Gaffe: Obama Cites Boston Teacher as Reason to Pass Jobs Bill…But He Has a Job
October 6, 2011 No CommentHere’s a reason to check out CBS in the next 24 hours. Via Fox Nation, we learned CBS Boston reported President Obama gaffed in his press conference Thursday. He used the story of a teacher in the Boston area, Robert Baroz of Wellesley,
Continue reading …Gaffe: Obama Cites Boston Teacher as Reason to Pass Jobs Bill…But He Has a Job
October 6, 2011 No CommentHere’s a reason to check out CBS in the next 24 hours. Via Fox Nation, we learned CBS Boston reported President Obama gaffed in his press conference Thursday. He used the story of a teacher in the Boston area, Robert Baroz of Wellesley,
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Rachel Maddow is reluctantly ready for her close-up. Really. That's the impression left by this gushy profile of Maddow in the most recent issue of the Hollywood Reporter.
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Doctor accused of helping CIA find Osama bin Laden should be charged with high treason, says Pakistani state commission A Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA to track down Osama bin Laden should be charged with high treason, a Pakistani state commission has recommended. The finding against Dr Shakeel Afridi, who allegedly ran a fake Hepatitis B vaccination scheme in Abbottabad at the behest of the CIA , is likely to further complicate relations between Pakistan and the US. Afridi was picked up by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) three weeks after the raid on May 2 in which the fugitive al-Qaida leader was killed, and he has been held without access to a lawyer ever since. The US has pressured Pakistan to release Afridi into American custody , saying he helped locate the most wanted fugitive on earth. But Pakistani spies, furious at being humiliated by the CIA, have indicated Afridi would have to face the full force of the law. In a statement, the four-man government commission which was set up to investigate the killing of Bin Laden, and which is led by a supreme court judge, said it was of the view that “prima facie, a case of conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason” should be made against Afridi. The finding came hours after it conducted an “exhaustive interview” with the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, it said. The commission interviewed Afridi earlier in the week. The commission also announced it was ending restrictions on Bin Laden’s wives and children, who have been in custody since the raid, potentially opening the way for their repatriation to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The ISI has been at the centre of most US-Pakistan tensions this year. US critics questioned whether Pakistani spies had been aware of Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. More recently, the ISI has also been accused of secretly supporting the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network on the Afghan border. President Barack Obama said he was concerned by the ISI’s ties to “unsavoury characters” , but he said he was not about to cut off aid to Pakistan. Afridi was employed as a senior government doctor in the Khyber tribal agency, and is believed to have set up the CIA vaccination programme in Abbottabad earlier this year. Since the attack on Bin Laden, the ISI has cracked down on international aid agencies working in Pakistan, with officials trying to find out if any aid workers are secretly moonlighting for intelligence agencies. The aid agency Save the Children has suffered the most severe repercussions , with senior expatriate staff forced to evacuate the country for two weeks in July following a warning from US officials. Afridi appears to have used Save the Children as cover for his work, telling his wife that he working on a project for them when he was in fact working for the CIA, according to a senior western official. Save the Children has vehemently denied any links with the fake vaccination programme but says it may have been unfairly targeted because Afridi twice attended training courses run by the aid agency. The CIA has rejected criticism by aid workers that its vaccination programme was unethical. “It was conducted by genuine medical professionals who planned to provide everyone with the full course of treatments,” a senior US official with knowledge of the programme told the Guardian. “No one should be threatening or harassing or rounding up medical personnel on the ground in Pakistan. The damage here was caused by locals reacting to the mistaken idea that this was a fake public health effort.” Health workers in Abbottabad say the CIA programme had in many cases administered just one vaccination shot out of three to local children before it was closed down. The US official said: “The reality, also, is that this program was part of an effort to pinpoint the location of a man who was himself a menace to public health worldwide.” The Pakistani commission directed that Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad should be handed over to the local civil administration “for disposal in accordance with relevant law”. Just what that means in practice is unclear. Speculation has swirled around the house for months; some analysts believe it may ultimately be razed. Pakistan CIA Osama bin Laden United States Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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Defence secretary joined by Adam Werrity despite claiming he had never accompanied him on government business Liam Fox was joined by a close personal friend and self-styled adviser when he met senior Sri Lankan ministers during an official visit this summer despite claiming that Adam Werritty had never accompanied him on government business. Fox has insisted that Werritty, who has distributed business cards describing himself as an adviser to the defence secretary, is not part of his political entourage, but these fresh disclosures are likely to raise further questions about the nature of his role in the defence secretary’s inner circle. The Guardian has already revealed that Werritty, who was Fox’s best man, visited the defence secretary on 14 occasions in little over a year at the MoD’s HQ in Whitehall, prompting Labour to demand an inquiry into whether there had been any potential breaches of national security. Fox said he had now asked his permanent secretary to investigate what he called “baseless allegations”. The defence secretary was under pressure to explain his involvement with Werritty after it emerged he had brokered a meeting in Dubai in June that may lead to Fox being called to give evidence in a blackmail trial in the US. Despite the furore over that episode, Fox met Werritty again in Sri Lanka a month later when the defence secretary was on an official visit to give a lecture. Though the MoD insists Werritty was not part of Fox’s party, it confirmed that Werritty did meet Fox during the visit. A photograph of Fox arriving to give the address on 9 July shows Werritty in the background, following closely behind Sri Lankan government ministers and the British high commissioner, John Rankin. During the visit, which enraged the Tamil community – who accuse the Sri Lankan government of war crimes – Fox also met President Mahinda Rajapaksa, foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama and economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa. A video of Fox meeting the president appears to show Werritty also present. Two associates of Werritty have identified him in the grainy video. However, the MoD has denied that Werritty was there and insisted he did not accompany Fox during any official meetings. Werritty, who hands out business cards embossed with a House of Commons portcullis logo that describe him as an “adviser to Rt Hon Dr Fox MP”, has visited Fox at the MoD headquarters in Whitehall 14 times in 16 months. After details emerged of Werritty’s links with Fox dating back 14 years he said in a parliamentary answer earlier this year: “Mr Werritty is not an employee of the MoD and has, therefore, not travelled with me on any official overseas visits. ” Fox’s spokesman added: “He is a friend of the secretary of state.” However, the MoD backtracked last night. It said: “Adam Werritty was not part of Dr Fox’s delegation and he did not attend any official meetings though he was present at the memorial lecture [in Sri Lanka], which was a public event at which the defence secretary spoke.” The Guardian has been told Fox met Werritty “for a quick drink” after the lecture, which was to honour the late Sri Lankan politician Lakshman Kadirgamar. “Adam Werritty was not there in any official capacity,” an official said. “The trip to Sri Lanka was sanctioned by the Foreign Office. Werritty was not part of the official delegation. Dr Fox has a long-standing interest in Sri Lanka going back to the 1990s when he helped to broker a peace accord.” The revelation of the meeting will increase the pressure on Fox, 50, who has been accused of putting national security at risk by offering Werritty regular access to his office. Questions have also been raised about whether Werritty has sought to profit financially from the relationship. Werritty ran a defence company while Fox was shadow defence secretary, and he was involved in a health company while Fox was shadow health secretary. Werritty, 34, has accompanied Fox on several trips to Sri Lanka, including one in 2009 when the pair reportedly met the president, prime minister and foreign minister. He lived with Fox in a flat near Tower Bridge before the defence secretary married Jesme Baird in 2005. Werritty was a guest at Fox’s 50th birthday party at his official Whitehall residence last month. Last night Fox launched an investigation to clear his name. In a statement, he said: “A number of baseless accusations have been made in recent days. For the sake of clarity I have asked my permanent secretary to establish whether there has been any breach of national security or the ministerial code. She will report back in due course.” Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said: “This gets murkier and murkier. People will be shocked Liam Fox is unable to provide straight answers to straight questions. We have previously raised serious concerns about his insistence on visiting a Sri Lankan government failing to produce an independent and transparent investigation into allegations of war crimes. We need a full explanation for his visit as well as clarification of the role of Adam Werritty. Mr Werritty’s role is unclear and is now becoming a real concern. We need to know precisely why he was on the visit, why this was denied and especially if he benefitted personally or professionally from the visit.” Fox was initially scheduled to visit Sri Lanka last December but was forced to abandon his plans following a row with the foreign secretary, William Hague, who feared the speech would upset Britain’s carefully balanced relations with Colombo. Fox rescheduled the visit for July despite leaked US embassy cables providing fresh allegations of the Sri Lankan government’s complicity with paramilitary groups in its offensive against the Tamil Tigers. Liam Fox Defence policy Rupert Neate Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media From Media Matters — CNN’s Alison Kosik Ridicules Occupy Wall Street Protesters, Later Reports Traders “Hit Hard In This Economy” : CNN financial correspondent Alison Kosik described the “purpose” of Occupy Wall Street protestors “in 140 or less” as “bang on the bongos, smoke weed!” in Twitter comments captured by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen: enlarge Kosik deleted that comment from her Twitter feed. She later responded to a question about the list of demands from protesters by noting “the list of whines is too long already.” Wonkette wasn’t too kind to Kosik in their post on the same topic which you wan read here — Dim CNN Reporter’s News Analysis of Protesters: They Just ‘Smoke Weed’ . And here’s more from Media Matters: When Kosik reported on the protests on-air, she wasn’t nearly as dismissive of concerns from Wall Street traders, explaining that “the traders that I talked to, they want protesters to understand they’re getting hit hard in this economy as well.” And if you really want to be disgusted there’s this bit in the video posted above which Media Matters had linked as well with traders at the NYSE wishing Erin Burnett good luck on her new show this week: CNN’s Alison Kosik finds traders at the NYSE have hardly forgotten Erin Burnett, who launches OutFront tonight at 7 pm ET. They’re wearing pictures of Burnett taped to the inside of their jackets and backs while they talk about how much they love her. Looks like we’re going to have lots of “fair and balanced” reporting on Wall Street now that we’ve got two of their favorite “reporters”… and I use that word lightly, Kosik and Burnett, carrying water for them over at CNN.
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CBS's Erica Hill let DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz bash congressional Republicans unopposed on Thursday's Early Show. Hill also failed to ask the Florida Democrat about her eye-opening claim on Wednesday that ” anyone ” can see that the economy is improving ” and now, we've begun to turn the corner. ” The anchor brought on Wasserman Schultz, the morning show's only political guest, for a softball interview on the recovery of her friend and colleague, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Near the end of the segment, though, Hill raised President Obama's jobs bill: ” Is there anything that you found, in talking with your colleagues on either side of the aisle, that you think can bring lawmakers together in Washington, to find some sort of compromise that will satisfy as close to everyone as you can get? ”
Continue reading …Ed Miliband drops former ministers from shadow cabinet in first reshuffle
October 6, 2011 No Comment
Shadow health secretary John Healey and shadow business secretary John Denham to make way for backbench successors Labour is to attempt to step up its attack on the government with the promotion of backbench MPs to replace two former ministers in Ed Miliband’s first reshuffle of his shadow cabinet team. Labour claimed that both the shadow health secretary, John Healey, and the shadow business secretary, John Denham, had told the Labour leader some time ago that they did not want to carry on in frontline positions. The party insisted the departures were civilised and that they had not been sacked. It is generally accepted in Whitehall, however, that Healey had underperformed. Sources said he stood down after he was offered a more junior role having fallen out of favour with the leadership for failing to make political capital out of the government’s NHS reforms. Andy Burnham, health secretary in the last Labour government, has been tipped as a replacement. He is familiar with the brief, and well placed to lead Labour’s response when the government publishes a social care white paper in spring next year. The paper will bring issues on which Burnham has previously developed well-respected ideas back onto the political agenda. John Denham’s departure is more of a surprise. The former universities minister is close to the Labour leader, being one of only four shadow cabinet members to have backed Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership election. He is thought, however, to have been unhappy with parts of Miliband’s party conference speech that dealt with the business sector. Miliband hopes to go into the new parliamentary term with a fresh slate after a mixed reaction to his conference speech delivered in Liverpool a fortnight ago. Healey was the second most popular candidate when MPs stood for election to the shadow cabinet a year ago, but his performance has confirmed to Miliband the problems with those elevated to the cabinet through popularity rather than ability. Miliband is understood to believe he has been poorly served by the patchy quality of shadow cabinet members over the last year and during this year’s conference. John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, urged him to use new rules allowing the party leader to choose his frontbench team to shake up his shadow cabinet. Having stayed away from conference for the first time in 40 years, Prescott said: “This is a Tory government that’s doing some outrageous things and we haven’t had many words of protest. Ed, you’re the leader, get a shadow cabinet who’ll do that.” The new rules were approved by the Labour party conference and Miliband is using the last day of the conference season inter-regnum to assemble a stronger line-up. The MP for Leeds West, Rachel Reeves, who previously worked at the Bank of England, is expected to be made shadow chief secretary to the Treasury. Angela Eagle, who currently holds the position, is expected to be made shadow energy and climate change secretary, replacing Meg Hillier after the latter’s lacklustre performance. Other new intake MPs tipped for promotion include Michael Dugher, the MP for Barnsley East; Tristram Hunt, the MP for Stoke; and Gloria del Piero, the MP for Ashfield. Suggestions that the former lord chancellor Charles Falconer would return to politics as shadow leader of the Lords, opposing Lord Strathclyde, were dismissed. Some shadow cabinet members expressed alarm at the frontbench names being floated. One source said: “Here is a man who has won an election, changed the rules governing who must be in the shadow cabinet but is nonetheless seeking to fill it with Blairites who are not the people who supported him to become leader.” Ed Miliband Labour House of Commons John Denham Labour party leadership Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Scott Brown Replies To Warren: ‘Thank God’ She Didn’t Take Her Clothes Off
October 6, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Via TPM : Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) was interviewed on a local talk radio show Thursday morning. And he had an interesting response to a recent line from Democratic frontrunner Elizabeth Warren. At a Democratic primary debate this week, Warren was asked how she paid for college — in contrast to Brown having posed nude for Cosmopolitan. “I kept my clothes on,” Warren replied. “I borrowed money.” This morning, one of the hosts asked Brown: “Have you officially responded to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about how she didn’t take her clothes off?” Brown began laughing lightheartedly, and gave his reply. “Thank God,” he said, with more laughter. “Listen, bottom line is I didn’t go to Harvard. You know, I went to the school of hard knocks. And I did whatever I had to do to pay for school.” Brown continued. “And for people who know me, and know what I’ve been through — my mom and dad married and divorced four times each, and you know some real challenges growing up. You know, whatever. Yeah, “whatever.” Blue Mass Group has a great round up of responses: The Boston Channel WCVB-TV : “Senator Brown saying ridiculously ignorant, rude, sexist, and false things? Weird, that never happens,” wrote Julia Leja, the finance director for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, on Twitter. Slate : I’m just struck by how lazy this is. … Warren is older than Brown, and has grandchildren, so she’s a particularly bad target for a joke like this. Also, she’s attractive! She’s been profiled in Vogue, with a photo that showed off her trimness and bright blue eyes. It’s… just best to avoid this. … This lazy “elitism” attack has been central to the entire GOP campaign against Warren. Brown needs to do a lot better. Mother Jones : Brown’s comment might seem hilarious to your average bro, but elections aren’t won by bros alone. Attacking your female opponent for her looks won’t necessarily play well with women voters, and Brown can’t afford to lose much more ground than he already has: several polls have already shown Warren within striking distance of the incumbent. … American Banker ‘s Rob Blackwell has suggested this may be Brown’s “Macaca moment”—referring to when then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) used the word “Macaca” to address a dark-skinned employee of his opponent, James Webb. (Allen lost.) There’s a whole lot more out there: the locals (the Boston Globe , The Boston Channel WCVB-TV , the Boston Herald ); the political (and other) blogs and forums ( Politico , Huffington Post , Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire , Free Republic , Democratic Underground , The Hill , Talking Points Memo , Dan Savage/The Stranger , Gawker ); the national and international press ( Washington Post , ABC News , International Business Times , National Journal , The Atlantic ). I find this one hard to explain away with a line about “ injecting levity ,” Senator. Brown makes a bad mistake which comes across as sexist and juvenile and may be his Macaca moment. Republicans will try to paint Elizabeth Warren as some dowdy old liberal academic who has little experience in the real world. A brief look at her bio suggests this tactic will backfire. Via wikipedia : Elizabeth Warren was born Elizabeth Herring in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the daughter of middle class parents Pauline and Donald Herring. When Warren was twelve, her father had a heart attack, which led to a pay cut, excessive medical bills, and eventually the loss of their car. Her mother went to work answering phones at Sears and Warren worked as a waitress. She graduated from Northwest Classen High School in 1966 and a ttended George Washington University on a scholarship , where she was on the debate team. At that time, most scholarships were athletic scholarships for men, and there were few women on the debate team. At 19, she married Jim Warren; they divorced in 1979. She graduated from the University of Houston in 1970 with a degree in speech pathology and audiology, and worked with children who had suffered brain injuries. Warren went on to study law at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark , where she served as an editor of the Rutgers Law Review, and was one of two female summer associates at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s Wall Street office. She received her Juris Doctor in 1976. After law school, Warren worked from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings for walk-in clients. I’ve included Warren’s closing remarks at the debate where she mentions her own background. Scott Brown may not have gone to Harvard (neither did Warren) but he did go to Tufts University and Boston College Law School , private institutions among the most expensive in the country (tuition is $42,000 a year now). Elizabeth Warren attended a public university on scholarship. There is a big difference between the two candidates seeking a U.S. Senate seat in 2012 and it shouldn’t take the voters of Massachusetts that long to decide which of the two is genuine and who is not.
Continue reading …Why Do Some Democratic Senators Want To Protect Tax Loophole For Hedge Fund Managers?
October 6, 2011 No CommentIf the Democrats are serious about actual governing and fixing the many urgent problems that afflict our nation, they have to stop opposing any attempts to fix things like this. Charlie Pierce, who’s now the political editor at Esquire.com, really lets loose his wrath on this latest example of sheer greed: At a time when the president’s getting some real traction with his new, not-quite-red meat rhetoric, and with an actual movement rising on the Left that, for all its diverse enthusiasms, is primarily about the opportunity buried in the visceral knowledge that we’re all being swindled , and with the 2012 re-election utterly dependent on their doing something to turn the country’s employment situation from surface-of-Mercury to merely bleak, the Democrats seem now ready to run the truck back over their own feet again . And it doesn’t seem possible to believe that there are some Democrats who actually would sabotage the whole effort over something like this: Other Democrats have expressed concern about a call to end the so-called carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund and private equity managers to count their income as capital gains, and thus pay taxes at a significantly lower rate than most individuals. There is no excuse for this tax break. None whatsoever. It has nothing to do with creating jobs. It doesn’t do anything except make extraordinarily rich people even richer, for which they demonstrate their gratitude by crashing the whole economy. It has nothing to do with anything except the tender feelings of people who’d sell their white-haired grandmothers to the Somali pirates for whatever change fell out of their purses . If we are at all serious about The Deficit — and we’re not, except as a vehicle for working out our economic sociopathy on the less fortunate — this monstrosity wouldn’t exist at all. More than anything else, this tax break symbolizes perfectly the forces behind the ruination of responsible government and of a viable economy. This thing couldn’t represent GREED more perfectly if it were drawn up by Thomas Nast. It is a perfect campaign issue for any Democratic party truly interested in economic justice. Andrew Jackson could run against it. And this is what breaks the deal for some Democrats. The unbridled avarice of some hedge-fund cowboys. The ultimate feast of fat things, to turn Isaiah on his head for a minute. They deserve whatever befalls them. Truly, they do. But of course, first someone would have to tell us which Democrats they are. And maybe the President could stop doing crap like this.
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