CBS Team Amused by Pie Attack on Rupert Murdoch, ‘Getting a Taste of Humble Pie’
July 20, 2011 No Comment
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28-year-old and his brother, who was wounded, were accosted setting off to UK at end of tourist holiday on Margarita island A Briton has died during a robbery while on holiday in Venezuela. Thomas Ossel, 28, from Bedfordshire, was shot in the head and killed, while his brother Jack, 21, was wounded in the attack. Jacqueline Baxter, a friend of the family, said: “At the moment their father has travelled to Venezuela, and obviously their mum is not able to make a statement.” The attack took place on Monday on Margarita island, one of Venezuela’s most popular tourist destinations. A regional police official told the Venezuelan radio station Union Radio the brothers were shot as they were leaving an upmarket inn to return to the UK. He said investigators believe that gunmen attempted to rob the men, and fired when they resisted. The Foreign Office has confirmed the death and said officials were “providing consular assistance to the family”. Friends paid tribute to Ossel on Twitter. One said: “Sad and shocking news … RIP Tom Ossel … u will be missed … love and thoughts go out to ur family and friends 
xxx” Another wrote: “Woah. Just heard some genuinely shocking news. Old classmate shot and killed in Venezuela. RIP Tom.” The country has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, 48 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Travel advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office warns that street crime is high, and that armed robbery, and what it calls “express kidnappings” – short-term abductions to extort money – also take place, and that tourists have been among those targeted; resistance to robbers had resulted in people being shot dead, it added. Before Monday’s attack, the FCO revised its advice to tourists, alerting them to an increase in crime on Margarita island. Venezuela South America Crime guardian.co.uk
All-party home affairs committee report into phone hacking to be published in time for David Cameron’s statement Rupert Murdoch’s News International company has been found by a parliamentary committee to have “deliberately” tried to block a Scotland Yard criminal investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World. The report from MPs on the all-party home affairs committee will be released on Wednesday morning and its publication has been moved forward in time for today’s statement by prime minister David Cameron on the scandal. The report’s central finding comes a day after Rupert and James Murdoch testified before the culture, media and sport committee. The home affairs committee report marks an official damning judgment on News International’s actions. It finds the company “deliberately” tried to “thwart” the 2005-6 Metropolitan police investigation into phone hacking carried out by the News of the World. The police investigation came at a time when Andy Coulson was editor. Coulson went in to be chosen by Cameron to be his director of communications, before resigning. The full report will be published Wednesday morning. Among its findings are: • Police failed to examine a vast amount of material that could have identified others involved in the phone hacking conspiracy and victims. • John Yates made a “serious misjudgement” in deciding in July 2009 that the Met’s criminal investigation should not be reopened. He resigned on Monday. • The new phone hacking investigation should receive more money, from government if necessary, so it can contact potential victims more speedily. A fraction have been contacted so far. • The Information Commissioner should be given new powers to deal with phone hacking and blagging. The central conclusion about NI’s hampering of the police investigation comes after the home affairs committee heard evidence from senior Met officers who were involved in the case that News International obstructed justice. Last week the man who oversaw the first Metropolitan police investigation into phone hacking, Peter Clarke, damned News International: “If at any time News International had offered some meaningful co-operation instead of prevarication and what we now know to be lies, we would not be here today.” The first police inquiry led to the conviction in January 2007 of one journalist, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. But subsequent developments, and the handing over of documents by News International, are alleged to show the practice of phone hacking was much more widespread than the company ever admitted. NI claimed for years it was the work of one rogue reporter, a defence the company has now abandoned, at least in part because of a Guardian investigation, which eventually led to the Met to reopen their inquiry. The committee heard on Tuesday that “blindingly obvious” evidence of corrupt payments to police officers was found by the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, when he inspected News of the World emails. Lord Macdonald said that when he inspected the messages from NI, it took him between “three to five minutes” to decide that the material had to be passed to police. The emails and other material has been in the possession of NI or their lawyers for years. MacDonald said: “The material I saw was so blindingly obvious that trying to argue that it should not be given to the police would have been a hard task. It was evidence of serious criminal offences.” Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron’s chief of staff, was also dragged into the phone-hacking scandal on Tuesday when two of the country’s most senior police officers revealed he had urged them not to brief the prime minister on developments. Llewellyn sought to stop information about the scandal being passed on to the prime minister in September, just days after the New York Times ran an article which claimed Coulson had been aware of the use of the illegal practice when he edited the News of the World. Former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson – who resigned on Sunday – and former assistant commissioner John Yates – who followed on Monday – told the House of Commons home affairs select committee that they believed Llewellyn was keen to avoid “compromising” the prime minister. Yates told the committee he was offering to discuss only police protocol – not operational matters. Committee Chair Right Hon Keith Vaz MP said: “There has been a catalogue of failures by the Metropolitan Police, and deliberate attempts by News International to thwart the various investigations. Police and prosecutors have been arguing over the interpretation of the law. “The new inquiry requires additional resources and if these are not forthcoming, it will take years to inform all the potential victims. The victims of hacking should have come first and I am shocked that this has not happened.” Phone hacking News International Rupert Murdoch Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers House of Commons Police Metropolitan police Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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Paul Krugman says that letting the bankers walk is a really big mistake — and is a major factor in the recession: Last fall, we learned that many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most conspicuously, “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they didn’t. How widespread and serious were the abuses? The answer is that we don’t know. Nine months have passed since the robo-signing scandal broke, yet there still hasn’t been a serious investigation of its reach. That’s because states, suffering from severe budget troubles, lack the resources for a full investigation — and federal officials, who do have the resources, have chosen not to use them. Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.” Why the rush to settle? As far as I can tell, there are two principal arguments being made for letting the banks off easy. The first is the claim that resolving the mortgage mess quickly is the key to getting the housing market back on its feet. The second, less explicitly stated, is the claim that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Neither of these arguments makes much sense. The claim that removing the legal cloud over foreclosure would help the housing market — in particular, that it would help support housing prices — leaves me scratching my head. It would just accelerate foreclosures, and if more families were evicted from their homes, that would mean more homes offered for sale — an increase in supply. An increase in the supply of a good usually pushes that good’s price down, not up. Why should the effect on housing go the opposite way? You might point to the mortgage relief that would supposedly be extracted as part of the settlement. But if mortgage relief is that crucial, why isn’t the administration making a major push to reinvigorate its own Home Affordable Modification Program, which has spent only a small fraction of its money? Or if making that program actually work is hard, why should we believe that any program instituted as part of a mortgage-abuse settlement would work any better? Sorry, but the case that letting banks off the hook would help the housing market just doesn’t hold together. What about the argument that getting tough with the banks would threaten the overall economy? Here the question is: What’s holding the economy back? It’s not the state of the banks. It’s true that fears about bank solvency disrupted financial markets in late 2008 and early 2009. But those markets have long since returned to normal, in large part because everyone now knows that banks will be bailed out if they get in trouble. The big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not. So when officials tell you that we must rush to settle with the banks for the sake of the economy, don’t believe them. We should do this right, and hold bankers accountable for their actions.
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Paul Krugman says that letting the bankers walk is a really big mistake — and is a major factor in the recession: Last fall, we learned that many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most conspicuously, “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they didn’t. How widespread and serious were the abuses? The answer is that we don’t know. Nine months have passed since the robo-signing scandal broke, yet there still hasn’t been a serious investigation of its reach. That’s because states, suffering from severe budget troubles, lack the resources for a full investigation — and federal officials, who do have the resources, have chosen not to use them. Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.” Why the rush to settle? As far as I can tell, there are two principal arguments being made for letting the banks off easy. The first is the claim that resolving the mortgage mess quickly is the key to getting the housing market back on its feet. The second, less explicitly stated, is the claim that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Neither of these arguments makes much sense. The claim that removing the legal cloud over foreclosure would help the housing market — in particular, that it would help support housing prices — leaves me scratching my head. It would just accelerate foreclosures, and if more families were evicted from their homes, that would mean more homes offered for sale — an increase in supply. An increase in the supply of a good usually pushes that good’s price down, not up. Why should the effect on housing go the opposite way? You might point to the mortgage relief that would supposedly be extracted as part of the settlement. But if mortgage relief is that crucial, why isn’t the administration making a major push to reinvigorate its own Home Affordable Modification Program, which has spent only a small fraction of its money? Or if making that program actually work is hard, why should we believe that any program instituted as part of a mortgage-abuse settlement would work any better? Sorry, but the case that letting banks off the hook would help the housing market just doesn’t hold together. What about the argument that getting tough with the banks would threaten the overall economy? Here the question is: What’s holding the economy back? It’s not the state of the banks. It’s true that fears about bank solvency disrupted financial markets in late 2008 and early 2009. But those markets have long since returned to normal, in large part because everyone now knows that banks will be bailed out if they get in trouble. The big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not. So when officials tell you that we must rush to settle with the banks for the sake of the economy, don’t believe them. We should do this right, and hold bankers accountable for their actions.
Continue reading …Paul Krugman says that letting the bankers walk is a really big mistake — and is a major factor in the recession: Last fall, we learned that many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most conspicuously, “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they didn’t. How widespread and serious were the abuses? The answer is that we don’t know. Nine months have passed since the robo-signing scandal broke, yet there still hasn’t been a serious investigation of its reach. That’s because states, suffering from severe budget troubles, lack the resources for a full investigation — and federal officials, who do have the resources, have chosen not to use them. Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.” Why the rush to settle? As far as I can tell, there are two principal arguments being made for letting the banks off easy. The first is the claim that resolving the mortgage mess quickly is the key to getting the housing market back on its feet. The second, less explicitly stated, is the claim that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Neither of these arguments makes much sense. The claim that removing the legal cloud over foreclosure would help the housing market — in particular, that it would help support housing prices — leaves me scratching my head. It would just accelerate foreclosures, and if more families were evicted from their homes, that would mean more homes offered for sale — an increase in supply. An increase in the supply of a good usually pushes that good’s price down, not up. Why should the effect on housing go the opposite way? You might point to the mortgage relief that would supposedly be extracted as part of the settlement. But if mortgage relief is that crucial, why isn’t the administration making a major push to reinvigorate its own Home Affordable Modification Program, which has spent only a small fraction of its money? Or if making that program actually work is hard, why should we believe that any program instituted as part of a mortgage-abuse settlement would work any better? Sorry, but the case that letting banks off the hook would help the housing market just doesn’t hold together. What about the argument that getting tough with the banks would threaten the overall economy? Here the question is: What’s holding the economy back? It’s not the state of the banks. It’s true that fears about bank solvency disrupted financial markets in late 2008 and early 2009. But those markets have long since returned to normal, in large part because everyone now knows that banks will be bailed out if they get in trouble. The big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not. So when officials tell you that we must rush to settle with the banks for the sake of the economy, don’t believe them. We should do this right, and hold bankers accountable for their actions.
Continue reading …Paul Krugman says that letting the bankers walk is a really big mistake — and is a major factor in the recession: Last fall, we learned that many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most conspicuously, “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they didn’t. How widespread and serious were the abuses? The answer is that we don’t know. Nine months have passed since the robo-signing scandal broke, yet there still hasn’t been a serious investigation of its reach. That’s because states, suffering from severe budget troubles, lack the resources for a full investigation — and federal officials, who do have the resources, have chosen not to use them. Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.” Why the rush to settle? As far as I can tell, there are two principal arguments being made for letting the banks off easy. The first is the claim that resolving the mortgage mess quickly is the key to getting the housing market back on its feet. The second, less explicitly stated, is the claim that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Neither of these arguments makes much sense. The claim that removing the legal cloud over foreclosure would help the housing market — in particular, that it would help support housing prices — leaves me scratching my head. It would just accelerate foreclosures, and if more families were evicted from their homes, that would mean more homes offered for sale — an increase in supply. An increase in the supply of a good usually pushes that good’s price down, not up. Why should the effect on housing go the opposite way? You might point to the mortgage relief that would supposedly be extracted as part of the settlement. But if mortgage relief is that crucial, why isn’t the administration making a major push to reinvigorate its own Home Affordable Modification Program, which has spent only a small fraction of its money? Or if making that program actually work is hard, why should we believe that any program instituted as part of a mortgage-abuse settlement would work any better? Sorry, but the case that letting banks off the hook would help the housing market just doesn’t hold together. What about the argument that getting tough with the banks would threaten the overall economy? Here the question is: What’s holding the economy back? It’s not the state of the banks. It’s true that fears about bank solvency disrupted financial markets in late 2008 and early 2009. But those markets have long since returned to normal, in large part because everyone now knows that banks will be bailed out if they get in trouble. The big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not. So when officials tell you that we must rush to settle with the banks for the sake of the economy, don’t believe them. We should do this right, and hold bankers accountable for their actions.
Continue reading …
Paul Krugman says that letting the bankers walk is a really big mistake — and is a major factor in the recession: Last fall, we learned that many mortgage lenders were engaging in illegal foreclosures. Most conspicuously, “robo-signers” were attesting that banks had the required documentation to seize homes without checking to see whether they actually had the right to do so — and in many cases they didn’t. How widespread and serious were the abuses? The answer is that we don’t know. Nine months have passed since the robo-signing scandal broke, yet there still hasn’t been a serious investigation of its reach. That’s because states, suffering from severe budget troubles, lack the resources for a full investigation — and federal officials, who do have the resources, have chosen not to use them. Instead, these officials are pushing for a settlement with mortgage companies that, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, “would broadly absolve the firms of wrongdoing in exchange for penalties reaching $30 billion and assurances that the firms will adhere to better practices.” Why the rush to settle? As far as I can tell, there are two principal arguments being made for letting the banks off easy. The first is the claim that resolving the mortgage mess quickly is the key to getting the housing market back on its feet. The second, less explicitly stated, is the claim that getting tough with the banks would undermine broader prospects for recovery. Neither of these arguments makes much sense. The claim that removing the legal cloud over foreclosure would help the housing market — in particular, that it would help support housing prices — leaves me scratching my head. It would just accelerate foreclosures, and if more families were evicted from their homes, that would mean more homes offered for sale — an increase in supply. An increase in the supply of a good usually pushes that good’s price down, not up. Why should the effect on housing go the opposite way? You might point to the mortgage relief that would supposedly be extracted as part of the settlement. But if mortgage relief is that crucial, why isn’t the administration making a major push to reinvigorate its own Home Affordable Modification Program, which has spent only a small fraction of its money? Or if making that program actually work is hard, why should we believe that any program instituted as part of a mortgage-abuse settlement would work any better? Sorry, but the case that letting banks off the hook would help the housing market just doesn’t hold together. What about the argument that getting tough with the banks would threaten the overall economy? Here the question is: What’s holding the economy back? It’s not the state of the banks. It’s true that fears about bank solvency disrupted financial markets in late 2008 and early 2009. But those markets have long since returned to normal, in large part because everyone now knows that banks will be bailed out if they get in trouble. The big drag on the economy now is the overhang of household debt, largely created by the $5.6 trillion in mortgage debt that households took on during the bubble years. Serious mortgage relief could make a dent in that problem; a $30 billion settlement from the banks, even if it proved more effective than the government’s modification program, would not. So when officials tell you that we must rush to settle with the banks for the sake of the economy, don’t believe them. We should do this right, and hold bankers accountable for their actions.
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Click here to view this media As a general media rule, if you have to assure viewers that you’re not a pedophile then you’ve already lost the debate. But this is exactly what happened when Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday to object to a baby doll that helps children learn about breastfeeding. “It’s beyond ridiculous,” Ablow told Fox News’ Alisyn Camerota. “It’s destructive. Little girls aren’t even aware how their secondary sexual characteristics will develop, let alone imitating how they’ll be used after childbirth. This is another way of turning little girls into adults. It blurs the boundary between children and adults in society. It contributes to the sexualization of children and it makes them targets of assailants, frankly, because it blurs that boundary. It’s a terrible, terrible idea.” “I’m going to have to respectfully disagree,” parenting expert Jessica Gottlieb told Ablow. “I’m not sure that if you see a little girl as her breasts being sexual that that doesn’t reflect more on you than on what breasts are.” “I assure you I’m not a pedophile at all,” Ablow objected. “Dr. Ablow, I think she raises a great point,” Camerota noted. “Why is it sexual? Why isn’t it just natural?” “She doesn’t raise a good point at all. How about this? How about we have little girls three and four have an OB/GYN suite where they deliver their babies? That’s a good idea. That way we can further blur the boundaries so that everybody out there no longer thinks there’s any particular difference between a little child and an adult woman. The fact is that little girls don’t have breasts that can breastfeed,” Ablow explained. This month alone, Ablow has proclaimed that President Barack Obama pursues a “communist manifesto” and offered and psychological profile of Media Matters’ David Brock.
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Click here to view this media As a general media rule, if you have to assure viewers that you’re not a pedophile then you’ve already lost the debate. But this is exactly what happened when Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday to object to a baby doll that helps children learn about breastfeeding. “It’s beyond ridiculous,” Ablow told Fox News’ Alisyn Camerota. “It’s destructive. Little girls aren’t even aware how their secondary sexual characteristics will develop, let alone imitating how they’ll be used after childbirth. This is another way of turning little girls into adults. It blurs the boundary between children and adults in society. It contributes to the sexualization of children and it makes them targets of assailants, frankly, because it blurs that boundary. It’s a terrible, terrible idea.” “I’m going to have to respectfully disagree,” parenting expert Jessica Gottlieb told Ablow. “I’m not sure that if you see a little girl as her breasts being sexual that that doesn’t reflect more on you than on what breasts are.” “I assure you I’m not a pedophile at all,” Ablow objected. “Dr. Ablow, I think she raises a great point,” Camerota noted. “Why is it sexual? Why isn’t it just natural?” “She doesn’t raise a good point at all. How about this? How about we have little girls three and four have an OB/GYN suite where they deliver their babies? That’s a good idea. That way we can further blur the boundaries so that everybody out there no longer thinks there’s any particular difference between a little child and an adult woman. The fact is that little girls don’t have breasts that can breastfeed,” Ablow explained. This month alone, Ablow has proclaimed that President Barack Obama pursues a “communist manifesto” and offered and psychological profile of Media Matters’ David Brock.
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