President Obama held a meeting this morning at the White House to try and untangle the debt ceiling/budget hairball with the House Republican Caucus. One of the invited guests was Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA), who decided to boycott the meeting , claiming thus: “I have respectfully declined the president’s invitation to the White House today,” Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said in a statement. “ I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt .” With all due respect to Rep. Landry (not much), it’s unhelpful to this nation for him to be completely closed-minded to any possible compromise or discussion of the issues. What is it exactly that he is afraid to know? Why would he choose to run away from a debate that concerns our national security? Landry is, of course, a Tea Party freshman with high ideas about what he will do in his short tenure in Congress, and he seems to think he’s going to dictate the terms of the hostage negotiations singlehandedly. “Until the president produces a responsible deficit reduction plan, I’m not going to the White House to negotiate with myself. Our conference has put out for months where we would start the process,” Landry continued. To be clear, their conference has put out for months where they expect to start and end the process. They’ve been clear: Medicare must die or the debt ceiling stays where it is. So what is this really about? Perhaps it’s about the offshore drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico? “For months, the Louisiana delegation has sent the president numerous requests to meet with him or his chief of staff concerning the de facto moratorium issued in the Gulf of Mexico, a de facto moratorium that has driven gas prices up and now threatens to derail economic recovery; the president hasn’t even had the courtesy to write us a note back.” Oh, he haz a hurt. It wasn’t enough that BP nearly destroyed the Gulf coast environment with their irresponsible approach to high-risk oil drilling. That mean guy in the White House didn’t send a note back. So as a result, he will dig in his heels and pout? Bottom line here? Landry is acting like a thuggish terrorist, holding the debt ceiling hostage over a courtesy note and Medicare. Steve Benen : I don’t mean to sound picky, but I’m not sure if Rep. Landry fully appreciates the meaning of the word “respectfully.” If the president of the United States invites a lawmaker to the White House for a policy discussion, and that lawmaker refuses to attend because he doesn’t want to be “lectured” by a president whose policies he thinks have “failed,” he’s not being especially “respectful.” But putting niceties aside, Landry also seems confused about the rationale for his little tantrum. As the right-wing Louisianan sees it, Obama is responsible for “a huge burden of debt.” I’m reminded of the recent analysis done by Chad Stone, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ chief economist, who posted this item showing the actual drivers of U.S. debt over a two-decade span. Maybe Rep. Landry should look up the meaning of the word “respectful” in the dictionary before actually using it. He should also grow up and do what his constituents hired him to do. Represent.
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Campaign headed by actors, academics and lawyers says current drugs laws stigmatise people and damage communities Dame Judi Dench, Sir Richard Branson, and Sting have joined an ex-drugs minister and three former chief constables in calling for the decriminalisation of the possession of all drugs. The high-profile celebrities together with leading lawyers, academics, artists and politicians have signed an open letter to David Cameron to mark this week’s 40th anniversary of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. The letter, published in a full-page advertisement in Thursday’s Guardian, calls for a “swift and transparent” review of the effectiveness of current drugs policies. Its signatories say that all the past 40 years has produced is a rapid growth in illicit drug use in Britain, and significant harm caused by the application of the criminal law to the personal use and possession of all drugs. “This policy is costly for taxpayers and damaging for communities,” they claim. “Criminalising people who use drugs leads to greater social exclusion and stigmatisation making it much more difficult for them to gain employment and to play a productive role in society. It creates a society full of wasted resources.” The letter launching the campaign, Drugs – It’s Time for Better Laws, has been organised by the national drugs charity Release. Other signatories include the film director Mike Leigh, actors Julie Christie and Kathy Burke and leading lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC. The former Labour drugs minister Bob Ainsworth and three former chief constables, Paul Whitehouse, Francis Wilkinson and Tom Lloyd, have all put their names to the letter. It points out that nearly 80,000 people were found guilty or cautioned for the possession of illegal drugs – most of whom were young, black or poor – in 2010. Over the past decade, more than a million people have ended up with a criminal record as a result of the drug laws. The letter coincides with Thursday’s New York launch of the report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which counts three former South American presidents, the former secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan and Sir Richard Branson among its membership. “The war on drugs has failed to cut drug usage, but has filled our jails, cost millions in tax payer dollars, fuelled organised crime and caused thousands of deaths. We need a new approach, one that takes the power out of the hands of organised crime and treats people with addiction problems like patients, not criminals,” said Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, who is to appear at the launch. “The good news is new approaches focused on regulation and decriminalisation have worked. We need our leaders, including business people, looking at alternative, fact-based approaches. “We need more humane and effective ways to reduce the harm caused by drugs. The one thing we cannot afford to do is to go on pretending the ‘war on drugs’ is working.” Sting, who also signed the letter to Cameron, said: “Giving young people criminal records for minor drug possession serves little purpose – it is time to think of more imaginative ways of addressing drug use in our society.” Ainsworth, the former Home Office drugs minister and defence secretary, last December described the war on drugs as “nothing short of a disaster” and called for the legal regulation of their production and supply. The campaign defines decriminalisation as a model that adopts civil rather than criminal sanctions such as confiscation and warnings and fixed penalty fines rather than arrest, prosecution and a criminal record. The high-profile campaigners point to the Portuguese experience as evidence that decriminalisation does not lead to an increase in drug use. Portugal became the first European country in July 2001 to introduce “administrative” penalties – similar to parking fines – for the possession of all illicit drugs. The immediate reaction from the Home Office last night was to rule out any such move: “We have no intention of liberalising our drugs laws. Drugs are illegal because they are harmful – they destroy lives and cause untold misery to families and communities. “Those caught in the cycle of dependency must be supported to live drug-free lives, but giving people a green light to possess drugs through decriminalisation is clearly not the answer,” said a spokesman. “We are taking action through tough enforcement, both inland and abroad, alongside introducing temporary banning powers and robust treatment programmes that lead people into drug free recovery.” Drugs policy Drugs Drugs trade Crime Health Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Campaign headed by actors, academics and lawyers says current drugs laws stigmatise people and damage communities Dame Judi Dench, Sir Richard Branson, and Sting have joined an ex-drugs minister and three former chief constables in calling for the decriminalisation of the possession of all drugs. The high-profile celebrities together with leading lawyers, academics, artists and politicians have signed an open letter to David Cameron to mark this week’s 40th anniversary of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. The letter, published in a full-page advertisement in Thursday’s Guardian, calls for a “swift and transparent” review of the effectiveness of current drugs policies. Its signatories say that all the past 40 years has produced is a rapid growth in illicit drug use in Britain, and significant harm caused by the application of the criminal law to the personal use and possession of all drugs. “This policy is costly for taxpayers and damaging for communities,” they claim. “Criminalising people who use drugs leads to greater social exclusion and stigmatisation making it much more difficult for them to gain employment and to play a productive role in society. It creates a society full of wasted resources.” The letter launching the campaign, Drugs – It’s Time for Better Laws, has been organised by the national drugs charity Release. Other signatories include the film director Mike Leigh, actors Julie Christie and Kathy Burke and leading lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC. The former Labour drugs minister Bob Ainsworth and three former chief constables, Paul Whitehouse, Francis Wilkinson and Tom Lloyd, have all put their names to the letter. It points out that nearly 80,000 people were found guilty or cautioned for the possession of illegal drugs – most of whom were young, black or poor – in 2010. Over the past decade, more than a million people have ended up with a criminal record as a result of the drug laws. The letter coincides with Thursday’s New York launch of the report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which counts three former South American presidents, the former secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan and Sir Richard Branson among its membership. “The war on drugs has failed to cut drug usage, but has filled our jails, cost millions in tax payer dollars, fuelled organised crime and caused thousands of deaths. We need a new approach, one that takes the power out of the hands of organised crime and treats people with addiction problems like patients, not criminals,” said Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, who is to appear at the launch. “The good news is new approaches focused on regulation and decriminalisation have worked. We need our leaders, including business people, looking at alternative, fact-based approaches. “We need more humane and effective ways to reduce the harm caused by drugs. The one thing we cannot afford to do is to go on pretending the ‘war on drugs’ is working.” Sting, who also signed the letter to Cameron, said: “Giving young people criminal records for minor drug possession serves little purpose – it is time to think of more imaginative ways of addressing drug use in our society.” Ainsworth, the former Home Office drugs minister and defence secretary, last December described the war on drugs as “nothing short of a disaster” and called for the legal regulation of their production and supply. The campaign defines decriminalisation as a model that adopts civil rather than criminal sanctions such as confiscation and warnings and fixed penalty fines rather than arrest, prosecution and a criminal record. The high-profile campaigners point to the Portuguese experience as evidence that decriminalisation does not lead to an increase in drug use. Portugal became the first European country in July 2001 to introduce “administrative” penalties – similar to parking fines – for the possession of all illicit drugs. The immediate reaction from the Home Office last night was to rule out any such move: “We have no intention of liberalising our drugs laws. Drugs are illegal because they are harmful – they destroy lives and cause untold misery to families and communities. “Those caught in the cycle of dependency must be supported to live drug-free lives, but giving people a green light to possess drugs through decriminalisation is clearly not the answer,” said a spokesman. “We are taking action through tough enforcement, both inland and abroad, alongside introducing temporary banning powers and robust treatment programmes that lead people into drug free recovery.” Drugs policy Drugs Drugs trade Crime Health Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Andrew Breitbart isn’t the only right-winger out there creating false narratives about his targets through selective editing — indeed, this is a common practice at Fox News, too. But the real champion of selective editing — in quite a different fashion — is Matt Drudge. Instead of chopping up video, Drudge selectively edits tidbits of information from around the country to create narratives on his widely read Drudge Report website — narratives that, in fact, are often right-wing lies pandering to right-wing audiences. Recently, the narrative at Drudge has been this: Criminal young black men, freed to wanton abandon by the Black Panther-coddling Obama administration, are embarking on a retributive crime wave against white people. Alex Pareene at Salon calls him out : Since Obama actually took office, though, Drudge has seriously stepped up his “scary black people” coverage. There was, in September of 2009, the story he heavily publicized of a kid on a bus in Illinois getting beaten up. A kid on a bus in Illinois getting beaten up is not really national news — until Drudge makes it so. The fact that the beater was black and the victim white is why Drudge made it national news. Rush Limbaugh made the subtext explicit: “In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering.” This is the narrative that Drudge is trying to create, especially on slow news weekends when there’s nothing real to aggregate and post: The blacks are rising up and attacking the whites. If that sounds a bit crazy, in a Charles Manson way, then you’re obviously not paying attention. Black people are angry and they’re taking over! When Barack Obama was campaigning to win Chicago the Olympic games, Matt Drudge led with a terrifying photo of (black) gang violence and the breathless, all-caps headline, “OLYMPIC SPIRIT.” The violent death of a young man is definitely news … in Chicago, where it happened. It had very little to do with whether Chicago is a suitable venue for the Olympics. Violent murders happen in big cities and small towns across the nation every day. But only some of them can be used to stoke paranoia about emboldened, angry black people rising up. John at Gawker observes that this past weekend, there were 10 Drudge headlines supporting this narrative: Then be sure to check in with the Drudge Report, which has conveniently rounded up a slew of run-of-the-mill summer crime stories that happen to involve black people and suggestively weaved them into a nationwide race riot. … The race-baiting is a bit more transparent—”urban,” “rib fest”—than we’ve come to expect from Drudge, who is usually more elegant in his efforts to stoke white rage. All of Drudge’s readers in the media business, the cable news producers and Politico reporters who regard him as “America’s assignment editor,” know exactly what his intent is with those headlines. But instead of being dismissed as a racist weather-obsessed recluse he continues to be regarded as a power player in right-wing politics. Unsurprisingly, some of the wingnutosphere’s duller tools in the shed promptly leapt to Drudge’s defense by trotting out the classic right-wing stereotypes about blacks and crime — thereby clinching the case that what Drudge was doing was stirring up these resentments. F’r instance, Confederate Yankee : Pareene is a far left liberal that would like to embrace the childish fiction that all races and cultures are essentially the same. It’s a wonderful view to have when you’re ten. While individuals within these cultures can be anyone and achieve anything, it is a statistical fact that African-Americans are disproportionately responsible for crimes in this nation compared to any other ethnic group. They are also more likely to commit some of the more sensational crimes, such as the near riots and wildings that are the prime headline fodder that are Drudge’s bread and butter. If Pareene really wanted to make an impact, he’d spend his time and resources trying to find the reason for the statistical discrepancy that shows African-Americans are more prone to be criminals and victims of violent crime. Of course, he already knows the reason. It started with LBJ’s “Great Society,” and continued with the rise of Planned Parenthood and the destruction of the African-American family unit due to “progressive” social reforms. Oy. The stooooooopid, it burns. And then these same conservatives look hurt and amazed when people point out that their attitudes are deeply racist. Right-wingers like Jim Hoft never seem to understand that the correlation of crime with race is not a causal relationship — rather, the causal relationship is between poverty and crime. And black people are more likely to be impoverished in America than other races for a broad variety of reasons, many of them historical in nature, but including a number of ongoing factors: demographic segregation, job discrimination, and impoverishment of urban schools. There are many theories about race and crime in America — some of them promoted by white supremacists such as Jared Taylor and David Duke . As Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon observes: Drudge’s choice of what stories to highlight is about creating a narrative, and the insinuation is now that we have a black President, all hell is breaking loose. One of the weirdest, most long-standing conservative myths is that black people are aching to “rise up” and take the nation by force. The argument is then that they have to, more in sorrow than in glee, argue against equal rights for black people. They’d want to share, but you know, violence! The notion that black America is revenge-minded is something that is surprisingly powerful for wingnuts. That’s why there’s non-stop chatter on right wing radio about slavery reparations, even though the subject has no traction in real world discourse, and even if it did, said reparations would look much different than right wingers imagine it would like. (They’re picturing jack-booted thugs stealing your grandmother’s pearls and giving it to some family you don’t know to pawn, but it would more likely be a check that resembles a Social Security check or a tax refund.) And that’s why Andrew Breitbart thinks that some court settlement to black farmers who were systemically discriminated against for decades is the biggest problem our nation faces. Indeed, Drudge’s editorial choices tell us far more about him — and his many fans — than anything else.
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Senior US and South Korean government officials plus Chinese activists have login details stolen Tensions between the US, UK and China over the issue of cyber-attacks have escalated after it emerged that Chinese hackers have stolen the login deatails of hundreds of senior US and South Korean government officials as well as Chinese political activists. Google said it had discovered and alerted hundreds of people who had been taken in by a carefully targeted “phishing” scam originating from Jinan, the capital of Shangdong province. Hackers aimed to get complete control of users’ email accounts on the Gmail system. While there is no direct evidence that the hackers were in the pay of the Chinese government, the sophistication of the attacks and their highly targeted nature eliminates direct financial gain as a motive. Google did not rule out the possibility of the attack being state-sponsored. The action could seriously heighten tensions over the issue of “cyberwar”. The US government moved this week to classify cyber-attacks as ” acts of war “, while the defence minister Nick Harvey said on Monday that ” action in cyberspace will form part of the future battlefield “. At an international cybersecurity conference being held in London this week, delegates warned that new cyber-attacks were being developed so quickly that there should be a nonproliferation treaty over their creation and use. Michael Rake of BT Group warned world powers were being drawn into a hi-tech arms race, with many already able to fight a war without firing a single shot. “I don’t think personally it’s an exaggeration to say you can bring a state to its knees without any military action whatsoever,” Rake said. He said it was “critical to try to move toward some sort of cyber technology non-proliferation treaty.” The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any involvement in hacking of foreign countries’ systems. The latest series of attacks appears to have been going on since February, according to a report referenced by Google. It said people using Google and Yahoo accounts were being targeted in a “spear phishing” campaign, in which emails crafted to be relevant only to the recipients are sent out with malware or fake links. If the person opens the email or follows the links, they will be led to sites which will steal their email login details or silently redirect all their email to another address. One example “spear phishing” email had the title “Fw: Draft US-China Joint Statement” and contained the text: “This is the latest version of State’s joint statement. My understanding is that State put in placeholder econ language and am happy to have us fill in but in their rush to get a cleared version from the WH, they sent the attached to Mike.” “Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails,” a spokesman said. “We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities. We believe that this campaign to steal users’ passwords originated from Jinan, China. We can’t say for sure who is responsible.” Google said its own systems were not affected – a contrast with the situation at the end of 2009 when government-sanctioned Chinese hackers broke into the Google systems and are thought to have gained access to highly sensitive code. At the same time, Chinese hackers attempted, sometimes successfully, to break into US companies, including Morgan Stanley, and global oil companies. China is believed to have gained a hugely valuable set of data about US military systems from a US Aries II signals intelligence aircraft that was forced to land on Hainan Island in April 2001 following a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet. Chinese government-sponsored hackers have become increasingly active as internet use has grown worldwide. The Pentagon first warned in 2005 that it had detected a huge and concerted attempt to gather data from military and defence computers in the US which it had traced back to China, an operation it called “Titan Rain”. British MPs were also targeted with similar “phishing” and malware attacks to those reported by Google. On Sunday, the Pentagon IT supplier Lockheed Martin revealed it had been subjected to a “significant and tenacious” cyber-attack on its information systems network, although it did not have any information about where the attack originated. Companies such as Lockheed Martin often have plans for existing and future defence weaponry stored in their computer systems. The White House said there was no reason to believe any US government email accounts were accessed in the hacking attempt. Google Gmail China Email Hacking Data and computer security South Korea United States Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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Military beset by crises following al-Qaida leader’s death, with generals under attack from inside and outside the country Just outside Islamabad, on the airport road, visitors to Pakistan are welcomed by an eyecatching monument to awesome power and destruction: a model mountain. It represents the remote Chagai Hills where 13 years ago Pakistan exploded its first atomic device, signalling its entry into the global nuclear elite. Since then the country’s stockpile has swelled, amid great secrecy and expense, to more than 100 warheads – the world’s seventh largest. The nukes are a powerful deterrent against arch-rival India, of course, but they are much more too: a source of immense pride, and a symbol of the prowess of the army, the institution that has controlled Pakistan’s destiny, directly and indirectly, for most of the past six decades. At night, when the Chagai model lights from inside with a fiery glow, patriotic parents bring their children to pose for photos. Yet since the death of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil exactly one month ago, Pakistan’s great fissile firepower has appeared curiously impotent, as the military reels before a cascade of crises that underscore weakness, not strength. The generals face accusations they cannot protect the country’s borders, its military bases or their own street bruisers. First there was the humiliation of the American raid to kill Bin Laden. The army had to admit that 47 US navy Seals, flying in five helicopters, could slip into the country, carry out a violent 39-minute raid in a garrison town, then escape entirely unhindered with the body of the world’s most wanted man. Then came the bloody retaliation from an energised Taliban: a series of suicide bombings that killed more than 150 people, most of them soldiers. Last week, Pakistanis were aghast at the sight of a small team of well-trained militants who stormed Karachi’s Mehran naval base, blew up two sensitive surveillance aircraft, and held commandos at bay for 17 hours. Then this week, a body: journalist Saleem Shahzad, dumped in a canal with torture marks, a day after he disappeared. Outraged colleagues and human rights workers say his greatest fear was abduction by the army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, which now faces a storm of angry criticism, although it has denied any involvement. The cascade of misfortune has triggered an emotional reaction – despair, fury, denial – and more self-reflection than usual in a country that is perpetually grappling with questions of state, ideology and national cohesion. “A generation ago, [Salman] Rushdie wrote a book on Pakistan called Shame,” tweeted the blogger @theselongwars. “We need a new book called Shameless.” Most of the heat has focused on the army. In parliament, angry politicians fired questions at top generals; one even complained to the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, that he had been tortured by intelligence men under the regime of President Pervez Musharraf. Television stations have carried unusually harsh criticism of top generals, about their tactics, their intelligence and even their lifestyles. Firebrand lawyer and human rights campaigner Asma Jahangir caused a sensation by delivering a television tongue-lashing against “duffer” generals who, she said, were more interested in running wedding halls than defending their territory. Even conservative politicians have found their tongues. “Previously, security matters in Pakistan were considered very holy, too sacred to be dictated,” said Ahsan Iqbal, a senior figure in opposition leader Nawaz Sharif’s party. “Now people are asking questions.” More significant, perhaps, is the anger inside the army. After the Bin Laden raid the normally imperturbable army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, held town-hall meetings on three bases. According to a senior general and several diplomats, he faced a flurry of disgruntled queries from his own men, most of whom were furious with what they saw as American betrayal. One diplomat who met Kayani recently said he was “angrier and more upset than I’ve every seen him before, because he’s getting a rough ride inside the military.” He added: “I don’t think he’s in a comfortable place.” To appease such sentiment, the military has cut back on co-operation with the US, sending home dozens of military trainers and slashing back some programmes. Relations between the ISI and the CIA have hit rock bottom. But distrust is equally growing in America, where, in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid, Pakistan has become a byword for treachery and clumsy deception – even on the comedy stations. “The Pakistani military could have caught Osama with a rod and reel, or a giant Acme magnet,” joked Jon Stewart; on Jay Leno’s show a song about Bin Laden had the punchline: “Pakistan: where the government will protect me.” Angry congressmen, meanwhile, are clamouring to slash the $3bn (£1.83bn) annual aid it gives to Pakistan. “We cannot continue to send money to people that are not dealing with us fairly,” said Allen West, a Republican from Florida, on Fox news. Despite the stinging accusations, US officials say they have uncovered no proof of Pakistani complicity with the al-Qaida leader. One leaked document from his house suggests the opposite is true: that Bin Laden sought an alliance with Pakistan a year ago, meaning that he lacked one, at least until then. Establishing the facts has always been difficult in Pakistan, where cynicism is a creed and conspiracy theories as popular as sweet milky tea. According to one poll, a majority of Pakistanis believe the Bin Laden raid was a US charade. After the Karachi naval base assault, convoluted theories went around, many spread by retired generals on television, that the debacle had been secretly orchestrated by Indians, Israelis or Americans to destabilise Pakistan and snatch its nuclear weapons. Yet some facts now loom, hard and unavoidable. Many inside Pakistan recognise that the blowback from jihad – covert support for Islamist groups in Afghanistan and India – is in full effect. Former “assets” have turned on their masters, unleashing bloody mayhem across the country. And the spectre of radicalisation inside the ranks raised its head again on Monday, when military intelligence detained a former naval commando accused of helping with the attack on Karachi’s Mehran base. Meanwhile in the US, the trial of an accused Lashkar-e-Taiba operative has produced a stream of embarrassing allegations linking ISI officers to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. And the ISI chief Pasha is hiring lawyers in New York to defend him against similar accusations in a lawsuit. The internal “double game”, in which Pakistan’s leaders have attempted to fool their own people, is also collapsing. Loud protestations against CIA drone strikes in the tribal belt seem meaningless since a flurry of WikiLeaks cables, some released a few weeks ago, showed how the army chief and prime minister quietly supported American actions. For many Pakistanis, the very notion of sovereignty has become confused. “The sky is dark with the chickens coming home to roost in Pakistan,” said the US academic and Pakistan expert Stephen Cohen. If the 9/11 attacks opened the previous chapter of US relations with Pakistan; Bin Laden’s death has opened a new one. What it contains is deeply uncertain. British diplomats are scrambling to midwife a reconciliation between Washington and Islamabad, largely out of self-interest: anti-western antagonism will hurt ISI co-operation with
Continue reading …Latest in House Republicans’ Dog & Pony Show: Boehner Rolls out Partisan Hacks Cloaked as “Economists”
June 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As Amato noted, last night the House Republican leadership staged a bastardized debt-ceiling “vote” to set up a silly political trap for the Democratic Party. The whole thing was a blatant hoax making the House Republicans look like bunch of “intemperate children.” Today Speaker John Boehner continued his dog and pony show by rolling out a letter signed by “more than 150 economists” who agree that “An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms…will harm private-sector job creation in America.” Sounds very “serious.” Doesn’t it? Except not so much. As Matt Finkelstein from Political Correction notes the signees feature right-wing hacks, bitter partisan dead-enders, and number of characters affiliated with Koch Brothers. Highlights from some of these characters include: Benjamin Zycher: Michelle Obama Is The Product Of “Affirmative-Action Coddling” And “An Intellectual Lightweight.” In a post on National Review’s blog The Corner, Zycher wrote: “Now, let me be blunt: Michelle Obama, the product of lifelong affirmative-action coddling, is an intellectual lightweight who fancies herself a serious thinker. Just read her Princeton senior thesis, an intermittently coherent stream-of-consciousness pile of leftist jargon, campus pseudo-seriousness, and racial-identity babble. Can there be any doubt that the Princeton administrators accepted it only because of her skin color?” [National Review, 8/17/09] Thomas C. Rustici: “In November We Will Kick Your Asses Out And Save This Republic From Your Socialistic Tyranny.” Speaking at a Tea Party rally, Rustici said: “I swear on my life, with God as my witness, we are going to hold them to account for this disaster. If you’re a politician and disrespect the Constitution, individual liberty, and the American people; heed my words: this, I swear before God almighty right here right now, we’re coming after you. In November we will kick your asses out and save this Republic from your socialist tyranny.” [TomRustici.Angelfire.com, 4/10/10] John Cogan: “It’s Wrong To Allow Surpluses.” According to the New York Times: “John F. Cogan, a Hoover fellow, was a top official in the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and probably could have been the current president’s budget director if he had wanted the job. He put the case this way: ‘It is wrong to allow surpluses because these surpluses invariably lead to higher spending. Governments simply cannot hang onto money.’” [New York Times, 2/9/03] Bill Scher from Campaign for America’s Future has more on Boehner’s stars : There’s Larry Lindsey , President George W. Bush’s first director of the National Economic Council. Lindsey advocated for the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy as an “insurance policy” against recession. As you may recall, we had a bit of a recession during the Bush years, which produced the worst record on job creation in modern history. There’s Kevin Hassett , co-author of the 1999 classic book “Dow 36,000.” Hassett made a public bet that the Dow would be closer to 36,000 than 10,000 by the year 2010. Yet, the Dow was at 10,000 in 2010. And there’s Douglas Holtz-Eakin , top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. The McCain campaign’s response to the financial crisis was to suspend the campaign, arrange for a bipartisan meeting with the President, and then proceed to say nothing at the meeting. As Finkelstein concluded : Furthermore, 24 of the economists who signed both letters also signed a 2003 letter endorsing the Bush tax cuts as a “fiscally responsible” path to “more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans.” As it turns out, the Bush tax cuts were a fiscal nightmare that fueled massive deficits, a decline in average household incomes, and the slowest period of economic growth since World War II. The question is whether Democrats will take these characters seriously and consider them as rational actors, who will actually come to the table in good faith. One thing Democrats cannot afford right now is to agree to cuts to Medicare benefits by getting psyched out by the House Republicans’ dog and pony show. Let’s hope they stand strong and tell these clowns to take a hike.
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Moroccan NGO says it will file legal complaint demanding investigation of claims made on television by Luc Ferry An accusation of child abuse against a former French minister has sparked a major row in the wake of the charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape. Luc Ferry, a philosopher and former education minister, told a TV chat show that a former French minister had previously been caught at an orgy with young boys in Marrakech in Morocco. He said senior government sources, including a former prime minister, had told him about the incident, but would not name the ex-minister involved for fear of libel laws. Politicians attacked Ferry for making vague allegations. Rachida Dati, the former justice minister, said if Ferry knew something he must reveal the facts otherwise he risked the offence of failing to report a crime. The foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said if Ferry – who was in government from 2002 to 2004 – had proof of a crime “he must go through the justice system” and not just “go yacking to the press”. A Moroccan NGO for the protection of children said it would file a legal complaint, demanding an investigation. Under French law, authorities are able to investigate sex tourism or sex crimes committed abroad. Meanwhile, the philosopher and writer Jean-François Kahn, who was on the talk-show panel with Ferry, told the webiste Arret Sur Images that after the programme, Ferry had given him the name of the former minister, though Kahn refused to reveal it. On Wednesday, Ferry repeated his claims on TV, but said he had no proof or facts. Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF and one-time Socialist hopeful for next year’s presidency, has denied allegations that he attempted to rape a New York hotel maid. He is expected to plead not guilty on Monday. The case has sparked a wider debate in France on whether the media should do more to investigate politicians’ private lives. France Europe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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