Former NBC News Producer Yells at NPR For Missing Leftist Wall St. Protest
September 29, 2011 No Comment
What do NBC News producers do after they retire? Sandy Goodman has become a writer for The Huffington Post, where he has demonstrated how liberal they have been for years at NBC. His latest post denounces NPR in an “open letter” for taking 11 days to notice a leftist “Occupy Wall Street” protest on the air. Goodman declared: “I've hated Ralph Nader ever since he was personally responsible for George W. Bush's election in 2000, but he and others sure are right when criticizing NPR for not covering the left and these protests (his phone call no doubt helped lead to NPR's belated coverage). If the Tea Party farts, that's news. But God forbid you should cover anything too far left of center.” NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos aroused Goodman’s ire when he wrote on Monday about leftist complaints that NPR was ignoring these leftist protests. The ombudsman dutifully quoted Dick Meyer, the network’s executive editor: “The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.” Goodman was correct to be angry that NPR wanted some blood in the streets or broken windows before there was “news.” But neither NPR nor Goodman seems aware that tens of thousands of abortion foes march on Capitol Hill each January in a “March for Life,” which NPR routinely ignores. The NPR ombudsman ruled “the complaints have validity,” but did not reflect on the notion of pro-Obama media bias, that perhaps protests are less newsworthy when they have the potential to embarrass a Democratic president. He began: “What a disgraceful decision to have avoided coverage for so long, and having your ombudsman
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Click here to view this media At a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich answered a question from a woman who was concerned that he supported the idea of religion imposing values on Americans. “I’m very concerned that a branch of Christianity has gotten some of its tenets into our laws like stem cell research, linking foreign aid to reproductive issues and so forth,” she told the former House Speaker. “If you were president, would you work hard to make Christian social issues the law of the land?” “I don’t know that the two you just cited are Christian social issues,” Gingrich replied. “I think Orthodox Jews probably have as profound a belief as Christians do on both those issues.” “I don’t regard that as imposing a particular branch of Christianity. That’s an argument about what values do you have whatever your religion happens to be. My argument about religion is different. We said in our founding document, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. Now should we teach children that or not? Should they learn what the founding fathers meant or not?” He continued: “The idea that taking school prayer out in 1963 made the country better, I don’t see any evidence that children who don’t spend a moment recognizing that they’re subservient to God let’s you approach God in anyway you want to. There is an enormous difference between a culture which believes that it is purely secular and a culture that believes that it is somehow empowered by our creator. And I always tell my friends who don’t believe in this stuff, “Fine, how do you think we came to — we’re randomly gathered protoplasm? We could have been rhinoceroses but we got lucky this week?’” “Now, that is if you assume it is lucky to be human rather than rhinoceros. I don’t want — knowing the way the news media works, I do not want ‘Gingrich announces anti-rhinoceros hostility’ to come out of this meeting.” EDITOR’S NOTE: Rhinoceros, Newt, really? Do you think a dude who’s cheated on his wives as many times as you should open himself up to a series of “horny” jokes?
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Click here to view this media On yesterday’s radio show Limbaugh weighed in on whether Christie was conservative enough. Not too surprisingly Limbaugh said he was not, comparing him to McCain. RUSH LIMBAUGH: My friends, do not doubt me. I know this is going to shock many of you, and maybe disappoint a lot of you. But when you talk about the Republican establishment — and you’ve read their pieces today — you know what I’m talking about: The columnists, the magazine directors, editors, publishers, whatever, they are reaching and searching for a counter to the conservatives. They don’t want Herman Cain getting the nomination; they don’t want Perry getting the nomination; they don’t want Bachmann getting the nomination. The Republican establishment does not want a conservative getting the nomination. If Chris Christie can come along, catch fire, see to it that Palin, Bachmann — Palin not in, she might get in, who knows, doubt it, but still too soon to say — if they can co-opt any conservative getting the nomination, they will do it. Nothing’s changed. “But, Rush, but, Rush, Christie’s a big conservative.” I will reserve my comments for later on in the program. I’ll just give you one little hint. I heard a lot of John McCain in that speech. Well, maybe not a lot, but I heard enough to send up a red flag or two. Later on Limbaugh said: Herman Cain is a conservative that worries them. Rick Perry is a conservative that worries them. Bachmann is a conservative that worries them. Santorum is a conservative that worries them. Reagan was a conservative that worried the Republican establishment. Christie is not. This small running battle between the GOP establishment (“the elites”) and the hardliners who make up Limbaugh listeners and the Tea Party crowd will be the dynamic tension within that party for the next year. (h/t to Real Clear Politics for the clip)
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The female victims, aged 17, 18 and 19, in serious condition after incident on John Fearon Walk in North Kensington Three teenagers were in a serious condition in hospital on Thursday night after being shot in the street. The female victims, aged 17, 18 and 19, were shot outside a property on an estate in North Kensington, west London. Police hunting the gunman were investigating if the attack was a botched drive-by shooting. It was initially believed that only one shot was fired. One of the victims was taken to hospital in a critical condition but has since improved. The victims’ injuries are not believed to be life threatening. Scotland Yard said the teenagers were shot outside an address in John Fearon Walk at around 7.15pm. The 18-year-old was treated for gunshot wounds at the scene before being taken to hospital by air ambulance. The other two victims made their own way to hospital. A police spokesman said they were alerted to the incident by the ambulance service, which had received reports that several females had been shot and injured. The spokesman said: “We have got officers down there trying to piece together what is going on. At this stage we are doing all we can.” An investigation is being led by Trident detectives, who are responsible for dealing with gang crime in black communities. No arrests have been made. Karen Buck, the MP for Westminster North, expressed her concern as she visited the Mozart estate, where the attack took place. The Labour politician, who has previously called for crackdowns on knife and gun crime, tweeted: “On Mozart estate after reports of 3 girls being shot. Desperately worried about local gang and youth violence. We have to get a grip.” Community leaders have made several attempts to make the area safer in recent years. Yew trees and a herb garden in a chequerboard pattern were planted along John Fearon Walk after it was identified as a hotspot for antisocial behaviour. London Gun crime Crime Cherry Wilson guardian.co.uk
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Bundestag vote approves increase of Germany’s guarantees from €123bn to €211bn Victory for Angela Merkel in the crunch parliamentary vote on increasing the powers of the euro bailout mechanism could prove shortlived as Germany comes under increasing pressure from EU officials to deliver fresh proposals to give the rescue fund a supercharged boost. German public opinion is firmly against any “leveraging” of the European Financial Stability Facility and both Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, and Philipp Rösler, the economics minister, set their stalls out against any such extension as the Bundestag voted 523 to 85 to increase the EFSF’s available funds to €440bn (£382bn). The vote approves the increase of Germany’s guarantees from €123bn to €211bn. Schäuble said any further increase, mooted after last weekend’s IMF meeting in Washington, was “out of the question”. Behind the scenes, however, officials are discussing at least three options for leveraging the fund to help head off the threat of potentially catastrophic defaults across the eurozone and these talks are expected to accelerate now that Germany has approved the 21 July decision to give the EFSF enhanced powers. “The only player that matters is Germany – despite what Sarkozy says. We can now get on with these discussions since Berlin knows they must take place no matter what ministers say in public,” one senior source said. Analysts cautioned, however, that it would be unrealistic to expect a fully fledged scheme to be in place in time for the G20 summit in Cannes in early November, let alone the next EU summit in mid-October. There remains deep anxiety that the greater urgency to resolve the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis and ward off a deep recession could yet be undermined by Slovakia, the last of the 17 countries to vote on the changes to the EFSF. Iveta Radicˇová, the country’s premier, is said to need substantial opposition support to secure a majority for enhancing the EFSF. She wants a mandate before the 17-18 October EU summit but has warned Brussels a vote may not be possible until a week later. The immediate threat of a Greek default is thought to be over, with Athens expected to get the sixth instalment of the first bailout package or €8bn by the end of October. But private bondholders – mostly large European banks – are already spooked by talk within Berlin about a 40%-50% “haircut” in the event of a default rather than the voluntary 21% agreed in July. The discussions about “leveraging” are so sensitive, especially given market volatility, that none of the ideas has so far been formally been circulated. “We’re talking about non-papers so far,” an official said. But the three options are said to focus on turning the EFSF either into a bank, or an insurance scheme, or giving it the powers to borrow funds from the European Central Bank or private investors to buy eurozone government bonds. The options are said to be so technically fraught that even senior officials are struggling to master the ideas, while they are also certain to unleash political conflicts. Schäuble remains enraged by the suggestion of Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, that the EFSF be “leveraged” up to €2tn. But one Brussels official, referring to Geithner’s guest appearance at an informal Ecofin meeting this month in Poland, said: “Pity Geithner can’t come to all the meetings of eurozone finance ministers.” The Bundestag vote gave an immediate boost to chancellor Merkel, asserting her authority by winning without needing to rely on opposition support. A majority of her coalition MPs – 315, or four more than her nominal majority – backed the EFSF boost with the number of suspected dissidents falling to just 13 after days of arm-twisting. Eighty-five voted against the motion, including 10 from Merkel’s own Christian Democratic bloc and three from the Free Democratic party (FDP), the chancellor’s coalition partners. Most of the “no” voters belonged to the far-left Linke party, who believe the bailout fund will make banks richer and ordinary Europeans poorer. Just a month ago, test votes suggested up to 25 coalition MPs were planning to rebel after polls showed three-quarters of Germans opposed the bill. Had Merkel failed to pass the vote without relying on support from opposition MPs from the Social Democratic (SPD) and Green parties, many analysts believed the coalition would have collapsed. “This shows the clear determination of the coalition on this issue,” Rainer Brüderle, parliamentary leader of Merkel’s junior partner, the FDP, told a broadcaster after the vote. “We have made an important decision for Europe.” Yet Frank Schäffler, also of the Free Democrats, argued that bailout measures had worsened Greece’s economic situation. “Despite all arguments, the first bailout did not make the situation for Greece better, but worse,” Schäffler said. “Expanding the fund will make the situation even worse.” Although a European commission spokesman issued a bland statement welcoming the Bundestag vote – “Once ratified by the remaining member states, we will have a stronger and more versatile tool at our disposal to ensure financial stability in the euro area” – officials were privately delighted that it signalled Germany’s re-commitment to the single currency. Officials close to José Manuel Barroso, the EC president, signalled that he intends to press ahead with his proposals for eurobonds – including those which would require significant changes to the EU treaty. Such changes would require up to four years to be agreed upon and implemented after an intergovernmental conference. So the talks about a “new” enhanced EFSF are said to take on an added urgency. Barroso’s aides also confirmed that he wants the EFSF’s planned, permanent successor, the European Stability Mechanism, to be in place far earlier than the proposed July 2013 – even as early as mid-2012. This would also require speedy ratification by the eurozone’s 17 national parliaments. European debt crisis Angela Merkel European banks Europe Greece Germany Nicolas Sarkozy European commission Helen Pidd David Gow guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Obama Administration Asks For Supreme Court Review Of Affordable Care Act
September 29, 2011 No CommentThe Obama administration has decided to put the full court press on a Supreme Court review of the Affordable Care Act. Via the New York Times : The Justice Department said the justices should hear its appeal of a decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, that struck down the centerpiece of the law by a 2-to-1 vote. “The department has consistently and successfully defended this law in several courts of appeals, and only the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled it unconstitutional,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “We believe the question is appropriate for review by the Supreme Court. “Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation, such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed,” the statement continued. “We believe the challenges to the Affordable Care Act — like the one in the 11th Circuit — will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law.” In addition, the administration has asked the court not to review the Sixth Circuit court ruling (known as the Thomas More case for the conservative think tank that filed it), but instead to rule on the government petition first. SCOTUSblog has more : Whatever the Solicitor General now says about the Thomas More case and its potential for review (a question likely to be answered in the forthcoming reply), the filing of a petition on behalf of the U.S. government — and its filing so soon after the Eleventh Circuit had ruled — was a clear indication that the government wants and expects a ruling during the Court’s current Term on the new health care law. In fact, in a conference call with news reporters Wednesday afternoon, a senior Justice Department official said: “It is important to get a decision with finality and certainty sooner rather than later.” The official added that government agencies, the health insurance industry, and people across the Nation need to know how to put their affairs in order under the provisions of the Act. The administration is pointedly requesting that the Supreme Court rule on the individual mandate, since the 11th Circuit decision overturns it. The Sixth Circuit case ruled opposite; that is, that the mandate is constitutional. By pushing the 11th Circuit decision overturning the mandate, the government seems to be confident that they’ll prevail, and in so doing, will affirm the 6th Circuit case.
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Venezuelan president issues theatrical reply to report suggesting he had been rushed to hospital with kidney failure The call came at about 11am. Journalists should come to the presidential palace in Caracas immediately. Hugo Chávez had something to say. When reporters arrived at the Miraflores palace on Thursday they found the Venezuelan president – who had supposedly been rushed to hospital with kidney failure just 48 hours earlier – wearing a bright red tracksuit and clutching a baseball. “I’m fine,” said a distinctly jovial Chávez. “Those who don’t love me and wish me ill, well, bad luck.” It was a typically theatrical riposte to yet another story speculating about his health: a report on Wednesday by the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald newspaper claiming that 57-year-old Chávez had been rushed to hospital with kidney failure the previous day. “I’ve had presidents calling,” Chávez complained of the fallout from the story, which he said had triggered concerned phone calls from other heads of state. “It’s morbid and inhumane. We must stop the speculation. I ask the Venezuelan people to ignore these rumours. If anything happened, I’d be the first person to tell you about any difficulty. Nothing’s happened beyond what’s normal in the treatment process.” Chávez’s hastily arranged appearance before the domestic and international press, came one day after the El Nuevo Herald report about the supposed severity of his illness . The paper had quoted an unidentified source as saying: “He [Chávez] was in a pretty bad overall state.” The source who had supposedly seen Chávez being admitted to a military hospital, went on to tell the paper: “When he arrived, he was pretty serious and that is why he was brought in for emergency care.” Chávez dismissed the reports. “To answer your question [about my health], here I am. I am my answer,” he told the assembled press pack. Peppering his two-hour appearance with sporting metaphors and clutching a baseball for much of the interview, he told reporters: “I had cancer. It was in a ball, contained.” Speculation about Chávez’s health reached fever pitch in June, after he disappeared from the public eye and spent nearly one month out of the country, ruling in absentia, partly from a Cuban hospital bed. Conspiracy theories and speculation that he had fallen into a coma, had a heart-attack or was suffering from lung problems spread rapidly on the internet. Then, in early July, Chávez finally admitted what many had suspected – he was suffering from cancer. Doctors had found “a strange formation in the pelvic region” he said during 15-minute address on television. “I had neglected my health and I was reluctant to have medical checkups. It was a fundamental mistake for a revolutionary.” Since then, Chávez has undergone chemotherapy and shaved his head. He has also vowed to put up a fight in the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections. But he has yet to disclose exactly what kind of cancer he is fighting. On Thursday he was scarcely more revealing. After being asked for details of his illness, he simply responded: “What is it you want? Do you want me to get out my tumour, to show you what kind of cancer it is? Well, I won’t. Why do you want to know?” he inquired. “Would you ask your friend that?” Hugo Chávez Venezuela Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
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If your Twitter feed is lighting up with reports of “screams and gunfire” at the Capitol building, breathe easy. It’s The Onion. The satirical newspaper began a series of tweets at 10:33 A.M. EDT on Thursday, which gave regular updates about a group of congressmen taking a group of children hostage. Subsequent tweets noted that
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Watch the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, transmitted live from Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre The ceremony will begin at 12.30am BST (7.30pm EDT) Founded 20 years ago by Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research , the Ig Nobel awards recognise genuine academic research and “honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”. At 7.30pm EDT on Thursday (12.30am on Friday, British Summer Time), this year’s crop of winners will collect their awards in front of a 1,200-strong crowd who will throw paper planes onto the stage as the newly minted laureates make their 60-second acceptance speeches. A flavour of what to expect Last year, psychologists Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest at the University of Amsterdam shared the medicine Ig Nobel for their discovery that breathing difficulties brought on by asthma can be alleviated by repeated rollercoaster rides . The 2010 biology prize went to Gareth Jones at Bristol University and collaborators in China for showing that female fruit bats that performed oral sex on their mates copulated for longer . “It is the first documented case of fellatio by adult animals other than humans to my knowledge, and opens questions about whether female animals can manipulate males via sexual activity, perhaps in this case to improve their chances of successful fertilisation,” Jones told the Guardian . Have you ever thought that your boss is promoting all the wrong people? Show them last year’s management Ig Nobel, awarded to Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania for demonstrating mathematically that companies work more efficiently if staff are promoted at random . Further back in the archives, who can forget the 2006 medicine prize? Francis M Fesmire, Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven showed that hiccups can be cured with digital rectal massage . Apparently a whole range of other treatments – gagging and tongue-pulling manoeuvres, pressing the eyeball, swallowing a teaspoon of granulated sugar, even strong drugs – had failed to work where the massage succeeded. Over two decades and hundreds of prizes, the Ig Nobels have brought the world’s attention to homosexual necrophiliac ducks , an alarm that makes an annoying noise that teenagers can hear but that is inaudible to adults , why woodpeckers don’t get headaches , why dry spaghetti often breaks into more than two pieces when bent , how female malaria mosquitos are attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and the smell of human feet and that dung beetles are actually quite particular about what they eat . This year’s crop of new laureates might want to look to one of their own when out celebrating in Cambridge after the ceremony at Harvard on Thursday night. In 2009, Javier Morales of the National University of Mexico, was awarded the chemistry Ig Nobel for finding a way to turn the national drink, tequila, into diamonds . Thin films of the precious material were produced by heating 80%-proof tequila blanco in a pressure vessel. Something, I’m sure you’ll agree, that demonstrates why the curiosity-driven, blue-skies research celebrated by the Ig Nobels will always come in handy some day. Ig Nobel Prizes Science prizes People in science United States Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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More than 30 firms said to be keen to bid for new contracts as Ken Clarke seeks to improve confidence in alternatives to prison Ministers are preparing for a massive expansion in electronic tagging of offenders, with private security companies being invited to bid for more than £1bn worth of contracts next month. The use of electronic tagging has grown rapidly since it was first used in 1999 by courts in England and Wales to enforce curfews. Now more than 20,000 offenders are monitored by private security firms on any given day. The current eight-year contracts, which are held by G4S and Serco electronic monitoring services, are due to end shortly. The Ministry of Justice says more than 30 companies have expressed an interest in competing for the new contracts when bids are invited this October. Fewer than 3,500 electronic tagging orders were made in 1999, a figure that rose to cover more than 70,000 people last year. It is estimated that more than 450,000 people in England and Wales have spent time electronically tagged over the past decade. The justice secretary, Ken Clarke, is planning a further significant expansion in the use of tagging as part of his drive to improve public confidence in alternatives to prison. His sentencing and punishment bill, which is now before parliament, will give the courts powers to extend the tag curfew limit from 12 hours a day to 16. The bill also proposes doubling the length of a curfew order from six to 12 months. The extension of tagging comes as G4S prepares to take over the Victorian inner city prison at Winson Green, Birmingham, this weekend, the first in the UK to be transferred from the public to private sector. Serco is about to start the first “payment by results” offender services pilot scheme at Doncaster prison with similar schemes to follow at eight more prisons. Plans for the largest-ever wave of jail privatisation with nine public sector prisons being put out to tender this autumn have already been announced. Only last week the justice minister, Lord McNally, warned a Liberal Democrat conference fringe meeting of the danger of a ” semi-monopoly ” developing with the largest security companies, such as G4S and Serco, winning the majority of justice contracts. The main form of tagging used in England and Wales involves the offender wearing a tag around their ankle or wrist which sends a signal back to a monitoring unit at their home address. A text message-style signal is sent to the company’s monitoring centre if the offender breaks the circuit by leaving home during the curfew hours. Tagging is used both as a community penalty and to monitor prisoners released early on home detention curfews. The latest expansion in tagging comes despite official statements that electronic tags have no impact in reducing the reoffending rates of criminals or the number of contractual penalty payments of more than £273,000 over the past four years by G4S and Serco for service failures. “The re-competition [sic] of these contracts offers the market an opportunity of significant scale (based on current spend, the total contract value is likely to be in the region of £1bn),” says the Ministry of Justice in its latest competition strategy document. Ministers hope the new contracts will cut the current unit cost of £1,063 for a 90-day adult curfew and £1,935 for a 120-day juvenile curfew. “The expected reductions in the unit cost of delivery are likely to provide significant opportunities for both savings and service improvement. This will also provide opportunities for greater involvement of small and medium enterprises – in this case, companies offering innovative tagging technology,” says the strategy. Up until now more ambitious uses of electronic tagging, such as satellite tracking and voice verification to monitor an individual’s daily movements, have been limited by the impact of tall buildings on the patchy mobile phone networks the system relies on. The Ministry of Justice has always maintained that tagging provides the courts with a credible alternative to prison. But ministers admitted to MPs two years ago: “Current evidence suggests that electronic monitoring has a neutral effect on reoffending. However, international research does suggest that it can be effective in helping to ensure compliance with other, more rehabilitative, community penalties.” Harry Fletcher of Napo, the probation service union, said he was shocked that tagging had become a £1bn industry: “There is no evidence that tagging has any impact on reducing crime. It is also very expensive, with a 90-day tag costing £1,100 to the taxpayer. That is for an outlay of only £400 to £500 assuming only one call-out to the offender for each order. So there is a huge markup,” he said. Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Kenneth Clarke Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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