Pakistan’s military accused of escalating draconian campaign in Balochistan
July 28, 2011 No Comment
Human rights groups criticise lack of action by civilian leaders to check torture and execution of nationalists in border region Pakistan’s military has escalated its brutal campaign of abduction and extra-judicial execution targeting nationalist rebels in Balochistan province, human rights groups have said. In a new report on “enforced disappearances” by military and intelligence officials, Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised the failure of Pakistan’s civilian leaders to halt what it termed a human rights “free-for-all”. “The national government has done little to end the carnage,” said HRW’s Asia director, Brad Adams. “President Asif Ali Zardari has to realise it cannot just be wished away.” Covered in desert, mineral-rich and strategically located between Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is home to some of the most brutal state-led human rights abuses in Pakistan. Suspected nationalist rebels or sympathisers are routinely picked up in broad daylight, taken to centres where torture is rife and, in an increasing number of cases, later found dead on the roadside with a bullet wound in the head. Local groups have counted more than 180 bodies, mostly of men who reportedly disappeared at the hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) in co-operation with Frontier Corps paramilitaries. The military leadership is accused of orchestrating the violence as it seeks to crush a small rebel force it believes is being covertly boosted by arch-rival India – an accusation some western spies say is true. The nationalists are also guilty of gross human rights violations, in particularly the targeted killing of Punjabi “settlers”, teachers, politicians and anyone deemed to be co-operating with the military. A sense of lawlessness and impunity reigns in the province, which covers 43% of Pakistan’s land mass but accounts for just 5% of the population. One former detainee said his captors told him: “We can torture you, or kill you, or keep you for years at our will. It is only the army chief and the [intelligence] chief that we obey.” Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the accusations were false. “We’ve responded to all this before. It’s basically untrue,” he said. Conflict in the western province receives relatively little attention because unlike the Taliban, Baloch rebels have secular politics and pose little serious threat to the army. Pakistani security officials estimate there are just 1,000 nationalist fighters, whose leaders are largely exiled in the UK, Switzerland and Dubai. But analysts say the barbarity underscores the fragility of Pakistani unity and could be a harbinger of unrest elsewhere. The rebels want independence from Pakistan, saying that after decades of neglect from the centre they would be better off on their own. The fighting is small-scale: rebels attack electricity pylons, rail tracks and military convoys; the military responds by detaining those thought to be responsible. HRW says that in military detention camps, prisoners are beaten, hung upside down and deprived of food and sleep for long periods. Over the past year the bodies of detainees have turned up on the roadside across the province, triggering protests in the provincial capital, Quetta. The exact number of those detained is unclear. In 2008 the interior minister, Rehman Malik, said at least 1,100 people were missing, but last January the Balochistan home minister put the figure at just 55 people. Targeted killings of “settlers” and other accused collaborators by rebels is carving up the province along worrisome ethnic lines – in Quetta, for instance, non-Baloch doctors refused to work in Baloch areas, fearing harm. The Zardari government has tried to appease nationalist sentiment through a generous aid package and greater funding, but the disappearances and deaths have fuelled nationalist sentiment. A supreme court judge said last year that disappearances from Balochistan posed “the most burning issue in the country”. But a judicial enquiry into the matter has been largely toothless due to a lack of military co-operation. Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Today Raúl Grijalva, a tireless champion on behalf of America’s hard-pressed working families and an old and trusted friend of Blue America’s– our only endorsed candidate with a dedicated Act Blue Page — will be spending an hour with us here from noon to 1pm, PT, 3-4pm back East to help us understand the machinations of the debt ceiling debate roiling Washington– and the financial markets– of late. He’ll be answering questions in the live forum in the comments section below. Aside from representing a sprawling southern Arizona congressional district that encompasses everything from the western half of Tucson down to Nogales on the Mexican border and across to Yuma on the California border, Raúl is also the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (with Keith Ellison ). The Progressive Caucus is Congress’ largest, with 76 Members. In the Great Shellacking last year, when Democrats lost the House in a rout, the CPC essentially held it’s ground. While the conservative Blue Dogs lost more than half their members, the CPC only lost 4, all swept away by the refusal of Democratic and left-leaning voters to put their disappointment in Obama aside and turn out to vote. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Phil Hare (D-IL) and John Hall (D-NY) were the casualties. The Caucus picked up 3 new members at the same time: Karen Bass (D-CA), David Cicilline (D-CA) and Frederica Wilson (D-FL). I spent some time on the phone with Raúl yesterday trying to get a better grasp on what the Caucus does and what it hopes to accomplish. Unlike the Blue Dogs, it is not a fundraising powerhouse. They are hardly the darlings of the K Street lobbyists and power-brokers who distribute the legalistic bribes to the members and the organizations that doing their bidding. When the Murdoch scandal started to break, one of the first things we saw was that his PAC was donating heavily to the Blue Dogs. Find a scandal or an outrage in any newspaper and you’ll find a source of contributions to the Blue Dogs– though never to the CPC. Members dues, meager, go to pay a single staffer and for some office supplies. Raúl sees the CPC was a vehicle to unify Congress’ disparate progressive voices and to go beyond just unifying around individual votes. He has been working diligently to assert a kind of independence from the party leadership based on solidly progressive values and principles. “We’re often taken for granted,” he told me. “Leadership thinks ‘they have nowhere else to go’.” That’s why we’ve seen Pelosi, and especially Hoyer, making legislation and strategy more and more conservative to lure Blue Dogs and other conservatives, while basically ignoring progressives. But Raúl and Keith have forged together an inner core of nearly three dozen members who are serious about breaking away from playing the insider game that always leaves progressives coming up short. They are building relationships with grassroots activists and advocates for the progressive agenda around the country, groups dedicated to working families, education, the environment, equality, peace… all the issues that differentiate progressives from conservatives. And they are making their members available to the media and helping give them national visibility beyond their own districts. Raúl tells me that they even plan to utilize the CPC Pac to help elect progressives in districts held by Republicans and in open districts. Yesterday Raúl cut our chat short to get to a CPC meeting where they resolved to endorse Peter Welch’s H.R. 2663, The America Pays its Bills Act. The bill calls for a clean debt ceiling vote in order to end the Republican-created Default crisis. They also resolved that “failing a timely, satisfactory legislative agreement to end the Republican-created default crisis, the CPC urges the President to use his powers granted under section 4 of the 14th amendment to raise the ceiling.”
Continue reading …Today Raúl Grijalva, a tireless champion on behalf of America’s hard-pressed working families and an old and trusted friend of Blue America’s– our only endorsed candidate with a dedicated Act Blue Page — will be spending an hour with us here from noon to 1pm, PT, 3-4pm back East to help us understand the machinations of the debt ceiling debate roiling Washington– and the financial markets– of late. He’ll be answering questions in the live forum in the comments section below. Aside from representing a sprawling southern Arizona congressional district that encompasses everything from the western half of Tucson down to Nogales on the Mexican border and across to Yuma on the California border, Raúl is also the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (with Keith Ellison ). The Progressive Caucus is Congress’ largest, with 76 Members. In the Great Shellacking last year, when Democrats lost the House in a rout, the CPC essentially held it’s ground. While the conservative Blue Dogs lost more than half their members, the CPC only lost 4, all swept away by the refusal of Democratic and left-leaning voters to put their disappointment in Obama aside and turn out to vote. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Phil Hare (D-IL) and John Hall (D-NY) were the casualties. The Caucus picked up 3 new members at the same time: Karen Bass (D-CA), David Cicilline (D-CA) and Frederica Wilson (D-FL). I spent some time on the phone with Raúl yesterday trying to get a better grasp on what the Caucus does and what it hopes to accomplish. Unlike the Blue Dogs, it is not a fundraising powerhouse. They are hardly the darlings of the K Street lobbyists and power-brokers who distribute the legalistic bribes to the members and the organizations that doing their bidding. When the Murdoch scandal started to break, one of the first things we saw was that his PAC was donating heavily to the Blue Dogs. Find a scandal or an outrage in any newspaper and you’ll find a source of contributions to the Blue Dogs– though never to the CPC. Members dues, meager, go to pay a single staffer and for some office supplies. Raúl sees the CPC was a vehicle to unify Congress’ disparate progressive voices and to go beyond just unifying around individual votes. He has been working diligently to assert a kind of independence from the party leadership based on solidly progressive values and principles. “We’re often taken for granted,” he told me. “Leadership thinks ‘they have nowhere else to go’.” That’s why we’ve seen Pelosi, and especially Hoyer, making legislation and strategy more and more conservative to lure Blue Dogs and other conservatives, while basically ignoring progressives. But Raúl and Keith have forged together an inner core of nearly three dozen members who are serious about breaking away from playing the insider game that always leaves progressives coming up short. They are building relationships with grassroots activists and advocates for the progressive agenda around the country, groups dedicated to working families, education, the environment, equality, peace… all the issues that differentiate progressives from conservatives. And they are making their members available to the media and helping give them national visibility beyond their own districts. Raúl tells me that they even plan to utilize the CPC Pac to help elect progressives in districts held by Republicans and in open districts. Yesterday Raúl cut our chat short to get to a CPC meeting where they resolved to endorse Peter Welch’s H.R. 2663, The America Pays its Bills Act. The bill calls for a clean debt ceiling vote in order to end the Republican-created Default crisis. They also resolved that “failing a timely, satisfactory legislative agreement to end the Republican-created default crisis, the CPC urges the President to use his powers granted under section 4 of the 14th amendment to raise the ceiling.”
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Officers call off search after finding body of final victim, while more anti-Muslim internet postings by Breivik discovered Police in Norway released the identities of another 24 people killed by Anders Behring Breivik as they ended their search for bodies in the waters surrounding the island where he shot 68 of his 76 victims. The youngest victim was Johannes Buø, 14. All but one were shot by Breivik on Utøya. The other died in the bomb attack in Oslo. Officers called off their search after finding the body of a young Georgian woman, Tamta Liparteliani, who had been at the youth camp on Utøya. The girl’s parents had travelled to Norway in the hope of finding her alive but it was announced her body was found on the bottom of the lake with gunshot wounds in her back. The police have named 41 of those killed and say more names will be released every day at 5pm as identities are confirmed. Details of the latest victims emerged as anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said it had found more postings on anti-muslim and far-right forums thought to be from Breivik stretching back to 2008. In one, on the global far-right forum Stormfront, the author said it was “ironic” that “the only three racially pure countries in the world are Japan, Korea and Taiwan”. He went on to give a breakdown on the racial and ethnic make up of several European countries, a piece of work he says took “25 hours to create/research”. In another post he recommends a series of groups he hoped could deal with “60 MILLION Muslims in western and Eastern Europe” and claimed Britain or Denmark would be the first western countries to face “civil war due to Muslim immigration”. Complaining that the right wing in Europe and the US was “fractured”, Breivik wrote about how he hoped the various groups “can try and reach a consensus regarding the issue”, which he saw as the “Islamification of Europe/US”. He wanted these united groups to “overthrow governments which support multiculturalism”. The author discusses writing a book similar to the manifesto Breivik published online hours before the attack, which was titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. Many of the posts appear virtually unchanged in Breivik’s “manifesto” and the author uses the online identity “year2183″. Nick Lowles from Searchlight said: “In the modern internet age people are less likely to join organisations but instead flit between groups, causes and campaigns with a much looser affiliation. This is what Breivik appears to have done. It is clear he read, digested and disseminated information on a wide range of neo-Nazi, nationalist and anti-Muslim forums. Breivik went down a terrorist path but he shared a common ideology and hatred with the likes of the BNP and EDL.” Breivik sent the document to 1003 email addresses less than an hour and half before he launched his attack with a huge bomb blast in Oslo. The Guardian has obtained the list of recipients, which includes members of the British National party and the English Defence League. There is no evidence that any of those who received the email knew Breivik or had had any prior contact with him. In Norway detectives said they would interview Breivik again on Friday, but did not indicate what information they would be seeking from him. Breivik has confessed to the killings but claimed they were justified as part of a “war” and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Police have interviewed him once, in a seven-hour session the day after the attacks. A police lawyer, Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby, said Breivik, who is in solitary confinement, had no contact with the outside world apart from meetings with his lawyer and the police. Norway was “getting back to normality” and it was time to end restrictions on security, he added. He said there had been a number of bomb threats since the attacks but described them as “unspecific”, adding it was “normal” some people would seek to create more fear after such a tragedy. A senior EU counterterrorism official also said on Thursday there was a risk “somebody may actually try to mount a similar attack as a copycat attack”. Norway Anders Behring Breivik The far right Europe Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had another “deer in the headlights” moment Wednesday. An ABC News producer asked Gingrich to hold up one of his campaign T-shirts for the camera and he probably now wishes he hadn’t followed her instructions. “A lot of what you’re talking about is about taking America back to America,” the ABC News producer explained. “We asked for T-shirts to be sent to us and they were made in America. I just picked up that one and it was made in El Salvador.” “Uh-huh,” a stunned Gingrich replied. “It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign about how you wanted things to be made in America,” the producer continued. “Do you have plans to change things?” “I’ll have to ask the folks who ordered this,” Gingrich said while still holding the T-shirt. “I didn’t order it and I don’t do it.” “One of the challenges with a volunteer campaign is lots of volunteers do lots of different things.”
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Naser Jason Abdo detained at a motel near Fort Hood military base after being absent without leave for over three weeks A US army soldier has been arrested after police found him in possession of possible bomb-making material at a motel near Fort Hood, Texas. FBI special agent Eric Vasys said the soldier, who was absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was being held in a jail in the Texas town of Killeen, near Fort Hood, on an unrelated child pornography charge. The soldier was identified as 21-year-old Naser Jason Abdo, originally from the Dallas area. He disappeared from Fort Campbell over the 4 July weekend, Bob Jenkins, a spokesman at the base said. “Whatever threat Mr Nassar [sic Naser] posed yesterday or up until yesterday has been eliminated and mitigated, and there was nothing to indicate he was acting with anyone else,” Vasys said. He did not elaborate on the apparent threat, or on the charges Abdo might face. Vasys said he had no knowledge of any other arrests of soldiers. Abdo was arrested on Wednesday after a “concerned citizen” reported that he had firearms and smokeless gunpowder in his Killeen motel room, Vasys said. “A search of his motel room revealed that he had some components which could be considered bomb-making materials.” In June, the US military designated Abdo a conscientious objector to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that status was put on hold after he was charged over child pornography in Kentucky. Abdo applied for conscientious objector status in 2010 after he decided Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the US army in any war, military officials said. Fort Hood was the scene of a November 2009 massacre in which 13 people were killed and 32 others wounded. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was charged with the shootings and is expected to face a court martial in March 2012. US military United States guardian.co.uk
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Two firms leave rivals behind in race to sign up most broadband internet customers The race to connect UK households to the broadband network is being won by just two operators, leaving a swathe of competitors behind. BT Group and BSkyB are surging ahead of rivals, according to a series of updates this week from the major broadband suppliers. The former national monopoly capitalised on its large telephone customer base to pull in an extra 141,000 broadband subscribers in the last three months. The increase saw BT take 60% of all new customers in the quarter, consolidating its share of the 20m UK broadband homes at 29%. Sky, which reports tomorrow, is forecast to show an increase of 154,000 homes, having converted more of its 10m TV customers, and thanks to a new strategy of chasing broadband-only subscribers. However Virgin Media, the second-largest supplier with 21.5% of the UK’s 20m broadband-connected households, lost 18,600 customers after a swathe of students switched off their service for the summer. TalkTalk, which was created in 2009 when Carphone Warehouse merged its internet business with Tiscali and now controls 21% of the market, lost 27,000 customers in the quarter. The company has been concentrating on improving loyalty through better customer service rather than chasing new business. Of the mobile companies with the largest broadband followings, Orange has lost around 80,000 customers since last year, and O2 remains flat. “Obviously for Sky and BT, having an existing customer base, a captive audience, is a huge competitive advantage in terms of selling in other products,” said Chris Williams, of price comparer Simplifydigital. TalkTalk’s share price rose 3p to 141p as it announced half-year results, after investors saw progress in improving customer experience and a promised £40m in cost savings from the merger. Calls to its helplines have almost halved in a year, and three-quarters of new customers are connected within 20 days, compared with half six months earlier. “BT has benefited from the turmoil at TalkTalk,” said Mark James at broker Liberum Capital. But he cautioned: “As the market continues to grow, Sky will take share off BT and Virgin Media. And as TalkTalk gets its act together, we will see people making their decision based on price and BT’s copper is pretty expensive.” BT reported a revenue dip of 5% and a 20% increase in profits before tax during the three months to 30 June. Its Global Services division, which services corporate clients, won £1.6bn of business in the quarter, including its largest-ever contract with the Brazilian post office. BT Carphone Warehouse Technology sector Broadband Internet BSkyB Virgin Media Media business guardian.co.uk
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‘Baghdad-style’ car bomb attack planned in Addis Ababa, capital of neighbour and foe Ethiopia, which hosted 30 heads of state Eritrea planned a massive attack on an African Union summit in Ethiopia in January this year that was designed to “make Addis Ababa like Baghdad”, according to a new UN report. At the time, Ethiopia claimed it had foiled the large bomb plot by its tiny neighbour and foe, the latest in a series of accusations and counter-accusations by the two governments. Now an investigation by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea suggests that the plot was genuine, and says it represented “a qualitative shift in Eritrean tactics” in the Horn of Africa. According to the report, Eritrean intelligence services planned an operation to detonate a car bomb at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa at the end of January this year, when 30 of the continent’s leaders were meeting there. Separate bombs were to be placed between the Ethiopian prime minister’s office and the Sheraton Hotel, where most of the heads of state were staying, as well as in a giant open-air market in the hope of “kill[ing] many people”. “If executed as planned, the operation would almost certainly have caused mass civilian casualties, damaged the Ethiopian economy and disrupted the African Union summit,” the report said. The planned attack indicates the increasingly dangerous and very personal level of animosity between the Horn of Africa neighbours. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and the Eritrean president, Isiais Afewerki, were allies during their respective liberation struggles, but relations deteriorated soon after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. War erupted over a border dispute in 1998, ending two years later at a cost of tens of thousands of lives. An international boundary commission later found in favour of Eritrea, but Ethiopia refused to accept the ruling. While Afewerki had legitimate cause for anger – many independent observers have criticised Ethiopia’s intransigence over the border disagreement – his decision to wage proxy wars by funding rebel groups in neighbouring countries has made Eritrea a regional and international pariah. One of the Asmara-sponsored rebel groups is the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in Ethiopia, according to the monitoring group. It said that OLF members were recruited by Eritrea as far back as 2008 and given training in preparation for the planned attack on Addis Ababa. “Although ostensibly an OLF operation, it was conceived, planned, supported and directed by the external operations directorate of the government of Eritrea, under the leadership of General Te’ame”, the report said. General Te’ame Goitom, Eritrea’s external intelligence operations chief in the horn, allegedly told one of the would-be attackers that the intention was to “make Addis Ababa like Baghdad”. The monitoring group said it had an audio recording of a conversation between Te’ame and the attacker, as well as records of payments made to the bombing team by a senior Eritrean army official. In foiling the plot, Ethiopian security officials seized plastic explosives, gas cylinders, detonators and a sniper’s rifle. Eritrea has repeatedly denied funding foreign rebel groups, including the al-Shabab Islamist militia in Somalia. Afewerki’s government has not yet commented on the UN report, which concluded that his government’s geopolitical strategy was “no longer proportional or rational”. “Moreover, since the Eritrean intelligence apparatus responsible for the African Union summit plot is also active in Kenya, Somalia, the Sudan and Uganda, the level of threat it poses to these other countries must be re-evaluated,” the report said. Eritrea Ethiopia African Union United Nations Africa Xan Rice guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Charles Krauthammer says Michele Bachmann’s stance on debt ceiling is ‘unbelievably irresponsible’
July 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Bill O’Reilly is pretty good at hiding his disdain for Michele Bachmann’s policies because he knows she’s too radical to get elected and will ultimately hurt the GOP, but he doesn’t want to alienate his Tea Party base of viewers,l which is strong. He slyly calls her beliefs into question whenever he can — especially on the debt ceiling debate, where she has stated she will never vote to raise it. Charles Krauthammer comes on The Factor to attack the federal deficit and then diss ‘Pray Away The Gay’ Bachmann. (rough transcript) Charles: …I think this is a life or death decision for Republicans. I think it would be catastrophic if Republicans would not go with the Boehner plan. Bill: When you hear a Michele Bachmann, who we like here — we think Michele Bachmann is very responsible — when you hear, you know what? I’m not voting for the debt rise no matter what. I don’t care if you cut 40 trillion dollars out of it, I don’t care I’m not voting for it. What drives that? Krauthammer: I’m not going to be the psychiatrist other than to say it is unbelievably irresponsible , even only from the point of view of this… …why would you want to kill the Boehner plan and share the economy with Obama? It makes no sense whatsoever even in the narrowest political sense. Charles goes on babble about cutting spending and to say that Conservatives must control all three branches to push their agenda and be able to govern the way they’d like which means, gutting the federal government. Of course this will only prolong our economic problems and hurt millions of average Americans working and not working and will create more unemployment throughout the land of the free. You know our spending on the Military Industrial Complex will never be properly held to account and you can kiss Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid goodbye as we know it as well. What a grand vision of America; the land of the rich.
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In a critical “Keeping Them Honest” segment Wednesday night, CNN's Anderson Cooper selectively reported findings from his network's own poll to bolster his argument that Republicans are out-of-touch with the wishes of the American people in the debt ceiling debate. This came even after the Democrat Senate Majority Leader, supported by the president, produced a plan including no tax increases in an effort to garner Republican support. Yet Cooper still peddled a CNN poll showing public support for a plan including increased tax revenues, and framed Republicans as dishonest for claiming Americans want no more taxes. [Video below the break.] Cooper ignored an equally important finding in his network's own poll – that two-thirds of respondents favored a “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan that was championed by House Republicans. Instead, he focused on the 64 percent of people wanting a budget plan with both spending cuts and tax increases, as the CNN/ORC poll released last week found. Cooper spoke of a possible debt ceiling deal and asked if it would conform to the wishes of most Americans. “Will it be the kind of deal that most Americans say they want? Well 'Keeping Them Honest,' the answer seems to be no.” He then reported the poll finding that conformed to his argument. After reporting on the poll, Cooper provocatively asked “So why is the Boehner bill cuts-only? And why is Democratic Senator Harry Reid's plan also cuts-only? Democrats have backed away from any measures that raise revenues to accommodate Republican demands. And Republicans say Americans are not willing to see any taxes go up.” After playing a slew of soundbites from prominent Republicans claiming Americans don't want higher taxes or increased tax revenues, Cooper asserted that “most polls show that's simply not true.” A transcript of the segment, which aired on July 27 at 10:01 p.m. EDT, is as follows: ANDERSON COOPER: Now, anyone with a 401(k) has got to be worried at this point and watching this closely or should be. But assume for a minute that Washington gets in gear and passes some kind of debt reduction deal before the Treasury runs out of money and the markets react. Will it be the kind of deal that most Americans say they want? Well “Keeping Them Honest,” the answer seems to be no. Take a look at the latest CNN/Opinion Research Center polling. It shows 64 percent prefer a budget plan with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases; 34 percent say cuts only. That's consistent with other polling which is averaging nearly two-to-one in favor of what President Obama and others call a balanced approach. He said on Monday that's what he wants. You say that's what you want by a 30-point margin. So why is the Boehner bill cuts-only? And why is Democratic Senator Harry Reid's plan also cuts-only? Democrats have backed away from any measures that raise revenues to accommodate Republican demands. And Republicans say Americans are not willing to see any taxes go up. (Video Clip) Rep. ERIC CANTOR (R-Va.), House Majority Leader: Right now this economy is ailing. And we don't believe, nor do I think the American people believe, that raising taxes is the answer. Rep. TOM PRICE (R-Ga.): I think what the American people appreciate is that you don't reinvigorate the economy by raising taxes. Rep. JOHN BOEHNER (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House: The American people don't want us to raise taxes. Sen. JOHN MCCAIN (R-Ariz.): The American people didn't want their taxes raised, and they wanted us to cut spending. They don't want compromise. Rep. SAM JOHNSON (R-Tex.): It's time to cut spending, balance the budget, and pay down the debt for our children and our grandchildren without raising taxes. Rep. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-Minn.), presidential candidate: There is absolutely no appetite anywhere across the United States for increasing taxes. Rep. JIM JORDAN (R-Ohio): I think the American people are against raising taxes on the job creators out there. (End Video Clip) COOPER: Well, again, most polls show that's simply not true. As we showed you last week the phrase, by the way, “job creator” is a new talking point. It's how Republicans are now referring to wealthier Americans. Democrats, by the way, of course, refer to them as millionaires and billionaires and talk about private jets a lot. Talking points used by both sides in this debate.
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