Archbishop of Canterbury issues broadside against ‘radical policies’ and ‘big society’ project in New Statesman editorial Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, has issued a broadside against the coalition government, claiming it is forcing through “radical policies for which no one voted”. He also challenges the ‘big society’ project and criticises the government for continuing to blame the country’s difficulties entirely on the deficit it inherited from Labour. The comments come in an editorial he has written as guest editor of this week’s New Statesman magazine. Full extracts are not available , but Williams says the “anxiety and anger” felt by voters is a result of the coalition’s failure to expose its policies to “proper public argument”. He writes: “Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around such questions at present.” Williams accepts that the government’s big society agenda is not a “cynical walking-away from the problem”. But he warns there is confusion about how voluntary organisations will “pick up the responsibilities shed by government”, and says that the big society is seen with “widespread suspicion”. “The uncomfortable truth is that, while grass-roots initiatives and local mutualism are to be found flourishing in a great many places, they have been weakened by several decades of cultural fragmentation,” Williams writes. He also criticises the chancellor, George Osborne, saying: “It isn’t enough to respond with what sounds like a mixture of ‘This is the last government’s legacy,’ and ‘We’d like to do more, but just wait until the economy recovers a bit.’” The archbishop challenges the government’s approach to welfare reform, complaining of a “quiet resurgence of the seductive language of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor”. In comments directed at the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, Williams criticises “the steady pressure” to increase “punitive responses to alleged abuses of the system”. Westminster politics “feels pretty stuck” he warns, adding that his aim is to stimulate “a livelier debate” and to challenge the left to develop its own “big idea” as an alternative to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance. The coalition is facing “bafflement and indignation” over its plans to reform the health service and education, he writes. “With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted,” the archbishop says. “At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.” He complains that the education secretary Michael Gove’s free-school reforms passed through Parliament last summer with little debate, using a timetable previously reserved for emergency anti-terrorism laws. Separate reforms to universities will see tuition fees treble and funding for humanities courses cut. Williams says education “might well be regarded as a proper matter for open probing”. But “the feeling that not enough has been exposed to proper public argument” has created “anxiety and anger” in the country. Britain needs a long-term education policy “that will deliver the critical tools for democratic involvement, not simply skills that serve the economy”, he says. In a separate guest column for the magazine, the chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, argues that religion already does the big society’s job – and does it better. Sacks writes: “A powerful store of social capital still exists. It is called religion: the churches, synagogues and other places of worship that still bring people together in shared belonging and mutual responsibility. The evidence shows that religious people – defined by regular attendance at a place of worship – actually do make better neighbours”. The reason for this is simple, Sacks argues: “Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good.” Rowan Williams Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Conservatives New Statesman Newspapers & magazines George Osborne Economic policy Education policy Religion Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister blames bomb attack on his home on his Zanu-PF coalition partners A senior government minister in Zimbabwe has warned of “an atmosphere of poison” reminiscent of Rwanda on the eve of the genocide that left 800,000 people dead in the 1990s. Tendai Biti, finance minister in the fragile unity government, was reacting to a bomb attack on his home that he said could have killed his young children. Biti blamed the incident on the military, the Zanu-PF party and president Robert Mugabe. He said the power-sharing agreement between Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change , of which he is secretary-general, is now effectively dead. “My fear is that Zanu-PF will create an atmosphere of hate and an atmosphere of poison,” said Biti. “There are shades of Rwanda in January 1994. I just hope we avoid a Rwanda where the military is in control, law and order breaks down and there is total violence.” The petrol bomb exploded at Biti’s official residence in the capital, Harare, at around 1am on Monday, destroying part of a wall and frightening neighbours. The minister and his wife, Charity, and their children Zoe, 10, and five-year-old Thabo, were some 250km (155 miles) away at the time. “When I drove back and saw the damage, I realised someone could have been killed,” Biti said. “To the extent that I have children who run around the garden, I felt quite cross. I understand what they are trying to do; they are trying to intimidate me. It’s not Santa Claus any more.” He said the trail of suspicion ultimately led to Mugabe’s door. “My place is supposed to be guarded, but they have not been providing guards since March. They [the attackers] would have known there were not guards. “It was clearly someone with skill, clearly not an amateur. The only people with that skill in Zimbabwe is the military. They will have been acting on the instructions of Zanu-PF. The president is head of Zanu-PF.” In 2009 Biti, effectively Morgan Tsvangirai’s No 2 in the MDC, was sent a 9mm bullet and a death threat telling him to prepare his will. Last year he was nearly killed in a car crash. Yet he denied suggestions that the threat to his family might prompt him to walk away . “I’m not afraid of Zanu-PF and I’ll not be afraid of Zanu-PF. They will never intimidate me to resign. “But what I’m really worried about is where are we going as a country because of selfish leadership. There is a leadership vacuum. The reality is we are working with people who are incorrigible, who are living in another century, who are interested only in looting.” He gave one of his most pessimistic assessments yet of the coalition government, formed in February 2009 after a disputed election in which, the MDC says, 253 people were killed and thousands tortured. Mugabe has suggested fresh polls should be held next year , raising fears of another wave of violence. “Any member of the MDC would have to seriously consider whether this inclusive government is working,” said Biti . “To a large extent, it isn’t. To a large extent, it’s a waste of time. “Some of us who went into this government were against it, saying Zanu-PF is not ready for a genuine partnership. The events of the last few weeks show those who said this have been proved right. These people [Zanu-PF] are on a different planet.” On the other hand, he acknowledged, the government has provided some stability for millions of Zimbabweans, rescuing the economy from collapse and slowly rebuilding public services. But asked about the future of the power-sharing agreement, Biti said frankly: “I think this thing is really dead. It’s a shadow, a pretence of something that is dead. But my suspicion is it will linger on.” Zimbabwe Rwanda Robert Mugabe Morgan Tsvangirai Africa David Smith guardian.co.uk
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It would seem that Congressman Anthony Weiner is no stranger to female attention. As it turns out, a decade and a half ago, Cosmopolitan magazine dubbed Weiner one of their honored “101 Gorgeous Real-Life Bachelors.” Included in Cosmo’s 1996 “All About Men” issue, is an interview with (then city councilman) Weiner in which he admits,
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Dictators must ‘change or be changed’ says ex-PM as western leaders urged to prepare wider plan for Middle East Tony Blair warns the west today that it urgently needs a wider plan to respond to the Arab spring, including a warning to autocratic leaders across the Middle East “to change or be changed”. His call for a clearer strategic approach comes in a new foreword to the paperback edition of his bestselling autobiography, The Journey. The former prime minister also praises Europe, and by implication David Cameron, for showing leadership in Libya, saying it would have been inconceivable to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power. He said that if America and Europe had done nothing, “Gaddafi would have retaken the country and suppressed the revolt with extraordinary vehemence. Many would have died.” If he had been left in power while the west was willing to see President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and stature would have been not just massive but potentially irreparable. That’s what I mean by saying inaction is also a decision.” Blair does not call for immediate military intervention across the region, saying instead that “where there is the possibility of evolutionary change, we should encourage and support it. This is the case in the Gulf states.” He hails the way in which “Europe and America came together over Libya and, though it is difficult and though the way things will turn out is uncertain, it showed leadership; and amongst the criticism, there was also – in the region – relief that leadership was shown”. While praising European and US efforts in Libya, Blair also calls for an elected European president who would have a mandate for far-reaching reforms including collaborating on taxes. In an interview in the Times he says such an office would give Europe “strong, collective leadership and direction”. But he accepts that the idea has “no chance of being accepted at the present time”. In his book, Blair acknowledges that the west cannot intervene across the Middle East and claims some leaders are “already embarking on a path of steady change. We should help them keep to it and support it. None of this means we do not criticise strongly the use of violence against unarmed civilians. Or that if that violence continues, we do not reserve the right then to move to outright opposition to the status quo, as has happened in Libya. But it is more sensible to do so in circumstances where the regime has excluded a path to evolutionary change. Then it is clear: the people have no choice. But if there is a process that can lead to change with stability, we should back that policy.” He adds: “My point is simple: we need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the stands, applauding or condemning as we watch.” He says that the lesson for autocratic regimes the world over is to change – or be changed. Largely in line with the policy laid out at the G8 summit of most industrialised nations in Deauville last month, he says: “We should stand ready to help with aid, debt relief and the muscle of the international financial institutions, but we should also be quietly insistent that such help won’t succeed unless proper rules and order are put in place.” Blair, still the special envoy of the quartet in the Middle East, admits the Arab spring is going to make it harder to secure a Palestinian peace deal since Israel is less certain about the nature of the threat it faces. The stability and predictability of Israel’s neighbours, he says, has been replaced by instability and unpredictability. “For similar reasons, but with an opposite conclusion, the Palestinian leadership find it hard to go into negotiation with an Israeli partner they don’t trust, to make difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.” Blair also warns more broadly that the world has not yet adjusted to the emergence of China as a global economic giant, saying “engagement with geopolitics of the 21st-century will be unlike anything the modern world has seen. Our children in the west will be a generation growing up in a situation where virtually every fixed point of reference that my and my parents’ generation knew has changed or is changing”. He claims energy security will become as serious an issue for the nation states as defence. Blair says: “Currently China consumes around 10% of worldwide demand for oil. If its GDP per head carries on rising – and follows the path of similar increases in living standards in South Korea and Taiwan, say – the world output will need to double, and China’s share of demand will rise from 10% to 50%.” He also questions the way in which the EU leaders have led the debate about its future, saying “there has been an obsession about institutional integration in itself rather than a debate about what we want to do as Europe, where the institutions should be at the service of the policy, rather than the policy at the service of institutions”. Arab and Middle East unrest Tony Blair Middle East Palestinian territories China Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dictators must ‘change or be changed’ says ex-PM as western leaders urged to prepare wider plan for Middle East Tony Blair warns the west today that it urgently needs a wider plan to respond to the Arab spring, including a warning to autocratic leaders across the Middle East “to change or be changed”. His call for a clearer strategic approach comes in a new foreword to the paperback edition of his bestselling autobiography, The Journey. The former prime minister also praises Europe, and by implication David Cameron, for showing leadership in Libya, saying it would have been inconceivable to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power. He said that if America and Europe had done nothing, “Gaddafi would have retaken the country and suppressed the revolt with extraordinary vehemence. Many would have died.” If he had been left in power while the west was willing to see President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and stature would have been not just massive but potentially irreparable. That’s what I mean by saying inaction is also a decision.” Blair does not call for immediate military intervention across the region, saying instead that “where there is the possibility of evolutionary change, we should encourage and support it. This is the case in the Gulf states.” He hails the way in which “Europe and America came together over Libya and, though it is difficult and though the way things will turn out is uncertain, it showed leadership; and amongst the criticism, there was also – in the region – relief that leadership was shown”. While praising European and US efforts in Libya, Blair also calls for an elected European president who would have a mandate for far-reaching reforms including collaborating on taxes. In an interview in the Times he says such an office would give Europe “strong, collective leadership and direction”. But he accepts that the idea has “no chance of being accepted at the present time”. In his book, Blair acknowledges that the west cannot intervene across the Middle East and claims some leaders are “already embarking on a path of steady change. We should help them keep to it and support it. None of this means we do not criticise strongly the use of violence against unarmed civilians. Or that if that violence continues, we do not reserve the right then to move to outright opposition to the status quo, as has happened in Libya. But it is more sensible to do so in circumstances where the regime has excluded a path to evolutionary change. Then it is clear: the people have no choice. But if there is a process that can lead to change with stability, we should back that policy.” He adds: “My point is simple: we need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the stands, applauding or condemning as we watch.” He says that the lesson for autocratic regimes the world over is to change – or be changed. Largely in line with the policy laid out at the G8 summit of most industrialised nations in Deauville last month, he says: “We should stand ready to help with aid, debt relief and the muscle of the international financial institutions, but we should also be quietly insistent that such help won’t succeed unless proper rules and order are put in place.” Blair, still the special envoy of the quartet in the Middle East, admits the Arab spring is going to make it harder to secure a Palestinian peace deal since Israel is less certain about the nature of the threat it faces. The stability and predictability of Israel’s neighbours, he says, has been replaced by instability and unpredictability. “For similar reasons, but with an opposite conclusion, the Palestinian leadership find it hard to go into negotiation with an Israeli partner they don’t trust, to make difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.” Blair also warns more broadly that the world has not yet adjusted to the emergence of China as a global economic giant, saying “engagement with geopolitics of the 21st-century will be unlike anything the modern world has seen. Our children in the west will be a generation growing up in a situation where virtually every fixed point of reference that my and my parents’ generation knew has changed or is changing”. He claims energy security will become as serious an issue for the nation states as defence. Blair says: “Currently China consumes around 10% of worldwide demand for oil. If its GDP per head carries on rising – and follows the path of similar increases in living standards in South Korea and Taiwan, say – the world output will need to double, and China’s share of demand will rise from 10% to 50%.” He also questions the way in which the EU leaders have led the debate about its future, saying “there has been an obsession about institutional integration in itself rather than a debate about what we want to do as Europe, where the institutions should be at the service of the policy, rather than the policy at the service of institutions”. Arab and Middle East unrest Tony Blair Middle East Palestinian territories China Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the ‘devil’s experiment’
June 8, 2011 No Comment
Survivors tell of damaged lives after being deliberately infected in secret 1940s experiment on 1,500 men, women and children Marta Orellana says she was playing with friends at the orphanage when the summons sounded: “Orellana to the infirmary. Orellana to the infirmary.” Waiting for her were several doctors she had never seen before. Tall men with fair complexions who spoke what she guessed was English, plus a Guatemalan doctor. They had syringes and little bottles. They ordered her to lie down and open her legs. Embarrassed, she locked her knees together and shook her head. The Guatemalan medic slapped her cheek and she began to cry. “I did what I was told,” she recalls. Today the nine-year-old girl is a rheumy-eyed 74-year-old great-grandmother, but the anguish of that moment endures. It was how it all began: the pain, the humiliation, the mystery. It was 1946 and orphans in Guatemala City, along with prisoners, military conscripts and prostitutes, had been selected for a medical experiment which would torment many, and remain secret, for more than six decades. The US, worried about GIs returning home with sexual diseases, infected an estimated 1,500 Guatemalans with syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid to test an early antibiotic, penicillin. “They never told me what they were doing, never gave me a chance to say no,” Orellana said this week, seated in her ramshackle Guatemala City home. “I’ve lived almost my whole life without knowing the truth. May God forgive them.” The US government admitted to the experiment in October when the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, issued a joint statement apologising for “such reprehensible research” under the guise of public health. Barack Obama phoned his Guatemalan counterpart, Alvaro Colom, to say sorry too. Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley College in the US, uncovered the experiment while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study in which hundreds of African American men were left untreated for 40 years from the 1930s. The Guatemalan study went further by deliberately infecting its subjects. Not only did it violate the hippocratic oath to do no harm but it echoed Nazi crimes exposed around the same time at the Nuremberg trials. The victims remained largely unknown but the Guardian has interviewed the families of the three survivors identified so far by Guatemala. They chronicled lives blighted by illness, neglect and unanswered questions. “My father didn’t know how to read and they treated him like an animal,” said Benjamin Ramos, 57, the son of Federico, 87, a former soldier. “This was the devil’s experiment.” Mateo Gudiel, 57, said his father, Manuel, 87, another ex-conscript, has syphilis-linked infections, dementia and headaches. “Some of this has been passed on to me, my siblings and our children.” Children can inherit congenital syphilis. More than half of the subjects were low-ranking soldiers delivered by their superiors to US physicians working from a military base in the capital. The Americans initially arranged for infected prostitutes to have sex with prisoners before discovering it was more “efficient” to inject soldiers, psychiatric patients and orphans with the bacterium. Guatemala’s official inquiry, headed by its vice-president, is due to publish its report in June. “What impacted me the most was how little value was given to these human lives. They were seen as things to be experimented on,” said Carlos Mejia, a member of the inquiry and head of the Guatemalan College of Physicians. The US scientists treated 87% of those infected with syphilis and lost track of the other 13%. Of those treated about a tenth suffered recurrences. The US medical establishment, including the surgeon-general, keenly followed the study even though John Cutler, who led the Guatemala team, acknowledged ethical violations in a 1947 letter, saying: “Unless the law winks occasionally, you have no progress in medicine.” His supervisor, RC Arnold, urged discretion. “If some goody organisation got wind of the work there would be a lot of smoke.” In the end the study yielded no useful information and was buried. Guatemalan co-operation was won by offering cigarettes to subjects and material to resource-starved institutions. Psychiatric patients who could not give their own names were registered under nicknames such as the “mute of St Marcos”. It is unclear what, if anything, was promised to the Sisters of Charity in return for supplying orphans to the tall men in white coats who visited each week from 1946-48. “They didn’t tell me why they singled me out,” said Orellana, who was four when sent to the institution after her parents died. After the initial gynaecological probing, when she assumes she was infected, she was given penicillin weekly. “My body hurt and I was sleepy, I didn’t want to play.” At least 10 other girls were also picked for the study, she added. The treatment failed – but even as an adult, when she worked as a maid and in factories, doctors would say only that she had “bad blood”, leaving her ailments a mystery. A “loving and patient” husband helped her overcome intimacy issues. She has five children, 20 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. When the US finally owned up to the scandal in 2010 Orellana, near crippled from a stroke but still lucid, was mesmerised. She tested positive for syphilis, said Rudy Zuniga, a lawyer who is representing alleged victims in a class action in the US. Only a handful of the original 1,500 may still be alive but there could be dozens if not hundreds of infected children and grandchildren, he said. Pablo Werner, a human rights lawyer who is investigating the case, doubted Guatemala would accept responsibility let alone pay compensation for its complicity in the experiment. “Our judicial system is not famous for speed or fairness. Even if the Guatemalan doctors who participated in this are dead their families still have connections,” he said. With the few survivors ailing, their Guatemalan and US lawyers hope to negotiate speedy compensation with US officials at a meeting due in August, said Zuniga. If that fails the case will go to a Washington district court and could last years. For Orellana the resolution of her life’s mystery, published in local media, has come with a catch. The criminal gangs which plague Guatemala City think she received a huge payout and are making threats, demanding a cut. Guatemala United States Obama administration Human rights Medical research Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the ‘devil’s experiment’
June 8, 2011 No Comment
Survivors tell of damaged lives after being deliberately infected in secret 1940s experiment on 1,500 men, women and children Marta Orellana says she was playing with friends at the orphanage when the summons sounded: “Orellana to the infirmary. Orellana to the infirmary.” Waiting for her were several doctors she had never seen before. Tall men with fair complexions who spoke what she guessed was English, plus a Guatemalan doctor. They had syringes and little bottles. They ordered her to lie down and open her legs. Embarrassed, she locked her knees together and shook her head. The Guatemalan medic slapped her cheek and she began to cry. “I did what I was told,” she recalls. Today the nine-year-old girl is a rheumy-eyed 74-year-old great-grandmother, but the anguish of that moment endures. It was how it all began: the pain, the humiliation, the mystery. It was 1946 and orphans in Guatemala City, along with prisoners, military conscripts and prostitutes, had been selected for a medical experiment which would torment many, and remain secret, for more than six decades. The US, worried about GIs returning home with sexual diseases, infected an estimated 1,500 Guatemalans with syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid to test an early antibiotic, penicillin. “They never told me what they were doing, never gave me a chance to say no,” Orellana said this week, seated in her ramshackle Guatemala City home. “I’ve lived almost my whole life without knowing the truth. May God forgive them.” The US government admitted to the experiment in October when the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, issued a joint statement apologising for “such reprehensible research” under the guise of public health. Barack Obama phoned his Guatemalan counterpart, Alvaro Colom, to say sorry too. Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley College in the US, uncovered the experiment while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study in which hundreds of African American men were left untreated for 40 years from the 1930s. The Guatemalan study went further by deliberately infecting its subjects. Not only did it violate the hippocratic oath to do no harm but it echoed Nazi crimes exposed around the same time at the Nuremberg trials. The victims remained largely unknown but the Guardian has interviewed the families of the three survivors identified so far by Guatemala. They chronicled lives blighted by illness, neglect and unanswered questions. “My father didn’t know how to read and they treated him like an animal,” said Benjamin Ramos, 57, the son of Federico, 87, a former soldier. “This was the devil’s experiment.” Mateo Gudiel, 57, said his father, Manuel, 87, another ex-conscript, has syphilis-linked infections, dementia and headaches. “Some of this has been passed on to me, my siblings and our children.” Children can inherit congenital syphilis. More than half of the subjects were low-ranking soldiers delivered by their superiors to US physicians working from a military base in the capital. The Americans initially arranged for infected prostitutes to have sex with prisoners before discovering it was more “efficient” to inject soldiers, psychiatric patients and orphans with the bacterium. Guatemala’s official inquiry, headed by its vice-president, is due to publish its report in June. “What impacted me the most was how little value was given to these human lives. They were seen as things to be experimented on,” said Carlos Mejia, a member of the inquiry and head of the Guatemalan College of Physicians. The US scientists treated 87% of those infected with syphilis and lost track of the other 13%. Of those treated about a tenth suffered recurrences. The US medical establishment, including the surgeon-general, keenly followed the study even though John Cutler, who led the Guatemala team, acknowledged ethical violations in a 1947 letter, saying: “Unless the law winks occasionally, you have no progress in medicine.” His supervisor, RC Arnold, urged discretion. “If some goody organisation got wind of the work there would be a lot of smoke.” In the end the study yielded no useful information and was buried. Guatemalan co-operation was won by offering cigarettes to subjects and material to resource-starved institutions. Psychiatric patients who could not give their own names were registered under nicknames such as the “mute of St Marcos”. It is unclear what, if anything, was promised to the Sisters of Charity in return for supplying orphans to the tall men in white coats who visited each week from 1946-48. “They didn’t tell me why they singled me out,” said Orellana, who was four when sent to the institution after her parents died. After the initial gynaecological probing, when she assumes she was infected, she was given penicillin weekly. “My body hurt and I was sleepy, I didn’t want to play.” At least 10 other girls were also picked for the study, she added. The treatment failed – but even as an adult, when she worked as a maid and in factories, doctors would say only that she had “bad blood”, leaving her ailments a mystery. A “loving and patient” husband helped her overcome intimacy issues. She has five children, 20 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. When the US finally owned up to the scandal in 2010 Orellana, near crippled from a stroke but still lucid, was mesmerised. She tested positive for syphilis, said Rudy Zuniga, a lawyer who is representing alleged victims in a class action in the US. Only a handful of the original 1,500 may still be alive but there could be dozens if not hundreds of infected children and grandchildren, he said. Pablo Werner, a human rights lawyer who is investigating the case, doubted Guatemala would accept responsibility let alone pay compensation for its complicity in the experiment. “Our judicial system is not famous for speed or fairness. Even if the Guatemalan doctors who participated in this are dead their families still have connections,” he said. With the few survivors ailing, their Guatemalan and US lawyers hope to negotiate speedy compensation with US officials at a meeting due in August, said Zuniga. If that fails the case will go to a Washington district court and could last years. For Orellana the resolution of her life’s mystery, published in local media, has come with a catch. The criminal gangs which plague Guatemala City think she received a huge payout and are making threats, demanding a cut. Guatemala United States Obama administration Human rights Medical research Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …From Think Progress — How The Bush Tax Cuts Blew Up The Deficit And Debt : Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first of President George W. Bush’s two tax cuts, which have played a disproportionate role in blowing up the deficit and debt. As the Center for American Progress’ Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden found, the federal debt would be at a sustainable level today — even with the wars and the financial crisis — were it not for the Bush tax cuts . ThinkProgress has assembled this short animation showing how the Bush tax cuts drove the deficit and debt up and are still ruining the budget picture today.
Continue reading …From Think Progress — How The Bush Tax Cuts Blew Up The Deficit And Debt : Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first of President George W. Bush’s two tax cuts, which have played a disproportionate role in blowing up the deficit and debt. As the Center for American Progress’ Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden found, the federal debt would be at a sustainable level today — even with the wars and the financial crisis — were it not for the Bush tax cuts . ThinkProgress has assembled this short animation showing how the Bush tax cuts drove the deficit and debt up and are still ruining the budget picture today.
Continue reading …See what happens when you turn your back on Republican state legislators? They wreak havoc all over the place. In a strange way, this is good news . Because the Republicans are admitting that, without tricks, traps and lies, voters are much less likely to vote for Republicans! But what delicious irony: They voted in a straight party-line vote to prevent voters from doing the same thing. Yesterday in Raleigh, state Senate lawmakers advanced another bill aimed at making voting harder for North Carolinians who actually make it into the voting booth after clearing the other hurdles the GOP-led legislature has proposed. Reporter Laura Leslie put it succinctly [emphasis mine], The state Senate voted on straight party lines tonight to forbid NC voters from doing the same thing. Senate Bill 411 would repeal the law that allows voters entering the ballot box to choose to vote for all the candidates in one party or the other. About 40% of voters in NC use this option. Those mischievous scamps, what will they think of next? That’s SB411 , also described as the “ Elect Pat McCrory ” bill. Since taking over the North Carolina state legislature, the NCGOP has voted to… Shorten the early voting period by a week [HB 658 -- passed the House] Require registered voters to show a photo ID before voting [HB 351 -- passed out of committee in the House, on the House calendar for action today ] Eliminate a voter’s choice to vote a straight ticket [SB 411 -- passed the Senate] There’s more besides, as lawmakers rush through bills ahead of a key procedural deadline. Passage of a bill through either house by Thursday means they can be considered again next year.
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