First female range an unexpected success in host nation Germany, with demand forcing Italian firm to rush to print more To find out whether women’s football is finally going mainstream, Fifa could commission a focus group. Or it could pay for an opinion poll, phoning 1,000 people to see how many can name a female player. But if officials want a simpler sign of a growing interest in women and the beautiful game, they could just head to a German school playground and see what the children are swapping at breaktime: stickers featuring players taking part in the forthcoming women’s World Cup. According to sales figures from manufacturers Panini, 4.5m packets of stickers featuring the world’s best female players have been snapped up since they went on the market a fortnight ago. The range has proved so (unexpectedly) popular that the Italian firm has had to rush to print a million more, according to a spokeswoman. “The collection was indeed a gamble,” said Christine Frölicher from Panini, in Stuttgart. “But the feedback we have got from the market shows that it paid off.” The stickers and accompanying album are only available in Germany, which will host the tournament from 26 June. This is the first time Panini has covered the women’s World Cup, which has been running since 1991, and the first time it has produced a range for any international women’s sport. The time was optimal, said Frölicher. “If not now, then when? With Germany as the host country and a very strong German team, it seemed the perfect opportunity for a women’s World Cup sticker collection,” she said. It’s a sign of the times, said Jens Kirschneck, managing editor of the German football magazine 11 Freunde – and its female spin-off, 11 Freundinnen. “Not long ago, perhaps eight years ago, it would be unimaginable that Panini could sell so many women’s football stickers.” Niels Barnhofer, media officer for the German national team, current women’s world champions, said the home squad were feverishly collecting the stickers themselves. “Our players are very eager to collect the whole lot,” he said. “They are big collectors and exchanging them has become a big thing among the team. They all want full albums, but it’s difficult to get new cards at the moment because all the shops have sold out.” The €2 scrapbook contains more than 40 pages featuring 17 players from each of the 16 teams. There are already dozens of online swap shops (Tauschbörse) for fans desperately trying to find missing numbers. Particularly popular players include Birgit Prinz, Germany’s star striker, and Marta, the Brazilian forward, who is the five-time winner of the Fifa’s Women’s World Player of the Year award. “Any of the glittery stickers are also popular,” said Frohlicher. The album is currently being offered for more than three times its cover price on Amazon Marketplace in Germany. The book and stickers look pretty much the same as their male-dominated counterparts, with one key difference: the women’s stickers do not list the players’ weight. “It’s simply more charming like that,” said Frölicher. Otherwise, it’s business as usual: birthplace, date of birth, height and home team. Panini admits it had some difficulty researching the album because of the low profile of most players. There are some missing statistics and an editing error meant that one North Korean player was mistakenly included twice. Even if all 5.5m packets are sold, sales will fall far short of the male version for last year’s World Cup in South Africa when 90m packets were snapped up in Germany alone; during the World Cup in 2006, also in Germany, 160m flew off the shelves. “I’m not sure this is the start of a new era,” said Kirschneck. “I don’t think I would take this as an indication that come autumn, there will be twice as many spectators in the stands for women’s Bundesliga games. But I do think it’s a good sign that the event will be a success.” Women have long played football in Germany, but the recent success of the national team – they have won the World Cup twice – has seen more and more taking up the sport. In 2004-05 there were 860,000 female players in the German football federation, now there are 1,020,000. Nothing can match the United States, where more than 7.2 million girls regularly play, only marginally lower than the number of boys. Though ticket sales for this year’s tournament, starting on 26 June, are going well, 25% (230,000) remain unsold. “We’re well on the way to reaching our goal of selling 80% of tickets in advance,” said Steffi Jones, president of the German bid. Women’s World Cup 2011 World cup & the media Germany Europe Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
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Egyptian surgeon turned militant mastermind takes over as world’s most wanted man as al-Qaida tries to reassert authority Al-Qaida has moved to reassert its battered authority, appointing as its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian militant mastermind who has vowed to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden with a September 11-style mass attack. Zawahiri’s succession was announced by al-Qaida’s ruling council via the internet, six weeks after US special forces killed Bin Laden in a raid on a house in northern Pakistan. It confirms the former surgeon, who has masterminded bombings, including in Nairobi and New York over the past 13 years, as the world’s most wanted man, with a $25m US bounty on his head. The next most wanted figure is the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with a $10m reward in the US for his capture. Zawahiri will seek to leverage the notoriety to reinvigorate the militant franchise that has been marginalised by this year’s Arab spring revolutions in the Middle East and weakened by the loss of Bin Laden, suspected, by intelligence sources, of having been in greater control of day-to-day operations than previously thought. In a videotape, available from 8 June, Zawahiri is seen wearing a white tunic and sitting beside a rifle. He warns America that it faces a “jihadist renaissance” and speaks of a revenge attack along the lines of “black Tuesday” – al Qaida’s term for the 11 September attacks of 2001. But large questions remain about whether Zawahiri, considered more argumentative and less charismatic than his Saudi predecessor, can unite al-Qaida’s factions across south Asia and the Middle East while evading his American pursuers. Al-Qaida’s goal of creating an Islamic caliphate spanning the Muslim world is limited to a pocket of lawless bolt holes controlled by separate factions. Yemen is now considered al-Qaida’s most powerful division, followed perhaps by Somali, but the group remains based along the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Even before his appointment Zawahiri had taken on the mantle of a leader, adopting an inclusive tone intended to unite the various groups. “It was a complete change of language,” said Baker Atyani, a Palestinian journalist and militancy expert, speaking of this latest video. “He’s no longer giving instructions or going into detail but talking in general terms, like a leader, as Bin Laden used to.” From a family of wealthy doctors and religious scholars in Cairo – his grandfather was the grand imam of the Al Azhar university, the seat of Sunni learning – Zawahiri was a cheery if studious child, relatives said. He turned to radical Islam as a teenager, joining Egyptian Jihad in its struggle against the US-backed dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser. He served three years in jail in the 1980s before going to Pakistan to fight the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. There, he joined forces with Bin Laden, and together they founded al-Qaida, in Peshawar, in 1988. Zawahiri emerged as the “brains” of the militant group, playing a key role in several big attacks. The US has only indicted him for one: the August 1998 bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people and wounded several thousand. Since 2001 he has become the voice of al-Qaida, sending dozens of propaganda messages by video, audiotape and written text, spouting fiery rhetoric against his enemies. “Pursuing the Americans and Jews is not an impossible task,” he wrote in 2001. “Killing them is not impossible, whether by a bullet, a knife stab, a bomb or a strike with an iron bar.” Atyani, who met both men near Kandahar in June 2001, said: “Bin Laden was very quiet, he would count his words. Zawahiri likes to talk, to argue, to discuss.” Zawahiri’s anger against the US is partly personal: his wife and two of his children were killed in the US invasion of Afghanistan following the 11 September attacks. Thought to have been hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt, he escaped death during a drone strike in 2006 on a house in Bajaur, which killed 18 people. Other reliable reports over the past decade have placed him in the Waziristans. But since the discovery, on 2 May this year, of Bin Laden – found in Abbottabad, a garrison town 35 miles north of Islamabad– experts believe Zawahiri could also be sheltering outside the tribal belt. “The border is too dangerous for anyone right now,” said Ahmed Rashid, author of several books on militancy. Zawahiri’s other challenge is from inside al-Qaida. He lacks the popularity of Bin Laden, and is seen as a controlling micro-manager who lacks a popular touch. “Osama was much better at placating the various wings of al-Qaida – the Yemenis, Somalis, north Africans. I’m not sure Zawahiri can do that,” said Rashid. Efforts to capture Zawahiri may be hampered by growing distrust between Pakistan and the US. It has emerged that Pakistani intelligence had arrested five people accused of spying for the CIA in the operation to catch Bin Laden. Pakistan’s generals want to stop the CIA drone campaign in the tribal belt. Pakistan has reportedly stopped supplies entering the remote base where the drones are stationed, and the US has moved some across the border to Afghanistan. And four of six intelligence “fusion centres”, where the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence share information, have been closed, according to the Washington Post. Any further deterioration in relations between the spy agencies could seriously damage efforts against al-Qaida. In Egypt there was dismay at Zawahiri’s role. “[He] seems even more of a madman than Osama was, and he’ll want to prove himself by going on the attack soon,” Karim Sabet, a businessman, commented to Reuters. Ayman al-Zawahiri al-Qaida Global terrorism Osama bin Laden Egypt Middle East Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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French health agency says all but two of sick children ate ground-beef burgers sold by Lidl Health authorities in France have ordered a recall of beefburgers sold by the supermarket chain Lidl after seven children became infected with E coli bacteria, though officials ruled out a link between those infections and the deadly outbreak centred on Germany that has killed 39 people. Daniel Lenoir, head of the health agency in France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, said: “We are certain it’s not the same bacterial strain that was identified on sprouts in Germany.” . Lenoir said the seven children were in hospital with infections stemming from E coli, which causes vomiting and severe, often bloody, diarrhoea. He added that five of the children had eaten frozen ground beef patties that were made in a French factory and sold by the German supermarket chain Lidl. The beef for the burgers came from farms in France, Germany and the Netherlands, according to SEB, the French manufacturer that supplied the meat. The recall affected about 10 tonnes of meat, said Guy Lamorlette, chief executive of SEB, who added that the burgers had been analysed before being delivered to supermarket distributors. The family of one of the children in hospital took a box of the burgers to health authorities for analysis, according to Jerome Gresland, co-director of Lidl France. All the meat supplied by SEB had been removed from the supermarket chain’s shelves. Frédéric Vincent, spokesman for the European commission, said the outbreak in France was not as serious as the one in Germany. He said the strain found in France was “discovered regularly”. There were 3,500 cases of E coli in the EU last year, he said, 93 of which were in France. Vincent said the commission was waiting for more information, keen to avoid a repeat of the situation when Spanish cucumbers were wrongly blamed for the German E coli outbreak, costing Spanish farmers significant income. The E coli outbreak in Germany was traced last week to sprouts from a farm in the north of the country. There have been more than 3,000 infections reported so far but German health officials said the number of new infections was tailing off. They advised consumers not to eat any vegetable sprouts, as they still needed to determine how the bacteria reached the farm. E coli France Europe Germany The meat industry Food Farming guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Not a surprise now, but still the media circus reflected worse on them than him : A bizarre scandal, one that could only have happened in the social-media era, has apparently come to an end, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) announced on Thursday that he will resign from the House of Representatives. “I’m here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused. I made this apology to my neighbors and constituents, but I make it in particular to my wife, Huma,” Weiner said at senior center in Brooklyn, where he launched his political career with a run for City Council. I had hoped to be able to continue the work that my constituents elected me to do,” Weiner said. “Unfortunately the distraction that I have created has made that impossible, so today I am announcing my resignation from Congress. At least one person cheered when Weiner announced his resignation. The press conference carried a strange and distracted ambiance, as Weiner talked over repeated outbursts from a heckler, who yelled out such questions as, “Were you fully erect?” and “Are you at least seven inches?” before members of the press corps shouted him down. One reporter yelled out, “He’s not with us, get him out of here.” Andrew Breitbart, who helmed this targeted takedown of Weiner, was inconveniently in Minnesota (near where Netroots Nation was being held, go figure) during Weiner’s presser, so rather than usurp the podium as in the past, made sure to call into Fox News Channel to give his view. Can’t forget that it’s all about him, can we?
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Campaigners call for a 20% quota of black models at São Paulo fashion week in Brazil It is the leading fashion event in one of the most racially diverse nations on Earth, a week-long celebration of Brazilian style, glamour and beauty. But the lack of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian faces on the catwalk at São Paulo fashion week has triggered protests and calls for a 20% quota of black models. “We cannot accept the world of fashion insisting on being a stronghold for the Eurocentric,” said Frei Davi Santos, the Brazilian race campaigner behind the protests. “São Paulo fashion week sells the image of a Swiss Brazil where everyone is white and blue-eyed. The organisers … forget that more than half of Brazil’s population is black.” There is growing dissent over the tiny number of Afro-Brazilian models reaching the top of the country’s booming fashion industry. While models of European descent such as Gisele Bündchen have exploded on to the global fashion scene, few Afro-Brazilians get a similarly high level of exposure. An inquiry by São Paulo’s public prosecutor in 2008 found that of the 1,128 models booked for fashion week that year just 28 were black. In the wake of the inquiry the event’s organisers agreed to a voluntary two-year quota of 10% for black models. But according to reports in the Brazilian press many fashion labels have ignored the quota at this year’s event. An article by Vivian Whiteman, fashion editor of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, noted that bookers claimed they were not hiring more black models because “research showed their clients still reject the combination of black [models] and luxury clothing”. Bruno Soares, an Afro-Brazilian booker at the São Paulo event, told the newspaper the lack of catwalk diversity was the result of “cruel rules” imposed on models by the fashion market. “For historical reasons Brazil’s black population has been poor and not a consumer of fashion. This is reflected in the casting,” he said. Oskar Metsavaht, one of Brazil’s leading designers, claimed he had hoped to field an all-black lineup of models in his show this year but had been unable to recruit a sufficient number of “top” black models . “I asked everyone for help but there were just not enough experienced professionals,” said Metsavaht, creative director of the label Osklen, whose 2012 summer collection, Royal Black, is inspired by Brazil’s African heritage. Santos added that while racial inclusion had advanced considerably in higher education, with more than 160 public universities now supporting racial quotas, the fashion industry lagged behind. She said: “According to the latest census we blacks represent 50.8% of the Brazilian population. This means an event which presents a majority of people with typically European characteristics does not represent the beauty and wealth of Brazilian ethnicity. Brazil is a country that still insists on emphasising its European side and discriminating against its beautiful indigenous and Afro-Brazilian populations. We do not want catwalks that look like catwalks in Switzerland or England.” Brazil Models Race issues Fashion weeks Fashion Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
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Update: 14:30: Weiner made it official moments ago with these words: “I had hoped to be able to continue the work that the citizens of my district elected me to do, to fight for the middle class and those struggling to make it. Unfortunately, the distraction that I have created has made that impossible.” Earlier post follows… Now that his wife has returned to the country, embattled Democratic representative Anthony Weiner is expected to resign his position as a member of the House of Representatives, despite his earlier refusal to do so: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will resign from his seat in Congress, heeding calls from President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and dozens of other congressional Democrats, sources confirm to POLITICO. The resignation ends nearly three weeks of tumultuous political controversy since the New York congressman sent a lewd picture of himself over Twitter which he claimed at first was a result of a hack, and later admitted he had sent himself. According to two sources, Weiner made up his mind to resign Wednesday night, and shortly after began making calls to inform them of his decision. Weiner called DCCC chair Steve Israel — who had also called for his resignation — on Wednesday night at the White House picnic to inform him and Pelosi that he had decided to resign on Thursday. Exit questions: How much media moaning about alleged ” puritanism ” with respect to Weiner's obscene online activities will we hear from the left-of-center media? And how many weeks will CNN wait to pair him up with his fellow disgraced New Yorker Eliot Spitzer? After all, he seems to be in need of a co-host. # # #
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New York congressman finally steps down as US Democrats try to limit impact ‘Weinergate’ has on 2012 presidential race Twenty days after the scandal dubbed “Weinergate” erupted with the sending of a sexually suggestive photograph on Twitter, a rising star of the Democrats was forced to resign his congressional seat in the face of pressure from the highest levels of his party. From having been ranked as a possible future Democratic leader and the frontrunner to become New York mayor in 2013, Anthony Weiner’s fall from grace is spectacular and close to complete. He has spent his entire adult life in politics, having been elected in 1991 as the youngest councillor to serve in New York city then aged 27. True to his character as an abrasive and at times antagonistic politician, Weiner, now 46, at first tried to lie his way out of the sex scandal he had provoked by sending lewd photographs of himself to several different women. When the rightwing blogger Andrew Breitbart revealed his actions on 28 May, Weiner initially claimed his Twitter account had been hacked into, later changing his story to say he wasn’t sure whether the images of a semi-naked man were of him. After further revelations emerged virtually every day of his sexually charged interactions, he went in front of the cameras on 6 June to admit that he had been involved through cyberspace with at least six different women. But even then he refused to stand down from his New York seat. The fall-out from the billowing scandal rose to the top of the Democratic party. On Monday, President Obama said that “if it was me, I would resign”. Bill Clinton has also taken a direct role in pushing Weiner. The former president has reportedly been “livid” about Weiner’s behaviour, despite Clinton’s own history of sexual peccadilloes. The Clintons are intricately linked with Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin. Bill Clinton officiated at their wedding, Abedin is a close aide to the secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Abedin’s best friend Doug Band is Bill’s top adviser. “The decision for Weiner to go was taken on a presidential level, by the existing and a past president,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant who has worked on campaigns for Bill Clinton. “It was a straight political decision.” The views of Abedin, who is pregnant with their first child, were also likely to have been crucial. She returned on Wednesday from a trip to the Middle East with Clinton and was in discussions with her husband before his announcement. Weiner’s resignation was made on the day that party leaders had been preparing to strip him of his powerful positions on congressional committees — a move which would have further humiliated and weakened him. The official line taken by party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic chief in the House of Representatives who has called on him to resign, was that the scandal was distracting attention from important political debates such as the economy. But the timing of the imbroglio has also been deeply painful for the party, coming as it does in the middle of a sensitive period in which the coffers for next year’s presidential race are being filled. Key fundraisers have been heard complaining that donors were being turned off by the salacious revelations. Weiner might have found it easier to weather the storm in the face of relentless media exposure and ridicule had he had more friends within the party hierarchy. But his famously outspoken and irascible style earned him few mentors within Congress or the White House. Despite the almost universal pressure on him to go, there remain those in the party who lamented Weiner’s passing as a prominent liberal politician who was prepared to speak out on core left-wing principles. “He was a firebrand, an independent voice. Yes, he was a little quirky and he had an ego, but at least on the issues that liberals care about he was upfront,” said Democratic strategist Victor Kamber. Weiner now faces a bleak future. With no training as a lawyer or media figure behind him, there is nowhere obvious for him to go, unlike Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York who is now a CNN presenter. Sheinkopf predicted it would be at least 10 years “if ever” before Weiner could contemplate a comeback in politics. He said: “What does a person who has spent every day of his life in politics do after a fall like this? It will be a welcome relief for him to be out of the political spotlight for a while, but after that he’ll miss it.” Anthony Weiner US politics Democrats Barack Obama Bill Clinton New York Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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US president rejects suggestion from John Boehner that formal approval of Congress was needed before taking military action Barack Obama has vigorously defended his right to take military action in Libya without the formal approval of Congress after Republican leaders challenged his authority amid growing suspicion on the right of costly foreign military operations. This week the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, wrote to Obama telling him that, under the 1973 war powers act, the president was obliged to seek congressional approval for the Libyan venture before Friday. The White House responded by saying the law, which states there must be a vote in the legislature within 90 days of the president taking the US to war, did not apply because American participation in the Nato bombing did not amount to full-blown war. The issue has united liberals opposed to foreign military ventures with fiscal conservatives – including some Tea Party supporters who want to see drastic cuts in military spending – although other Republicans say defence should be protected from budgetary restraints. The dispute is unlikely to have any immediate effect on US involvement in the Libyan operation, but it is becoming an increasingly sharp political issue as next year’s presidential election kicks in, with some members of Congress going so far as to file a lawsuit accusing Obama of breaking the law. Boehner, the speaker of the House, added to that pressure earlier this week when he wrote to the president to tell him that refusing to comply with a congressional request to seek authorisation for military action in Libya appeared to violate the war powers act. “The combination of [White House] actions has left many members of Congress, as well as the American people, frustrated by the lack of clarity over the administration’s strategic policies, by a refusal to acknowledge and respect the role of the Congress, and by a refusal to comply with the basic tenets of the War Powers Resolution,” Boehner said in the letter. The White House has responded with a 38-page report to members of Congress, describing the Libya operation not as war, but a mission to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power. The American administration says that since Nato took over command of the operation in April its role has largely been restricted to supporting military action by Britain, France and others with refuelling and surveillance missions. But it acknowledges that remotely controlled drones, of the type used in Pakistan and Yemen, are also used to fire missiles at times. “US operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve US ground troops,” the report said. Boehner dismissed the White House position on Thursday. “It doesn’t pass the straight-face test in my view that we’re not in the midst of hostilities,” Boehner said. “It’s been four weeks since the president has talked to the American people about this mission. I think it’s time for the president to outline for the American people why we are there, what the mission is and what our goals are.” The House speaker said that Republican leaders are considering their options including “the power of the purse”. A major concern for the Republicans is the cost, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the US’s ballooning deficit. The White House report says the assault on Libya will have cost the US $1.1bn by the time the latest phase of the Nato operation ends in September. Some more liberal members of Congress say the US has no business intervening in foreign conflicts. On Wednesday 10 members of Congress from both parties asked the courts to order Obama to withdraw American forces from the Libya operation. The author of the lawsuit, Dennis Kucinich , said the White House’s arguments about the degree of involvement did not stand up to scrutiny. “Look, we’re at war. There’s already been $750m spent,” he said. “Whether there are boots on the ground or not doesn’t really get into the question of whether or not the president had the ability [to intervene] in the first place. It’s a constitutional issue here, and it can’t be danced around at all.” Another member of Congress, California Democrat Lynn Woolsey, accused the administration of showing “contempt for the constitution”. The war powers act was passed in 1973 amid a backlash against the abuse of presidential authority during the Vietnam war – including the secret and illegal bombing of Cambodia – and over the veto of President Richard Nixon. It requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of sending the military in to action. If those forces are to remain in action for more than 90 days, the legislation requires that the president seek the approval of Congress. The act has been ignored by several presidents, and some administrations have questioned its constitutionality. However, the Obama White House said that it recognises that the law is legal but argues that it does not apply. Barack Obama Obama administration US Congress Libya John Boehner United States US politics Nato Middle East Africa Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …‘Tea Party’ Freshman Joe Walsh Rips Into Chamber of Commerce’s Donahue for Threats Over Raising Debt Ceiling
June 16, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media From Think Progress, it looks like there’s a GOP civil war erupting after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Tom Donahue made some not so veiled threats to Republican freshman House members who don’t want to raise the country’s debt ceiling. Illinois Representative and resident blowhard Joe Walsh and the Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox and laid into him. GOP Civil War Erupts: Tea Party Freshman Rips Chamber CEO Tom Donahue : This week, though, Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue may have ignited a civil war within the GOP. Many Tea Party freshman within the House Republican caucus have said that they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling , which would force the U.S. to default on its debt obligations. In fact, many said that raising the debt ceiling would be a “ betrayal ” of the platform that they ran on. But Donohue sent a message those freshman during a speech before the Rotary Club of Atlanta: Fail to raise the debt ceiling and “ we’ll get rid of you .” Today, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) appeared on Fox News, where he tore into Donohue for threatening House Republicans: I found Tom Donahue’s comments outrageous, tone-deaf, totally establishment, and doesn’t understand at all where we’re at right now …If Tom Donahue is more comfortable having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year because he wants to get rid of all of us tea party, fiscally-conservative freshman who came here on a mission to save our kids from the debt we’re placing on their backs, then fine. He can have Nancy Pelosi as his Speaker. A Chamber spokesman later said that Donohue was joking and that the comment was merely part of “ pleasant and humorous banter going back and forth” between Donohue and his audience. But Walsh said during the interview that he wasn’t buying it. And many other GOP freshmen aren’t either. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it looks like John Boehner is having some trouble controlling his members in the House as the GOP continues to play this dangerous game of chicken, with way too many of them pretending it would be acceptable and would not wreck the world’s economy if the United States were to default on our debt obligations.
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enlarge If you’re not familiar with ALEC , here’s the high-level overview. ALEC is the acronym for American Legislative Exchange Council, a secret right-wing consortium created to write boilerplate legislation for states to use to advance the right-wing agenda. Some of ALEC’s handiwork can be seen in Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Florida, to name a few. ALEC has a new game called Publicopoly. Some of the “properties” include government operations, health, environment, telecommunications, infrastructure, education and public safety. But of course, it’s not such a new game after all. The object of the game is to privatize everything. To that end, they have aggregated the reports of think tanks like the Mackinac Center, the Reason Foundation, the Platte Institute, and the Heartland Institute. You can find sample legislation under some of the different categories. For example, under government operations, there is a link to the State Budget Reform Toolkit , which features lots of helpful suggestions to “streamline” the state budget process. Here’s a small example of one of those suggestions: Reform State Pensions In recent years, state governments have encountered a funding crisis in their pension plans for public employees. This crisis in the states has resulted from many factors, including: Escalation in health care costs Significant losses in the stock market Costly pension and health benefits provided in defined-benefit plans Public employees retiring earlier and living longer Reduction and postponement of employer contributions to the pension plans This is their solution. I’ll bet you guessed it before you’ve even read it. Everything should be on the table, including changes in benefits and increased employee contribution rates, as well as employer contribution rates. Most importantly, states should consider replacing their defined-benefit plans with defined-contribution (401(k) style) plans for new employees. In case state legislators don’t have access to good policy wonks, ALEC helpfully supplies “model legislation” for each of their suggestions. Here’s the description of the pension model legislation: ALEC’s Statement of Principles on State and Local Government Pension and Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) Plans Other helpful suggestions include delaying automatic pay increases, and of course, “embrace the expanded use of privatization and competitive contracting.” ALEC is heavily funded (and I do mean heavily), by Charles and David Koch, Betsy and Dick DeVos, and the Walton (WalMart) family. Legislation coming soon to a state near you. By the way, I’m sure they hold all the “get out of jail free” cards, and there is no free parking. [h/t Democratic Underground ]
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