Tea Party Nation’s Judson Phillips claims in WI protest: ‘Liberal Ideology Has Killed A Billion People’ (VIDEO)
August 7, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media The right wing pundits and tea party operatives are trying to cover for all the heat they took for their outrageous behavior during the HCR debate and their ugly tea party town halls where spitting and violence took center stage so they have been trying to come up with a typical false equivalence narrative to offset it. We liberals are all so mean to the tea party now for saying that they held the government hostage in their efforts to cut spending. Unfortunately for them, it’s also only the truth. Judson Phillips, the TV face of Tea Party Nation went to Wisconsin to defend Alberta Darling, a Republican facing a tough challenge from Sandy Pasch in the recall elections this week. Phillips took his chips and went all in on the nasty : The founder of Tea Party Nation claimed liberal ideology is responsible for “a billion” deaths over the past century during a raucous rally here Saturday in support of one of the six Republican state senators facing a recall election Tuesday. “I will tell you ladies and gentlemen, I detest and despise everything the left stands for. How anybody can endorse and embrace an ideology that has killed a billion people in the last century is beyond me,” said Tea Party Nation CEO Judson Phillips. Phillips, who a day prior likened protesters of Gov. Scott Walker to Nazi storm troopers, urged a few hundred tea party supporters to turn out for state Sen. Alberta Darling, who is in a ferocious battle with state Rep. Sandy Pasch to hold onto her suburban Milwaukee seat. But he wasn’t the only speaker to use loaded language to gin up the crowd. Vince Schmuki, a leader of the Ozaukee Patriot tea party group compared the recall effort to a terrorist attack. “This is ground zero,” said Schmuki. “You remember what the term ground zero means? We have been attacked.” He continued, “Tuesday is going to be the beginning of our takeover. And we’re going to follow it up the following week, and then we’re going to polish off the enemy in November 2012. Who’s with me?” Phillips believes that only land owners should have the right to vote . Calling the tea party caucus hostage takers is certainly a colorful way to describe their negotiation tactics since they refused to strike a deal on the debt ceiling vote that included any type of revenue being raised and needed to be done on their terms only. But it’s not inaccurate. The debt ceiling was never used as an ideological tool before and for good reason. With the S&P downgrade on Friday, now we see the results of their actions. Phillips, a regular on MSNBC revealed himself to be an ideologue of the highest order who’s basic goal has nothing to do with policy and all to do with his hatred of Liberals. Most of the conservative movement that got involved in black helicopter politics when Bill Clinton took office have been transmitted into the mainstream of the GOP and Judson’s views typify their beliefs to the max. They’ve made a cottage industry out of their hatred for Liberals and Progressives. Not to mention that his Tea Party Nation group has come under a lot of fire by conservatives for their slimy accounting practices . So, we’re all murderers now on a scale of which Stalin would be jealous. Blue America’s Sandy Pasch is running so close to Scott Walker’s biggest supporter, Alberta Darling that it’s causing them a lot of concern. Here’s why: Darling’s important because: A) She is one of the leaders of the pack of Wisconsin R’s. B) Her race wasn’t supposed to be close, but now it’s a dead heat . The fact that her seat is even competitive shows how strong the progressive response to these elections has been. Darling was co-chair of the committee that wrote Wisconsin’s union-busting bill, and had a central role in shaping it. She is also an unapologetic shill for corporate interests: She called Paul Ryan (who’s fundraised for her) a “hero” and recently insisted that those making $250,000 a year “ aren’t wealthy people .” C) Darling has a whole lot more money in the bank than her opponent, Sandy Pasch, though with the momentum building up in the race Pasch out-fundraised her in July. If this race, which wasn’t supposed to be competitive, ends up flipping, it will be a small but important sign of voters beginning to reject Tea Party economics. The pressure is really getting to her now because in front of the Milwaukee press she tried to deny even knowing anything about Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget, when before she hailed it as heroic. Here’s Howie’s latest tweet : Alberta Darling used to brag she loves Ryan’s plan to end Medicare. Now: “I don’t know the details” but supports Ryan’s “fiscal goals.” Sandy Pasch was endorsed by Blue America and is running against Darling in the recall election and we did a great live chat session with her in June along with another WI hero, Chris Larson. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know there’s a battle in Wisconsin that’s crucial for the whole progressive movement and for the future of our country. That’s why Blue America started a new Wisconsin Recall page and it’s why we’ve invited state Senator Chris Larson and state Senate candidate Sandy Pasch here for a Blue America live chat today (2pm, CT, noon, PT)… read on We’re hoping to send Scott Walker and the entire tea party a message, and getting rid of hacks like Darling – who care nothing for the working class in WI – would be an excellent start. Andy Kroll has been following this for Mother Jones as well. Don’t forget to GOTV for Sandy against this Walker/Paul Ryan shill. And let’s not forget how he feels about the Constitution: Tea Partiers sure seem to want to tear up the Constitution they loudly proclaim to love
Continue reading …
US decline leaves China tipped as next economic superpower while pressure on US bonds is set to affect eurozone crisis When India joined China in criticising America’s chaotic handling of its hefty debts this weekend, describing the challenges facing the White House as “grave”, it was the clearest indicator yet that the old order had been swept away. Until recently the United States was the unassailable economic superpower, and the prospect of the White House being bossed about by the bond markets – let alone by Beijing or New Delhi – was unthinkable. But following a week when an estimated $3tn (£1.8tn) was wiped off the value of world shares, Friday’s downgrade of America’s cherished AAA rating to AA+ by Standard & Poor’s is set to cause more turmoil on global markets and potentially jeopardise Europe’s attempts to solve its own financial crisis. With currency markets, particularly the dollar, expected to come under pressure, and US bond yields almost certain to rise, this could have the knock-on effect of raising borrowing costs in the eurozone at a time when Spanish and Italian bonds in particular have seen yields soar. This could prove to be a tipping point for the transfer of global power from the US to its great rival China, even though the fortunes of Asia and the west are inextricably linked. The boom of the past two decades in the US, the UK and much of Europe came at the expense of an extraordinary growth in borrowing, much of it from the Chinese and other fast-growing Asian economies, which were happy to keep piling up Treasury bills and buying blue-chip companies, so long as the billions of dollars they spent were recycled into cheap consumer goods. At the height of the credit crunch, it seemed that both lenders and borrowers were finally getting their comeuppance, but as the Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, has repeatedly pointed out in the past 12 months, the “global imbalances” that led to the crisis – the vast trade deficits and eye-watering debts – never went away. Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered, blames the turmoil of recent days on a combination of “ineffective policymakers, excitable markets – and a realisation that the recovery is going to be very slow in the west”. David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, went further: “What we’ve seen is a once-in-100-years financial crisis that will take 20 years to adjust to.” As for the US itself, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said on NBC that the downgrade was having a salutary effect on the public as well as on policymakers. “It gave the sense there is something basically bad going on. And it’s hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche.” But there is little glee in China about the west’s travails. Beijing has repeatedly expressed concern about the mounting US debt burden and the reliance of the global economy on the mighty dollar. Now, the gloves are finally off. The official news agency has accused the US of “debt addiction” and insisted that, as its largest creditor, China now “has every right to demand the United States address its structural debt problem and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets”. The Chinese economist Sun Lijian, in a commentary for the People’s Daily, said: “The biggest victims [of the downgrade] may not be the United States itself, but other countries that have depended on external demand to amass national wealth – be they Asian nations that depend on exporting goods, or nations in Latin America and the Middle East, as well as Russia, that depend on exporting resources.” For decades, the interest rate on American debt has been known as the “risk-free rate”, because a US default was as close to impossible as anyone in financial markets could imagine, and all other bonds were priced relative to America’s. Now that the markets have been forced to think the unthinkable, it is not at all clear what happens next. Erik Britton, of the City consultancy Fathom, says one possibility is that borrowing costs everywhere will rise. “It’s the cascade effect – it’s the chain reaction that we’re concerned about. Do other countries retain the same risk premium relative to the US? If that’s the case, then all bond yields will go up. Everybody’s borrowing costs will go up, and that includes Italy and Spain, where it won’t take much to make their situation unsustainable.” And while the Standard & Poor’s verdict on the US is a humiliating blow, it merely raises the distant fear of a future default, while for Italy and Spain that risk is much more immediate. When the crisis reached Rome, it finally became impossible for Europe’s leaders to write off the turmoil in bond markets as a problem of the “periphery” – little Greece, Ireland and Portugal. As German officials told Der Spiegel this weekend, Italy’s economy simply looks too big to rescue, certainly by the current bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has reluctantly ridden to the rescue many times during the crisis; on Monday, bond investors are hoping to see large-scale buying of Italian bonds by the ECB. The eurozone has repeatedly drawn back from the brink over the past three years, but a default by Italy or Spain would pose a threat to the single currency’s existence. Sony Kapoor, of the Brussels-based consultancy Re-Define, said an ECB decision to buy bonds would not be enough; eurozone politicians also needed to revisit their plans for beefing up the EFSF. No one knows what will happen this week, but no one believes it can ever be back to business as usual for the global economy. Financial crisis Global economy US domestic policy Market turmoil China European debt crisis US economy Economic policy US economic growth and recession Heather Stewart Tania Branigan Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media John Kerry left little doubt where Democrats plan on laying the blame for Standard and Poor’s deciding to downgrade our credit rating — squarely on the laps of those “tea party” Republicans in the House who were actually saying default would be acceptable. From TPM — Kerry Slams ‘Tea Party Downgrade’ : Senator John Kerry (D-MA), appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, blamed Republicans and in particular Tea Party intransigence for the unprecedented S&P downgrade of U.S. credit from AAA to AA+. “I believe this is without question the Tea Party downgrade,” he said. “This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered the will of even many of Republicans in the United States Senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal.” Kerry intimated that the “grand bargain” that President Obama initially negotiated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), a package of larger spending cuts and revenue increases, was scuttled by a smaller group of Republicans who were not willing to negotiate at any cost. “There were some people in the Republican party – and Mitch McConnell even admitted this – who wanted to default, Kerry said. “He said there were people in his party who were willing to shoot the hostage. In the end they found that the hostage was worth ransoming.” Read on… It looks like the Democrats got on the same page with their talking points for the day since David Axelrod said the exact same thing on Face the Nation today .
Continue reading …
African Union peacekeepers and soldiers hold famine-hit capital, but insurgents insist withdrawal is just a change in tactics Somali government soldiers and African Union (AU) peacekeepers have moved tentatively to secure former rebel-held areas in Mogadishu, a day after al-Shabaab insurgents announced a retreat from the city. Supported by armoured vehicles and tanks, the troops encountered sporadic resistance, and at least once soldier was killed in a gun battle. But reports from Mogadishu suggested that the vast majority of the Islamist fighters had left the city – or gone underground. The retreat by the rebels, who still control most of famine-struck southern Somalia, took many people by surprise. An al-Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamed Rage, told local radio on Saturday that the move was “a change in tactics” . But analysts have suggested it is a sign of the increased weakness and divisions in the Islamist ranks that stem from rebels’ handling of the famine gripping the country, as well as a shortage of cash. Some hardline leaders have tried to play down the humanitarian crisis in Somalia and refused to admit lifesaving aid organisations, including the World Food Programme. Tens of thousands of Somalis have died this year of hunger-related causes, according to the UN, and 3.7 million people need urgent food aid. Most are in rebel-held areas. The transitional federal government, which has little credibility among Somalis and little to celebrate in recent years, called the insurgents’ withdrawal “a tremendous step forward”. The rebels have controlled most of Mogadishu for several years after emerging from the ashes of a moderate Islamist group that was destroyed by the invading Ethiopian army in late 2006. Following the Ethiopian pullout two years later, only 9,000 AU peacekeepers prevented al-Shabaab from taking over the entire capital – and perhaps the country. The retreat from Mogadishu followed a strong AU offensive over the past fortnight that saw the rebels lose significant ground, including control of Bakara market, a key source of “tax” revenue. But while it is a boost for the government, it does not equal victory over the rebels. The al-Shabaab insurgents proved extremely adept at guerilla warfare during the Ethiopian occupation, and have carried out countless roadside bomb attacks, suicide missions and assassinations. The rebel leaders may have decided to return to this style of conflict, rather than trying to hold ground against the better-armed peacekeepers. Somalia’s prime minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, said the government’s priority was to secure areas abandoned by the rebels in Mogadishu, and assess the needs of the population. Parts of the capital hosting large numbers of people who fled hunger in the countryside were declared famine zones last week. Four other areas in southern Somalia – two of them entire regions – are also experiencing famine conditions, the UN says. Ali said the al-Shabaab pullout would give the international community “the necessary confidence and assurance” to increase the aid effort in Mogadishu. But humanitarian workers are likely to be cautious owing to the weakness of the government as well as the insurgents’ brutally effective track record. The rebel cause has attracted global jihadists who were invited in by some of the top al-Shabaab leaders who hail from the breakaway northern region of Somaliland, rather than southern Somalia where the group is based. It is these al-Qaida-linked leaders that have opposed the international aid effort. But another section of al-Shabaab’s leadership is from southern Somalia, and is much closer to the local people. The rift between the two groups is believed to have widened as the drought turned into a famine. Somalia African Union Famine Xan Rice guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Campaigners vow ‘more pressure and more people’ after 300,000-strong demonstration across country Activists behind spiralling protests in Israel plan to build on one of the biggest marches ever seen in the country by piling on “more pressure, more people, more tents and more protests” culminating in a million-strong march in 50 cities next month. An estimated 300,000 people took to the streets on Saturday to press their demands for social justice and lower living costs in the largest demonstrations over social issues ever seen in the country. Despite scepticism that turnout could surpass previous events, almost twice as many people joined marches in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other towns and cities. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was forced to respond to the spiralling protests with the establishment of a committee to “listen to the distress” and recommend action. The protests, which began with a handful of tents erected in Tel Aviv, have unleashed a national fury at the government’s failure to respond to the needs and complaints of middle-income Israelis. Tent cities have mushroomed in more than 40 locations across the country as well as daily demonstrations and roadblocks over the cost of housing, childcare, fuel, food and electricity. Despite Israel’s relatively healthy economic growth and low unemployment, wage disparities are big, wealth and corporate power are highly concentrated, food prices have increased almost 13% since 2005 and many people spend 50% of their incomes on rent or mortgages. Up to 250,000 people marched through Tel Aviv to Israel’s military headquarters on Saturday, causing major traffic diversions until the early hours. One sign, in Hebrew and Arabic, read “Egypt is here”. In Jerusalem, up to 30,000 people marched to Netanyahu’s residence, chanting the rallying cry of the past three weeks: “The people demand social justice.” Smaller protests were also held in Kiryat Shmona, Modi’in, Hod HaSharon, Ashkelon, Eilat and Dimona, according to media reports. Stav Shaffir, 26, one of the original tent protesters in Tel Aviv, told the Guardian that “more pressure, more people, more tents and more protests” would follow. “Right now we’re coming together to think about our next steps. There will be more protests – definitely more protests.” A loose alliance of activists behind the protests called for a million-strong march on 3 September. The committee set up by Netanyahu was ordered to report within a month. “It is impossible to ignore the voices coming from the public,” the prime minister said in a lengthy statement. Israel’s economy was strong, but “we know that we must make the internal corrections … social corrections, with sensitivity”. He added: “We will listen to everyone. We will speak with everyone.” However, Netanyahu has so far refused to meet a delegation from the tent protesters. “This is definitely not enough,” said Shaffir. “We have been on the street for almost a month, and there has been no contact at all from Netanyahu. The public thinks the government is out of touch with the people, and people are angry and want to see change.”Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, said the protests were a “testament to the nation’s maturity”. In contrast, the extreme right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said that cafes in Tel Aviv were “packed to capacity” adding that there was no reason “to be depressed”. The social protests have become the most pressing issue for the Israeli government, with the potential, according to some commentators, to topple Netanyahu’s coalition. Opinion polls have put public support for the protests at around 90%. Protest leaders have insisted that bringing the government down is not their aim. The organisers have striven to keep the movement as inclusive as possible, incorporating left and right, secular and religious, Jews and Arabs. They have avoided publicly making connections between the amount spent on settlements and the military for fear of being branded anti-occupation activists. “It is certainly one of the largest street protests we have experienced in Israel,” said Tamar Hermann, of the Israel Democracy Institute. “But what really makes it different is its heterogeneous nature. Normally protest is homogeneous. Diversity is as important as size.” She said Israel’s economic health was “one of the reasons people feel able to protest. When you are at rock bottom you invest everything in survival. People here are not devastated but discontented.” Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli parliament, said the protests would define Israeli society as “a collective based either on social solidarity or national territorialism”. Indications that the former was outgunning the latter were “why all the settlers are so upset”, he added. Some observers believe Netanyahu will try to ride out the protests until September, when the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations is likely to dominate the political agenda. The Palestinians, they say, are a familiar foe that Netanyahu feels he can outmanoeuvre whereas the Israeli social justice protesters are an unknown force. Analogies drawn between the Arab spring and the Israeli summer were not completely misplaced, according to Hermann. “Israelis generally want to disassociate themselves from the Middle East, culturally, politically and economically. But obviously they have watched Tahrir Square as well as events in Spain and Athens. “Protest is a phenomenon which often spills over national borders. This fits into a new wave of street protests that we are now seeing all over the world, including the Middle East.” Palestinian demands As Israelis take to the streets to demand social justice, Palestinians are also gearing up to protest next month over their demands for recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations. President Mahmoud Abbas has urged “popular resistance” as well as diplomatic moves. “In this coming period, we want mass action, organised and co-ordinated in every place,” he said last month. “This is a chance to raise our voices in front of the world and say we want our rights.” Marwan Barghouti, an iconic figure for Palestinians who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail, also called for mass action. “I call on our people in the homeland and in the diaspora to go out in a peaceful, million-man march during the week of voting in the United Nations in September,” he said. Palestinian leaders, backed by the Arab League, intend to ask the UN general assembly to back a Palestinian state when it meets in September. However, full recognition requires the backing of the UN security council, which the US has vowed to veto. The Israeli protests are being given scant attention in the Palestinian media. But, said Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian parliament, “we feel sympathetic because they are also demanding social rights. At the same time we hope that they will see that one of the reasons for this crisis is the Israeli occupation policy and military spending. “We hope that this social movement becomes a political movement which demands peace and end to occupation.” Harriet Sherwood Israel Middle East Protest Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Security Guards At ALEC Conference Physically Harass ThinkProgress Reporters
August 7, 2011 No CommentWow, it’s like they have something to hide. .. Yesterday, at a conference in New Orleans, two ThinkProgress reporters were attacked by security guards for no apparent reason. Reporters Scott Keyes and Lee Fang were at the Marriott Hotel for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, an event that brings together state lawmakers with corporate lobbyists to draft “model” legislation. While [Keyes and Fang] stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded [them], demanding that [they] leave. As we were leaving, [the guards] approached [Keyes and Fang], violently pushed [them] and twisted [their] arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back. Asked why they were being so belligerent, the security guards said they were acting on instructions from ALEC. I tend to stay away from shadow government conspiracy theories, but this truly is a shadow organization –accountable to no one and with no need or desire for transparency–that is writing legislation that affects all of us throughout the country. And now, they’re roughing up reporters who get too close? New world order, indeed.
Continue reading …Cokie Roberts on Downgrade: ‘The Problem That We Have Here is the Constitution’
August 7, 2011 No Comment
ABC's Cokie Roberts said something on national television Sunday that made her colleague George Will shake his head on camera. During a “This Week” discussion about the recent credit rating downgrade by Standard and Poor's Roberts said, 'The problem that we have here is the Constitution of the United States of America which actually does require people to come together from different perspectives” (video follows with transcript and commentary): COKIE ROBERTS: This group of people in New York [Standard and Poor’s] is actually talking about more government rather than less government, Congressman. In fact, the reason they like France and Great Britain is because they’re parliamentary systems where the majority gets what it wants no matter what. And the problem that we have here is the Constitution of the United States of America which actually does require people to come together from different perspectives whether it's divided government or not. We have divided branches of government under any circumstance. Wow! In June, Time magazine's managing editor Richard Stengel wrote a cover story asking, “Does the Constitution Still Matter,” and now Roberts goes on national television blaming our credit rating downgrade on America's most sacred document. Somehow I doubt Roberts would be bemoaning the majority's inability to ram through any legislation it wanted if the Republicans controlled the White House as well as both chambers of Congress. Liberals like her only decry divided government when they're in control. But what shouldn't have missed the eyes of viewers was George Will shaking his head in the foreground as Roberts made this absurd comment. Fans of his surely know how he believes one of America's greatest strengths is indeed divided government. As it pertains to the current debt issue, something Will wrote in September 2008 was amazingly prescient: Divided government compels compromises that curb each party's excesses, especially both parties' proclivities for excessive spending when unconstrained by an institution controlled by the other party. William Niskanen , chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute, notes that in the past 50 years, “government spending has increased an average of only 1.73 percent annually during periods of divided government. This number more than triples, to 5.26 percent, for periods of unified government.” That bears repeating: “[I]n the past 50 years, 'government spending has increased an average of only 1.73 percent annually during periods of divided government. This number more than triples, to 5.26 percent, for periods of unified government.'” As such, if your real goal is reduced spending, the divided government Roberts so despises is actually the answer. It's certainly not surprising that she doesn't know this and Will does.
Continue reading …
French minister for overseas territories holds urgent talks in Paris after demonstrations outside Maré airport turn violent The French government has tried to calm tensions on the south Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia after four people died and 23 were injured in clashes during a protest at the high cost of local air travel. Two armed groups clashed on Saturday night outside the airport on Maré, a small island of 6,000 people, one of several that make up France’s exotic “overseas collectivity”. For more than 10 days, several local airports on the islands had been blockaded as protesters complained that the price of local flights had become extortionate. The protest was part of a wider anger at the growing divide between rich and poor. The local airline, Air Caledonie, warned that it was facing bankruptcy because of the demonstrations and that the tourist industry would be badly damaged. A “passengers’ collective” had barricaded Maré airport and blocked entry to a local village. On Saturday night, 300 people from the Ghuama district, whose chief, Nidoish Naisseline, is the airline’s chairman, tried to break up the protest. Violence ensued between the two groups of about 300 people each. Stones were thrown, then shots were fired and four young men were killed. The Agence France-Presse correspondent described people armed with hunting rifles and machetes, on roads lined with burnt-out cars. France’s high commissioner, Albert Dupuy, called it “a nightmare day”. The French Socialist party warned that with endemic unemployment for indigenous locals and a big divide between the rich and poor, New Caledonia was about to tip into an “explosion” of social unrest. The French minister for overseas territories, Marie-Luce Penchard, rushed back from holiday to hold urgent talks in Paris, announcing mediation by religious groups. She said the dispute was not just about air tickets, but also about land ownership on the island. Gendarmes were flown to Maré by helicopter to clear the airport barricades. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is expected to go ahead with his planned visit to New Caledonia in three weeks. His presidency has seen unrest in France’s overseas outposts. In 2009, after a six-week general strike over high prices and social inequality rocked Guadeloupe – the Caribbean island and French “overseas department” – Sarkozy promised a vast programme of aid measures but many feel they have yet to benefit. New Caledonia is an overseas “collectivity” rather than a fully-fledged part of France. A rise in pro-independence feeling among indigenous locals and resistance by some of the locally-born people of European descent has led to political tension. Earlier this year, there were four months of political instability and vacuum as the archipelago struggled to form a government. In the 1980s, violent unrest led France to send in paratroopers. A referendum on independence is expected to be held between 2014 and 2019. South Pacific Airline industry Air transport France Nicolas Sarkozy Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media The head of Standard & Poor’s sovereign ratings said Sunday that the agency may downgrade the U.S. again. “Given the economic and political situation in the U.S., which will we see, an upgrading back to AAA or further downgrades?” Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked David Beers. “We have a negative outlook on the rating and that means we think that the risk currently for the rating are to the downside,” Beers said. While explaining what the U.S. could do to get its AAA rating back, the S&P official mentioned entitlement cuts but ignored the agency’s call to raise revenues. “Does any compromise have to have entitlement reform and revenue increases to be credible?” Wallace wondered. “The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlement is the biggest — are the biggest component of spending and they are the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest,” Beers replied. “The White House as you know is not happy with this decision and they have accused S&P of amateurism. They went through your numbers and found a $2 trillion overstatement of what the debt would be and when they pointed that out to you, you simply changed the rational and continued to downgrade the debt,” Wallace noted. “That is a complete misrepresentation of what happened,” Beers claimed. “Here we are talking about highly technical assumptions about projecting budget base lines far in the future. We made the motifications that we did after a conversation with the Treasury, it doesn’t change the fact that in our estimation, that even with the agreement of Congress and the administration this past week, that the underlying debt burden of the U.S. government is rising and will continue to rise, most likely, over the next decade.” “The haste with which S&P changed its principal rationale for action when presented with this error raise[s] fundamental questions about the credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action,” Treasury assistant secretary for economic policy John Bellows wrote last week . White House chief economic adviser Gene Sperling added that S&P’s actions “smacked of an institution starting with a conclusion and shaping any arguments to fit it.” “The magnitude of their error combined with their willingness to simply change on the spot their lead rationale in their press release once the error was pointed out was breathtaking,” he said. Beers told Wallace that he did not expect “that much impact” from the downgrade when the global markets open on Monday.
Continue reading …George Will Takes on Former Obama Administration Official for Calling Tea Partiers ‘Terrorists’
August 7, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters previously reported, former Obama administration car czar Steve Rattner last month called Tea Partiers terrorists on national television. On Sunday's “This Week,” George Will took Rattner on for making such an inflammatory statement (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: People know that you have a debt crisis and you have to deal with it. The question is, and you, I think, I don't know whether you want to say this, but you called the Congressman an economic terrorist. STEVE RATTNER, MSNBC ECONOMIC ANALYST AND FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION CAR CZAR: Not, not the Congressman personally. I did say that I thought those who essentially were trying to hold up and bring the U.S. to the brink of default without being reasonable in their compromise. Look, the President was willing to go more than halfway. He was willing to go 75 percent of the way in a package that would have both revenues… CONGRESSMAN JASON CHAFFETZ, (R-UTAH): No, but we… RATTNER: Wait a minute, let me finish, and spending cuts that would have achieved this $4 trillion grand bargain and would have perhaps averted this downgrade or certainly put us on a better path for fiscal responsibility. But you do have one group of people who are saying no tax increases, never, no how, when in fact the tax decreases under President Bush partly got us in this problem. If you take today’s one and a half trillion dollar deficit, a trillion of it is from excess spending. 400 billion of it is from the Bush tax cuts. Indeed. However, if we went back to the exact same outlays called for in the 2007 budget approved by a Republican Congress, we'd actually have a $200 billion surplus in fiscal 2012 based on OMB's projected tax receipts. If we adjusted 2007's spending for inflation, we'd only have a $43 billion deficit next year thereby totally avoiding S&P's downgrade without raising taxes one cent. But I digress: ROBERTS: The Standard & Poor's report, which, again, I would like to disassociate myself from, but it does say that one of the reasons that they think that the fiscal house will not be in order is because they think the Bush tax cuts will stay in forever and that they think the intransigence of Republicans on this line is one of the reasons that they have downgraded the credit rating. GEORGE WILL: All of the people comparing the Tea Party to suicide bombers, one of whom is Steve here… AMANPOUR: I don't think he said that, did he? WILL: Yes. RATTNER: No. ROBERTS: Terrorists are suicide bombers. WILL: I can read you the transcript from the morning show. RATTNER: I was there. I was there. WILL: I understand, I was watching. And so were we. As NewsBusters reported , here's what Rattner said on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on July 29: RATTNER: You know, the problem with this is it's like a form of economic terrorism. I imagine these Tea Party guys are like strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, 'either you do it my way, or we're going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.' So you tell me how those kinds of standoffs end. Sounds like Will has a better grasp of what Rattner said that morning, dontcha think? But I again digress: WILL: Anyway, what you, you do know that 95 House Democrats voted against raising the debt ceiling as compared to only 66 House Republicans. You do know that 26 Democratic Senators voted against raising the debt ceiling? Indeed. What liberals like Rattner have totally ignored was that if interfering with an agreement to raise the debt ceiling was an act of terrorism, Democrats in both chambers of Congress were far more guilty than Republicans. Alas, one would have to be an impartial journalist to figure that out, and such a thing really doesn't exist anymore – certainly not on MSNBC where Rattner contributes.
Continue reading …