Tom Friedman Continues to Give Cover to the Extremism of the Republican Party
August 22, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media It looks like Tom Friedman has a new book to sell, so naturally that meant that Howard Kurtz just had to give him two full segments on this weekend’s Reliable Sources to sell the CNN viewers on some more of his Third Way nonsense that he and a bunch of Republicans and corporate Democrats are trying to push now that they realize the right wing of the Republican Party has taken them over to the point that they rightfully should find themselves going the way of the Know Nothings once the better part of the electorate finally starts waking up to just how extreme their ideology is. Never mind the fact that there’s barely a bit of difference between what these so-called “tea party” members that are nothing but the extreme right wing of the Republican base trying to re-brand themselves and the people that both Kurtz and Friedman identify as being somehow “moderates” here. I’ll give Friedman a small amount of credit for finally admitting that it is just one party we’ve got a problem with right now that’s obstructing everything that President Obama has tried to get pushed through the Congress to help create jobs in America, but the false equivalencies that went along with that are infuriating. That along with the people he’s willing to label as “moderate.” I’d say, by what definition? Someone tell me where there’s a hair’s bit of difference between the voting records of Lindsey Graham and his BFF John McCain in recent years, or any of the rest of them that they named off, and the United States Senate’s most extreme right winger, Jim DeMint? Friedman likes to opine for the good old days when we had what you’d call “moderates” in the Republican Party, but accepting that notion depends completely on what anyone would describe as their definition of a “moderate.” These days, that definition seems to mean either Blue Dog Democrats who are bought and sold by corporate America, and Republicans who might actually vote with Democrats once in a while, if those policies help corporate America. Their definition of an “extremist” on the left is what’s left of those in the Progressive Caucus in the House who are some of the few still remaining out there looking out for the working class. This just looked like another demonstration by Friedman with the help of Howard Kurtz, doing his best to move the Overton Window even further to the right and give more political cover to the Republican Party by pretending that they’ve ever been on the side of the working class for the last forty years plus or so. They’ve been wanting to dismantle everything FDR did and LBJ did to put the poor and middle class back on somewhat of an equal footing with the rich and with wanting equal rights for minorities in the United States and to dismantle the New Deal and the gains for civil rights that we saw under those administrations since they were enacted. But sadly, that’s about what I’d expect from Mr. Friedman Units who’s made it his job to give cover to Republicans so average Americans think they actually care about them for years now. Transcript via CNN : KURTZ: “New York Times” columnists serve up plenty of strong opinions about Democrats and Republicans. But Thomas Friedman is staking out some new territory, throwing his journalistic weight behind an effort to create a third party. Friedman is fed up with the idiocy of America’s two political parties and wants to blow open the system, an unusual stance, to say the least, from somebody occupying the coveted real estate of the country’s most influential paper. He’s the co-author of the forthcoming book, “That Used to Be Us: How American Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We Can Come Back.” I spoke to him earlier here in the studio. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KURTZ: Tom Friedman, welcome. TOM FRIEDMAN, COLUMNIST, “NEW YORK TIMES”: Good to be here, Howie. KURTZ: Now, “New York Times” columnists don’t endorse candidates. But you’re backing an outfit called Americans Elect. This is an outfit whose mission is to get third-party candidates on the presidential ballot in 50 different states. So, has Tom Friedman given up on the two-party system? FRIEDMAN: I haven’t given up on it, Howie, but I think that the two-party system. KURTZ: You’re frustrated. FRIEDMAN: Definitely frustrated. You can see that in the column. But definitely think the system needs a shock, that — you look at what’s going on today, Howie, it’s like we’re having an economic crisis and the two parties are having an election. And they barely meet. I mean, it’s sort of the economic crisis here, and it just overlaps sort of with their election over there. KURTZ: Well, it will overlap when the two parties seem unable to agree on a basic way to raise the debt ceiling and keep the country out of default. So that frustrated everybody. FRIEDMAN: Exactly. KURTZ: But this idea of a third party, it seems like pie in the sky in a way. FRIEDMAN: It certainly seems like pie in the sky to some. But the reason it’s been pie in the sky, Howie, is because it’s so difficult to get on the ballot. So that’s why third-party candidates have rarely carried states. I mean, George Wallace did. But if you have a third party that’s already on all 50 states, and then you have an Internet election that doesn’t turn out to be goofy, that doesn’t end up with Lady Gaga, but actually produces a serious candidate, I think it becomes very interesting. Because what’s the key? The key is to show the two parties that there is a constituency here for serious policies so they change. That’s the shock I think the system needs. And that’s why I find Americans find (ph) it interesting. KURTZ: And so you feel that given the current system, with the need to raise money and with the need to play to your ideological base on both sides, that the Democrats and Republicans essentially are not very good at governing? FRIEDMAN: Yes. I mean, you know, you look at what’s going on now, and you say, how could we actually be here today, Howie? We’re waiting until Thanksgiving for these two parties to solve this crisis. KURTZ: Meaning a super committee. FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. And the markets are just saying, oh, yes, we’ll wait. No problem. You get back to us on Turkey Day. You know what I mean? That’s part of a system that is so broken, it seems to me, that it’s now dangerously broken. A friend of mine on Wall Street said to me the other day — he said, “These politicians are dealing with the economy like it’s a football. It’s not a football. It’s actually a Faberge egg.” It may look a little bit like a football, but you drop it and you can actually break it. And I think that’s the frustration in the country today. KURTZ: The stock market might suggest that. You wrote a related column called “Bring Back Poppy.” You miss the first George H. W. Bush, who you covered. The press didn’t love him at the time. Remember those bumper stickers, “Annoy the media, reelect Bush”? FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. KURTZ: But now you’re nostalgic of him. FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. Well, you know, I was a reporter then, so I wasn’t writing columns. So I can’t tell you what opinions I had. I’m sure there were frustrations that I had at the time as a reporter. But what did I admire about him and one do I think we need right now? One is — first is that he believed in math. And it’s hard sometimes to find Republicans who believe in math these days. That is, when his aides came to him and said, Mr. President, we need to raise taxes, now you need to actually break that vow you made to the American people, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” He did the right thing. KURTZ: Possibly at the cost of his presidency. FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. It certainly contributed. It paved the way to the good economy of the ’90s. At the same time, he believed in science. People forget, George H. W. Bush was the father of cap and trade, which he invented and installed to deal with the acid rain problem. Incredibly successful. KURTZ: Which is anathema to the Republican Party. FRIEDMAN: Yes. KURTZ: But you also ask in one of your columns, Tom, “Where have the adults gone?” And you like Republicans like Dick Lugar, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Colin Powell. And you’re not a fan of Michele Bachmann. Or you mentioned Rush Limbaugh, Palin, and Grover Norquist. But, you know, some of that sounds ideological. You like the moderate Republicans. But the center of gravity — I think the point you’re trying to make is the center of gravity in the party has shifted. FRIEDMAN: Yes, no question. I mean, in my next life, Howie, I want to come back as a member of the base. The base has all the fun, whether it’s the settlers in Israel or the Republican Party. And at some point someone has got to talk straight to these people. When you have a party where it is an act of courage, the ultimate act of courage, to say climate change may actually be real, OK, that’s nuts. OK? That’s so outside where the science is. And that’s a dangerous place I think for the Republicans to be. And the country can’t be serious if our biggest opposition party isn’t serious about these issues. KURTZ: If the Republican Party has been hijacked by what you call the extremist Tea Party — you argue that as a columnist — has the mainstream press, the regular news coverage, has it reflected that? FRIEDMAN: Oh, yes. I think certainly the commentary, when I see the columns and what other commentators raise, certainly. KURTZ: Right. But is it — in the straight reporting, is there a little bit too much he said/she said and not reflecting what some would say is a historical shift in the political center of gravity in the GOP? FRIEDMAN: You would be in a better position to judge that than me. I can’t say I’ve done any systematic survey of that. KURTZ: But now I bet you some people out there are watching and saying, well, you know, this is just a typical liberal media bias, back the Republicans, powered by Tea Party sentiment, won the election of 2010, captured the House of Representatives. And you, Tom Friedman, don’t like that. FRIEDMAN: Well, first of all, I’m not such a liberal. Let’s start there. OK? As the left will tell you. I’m a pretty centrist kind of person, number one. But, number two, everyone says, I won the election, now I’ve got a mandate. Let’s look what happened over the last decade. So George Bush Jr. wins the election, and he takes basically the Reagan revolution, tax cutting, to its logical extreme and beyond. And Obama comes in and he takes FDR’s New Deal in the form of health care to its logical conclusion, and some would say and beyond, to which I say, thank you very much. Both parties have now completed the agendas of their iconic leaders of the 20th century. Could someone please build a bridge to the 21st? KURTZ: Given the limitations that we’ve seen in President Obama’s governing style, the fact that he comes in late, his critics would say he’s too much of a compromiser, what does he stand for, all that, did the media blow it in the portrayal of candidate Obama in 2008? Did we — were we swept along by the emotion of the Obama oration? FRIEDMAN: Way too soon to tell that. KURTZ: Really? Almost three years in? FRIEDMAN: Yes. I really think way too soon. Yes. I think, look, what have I been calling for the president to — I mean, think there is — we so desperately need a grand bargain that involves restructuring of debt, raising of taxes, cutting of spending, and investing in the sources of our strength, OK, as a country, from everything from infrastructure, to government-funded research, to education. It’s so clear that’s what we need. My personal frustration with Obama has been that, while he certainly tried that grand bargain for a little bit, it just kind of went away. Well, it didn’t work. He said Boehner backed out. I don’t know who backed out. Whatever — KURTZ: It takes two sides to negotiate, yes. FRIEDMAN: Exactly. There’s no question. But if I were Obama right now, I would be out with the American people every day on that bus tour, “I am for this grand bargain. Here is what it means specifically. Here is why it will work. Here is why it’s the answer to our problem.” And my own frustration with Obama is that, as a commentator now who wants to get behind solutions, OK, and come out against obstruction, I don’t have a solution right now that I can say here is my guy who has got my plan out there — I mean, the plan I think will work best for the country. And I think there’s a lot of voters who feel that way as well, a lot of Obama supporters who want to be supporting the president, but they don’t quite know what it is. You know what I mean?
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enlarge You know, contrary to what you might believe from hearing the panicked commentary from the media, there are solutions to our economic problems. Look at the report that came out this week from the New Bottom Line Campaign showing that at least 1,000,000 new jobs would quickly be created if we just forced the big banks to write down the mortgages of underwater homeowners to current market levels. Look at Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s new jobs bill , which would immediately create more than two million new jobs and pay for it by just taking taxes on wealthier Americans up to the levels they were after the big Reagan tax cuts in 1981. Look at the CPC’s budget , which sensibly brings us to a balanced budget faster than anything else than has been proposed by Republicans while still making the desperately needed investments we need to make in our future. Look at this report from The American Prospect on how the Obama administration could help rebuild the middle class through executive action, things they could do without waiting for Congress to act. CAF is doing a great new series of articles on how to create jobs. A task force I served on came up with a whole series of great ideas on how to rebuild America’s manufacturing sector. We have solutions to our economic problems, things that both help create millions of desperately needed jobs in the short run and lay the foundation for us, as President Obama likes to put it, to win the future. What we need is political leadership that stands up to the massive multinational conglomerates that are strangling our economy, and stops acting in panic and caving into the hostage takers willing to kill the economy in order to get what they want. Sometimes the hostage takers are politicians, and sometimes they are bankers, but either way, they need to be told no. Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, likens America to a third-world country taken over by a handful of corrupt oligarchs who have stripped their country’s economy dry, and don’t want to give up their power even as the country desperately turns to the IMF for bailouts. He is right about where we are: a tiny number of gargantuan companies have way too much market power and a vise grip on our politics as well. The problem with the sensible policy solutions to our country’s problems is that many of them would cost Wall Street and the other oligarchs money. We could create 1 million jobs overnight if the banks wrote down these underwater mortgages, and our regulatory agencies and state attorneys general could make them do it. We could create millions of new government or government contractor jobs overnight doing desperately needed work by taxing big banks, big oil companies, wealthy CEOs, and other mega-wealthy Americans. And we could do everything else mentioned in the reports and ideas mentioned above, but most of them cost some powerful, wealthy special interest some money, so too many politicians don’t want to do it. These oligarchs have us in a vise grip. So instead of talking about how to rebuild the middle class, we are taking about cutting money out of Social Security. Instead of talking about how to create good American jobs with good American wages and benefits, we’re talking about making seniors pay more for their health care costs and students not being able to get Pell Grants. Instead of talking about building infrastructure and invest in green jobs for the future, we are laying off teachers and seeing class sizes balloon into the 40s. And now in spite of all of our bailouts and all of our tax breaks and all of our looking the other way at their anti-trust and corporate fraud violations, companies like Bank of America are still in big trouble because of their own recklessness. Will we bail them out again because they are too big to fail? Will our solution to their failing be to help engineer another bank merger so that these too big banks get even bigger? Or will we once again help revive them rather than do what needs to be done and restructure them so that they become smaller and more accountable to all of us — their customers, their workers, and us taxpayers. We know the answer to these questions if policymakers keep the attitude they have had the past few years; that saving the banks and funneling more money to the super-rich is what saves our economy. But it doesn’t work: it saves the big boys’ hides and bonuses for another few years, but doesn’t do a damn thing for the rest of us. The only way we are going to turn this around is to demand a change, to create a mass movement so big it can’t be ignored, something my friend Wes Boyd calls a “revivalist Church For Progress”. Like the populist movement of old, we are going to have to have speakers’ bureaus and tent revivals. Like the student movement of the 1960s, we are going to need teach-ins. Like the labor movement of the 1930s and the civil rights movement, we are going to need direct action and sit-ins and people in the streets. We are going to need to take this to the streets because those in the halls of government aren’t paying enough attention. And we are going to need to take this to big corporate boardrooms and target them for action, because they clearly control government, so they need to hear what we are saying, too. What we need are jobs, not cuts. We need good American jobs with good American wages, jobs that strengthen the middle class, not the kind of minimum-wage jobs politicians like Rick Perry are so proud to brag about. And we don’t need any more cuts to things that middle-class and low-income folks rely on like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, and public schools. Good jobs, not more cuts — and no more bailouts for bankers or loopholes for GE. It’s time for a revivalist movement that will revive America.
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Admission the GLA is withholding correspondence comes after it emerged several of his charities had been lobbying ministers A letter from the office of the Prince of Wales to Boris Johnson, the mayor of London about planning issues in the capital is being kept secret because disclosure could undermine the prince’s “political neutrality”. The admission is likely to increase calls for greater transparency over the lobbying of ministers by Prince Charles, and his aides and charities. It comes amid continued concern that the prince’s involvement in political matters could cause a constitutional crisis if and when he becomes king. On Monday it emerged that several of the prince’s charities have been lobbying government ministers to change policy on issues ranging from VAT to regional development policy . The Guardian had asked City Hall to release correspondence between the prince and his aides, and elected representatives and officials at the Greater London Authority (GLA) about planning matters in the capital since Johnson became mayor, and specifically letters relating to the plans for the rebuilding of Chelsea Barracks and tall buildings in the capital, both topics the prince has spoken out on. City Hall replied that Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles’s private secretary, had written to Johnson but the prince had not consented to disclosure of the letter and, although the request came under environmental information regulations, it would not be released. “Disclosure of this information would adversely affect the Prince of Wales because, as heir to the throne, the sensitivity of his communications with public authorities are unlikely to diminish with time due to the fact that once he is the sovereign he will remain in office for life,” City Hall said. “Disclosure therefore could appear to undermine his political neutrality. Furthermore, release of this information would impinge upon the Prince of Wales’s privacy.” James Grey, a spokesman for Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state, said: “This seems to be a clear admission that the Prince of Wales is himself compromising his supposed neutrality by what he is saying in private correspondence with politicians.. “The heir to the throne is required to be impartial in fact, and not just in appearance. The concept of the prince’s political neutrality is worthless unless public bodies can be open about what he is saying to them.” A handwritten letter from deputy mayor Kit Malthouse to the prince was also withheld “as it constitutes Kit Malthouse’s personal data”. “It sets out his opinions on the various matters discussed in the letter and is clearly a personal, rather than an official, note,” City Hall officials said. The GLA agreed it was in the public interest to release the data to help the understanding of “the level of influence (if any) exerted by the Prince of Wales on matters of public policy, such as the future of the Chelsea Barracks site”. But this was negated by arguments in favour of non-disclosure, the officials added, and it wasalso in the public interest that the heir to the throne is not perceived to be “politically biased”. The maintenance of “the convention that provides a confidential space in which the heir to the throne can communicate with government, and the principles of political neutrality which underpin it” outweighed the public interest in favour of disclosure. Prince Charles Boris Johnson Monarchy Planning policy London London politics Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …‘It’s game over, Gaddafi’: Tripoli’s citizens see violent birth of a new Libya
August 22, 2011 No Comment
Most residents of the Libyan capital welcomed the rebels, but some had mixed feelings. And where was Gaddafi? For a brief few hours on Monday, Tripoli’s Green Square was a tranquil place. A rebel flag hung above the old Ottoman palace. A few curious locals emerged to take a look around. What they saw was a mess: the windows of the Saleem coffee shop had been blown in; a mangled truck lay next to a municipal pleasure park with palm trees and a pond. One Tripoli resident, Tariq Hussain, 32, said Gaddafi loyalists had fired at the square for four hours on Sunday. At midnight their bombardment stopped. After that people had flooded into the area – quickly renamed Martyrs’ Square – to celebrate the arrival of rebels from the Libyan capital’s western suburbs and the apparent end of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Hussain admitted to ambivalence about the rebels’ victory. “I’m afraid of them, to be honest,” he said. Others, however, were jubilant. “Forty-two years too much. It’s game over, Gaddafi,” Abdul Mohammad said, as a group of teenagers stomped on a green Gaddafi baseball hat. “There’s no person here supporting Gaddafi,” Nasar al-Fahdi, a translator, explained. “It was just about fear. When someone says you have to support him, and he has a whole army behind him, what can you say?” But a waiter also admitted he had mixed feelings. Surveying the destruction, he said: “There’s not going to be much money around here.” Certainly, most Tripoli residents welcomed the arrival of the rebels, who swept in riding a noisy cavalcade of pick-ups. But some did not. Gaddafi’s loyalists were putting up resistance. By late afternoon what had begun in the morning with isolated pockets of fire had morphed into a full-scale battle, as Tripoli echoed with the rattle of anti-artillery guns and the wumpf of mortars. From high buildings on the seafront – offering a spectacular view of Tripoli’s port and languid corniche – the rebels drilled fire on the old city. There didn’t seem to be any answer. The roads – a few hours earlier home to a tentative light traffic – rapidly cleared. Gaddafi may have disappeared, his long, strange leadership slipping into the realm of history. But his fanatical followers fought on. In areas liberated by the rebels, the mood was euphoric. Locals stood on street corners, flashing V-signs as opposition militia from towns across Libya swept past. Women cheered and whooped from upper storeys; by the afternoon mosques were broadcasting polite requests not to fire in the air but to conserve ammunition instead. Nobody listened. From checkpoints hastily set up, fighters continuously let off a festive pop-pop. In the district of Gurji, householders were sitting on the pavement, smiling and still evidently stunned by the events of the previous 12 hours. “We are with Cameron and Sarkozy 100%,” Walid Margani, a 45-year-old school inspector, offered spontaneously, in comments that will no doubt delight Downing Street. “They helped us in having a new life. For 42 years we’ve had no rights.” Margani was wearing an Umbro England football shirt. The shirt had a Nationwide logo. He was wearing it, he said, to express his thanks to the Nato coalition and its jets, without which Gaddafi would still be in power. But where was Gaddafi? The rumour in Tripoli was that he was hiding somewhere near the Algerian border – or had already crossed it. In a defiant audio broadcast Gaddafi had denounced his enemies – who began their uprising against him on 17 February – as “rats”. “He’s the rat,” Margani said. “We have not seen him on the TV for more than four months. He’s been hiding like a rat underground.” What should happen to him now? “We don’t want to hear his name any more. We want him to be judged and to disappear,” Ahmed Zidan, 45, said. It seems unlikely that Libya’s toppled leader will get this magnanimous treatment, should the rebels catch up with him. Over at the Mahgrab luxury village – an elite compound for expatriate workers – excited opposition fighters were interrogating two terrified prisoners from Chad. The rebels accused the pair of being snipers for Gaddafi. The men were made to kneel, glazed with fear. The first said he was called Mohamad Sala, the second Zane Al-Badine Ali. They were slapped, questioned, as a dozen rebel militia gathered round, one firing a silver handgun into the air. Gaddafi may indeed have hired the men as snipers – much of his army is comprised of mercenaries from African countries. Or they may simply have been employed to tend the compound’s lush gardens. The rebels told us to leave. The prisoners’ fate was unclear. Earlier in the morning, pro-Gaddafi gunmen had taken position at the eastern end of Gagaresh Street, opening fire at any vehicles that came too close. By the afternoon the street was calmer. Most private houses, though, were shut up, their inhabitants too frightened or too uncertain to venture out. There were no shops open. Nor was there any petrol. In the afternoon, electricity that had worked intermittently during this crisis went out. One local, Mohamad Ali Bara, said he was out collecting spent bullets as souvenirs for his nephew in the US. Bara admitted he was a former Libyan ambassador to Kuwait and Switzerland, notching up 37 years in Gaddafi’s diplomatic corps. “I knew him personally. He has a very cruel heart. Up until 1975 he was very good. After that he was like Hitler.” What changed? “Many things. His tribal mentality. He got his family around him. He started appointing ignorant people to be ambassadors.” Bara said there was no mystery why he had managed to stay in power for so long. “Gaddafi is very clever. He could keep Libya under his grip with a lot of security. Salaries are very low. But security people got a lot of benefits.” Bara said he retired from the foreign service in 2007, and had always expected the regime to be swept away by violent revolution. He finished: “I hope now that everybody likes to have real democracy.” This may take some time. Outside Tripoli, the rebels have control over most of Libya, following a spectacular push over the last 10 days from the west, south and east. Only three ago they were bogged down in the city of Zawiya, 30 miles west of the capital, and the scene of a week-long battle; now they are masters of Tripoli’s looping flyovers and its Mediterranean seaside restaurants. They were cruising around downtown commercial districts on Monday; they have the stock market. But before they can establish a new post-Gaddafi state they need to reach some kind of accord with the Gaddafi loyalists who were still fighting on Monday evening. At 5pm the rattle of heavy guns could be heard across the city, reverberating across the port in stately intervals. The regime may be finished but not everybody had absorbed this message. But it is only a matter of time. Teenage spraypainters were hard at work , covering the city’s walls with graffiti proclaiming the victory of the “February 17″ revolution. Clutching a black spray can in his hand, Rade, 22, put it like this: “It’s simple. We’ve won.” Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Luke Harding guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Cavuto Uses Cherry-Picked IRS Stats Showing There are Fewer Rich People in the U.S. as Excuse Not to Raise Their Taxes
August 22, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If Jon Stewart and his staff need more material for segments like the one he did this week — slamming Fox for attacking Warren Buffett for saying the rich should pay more in taxes and attacking the poor as a bunch of freeloaders who just want to suck off the government teet and for daring to have things like refrigerators and air conditioning — you need not look any further than their “business block” that airs on Fox “News” every Saturday morning. Here’s how Cavuto opened up the segment in the clip above: CAVUTO: Sock it to the rich! But what if I told you there aren’t as many rich folks to sock? Oh my god! We can’t have that now can we? Naturally that means we can never raise taxes on anyone that’s still in those upper income brackets. Cavuto goes on to quote some statistics from the IRS showing that there were 13% fewer people earning $200,000 and above from 2007-2009 and 55% less making $10 million and above during that same period and tells Ben Stein that that’s not a good trend. Ben Stein was actually the voice of reason here with his response to Cavuto and pointing out that that doesn’t mean there still aren’t plenty of rich people around and it wouldn’t kill them to pay more in taxes. Cavuto responds by asking him if he thinks those making over $200.000 are rich and out there buying jet airplanes. Stein got a pretty good shot in on Cavuto by telling him, no, he was talking about people like him, who have incomes of $10 million a year or more. Cavuto and his panel end up spending the rest of the segment pretending that the poor don’t pay any taxes because many of them don’t pay federal income tax and having another pity party for the rich if anyone like Warren Buffett dares to say they should pay higher taxes. UPDATE: And surprise, surprise, it appears those stats are cherry-picked to suit their new meme over at the Wall Street Journal and now Fox “News.” Here’s more from Media Matters breaking that down — “Millionaires Go Missing?” WSJ And Fox Cherry-Pick Stats To Claim Number Of Millionaires Shrinking . (Post title updated as well.)
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Amnesty International says eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal make a ‘mockery of justice’ The conviction of two Americans held in Iran for spying and illegally crossing the border has been condemned by a human rights group. Amnesty International said the eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, made a “mockery of justice” and were designed to be used as “a bargaining chip to allow Iran to obtain unspecified concessions from the US government”. A court sentenced the two men to three years each for illegally entering Iran and further five years each for espionage, it emerged over the weekend. “The conduct of this trial has quite simply made a mockery of justice. There does not appear to be any substance to the allegations that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are spies,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Middle East director. He described the trial as “deeply flawed” and said there was no evidence known to have been presented to suggest the pair were conducting espionage in Iran. “They have already spent over two years waiting for justice. The Iranian authorities should take act now and release these two men now without further delay,” added Smart. Iranian security forces arrested Bauer and Fattal, along with their friend Sarah Shourd, in July 2009, after they walked across an unmarked border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Their conviction came as a surprise to their families, who were expecting them to be released. Shourd, 33, who got engaged to Bauer while in jail, was released last September on health grounds and after paying $500,000 (£324,000) bail. Supporters of the three Americans say they unwittingly crossed the unmarked border while hiking but Iran accused them of spying. It is unclear whether the three were captured in Iranian territory or whether Iranian forces went into Iraq to arrest them. After their trials ended last month behind closed doors, officials from Iran’s foreign ministry signalled that the two would be freed on the eve of Ramadan. The contrast between the trial’s outcome and official promises highlights a growing rift between the judiciary, whose head is appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. Some analysts believe Shourd was released after an intervention from the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The long sentences given to Bauer and Fattal can also be interpreted as a tit-for-tat response to the US state department’s assessment, announced last week, that Iran remained the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism. In reaction to the handling of the trial, some conservative websites sympathetic to the regime in Tehran have mentioned the case of Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian woman in jail in the US on charges of attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles to Iran, which suggests that Iranian officials might be pursuing her release in exchange for those of the Americans. According to Iran’s Irna state news, the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said on Sunday that Bauer and Fattal “entered the country with prior planning of spying”. The lawyer for the two men, Masoud Shafiee, told an Iranian radio station that spying charges against his clients were “baseless” and that he would lodge appeals against the sentences. Iran United States Amnesty International Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Amnesty International says eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal make a ‘mockery of justice’ The conviction of two Americans held in Iran for spying and illegally crossing the border has been condemned by a human rights group. Amnesty International said the eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, made a “mockery of justice” and were designed to be used as “a bargaining chip to allow Iran to obtain unspecified concessions from the US government”. A court sentenced the two men to three years each for illegally entering Iran and further five years each for espionage, it emerged over the weekend. “The conduct of this trial has quite simply made a mockery of justice. There does not appear to be any substance to the allegations that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are spies,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Middle East director. He described the trial as “deeply flawed” and said there was no evidence known to have been presented to suggest the pair were conducting espionage in Iran. “They have already spent over two years waiting for justice. The Iranian authorities should take act now and release these two men now without further delay,” added Smart. Iranian security forces arrested Bauer and Fattal, along with their friend Sarah Shourd, in July 2009, after they walked across an unmarked border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Their conviction came as a surprise to their families, who were expecting them to be released. Shourd, 33, who got engaged to Bauer while in jail, was released last September on health grounds and after paying $500,000 (£324,000) bail. Supporters of the three Americans say they unwittingly crossed the unmarked border while hiking but Iran accused them of spying. It is unclear whether the three were captured in Iranian territory or whether Iranian forces went into Iraq to arrest them. After their trials ended last month behind closed doors, officials from Iran’s foreign ministry signalled that the two would be freed on the eve of Ramadan. The contrast between the trial’s outcome and official promises highlights a growing rift between the judiciary, whose head is appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. Some analysts believe Shourd was released after an intervention from the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The long sentences given to Bauer and Fattal can also be interpreted as a tit-for-tat response to the US state department’s assessment, announced last week, that Iran remained the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism. In reaction to the handling of the trial, some conservative websites sympathetic to the regime in Tehran have mentioned the case of Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian woman in jail in the US on charges of attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles to Iran, which suggests that Iranian officials might be pursuing her release in exchange for those of the Americans. According to Iran’s Irna state news, the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said on Sunday that Bauer and Fattal “entered the country with prior planning of spying”. The lawyer for the two men, Masoud Shafiee, told an Iranian radio station that spying charges against his clients were “baseless” and that he would lodge appeals against the sentences. Iran United States Amnesty International Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Amnesty International says eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal make a ‘mockery of justice’ The conviction of two Americans held in Iran for spying and illegally crossing the border has been condemned by a human rights group. Amnesty International said the eight-year jail sentences for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, made a “mockery of justice” and were designed to be used as “a bargaining chip to allow Iran to obtain unspecified concessions from the US government”. A court sentenced the two men to three years each for illegally entering Iran and further five years each for espionage, it emerged over the weekend. “The conduct of this trial has quite simply made a mockery of justice. There does not appear to be any substance to the allegations that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are spies,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Middle East director. He described the trial as “deeply flawed” and said there was no evidence known to have been presented to suggest the pair were conducting espionage in Iran. “They have already spent over two years waiting for justice. The Iranian authorities should take act now and release these two men now without further delay,” added Smart. Iranian security forces arrested Bauer and Fattal, along with their friend Sarah Shourd, in July 2009, after they walked across an unmarked border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Their conviction came as a surprise to their families, who were expecting them to be released. Shourd, 33, who got engaged to Bauer while in jail, was released last September on health grounds and after paying $500,000 (£324,000) bail. Supporters of the three Americans say they unwittingly crossed the unmarked border while hiking but Iran accused them of spying. It is unclear whether the three were captured in Iranian territory or whether Iranian forces went into Iraq to arrest them. After their trials ended last month behind closed doors, officials from Iran’s foreign ministry signalled that the two would be freed on the eve of Ramadan. The contrast between the trial’s outcome and official promises highlights a growing rift between the judiciary, whose head is appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. Some analysts believe Shourd was released after an intervention from the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The long sentences given to Bauer and Fattal can also be interpreted as a tit-for-tat response to the US state department’s assessment, announced last week, that Iran remained the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism. In reaction to the handling of the trial, some conservative websites sympathetic to the regime in Tehran have mentioned the case of Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian woman in jail in the US on charges of attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles to Iran, which suggests that Iranian officials might be pursuing her release in exchange for those of the Americans. According to Iran’s Irna state news, the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said on Sunday that Bauer and Fattal “entered the country with prior planning of spying”. The lawyer for the two men, Masoud Shafiee, told an Iranian radio station that spying charges against his clients were “baseless” and that he would lodge appeals against the sentences. Iran United States Amnesty International Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Kate Winslet and children among 20 guests forced to flee fire on Necker island Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet and her children escaped unhurt after a fire ripped through Sir Richard Branson’s luxury home in the Caribbean. Other guests who fled the fire at the Great House on Necker island included Branson’s 90-year-old mother, Eve, and his 29-year-old daughter, Holly. “Around 20 people were in the house and they all managed to get out and they are all fine,” said Branson, who was staying in another property 100 yards away with his wife, Joan, and son, Sam, 25. Branson, 60, bought Necker island in the early 1980s and began building the eight-bedroom Great House in 1982. He said: “We had a bad tropical storm with winds up to 90mph. A big lightning storm came around 4am and hit the house. My son Sam rushed to the house and helped get everyone out. The main house is destroyed and the fire is not yet completely out. My office was based in the house and I have lost thousands of photographs, which is very sad.” He added: “It’s very much the Dunkirk spirit here. We want to rebuild the house as soon as we can. We have a wonderful staff here and we want them to stay in work. We’ll all stay here for the time being. There’s a lot of damage and we won’t be able to stick it back together again right away. It was a beautiful house.” Winslet, 35, who won an Oscar for her role in the 2008 movie The Reader, has a daughter, Mia, 10, from her first marriage to Jim Threapleton, and a son, Joe, seven, by second husband, the director Sam Mendes, from whom she is separated. Richard Branson Kate Winslet guardian.co.uk
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Japanese government will admit for first time that radiation levels will be too high to allow many evacuees to return home Residents who lived close to the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant are to be told their homes may be uninhabitable for decades, according to Japanese media reports. The Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, is expected to visit the area at the weekend to tell evacuees they will not be able to return to their homes, even if the operation to stabilise the plant’s stricken reactors by January is successful. Kan’s announcement will be the first time officials have publicly recognised that radiation damage to areas near the plant could make them too dangerous to live in for at least a generation, effectively meaning that some residents will never return to them. A Japanese government source is quoted in local media as saying the area could be off-limits for “several decades”. New data has revealed unsafe levels of radiation outside the 12-mile exclusion zone, increasing the likeliness that entire towns will remain unfit for habitation. The exclusion zone was imposed after a series of hydrogen explosions at the plant following the earthquake and tsunami in March. The government had planned to lift the evacuation order and allow 80,000 people back into their homes inside the exclusion zone once the reactors had been brought under control. Several thousand others living in random hotspots outside the zone have also had to relocate. However, in a report issued over the weekend the science ministry projected that radiation accumulated over one year at 22 of 50 tested sites inside the exclusion zone would easily exceed 100 millisieverts, five times higher than the safe level advised by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. “We can’t rule out the possibility that there will be some areas where it will be hard for residents to return to their homes for a long time,” said Yukio Edano, chief cabinet secretaryand face of the government during the disaster. “We are very sorry.” Edano refused to say which areas were on the no-go list or how long they would remain uninhabitable, adding that a decision would be made after more radiation tests have been conducted. The government has yet to decide how to compensate the tens of thousands of residents and business owners who will be forced to start new lives elsewhere. The state has hinted that it may buy or rent land from residents in unsafe areas, although it has not ruled out trying to decontaminate them. Futaba and Okuma, towns less than two miles from the Fukushima plant, are expected to be among those on the blacklist. The annual cumulative radiation dose in one district of Okuma was estimated at 508 millisieverts, which experts believe is high enough to increase the risk of cancer. More than 300 households from the two towns will be allowed to return briefly to their homes next week to collect belongings. It will be the first time residents have visited their homes since the meltdown. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, is working to bring the three crippled reactors and four overheating spent fuel pools to a safe state known as “cold shutdown” by mid-January. Last week the company estimated that leaks from all three reactors had dropped significantly over the past month. But signs of progress at the plant have been tempered by widespread contamination of soil, trees, roads and farmland. Experts say that while health risks can be lowered by measures including the removal of layers of topsoil, vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and children should avoid even minimal exposure. “Any exposure would pose a health risk, no matter how small,” Hiroaki Koide, a radiation specialist at Kyoto University, told Associated Press. “There is no dose that we should call safe.” Any government admission that residents will not be able to return to their homes will be closely monitored in Japan. Suspicions persist that the authorities privately acknowledged this situation several months ago. In April, Kenichi Matsumoto, a senior adviser to the cabinet, quoted Kan as saying that people would not be able to live near the plant for “10 to 20 years”. Matsumoto later claimed to have made the remark himself. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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