Top aide to Rupert Murdoch faces questions on whether he saw 2007 internal report on widespread hacking Les Hinton, Rupert Murdoch’s lifelong lieutenant and closest adviser, faces questions over whether he saw a 2007 internal News International report, which found evidence that phone hacking was more widespread than admitted by the company, before he testified to a parliamentary committee that the practice was limited to a single reporter. News of the existence of the 2007 report – the conclusions of which were kept hidden from the public, MPs and police – came as Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, arrived in the UK to deal directly with the rapidly developing crisis. The collection of memos that formed the inquiry were sent to the Metropolitan police earlier this year. This step came after executives who had joined NI more recently discovered its existence and sent it to the Operation Weeting team investigating News of the World phone hacking. Despite the alleged conclusions of the memos, News International executives repeatedly went on the record to say hacking was confined to a single “rogue reporter” – and they gave evidence to parliament that that was the case. Hinton who then ran News International, which is owned by News Corp, spoke to the Commons culture committee looking into the Goodman affair on 6 March 2007. He was asked whether the News of the World had “carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry” into phone hacking and whether he was “absolutely convinced” the practice was limited to a single reporter. The Guardian understands that Hinton was among five NI executives who had access to the report. The then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and legal counsel, Tom Crone, as senior executives could have been expected to have seen it. Hinton was succeeded by James Murdoch, who it is understood had no knowledge of the 2007 internal enquiry until recently. He joined NI from BSkyB, where he had been chief executive. Also in the dark was Rebekah Brooks, who at the time was editing the Sun. The NI investigation began after Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, its £100,000-a-year private investigator, were jailed for hacking into phones belonging to aides of Prince William and Harry. It was conducted with the help of lawyers Harbottle & Lewis. Lawrence Abramson, managing partner of Harbottle & Lewis, who worked on the instructions of News International, told the select committee that they had examined internal emails and concluded: “We did not find anything in those emails which appeared to us to be reasonable evidence that Clive Goodman’s illegal actions were known about and supported by both or either of Andy Coulson, the editor, and Neil Wallis, the deputy editor, and/or that Ian Edmondson, the news editor, and others were carrying out similar illegal procedures.” The scandal continues to grip Westminster and Scotland Yard. The government was scrambling to find a way to postpone a decision on the BSkyB deal without exposing it to a multimillion pound judicial review, in order to see off a pincer movement by Labour and the Lib Dems to force a vote in the Commons. Labour is threatening to table a motion on Wednesday calling for a delay until after the police inquiries are completed if the prime minister does not take action. Sources close to Nick Clegg said the Lib Dem leadership was willing to back it if it is legally compliant. The government has consistently said it cannot drop the BSkyB deal because it has already satisfied a plurality test and any other reasoning would leave it exposed to judicial review. But it was becoming increasingly clear that it would have to find a way or face a rebellion in the Commons which could result in a standoff between the legislature and the judiciary. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “I say this to the prime minister candidly. Over the next 72 hours I hope he changes his position on this because I don’t want to force this to a vote in the House of Commons. “But I think he’s got to understand that when the public have seen the disgusting revelations that we’ve seen this week the idea that this organisation which engaged in these terrible practices should be allowed to get that 100% stake without the criminal investigation being completed and on the basis of assurances from that self-same organisation, I’m afraid that won’t wash with the public.” His office said that they had until Tuesday night to table the motion, and would use the next 48 hours to get “as much political support as we can” and the correct and proper legal advice. They argued that the government’s insistence that they would face judicial review was a “red herring” as they could already be exposed to challenged because they awarded the deal based on assurances from News International which could now be discredited in a court of law. Government sources privately acknowledged that they now face an almost impossible conundrum of how to delay the deal without facing judicial review. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary who is in charge of taking the decision on BSkyB, will consult his lawyers to see what impact a parliamentary vote could have on his quasi-judicial role in ruling on BSkyB. There were suggestions from the Lib Dem benches that the Tories could even back the Commons motion if it provided a way out. No 10 sources said that they would not speculate on a motion when they hadn’t yet seen the wording. Such a motion, which would be tabled during Labour’s opposition day debate on Wednesday, would result in a resolution in the Commons, which although not legally binding could put intolerable pressure on the government to postpone the deal. The decision had already been kicked into the long grass after Hunt’s department received a reported 200,000 responses to a consultation. Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, asked on Sky News about the award of the a 100% stake in BSkyB to News International, said: “Well I understand that people would be very concerned about that and I think probably many of us would be very concerned, but we have to operate within the law. The government can’t just change the rules in midstream, if we did we’d undoubtedly be taken to court and we’d probably lose so we have to tread very carefully within the law.” With Labour leading the charge against News International the Lib Dems sought to regain their reputation for standing up to the Murdoch empire. In opposition they had been the only party voicing concerns about journalistic practices at News International. The energy secretary, Chris Huhne, confirmed Clegg had warned Cameron in the days after the coalition was formed against hiring Andy Coulson, the ex-editor of News of the World, to be his director of communications. An aide to Clegg said if the motion resolved the legal issues, he would back it. “If it’s legally compliant then any motion that states the obvious will receive Liberal Democrat support. Nick thinks that it’s preposterous that everything going on couldn’t influence such a decision.” Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and close ally of Vince Cable, who was stripped of the responsibility for the BSkyB merger after a Telegraph sting recorded him saying he had “declared war” with Murdoch over the merger plans, said: “Liberal Democrats from the cabinet to councillors … are totally united. We want to block the BSkyB bid and then break up the Murdoch empire. He’s far too powerful, we don’t let Tesco have 40% of the market. This is not just about blocking the bid it’s about ending a serious danger to our democracy.” It has also emerged that Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of the Metropolitan police will make an apology over the force’s “institutional” failings in its investigation of the scandal. Phone hacking News of the World Rupert Murdoch Rebekah Brooks Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Metropolitan police Dan Sabbagh Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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Top aide to Rupert Murdoch faces questions on whether he saw 2007 internal report on widespread hacking Les Hinton, Rupert Murdoch’s lifelong lieutenant and closest adviser, faces questions over whether he saw a 2007 internal News International report, which found evidence that phone hacking was more widespread than admitted by the company, before he testified to a parliamentary committee that the practice was limited to a single reporter. News of the existence of the 2007 report – the conclusions of which were kept hidden from the public, MPs and police – came as Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, arrived in the UK to deal directly with the rapidly developing crisis. The collection of memos that formed the inquiry were sent to the Metropolitan police earlier this year. This step came after executives who had joined NI more recently discovered its existence and sent it to the Operation Weeting team investigating News of the World phone hacking. Despite the alleged conclusions of the memos, News International executives repeatedly went on the record to say hacking was confined to a single “rogue reporter” – and they gave evidence to parliament that that was the case. Hinton who then ran News International, which is owned by News Corp, spoke to the Commons culture committee looking into the Goodman affair on 6 March 2007. He was asked whether the News of the World had “carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry” into phone hacking and whether he was “absolutely convinced” the practice was limited to a single reporter. The Guardian understands that Hinton was among five NI executives who had access to the report. The then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and legal counsel, Tom Crone, as senior executives could have been expected to have seen it. Hinton was succeeded by James Murdoch, who it is understood had no knowledge of the 2007 internal enquiry until recently. He joined NI from BSkyB, where he had been chief executive. Also in the dark was Rebekah Brooks, who at the time was editing the Sun. The NI investigation began after Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, its £100,000-a-year private investigator, were jailed for hacking into phones belonging to aides of Prince William and Harry. It was conducted with the help of lawyers Harbottle & Lewis. Lawrence Abramson, managing partner of Harbottle & Lewis, who worked on the instructions of News International, told the select committee that they had examined internal emails and concluded: “We did not find anything in those emails which appeared to us to be reasonable evidence that Clive Goodman’s illegal actions were known about and supported by both or either of Andy Coulson, the editor, and Neil Wallis, the deputy editor, and/or that Ian Edmondson, the news editor, and others were carrying out similar illegal procedures.” The scandal continues to grip Westminster and Scotland Yard. The government was scrambling to find a way to postpone a decision on the BSkyB deal without exposing it to a multimillion pound judicial review, in order to see off a pincer movement by Labour and the Lib Dems to force a vote in the Commons. Labour is threatening to table a motion on Wednesday calling for a delay until after the police inquiries are completed if the prime minister does not take action. Sources close to Nick Clegg said the Lib Dem leadership was willing to back it if it is legally compliant. The government has consistently said it cannot drop the BSkyB deal because it has already satisfied a plurality test and any other reasoning would leave it exposed to judicial review. But it was becoming increasingly clear that it would have to find a way or face a rebellion in the Commons which could result in a standoff between the legislature and the judiciary. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show: “I say this to the prime minister candidly. Over the next 72 hours I hope he changes his position on this because I don’t want to force this to a vote in the House of Commons. “But I think he’s got to understand that when the public have seen the disgusting revelations that we’ve seen this week the idea that this organisation which engaged in these terrible practices should be allowed to get that 100% stake without the criminal investigation being completed and on the basis of assurances from that self-same organisation, I’m afraid that won’t wash with the public.” His office said that they had until Tuesday night to table the motion, and would use the next 48 hours to get “as much political support as we can” and the correct and proper legal advice. They argued that the government’s insistence that they would face judicial review was a “red herring” as they could already be exposed to challenged because they awarded the deal based on assurances from News International which could now be discredited in a court of law. Government sources privately acknowledged that they now face an almost impossible conundrum of how to delay the deal without facing judicial review. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary who is in charge of taking the decision on BSkyB, will consult his lawyers to see what impact a parliamentary vote could have on his quasi-judicial role in ruling on BSkyB. There were suggestions from the Lib Dem benches that the Tories could even back the Commons motion if it provided a way out. No 10 sources said that they would not speculate on a motion when they hadn’t yet seen the wording. Such a motion, which would be tabled during Labour’s opposition day debate on Wednesday, would result in a resolution in the Commons, which although not legally binding could put intolerable pressure on the government to postpone the deal. The decision had already been kicked into the long grass after Hunt’s department received a reported 200,000 responses to a consultation. Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, asked on Sky News about the award of the a 100% stake in BSkyB to News International, said: “Well I understand that people would be very concerned about that and I think probably many of us would be very concerned, but we have to operate within the law. The government can’t just change the rules in midstream, if we did we’d undoubtedly be taken to court and we’d probably lose so we have to tread very carefully within the law.” With Labour leading the charge against News International the Lib Dems sought to regain their reputation for standing up to the Murdoch empire. In opposition they had been the only party voicing concerns about journalistic practices at News International. The energy secretary, Chris Huhne, confirmed Clegg had warned Cameron in the days after the coalition was formed against hiring Andy Coulson, the ex-editor of News of the World, to be his director of communications. An aide to Clegg said if the motion resolved the legal issues, he would back it. “If it’s legally compliant then any motion that states the obvious will receive Liberal Democrat support. Nick thinks that it’s preposterous that everything going on couldn’t influence such a decision.” Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and close ally of Vince Cable, who was stripped of the responsibility for the BSkyB merger after a Telegraph sting recorded him saying he had “declared war” with Murdoch over the merger plans, said: “Liberal Democrats from the cabinet to councillors … are totally united. We want to block the BSkyB bid and then break up the Murdoch empire. He’s far too powerful, we don’t let Tesco have 40% of the market. This is not just about blocking the bid it’s about ending a serious danger to our democracy.” It has also emerged that Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of the Metropolitan police will make an apology over the force’s “institutional” failings in its investigation of the scandal. Phone hacking News of the World Rupert Murdoch Rebekah Brooks Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Metropolitan police Dan Sabbagh Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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(07-09) 18:06 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republican budget negotiators have abandoned plans to pursue a massive $4 trillion, 10-year deficit reduction package in the face of stiff GOP opposition to any plan that would increase taxes as part of the deal. House Speaker John Boehner informed President Barack Obama Saturday that a smaller agreement of about $2 trillion was more realistic. In a statement issued Saturday evening, Boehner said: “Despite good-faith…
Continue reading …Kent Conrad Drops Senate Dems’ Budget On The Table: Will Anyone Pay Attention?
July 10, 2011 No Comment
enlarge After a week of flurries and fears that Democrats are about to give away the store to keep the nation from defaulting on its debt, Kent Conrad presented his budget proposal to Democrats. Unlike the Republican proposal, it’s a 50/50 blend of cuts and tax increases. Washington Post reports : “I explained to the President and Vice President how the Senate Budget Committee Democrats developed a plan that achieves $4 trillion in deficit reduction in a balanced and fair way,” Conrad said in a statement. “It is my hope the plan will help influence the bipartisan negotiations and help them reach a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction agreement.” Under the blueprint, the top income tax rate would rise to 39.6 percent for individuals earning more than $500,000 a year and families earning more than $1 million. That group, which constitutes the nation’s richest 1 percent of households, would also pay a 20 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, rather than the 15 percent rate now in effect. In addition to raising rates for the very wealthiest families, the blueprint proposes to obtain fresh revenue by targeting offshore tax havens and corporate shelters. It would also scale back the array of tax breaks and deductions known as tax expenditures, perhaps by focusing on the wealthiest households, which claim an average of $205,000 in tax breaks each year on average income of $1.1 million. The blueprint would take nearly $900 billion from the Pentagon over the next decade — the same amount recommended by Obama’s fiscal commission. It would slice more than $350 billion from domestic programs. And it would produce interest savings of nearly $600 billion attributable to reduced borrowing. A majority of Senate Democrats have approved of this proposal. Will it be considered “bold”, “courageous” and “innovative” by the Beltway media who used those terms with respect to Paul Ryan’s plan even as they held their nose over specific provisions? Doubtful. I’ll be amazed if it gets a fraction of the coverage Ryan’s plan received, despite the fact that every one of these bold proposals is supported by a majority of the American people. I’m already seeing a whole lot of negativity on the liberal side of the planet. Claims of ‘too little, too late’, that Conrad is just introducing a sweeping budget because he’s retiring in 2012, that no one will take these things seriously because they’ve been involved in talks for so long. I recommend looking at it differently. The President called for everyone to bring their bottom line deal to the table on Sunday. Conrad has just dropped the Democrats’ bottom line on the table, knowing full well that it will be unacceptable to every Republican in the room. So what? It would have been unacceptable to every Republican in the room two months ago, two days ago, two hours ago. It still delineates the differences between the two and sets a negotiating line that is far more to the left than the administration proposals (on purpose, by the way). The question at this point is not when Conrad brought his proposals to the table. The question is whether liberals, progressives, the left, whatever you want to call them, will use their formidable vocal skills to generate some buzz around these, since you can rest assured the so-called liberal media never will. The thing is, this week’s stupid news blurbs were all about one thing: Highlighting the fact that no matter how far Democrats would go to make a deal, there is no deal for the Republicans. After a week of that, Conrad laid down the budget most Democrats would view as one they could support and get behind. No one expects it to pass, any more than anyone thought Paul Ryan’s budget would pass. But Ryan has paid a high political price for introducing his wingnuttery early and often, and Republicans in the House have paid an even steeper one for voting for it, as they will continue to do in the future. This is all drama, all theater. Now that Republicans have shown themselves to be the party of ungovernance, Democrats step up with a set of proposals that actually reduces the deficit, preserves the social contract, and raises taxes on people who can afford it. Of course the Republicans aren’t going to bend to this, either. They weren’t going to bend to anything. So when nothing gets done, or some bandaid patch deal is done that doesn’t solve the longer-term issues, there will only be one party to blame and it won’t be Democrats.
Continue reading …George Will to Donna Brazile: Obama and Dems Have Kicked the Deficit Can So Much It’s ‘Can Abuse’
July 10, 2011 No Comment
Democrat strategist and ABC contributor Donna Brazile on Sunday predictably blamed the current debt ceiling impasse on Republicans and their refusal to raise taxes. This led George Will to state what would be obvious to all media members if they weren't so in the tank for Barack Obama, namely that he and his Party have been kicking the deficit can down the road so long they're guilty of “can abuse” (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Everybody knows that entitlements have to be in play as well, and if it hadn’t been for the hardball negotiations that the Republicans were doing, the President may not have come to even talking about entitlements. DONNA BRAZILE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, ABC AND CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He put it on the table, the Republicans came into the room, got their appetizers and said, “You know what? Main course, we’ll just walk away.” Maybe tonight the President will serve dessert. It’s after six o’clock, George, I should be cooking. GEORGE WILL: Before we have a moratorium I hope on the can metaphor, let’s look at who’s been kicking the can down the road. Democrats started kicking the can down the road when they stopped writing budgets. The President kicked the can down the road by appointing a deficit commission. Then he kicked it again down the road by ignoring the deficit commission. Then he submitted a budget in February that no one on either side of the House would support that promised to increase the deficit. That’s a lot of kicking. That’s can abuse. Indeed it is, and if Congressional Republicans along with a GOP President had behaved this way for over two years, the media would be up in arms about it. Congressional Democrats have not proposed a budget since Obama's fiscal 2010 one was passed in April 2009. That's 27 straight months worth of can kicking right up to this debt ceiling showdown. It's been many decades since there's been an entire political party that has so abdicated its budget responsibility, a fact that seems lost on so-called journalists who are supposed to be exposing such hypocrisy rather than assisting its cover-up as well as its willing distortion of the truth so the blame can be diverted to the largely innocent. This would be laughable if the nation wasn't facing another financial crisis that will make the last one look like a simple bounced check. Sadly, this Marx Brothers movie we're watching is real, and the only ones laughing are the press as they pat themselves on the back for once again being able to convince so many people that one plus one doesn't equal two.
Continue reading …At least one person dead and 61 missing after double-decked river cruiser sinks in Russia’s Volga river A pleasure boat carrying more than 170 people sank in Russia’s Volga river on Sunday, killing at least one person and leaving dozens missing, emergency officials said. One body has been recovered and 61 people are unaccounted for after the boat, a double-decked river cruiser called the Bulgaria, sank in the Tatarstan region, said a spokeswoman for the emergency situations ministry. “We don’t know yet why it sank. There were 140 passengers and 33 staff. One was found dead, a passing boat saved some people. Sixty-one are unaccounted for.” A rescue team aided by a helicopter was searching for missing people, she said. The boat was heading to the regional capital, Kazan, about 500 miles east of Moscow, and sank about two miles from shore in 20 metres of water, the ministry’s regional branch said. The RIA news agency, citing a regional official, said 78 people had been rescued and 94 people were missing. Russia Europe guardian.co.uk
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• Phaedra Almajid now says claims of bribes were fabricated • Insists that she has not been pressured or paid for retraction The “whistleblower” who alleged Qatar paid huge bribes to three African Fifa executive committee members during the gulf nation’s campaign to host the 2022 World Cup has retracted the story, saying she “fabricated” it all. The allegations, that Qatar’s bid paid $1.5m (£935,000) to the three Africans, Issa Hayatou, Jacques Anouma and Amos Adamu, to secure their votes, were not published in any newspaper, but the House of Commons select committee for culture, media and sport did publish them, based on a letter from the Sunday Times . That meant the allegations of serious corruption, revealed by “a whistleblower who had worked with the Qatar bid”, were reported here and around the world with the protection of parliamentary privilege. The whistleblower, publicly identifying herself as Phaedra Almajid, was head of international media relations at Qatar’s 2022 bid between May 2009 and March 2010. She now says she entirely fabricated that story of bribes paid by the Qatar bid, and other corruption allegations, because she wanted to “hurt” the bid after they decided to move her from her job. She said she was “furious” at the bid’s suggestion that she was not handling the international media competently, and, “acting irrationally”, decided to make up the corruption stories “to show them I could control the international media”. She now says she came to feel “sorry” and “guilty” for having severely damaged the bid’s reputation, and that she never expected her stories to reach as far as the UK parliament and an intention by Fifa to investigate them. The Guardian spoke to Almajid from Qatar itself, where we conducted an exclusive newspaper interview with the bid’s chief executive, Hassan al-Thawadi, which will appear online on Monday. He said that Almajid had been in contact with the bid wanting to retract her story, and facilitated our conversation with her. Both she and the bid insist they did not put pressure on her to issue her retraction, nor paid her or helped her in any way. “The decision to make this admission is entirely my own,” she said in a statement made on a website specifically created for her retraction. “I have not been subject to any form of pressure or been offered any financial inducement.” http://www.qatarwhistleblower.com/ http://www.sportsfeatures.com/soccernews/story/48970/world-exclusive-by-keir-radnedge-it-was-all-lies-says-qatar-2022-whistleblower Fifa World Cup 2022 David Conn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …No Dice On Grand Bargain. Boehner Counts The Votes For Tax Increases And Comes Up Short. Stay Tuned!
July 10, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If you’ve heard bloggers use the term “Grand Bargain” and you don’t understand what it means, it refers to the theoretical packaging of a very big deal on third-rail issues that’s so unpleasant for both sides, it’s in effect a political wash. The idea is, it’s reform that doesn’t leave either side at a disadvantage. (Please note that Obama’s intentions to do so were known in February 2009 .) On our side, Social Security and Medicare cuts; on their side, tax increases. Anyway, it looks like the Grand Bargain is coming unraveled – but we can’t relax just yet since it’s been reported that the chained CPI for Social Security benefits is included in Joe Biden’s smaller plan, the one to which Republicans have already agreed. This isn’t a victory for eleventy-dimensional chess, because no matter what, we still have a Democratic president offering Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts and validating the right-wing view of the universe, and we’re still talking about spending cuts during a prolonged recession — as if they’ll help. We’ll see what the White House is asking Democrats to support as part of the final deal after today’s debt ceiling talks. Stay tuned. House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to reach a comprehensive debt-reduction deal worth more than $4 trillion in savings, telling President Obama that a midsize package was the only politically possible alternative to avoid a first-ever default on the nation’s mounting national debt. Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama — who is hosting a key meeting Sunday evening on the debt issue — that their efforts to “go big,” as the speaker says, were stymied by the toughest issues: taxes and entitlements. Democrats continued to insist on tax reforms that would not pass muster in the conservative-dominated House, and Republicans wanted cuts to programs such as Medicare and Social Security that Obama and Senate Democrats would oppose. “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase,” Boehner said in a statement released less than 24 hours before the Obama meeting is to take place.
Continue reading …No Dice On Grand Bargain. Boehner Counts The Votes For Tax Increases And Comes Up Short. Stay Tuned!
July 10, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If you’ve heard bloggers use the term “Grand Bargain” and you don’t understand what it means, it refers to the theoretical packaging of a very big deal on third-rail issues that’s so unpleasant for both sides, it’s in effect a political wash. The idea is, it’s reform that doesn’t leave either side at a disadvantage. (Please note that Obama’s intentions to do so were known in February 2009 .) On our side, Social Security and Medicare cuts; on their side, tax increases. Anyway, it looks like the Grand Bargain is coming unraveled – but we can’t relax just yet since it’s been reported that the chained CPI for Social Security benefits is included in Joe Biden’s smaller plan, the one to which Republicans have already agreed. This isn’t a victory for eleventy-dimensional chess, because no matter what, we still have a Democratic president offering Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts and validating the right-wing view of the universe, and we’re still talking about spending cuts during a prolonged recession — as if they’ll help. We’ll see what the White House is asking Democrats to support as part of the final deal after today’s debt ceiling talks. Stay tuned. House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to reach a comprehensive debt-reduction deal worth more than $4 trillion in savings, telling President Obama that a midsize package was the only politically possible alternative to avoid a first-ever default on the nation’s mounting national debt. Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama — who is hosting a key meeting Sunday evening on the debt issue — that their efforts to “go big,” as the speaker says, were stymied by the toughest issues: taxes and entitlements. Democrats continued to insist on tax reforms that would not pass muster in the conservative-dominated House, and Republicans wanted cuts to programs such as Medicare and Social Security that Obama and Senate Democrats would oppose. “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase,” Boehner said in a statement released less than 24 hours before the Obama meeting is to take place.
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Noam and Tom are 10-month-old lions enjoying their stay at South Africa’s Lion Park. The Gauteng province wildlife conservatory houses over 80 lions, as well as wild dogs, hyenas and other rehabilitating animals. YouTuber theDivan60 spent 8 amazing months volunteering at the park and has been buddies with Noam and Tom since they were 3 months old, creating an incredible bond between man and (really big) cat. You see, volunteering at Lion Park is not your typical experience. Visitors who opt to stay get to take part in hand-rearing the orphan cubs, getting months of hands-on cat time. And because of that bond, they’re able to do things the rest of us can only dream of, like rolling around in the dirt of an animal sanctuary with lions, hugging them and getting big wet cat kisses at will. In that way these big babies are domesticated, like your friendly neighborhood house cat, so kids, we wouldn’t advise heading to the local zoo and trying this at home. WATCH:
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