Agreement will be ‘crucial to improving security’, says justice secretary, and personal information will be stored for 15 years The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has defended a joint American-European agreement to store the personal data, including credit card details, of millions of transatlantic air passengers for 15 years. Clarke said that despite strong concerns about civil liberties, the agreement to share passenger name records with the US department of homeland security was crucial to improving US and EU security. His data protection speech in Brussels on Thursday followed the Guardian’s disclosure of the text of the draft US-EU agreement on sharing passenger name records in the wake of negotiations concluded last Friday. But the disclosure also revealed increasing opposition in the European parliament to the deal, with a warning from Claude Moraes, the socialists and democrats group civil liberties spokesman, that the data would not be used just to combat terrorism and serious crime. Clarke called for a “flexible approach” to data protection in Europe. He also backed the campaign by the home secretary, Theresa May, to ensure that passenger data on flights within Europe were also collected and stored for up to five years. “The UK agrees with the large majority of other member states who think that it makes no sense to collect passenger name records information on flights to and from third countries without also collecting the same information on flights between EU members states,” Clarke told the British Chamber of Commerce in Brussels. “We cannot provide the protection we all wish to see without working with our non-EU partners, given the threats we face are global in nature. We should continue to engage closely with the United States on passenger name records and data protection – it is crucial to improving US and EU security.” But Moraes, Labour MEP for London, said socialist MEPs were “absolutely appalled” by the text of the US-EU passenger name record agreement. “There is no justification for a 15-year retention period of people’s personal details,” Moraes said, adding that it compared with 5½ years for a similar agreement with Australia, and five years for the EU’s own airline data collection plans. The agreement left the “door wide open” for the use of the personal data – which includes bank card details, home addresses and mobile phone numbers – for “mission creep” purposes way beyond combating terrorism and serious crimes.”It is also wrong that we should adopt the position that because it is for anti-terrorist purposes, we can’t question whether it is a proportionate response,” Moraes said. The German and French governments have already expressed concerns about the length of the retention period with Australia. That agreement and the US deal need to pass the scrutiny of the European parliament before they can come into effect.ends Data protection Data and computer security Civil liberties – international UK civil liberties Immigration and asylum Kenneth Clarke Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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International package will support Arab spring as Cameron warns alternative to democracy is ‘poisonous extremism’ Britain is to set aside £110m over the next four years to foster democracy and economic growth in Tunisia and Egypt as part of a wider international package to show support for the Arab spring. David Cameron, speaking on the opening day of the G8 summit of leading economies in Deauville, Normandy, argued that if Britain did not help the fledgling democracies of north Africa the result would be poisonous extremism and waves of illegal immigration into the UK. The G8 is hammering out a wider package of aid to north Africa as the centrepiece of its two-day deliberations. Cameron said: “I want a very simple and clear message to come out of this summit and that is that the most powerful nations on Earth have come together and are saying to all those in the Middle East and north Africa who want greater democracy and greater freedom and greater civil rights – we are on your side.” He added: “We’ll help you build your democracies; we’ll help you build your economies; we’ll help you with trade – we’ll help you in all the ways that we can, because the alternative to successful democracies is more of the poisonous extremism that has done so much damage in our world. “And to people back at home wondering what is the relevance of summits like this, it will mean less extremism, it will mean more peace and prosperity, and it will mean there won’t be the pressures of immigration that we might otherwise face in our own country.” The Tunisian and Egyptian economies have been floundering since the spring revolutions because of a collapse in tourism and trade. Egypt claims political instability is costing it $40m (about £25m) a day in lost tourism revenues, while growth has more than halved and inflation has risen. The leaders of both countries – the Egyptian prime minister, Essam Sharaf, and the Tunisian prime minister, Beji Caid el Sebsi, are both due to address the G8 leaders on Friday. The Tunisians are asking for $5bn a year for the next five years, pointing out they have suffered an influx of immigrants from Libya. The extra cash, including soft loans, multi-creditor debt swaps, and greater trade access for agricultural products, would come as tensions mount inside both countries over the slow pace of reform and continuing mass unemployment. The US is the largest contributor, offering $4bn in aid and loans, but help will also come from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. The US has also urged the G8 to “lead efforts to reorient” the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to back Arab democratic transitions in much the same way as it supported similar transitions in central and eastern Europe. Some Egyptian protesters are due to return to Tahrir Square in Cairo this Friday to demand faster progress towards reform and removal of the military junta, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. But the protesters, who call their protest Save the Revolution Friday, are split, with the Muslim Brotherhood, the likely beneficiary of early elections, refusing to join them. Britain recognises that premature elections may make it difficult for some of the newer parties in Egypt to establish themselves, but recognises there is an impatience for democracy. The UK funding will include £40m from the Foreign Office over four years to bolster political reform and a further £70m from the Department for International Development. The Foreign Office money will be used to build political participation, support human rights groups and challenge corruption. It appeared none of the cash would go to the Muslim Brotherhood on the grounds that it is an already well-established party. Speaking before the meeting, the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, confirmed that the 27-member EU would provide €1.24bn (£1bn) in “fresh new money” to its neighbours in the east and across the Mediterranean. G8 Egypt Tunisia David Cameron Foreign policy Middle East Africa Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Manal al-Sharif, the Saudi mother arrested for uploading a video of her driving on YouTube, faces another 10 days in jail A Saudi Arabian woman who posted a video online of her driving her car is facing another 10 days in prison, according to reports from the kingdom. Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year old mother who drove around the eastern city of Khobar last Saturday, had been expecting to be released on Friday after five days in jail on charges her lawyer described as driving without a licence, provoking other women to do the same and provoking public opinion in Saudi Arabia. It is disputed by lawyers whether it is illegal for women to drive under national law but it is socially and religiously unacceptable in many quarters. “The investigator needs another 10 days to complete his investigation,” said Al-Sharif’s lawyer, Adnan Al Salah. “He will decide whether Manal is innocent and has to be released or he will refer her to the prosecution unit, a government organisation and they might refer her to a special prosecutor to deal with the case. I feel the fair and right thing would have been to release her on bail.” The extension of the investigation was interpreted as a show of defiance by the Saudi authorities in the face of growing domestic and international pressure to release Al-Sharif. “They have added 10 days to the investigation,” said Waleed Abu Alkhair, a human rights activist, who knows Al-Sharif. “This is very, very disappointing. The authorities want to show they are strong and don’t care about any pressure.” The move is likely to fuel anger in Saudi Arabia and abroad at what is seen by some as an overzealous reaction to a woman driving her car. Al-Sharif’s case had already become a cause celebre among reformers and human rights activists in the highly conservative kingdom who are hoping to emulate aspects of the Arab spring freedom movements. King Abdullah is facing direct pressure from around 1,500 Saudis who have signed a petition calling for Al-Sharif’s immediate release and to clarify the law on whether women are allowed to drive. The authorities were already braced for a planned mass-drive protest on 17 June, which was being organised by Al-Sharif, an executive at the Saudi state oil giant Aramco. Since her arrest, several more videos showing women driving have been posted online in defiance of the state and conservative clerics. The Guardian has learned that Saudi Arabian women are planning another mass drive within days to protest against a de facto driving ban in force across much of the kingdom. The event is being organised covertly with details circulated by email and text message in an attempt to catch the Saudi authorities off guard, human rights campaigners told the Guardian. “There are many underground calls to take advantage of momentum and to do something right now,” said one female organiser, under anonymity. “People are talking about women going out and driving and it is not just women who are supporting us, men are too.” On Thursday, deputy interior minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz appeared to try to end debate about the issue by affirming that women cannot drive under a law decided in 1411, or in the Christian calender 1991, apparently contradicting previous remarks by senior members of the rulers saying it is a matter of social custom, not law. “Women driving cars in Saudi Arabia has already been decided on in 1411 [and we decided] to not allow women driving,” he said. “And this for us, the Ministry of the Interior, continues to stand.” He added: “Our mission is to implement the system, but whether this action is right or wrong is not for us to say.” Al Salah insists it is not illegal for women to drive, even though only a handful in remote desert areas or in private compounds feel comfortable doing it and anyone with enough money hires a driver. As a result there are estimated to be 750,000 drivers in the kingdom, mostly migrant workers. “You can’t find any article in Saudi law relating to traffic that prevents women from driving,” said Al Salah. “The government is taking this line because if they don’t they may provoke the conservative part of society and they do not want to upset those people.” Al-Sharif was first released after just five hours only to be re-arrested in the early hours of Sunday when the authorities learned she had posted a video and encouraged other women to do the same on the internet. It showed her driving through the streets wearing a headscarf and black sunglasses telling the camera in Arabic: “If a husband has a heart attack what is a wife to do if there no one else around and she can’t drive … Not everyone is able to afford a driver. It’s just too expensive for poorer families.” In an earlier interview, she said she was inspired to organise the Women2Drive movement by the experience of Bahia Al Mansour, a 20-year-old student at King Faisal University who started to struggle in her studies after difficulties in arranging transport. “Every lady has something to do in the city, she’ll just drive, do her business and come back,” Al-Sharif told the Dubai-based Gulf News. “So, it’s as simple as that. People can’t call it a demonstration, we’re not going against the law, we’re not going against anyone, we’re not even demonstrating.” Her imprisonment sparked a furious reaction among some Saudis and social networking websites, Twitter and Facebook, buzzed with anger. Eman Al Nafjan, a teacher and PhD student in Riyadh who writes a blog under the name Saudiwoman, told the Guardian that Saudi conservatives and the wealthy were determined to keep women from driving because it blocks anyone who cannot afford a driver from competing for jobs: “Only the upper middle classes have drivers and that gives so much power to them,” she said. “If you lift these obstacles then a lot of women will go out to work and society will change, they believe for the worse. Women will compete with men and they even believe it will cause more bastards to be left on the steps of mosques.” Al-Sharif’s arrest quickly became highly politicised. Her background as part of Saudi Arabia’s minority Shia population was used by some to allege she was an agent of foreign powers, including Iran, aimed at destabilising the kingdom. She is not alone in speaking up in favour of women driving. Najla Hariri, a 45-year old mother of five in Jeddah, started driving her own car earlier this month when her driver left and she had to take her son to school. Now she believes a challenge to the social stigma around women driving could be the first of many changes in the kingdom. “Most of us have drivers, but sometimes we find ourselves in need,” she said. “It is a very small thing, but we have the right to move from place to place. It is about independence. My driver left the job and I needed to take my son to school, so I took the car and went. That’s all. I did it twice. The next day I went to the grocery shop to get some things. It shocked us all when Manal was arrested because she didn’t break any law or breach any fatwa.” Samar Badawi, a human rights campaigner also from Jeddah, said she believes only a minority of men would object to women driving. “It would change everything if women drove,” she said. “Women would be able to go to hospital, take their children to school and do all this without a man. It would allow women to respect themselves if they drove their own cars. Maybe 15% of men would be offended, the rest would like women to drive. I know lots of women that drive, but Manal was the first to film it and put it on YouTube. This is why the government was angry.” Waleed Abu Alkhair, a human rights activist, who knows Al-Sharif, said his contacts in the Saudi court say they have to keep good relationships with the religious leaders. “They feel sorry about what has happened to Manal but they don’t want a bad situation with the clerics,” he said. Rumours circulated that she had broken down in custody and apologised, which was firmly denied by her lawyer. “She didn’t apologise for anything,” Al Salah said. “She would have apologised if she had caused harm to anyone and she says she hasn’t.” Hired male driver Babal lives in a small hut at the front of Eman Al Nafjan’s house in Riyadh. Whenever Eman wants to go somewhere the Bangladeshi man is always ready to drive her. Eman, the 32-year-old daughter of a military officer who works as a teacher and is also studying for a PhD in linguistics would rather Babal didn’t have to. Babal is one of an estimated 750,000 drivers employed in Saudi Arabia, many from abroad, who ferry the richer women in the kingdom around because social custom, religious edict and possibly common law forbids them from driving themselves. He earns £196 per month and the family sometimes feed him, “but not three meals a day”. “Babal is there all the time,” said Al Nafjan, the relatively affluent. “He has been with me for four years. He has a son, his wife is pregnant and he goes back to Bangladesh to see them once a year. I am very mobile but it is still inconvenient. Riyadh is a city of a million people and it’s a one-and-half-hour trip to get to classes and I am there for three hours. There is no time to turn round and go back again so Babal waits. It is hot and I feel bad for the driver. He shouldn’t have to. I should be able to drive myself.” Saudi Arabia Gender Road transport Women Human rights Robert Booth Mona Mahmood guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Well, it appears that Fox has another fabricated non-issue to get worked up about this week: the Obama administration creating a rapid-response team to debunk falsehoods and respond to unfavorable stories in the media. Of course the talking heads at Fox — being the leading purveyors of those falsehoods — weren’t happy. Monica Crowley was asked about the new staffer, Jesse Lee, and what role he’d be playing for the Obama administration — and of course she just had to get in a reference to the supposed “Chicago way” they play politics, think gangsters… wink, wink… and claimed that they were just trying to “intimidate their political opponents.” Sadly Fox proves every day why such a response team would be necessary since telling lies all day about Democrats is pretty much their stock and trade. Media Matters has more — Fox Accidentally Justifies Obama’s Online Rapid Response Group : Fox & Friends this morning reacted to a new effort by the White House to respond to reports that the White House had created an online rapid response team to debunk falsehoods about the administration, among other things, by doing what they do best: freaking out. Yesterday, the Huffington Post reported that White House staffer Jesse Lee would be filling a new position “for helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community.” Huffington Post further reported that “the White House will be adopting a more aggressive engagement in the online world in the months ahead.” Fox, the leading cable news source for anti-Obama smears, did not care for this development. Read on…
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Conservative peer will be sentenced in six weeks after denying six counts of false accounting The Tory peer Lord Hanningfield has been found guilty of six counts of expenses fraud. Hanningfield – tried at Chelmsford crown court under his name, Paul White, on Thursday – had denied six counts of false accounting relating to his parliamentary expenses. The prosecution said he had claimed for overnight stays in London, between March 2006 and April 2009, when he had actually returned home to Essex. White told the court he had seen it as a “living out of London allowance” rather than overnight subsistence. The jury found the 70-year-old peer guilty on all six counts and he will be sentenced in six weeks. White, who was an Essex councillor for 40 years and led the council from 2001 until he was charged in 2010, was made a life peer in 1998. He was a frontbench spokesman on business while the Conservatives were in opposition, but was suspended from the parliamentary party after being charged. During the trial, he said he “quite honestly assumed” he could claim the maximum amount after learning that this was what 85% of peers did. Asked by his defence counsel why he thought he was entitled to the full sum, he said: “The £30-£40 a day that was then available on the daily allowance was very little.” The peer, from West Hanningfield, near Chelmsford, told the court he spent “a minute a month” completing the Lords expenses claim form in exactly the same way each time, not even including rises in train fares. “If I had known how important some people saw those forms [as being], I would have done much more. I didn’t see it as self-certifying, I saw it as means of getting expenses,” he said. “No one ever told me those forms were so important. I am horrified to be where I am now because of those forms.” He said he had been told nothing about expenses when he was given an induction into the House of Lords for new peers and paid “very little attention” to the guidelines on the back of the claim forms. Hanningfield said many other peers saw the Lords as a “club”. He alleged that another peer who had a main home in London had designated a cottage in Wales as their primary address and claimed the full allowances for overnight subsistence. The court heard that White, from a farming background, receives only the state pension and a small agricultural pension of £120 a month. He would be entitled to a local government pension for his 40 years on Essex county council, but “never got around to filling in the forms”, the jury was told. The peer said he paid off the mortgage on his bungalow 10 years ago, but recently remortgaged it to help pay for his lawyers during the trial. Prosecution over his expenses spelled the end of his long career in Essex politics; he stepped down as the county council leader the day he was charged. In 2005, he was behind a parliamentary question which revealed that Tony Blair had spent more than £1,800 of public money on cosmetics and make-up artists for media appearances since becoming prime minister. White became emotional during his trial when he was asked whether it had been appropriate to claim back the cost of paying someone to walk his dog. “As I lived alone, I wouldn’t survive without my dog – it’s someone I could talk to and walk with,” he said, adding that he had worked long hours and allowed work to “take over my life”. During his trial, he denied living an extravagant lifestyle, saying: “Most of my clothes are from Marks & Spencer. I enjoy the occasional glass of wine but that’s about it. I have no savings, no stocks and shares, nothing like that.” MPs’ expenses House of Lords Conservatives David Sharrock guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NEC Director Gene Sperling has been a supporter of the deficit-hawk side of the Obama administration team, which I’ve been very unhappy about, because of what might be cut in their grand bargaining scheme. But yesterday he turned my head (in a good way) with his no-nonsense approach and rebuke to Paul Ryan’s ridiculous Randian budget, this time while speaking at another Pete G. Peterson deficit do-dah. WSJ: Anyone who thought the White House and House Republicans were close to a deficit-reduction deal only needed to sit through five minutes of the 2011 Fiscal Summit held by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in Washington. Those would be the five minutes when House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) wrapped up his wide-ranging remarks and when White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling began his talk.“I want to point out how isolated the House Republicans are,” he said. “Serious people doing serious discussions do not take an absolutists position that you cannot have a penny of revenue.” He said Mr. Ryan has “put himself in a box” with his unwillingness to raise tax revenue. He said this forced Republicans to call for “very severe cuts” that if “explored” by Americans “they would not be proud of.” Mr. Sperling attacked the House Republican proposals to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, saying that the $770 billion in savings Republicans wanted from changing Medicaid would be unnecessary if Republicans would agree to roll back certain tax cuts. “You can’t say to anybody who would be affected by that, that we have to do that, that we have no choice,” he said. “The fact is that all of those savings would be unnecessary if you were not funding the high income tax cuts.” He also said that Mr. Ryan was wrong when he said that raising taxes as part of a broader package would hurt economic growth. “Everything he said I heard nine million times in 1993 ,” said Mr. Sperling, who was NEC deputy director in the Clinton administration and later became Mr. Clinton’s national economic adviser. With all the deficit blabber coming from the Beltway — from the Village press to the Cat Food Commission to the Gang of Six and then to VP Biden’s group — I, like many, have been waiting for the shoe to eventually drop. And Medicaid seemed like the most vulnerable target to be part of some grand-ass bargain proposal. NEC Sperling hit Paul Ryan hard over the head just by using the Bush Tax Cuts alone. He makes other important points as well. Digby: No Dice To medicaid Cuts This is really important. Sperling has been one of the foremost proponents of the Grand Bargain and this pretty unequivocally takes Medicaid cuts off the table. It will always be vulnerable — whenever the Republicans get the chance they will try to cut Medicaid, especially once it is expanded to cover more people. They will be desperate to call it a welfare program that somehow is keeping people from being productive members of society. But if the Dems can at least protect what exists now and get the expansion enacted it will be harder. Sperling’s comments were terribly important in that it positioned it as a safety net program that helps the middle class as much as the poor and I’m not sure most people know that. You rarely hear much about Medicare, but a huge number of families across America use it. It’s an important part of the safety net for our seniors. You know, Republicans used the bogus ” death panels” talking point to attack health-care reform, but what Paul Ryan proposed in reality are real death panels, because if anything like his ideas are ever implemented, the consequences for our seniors will be catastrophic. d-day weighs in : Sperling apparently also said “From a values perspective, we should be very deeply troubled by the Medicaid cuts in the House Republican plan.” This is excellent. If the White House fights for Medicaid rather than wanting to gain “credibility” through a deal, it cuts off that avenue of escape for Republicans. Safety-net programs could then get untouched and deferred until after the 2012 elections. This would be the best-case scenario at this point.
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Click here to view this media Well, we’ve been saying all along that Sarah Palin — riding on the wings of her own narcissistic religious delusion — would of course be running for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2012. And now, it appears, the confirmation is getting closer : Ms. Palin has reshuffled her staff, rehiring two aides who have helped plan her political events. And she is expected to resume a schedule of public appearances soon — perhaps as early as this weekend — to raise her profile at a moment when the Republican presidential field appears to be taking final form. The drumbeat intensified on Tuesday night when the conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon was quoted on RealClearPolitics, a political news site, as saying that he was releasing a feature film he made with Ms. Palin’s acquiescence about her tenure as governor of Alaska. The film is to be shown next month in Iowa, whose caucuses open the nominating contest. Taken together, the moves are at odds with conventional wisdom — if not wishful thinking — among establishment Republicans in Washington that Ms. Palin has decided not to run. That thinking has been voiced increasingly as the party’s professional political class, which Ms. Palin has railed against, has sought to declare the field of candidates closed. Ms. Palin would undoubtedly be able to raise substantial campaign financing and attract constant media attention if she ran. But she is a divisive figure in the party, and would have to overcome what polls have consistently suggested is skepticism and even opposition to her among some fellow Republicans. Still, supporters of Ms. Palin say that her constituency beyond the Beltway remains eager, and aides and associates have said she is receptive to their calls of “Run, Sarah, run.” “All indications are that she will be in — her supporters have an intuition about it,” said Jeff Jorgensen, chairman of the Republican Party of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, where Ms. Palin came in second in a straw poll last week. “People are looking for somebody, a Ronald Reagan reincarnate, who does not seem to be out there yet.” Indeed, the forthcoming Palin movie is what has the fanboys really worked up the most. Sean Hannity ran a clip of it last night, hinting that it was a preview of her entry into the race. And then, as TBogg observes, there are the uber-fanboys over at Conservatives4Palin, who are practically moaning in religio-military ecstacy: Some things on my mind at this hour: 1. This is a masterstroke. Everyone has been caught off guard. The Lefties are totally flummoxed. They expected to dominate the news with Bailey and the Caller story, now its SARAH IS COMING. 2. Washington will be in complete turmoil. They thought they might get Sarah to reconsider. and stay out. She’s not. She’s coming in. The Donor Class now knows that she will be in the game. This frustrates Mittens, TPaw, and most of all, the Bush Family. 3. This tells me something else: Palin has her TO&E almost ramped and ready. There is more behind the scenes than we know. State by state websites are probably ramped up, using O4P as the skeletal front. The fundraising machine is probably amped and ready. The FEC papers are filled out and ready to file. 4. Her position papers, some of them genuinely radical, are ready to go. 5. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, prepare for genuine, on the ground, protracted infantry warfare. This will be All Eastern Front, All The Time. Expect this to be an extremely long and protracted effort that will take up the next 18 months of our lives. The Country is Worth It. Remember, people gave their lives so we could bang away on a computers and vote our consciences. McCain spent five years in a box so we could do this stuff. Do not forget who made the next 18 months possible. Men who laid down their lives at places like Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Belleau Wood, Midway, Peleileu, the Chosin Resevoir, Khe Sanh, and Fallujah, made it possible for us to fight for the life of our country. Oh, and don’t forget to seek God’s guidance and fortification in prayer. I intend to do that. Haven’t done much of it lately. That’s a part of my life that needs to change. Sarah’s example is a good one. The road ahead for Palin, her family, her team, and for us, is a long and bitter one. But there have been tougher, blacker days. Mr. Churchill spoke to the King’s Subjects for the first time as Prime Minister on May 19, 1940 on the BBC. The British Expeditionary Force had just been unceremoniously expelled from the Continent, courtesy of the Panzertruppen. France was well on its way to becoming a German satrapy. And all of England would come under the ferocious assault of the Deutches Luftwaffe within a month. Chruchill was stern in his address. He did not mince words. He told his fellow subjects of the enormity of the task at hand, and of the apparent imminence of invasion of the British Isles. Having made his speech, he finished with a peroration that has come down to the ages and I believe applies here: “Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: ‘Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.’” I suspect Joe McGinniss is basically right : Her people are out there, they are numerous, they are angry: and there is not another credible Republican candidate in the race. Up to this point, Sarah has laughed all the way to the bank. Now she hopes to laugh all the way to the White House–swept there by a tidal wave of “real” Americans who don’t like elitist liberals (i.e. for a start, anyone with a college education) portraying them as racist, pitchfork-carrying buffoons. Neither Romney nor Pawlenty can active them, but Sarah can. And she plans to. Because God is telling her to do so. Oh, man, this makes what I’ve written in THE ROGUE about how steeped she is in Christian Dominionism all the more relevant. She truly believes her “prayer shield” will keep her invulnerable to attacks between now and election day 2012. After that, she’ll lay down the shield and pick up the sword of fire with which she’s waiting to smite all of us who do not see her as Queen Esther. Mind you, I’m not in the least persuaded that Palin could ever win the presidency. But I think you can make an easy case for her winning the GOP nomination. No one else can capture the religious-right bloc the way Palin can — and that’s a more significant start than any of the other candidates have.
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Rapists now face longer in jail than those convicted of manslaughter, according to 2010 criminal justice statistics The average sentence for rape is now more than eight years – longer than the average prison term for manslaughter, according to Ministry of Justice figures published on Thursday. The 2010 criminal justice statistics show that the average sentence for rape of a woman was just over 97 months, two months higher than the 2009 figure and significantly higher than the 78 months – or six-and-a-half years – that was typical in 1996 when the Conservatives were last in power. But the figures show that 134 of the 984 rapists jailed last year in England and Wales were given sentences of four years or less. Only one got less than 12 months. The justice ministry figures cast fresh light on the political row last week sparked by a clash between the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, and Gabrielle Browne, an attempted rape victim, over his plans to increase the maximum discount for an early guilty plea for all crimes from 33% to 50%. Clarke denied claims that the average sentence was only five years, raising the prospect that under his plan rapists would serve just over a year. The average 97-month sentence for rape includes the current 33% maximum discount for those who plead guilty. Browne said after meeting Clarke this week that she had been persuaded by his sentencing discount plan as it would only apply if suspects pleaded guilty as early as possible. The annual criminal justice bulletin shows that the average prison sentence in England and Wales for all offences is 13.7 months – up by just over two months since 2000. But this excludes the more punitive indeterminate sentences, including imprisonment for public protection and life, under which criminals are given no fixed release date. The number serving indeterminate sentences has risen by 900 in the past year. Robbers in particular are now getting longer sentences. The figures also show a sharp decline in the use of cautions by the police in the past three years They peaked in 2007 at 363,000 and last year fell by 16% to 243,000. Justice ministry statisticians said the fall coincided with the scrapping of targets for the police for the number of offenders brought to justice. The bulletin also shows a startling 28% fall in juveniles entering the criminal justice system. But justice ministry officials said the decline was probably more to do with a greater use of informal warnings and other unrecorded measures by the police than representing a real drop in juvenile crime. Rape Crime Kenneth Clarke UK criminal justice Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Clinton to Ryan Backstage at Peterson Foundation Debate: ‘Give Me a Call’ to Discuss Medicare
May 26, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Let’s just say both Clinton participating in anything sponsored by the Peterson Foundation that wants to privatize Social Security and that has been doing their best running around the country trying to scare everyone that the United States is going broke because they don’t want to see taxes raised, and him cozying up to Paul Ryan backstage at their debate doesn’t exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy inside to put it mildly. Rachel Maddow wasn’t too thrilled with watching this either in the clip above. Bill Clinton to Paul Ryan on Medicare Election: ‘Give me a Call’ : The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire. But ABC News was behind the scenes with the Wisconsin Congressman and GOP Budget Committee Chairman when he got some words of encouragement none other than former President Bill Clinton. “So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York,” Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.” Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington. “My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said. Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would. Read on…
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John Cooper found guilty of four killings in 1980s that rocked rural west Wales A former farm labourer has been given four life sentences for four shotgun murders that rocked a quiet community in west Wales in the 1980s. John Cooper, a prolific burglar, was convicted of killing holidaymakers Peter and Gwenda Dixon as they walked the coastal path in Pembrokeshire in 1989. Cooper, who was described in Swansea crown court as a “cold and calculating” killer, also murdered millionaire farmer Richard Thomas and his sister, Helen, in 1985 before setting fire to their remote Pembrokeshire farmhouse to try to cover his tracks. In addition, Cooper, 66, was found guilty of carrying out two sex attacks on teenagers in 1996, again in Pembrokeshire. Swansea crown court was told he carried out the killings and attacks for “pitiful financial gain” and “sexual gratification”. The murders of the Dixons, who were from Oxfordshire, became particularly notorious. One theory of the time was that they might have been murdered by the IRA, after an arms dump was found nearby. But after Dyfed-Powys police launched a cold case review in 2006, fresh scientific tests pointed to Cooper as the killer and sex attacker. The jury was told that Cooper was a burglar and robber who was jailed for 16 years in 1998 for a string of offences in the area. He was depicted as a clever and cunning outdoorsman who used hedgerows as “safes” to hide the valuables he stole and cut escape routes through fences and fields and to evade capture. He was proud of his survival skills and followed what he claimed was an “SAS handbook”. Peter Dixon, 51, and his wife, Gwenda, 52, were walking on the Pembrokeshire coastal path in the summer of 1989 on the last day of their holiday when Cooper pounced with his double-barrel shotgun. He sexually assaulted Mrs Dixon and forced marketing manager Mr Dixon to reveal his bank card pin. The bodies of the Dixons were found near the village of Little Haven, six miles from the scene of the unsolved murders of Richard and Helen Thomas, 58 and 54. They were gagged and shot three days before Christmas in 1985 at Scoveston Park manor. After the killings, a fire was set to destroy evidence, the jury heard. In 1996 Cooper carried out a double sex attack after finding a group of teenagers in a field near his home at night, the court heard. Wearing a balaclava and carrying a sawn-off shotgun, he raped one of the girls at knifepoint and indecently assaulted a second girl. During the cold case review, traces of blood shown to be Mr Dixon’s were found on a shotgun owned by Cooper. Traces of Mr Dixon’s blood were also discovered on a pair of shorts worn by Cooper. Crime Wales Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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