Rep. Peter Roskam Continues GOP’s Attack on Government Regulations in Weekly Address
September 19, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As I’ve already written about here in my post on Neil Cavuto bringing in a speed reader to attack government regulations, as Media Matters pointed out, Fox News began a week long assault on government regulations in conjunction with the GOP’s push to roll those regulations back as well. During their weekly address, Rep. Peter Roskam continued that assault. Some of the businesses he named off have already been written about at C&L, such as the Gibson guitar case , and the GOP’s attempt to gut the NLRB and their union busting in the Boeing case . Roskam also mentioned a business called Chicago White Metal Casting , which is “a third-generation family-owned die casting company employing 250 workers in suburban Chicago”, that apparently isn’t too happy about the amount of paperwork they’re having to do in order to comply with the Clean Air Act and mercury emissions standards. Fox did some follow up on the numbers being pushed over at Fox “News” on the costs of regulations which I’m sure were fed to them straight from the GOP here — Fox’s Attack On Regulations Relies On Widely Discredited Cost Estimate : As part of a weeklong series helping to push an anti-regulatory agenda, Fox News is citing a discredited estimate that regulations cost businesses on average $161,000 each year. The estimate, which comes from a report prepared by outside researchers for the Small Business Administration, has been criticized for using a flawed research design, cherry-picking the highest cost estimates, and relying on “crude” data. Lots more there and I don’t want to just copy and paste all of their research here, so just go read the rest. And they also followed with another post this weekend which took a closer look at just what government programs, laws and regulations Fox, and by default the GOP were carping about as “burdensome” to small business owners. Fox’s War On Regulations Takes On Child Labor, Workplace Safety, Civil Rights Laws : As part of its week-long special targeting government regulations, Fox’s “straight news” program, Special Report with Bret Baier, listed “jobs regulations” that supposedly “adversely impact … small business owners in a real-time way.” However, the regulations listed by Fox include vital statutes that are the bedrock of 20th and 21st Century worker protections in the United States. So what’s on the list that Fox has been attacking to help out their Republican buddies in the House? The Fair Labor Standards Act, the Social Security Act, FICA, Medicare, the Military Selective Service Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Immigration Reform Act, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Polygraph Protection Act, the Civil Rights Act Title VII, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination Act, the Older Worker Benefit Protection Act, COBRA, the Health Maintnance Organization Act, the Veterans Reemployment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the WARN Act and last but not least, the Civil Rights Act. I guess if we just roll all of those back, all will be right in GOP land for the “job creators.” Go read the rest of the Media Matters report for the details on each of them. Full transcript of Rep. Roskam’s remarks via the LA Times : Hello, I’m Peter Roskam. I serve as the House Republicans’ Chief Deputy Whip, and I have the honor of representing the people of Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District. Like you, I’m frustrated with America’s jobs crisis: more than 650,000 people are out of work in Illinois, President Obama’s home state. Small business owners are fighting every day to create and innovate, but continue to face government barriers to job creation. Among them: our unsustainable debt, the constant threat of higher taxes, and excessive regulations. Today I’d like to talk to you about excessive federal regulations, how they hurt jobs and household budgets, and what we can do about it. Let me start with this: appropriate and responsible regulations help protect our health and safety. But things have changed quickly – and for the worse. Washington has become a red tape factory, with more than 4,000 rules in the pipeline – hundreds of which would cost our economy more than $100 million each annually. The disappointing reality is that what may be a faceless regulation to most can have a profound impact on local economies and families like yours. Just one rule has Chicago White Metal Casting, a manufacturer in my district employing 240, fighting to survive in an already tough economy. Already facing a stream of regulations, they’ll soon face new regulations from unelected bureaucrats implementing a back-door national energy tax – after it failed in Congress. Chicago White Metal Casting already has one employee who spends half his time dealing with existing federal audits, certification requirements, and complex paperwork. By now, you’ve probably heard about the case of Boeing, one of the world’s leading manufacturers. This Chicago-based company invested more than $1 billion in a new plant in South Carolina that would generate thousands of good-paying jobs … only to be sued by the government and told that the plant can’t open. Who in the government sued them? No one that’s elected, I’ll tell you that. No, Boeing is being sued by the National Labor Relations Board, which is charged with looking out for labor unions.Illinois Republican representative Peter Roskam I’d also like to share with you the story of Gibson Guitars, a company that makes world-class guitars. Well a few weeks ago, Gibson was raided by 26 armed federal agents. No charges have been filed and regulators have not explained to the company what they may have done wrong or how to rectify the situation. Well I’d like to know how job creators can be expected to prosper with the threat of a federal raid hanging over them? Stories like these are cropping up coast-to-coast. One Illinois farmer stood up at a town hall meeting last month and pleaded with the president. He said, ‘please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself. That farmer was one of several job creators who attended [the] president’s speech to the Congress as guests of House Speaker John Boehner. Republicans are listening to America’s job creators and working to address their concerns with real solutions. In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor has scheduled several bills for a vote this fall aimed at cutting red tape and addressing the excessive, Washington-imposed regulations that hamper job creation. This week, the House passed a bill to eliminate the barriers Boeing faces. It stops the government from telling an employer where it can – and cannot – create jobs. We can take common-sense steps like these and still have rules that look out for our health and safety. What’s important is that these rules are effective and dependable. Job creators should be able to focus on their work – not on Washington’s busy-work. In his speech last week, the president talked about the urgency of this moment. He said we can act ‘right now.’ I agree. He can help us fix this hostile regulatory environment immediately. He already canceled some counterproductive rules that hurt our economy, and he can cancel more. He can call on the Democrat-led Senate to pass the dozen or so jobs bills we’ve passed in the House and ones that are on their way. That includes the Boeing bill that I just mentioned. There’s also the REINS Act, common-sense legislation that gives Congress a say before Washington imposes new rules and regulations. So instead of being circumvented, the people’s representatives should be able to hold accountable unelected bureaucrats who encroach on our freedoms and make it harder to create jobs. I hope the president will consider our ideas as we take a look at his. Let’s listen to the people and find common ground to remove barriers to job creation. Let’s help small businesses return to creating jobs so that they can pick up where they left off instead of being left behind. You can learn more about our jobs plan by visiting Jobs.GOP.gov Thank you for listening.
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The Emmy awards host is best known for playing ‘angry, scary, lonely women’ from Best in Show to Glee. But she’s a
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enlarge Credit: Center for American Progress On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner peppered his address to the Economic Club of Washington with a dozen mentions of America’s so-called “job creators.” But in claiming that high taxes and unnecessary regulations have “pummeled” his supposed job producers, Boehner willingly misrepresented the source of and solutions to the nation’s economic problems. After all, recent surveys show that regulations and taxes are not killing small business. With corporations flush with cash and the total federal tax burden at a 60 year low, the U.S. instead faces a demand crisis fueled by staggering household debt . But John Boehner perpetrated the biggest fraud of his address when he declared, “Job creators in America are essentially on strike.” If so, they’ve been on the picket line for a decade. As it turns out, George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy sadly coincided with the worst period of job creation of any president since Herbert Hoover. Like his lieutenant Eric Cantor , John Boehner has been regurgitating the “job creators” talking point for months. (Arguably, the sound bite dates back to 1993 , when Republicans deployed the same “job killing” language against the Clinton upper-income tax increases that preceded the 1990′s economic boom.) In May, Boehner served up the “job creators” line seven times in a speech to the Economic Club of New York . Contending that “the mere threat of tax hikes causes uncertainty for job creators — uncertainty that results in less risk-taking and fewer jobs,” Speaker Boehner explaine d that same month just who his magical job creators are: “The top one percent of wage earners in the United States…pay forty percent of the income taxes…The people he’s [President Obama] is talking about taxing are the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy.” If so, those expectations were sadly unmet under George W. Bush. After all, the last time the top tax rate was 39.6 percent during the Clinton administration, the United States enjoyed rising incomes, 23 million new jobs and budget surpluses. Under Bush? Not so much. On January 9, 2009, the Republican-friendly Wall Street Journal summed it up with an article titled simply, ” Bush on Jobs: the Worst Track Record on Record .” (The Journal’s interactive table quantifies his staggering failure relative to every post-World War II president.) The meager one million jobs created under President Bush didn’t merely pale in comparison to the 23 million produced during Bill Clinton’s tenure. In September 2009, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee charted Bush’s job creation disaster, the worst since Hoover: That dismal performance prompted David Leonhardt of the New York Times to ask last fall, “Why should we believe that extending the Bush tax cuts will provide a big lift to growth?” His answer was unambiguous: Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II. Amazingly, that statement is true even if you forget about the Great Recession and simply look at 2001-7… Is there good evidence the tax cuts persuaded more people to join the work force (because they would be able to keep more of their income)? Not really. The labor-force participation rate fell in the years after 2001 and has never again approached its record in the year 2000. Is there evidence that the tax cuts led to a lot of entrepreneurship and innovation? Again, no. The rate at which start-up businesses created jobs fell during the past decade. The data are clear: lower taxes for America’s so called job-creators don’t mean either faster economic growth or more jobs for Americans . It’s no wonder Leonhardt followed his first question with another. “I mean this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one,” he asked, “Given this history, why should we believe that the Bush tax cuts were pro-growth?” Or as Mark Shields asked and answered in April: “Do tax cuts help ‘job creators’ or ‘robber barons’?” Just days after the Washington Post documented that George W. Bush presided over the worst eight-year economic performance in the modern American presidency, the New York Times in January 2009 featured an analysis comparing presidential performance going back to Eisenhower. As the Times showed, George W. Bush, the first MBA president, was a historic failure when it came to expanding GDP, producing jobs and even fueling stock market growth. Apparently, America’s job creators can create a lot more jobs when their taxes are higher – even much higher – than they are today. (It’s worth noting that the changing landscape of loopholes, deductions and credits, especially after the 1986 tax reform signed by President Reagan, makes apples-to-apples comparisons of effective tax rates over time very difficult. For more background, see the CBO data on effective tax rates by income quintile.) The epic failures of the Bush tax cuts for America’s supposed job creators hardly end there. The U.S. poverty rate began rising in 2005 , well before the onset of the December 2007 Bush recession. As David Cay Johnston document, average household income fell after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, dropping to about $58,500 in 2008 from $61,500 in 2000. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that the Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure , and, if made permanent, over the next 10 years would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession put together . As the data show, the Bush tax cuts provided a massive payday for the wealthy , helping fuel record income inequality . For Republicans, this predictable result of the Bush tax cuts was a feature, not a bug. As the Center for American Progress noted in 2004, “for the majority of Americans, the tax cuts meant very little,” adding, “By next year, for instance, 88% of all Americans will receive $100 or less from the Administration’s latest tax cuts.” But that was just the beginning of the story. As the CAP also reported, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans . And to be sure, their payday was staggering. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed that millionaires on average pocketed almost $129,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Despite that record failure, House Republicans want to give the job creators who don’t create jobs another jaw-dropping tax cut. In May, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans updated their ” Pledge to America ” with another gilded-class giveaway they called their ” Plan for America’s Job Creators .” As Ezra Klein , Paul Krugman and Steve Benen among others noted, the “Plan for America’s Job Creators” is simply a repackaging of years of previous proposals and GOP bromides. (As Klein pointed out, the 10 page document “looks like the staffer in charge forgot the assignment was due on Thursday rather than Friday, and so cranked the font up to 24 and began dumping clip art to pad out the plan.”) At the center of it is the same plan from the Ryan House budget passed in April to cut the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25%. The price tag for the Republican proposal is a jaw-dropping $4.2 trillion. And as Matthew Yglesias explained, earlier analyses of similar proposals in Ryan’s Roadmap reveal that working Americans would have to pick up the tab left unpaid by upper-income households: This is an important element of Ryan’s original “roadmap” plan that’s never gotten the attention it deserves. But according to a Center for Tax Justice analysis (PDF), even though Ryan features large aggregate tax cuts, ninety percent of Americans would actually pay higher taxes under his plan. In other words, it wasn’t just cuts in middle class benefits in order to cut taxes on the rich. It was cuts in middle class benefits and middle class tax hikes in order to cut taxes on the rich. It’ll be interesting to see if the House Republicans formally introduce such a plan and if so how many people will vote for it. If this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. When it comes to using the tax code to line the pockets of the wealthiest people in America, John Boehner and Congressional Republicans simply want the next decade to look like the last one. That is, gargantuan tax cuts for America’s so-called “job creators”; no jobs for Americans. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives. )
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Click here to view this media Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) isn’t a fan of President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act, but he does like the idea of allowing people who are receiving unemployment benefits to work for free . The plan is based on a program called Georgia Works which matches job seekers with employers. Under the plan, employers agree to provide up to eight weeks of on-the-job training. Workers, who can only work for 24 hours a week, continue to receive unemployment benefits instead of getting paid. “The Georgia plan sounds pretty interesting,” Ryan told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday. “I think that’s something we are looking at, which is unemployment reform.” Ryan’s remarks echo House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) support of the idea. “We stand ready to work with [President Obama] if there is interest in implementing a similar program on the federal level,” Cantor said. According to data the Georgia Department of Labor provided to The Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney , the program isn’t very successful. Between 2003 and 2010, only 16.4 percent of people that participated in the program found work, about the same rate as those who were not participating. As of late August, there were only 19 trainees enrolled in Georgia Works. The top weekly unemployment benefit in Georgia is about $330.
Continue reading …Obama sets out ‘balanced’ deficit plan and asks top earners to pay fair share
September 19, 2011 No Comment
Obama says half of $3tn deficit reduction will come from tax increases, but stresses: ‘It’s not class warfare – it’s math’ President Barack Obama came out swinging in a tough speech defending his plans to increase taxes on the rich as part of his plan to cut the US deficit, saying: “This is not class warfare – it’s math.” In the speech in the White House’s Rose Garden, the president set out plans to cut more than $3tn from the deficit over the next 10 years. Almost half of that money would come from tax increases. “Washington has to live within its means,” said the president. “For us to solve this problem, everybody … has to pay their fair share.” Over the weekend, Obama’s Republican critics blasted his plans to increase taxes on those earning over $1m – the so-called “Buffett tax” named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a frequent critic of the low taxes paid by the rich. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House of Representatives budget committee, called the plan “class warfare.” Obama is proposing to set a minimum tax on people making $1m or more in income. The measure would prevent millionaires and billionaires taking advantage of lower tax rates on investment earnings than the rates middle-income taxpayers pay on their wages. “Those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share,” Obama said. “I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher is class warfare.” Obama called on Congress to approve a “balanced” approach to budget cuts, including tax hikes for the rich and corporations as well as savings from defence cuts and other spending cuts. The plan also includes modest changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the US social insurance programmes Republicans have targeted for larger overhauls. Obama said he would veto any bill that makes changes to Medicare without tax increases on the wealthy. “Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. We can’t afford to do both,” he said. The plan is the administration’s latest move in the long-running power struggle with Republican opposition over deficit reduction. While Democrats have called for tax increases to be part of any deficit reduction effort, Republicans have rejected the idea of any tax increases. Obama’s proposal has no chance of passing Republican Congress, but is aimed at influencing a cross-party “super-committee” that is currently working on a savings plan that Congress could approve by the end of the year. If the committee can not reach an agreement, draconian cuts could be imposed across government agencies. Obama’s plan would raise $1.5tn in taxes, primarily on the wealthy and big corporations. The proposal also includes $580bn in adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid – but the president has ruled out an increase in the Medicare eligibility age. The speech met with instant condemnation from senior Republicans. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said: “Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings, and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth – or even meaningful deficit reduction.” House Speaker John Boehner said: “This administration’s insistence on raising taxes on job creators, and its reluctance to take the steps necessary to strengthen our entitlement programs, are the reasons the president and I were not able to reach an agreement previously – and it is evident today that these barriers remain.” But Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner said the president was proposing “modest reforms” of the US tax code that would make the system “more fair” and help tackle the budget deficit. Geithner told reporters: “If you do it sensibly through tax reform you’ll strengthen investment centres, you’ll make growth in the US stronger, you’ll make people more confident in the future, more likely to invest here. “That’s something we should all be working toward.” Barack Obama Obama administration US taxation United States US economy Warren Buffett Republicans US politics Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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[caption id="attachment_139926" align="alignright" width="371" caption="Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), flanked by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). (AP File Photo)"] [/caption] Top Republicans came out forcefully against President Barack Obama’s proposed “Buffett Rule” millionaire tax rate Sunday, calling it “class warfare” and welcoming billionaire Warren Buffett to “send in a check” if he’s feeling… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Blaze Discovery Date : 18/09/2011 17:59 Number of articles : 2
Continue reading …NBC Relays ‘Palestinian Deam’ of State to Be ‘Free,’ Ignores Calls for Removing Jews from Palestine
September 19, 2011 No CommentAndrea Mitchell on Friday and Martin Fletcher filed reports on the NBC Nightly News filling in viewers on the Palestinian Authority upcoming plan to go to the United Nations and seek recognition of statehood or at least U.N. membership as the U.N. convenes this week. Both reports ignored last week's prediction by the Palestinian Authority's envoy to the U.N. that Jews would be removed from a Palestinian state. While Mitchell conveyed Palestinian complaints that ” they've had negotiations before, decades of them, and they have nothing to show for it,” and Fletcher similarly relayed that “Their leaders say they have no alternative but to try something new – the 20 years of peace talks have gotten them nowhere,” neither report informed viewers that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been the major obstacle in the resumption of negotiations as he has refused to engage in talks unless the Israeli government halts constructions within the borders of already existing Jewish settlements. Although Fletcher's report did at least include a clip of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu calling for talks with the Palestinian Authority, the NBC corresondent still seemed to suggest both sides were resisting talks as he recounted that “American negotiators are still trying very hard to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.” And, in spite of the authoritarian nature of the Fatah-run West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, Fletcher began his report by relaying the spin that a Palestinian state would be a place for Palestinians to be free: MARTIN FLETCHER: Palestinians call this their moment of truth. Bethlehem today kicked off a week of West Bank rallies in support of their bid to join the United Nations as a full member state, the Palestinian dream. Flag makers are working around the clock. Fawad Anid wants the Palestinian flag to hang from every car and house. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I'm so happy and excited at the same time because I want to have a Palestinian country to live in and to be free. Notably, in recent months, polls have shown that many Arabs living in East Jerusalem would be willing to leave their homes to remain within the borders of Israel if East Jerusalem were to be handed over to the control of a Palestinian state. Below are complete transcripts of the reports from the Friday, September 16, and Sunday, September 18, NBC Nightly News: #From Friday, September 16: KATE SNOW: Now to a threat that could put the United States in a difficult position on the world stage when the U.N. meets here in New York next week. The biggest issue on the table, Palestinian statehood. Today Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to bring the issue to the Security Council for a vote, which sets the stage for a potential showdown the U.S. and Israel are eager to avoid. Our chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell is at the State Department tonight. Andrea, what is the U.S. trying to do to stop this proposal? ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, Kate, the U.S. is working frantically in the next couple of days to try to persuade the Palestinians not to go to the Security Council. They're telling President Abbas that the way to statehood is through negotiations, through overcoming all of the remaining obstacles with Israel – like what will the borders of a new state be and who will control what parts of Jerusalem – but not by just declaring a state. That said, the Palestinians say that they've had negotiations before, decades of them, and they have nothing to show for it. The U.S. is promising this time to get those talks restarted and to fast track them. If it does go to the Security Council, the U.S. says it will veto it, but it doesn't want to be put in that isolated position, siding with Israel against the rest of the world. The fallback position for the Palestinians would be to go to the General Assembly, the much larger group. That said, it would be largely symbolic, and the U.S. doesn't want that to happen either. So this is, as you say, shaping up as quite a showdown next week. #From Sunday, September 18: LESTER HOLT: There will be high drama here in New York this week as world leaders converge for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Tonight, U.S. and European diplomats are scrambling to avoid a showdown after the Palestinians announced plans to ask for statehood and U.N. membership. More now from NBC's Martin Fletcher. M ARTIN FLETCHER: Palestinians call this their moment of truth. Bethlehem today kicked off a week of West Bank rallies in support of their bid to join the United Nations as a full member state, the Palestinian dream. Flag makers are working around the clock. Fawad Anid wants the Palestinian flag to hang from every car and house. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I'm so happy and excited at the same time because I want to have a Palestinian country to live in and to be free. FLETCHER: But many Israelis think no good can come of this. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: They don't want peace. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I think it will be war. FLETCHER: Israel and America warned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to call for a Palestinian state in the Security Council. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I call on President Abbas to resume peace negotiations, direct negotiations, right now without any preconditions. FLETCHER: Inspired by people's revolts in Arab neighbors – Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen – Palestinians also want change. Their leaders say they have no alternative but to try something new – the 20 years of peace talks have gotten them nowhere. MOHAMED SHTAYEH, SENIOR PALESTINIAN OFFICIAL: We will take all measures to assembly, channel it in a way that does not lead into bloodshed. FLETCHER: This puts Palestinians into a direct confrontation with the United States. Washington has said it wants more peace talks and will veto a call for a Palestinian state. JOHN BOEHNER, HOUSE SPEAKER: Our commitment to Israel should be no less strong today, and, if anything, it should be stronger than ever. FLETCHER: American negotiators are still trying very hard to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. President Obama is aware that any American veto will certainly satisfy Israel but would also pit America against most of the rest of the world. Martin Fletcher, NBC News, Tel Aviv.
Continue reading …Brazilian police arrest suspects in Amazon murders of environmentalists
September 19, 2011 No Comment
Two held over killings of José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, who were dedicated to saving the rainforests Police in the Brazilian Amazon say they have arrested two men in connection with the murders of two rainforest activists who were gunned down in May. José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo, were killed on 24 May, six months after Ribeiro da Silva had predicted he could be killed at any time, during an international environmental conference . The activists were known for their vocal stance against illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and charcoal producers that were operating in Praia-Alta Piranheira, the remote Amazon settlement in Brazil’s Para state, where they lived. On Sunday, nearly four months after the killings, police said they had arrested two of their three prime suspects during a dawn raid on a jungle camp around 32 miles from the Amazon town of Novo Repartimento. Police said they had seized three revolvers and one shotgun during the raid on the alleged killers. “The family’s reaction is happiness, happiness, happiness,” Ribeiro da Silva’s sister Claudelice Silva dos Santos told the Guardian on Monday, as the two suspects were reportedly transferred by helicopter to a prison in Belem, the state capital. “We have been waiting for this news for nearly four months.” Police named the prisoners as José Rodrigues Moreira, supposedly a small-time cattle rancher who is accused of ordering the killings, and his brother Lindon Johnson Silva Rocha, who allegedly carried out the executions. “Hidden in a tent in the middle of the forest, the two brothers were armed and even tried to escape as they were being surrounded by police,” security authorities said in a statement. Alberto Lopes do Nascimento, the third man wanted for the assassinations, had not been arrested, family members said. Ribeiro da Silva and Do Espírito Santo had suffered regular death threats because of their fight to protect the environment, and last November Ribeiro da Silva told a TEDx conference in Manaus he expected to be killed. “I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment,” he said. Their murders, six months after Ribeiro da Silva’s speech, triggered widespread outrage in Brazil and made headlines around the world. The country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, ordered a federal police investigation into the killings and hundreds of paramilitary troops were deployed in the region. Silva dos Santos, Ribeiro da Silva’s youngest sister, described the arrests as the “second step” towards justice. “Now we want convictions,” she said. She said she hoped police investigations would continue, to establish whether the murders were part of a wider conspiracy. “We believe there are more people involved [in the murders],” she said. Brazil Amazon rainforest Forests Deforestation Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Taliban suicide bomber attacks senior police officer’s home in Karachi
September 19, 2011 No Comment
At least eight people are killed when bomber drives a car packed with explosives into the house in Pakistan’s commercial hub At least eight people have been killed, including six police officers, after a Taliban suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into the home of a senior police official in Pakistan’s commercial hub, Karachi. The six police officers were guarding the home of Karachi’s senior superintendent of police, Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam, who survived the attack, said a police official, Naeem Shaikh. He added that a woman and a child had also been killed in the blast. Police said 300kg (136lb) of explosives had been used. Aslam told reporters he had received threats from militant groups, including Pakistani Taliban insurgents, who are close to al-Qaida. “I was sleeping when they carried out this cowardly act and rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into my house,” said Aslam at the scene of the blast. “I will not be cowed. I will teach a lesson to generations of militants.” The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying Aslam had arrested and killed many of its fighters. “We will attack other police officials as well who are taking action against our people,” a Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. He went on to name five Karachi police officials on the Taliban hit list. The assault broke a lull in militant violence in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, which is home to ports, the main stock exchange and central bank. “My daughter was preparing to go to school when all of a sudden the explosion occurred. My daughter started crying and I ran out of house to see what has happened,” said Mohammad Imran, one of Aslam’s neighbours. “I saw a cloud of smoke rising in the sky. Our children are traumatised. Our families are disturbed. There is no security.” The blast left a 2.5-metre crater and much of Aslam’s house was destroyed. Cement blocks, cars parts, broken chairs and pieces of shattered beds were strewn at the scene. At a Karachi hospital, two victims of the attack wrapped in cloth lay on a bed. Aslam is a well known police officer who led many high-profile raids on everyone from suspected al-Qaida cells in safehouses to some of Karachi’s most hardened criminals. Pakistan Taliban Global terrorism Afghanistan guardian.co.uk
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Stage set for new showdown with Republicans as US president targets the rich for $1.5trn of tax increases Barack Obama is expected to unveil plans to reduce the massive US deficit by about $3.6trn over the next decade. The plan looks set to spark yet more confrontation with his Republican critics. Roughly half of the savings would come from tax increases, according to people briefed on the proposals. The Republican opposition is staunchly against tax hikes. Obama will unveil the new proposals on Monday at the White House. They will be submitted to a congressional “super-committee” that was created in August to draw up a deficit-reduction plan. The president is also expected to propose nearly $250bn in cuts to spending on Medicare, the federal health care program that primarily benefits the elderly; $330bn in cuts to other mandatory benefit programs; and underline savings of $1trn from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. According to initial reports there would be no changes in social security and no increase in the Medicare eligibility age, which the president had considered this summer. Obama’s plans would include roughly $1.5trn in tax increases aimed mainly at wealthy Americans and corporations, people familiar with the proposal said. The president is set to unveil a “Buffett tax” aimed at those earning $1m or more a year and named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a persistent critic of low tax rates for the rich. The Republican House speaker, John Boehner, has made clear that he will not support any tax increases. Given opposition to Obama and tax increases, the Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to pass the package. The super-committee must report its findings before 23 November otherwise $1.2trn in cuts to defence and entitlement programmes will go into effect automatically in 2013. Obama’s plans look set to spark a fierce debate as the two sides attempt to negotiate a compromise ahead of the deadline. Obama’s proposed Buffett tax, first revealed over the weekend, has already attracted sharp criticism. Any further tax increases on wealthy Americans or corporations will undoubtedly face a similar assault. By combining cuts and tax increases the president is attempting to be true to his promise of his “balanced approach” requiring “shared sacrifice”. In August the president took to the road to sell his vision of a balanced approach to tackling US debt. “If everybody took an attitude of shared sacrifice we could solve our deficit and debt problem next week,” Obama said. “I need you to send a message to folks in Washington: stop drawing lines in the sand.” Obama backed away from proposing sweeping changes to Medicare, following the advice of fellow Democrats that it would only give political cover to a privatisation plan supported by House Republicans that turned out to be unpopular with older Americans. Administration officials said 90% of the $248bn in 10-year Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers. The plan does shift some additional costs to beneficiaries but those changes would not start until 2017, and administration officials made clear as well that Obama would veto any Medicare cuts that were not paired with tax increases on upper-income people. The president’s plan also calls for cuts of $72bn over 10 years from Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income people and the severely disabled. States, hospitals and advocates for the poor are expected to resist those. Monday’s proposals will be the president’s fourth package of deficit-reduction ideas this year. Poll figures show the electorate is losing faith in the president and his ability to tackle the US’s economic malaise. According to a recent Gallup poll 26% of Americans now approve of Obama’s record on the economy, 11 points lower than in May. The president has been making big moves to address the nation’s financial problems. This month he unveiled a $477bn jobs plan aimed at getting more Americans back to work. Boehner has attacked the jobs plan, saying high taxes, too much regulation and government interference are the real drains on job creation. “The members of the president’s cabinet are not doing their jobs if they aren’t constantly focused on removing impediments to job growth,” he said. “If they’re not focused on that, they should be fired.” Obama administration US economy Barack Obama United States guardian.co.uk
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