More than 300 seriously ill in Germany as E coli virus spreads to other northern European countries An E coli outbreak that has killed 14 people and made more than 300 seriously ill in Germany has spread to other north European countries and is expected to worsen in the coming week. “We hope that the number of cases will go down but we fear that it will worsen,” said Oliver Grieve, spokesman for the University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein in north Germany, where many of those afflicted are being treated. The source of the virulent strain of the bacteria is unknown, German authorities said on Monday ahead of a meeting of federal and state officials in Berlin. Most of the deaths have been in northern Germany. The E coli pathogen has been identified on cucumbers imported from Spain but it is unclear if they were contaminated there, during transport or in Germany. There are 36 cases of suspected E coli in Sweden, all linked to travel in northern Germany. A small number of cases have been reported in Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, all linked with travel to Germany. The German government has identified the pathogen as hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious complication of a type of E coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E coli (STEC), and said it had killed 14 people and made at least 329 ill. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a risk assessment that the HUS/STEC outbreak is the largest in the world of its kind. HUS affects the blood, kidneys and, in severe cases, the nervous system and can be particularly serious for children and the elderly. Some 60 cases of HUS are reported annually in Germany, the government said. Grieve said his hospital had 82 cases of HUS and 115 confirmed E coli cases, and said the number of cases there had doubled within the past few days. The northern port city of Hamburg alone has reported 488 cases of E coli since the outbreak began in mid-May and has 94 cases of HUS.A hospital in the city said it was transferring patients with less serious illnesses to other clinics to cope with the flood of HUS patients. German authorities have warned consumers to avoid eating cucumbers, lettuces and tomatoes and have ordered some products removed from store shelves. Austria’s food safety agency ordered a recall of organically grown cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant supplied by a Spanish producer thought to be the source of the outbreak. It said 33 Austrian stores were affected. E coli Germany Sweden Denmark France Austria guardian.co.uk
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Italian voters set to reject the prime minister’s mayoral candidates both in his home city and in Naples An exit poll and early projections show Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, heading for a humiliating and politically ominous defeat in his home city of Milan. The polls suggested his party’s choice for mayor, Letizia Moratti, would be ousted in a runoff with a local leftwing lawyer, Giuliano Pisapia. An exit poll conducted for Sky Italia gave the challenger an advantage of seven percentage points; and an early projection pointed to an even bigger victory for Pisapia, of almost eight points. Projections also indicated that the left was storming towards a big victory in Italy’s third-biggest city, Naples. There, the opposition candidate was estimated to have picked up over 60% of the vote. Balloting in local and provincial elections ended at 3pm local time after a second, two-day round of voting. Milan, Italy’s business capital, was one of 90 towns and cities where a clear winner failed to emerge in the first round, on 15 and 16 May. The contest there was by far the most important. Milan is the city from which Italy’s flamboyant prime minister launched his political adventure, 17 years ago. It is also the one in which he is on trial for a range of alleged financial and sex-related offences. And, not least, it is the stronghold of his key allies in the populist, Islamophobic Northern League. Federico Manda, a tram maintenance technician, was one of a steady stream of last-minute voters at an electoral college around the corner from the courthouse where Berlusconi is a defendant in three concurrent trials. He had voted for “a change in Milan”, he said. “Berlusconi has monopolised this municipality, putting his men in everywhere, often in the wrong places.” Berlusconi tried to turn the ballot into a vote of confidence on his private life and his government’s performance. All the signs are that that was a disastrous error of judgment. After the first round, Moratti came in six percentage points behind her main rival. In the subsequent campaign, the prime minister and his Freedom People movement tried to make up lost ground with an overtly racist campaign directed at Pisapia’s sympathy for Roma and Muslims. Professor James Walston of the American University of Rome said he feared Berlusconi’s tactics could have a lasting impact on inter-racial and inter-faith relations in Italy. “This type of language has been used by the prime minister, not some neo-fascist maniac on the fringes,” he said. “It will be difficult to bring Italian political language back to acceptable European levels.” A victory for the left would be all the more remarkable, since its candidate was not the choice of the mainstream Democratic party (PD) but was one whose past is tinged with radicalism. Pisapia, a lawyer who once defended the Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, was elected to parliament in the 1990s as an independent on the slate of the hardline Communist Refoundation party. The predicted outcome in Naples would also be as much of an embarrassment to the PD as for Berlusconi. The opposition’s challenge there was mounted by a former prosecutor, Luigi De Magistris, who fought and defeated the PD’s candidate in the first round. Much will now depend on the reaction of the Northern League, which keeps Berlusconi’s government in power. Italy Silvio Berlusconi Europe Race issues John Hooper guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Italian voters set to reject the prime minister’s mayoral candidates both in his home city and in Naples An exit poll and early projections show Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, heading for a humiliating and politically ominous defeat in his home city of Milan. The polls suggested his party’s choice for mayor, Letizia Moratti, would be ousted in a runoff with a local leftwing lawyer, Giuliano Pisapia. An exit poll conducted for Sky Italia gave the challenger an advantage of seven percentage points; and an early projection pointed to an even bigger victory for Pisapia, of almost eight points. Projections also indicated that the left was storming towards a big victory in Italy’s third-biggest city, Naples. There, the opposition candidate was estimated to have picked up over 60% of the vote. Balloting in local and provincial elections ended at 3pm local time after a second, two-day round of voting. Milan, Italy’s business capital, was one of 90 towns and cities where a clear winner failed to emerge in the first round, on 15 and 16 May. The contest there was by far the most important. Milan is the city from which Italy’s flamboyant prime minister launched his political adventure, 17 years ago. It is also the one in which he is on trial for a range of alleged financial and sex-related offences. And, not least, it is the stronghold of his key allies in the populist, Islamophobic Northern League. Federico Manda, a tram maintenance technician, was one of a steady stream of last-minute voters at an electoral college around the corner from the courthouse where Berlusconi is a defendant in three concurrent trials. He had voted for “a change in Milan”, he said. “Berlusconi has monopolised this municipality, putting his men in everywhere, often in the wrong places.” Berlusconi tried to turn the ballot into a vote of confidence on his private life and his government’s performance. All the signs are that that was a disastrous error of judgment. After the first round, Moratti came in six percentage points behind her main rival. In the subsequent campaign, the prime minister and his Freedom People movement tried to make up lost ground with an overtly racist campaign directed at Pisapia’s sympathy for Roma and Muslims. Professor James Walston of the American University of Rome said he feared Berlusconi’s tactics could have a lasting impact on inter-racial and inter-faith relations in Italy. “This type of language has been used by the prime minister, not some neo-fascist maniac on the fringes,” he said. “It will be difficult to bring Italian political language back to acceptable European levels.” A victory for the left would be all the more remarkable, since its candidate was not the choice of the mainstream Democratic party (PD) but was one whose past is tinged with radicalism. Pisapia, a lawyer who once defended the Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, was elected to parliament in the 1990s as an independent on the slate of the hardline Communist Refoundation party. The predicted outcome in Naples would also be as much of an embarrassment to the PD as for Berlusconi. The opposition’s challenge there was mounted by a former prosecutor, Luigi De Magistris, who fought and defeated the PD’s candidate in the first round. Much will now depend on the reaction of the Northern League, which keeps Berlusconi’s government in power. Italy Silvio Berlusconi Europe Race issues John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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Report claims soldiers may be British, possibly SAS – which would break UN resolution over any ‘occupation force’ Armed western men have been filmed on the ground with rebels in central Libya in the first apparent confirmation that Nato has sent military advisers to train anti-government forces. A group of six westerners were clearly visible, according to a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing informal sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves. The sixth, apparently most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving on being spotted by the television crew. The footage emerged as South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, arrived in Tripoli in an attempt to broker a ceasefire. He described reports that he would ask Gaddafi to step down as “misleading”, and said he would instead focus on humanitarian measures and ways to implement a plan concocted by the African Union, which would see Libya undertake a process of transition to democratic rule but not seek Muammar Gaddafi’s exile. The western men seen by Al Jazeera were present on rebel lines late last week, days before British and French attack helicopters are to join the Nato campaign. They are expected to be active over Libya this week and likely to be deployed on the outskirts of Misrata, from where forces loyal to Gaddafi continue to shell rebel positions to the east. There have been numerous reports in the British press that SAS soldiers are acting as spotters in Libya to help Nato warplanes target pro-Gaddafi forces. In March, six special forces soldiers and two MI6 officers were detained by rebel fighters when they landed on an abortive mission to meet rebel leaders in Benghazi, in an embarrassing episode for the SAS. The group was withdrawn soon afterwards and a new “liaison team” sent in its place. Asked for comment yesterday, a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: “We don’t have any forces out there.” The subject is sensitive as the UN security council resolution in March authorising the use of force in Libya specifically excludes “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”. Despite more than two months of bombing by Nato jets, rebels have remained unable to advance west of Misrata, or west of Brega, 300 miles to the east. The capital, Tripoli, also remains in the grip of Gaddafi, who has defied all attempts to force him to leave. The Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, which is positioning itself as a democratic alternative to the four decade strongman rule of the four-decade rule of Gaddafi, claimed that eight senior military officers, among them four generals, had defected to its side and would announce their new loyalties at a meeting soon to take place in Rome. There was no immediate confirmation from the Italian government. However, air force pilots have landed in Italy and defected earlier in the rebellion. Undertrained and under-manned rebel forces have been encouraging defections, which they see as a way to whittle down support for Gaddafi in the absence of a ground army sent to assist them In April, William Hague announced that an expanded military liaison team would be dispatched to work with the Transitional National Council. The foreign secretary said the team would help the rebels improve “organisational structures, communications and logistics” but stressed: “Our officers will not be involved in training or arming the opposition’s fighting forces, nor will they be involved in the planning or execution of the NTC’s military operations or in the provision of any other form of operational military advice.” There were unconfirmed reports at the time that Britain was planning to send former SAS members and other experienced soldiers to Libya under the cover of private security companies, paid for by Arab states, to train the anti-government forces. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Al-Jazeera TV news Military Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Report claims soldiers may be British, possibly SAS – which would break UN resolution over any ‘occupation force’ Armed western men have been filmed on the ground with rebels in central Libya in the first apparent confirmation that Nato has sent military advisers to train anti-government forces. A group of six westerners were clearly visible, according to a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing informal sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves. The sixth, apparently most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving on being spotted by the television crew. The footage emerged as South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, arrived in Tripoli in an attempt to broker a ceasefire. He described reports that he would ask Gaddafi to step down as “misleading”, and said he would instead focus on humanitarian measures and ways to implement a plan concocted by the African Union, which would see Libya undertake a process of transition to democratic rule but not seek Muammar Gaddafi’s exile. The western men seen by Al Jazeera were present on rebel lines late last week, days before British and French attack helicopters are to join the Nato campaign. They are expected to be active over Libya this week and likely to be deployed on the outskirts of Misrata, from where forces loyal to Gaddafi continue to shell rebel positions to the east. There have been numerous reports in the British press that SAS soldiers are acting as spotters in Libya to help Nato warplanes target pro-Gaddafi forces. In March, six special forces soldiers and two MI6 officers were detained by rebel fighters when they landed on an abortive mission to meet rebel leaders in Benghazi, in an embarrassing episode for the SAS. The group was withdrawn soon afterwards and a new “liaison team” sent in its place. Asked for comment yesterday, a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: “We don’t have any forces out there.” The subject is sensitive as the UN security council resolution in March authorising the use of force in Libya specifically excludes “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”. Despite more than two months of bombing by Nato jets, rebels have remained unable to advance west of Misrata, or west of Brega, 300 miles to the east. The capital, Tripoli, also remains in the grip of Gaddafi, who has defied all attempts to force him to leave. The Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, which is positioning itself as a democratic alternative to the four decade strongman rule of the four-decade rule of Gaddafi, claimed that eight senior military officers, among them four generals, had defected to its side and would announce their new loyalties at a meeting soon to take place in Rome. There was no immediate confirmation from the Italian government. However, air force pilots have landed in Italy and defected earlier in the rebellion. Undertrained and under-manned rebel forces have been encouraging defections, which they see as a way to whittle down support for Gaddafi in the absence of a ground army sent to assist them In April, William Hague announced that an expanded military liaison team would be dispatched to work with the Transitional National Council. The foreign secretary said the team would help the rebels improve “organisational structures, communications and logistics” but stressed: “Our officers will not be involved in training or arming the opposition’s fighting forces, nor will they be involved in the planning or execution of the NTC’s military operations or in the provision of any other form of operational military advice.” There were unconfirmed reports at the time that Britain was planning to send former SAS members and other experienced soldiers to Libya under the cover of private security companies, paid for by Arab states, to train the anti-government forces. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Al-Jazeera TV news Military Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Those of you on twitter this weekend can’t help but have been drawn into Andrew Breitbart’s latest smear festival. The details are sordid and involved , as is usual with anything Breitbart touches. Given that his latest victim is Rep. Anthony Weiner, it’s important to remember what of Weiner’s activities might be drawing the right wing fake video impresario’s ire. Weiner discussed one of his current concerns with Rachel Maddow last Friday night. Weiner is pushing hard for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself on any decisions involving The Healthcare Reform Act. From the link: Clarence Thomas’ wife earned $700,000 from half the radical right-wing ideologues in Washington. Opposing health care reform was her specialty. For 13 years, Thomas didn’t disclose a penny of that income. He’s trying to conceal a blatant conflict of interest. His family is getting rich off an issue that’s very likely to come before the Supreme Court. I don’t expect Breitbart is getting paid for this directly. Smearing Weiner is an end in itself, and I doubt it was specifically in order to distract attention from Weiner’s efforts to shame Thomas into recusing himself. Weiner is an unapologetic liberal, which draws the hate of Breitbart and his drinking buddies no matter what issues Weiner promotes. But it is essential that we as progressives don’t get distracted by Breitbart’s lies. The issue is Thomas and what a complete conflict of interest it is for him to vote on anything to do with the constitutionality of the Healthcare Reform bill. Given that conflict of interest didn’t stop him from voting in favor of Bush in Bush v. Gore (when Thomas’s wife was on the Bush transition team) I doubt Thomas has any shame but Weiner’s efforts are still commendable. I refuse to get distracted by Breitbart’s promotion of lies. It is immoral for Thomas to vote on an issue for which his WIFE is a LOBBYIST. He should be shamed into recusing himself, and if he doesn’t, he should be publicly reviled and ultimately impeached. H/T Heather for the transcript below the fold. MADDOW: You have been in the news today because you have been pressuring Supreme Court Justices to release their financial disclosure forms. Clarence Thomas’ form shows that his wife Ginni earned salary and benefits from an anti-health reform group called Liberty Central as well as another group Liberty Consulting. And his wife… I was reading the forms after you posted them and I felt like there was also some sort of reference, maybe Clarence Thomas himself receiving some sort of funding from Liberty Consulting? How did you interpret those disclosures? What do you think they mean? WEINER: Well just so everyone understands, it’s required that every year that members of the Supreme Court disclose anything that might be a conflict in their background. Well, as it turned out for almost twenty years Clarence Thomas’ spouse was getting money from not only think tanks, but think tanks that were actively trying to persuade the court to do something, things like the Heritage Foundation and others. And so now when that became public, we’ve been paying extra attention to when these filings were reported and here’s the conflict. It is clear under the law that if any member of your household is going to benefit one way or the other from the outcome of a case, you’ve got to recuse yourself. Well, Ginni Thomas is actively raising money, taking money from organizations that would benefit if the health care reform act was struck down. It’s clear that Clarence Thomas should recuse himself. And let me just say this and make it very clear; Clarence Thomas’ spouse can earn money any way she wants and be free to speak (inaudible), but the question becomes, does that income to that household present a conflict for Clarence Thomas. And so yeah, we started a website ConflictedClarenceThomas.com and we put all of these documents up. And it’s pretty clear that Justice Thomas should recuse himself from the healthcare reform debate at least, because it’s clear his household is benefiting from one side of that debate. MADDOW: Benefiting financially because she would not be getting the income that she’s getting from these ideological groups if it were not for her perceived influence on her husband? WEINER: Exactly. As a matter of fact, she goes as far to advertise that and talk about the idea. You know, she makes fun of the idea. She says oh yes, I’ve got a great deal of influence over these proceedings. And remember something, she’s basically, her organizations are raising money by saying if you give money to me, we’re going to try to stop the healthcare reform from being implemented. Well she returns home to Justice Thomas who has to make that decision and probably in the next… less than a year. So we’re pressuring him to recuse himself. To me it’s a pretty clear case of the law that he should. MADDOW: And of course, there’s no way to force him to do it except by shame. WEINER: That’s right.
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It was a long haul to glory. After 48 matches in the Championship and play-offs Swansea had to resist a Reading recovery from 3-0 down at half-time in the 49th. They held on for a time after Brian McDermott’s side had scored twice before striking again to secure a 4-2 win. They did so, above all, because of a hat-trick from Scott Sinclair, who was once a prodigy at Chelsea. The second of the penalties he converted ended Reading’s hope 10 minutes from full-time. Andy Griffin needlessly felled Fabio Borini and Sinclair once more converted the penalty with a shot to the goalkeeper’s right. Brendan Rogers’ side will be the first Welsh club in the top flight since the inception of the Premier League. Reading were generally incapable initially of resisting pressure and the taxing encounter anticipated did not break loose until the second-half. There was logic to the outcome since Swansea had prevailed in both meetings with Reading in the regular season, but the 1-0 margins had suggested strain and tension of a different sort at Wembley. Swansea looked for a time as if they could spend the whole occasion reeling off goals. The Reading centre-half Zurab Khizanishvilli was in such distress that he could have had a red card instead of a single caution. It was the Georgian who brought down Nathan Dyer in the 21st minute and Sinclair sent the goalkeeper Adam Federici the wrong way with the penalty. The scorer had a further goal a minute later, knocking the ball home after Federici was able only to tip a low cross from Stephen Dobbie into his path. In the 45th minute, Khizanishvilli floundered once more by diverting the ball so that Dobbie could put his name on the scoresheet. Reading were in such disarray then that it did not seem so surprising that the referee Phil Dowd should send the assistant manager, Nigel Gibbs, and the substitute Jay Tabb to the stands at the interval following his encounter with them in the tunnel. The passion was put to better use by an eager and suddenly incisive Reading following the interval. Joe Allen was credited with an own goal after Noel Hunt’s header from a Jobi McAnuff corner deflected off the midfielder and past Dorus De Vries at the near post. A further corner would see Matt Mills score in the 57th minute, but nothing was to eclipse Sinclair and Swansea. Championship Reading Swansea City Kevin McCarra guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …This Week: Of Course Tim Pawlenty Would Back Ryan’s ‘Groupons for Medicare’ Approach!
May 30, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media In his interview on This Week With Christiane Amanpour, Tim Pawlenty walks the tightrope of sheer crazed wingnuttery and attempting to sound sane enough to actually govern. Amanpour, as usual, neglects to question the conventional wisdom (for instance, what happens to all those people who Pawlenty wants to have retire at a later age?), letting him have speak without much of a challenge: AMANPOUR: What seriously do you need to do to raise your profile? Or will the system just take care of it by force of running? PAWLENTY: Well, even now, only about 50 percent of the Republicans nationally even know my name. So we have to get the name ID up and then convert that, of course, to support. But if you’re a serious candidate for president, that will happen naturally over time. But I like the fact that most of the other candidates are really well known and yet they don’t really have a strong front-running position, and that gives us time and space to be able to advance our campaign. enlarge Tim Pawlenty is a politician who clung to his mullet far longer than anyone else in his line of work. Remember, “Business in the front, party in the back!” Woo hoo! ANDERSON: So, ladies and gentlemen, my husband, Governor Tim Pawlenty. AMANPOUR: Well, let’s get right to the heart of the matter. Medicare, you have said that if the Paul Ryan plan came across your desk as president, you would sign it. PAWLENTY: Well, let me start by saying my campaign is based around the notion that it’s time for the truth and it’s time for leaders to step forward and tell America and the American people the truth. As to Medicare, everybody knows it’s sinking. It’s going broke. The current program, Christiane, only has about 50 percent of it paid for by either premiums or payroll taxes, and the rest is deficit spending and debit spending or debt spending. So we have to fix it. And President Obama has an obligation as the leader of this nation to step forward and solve the problem, and he’s basically ducking it and then pointing fingers at everybody else. Now, as to Paul Ryan’s plan, I’ll have my own plan. It’ll have some differences. For example, he didn’t address Social Security. I will, and we already are. As to Medicare, it will have some differences, but if the only choices were doing nothing like President Obama is doing and Paul Ryan’s plan, I’d sign it. See, to me this would be the logical place to question whether healthcare vouchers (or Groupons , as I call ‘em — pay $5000, get a Groupon coupon good for a $10,000 surgery. Such a deal!) are a reasonable way to actually treat the medical problems of the elderly. Or are they something that gives the illusion of adequate health care but really throws patients to the wolves ? Plus, he’s lying. AMANPOUR: So what would you do? What would you do — for instance, you mentioned Social Security. Would you raise the retirement age? PAWLENTY: For the people who are currently in the program, no changes. For people who are coming up on eligibility, no changes. But for the next generation, the people who are entering the workforce, we need to gradually raise the retirement age over time. AMANPOUR: Let’s get back to Medicare. What would you do differently than what Paul Ryan has done? And what’s wrong with this plan that’s freaking people out, apparently? PAWLENTY: Well, the current system can’t continue. But our plan is going to have some of these features. One, we’re not going to pay Medicare providers under my plan just for volumes of services provided. We’re going to pay for better results and better health care outcome, and we’re going to put hospitals and clinics and providers on a performance pay system, not just a volume pay system. And we’re going to give people lots of choices. If they want to stay in the current Medicare program or whatever comes next in that program, great, that’s their choice, but we’re also going to offer them a series of other choices so they can pick what’s best for them and their families, and then they’ll have the opportunity to be in the driver’s seat. And we’ll also have incentives, financial incentives to make wise choices as it relates to cost and quality of health care. AMANPOUR: Do you think in the things that we’re facing right now, whether it’s Medicare, whether it’s the deficit, whether it’s the debt, can any of these things be tackled by one party or another? Or does it demand and require both party action? PAWLENTY: We hope for everybody to come together and be a team and move forward in the right direction for the country. But as you know, there are some sharp differences about what the correct solution is here. So I think any doofus can go to Washington, D.C., and maintain the status quo or incrementally change things. But for the country, the hour is late, Christiane, and we have to take significant action soon. This is time for people who are wanting to be leaders in a bold way to come forward and say, “We really have to change things significantly.” You know, I could swear that the last person who ran for president said the same thing. And then Tim Pawlenty’s party did everything they could to prevent any significant change from happening. AMANPOUR: Define “doofus.” PAWLENTY: That’s a Minnesota term. And doofus would mean somebody who would be relatively low performing . AMANPOUR: All right. Let’s talk about this huge debate going on in Washington and around the country about the debt ceiling. If you were president, would you ask Congress to raise it now? PAWLENTY: I don’t think we should raise the debt ceiling. And if the Congress moves in that direction, the president, they better get something really good for it. It better be permanent, and it better be structural, like a balanced budget amendment and like permanent caps and limits on spending that are specific, not just aspirational. AMANPOUR: Are you being political right now or do you really, really mean that one should not raise the debt ceiling, given the fact that most economists say that it would — it would make a cascade of catastrophic economic situations? PAWLENTY: Well, there are some serious voices challenging that very premise. And the answer is nobody really knows, because we’ve not been at this point before. AMANPOUR: But many people would say we would be at that point at our peril and that it is not like an argument over shutting down the government for a few days. This is a major, major earthquake in the economic system. PAWLENTY: Well, again, there are — there are people who’ve written thoughtfully — and these are serious people… AMANPOUR: So do you not believe that, then? PAWLENTY: Well, I’d — what I’d… AMANPOUR: Is your position that it would not affect the economy of the United States or the credibility of the United States or the creditworthiness of the United States? PAWLENTY: My position many, many months ago when I wrote an op-ed for one of the major national newspapers was this. President Obama was setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling. And at least for a while, you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first, and there’s enough cash flow to do that for quite some time. Uh, Tim? I think this officially earns you “doofus” status. Click here to view this media AMANPOUR: Do you agree that the military budget has to be really, really tackled very, very severely, in terms of cuts? PAWLENTY: If you look at where — I believe strongly that the first responsibility of the United States federal government is to protect this nation and our citizens, so I’m not calling for absolute or real cuts in defense. I think the growth can be slowed down. I think efficiencies can be found within defense. But I think those monies should be plowed back into defense to support it. AMANPOUR: Small government is a rallying cry of the Republican Party. What is your vision of the size of government? You’ve said that it has to be more proactive and more aggressive. How does that square with the small government agenda? PAWLENTY: Well, just because the government has an area of responsibility doesn’t mean it has to be the provider of the service. If government has an ability and an interest in helping people with certain things — and they should, like education — then give people the money directly. Let them decide what’s best for their family in a marketplace. We shouldn’t have a country where the government says, “Unless you’re rich, you’re condemned to go to a crappy school and your future hinges on whether some stupid lottery ball comes out so you might be able to go to another one.” All kids, regardless of background, should be able to go to a school of their choice and realize their dream. And President Obama, of course, one of the first things he does when he comes to Washington, D.C., along with the Democrat Congress who lecture us about how they’re for the poor, eliminate the scholarship programs in Washington, D.C., one of the most pathetic things I’ve seen in public policy in my life. AMANPOUR: I sense passion and anger there. And… PAWLENTY: Well, I was the only one in my family who was able to go to college. And my brothers and sisters couldn’t go, not because they didn’t have the capability. They didn’t have the opportunity. But we can’t afford to have a country of just over 300 million people with a third of our people uneducated or undereducated, unskilled, unable to access the economy of today and tomorrow, being ticked off and becoming wards of the state. That’s not going to work. And this system has to change. And the people who are defending the status quo are the — they got the interests of the adults instead of the interests of our children and the future of our country. And it does make me mad. It does make me mad. And it’s hypocrisy. AMANPOUR: You do emphasize your blue-collar upbringing. Your wife introduces you as the salt of the earth. Do you think that gives you an advantage when you go into a campaign like this? PAWLENTY: If you walk into a place, you know, like the VFW in my hometown and you walk in there at the fish fry on a Friday night like Mary and I went to a few Friday nights ago, and there are some people in there, you know, wearing Carhartt jackets and playing pull-tabs trying to win the meat raffle, they don’t look up and say, “Gosh, I really like his white paper on Sarbanes-Oxley reform. That really gets me going. ” They want to know not just what you have up here, they want to know, what do you have here? And if you’re going to be president of the United States or run for president of the United States, they want to know, who are you? Where did you come from? How were you raised? What do you believe? Why do you believe it? What’s it based on? What were your life experience? What shaped you? And so I’m not saying it’s the difference-maker, but when you grow up as I did, in a meat-packing town, and your mom dies when you’re young, and your dad for much of his life was a truck driver — he got promoted later to dispatcher and terminal manager — you learn some things and you see some things. And in my hometown, when those big meat-packing plants shut down and we had all kinds of people in town unemployed, worried about their future, this is not some academic exercise. I saw the face of it, real time, at a real young age. And so when people hear that, it just gives you a chance to have some credibility with them so they don’t just think you’re some pinhead, you know, who, you know, writes nice white papers or can spout off about these issues. You’ve actually lived it. You’ve walked in their shoes. And it helps. Yes, it helps fool those people into thinking you’d actually do something about their plight, although it’s been decades since the Republican party did anything for the non-rich. But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?
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Al-Qaida leader spent final weeks trying to strengthen links with Afghan and Pakistani insurgent groups in bid to ‘stay relevant’ Osama bin Laden spent much of his last weeks alive planning a new attempt to bring the disparate factions among insurgents and militants fighting in Pakistan and Afghanistan together under the umbrella of al-Qaida. The terrorist leader, who had made repeated efforts to unify militant groups, was even considering risking leaving his safe house in Abbottabad, the northern Pakistani garrison town, to try to build a fresh alliance through face-to-face meetings, sources in Pakistan, Afghanistan and America have told the Guardian. Western intelligence services and Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee, told the Guardian the reports that Bin Laden was planning a “grand coalition” were credible. “Bin Laden found it pretty difficult to be marginalised and was making a huge effort to stay relevant. There was some indication that he was looking at re-energising links with [other local militant groups] to give himself a central role,” Barrett said. Mediating alliances and focusing the efforts of disparate groups has been a favoured strategy of Bin Laden since the late 1980s. Many experts say that, with the growing sophistication of local groups such as the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the role of international militants in the region has diminished. “In recent years, al-Qaida has become increasingly marginal in the region, particularly in Afghanistan,” said Thomas Ruttig, a Kabul-based analyst. “The Taliban have people who have been fighting for 30 years and who have little to learn from outsiders.” Western intelligence officials in Kabul told the Guardian they believe there are probably no more than 100 extremists affiliated with al-Qaida fighting in Afghanistan and that relations with the other insurgent groups there and in Pakistan are “variable and dynamic”. “Most of the guys fighting in this region have a very local focus. That leads to friction with the internationals,” one said last week. Bin Laden had known key insurgent figures such as the cleric Jalaluddin Haqqani or the Islamist former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, for decades. American investigators hope the trove of data seized in the raid on the Abbottabad compound this month, in which Bin Laden and his 22-year-old son, Khaled, were killed, will cast light on the relations of al-Qaida and other militant groups in the region and beyond. Special forces seized dozens of computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices, such as disks, DVDs and flash drives, from the safe house. The data includes emails sent as recently as last month by a courier on behalf of the al-Qaida leader. The sheer size of the haul – described by one official recently as a mother lode of intelligence – has slowed the flow of information, however. “My understanding is that we are talking about something the size of a small college arts faculty library,” said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA analyst and expert in south Asian Islamist militancy. “There is a huge amount that needs processing.” Almost all the data is in Arabic, and needs to be translated into English. A further problem, US officials have said, is that it is unclear whether many of the messages, instructions and notes written by Bin Laden were ever sent or ever reached their intended destination. “They could have been just jottings. He probably got bored, like anyone else,” Riedel said. Intelligence gathering American former intelligence officials told the Guardian the immediate priority of the dedicated teams set up to work through the data would be to search for any operational information that could avert terrorist plots, rather than to focus on more strategic issues. So far, the investigators have found evidence confirming only that certain broad types of target – such as trains and planes – were still of interest to Bin Laden. According to officials and an American law enforcement bulletin two weeks ago, Bin Laden was also interested in hijacking and blowing up oil and gas tankers. Among the material seized in the compound, where Bin Laden may have been based for at least five years, are his notes on how many Americans he believed an attack needed to kill to force a change in Washington’s Middle East policies and on who were the best senior political officials to target in the US. There are also indications that Bin Laden was contemplating trying to negotiate some kind of pact with the Pakistani government. Investigators are also looking for details of the financing of al-Qaida. Much of the money for the terror group came from personal contacts of Bin Laden’s and what is believed to be a relatively small number of donors in the Middle East. One official with knowledge of the operation said last week it was hoped that the cache would identify these. Of particular interest would be any communications with al-Qaida’s Sheikh Sa’id al-Masri, believed to be the group’s chief financial officer until he was killed last year, the official said. The key thing the investigators will be seeking to assess is the nature of Bin Laden’s role in recent years within the al-Qaida organisation. Since his death, US officials have described the 54-year-old Saudi-born militant leader as “central” to the group and “a micro-manager” linked to “every plot” in America and Europe. However, some doubt Bin Laden could have been closely involved in day-to-day management, given that the compound where he lived was without internet access or telephones. Communicating may have involved a laborious process of writing messages offline, saving them to a USB key and then having a courier take them to a distant internet cafe or other terminal to be sent. The two men who lived with Bin Laden, his three wives and up to 15 children and grandchildren put batteries in their mobile phones only when they were at least 60 miles from Abbottabad, for security reasons, according to one report. This will have limited Bin Laden’s ability to run the group, officials told the Guardian. The data retrieved has already shown that Bin Laden was in touch with a small number of senior al-Qaida figures, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian veteran militant who is now expected to succeed as the head of the group. In a statement released in February this year, Zawahiri told followers to avoid “civilian casualties” in their attacks, saying he had been asked to issue the directive by Bin Laden himself. According to news reports, Bin Laden’s notebooks show his displeasure at a suggestion in the Islamist extremist internet magazine Inspire, published from the Yemen by an al-Qaida affiliate, that a farm tractor be converted into a “killing machine” by attaching blades to its wheels. This was not “representative of al-Qaida”, he complained. There is also evidence that Bin Laden had the final say in leadership appointments, pointing out the defects of potential candidates to close senior associates such as Zawahiri. But some officials seeking to divine the future direction of Islamist militancy point to the conclusions of Moroccan investigations into the bombing of a Marrakech cafe days before the al-Qaida leader died. A government statement said: “The individuals were absorbed by jihadist ideology, and had allegiance to al-Qaida and had already made several attempts to join some of the hotbeds of tension, especially Chechnya and Iraq, before deciding to carry out terror in the homeland.” There was no evidence of a direct connection with the al-Qaida leadership, the investigators said. “The suspects learned on the internet how to make the two remote-detonated explosive devices,” the statement said. Shortly after the death of Bin Laden, al-Qaida’s online al-Fajr Media Centre issued a statement telling every “mujahid Muslim, if there is an opportunity, do not waste it”. “Do not consult anyone about killing Americans or destroying their economy,” the statement continued. “We also incite you to carry out acts of individual terrorism with significant results, which only require basic preparation.” Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Afghanistan Pakistan Global terrorism Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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It’s Memorial Day, but the MRC is out with its latest edition of Notable Quotables , a re-cap of the most outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes from the liberal media over the past two weeks. This edition: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell insists that Republicans just lack the “guts” to raise taxes; David Gregory suggests it’s “racially-tinged” for Newt Gingrich to try and spotlight President Obama’s poor economic record, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria first admits to advising the President on foreign policy, then hails Obama’s speech on Middle East policy a few days later. Oh, and Ed Schultz. The entire package is posted at www.MRC.org ; here are some of the highlights. What’s Needed Is “Courage” to Raise Taxes “Paul Ryan has shown considerable guts, but you’re [Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen] correct that nobody on the Republican side is showing any courage on the tax front. And unless taxes are part of the mix, every grown-up knows it can’t reach a solution.” — Correspondent Andrea Mitchell on NBC’s Meet the Press, May 22. “What about raising taxes?…At some point, do you have to look at raising taxes, and do people have to pay more for what’s needed in this country?” — Co-host Erica Hill to GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty on CBS’s The Early Show, May 23. “Racially-Tinged” to Point Out Obama’s Horrible Economic Record? Clip of Newt Gingrich: “You want to be a country that creates food stamps, in which case, frankly, Obama is an enormous success — the most successful food stamp President in American history. Or do you want to be a country that creates paychecks?” Host David Gregory, to Gingrich: “First of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language a lot of people think could be coded racially-tinged language, calling the President, the first black President, a ‘food stamp President.’…What did you mean? What was the point?” — NBC’s Meet the Press, May 15. “Destroying Medicare” = “New Litmus Test” for GOP “My favorite detail though of the whole Gingrich-Paul Ryan kerfluffle was not even two days had gone by before a White House aide sat up and said, ‘Well this just proves that destroying Medicare is the new litmus test for the Republican Party primary.’ So they see an opportunity here to just drive that whole debate further and further to the right toward the Tea Party, away from the center, and that’s why they were happy about what happened.” — Time Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy on PBS’s Washington Week, May 20. Tea Party: Nothing but a Bunch of Obama-Haters “The marriage between the Republicans and the Tea Party is based on hatred, hatred of government, hatred of the Democrats, hatred of Barack Obama. What’s love got to do with it? Zip….Republicans will not say what the Tea Parties live for, the hatred of government, of the Democrats, of President Obama. They have to hear he doesn’t simply disagree with them, but that he’s not one of them. It’s evil, it’s hatred of what works over there. And it’s over there that spells political death for the Republicans.” — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, May 16.
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