Working hard to run defense for the Obama administration on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry interrogated journalist Ron Suskind on his new book critical of the White House and announced she wanted to go through go through unflattering parts of the book “one by one,” while using Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney-approved talking points to discredit it. Curry began the interview with Suskind, author of “Confidence Men,” by touting White House claims that the Pulitzer Prize winner plagiarized some background information in the book from Wikipedia: “Did you or did you not lift that passage from Wikipedia?…How do you account it for being so similar?” In her final question to Suskind, Curry was equally petty, citing a handful of minor typographical errors as evidence of the entire book not being credible: …you make some mistakes – CNBC reporter Erin Burnett, you called her Erin Burkett, you say the unemployment in June 2009 was 8%, in fact it was 9.5%. You say that the Dow dropped 378 on February 10th, 2009, in fact it dropped 382 points on that date. So do you agree – Jay Carney makes this point – do you agree with him? That if you cannot get these details right, then the broader analysis that you subscribe to, that you put forth in this book, has got to be judged in accordance with that, has got to be questioned. There are inaccuracies in your book. Of course, Curry has had her own trouble with accurate details . Throughout the segment, Curry tried to cast doubt on direct quotes from administration officials: > …you report that the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner actually ignored the President's order to create a plan to do something about Citigroup….Geithner said that these reports in your book, quote, “bear no resemblance to the reality.” Did Geithner ignore the President or didn't he? > White House communications director Dan Feiber told us at NBC News that these comments that I just attributed to talked about with Timothy Geithner are absolutely 100% not true. So they are saying that they're not true. > In response to your portrayal in your book, Larry Summers has said, “The hearsay attributed to me is a combination of fiction, distortion, and words taken out of context”….Did Summers believe that the President was in over his head or didn't he? > …you quote Christina Roehmer, the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, as saying, “I felt like a piece of meat,” when she was excluded from a meeting. And also you quote former White House communications director Anita Dunn, quoting her calling the White House, quote, “a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” Now both of these women have subsequently denied making these comments. How do you – how do you respond to that? Every single question Curry directed at Suskind was a refutation of his book. At no time did she accept any of part of it as factual or legitimate criticism of the Obama White House. Here is a full transcript of the September 20 interview: 7:06AM ET ANN CURRY: Well, Ron Suskind is now joining us to talk about his new book, it's called “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, And the Education of a President.” Mr. Suskind, good morning. Let's begin right there, did you or did you not lift that passage from Wikipedia? [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: "Confidence Men"; Suskind Defends Book's Claims About President] RON SUSKIND: Of course not, of course not. If you're talking- CURRY: How do you account it for being so similar? SUSKIND: Well, if you're going to talk about Fannie Mae in 1968, you've got to use a combination of a certain number of words, they're not even the same in the two sentences, it's absurd. I mean, the White House should be doing something better than wiki searches on a 500-page book. After a week, that's all they came up with. CURRY: Well, they've actually come up with more. So let me – let's get to it one by one because we do have some time here, not a lot of time. SUSKIND: Right, sure, not a problem. CURRY: You write that the President tried to navigate the economic crisis, as he was trying to do this, you write that, quote, “His authority was systematically undermined or hedged by his seasoned advisers.” For example, you report that the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner actually ignored the President's order to create a plan to do something about Citigroup. And so, what I'm wondering is, just yesterday, Geithner said that these reports in your book, quote, “bear no resemblance to the reality.” Did Geithner ignore the President or didn't he? SUSKIND: Geithner clearly, clearly slow-walked the President, meaning that he did not move as the President hoped he would, some would say he ignored the President. This is not just reflected in Tim Geithner's conversation with me because he responded to that, it's all in the book, the response, but also memos, internal memos in the White House from Pete Rouse, which talk about how Treasury slow-walked the President. They didn't like what the President was deciding, they simply ignored it, they buried it bureaucratically. And the President responds to that in our interview. He doesn't disagree with that, he says it was hard, these were difficult decisions, and yes, the bureaucracy didn't do what I wanted them to do. The fact is, Ann, almost everything in the book is responded to in the book. Toward the end, everybody was asked about these comments and they respond in the book. CURRY: Well, let's talk some more about the comments. But you know, the White House communications director Dan Feiber told us at NBC News that these comments that I just attributed to talked about with Timothy Geithner are absolutely 100% not true. So they are saying that they're not true. SUSKIND: He is disagreeing with Tim Geithner's rendering in “Confidence Men.” We talked about 35 minutes through this whole issue of Citi. Everyone was essentially quoted and sourced on the Citibank issue. I think the real issue is whether the White House will respond to whether the President is still getting gamed by his advisers or not. The evidence is that he's not. And in our interview, me and the President, he said, “Look, I've grown into this office.” It took a while, he was a new president with very little experience. He came in, in a crisis, but I think the whole point of the book is the evolution of Barack Obama to now and the President is quite forceful. In a way saying, 'I'm the president, people hoped I would be,' and that is – that's part of what the book says. CURRY: Well the book also quotes this comment by Pete Orszag, we just heard about it in Chuck Todd's report, saying that Larry Summers, the former director of the National Economic Council, often relitigated the President's decisions and said at one point, “We're home alone, there's no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.” In response to your portrayal in your book, Larry Summers has said, “The hearsay attributed to me is a combination of fiction, distortion, and words taken out of context. I have always believed that the President has led this country with determined, steady and practical leadership in the economic area.” Did Summers believe that the President was in over his head or didn't he? SUSKIND: It seems that he did. And it seems from the comments from Orszag and others, certainly at the start in the first year in 2009 into early 2010, these sorts of things were part of the prevailing conversation in the White House. When I asked Larry Summers, certainly he was one of the sources for the book, about that quote, I said, 'Look, what did you mean when you said that?' He offers a comment in “Confidence Men” which was, I think, more seasoned and less political than that, and he says, “We were overwhelmed, we had five times as many problems, we didn't have five times as many people.” CURRY: Are you saying he acknowledged that he made this comment to Pete Orszag? Are you saying- SUSKIND: In the- CURRY: To you afterwards, as you spoke to him about it? SUSKIND: He said to me, after we talked, I said, 'What did you say? what did you mean?' He said, “Look I will say this, we had too many things going on and we didn't have enough people and we were overwhelmed.” CURRY: Yeah, but that's not what you're saying here. In this quote, he's questioning if, in fact he said this, he's questioning whether the President was in over his head. Did he step back from that or did he say that's exactly what he was feeling at the time? SUSKIND: In the book, he first said, “I never said it.” And then I said, 'Look, a lot of people heard you say it.' He said, “Okay, here's what I meant. When I said such a thing, this is what I meant.” And that's in the book. I think it's important to note, Ann, that there was enormous cooperation from the White House and they knew virtually everything in this book before it came out and had a chance to respond. CURRY: They say that they cooperated with you because they were concerned about the direction you were taking and they wanted to make sure that you got it right. But let's talk about this one issue, because I want to make sure we get to it. This issue that is perhaps as sensitive as all the things we've said before, is this idea that the White House was a boy's club. And in one story you quote Christina Roehmer, the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, as saying, “I felt like a piece of meat,” when she was excluded from a meeting. And also you quote former White House communications director Anita Dunn, quoting her calling the White House, quote, “a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” Now both of these women have subsequently denied making these comments. How do you – how do you respond to that? SUSKIND: Everyone is under a great deal of pressure, it's a political season. The fact of the matter is, all of them said everything, we have extensive notes and tapes for this book. An the fact is, with Anita Dunn, as with most of the other subjects, they were told what would be said next to them, what they said in the book. With Anita, The Washington Post this morning confirms the quote. I had to do something that I've never done before but I said it's a special occasion, which is I let The Washington Post listen to the tape. They're like, 'There it is, clear as a bell.' CURRY: Well, let me just get to that on what's on tape. Because I understand what's on tape is the fact that she said “If it weren't for the President, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace.” That's not quite the same as saying that it's a hostile work environment. She saying if it wasn't for the President it would be a hostile work environment. Did you take liberties with that quote? SUSKIND: Oh, absolutely not. In fact, what I did, as I did with many subjects, I called Anita back at the end and said, 'Look, here is what's going next to your name in the book.' She said, 'Well, you know, can we say looking back rather than in present tense?' We talked about that and ultimately the quote is broken down in terms of the core of the quote that she agreed with. And interestingly, you know, the comments about the President is throughout the book. It's shown that people felt good about the President. Part of why the White House actually pushed me to write about this women's issue in the workplace is they felt the President solved this issue and in large measure the book says the President stepped up here. A key core issue of the book is the President's growth as a boss, as a manager. He had very little experience, he sat all of the sudden atop the most complex managerial organism on the planet. And that's the key to his evolution, he learned how to be the president, how to be the boss. This is a stumbling block along the way. CURRY: I've got to ask you one final question. You know, we did some looking through your book and you do call in your book – you make some mistakes – CNBC reporter Erin Burnett, you called her Erin Burkett, you say the unemployment in June 2009 was 8%, in fact it was 9.5%. You say that the Dow dropped 378 on February 10th, 2009, in fact it dropped 382 points on that date. So do you agree – Jay Carney makes this point – do you agree with him? That if you cannot get these details right, then the broader analysis that you subscribe to, that you put forth in this book, has got to be judged in accordance with that, has got to be questioned. There are inaccuracies in your book. SUSKIND: This is a 500-page book. The fact of the matter is, everything in this book is solid as a brick and we have gone through every little thing that they have found, much of it was changed early, the book was pushed through with great effort, and the fact is, is that this book, like all the books I've written, is densely sourced and the analysis is picture perfect. Everyone in the White House was confronted with this early, they responded in the book, and this is really a portrait, a first portrait of this White House and this president. When this happens, when the curtain is pulled back, they often respond vigorously, they are, and I think that's testimony to the fact that this is really – this is really who they are. CURRY: Well it's touched a nerve, it's not the last we're going to hear about it. Ron Suskind, thank you so much. The book is “The Confidence Men.”
Continue reading …Legal aid reforms minister has £250,000 invested in firms with insurance interests
September 20, 2011 No Comment
Jonathan Djanogly is piloting controversial proposals which could net insurance industry £1bn a year Jonathan Djanogly, the justice minister piloting controversial plans to cut legal aid and curb payouts, which could benefit the insurance industry to the tune of £1bn a year, has stockmarket investments worth at least £250,000 in companies with insurance arms. He is also weighing up proposals which may have a profound effect on his brother-in-law’s business which advertises compensation claims for accidents. Labour wrote to the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, on Monday night to demand an investigation following the Guardian’s inquiry. Djanogly, a Conservative MP the legal services minister, is pushing a bill through parliament which will attempt to slash the budget for legal aid by £350m as well as shifting part of the costs of bringing cases on a “no-win, no-fee” basis from losing defendants to winning claimants. This reduces the costs liabilities of companies and their insurers if they unsuccessfully defend a claim as it will force claimants to pay out of any awarded damages their lawyers’ success fees and insurance policies that cover court costs. Last week the Guardian revealed that the minister could personally profit from the changes. In the past three years Djanogly has been entitled to an average annual payout of £41,000 from being a “minority partner” in his family’s firm of insurance underwriters, The Djanogly Family LLP. The 46-year-old, considered to be one of the 10 richest MPs, is heir to a £300m family fortune and has amassed a sizeable personal stake in the insurance industry. In the most recent declaration of MPs interests he continues to hold shareholdings of worth at least £195,000 in three banks with insurance arms – Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds TSB. He also has at least another £65,000 in Amlin insurance stock. Djanogly also declares in the ministerial register of interests that his “brother-in-law owns ‘Going Legal Ltd’ and ‘Legal Link Introductory Services Ltd’”. Both are claims management companies, which advertise “no-win, no-fee” compensation claims for accidents and charge a referral fee for passing on potential cases to lawyers and insurance firms. According to company accounts, Ben Silk, Djanogly’s brother in law, saw a combined profit from the two firms last year of £130,000. Going Legal, according to its website, deals with employment cases and Legal Link asks: “Suffer an injury caused by someone else?” on its homepage. Both offer 0800 telephone numbers for people to call. The regulation of the claims management industry is part of Djanogly’s ministerial duties. Last week, after pressure from former Labour justice secretary Jack Straw, he announced that “rising insurance costs will be tackled by a ban on referral fees” while admitting there was “no universally recognised definition of ‘referral fees’.” Labour’s justice spokesman, Andy Slaughter, has written to cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell calling for an investigation into Djanogly. Slaughter points out a slew of conflict of interests claims given that the minister has neither resigned or removed himself from discussions from which he could personally profit. The letter argues that the minister’s assertion that his financial interests are in “blind trust/blind management arrangement” does not bear scrutiny as the “minister’s holdings are concentrated into financial services companies with exposure to the insurance market and The Djanogly Family LLP is explicitly set up to act in the insurance and reinsurance market”. Slaughter argues that as Djanogly “did not resign from the LLP and dispose of his interests (he has a) fiduciary duty to promote the interests of The Djanogly Family LLP”. This, says Slaughter, is in conflict with “his duty as a minister to promote the public interest”. Slaughter says “his shareholdings, weighted towards financial services companies and those with insurance interests, are incompatible” with being a minister adding that Djanogly “holds stocks in Lloyds and Tesco, both of which responded to consultation” backing the Jackson changes. The Labour MP adds that “given the minister’s role as regulator of claims management companies and his brother-in-law’s ownership of two claims management companies, it is reasonable to perceive a conflict of interest”. “Given the sums of money involved, the multiple ways in which the minister would benefit from this legislation, this would appear to be a severe breach of the code.” Slaughter says that if the MoJ’s permanent secretary, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, was informed of these arrangements it calls into question his judgment. In some cases when particularly complicated issues surrounding a minister’s investments prove too difficult for his or her own department to resolve the matter is sent to Downing Street. Slaughter notes: “In the event the prime minister was consulted, as per clause 7.9 of the Code, this poses serious questions as to the judgment of the prime minister.” The ministerial code states that “ministers must scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or perceived conflict of interest between their ministerial position and their private financial interests”. It advises ministers to dispose of interests or recuse themselves from discussions and policy if there could be even a perception of a “conflict of interest”. The Cabinet Office said it had received the letter from Labour’s justice team. A spokesman for Djanogly said: “As Mr Djanogly made clear on Friday, his financial interests are a matter of public record, in declarations made both as a minister and as an MP. The government’s reforms to the no-win, no-fee system are based on an independent review by Sir Rupert Jackson.” Djanogly’s Liberal Democrat colleague at the Ministry of Justice, Lord McNally, described the Guardian story as an “example of shoddy journalism” at the party fringe on Tuesday in Birmingham saying there was “no breach of the ministerial code”. Djanogly told Radio 4 earlier this year his reforms, based on a report by Lord Justice Jackson in 2010, would change the current system which “help[s] claimants to the detriment of defendants, who would normally be the insurance companies” earlier this year. Experts say the changes to legal aid will benefit the insurance industry, which has to pay out compensation in personal injury cases, by at least “hundreds of millions of pounds”. The Association of British Insurers admits that industry will benefit from the reforms but argue that consumers, not shareholders, will benefit – pointing out that in Ireland similar measures to those contained in the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill saw motor insurance premiums drop by up to 16%. Conservatives guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Legal aid reforms minister has £250,000 invested in firms with insurance interests
September 20, 2011 No Comment
Jonathan Djanogly is piloting controversial proposals which could net insurance industry £1bn a year Jonathan Djanogly, the justice minister piloting controversial plans to cut legal aid and curb payouts, which could benefit the insurance industry to the tune of £1bn a year, has stockmarket investments worth at least £250,000 in companies with insurance arms. He is also weighing up proposals which may have a profound effect on his brother-in-law’s business which advertises compensation claims for accidents. Labour wrote to the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, on Monday night to demand an investigation following the Guardian’s inquiry. Djanogly, a Conservative MP the legal services minister, is pushing a bill through parliament which will attempt to slash the budget for legal aid by £350m as well as shifting part of the costs of bringing cases on a “no-win, no-fee” basis from losing defendants to winning claimants. This reduces the costs liabilities of companies and their insurers if they unsuccessfully defend a claim as it will force claimants to pay out of any awarded damages their lawyers’ success fees and insurance policies that cover court costs. Last week the Guardian revealed that the minister could personally profit from the changes. In the past three years Djanogly has been entitled to an average annual payout of £41,000 from being a “minority partner” in his family’s firm of insurance underwriters, The Djanogly Family LLP. The 46-year-old, considered to be one of the 10 richest MPs, is heir to a £300m family fortune and has amassed a sizeable personal stake in the insurance industry. In the most recent declaration of MPs interests he continues to hold shareholdings of worth at least £195,000 in three banks with insurance arms – Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds TSB. He also has at least another £65,000 in Amlin insurance stock. Djanogly also declares in the ministerial register of interests that his “brother-in-law owns ‘Going Legal Ltd’ and ‘Legal Link Introductory Services Ltd’”. Both are claims management companies, which advertise “no-win, no-fee” compensation claims for accidents and charge a referral fee for passing on potential cases to lawyers and insurance firms. According to company accounts, Ben Silk, Djanogly’s brother in law, saw a combined profit from the two firms last year of £130,000. Going Legal, according to its website, deals with employment cases and Legal Link asks: “Suffer an injury caused by someone else?” on its homepage. Both offer 0800 telephone numbers for people to call. The regulation of the claims management industry is part of Djanogly’s ministerial duties. Last week, after pressure from former Labour justice secretary Jack Straw, he announced that “rising insurance costs will be tackled by a ban on referral fees” while admitting there was “no universally recognised definition of ‘referral fees’.” Labour’s justice spokesman, Andy Slaughter, has written to cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell calling for an investigation into Djanogly. Slaughter points out a slew of conflict of interests claims given that the minister has neither resigned or removed himself from discussions from which he could personally profit. The letter argues that the minister’s assertion that his financial interests are in “blind trust/blind management arrangement” does not bear scrutiny as the “minister’s holdings are concentrated into financial services companies with exposure to the insurance market and The Djanogly Family LLP is explicitly set up to act in the insurance and reinsurance market”. Slaughter argues that as Djanogly “did not resign from the LLP and dispose of his interests (he has a) fiduciary duty to promote the interests of The Djanogly Family LLP”. This, says Slaughter, is in conflict with “his duty as a minister to promote the public interest”. Slaughter says “his shareholdings, weighted towards financial services companies and those with insurance interests, are incompatible” with being a minister adding that Djanogly “holds stocks in Lloyds and Tesco, both of which responded to consultation” backing the Jackson changes. The Labour MP adds that “given the minister’s role as regulator of claims management companies and his brother-in-law’s ownership of two claims management companies, it is reasonable to perceive a conflict of interest”. “Given the sums of money involved, the multiple ways in which the minister would benefit from this legislation, this would appear to be a severe breach of the code.” Slaughter says that if the MoJ’s permanent secretary, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, was informed of these arrangements it calls into question his judgment. In some cases when particularly complicated issues surrounding a minister’s investments prove too difficult for his or her own department to resolve the matter is sent to Downing Street. Slaughter notes: “In the event the prime minister was consulted, as per clause 7.9 of the Code, this poses serious questions as to the judgment of the prime minister.” The ministerial code states that “ministers must scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or perceived conflict of interest between their ministerial position and their private financial interests”. It advises ministers to dispose of interests or recuse themselves from discussions and policy if there could be even a perception of a “conflict of interest”. The Cabinet Office said it had received the letter from Labour’s justice team. A spokesman for Djanogly said: “As Mr Djanogly made clear on Friday, his financial interests are a matter of public record, in declarations made both as a minister and as an MP. The government’s reforms to the no-win, no-fee system are based on an independent review by Sir Rupert Jackson.” Djanogly’s Liberal Democrat colleague at the Ministry of Justice, Lord McNally, described the Guardian story as an “example of shoddy journalism” at the party fringe on Tuesday in Birmingham saying there was “no breach of the ministerial code”. Djanogly told Radio 4 earlier this year his reforms, based on a report by Lord Justice Jackson in 2010, would change the current system which “help[s] claimants to the detriment of defendants, who would normally be the insurance companies” earlier this year. Experts say the changes to legal aid will benefit the insurance industry, which has to pay out compensation in personal injury cases, by at least “hundreds of millions of pounds”. The Association of British Insurers admits that industry will benefit from the reforms but argue that consumers, not shareholders, will benefit – pointing out that in Ireland similar measures to those contained in the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill saw motor insurance premiums drop by up to 16%. Conservatives guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A report released by Oxfam America and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee shows that laborers working in American tobacco fields are frequently being denied basic human rights. Specifically: Farm workers who toil in the tobacco fields of North Carolina often spend hours in the blistering sun and get paid less than the minimum wage. They are exposed to toxic chemicals just to do their jobs, according to a new report issued yesterday. The report, “A State of Fear,” shows that one in four tobacco farm workers is paid less than the federal minimum wage. Many suffer from nicotine poisoning after absorbing nicotine through their bare skin. After a long day at work, they return to squalid living conditions such as overcrowded rooms with insect-infested mattresses and nonfunctioning toilets and showers. This is yet another instance of the apparently widespread mistreatment of workers in the United States. Conservatives and business leaders would have you believe that American workers are overpaid, underworked, lazy and ungrateful. The reality is almost universally the opposite of that, and this report adds to the evidence that shows the true situation. And, as always, the solutions to the problems are easy to achieve if politicians have the courage to do the right thing: The report calls for: – Manufacturers to respect the internationally recognized human rights of workers, including the right to freedom of association. – Industry leaders to create a council that brings together manufacturers, growers, farm workers and their chosen representatives to address conditions. – Manufacturers to work to ensure a stable industry by allowing more grower input in their pricing formulas.
Continue reading …A report released by Oxfam America and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee shows that laborers working in American tobacco fields are frequently being denied basic human rights. Specifically: Farm workers who toil in the tobacco fields of North Carolina often spend hours in the blistering sun and get paid less than the minimum wage. They are exposed to toxic chemicals just to do their jobs, according to a new report issued yesterday. The report, “A State of Fear,” shows that one in four tobacco farm workers is paid less than the federal minimum wage. Many suffer from nicotine poisoning after absorbing nicotine through their bare skin. After a long day at work, they return to squalid living conditions such as overcrowded rooms with insect-infested mattresses and nonfunctioning toilets and showers. This is yet another instance of the apparently widespread mistreatment of workers in the United States. Conservatives and business leaders would have you believe that American workers are overpaid, underworked, lazy and ungrateful. The reality is almost universally the opposite of that, and this report adds to the evidence that shows the true situation. And, as always, the solutions to the problems are easy to achieve if politicians have the courage to do the right thing: The report calls for: – Manufacturers to respect the internationally recognized human rights of workers, including the right to freedom of association. – Industry leaders to create a council that brings together manufacturers, growers, farm workers and their chosen representatives to address conditions. – Manufacturers to work to ensure a stable industry by allowing more grower input in their pricing formulas.
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Trends are strictly for the high street. The designers at London fashion week had their own stories to tell on the catwalk The script of this London fashion week was written in advance. London in 2012 is all about the Olympics, after all, and these are the clothes London’s designers will be selling next summer. Ergo … well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Cashmere will be out, and Lycra in; the go-faster stripe becomes the new Breton top. Or so we thought. London’s designers may not be the one-legged-trousered provocateurs they once were, but they still have a little of the awkward squad about them. So they refused to play ball with the neat concept of Olympic-themed summer collections. Where sportswear figured as an influence, it was in a highly stylised guise: racer-back dresses at Marios Schwab and Peter Pilotto ; a satin tennis skirt at Christopher Kane; Aertex-effect shirts at JW Anderson . London designers will not be dictated to. For all the ongoing tussles with New York and Milan over schedules, there is a real sense of confidence about London fashion week these days. For these few days, designers take ownership of the capital with an assurance that was not there a decade ago. All those fashion shows in disused car parks – in retrospect, they seem like reflection of fashion’s self-image in those years as something self-consciously alternative, disenfranchised from the “real world”. How times have changed. One of the joys of this week was touring the landmark buildings that designers had taken over for their shows. The commandeering of the gorgeous Somerset House as London fashion week HQ and the now-regular Downing Street receptions have had a knock-on effect of inspiring designers to hold their events in the city’s other famous addresses. So we went to the Tate Modern for Matthew Williamson , the Royal Courts of Justice for Giles Deacon, Queen Elizabeth Hall for Antonio Berardi, the Savoy for Maria Grachvogel and Erdem, Claridges for Mulberry, the Royal Opera House for Sass & Bide and the British Museum for Temperley. (OK, Beyoncé showed in a car park. But everyone knows the rules are different for megastars.) But if the Olympians are not to be next season’s muses, who is? Perhaps the Duchess of Cambridge – so feted by the fashion world on her wedding day only five months ago? There was an oblique reference, perhaps, at Temperley , where Pippa Middleton – who wore a green Temperley dress to her sister’s evening reception in April – sat in the front row. One of the references cited for the collection was Tracy Lord in High Society, a character played by Grace Kelly – whose lace-sleeved wedding dress was similar in style to the Duchess’s. No, you’re right – that’s tenuous, even for fashion. The princess bride is, frankly, over. A mischievous mind could, however, see a connection between the Cambridges’ married life in Anglesey and the fact that a new character – the Valiumed-out Stepford housewife – turned up on the catwalk this season. Jonathan
Continue reading …Former Democratic Colleagues Stephanopoulos and Carville Discuss Democrat Strategy
September 20, 2011 No CommentAfter the last two Republican presidential debates. Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos turned to Democrats for reaction. After President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress, the morning show host again featured a Democrat. On Tuesday, Stephanopoulos brought on Democrat James Carville for reaction to the President's tax plan. The journalist asked his former Clinton White House colleague how the White House would deal with a new book charging incompetence and sexism. But Stephanopoulos seemed interested in extracting the White House from possible danger: ” How does that portrait strike you? Does it square with what you've seen? And how would you advise the White House to handle this book? ” Carville responded, in part by asserting that the White House “can't do anything about what's in that book.” It's interesting that Stephanopoulos would speculate about such a strategy as he was very aggressive in suppressing Unlimited Access , an anti-Clinton book back when he was a White House staffer. A March 24, 2004 MRC CyberAlert recounted a past Stephanopoulos dodge on his role: George Stephanopoulos was asked on Tuesday’s Good Morning America, in reference to Dick Clarke’s book, if he’d “ever seen an administration put on a sort of full-court press against one individual as they did yesterday?” Stephanopoulos insisted: “On a book? No, never, it's never happened before.” Hmmm. Wasn’t Stephanopoulos in the Clinton White House in 1996 when the public relations apparatus under Stephanopoulos went full bore to discredit FBI agent Gary Aldrich’s account in his book, Unlimited Access, about what he saw as an agent assigned to the White House? Stephanopoulos did ask a few tough questions. On the subjct of the Republican claim that the President's call or tax increases, the host wondered if the GOP's “class warfare charge might stick and scare off the moderate voters that Obama's going to need next year?”
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News of a Kidnapping sells out in Tehran bookshops as detained opposition leader cites it as accurate reflection of his experience The Nobel-prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez is revered for his evocation of a surreal and sometimes dangerous world where nothing is quite what it seems. In this case, however, the country in question is not his native Colombia but Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Copies of Márquez’s 1996 work News of a Kidnapping have sold out from bookshops in Tehran this week after detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said the book’s description of Colombian kidnappings offers an accurate reflection of his life under house arrest. Mousavi and fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest since mid-February when thousands of Iranians poured onto the streets in response to their calls for fresh protests in solidarity with pro-democracy movements in the Arab world. Since then, they have had little access to the outside world. But Mousavi was allowed a brief meeting with his daughters last week, for the first time in seven months. The brief encounter took place in the presence of security officials but Mousavi reportedly told his daughters: “If you want to know about my situation in captivity, read Gabriel García Márquez’s News of a Kidnapping.” Mousavi’s comments spread quickly across Iran’s huge online community, prompting hundreds of opposition supporters to seek out the book. Queues formed in some bookshops, and copies of the book sold out within days. One Tehran-based journalist said: “It took me couple of hours to find a copy of the book. I first went to bookshops in the Karimkhan area, but none had a copy left. I went to Enghelab Avenue and I was amazed to see people queuing up to buy the book as if they were queuing up to buy a new Harry Potter.” At least 10 large bookshops in the capital told the Guardian their stocks of the book had sold out. None of them would say why. “It got sold out in the last week or so, we have no copies left,” said one shopkeeper. “I don’t know why it happened, I can’t say.” News of a Kidnapping, which was initially published in English in 1997, describes the abduction in the early 1990s of high-profile Colombians, including journalists and politicians, on the orders of the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. A news website, Aftab, listed the book at the top of bestseller chart last Thursday and Shargh, a reformist newspaper, reported an unprecedented demand for the book in big bookshops in Tehran. García Márquez reacted to the news by sharing on his Facebook page a blogpost about the episode by an Iranian reporter . Supporters of Mousavi have also launched a Facebook page, called “News of a Kidnapping, the status of a president in captivity”, where readers have posted sections of the book. Some websites have put the Farsi translation of the book online for free download. Supporters of Mousavi and Karroubi describe their status as “an abduction” and have called on the UN to investigate their disappearances. They believe Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , was directly involved in them being placed under house arrest without any judicial ruling. Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Gabriel Garc
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• Former president and peace envoy killed in bomb blast • Hopes of settlement in tatters after assassination • Hamid Karzai to fly home from UN summit 5.12pm: Rabbani occupied a prominent position on the world stage for decades. These photographs- from 1980, 1988 and 2001- trace his career. Jon Boone, in Kabul, said Rabbani was meeting two insurgents, in his role as head of the high peace council, when he was killed by a suicide bomb: In a phone call from Kabul , Boone said: There were two insurgents in there and it hasn’t been confirmed whether one or both of those insurgents were responsible for the blast but from the witnesses, or bystanders, who were not too far from the building it’s most likely that the blast came from within rather than outside the building. He said suspicion is likely to fall on the Haqqani network, which is based in Pakistan. They have been fingered for most of the recent serious attacks in Kabul. They are the ones the US government have consistently said are the closest to the Pakistani military. It is thought by most analysts that the Pakistanis want to have a high degree of control and influence over peace talks. On the consequences for Afghan politics and the prospects of a peace deal, he says: It potentially or almost certainly blows Hamid Karzai’s entire peace agenda out of the water. Lots of analysts have argued that he [Karzai] isn’t really sincere about peace, maybe by appointing Rabbani who actually is very controversial, not particularly liked by the insurgents [and] maybe wasn’t particularly serious in the first place. Nonetheless this is what Karzai has invested in very heavily over the past 18 months. [The] second issue is this man Rabbani was an extremely important figure amongst northern non-Pashtun, and in general, anti-Taliban Afghans. Now these people are crucial. Their buy-in is vital if there’s ever going to be a successful peace deal. Now the insurgents, we don’t know which particular group, have taken out one of their great leaders….so I think this is going to play havoc with Afghan politics. 4.44pm: The Guardian’s Jon Boone has this latest update on this afternoon’s dramatic events. The assassination of Rabbani has dealt a huge blow to hopes that the war in Afghanistan might end through a negotiated settlement, he writes: Such an apparently deliberate attack on a still-embryonic peace process that has created tensions within Afghanistan and between its neighbours is likely to tip the country further into political crisis. 4.18pm: Hamid Karzai’s office has said the President will fly back from the United Nationals General Assembly in New York soon. 4.15pm: A quick update from Jon Boone: Outside the military hospital close to the scene of the attack, Habibulllah, a distraught close friend of Rabbani, tells The Guardian that the former president was killed by a suicide bomber who concealed the explosives under his turban. 4.07pm: The Guardian’s correspondent in Kabul, Jon Boone, has just called the phone of Masoom Stanekzai, the senior High Peace Council official also wounded in today’s attack. He writes: The man who answered would not reveal his name, but said that although Stanekzai has a serious leg injury he was well enough to speak on the phone to Hamid Karzai, who is currently in New York. The man said he was certain that a suicide bomber was responsible, but it was not yet clear whether the culprit was one of the Taliban guests Rabbani had been holding talks with in his house. 4.00pm: The New York Times met and spoke with Rabbani in January 2002, shortly after Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan’s interim president. Here’s the result of the encounter, which gives an intriguing flavour of Rabbani’s life as an elder statesman. In it, journalist Amy Waldman writes that the transfer of power to Karzai had been orderly, but awkward: Mr. Rabbani had no formal post to retreat to and no portfolio to preside over. It seemed unclear exactly what he would do. All is now clear: he will continue to act much like Afghanistan’s president. He has a security entourage larger than former President Bill Clinton’s. He lives in the presidential compound, in a large quasi-modernist house called Castle No. 1. His guards control the compound, and have sometimes seemed uninterested in ensuring that visitors also see Mr. Karzai. And all day long, a stone’s throw from the seat of the interim government, Mr. Rabbani receives visitors from all over the country coming to pay their respects, or seek advice or ask him to press their case with officials he appointed. With the transfer of power, Mr. Rabbani said in an interview at Castle No. 1 last night, he thought he would have fewer commitments than before. Instead he finds that he is busier than ever. 3.52pm: Reuters are reporting that a senior advisor to Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was also caught up in the blast that killed Rabbani. A senior police source is quoted as saying: Masoom Stanekzai is alive but badly wounded. 3.37pm: The head of Afghanistan’s high peace council, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed in Kabul, a senior police officer said. His death is another blow to the security situation in Kabul, coming just a week after a 20-hour seige in Kabul’s heavily diplomatic enclave . Rabbani lived in the so-called green zone. It was Rabbani’s task to try to to negotiate a political end to the war. However, the peace council had made little headway since it was formed a year ago. He was president of the Afghan government that preceded the Taliban, having been leader of a powerful mujahideen party during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980. After he was driven from Kabul in 1996, he became the nominal head of the Northern Alliance, mostly minority Tajiks and Uzbeks, who swept to power in Kabul after the Taliban’s fall. Rabbani is an ethnic Tajik. “Rabbani has been martyred,” Mohammed Zahir, head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Kabul Police, told Reuters. He had no further details. Afghanistan Taliban Lizzy Davies Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Mark Cuban: A Galtian Overlord who believes in society. Tim Noah today makes an excellent point that it’s become perfectly acceptable for elected officials to claim that showering already-wealthy people with even more money is the only way to create jobs since they otherwise might feel sad and lose their will to work. He also notes that as recently as the 1980s, Republicans had to at least pretend that supply-side doctrine was about broad-based tax cuts when in reality it was targeted at increasing wealth among the top 1 percent of earners: Back in 1981 Republicans might not have liked a proposal to tax millionaires to at least the same extent that we tax mere mortals, but they would have been reluctant to oppose it on the grounds that our economy depends entirely on rich people maximizing their incomes. You could believe that, but you couldn’t say it out loud. This inhibition no longer burdens the GOP. “When you are raising these top tax rates,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) said on Fox News Sunday, “you’re raising taxes on these job creators where more than half of Americans get their jobs from in this country.” The most frustrating aspect of modern political life is the fact that the American public has internalized the (false) idea that magical self-made rich supermen don’t owe anything to the society that nurtured them because they’ve earned every dime of their fortunes all by themselves without any help from the government. The reality, of course, is just the opposite. Let’s take a well-known Galtian Overlord such as Steve Jobs, truly one of the most inventive CEOs of our generation. Contrary to what you may have heard, Jobs did not, in fact, teach himself how to read and do math. Rather, he attended a public high school , just like the vast majority of looters American children. The young Jobs was able to attend school in the first place because of government regulations that barred child labor and mandated schooling. Added to this, the young Jobs benefited from having publicly-funded police and fire departments that ensured that he survived until he was rich enough to afford his own private security detail. If Rick Perry had been governor of California and had dramatically slashed funds to first responders , then our budding young Galtian Overlord might have died in a wildfire instead of inventing the iPhone. And of course there are other ways Jobs has benefited from the government, from a legal system that protects his company’s intellectual property to a military that prevents the Queen of England from coming into his home and bossing him around to a social safety net that insured that even if he had never been a success, he wouldn’t have died destitute in the street and unable to pay his medical bills in his old age. And that’s not to mention that Steve and his fellow Galtians also used to benefit from now-repealed banking regulations such as Glass-Steagall that ensured financial stability and dramatically lessened the chances that a financial crisis would cripple the economy. So yes, I would say that Steve Jobs and his fellow Galtians owe a lot to an American government that offers some of the lowest personal income tax rates in the industrialized world and that produces educated workers to help them build their companies. Mark Cuban , of all people, seemed to understand this in a blog post today where he implored his fellow Galtians to recognize that there is such a thing as society and that having a lot of money doesn’t separate you from it: So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes , your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be “what a great problem to have”, and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you. In these times of “The Great Recession” we shouldn’t be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes. I don’t. I find it Patriotic. I’m not saying that the government’s use of tax money is the most efficient use of our hard-earned capital. It obviously is not. In a perfect world, there would be a better option. We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect time. We live in a time where the government plays a big role in an effort to help lead us out this Great Recession. That’s reality. Cuban’s attitude is certainly the right one. It would be nice if more of his fellow Galtians decided to adopt it.
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