Private investigator denies acting on his own as Sara Payne admits phone hacking link left her ‘very distressed and upset’ The private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal denied suggestions he acted without orders from the newspaper. In an attack on the News International, Glenn Mulcaire said he was “effectively employed” by the tabloid publisher from 2002 as a private investigator and had not acted “unilaterally” when he intercepted voicemails. “As an employee he acted on the instructions of others,” a statement issued by his lawyers said. His comments came 24 hours after it emerged that Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, was abducted and murdered in 2000, learned Mulcaire may have targeted her phone . Hours after his statement, Sara Payne made her first public comments, saying she was “very distressed and upset” that details relating to her may have been found in Mulcaire’s files. “I can confirm reports that I was given a phone by the campaign team [for the NoW's Sarah's Law campaign] and that my voicemail was only activated after my first aneurysm,” she said. This relates to a report on Thursday that she had not turned her voicemail on the phone until 2009, the year of her first aneurysm. She was given the phone by NoW in 2000. In a statement that indicated she still appreciated her work on Sarah’s Law with the NoW, she said: “Notwithstanding the bad apples involved here, my faith remains solidly behind all the good people who have supported me over the last 11 years. I will never lose my faith in them. My way would be to challenge the bad apples head-on, learn from the facts of the matter, and be a proactive part of stopping this from happening again.” Brooks said the allegations about Payne were “abhorrent”, and that it was “unthinkable” “anyone on the newspaper knew Sara or the campaign team were targeted by Mulcaire”. The private investigator’s statement challenges News International’s central defence since Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royal editor, were jailed in 2007 for hacking into Prince William’s phone. The company claimed that one “rogue reporter” was responsible. Mulcaire’s statement from his lawyers said: “There were also occasions when he [Mulcaire] understood his instructions were from those who genuinely wished to assist in solving crimes. Any suggestion that he acted in such matters unilaterally is untrue. In the light of the ongoing police investigation, he cannot say any more.” His statement focuses attention back on News International executives, who face another grilling by MPs on the Commons culture select committee. James Murdoch is likely to be summoned to appear before MPs for a second time after Colin Myler, the NoW’s former editor, and Tom Crone, the paper’s former head of legal affairs, challenged his evidence to the select committee on 19 July. Crone and Myler accused Murdoch of being “mistaken” when he told the committee that he had no knowledge of an email that implicated a member of the News of the World staff in Mulcaire’s activities. The pair said they had shown Murdoch the so-called “for Neville” email, which raised the possibility that the paper’s former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck knew about phone hacking at the time that the BSkyB chairman approved payments to victims of phone hacking. Murdoch said earlier this month that he did not have a “complete picture” when he approved the payments. Committee chair John Whittingdale, who said he wanted to hear from the pair and James Murdoch in writing first, is expected to summon them next month. He would also be asking Myler and Crone to exlain why they now think the “for Neville” email is so significant after they played down its significance when they appeared before the committee in July 2009. “Tom Crone and Colin Myler … told us they had discovered no evidence suggesting that anybody else beyond Clive Goodman had been involved,” Whittingdale said. “We are now told, we understand from the statement they issued to the media, that they had drawn James Murdoch’s attention to the significance of the ‘for Neville’ email. It appeared, when they came before us, that they did not regard that it was significant. But clearly they are now suggesting it is.” The committee is also writing to Jon Chapman, a former director of legal affairs at News International, who challenged Rupert Murdoch’s claim to the culture committee that he had a copy of a report “for a number of years” which showed evidence of illegality. Chapman said he was responsible for corporate and legal matters at News International and did not have responsibility for dealing with allegations about phone hacking. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to charges of phone interception and is currently appealing against a High Court order that would force him to give more information about hacking to his alleged victims. Glenn Mulcaire had claimed the privilege of self-incrimination but lost a High Court battle against comedian Steve Coogan and football pundit Andy Gray. There is now a prospect that this appeal against the order arising from this case is abandoned after News International announced it was ceasing to cover Mulcaire’s legal fees with “immediate effect”. Mulcaire’s solictors wrote to News International earlier this week warning the publisher they were still legally liable to indemnify him against legal costs until the appeal case was resolved. Glenn Mulcaire Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Lisa O’Carroll Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Now the ball is in the Senate Democrats' court. Unfortunately for them, they don't even have a written bill yet. Will the media put the onus back on Democrats who are split between tax hikers and non-tax hikers? List of GOP “no” votes follows below the break… House Republicans voting against increase Amash-MI Bachmann-MN Broun-GA Chaffetz-UT Cravaak-MN Desjarlais-TN Duncan-SC Gowdy-SC Graves-GA Huelskamp-KS Johnson-IL Jordan-OH King-IA Latham-IA Mack-FL McClintock-CA Mulvaney-SC Paul-TX Scott-SC Southerland-FL Walsh-IL Wilson-SC
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• President Obama pins hopes on Senate leaders • Spain calls snap general election • Italian bond yields hit 5.89% Barack Obama cleared his diary for the weekend last night to try to find a deal on the US debt crisis as Congress prepared to stay in session ready to vote on any last-gasp compromise. Speaking after dismal figures for US growth increased the pressure on lawmakers to prevent a fresh meltdown in global markets, Obama said: “I am confident we can solve this problem. I am confident we will solve this problem. “For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now, I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.” But Congress remained in disarray Friday with the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, wounded and in a dangerous mood after failing to quell a humiliating revolt by the Tea Party wing of the party. Boehner scheduled a vote on Thursday on a Republican bill to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending, but hard-core conservatives refused to back it and the vote had to be temporarily abandoned. The febrile mood in Washington was matched on Wall Street and the City, where news that the US grew at an annual rate of just 1.3% in the three months to June prompted renewed concern that the world’s biggest economy could lapse back into recession should it have its credit worthiness downgraded by the ratings agencies. Speculation that the Federal Reserve might need to embark on a third round of quantitative easing – the creation of electronic money – intensified after revisions to past figures for US gross domestic product showed the recession was deeper than originally believed and the subsequent recovery weaker. America’s peak-to-trough drop in output between 2007 and 2009 is now put at 5.1% rather than the 4.1% originally estimated. With the International Monetary Fund warning the US that a continued impasse risks reigniting Europe’s debt crisis, bond yields in Italy and Spain rose. The interest rate on 10-year Italian bonds rose to 5.89%, while that for Spain – where the government called a general election – climbed to 6.09%. Shares in London closed down 1% lower, a drop of 58.02 at 5815.19, while the Dow Jones industrial average was on course to complete a week of daily falls with a loss of 60 points by lunchtime in New York. Sources close to George Osborne said the new figures from the US showed that the American and British experience during and after the global downturn had been similar, weakening the argument for the coalition government to revisit its tough austerity plans. Obama used the growth figures to urge Congress to come to a compromise on raising the US debt ceiling from $14.3tn (£8.7tn) by Tuesday’s deadline. The White House is pinning its hopes for a deal on the Senate, where Obama hopes the Democratic leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell, a mainstream conservative, can reach a deal. Obama, in a short statement at the White House, said there were multiple ways to resolve the debt stand-off by the Tuesday deadline. If the US does not raise its debt ceiling by 2 August, it risks being unable to continue borrowing and unable to pay its bills. Obama has said that default is not an option so the US treasury would prioritise keeping up interest payments, which could mean cuts elsewhere. The president reiterated that the victims could be people expecting federal cheques for welfare, and payments to military veterans and government contractors. “This is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart,” Obama said. He added: “There are a lot of crises in the world that we can’t always predict or avoid: hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks. This isn’t one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands.” One scenario would be for the Senate to pass a compromise bill over the weekend that would raise the debt ceiling until the end of next year, after the White House election, and make deep cuts in spending. It could then be passed to the House for a vote in the hope that a combination of mainstream Republicans and Democrats would get it through. Tea Party Republicans could vote against, able to return to their districts and tell activists they remained faithful to the cause. Boehner, in an attempt to recover ground after Thursday’s debacle, rewrote his bill to make it more appealing to the Tea Party wing of his party. But even if the House was to pass that version, the Senate would vote it down. The White House, too, promised to veto it because it would only be a stop-gap measure, lasting only through to February or March with the prospect of another crisis then. Reid, speaking on Friday morning in the Senate, described Thursday as a wasted day because of the Republican fiasco in the House and the blamed the crisis on “extremists in the Tea Party”. He called for mainstream Republicans to back a compromise. “Will the Republicans back away from the shrill voice of the Tea Party and return to the Republican party of Ronald Reagan?” he said. He urged McConnell to meet him to resolve the stalemate. “I will listen to any idea to get this done in a way that prevents a default and a dangerous downgrade to America’s credit rating. Time is short, and too much is at stake, to waste even one more minute,” Reid said. He will push to a vote his plan to raise the debt ceiling and to cut about $2.5tn in spending over the next decade. McConnell also took to the floor of the Senate and did not sound encouraging about a deal, though he may be saying something different in private. “Lawmakers should be working a solution to this crisis, not a blocking strategy. Our Democrat friends here in the Senate have offered no solutions to this crisis that could pass either chamber,” McConnell said. He blamed Obama too, accusing him of having blown up a bipartisan compromise last week. US economy Economics Stock markets US politics United States European debt crisis Spain Italy Europe Ewen MacAskill Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …While our media is focusing on this debt ceiling debacle and debating whether our politicians might willingly default on America’s debt through this crisis of their own making, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was on the Senate floor this week discussing the real crisis in America — the jobs crisis. With Release of New Study Showing Record Concern Over State of the Manufacturing Industry, Brown Sends Letter to President Obama Urging Greater Focus on Needs of Domestic Manufacturers : Focus Groups Show Americans Want Washington to Focus on Bringing Back Manufacturing Jobs, See Manufacturing as Key to Economic Strength, and Strongly Support the Implementation of a National Manufacturing Strategy July 28, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C.—With the release of new poll today showing that Americans believe that the strength of the economy is strongly tied to the strength of our manufacturing industry, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to devote greater attention to the needs of domestic manufacturers as he spearheads a consolidation and reorganization of the Administration’s trade agencies. The study, conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing, showed that Americans want Washington to focus on bringing back manufacturing jobs; that they see manufacturing as key to our nation’s economic strength; and that they strongly support the implementation of a National Manufacturing Strategy. Brown is the author of the bipartisan National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2011, legislation aimed at bolstering the competitiveness of the American manufacturing industry. The goals of the Strategy are to increase manufacturing jobs, identify emerging technologies to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, and strengthen the manufacturing sectors in which the U.S. is most competitive. “The recovery of our manufacturing industry is critical to our country’s economic recovery. Historically, the manufacturing sector has provided Americans with good-paying, stable jobs—a reliable pathway to the middle class. It’s no wonder that with factories closing down and jobs going to China and Mexico that Americans think that Washington isn’t doing enough to save this vital industry,” Brown said. “But the good news is that we can work to reverse the damage—by closing loopholes for companies that ship jobs abroad and giving businesses strong incentives to Make It In America. We should be vigorously enforcing our trade laws—particularly with countries like China—and cracking down on currency manipulation and duty evasion. And finally, as one of the only developed nations without one, we must implement a National Manufacturing Strategy. A complete economic recovery requires a sustained strategy to ensure long-term job growth and job creation.” According to the American Alliance for Manufacturing, the study included eight focus groups nationwide, as well as a random national survey of 1,202 likely voters. The study found that across the partisan spectrum, Democratic and Republican voters ranked job creation and rebuilding the nation’s manufacturing base at the top of their list of priorities. In addition, 94% of voters say creating manufacturing jobs is either “one of the most important” things government can do or “very important;” 90% support Buy American policies “to ensure that taxpayer-funded government projects use only U.S.-made goods and supplies wherever possible;” and 95% favor keeping “America’s trade laws strong and strictly enforced to provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses.” Earlier this month, GAO released a report—requested by Brown and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — entitled Office of Manufacturing and Services Could Better Measure and Communicate Its Contributions to Trade Policy . At the time of requesting the report, Brown was serving as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking, House, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy, where he chaired nine hearings on the state of American manufacturing industry. A copy of the GAO report can be found here . A full copy of the letter to the President is below. Dear Mr. President: In your State of the Union address, you called for consolidating and reorganizing the Administration’s trade agencies. To that end, you tasked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to examine the consolidation of export and trade offices managed primarily by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department. During this process, I urge you to ensure that this reorganization focuses not only upon export-related efforts but also the non-export policy needs of domestic manufacturers. Currently, the Office of Manufacturing and Services (MAS) is the designated office for supporting the Secretary of Commerce in his role as the federal government’s chief advocate for American manufacturing. This office is within the International Trade Administration (ITA) and primarily supports sectors that have a direct connection to exports or impact trade flows. With more than 90 percent of the world’s customers outside the United States, this focus on exports is clearly a central plank in a national manufacturing strategy and efforts. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a report I requested, found that MAS set an internal goal for 75 percent of its resources to support the National Export Initiative (NEI). This singular focus upon exports is of great concern, especially when greater challenges face the manufacturing sector than export barriers, including: tax issues; access to credit and financing for viable producers; workforce training; and regulations. These challenges take on new urgency considering that from 2000-2009, fifteen of the nineteen aggregate-level U.S. manufacturing sectors shrank in output while manufacturing jobs fell by 6.1 million, or 34 percent. You have given manufacturing policy significant attention, as outlined in the December 2010 “Framework to Revitalize American Manufacturing” and as evident in your recently announced Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Further, your efforts to restructure the auto industry have saved thousands of jobs in my state and throughout the country, and now we are seeing new jobs created in the auto sector. I fully support and encourage your efforts, but request that you consider a comprehensive and sustainable structure within the Commerce Department to serve as the voice for domestic manufacturers and the integrator of Federal agency manufacturing efforts within yours and future Administrations. I have proposed legislation that will help to achieve these goals, which with your support has the potential to create a more cohesive and coordinated approach to promoting U.S. manufacturers.
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Jon Sarkin was working as a chiropractor when a stroke changed him. Suddenly, he was self-absorbed, rude and fighting a compulsive desire to create art Jon Sarkin and Hank Turgeon had battled all afternoon on the Cape Ann golf course, Massachusetts. The time was about 3pm, Thursday 20 October 1988, and the two friends had cut out of work early, Sarkin from his chiropractic office, Turgeon from his carpentry. A slight breeze rippled as Sarkin bent down, reached inside his golf bag and fished around for a tee. As he pulled out his hand, he experienced a hideous dizzying sensation, as if his brain had suddenly twisted. A part of his head seemed to unhinge, to split apart and rush away. I’m 35 years old and I’m going to die, he said to himself. “Is anything wrong?” Turgeon asked. Sarkin hesitated, trying to get his bearings. What could he say? That he felt as if his brain had just broken in half? Sarkin took a few deep breaths, teed up his ball and swung from his heels. He felt queasy, and as he walked towards the fairway he tried not to move his head. What he did not know was that somewhere deep in his brain a single blood vessel had shifted ever so slightly and the movement, as minuscule as it was, had caused a cataclysmic response in one of
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Mourners descend on Benghazi for funeral parade following revelation ex-Gaddafi aide had been called back to city The fractious coalition fighting to oust Muammar Gaddafi was plunged into disarray on Friday as the mysterious death of the rebels’ army commander sparked anger from his powerful tribe and distrust among those loyal to the cause. The assassination of Abdel Fatah Younis, one of Gaddafi’s former right-hand men and a high-profile defector to the rebels, was announced at a late-night press conference on Thursday by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, president of the ruling National Transitional Council. But yesterday Jalil, who said only that Younis had been killed on his way back to Benghazi where he had been “summoned” for questioning, failed to explain the circumstances of the death. The killing of Younis came a day after Britain said it had extended official recognition to the National Transitional Council. It is likely to have caused consternation in Whitehall after William Hague praised the “legitimacy and competence” of the rebels. The Foreign Office is now faced with the spectre of serious divisions within the rebels leading the five-month uprising against Gaddafi. As hundreds of mourners descended on the streets of Benghazi for the funeral procession, the opposition capital was tense, with reports of heavy gunfire in the early hours. As he followed Younis’s coffin through the city, the commander’s nephew Abdul Hakim told Reuters: “We got the body yesterday here [in Benghazi], he had been shot with bullets and burned.” Jalil had initially said the body of Younis had vanished, but it was paraded, together with those of a colonel and major killed with him, before mourners in Benghazi’s Tahrir Square. Gathered for Friday prayers, they chanted his name as the coffins passed. Hours before his death was made public, Younis was rumoured to have been arrested and detained in Benghazi by members of the NTC over links he had supposedly kept with the regime. Under pressure to say whether Younis has been arrested before his death and if so, whether this was linked to his killing, Jalil refused to comment, failing to say where the attack happened, or when, or to confirm that the attackers were pro-Gaddafi elements, though he has announced one unnamed attacker has been arrested. Suspicion that pro-rebel elements may have had a hand in the death of Younis was boosted when a special forces member under his command reportedly pointed the finger at a rebel faction. Mohammed Agoury told the Associated Press that he had been present when rebels from the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade came to Younis’s operations room and took him away for questioning. In an accusation that reflected growing rifts in the rebel movement, Agoury said the group had killed Younis and dumped his body outside Benghazi. Another account, reported by the rebels’ Radio Misrata, said that Younis had been killed after being attacked in a Benghazi hotel room where he had been installed by the authorities after being summoned back to the rebel capital on Thursday for questioning. The report said that Younis and two aides were dragged from the room by gunmen and later found burned and riddled with bullets on a city street. It said the identities of the gunmen were unknown. Neither Agoury’s nor the radio station’s report could be confirmed. Whatever the truth of the killing, Jalil will face the hostility of Younis’s clan, the biggest tribe in Benghazi, if he fails to conclusively show that rebel forces had no hand in the general’s death. Members of the Obeidi tribe shot out the windows of the hotel where Jalil gave his late night press conference, shouting that the rebel authorities had killed him. With the rebel coalition already fractious, a split with the largest tribal group is the last thing the NTC needs. In the besieged city of Misrata too, the death sparked consternation. Misrata’s military spokesman joined the city’s ruling council in emphasising that its army units did not take orders from Benghazi. And security was stepped up amid fears of attacks by pro-Gaddafi elements, the fabled “fifth column” that is a constant anxiety across rebel-held parts of the country. Younis was a controversial figure as chief of staff, having defected after quitting his post as Gaddafi’s interior minister at the start of the revolution. Many in the rebel camp did not fully trust a man who had been a close confidant of Gaddafi for 40 years. When asked by the New York Times in April whether Younis had kept in contact with her father, Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha “pointedly” refused to respond, reported the newspaper. From a diplomatic point of view, the controversy over his death comes at a delicate time for the rebels. On Friday Britain, which firmly endorsed the NTC as the “sole governmental authority” on Wednesday, issued a statement which shied away from attributing responsibility for the assassination. The minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Alistair Burt, said: “Exactly what happened remains unclear. I welcome chairman Abd Al-Jalil’s statement yesterday that the killing will be thoroughly investigated, and he reiterated this to me during our conversation. We agreed that it is important that those responsible are held to account through proper judicial processes.” Mahmoud al-Nacua, the newly appointed diplomatic envoy of the NTC in London, refused to comment. In Brussels, Nato officials stressed that they were not fully in the picture on the circumstances of the murder, and that the military alliance did not want to be seen to be speaking for the opposition to Gaddafi. But they delivered a warning to the NTC, suggesting Nato was confident the opposition was to blame. “The opposition forces have a big responsibility to ensure that the transition to democracy occurs in an orderly fashion. We expect them to live up to this,” said a Nato official. “So far they’ve done a lot to ensure that this is an inclusive process, reaching out to different groups. We expect that to continue.” Abdel Fatah Younis Libya Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest Chris Stephen Lizzy Davies Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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Former foreign secretary accepts offer to act as party’s unofficial ambassador on university and college campuses David Miliband has taken a tentative first step to rejoining frontline Labour politics by accepting an offer from his brother, Ed, to act as an unofficial ambassador for the party on university and college campuses. In what will be seen as an act of public reconciliation, the ex-foreign secretary is taking on the role – which aides describe as “taking our message to students” – after a series of apparently warm discussions with the Labour leader about how he could best contribute to the party’s revival. The one-time frontrunner to succeed Gordon Brown was surprisingly defeated for the Labour leadership in last September’s election, and has kept a low profile on the backbenches to avoid accusations that he is undermining his brother. He has also had to nurse some difficult emotional and political wounds. One of the party’s few intellectuals, David Miliband will undertake a 20-date tour of campuses over the next year speaking to students on foreign affairs, climate change and issues of interest to students such as the funding of higher education. Leadership sources last night confirmed that he was taking on a new role for the party, but stressed: “This should not be seen as a sign that he is being lined up for an early shadow cabinet return.” One senior aide said: “David announced a year ago that he did not want to serve on the frontbench. That position has not changed and we respect it. But his willingness to help the party in this way does reflect David’s desire to contribute tangibly to the party’s renewal under Ed’s leadership.” If the elder Miliband enjoys the new role and is not seen a threat to his brother, speculation about a shadow cabinet role is certain to rise within Westminster. On the tour he will be using a question and answer format. The political messages these produce will be formally reported back to the party’s policy review head, Liam Byrne, by Labour Students, now a dominant force in many universities owing to the fall in support for the Liberal Democrats. As part of the role, David Miliband has also agreed he will campaign on campuses for a living wage for university employees, a campaign being taken up by Labour Students. He also hopes that he will be able to deploy his Movement for Change project in support of the campaign. Movement for Change, born out of his leadership campaign, is aiming to train 10,000 community organisers between now and the next election, and has suggested every constituency party appoint a community organiser. It is also possible that Movement for Change will affiliate to the Labour party as a socialist society. Since the defeat, David Miliband has mixed his time between seeing more of his young family and speaking mainly on foreign politics, such as Afghanistan, Libya, the rise of China and the causes of defeat for social democratic parties in Europe. He insisted he had moved on from his narrow defeat, but did not want to do anything that could detract from his younger brother’s leadership. The agreement emerged after Ed Miliband appeared to have achieved a personal political breakthrough with his strong criticisms of News International. The idea of a new role has, however, been in discussion for more than a month. Ed Miliband has repeatedly said he would welcome his brother’s return to the shadow cabinet, but that it is up to David. The Labour leader has given himself the power to appoint his own shadow cabinet, abolishing elections by the party’s MPs. There have been strains between the brothers’ families, and some shadow cabinet members felt it took both men longer than they anticipated to come to terms with the consequences of the contest. On university funding, Ed backed a graduate tax while his brother was less emphatic. But both agree that government plans are not sufficiently progressive. David Miliband Labour Ed Miliband Students Higher education Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The ‘Job Creators’ myth: Our corporate masters are aiming for the Latin American model of oligarchy
July 29, 2011 No Commentenlarge Credit: David Horsey/Seattle P-I Anyone remember what it was like to work in the late 1990s? The memories are fading fast as the years of persistent joblessness pile up — years that began well before the big crash in 2008, when it was already self-evident that the Bush administration’s claims that massive tax cuts for the wealthy were the sure route to full employment were an epochal load of hooey. Now even that seems like a quaint and distant memory. In 1998, it was a workers’ market: Everyone I know had a good job, and a lot of them were in the tech sector. Good benefits were a given, as were good salaries. If the working conditions sucked, there was always someone else who offered a better environment and maybe better pay too. That was before the tech bubble burst in 2001. I spent that year working in investment journalism in a newsroom that primarily revolved around the stock market. I remember remarking on a number of articles we published in which corporate honchos bitched bitterly about the fact that they had lost the ability to control their workers, to ignore their workplace demands, and to short-change their benefits, or whatever other steps they might take to shore up their corporate bottom lines and make their shareholders happier. I remember thinking at the time that the economic tides would inevitably turn, and the next time these folks wound up on top and it became, once again, an employer’s market, they would make certain that they never found themselves in that position again. We used to joke, back in the ’90s, that a recession was the Republican way of shortening the lift lines. It’s a truism that the wealthy despise having to share too much of their space with too many other people. And in the late ’90s, they were having to share their space with a whole lot of freshly well-to-do people. Well, that isn’t an issue now. Problem solved. I imagine the wintertime lift lines at Sun Valley are pretty wide open these days. Because the reality, of course, is that while the average CEO now makes (as of 2009) only 263 times what his average worker makes (down from a high of 525 times in 2000), they almost never in fact take the windfalls they reap from those huge tax breaks and actually invest the money in employing people. Instead, they ratchet up their bonuses and salaries another notch or two, buy another yacht or another condo in the Bahamas, and tuck the rest away in a tax-free account in the Caymans. They’re currently proving , by sidelining all this cash, that giving them tax breaks doesn’t do a damned thing for job creation — perhaps it does exactly the opposite. Moreover, they continue reaping large salaries while worker payrolls are slashed. Now people just cling to whatever jobs they can, keep their heads down, and count their lucky stars if they still have work. Either that, or they join the ranks of the eternal jobless. A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the ongoing hoarding of large sums of cash by corporate CEOs was “not sustainable” . But instead, not only have they sustained it, the hoarding and resulting joblessness have soured whatever faint signs of a recovery we saw in 2000-2010. Another bit of conventional wisdom we keep hearing is that 9 percent unemployment may be with us for quite awhile. They seem to be institutionalizing the joblessness — and are quite content to do so. This was what my late friend Frank Church used to tell me: One comment in particular, however, stands out in my mind these days. We were talking about America’s future, and where the conservative cadre that was then taking over the Republican Party intended to take us. His expression darkened, and it was clear that he had a good deal of foreboding in this regard. “What I fear most,” he said, “is the Latin Americanization of America.” He wasn’t concerned, of course, with the arrival of Latinos on American soil (or what Pat Buchanan calls “Meximerica”) except insofar as that could be manipulated to achieve this end. What he feared was that corporatist conservatives, if given free rein, would turn our standard of living into what you find in Latin America. That working Americans would one day be reduced to the level of near-serfdom that is the common way of life for millions of Latinos. During the Clinton years, of course, this fear looked farther and farther remote — everyone’s wages were rising, jobs were being created by the millions, and our standard of living was never healthier. I began to think that we had staved off Church’s specter, perhaps forever. But then, I never imagined the Bush years, either. The Latin American landscape is largely an oligarchy: a land ruled by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and at the expense of ordinary working people, who are left to fend for themselves for whatever scraps the ruling elite deigns to toss them. The ruling elite in the United States like that model. That’s how America used to be, after all, a century ago: eighty-hour work weeks were the norm, there were no vacations or weekends or health benefits, no workers’ organizing rights. Child labor was common. There was no Great American Middle Class then, no consumer society. It was an oligarchy then. They’ve even been explicit about wanting America to be driven to second-class status. Take Paul Broun the other day: Well, Andrea, the thing is when someone is overextended and broke they don’t continue paying for expensive automobiles. They sell the expensive automobiles and buy a cheaper one. They don’t continue paying for country club dues. They drop out of the country club. We need to pay down the debt. That’s why they’re perfectly happy to wreck the economy in the hopes it will be blamed on President Obama: It suits their ends anyway. If the oligarchy has its way, the lift lines are going to be getting very short indeed.
Continue reading …John King Spins for Obama: President Trying to Act as the ‘Grown-Up’ In Debt Ceiling Debate
July 29, 2011 No Comment
It is one matter if a president stakes out a smart position within a heated political debate, but it is another matter when members of the press believe so and shower him with positive coverage. CNN's John King complimented President Obama on Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360 for having “positioned himself smartly here in the middle” on the debt ceiling debate. King painted the president as a pragmatic moderate who has called on both sides to compromise, in a statement that could pass for White House talking points. [Video below the break.] “He [Obama] has been trying very carefully to portray the public image of the man in the middle, the grown-up who is willing to say hey, Democrats you're going to have to cut some Medicare, cut some Social Security. Hey, Republicans I want you to raise a little tax revenue,” King remarked. He made sure to add that Obama's strategy has been sound and supported by public opinion. King noted that “the President has positioned himself smartly here in the middle.” A transcript of the segment, which aired on July 28 at 11:08 p.m. EDT, is as follows: ANDERSON COOPER: John how much about what – what's going on over the last – tonight and the last couple nights on Capitol Hill has been about wanting to kind of avoid getting the blame for, or getting the credit for some sort of a deal? I mean from the Republican perspective, from the Democratic perspective? JOHN KING: Well, there's no question – well, you've seen the President giving speeches to the nation coming into the White House briefing room quite frequently in recent days, something he doesn't do all that often. He has been trying very carefully to portray the public image of the man in the middle, the grownup who is willing to say, hey, Democrats you're going to have to cut some Medicare, cut some Social Security. Hey, Republicans I want you to raise a little tax revenue. He has done and most people give him credit, public opinion polling reflects, the President has positioned himself smartly here in the middle. But he needs a deal. He's a President who is going to be campaigning for re-election with unemployment somewhere in the ballpark of 9 percent. Any further jitters to the economy further undermine the President's re-election prospects. In terms of the House and the Senate that's all we've had in recent days. The Republicans want to pass their plan in the House and say that Democrats won't do enough cutting, they won't do enough or they want to raise taxes. The Republicans want to say that John Boehner is hostage to the Tea Party. So what you have right now is finger-pointing and a clock ticking toward a deadline that is significant. How significant? God forbid we might have to find out.
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Click here to view this media The man who confessed to killing 68 people in Norway last week says he bought the ammunition clips used in his shooting spree from the U.S by mail order. Anders Behring Breivik wrote in his 1,500-page manifesto that he spent $500 for 10 30-round clips. Clips with more than three rounds are banned from sale in Norway. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who introduced legislation to limit high-capacity ammunition clips following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), told Politico that U.S. lawmakers should be ashamed. “We’re sending a death warrant to other parts of the world,” she said. “Unfortunately now, internationally, it’s known that you can get here, buy your guns, buy your large magazines, and you’re not going to have any problem”
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