Matthews: Republicans ‘Look Hot and Horny for Executions in That Reagan Library Debate’
October 24, 2011 No Comment
You have to wonder if a day has gone by since the September 7 GOP presidential debate without someone on MSNBC referring to audience members cheering when NBC's Brian Williams asked Texas governor Rick Perry about capital punishment in his state. Likely the most colorful description of this incident to date occurred on Monday's Hardball when host Chris Matthews said Republicans “look hot and horny for executions out in that Reagan library” (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: John Heilemann , I have to go through a riff right now, because I think you and I cover — so as Sam does — this incredible portrayal by the Republicans of themselves. First of all, they look hot and horny for executions out in that Reagan library debate. Then they talk about letting the guy on the gurney die because he doesn't have health insurance. Then they mock the gay soldier. And then you've got Bachmann out there saying, if you don't have health insurance, fine, you can go to the poorhouse. And now this guy saying, hip hip hooray for foreclosures! This party has become a cartoon of Ebenezer Scrooge or worse. They play right into the president's hands, and he couldn't be weaker in terms of the economy. And they want to make him, what, are they trying to save this presidency, these guys? JOHN HEILEMANN , NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Chris, there's nothing I like better than being on television with you when you’re using the word “horny.” Let’s just start, start with that. MATTHEWS: Okay, randy, better word. Go ahead. SAM STEIN, HUFFINGTON POST: No, stick with horny. Which is worse: people getting “hot and horny” over justice being served in their community, or a married man admitting on national television that he gets a thrill up his leg when another guy talks? That asked, it seems a metaphysical certitude that the badly misinterpreted and overhyped actions of audience members at these debates is going to be part of this campaign right through Election Day. With fresh allegations of a second rape occurring at an Occupy protest event, will Matthews and his ilk ever concern themselves with the truly abhorrent and illegal behavior happening on the other side of the aisle? Or will audience responses continue to rule the day?
Continue reading …
News Corp’s shareholders lodge protest vote against James and Lachlan Murdoch following media company’s annual meeting News Corporation’s shareholders lodged a massive protest vote against James and Lachlan Murdoch following the scandal-torn media company’s annual meeting last week. A majority of independent shareholders voted against the re-election of chairman Rupert Murdoch’s sons James and Lachlan Murdoch. James Murdoch received the largest vote against his re-election at 35%. James, 38, faces a second grilling in the Parliament next month over phone-hacking at one of News Corp’s UK newspapers. Some 34% of shareholders voted against Lachlan Murdoch 40, while 14% voted against Rupert, chairman and chief executive officer. The votes are a particular embarrassment as Murdoch went into the meeting with at least 47% of voting shares on his side, thanks to the family’s control of the company’s voting shares and the support of their largest outside shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. Thanks to the Murdoch’s controlling share interest the company defeated attempts to throw the Murdochs and others off the board from major shareholders including the giant Californian pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS, the Church of England and Hermes, the BT pension fund. A combative Murdoch faced hostile shareholders at the company’s meeting in Los Angeles on Friday but delayed releasing the results of its ballot until late Monday. Father Seamus Finn of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, who attended the meeting, said: “The vote clearly demonstrates a profound lack of confidence in this company’s leadership.” News Corporation Phone hacking United States Media business Newspapers & magazines Newspapers Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Moderate Islamist party An-Nahda tipped for victory in Tunisia’s first free elections nine months after people’s revolution The moderate Islamist party An-Nahda is tipped for a historic victory in Tunisia’s first free elections, the first vote of the Arab spring. Nine months after a people’s revolution ousted the dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab spring, Tunisians turned out in record numbers to vote for a caretaker assembly that has to rewrite the country’s constitution and govern until parliamentary elections in a year’s time. An-Nahda, which was banned for 10 years and brutally repressed under Ben Ali, with activists exiled, tortured and imprisoned,said it had taken the biggest share of the vote based on early predictions before the official results expected . The party campaigned on a moderate, pro-democracy stance that sought to allay secularist fears by vowing to respect Tunisia’s strong secular tradition and the most advanced women’s rights in the Arab world. The party compares itself to Turkey’s Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) – liberal and socially conservative. Said Ferjani, from An-Nahda’s political bureau, said: “We have to be careful about figures until the official results, but there’s a consensus that we’re around the 40% mark. It’s something that we were expecting. “We already have our ideas about the government. We are not dogmatic; we are highly pragmatic. It will be a broad national unity government. The new reality is that we have to do what we do for the Tunisian people – we go beyond old lines of argument or disagreement.” The 217-seat assembly has a specific role: to rewrite the constitution and set the date for parliamentary elections in a year’s time. It will also form a caretaker government. Aproportional representation system meant regardless of the number of votes, no one party could take anan overall majority. An-Nahda is expected to form an alliance with the centrist secularist Ettakatol party, which is forecast to win 15-20% of the vote. The party’s leader, Dr Mustapha Ben Jafaar, was banned from running for president under the old regime. He could now become interim president with an Islamist prime minister and key ministers. The centre-left Congress for the Republic Party, led by human rights campaigner Moncef Marzouki, also did well. The centrist PDP, once the major opposition, suffered by association with the old system and performed poorly. Kais Nigrou, of the the Modernist Democratic Pole, a coalition of the centre-left which ran a secular, feminist campaign to counter An-Nahda, said: “We accept the democratic result and we’ll be in opposition. “The diversity and openness of civil secular society in Tunisia is strong and isn’t going to change. We don’t see a threat from Islamists. If 40% voted for Islamists, 60% of society did not.” An An-Nahda win would be the first Islamist election success in the Arab world since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian vote. Islamists won a 1991 election in Algeria, Tunisia’s neighbour, but the army annulled the result, provoking years of conflict. Tunisia Africa Tunisian elections 2011 Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Fox’s Hoenig Supports Ron Paul’s Idea to Wipe Out Five Government Agencies
October 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media On this Saturday’s Cashin’ In, the topic of Ron Paul wanting to completely eliminate five of our government agencies was brought up during one of their panel segments and apparently their regular Jonathan Hoenig has decided to turn full-blown Libertarian after listening to his support of Paul’s idea during the segment from Fox above. CASONE: Imagine wiping our five government agencies from the map in Washington. That’s what GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to do as part of his $1 trillion spending cut plan. He says it will get the American economy booming again. Okay, will it? Jonathan Hoenig, will it? HOENIG: Cheryl it will, I mean, government spent $3.8 trillion last year. We don’t need a little tweak, we need a slash and burn, and Rep. Paul’s program does just that. We’ve come to think of this bloated government as something normal, but it’s really not. You know, Housing and Urban Development was a product of the 1960′s. The Energy Department which he wants to get rid of was a product of the 1970′s. We should slash and burn, return to the Constitution, put this country back on a course for economic prosperity. After fellow panelist Wayne Rogers pointed out that those agencies employ 235,000 people and have a budget of $175 billion, it’s unrealistic to think that the Congress is just going to dismantle them and that making cuts to those agencies would be a more realistic approach, Casone asked the lonely Fox “liberal” on the panel, Regina Calcaterra to weigh in. As she pointed out, Paul’s plan does a whole lot of damage to everyday working Americans that Hoenig apparently wasn’t that concerned about. CALCATERRA: It also substantially reduces funding for preschool programs for impoverished kids. It reduces funding for food stamps. And it wholeheartedly eliminates the Community Policing Program, which was put in place in the 1990′s, which led to a substantial decrease in crime nationwide. So you look at what programs he’s proposing to cut here, and they’re going to be cut in low community incomes and while he’s doing this, he’s also saying he wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, he wants to repeal all tax income on investment income and on estates and like you said, he wants to repeal wholeheartedly, without even looking at the merits some of the issues relating to Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley. And those two laws were put into place because of the bad actors on Wall Street… At which point she got shouted down by the rest of the panel on the show. Tracy Byrnes followed with a little screed, carping about how the politicians in Washington are wasting our money, which I don’t disagree with, but certainly not for the same reasons Byrnes was going ballistic over here. She goes on to say that “no one even knows what the Department of the Interior does, and for all we know, they decorate, which was thankfully rebutted by their lonely “liberal” a bit later in the segment. CALCATERRA: It’s also going to affect the employees nationwide. You’re just looking at the salaries of the administrators sitting behind desks in Washington, but when you cut the Department of Interior, which doesn’t have to do with interior design, it actually has to do with national parks and a controlled oil drilling and federal parks as well, you’ve got park rangers and you’ve got people operating that that don’t make over a hundred thousand dollars… After which Tracy Byrnes started talking over her again and screaming again about how we’d better get rid of all the federal employees working “useless jobs.” To which Calcaterra managed to get a word in edgewise and point out that regulators at the federal level are necessary when you look at what happened with BP and the disaster in the Gulf. After Hoenig got a chance to make one one last comment at the end of the segment, talking about how wonderful Ron Paul’s ideas are for our country, Calcaterra got one last shot in at him as well for “cutting our funding for poor kids.” Which was met by moans and groans from the rest of them as the time for the segment ran out.
Continue reading …
Herman Cain has been ahead of Mitt Romney in the most recent GOP presidential candidate polling average at Real Clear Politics by a microscopic margin since late last week . Readers might be surprised to know that the wordings of the presidential preference questions at the various polling organizations differ significantly. In my view, the same person might given a different answer depending on which organization's polling question was asked. Here are the examples, with the Cain-Romney split identified in each instance (links are to fairly large PDFs in some instances): AP-GfK (Romney 30%, Cain 26%) — “Which of the following candidates would you MOST like to see win the Republican nomination for president?” CNN/Opinion Research (Romney 26%, Cain 25%) — “Next, I'm going to read a list of people who may be running in the Republican primary for president in 2012. After I read all the names, please tell me which candidate you would be most likely to support for the Republican nomination for President in the year 2012, or if you would support someone else.” (list of candidates then read in random order) Rasmussen (Cain 29%, Romney 29%) — “If the 2012 Republican Primary for President were held today would you vote for Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Jon Huntsman?” (half of respondents hear names in order indicated; other half hears them in another order) Public Policy Polling (Cain 30%, Romney 22%) — “If the Republican candidates for President were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, who would you vote for?” NBC/WSJ (Cain 27%, Romney 23%) — “Let me read you a list of people who might seek the 2012 Republican nomination for president. If you were voting today in the 2012 Republican primary for president, which one of the following candidates would you favor? (READ LIST. RANDOMIZE. IF “NOT SURE,” ASK:) Well, which way do you lean?” Reuters/Ipsos (Cain 23%, Romney 19%) — “Several commentators have said the Republican presidential field for the 2012 presidential election is becoming clear. If the 2012 Republican presidential primaries were being held today, for whom of the following would you vote?” Gallup (link will probably download to desktop; NOT currently part of the RCP average; last poll showed Romney 20%, Cain 18%) — “Next, I'm going to read a list of people who may be running in the Republican primaries for president in the 2012 election. After I read all the names, please tell me which of those candidates you would be most likely to support for the Republican nomination for President in 2012, or if you would support someone else.” Items 1 and 7 from AP-GfK and Gallup are questionable, because there may be a difference between who someone would personally prefer right now and who they would most prefer for the nomination. I would argue that Mitt Romney currently benefits from this question given his alleged perception (not so coincidentally fostered by the AP ) as the “inevitable” candidate. Geez guys, why not just ask the “if the election were held today” question? Items 2, 5, and 7 from CNN and NBC/WSJ are also weak in the sense that the candidates named at the actual questions are actually running; no one is a “may” or a “might” (i.e., Palin, Christie, and others are NOT mentioned). If a respondent isn't sure that a bottom-tier candidate they might otherwise support is really running, that might skew the answers towards the front-runners, again (since his name recognition is currently the highest) benefitting Romney. Perhaps these pollsters just haven't updated the presentations even though they're getting the questions right in actually polling conversations or robocalls. If that's the case, they're just being sloppy in reporting. Items 3 and 4 are fine, unless you think Rammussen's omission of Gary Johnson is somehow a problem. The introductory statement at Item 6 from Reuters/Ipsos also seems designed to mislead some voters. Some may conclude that “the field is becoming clear” means that lower-tier candidates are close to being winnowed away, again leading to a bias towards the front-runners, and currently to Romney because he has the highest name recognition. Why do that? Unfortunately, the wide variance in the presidential polling question means that — in addition to sampling and other problems often found — how the question was asked has to be considered before reaching a conclusion as to how particular candidates are actually faring — and perhaps “unfairly” benefitting. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …
Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were held hostage in Somalia, say UK authorities offered only ‘tea and sympathy’ to their family The British couple kidnapped from their yacht and held hostage for 13 months in Somalia have said the Foreign Office provided nothing but “tea and sympathy” to their family. Paul and Rachel Chandler, seized after leaving the Seychelles bound for Tanzania in October 2009, told a committee of MPs that the Foreign Office did not have the “expertise” to deal with kidnappings. Paul Chandler, 61, said it had only contacted their family “four days after the news was in the public domain”. By that time relatives were “bewildered, uncertain, and unadvised”, while being hounded by the media for information. The Foreign Office should have advised the family “at the earliest possible moment” about the general situation regarding hostages and kidnappings in Somalia. It should have advised them not to speak to the media “because it was well known that by far the best thing for a hostage is a press blackout”. If their family had known that “it would perhaps have had significant beneficial consequences,” he said. It should also have told the family “we can’t help you – but here’s a man who can”. Because of lack of political influence in Somalia, and British government policy not to pay ransoms, Chandler said the family should have been told: “If you need help, the private sector can help. Perhaps you should contact these people.” It was more appropriate for police to take the lead in such situations, he said, as they had expertise in criminal kidnappings. “We were just the hostages, but our families were the victim of extortion.” The couple were giving evidence at the foreign affairs committee inquiry into piracy off Somalia. Most of their evidence was given in private for the sake of Judith Tebbutt, who is still being held. The couple, originally from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, but now living in Dartmouth, Devon, were released last November for an unconfirmed ransom of up to £620,000. Rachel Chandler, 57, said: “What the Foreign Office did provide was essentially tea and sympathy. And in doing so, I think, it rubbed our family up the wrong way.” The couple’s suspected captors are being tried in Kenya over the hijacking of a French vessel. The Chandlers said they understood the British and Kenyan authorities are discussing whether they will also face trial over their case. The Metropolitan police is said to have handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service. “I’d like to see them prosecuted by the UK. Not necessarily physically in the UK,” said Paul Chandler, “and yes, we would be happy to give evidence.” The couple said there had been no warnings, from the Foreign Office, their insurers or the authorities in the Seychelles that their route to Tanzania would put them at high risk from piracy. Rachel Chandler added they would continue sailing: “Cruising is our chosen lifestyle and we want to continue cruising for as long as we are able. We’re certainly not defeated by what happened to us”. Piracy at sea Somalia Africa Foreign policy Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were held hostage in Somalia, say UK authorities offered only ‘tea and sympathy’ to their family The British couple kidnapped from their yacht and held hostage for 13 months in Somalia have said the Foreign Office provided nothing but “tea and sympathy” to their family. Paul and Rachel Chandler, seized after leaving the Seychelles bound for Tanzania in October 2009, told a committee of MPs that the Foreign Office did not have the “expertise” to deal with kidnappings. Paul Chandler, 61, said it had only contacted their family “four days after the news was in the public domain”. By that time relatives were “bewildered, uncertain, and unadvised”, while being hounded by the media for information. The Foreign Office should have advised the family “at the earliest possible moment” about the general situation regarding hostages and kidnappings in Somalia. It should have advised them not to speak to the media “because it was well known that by far the best thing for a hostage is a press blackout”. If their family had known that “it would perhaps have had significant beneficial consequences,” he said. It should also have told the family “we can’t help you – but here’s a man who can”. Because of lack of political influence in Somalia, and British government policy not to pay ransoms, Chandler said the family should have been told: “If you need help, the private sector can help. Perhaps you should contact these people.” It was more appropriate for police to take the lead in such situations, he said, as they had expertise in criminal kidnappings. “We were just the hostages, but our families were the victim of extortion.” The couple were giving evidence at the foreign affairs committee inquiry into piracy off Somalia. Most of their evidence was given in private for the sake of Judith Tebbutt, who is still being held. The couple, originally from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, but now living in Dartmouth, Devon, were released last November for an unconfirmed ransom of up to £620,000. Rachel Chandler, 57, said: “What the Foreign Office did provide was essentially tea and sympathy. And in doing so, I think, it rubbed our family up the wrong way.” The couple’s suspected captors are being tried in Kenya over the hijacking of a French vessel. The Chandlers said they understood the British and Kenyan authorities are discussing whether they will also face trial over their case. The Metropolitan police is said to have handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service. “I’d like to see them prosecuted by the UK. Not necessarily physically in the UK,” said Paul Chandler, “and yes, we would be happy to give evidence.” The couple said there had been no warnings, from the Foreign Office, their insurers or the authorities in the Seychelles that their route to Tanzania would put them at high risk from piracy. Rachel Chandler added they would continue sailing: “Cruising is our chosen lifestyle and we want to continue cruising for as long as we are able. We’re certainly not defeated by what happened to us”. Piracy at sea Somalia Africa Foreign policy Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Our Tax Money Funds A Government Surveillance Center In Lower Manhattan — And Wall Street Is Part of It. Why?
October 24, 2011 No CommentSo $150 million of our money is going to a government facility in lower Manhattan where representatives of Wall Street firms get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on your basic law-abiding citizens: According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan . . . One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on-site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.” At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s firstborn in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009. The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters. In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers. According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel . The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned. In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say: “The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009 . The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed.” [Italic emphasis added.] The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves “massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system…we reject the Department’s assertion of ‘plenary power’ over all matters touching on public safety . . . the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council.”
Continue reading …Our Tax Money Funds A Government Surveillance Center In Lower Manhattan — And Wall Street Is Part of It. Why?
October 24, 2011 No CommentSo $150 million of our money is going to a government facility in lower Manhattan where representatives of Wall Street firms get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on your basic law-abiding citizens: According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan . . . One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on-site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.” At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s firstborn in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009. The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters. In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers. According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel . The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned. In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say: “The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009 . The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed.” [Italic emphasis added.] The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves “massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system…we reject the Department’s assertion of ‘plenary power’ over all matters touching on public safety . . . the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council.”
Continue reading …AP Item About Obama’s Upcoming Vegas Visit Calls the Town ‘Sin City’ Three Times
October 24, 2011 No Comment
If you didn't know any better (actually, I think I do), you would think that perhaps Cristina Silva at the Associated Press is doing all she can to minimize the tourism-damaging things President Barack Obama has said about Las Vegas while tasked with reporting on his upcoming visit there. Three times in her short afternoon report — once in the item's headline and twice in the item's first two paragraphs — Silva refers to Las Vegas as “Sin City.” I realize that it's a legitimate nickname and that the town isn't seen as a mecca of virtue, but whatever happened to referring to the place as, well, “Vegas” — especially since Obama has never used the “Sin City” nickname in a speech? A graphic capture of the short item's first four paragraphs follows (link will probably be revised during the evening): Silva didn't quote either of Obama's suggestions about avoiding Vegas. As seen in the excerpts which follow, his 2009 statement definitely did damage: February 2009 ( BNET ; “Obama's Las Vegas Remark Inflames Industry”) It was only a five-second soundbyte, meant for Wall Street fat cats asking for government bailouts. “You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime, ” President Barack Obama said to a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind. last week. But the remark caused a hailstorm of anger from Las Vegas officials, members of the travel industry and even residents. And now the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will launch a six-figure campaign with ads in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other publications featuring company testimonials. “People are telling me that they’re not coming to Las Vegas because the president doesn’t want them to,” Mayor Oscar B. Goodman told the New York Times. February 2010 (AP, “Obama responds to ire over 2nd anti-Vegas remark”) “When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” Obama said, according to a White House transcript of his appearance Tuesday at a high school in Nashua, N.H. “You don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage,” Obama said. “You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices.” AP reporter Silva seemed so determined to maximize her “Sin City” references that she did so in her second paragraph rather than actually quote what Obama said about, well, “Vegas.” Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …