ABC on Terror Suspect, Everything But a Muslim: ‘Marine Lance Corporal,” a ‘Marine Reservist,’ an ‘Ethiopian’ and a ‘Lone Wolf’
June 17, 2011 No Comment
Add ABC’s World News and the NBC Nightly News to James Taranto’s list of news outlets (“ Losing His Religion: A Pentagon terror scare and a media taboo ”) which refuse to identify Yonathan Melaku, who was caught in Arlington Cemetery with suspicious material and a notebook praising the Taliban, as a Muslim. Instead, on Friday night ABC offered a bunch of ways to describe Melaku , who caused a major incident when his car was found hidden in bushes near the Pentagon — starting with anchor Diane Sawyer who identified him simply as a “Marine Lance Corporal.” Reporter Pierre Thomas referred to him as “the suspect” multiple times as well as a “Marine reservist,” “a 22-year old Ethiopian American” and a “lone wolf.” ABC, at least, took the incident seriously, running a full story. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams read a short item in which he cited the actions of “a Marine reservist.” The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley didn’t utter a syllable about it. Flashback to November of 2009 Ft. Hood murder spree: “ CBS and NBC Fail to ID Hasan as Muslim; ABC's Raddatz Relays: 'I Wish His Name was Smith '” From the Friday, June 17 ABC World News, closed-captioning corrected against the video by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth: DIANE SAWYER: And a 22-year-old Marine Lance Corporal is behind bars tonight in a Washington, D.C., terror scare. The area around the Pentagon was thrown into chaos this morning by a backpack loaded with suspicious materials. The FBI says he apparently acted alone, but who was he? And what exactly was his plan? Senior justice correspondent Pierre Thomas has been on this story all day. Pierre? PIERRE THOMAS: Diane, it was a tense morning here at the Pentagon, as police feared they had uncovered a terrorist plot. Now, they are racing to find out if the suspect was mentally unstable or a lone wolf terrorist. It all began at 2 a.m when an Army policeman confronted a man at Arlington Cemetery. The man flees. Police run him down and find something alarming. The suspect, Marine reservist Yonathan Melaku, a 22-year-old Ethiopian-American, is carrying a backpack filled with four Ziploc bags of a substance that looks like ammonium nitrate, a key bomb-making material. Also inside, spent 9 mm ammunition and a notebook containing the words “Taliban rules,” “mujahadin” and “defeated coalition forces.” They also find the suspect's car hidden in the bushes off a Pentagon parking lot. Police fear the worst. They worry the suspect has planted bombs at the cemetery in the Iwo Jima Memorial, located just a mile from the Pentagon. SERGEANT DAVE SCHLOSSER, U.S. PARK POLICE: The question is are there multiple devices and are these devices at various sites around here? THOMAS: They shut down traffic all around the Pentagon. Authorities later raced to Melaku’s suburban Virginia home to search for bomb-making material as the FBI launches an international investigation to dissect his life. As the morning wore on, a fuller picture emerged. The FBI initially could find no links to terrorist organizations. BRENDA HECK, FBI: We do believe at this time that this individual acted alone. THOMAS: As for the material in the backpack, it may be ammonium nitrate, but it was not the type that is explosive. And the searches of his home and car have turned up no explosives. Many in the FBI believe that this is the most immediate threat in the aftermath of bin Laden’s death: lone wolves showing up for revenge, Diane.
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enlarge Aren’t you sick and tired of hearing the phony arguments that Republicans make when it comes to the EPA? How they are killing jobs and America because regulations and regulatory bodies are socialist and other such nonsense. It’s easier for the right to just yell ‘free markets rule’ instead of being honest whenever important government agencies are brought up in election cycles. Kevin Drum Is the EPA a Job Killing Machine? (Hint: No.): Is the EPA a job-killing machine? On the off chance that empirical evidence still matters to anyone, Dave Roberts summarizes a bit of recent research into this question from the Economic Policy Institute. First up, Isaac Shapiro takes a look at the costs and benefit of several new EPA rules: The dollar value of the benefits of the major rules finalized or proposed by the EPA so far during the Obama administration exceeds the rules’ costs by an exceptionally wide margin. Health benefits in terms of lives saved and illnesses avoided will be enormous. Expressed in 2010 dollars: The combined annual benefits from all final rules exceed their costs by $32 billion to $142 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 4-to-1 to 22-to-1. The combined annual benefit s from four proposed rules examined here exceed their costs by $160 billion to $440 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 12-to-1 to 32-to-1. OK, fine: the rules will save lives and improve our health. But at what cost in the tidal wave of jobs lost just to get a bit of mercury and soot out of the air? EPI’s Josh Bivens runs the numbers for one of EPA’s biggest initiatives, the “air toxics” rule. Here’s the final tabulation: — If you want to, you can still object to these rules. Maybe you can argue that they’re distortionary in some way, or that there are cheaper ways of getting the same results. Maybe. But even if the rules aren’t perfect, their benefits far exceed their costs and they actually produce additional jobs for the economy. Dave sums things up: Conservatives are hiding behind abstractions — job-killing big-government blah-blah — but don’t be fooled. They are not protecting “the economy” or “jobs.” They are protecting a specific set of polluting industries, at the expense of the public interest. Put that horsesh*t in any ideological serving dish you want. It still stinks. Not only does the EPA make us healthier, but it increases the number of jobs we have. Grover Norquist’s starve the beast ideology as well as ‘ defund the left ‘ has been a very effective up to this point since Conservative activists came onto the scene in the 80′s. They were as radical back then as the Tea Party is now. Too bad their agenda makes us less safer, healthier and economically secure.
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Education secretary outlines plans to make exams tougher – and says he would welcome schools taking lessons from business The exam system in England and Wales needs reform, and for many subjects that means a return to traditional exams and less coursework, according to the education secretary, Michael Gove. In an interview in the Times, Gove says that, like Tony Blair, he is pushing the academy system. He goes on to say: “It has become easier to get an A at A-level or GCSE than it used to be, and that’s a problem … If you are doing art or geography, you’ve got to have a work of art or a field trip. But if you’re doing mathematics or English or French then the logical thing is to have a proper rigorous exam at the end of year 11 [GCSEs].” Gove said there had been previous attempts to make science relevant, by linking it to contemporary concerns such as climate change or food scares. But he said: “What [students] need is a rooting in the basic scientific principles, Newton’s laws of thermodynamics and Boyle’s law.” His daughter did not understand the way history was taught, Gove said, because it was not chronological: “My daughter does toys through the ages, then she does the Vikings, then the Greeks; and she gets confused.” He added: “We are now seeing with the new exams regulator how we can make GCSEs tougher. Exam boards need to sharpen up their act. We are also saying in GCSEs that you need to award marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We need to have stretching exams which compare with the world’s most rigorous.” Gove would welcome school heads taking a lesson from business: “We now have great headteachers who will become educational entrepreneurs. They will build a brand and create chains.” He said he would have no “ideological objection to profit-making institutions” in education – but schools did not need to be profit-making: “I think a profit motive would turn the academies movement from something that is all about philanthropy and generosity into something that was seen in a different light.” The education secretary also thinks that, in A-levels, state schools are suffering at the expense of private schools, which are opting for a more traditional-style exam, the Pre-U. He said: “If private schools are having an elite qualification and state schools are being left with a qualification that can’t match it, that is of profound concern to me, so we do need to do something to strengthen confidence in A-levels.” Schools Education policy GCSEs Michael Gove A-levels Jonathan Paige guardian.co.uk
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Education secretary outlines plans to make exams tougher – and says he would welcome schools taking lessons from business The exam system in England and Wales needs reform, and for many subjects that means a return to traditional exams and less coursework, according to the education secretary, Michael Gove. In an interview in the Times, Gove says that, like Tony Blair, he is pushing the academy system. He goes on to say: “It has become easier to get an A at A-level or GCSE than it used to be, and that’s a problem … If you are doing art or geography, you’ve got to have a work of art or a field trip. But if you’re doing mathematics or English or French then the logical thing is to have a proper rigorous exam at the end of year 11 [GCSEs].” Gove said there had been previous attempts to make science relevant, by linking it to contemporary concerns such as climate change or food scares. But he said: “What [students] need is a rooting in the basic scientific principles, Newton’s laws of thermodynamics and Boyle’s law.” His daughter did not understand the way history was taught, Gove said, because it was not chronological: “My daughter does toys through the ages, then she does the Vikings, then the Greeks; and she gets confused.” He added: “We are now seeing with the new exams regulator how we can make GCSEs tougher. Exam boards need to sharpen up their act. We are also saying in GCSEs that you need to award marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We need to have stretching exams which compare with the world’s most rigorous.” Gove would welcome school heads taking a lesson from business: “We now have great headteachers who will become educational entrepreneurs. They will build a brand and create chains.” He said he would have no “ideological objection to profit-making institutions” in education – but schools did not need to be profit-making: “I think a profit motive would turn the academies movement from something that is all about philanthropy and generosity into something that was seen in a different light.” The education secretary also thinks that, in A-levels, state schools are suffering at the expense of private schools, which are opting for a more traditional-style exam, the Pre-U. He said: “If private schools are having an elite qualification and state schools are being left with a qualification that can’t match it, that is of profound concern to me, so we do need to do something to strengthen confidence in A-levels.” Schools Education policy GCSEs Michael Gove A-levels Jonathan Paige guardian.co.uk
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Mohamed VI rewrites constitution and gives elected politicians greater power after biggest protests in decades Morocco’s king, Mohamed VI, has responded to the Arab spring by rewriting his country’s constitution and giving greater power to elected politicians but leaving him with a firm grip on security, the army and religious matters. The draft constitution, which will be put to referendum on 1 July, sees some power being shifted away from the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty and from the tight clique of palace officials who dominate Morocco. Among other measures, the new constitution explicitly states that the king will now have to pick the country’s prime minister from the party that wins elections to what, up until now, has been a largely rubber-stamp parliament. While the government gains executive powers, the 47-year-old monarch has kept exclusive control over the military and over religion. And analysts pointed out that while the prime minister would be in charge of domestic policy, he does so with the king’s permission and with the monarch still able to pass his own decrees. “He is sharing some executive powers with the PM [but] still retains significant ones,” said the respected, if anonymous, Maghreb Blog on its Twitter feed. “The changes do nothing to his real discretionary, religious and military powers.” Mohamed VI presented the measuresto the country in a TV broadcast. The king said the constitutional reform “confirms the features and mechanisms of the parliamentary nature of the Moroccan political system” and laid the basis for an “efficient, rational constitutional system whose core elements are the balance, independence and separation of powers, and whose foremost goal is the freedom and dignity of citizens. After facing the biggest protests in decades, the king ordered a committee in March to draw up the new constitution after discussions with political parties, trade unions and NGOs. Moroccans first took to the streets in February, but the country has not experienced the degree of violence seen elsewhere in Arab countries. Officials claimed that respect for the king combined with a regime that is more liberal and less severely policed than elsewhere had helped prevent a Tunisian or Egyptian-style uprising. But Moroccans are clearly fed up with rampant corruption which, according to US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks, stretches right into the heart of Mohamed VI’s palace. Those cables show one former US ambassador to Rabat condemning “the appalling greed of those close to King Mohammed VI”. “Major institutions and processes of the Moroccan state are used by the palace to coerce and solicit bribes in the real estate sector,” one senior Moroccan businessman complained to US diplomats Corruption is also rampant in courts, business and health services, according to Transparency Maroc. Many Moroccans would like to see their country enjoy the sort of economic growth that countries such as Tunisia or Turkey have had over the past two decades. The king said a constitutional court would also be set up while “the draft constitution criminalises any interference, corruption or influence peddling with regard to the judiciary”. He said the constitution “criminalizes torture, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and all forms of discrimination and inhuman, degrading practices” while also upholding “freedom of the press and of expression and opinion.” within unspecified legally enforcable boundaries. The reforms will be closely monitored by Gulf Arab monarchies, which have so far dodged calls at home for reforms and fret that major change in Morocco might fuel further demands from reformists in their countries. In Muslim Morocco the monarch is formally considered the nation’s religious leader with the title of commander of the faithful. But the new constitution will see his status changed slightly, with the term “sacred” disappearing but the monarch still remaining “inviolable”, the king said. The referendum date gives Moroccans – 44 % of whom are illiterate – just two weeks to find out about and debate the new constitution’s contents. Few commentators doubted, however, that it would be passed even though pro-democracy activists from the February 20 movement dismissed many of the changes as cosmetic. After the speech ended, cars flying Moroccan flags drove through the streets of the capital Rabat honking their horns, with passengers cheering into the night and young people marched along the wide boulevards banging drums and cheering. Najib Chawki, a February 20 activist, said the constitutional reform draft “does not respond to the essence of our demands which is establishing a parliamentary monarchy. We are basically moving from a de facto absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy”. Activists claimed that the reform programme initially introduced by King Mohamed, who brought in greater freedoms and improved women’s rights when he inherited the throne 12 years ago, had effectively ground to a halt. Activists on Twitter said that pro-government mobs had attacked at least one pro-democracy activist Morocco Arab and Middle East unrest Africa Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Mohamed VI rewrites constitution and gives elected politicians greater power after biggest protests in decades Morocco’s king, Mohamed VI, has responded to the Arab spring by rewriting his country’s constitution and giving greater power to elected politicians but leaving him with a firm grip on security, the army and religious matters. The draft constitution, which will be put to referendum on 1 July, sees some power being shifted away from the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty and from the tight clique of palace officials who dominate Morocco. Among other measures, the new constitution explicitly states that the king will now have to pick the country’s prime minister from the party that wins elections to what, up until now, has been a largely rubber-stamp parliament. While the government gains executive powers, the 47-year-old monarch has kept exclusive control over the military and over religion. And analysts pointed out that while the prime minister would be in charge of domestic policy, he does so with the king’s permission and with the monarch still able to pass his own decrees. “He is sharing some executive powers with the PM [but] still retains significant ones,” said the respected, if anonymous, Maghreb Blog on its Twitter feed. “The changes do nothing to his real discretionary, religious and military powers.” Mohamed VI presented the measuresto the country in a TV broadcast. The king said the constitutional reform “confirms the features and mechanisms of the parliamentary nature of the Moroccan political system” and laid the basis for an “efficient, rational constitutional system whose core elements are the balance, independence and separation of powers, and whose foremost goal is the freedom and dignity of citizens. After facing the biggest protests in decades, the king ordered a committee in March to draw up the new constitution after discussions with political parties, trade unions and NGOs. Moroccans first took to the streets in February, but the country has not experienced the degree of violence seen elsewhere in Arab countries. Officials claimed that respect for the king combined with a regime that is more liberal and less severely policed than elsewhere had helped prevent a Tunisian or Egyptian-style uprising. But Moroccans are clearly fed up with rampant corruption which, according to US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks, stretches right into the heart of Mohamed VI’s palace. Those cables show one former US ambassador to Rabat condemning “the appalling greed of those close to King Mohammed VI”. “Major institutions and processes of the Moroccan state are used by the palace to coerce and solicit bribes in the real estate sector,” one senior Moroccan businessman complained to US diplomats Corruption is also rampant in courts, business and health services, according to Transparency Maroc. Many Moroccans would like to see their country enjoy the sort of economic growth that countries such as Tunisia or Turkey have had over the past two decades. The king said a constitutional court would also be set up while “the draft constitution criminalises any interference, corruption or influence peddling with regard to the judiciary”. He said the constitution “criminalizes torture, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and all forms of discrimination and inhuman, degrading practices” while also upholding “freedom of the press and of expression and opinion.” within unspecified legally enforcable boundaries. The reforms will be closely monitored by Gulf Arab monarchies, which have so far dodged calls at home for reforms and fret that major change in Morocco might fuel further demands from reformists in their countries. In Muslim Morocco the monarch is formally considered the nation’s religious leader with the title of commander of the faithful. But the new constitution will see his status changed slightly, with the term “sacred” disappearing but the monarch still remaining “inviolable”, the king said. The referendum date gives Moroccans – 44 % of whom are illiterate – just two weeks to find out about and debate the new constitution’s contents. Few commentators doubted, however, that it would be passed even though pro-democracy activists from the February 20 movement dismissed many of the changes as cosmetic. After the speech ended, cars flying Moroccan flags drove through the streets of the capital Rabat honking their horns, with passengers cheering into the night and young people marched along the wide boulevards banging drums and cheering. Najib Chawki, a February 20 activist, said the constitutional reform draft “does not respond to the essence of our demands which is establishing a parliamentary monarchy. We are basically moving from a de facto absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy”. Activists claimed that the reform programme initially introduced by King Mohamed, who brought in greater freedoms and improved women’s rights when he inherited the throne 12 years ago, had effectively ground to a halt. Activists on Twitter said that pro-government mobs had attacked at least one pro-democracy activist Morocco Arab and Middle East unrest Africa Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Executives Complain To Obama’s Chief of Staff That Regulations Stifle Growth
June 17, 2011 No CommentI don’t know what to think about this . Businesses are sitting on record amounts of cash, and still they bitch? Executives are taking the lion’s share of profit while their workers make even less than they did 30 years ago — and they’re mad because environmental and trade laws means they can’t have it all?` It was supposed to be the White House’s latest make-nice session with corporate America — a visit by Chief of Staff William M. Daley to a meeting with hundreds of manufacturing executives in town to press lawmakers for looser regulations. But the outreach soon turned into a rare public dressing down of the president’s policies with his highest-ranking aide. One by one, exasperated executives stood to air their grievances on environmental regulations and stalled free-trade deals . And Daley, the former banker tasked with building ties with industry, found himself looking for the right balance between empathy and defending his boss. At one point, the room erupted in applause when Massachusetts utility executive Doug Starrett, his voice shaking with emotion, accused the administration of blocking construction on one of his facilities to protect fish, saying government “throws sand into the gears of progress.” Daley said he did not have many good answers, appearing to throw up his hands in frustration at what he called “bureaucratic stuff that’s hard to defend.”
Continue reading …Executives Complain To Obama’s Chief of Staff That Regulations Stifle Growth
June 17, 2011 No CommentI don’t know what to think about this . Businesses are sitting on record amounts of cash, and still they bitch? Executives are taking the lion’s share of profit while their workers make even less than they did 30 years ago — and they’re mad because environmental and trade laws means they can’t have it all?` It was supposed to be the White House’s latest make-nice session with corporate America — a visit by Chief of Staff William M. Daley to a meeting with hundreds of manufacturing executives in town to press lawmakers for looser regulations. But the outreach soon turned into a rare public dressing down of the president’s policies with his highest-ranking aide. One by one, exasperated executives stood to air their grievances on environmental regulations and stalled free-trade deals . And Daley, the former banker tasked with building ties with industry, found himself looking for the right balance between empathy and defending his boss. At one point, the room erupted in applause when Massachusetts utility executive Doug Starrett, his voice shaking with emotion, accused the administration of blocking construction on one of his facilities to protect fish, saying government “throws sand into the gears of progress.” Daley said he did not have many good answers, appearing to throw up his hands in frustration at what he called “bureaucratic stuff that’s hard to defend.”
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Attacked by a Haitian mob, kidnapped by Gaddafi’s troops, shot in Afghanistan… Who’d be a war photographer? • In pictures: the life of a war photographer (contains some graphic images) Adam Ferguson, Afghanistan, 2009 I was one of the first on
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Jean-Claude Juncker says the UK’s former chancellor was the key reason the fledgling single currency survived Ken Clarke, the coalition’s justice minister, is today named as the man who saved the euro project from meltdown in the early 1990s. According to Jean-Claude Juncker, the current president of the eurogroup, Clarke – then Tory chancellor and scourge of his party’s Eurosceptics – argued persuasively for the retention of the single currency and was the key reason it survived. Back in the summer of 1993, the pre-euro system of tethering the continent’s currencies together was creaking badly under the strain of the German Bundesbank’s rigour. Infamously, Britain had already bailed out the previous September on Black Wednesday, wrecking the career of chancellor Norman Lamont. Now France was also on the brink and planning a coup, according to Juncker, then Luxembourg’s finance minister. “It was the day after King Baudouin of Belgium died, a Sunday, a secret meeting,” he says. The king died on 31 July that year. “The French tried to get Germany and the Dutch kicked out of the EMS [European monetary system] and to take control of the rest. I told them that Luxembourg would also quit.” Clarke, three months into the job of chancellor after succeeding Lamont, would have none of it and rode to Europe’s rescue, Juncker says in an interview published on Saturday in Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Clarke came and organised an even smaller secret meeting. If you go, he told me, everything will collapse. You will never get this thing again. There will be no currency union. But I would like that we can join it one day.” Clarke’s starring role in resuscitating the infant euro left a lasting impression on Juncker, who has attended more than 90 EU summits and is a walking encyclopaedia on European politics. The Luxembourger, who also chairs the eurogroup of the 17 countries in the single currency, appears convinced that the UK will eventually see the light. “In the long-term thinking of the British, joining the euro is an issue,” he contends. “The UK will introduce the euro. On the day that the British realise that the pound is a regional currency without any international influence, they will join.” Kenneth Clarke Euro Currencies Economics Euro European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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