Frank Rich Takes a Look at the Fleecing of America Over the Last Ten Years Since the 9/11 Attacks
September 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell talked to author Frank Rich about his recent column in New York Magazine which takes a look at the real tragedy in America since the attacks on 9-11 and as he wrote there: The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one… In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past ten years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq War but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street. You can read the entire article here — Day’s End: The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won? . Transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold: O`DONNELL: In tonight`s Spotlight, the hard realities about the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The day that some believed would unify the nation going forward has done no such thing. Frank Rich, in a piece for “New York Magazine,” asks the questions, if the terrorists lost, who won? He writes, “the connection between the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan and our new civil war over America`s there year old economic crisis may well prove the most consequential historical fact of the hideous decade they bracket. The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a strong nation, not a busted one. In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past 10 years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq war, but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street.” Joining me now, Frank Rich, writer at large for “New York Magazine.” Frank, thanks for joining me tonight. FRANK RICH, “NEW YORK MAGAZINE”: Nice to be with you. O`DONNELL: You mention in your piece something that I had forgotten in the flow of history, that the Enron scandal broke just about a month after 9/11. And it seems we actually had at least as big a lesson in the Enron scandal about what was to come in this decade than what had happened on 9/11. RICH: If you go back, indeed, and look at the Enron scandal, it had all the features of the subprime crisis that would come and the housing bubble, you know, phoney bookkeeping, worthless paper, credit agencies that fell down on the job. And it was very embarrassing to President Bush at the time because of his long association with Enron as a political donor. And he promised a lot of the cleanup of Wall Street that we`ve heard about in recent years. And none of it happened. He was going to have a SWAT team that would go against Wall Street crime. As soon as it faded from the headlines, nothing happened. We know what did happen; basically, Wall Street and the banks and mortgage lenders and all the rest were given the green light to go ahead with impunity, during wartime. O`DONNELL: You talk about how 9/11 was used, kind of pulled off the shelf in certain situations politically and in governing, in the instance, for example, of helping to justify the invasion of Iraq. But much of the piece is about what`s happened to the economy, what`s happened to the politics of the economy. You make a point here about taxation when you say if we don`t need new taxes to fight two wars, why do we need them for anything? That, as much as anything else, informs where our tax debate has gone. RICH: Exactly. I think in the end, the most crucial decision that Bush made right after 9/11 — and he said it explicitly by the end of September of that year — was we don`t want the American people to sacrifice. You know, maybe longer lines at airport check-in, but that was that. Go to Disney Land, go shopping. And there would be no taxes to pay for what would turn out to be two wars. I think that injected a cancer into the American political culture just as you were saying. If we don`t pay for wars, why do we have to pay for anything? And I think you see the seeds now of this anti-government movement that`s in some ways paralyzing the country. O`DONNELL: And the not paying for anything Bush style could not go on forever. You mention that he delivered this very large Medicare prescription drug benefit completely unpaid for, large and expensive new benefit. But you also say it is that America where rampage and greed usurp the common good in wartime, the country crashed just as Bush fled the White House that we live in today. It did crash by the time Bush had fled the White House, the whole scheme of doing things without paying for them. That has been visited entirely on President Obama as a burden. Has there been any better way for him to have managed that burden, given the Republican resistance of the last couple of years? RICH: There probably has been. For instance, I wish, as I think many do, that he had talked about jobs and the connection between the loss of jobs and this whole crisis and what happened to Wall Street much earlier and more concretely than he is by this late date, giving this speech, the starting time of which is so contended, next week. But Republicans were out to destroy him. As we know, Mitch McConnell said their main goal is to keep Obama from being reelected. But this comes, again, out of the post-9/11 lapse in this country. This country was ready to sacrifice. Bush had an approval rating that was almost perfect. People after that very contentious 2000 election were willing to give him another chance and unite behind him. Instead, everyone went their separate ways and here we are. O`DONNELL: It`s hard to say what`s most surprising about the aftermath of 9/11. But I think in your piece, the thing that most jumped out as the — wouldn`t have predicted that is that turn of events where we saw some legislation pending that was to help the first responders to 9/11 who developed health issues after being in that rubble and breathing in that dust and the dangerous elements that were in the air down there. That was being blocked by Republicans in Congress. And you write, “the most vocal champions of the surviving 9/11 victims and their families were New York officials and celebrities like Jon Stewart, most of them liberal Democrats. The righteous anger of the right had moved on to the cause of taking down a president with the middle name `Hussein.`” Who would have predicted that it would have fallen to Jon Stewart to be the champion of those victims? RICH: It`s amazing, particularly since you had a Republican party, as epitomized by people like Rudy Giuliani, who were 9/11 — a noun, a verb, 911, as Biden said. They were all guarding this horrible tragedy, and you know, enforcing a kind of political correctness. And we get to a point not that many years later where you have Tom Coburn, a conservative Republican, leading the charge to keep the federal government from helping first responders and their families from 9/11. That`s an enormous sea change, matched, by the way, by the new isolationism in the Republican party, because that`s the other big change. The McCain, Lindsey Graham view about — neoconservative view, the Bush view, the Bush-Cheney view, is now also not the mainstream of the GOP anymore. It`s going back to its isolationist, pre-9/11 mind set, as they would say. O`DONNELL: It is a compelling and grim piece. Frank Rich, writer at large for “New York Magazine,” thank you very much for joining me tonight. RICH: Delighted to be with you.
Continue reading …Frank Rich Takes a Look at the Fleecing of America Over the Last Ten Years Since the 9/11 Attacks
September 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell talked to author Frank Rich about his recent column in New York Magazine which takes a look at the real tragedy in America since the attacks on 9-11 and as he wrote there: The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one… In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past ten years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq War but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street. You can read the entire article here — Day’s End: The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won? . Transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold: O`DONNELL: In tonight`s Spotlight, the hard realities about the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The day that some believed would unify the nation going forward has done no such thing. Frank Rich, in a piece for “New York Magazine,” asks the questions, if the terrorists lost, who won? He writes, “the connection between the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan and our new civil war over America`s there year old economic crisis may well prove the most consequential historical fact of the hideous decade they bracket. The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a strong nation, not a busted one. In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past 10 years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq war, but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street.” Joining me now, Frank Rich, writer at large for “New York Magazine.” Frank, thanks for joining me tonight. FRANK RICH, “NEW YORK MAGAZINE”: Nice to be with you. O`DONNELL: You mention in your piece something that I had forgotten in the flow of history, that the Enron scandal broke just about a month after 9/11. And it seems we actually had at least as big a lesson in the Enron scandal about what was to come in this decade than what had happened on 9/11. RICH: If you go back, indeed, and look at the Enron scandal, it had all the features of the subprime crisis that would come and the housing bubble, you know, phoney bookkeeping, worthless paper, credit agencies that fell down on the job. And it was very embarrassing to President Bush at the time because of his long association with Enron as a political donor. And he promised a lot of the cleanup of Wall Street that we`ve heard about in recent years. And none of it happened. He was going to have a SWAT team that would go against Wall Street crime. As soon as it faded from the headlines, nothing happened. We know what did happen; basically, Wall Street and the banks and mortgage lenders and all the rest were given the green light to go ahead with impunity, during wartime. O`DONNELL: You talk about how 9/11 was used, kind of pulled off the shelf in certain situations politically and in governing, in the instance, for example, of helping to justify the invasion of Iraq. But much of the piece is about what`s happened to the economy, what`s happened to the politics of the economy. You make a point here about taxation when you say if we don`t need new taxes to fight two wars, why do we need them for anything? That, as much as anything else, informs where our tax debate has gone. RICH: Exactly. I think in the end, the most crucial decision that Bush made right after 9/11 — and he said it explicitly by the end of September of that year — was we don`t want the American people to sacrifice. You know, maybe longer lines at airport check-in, but that was that. Go to Disney Land, go shopping. And there would be no taxes to pay for what would turn out to be two wars. I think that injected a cancer into the American political culture just as you were saying. If we don`t pay for wars, why do we have to pay for anything? And I think you see the seeds now of this anti-government movement that`s in some ways paralyzing the country. O`DONNELL: And the not paying for anything Bush style could not go on forever. You mention that he delivered this very large Medicare prescription drug benefit completely unpaid for, large and expensive new benefit. But you also say it is that America where rampage and greed usurp the common good in wartime, the country crashed just as Bush fled the White House that we live in today. It did crash by the time Bush had fled the White House, the whole scheme of doing things without paying for them. That has been visited entirely on President Obama as a burden. Has there been any better way for him to have managed that burden, given the Republican resistance of the last couple of years? RICH: There probably has been. For instance, I wish, as I think many do, that he had talked about jobs and the connection between the loss of jobs and this whole crisis and what happened to Wall Street much earlier and more concretely than he is by this late date, giving this speech, the starting time of which is so contended, next week. But Republicans were out to destroy him. As we know, Mitch McConnell said their main goal is to keep Obama from being reelected. But this comes, again, out of the post-9/11 lapse in this country. This country was ready to sacrifice. Bush had an approval rating that was almost perfect. People after that very contentious 2000 election were willing to give him another chance and unite behind him. Instead, everyone went their separate ways and here we are. O`DONNELL: It`s hard to say what`s most surprising about the aftermath of 9/11. But I think in your piece, the thing that most jumped out as the — wouldn`t have predicted that is that turn of events where we saw some legislation pending that was to help the first responders to 9/11 who developed health issues after being in that rubble and breathing in that dust and the dangerous elements that were in the air down there. That was being blocked by Republicans in Congress. And you write, “the most vocal champions of the surviving 9/11 victims and their families were New York officials and celebrities like Jon Stewart, most of them liberal Democrats. The righteous anger of the right had moved on to the cause of taking down a president with the middle name `Hussein.`” Who would have predicted that it would have fallen to Jon Stewart to be the champion of those victims? RICH: It`s amazing, particularly since you had a Republican party, as epitomized by people like Rudy Giuliani, who were 9/11 — a noun, a verb, 911, as Biden said. They were all guarding this horrible tragedy, and you know, enforcing a kind of political correctness. And we get to a point not that many years later where you have Tom Coburn, a conservative Republican, leading the charge to keep the federal government from helping first responders and their families from 9/11. That`s an enormous sea change, matched, by the way, by the new isolationism in the Republican party, because that`s the other big change. The McCain, Lindsey Graham view about — neoconservative view, the Bush view, the Bush-Cheney view, is now also not the mainstream of the GOP anymore. It`s going back to its isolationist, pre-9/11 mind set, as they would say. O`DONNELL: It is a compelling and grim piece. Frank Rich, writer at large for “New York Magazine,” thank you very much for joining me tonight. RICH: Delighted to be with you.
Continue reading …Not that Rush Limbaugh is the King of Calm or anything, but I can practically hear his veins bulging out as he spews a litany of completely irrelevant invective about how President Obama is a child of the ’60s and therefore believes in tearing down the country because of the “ill-gotten gains” of formerly great American leaders who established America as an “exceptional nation.” You’d think perhaps such a rant was precipitated by some new policy proposal by the President, right? Actually, no. It was brought on when a caller asked why Republicans treat this President with unprecedented disrespect. Whatever you may think about yesterday’s scheduling scuffle , there has never been similar behavior from any Speaker of the House toward a request from the President to speak before a Joint Session of Congress. I happen to think it was not all that smart to intentionally step on the Republican debate (though others disagree ), and I also happen to think the media blew it way out of proportion because it inconvenienced them, forcing them to possibly choose one over the other. But whatever any of us think, I sort of doubt the idea of him undermining the very fabric of America is part of that overall thought pattern. But for Rush Limbaugh, it clearly is. He bases his argument on this truly odious column by Shelby Steele in today’s Wall Street Journal : If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama’s character, today’s left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there. Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-’60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America’s exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America’s greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom. Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself. Please excuse me while I try not to choke on the bile flowing through that intro. Clearly Rush Limbaugh’s ensuing rant about Obama’s destruction of the country isn’t based in racism, nor the disrespect shown to him as President because after all, Shelby Steele is a black guy, too. Right? We have a real problem with reality-based thinking in this country, not to mention civility when Rush Limbaugh can go on the radio and seriously spew this: LIMBAUGH: That is the answer to your question, Mr. Wolf. What is it about this President that has stripped away the veneer of respect? We don’t respect him because he doesn’t respect the country. We don’t respect him because he’s trying to reverse centuries of greatness in this country. You know, I said yesterday, they would never ask Bush or Clinton any of these questions, because Bush or Clinton would not have suggested a Joint Session on the night of either a Democrat or Republican debate, respectively. There you have it. The very fabric of this country is unraveling because President Obama dared to request a joint session of Congress on the same day as the Republican debate. The saddest part of this for me is how many people will actually make this connection in their own minds, giving them permission to keep being completely disrespectful and hateful toward this President. It’s hate-talk, wrapped up in a flag.
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Click here to view this media MSNBC host Ed Schultz blasted House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his “cronies” for forcing President Barack Obama to delay his speech on jobs from Sept. 7 to Sept. 8. Schultz speculated that Republicans wanted the speech moved until the next day to give the maximum exposure to a Republican presidential debate that is scheduled for Sept. 7. “Boehner and the Republicans have been hounding President Obama to lay out a jobs plan for months,” the MSNBC host noted. “Now, the very same people want the president to keep his powder dry so Rick Perry can have the spotlight to say stupid stuff?” He continued: “Once again, this President has smoked ‘em out. He has proven to the country one more time that he can’t even schedule a speech to the joint session of the Congress without it being obstructed, that he one more time has proven to the country that the Republicans, their number one priority is not in line with the priorities of the American people and that is jobs. They’re priority is their schedule, their tee time, their debate, their tax cuts, their deregulation, and they don’t give a damn, nor do they respect the president of the United States or the office.” “Even when it comes to a joint session of Congress, the Republicans want to lower the bar when it comes to class and respect and priorities in this country. Now, you tell me who is on your side tonight, folks. Is it Boehner? Is he on your side or is he on the side of his cronies in the House who are more concerned about their hectic schedule? Fact: They don’t give a damn about you working folks in America. And they don’t give a damn about creating jobs. And that’s why they’ve just been heckling from the stands and they’ve never been a player. And they proved it big time again tonight.”
Continue reading …Exile plan for terror suspects is a bungled measure, say civil liberties groups
September 1, 2011 No Comment
Home secretary Theresa May accused of neglecting national security with proposal to revive relocation bans in terror bill The government has been accused of bungling national security policy after announcing plans for the “internal exile” of terrorism suspects in the event of an emergency. Civil liberties groups said the new powers were restrictions that ministers had said they would scrap for breaching human rights. Labour claimed the policy was now a mess and that ministers were “putting political deals and fudges ahead of national security”. In January the government replaced control orders – which were being used against suspects who had not been charged – with terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims), which cut the length of house arrest and scrapped internal relocation orders. However, the government has now published draft emergency powers reintroducing internal relocation. The move will allow Theresa May, the home secretary, to ban alleged suspects from living in certain areas in “exceptional circumstances”. Labour sources said this was political expediency because of the amendment reintroducing “internal relocation orders” to next week’s terrorism bill, which would have attracted enough Tory rebels to defeat the government, already vulnerable on law and order. The plans are attracting criticism from some of the government’s own backers. The Tory MP David Davis said: “This seems to be at least as ill thought out as control orders, if not more so.” Davis said the point of internal relocation orders had been preventative, and so introducing them after the fact would be ineffective. “It must be preventative. How can they be preventative if they can only be passed after the event?” The government said it had always said it might announce such measures. But Davis said: “The impression we had was [that] one of the important changes, from control orders to Tpims, was losing internal exile.” Government sources insisted they had intended that an emergency provision be available but with much tougher safeguards than under Labour’s control-order regime. They did accept that MI5 and the police wanted the powers, those groups believing that, without them, they would lose the capability of keeping the public safe. Of 12 people under control orders now, nine were subject to “internal relocation”. The draft powers would also allow the home secretary to restrict suspects’ work, study, and with whom they associate. According to the draft emergency legislation the term work “includes any business or occupation (whether paid or unpaid); studies include any course of education or training”. The rules allow curbs on finances, limits on communications, such as via mobiles and computers, and curfews of up to 16 hours a day. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, attacked the government for being too soft on law and order, and for putting the need to hold together the coalition ahead of the needs of national security: “What the government is doing is irresponsible, incompetent and potentially dangerous … It does not give the police or security services what they need to keep communities safe, especially during Olympic year when the capital may need extra protection. The home secretary is putting political deals and fudges ahead of national security.” Senior Liberal Democrat sources in government insisted the new measures were still less draconian than control orders, and did not represent a U-turn on pre-election promises to take greater account of civil liberties. “This would be proposed following a serious national security incident, such as multiple attacks, such as on 7 July [2005], and not because we had heard a bit of chatter. Even then it has to be debated in parliament and voted on.” Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “While politicians tinker with the deckchairs on the Titanic, community punishments without charge remain unsafe and unfair. You can call them control orders, Tpims, or whatever you like, but they still allow dangerous terrorists to live amongst us whilst innocent people are punished forever with no opportunity to stand trial and clear their name. Ten years into the ‘war on terror’, have we really learned so little?” Control orders were used against terrorism suspects who could not be prosecuted, through there being insufficient admissible evidence, or because they could not be deported from the UK. After announcing the scrapping of internal relocation in January, the home secretary went to court, four months later, to defend such an order she made in February, that was taken out against a suspect. The man known only as CD, was a British-Nigerian terror suspect whom MI5 said was a leading figure in a “close group of Islamic extremists in north London”. The order banned him from living in London. Counter-terrorism officials claimed he had met fellow plotters to develop plans, which were thought to be a gun attack on multiple targets in the UK. Mr Justice Owen, sitting in London, ruled that the restrictions imposed on CD’s freedom, including the decision to relocate him from London to a Midlands city, were a “necessary and proportionate measure for the protection of the public from the risk presented by CD and his associates”. Of the draft emergency legislation, a Home Office spokesperson said: “National security is the primary duty of government and we will not put the public at risk. Our absolute priority is to prosecute and convict suspected terrorists in open court. The Tpim system will provide effective powers for dealing with the risk posed by individuals we can neither prosecute nor deport. “We always said there may be exceptional circumstances where it could be necessary to seek parliamentary approval for additional restrictive measures.” Terrorism policy David Davis Liberal-Conservative coalition Yvette Cooper UK security and terrorism Police Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media In an interview that aired on CNN Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told Piers Morgan suggesting his views on homosexuality were bigoted proved the CNN host was the one who was bigoted against the Catholic Church. The former Pennsylvania Senator began the interview by defending his accusation that gays were waging a “jihad” against him for comparing homosexuality to “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.” “I don’t need to give a lot of airtime to folks who have been rather vile in the way they have attacked me and attacked the position I have,” Santorum told Morgan. “And the quote that I have been, quote, ‘criticized’ for was almost identical to a quote in a 1980 Supreme Court case where the majority decision basically said what I said… that if the Supreme Court establishes a right to consensual sexual activity, then it’s hard to draw the line between what sexual activity will be permitted under the Constitution and it leaves open a long list of consensual activities that most people I think would find rather unappealing.” “And so, that’s what I said. I stand by the comment.” “I have to say that your views you espoused on this issue are bordering on bigotry, aren’t they?” Morgan asked. “No. I think just because we disagree on public policy, which is what the debate has been about which is marriage, doesn’t mean that it’s bigotry,” Santorum opined. “Just because you follow a moral code that teaches something wrong doesn’t mean that — are you suggesting that the Bible and that the Catholic Church is bigoted?” “I think that is — that’s contrary to both what we’ve seen in 2,000 years of human history and Western civilization and trying to redefine something that has been — that is seen as wrong from the standpoint of the church and saying a church is bigoted because it holds that opinion that is biblically based I think is in itself an act of bigotry.” Before his interview with Morgan had even aired, Santorum had gone on a preemptive attack against Morgan . “I had Piers Morgan call me a bigot!” the candidate exclaimed to a group of students at Penn State Tuesday. “Because I believe what the Catholic Church teaches with respect to homosexuality?—?I’m a bigot. So, now I’m a bigot, because I believe what the Bible teaches. Now, what two thousand years of, of teaching and moral theology is now bigoted! And, of course, we don’t elect bigots to office, we don’t give them professional licenses, we don’t give them preferential tax treatment. If you’re a preacher and you preach bigoted things, you think you’re going to be allowed to have a 501(c)(3) as a church? Of course not! No, this has profound consequence, to the entire moral ecology of America!”
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Type: Personal Computer Title: Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black) See all customer reviews Product Description: Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118 Notebook comes with these specs: Intel Core i7-680UM processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 11.6″ HD Widescreen CineCrystal LED-backlit Display, Mobile Intel HM55 Express Chipset, 4096MB DDR3 1066MHz Memory, Intel HD Graphics, 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, Built-In HD 1.3MP Webcam, Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, 2nd Generation Dolby Sound Room Audio Enhancement, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, 3 – USB 2.0 Ports, 1 – HDMI Port, 6-cell Li-ion Battery (5800 mAh), Up to 8 hours of battery life, 3.09 lbs. | 1.4 kg (system unit only), AC Power Adapter, AC Power Cord, Wireless Setup Card, Registration/ Limited Warranty Card, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, McAfee Internet Security Suite (60-day insert) Features: The smallest member of the TimelineX Series, the 11.6″ Acer Aspire AS1830T is super-light and under 1″ thin The Intel Core i7 processor powers gaming and complex tasks such as creating and editing video, music and photos. This notebook is small on size, but big on usability with its 11.6″ HD Widescreen LED-backlit display and full size keyboard. Bluetooth Technology lets you transfer data between your PC and Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone or camera without wires Windows 7 Home Premium makes the things you do every day easier and with Office Starter 2010 See the details
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Information related to confidential informants will not be redacted, despite fears for their safety WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, parted company with mainstream opinion when Assange revealed his intention to make public all 250,000 raw US state department cables that have been in his hands since last year, regardless of possible reprisals to named individuals. This flies in the face of efforts by the Guardian and other news organisations to redact references to confidential informants before publishing selected cables: efforts which may now appear to have been largely wasted. Assange’s plans were foreshadowed at a secret meeting of the WikiLeaks team last November. The diary of one of those present at Ellingham Hall, the stately home which was then their base, records: “Heated conversation about rough plans on releasing cables … JA insistent all cables must somehow eventually be released.” His wish has now been realised, after a year punctuated by his arrest, heated quarrels with former associates, and a chapter of accidents within Assange’s chaotic organisation. A few days after the Ellingham Hall meeting Assange turned himself in for arrest on an extradition warrant sought by Sweden, on allegations of sexual assault by two young WikiLeaks supporters there. He is still fighting extradition. On 7 December, the day of his arrest, a huge file of WikiLeaks information was posted on the Pirate Bay filesharing site by one of his supporters. According to the group’s former No 2, computer expert Daniel Domscheit-Berg: “These people said they wanted to keep WikiLeaks operational, but they never spoke to Julian.” As a result, it was never apparently realised that the file-set included Assange’s copy of all the classified US cables. Earlier in the year, according to Domscheit-Berg, Assange gave a copy of the cables file to the Guardian, one of the news organisations with whom he had agreed to work to publish the cables in redacted form. He provided the Guardian with a password and access to a special online server, on which he said he would place a copy of the cables file, which would only remain in existence for a short time. What Assange did not reveal was that he had not followed conventional security practice and created a new password for the transaction. Instead, according to Domscheit-Berg, he had merely reused the existing master password, already known to others within WikiLeaks. “The file was never supposed to be shared with anyone at all. To get a copy you would usually make a new copy with a new password. He was too lazy to create something new.” Early this year the Guardian published a book on WikiLeaks. In the course of it the password Assange had provided, assumed to be long obsolete, was published. The book contained no information that would enable anyone to find and download the encrypted file. This series of events has had unplanned consequences in recent weeks. Domscheit-Berg, who says he parted company with Assange over security concerns among other reasons, ended up alleging to a German newspaper, Freitag, that WikiLeaks was insecure. He said a file existed on the internet that contained the raw cables, and was capable of being accessed by the published password. He and Freitag took care to provide no location information that would enable the file to be accessed by any member of the public. The quarrel with Domscheit-Berg seemed to have had seismic consequences for Assange, who is still awaiting the result of his extradition appeal. He published unsubstantiated accusations that Domscheit-Berg had links with western intelligence agencies, and started to pump out tens of thousands of previously unpublished cables, mostly apparently unredacted. “He feared he would not be the one any more to be publishing them,” says Domscheit-Berg. “He is so egocentric and completely irrational.” To protests from the Australian and US governments that he was endangering sources, Assange dropped a series of hints on Twitter as to the location of the cables file on the internet. He followed this up with a claim that he was now publishing new material because the Guardian had “betrayed” his password seven months earlier. Assange’s claims about the Guardian were untrue. David Leigh and James Ball WikiLeaks Julian Assange David Leigh James Ball guardian.co.uk
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Hospitals will be forced to treat wealthy foreigners to raise cash, rather than treat poor patients, says BMA’s Hamish Meldrum Hospitals will be forced to treat wealthy foreigners to raise cash rather than treat poor patients as they are hit by cuts to the NHS budget and the government’s radical pro-market reforms, the leader of Britain’s doctors has warned. In an interview with the Guardian, Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, predicted the government’s health and social care bill would see the NHS being rebuilt on a “philosophy that relies on a market-based health system rather like the one we see in the United States. “There, those who pay or are insured get a better service than those who do not and rely on state-funded Medicare. Until now our system has been built on social solidarity where patients get appropriate treatment in the appropriate time.” He said the government was forcing all hospitals to become foundation trusts and these would be gearing up to lure private patients from home and abroad as budgets were squeezed. This decision, he argued, would only be possible because the government plans to abolish the cap limiting the proportion of total income hospitals can earn from the paying sick. With waiting times creeping up and the government encouraging private care, Meldrum said patients would be back to a system where those with cash can jump ahead of those in need. “Trusts are being encouraged to concentrate on profitable areas of work rather than the most essential … like mental health, accident and emergency and care for the elderly. These are not profitable. But heart operations for wealthy Arabs will be.” The intervention comes at a crucial moment for the coalition’s health bill. The BMA, which earlier this summer voted to launch a public campaign opposing the bill, has joined the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing – which between them represent more than 500,000 frontline clinical NHS staff – to fight the bill. Today all MPs will receive a letter from Meldrum calling for the bill to be withdrawn or subject to “significant amendment”. The letter reads: “We believe there continues to be an inappropriate and misguided reliance on ‘market forces’ to shape services. This is very clear in the general direction of policy travel, such as widening patient choice to ‘Any Qualified Provider’ (AQP) across a much larger range of services, which has the potential to destabilise local health economies.” Although earlier this summer the government halted the bill’s progress and appointed a high-level team headed by Professor Steve Field, former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, to review its proposals, the changes recommended – amounting to 1,000 amendments – have not persuaded the BMA to drop its opposition to the bill. The Commons is preparing to debate the changes to the bill amid suggestions that half a dozen Liberal Democrat MPs, under pressure from grassroots activists, may abstain and at least one, Andrew George, has signalled he will oppose the legislation. Meldrum said he was courting Lib Dems who were “intuitively more sympathetic to our message” than Conservative MPs. This weekend Labour and the health unions will launch an “NHS Alert” campaign in 60 Conservative and Lib Dem seats across England, aimed at putting local pressure on MPs before next week’s Commons votes. Meldrum said David Cameron had been mistaken when in a speech in Cornwall last month the prime minister claimed that his plans to change the NHS beyond recognition had “the whole health profession on board”. “I don’t know where the prime minister gets his information from to make that statement. I can only imagine he must be taking to a completely unrepresentative group of clinicians,” said Meldrum. The BMA says it “acknowledges the efforts of government to listen” but that the government’s changes either do not alter the fundamental problems with the bill or they make it worse. Meldrum pointed out that a new NHS bureaucracy was springing up with five different bodies able to buy care for patients. He also argued that the choice and competition agenda of the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, remained intact. The BMA chairman said he was especially concerned that surgeons’ pay would be related to medical outcomes and that family doctors would be paid on how well they commissioned care for patients. This would penalise GPs and hospitals in poorer areas where residents’ health was related to transport, housing and employment. “Doctors in well-off areas would benefit and those in poor areas would not.” He also argued that articulate middle-class patients would be able to take advantage of the patient choice policy. “Those who are articulate and shout loudest will tend to get better care. The less well-off patient will not. This will see an increase in health inequality.” John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said that despite the government’s claims to have listened, Meldrum’s comments showed that “the chorus of concern among health service professionals is as loud as ever”. Healey said: “With doctors and nurses now hardening their position, it is clear that David Cameron is in denial and out of touch when he claims his NHS plans have widespread support. After a wasted year, during which time we’ve seen patient services starting to go backwards, the prime minister should scrap both the bill and his massive reorganisation plans.” The Department of Health said: “The BMA’s campaign is disappointing because as the doctors’ union they previously said they were ‘pleased that the government has accepted the Future Forum’s core recommendations, and that there will be significant revisions to the bill’. “We will never privatise the NHS and patients will never have to pay for NHS care. Our plans have been greatly strengthened in order to safeguard the future of the NHS.” NHS Health Health insurance Health policy Public services policy Healthcare industry Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Republican Governors Split with Eric Cantor Over Disaster Aid and Budget Cuts
September 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Looks like Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor is getting some push back from Republican governors in states ravaged by Hurricane Irene after his statements calling for budget cuts before funding for disaster relief . As Ed Schultz discussed during this segment, it looks like Cantor may be backing away from his rigid stance, even if it’s ever so slightly, now that he’s being criticized from the likes of his state’s Gov. Bob McDonnell and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. From ThinkProgress — Republican Revolt: Virgina’s GOP Governor Splits With Cantor, Rejects Conditioning Disaster Aid On Budget Cuts : House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), along with some of his House GOP colleagues, have been saying that disaster aid for the areas affected by Hurricane Irene must be offset by, in Cantor’s words, “ savings elsewhere .” Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) said yesterday on Bloomberg News that budget cuts must be a prerequisite for disaster aid in order to reassure “ the business markets .” Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) added that the days when disaster relief could be funded without offsetting budget cuts “ are gone .” However, not everyone in the GOP agrees that disaster funding should play second fiddle to the GOP’s budget-slashing agenda. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) yesterday broke with Cantor, saying that “ I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate “: Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell, breaking with Cantor, on Tuesday suggested that deficit-spending concerns should not be a factor as Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) respond to the hurricane. “My concern is that we help people in need,” McDonnell said during his monthly radio show. “For the FEMA money that’s going to flow, it’s up to them on how they get it. I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate.” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn’t have any kind words for Cantor and his fellow Republicans as well and slammed them for the games they were playing during the debt-ceiling hostage taking, and said the citizens of his state weren’t going to wait around for similar games with their disaster relief. From the HuffPo — Chris Christie: Don’t Delay Hurricane Irene Disaster Aid Over Federal Spending Cuts : Firebrand Gov. Chris Christie let loose against Congress on Wednesday, saying he wouldn’t let a fight brewing in Washington over whether disaster aid needs to be offset by federal spending cuts hurt Hurricane Irene flood victims in his state. “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they (Congress) can all go down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later,” the Republican governor told a crowd in the flood-ravaged town of Lincoln Park. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has less than $800 million in its disaster coffers, and U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has said the House will require offsetting spending cuts to pay for aid. Christie, who some Republicans are pushing to run for the White House in 2012, chastised Congress – with three members of the state’s delegation standing feet away as he did – for playing games at a time when people need government assistance most. Christie said that he doesn’t want to hear that offsetting budget cuts have to come before aid is distributed and that such a discussion isn’t appropriate in a time of need, like in May, when a tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo., killing 160 people and damaging about 7,500 homes. “Nobody was asking about offsetting budget cuts in Joplin,” the governor said.
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