health source. Supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi had been holding a sit-in near the compound. Reuters cited the Egyptian military as saying "a terrorist group" had tried to storm the building early Monday. A Ministry of Defense official said that 200 people were arrested after protesters attacked the site around 4 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET on Sunday). Some were armed with guns, Molotov cocktails and knives, according to the official. One officer was killed and six troops wounded, the military said. However, Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and its allies accused security forces of attacking protesters. NBC News was not immediately able to reconcile the differing accounts.
Updates: https://twitter.com/RagnarWeilandt/status/354240597835513856 https://twitter.com/SalmaZohdi/status/354240136826986496 https://twitter.com/nahlas/status/354239856639094784 https://twitter.com/Everywhereistan/status/354240491568644096

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Posted by David Gerstman on July 07, 2013 21 Comments

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 07, 2013 22 Comments

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1) Debating the coup at the New York Times

Much of the editorial opinion and some of the reporting in the mainstream media has opposed the Egyptian military's forcible removal of Mohammed Morsi as President of Egypt. Actually, surprisingly, there's a debate about it on the opinion pages of the New York Times. It's surprising because the reporting of the New York Times has been skeptical of the Tamarod, the protest movement that sought Morsi's resignation. It's doubly surprising because the New York Times isn't usually known for offering a diversity of opinion. On the one side there's an unsigned editorial, and an op-ed by Shadi Hamid. But perhaps the clearest anti-protest expression came from Samer Shehata, In Egypt, Democrats vs. Liberals.
Egypt has a dilemma: its politics are dominated by democrats who are not liberals and liberals who are not democrats.
In this case, the favored democrats are defined narrowly as the group that has won an election, but ignoring how it behaved once it achieved power. On the other side are Roger Cohen and David Brooks. But the clearest anti-Morsi sentiment came from Sara Khorshid, A Coup, but Backed by the People.
Make no mistake: there is no democracy under military rule. Yet I supported the June 30 protests knowing that military rule was imminent, because Mr. Morsi’s rule had not been democratic, either. Throughout the year of his presidency, protesters who opposed him were violently crushed by the police and by Muslim Brotherhood members. He supported the Interior Ministry in its violent tactics against demonstrators and failed to investigate incidents in which protesters were killed. Journalists and activists were arrested, and the president issued an edict giving him immunity from judicial review. The presidential election, conducted without a clear legal framework, was not enough to make Mr. Morsi’s rule democratic. Despite Mr. Morsi’s constant claims that someone was undermining his efforts, his actions always seemed aimed at extending the Muslim Brotherhood’s domination of state institutions. He was in constant conflict with the judiciary, most recently with a proposal to lower the retirement age to clear the way for the appointment of his allies.
The nature of the Muslim Brotherhood seems to have been grasped by David Brooks, but not Roger Cohen.

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Posted by Andrew Branca on July 05, 2013 811 Comments
Today began with the expectation that it would the the day on which the State rested its case. That proved true, and it was. It was also among the most bizarre and disturbing days of a lengthy trial full to the brim with bizarre and disturbing days.

Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's Mother

The first State witness of the day was, as anticipated Sybrina Fulton. She had two missions for her appearance: (1) identify the screamer in the background of the Jenna Lauer 911 recording as her son, Trayvon Martin; and (2) avoid saying anything nice about the reputation or character of her son that would open the door to the defense introducing into evidence Martin's history of violence and drug use. She accomplished both.

Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, Part 2

Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, Part 3

There was never, of course, any question that she would say exactly that, nor that the defense would fail to point out the suggestive conditions in which the identification initially took place--in the Mayor's office, surrounded by family and family lawyers/advisors, and without any law enforcement officer present. Ms. Fulton's credibility was also substantively damaged when she claimed that she had not known before hearing the tape that it was believed to contain the sound of her son's last, desperate screams. That the persons responsible for playing that tape would not have prepared her beforehand for the shock--to not do so could only be described as monstrous.

Jahvaris Fulton, Trayvon Martin's Half-brother

Next up was Martin's half-brother, Jahvaris Fulton, also a son of Sybrina Fulton. He testified on the stand that the screamer was Trayvon Martin. On cross-examination, as so often has happened to State witnesses, the credibility of his testimony quickly vanished. Defense counsel O'Mara pointed out that two weeks after first hearing the recording played Jahvaris was still stating to reporters that he wasn't sure that the recorded screams were those of Trayvon. When pressed, his answers became a series of "don't know," "not sure, " can't remember," almost as if he'd been pushed outside the boundaries of the coaching for his testimony.
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