Campaigners denounce sentence of ‘hero’ Tim DeChristopher for disrupting oil and gas industry auction as excessive An activist who became a hero to campaigners for disrupting a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry with $1.8m (£1.1m) in bogus bids was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday. Tim DeChristopher was immediately ordered into custody, and fined $10,000. He had been facing a potential sentence of up to 10 years and a $750,000 fine. Environmental and leftwing campaigners, from actress Daryl Hannah to film maker Michael Moore and writer Naomi Klein, immediately denounced the sentence as excessive. At a vigil outside the Salt Lake City courtroom where sentencing took place, supporters of DeChristopher’s Peaceful Uprising civil disobedience movement shouted: “Justice is not found here.” As Bidder No 70, DeChristopher disrupted what was seen as a last giveaway to the oil and gas industry by the Bush administration by bidding $1.8m (£1.1m) he did not have for the right to drill in remote areas of Utah. He was convicted of defrauding the government last March. In a phone conversation with The Guardian, a day ahead of sentencing, he said he was expecting jail time: “I do think I will serve some time in prison. That is what I think will be the next chapter in my life.” DeChristopher’s lawyers had argued that his actions in December 2008 were a one-off, and that the judge should show leniency. They argued DeChristopher had not intended to cause harm. However, Judge Dee Benson said DeChristopher’s political beliefs did not excuse his actions. DeChristopher said he did not have a clear plan when he turned up at the auction in Salt Lake City in December 2008. “At the time I went in with a very direct action kind of mindset thinking that if I can cause enough delay, stop this action and keep oil in the ground, then that would be worth it,” he said. He had come straight from writing one of his finals, unshaven and in an old down jacket. “I certainly didn’t look like anyone who was there,” he said. “I didn’t pretend to be an oil executive or anything.” Officials from the federal Bureau of Land Management asked if he wanted to bid. DeChristopher said yes, still thinking at that point that he just wanted to shout something or cause a disruption. But by the time the auction was over, DeChristopher had driven up prices on some parcels and made winning bids on 14 pieces of land – some of it near national parks. He knew he had no money to pay for it. The Obama administration later cancelled most of the sales, because of doubts about Bush’s leasing plan. DeChristopher’s defence was complicated from the start when the judge refused to hear arguments that he had been compelled to act, to prevent a greater evil. In this case, climate change. But while the argument did not move the court, it gained DeChristopher a following on campuses and among an older generation of activists. He also founded a civil disobedience group, Peaceful Uprising. “Tim is a hero to me,” wrote Peter Yarrow, the folk singer, and member of Peter, Paul and Mary, in an article in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that likened DeChristopher to the leaders of the civil rights movement. “Throughout American history, acts of civil disobedience have led to change. Think about the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves to freedom, or about the courageous actions of people like Rosa Parks, who refused to stay in the back of the bus simply because of their skin color. Without this kind of defiance of unjust laws, our country would likely still be denying people of colour basic freedoms.” United States Protest George Bush Activism Gas Oil Energy Fossil fuels Oil Gas Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
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The Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist was living the American dream. But as a child he had been smuggled into the US and lived in fear of deportation. Then he decided to publicly confess Two undocumented US residents tell their stories Scenes from an undocumented life, number one. Jose Antonio Vargas is in his late 20s, a remarkably successful journalist, covering the 2008 presidential campaign for the Washington Post. He takes a call from his editor. There’s a political meeting he needs to attend. Vargas leaves the gay bar he has been visiting for a story in Gun Barrel City, Texas, gets in his car and starts speeding along the highway. A sheriff stops him. Vargas hands over his driving licence, secured through a social security number that was in turn secured through a fake passport. He waits. He tries to control his nerves. He is worried he might wet himself. Only a few of his close friends know he’s what some Americans disparagingly call “an illegal” and others call an undocumented immigrant. “I remember thinking,” he says, “I’m a political reporter for the Washington Post. I’m in Texas, I’m covering the primaries , he’s going to go back to his car, and he’s going to put my details into the system, and how long is it going to take him to find out?” Vargas is certain the sheriff is about to discover his secret: that he was sent to the US from the Philippines by his mother, aged 12; that he then grew up with his grandparents, naturalised US citizens, and only learned he was undocumented by accident, aged 16; that he has been trying to make his way as best he can, not always lawfully, ever since. He confides to the sheriff that he’s on his way to an important story. The sheriff takes pity. Vargas drives on. Scenes from an undocumented life, number two. Vargas finds out he has a Wikipedia page . This shouldn’t be surprising. Since riding his bike to a fire for his first story, for his local paper, the Mountain View Voice, in 1999 , he has pursued his career with blistering drive . His editors at the Washington Post put him forward for a Pulitzer nomination for his moving, deeply researched series about the city’s Aids crisis when he is in his mid-20s. Two years later, aged 27, he actually wins a Pulitzer , as part of the team that covers the Virginia Tech massacre for the paper. After this triumph, he sits in the office bathroom thinking (he mimes slumping despair): “What do I do now? What else can I do?” He interviews Al Gore for Rolling Stone magazine . He is assigned to interview one of the most famous and famously private men in the world, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for the New Yorker (a magazine that tops the wishlist for young, ambitious American writers who hope to be noticed). And all the while he is feeling sick at the growing scrutiny. He chose to become a journalist because it represented a form of validation. “I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented and I was thinking: how can they now say I don’t exist?” But this validation came with extraordinary risks. “The more successful I got, the more scared I got,” he says, when we meet on a sultry summer day in Manhattan. “My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought: if I’m going to come out with this, I’m going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can’t just be my story.” When Vargas revealed his secret in a 4,000-word article in the New York Times last month, it became the most-shared article on Google that week, and he became the best-known undocumented immigrant in the US. You might think it would be easy to achieve this last distinction. After all, as Vargas says, the life of the undocumented immigrant is “to lay low. You don’t talk about it.” Many are forced to cut short their education, and make their living in a shadow economy, in low-paid, cash-in-hand jobs. But over the past few years, in a country with an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, some have tired of the constraints, slurs and stigma, the emptiness and oddness of an immigration debate devoid of undocumented immigrants themselves. And so they have been coming out, declaring themselves “undocumented and unafraid” , and putting themselves at immediate risk of deportation. They have staged marches , rallies , sit-ins , and public coming-out actions . Many are young people, students. People such as Gaby Pacheco, a 26-year-old woman whose parents are originally from Ecuador, who has lived in the US since she was eight. Last year, Pacheco and three fellow activists walked from Florida to Washington DC – 1,500 miles – to demand change ; three, including Pacheco, were undocumented immigrants, one had just obtained legal residency. They were marching for access to higher education, worker’s rights, and to stop deportations and the separation of families. “We were seeing so many children who were being sent from house to house, with neighbours taking care of them, because their parents had been deported,” she says. In 2006, after Pacheco talked openly about her status, someone reported her to the authorities. “One morning, very early, immigration knocked really loudly, and came into our house and rounded us up. That was terrifying.” Pacheco had a temporary student visa, so was released, and continued to speak out. She now works as national co-ordinator of the group Education Not Deportation (End), helps people challenge removal proceedings against them, and is also furthering her own ambitions. When she was 17, she says, she naively thought, “I would have my PhD by now. My dream is to open a music therapy centre and create curriculums specifically for autistic adults, and people with Down’s syndrome.” She has finished her bachelor’s degree, but is ineligible for funding for further study. If a vote on the Dream Act had been successful last year, Pacheco might have had a clear path to her ambitions. Dream stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The act was first proposed 10 years ago, and polls suggest it is supported by a majority of the US population . It would allow people brought to the country as minors a path to permanent residency status, either by pursuing a college education, or through military service. Pacheco and her fellow activists lobbied hard for this legal change, but were unsuccessful. On 18 December last year, the senate voted on the bill ; 60 votes in favour were needed for it to proceed. It fell just short at 55 (41 voted against it). Pacheco was devastated, and moved to Washington DC so the legislators would have a human face to answer to. “I decided to come and live here, to continue fighting, to be a constant reminder to senators that they voted no to an individual, an individual who wants to work in special education.” Vargas had been watching Pacheco’s walk with interest, as well as following groups such as UnitedWeDream and DreamActivist on Twitter. When the Dream Act failed, it was a turning point for him too. That day, he took a long walk from his home in Manhattan to the Brooklyn bridge, and decided it was time to tell his story . Coming out as an undocumented immigrant involves obvious risks. Last week, for instance, Vargas’s driving licence – his main proof of identity – was revoked . This was inevitable, he says, when he published the article, because it documented the subterfuge involved in securing the licence, and so he had already decided to stop driving. “I came forward in the article to say I had broken these laws, and I don’t want to break them any more, and now I have to live an alternative kind of life,” he says. It was on a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), aged 16, to obtain a driving permit, that he first discovered he wasn’t a legal US resident. When he handed over his green card, the clerk told him it was fake, and he suddenly faced a very different life from the one he had expected. One lawyer told Vargas that publishing his story was “legal suicide”, but he decided he was ready for the consequences. The conversation around immigration in the US is as febrile as ever – think of all the bizarre, often offensive debate that took place around Barack Obama’s citizenship status, the dogged pursuit of his birth certificate by those in the “birther movement” . As that debate raged, deportations were taking place at an enormous rate: almost 800,000 people have been deported during Obama’s time in office . And Vargas could potentially follow them. Since telling his story, Vargas has been criticised for the lies he has told to get by. Some have suggested these undermine his entire career as a journalist, which depends on truth and transparency. But for him, he says, the question is: “What did I lie about, and why did I have to lie about it? It would be another issue if they found lies in the news articles. In many ways I think I’ve always overcompensated. I was always almost too careful, because I knew if anybody ever found any way to doubt my work, then they’d start picking my life apart too. The question I’ve been asking everybody is: what would you have done? Would you have just stopped? Would you have just started waiting tables? Would you have just gotten married, even though you were gay?” Vargas came out as gay in his late teens, causing a short rift with his grandfather, who, as a Catholic, was upset on religious grounds – and also because this closed the most obvious path to citizenship. A few years later, Vargas visited a lawyer for advice. He was told his only chance for legal residency was to go back to the Philippines, stay for 10 years, and then apply to return. The conversation left him devastated. This would mean travelling back to a country he hardly knew, and a family he hadn’t seen for years; it’s now 18 years since he last saw his mother. He hasn’t seen his half-sister since she was two (she is now 20), and he has never met his 14-year-old half-brother. Now Vargas has dedicated himself to re-framing and elevating the debate around immigration. He has started a group called Define American , and emails have been flooding in, both from undocumented immigrants and the people who help and protect them. He says he set up the group because “the way we talk about immigration is broken. The only reason my story got the traction it did online is because other people see themselves in it. They see themselves as me, or as one of the people who helped me.” His story includes many instances of exemplary kindness: his school principal went so far as to consider adopting him , his choir teacher switched a school trip from Japan to Hawaii so he could attend, one of his mentors at the Washington Post put his own job and reputation on the line to keep Vargas employed there after he told him his secret . “That’s the only reason why this story spoke as much as it did, because so many people are involved . . . The strategy now is how do we make sure we’re not just talking among ourselves with this issue? How do we talk to people who don’t agree with us? How do we target people who haven’t quite made up their minds? How do we reach the persuadable middle, who we can persuade through facts and individual stories?” There will be hard questions along the way about where immigration lines are drawn. Vargas says he’s ready to face them. “I’m more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien, who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say: ‘What makes you think I’m any different from you?’ I think for our generation immigration rights is a civil rights issue.” He has already, unsurprisingly, faced racist comments, with people online telling him to “go home”. “I think, which home?” he says. “My home is 30 blocks away. I’m home right now. Where do you want me to go?” More information: defineamerican.com US immigration Kira Cochrane guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist was living the American dream. But as a child he had been smuggled into the US and lived in fear of deportation. Then he decided to publicly confess Two undocumented US residents tell their stories Scenes from an undocumented life, number one. Jose Antonio Vargas is in his late 20s, a remarkably successful journalist, covering the 2008 presidential campaign for the Washington Post. He takes a call from his editor. There’s a political meeting he needs to attend. Vargas leaves the gay bar he has been visiting for a story in Gun Barrel City, Texas, gets in his car and starts speeding along the highway. A sheriff stops him. Vargas hands over his driving licence, secured through a social security number that was in turn secured through a fake passport. He waits. He tries to control his nerves. He is worried he might wet himself. Only a few of his close friends know he’s what some Americans disparagingly call “an illegal” and others call an undocumented immigrant. “I remember thinking,” he says, “I’m a political reporter for the Washington Post. I’m in Texas, I’m covering the primaries , he’s going to go back to his car, and he’s going to put my details into the system, and how long is it going to take him to find out?” Vargas is certain the sheriff is about to discover his secret: that he was sent to the US from the Philippines by his mother, aged 12; that he then grew up with his grandparents, naturalised US citizens, and only learned he was undocumented by accident, aged 16; that he has been trying to make his way as best he can, not always lawfully, ever since. He confides to the sheriff that he’s on his way to an important story. The sheriff takes pity. Vargas drives on. Scenes from an undocumented life, number two. Vargas finds out he has a Wikipedia page . This shouldn’t be surprising. Since riding his bike to a fire for his first story, for his local paper, the Mountain View Voice, in 1999 , he has pursued his career with blistering drive . His editors at the Washington Post put him forward for a Pulitzer nomination for his moving, deeply researched series about the city’s Aids crisis when he is in his mid-20s. Two years later, aged 27, he actually wins a Pulitzer , as part of the team that covers the Virginia Tech massacre for the paper. After this triumph, he sits in the office bathroom thinking (he mimes slumping despair): “What do I do now? What else can I do?” He interviews Al Gore for Rolling Stone magazine . He is assigned to interview one of the most famous and famously private men in the world, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for the New Yorker (a magazine that tops the wishlist for young, ambitious American writers who hope to be noticed). And all the while he is feeling sick at the growing scrutiny. He chose to become a journalist because it represented a form of validation. “I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented and I was thinking: how can they now say I don’t exist?” But this validation came with extraordinary risks. “The more successful I got, the more scared I got,” he says, when we meet on a sultry summer day in Manhattan. “My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought: if I’m going to come out with this, I’m going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can’t just be my story.” When Vargas revealed his secret in a 4,000-word article in the New York Times last month, it became the most-shared article on Google that week, and he became the best-known undocumented immigrant in the US. You might think it would be easy to achieve this last distinction. After all, as Vargas says, the life of the undocumented immigrant is “to lay low. You don’t talk about it.” Many are forced to cut short their education, and make their living in a shadow economy, in low-paid, cash-in-hand jobs. But over the past few years, in a country with an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, some have tired of the constraints, slurs and stigma, the emptiness and oddness of an immigration debate devoid of undocumented immigrants themselves. And so they have been coming out, declaring themselves “undocumented and unafraid” , and putting themselves at immediate risk of deportation. They have staged marches , rallies , sit-ins , and public coming-out actions . Many are young people, students. People such as Gaby Pacheco, a 26-year-old woman whose parents are originally from Ecuador, who has lived in the US since she was eight. Last year, Pacheco and three fellow activists walked from Florida to Washington DC – 1,500 miles – to demand change ; three, including Pacheco, were undocumented immigrants, one had just obtained legal residency. They were marching for access to higher education, worker’s rights, and to stop deportations and the separation of families. “We were seeing so many children who were being sent from house to house, with neighbours taking care of them, because their parents had been deported,” she says. In 2006, after Pacheco talked openly about her status, someone reported her to the authorities. “One morning, very early, immigration knocked really loudly, and came into our house and rounded us up. That was terrifying.” Pacheco had a temporary student visa, so was released, and continued to speak out. She now works as national co-ordinator of the group Education Not Deportation (End), helps people challenge removal proceedings against them, and is also furthering her own ambitions. When she was 17, she says, she naively thought, “I would have my PhD by now. My dream is to open a music therapy centre and create curriculums specifically for autistic adults, and people with Down’s syndrome.” She has finished her bachelor’s degree, but is ineligible for funding for further study. If a vote on the Dream Act had been successful last year, Pacheco might have had a clear path to her ambitions. Dream stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The act was first proposed 10 years ago, and polls suggest it is supported by a majority of the US population . It would allow people brought to the country as minors a path to permanent residency status, either by pursuing a college education, or through military service. Pacheco and her fellow activists lobbied hard for this legal change, but were unsuccessful. On 18 December last year, the senate voted on the bill ; 60 votes in favour were needed for it to proceed. It fell just short at 55 (41 voted against it). Pacheco was devastated, and moved to Washington DC so the legislators would have a human face to answer to. “I decided to come and live here, to continue fighting, to be a constant reminder to senators that they voted no to an individual, an individual who wants to work in special education.” Vargas had been watching Pacheco’s walk with interest, as well as following groups such as UnitedWeDream and DreamActivist on Twitter. When the Dream Act failed, it was a turning point for him too. That day, he took a long walk from his home in Manhattan to the Brooklyn bridge, and decided it was time to tell his story . Coming out as an undocumented immigrant involves obvious risks. Last week, for instance, Vargas’s driving licence – his main proof of identity – was revoked . This was inevitable, he says, when he published the article, because it documented the subterfuge involved in securing the licence, and so he had already decided to stop driving. “I came forward in the article to say I had broken these laws, and I don’t want to break them any more, and now I have to live an alternative kind of life,” he says. It was on a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), aged 16, to obtain a driving permit, that he first discovered he wasn’t a legal US resident. When he handed over his green card, the clerk told him it was fake, and he suddenly faced a very different life from the one he had expected. One lawyer told Vargas that publishing his story was “legal suicide”, but he decided he was ready for the consequences. The conversation around immigration in the US is as febrile as ever – think of all the bizarre, often offensive debate that took place around Barack Obama’s citizenship status, the dogged pursuit of his birth certificate by those in the “birther movement” . As that debate raged, deportations were taking place at an enormous rate: almost 800,000 people have been deported during Obama’s time in office . And Vargas could potentially follow them. Since telling his story, Vargas has been criticised for the lies he has told to get by. Some have suggested these undermine his entire career as a journalist, which depends on truth and transparency. But for him, he says, the question is: “What did I lie about, and why did I have to lie about it? It would be another issue if they found lies in the news articles. In many ways I think I’ve always overcompensated. I was always almost too careful, because I knew if anybody ever found any way to doubt my work, then they’d start picking my life apart too. The question I’ve been asking everybody is: what would you have done? Would you have just stopped? Would you have just started waiting tables? Would you have just gotten married, even though you were gay?” Vargas came out as gay in his late teens, causing a short rift with his grandfather, who, as a Catholic, was upset on religious grounds – and also because this closed the most obvious path to citizenship. A few years later, Vargas visited a lawyer for advice. He was told his only chance for legal residency was to go back to the Philippines, stay for 10 years, and then apply to return. The conversation left him devastated. This would mean travelling back to a country he hardly knew, and a family he hadn’t seen for years; it’s now 18 years since he last saw his mother. He hasn’t seen his half-sister since she was two (she is now 20), and he has never met his 14-year-old half-brother. Now Vargas has dedicated himself to re-framing and elevating the debate around immigration. He has started a group called Define American , and emails have been flooding in, both from undocumented immigrants and the people who help and protect them. He says he set up the group because “the way we talk about immigration is broken. The only reason my story got the traction it did online is because other people see themselves in it. They see themselves as me, or as one of the people who helped me.” His story includes many instances of exemplary kindness: his school principal went so far as to consider adopting him , his choir teacher switched a school trip from Japan to Hawaii so he could attend, one of his mentors at the Washington Post put his own job and reputation on the line to keep Vargas employed there after he told him his secret . “That’s the only reason why this story spoke as much as it did, because so many people are involved . . . The strategy now is how do we make sure we’re not just talking among ourselves with this issue? How do we talk to people who don’t agree with us? How do we target people who haven’t quite made up their minds? How do we reach the persuadable middle, who we can persuade through facts and individual stories?” There will be hard questions along the way about where immigration lines are drawn. Vargas says he’s ready to face them. “I’m more than willing to go to places and talk to people who believe that I am an illegal alien, who deserves to be jailed. I want to look them in the eye and say: ‘What makes you think I’m any different from you?’ I think for our generation immigration rights is a civil rights issue.” He has already, unsurprisingly, faced racist comments, with people online telling him to “go home”. “I think, which home?” he says. “My home is 30 blocks away. I’m home right now. Where do you want me to go?” More information: defineamerican.com US immigration Kira Cochrane guardian.co.uk
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Former IMF chief’s lawyers hope prosecutors will have decided to dismiss case by 23 August, when trial is now due Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s court date in New York has been postponed from 1 August to 23 August as prosecutors continue investigating. His lawyers said they hope that by then prosecutors will have decided to dismiss the case. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment, but prosecutors had said on 1 July the case had weakened because the hotel maid he is accused of raping had lied to them on her background and was inconsistent about her actions right after the encounter. Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief, denies charges of sexual assault. Dominique Strauss-Kahn France United States Europe guardian.co.uk
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Former IMF chief’s lawyers hope prosecutors will have decided to dismiss case by 23 August, when trial is now due Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s court date in New York has been postponed from 1 August to 23 August as prosecutors continue investigating. His lawyers said they hope that by then prosecutors will have decided to dismiss the case. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment, but prosecutors had said on 1 July the case had weakened because the hotel maid he is accused of raping had lied to them on her background and was inconsistent about her actions right after the encounter. Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief, denies charges of sexual assault. Dominique Strauss-Kahn France United States Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …In his speech last night the President asked everyone to call or contact their representatives and let them know what they wanted. Almost immediately, the phone lines lit up, with reports of some servers crashing under the weight. The overwhelming message appears to be: cut a deal, dammit . Dave Weigel has some samples of what they’re saying . I think my favorite is the one sent to Dan Burton: I write to merely register my concern as your constituent, in the grand tradition of our great American citizenry. I want you to support efforts to raise the debt limit by whatever means necessary. You were sent to Washington to be a responsible adult. Responsible adults pay their bills; they do not seek politically-convenient reasons to decline to pay certain obligations. They do not play games with peoples’ lives, their well-being, their jobs, or the fate of their nations . Regardless of how you may feel about federal debts, deficit spending, the president, or Democrats in Congress, it is your Constitutional duty to protect the American people, to promote their interests, and to keep the country great. Default will do none of those things, in either the short- or long-term. Under no circumstances will I bring myself to support your candidacy in the future, or the candidacy of any current federal official, in the event of default. Should we as a country default, and end up on the so-called “trash bin of history” with the Romans, the Greeks, and countless other great nations, I can only hope that our Creator will have more pity on you than will the American people. God bless you and you entertain what will be a politically-difficult choice. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. He did have one that was not in support of raising the debt ceiling. Patrick wrote: I am a libertarian who will be calling my Senators and Representative tomorrow to urge them not to raise the debt ceiling without huge spending cuts in an effort to balance out all the Democrats who will be doing the opposite because of Obama. And just now, word that Boehner’s plan does not have the votes to pass the House. Club for Growth, Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party all oppose it. Looks like John Boehner’s speakership may be finished, and maybe Eric Cantor too, since he just told Republicans to ” quit whining and vote .”
Continue reading …Liberal radio talker and former “Crossfire” co-host Bill Press prides himself on civility. Provided you agree with him. If you don't, he might wish aloud over the airwaves for your untimely demise. Brian Maloney over at The Radio Equalizer caught Press doing just that during a recent broadcast (audio clip after page break) — PRESS: With all these talks, the Republican spin continues. Here is John Boehner yesterday — BOEHNER: If we're going to avoid default and prevent a downgrade of our credit rating, if we're going to create jobs and jump-start the economy, I think (Obama) needs to step up and work with us on the spending cuts and reforms that the American people are demanding. PRESS (pausing for effect): You know, it's a wonder lightning just doesn't strike people dead on the spot when they say stuff like that. (followed by lightning sound effect) Yes, it's almost as if the Almighty believes in letting people have their say. Unlike, to cite an obvious example, Bill Press. In case you missed it, the title of Press's most recent book — “Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America's Airwaves.”
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Details of all contacts between ministers and News International reveal that Wallis and Ed Llewellyn, the chief of No 10 staff, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron’s chief of staff, last night found himself in the spotlight over phone hacking for the second time in a week after No 10 announced that he attended a Scotland Yard dinner attended by Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World. Llewellyn and Andy Coulson, then communications director at No 10, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson when he was Metropolitan police commissioner on 17 June last year. Wallis, once Coulson’s deputy at the News of the World, had been hired as a media adviser by the Met and was present at the dinner. Earlier this month Wallis was arrested by the Met as part of Operation Weeting, the main investigation into allegations of phone hacking. Downing Street sources played down the significance of the dinner. Last week Llewellyn was forced to release emails to show that, last September, he rebuffed an offer from the outgoing Met assistant commissioner, John Yates, to discuss the phone-hacking scandal. Yates made the offer after an article in the New York Times put new pressure on Coulson. A No 10 source said last night: “Ed was late for the dinner because he was dealing with an urgent party matter that night. He was in and out of the dinner as he took calls. Is it odd for the prime minister’s chief of staff to meet the Met commissioner? No, it is not.” But Labour, which was informed of the dinner in a letter to the frontbencher Kevin Brennan, is likely to ask questions about Llewellyn’s decision to meet the Met commissioner in the company of Wallis at a time when questions were being asked about the links between the Yard and News International. One No 10 source said: “The first Ed remembered of the dinner was when he saw Neil Wallis’s picture on television.” The disclosure of the Yard dinner came as the Cabinet Office released information showing that George Osborne has held 16 meetings with News International executives since the election and Michael Gove has met Rupert Murdoch six times. Ministers’ contacts with News International executives continued until recent weeks after police had arrested senior News of the World journalists. Osborne met Rebekah Brooks on five occasions in the year following the 2010 general election. The chancellor met James Murdoch on four occasions and Rupert Murdoch twice. In total, he attended 16 meetings at which News International executives were present. Gove, a former senior Times journalist, met Rupert Murdoch on three occasions between 19 May and 26 June this year. A dinner on 26 June came just 10 days after Gove met Murdoch for dinner on 16 June. A spokesman for the education secretary said: “Michael worked for the BBC and News International, and his wife works for News International now. He’s known Rupert Murdoch for over a decade. He did not discuss the BSkyB deal with the Murdochs and isn’t at all embarrassed about his meetings, most of which have been about education, which is his job.” Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, met James Murdoch on two occasions in January this year to discuss the News Corp bid to take full control of BSkyB. Hunt was handed control of media takeovers in December after Vince Cable was stripped of his powers in the wake of the disclosure of a recording in which he told undercover journalists that he had “declared war” on Murdoch. The culture department has already published details of the meetings. In the first meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he had a duty to inform him that he had received the Ofcom report on the BSkyB bid. Hunt told Murdoch he had the right to reply. In the second meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he was minded to refer the bid to the Competition Commission, though he would consider any undertakings from News Corp. Osborne’s News International charm offensive, following his appointment as shadow chancellor by Michael Howard in 2005, paid off when the Conservatives came to power as part of the coalition. Osborne, who became particularly close to James Murdoch because they have children of a similar age, first met him after the election at a meeting also attended by Brooks. Murdoch and Brooks had another joint meeting in April this year. Osborne met Rupert Murdoch in May last year, the first of two meetings during the year. They also met for dinner in New York on 17 December last year, four days before Cable was stripped of his responsibility for media takeovers. The chancellor invited Elisabeth Murdoch, the tycoon’s daughter, and James Harding, the editor of the Times who was a few years above Osborne at St Paul’s School, to his 40th birthday party at Dorneywood last month. A Treasury source said that Osborne did not discuss the BSkyB bid with any of the News International executives after making clear shortly after the election that Cable was in charge of media takeovers. A Treasury spokesman said: “Early on in the process George explained this was a matter for Vince Cable alone and he could not get involved. It was not raised at any other discussion.” A source said that Osborne has no recollection of having discussed phone hacking with the executives. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, told LBC News: “There have been shenanigans going on here, and until we know what actually was said in the meetings, the fact of the meetings doesn’t prove it one way or the other. It just does raise rather a lot of questions about whether politics was being played over commercially sensitive matters like this.” The Yard dinner is likely to raise questions for Stephenson, who played down the significance of Wallis when he appeared before MPs last week after his resignation as commissioner. He told the home affairs select committee: “Mr Wallis was never employed to be my personal assistant or to provide personal advice to me … He had a very part-time, minor role.” Phone hacking Sir Paul Stephenson Rupert Murdoch Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers James Murdoch Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Details of all contacts between ministers and News International reveal that Wallis and Ed Llewellyn, the chief of No 10 staff, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron’s chief of staff, last night found himself in the spotlight over phone hacking for the second time in a week after No 10 announced that he attended a Scotland Yard dinner attended by Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World. Llewellyn and Andy Coulson, then communications director at No 10, attended a dinner hosted by Sir Paul Stephenson when he was Metropolitan police commissioner on 17 June last year. Wallis, once Coulson’s deputy at the News of the World, had been hired as a media adviser by the Met and was present at the dinner. Earlier this month Wallis was arrested by the Met as part of Operation Weeting, the main investigation into allegations of phone hacking. Downing Street sources played down the significance of the dinner. Last week Llewellyn was forced to release emails to show that, last September, he rebuffed an offer from the outgoing Met assistant commissioner, John Yates, to discuss the phone-hacking scandal. Yates made the offer after an article in the New York Times put new pressure on Coulson. A No 10 source said last night: “Ed was late for the dinner because he was dealing with an urgent party matter that night. He was in and out of the dinner as he took calls. Is it odd for the prime minister’s chief of staff to meet the Met commissioner? No, it is not.” But Labour, which was informed of the dinner in a letter to the frontbencher Kevin Brennan, is likely to ask questions about Llewellyn’s decision to meet the Met commissioner in the company of Wallis at a time when questions were being asked about the links between the Yard and News International. One No 10 source said: “The first Ed remembered of the dinner was when he saw Neil Wallis’s picture on television.” The disclosure of the Yard dinner came as the Cabinet Office released information showing that George Osborne has held 16 meetings with News International executives since the election and Michael Gove has met Rupert Murdoch six times. Ministers’ contacts with News International executives continued until recent weeks after police had arrested senior News of the World journalists. Osborne met Rebekah Brooks on five occasions in the year following the 2010 general election. The chancellor met James Murdoch on four occasions and Rupert Murdoch twice. In total, he attended 16 meetings at which News International executives were present. Gove, a former senior Times journalist, met Rupert Murdoch on three occasions between 19 May and 26 June this year. A dinner on 26 June came just 10 days after Gove met Murdoch for dinner on 16 June. A spokesman for the education secretary said: “Michael worked for the BBC and News International, and his wife works for News International now. He’s known Rupert Murdoch for over a decade. He did not discuss the BSkyB deal with the Murdochs and isn’t at all embarrassed about his meetings, most of which have been about education, which is his job.” Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, met James Murdoch on two occasions in January this year to discuss the News Corp bid to take full control of BSkyB. Hunt was handed control of media takeovers in December after Vince Cable was stripped of his powers in the wake of the disclosure of a recording in which he told undercover journalists that he had “declared war” on Murdoch. The culture department has already published details of the meetings. In the first meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he had a duty to inform him that he had received the Ofcom report on the BSkyB bid. Hunt told Murdoch he had the right to reply. In the second meeting Hunt told Murdoch that he was minded to refer the bid to the Competition Commission, though he would consider any undertakings from News Corp. Osborne’s News International charm offensive, following his appointment as shadow chancellor by Michael Howard in 2005, paid off when the Conservatives came to power as part of the coalition. Osborne, who became particularly close to James Murdoch because they have children of a similar age, first met him after the election at a meeting also attended by Brooks. Murdoch and Brooks had another joint meeting in April this year. Osborne met Rupert Murdoch in May last year, the first of two meetings during the year. They also met for dinner in New York on 17 December last year, four days before Cable was stripped of his responsibility for media takeovers. The chancellor invited Elisabeth Murdoch, the tycoon’s daughter, and James Harding, the editor of the Times who was a few years above Osborne at St Paul’s School, to his 40th birthday party at Dorneywood last month. A Treasury source said that Osborne did not discuss the BSkyB bid with any of the News International executives after making clear shortly after the election that Cable was in charge of media takeovers. A Treasury spokesman said: “Early on in the process George explained this was a matter for Vince Cable alone and he could not get involved. It was not raised at any other discussion.” A source said that Osborne has no recollection of having discussed phone hacking with the executives. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, told LBC News: “There have been shenanigans going on here, and until we know what actually was said in the meetings, the fact of the meetings doesn’t prove it one way or the other. It just does raise rather a lot of questions about whether politics was being played over commercially sensitive matters like this.” The Yard dinner is likely to raise questions for Stephenson, who played down the significance of Wallis when he appeared before MPs last week after his resignation as commissioner. He told the home affairs select committee: “Mr Wallis was never employed to be my personal assistant or to provide personal advice to me … He had a very part-time, minor role.” Phone hacking Sir Paul Stephenson Rupert Murdoch Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers James Murdoch Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Using the name Andrew Berwick, Norwegian killer emailed 1,500 page document and YouTube video across Europe The man responsible for the mass killing in Norway emailed his 1,500-page document to 250 British contacts less than 90 minutes before he began his attack, according to a Belgian MP. Anders Behring Breivik sent his manifesto to 1,003 email addresses at 2.09pm on Friday – less than an hour and a half before he detonated a bomb in Oslo. According to Tanguy Veys MP for the rightwing anti-Muslim party Vlaams Belang, – and one of those who received the document – approximately a quarter of those on the email list were UK-based. “I think the UK was the biggest group [of recipients],” he told the Guardian last night. “There were people from Italy, France Germany … but the UK was the biggest number.” Using the name Andrew Berwick, Breivik emailed his manifesto and a link to a YouTube video and addressed each recipient “Western Europe patriot” and wrote: “It is a gift to you … I ask you to distribute it to everyone you know.” It has been reported that Scotland Yard’s domestic extremism unit, which is investigating Breivik’s British links, has been sent a list of UK-based email addresses although the Met refused to confirm that. Veys said he had not had any contact with Breivik and condemned his actions. “Looking through this it seems very difficult to find a criteria for who he sent it to … it is very strange and I am cross I have been associated with him in any way.” The news of the emails came as anti-racism campaigners in the UK said they believed Breivik may have been in touch with activists from the far-right English Defence League as recently as March. Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, said the 32-year-old used the pseudonym of a 12th-century Norwegian king who led one of the Crusades to communicate with people on an English Defence League forum. In one posting, on 9 March, the author called on rightwing activists in the UK to “keep up the good work”. The message said: “Hello. To you all good English men and women, just wanted to say that you’re a blessing to all in Europe, in these dark times all of Europe are looking to you in such [sic] of inspiration, courage and even hope that we might turn this evil trend with islamisation all across our continent. Well, just wanted to say keep up the good work it’s good to see others that care about their country and heritage. All the best to you all. Sigurd.” Breivik boasted about his links to the UK far-right group in his manifesto. He also wrote that he was given the codename “Sigurd (the Crusader)” at a founding meeting of a group called the Knights Templar Europe in London in 2002. There is no confirmation that the author is Breivik. Sigurd is a common name in Norway. In other messages, “Sigurd” says he attended a football ground in the UK and expressed his admiration for the EDL. “I’ve seen with my own eyes what has happened to england, i was in bradford some years ago, me and a friend walked down to the football stadium of bradford, real ‘nice’ neighborhood, same thing in the suburbs of london. well thinking about taking a little trip over the sea and join you in a demo. would be nice with a norwegian flag alongside with union jack or the english flag, that is if a norwegian would be welcome offcourse?” In another message, he goes on to discuss the situation in Norway. “The biggest problem in Norway is that there is no real free press, there is a left-wing angle on all the political topics so most people are going around like idiots. And offcourse with our norwegian labour party beeing in power for most of the last 50 years dont help. but i i think there is an awakening now at least i hope so.” In his manifesto, Breivik repeatedly refers to the EDL, stating at one point: “I used to have more than 600 EDL members as Facebook friends and have spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders.” “In fact, I was one of the individuals who supplied them with processed ideological material (including rhetorical strategies) in the very beginning.” “There also appears to be a growing dispute among some figures associated with the EDL over who Breivik’s “mentor” Richard may be. In his manifesto, the Norwegian said he met “Richard” at the Knights Templar meeting in 2002 and says the pair became “close.” The EDL – which has staged a series of street demonstrations, many of which have turned violent, denies any links to Breivik and has condemned the killings, stating it is a peaceful organisation that rejects all forms of extremism. Last night the EDL said in an emailed statement that it was “not aware of any contact between Breivik and EDL leadership … of anyone using the name Sigurd and the forum”. “You must realise anyone on the EDL Forum or EDL Facebook can join and make up any name that they may choose.” Since the killings there have been unconfirmed reports that Breivik attended EDL demonstrations in the UK last year – possibly in London and Newcastle Norway Anders Behring Breivik The far right Europe English Defence League Metropolitan police Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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