Ai Weiwei’s sister, Gao Ge, said that police took Ai’s wife Lu Qing to meet him at an undisclosed location on Sunday night Ai Weiwei’s wife has been able to meet the detained artist and activist for the first time since he went missing 43 days ago, a relative said today. No one had been able to contact the 53-year-old since officials stopped him at Beijing airport on 3 April. But his sister Gao Ge said police took Ai’s wife Lu Qing to meet him at an undisclosed location on Sunday night. She was able to see and speak to him briefly and reported that he seemed healthy and was being given access to the medication he needs for diabetes. “They weren’t allowed to talk about much. They sat across a table from each other,” Gao told Associated Press. “Lu didn’t check the exact time, but it was a very short visit. … It seems he’s being taken care of, taking medicine on time and is able to move around. But other topics were off limits.” She added: “Now that we’ve seen that his health is OK, of course we are a bit less anxious, but that’s not to say we want him to stay where he is…We really want this case to be dealt with as soon as possible and for the government to follow proper procedures in keeping with Chinese law.” Ai’s mother Gao Ying said: “Now [knowing she] saw him, I feel much better.” Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer who has worked with Ai and who has said he is willing to represent him if necessary, said the meeting had lasted around 15 minutes. The couple had spoken mainly about their families and health, with Ai expressing concern about the effects of his situation on his mother’s state of mind. He said that Ai was not in a jail or detention centre, but that neither Lu nor Ai were sure where he was being held. The artist still had his beard and was not handcuffed during the meeting. He told his wife that he was receiving adequate food and that his blood pressure had been checked. Liu added that police had still not informed Ai’s family of his detention and that he suspected the artist was being held under residential surveillance. “That seems the most likely explanation for why no notice has been given,” said Joshua Rosenzweig of the Dui Hua foundation, which supports political prisoners. “The law is unclear on whether police have any obligation to notify the family because under normal circumstances it is carried out at home.” Police must inform relatives of detention within 24 hours, unless it would impede the investigation, and report to prosecutors on the case within a month. Residential surveillance orders last around six months. “It is supposed to be less punitive but the way it is being carried out – if it is – is really turning things on its head. It is much more advantageous to police. There are very few limits on their ability to interrogate you,” added Rosenzweig. Ai’s friend Wen Tao, 38, driver and cousin Zhang Jinsong, also known as Xiao Pang, 43, accountant Hu Mingfen, 55, and colleague Liu Zhenggang, 49, remain missing. Officials have said Ai is under investigation for suspected economic crimes and that his case is not related to human rights. Last week, vice foreign minister Fu Ying said it was “very condescending for the Europeans to come in to tell China that some people are beyond the law”. Fu made the comments after talks with Catherine Ashton, the EU’s top diplomat, although Fu said Ai was not raised in discussions. “There are rules and laws in China that need to be applied just like here,” Fu said. “And individuals, maybe they are your friends, maybe they agree with you more than others, but that should not make [them] … above the law.” But relatives believe his detention is retaliation for his social and political activism. Gao Ying told CBS recently that officials told her they were investigating “whether or not he was involved with an ‘event’”. She said she had told them she could guarantee with her life that he was an individual artist who had nothing to do with protest movements. “I think in reality, he was taken because he was protecting the rights of ordinary citizens and speaking for them. …His goal was not to go against his country. He wants this country to develop on a healthy path. I think …he offended people in power and they hate him, so now they are looking for an opportunity to take him down,” she added. Ai Weiwei China Human rights Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Ultimate Pandering: Candidate Targets Jews and Koreans in Offbeat Campaign Ad
May 15, 2011 No Comment
But it’s OK, right? Because Congressional candidate Dan Adler is Jewish – and his wife is Korean. Dan Adler, a Democrat, is running for Jane Harman’s vacated Congressional seat in California’s 36th district – but what’s his platform? Well, simply that he’s a “minority.” And that he can get along with other minorities because he’s
Continue reading …Roger Ebert and Joan Walsh Jump on David Gregory’s Gingrich is Racist Bandwagon
May 15, 2011 No Comment
NBC's David Gregory started a Newt Gingrich is racist trend Sunday that liberal media members across the fruited plain quickly embraced. After the “Meet the Press” host accused the former House Speaker of racism for having the nerve to call Barack Obama “The most successful food stamp president in American history,” Salon's Joan Walsh out in San Francisco jumped on the bandwagon as did Chicago film critic Roger Ebert: Newt Gingrich doubled down on his clever new slur against President Obama as “the food stamp president.” He tried the line in a Friday speech to the Georgia Republican convention, and he used it again on “Meet the Press Sunday.” It's a short hop from Gingrich's slur to Ronald Reagan's attacks on “strapping young bucks” buying “T-bone steaks” with food stamps. Blaming our first black president for the sharp rise in food-stamp reliance (which resulted from the economic crash that happened on the watch of our most recent white president) is just the latest version of Rush Limbaugh suggesting that Obama's social policy amounts to “reparations” for black people. But when host David Gregory suggested the term had racial overtones, Gingrich replied “That's bizarre,” and added, “I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.” That's not quite as extreme or silly as Donald Trump declaring “I am the least racist person there is,” but it's up there. Ebert was easily duped by the stupidity on display and promptly tweeted his approval to his excessively impressionable followers: It's of course not surprising that these brainiacs don't know there are more white people receiving food stamps than black people. But hey – the Obama-loving media are on a roll accusing anyone that criticizes the current White House resident of racism, so why should they let anything like facts get in the way of their smear tactics? They've never let that stop them before. (H/T Dana Loesch and Tammy Bruce )
Continue reading …Soros-Funded Group Falsely Accuses Ron Paul of Comparing Social Security and Medicare to Slavery
May 15, 2011 No Comment
The depths the shills on the Left will go to impugn their enemies knows no bounds. On Sunday, the George Soros-funded organization Think Progress falsely accused Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) of comparing Social Security and Medicare to slavery (video follows with transcript and commentary):
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Click here to view this media The legality of Social Security and Medicare must be reversed, just like slavery was abolished in 1865, according to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. “You talk a lot about the Constitution,” Fox News’ Chris Wallace noted Sunday. “You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.” “Technically they are,” Paul insisted. “There is no authority. Article 1, Section 8 doesn’t say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution — liberals are the ones that use this general welfare clause.” “Doesn’t Social Security come under promoting the general welfare,” Wallace asked. “Absolutely not,” Paul replied. “Maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state. The military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.” “That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long. That’s what we have to reverse, that very notion you’re presenting,” he added. “Congressman, it’s not just a liberal view. It’s the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution,” Wallace explained. “The Constitution and the court said slavery was legal, too. We had to reverse that. So, I tell you. Just because a court in ’37 went very liberal on us and expanded the role of government, no, I think the original intent is not a bad idea,” Paul opined.
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Security forces are investigating if the killings are connected to the death of the brother of an alleged drug trafficker At least 27 people have been killed in a massacre in northern Guatemala, with most of the victims beheaded. The killings of the 25 men and two women took place in the town of Caserio La Bomba, near the border with Mexico, after it came under attack by 200 raiders. “This is the worst massacre we have seen in modern times,” police spokesman Donald Gonzalez told Reuters. Security forces are investigating whether the attack in the province of Peten is related to the killing of Haroldo Leon, the brother of alleged Guatemalan drug trafficker Juan Jose “Juancho” Leon, the Associated Press reported. Leon was killed in 2008 in an ambush that Guatemalan authorities blame on Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel, which has increasingly wrested control of the drug trade beyond its own borders. In February, the Guatemalan government lifted a two-month-long state of siege that it had declared in Guatemala’s Alta Verapaz province, which neighbours Peten, during which troops were deployed to quell drug-related violence. The state of siege gave the army emergency powers including permission to detain suspects without warrants and resulted in the arrest of at least 20 suspected members of the Zetas gang. The Zetas, a group of ex-soldiers, began as hit men for Mexico’s Gulf drug cartel before breaking off on their own and quickly becoming one of Mexico’s most violent gangs. They are notorious for their brutality, having pioneered the now-widespread practice of beheading rivals and officials, and have extended their reign of terror into Central America The Zetas began controlling cocaine trafficking in the Alta Verapaz region in 2008 after killing Leon. Guatemala’s northern border is an active drug transfer point for cocaine moving north towards from South America in the direction of the US. Guatemala Drugs trade Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
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• Prime minister to claim in speech that Conservatives are defenders of the health service • Baroness Williams demands sacking of No 10 adviser Mark Britnell over privatisation remarks David Cameron is to insist that there will be few compromises on the controversial NHS bill while claiming Conservatives are defenders of the health service. Wresting the issue from his health secretary, Andrew Lansley, the prime minister’s speech in west London on Monday will aim to get his party back to where it was in opposition when the Conservatives claimed they could be trusted not to dismantle the NHS if they formed a government. Alluding to his young son Ivan’s dependence on the NHS before his death, Cameron will return to a familiar formulation: “It’s the most important thing to my family. That’s why, over four years ago, I got up on a platform like this and said that you could sum up my priorities in just three letters, N-H-S.” On Saturday, Professor Steve Field, the senior doctor appointed by Cameron to review the government’s health plans, described them as unworkable and “destabilising” . Field is in charge of Cameron’s NHS future forum, set up last month to manage the “listening exercise” to stem public disquiet about their reforms and coalition opposition. Field told the Guardian he rejected Lansley’s plan to compel hospitals to compete for patients and income and felt NHS regulator Monitor should promote cooperation rather than being used to referee competition between providers. Faced with a constant drumbeat of criticism, the prime minister will attempt to reassure critics that his government can tread a fine line between safeguarding and reforming the NHS. His speech closely resembles one given by Ed Miliband last month when the Labour leader said he opposed the government’s reorganisation principles but accepted that the rising costs of healthcare required some kind of reform. Cameron is due to say: “Sticking with the status quo and hoping we can get by with a bit more money is simply not an option. If we stay as we are, the NHS will need £130bn a year by 2015, meaning a potential funding gap of £20bn. The question is, what are we going to do about that: Ignore it? No – because we’d see a crisis of funding in the NHS, overcrowded wards and fewer treatments. Borrow more so we can chuck more money at it? No – because we can’t afford to. Ask people to start paying at the point of delivery for it? No – because the NHS must always be free to those who need it. “There’s only one option we’ve got – and that is to change and modernise the NHS… to make it more efficient and more effective and, above all, more focused on prevention, on health, not just sickness. We save the NHS by changing it.” Cameron will defiantly stick to the reorganisation his government has initiated and appears to back GP consortiums. “Last year, the health select committee said ‘primary care trust commissioning is widely regarded as the weakest link in the English NHS’, citing their ‘lack of clinical knowledge’ in particular. This is what top-down control is doing to our NHS – and I believe it should change. Then there’s the inflexibility of the NHS – and this is what frustrates so many patients, and indeed nurses and doctors.” The Lib Dem peer Lady Williams is calling on Cameron to dismiss his senior adviser Mark Britnell after he told a conference that the NHS could be improved by charging patients and could be transformed into a “state insurance provider, not a state deliverer” of care. His unguarded comments were made in October but only reported this week . Britnell, appointed to a “kitchen cabinet” advising Cameron on reforming the NHS, told executives from the private sector that future reforms would show “no mercy” to the NHS and offer a “big opportunity” to the for-profit sector. No
Continue reading …Can You Hear The Dog Whistle? Gingrich Doubles Down On His "Obama Is A Food Stamp President" By Invoking Detroit
May 15, 2011 No CommentWait, what’s that I hear? It’s faint, but growing louder…. Oh, that’s it. It’s the dog whistle of racial politics entering the 2012 presidential race, courtesy of Mr. White Privilege himself, Newt Gingrich. Earlier this week, Gingrich spoke at a Georgia Republican Party convention and distinguished his potential presidency from President Obama’s thusly : At one point during the speech, Gingrich derided progressive economic policies that value public investment and spending to get back to work, saying that “we’re at the crossroads” and that “down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system” and the other road is a “proud, solid reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.” He then went on to declare Obama to be a “food stamp president”: GINGRICH: President Obama is t he most successful food stamp president in American history . I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history. “Food stamp president”? Nope, no loaded imagery there. Every sentient being with an IQ in the triple digits saw that statement for what it is: a racist dog whistle. Even David Gregory couldn’t ignore it and had to ask Newtster about it. Newt predictably protesteth too much and doubled down on the dog whistle by saying that we just don’t want all of America to be too much like Detroit . Yeah, that made the racist overtones all better, didn’t it? I have to admit to having a ridiculously naive point of view at Obama’s election that we had reached a point in our country where we could have post-racial discussions. I didn’t think we were color-blind, so much as color-indifferent. How stupid I was. The last two years have really opened my eyes to the deep and entrenched the undercurrent of racism is in this country and how these dog whistles systematically re-confirm to people of color that they are the Other. So while Newt clutches his pearls and declares that he’s never said anything racist about President Obama, let me just say for the record that it is not for the privileged white man to decide what is and is not racist. The words he consciously chooses come with a history of neglect and exclusion for people of color and it is absolutely their right to find them racist. Furthermore, if David Gregory was worth his salt as a newsman (*cough, cough* still can’t bring myself to call him a journalist), he’d point out to the Newtster that the reason we have so many people on food stamps is because we HAVE been victimized by his plan of lowering taxes on corporations (note that he contradicts himself later, blaming things on GE paying no taxes) and less regulations. We’ve tried these Reaganomics notions for thirty years and frankly, you can’t blame Obama that they haven’t worked. Obama’s policies have resulted in positive job growth for thirteen consecutive months . All that job loss? Happened during the Bush administration with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Hard to run on that record, Newt.
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For many years I've been saying it takes a lot of rationalizations to be a liberal these days. As additional evidence, I offer the following statement by Lawrence O'Donnell published in the June issue of Playboy: LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC: The trouble with approaching government from the standpoint of “I hate government” is that you are extremely unlikely to find a better way for government to do anything at all. You are also extremely unlikely to be the persuasive person on the matter of what the government should no longer do. And it’s even worse because of a horrible dynamic that doesn’t allow a Republican to veer from the right, no matter what he or she thinks. Occasionally a Republican would realize Rush Limbaugh had gone way too far and said something absolutely unconscionable and indefensible, and that Republican would say so, and then Rush would immediately discipline that Republican on the radio, and that Republican would apologize, all within a 12-hour news cycle. That policing system is flawless. And when you have a policing system like that on thought, thought stops. PLAYBOY: If the media are complicit, and Limbaugh and others are the biggest offenders on the right, you have to be included in the list of the biggest offenders on the left. O’DONNELL: I’m not policing thought. The opposite. I encourage thought. I want thoughtfulness. I want people to understand the complexity of the issues. Otherwise nothing meaningful will ever change. I want debate. I want people to be educated enough to have a conversation. Got that? One of the most divisive people in the so-called news industry today thinks he encourages thought and wants thoughtfulness. Here are some recent examples of O'Donnell encouraging thought: Lawrence O'Donnell Goes Ballistic On Birther Orly Taitz, Cuts Off Her Camera Condi Rice Tells Lawrence O'Donnell 'You Have a Bad Habit With Your Guests – You Never Let Them Answer a Question' Lawrence O'Donnell Attacks Ann Coulter for Saying Liberals Give Less to Charity Than Conservatives Lawrence O'Donnell Yells at Arizona Congressman for Not Agreeing With Him on Gun Control Lawrence O'Donnell: 'Michele Bachmann Voters Are Ignorant – Her District Is 92% White' Lawrence O'Donnell Calls GOP Congressman a 'Tax Criminal' for Sleeping in His Office MSNBC's O'Donnell Slams Limbaugh As Biblically Ignorant; Contorts Scripture to Paint Jesus As Socialist Lawrence O'Donnell: 'Stunningly Ignorant' Cantor Would Fail Citizenship Test Lawrence O'Donnell: Bill O'Reilly is 'Bullying Nuts' and 'Freaks' Like Palin 'Off GOP Stage' Lawrence O'Donnell Worries 'We Are So Free Ann Coulter Can Joke About Jailing Journalists' Some thought encourager, huh? (H/T TVNewser ) Readers are advised that a link to the Playboy article was not provided for what should be obvious reasons.
Continue reading …Brit Hume Admits We’ll Never Default on Our Debt, But Thinks it Would be Alright to Let the Rest of the Government go Unfunded
May 15, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media There’s so much double speak in this short segment from Brit Hume it’s hard to know where to begin. He admits that we’ll never default on our debt, but thinks the Republicans should continue with their hostage taking and use it for leverage anyway. He then says that there’s no way we’ll ever default on our debt, but it would be okay to allow the rest of the government to go unfunded. So in other words, it’s okay if we just pay our creditors, but we can shut down “a lot of the rest of the government” and if it crashes our economy or the world’s economy, oh well. That would be “regrettable, perhaps” in Hume’s words. I would also have loved to hear Hume explain just which parts of the government he thinks it would be alright to go unfunded, but he didn’t give any specifics here. Social Security, unemployment benefits, our military? Hume then has the nerve to accuse the Obama administration of fearmongering over the issue, as though this game of chicken the Republicans are playing is not actually a dangerous one. HUME: Mort’s got it absolutely right. It’s not that Wall Street is concerned the specific vote over raising the debt limit. They were concerned about the debt. And this effort by Republicans to try to use the leverage provided by the certain urgency that’s involved in the raising of the debt limit I think is probably going to be broadly supported by the public. And it may be the only way to get anything big done at a time of divided government because it creates a powerful incentive to do something and my sense is Republicans will have to say hold out for a lot and let it go down to the wire. First of all, this idea that we’re going to default on our obligations is nonsense, because there’s plenty of tax money coming in that we can cover the debt payments that we need to make. Now it would mean that a lot of the rest of the government could go unfunded and that would be regrettable, perhaps. But we are not going to… there’s no way we need to, we’ll ever need to default on our debt. No way we ever need to default on our debt. This is scare talk from the administration and I have to be suspicious that what they’re scared of is not a default on the debt. They’re scared of the kind of spending cuts that they feel they might have to make in order to get the debt limit raised.
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