Chris Matthews Asks Conservative Guest ‘What Do You Think, I’m On The Far Left?’
April 13, 2011 No Comment
MSNBC's Chris Matthews has on numerous occasions said he's a liberal while also having gotten a thrill up his leg on national televisionwhen presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke back in 2008. Despite this, on Wednesday's “Hardball,” he asked the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore, “What do you think, I'm on the far left?” (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Steve and Christian, there’s two extreme views, and I know this will bother both of you, there’s two extreme views. One is the very right libertarian view. It’s the Ayn Rand view. And I love “The Fountainhead.” I didn’t like the other one so much. STEPHEN MOORE, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I just saw “Atlas Shrugged” last night. MATTHEWS: OK. I know. Well, let’s watch a scene here from a movie, because they believe that the top guy, the geniuses, the entrepreneurs, the Bill Gateses create all the wealth and everybody else gets a job. The Marxists used to argue, all wealth comes from sweat labor, actually going into the factory, putting things together, that sweat… MOORE: You don’t believe in that. MATTHEWS: Well, I’m not arguing — what do you think, I’m on the far-left? When did that start? Well, any man that admits on national television that he gets a thrill up his leg when a far-left presidential candidate speaks shouldn't be surprised by folks thinking he's similarly so. (H/T RCP )
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The prime minister warns in a speech that an unwillingness to integrate has created a disjointed Britain Full text of David Cameron’s speech David Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a “kind of discomfort and disjointedness” which has disrupted communities across Britain. In his most outspoken speech on immigration since becoming prime minister, Cameron will blame Labour for allowing immigration to become “too high” and for adopting an approach that allowed the British National party to flourish. The prime minister will open his speech, in Hampshire, by saying that immigration is a hugely emotive subject that must be handled with sensitivity. But he will then say that Labour presided over the “largest influx” of immigration in British history, which saw 2.2 million more people settling in Britain between 1997 and 2009 than leaving to live abroad. Cameron will say this has placed serious pressure on schools, housing and the NHS, and has also created social pressures. “Real communities are bound by common experiences forged by friendship and conversation, knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school run to the chat down the pub. And these bonds can take time,” he will say. “So real integration takes time. That’s why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods. This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.” The prime minister will stride into sensitive political territory when he accuses Labour of helping to stoke an uncertain climate over immigration. Cameron believes Labour inflamed the issue by accusing critics of racism while at the same time pandering to the hard right. He will say: “I believe the role of politicians is to cut through the extremes of this debate and approach the subject sensibly and reasonably. The last government, in contrast, actually helped to inflame the debate. On the one hand, there were Labour ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist. On the other, there were ministers hell-bent on burnishing their hardline credentials by talking tough but doing nothing to bring the numbers down. “This had damaging consequences in terms of controlling immigration and in terms of public debate. It created the space for extremist parties to flourish, as they could tell people that mainstream politicians weren’t listening to their concerns or doing anything about them.” The speech may add to coalition tensions after the Liberal Democrats distanced themselves from the prime minister’s language. Nick Clegg saw the speech which he “noted rather than approved”. One Lib Dem source said: “We use different language. But we all work in government to strike a balance to ensure Britain has a system people have confidence in.” No 10 insisted that the speech does not mark a return to the era of William Hague as Tory leader when he used the issue as part of a “core votes” strategy. On the eve of the 2001 election, Hague warned that Britain was in danger of turning into a “foreign land” in remarks that technically referred to the EU. Cameron will say that Britain has benefited hugely from immigration. “Go into any hospital and you’ll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable. Go into schools and universities and you’ll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people.” But the prime minister will use his speech to challenge those who say: • Immigration cannot be controlled because Britain is a member of the EU. Cameron will say that future EU member states will be subject to tougher transitional controls and the UK can address immigration from outside the EU through the cap on non-EU immigration. • Immigration can be controlled – but to do so would inflict serious damage on the economy. Cameron will say the government is thinking “incredibly carefully” about which workers should come. But the prime minister will make clear that immigration cannot be controlled until Britain’s welfare system is reformed. “Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency. That’s another powerful reason why this government is undertaking the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for generations making sure that work will always pay and ending the option of living a life on the dole when a life in work is possible.” The prime minister will also condemn forced marriages and those who say they should be tolerated. “There are forced marriages taking place in our country, and overseas as a means of gaining entry to the UK. This is the practice where some young British girls are bullied and threatened into marrying someone they don’t want to. “I’ve got no time for those who say this is a culturally relative issue – it is wrong, full stop, and we’ve got to stamp it out. Then there are just the straightforward sham marriages.”In February, the prime minister gave a speech in Munich condemning “state multiculturalism” which had “tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values”. David Cameron Immigration and asylum Labour Conservatives Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Former San Francisco baseball star misled federal grand jury under oath in 2003 Barry Bonds, the US baseball star Barry Bonds has been found guilty in San Francisco of obstruction of justice in relation to a federal investigation into the use of steroids by athletes. But the judge declared a mistrial on three charges of perjury after the jury failed to reach a verdict. The obstruction charge could mean a custodial sentence. Bonds, 46, was accused of lying to a federal grand jury in 2003 when he said under oath he had taken two substances identified as steroids but that he had been unaware they had been steroids. He had also said nobody other than his doctor had injected him with anything. Bonds, who spent much of his career with the San Francisco Giants, hit 762 home runs, more than any other player in the history of Major League Baseball. His lawyers asked for the guilty verdict in relation to obstruction be thrown out. Judge Susan Illston did not rule on the request and set 20 May for a hearing in the case. During the 12-day trial, the prosecution claimed Greg Anderson, Bond’s personal trainer, had provided him with steroids. Anderson was jailed at the start of the trial for refusing to testify against him but was released after the prosecution and defence wound up. Bonds’s personal shopper, Kathy Hoskins, testified she had seen Anderson inject Bonds in 2002. Bonds got caught up in an investigation into a company selling illegal drugs to athletes. United States Drugs in sport Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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It may be a five-star luxury hotel but for the foreign journalists trying to cover the Libyan conflict Tripoli’s Hotel Rixos is a world of paranoia, manipulation and frustration The call sometimes comes in
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Zainab al-Khawaja enters fourth day of hunger strike as government is accused of human rights violations A Bahraini woman who witnessed her father, a well-known human rights activist, being seized by masked soldiers, beaten unconscious and then taken into custody, has told the Guardian that she is willing to die on hunger strike unless he is released. Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, will today enter her fourth day without food in protest at the violent arrest and subsequent disappearance of the outspoken dissident Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, 50, along with her husband and brother-in-law. Zainab, who was brought up in exile in Denmark, is taking only water, and told the Guardian she is already feeling weak, with breast-feeding sapping her strength faster than she had expected. She says she will leave her 18-month-old child with family members if she dies. Around a dozen masked and heavily armed soldiers, apparently from Bahrain’s special forces, stormed her apartment in the capital, Manama, at 2am on Saturday. Her father had previously called for Bahrain’s king to face trial for murder, torture and corruption. The family’s attempts to find out from the police what has happened to the men have failed and they fear they are being tortured. Zainab, who started her fast on Monday, said she now dreams about her father’s fate. “I am willing to go all the way,” she said. “Either they come out or I will not eat. I don’t care where it ends up.” Asked whether she was willing to die, she replied: “Yes. It is difficult with a child but I am willing to make that sacrifice. My daughter has great aunts and grandmothers who will look after her if anything happens to me … We have the feeling that sacrifices are necessary to bring changes to our country, but what is making it harder is the way the world is reacting. Still the US administration is standing with the dictator here.” Her threat to take her own life came amid signs that the Bahraini regime is toughening its stance against pro-democracy activists. Yesterday was the funeral of the third protester to die in police custody this month. Chanting mourners in Manama pulled the burial cloth off Kareem Fakhrawi, a member of Wifaq, a leading Shia opposition group, to reveal a puncture wound to his neck, extensive bruising across his upper arms, sides and abdomen, and lesions around his lower leg and ankle. Human Rights Watch yesterday called on Bahrain’s public prosecutor to investigate deaths in custody reported since 3 April, citing “signs of horrific abuse” on the body of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, who died after turning himself in to the police, who had threatened to detain members of his family if he did not. The authorities alleged he had tried to run a policeman over in a car during an anti-government protest. The interior ministry issued a statement published in Bahrain newspapers saying that he had “created chaos” in a detention centre “which led security forces to bring the situation under control”. The ministry attributed the death in custody of Zakariya Rashid Hassan, 40, arrested on charges of calling for the overthrow of the regime, to “sickle cell anaemia complications” despite his brother showing Human Rights Watch a photo he said he took during pre-burial cleansing which showed a wound on his right shoulder, a gash on his nose and blood that had issued from his ears and lips. “If those responsible are not stopped soon the number of dead in custody will exceed those killed during the protest,” the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights warned yesterday. A coalition of 19 Middle Eastern human rights organisations also condemned Bahrain’s latest crackdown and warned that Abdulhadi al-Khawaja “is at great risk of being subjected to additional torture and ill-treatment while being detained incommunicado”. The government remains defiant in the face of allegations that they are violating human rights, and Khalid al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, posted on Twitter that al-Khawaja “is not a reformer … he called for the overthrow of the legitimate regime … he violently resisted the arrest and had to be subdued”. In an account of the raid posted on her website, Zainab al-Khawaja described how her father was “grabbed by the neck, dragged down a flight of stairs and then beaten unconscious in front of me”. “He never raised his hand to resist them, and the only words he said were: ‘I can’t breathe,’” she wrote. “Even after he was unconscious, the masked men kept kicking and beating him while cursing and saying that they were going to kill him.” She said the special forces also beat up her husband, Wafi Almajed, and her brother-in-law, Hussein Ahmed, but their focus was on her father, who they repeatedly called “the target” during the raid. She is also demanding the release of her uncle, Salah al-Khawaja, arrested three weeks ago. Zainab said yesterday: “Before they arrested people you thought, yes, they may be tortured, but you will see them again. Now you can’t be sure.” She added that the spate of deaths in custody appears to be a deliberate government tactic to increase fear among dissidents. “The government seems to be proud of this because they are the ones announcing the deaths.” “It’s outrageous and cruel that people are taken off to detention and the families hear nothing until the body shows up with signs of abuse,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities need to explain why this is happening, put a stop to it, and hold anyone responsible to account.” Amnesty International estimates the government is holding more than 400 activists over protests that began on 14 February. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said the number is more than 600. Bahrain Middle East Protest Human rights Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …FAA: Sen. Inhofe ‘nearly killed’ airport workers by intentionally landing on closed runway
April 13, 2011 No CommentClick here to view this media Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) prides himself on being stubborn lawmaker, but it turns out that he’s also a dangerously stubborn pilot. Workers at a Cameron Country Airport in Texas were forced to run for their lives late last year when the Republican lawmaker intentionally landed his Cessna on a closed runway. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents — obtained by The Smoking Gun in response to a Freedom of Information Act request — show that although a large red “X” was painted on the runway, Inhofe “still elected to land.” The FAA provided a recording of airport construction supervisor Sidney Boyd calling to report that Inhofe’s plane had “sky hopped” over his men and their vehicles. Boyd explained that the stunt “scared the crap out of” his workers. He said that he thought the driver of one vehicle “actually wet his britches, he was scared to death. I mean, hell, he started trying to head for the side of the runway. The pilot could see him, or he should have been able to, he was right on him.” While on the call, one FAA representative told quality assurance specialist Lee Williams that the Cessna “landed right in the middle of them doing their work… and damn near killed somebody out there.” “He sky hopped over us,” Boyd told Williams. “He was determined to land on that runway come hell or high water evidently.” “He come over here and started being like, ‘What the hell is this? I was supposed to have unlimited airspace,’” the construction supervisor recalled of a confrontation with Inhofe following the mishap. In his defense, Inhofe told the FAA that he was showing a new employee how the aircraft instrumentation worked. The FAA agreed to drop legal enforcement action in exchange for the completion of about seven hours of remedial flight training. Read the FAA documents at The Smoking Gun.
Continue reading …Buyer Remorse: New Poll: House Republicans doing worse job than the Democrats did
April 13, 2011 No CommentThe new Republican House members that swept into office aren’t making a very good impression with the voters via a new poll by the PPP: PPP’s newest national poll finds that after a little more than 3 months in charge House Republicans have fallen so far out of favor with the American public that it’s entirely possible Democrats could take control of the House back next year. 43% of voters think that House Republicans are doing a worse job now than the Democrats did, compared to only 36% who think the GOP has brought an improvement. 19% think things are about the same. 62% of voters thinking that the Republicans have either made things worse or brought no improvement to an already unpopular Congress does not bode particularly well for the party. 46% of voters say that if there was an election for Congress today they would vote Democratic, compared to only 41% who would vote Republican. That five point advantage for Democrats is only a hair below the margin Republicans won by in the national popular vote last year. A victory of that magnitude for the Democrats next year would at the very least result in the party taking back a large number of the seats it lost last year, and it could be enough to take back the outright majority- hard to say at this point without knowing how good a number the GOP can do in redistricting… read on Americans are seeing what Republicans have been doing since they took office and America is not happy. And although they haven’t polled this yet, you can only guess how they feel about the new crop of GOP Governors that have been trying to destroy long standing traditions in their states. Polls done in WI and Ohio have shown that they would love a do over. Anyway, have a good day.
Continue reading …“Obama aims for the middle on taxes and spending.” That's the headline the San Francisco Chronicle gave Washington bureau staffer Carolyn Lochhead's write-up this afternoon following President Obama's “belated embrace of his commission's recommendation to cut $4 trillion in deficits over the next 12 years.” “Even as he reached back to his 2008 campaign lodestar with a reference to Abraham Lincoln, Obama pivoted sharply to a new mantra of 'balance' and 'shared sacrifice,' citing his Democratic predecessor and budget-balancer, former President Bill Clinton,” Lochhead gushed. Two paragraphs later Lochhead noted that “Obama threw down the gauntlet to Republicans, vowing, 'I refuse to renew them again.'” How exactly is that centrist rhetoric? Lochhead contrasted the president's vision for taxes and spending with critics from his left in his own party: Before his speech, Bay Area liberal Democrats Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma, Barbara Lee of Oakland and Mike Honda of San Jose laid out a competing deficit plan that would slash defense spending and sharply raise taxes, while significantly increasing domestic spending. Woolsey and Lee have fasted for a day as part of a protest against GOP budget cuts agreed to by Obama.
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More than 2,700 companies exhibiting at Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the biggest event in the design calendar Hundreds of thousands of visitors have descended on Milan this week for the biggest event in the design calendar, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, otherwise known as the Milan furniture fair. Now in its 50th year, the fair will be even more of a celebration than usual, with the organisers keen to prove that the global furniture industry has bounced back from recession and above all to reassert their city as the home of design. Founded in 1961, the fair was a driver of the Italian postwar miracle, helping establish the idea that “Made in Italy” was the ultimate guarantee of quality. Much has changed since then. For one thing, there’s the sheer scale of the event: 12,000 people attended that first fair, last year it was 329,000 – in 2005 the fair had to move to a vast new exhibition campus in Rho, outside the city. Secondly, the rise of China as a cheap manufacturing option has Italian furniture companies worried, a threat one of their CEOs recently dubbed “the attack from Asia”. Last year’s event was badly hit not just by the recession but also by the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano that grounded flights across Europe. It’s back to business as usual this year. With 2,720 companies exhibiting in Rho, numbers are rising again but have yet to recover the record highs of 2008. If ever there was a year to celebrate the grand Italian tradition of furniture design, this is it, as 2011 is not only the 50th anniversary of the fair but the 150th of the republic. In the Triennale Design Museum visitors can see the industrialist Alberto Alessi’s version of the greatest hits of Italian furniture – as if to remind us that Italy is not just the home of quality but of experimentation. Meanwhile, the octogenarian designer Alessandro Mendini’s famous Proust armchair has been reissued by Magis, in plastic. But then the Italians have no problem celebrating their aging stars, it’s the young ones that no one seems to know about. The majority of the design talent on show at the fair is international. The Munich-based designer Konstantin Grcic is ubiquitous this year. However, there is always a strong British contingent. Of the London-based studios, Barber Osgerby and Jasper Morrison are showing chairs with Vitra, Doshi Levien has pieces in production with Moroso, while the stalwarts Tom Dixon and Ron Arad are exhibiting new work with Magis. But the biggest change since 1961 is that the fair is no longer the only show in town. The deals may be done in Rho, but the city itself hosts hundreds of related events in showrooms, fashion stores, galleries and vacant warehouses. The fringe events are so numerous now that they take over entire districts. In recent years Tortona was where the bright young things would show their work, now it’s Ventura Lambrate and Porta Romana. Here you can find exhibitions by students from the Royal College of Art or Design Academy Eindhoven. This is the model of the design week in the 21st century. With more than 60 such events in cities across the globe, and new ones launching every year, design is increasingly seen as a crucial facet of urban economies. Milan, at least, can still claim to be the original. Italy Europe Design Justin McGuirk guardian.co.uk
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More than 50 number-crunchers have written to policymakers asking them to impose levy on City speculators to help poor If the nine economists on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee can never agree, it should be harder than herding cats to round up a thousand practitioners of the dismal science and get them all saying the same thing. But 1,000 eminent number-crunchers from more than 50 countries have written to G20 finance ministers, urging them to slap a tax on City speculators to help the world’s poor. They may not have spotted the credit crunch coming, but academic economists from top universities including Harvard, Cambridge, Kyoto and the Sorbonne now agree that bankers should pay the price. In a letter addressed to policymakers from the G20 countries, the economists urge them to impose a “Robin Hood tax”, which would emulate the English folk hero by robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Signatories include Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University who is an influential adviser to Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations; Dani Rodrik, from Harvard, and Ha-Joon Chang, from Cambridge. Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have also backed the letter. They argue that if a tax were levied on transactions such as currency trading at just 0.05%, it could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to be ploughed into international development and climate change projects. Some of the proceeds could also be retained by governments in the countries where the transactions take place, including the UK, helping to repair the hole in governments’ coffers. “The financial crisis has shown us the dangers of unregulated finance, and the link between the financial sector and society has been broken,” the letter says. “It is time to fix this link and for the financial sector to give something back to society.” It adds that a financial transaction tax is “technically feasible” and “morally right”. The G20 finance ministers are meeting in Washington this week to discuss the state of the world economy on the fringes of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is chairing the G20, has commissioned Bill Gates to examine innovative ways to fund development, and France and Germany are known to be keen on the idea of a financial transaction tax. Staff from the Gates Foundation have been shuttling between G20 capitals trying to muster support for a tax, which could be imposed by a small group of countries if worldwide agreement proves impossible. Economics Global economy Tax and spending Economic policy Poverty Heather Stewart guardian.co.uk
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