NY Times Calls Rick Perry Critic ‘Republican Activist,’ Leaves Off Far-Left Environmental Activism
August 18, 2011 No Comment
Times reporter Ashley Parker’s profile of a Texas Gov. Rick Perry on the campaign trail in New Hampshire portrayed a more cautious and subdued candidate, days after Perry’s claim that actions taken by Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, were potentially “treasonous,” a remark that offended the delicate sensibilities of Times reporter Binyamin Appelbaum, who found it simply “ horrifying .” Parker's Thursday piece from New Hampshire, “ Day After Fed Uproar, Perry Tones It Down ,” featured six paragraphs on an exchange on global warming between Perry and N.H. citizen Jim Rubens, described by Parker as a “a Republican activist and high-tech investor from Etna.” But Rubens is also a consultant with the left-wing environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists, a fact Parker didn’t include but which found its way into the Los Angeles Times : “ One of his questioners was Jim Rubens, a Republican from the village of Etna who works as a consultant for the Union of Concerned Scientists .” UCS, which was formed in 1969 to protest the Vietnam War, has lobbied against Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) and nuclear power.
Continue reading …
EU leaders echo stinging rebuke, delivered by US president in executive order imposing sanctions and assets freeze The US and Europe have dramatically increased the pressure on the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, by calling on him to resign over the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. In a stinging written statement, Barack Obama said Assad had overseen a vicious onslaught against his people. “For the sake of the Syrian people the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Obama said in an executive order imposing sanctions to freeze all Syrian government assets under US jurisdiction and bar US transactions with Assad’s government. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany issued a statement saying Assad should “leave power in the greater interests of Syria and the unity of his people”. David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozyand Angela Merkel said Assad had “lost all legitimacy” and could no longer claim to lead his people. The declarations are intended to increase the pressure on Assad, who has used his military and security forces to attack protesters seeking an end to four decades of authoritarian rule by himself and his late father, Hafez al-Assad. The diplomatic moves came as UN human rights investigators named 50 regime figures who could be prosecuted by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes committed against civilians during the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. The list is believed to contain officials inside president Assad’s inner circle and security agencies. It marks the first time that government insiders have faced the spectre of criminal charges since the five-month uprising began. A decision on whether to refer the names to the ICC is likely to be made on Thursday. Diplomatic pressure on the Syrian government will increase further if, as expected, the US president, Barack Obama, calls for Assad to leave office. US officials said that Obama will release a written statement, with his first explicit call for the Syrian leader to stand down. Washington is also expected to put further sanctions on Syria. The US has calibrated its response to the violence in Syria, wary of Damascus’s role as a strategic key to the Arab world and the risk that crisis could be exported beyond its borders. The US has also been cautious about putting its authority on the line, fearing damage to its standing if Assad were to defy its calls for him to go. The UN report accuses officials of torture, summary executions and abuse of children – allegations that could amount to crimes against humanity. It says security forces have indiscriminately fired at demonstrators, sometimes from helicopters. It also says injured protesters have been killed inside hospitals, sometimes being locked alive in mortuary freezers. It says Syrian officials confirmed that around 1,900 demonstrators had been killed by mid-July. Hundreds more have been killed since then. “Children have not only been targeted by security forces, but they have been repeatedly subject to the same human rights and criminal violations as adults, including torture,” the report said. The report’s authors were denied access to Syria and spent four months interviewing defectors and demonstrators who had fled the country. Dozens of former members of the security forces have made their way to Amman, and Istanbul, where they have detailed orders given to them by senior officers to attack demonstrators who have demanded Assad leave office. Activists and defectors have also compiled details of alleged atrocities committed by troops whose commanders insist are targeting terrorists holding their local communities to ransom. The communities themselves have regularly painted a diametrically opposed version of events, claiming that the armed men terrorising them are government-backed militias, known as al-shabiha or ghosts, who work with security forces. One defector, a conscript who was deployed to the southern city of Deraa in April, told the Guardian that his unit’s first order was not to shoot at armed men. “The officer said they were with us,” the soldier said. ” They said we were only to shoot at the demonstrators .” In a telephone conversation on Wednesday night with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Assad said the operations in the restive Syrian cities of Latakia and Homms had finished. However, activists on the ground reported on Wednesday that security forces were still active in both places. In Latakia, a Mediterranean port city that has been the subject of a four-day military assault, security centres were overflowing with detainees, and hundreds of prisoners were being held in the city’s main football stadium and a cinema. The push into Latakia ordered by commanders this week came under strident criticism from other nations in the region, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Tunisia and Qatar withdrawing their ambassadors and Turkey warning Damascus it had uttered its “last words” on the crackdown. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Barack Obama United States Middle East United Nations European Union Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
EU leaders echo stinging rebuke, delivered by US president in executive order imposing sanctions and assets freeze The US and Europe have dramatically increased the pressure on the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, by calling on him to resign over the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. In a stinging written statement, Barack Obama said Assad had overseen a vicious onslaught against his people. “For the sake of the Syrian people the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Obama said in an executive order imposing sanctions to freeze all Syrian government assets under US jurisdiction and bar US transactions with Assad’s government. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany issued a statement saying Assad should “leave power in the greater interests of Syria and the unity of his people”. David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozyand Angela Merkel said Assad had “lost all legitimacy” and could no longer claim to lead his people. The declarations are intended to increase the pressure on Assad, who has used his military and security forces to attack protesters seeking an end to four decades of authoritarian rule by himself and his late father, Hafez al-Assad. The diplomatic moves came as UN human rights investigators named 50 regime figures who could be prosecuted by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes committed against civilians during the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. The list is believed to contain officials inside president Assad’s inner circle and security agencies. It marks the first time that government insiders have faced the spectre of criminal charges since the five-month uprising began. A decision on whether to refer the names to the ICC is likely to be made on Thursday. Diplomatic pressure on the Syrian government will increase further if, as expected, the US president, Barack Obama, calls for Assad to leave office. US officials said that Obama will release a written statement, with his first explicit call for the Syrian leader to stand down. Washington is also expected to put further sanctions on Syria. The US has calibrated its response to the violence in Syria, wary of Damascus’s role as a strategic key to the Arab world and the risk that crisis could be exported beyond its borders. The US has also been cautious about putting its authority on the line, fearing damage to its standing if Assad were to defy its calls for him to go. The UN report accuses officials of torture, summary executions and abuse of children – allegations that could amount to crimes against humanity. It says security forces have indiscriminately fired at demonstrators, sometimes from helicopters. It also says injured protesters have been killed inside hospitals, sometimes being locked alive in mortuary freezers. It says Syrian officials confirmed that around 1,900 demonstrators had been killed by mid-July. Hundreds more have been killed since then. “Children have not only been targeted by security forces, but they have been repeatedly subject to the same human rights and criminal violations as adults, including torture,” the report said. The report’s authors were denied access to Syria and spent four months interviewing defectors and demonstrators who had fled the country. Dozens of former members of the security forces have made their way to Amman, and Istanbul, where they have detailed orders given to them by senior officers to attack demonstrators who have demanded Assad leave office. Activists and defectors have also compiled details of alleged atrocities committed by troops whose commanders insist are targeting terrorists holding their local communities to ransom. The communities themselves have regularly painted a diametrically opposed version of events, claiming that the armed men terrorising them are government-backed militias, known as al-shabiha or ghosts, who work with security forces. One defector, a conscript who was deployed to the southern city of Deraa in April, told the Guardian that his unit’s first order was not to shoot at armed men. “The officer said they were with us,” the soldier said. ” They said we were only to shoot at the demonstrators .” In a telephone conversation on Wednesday night with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Assad said the operations in the restive Syrian cities of Latakia and Homms had finished. However, activists on the ground reported on Wednesday that security forces were still active in both places. In Latakia, a Mediterranean port city that has been the subject of a four-day military assault, security centres were overflowing with detainees, and hundreds of prisoners were being held in the city’s main football stadium and a cinema. The push into Latakia ordered by commanders this week came under strident criticism from other nations in the region, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Tunisia and Qatar withdrawing their ambassadors and Turkey warning Damascus it had uttered its “last words” on the crackdown. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Barack Obama United States Middle East United Nations European Union Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …After he gets back from yet another vacation, President Obama is going to renew his call for taxes on “millionaires and billionaires,” i.e. individuals making more than $200,000 annually and couples making more than $250,000. Besides the obvious fact that people with that type of income are not millionaires and billionaires, there's another inconvenient fact for those looking to “soak the rich:” The recent economic downturn has significantly decreased their numbers , just when Obama is looking to confiscate their money: [T]he real tax news is that there are fewer of both these days. This month the IRS released more detailed tax data for 2009, and the nearby table records the decline of the taxpaying rich. In 2007, 390,000 tax filers reported adjusted gross income of $1 million or more and paid $309 billion in taxes. In 2009, there were only 237,000 such filers, a decline of 39%. Almost four of 10 millionaires vanished in two years, and the total taxes they paid in 2009 declined to $178 billion, a drop of 42%. The millionaires who are left still pay a mountain of tax. Those who make $1 million accounted for about 0.2% of all tax returns but paid 20.4% of income taxes in 2009. Those with adjusted gross income above $200,000 a year were just under 3% of tax filers but paid 50.1% of the $866 billion in total personal income taxes. This means the top 3% paid more than the bottom 97%. Yet the 3% are the people that President Obama claims don't pay their fair share. Before the recession, the $200,000 income group paid 54.5% of the income tax. Making people poorer is the perfect way to make the economy better, isn't it?
Continue reading …
FTSE, Dow Jones, Dax and Cac all fall as investors flee to gilts and gold Global stock markets have resumed their recent slide, weighed down by fears that the world is sliding into a double-dip recession. Concerned that the eurozone debt crisis could be spreading to the US banking sector, regulators in New York have stepped up their scrutiny of the US arms of Europe’s largest banks. Further pressure came from worse-than-expected new jobless claims in the US last week, while inflation was faster than anticipated in July. The FTSE index in London dropped more than 200 points to 5123 at one stage in the early afternoon, a decline of 3.9%, with all 100 stocks on the index down – banking and mining stocks among the biggest fallers, led by Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones plunged more than 330 points in early trading to 11076, a 2.9% drop. Germany’s Dax and France’s Cac lost 4.7% and 3.9% respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed down 1.25% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 1.2% and the Shanghai Composite ended the day 1.6% lower. The yield on UK 10-year government bonds , known as gilts, tumbled to 2.34% – the lowest since 1897 – and gold hit a fresh record high of $1,820.89 an ounce as investors fought shy of equities. Expectations that the world economy will need less oil pushed Brent crude below $109 a barrel, after reaching a two-week high on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Swiss franc tumbled against the euro and the dollar amid talk that the Swiss National Bank was injecting liquidity to put an end to the currency’s recent surge to record highs. Morgan Stanley warned that the global economy was teetering on the brink of a recession, and slashed its growth forecasts. Citing “recent policy errors” and the prospect of further austerity measures in 2012, it said the US and the eurozone were “hovering dangerously close to a recession over the next six to 12 months”. “While we had been calling for a ‘BBB’ recovery in developed markets all along, the path now looks even more Bumpy, Below-par and Brittle than previously thought,” analysts Joachim Fels and Manoj Pradhan said in a note, adding that emerging markets were not immune either. The US investment bank cut its global growth forecast to 3.9% from 4.2% this year, and to 3.8% from 4.5% next year. Growth in developed market economies is now seen averaging at just 1.5% this year and next (down from previous estimates of 1.9% and 2.4%). A recession is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic contraction. “Still, recession is not our base case because the corporate sector looks healthy; household real incomes will be supported by lower headline inflation; and we expect more action from the Fed and the ECB, including rate cuts and more non-standard easing,” the Morgan Stanley analysts said. Fears that the UK economy could slide back into recession intensified after news that retail sales grew by just 0.2% last month, and by 0.1% in the last three months. The latest UK labour market data also painted a worsening picture , with unemployment rising sharply, especially among women and young people. The grim global outlook and turmoil in financial markets prompted the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee to discuss a fresh round of quantitative easing at its meeting a fortnight ago, and its two most hawkish members abandoned their calls for higher interest rates to curb inflation. At Franco-German crisis talks in Paris on Tuesday, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy urged closer economic co-ordination and called for a Europe-wide tax on financial transactions to prevent the disintegration of the single currency. Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income at Evolution Securities, said: “The European sovereign debt crisis is likely to remain a feature of markets for some time, but if we see a sharp slowdown in economic activity it could threaten fiscal consolidation in core countries such as France and exacerbate the crisis.” Jenkins noted that one bank borrowed $500m (£300m) for a week from the European Central Bank on Wednesday. “It is the first time a euro area bank has borrowed dollars from the ECB since February. While one shouldn’t read too much into one transaction it could be another indication of tension in money markets.” Recession Global economy US economic growth and recession Global recession Economics Economic growth (GDP) Economic policy Green shoots Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
UN report details abuses that could amount to crimes against humanity as Barack Obama prepares to call on Assad to resign UN human rights investigators have listed the names of 50 regime figures who could be prosecuted by the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes committed against civilians during the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. The list is believed to contain officials inside president Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and security agencies. It marks the first time that government insiders have faced the spectre of criminal charges since the five-month uprising began. A decision on whether to refer the names to the ICC is likely to be made on Thursday. Diplomatic pressure on the Syrian government will increase further if, as expected, the US president, Barack Obama, calls for Assad to leave office. US officials said that Obama will release a written statement, with his first explicit call for the Syrian leader to stand down. Washington is also expected to put further sanctions on Syria. The US has calibrated its response to the violence in Syria, wary of Damascus’s role as a strategic key to the Arab world and the risk that crisis could be exported beyond its borders. The US has also been cautious about putting its authority on the line, fearing damage to its standing if Assad were to defy its calls for him to go. The UN report accuses officials of torture, summary executions and abuse of children – allegations that could amount to crimes against humanity. It says security forces have indiscriminately fired at demonstrators, sometimes from helicopters. It also says injured protesters have been killed inside hospitals, sometimes being locked alive in mortuary freezers. It says Syrian officials confirmed that around 1,900 demonstrators had been killed by mid-July. Hundreds more have been killed since then. “Children have not only been targeted by security forces, but they have been repeatedly subject to the same human rights and criminal violations as adults, including torture,” the report said. The report’s authors were denied access to Syria and spent four months interviewing defectors and demonstrators who had fled the country. Dozens of former members of the security forces have made their way to Amman, and Istanbul, where they have detailed orders given to them by senior officers to attack demonstrators who have demanded Assad leave office. Activists and defectors have also compiled details of alleged atrocities committed by troops whose commanders insist are targeting terrorists holding their local communities to ransom. The communities themselves have regularly painted a diametrically opposed version of events, claiming that the armed men terrorising them are government-backed militias, known as al-shabiha or ghosts, who work with security forces. One defector, a conscript who was deployed to the southern city of Deraa in April, told the Guardian that his unit’s first order was not to shoot at armed men. “The officer said they were with us,” the soldier said. ” They said we were only to shoot at the demonstrators .” In a telephone conversation on Wednesday night with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Assad said the operations in the restive Syrian cities of Latakia and Homms had finished. However, activists on the ground reported on Wednesday that security forces were still active in both places. In Latakia, a Mediterranean port city that has been the subject of a four-day military assault, security centres were overflowing with detainees, and hundreds of prisoners were being held in the city’s main football stadium and a cinema. The push into Latakia ordered by commanders this week came under strident criticism from other nations in the region, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Tunisia and Qatar withdrawing their ambassadors and Turkey warning Damascus it had uttered its “last words” on the crackdown. Syria Middle East Bashar Al-Assad Arab and Middle East unrest United Nations US foreign policy United States Human rights Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Home secretary urged to clarify whether she is willing to meet unplanned spending involved in policing disturbances Concern is growing among senior police officers that the Home Office will not guarantee all the extra costs of policing last week’s riots, leading figures in the Labour party have warned. The home secretary, Theresa May, is being asked to urgently clarify whether she is willing to meet all the unplanned spending involved in quelling the riots, including the costs of overtime, cancelling leave and drafting in officers from other forces around the country. The dispute comes as the chairmen of some police authorities across England expressed anger over May’s criticism on Tuesday that they had proved to be “unaccountable, unelected and invisible” during last week’s riots. Nottinghamshire police have said they face a bill of £1.2m for the extra policing and the repair costs to five police stations that came under attack last Tuesday. At the end of last week, neighbouring Leicestershire police said they were likely to have spent at least £250,000 on their operation – many officers were working 12 hour days instead of the normal working hours – but no other forces have so far issued figures for the final costs they face. The former Labour policing minister Vernon Coaker has written to the home secretary, seeking urgent clarification on the level of government support for police forces. He has also expressed fears that part of the bill for the exceptional costs of the riots will have to come out of police budgets which are already facing 20% cuts. In last week’s Commons emergency debate, David Cameron gave the impression that the Treasury reserve would be used to meet the operational costs of policing the riots. But May has since made it clear that other arrangements are to be used and each force is being asked to apply for a special grant. This scheme has been used in the past to meet exceptional costs, such as policing party conferences, but usually falls short of meeting the entire bill. Labour sources say they have been contacted this week by senior police officers deeply concerned over how the extra costs are going to be met, and the impact this may have on their own budgets and operational capacity if there are further disturbances in the coming weeks. “I hope you will agree with me that it would be shocking and unacceptable if the cost of public order policing in the riots, given current police budgets, ended up cutting other vital police work, including neighbourhood policing or detective work that is vital in preventing future outbreaks of violence,” Coaker, the shadow policing minister, said. “Can you guarantee this will not happen?” He urged the home secretary to publish a full force-by-force breakdown of the costs of policing the riots, including extra overtime, and to confirm that the Home Office or Treasury would meet them in full. A Home Office spokesman said: “There is already an established system of special grants in place to support forces where they face unexpected or exceptional costs. “It is up to individual forces if they wish to apply for a special grant, and all applications will be considered. The government has made clear that it will support the police.” The dispute comes as the Association of Police Authorities published an open letter to the May, rejecting as “untrue and inaccurate” her comments contrasting the active role of Boris Johnson, the London mayor, on the streets of London with the “unaccountable, unelected and invisible police authority chairmen in other parts of the country”. The APA said: “This unevidenced, Londoncentric assertion was either regretfully ill-informed or wilfully inaccurate. In either case, we believe it to be unbecoming of a secretary of state. “It has caused not only bemusement but anger amongst police authorities and our partners across the country. “Quite simply, your allegations are completely untrue and a cursory conversation with the relevant chief constables, council leaders or representatives of local media could have confounded it.” Bishop Derek Webley, the chairman of the West Midlands police authority, said he had taken May’s comments as a personal insult as he and many members of his authority had worked tirelessly behind the scenes. He said visibility was not just about seeking celebrity in the media. Police UK riots Theresa May Labour Liberal-Conservative coalition Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , Video Archive Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC is genius. He’s managed to illuminate a very dark and confusing byproduct of the Citizens United decision. On Tuesday, Colbert made a word cloud with all the suggestions he got from his website. Then he made another word cloud from all the people who paid money to make suggestions. Completely different word cloud. Speaking of words, you must also watch his interview with GOP consultant, Frank Luntz. The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , Video Archive
Continue reading …
Torrential rain drenches residents and holidaymakers at south coast resort of Bournemouth causing floods Torrential rain has drenched residents and holidaymakers in the south coast resort of Bournemouth, causing flash floods and traffic chaos. Dorset police are reporting floodwater up the the level of car bonnets in some areas, with manhole covers lifting and, in one case a “fountain” of water gushing upwards as a road split under the pressure. Bournemouth’s Central Gardens and Boscombe Gardens were both under water following heavy storms accompanied by thunder and lightning. Parts of Poole and Christchurch were also affected. The storms hit on the first day of the Bournemouth Air Festival, with emergency calls starting to come in between 10.30am and 11am on Thursday. Dorset police said the flooding was predominantly in the central Bournemouth area. Roads had to be closed and several vehicles broke down. One of the worst affected roads was the A338 Wessex Way, which was temporarily closed with flood water reported between 2ft and 3ft. “The rainwater was very deep, apparently, almost reaching the bonnets of some of the vehicles along the road”, said the spokesman. It has since reopened. A woman caller told police a slip road was “splitting” and that “water was coming out of the road like a fountain”. The fire brigade were in attendance. By 11.30am, the rain had stopped, and floodwater was beginning to subside. In Westbourne, the fire brigade were called to bail out two basements. Flooding Weather Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Gunmen fire on passenger bus as fears grow that Egyptian security forces are losing grip on Sinai desert region Southern Israel was hit by what appeared to be a series of attacks on Thursday as two vehicles were fired on near the Egyptian border. Israeli television reported that several were killed in the first attack, which struck a bus carrying off-duty soldiers back from their bases. Reports said a vehicle had followed the bus, and two to three gunmen got out and opened fire with automatic weapons. The second, which rescue services said was on a passenger car, came close to the site of the earlier ambush. Ha’aretz reported that in addition mortars were fired from the Egyptian side of the border. Israel’s military spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, confirmed that soldiers had been targeted by explosive devices. He said there were fatalities as well as wounded and civilians and soldiers were among the casualties. The vehicle carrying the assailants fled the scene with Israeli security forces in pursuit and a gunbattle followed. TV footage showed the bus pulled over by a red rocky cliff. Windows and a door of the bus were shattered, and soldiers were patrolling the area on foot. The ambush will fuel concerns that Egyptian security forces are losing control of the Sinai desert region bordering southern Israel following the removal of Egypt’s longtime dictator, Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted earlier this year. Last week, Egypt moved thousands of troops into Sinai in an attempt to rout militants from the peninsula. Israel approved the move, the second time Egypt has mobilised forces in Sinai since Mubarak’s fall. Israel Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …