Most of the Village thought Romney had a pretty easy time at the CNN debate because none of the other candidates would attack Mittens for his years of flip flopping positions. No one attacked Romney. Surprisingly, Mitt Romney’s position as putative GOP front runner was not directly attacked or challenged by anyone. CNN’s moderator John King tried to goad Pawlenty into explaining why he characterized the Obama healthcare law as “Obamaneycare” and Pawlenty was not eager to take the bait. There were also no direct attacks on Romney’s abortion record. Perhaps the candidates think its too early to go negative. It’s too early for the game show candidates to go on the offensive this early in the game. However, the niceties of these early stages do not extend to the rest of the GOP players. They really dislike Romney as much as we do. Goober Graham is in a huff over Mittens position on the Afghanistan war and called him Jimmy Carter, which is a slur in Republicanese.. A leading Republican voice on national security said Tuesday that presidential contender Mitt Romney risks looking like Jimmy Carter if he doesn’t take a stronger stance on Afghanistan. Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against Romney in the 2008 presidential primary, leveled one of his party’s most stinging insults at the 2012 front-runner in response to Romney’s statements in Monday’s New Hampshire debate. He directly challenged Romney’s suggestion that the conflict in Afghanistan was a war of independence, and added: “From the party’s point of view, the biggest disaster would be to let Barack Obama become Ronald Reagan and our people become Jimmy Carter.” Graham was not alone in his skepticism about Romney. Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), a senior Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, also voiced dismay with the former Massachusetts governor’s characterization of the Afghan war. In the debate, Romney said he believes the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan should be based on security conditions there instead of political or fiscal considerations. But he also appeared to undercut the rationale for U.S. involvement by suggesting that American troops are fighting a war for Afghan independence against Taliban influence. Romney said: “Our troops shouldn’t go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation. Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan’s independence from the Taliban.” Graham retorted on Tuesday, saying this is not a war of independence, this is a war to protect America’s national vital security interests.” Predictably the Neocons are up in arms over this because they need war to survive. Mitt Romney’s Afghanistan remark stuns GOP pals Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said her inbox was flooded Tuesday morning with emails calling Romney’s comments a “disaster.” “I’d thought of Romney as a mainstream Republican – supporting American strength and American leadership, but this doesn’t reflect that,” she said. “Romney has proven himself a little bit of a weathervane and I guess he senses that positioning himself in this place is good for his campaign — attempting to appease Ron Paul’s constituents without actually being Ron Paul.” “You can’t really triangulate on these issues. Either you think we’re fighting a war we need to win or you think we ought to bring all the troops home, but he said it all there,” Pletka said. Other Republicans did not want to be quoted out of party loyalty and fear of the front runner. Many other Conservative groups are lining up against Romney in a big way. TNR’s Sahil Kapur : For several conservative organizations, antagonism toward Romney runs so deep that they are actually gearing up to wage campaigns against him. Probably the most prominent group targeting Romney is FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led conservative organization. The group has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to the former governor of Massachusetts. “Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much,” Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks’ communications director, recently told The Huffington Post . Now the group is threatening to unleash part of its $25 million treasure trove in an attempt to sink his candidacy. — Working parallel to Steinhauser and FreedomWorks is Alaskan Joe Miller, the Tea Party favorite who won his state’s Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 before losing to Lisa Murkowski in the general election. Miller has taken it upon himself to launch a new “Stop Romney” campaign that’s hoping to raise and spend as much as $500,000 on television and radio ads attacking Romney as an unscrupulous opportunist—all of which will be funneled into his most critical early primary state. “We’re going to put all our focus on New Hampshire,” says Bryan Shroyer, executive director of Miller’s Western Representation PAC, which has over 250,000 supporters and spent heavily to back conservatives in 2010. “ — Finally, social conservatives are rejuvenating their battle against Romney. Last time around, the religious group American Right To Life ran ads in key primary states decrying Romney’s pro-life conversion as a “fairy tale.” This cycle, the group intends to run ads in Iowa and South Carolina in a self-proclaimed effort to “decimate” Romney’s campaign early on. “We plan to repeat our strategy that worked in 2008, which was to blanket those states with TV ads letting the conservative Christian base know that Mitt Romney supports the killing of unborn children,” American Right To Life spokesman Bob Enyart told me. Romney has Dick Armey, psycho like Joe Miller and the Religious Right out to dirty him up. Most Liberals want out of Afghanistan and so did Romney. Now he’s c hanging his tune to calm the waters, but the attacks will continue to go on against him. I’ve said since 2008 that Romney was the natural GOP choice in 2012, but he’s going to be roughed up by his own people for a long, long time.
Continue reading …Most of the Village thought Romney had a pretty easy time at the CNN debate because none of the other candidates would attack Mittens for his years of flip flopping positions. No one attacked Romney. Surprisingly, Mitt Romney’s position as putative GOP front runner was not directly attacked or challenged by anyone. CNN’s moderator John King tried to goad Pawlenty into explaining why he characterized the Obama healthcare law as “Obamaneycare” and Pawlenty was not eager to take the bait. There were also no direct attacks on Romney’s abortion record. Perhaps the candidates think its too early to go negative. It’s too early for the game show candidates to go on the offensive this early in the game. However, the niceties of these early stages do not extend to the rest of the GOP players. They really dislike Romney as much as we do. Goober Graham is in a huff over Mittens position on the Afghanistan war and called him Jimmy Carter, which is a slur in Republicanese.. A leading Republican voice on national security said Tuesday that presidential contender Mitt Romney risks looking like Jimmy Carter if he doesn’t take a stronger stance on Afghanistan. Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against Romney in the 2008 presidential primary, leveled one of his party’s most stinging insults at the 2012 front-runner in response to Romney’s statements in Monday’s New Hampshire debate. He directly challenged Romney’s suggestion that the conflict in Afghanistan was a war of independence, and added: “From the party’s point of view, the biggest disaster would be to let Barack Obama become Ronald Reagan and our people become Jimmy Carter.” Graham was not alone in his skepticism about Romney. Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), a senior Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, also voiced dismay with the former Massachusetts governor’s characterization of the Afghan war. In the debate, Romney said he believes the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan should be based on security conditions there instead of political or fiscal considerations. But he also appeared to undercut the rationale for U.S. involvement by suggesting that American troops are fighting a war for Afghan independence against Taliban influence. Romney said: “Our troops shouldn’t go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation. Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan’s independence from the Taliban.” Graham retorted on Tuesday, saying this is not a war of independence, this is a war to protect America’s national vital security interests.” Predictably the Neocons are up in arms over this because they need war to survive. Mitt Romney’s Afghanistan remark stuns GOP pals Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said her inbox was flooded Tuesday morning with emails calling Romney’s comments a “disaster.” “I’d thought of Romney as a mainstream Republican – supporting American strength and American leadership, but this doesn’t reflect that,” she said. “Romney has proven himself a little bit of a weathervane and I guess he senses that positioning himself in this place is good for his campaign — attempting to appease Ron Paul’s constituents without actually being Ron Paul.” “You can’t really triangulate on these issues. Either you think we’re fighting a war we need to win or you think we ought to bring all the troops home, but he said it all there,” Pletka said. Other Republicans did not want to be quoted out of party loyalty and fear of the front runner. Many other Conservative groups are lining up against Romney in a big way. TNR’s Sahil Kapur : For several conservative organizations, antagonism toward Romney runs so deep that they are actually gearing up to wage campaigns against him. Probably the most prominent group targeting Romney is FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led conservative organization. The group has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to the former governor of Massachusetts. “Romney has a record and we don’t really like it that much,” Adam Brandon, FreedomWorks’ communications director, recently told The Huffington Post . Now the group is threatening to unleash part of its $25 million treasure trove in an attempt to sink his candidacy. — Working parallel to Steinhauser and FreedomWorks is Alaskan Joe Miller, the Tea Party favorite who won his state’s Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 before losing to Lisa Murkowski in the general election. Miller has taken it upon himself to launch a new “Stop Romney” campaign that’s hoping to raise and spend as much as $500,000 on television and radio ads attacking Romney as an unscrupulous opportunist—all of which will be funneled into his most critical early primary state. “We’re going to put all our focus on New Hampshire,” says Bryan Shroyer, executive director of Miller’s Western Representation PAC, which has over 250,000 supporters and spent heavily to back conservatives in 2010. “ — Finally, social conservatives are rejuvenating their battle against Romney. Last time around, the religious group American Right To Life ran ads in key primary states decrying Romney’s pro-life conversion as a “fairy tale.” This cycle, the group intends to run ads in Iowa and South Carolina in a self-proclaimed effort to “decimate” Romney’s campaign early on. “We plan to repeat our strategy that worked in 2008, which was to blanket those states with TV ads letting the conservative Christian base know that Mitt Romney supports the killing of unborn children,” American Right To Life spokesman Bob Enyart told me. Romney has Dick Armey, psycho like Joe Miller and the Religious Right out to dirty him up. Most Liberals want out of Afghanistan and so did Romney. Now he’s c hanging his tune to calm the waters, but the attacks will continue to go on against him. I’ve said since 2008 that Romney was the natural GOP choice in 2012, but he’s going to be roughed up by his own people for a long, long time.
Continue reading …On the June 14 edition of NBC's “Today,” President Barack Obama ascribed part of the blame for the high unemployment rate to ATMs, yet most media outlets continue to ignore the gaffe. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” lectured Obama in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” Curry moved on to another subject without addressing the faux pas, but she's not the only journalist to gloss over the story. Despite the fact that the automated teller machine was invented decades before Obama took office, a Lexis search revealed that not a single major news network, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FNC, and MSNBC, has covered the remark on air. Fox Nation linked to the “Today” interview and CNN buried a brief blurb on John King's blog, but other than that the networks have been mum on a story that Red State's Erick Erickson described as demonstrating that Obama “is completely and utterly ignorant about job creation and economics.” While the media give Obama a pass on ATMs, they afforded then-President George H.W. Bush no such luxury during the 1992 presidential campaign, when the Republican incumbent was mocked as out of touch for reportedly marveling at a grocery store scanner. The story was later exposed as “almost wholly untrue,” but that didn't stop former ABC anchor Peter Jennings from reviving the contrived controversy years later on “World News Tonight.” “News for everyone, but former President Bush might take note,” inveighed Jennings on March 31, 2000. “Self-scanning check-out systems are catching on at supermarkets. Customers scan and bag the groceries themselves and then to keep people honest, it checks to see if the weight of the groceries equals the weight of the items which were scanned.” Contrary to the president's assertion that ATMs contribute to nagging unemployment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted that teller jobs would grow about 6 percent from 2008 to 2016. In addition, NRO's Jonah Goldberg pointed to statistics indicating expansive growth in banking jobs since the self-service banking era began in 1985: “At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs – and 527,000 bank tellers.” Adding insult to injury, the ATM Industry Association took a swipe at Obama in an email to the Washington Examiner: “Given these major roles of the ATM, it would be quite irrational to turn the clock back to the 1960s to a time before ATMs.” –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading …On the June 14 edition of NBC's “Today,” President Barack Obama ascribed part of the blame for the high unemployment rate to ATMs, yet most media outlets continue to ignore the gaffe. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” lectured Obama in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” Curry moved on to another subject without addressing the faux pas, but she's not the only journalist to gloss over the story. Despite the fact that the automated teller machine was invented decades before Obama took office, a Lexis search revealed that not a single major news network, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FNC, and MSNBC, has covered the remark on air. Fox Nation linked to the “Today” interview and CNN buried a brief blurb on John King's blog, but other than that the networks have been mum on a story that Red State's Erick Erickson described as demonstrating that Obama “is completely and utterly ignorant about job creation and economics.” While the media give Obama a pass on ATMs, they afforded then-President George H.W. Bush no such luxury during the 1992 presidential campaign, when the Republican incumbent was mocked as out of touch for reportedly marveling at a grocery store scanner. The story was later exposed as “almost wholly untrue,” but that didn't stop former ABC anchor Peter Jennings from reviving the contrived controversy years later on “World News Tonight.” “News for everyone, but former President Bush might take note,” inveighed Jennings on March 31, 2000. “Self-scanning check-out systems are catching on at supermarkets. Customers scan and bag the groceries themselves and then to keep people honest, it checks to see if the weight of the groceries equals the weight of the items which were scanned.” Contrary to the president's assertion that ATMs contribute to nagging unemployment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted that teller jobs would grow about 6 percent from 2008 to 2016. In addition, NRO's Jonah Goldberg pointed to statistics indicating expansive growth in banking jobs since the self-service banking era began in 1985: “At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs – and 527,000 bank tellers.” Adding insult to injury, the ATM Industry Association took a swipe at Obama in an email to the Washington Examiner: “Given these major roles of the ATM, it would be quite irrational to turn the clock back to the 1960s to a time before ATMs.” –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading …On the June 14 edition of NBC's “Today,” President Barack Obama ascribed part of the blame for the high unemployment rate to ATMs, yet most media outlets continue to ignore the gaffe. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” lectured Obama in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” Curry moved on to another subject without addressing the faux pas, but she's not the only journalist to gloss over the story. Despite the fact that the automated teller machine was invented decades before Obama took office, a Lexis search revealed that not a single major news network, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FNC, and MSNBC, has covered the remark on air. Fox Nation linked to the “Today” interview and CNN buried a brief blurb on John King's blog, but other than that the networks have been mum on a story that Red State's Erick Erickson described as demonstrating that Obama “is completely and utterly ignorant about job creation and economics.” While the media give Obama a pass on ATMs, they afforded then-President George H.W. Bush no such luxury during the 1992 presidential campaign, when the Republican incumbent was mocked as out of touch for reportedly marveling at a grocery store scanner. The story was later exposed as “almost wholly untrue,” but that didn't stop former ABC anchor Peter Jennings from reviving the contrived controversy years later on “World News Tonight.” “News for everyone, but former President Bush might take note,” inveighed Jennings on March 31, 2000. “Self-scanning check-out systems are catching on at supermarkets. Customers scan and bag the groceries themselves and then to keep people honest, it checks to see if the weight of the groceries equals the weight of the items which were scanned.” Contrary to the president's assertion that ATMs contribute to nagging unemployment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted that teller jobs would grow about 6 percent from 2008 to 2016. In addition, NRO's Jonah Goldberg pointed to statistics indicating expansive growth in banking jobs since the self-service banking era began in 1985: “At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs – and 527,000 bank tellers.” Adding insult to injury, the ATM Industry Association took a swipe at Obama in an email to the Washington Examiner: “Given these major roles of the ATM, it would be quite irrational to turn the clock back to the 1960s to a time before ATMs.” –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading …On the June 14 edition of NBC's “Today,” President Barack Obama ascribed part of the blame for the high unemployment rate to ATMs, yet most media outlets continue to ignore the gaffe. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” lectured Obama in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” Curry moved on to another subject without addressing the faux pas, but she's not the only journalist to gloss over the story. Despite the fact that the automated teller machine was invented decades before Obama took office, a Lexis search revealed that not a single major news network, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FNC, and MSNBC, has covered the remark on air. Fox Nation linked to the “Today” interview and CNN buried a brief blurb on John King's blog, but other than that the networks have been mum on a story that Red State's Erick Erickson described as demonstrating that Obama “is completely and utterly ignorant about job creation and economics.” While the media give Obama a pass on ATMs, they afforded then-President George H.W. Bush no such luxury during the 1992 presidential campaign, when the Republican incumbent was mocked as out of touch for reportedly marveling at a grocery store scanner. The story was later exposed as “almost wholly untrue,” but that didn't stop former ABC anchor Peter Jennings from reviving the contrived controversy years later on “World News Tonight.” “News for everyone, but former President Bush might take note,” inveighed Jennings on March 31, 2000. “Self-scanning check-out systems are catching on at supermarkets. Customers scan and bag the groceries themselves and then to keep people honest, it checks to see if the weight of the groceries equals the weight of the items which were scanned.” Contrary to the president's assertion that ATMs contribute to nagging unemployment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted that teller jobs would grow about 6 percent from 2008 to 2016. In addition, NRO's Jonah Goldberg pointed to statistics indicating expansive growth in banking jobs since the self-service banking era began in 1985: “At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs – and 527,000 bank tellers.” Adding insult to injury, the ATM Industry Association took a swipe at Obama in an email to the Washington Examiner: “Given these major roles of the ATM, it would be quite irrational to turn the clock back to the 1960s to a time before ATMs.” –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
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Secretary general echoes US concerns about Europe and says UN ‘must be ready’ to step in when Gaddafi falls Nato’s secretary general has warned that continued disparity in US and European defence spending might lead to a “two-tiered alliance” in which American and European troops would not be able to fight effectively together. In a Guardian interview, Anders Fogh Rasmussen echoed the fears expressed last week by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, about the strains being put on Nato by unequal burden-sharing. “Ten years ago US defence investment represented almost half of all defence expenditure in the whole alliance. Today it is 75%,” Rasmussen said. “This increasing economic gap may also lead to an increasing technology gap which will almost hamper the inter-operability between our forces. The Americans provide … still more advanced military assets and equipment; the Europeans are lagging behind. And eventually it will be difficult to co-operate even if you had the political will to co-operate because of the technological gap.” He added: “All this may in the long run weaken our alliance.” Rasmussen said such a decline in Nato was not inevitable, expressing the hope that European nations would “step up to the plate” to increase defence spending. He also said the pooling of resources in bilateral and multilateral arrangements could make up for the decline in defence spending in difficult economic times. In the short-term, he said the US had stepped in to provide more ammunition for the campaign in Libya in the face of the rapidly dwindling supplies of its European allies, and insisted that Nato now had everything it needed to maintain the campaign at “high tempo” for the next three months. Beyond that, Rasmussen vowed that the alliance was “prepared to continue as long as it takes to accomplish our mission”, to protect Libyan civilians and ultimately force Muammar Gaddafi out of office. But he admitted concerns about the sustainability of operations carried out by a minority of Nato members. “Of course it is a matter of concern that only eight allies are conducting air-to-ground strikes. If we are to ensure the long-term sustainability of the operation we should also broaden the support for the operation,” Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister, said. “The American people ask, and legitimately so, why should we carry the heavy burden to ensure international peace and stability. You also profit from it, so you should also take your share in the burden. That’s Secretary Gates’s message. I share that message.” However, Rasmussen argued that after two and a half months of intensifying Nato air strikes and deepening political isolation, the Gaddafi regime was facing collapse. “It may take some time but it could also happen tomorrow and we have to be prepared for that.” Once Gaddafi fell, he said, the United Nations should be ready to take the lead in managing the transition and be prepared to do so without Nato ground troops. “Firstly we do not envisage a leading Nato role in that. On the contrary we want to see the UN co-ordinate and lead the post-Gaddafi effort,” he said. “Actually I can’t imagine Nato troops on the ground and I think it’s also important to send that very clear message to the UN and other organisations right now so that appropriate plans can be in place in due time and the Gaddafi regime can collapse soon.” Nato officials are increasingly concerned that the UN is not ready to take responsibility for the transition, and worry that UN officials assume that Nato, having led the military campaign, will continue to take lead responsibility by default. “The UN normally take three months to plan for this kind of transition and we don’t see much activity so far,” one official said. Rasmussen said Nato could support a UN-led post-Gaddafi transition, logistically and from the air, but he laid down three conditions for such support: there had to be a demonstrable need for a Nato role, there had to be a clear legal mandate and there had to be Arab support for a continued Nato presence. Jan Techau, head of the European office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said European and other states were making individual plans for assisting any transition, but he warned that the assumption that the Gaddafi regime was on the point of collapse might be premature. “We are increasingly hearing sceptical voices over whether this military operation can be brought to a successful conclusion. That is the biggest nightmare at the moment,” he said, adding that the constraints on the UN mandate for the Nato role and a lack of ammunition were the main problems. Nato Libya Middle East Africa Foreign policy Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
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Greek prime minister fails to form unity government as police battle rioters in Athens and shares tumble over default fears The Greek government was on the brink of collapse after pitched battles on the streets of Athens on Wednesday, sending world stocks tumbling as EU leaders squabbled over whether and how to launch a second attempt to keep Greece from insolvency. George Papandreou, the socialist prime minister, appeared to admit defeat by offering to dissolve his government and form a national unity coalition, but admitted his efforts to negotiate with the opposition conservatives had failed. “Tomorrow I will form a new government, and then I will ask for a vote of confidence,” Papandreou said on state television. The move followed intense but fruitless negotiations with the conservative New Democracy party to engineer a consensus behind the savage public spending cuts deemed necessary and a wholesale privatisation programme. The opposition had called for Papandreou’s resignation and a renegotiation of the bailout terms with the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the price for its assent to a national coalition. Earlier, riot police had battled with tens of thousands of protesters in the capital against the radical austerity measures being imposed to try to secure a second bailout in a year, running to tens of billions of euros. EU governments, the ECB, and the European Commission were gridlocked over how to respond to the debt emergency, which pushed Greece closer to sovereign default, possibly triggering a fresh European banking crisis. A sense of siege descended on Brussels as the Greek drama appeared to be heading towards a denouement. The ECB warned that a Greek default could spark “contagion” across Europe, causing Greek banks to implode and inflicting major damage on the big banks in France and Germany. “It looks like a week of chaos,” said a European official in Brussels. Senior diplomats in Brussels said that an emergency meeting of the 17 eurozone finance ministers on Tuesday had failed to bridge the differences over how to construct a second bailout in a year for Greece, running to almost €100bn. In May last year the EU and the IMF put together a €110bn bailout for Greece, the first in a single currency country. That experiment has failed. Ireland and Portugal have since also needed to be rescued from national insolvency. “The euro area faces a very challenging situation that comes mostly from the interconnection of the sovereign debt crisis and the situation of the banking sector,” the ECB said. “Greece could have a contagion effect,” added Vitor Constancio, an ECB vice-president. Papandreou’s offer of a national unity government signalled he was throwing in the towel, spelling the third government collapse in the EU in recent months because of the debt crisis – following Ireland and Portugal. The debt crisis has also taken a heavy political toll in the richer creditor countries of the eurozone, with anti-bailout populists making big gains in Finland and the Netherlands, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffering political setbacks at home while coming in for criticism abroad for her handling of the emergency. The Americans are exasperated with the failure of EU powers to resolve the crisis and fear for the impact of a Greek default on the international economy. Greek borrowing costs soared to record levels as investors took fright. Stock markets suffered; the Dow Jones industrial average in Wall Street was down 180 points, and FTSE 100 was down 60 points. Berlin, backed by the Dutch, Austrians, and Finns, have been arguing for weeks that there can be no new bailout of Greece without the country’s private creditors being forced to suffer losses on their loans. Otherwise, they argue, European taxpayers will be shouldering the costs while the international banks pocket the proceeds. The ECB, the European Commission and other EU countries led by France argue that this could pave the way to disaster, with the financial markets decreeing the compulsory “haircuts” on private bondholders a Greek default, a “credit event” that could lay waste to the single currency. “We are against any sort of default with haircuts and any form of private-sector event that could lead to a credit event or a rating event,” Constancio said. There was little sign that the differences had been bridged at Tuesday’s emergency meeting of eurozone finance ministers. They meet again in Luxembourg on Sunday under pressure to strike a deal on a new Greek rescue by June 20, ahead of an EU summit on Thursday next week. But in Brussels diplomats said it could take weeks, perhaps until mid-July, to reach agreement. Amid a mood of heightening panic, all eyes were on a summit on Friday between Merkel and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Greece needs a fresh infusion of cash from the IMF by next month to service its debts, but the IMF cannot disburse the funds unless Greece’s public finances are deemed to be secure. Without a new EU bailout, they are not secure. Greece European debt crisis European Union Financial crisis Germany Euro Ian Traynor Helena Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …More right-wing violence: Notorious Montana militiaman takes shots at cops, disappears into woods
June 15, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media [Videos from KPAX and KECI. ] Militiamen are really a bunch of bad pennies who just keep popping back up: LOLO – A former militia leader who went on the run Sunday after allegedly shooting at Missoula County sheriff’s deputies seems well-equipped for a long sojourn in the woods, given the caches of weapons, food and gear already discovered, Undersheriff Mike Dominick said Monday. Some 65 county, city, state and federal authorities combed a 30-square-mile area west of Lolo on Monday for David Burgert, who once led Project 7, a Flathead County militia group accused of plotting to assassinate judges and law enforcement officers in hopes of provoking a war with the federal government and NATO. Burgert holds intense anti-government views, and has survivalist skills, Dominick said. “He has that type of mentality where he believes in training, in preparation,” he said. “… This guy seems to have had a plan.” Authorities discovered ammunition in the Jeep Cherokee in which Burgert originally fled on Sunday and also located a second car, loaded with ammunition, food and camping gear, that they believe belongs to Burgert. They’re searching for yet another that Dominick described as a tan or red Jeep Wagoneer-type vehicle dating to the 1980s. I reported on Burgert’s original spree back when it happened : Kalispell made the news last year when a militia outfit called Project 7 was broken up by local police. Its leader, a 38-year-old named David Burgert, was arrested for jumping bail on an earlier conviction for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest; when captured, officers uncovered him in possession of an arms cache of about 30 weapons and some 30,000 rounds of ammo.66 What was even more disturbing was the simultaneous discovery of his plans for this materiel: To run amok in a killing spree against local authorities. Burgert had organized a team of about 10 people to target some 26 city and county officials, including some of those same police officials, mayors and judges who came out for the potluck last summer. Burgert, who received support from the usual far-right suspects, eventually pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges in the case, and faces a maximum 10-year prison term when he’s sentenced in September. But no one has ever been charged in the alleged conspiracy, partly because any evidence that the plot extended much beyond Burgert’s fantasies was not very strong. He has countered by filing a lawsuit against the FBI and Montana’s state Division of Criminal Investigation. Of course, we’ve been reporting for quite some time now that the Patriot movement of the 1990s is fully resurgent in 2011, thanks in large part to its close associations with the Tea Party movement. Indeed, we’ve reported that places like Montana are significant hotbeds for this kind of extremist revival. David Holthouse at Media Matters observes that Burgert’s fugitive run is occurring in the context of a fully resurgent extremist right in western Montana: This coming Saturday for example, the Montana-based militia group Flathead Liberty Bell, which Cox helped get off the ground in 2009, is sponsoring a survivalist “Preparedness Expo” at the Valley Victory Church in Kalispell, Montana. Scheduled workshops include Political Structures, Wild Foods and Herbal Remedies, Home Schooling, Animal Care, Self-Defense…and much more. Also featured will be Special Presentations by radical right luminaries including Ruby Ridge icon Randy Weaver, who will be autographing copies of The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge, and Stewart Rhodes, ex-Ron Paul aide and founder of the Oath Keepers, a national organization of police and soldiers who’ve sworn to disobey orders they deem unconstitutional.
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Pair accused of targeting soul singer at her Devon home scheduled to appear before Exeter magistrates Two men have been charged over an alleged plot targeting the soul singer Joss Stone. Junior Bradshaw, 30, and Kevin Liverpool, 33, both from Manchester, were charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm. The charges come two days after police arrested two men close to Stone’s remote rural retreat in Devon. Bradshaw and Liverpool are due to appear before Exeter magistrates on Thursday. Stone , 24, issued a statement to reassure fans. She said: “I’d like to thank everyone for their concern but I’m absolutely fine and getting on with life as normal while the police continue with their enquiries.” Neighbour Simon Alsop, a 57-year-old farmer, said Stone was remaining calm. He said: “She came here for a coffee on Tuesday afternoon and she was all right. She was quite laid back and not in a major panic. “It all sounds a bit bizarre and very strange. It is quite scary really. I know the whole family well and they are very good neighbours. If Joss isn’t working she is often here. Joss is never there on her own. She usually has a small entourage of friends.” Florence Webber, 87, whose bungalow is near Stone’s house, said: “It is obviously frightening. You don’t expect anything like that in a quiet place like this.” Two men were arrested by Devon and Cornwall police on Monday morning, initially for allegedly possessing offensive weapons and being equipped to steal. Police stepped in after a neighbour reported that a Fiat Punto had been seen in the area. Stone was only 16 when she had her first hit, Fell In Love With A Boy, in 2004 and had just turned 17 when she won Brit awards in the British female solo artist and British urban act categories. Her soulful vocals saw her hailed in the United States as “the white Aretha Franklin” and she has enjoyed success on both sides of the Atlantic. Last month, the Sunday Times placed Stone, who grew up in Devon, as the fifth wealthiest British and Irish pop star aged under 30, with a fortune estimated at £9m. Extra police patrols were put on in the Cullompton area where the arrests were made to reassure local people. Police stood guard outside Stone’s property. Joss Stone Crime Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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