The Osterley Times

Kel (1959 - 2010)

2010-12-14T12:08:00.001Z

Many of you will have noticed the absence of posts on the Osterley Times. It is with regret that I have to tell you that Kel, the man behind the Osterley Times, died suddenly on 28 October 2010.

Kel was many things. A Labour man. A working-class hero. A socialist. All labels that could be applied to him, yet none that defined him. Kel's loyalty to the Labour party, or rather what the Labour party had stood for, did not preclude him from critiquing the failures of Tony Blair and others in New Labour. His socialism was not romantic, but pragmatic. He argued for equality and fairness for all, and pointed out where socialist experiments of the past had failed to deliver these very things. A modest man, he was proud of his working-class roots, but I think would have been embarrassed to wear the epithet of hero. He was just a boy from Cranhill who had made it, and he wished to see a world where his successes and expectations could be the norm, not the exception.

Kel had a biting wit and could cut down the mighty with a pithy rejoinder, amply demonstrated across years of blogging. I was perpetually amazed that by the time I had eaten breakfast, Kel could produce three or four compelling blog posts, fully researched, and often updated. He was incredibly aware of what was happening in politics globally, one minute talking about the Middle East peace process, the next keeping an eye on the progress of legislation through the American Congress, before returning to the UK to examine corruption in Parliament.

No political topic escaped his understanding, and nobody was above criticism.

Although a man of the left, Kel was inherently fair-minded. As scathing as he was when he felt people were plainly wrong, he was as quick to praise when he saw people doing right, even if politically they were on the other side of the spectrum from him.

In the month since his passing we have seen direct action on the streets of Britain by students, campaigning against the increase in tuition fees. The US mid-term elections have finished, and President Obama faces the run up to re-election with a Congress no longer fully controlled by Democrats. Wikileaks has taken on the might of the US Government, its founder Julian Assange is facing deportation to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault, and the US have indicated they want him extradited to America.

All these topics were the bread and butter of the Osterley Times, and I feel strangely out of touch with them now. I feel behind the times, as many news stories were brought to my attention, not by the mainstream media, but by Kel.

We who knew him will miss his compassion, his strong desire to see the right thing done, his warmth and humour, and above all his humanity. All these things were Kel, and all these things shone through on this website.

I can think of no better tribute to his memory than this site, where his words speak for him far better than I can.

RNC Chair Steele Claims That Republicans Tried to Cooperate With President Obama.

2010-10-26T08:30:00.004+01:00

Michael Steele makes the pathetic claim that the Republicans - The Party of No - did not attempt to obstruct the Obama administration, and that they really, really, wanted to co-operate with the regime.

Is there anyone, anywhere, dumb enough to swallow that argument?

Yeah, sure Micheal. That's why the GOP decided they liked the health care bill when it was Bob Dole's idea, or something akin to Romney-care, but once a Democrat put it out there for a vote, suddenly it was "Socialism" and the Republicans all voted against it. Spare me.

They have spent the last two years obstructing Obama at every turn. To attempt to argue the opposite now is simply pathetic.

Beck: "I'm not telling you who to vote for" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

2010-10-26T08:17:00.003+01:00

Beck has claimed that he will never endorse any candidate.

On November 30, 2009, Beck claimed: "I just gave an interview just the other day, where people said 'so you're going to be endorsing candidates?' I said not over -- not on -- over my dead body will I be endorsing candidates." Since then, Beck has claimed: "I don't ever endorse anybody. Nor do I want to. I'll tell you what I think about individuals, but I don't endorse them. I don't lend my credibility to anybody. I struggle to keep my credibility with myself."
Beck: "I don't want to tell who to vote for." From the September 20 edition of his Fox News show (emphasis added):
BECK: Well, what's the solution? Well, the immediate thing you can do is vote. You are the last line of defense -- and our founders knew. Our founders that, in the end, our branches of government would fail and the last line of defense would be you.

But here's the problem. Our turn-out is pathetic. Now, I don't want to tell who to vote for. I don't even know the candidates. Sean covers the candidates. I don't.

Listen to the above recording and ask yourself if you can divine any hint of who Beck would like you to vote for.

He is clearly pushing candidates like Christine O'Donnell. It's beyond doubt who he wants you to vote for.

For this man to claim that he will not endorse any candidate is simply a joke.

Humiliate, strip, threaten: UK military interrogation manuals discovered.

2010-10-26T07:40:00.005+01:00

We learned yesterday of the US ignoring Iraqis torturing Iraqis, and today The Guardian have managed to unearth British army training methods which appear to be in direct breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Training materials drawn up secretly in recent years tell interrogators they should aim to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this can be achieved.

One PowerPoint training aid created in September 2005 tells trainee military interrogators that prisoners should be stripped before they are questioned. "Get them naked," it says. "Keep them naked if they do not follow commands." Another manual prepared around the same time advises the use of blindfolds to put prisoners under pressure.

A manual prepared in April 2008 suggests that "Cpers" – captured personnel – be kept in conditions of physical discomfort and intimidated. Sensory deprivation is lawful, it adds, if there are "valid operational reasons". It also urges enforced nakedness.

The images which emerged from Abu Ghraib were supposed to be the work of a few American bad apples, but it is becoming increasingly clear that both the American and the British interrogation methods had been changed and that nakedness and humiliation had become part and parcel of the way in which both country's interrogators chose to elicit the maximum information.

More recent training material says blindfolds, earmuffs and plastic handcuffs are essential equipment for military interrogators, and says that while prisoners should be allowed to sleep or rest for eight hours in each 24, they need be permitted only four hours unbroken sleep. It also suggests that interrogators tell prisoners they will be held incommunicado unless they answer questions.

These are clear breaches of the Geneva Conventions which state that no "physical or moral coercion" is permissible.

I used to believe that this was simply an American problem, but the Guardian's discovery of this British training manual must lead one to conclude that this became official coalition policy during the War on Terror.

Next month, at the high court in London, lawyers representing more than 100 Iraqis who were held and interrogated by British forces, between the March 2003 invasion and April 2007, will argue that there is compelling evidence that they were tortured in a systematic manner.

The abuse, documented by a team of lawyers led by a Birmingham solicitor, Phil Shiner, includes 59 allegations of detainees being hooded, 11 of electric shocks, 122 of sound deprivation through the use of earmuffs, 52 of sleep deprivation, 131 of sight deprivation using blackened goggles, 39 of enforced nakedness and 18 allegations that detainees were kept awake by pornographic DVDs played on laptops.

At a preliminary hearing, a high court judge said it appeared to be accepted by the MoD that there were "arguable cases of ill-treatment" and added: "It appears also to be accepted that there is an arguable case of something systemic."

I, long ago, came to the conclusion that American use of torture was systemic, simply based on the fact that what was happening (everywhere where torture was alleged) all followed a familiar pattern: enforced nakedness, use of noise and light to produce sleep deprivation, and a myriad of other things, were almost always without aberration. One never heard of nails being pulled out, of eyes gouged. It really was as if they were following a textbook.

The Guardian today reveal the British version of that textbook.

Someone, somewhere, gave permission for this. Someone authorised it.

They ought to be prosecuted. They are criminals.

Click here for full article.

David Brooks Downplays Influence of Anonymous Campaign Contributions.

2010-10-25T08:07:00.003+01:00

David Brooks is going to great lengths to say that anonymous financing is not a big deal.

DAVID BROOKS: I think it’s tremendously corrupting in Washington. The question is does it affect the electorate? And I guess-- does it affect voters? A couple things. First, it’s important to remember the outside money is only ten percent of the total money. Most can-- most money is still candidate driven and it’s-- party driven. The second thing is the money is flowing in on both sides. Ask me, the public sector worker, $87 million. The NEA, $40 million. So, there’s a ton of money.

DAVID GREGORY: But you do know where they’re coming from?

DAVID BROOKS: Right. That’s-- that’s exactly right. The untransparent money is a genuine problem. But then this third thing, the final thing is does it affect voters? We’ve got $3.5 billion being spent on this election. Some of these outside funds like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, they’re spending $12 million. Do we really think that’s affecting? And then if you’ve got a race like in Colorado, where the Democrat and the Republican are each throwing 5,000 ads at each other. Do we really think if one candidate throws 7,000 as opposed to 5,000 it’s gonna make a big difference?

Erm, yes! Is he seriously arguing that these ads make no difference to the outcome of the election? If that was really the case then why would either party waste so much money advertising?

It does make a difference. And, I suspect, Brooks is making this very bad and ill thought out argument because he really doesn't want anyone spending too much time asking who is behind these adverts.

Huckabee blasts Rove, 'elitist' GOP establishment.

2010-10-25T07:45:00.004+01:00

It really does seem as if the Tea Party movement could tear the Republican Party apart.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee today broadened the assault on the Republican Party establishment — and former Bush adviser Karl Rove in particular — levied recently by Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, blasting the "elitism" and "country club attitude exhibited by Rove and others who dismissed Delaware Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell.

"I was very disappointed in some, particularly Karl and others, who were so dismissive of Christine O'Donnell," Huckabee told Aaron Klein on the latter's WABC radio show Sunday. "Unfortunately, there is an elitism within the Republican establishment," Huckabee told Klein. "And it's one of the reasons the Republicans have not been able to solidify not only the tea party movement but solidify conservatives across America."

"It's about, again, to be blunt, the kind of country club attitude that we're not sure there are certain people we really want as members of the club and we're not going to vote them in. And we don't mind showing up to events to put up signs and making phone calls and going door to door making those pesky little trips that we don't like to do, but we really don't want them dining with us in the main dining room," he said.

And there's a delicious irony in seeing the Republican Party being accused of the kind of elitism which they usually love to level at the Democrats.

The Republican Party use the term elitist as a way of avoiding discussion of just how barren their ideas are. It's a curious form of anti-intellectualism which allows George W. Bush to run for the presidency and makes it, somehow, bad form to question his lack of intellectual curiosity.

Some in that party are now turning the charge on each other.

Of course, the Republicans are right to question the suitability of Christine O'Donnell to stand as their party's representative. But - and the irony here is dripping in huge drops - they should have expected that someone like Huckabee might take the lessons learned at their own knee and accuse them of the very crimes which they are so fond of accusing others of when they question whether or not a candidate is suitable for high office.

Those people living in glass houses are now watching their own side throw stones at them. It really couldn't happen to more deserving people.

Click here for full article.

Iraq war logs: US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads.

2010-10-25T06:59:00.006+01:00

Until now, we had thought that the recent Wikileaks revelations had told us that the US ignored evidence of Iraqis torturing Iraqis, but it seems it was rather worse than that.

It now transpires that US forces handed over detainees to Iraqi units which they knew would torture them.

The 400,000 field reports published by the whistleblowing website at the weekend contain an official account of deliberate threats by a military interrogator to turn his captive over to the Iraqi "Wolf Brigade".

The interrogator told the prisoner in explicit terms that: "He would be subject to all the pain and agony that the Wolf battalion is known to exact upon its detainees."

It was bad enough when the charges were that the US was ignoring allegations of torture, but this is of another level altogether.

This is about the US handing over detainees in the full knowledge that they were about to be tortured.

And, for once, Nick Clegg is to be applauded for stepping up to the plate.

The evidence emerged as the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said the allegations of killings, torture and abuse in Iraq were "extremely serious" and "needed to be looked at".

Clegg, speaking on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show, did not rule out an inquiry into the actions of British forces in Iraq, but said it was up to the US administration to answer for the actions of its forces. His comments contrasted with a statement from the Ministry of Defence today, which warned that the posting of classified US military logs on the WikiLeaks website could endanger the lives of British forces.

Clegg said: "We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they are very serious. I am assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer. It's not for us to tell them how to do that."

Asked if there should be an inquiry into the role of British troops, he said: "I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at.

"People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking."

Lambasting Wikileaks for what they have done rather misses the point. Most of us are less concerned about how this information got into the public domain than we are about whether or not what is detailed here is true.

If this is true then we are dealing with war crimes. It is long past time for the US and UK to seriously look into what was done in Iraq.

And, unlike President Obama, I think that should go all the way to the top, and that the US should look at just who at the to gave the orders for this immoral crap in the first place.

Within the huge leaked archive is contained a batch of secret field reports from the town of Samarra. They corroborate previous allegations that the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry's special commandos.

In Samarra, the series of log entries in 2004 and 2005 describe repeated raids by US infantry, who then handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade for "further questioning". Typical entries read: "All 5 detainees were turned over to Ministry of Interior for further questioning" (from 29 November 2004) and "The detainee was then turned over to the 2nd Ministry of Interior Commando Battalion for further questioning" (30 November 2004).

I have no faith that Obama will not sweep this under the carpet as he has swept the rest of the Bush regime's crimes under the carpet, but we now have the British Deputy Prime Minister saying that an investigation is needed into this. That ought to count for something.

Click here for full article.

New Rules.

2010-10-24T08:16:00.002+01:00

It's always a treat to listen to Bill Maher on a Sunday morning. He's very funny.

Councils plan for exodus of poor families from London.

2010-10-24T07:32:00.004+01:00

London boroughs are booking bed and breakfast lodgings in Hastings, Reading and Luton as London prepares to see some 82,000 families forced to leave the city because of George Osborne's changes to housing benefit. London is about to see an exodus of the poor from the city.

The controversy follows comment last week by Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, who said the unemployed should "get on the bus" and look for work. Another unnamed minister said the benefit changes would usher in a phenomenon similar to the Highland Clearances in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when landlords evicted thousands of tenants from their homes in the north of Scotland.

Honestly, only a Tory could bring up the subject of the Highland Clearances and imagine that he is being witty when making a comparison with present day Tory policy.

In a sign that housing benefit cuts are fast becoming the most sensitive political issue for the coalition, Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, last night accused the government of deliberate social engineering.

"It is an exercise in social and economic cleansing," he said, claiming that families would be thrown into turmoil, with children having to move school and those in work having to travel long distances to their jobs. "It is tantamount to cleansing the poor out of rich areas – a brutal and shocking piece of social engineering," Cruddas added.

The National Housing Federation's chief executive, David Orr, described the housing benefit cuts as "truly shocking". He said: "Unless ministers urgently reconsider these punitive cuts, we could see more people sleeping rough than at any stage during the last 30 years."

This is almost a textbook re-run of what we witnessed under Thatcher. Until she became Prime Minister, the sight of people sleeping rough in London was a relatively rare one. Under Thatcher, it became an almost routine vision.

Now the Tories have, once again, launched a savage attack on the poorest members of society and are introducing policies which will see many of them unable to afford to live in the capital.

There are rumblings of discontent amongst the Liberals, but it won't amount to naught. Power has, seemingly, removed their teeth.

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said last night he would table amendments to change housing benefit rules. He said: "I would fully expect to be one of those putting forward proposals for changes in the housing benefit rules, particularly for London."

But, as always when the Tories are in power, the middle class will remain largely unaffected by the chaos which they are dealing out to the poorer members of society.

This will play out on their TV screens as stories of the random poor. Eventually, they will tire of it and flick channels.

That's, certainly, what the Tories and Liberal Democrats are hoping for. As it's not as if they haven't been warned of the results of what they are about to do.

At a meeting of the Commons work and pensions select committee last Wednesday, the day Osborne announced £81bn of cuts in the spending review, MPs were told by London council chiefs that the housing benefit cuts could have devastating results.

Nigel Minto, head of sustainable communities at London Councils, who works closely with the capital's housing directors, told the committee that since June London councils had been "procuring bed and breakfast accommodation" in outer London and beyond. The committee was told similar problems would occur in other cities with high-priced property such as Brighton and Oxford.

Jeremy Swain, chief executive of the homelessness charity Thames Reach, said he was particularly worried about the impact on numbers sleeping rough in London. "We have reduced rough sleeping dramatically and we have a target of zero rough sleeping in London by 2012. For the first time I'm thinking that we will not achieve that," he said.

Karen Buck, shadow minister for work and pensions, said: "The sheer scale and extremity of the coalition proposals means almost a million households are affected across the country."

The truth is that the Tories don't care. I honestly have come to believe that they loathe the poor. It's the only rational explanation for the way they behave each and every time they gain power. They are simply shockingly oblivious to the pain they are causing.

But last night Cameron insisted the cuts were tough but fair. "Departments have to make savings. I don't underestimate how difficult this will be. But we are doing what we are doing because it is the right thing to do – right by our economy, right for our country."

Because it would obviously be "wrong" to ask those of us who could afford it to contribute more in taxation. That would, to the mind of a Tory, be insane talk. The Con-Dem coalition plan to wipe out the deficit by raising 23% by taxation and 77% from benefit cuts. That statistic alone says all that needs to be said about their priorities.

Click here for full article.

Nick Clegg 'searched conscience' over spending cuts.

2010-10-24T07:02:00.005+01:00

Nick Clegg has told Desert Island Discs that he had to search his conscience when making the cuts in benefits which have caused so much outrage here in Britain.

Speaking about the cuts, he said: "I have spent every day of this process, pretty well every minute of this process, asking myself whether there are pain-free alternatives, whether we are doing the right thing, and I genuinely believe there is no easy alternative.

"I have certainly searched long and hard into my own conscience about whether what we are doing is for the right reasons.

"I am not going to hide the fact that a lot of this is difficult. I find it morally difficult. It is difficult for the country."

Why is it that politicians think that we will feel for them if they tell us that their acts of cruelty were difficult for them to bring about? And why does he imagine that the rest of us would only have accepted "pain free alternatives?"

I should hope, at the very least, that Clegg was tortured before he threw 490,000 public service workers on to the dole, that is the very least he could have done.

And, likewise, one would hope that he felt anxiety before removing benefits from the disabled.

But, missing from all of this apologia is any explanation as to why alternatives were not explored. Why were the rest of us not asked to contribute more? Why was the top rate of income tax not raised? Indeed, why are so many people who earn a good living, like myself, not asked to contribute in any way other than a 2.5% increase in Vat? Why aren't the city bankers, the people who caused this economic crisis more than anyone else, being asked to contribute more than the £2.5 billion scheme which Osborne has conjured up?

Clegg and the Tories can expect little sympathy when they tell us how hard they found it to be so cruel to the sick, the old and the disabled.

The entire budget is a regressive disgrace. It was a genuinely hateful way to address the deficit and revealed the Tories as utterly unchanged from the days when they were known as "the nasty party".

The main difference at the moment is that the Tories have the Liberal Democrats acting as their heat shield, absorbing the public anger and attempting to give the Tories a fig leaf of respectability as they carry out this act of political thuggery.

So, if Clegg is expecting sympathy for how hard he found it to bring himself to agree to what he agreed to, he won't get an ounce of it from me.

As far as I am concerned he, and his party, are dead in the water. They will be slaughtered at the next election because of what Clegg has agreed to, and they will fully deserve it.

Click here for full article.

Palin and Hypocrisy.

2010-10-23T18:16:00.006+01:00

Sarah Palin tweets:

“NPR defends First Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it.

Juan Williams: u got taste of Left’s hypocrisy, they screwed up firing you.”

First of all, it's not a First Amendment issue, it's an employer issue. And, talking of hypocrisy, isn't what Palin is complaining about above, the very thing she is asking of the people wanting to open the Park 51 mosque?

"You have the right to have a mosque there but it would be "insensitive" if you availed yourself of that right?"

And she has the gall to think that she can detect hypocrisy on the left. She really is clueless.

UPDATE:

There was a day when Williams himself would have condemned what he did.

In 1986, Juan Williams participated in a forum in The New Republic regarding a column by The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, who had justified the practice of D.C. jewelry store owners who would "admit customers only through a buzzer system, and [] some store owners use this system to exclude young black males on the grounds that these people are most likely to commit a robbery" (h/t). Defending this race-based exclusion, Cohen argued that "young black males commit an inordinate amount of urban crime," and that "black potential victims as well as white ones often act on this awareness, and that under certain circumstances, the mere recognition of race as a factor . . . is not in itself racism."

Responding to Cohen's argument, Williams said: "In this situation and all others, common sense in my constant guard. Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me."

Tags: Palin, Juan Williams

Rachel Maddow on Juan Williams & Fox News' Islamophobia.

2010-10-23T07:51:00.004+01:00

Rachel Maddow takes apart the right wing claim that Juan Williams has had his First Amendment Rights violated because he was fired for comments he made about Muslims.

MADDOW: Let’s be clear here. This is not a First Amendment issue. … The First Amendment does not guarantee you a paid job as a commentator to say what you want. Your employment as a person paid to speak is at the pleasure of your employer. In this case, it displeased Juan Williams’ employer, at least one of them, for him to have reassured the Fox News audience he too is afraid of Muslims on airplanes and that’s not a bigoted thing. … And so, Juan Williams lost that job. This is not a First Amendment issue. This is an issue of what your employer is OK with.

While Williams was fired for what he said by NPR, his comments actually produced a raise from Fox News.

Islamophobia is simply what Fox News does, so it's no surprise that Williams would have his contract extended - and be given a raise - when he says that he finds the sight of Muslims at an airport scary.

Daily Mail: Why Are We Giving Rooney So Much Money?

2010-10-23T07:03:00.004+01:00

The Daily Mail are expressing their horror at the wage deal being offered by Manchester United to Wayne Rooney. In an article entitled, "A Victory for Greed", they lament:

Rooney, who will celebrate his 25th birthday tomorrow with a party at his £4.5million home, apologised to fans for the ugly spat with Sir Alex, but made no excuses for his £200,000-a-week salary - double his previous pay.

The agent who negotiated it, Paul Stretford, will himself receive up to £10million for a deal finalised as child benefit was axed for many families and the coalition announced that 500,000 public-sector jobs would go.

I've never heard the Daily Mail express shock at banker's exorbitant wages, or at their bonuses. Indeed, usually we could be accused of starting a class war for even bringing such things to people's attention.

Why is it that this working class man receiving such recompense disgusts them to such a degree?

Don't get me wrong, I have always thought that Rooney was motivated by greed and that the excuses he gave - concern that his club lacked ambition etc. - were merely pathetic attempts to pretend that he had some high moral purpose instead of an overwhelming desire for even more cash than he already has.

But The Daily Mail - of all newspapers - could normally be expected to applaud someone demanding that they receive the market value for their services.

I honestly can't help but think that they are appalled that someone of his class is receiving that kind of recompense. They find it rather vulgar when that kind of money is paid out to someone they find common.

It's okay to lash out millions a year to city gents, indeed, it's "common sense" as they would otherwise flee our shores and deprive us of their business acumen. (The same acumen which led to the financial collapse which has crippled our economy.)

But giving such funds to a young working class lad simply appals them. They can see greed when it is being practised by Rooney, but they applaud that same greed when it is practised by people in the City of London.

It's such snobbery.

Click here for Mail article.

Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture.

2010-10-23T06:01:00.005+01:00

Wikileaks has released a further 400,000 secret US army field reports detailing that the US turned it's back on evidence of torture carried out by the Iraqi forces.

It's yet another grim indictment of the Bush regime's callous attitude to the subject of war crimes and the blasé manner in which it ignored evidence of wrongdoing.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
The report named at least one perpetrator and was passed to coalition forces. But the logs reveal that the coalition has a formal policy of ignoring such allegations. They record "no investigation is necessary" and simply pass reports to the same Iraqi units implicated in the violence. By contrast all allegations involving coalition forces are subject to formal inquiries. Some cases of alleged abuse by UK and US troops are also detailed in the logs.

And, as is to be expected, Hillary Clinton has expressed her horror, not at what is contained in the reports, but at the fact that Wikileaks have had the temerity to release them.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, condemned the release of almost 400,000 secret US army field reports by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks claiming the disclosure could put lives at risk.

Speaking to reporters in Washington before the documents had been posted on the website, Clinton said she condemned "in the most clear terms the disclosure of any information by individuals and or organisations which puts the lives of United States and its partners' service members and civilians at risk".

One would hope that the Obama regime would react with immediate condemnation, not at the release of such documents, but at the horror stories contained within them.

In two Iraqi cases postmortems revealed evidence of death by torture. On 27 August 2009 a US medical officer found "bruises and burns as well as visible injuries to the head, arm, torso, legs and neck" on the body of one man claimed by police to have killed himself. On 3 December 2008 another detainee, said by police to have died of "bad kidneys", was found to have "evidence of some type of unknown surgical procedure on [his] abdomen".

But even now, even as we are reading of such horrors, Hillary condemns the fact that this information is available to us, rather than choosing to condemn the acts of brutality which we are reading about.

And the logs also appear to show that the US claim that it does not count the Iraqi dead - a callous claim which was always breathtaking - is actually false.

Although US generals have claimed their army does not carry out body counts and British ministers still say no official statistics exist, the war logs show these claims are untrue. The field reports purport to identify all civilian and insurgent casualties, as well as numbers of coalition forces wounded and killed in action. They give a total of more than 109,000 violent deaths from all causes between 2004 and the end of 2009.

This includes 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as "enemy" and 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces. Another 3,771 dead US and allied soldiers complete the body count.

No fewer than 31,780 of these deaths are attributed to improvised roadside bombs (IEDs) planted by insurgents. The other major recorded tally is of 34,814 victims of sectarian killings, recorded as murders in the logs.

It says everything about how much the truth has been a major casualty of this war that we now have a US Secretary of State expecting us to share her horror that the truth has emerged, rather than disgust at what these logs contain.

The Obama administration have decided that no member of the Bush administration shall face charges for war crimes, no matter what evidence of US torture emerges. They have decided to "look forward, not backwards".

I suppose, in those circumstances, it would be hypocritical in the extreme for Hillary to express horror at the news that Iraqis were torturing Iraqis. But it says a lot about the moral decrepitudes of the US position, that we can read of such events and feel sure that nothing will ever be done about it. We have lost our moral compass.

Click here for full article.

Hannity: Soros donations are a "well-funded, well-orchestrated movement to silence and intimidate" conservatives.

2010-10-22T11:02:00.002+01:00

It's funny to watch Fox News complaining of others attempting to interfere with free speech and "silence conservatives".

Oh, how quickly they squeal when anyone mounts a defence against their barrage of lies.

Balaclava-clad fans make death threat at Wayne Rooney's home.

2010-10-22T10:44:00.006+01:00

I know emotions run high when it comes to the subject of football, and I have made my own feelings regarding what Wayne Rooney is proposing perfectly clear. But I simply don't agree with this:

While Rooney was pondering the fall-out from several hours of high-level talks at Old Trafford, a 40-strong group of United supporters, many wearing balaclavas and hooded tops, had travelled to his home in Prestbury, Cheshire to warn him off any move to Manchester City. Witnesses reported a gathering outside his house, with a banner reading "If you join City you're dead".

If he wants to leave then let him bloody leave. The team is larger than one player, even though that player is engaging in an act of utter betrayal.

Yesterday, I thought Ferguson would dismiss him very quickly, but the noises coming from Old Trafford suggest that I have got this wrong.

The club's chief executive, David Gill, spoke to Stretford to reiterate Sir Alex Ferguson's belief that the player could be on the verge of making the biggest mistake of his professional life.

City are willing to pay Rooney £260,000 a week, which would make him the highest-paid player in the Premier League, but there is a desire among senior figures at Old Trafford to keep him. The fact he was not transfer-listed today suggests at least that there are attempts behind the scenes to resolve the matter. Gill had an hour-long meeting with Ferguson at lunchtime and spoke to the club's owners, the Glazer family, by telephone.

Rooney's position had begun to look untenable when he released a statement on Wednesday confirming that he wanted to leave Old Trafford, citing a concern that the club were in danger of stagnating at a time when they no longer appear to be in a position to sign the more expensive players on the market.

Ferguson had responded by saying his priority was to "put it to bed" today.

Normally, Ferguson would have fired him by now. It's an indication of Rooney's importance that there are obviously still attempts being made to keep him, despite his derogatory press statement.

But, important as he is to Manchester United's plans, there really is no need for gangs of thugs to descend on to his doorstep.

UPDATE:

Now he's shocked everyone by suddenly signing a new five year deal.

Click here for full article.

Spending review cuts will hit poorest harder, says IFS.

2010-10-22T07:58:00.009+01:00

It normally takes the Institute of Fiscal Studies longer than twenty four hours to work out whether or not a budget has been progressive or regressive, but, in the case of George Osborne's latest offering, no such time was necessary.

Osborne, backed by Nick Clegg, has made the ridiculous claim that the rich would carry the burden of this budget much more than the poor. It was a silly claim at the time when they made it, and the IFS has wasted no time in identifying what we all recognised when Osborne was making this silly claim.

Detailed analysis by the IFS undermining the government's case is expected to put intense pressure on Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition who have stressed the need for tax rises and spending cuts to be progressive.
The chancellor, who acknowledged that his package of £81bn of cuts had involved "hard choices", insisted yesterday that they are fair and would be borne by "those who have the broadest shoulders".
But the IFS said that with the exception of the richest 2% of the population earning more than £150,000 a year, the less well off would be proportionately the hardest hit, with families with children the "biggest losers".
Carl Emmerson, the IFS acting director, said: "The tax and benefit changes are regressive rather than progressive across most of the income distribution. And when we add in the new measures announced yesterday this is, unsurprisingly, reinforced.
"Our analysis continues to show that, with the notable exception of the richest 2%, the tax and benefit components of the fiscal consolidation are, overall, being implemented in a regressive way."

The IFS have also poured scorn on Osborne's claim that his cuts of 19% across all governmental departments is less than the cuts Labour would have implemented.

The IFS challenged Osborne's claim that the government's cuts to those departments whose budgets were not protected averaged 19% compared with 20% implied by Labour's plans.
It said the Osborne's figures failed to take into account the £6bn of cuts already announced by the government this year while the actual figure under Labour would have been 16%.

All in all, the lies told by both Osborne and Clegg have been exposed with almost record speed. That's not really very surprising, as the distance between what they claimed and the truth is actually gargantuan.

Clegg, for reasons I could never work out, kept making the bizarre claim that the cuts would create a "fairer" and "more democratic" Britain. How he imagines punishing the poor brings this about was always lost on me.

The IFS also criticised plans to scrap council tax benefit and replace it with a system of locally administered council grants. It said that it would create a "postcode lottery", providing an incentive to councils to award grants in a way that encouraged poor families to leave the area.
"The incentive it provides to local authorities to encourage low-income people to move elsewhere is undesirable," Emmerson said.

The IFS findings are most damning for Clegg, who continues to insist - to anyone who will listen - that this budget is "fair" and "democratic". As I said a few days ago, I have absolutely no idea what measurement Clegg is using when he makes those claims. But him saying that something is "fair" and "democratic" doesn't make it so. The IFS appear to concur that conclusion.

As the IFS were briefing reporters about their conclusions, both Nick Clegg and David Cameron were answering voters questions in Nottingham. And Clegg was sticking to his script that this budget was fair and democratic.

Fairness was "literally the question I have been asking myself every single day of this very difficult process we have been going through", the deputy prime minister said.
"I honestly would not have advocated this if I didn't feel that, notwithstanding all the difficulties, we tried to do this as fairly as possible.
"Of course I understand people are very, very fearful, and fear is a very powerful emotion and it kind of sweeps everything else aside.
"But I would ask people to have a little bit of perspective: if you look at some of the announcements we made yesterday, and add that to some of the announcements we made in the budget, I think the picture is a little bit more balanced than people are saying."

Clegg appears to think that by securing a pupil premium and protecting overseas aid - both admirable things in their own right - that he has somehow kept the budget "fair" and "democratic". But that's the problem with coalition politics, one is always left celebrating the fact that things could have been much worse than they actually are.

The rest of us simply look at the budget - as the IFS has done - as it actually is. And what we see is a regressive budget which attacks the poor, the old and the disabled. It's a disgrace. And the Liberal Democrats should shudder that they were part of the government which produced this travesty. It goes against everything which they claim to believe in. And the IFS have dismissed Clegg and Osborne's claim that it is fair and democratic with almost record speed.

It is not. And that fact should now be beyond doubt. The country's leading tax and spend think-tank have made their view on this abundantly clear.

UPDATE:

Clegg has decided to embark on some cognitive dissonance. The facts are simply too unpleasant for him to deal with.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has taken the highly unusual step of attacking the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, describing its methods of measuring the fairness of the coalition's controversial spending review as "distorted and a complete nonsense".

That's a classic case of "shoot the messenger".

UPDATE II:

Clegg and Cameron attempt to win over a sceptical audience, and fail. Support for the Liberal Democrats is now at a twenty year low.

As I have said ever since he joined this Con-Dem coalition, he is leading his party to oblivion. He will never be forgiven for this.

Click here for full article.

Limbaugh calls Soros donation "foreign money".

2010-10-21T14:21:00.003+01:00

Rush Limbaugh has attacked a George Soros donation to Media Matters as "foreign money" being used in American politics.

"You want to talk a little foreign money in politics? George Soros has admitted to donating $1 million to Media Matters for America."

I know Soros has a foreign sounding name, Rush, but he is actually an American citizen:

George Soros, however, is an American citizen, with the full panoply of rights citizenship bestows (including the right to vote or run for office). He's been an American citizen for almost 50 years, since the age of 31 (Business Week: "George Soros became a naturalized American citizen in New York on Dec. 18, 1961, according to the Immigration & Naturalization Service").

Limbaugh doesn't even bother to check his facts before he spouts this kind of rubbish. What is it about the American right that they always see leftists with funny sounding names - Obama, Soros - as somehow non-Americans?

Pretty soon now you will have to have an (R) after your name in your passport to pass their nationality test.

Manchester United set for emergency talks on Wayne Rooney's future.

2010-10-21T08:20:00.005+01:00

Wayne Rooney's statement, which is about as odious a thing as I have ever read, should see his career at Old Trafford brought to a shuddering close.

In it, he implies that his decision to consider moving to Manchester City is not simply a financial one but, rather, brought about by his fears that the club lack the ambition which he has, and that it is unable to attract the kind of big stars he feels should play around him.

He is attempting to disguise his avarice and rampant greed as, somehow, a nobler thing. To suggest that he is not merely being tempted by financial reward, but that he is being forced to leave one of the world's most successful football clubs because it lacks the ambition which he possesses. It's an insult to the entire team he plays with.

He then states, "for me it's all about winning trophies", and he says this as he proposes moving to club which has won far, far, fewer trophies than the club he is leaving. And yet, he wants us to believe that this is not merely about financial rewards.

Alex Ferguson is to hold a meeting this morning in response to Rooney's disgraceful and insulting press statement.

"Have I won 30 trophies or what?" the manager said. "I have every confidence in the future of this club.

Alex Ferguson is the most successful manager in British football's history and yet he is now being asked to justify his ambition to a 24 year old wanting to leave the club for money, and seeking to present his avarice as a noble cause as he does so.

If money is what matters most to Mr Rooney, then he should just say so. What makes this repellent is that he seeks to insult his team mates as he makes for the door, implying that it is not financial reward that propels him to do what he is doing, but a desire for trophies which his team mates, somehow, lack.

Ferguson has hinted that Rooney's days at Old Trafford are nearing an end.

"The important thing is that we put it to bed," Ferguson said. "We have a meeting at 10am when we will assess the whole situation. David has already spoken to the owners, which is important. We don't want this carrying on. We don't want a saga and we don't want it becoming more important than the team. It could affect morale. If we carry on with one individual dominating the headlines and our thoughts we would not be doing our job."

And, of course, Rooney is ignoring the fact that there was once a day when his own potential was doubted by some.

The manager was particularly aggrieved by the suggestion that his younger players might not be up to United's standard. "That's the trouble with potential. People don't identify potential – they're very poor at it – whereas I've identified it all my life. Others don't. I had a player once who said to me Rooney and Ronaldo weren't good enough and he was not prepared to wait until they were good enough."

But, of course, we are going down Rooney's side road to even pretend that this is about the potential of his team mates. This is about the fact that Manchester City are prepared to offer him £260,000 a week. He would like us to believe that this is the last thing on his mind. Only a fool would believe him.

UPDATE:

Ferguson's annoyance at the way this is becoming all anybody will want to talk about is evident here.

Click here for full article.

Spending review axe falls on the poor.

2010-10-21T06:48:00.011+01:00

I know it's just me, but I found it quite sickening to watch Nick Clegg pat George Osborne's back as he sat down having announced his brutal spending cuts.

Osborne was as smarmy and self pleased as he always is, as clear a product of the upper end of Britain's class system as one is ever likely to see, taking obscene pleasure in removing vital benefits from people in need.

Outlining his long-awaited comprehensive spending review, which will cut £81bn from government spending, Osborne vowed to restore "sanity to our public finances and stability to our economy". Perhaps the most striking of the new cuts announced was a package of £7bn in extra welfare cuts on top of the £11bn already made in the last budget. This will include the withdrawal of £50 a week from the million people claiming incapacity benefit for more than a year.
In a rapid-fire speech to the Commons, Osborne slashed £350m from the legal aid budget, reduced the police budget by 20% over four years, and hacked two-thirds off the £9bn communities department budget, including more than halving the support for social housing over four years. The pension age will rise to 66 from 2018.
Rail fares will be allowed to increase by 3% above RPI inflation from 2012, higher education spending will be cut by 40% – £2.9bn – by 2014/15, and flood defences by 15%. Further education will be cut by £1.1bn by 2014/15 and the "poorly targeted" education maintenance allowance for 16- to 19-year-olds is abolished.

And, most sickening of all, he then reduced the entire process to an Oxford debating society game, by announcing that the extra £7bn savings on tax credits and a range of other welfare benefits had enabled him to limit the overall reductions in the budgets of Whitehall spending departments to 19% over the next four years – less than the 20% pencilled in by the Labour chancellor, Alistair Darling.

If that wasn't an example of pathetic schoolboy one-upmanship, then I don't know what else it could possibly be.

For months he spoke of the need to cut these departments by between 25 and 40%, only, in the end, to play a game where he could score the cheapest of points against his rivals. And that tactic was only made possible by further slashing benefits needed by the poor, the old and the disabled.

Alan Johnson did well to point out the obscenity of what we were witnessing.

"We have seen people cheering the deepest cuts to public spending in living memory," he said. "For some people opposite this is their ideological objective. For many of them, not all of them, this is what they came into politics for."

And that, I think, is what I found the most obscene about the entire process. Had they announced these cuts in a sombre mood one might have deduced that we were witnessing what Osborne has always claimed, a government having to do something because there was no alternative. But what we witnessed was a Conservative celebration. Conservatives cheering to the rafters as they deprived benefits to the incapacitated, and slashed money for social housing. It was quite a sight. To see people actually cheering as they celebrated the loss of 490,000 public sector jobs over the lifetime of this parliament.

And the myth that the deficit will be paid on the shoulders of Britain's highest earners was exposed as the lie it always was. It is the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and the old who will be asked to suffer the most.

Taking the measures one at a time, the first – and the biggest – was to "time limit contributory employment and support allowance" for one year, that is the benefit formerly known as incapacity benefit. What this means is that a disabled or seriously sick person who has a working spouse, however low-paid their job may be, will lose their personal entitlement to benefits after a year.

Singles will be able to fall back on a means-tested safety net, but everyone else will be forced to rely on the generosity of their partner. Expect wheelchairs in Downing Street as the coalition does away with the long-established principle that people who have contributed their own national insurance in the past, and then become sick and disabled, should expect a modest stipend from the state in recognition of this.

On housing benefit, already savaged in June, there was a move to link the maximum rents paid for council and housing association properties to the market rent, something which will further encourage the cleansing of the poor out of central London.

This is what his Conservative colleagues were applauding. Reducing the savings credit, which rewarded pensioners who had saved from seeing their income support entitlement removed pound by pound to, in effect, punish them for their prudence.

How that fits in with the Tory philosophy is simply beyond me, especially as he went to such lengths to placate the equitable life savers of Middle England.

But, as much as Osborne and the rest of them will harp on about the reductions being 19% as opposed to the threatened 25% or 40%, one thing is worth remembering: these are the most brutal cuts in public spending in Britain since WWII.

And they do risk - the loss of 490,000 jobs in the public sector alone highlights the risk - of a double dip recession.

Those who oppose Keynesian economics, as Osborne clearly does, are pinning all their hopes on the Confidence Fairy.

Advocates of austerity believe that mystically, as the deficits come down, confidence in the economy will be restored and investment will boom. For 75 years there has been a contest between this theory and Keynesian theory, which argued that spending more now, especially on public investments (or tax cuts designed to encourage private investment) was more likely to restore growth, even though it increased the deficit.

The two prescriptions could not have been more different. Thanks to the IMF, multiple experiments have been conducted – for instance, in east Asia in 1997-98 and a little later in Argentina – and almost all come to the same conclusion: the Keynesian prescription works. Austerity converts downturns into recessions, recessions into depressions. The confidence fairy that the austerity advocates claim will appear never does, partly perhaps because the downturns mean that the deficit reductions are always smaller than was hoped.

It was brutal, and there is every chance that it won't work, and yet that was what caused Clegg to reach out his hand and pat Osborne's back as he took to his seat.

That moment truly made me wince. Because it shows that Clegg is not, as some have unfairly suggested, making deals for the sake of achieving political power. He is a true believer. He rejects Keynesian policies as vigorously as Osborne does.

My problem is that I think both of them are terribly wrong. And I fear we will all pay for their mistakes. And no-one, despite the claims of Osborne and Clegg, will pay more in the short term than the poor, the unemployed, the old and the disabled.

Watching Conservatives applaud that yesterday, and watching Clegg pat Osborne's back to celebrate his cruelty, are about as sickening a thing as I have ever seen on the floor of the Commons.

UPDATE:

It's well worth reading Johann Hari on this:

George Osborne has just gambled your future on an extreme economic theory that has failed whenever and wherever it has been tried. In the Great Depression, we learned some basic principles. When an economy falters, ordinary people – perfectly sensibly – cut back their spending and try to pay down their debts. This causes a further fall in demand, and makes the economy worse. If the government cuts back at the same time, then there is no demand at all, and the economy goes into freefall. That's why virtually every country in the world reacted to the Great Crash of 2008 – caused entirely by deregulated bankers – by increasing spending, funded by temporary debt. Better a deficit we repay in the good times than an endless depression. The countries that stimulated hardest, like South Korea, came out of recession first.

David Cameron and George Osborne have ignored all this. They have ignored the warnings of the Financial Times, the newspaper most critical of their strategy. They have dismissed the warnings of Nobel economics laureates like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, who have consistently been proved right in this crisis. They have refused to learn from the fact that the country they held up as a model for how to deal with a recession – "Look and learn from across the Irish Sea," Osborne said – has suffered the worst collapse in the developed world. They have instead blindly obeyed the ideological precepts they learned as baby Thatcherites: slash the state, and make the poor pay most.

It's simply never, ever worked before. And yet Osborne, Clegg and Cameron insist that this time it will.

It can't be coincidental that this is being done to us by three men – Cameron, Osborne, and Nick Clegg – who have never worried about a bill in their lives. On a basic level, they do not understand the effects of these decisions on real people. Remember, Cameron said before the election: "The papers keep writing that [my wife, Samantha] comes from a very blue-blooded background", but "she is actually very unconventional. She went to a day school." Osborne is a beneficiary of a £4m trust fund he did nothing whatsoever to earn and which is stashed offshore to avoid tax. Clegg actually thought the state pension was £30 a week, a level that would kill pensioners.

These attitudes have real consequences. We're not in this together. Who isn't in it with us? Them, their friends, and their families.

UPDATE II:

There are two stories in today's Independent which really do perfectly highlight the Tory mindset.

The first tells us that Tory whips had actually warned MP's not to look too happy when Osborne announced the cuts:

Tory MPs had been told by party whips not to cheer the cuts too loudly. The message was that the cuts were a grim necessity, not something to enjoy or do with ideological zeal.

What does it say about the Tories that their own whips actually have to warn them not to look too happy as they make 490,000 people unemployed? And, worse, when they find themselves unable to comply with such a request?

Then tucked away inside is this gem:

The Queen is set to become one of the wealthiest crowned heads in Europe after the future of the British monarchy was secured in a historic deal with the Government that will give the House of Windsor a share of the £210m profits from government estates relinquished by George III.
The Civil List and the parliamentary system for funding the head of state are to be abolished, and from 2013, the Queen will receive her funding directly from the Crown Estate, which owns £6bn of British land and business. The deal means the Queen, and her successors, will not have to dip into her private wealth to help fund her crumbling palaces and staff wages, reducing financial concerns for Prince Charles when he ascends the throne, and potentially leaving him with a vast income.

Nice to know, as Clegg, Cameron and Osborne are so fond of telling us, that we are all in this together. He actually announced this in the same speech in which he took away billions in people's benefits.

Click here for full article.

Epic fail.

2010-10-20T08:47:00.004+01:00

I came across this this morning. It's one of the greatest examples of the kind of cognitive dissonance routinely practised by the American right wing.

Craig T. Nelson: We are a capitalistic society. Okay, I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. They are not going to bail me out. I have been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody bail me out? No.

That's hysterical.

Beck lashes out at the Tides Foundation and the "dirtbag[s]" connected to Tides.

2010-10-20T08:09:00.004+01:00

Need any more proof of how dangerous Glenn Beck is? We already know that Byron Williams got into a shoot out with the Californian police on his way to, "start a revolution by travelling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU" after hearing Beck repeatedly talk of The Tides Foundation.

Watch here as Beck, again, brings up The Tides Foundation.

But it's how he does it that's so strangely creepy:

Beck: Well, lets start here: Tides. The Tides Foundation. Oh, oh. Did you guys think I wouldn't talk about it any more? Oh, oh, look who is wrong....

Byron Williams has already spoken about Beck's influence on him, which one would think would make Beck at least avoid the subject of The Tides Foundation out of shame if nothing else. But that would presume that shame is an emotion which this charlatan is capable of producing.

He is doing all this after The Tides Foundation chairman has asked people to stop advertising on Fox News and warned that those who do so may end up with blood on their hands.

Pike noted that "businesses that pay to broadcast commercials on Fox News are subsidizing Glenn Beck's television show by continuing to pump money into the network," adding, "It has become clear that the only way to stop supporting Beck is to stop supporting Fox News."

Pike concluded: "The next 'assassin' may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands. The choice is yours. Please join my call to do the right thing in this regard and put Fox News at arm's length from your company by halting your advertising with them."

And yet Beck, shamelessly, launches yet another attack on The Tides Foundation.

Here, Beck boasts that he's still on air despite the fact that The Tides Foundation have called for a boycott of his sponsors. But, he doesn't mention why they want him boycotted. He doesn't mention that his hate filled rhetoric almost resulted in some of them being killed. Instead, he sees only a "liberal" plot to silence him.

This little creep really is going to get someone killed. And, as he here makes painfully clear, he doesn't care about that. He really is the most dangerous man in American broadcasting. Unhinged and, seemingly, unconcerned about the fact that his conspiracy fuelled hate speak almost resulted in bloodshed.

Clegg struggles to contain his party's 'guilt by association' with Coalition cuts.

2010-10-20T07:26:00.005+01:00

Nick Clegg has lost his bloody marbles.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Mini-ster, yesterday tried to calm jitters among Liberal Democrat MPs about the impact of the cuts – not least on the party's own electoral fortunes. He said: "The spending review provides the best evidence yet of why we are in government – and that we are delivering on our priorities."

He appears to think that the "gains" which he has wrestled from the Tories...

Mr Clegg, who beat off a Treasury attempt to end 15 hours of free child care for all three- and four-year-olds, trumpeted Liberal Democrat "gains" in the spending review – including a £2.5bn-a-year "pupil premium" for children from disadvantaged families; protecting spending on health, overseas aid and infrastructure projects; radical welfare reform; and delaying a decision on whether to renew the Trident nuclear missile system.

... are, in some way, a price worth paying for half a million job losses.

Welcome as the pupil premium and spending on overseas aid is, does Clegg seriously think this will have any impact on the public psyche as Osborne wields his blade across a wide range of public services? Does he seriously think people will say, "Well, it could have been worse, we could be without the pupil premium?" Or, "Thank God they have delayed the decision on Trident!"

Clegg and the Liberal Democrats will be remembered as the co-authors of one of the most brutal assaults on the state in living memory.

And they will be viewed much more harshly than their Tory counterparts because they campaigned on the very opposite of what they are now backing.

In a high-risk strategy, Mr Clegg urged his MPs to share ownership of the cuts, describing them as a "Coalition process and Coalition product".

Admitting that the review involved difficult decisions, he insisted: "These are the right decisions to build a fairer and more liberal Britain."

I've yet to work out on what basis Clegg thinks cuts on this scale make Britain "fairer" or "more liberal". What does he mean by that?

It's simply not fair that the poorest members of our society should pay more of a price than the banking community for a crisis caused by their greed; nor is it, in any way that I can measure, more "liberal".

Indeed, it's hard to think of anything less fair and less liberal than asking the poor to pay for the mistakes of the country's wealthiest bankers.

As I say, Clegg has simply lost his marbles. He appears to think that him saying that something is "fair" and "liberal" makes it so. But the rest of the nation has eyes, we can see what is happening. And Clegg's rampant bullshit won't blind us to what he has signed up to.

He has sold his party - and the people who voted for him - down the river. He should be ashamed of what he has done.

Click here for full article.

Sir Alex Ferguson goes public on Wayne Rooney's desire to leave.

2010-10-20T06:53:00.005+01:00

Sir Alex Ferguson is claiming to be puzzled as to why Wayne Rooney would contemplate leaving one of the most successful football clubs in the world, especially when that club had treated him so very well.

Alex Ferguson looked down at his notes, leaned forward in his chair and, grim-faced, stared out at his audience. Then the words started to come. Wayne Rooney, he said, had told Manchester United he wanted to leave. It was all true; the most prodigiously gifted footballer of his generation wanted to leave the biggest club in England, and the look on Ferguson's face told us he was as bewildered as anyone. "I just can't understand it," he said, and rarely has this hard, sometimes ogreish man looked so human.

There were times, at today's extraordinary press conference, when Ferguson remembered who he was: straight-backed, defiant, holding eye contact, he promised that his club would recover "because that's Manchester United". But there was plenty of raw emotion. Rooney, he said, was "adamant" he wanted nothing more to do with the club of Charlton, Best and Law. Ferguson was "dumbfounded".

At a time when Manchester City are offering to make Rooney the best paid player in the country, despite the fact that he hasn't scored a goal - other than a penalty - since March, is all the reasoning you need.

Some players aren't motivated by success, which Rooney would surely have more chance of if he stayed where he is, but are, rather, motivated entirely by cash. It always puzzles me that someone with so much wealth as Rooney would throw everything away simply to have even more cash, but some people simply are that shallow.

For Ferguson, a man whose autobiography finishes with the words "loyalty has been the anchor of my life", there was the clear sense of being personally let down. "We have done everything we possibly can to help Wayne Rooney, any time he has been in trouble. I don't know how many times we have helped him in terms of his private life."

That was a reference to the media storm over Rooney's alleged fondness for paying for sex. Rooney, we are told, does not think he has had enough support over it. Or it could be he knows City have the money these days. Either way, it made for an astonishing day at Old Trafford, all without a ball being kicked.

It's a very rare day when one finds oneself feeling sorry for Sir Alex Ferguson, but yesterday was one of those days. One could feel him grasping to understand the notion that anyone could reject all that he is offering in terms of a footballing career simply to kneel in front of the God of pure hard cash.

And, for all the reasoning Rooney will offer in the weeks to come, it's hard not to conclude that this is a young man who thinks that the £30 million he already possesses is simply not enough for him to live on.

Click here for full article.

Spending review: day of cuts begins with raid on BBC.

2010-10-20T05:57:00.004+01:00

Today, we finally learn what Osborne is actually going to do. For months they have been hinting at it, telling us to brace ourselves, and now, finally, Osborne is going to reveal just what it is that he is proposing.

There are hints of what is to come:

Average budget reductions of 25% to most Whitehall departments are expected alongside welfare cuts, following months of negotiations with ministers.

Reports suggest nearly 500,000 public sector jobs will go by 2014-15.

On Tuesday 8% cuts to the defence budget were outlined separately in the strategic defence review.

Overall 42,000 jobs - in the Ministry of Defence and in the armed forces - are to go by 2015.

Half a million public sector jobs will go. How does it help avoid a double dip recession if one adds that many people to the dole? That's half a million less people with the power to buy things, half a million more people claiming unemployment benefit.

Osborne will claim today that what he is doing is "unavoidable", but that is simply tosh. He is doing what he is doing for ideological reasons; because the Tories have never favoured the notion of a large state and the financial crisis is giving him the perfect excuse to do what the Tories have always wanted to do: Slash state spending.

He has also made life extremely difficult for one of Rupert Murdoch's greatest enemies: the BBC.

Haggling over the deepest public spending cuts since the second world war has culminated in the BBC being forced to accept a 16% budget cut that will see its licence fee frozen for six years and the corporation taking over funding of the World Service from the Foreign Office.

The negotiations left the BBC stunned, with insiders claiming that a licence fee settlement that would normally take years to thrash out had been imposed in three days. The extra financial burdens are equivalent to the cost of running the BBC's five national radio stations.

What does freezing the BBC's licence fee for six years have to do with the current financial crisis? Why, nothing, of course. But this is too good an opportunity for Osborne to pass up. After all, the licence fee is paid by the public, it costs the government nothing, but freezing it for six years will greatly please the Murdoch's and make life much more difficult for Murdoch's greatest British rival.

I spoke this time last year about Cameron's plan to help Murdoch:

What it will mean is that the BBC's income will be capped, without the regional television companies seeing any government help, which will strengthen the market position of Britain's only satellite television company, Sky. "This was done for News International," a Tory insider said yesterday. "Murdoch wants Sky to go head to head with the BBC. He doesn't want the independent companies strengthened."

And now he starts to do Murdoch's dirty work for him, all the while pretending that what we are witnessing has something to do with the financial crisis; when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Cameron promised to hobble the BBC over a year ago and he has today made good on that promise, but it has bugger all to do with the financial crisis because the BBC's fee is paid directly by the public. Again, we see ideology masquerading as financial prudence.

David Cameron had pledged in the general election to protect the pensioners' free TV licence fee. The BBC fiercely resisted taking responsibility for the cost, saying it was an open-ended drain on BBC resources, but this morning succumbed to demands that it take on the cost of the BBC World Service and the Welsh language channel SC4 from 2015.

It also confirmed the BBC will take responsibility for the rollouts of broadband and digital radio, and accept a six-year freeze in the £145 licence fee until 2016-17. The total cost is a minimum of £340m by 2014-15.

What could possibly suit Murdoch more than "an open ended drain on BBC resources"? Cameron has frozen the BBC's income for six years and imposed a further cost of £340 million on their expense sheet. It's a very good day for Rupert Murdoch's empire. It's a very bad day for the BBC. Cameron today repays Murdoch for the support his party received from The Sun.

Click here for full article.

Prominent Tory donors among business leaders who backed Osborne's cuts.

2010-10-19T13:34:00.006+01:00

I said yesterday that I suspected the business leaders who had written to The Telegraph insisting that Osborne must stick to his guns regarding the Tory planned cuts would turn out to be Tory supporters.

Today's Independent:

The 35 businessmen warned against delaying cuts in a letter to the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph drawn up by Lord Wolfson, chief executive of Next. He has donated £293,250 to the Conservatives since 2006 and was made a Tory peer three weeks after the May election.

Another signatory, Sir Christopher Gent, non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, has given £113,400 to the Conservative Party since 2003, while Aidan Heavey, chief executive of Tullow Oil, has donated £5,500.

Seventeen of the 35 chairmen or chief executives who signed yesterday's letter were among the businessmen who endorsed a similar round-robin before the May election backing Tory plans to reverse Labour's proposal to raise national insurance contributions by 1 per cent. Mr Osborne later cancelled it for employers but retained it for employees.

It really says everything about the relationship between the Conservative Party and these business leaders that they will send round-robin letters at a moments notice backing Tory policies. And it's notable that, when they asked the Tories to reverse Labour's plans to raise national insurance contributions by 1%, that Osborne raised it for employees, but not employers.

One of these same business leaders who is demanding that welfare be slashed and social services axed - rather than see a rise in taxation - earns £6.5 million a year.

Now some economists have spoken out about the twaddle these supposedly impartial business leaders are spouting:

Christopher Pissarides, Britain's new Nobel laureate in economics and professor of economics at the LSE, said: "I am rather puzzled as to why big companies think the private sector will create jobs if the cuts are immediate rather than spread over two or three years, to give the private sector time to plan ahead. The situation is not so grave; there is no big risk premium of government debt as in Greece or Spain. I see a lot of confidence in the ability of the British Government to control the deficit. That confidence will remain if there is a well-arranged plan over the next few years rather than the next few months."

David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, said of the letter: "It's a terrible, terrible mistake. The sensible thing to do is to spread [the cuts] over a long time. Clearly you have to deal with the deficit, but there is no economics that says you have to deal with it in a week or a month."

Stephen Alambritis, chief spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "Large companies can take these cuts in their stride. The City will reward them with a higher share price if they reduce their workforce. But the Chancellor should not be emboldened by these business leaders.

"Some small firms rely on public-sector contracts for 50 or 60 per cent of their turnover. If the cuts are swingeing and overnight, these companies will be lost to the UK economy forever."

As I've said a thousand times, no-one is suggesting that we don't need to do something about the deficit, but there really is no need to pay off the mortgage in five years rather than twenty five.

People should remember that we finally paid off our WWII debt during the premiership of Tony Blair. And, that shortly after WWII, with debts far greater than the ones we currently face, we built a welfare state and much of our social housing.

All of this undermines Osborne's fallacy that he has no choice other than the one he is proposing. He's doing this because he wants to slash the cost of the state, not because it is the only possible solution to the situation we currently face.

Click here for full article.

Compare and Contrast.

2010-10-19T11:23:00.003+01:00

Here is Kilmeade's non apology.

KILMEADE: On the show on Friday, I was talking about Bill O’Reilly appearance on the View and I said this: “Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.” Well, I misspoke. I don’t believe all terrorists are Muslims. I’m sorry about that if I offended or hurt anybody’s feelings. But that’s it.

Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job highlighting what happens to journalists who "misspeak" about other faiths.

The Washington Post, July 8, 2010:

Octavia Nasr has been fired. CNN fired the editor responsible for Middle Eastern coverage after she posted a note on Twitter expressing admiration for a late Lebanese cleric considered an inspiration for the Hezbollah militant movement. Octavia Nasr later apologized for her tweet, but CNN's senior vice president for international newsgathering, Parisa Khosravi, said Wednesday that Nasr's credibility had been compromised.

Politico, June 7, 2010:

In the world of political journalism, it's the end of an era: Helen Thomas has retired just months shy of her 90th birthday ... [Thomas] stepped down from her latest role -- a columnist for Hearst Newspapers -- in the wake of controversial remarks made in late May about the need for Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" and return to Poland and Germany. "Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately," read a statement from Hearst Newspapers on Monday. "Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet."

Continue reading

USA Today, Oct. 1, 2010:

CNN has fired Rick Sanchez following his controversial comments on the radio show "Stand Up With Pete Dominick" ... On Thursday, Sanchez called Jon Stewart a "bigot," arguing that "The Daily Show" host is against "everybody else who's not like him." He also suggested that CNN is run by Jewish people. Stewart is also Jewish."

Nafees A. Syed, CNN, Sept. 23, 2010:
At a time when our nation's top university is more diverse than ever before, Harvard's recent decision to honor its former professor Marty Peretz on Friday for setting up an undergraduate research fund in his name comes as a big, disappointing surprise ... Here is the latest blog-post calumny: "Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims" and "I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse" ... Despite the voices raised against it, the university just reaffirmed its decision to recognize him ...

One doesn't even have to comment on such blatant hypocrisy and double standards. It's simply there for all to see.

O'Reilly: "There's no question there is a Muslim problem in the world".

2010-10-19T08:06:00.004+01:00

O'Reilly decides to double down on his claims regarding Muslims and now states, "There's no question there is a Muslim problem in the world".

He seems determined, as do many right wingers, to view all Muslims as somehow responsible for the behaviour of an extremist few and labels anyone who refuses to agree with his world view as suffering from "politically correct nonsense".

Of course, one is not being "politically correct" when stating that we are not battling against all Muslims, but are engaged in a war against certain Muslim extremists; one is simply being factual.

Social housing budget 'to be cut in half'.

2010-10-19T06:48:00.004+01:00

David Cameron is to slash the social housing budget in England by 50% and to change - for the first time ever - the right of tenants to a house for life.

Ministers are expected to introduce a "flexible tenancy" for people who move into council housing for the first time.

Tenants will be checked over a period of time to see if they still require help with housing from their local authority, the BBC has learned.

In August, Prime Minister David Cameron suggested tenants in England should get fixed-term contracts and be encouraged to move into the private housing sector if their finances improve.

He said greater flexibility was required within the social housing system, allowing tenants to move to find work.

But Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes said his party was against the idea, which was not coalition policy.

Labour accused Mr Cameron of threatening the long-term stability people value from secure tenancy.

I would have thought that this might cause a huge rift between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats but I am so used to the Lib Dems lying on their backs and showing their bellies to the Tories that I suspect nothing will happen.

A party which enjoys huge support in university towns has already ripped up it's promise to abolish tuition fees and now plans to allow them to be doubled, despite the fact that most of them, including all five Lib Dems in the coalition cabinet, signed a pledge promising to oppose any rise in fees.

I feel sorry for the Lib Dems. They are basically decent people who Clegg has allowed to be turned into Cameron's cannon fodder.

They now appear to be backing Cameron's insistence that council tenants can be forced to rent in the private sector once their earnings reach a sufficient level. Forget how well you get on with your neighbours, forget any sense of community and belonging which someone might feel for the place where they live, Cameron will now insist that certain people move on simply because they can afford to.

And it won't surprise me that the Liberal Democrats, led by a man who is a conservative in all but name, will dutifully follow along behind. It's shameful to watch what Clegg is doing to that party.

And the public appear to be waking up to what is about to happen:

Most voters expect the poor and elderly to bear the brunt of David Cameron's savage cuts, an exclusive Sunday Mirror poll has shown.

Fifty-six per cent of those quizzed in our survey said the Government's welfare benefit cuts would hit the "poorest, elderly and most vulnerable" the hardest. Just 28 per cent disagreed.

Nearly half - 46 per cent - said Cameron understands the needs of the rich better than the concerns of ordinary people.

A similar number feared that the loss of hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs is too high a price to pay to slash Britain's deficit. Just 30 per cent of people asked agreed the job losses were a "price worth paying" against 47 per cent, who disagreed.

It seems that there is no policy too right wing for Clegg to insist to Cameron that he can't back it. What experience do any of these public school boys have when it comes to council housing?

None. None at all. And yet they are seeking to impose their values on a culture which they simply do not understand.

Click here for full article.

Sharron Angle defends her race-baiting ad: 'I'm not sure those were Latinos,' and 'Some of you look a little more Asian to me'.

2010-10-19T06:25:00.003+01:00

She's a crazy person, so I make no apology for not understanding what she's going on about most of the time. Here, she addresses the Hispanic Student Union and tells them:

"So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly."

Why would anyone call Sharron Angle "the first Asian legislator" in the Nevada State Assembly?

What the Hell is this crazy woman talking about? She is trying to back away from her negative portrayal of Latinos in this ad, and her defence amounts to, (a) "I don't think they were Latinos" and (b) "What's the difference between Latinos and Asians anyway as we are all a huge melting pot?"

Doocy: "How embarrassing" that Beck's rally was "20 times bigger" than the 35,000 people at Obama's speech in Ohio.

2010-10-18T16:54:00.003+01:00

Oh, this is especially moronic. Doocy apparently thinks Glenn Beck got 20 times as many people as the 35,000 who attended Obama's most recent rally.

So, is he seriously saying that Glenn Beck attracted 700,000 people? The number who supposedly attended that rally seems to grow week after week.

Poor Obama, he can't attract a crowd can he?

These morons simply say the first thing that pops into their heads.

Voter Amnesia.

2010-10-18T07:13:00.005+01:00

I can understand that some people might be disappointed that Obama has not done more, and that some may hate what he has done, especially with his healthcare reforms.

But I still find myself puzzled when I read things like this.

An Associated Press poll published today showed a quarter of those surveyed who had backed Obama in the 2008 White House election were considering voting Republican.

What alternatives have the Republicans offered over the past two years which would make anyone seriously consider voting for them? Their only policy has been to say no to everything which Obama has proposed, and, when they have got specific on policy, it has mostly been to sustain tax breaks for the rich.

[Obama] attacked the Republicans for exploiting the economic crisis, counting on voters "forgetting who caused the mess in the first place." He had been trying to solve the economic mess, but "it doesn't happen as quick as we want".

If the Republicans are hoping that voter amnesia might help them come November, the depressing news from this poll suggests that this tactic might just be working for them.

They are preaching essentially the same nonsense they were spouting two years ago, and yet 25% of voters are considering giving them another chance? That makes no sense to me.

Click here for full article.

Business backing for George Osborne's spending cuts.

2010-10-18T06:48:00.005+01:00

Well, here's a surprise:

The leaders of 35 of the UK's biggest companies have expressed their support for the government's plans for spending cuts running into billions of pounds.

The bosses of Marks and Spencer, BT and GlaxoSmithKline are among those to have signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph.

They write that it would be a "mistake" for Chancellor George Osborne to water down his programme for reducing the budget deficit.
Mr Osborne will announce details of the Spending Review on Wednesday.
The bosses wrote in their letter to the Telegraph that there was no reason to believe Mr Osborne's approach would undermine any recovery.

They said: "Addressing the debt problem in a decisive way will improve business and consumer confidence.

"Reducing the deficit more slowly would mean additional borrowing every year, higher national debt, and therefore higher spending on interest payments."

"The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector," the signatories also claim.

So, a group of Conservative supporting business leaders think it's a great idea to slash welfare rather than increase taxation. Who could have seen that coming?

And they also think that the private sector is "more than capable" of replacing jobs lost through Osborne's cuts. Let's see how that works out.

And, as Robert Peston points out, one of their comments borders on the laughable.

The 35 also make one statement that will amuse many economists. They say "everyone knows that when you have a debt problem, delaying the necessary action will make it worse not better".

That may be true of individuals and even for most businesses. But there is a whole school of economists, largely those who call themselves Keynesian in some way, who would describe that statement as laughable.

They would argue that it was the application of prudent principles of personal finance to the level of the state that was to a large extent responsible for the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The unions are dead set against it, and the business leaders are writing to the papers announcing their support. It's like we are back in the eighties. There must be a Tory government in power.

Click here for full article.

Jesse Ventura: Popular Things Don't Need Protecting.

2010-10-17T09:09:00.003+01:00

Jesse Ventura, speaking of the Park 51 mosque, comes out with the most eloquent defence I have so far heard:

Ventura: Excuse me, the Constitution says they can do it. It ends there. You cannot subject the Constitution to a popularity poll. The Constitution, Joy, is there to protect unpopular speech, popular things don't need protecting.

Crooks and Liars have highlighted the fact that he called Bill O'Reilly, "a spineless puke" but I think the point he makes above is a far more important one.

Where will the axe fall? Whitehall waits for the bloodbath.

2010-10-17T08:32:00.005+01:00

I have said ever since George Osborne spoke of cuts of between 25 and 40% that I thought he had pulled this figure from his ass and that such reductions were impossible to achieve.

Now, a member of his own team has stated, that achieving such cuts is "a metaphysical impossibility".

But we are about to find out where the axe is to fall.

Alan Johnson, the Labour Shadow Chancellor, is to attack Osborne's claim that the cuts are unavoidable.

As the outbreak of hysteria over the cutting of child benefit showed, most people in the UK support cuts, as long as the cuts do not directly involve themselves. We are all for other people getting along with less, but heaven forbid that it should directly affect us.

The Osborne tactic has achieved public support until now, because it has been all talk. We can all share Osborne's revulsion at immigrants receiving tens of thousands of pounds in benefits. If the deficit could be reduced merely by removing such obvious wrongs then Osborne would end up the most popular man in the country.

But, eventually, he is going to have to tell us what exactly he plans to do.

As the outrage over child benefit showed, at that point I fully expect Osborne's popularity to fall like a stone.

There is nothing unavoidable about what Osborne and the Con-Dem coalition are about to do. They have decided, as a matter of policy and ideology, to pay off the mortgage over five years rather than 25. It's going to hurt.

The people who support Osborne now, do so because they imagine that these cuts will affect other people. Once they realise that the cuts affect themselves, I expect them to lose their enthusiasm for them immediately.

Osborne has sold these cuts by highlighting benefit abuse, which most Brits abhor. But he's not going to be able to achieve the figures he is speaking of by merely cutting out such abuse.

And, as the outrage of high tax payers who lost their child benefit showed, at that point the whole thing is going to move from the abstract to the deeply personal.

The Con-Dem coalition have been getting away with murder up until now, talking tough - which people love - without actually telling anyone how it is going to affect themselves.

That honeymoon is about to come to a shuddering halt. And, once Osborne has spelt out where he intends to make his cuts, I don't think he or the coalition are going to be very popular at all.

Click here for full article.

They hate us for our occupations.

2010-10-17T07:55:00.005+01:00

George Bush famously claimed of terrorists that, "they hate our freedoms", which many of us thought was ludicrous. If they hated our freedoms, why weren't they attacking Sweden or Norway?

Glenn Greenwald highlights a 2004 report, commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld, which addresses the question of, "Why do they hate us?" It concludes:

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically, "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan".

Does that conclusion surprise anyone? I mean, seriously? I well remember after 7-7, the government of Tony Blair attempted to argue that there was no link between that terrorist atrocity and our involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I found that claim ludicrous at the time.

Now, Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, is to present his findings on Capitol Hill arguing that suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

Pape said there has been a dramatic spike in suicide bombings in Afghanistan since U.S. forces began to expand their presence to the south and east of the country in 2006. While there were a total of 12 suicide attacks from 2001 to 2005 in Afghanistan when the U.S. had a relatively limited troop presence of a few thousand troops mostly in Kabul, since 2006 there have been more than 450 suicide attacks in Afghanistan — and they are growing more lethal, Pape said.

Deaths due to suicide attacks in Afghanistan have gone up by a third in the year since President Barack Obama added 30,000 more U.S. troops. "It is not making it any better," Pape said.

That strikes me as blindingly obvious. In our culture we celebrate the men who made up Dad's Army; a group of decent old British men who were prepared to fight Hitler with pitchforks if necessary. Why should it be surprising that there are Muslims who share our genuine outrage at the thought of being occupied?

And why, for so long, were most of the western media allowing George Bush to peddle his nonsensical claim that "they hate our freedoms"?

Click here for Greenwald's article.

Tides CEO: Fox News advertisers may end up with blood on their hands.

2010-10-16T08:29:00.004+01:00

Tides CEO and founder Drummond Pike has asked advertisers to stop using Fox News to sell their products because of the link between Glenn Beck and the recent intention of Byron Williams to gun down members of the Tides organisation. Pike wrote:

In total, prior to the attempted rampage, Beck had attacked the Tides Foundation 29 times. On September 28th, more than a month after the shooting, Beck reiterated his focus on the Tides Foundation, warning, "I'm coming for you."

In jailhouse interviews, the gunman confessed he views Beck as a "schoolteacher" who "blew my mind." My would-be killer admitted that Beck "give[s] you every ounce of evidence you could possibly need" to commit violence.

Pike has gone as far as to imply that advertisers may very well end up with blood on their hands should they continue to advertise with Fox News.

Pike noted that "businesses that pay to broadcast commercials on Fox News are subsidizing Glenn Beck's television show by continuing to pump money into the network," adding, "It has become clear that the only way to stop supporting Beck is to stop supporting Fox News."

Pike concluded: "The next 'assassin' may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands. The choice is yours. Please join my call to do the right thing in this regard and put Fox News at arm's length from your company by halting your advertising with them."

Beck has been sailing too close to the wind for a very long time now. It's long overdue that advertisers distanced themselves from Beck's hateful, paranoid, rhetoric. He is, literally, going to get someone killed.

Rupert Murdoch: no evidence of widespread NoW phone hacking.

2010-10-16T08:00:00.005+01:00

Rupert Murdoch, facing questions from shareholders concerning the phone hacking allegations at the News of The World, has stuck firmly to the company line.

Speaking for the first time since the Guardian revealed that News Corp's UK subsidiary had paid more than £1m in out-of-court settlements to three victims of the practice, Murdoch stuck firmly to the company line.

"We have very, very strict rules," he said. "There was one incident more than five years ago ... the person who bought the bugged conversation was immediately fired. If anything was to come to light, and we have challenged those people who have made allegations to provide evidence ... we would take immediate action."

He has also dismissed the recent investigation by The New York Times into the allegations.

"Journalists who have been fired or unhappy or who are now working for other organisations I do not take as authority."

He added: "I don't take the New York Times, who are the most motivated in this, as authority."

The investigation by the British police has been somewhat undermined by the fact that the officer in charge of the inquiry, assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, subsequently left the police to work for News International as a columnist.

And there are reports that the police ignored huge amounts of evidence.

Police who investigated the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World obtained previously undisclosed telephone records which showed a vast number of public figures had had their voicemail accessed – and then decided not to pursue the evidence, according to official papers seen by the Guardian.
The revelation – contained in paperwork from inside the Crown Prosecution Service – raises fundamental questions about the behaviour of Scotland Yard, which has claimed repeatedly that it found evidence of "only a handful" of people whose mobile phone messages had been intercepted by the News of the World's private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.
The paperwork also reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to ringfence the evidence which they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family. The existence of this strategy has been omitted from all public statements, including evidence made to the House of Commons media select committee.

It may well be that The Guardian and The New York Times have got this utterly wrong, but my instinct is to believe them before I believe Rupert Murdoch, especially as Murdoch claims not to have even read The New York Times article in question.

He can hardly be said to have seriously looked into this if he hasn't even bothered to read the allegations which are being made against his newspaper.

But then, how seriously can you take someone who says this?

He also defended the company's decision to donate $2m to the Republican party, insisting it was "in the best interests of the country".

"In the case of these two donations we judged it to be in the best interests of the company," said Murdoch. "It had nothing to do with editorial policy or journalism ... or anything else. We believe it is certainly in the interests of the country, shareholders and prosperity that there is a fair amount of change in Washington."

And do the shareholders have any say about Murdoch donating this amount of their company's funds to the Republicans?

Asked whether shareholders would be consulted he emphatically responded: "No. You have the right to vote us off the board if you don't like it."

And he says this whilst supposedly promoting democracy....

When the truth emerges, my money is not on this guy having gotten it right.

Click here for full article.

Government urges councils to stop giving tax breaks to Scientology.

2010-10-16T07:16:00.005+01:00

I never thought I'd find myself in agreement with Eric Pickles, but, on this occasion, I do.

The government is urging councils across the country to stop giving hundreds of thousands of pounds in tax breaks to the Church of Scientology.

The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, said a majority of the public did not want the "controversial organisation" to be given the kind of favourable treatment usually reserved for charities and questioned this use of public money.

The church, which is not classed as a religion by the Charity Commission, was described as a cult by a high court judge in 1984.

It is the first time a cabinet minister has intervened in the long-running row over the tax breaks for Scientology.

At least four authorities have given tax breaks to the group, which counts a host of celebrities among its high-profile members.

I watched John Sweeney's recent Panorama programme about his revisit to Scientology, after his infamous episode where he totally lost it in front of a Scientologist, and it was hard not to find the whole set up extremely creepy. Sweeney was repeatedly followed, and even had ex-Scientologists tell him that he was goaded into his infamous blow out by the Scientologist, Tommy Davis, as a way of undermining his investigative work.

It was simply not the kind of behaviour one would expect from any church.

And yet certain UK councils are granting Scientology tax breaks.

At least four authorities have given tax breaks to the group, which counts a host of celebrities among its high-profile members.

City of London Corporation has asked it to pay only one-fifth of the usual rates on its London headquarters, near St Paul's cathedral. As a result, it has saved £1.3m worth of tax.

The six-storey building was opened in a lavish ceremony attended by the leading Scientologist Tom Cruise in 2006.

The corporation decided Scientology could be classed as a charity either for the advancement of religion "or other purposes beneficial to the community".

The council says it feared the organisation would take it to court were the tax breaks to cease.

I think Pickles, especially at this time when high earners are losing their child benefits and we are all being told to expect cuts of around 25-40% in public services, will find that there is huge support for the Church of Scientology to lose any tax exemptions which they are currently enjoying.

Anyone who watched Sweeney's investigation would find it impossible to describe the behaviour we witnessed as the kind one would expect from any religious organisation.

Click here for full article.

Murdoch Decries The Left's Anti-Semitism.

2010-10-15T07:18:00.004+01:00

Rupert Murdoch, whilst accepting an award from the Anti-Defamation League for his support of Israel said that there is a "soft war" being waged against Israel, and condemned "the left" as the purveyors of a "new anti-Semitism."

“This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it," Murdoch told attendees at the New York dinner where he was bestowed the ADL International Leadership Award. "The battle ground is everywhere – the media, multinational organizations, NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.”

Murdoch told participants at the dinner that signs were abounding of rising anti-Semitism, particularly from elements on the Left under the guise of legitimate criticism of Israel.

“When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century,” Murdoch said. “Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.”

So, according to Murdoch's logic, there can be no such thing as legitimate disagreement with Israeli policy, merely anti-Semitism disguising itself as such.

As far as arguments go, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. He is seeking to make all disagreements with Israeli policy acts of anti-Semitism.

But, perhaps Rupert should look closer to home if he is seeking to confront genuine anti-Semitism.

It is not anti-Semitic to say that the Palestinians deserve their own state, or that it is in Israel's best interests for this to happen sooner rather than later.

Click here for full article.

Bill O'Reilly inspires walkout on The View: 'Muslims killed us on 9/11'.

2010-10-15T06:51:00.004+01:00

Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walk off the set after Bill O'Reilly states that "Muslims killed us on 9/11!"

I found what they did embarrassing. Surely they are able to remain in their position and argue with a bigot like O'Reilly?

They return after O'Reilly states, "if anyone felt that I was demeaning all Muslims, I apologize."

O'Reilly seems not to get that, by opposing the Park 51 mosque, he is already conflating all Muslims together and saying that, because of the actions of a few Muslim extremists, no Muslim should have the right to worship anywhere near the 9-11 area.

O'Reilly mounts a silly defence of his position.

O'Reilly: As I say on The Factor tonight, when we're talking about WWII, do we say we were attacked by Japanese extremists? No, we talk about the Japanese attacked us.

The Japanese did attack the US, it was the action of a sovereign state, not the action of a few Japanese extremists. O'Reilly appears not to understand this distinction.

POLL: Voters more likely to see Democrats as dominated by extremists.

2010-10-15T05:59:00.004+01:00

I find this simply unbelievable.

Likely voters in battleground districts see extremists as having a more dominant influence over the Democratic Party than they do over the GOP.
This result comes from The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll, which found that 44 percent of likely voters say the Democratic Party is more dominated by its extreme elements, whereas 37 percent say it’s the Republican Party that is more dominated by extremists.

The revelations in a survey of 10 toss-up congressional districts across the country point to problems for Democrats, who are trying to motivate a disillusioned base and appeal to independents moving to the GOP ahead of the Nov. 2 election.
More than one in every five Democrats (22 percent) in The Hill’s survey said their party was more dominated than the GOP by extreme views. The equivalent figure among Republicans is 11 percent.

At a time when the GOP are fielding candidates like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and Rand Paul - candidates whose views are so extreme that they refuse to be interviewed by anyone other than Fox News - I find it incomprehensible that people would view the Democrats as the extremists.

“That’s real trouble for Democrats,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank.

“All the press coverage has been about how these Tea Party candidates are fringe ideologues, and there have been high-profile examples of them proving the point,” he added. “Yet, still at this moment, you have independents saying, ‘I think the Democrats are a little more extreme than the Republicans.' "

At a time when the Republican party are fielding candidates from the lunatic fringe, I can't even begin to understand how this label is being applied to the Democrats.

Click here for full article.

No knockout, but the Ed corner celebrates a PMQs points victory.

2010-10-14T07:31:00.004+01:00

Ed Miliband's first PMQ was important because he was not elected by the majority of his own parliamentary party, so it was important that yesterday didn't end with a feeling of buyers remorse.

And, whilst I could pick holes all day at his stilted delivery, there can be no question that he won the battle on points.

Searching for Mr Cameron's weak point, the Labour leader decided to go hard on the decision to withdraw child benefit from higher rate taxpayers. He described last week's announcement as a "shambles" and, reflecting the political zeitgeist, not "fair".

Mr Miliband wanted to know how many stay-at-home mothers would lose out. When Mr Cameron didn't offer an answer, the Labour leader played a prepared card: "I may be new to this game, but I thought I asked the questions and you answered them."

Awarding the Prime Minister "nought out of two on straight answers", he said: "We should try to change the tone of these exchanges, but he must provide straight answers to straight questions." Later he deployed the best joke of the session, saying the child benefit announcement at the Conservative Party conference had been such a mess that Mr Cameron must have wished that the aborted BBC strike had gone ahead.

The Prime Minister's pre-cooked lines were less effective. Welcoming Mr Miliband to his new perch, he hoped that he would stay there for "many years to come". But it wasn't a new gag. George Osborne, the Chancellor, had used it against Mr Johnson the previous day.

Jubilant Labour MPs toasted their new leader in the Commons bars last night. But old heads knew not to get too carried away. "One session down, only four and a half years until the election," one quipped. They also knew that Mr Cameron would not underestimate his new opponent again.

My favourite moment was when he quoted Cameron stating that he "liked" child benefit and wouldn't change it at an event billed as "Cameron Direct".

It's early days, but he made a good start. He punctured the notion that Cameron is a straight talker. Cameron plays on this a lot, and it's simply not true.

Click here for full article.

O'Reilly: "Nobody outside of your crazy left-wing loons believes" that Fox carries water for GOP.

2010-10-14T07:18:00.001+01:00

Only "loons" believe what is glaringly obvious, according to O'Reilly.

Christine O'Donnell flounders and errs in debate.

2010-10-14T06:39:00.004+01:00

It really is no wonder that so many of the new breed of Tea Party/Republican candidates avoid being interviewed by anyone other than Fox News. When they are removed from that partisan environment their ignorance becomes almost painful to witness.

Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell's lack of political experience was exposed last night in a nationally-televised debate with her Democratic candidate.

Although she escaped from the 90-minute debate without a major gaffe, she was repeatedly caught floundering and stumbling in her answers on domestic, foreign and economic policy.

In one of several incidents reminiscent of Sarah Palin's embarrassing television interview with CBS during the 2008 White House race, O'Donnell looked blank when asked to name a recent Supreme Court she disagreed with. "There are lots," she said but admitted she could not recall any of them. She added she would put them up on her website today.

I'm sure she will put them up on her website today, once someone tells her who they are.

I am obviously only reading about this debate - I haven't actually watched it - but what I am reading makes it sound like a car crash.

With such a commanding lead, Coons, a dull candidate, had been expected to play it safe and avoid being overly critical of O'Donnell. But he quickly dispensed with that strategy and accused her as holding "extreme positions" and accused her of lying about him.

She in turn called him a Marxist, in part because of a self-portrait when he was a student and partly because she said he favoured higher taxes.

It was a rare public appearance by her, having largely kept out of the public eye after being mauled by the media in the immediate aftermath of her primary win, in particular her admission that she dabbled in witchcraft as a youth.

When the witchcraft issue came up during the debate, she said that the election "should not be about comments I made on a comedy show a decade and half ago". Asked why she had made a political ad that started with the statement 'I am not a witch', she replied: "To put it to rest, to put it behind me."

On conservative views on sex she advocated in the 1990s, she said: "While I have made statements, my faith has matured."

Pressed on whether she still believed that evolution is a myth, she insisted: "What I believe is not relevant."

So, she thinks that it's unfair to bring up things which she said "a decade and a half ago", whilst calling Coons a Marxist because of a self portrait from his student days. That's hardly consistent.

And it's a bad day when any person running for high office is reduced to stating, "What I believe is not relevant."

Really? Then why should we elect her? I have always thought that we elected people precisely because of what they believed. That they described the kind of society which they wanted to live in - and create - and that we embraced or rejected their world view. She appears to be turning that whole notion on it's head.

We have seen this with several of the Tea Party/Republican candidates. The minute they are put under any kind of scrutiny, they simply fall apart.

Click here for full article.

Clinton Says Half of Republicans Need Psychiatric Help.

2010-10-13T08:40:00.002+01:00

Clinton turns on the Republicans and Fox News and the campaign of anger and hate which they are fomenting. And he puts a heckler down pretty neatly as well.

Vince Cable struggles to stem revolt on tuition fees.

2010-10-13T07:34:00.003+01:00

David Cameron has already felt the need to apologise for cutting child benefit for some of Britain's richest citizens, and to admit that he had not included this proposal in his manifesto.

It's far worse for Vince Cable. Not only did he not mention the doubling of university fees in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, the Lib Dems actually made a specific promise to scrap tuition fees.

Lord Browne's review of university fees states that there should be no limit on the charges made by our top universities, meaning that some could now charge up to £12,000.

Browne's recommendations mean that tuition fees could double from the autumn of 2012, and even go higher to as much as £12,000. Browne said there should be no formal cap, but he expected the average cost of fees to be £6,000 a year.

He also appeared to confirm that the need for an increase in fees largely stemmed from coalition plans to cut the £3.9bn annual teaching budget for universities by up to 80% in the spending review next week, the assumption made in the Browne review.

Cable accepted that most courses will no longer be government subsidised and said there would have to be "very difficult cuts. Government funding for teaching will be replaced by graduate contributions – that is very clear and that is at the heart of the government thinking."

He did hesitate, however, over a key Browne proposal that some universities should be allowed to charge more than £6,000 in order to compete on the world stage.

The scale of the Lib Dem revolt ahead may be determined by whether Cable insists over the next six weeks that a new tuition fee cap should be set at £6,000 or thereabouts, or whether he succumbs to Conservative demands that the cap is lifted entirely for elite universities so long as they do not run discriminatory admission policies.

Cable did his best to explain this massive U-turn.

"The roads to Westminster are littered with the skidmarks of political parties changing direction."

He said: "I signed that pledge with my colleagues [but] in the current appalling financial situation … which we inherited, all pledges, all commitments, will have to be re-examined from first principles."

I don't see any skid marks made by the Tories changing direction. So far they are doing what they have always wanted to do and are busily setting about dismantling the state.

It is the Liberal Democrats who are having to abandon manifesto promises and commitments.

The reason some of us thought this coalition might work was because we thought the Liberal Democrats would hold the Tories back from their worst excesses. That's not how this thing is playing out.

The Liberal Democrats are abandoning manifesto commitments and don't appear to be getting very much in return.

I have no idea whether or not the party will revolt, but I am very sure that they will pay severely for this come the next elections.

Jonathan Freedland spells out the changes to how this country is viewing education.

Until now we have assumed that once you walk through the door into a universal, publicly funded service, cash should not enter your mind. When you visit a doctor, you aren't asked which pills you'd prefer: expensive ones or the cheaper alternative. The idea would appal us. We expect a public service to be undifferentiated by cost.

Thanks to Browne and variability of student fees from college to college, higher education will no longer be like that. In the process a precedent has been set, one that could well be followed across the public sphere. From now on, it will be acceptable to identify the benefit recipients get from this or that service and ask them to pay more for it. We could well be looking at the dawn of what my colleague Aditya Chakrabortty calls the pay-as-you-go state.

It fits with the picture emerging of how this government sees the public realm. Last week's move to end the universality of child benefit – removing it from higher-rate taxpayers – offered a glimpse of a smaller state, in which once universal services are provided in minimal form only to those with real need. In a financially cold climate there is hard-headed logic to such a scaling back – but we should not pretend that it does not entail a different vision of society, away from one in which there are ties binding us all and towards one that is more, well, transactional.

That's exactly what I thought was afoot when Osborne removed child benefit from high earners. It's the thin end of a very large wedge.

Cameron and the Tories are attacking the entire concept of universal benefits. They are seeking to impose a pay-as-you-go culture in which cash is the king.

It used to be supposed that university education benefited the whole of society, Cameron is seeking to make the individual receiver of that education a customer, who pays according to what benefits he receives.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the Tories, so many of whom were educated at Eton, would see this as fair. I am stunned that the Liberal Democrats, and especially Vince Cable, are even thinking of going along with this.

Click here for full article.

Beck and Byron Williams.

2010-10-12T10:33:00.006+01:00

I've spoken before of Glenn Beck's influence on California highway shooter Byron Williams, the man who into a gun battle with the California Highway Patrol.

Well, now Williams has spoken, and it's very hard not to come to the conclusion that Glenn Beck validated a lot of this man's insane conspiracy theories.

Williams: I would've never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact Beck was on there. And it was the things he did, the things which he exposed, which blew my mind. I said, well nobody does this.

Williams: So now they've got Beck labelled as... trying to incite violence... If the truth incites violence, it means that we've been living too long in the lies.

Indeed, the link between Beck's insane rhetoric and William's is so hard to deny that even fellow radio hosts are now turning on Beck.

Mike Malloy:

"Glenn Beck is a co-conspirator in the case," Malloy told his listeners on Monday. "He should be in jail."

Malloy went on to say that FOX News personality is "pathologically nuts," a "paranoid schizophrenic" and "a dry drunk and a dry drug user."

I think Malloy goes too far, but it is clear that Beck's insane rantings do appear to validate some of the most insane beliefs of the conspiracy theorists.

Many people have noted before how dangerous the rhetoric Beck employs is, but this is the first time that someone accused of a violent crime has been so specific in naming Beck as an influence.

Williams: You need to go back to June, June of this year, 2010, and look at all his programs from June. And you'll see he has been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption. I would say, like a year ago I was watching him, and it was okay. He was all right you know. A little young, but now he's getting it. He really, really is a lot better. He's getting used to it. I don't think he's a natural newscaster, you know what I mean? I look at it more like a schoolteacher on TV, you know?

As I say, Beck doesn't give people like Williams their insane theories, but it's impossible to deny that he validates them.

He's been sailing too close to the wind for a long, long, time. It was inevitable that someone like Williams would come along quoting Beck as an influence.

You can't talk crazy to the crazies for as long as Beck has done without one of them doing something crazy.

British media join forces against Murdoch takeover of BSkyB.

2010-10-12T08:03:00.003+01:00

Cameron finds himself in a dilemma. He came to power with the backing of Rupert Murdoch and now many right wing British newspapers have teamed up with papers on the left to call for the coalition to intervene and prevent Murdoch from acquiring a complete takeover of BSkyB, which currently trades as Sky.

The companies behind the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail – both supporters of the Conservatives – united with the owners of the Guardian and the Labour-backing Daily Mirror to petition Vince Cable, the business secretary, to consider blocking News Corporation's proposed £8bn full takeover of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, which trades under the name Sky .

Fearful of the combined might of an integrated News Corp-Sky operation, which would include the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and book publisher HarperCollins, the complainants said the "proposed takeover could have serious and far-reaching consequences for media plurality".

The letter, signed by Murdoch MacLennan, chief executive of Telegraph Media Group, Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror, and Andrew Miller, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, was sent to Cable today. The signatories argue against a combined Murdoch multimedia empire that would have a turnover of £7.5bn compared with the BBC's £4.8bn.

They are joined by Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC; Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT; and David Abraham, chief executive of Channel 4. Thompson was the first to publicly call for Cable to review the deal "given the scale of the potential ownership in UK media", in an interview last week with Charlie Rose on the PBS channel in the US.

The document is also backed by a memo prepared by the City law firm Slaughter & May, which sets out legal arguments for the minister to intervene.

The headache for Cameron is that he can ill afford to lose the support of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, but Andy Coulson - his head of communications, and the former editor of the News of The World, still mired in the controversy over illegal phone tapping - remains very close to the Murdoch empire.

The Liberal Democrats in the Con-Dem coalition have no such loyalty to Murdoch and might be very willing to see the argument being put by a broad section of what used to be known as Fleet Street.

The law requires that Cable consider whether or not Murdoch's takeover would damage democratic debate. Sky, at this moment, is certainly nowhere near as partisan as it's sister station in the United States: Fox News. Sure, journalists such as Adam Boulton found it hard to hide their favouritism for the Tories during the recent election, but Sky remains, on the whole, nothing like it's American counterpart.

The question is, how long would that remain the case if Murdoch's empire was allowed to expand?

Cameron's instinct will be to keep Murdoch happy. But he is bed with the Liberal Democrats, and it is unlikely that they will share that sentiment. I doubt very much that Vince Cable and David Cameron will find themselves on the same side of this debate.

Click here for full article.

English Defence League forges links with America's Tea Party.

2010-10-10T07:42:00.005+01:00

The Guardian are today writing about links which they have established between The English Defence League, a far-right grouping aimed at combating the "Islamification" of British cities, and the Tea Party movement in the United States.

An Observer investigation has established that the EDL has made contact with anti-jihad groups within the Tea Party organisation and has invited a senior US rabbi and Tea Party activist to London this month. Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a regular speaker at Tea Party conventions, will speak about Sharia law and also discuss funding issues.
The league has also developed links with Pamela Geller, who was influential in the protests against plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. Geller, darling of the Tea Party's growing anti-Islamic wing, is advocating an alliance with the EDL. The executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America organisation, she recently met EDL leaders in New York and has defended the group's actions, despite a recent violent march in Bradford.
Geller, who denies being anti-Muslim, said in one of her blogs: "I share the EDL's goals… We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."

Jon Cruddas on The English Defence League:

They bring together a dangerous cocktail of football hooligans, far-right activists and pub racists.

And yet these are the very people who some in the Tea party movement are seeking to align themselves with. These people are far right thugs, more dangerous than the BNP, united in their hatred of all things Muslim.

And yet Pamela Geller is seeking a coalition with these people.

Devin Burghart, vice-president of the Kansas-based Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, said: "Geller is acting as the bridge between the EDL and the Tea Party. She plays an important role in bringing Islamophobia into the Tea Party. Her stature has increased substantially inside the Tea Party ranks after the Ground Zero mosque controversy. She has gained a lot of credibility with that stuff."

If you can judge people by the company they keep, then Geller is giving an awful lot away by seeking an alliance with the English Defence League. The EDL have been described by David Cameron as "dreadful people".

Journalist Matthew Taylor, who followed activists earlier this year for an exposé in the Guardian, said the group acts as a "lightning rod for people with a range of grievances who appear to be coalescing around a rampant Islamophobia."

"At each demonstration I attended, I was confronted by casual – often brutal – racism, a widespread hatred of Muslims and often the threat of violence," he wrote.

Obviously, the entire Tea Party movement can't be defined by who Geller seeks to align them with, but those people who are with the Tea Party movement for reasons other than Islamophobic ones, should fear the path Geller is taking them on.

She is seeking to align them with England's extreme far right wing nutcases.

Burghart says anti-Islamic tendencies have become far more marked in the grassroots organisation: "As we move farther and farther away from the Tea Party origins, that were ostensibly around debt and bail-outs, social issues like Islamophobia are replacing that anger, that vigour. The idea that there is a war between Islam and the west is becoming commonplace."
Another Tea Party-associated grouping, the International Civil Liberties Alliance, which campaigns against Sharia law, confirmed that EDL leaders have made "contacts with members of important organisations within the American counter-jihad movement". A statement said: "It seems now that America and Europe are acting as one, and united we can never fail."

The movement was never about one thing, which is why it was always so hard to pin down what these people actually wanted. Geller is making it much more specific. It's now about opposing the Islamification of the US and Europe.

Only 2% of America's population are Muslim, which gives one some idea of how ridiculous Geller's fears actually are. She fears that such a minuscule portion of the population might actually impose Sharia law on the whole of the United States. And, in order to prevent this thing - which has no chance of ever happening - she is prepared to get into bed with the English defence League.

That's shocking.

Click here for full article.

Coalition hints at bringing end to universal benefit.

2010-10-10T06:59:00.005+01:00

The Tories loathe the idea of universal benefits, which is why Osborne risked outraging his party by abolishing the right to child benefit for the better off citizen in the UK.

Now, the Tories plan to attack the principle of universal benefits again, this time by challenging the right of all old age pensioners to claim a winter fuel allowance.

But as the axe hovers over funding ahead of the spending review on 20 October, The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the winter fuel allowances paid to all over-60s could be restricted to the least well-off or taxed to limit the sum received by wealthy pensioners. It follows the row at the Tory party conference last week over plans to axe child benefit for high earners from 2013.

The move would strike at the heart of the principle of universal benefits for the elderly and fly in the face of assurances given by Mr Cameron that the payments would be "safe" under a Tory government. Some senior Tories oppose such a dramatic U-turn because of the damage it would cause to the Prime Minister's credibility.

I actually agreed with the plan to limit child benefits to those who actually need them, but I do worry about means testing anything which affects old age pensioners. Many old age pensioners are incredibly proud, and would do without a benefit before suffering what they see as the indignity of being means tested. That's why, in principle, most of us support this as a universal benefit.

We all remember the awful stories of old age pensioners dying of hypothermia because they were too scared of their fuel bills to turn on the heating in the winter. This universal benefit was introduced to make those horror stories a thing of the past.

By means testing such a benefit, Cameron risks bringing those horror stories back as some old age pensioners will simply be too proud to apply for help.

With the Government apparently signalling an end to universal benefits, the Age UK poll also showed 73 per cent of the public opposes means testing. Only half of Tories surveyed at the party conference agreed that "everyone who has worked hard and paid taxes all their life deserves the same support from the Government in old age".

Michelle Mitchell, Age UK's charity director, said: "With the lives of thousands of older people at risk if essential care services are cut, the Chancellor will not quickly be forgiven if he fails to support the oldest and frailest, who rely on public services the most."

73% of us oppose means testing pensioners, for very good reason.

They are amongst the most fragile people in the country, and that is why most of us would rather give a well off pensioner money they don't need, than run the risk of watching someones granny die because she is too proud to ask for help.

Cameron is now going to reverse that. It's yet another thing that he failed to tell us when he asked people to vote for him. At this point I am left wondering why he bothered to release a manifesto at all.

Click here for full article.

Beck: Fire department "had to" let Tennessee house burn down, otherwise, you have "Obamacare".

2010-10-09T08:49:00.003+01:00

Glenn Beck actually agrees that firemen were right to watch a man's house burn down.

You can see how O'Reilly now comes across as a voice of reason compared to the insanity of the new extremist right wing of the Republicans which Beck represents.

In their world it really is every man for himself.

Sarah Palin speaks to electability issue.

2010-10-09T08:34:00.005+01:00

It would appear that Sarah Palin is, at the very least, considering how to sell herself for a presidential bid, as she has been reminding the gentle people at Newsmax that Ronald Reagan was once considered too right wing to be elected.

Speaking to a group of well-connected Republicans at a private dinner in Florida this week, Sarah Palin implicitly addressed questions about her own electability by noting that critics also said Ronald Reagan couldn’t win in 1980, three attendees told POLITICO.

Palin, at an event organized by the conservative magazine Newsmax, told the right-wing crowd that those who don’t have the same convictions will always say a true conservative can’t win.

Pointing out that the knock on Reagan was that he was also too far to the right, the former Alaska governor repeatedly invoked the 40th president and conservative icon, at one point citing the quotation he was most fond of: that America is a “shining city on a hill.”

“I think she sees herself as heir to Reagan,” said one attendee.

Why would she even have constructed that defence in her head if she wasn't, at the very least, considering a run?

And, even accepting that this was a really right wing setting, this was an eye opener:

“I was surprised about how many people in room said ‘yes’ when I asked if they could see themselves supporting her,” said one attendee. “I was expecting to hear what you mostly hear — ‘I hope she doesn’t do it’ or, ‘She’s more effective doing what she’s doing.’”

The right wing of that party are seriously open to her running. The lemmings are prepared to follow her right off that cliff.

Click here for full article.

Republicans and "elites".

2010-10-09T08:10:00.004+01:00

President Bush has stated, "I have zero desire to be in the press"... as he releases his autobiography.

He then states:

"I have written a book. This will come as a shock to some of the elites. They didn't think I could read a book, much less write one," Bush quipped.

What is it with the Republicans and "elites"?

They appear to automatically assume that the term"elite" involves some kind of terrible snobbishness and condescension.

Were I to be going in for an operation, I would hope that an "elite" surgeon was going to carry out the procedure.

Why, in politics, have the Republicans managed to make "elite" such a curse word?

It's such a crude way to imply that they, as a party, have the interests of the ordinary man in the street at the centre of their policies, when a cursory glance at what they actually care about - tax cuts for the rich, putting profit before the environment - shows that nothing could be further from the truth.

Click here for full article.

Hannity: Nevada voters "have a duty" to throw Reid out of Congress.

2010-10-08T06:45:00.002+01:00

The "fair and balanced" news channel tells voters that they "have a duty" to throw Harry Reid out of office.

Cameron Leaves Us Puzzled.

2010-10-08T05:48:00.005+01:00

I didn't get a chance yesterday to comment on David Cameron's speech to the Conservative party conference.

It was a strange affair. He said very little that made any coherent sense, accusing Labour - rather than the private sector - of causing the financial collapse, which left him speaking a language all of his own, where black was white and the greatest hope for the UK is to embrace "the Big Society"; a notion which Cameron has been pushing for quite a while, but which most of us still don't understand.

It's something to do with him closing down our local facilities, but volunteers taking them over. You know, a Nirvana where we now do for nothing jobs for which people were previously paid. In fairness to the Tories, they appear to be as puzzled about what he is talking about as the rest of us are.

The coalition, he said, was not all about cuts, but "an attempt to create a country based not on Labour's selfish individualism but one based on mutual responsibility". Labour, he said, was now the party of the status quo: "We are the radicals now, breaking apart the old system."

Tackling one of its most common criticisms, he said of his core idea: "The big society is not about creating cover for cuts but an attempt to create a citizenship that is not simply a transaction in which you put your taxes in and get your services out. When we say 'we are all in this together' that is not a cry for help, but a call to arms."

However, he stopped short of claiming the big society could simply replace the government, an impression he regretting giving in last year's conference speech.

The repeated emphasis on the "big society" frustrated some party activists, who regard it as too elusive a concept and a flop on the doorstep at the last election.

That's how out there Cameron's "big society" notion is. He is now abandoning Thatcher and the Tories love affair with individualism, indeed, he calls such a notion selfish and, bizarrely, attaches it to New Labour.

Some others reviewed this speech about nothing:

Anne Perkins:

Though fairness was billed as the theme, the speech actually turned out not to have a theme at all, and fairness emerged as only one short under-developed passage among all the other short and under-developed passages. His idea of fairness was entirely limited to the relationship between the average taxpayer and the benefit claimant and based on the perception that now seems to be driving Conservative thinking, that there are large numbers of people turning their back on available work for the pleasure of hanging round all day "on their sofa".

It's a classic Thatcher technique where the unemployed are blamed for their own predicament. They are "Social Security scroungers" and, by implication, responsible for their own plight because they choose to lay "on the sofa" rather than to seek employment.

John Harris had, I thought, a very good notion about where Cameron gets his idea of "the Big Society":

At the tail-end of the election, we made a film in Cameron's constituency: Witney, where the Cotswolds blur into Oxfordshire. A few people we met said the villages therein had undoubtedly played some role in the idea of the "big society". And fair play to them: the charity shops, summer fetes, scout troops etc did amount to what some people call "social capital", and a kind of high-end version of the good(ish) society. Note also: hardly any poverty there, a lot of retired folks, plenty of millionaires, no real sense of the rat-race.

Which brings me to that speech.

Hey you! Do you want to set up a free school? Be a special constable? Turn your workplace into a mutual? Take this or that service off your council and somehow run it yourselves? Put on a fete, or open a charity shop?

It's a nice idea. But watch the film we made during Labour conference about the lives of even pretty affluent people in the Mancunian suburb of Altrincham. They are time-poor. They barely have enough hours spare to feel they're being good parents. Thanks to the cuts, their lives will be getting even more stressed and harried. And then – and forgive me for a bit of class politics here – they behold a very wealthy man with a cut-glass accent telling them their country needs them, it's all about the "big society", and they need to get with it.

Most of this will either sound dreamy and impenetrable or extremely patronising, or both.

And Aditya Chakrabortty highlights what I found the most disgusting aspect of Cameron's speech:

Let us be clear: this goes way beyond the usual conference grandstanding – it's a cynical rewrite of the past couple of years. A massive failure of the private sector has been Photoshopped into the fault of the state.

Cameron can't even be honest about how we got into this mess, as he is so determined to blame Labour for a world wide economic collapse. It's fanciful and it is extremely dishonest.

And his solution is to talk of a "big society" which is a notion only he seems to fully understand.

For his first ever conference speech as Prime Minister, I thought this was hollow and dishonest at it's core, and simply confusing when addressing where we go from here.

Click here for full article.

Christine O'Donnell: 'I didn't go to Yale' in latest TV ad.

2010-10-08T05:15:00.003+01:00

In her first TV advert, Christine O'Donnell hoped the voters of Delaware would be tempted to vote for her on the grounds that she was "not a witch."

Her second ad is insisting that "I didn't go to Yale", and using what she clearly hopes to be her catchphrase, "I am you":

"I didn't go to Yale, I didn't inherit millions like my opponent. I'm you. I know how tough it is to make and keep a dollar. When some tried to push me from this race they saw what I was made of. And so will the Senate if they try to increase our taxes one more dime. I'm Christine O'Donnell and I approve this message. I'm you."

And while it is true her opponent went to Yale, I am not sure if it is true that he "inherited millions".

The "inherit millions" line is a nasty attack, since Coons's family went bankrupt in the 1970s and was forced to sell their home, after which his parents divorced. His mother re-married, to Robert Gore, one of the founders of Gore-Tex, based in Delaware and where Chris Coons worked for several years. Since Robert Gore is still alive it's unlikely Coons has inherited anything from his stepfather.

Of course, O'Donnell - whilst spurning the notion of privilege associated with Yale - has attempted to claim that she was educated at Oxford University in England, so the point she makes by stating that she "did go to Yale" is obscure at best.

And attacking her opponent for where he got his money is surely risky, as there are allegations that she used her campaign funds in a way which was "clearly criminal".

She has clearly decided to attempt to turn her negatives into positives.

Beck: Dems position on Bush tax cuts is "the same old class warfare".

2010-10-06T05:51:00.002+01:00

Beck repeats the lie that it "would cost nothing" to extend the Bush tax cuts and states that it is "class warfare" to ask that the rich pay roughly the same rate of income tax which they paid under Ronald Reagan.

David Cameron 'sorry' child benefit cut was not in Tory manifesto.

2010-10-06T05:26:00.004+01:00

David Cameron has been forced to apologise for not including plans to remove child benefit for high earners in his election manifesto.

"We did not outline all those cuts, we did not know exactly the situation we were going to inherit," he told ITV news. "But I acknowledge this was not in our manifesto. Of course I am sorry about that."

And Osborne has had to write to all Tory MP's outlining the reasoning behind the move.

Osborne wrote: "I know some have pointed out that this approach will leave households that do not contain a higher rate taxpayer, but whose joint income is above the higher-rate threshold, still in receipt of child benefit. The only way to assess these joint income families would be to create a new complex, costly and intrusive means test that would spread right up the income distribution."

In other words, you can means test the poor, but not the middle classes. That would be "intrusive" and utterly unacceptable.

This subject really does seem to have knocked the Conservatives sideways as, in order to calm their backbenchers, they have gone on to talk about extending tax allowance for married couples to those paying higher rate income tax, another pledge which was missing from their manifesto. And, I presume, was not budgeted for.

For, if they carry through with this, it could wipe out all the money saved from removing child benefit from high earners.

When it was pointed out that the Tory pre-election plan to help married couples had been aimed only at basic-rate taxpayers, and would therefore not compensate higher-rate taxpayers for the loss of child benefit, government sources rapidly shifted ground.

The sources suggested the wording in the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition agreement left open the possibility of higher-rate taxpayers also being helped by the marriage tax allowance, which will be introduced by 2015.

The initial proposal had been calculated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as costing £550m and was worth £120 a year – a figure far lower than the loss due to the removal of child benefit.

Extending the scheme to higher-rate taxpayers might push the cost as high £1bn, wiping out nearly all savings from withdrawing child benefit and rendering the exercise highly costly in political terms for zero financial reward.

You really do get the feeling that they are making this up as they are going along. And, as I have always said, whatever the motivation, it's hard to believe that it is truly financial if the scheme ends up costing them money because they extended tax allowance for married couples to high income tax payers.

All in all this has been a bloody mess. And it needn't have been. Most people can see the logic of removing child benefit from those who don't need it. But the way they have done it has been a disaster, and the way they have scrambled in an attempt to please their base has risked rendering the whole exercise financially futile. It's been an unedifying spectacle.

Click here for full article.

Firefighters Watch As Home Burns: Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee.

2010-10-05T12:00:00.005+01:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is what would happen if right wing Tea Party philosophy was carried to it's "logical" conclusion. This is why some things are considered a collective responsibility.

As ThinkProgress has noted, there are currently two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background.

It's simply shocking. And it's what would happen routinely if Tea Party logic was allowed to prosper.

Geert Wilders trial halted as lawyer accuses judge of bias.

2010-10-05T11:41:00.004+01:00

He's an Islamophobic moron, but I can see no purpose in prosecuting him.

Indeed, the decision by the Dutch authorities to bring Geert Wilders to trial for his offensive, racist, garbage only allows him to play the role of victim.

"I am on trial, but on trial with me is the freedom of expression of many Dutch citizens," he told the Amsterdam district court. "I can assure you, I will continue proclaiming it."

The funniest thing about this is that he immediately declined his right to proclaim it and told the court that he would not be answering any questions during his trial.

This led one of the judges to note that Wilders often makes bold statements and then refuses to get into discussions where his views might be challenged.

"It appears you're doing so again."

This, hysterically, led to Wilders asking that the judge be dismissed as he had clearly, as far as Wilders was concerned, shown bias. The trial has been suspended whilst his objection is considered.

"I thought I had a right to a fair trial, including the right to remain silent," said Wilders. "It is scandalous that the judge passes comment on that. A fair trial is not possible with judges like that."

As far as I am concerned, Wilders should be allowed to say what he likes, as long as he is not calling for violent acts. People are intelligent enough to be able to see his hate speak for what it is, without dragging him through the courts.

But it is hysterical that this purveyor of hatred towards all things Muslim should find the judges comments, "scandalous". The guy has no sense of irony.

Click here for full article.

"I Am Not a Witch!"

2010-10-05T11:13:00.004+01:00

I've heard lots of strange reasons as to why people should be elected, but "I am not a witch" is the weirdest ever. I mean, your selling points must be particularly slim when the fact that you not a witch is considered a positive thing.

There's already a parody of it on-line.

The fact that she once dabbled in witchcraft is nowhere near as disturbing as some of her other views.

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware said in a 2006 debate that China was plotting to take over America and claimed to have classified information about the country that she couldn't divulge.
O'Donnell's comments came as she and two other Republican candidates debated U.S. policy on China during Delaware's 2006 Senate primary, which O'Donnell ultimately lost.
She said China had a "carefully thought out and strategic plan to take over America" and accused one opponent of appeasement for suggesting that the two countries were economically dependent and should find a way to be allies.
"That doesn't work," she said. "There's much I want to say. I wish I wasn't privy to some of the classified information that I am privy to."

Grade one nutbag.

O'Reilly: If you don't count African-Americans and liberals, Obama "has very little support in the rest of the country".

2010-10-05T08:43:00.002+01:00

Even by O'Reilly's standards, this is painful.

Basically he is saying, if you remove over half of the country, then no-one supports Obama.

I could counter that if you remove Tea Party supporters, rabid right wingers and gun toting lunatics, then no-one watches O'Reilly.

Benefits feel the squeeze – but the City doesn't.

2010-10-05T07:22:00.005+01:00

The Tories have always been in favour of a smaller state, and that is reflected in the cuts which they are making. However, the Tories are determined that the cuts they wish to impose must never be seen as ideological, which is why they are now insisting that the cuts are the result of financial necessity, and that Osborne has no choice other than to indulge in the kind of brutal austerity which he is doling out.

It strikes me as odd that fate has been kind enough to hand the Tories the type of task that they have always relished carrying out, and made it a matter of necessity to boot. So, according to their script, they get to do what they have always wanted to do, but - Heaven forfend - it's not their fault.

Oh, that life would be so kind to the rest of us.

Yesterday, Osborne scrapped child benefit for families where one member earns more than £43,875 and put a cap on the amount any family can claim in benefits at £26,000. I don't think anyone could argue against high income families losing a child benefit which they don't really need, especially at a time of recession, but there is a slapdash manner to the way Osborne has done this which is troubling.

It admits the shake-up will create anomalies: a two-earner couple both on £40,000 a year will keep their child benefit, while a family with a single earner on £45,000 will lose theirs. The benefit is worth £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for each subsequent child. So one-child families who lose out will be £1,055 a year worse off and those with three children £2,500 worse off.

Of course, Osborne will, once again, claim that necessity has tied his hands. And it is certainly true that it is many of his own supporters who will pay the price of this cut. However, what Osborne is really attacking here is the principle at the heart of Britain's welfare system; that some benefits, especially benefits for children, are universal and not subjected to means testing.

Osborne will willingly take the wrath of his own party in order to tear down that Labour ideal.

I expect there to be some discontent amongst the Liberal Democrats in the coalition, but Clegg will, of course, support anything which is fiscally right of centre.

Critics said it undermines the principle of universal benefits locking the middle classes into the welfare state. It also contradicts pledges made by David Cameron, Mr Osborne, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable in the run-up to the May election.

Mr Clegg endorsed yesterday's change but there are signs of a backlash from the Liberal Democrats, whose conference two weeks ago voted to retain child benefit as a universal payment. Bob Russell, MP for Colchester, told The Independent: "If I have an opportunity to vote against it, I will. I support universal child benefit. It is a guarantee for the child because it is paid to the mother."

This is all happening at a time when the banks - the section of the populace who created this financial disaster - are, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, enjoying bonuses this year in excess of £7 billion.

Which sort of renders Osborne's words to the conference as empty rhetoric:

"We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses, if that means money is not flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash and suffered most in it."

But the money is flowing out. £7 billion of it.

Which brings me back to my original point. This isn't about financial necessity, although a necessity exists, this is purely ideological.

There are billions of pounds flowing into the arms of the people who caused this mess whilst Osborne attacks the middle class - his own supporters - in order to destroy a principle which Osborne vehemently disagrees with.

He's entitled to loathe the principle of universal benefits, and he's entitled to attempt to destroy that principle. I just can't bear the fact that he is being so dishonest about what he is doing. He is hiding behind the claim of necessity, when the riches flowing around the city show that there are other places he could raise money if that was his true priority.

He wants to attack and reduce the welfare state but lacks the courage of his convictions to make an argument for doing so. Instead, he hides behind the claim of necessity.

Thatcher would never have displayed such cowardice. She would have told us what she was doing and why she was doing it. And she would have loved the fact that we loathed her for it.

Osborne lacks her courage and honesty. He's dismantling the state, and hiding behind the flimsy excuse that he has no other choice. When it's clear to all that there are lots of other choices.

Click here for full article.

Milbank: Beck is "Dangerous" and encouraging the fringe.

2010-10-04T07:17:00.004+01:00

Dana Milbank sees Glenn Beck as "one of the great opportunists in our culture" who "sees where things are going" and then "reinvents himself to get out in front of that and lead the parade."

He then discusses the myriad of ways in which Beck has changed his stances over the years.

"We know that a dozen years ago he was pro-choice, pro-abortion rights and was wearing a pony tail. We know that, when George W. Bush was president, he came out in favour of the Tarp bailout for banks. And now rails against it. So, we do know that he has changed his views at various times, it's very difficult to know what he believes."

He then talks of the way Beck peddles conspiracy theories and mentions the Nazis an inordinate number of times.

And he concludes that Beck is "dangerous."

But his point about Beck as an opportunist is the one which most resonates with me. He's not terribly bright, he really doesn't understand a lot of what he is talking about, but he is good at feeding red meat to a certain kind of deranged ultra right wing conservative.

And, if any of them took the time to look at his own record, they would find that he used to support the very things which he now claims to despise.

Fox News Watch Panel Whines About President Obama's Criticism of Fox in Rolling Stone.

2010-10-04T07:07:00.002+01:00

Watch Jim Pinkerton pretend that Obama's criticism of Fox News is actually a criticism of the Fox News viewers.

It seems incredible to me that Fox can even pretend that they don't have an agenda.

Phone-hacking scandal: Andy Coulson 'listened to intercepted messages'.

2010-10-04T06:11:00.003+01:00

The story that Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of The World and now Head of Communications for David Cameron's coalition, did not know of the blatant illegality being carried out in his own news room was always hard to believe.

Now, a journalist who worked under him has come out and stated that Coulson not only knew that his journalists were listening in to celebrities messages, but that he even listened to recordings of them himself.

Coulson has always denied knowing about any illegal activity by the journalists who worked for him, but an unidentified former executive from the paper told Channel Four Dispatches that Coulson not only knew his reporters were using intercepted voicemail but was also personally involved.

"Sometimes, they would say: 'We've got a recording' and Andy would say: 'OK, bring it into my office and play it to me' or 'Bring me, email me a transcript of it'," the journalist said.

The claim, due to be broadcast tomorrow night, goes beyond earlier statements by Coulson's former colleagues.

Sean Hoare, a showbusiness reporter, told the New York Times Coulson had "actively encouraged" him to intercept voicemail.

Paul McMullan, who handled investigations, told the Guardian illegal activity was so widespread in the newsroom that Coulson must have known about it. Coulson has denied all the claims.

Channel Four's anonymous witness, whose words are spoken by an actor in the programme, says: "Andy was a very good editor.

"He was very conscientious and he wouldn't let stories pass unless he was sure they were correct ... so, if the evidence that a reporter had was a recorded phone message, that would be what Andy would know about.

"So you'd have to say: 'Yes, there's a recorded message.' You go and either play it to him or show him a transcript of it, in order to satisfy him that you weren't going to get sued, that it wasn't made up."

Coulson resigned from the newspaper after his royal journalist, Clive Goodman, was jailed after listening to the personal voice-mail messages of three members of the royal staff. Coulson claimed as he stepped down that this was a case of one bad apple and that the practice was not widespread.

Many people have come forward since the New York Times started investigating this and have stated that Coulson's version of events was untrue.

Indeed, there are even reports that the News of The World issued threats to make sure that all investigations stopped at Goodman.

Adam Price, one of the MPs from the media select committee which last year investigated the phone-hacking scandal, described how he stopped voting to compel News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, to be called as a witness.

"I was told by a senior Conservative member of the committee, who I knew was in direct contact with executives at News International, that if we went for her, they would go for us – effectively that they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish them."

This story really isn't going to go away. Cameron appears to think that he can make out that this is a case of Labour MP's attempting to put pressure on his Head of Communications for political reasons. And that might play out well within his own party.

But, to the rest of us, this whole thing is beginning to stink. Too many people have come forward, and they are all saying essentially the same thing. Coulson knew.

Click here for full article.

Maher on Obama.

2010-10-03T08:48:00.003+01:00

Maher gets it on the money as always.

Maher: Why can't the Democrats get props for what they've achieved? Oh, I know... I know. Obama's black. He's used to being denied credit. And there's nothing wrong with being hard on him. He's the president and it's our job to keep him honest.

But when it comes to voting, when we only have two choices, you've got to grow up and realize there's a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That's what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they'd be your relatives.

But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter "D"? Because it's a grade that means good enough, but just barely.

You know why the Republican symbol is "R"? Because it's the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark.

I am all for people criticising Obama when he wavers, that's the right thing to do. But it's idiocy to ignore what his opponents want to do. He might be, at times, disappointing, but they are outright loons.

John Rentoul: If Ed is a gift to Dave, he's a Trojan horse.

2010-10-03T08:07:00.005+01:00

We've all read how delighted the Tories are to be facing Ed Miliband rather than his brother David.

Now John Rentoul - Blair's biographer of all people - is warning Cameron that, if Miliband is a gift, then he is a Trojan bloody horse.

We know two things about how the general public will view the early clashes between Cameron and Miliband. One is that they know next to nothing about the new Labour leader; the other is that they tend to give a new face the benefit of the doubt. Cameron finds himself in a similar position to that of Tony Blair when, as Prime Minister, he faced his fifth and last Conservative leader.

Cameron's own arrival at the despatch box to which Ed Miliband will step up next Wednesday prompted furious discussion in Blair's office and between Blair and Brown. Blair took a "wait and see" approach, feeling his way to Cameron's weaknesses, sizing up his new opponent. Many Blair advisers, having read books about American politics, knew that it was a priority to "define your opponent before he can define himself", and urged him to paint Cameron as a Thatcherite, Norman Lamont's adviser and a public relations man.

Brown agreed with them. The most vivid image from the House of Commons in those days was of Brown almost pulling at Blair's arm, his body language shouting: "Let me at him!" But Blair understood the danger of seeming too nasty about his untested foil. When Brown got the chance, he called Cameron a "salesman", which came across as elitist, and then tried the "playing fields of Eton", which backfired because people thought Cameron was polite.

It is being reported elsewhere that Cameron is planning to use the term "Red Ed" as a rallying call for the Conservatives. I find this idiotic. It might be a nice piece of alliteration, but it is nowhere near the truth, and the public won't be so stupid as to accept it as such.

Indeed, Cameron's worry should be that, as the cuts become painful and real, Ed Miliband might be speaking out for an awful lot of people when he states that Cameron's coalition is going in too hard and too quick.

Mr Cameron attacked Mr Miliband's move to the left of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown after backing tax rises while delaying action to reduce the deficit. The stance left "a massive gaping hole of credibility in his entire approach", the Prime Minister told the The Sunday Telegraph.

It follows a claim by the Chancellor, George Osborne, that Labour had made a "historic mistake" in electing Mr Miliband: "They have chosen to move off the historic centre ground of British politics. He is a man without a mandate or an answer to the deficit, and that makes him weak."

This appears to be the new Tory strategy; to portray Miliband as having "no answer to the deficit", rather than simply having a different answer than the one they are committed to.

This is okay as long as cuts to reduce the deficit are merely something which we are all talking about; but this will change once the severity of the Tory cuts becomes clear.

At that point Miliband's calls for less severity will start to resonate with an awful lot of people.

Who is to say that a Labour leader with a basically leftish tilt, against a coalition finally making deep cuts, is going to be unpopular? Who is to say that he doesn't face a strategic opportunity at the next election, when that coalition includes the Liberal Democrats, who have an "itch to switch" to working with Labour? Not just because they feel an ideological closeness but because they want to stay independent by avoiding being glued to one party for too long.

One of the most intriguing things about Cameron's speech this week is how he will deal with Ed Miliband, a box marked Handle With Care.

The Conservative approach to Miliband so far has been an extremely childish one. Cameron can please his base with name calling this week, but the public won't like it, any more than they appreciated Gordon pointing out Cameron's public school past.

Miliband represents a serious threat to the Tories. His position in a new poll confirms this.

A YouGov/Sunday Times poll last night put Labour ahead on 41 per cent with the Tories at 39 and the Lib Dems on 11.

That's no gift to the Tories. And it's idiocy to think that you can sell it as such.

Click here for full article.

Palestinians 'will not resume talks without new freeze on settlements'.

2010-10-03T07:32:00.004+01:00

It could be the Obama's dreams of Middle East peace talks between Israel and Palestine are about to come to an end.

The Palestinian leadership confirmed yesterday that it would not return to direct peace negotiations with the Israelis without an extension to the now-expired freeze on settlement construction, amid determined but increasingly frustrated efforts by the Americans to keep the talks alive.

The executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation met in Ramallah to consider its position following the end of the moratorium last weekend. Palestinian negotiators have said repeatedly that they would not stay at the negotiating table unless the freeze were extended, and that Israel must choose between settlements and peace.

"The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official, speaking after the meeting. "The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations."

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said efforts had reached "a dead end". "There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement," Abu Rdainah said. "All the while Israel is not convinced that the political process be based on international law and justice, matters will remain in a state of paralysis for a long time."

I don't blame the Palestinians for this. In what good faith can one negotiate with a nation which is breaking international law even as you are attempting to reason with them and work out a peace deal?

Netanyahu has shown the kind of arrogance which has typified his entire career when he insisted that his refusal to extend the settlement freeze should not endanger the talks.

While giving no hint that Israel would bow to Palestinian demands, Netanyahu said he believed a "creative" solution could still resolve the impasse and keep talks alive.

"Just a month ago the Palestinians entered direct peace talks with no preconditions after my government made a range of gestures to push forward the dialogue," he said.

"Before that, over 17 years, the Palestinians conducted a direct dialogue with Israeli governments, while building in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] continued, including during the final year of the previous administration."

Settlement building has been slower under Netanyahu's current administration than under any Israeli government since the mid-1970s.

Netanyahu added: "I hope that now they will not turn their backs on peace and continue talks to reach a deal within a year."

This is a disingenuous complaint. The fact that Israel continued to build during previous negotiations shows only that the Palestinians should never have agreed to do this in the past. There are some who believe that Israel will always negotiate whilst building, as eventually there will be nothing to negotiate about, as Israel will have seized all Palestinian land.

Israel cannot be considered serious about peace whilst she continues to steal Palestinian land and flout international law.

The Israelis are now attempting to deflect blame for the expected breakdown of talks on to the Palestinians. "Now I expect the Palestinians to show some flexibility," Netanyahu was quoted as saying at the end of last week. "Everyone knows that measured and restrained building in Judaea and Samaria [the West Bank] in the coming year will have no influence on the peace map."

This is how insane Israeli politics have become under Netanyahu. He wishes to blame the Palestinians for reacting to the fact that he is breaking international law.

Click here for full article.

The U.S. searches for war criminals.

2010-10-02T08:17:00.004+01:00

This made me laugh out loud.

Apparently, the U.S. Government are aggressively trying to track down war criminals.

"I don't think there's any question that we're going to have a greater number of these cases and that these cases are going to reach (suspects from) more parts of the world," says Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, a child of Holocaust survivors who has pushed the more aggressive efforts to hold war criminals accountable. "It's something we have to do. We owe it to our citizens and we owe it to the world."

Congress passed the laws amid a broader international push after the Cold War to hold war criminals and human rights abusers accountable, says Eli Rosenbaum, who ran the Office of Special Investigations and now is director of strategy and policy in the new Human Rights and Special Prosecutions unit.

"Interest burgeoned all over the world in bringing these people to justice," Rosenbaum says. Among U.S. policymakers, "there was bipartisan support for doing this, and Congress gave us a lot of new tools."

Now, it's going full steam.

"We want to send a message to would-be human rights violators of the future," Rosenbaum says. "Their odds of getting away with it are shrinking rapidly."

As Greenwald points out, if the US wants to prove it's serious about this, it might want to start it's search here.

Rick Sanchez Fired From CNN.

2010-10-02T06:28:00.004+01:00

I find this really sad. Rick Sanchez has simply destroyed his credibility with an astonishing attack on Jon Stewart, by calling him "a bigot" and implying that CNN and other networks are run by Jews.

CNN have now fired him.

Clearly Jon Stewart has got under his skin, but this outburst is astonishing. It's obvious that he feels, as an American of Cuban background, that he is in some way being persecuted.

PD: Stewart's a minority as much as you are.

RS: Yeah, a very powerless people.

PD: Whoa.

RS: He's such a minority. You know, please. Are you kidding me? I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.

Later in the conversation he backed off these claims, saying that Stewart was merely "prejudicial" and stating:

"I grew up in Miami. Every one of my best friends was Jewish!"

But, by that point, the damage had been done.

I can understand why coming under the scrutiny of Jon Stewart would be embarrassing and infuriating. None of us would like to be subjected to that guy's laser-like comedic scrutiny. But to imply that he does so because he is "a bigot" and a member of some Jewish cabal which runs the networks?

Oh dear.... Sanchez is ignoring that fact that there are an awful lot of very successful Cuban Americans in the entertainment industry. He's not the only one.

He would have had more credibility if he had claimed that the US entertainment industry was run by Scientologists.

Clearly it is his perception of being singled out as a minority which has led to him feeling, in some way, persecuted. But it is his own sense of persecution which has brought about his downfall. That's sad.

Beck: Obama was "sent away" from Indonesia because his mom didn't want him influenced by "someone who's not a Marxist".

2010-10-01T08:04:00.004+01:00

Beck gets more ridiculous with each and every day that passes.

Now, Obama's mother sent him to Hawaii because she didn't want him influenced by someone who was "not a Marxist". Surely even his moronic viewers realise that this is a serious overreach? He doesn't even care how ridiculous he sounds these days.

OneNation march plans send Glenn Beck into a Red-baiting frenzy: Marxists are everywhere!

2010-10-01T07:42:00.004+01:00

Oh dear... Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's plan to hold a rally mocking Glenn Beck's world changing, historic, most fabulous thing to happen ever ever ever rally, has caused Mr Beck's brain to implode.

Beck: Now, I'd love to see the president come out and denounce socialism, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries. Once! Mr. President, once! Deny Marxism, Communism, revolutionaries! Tell us you are against all of this!

Marxism is evil, and the only thing it has contributed to in the history of mankind is mass graves. All of these groups, and the president of the United States, want nothing short of fundamental transformation of America. It is not about cleaning up corruption. It is only a beginning -- a beginning of a radical, revolutionary Marxist land.

Do not allow them to get away with the lies! Do not allow them to say that we are just "one nation, working together". "We're just trying to put America back to work, and putting America back together." These people, a lot of them have fought their entire life to destroy America!

It's ironic that Stewart and Colbert call their public protest, "A Rally To Restore Sanity", as it has clearly driven Beck even more insane than usual.

Wanted for genocide... and as a trading partner.

2010-10-01T07:20:00.004+01:00

I well remember the contempt in which the Tories held Robin Cook when he had the nerve to suggest that Britain's foreign policy should be ethical. He was widely ridiculed.

But, contrast that with the foreign policy example being set by William Hague.

The Government is courting the regime of the indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir by declaring that relations with Sudan have entered a "new epoch". The announcement came as Britain welcomed a trade delegation from the country which has near pariah status, for the first time since warrants for President Bashir's arrest were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, over atrocities in Darfur.

Khartoum's high-level delegation met British government officials and business leaders on Wednesday to encourage investment in a country still targeted by US sanctions. It was the clearest example yet of how problematic William Hague's new foreign policy, in which commercial interests are to trump ethical concerns, will be for the Coalition to implement.

Business people attending have been told that Sudan is full of "untapped natural resources" and that there was "a lot of money to be made" there.

The pursuit of such friendly ties leaves the Coalition partners open to accusations of hypocrisy. While in opposition the Tory party called Darfur the "world's worst humanitarian crisis" and senior officials including Mr Hague, the current Foreign Secretary, and Andrew Mitchell, now the International Development Secretary, backed the campaign to get UK companies to disinvest from Sudan.

In a foreign policy advisory in 2007 Mr Mitchell wrote of the need to "change national and international business behaviour in the face of manifest gross violations of human rights".

But last night a Foreign Office spokesman insisted that British companies were "free to pursue legitimate commercial opportunities in Sudan", adding that "increased trade would benefit" the country's people. He said that there was "no question of prioritising commercial links over the very real and pressing human rights concerns".

I preferred the foreign policy intentions of Robin Cook. When we find ourselves dealing with suspected war criminals, I think we are guilty of putting money before principle.

Click here for full article.

Morale boost for Ed Miliband as poll gives Labour first lead in three years.

2010-10-01T06:34:00.004+01:00

In and of itself, it's almost meaningless, but I note it nevertheless.

Ed Miliband ends his first week as Labour leader with his party ahead of the Tories in a Guardian/ICM poll for the first time since Gordon Brown ducked the chance of holding an election in 2007.

It's important only because it undermines Blair's claim that the party could not move a millimetre to the left of New Labour without courting disaster.

Ed Miliband is clearly somewhere to the left of his brother - the clear New Labour candidate - and yet is being given a cautious welcome by the public.

And, as I expected, the results are in many ways fuelled by public reaction to the coalition's planned cuts.

The poll also shows that the public mood is swinging against the scale and speed of spending cuts, with 43% now saying the cuts have gone too far compared with the 37% who think the balance is right. By contrast, in July 39% thought the balance right, and 38% said too far.

And all of this is happening before a single cut has been implemented.

Once Osborne actually starts to make cuts of between 25% and 40% I fully expect their to be outrage across the political spectrum. As I have always said, these are percentages which he has plucked from his ass. It's simply impossible to impose a cut of 25% on any public service without reducing it to a shadow of it's former self. And that's looking at his proposed cuts at the lower end of his scale.

Imagine the impact of a 25% cut on something as simple as your local bus service. One in four buses gone, the packed insides as more and more passengers are forced to cram in together. Now apply that to all other public services. Imagine the police force deprived of a quarter of their effectiveness. Imagine the strikes which are sure to break out when Osborne tries to impose these savage cuts across the board. We are already seeing house prices plummet in reaction to what Osborne has proposed, so it does not surprise me at all that Ed Miliband has seen a rise in the polls before most people even know what he stands for. People know that he does not favour cuts on the scale which Osborne proposes and that appears to be good enough for now to ensure that people consider giving him a chance.

All of this is taking place before a single cut has been implemented. Once they are implemented, I fully expect chaos to take place.

And, as expected, Labour's gains are made largely at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.

There has been a shift of opinion in Labour's favour since May, with support up almost eight points at the expense of the Lib Dems. Almost one in four people who voted Lib Dem are now thinking of voting Labour instead.

Once the reality of what Clegg has signed up to becomes apparent, and people re-read his comments stating that benefits should not be there 'to compensate the poor for their predicament', I fully expect there to be a progressive exodus from the Liberal Democrat party.

The right wing newspapers have nicknamed him "Red Ed", but I think Miliband has positioned himself perfectly to counter the economic savagery which the Con-Dem coalition have in store for us all.

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Beck: "This country will have a very short future if you base it on the friends" of Oct. 2 rally.

2010-09-30T07:17:00.004+01:00

It was inevitable that Glenn Beck would react badly to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's determination to hold a spoof rally mocking the rally which Beck held.

Beck takes himself too seriously not to react. Indeed, he thinks his rally will go down in history. It takes quite an ego to make that claim.

But I didn't expect him to describe the Stewart/Colbert rally in the over-the-top way in which he does here.

He describes the friends of One Nation as "radicals, revolutionaries, Communist, agitators, that's all they are. They haven't been brought together since the 1960's. This is the point that I have been warning about for a long time. When their poll numbers go down, and when they get desperate, they will take to the streets and they will agitate."

See, how that works? When people who support Beck take to the streets, we are watching "good decent people"; however, when Colbert and Stewart hold a rally we are suddenly asked to see "agitators."

And I love how anything less than two million people on the mall for Stewart and Colbert will be "a failure". Is Beck seriously now claiming that he attracted two million people to his rally? Is he seriously claiming that more people attended his rally than attended the inauguration of America's first ever black president?

It's impossible to take this guy seriously.

Fake pimp from ACORN videos tries to 'punk' CNN correspondent.

2010-09-30T06:41:00.004+01:00

James O'Keefe, the guy who played the pimp in the highly edited fake Acorn videos, has been caught out trying to stage a moronic “fake seduction” of CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau.

When Boudreau arrived at the address, a house located on a tributary of the Patuxent River, Santa approached her with a tape recorder in her hand and said she wanted to talk in the car, Boudreau said.

“I noticed she had a little bit of dirt on her face, her lip was shaking, she seemed really uncomfortable and I asked her if she was OK,” Boudreau said. “The first thing she basically said to me was, ‘I’m not recording you, I’m not recording you. Are you recording me?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not recording you,’ and she showed me her digital recorder and it was not recording.”

Santa told Boudreau that O’Keefe planned to “punk” her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up. Boudreau said she would not get on the boat and asked Santa why O’Keefe wanted her there.

“Izzy told me that James was going to be dressed up and have strawberries and champagne on the boat, and he was going to hit on me the whole time,” Boudreau said.

It's being reported that O'Keefe wanted to make out that the boat was "an over-the-top 'palace of pleasure' replete with strawberries, champagne, a condom jar, fuzzy handcuffs, and, er, sex toys."

Have a look at the size of the boat in the video. The only reasonable conclusion, looking at that tiny boat and reading of what O'Keefe hoped it would represent, is that O'Keefe is a moron.

But a seriously creepy moron. Here's part of the script which he was planning to use for his faux seduction tape.

"My name is James, I work in video activism and journalism. I've been approached by CNN for an interview where I know what their angle is: they want to portray me and my friends as crazies, as non-journalists, as unprofessional and likely as homophobes, racists or bigots of some sort…"

"Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath."

"Please sit back and enjoy the show."

It makes your skin crawl.

David Miliband bows out, defeated and demoralised.

2010-09-30T05:29:00.005+01:00

I have already expressed my sympathy for David Miliband and my hopes that he was going to stick around to help his younger brother.

But, that was all before this, the moment when David Miliband found it impossible to hide his anger at his brother's statement regarding the Iraq war.

So, it comes as no surprise that he has decided that he is not going to serve in his brothers cabinet.

In a departure marked by magnanimity and self-restraint, David Miliband said that in some ways the easy decision would have been to remain in the shadow cabinet, but that his instinct as soon as he lost the leadership race on Saturday was that he would have to go.

He will remain as a backbencher, and write, as well as taking time to recharge his intellectual batteries and spend more time with his two young children. Heartbroken supporters continued to grit their teeth in the interests of party unity, but one said: "David is giving Ed some space to carry on torching the house we built."

The papers seem determined to see this as an act of "magnanimity and self-restraint", but I find the whole thing petulant and self indulgent.

The words of his supporters, that he is "giving Ed some space to carry on torching the house we built", is much nearer to what, I suspect, is actually going on here. Indeed, it is through the words of his supporters that one gets some sense of the anger and frustration which is behind his decision to stand down.

Jon Cruddas, a David Miliband supporter, said he was alarmed by triumphalists claiming that they had got their party back. "There is a danger that we are going to be dominated by a metropolitan liberal faction that is rather removed from the real world," he said.

Lord Prescott praised David Miliband and said: "He helped create a record that we can be proud of, and I respect the fact that during the leadership campaign he chose to defend it."

David represents New Labour and, like most of New Labour, he can't bring himself to say sorry for the Iraq war.

After all, Blair and the rest of them "sincerely believed" that Saddam had WMD, so who can fault them for their "sincere beliefs"?

Ed has broken with that mindset by stating that the Iraq war was wrong, and that statement brought from David the most public display of anger he has shown in his entire career.

The victory of Ed represents the death of New Labour and, as his brother was the next nominal head of that group, it probably is for the best that he heads for the backbenches.

I worry that New Labour will continue to haunt the party, refusing to accept that their moment in the spotlight is over. They delivered three election victories, but they alienated the party from it's base.

The bitterness they are now expressing is based on the fact that they can't understand how the party could be so ungrateful as to reject them.

Tony Blair had warned that the party would face certain defeat should it "move a millimetre from New Labour", which they probably believe, despite the fact that polls suggest a break from New Labour would make 47% of people more likely to consider voting Labour.

One would have hoped that New Labour could be magnanimous enough to hide their bitterness for the sake of rallying around the new leader, but David's departure for the backbenches shows that they are not taking their defeat well.

God knows what they have got in store for us in the months to come.

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Hannity and friends complain about Obama's Fox criticism.

2010-09-29T08:47:00.003+01:00

Obama stated this:

The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition -- it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It's a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it's been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it's that Fox is very successful.

Cue Sean Hannity to step forward and prove the very point which Obama was making. On what other news channel could one refer to "The Anointed One" and have everyone understand instantly that you are referring to the president?

What is that, if not having "a very clear, undeniable point of view"?

Gaffney Is Ludicrous.

2010-09-29T08:22:00.003+01:00

It's hard watching Frank Gaffney engaging in this kind of fear-mongering and not conclude that the objections to the Park 51 mosque are simple Islamophobia.

Here, Gaffney argues that a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN, is attempting to introduce Sharia law on the whole of the United States.

It's the stupidest argument I have ever heard. As is pointed out to Gaffney here, the Muslim population of the US is only 2%. How can 2% of the population - even assuming that they desire Sharia law, which they don't - force their views, in a democracy, over the views of the other 98%? Especially as even country's like Pakistan, with a 98% Muslim population, don't have Sharia law.

It's hard to believe that Gaffney actually means what he is saying, which can only lead one to conclude that he is simply fear-mongering. Does anyone seriously believe that a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN, represents, as Gaffney ludicrously states, a desire "to destroy western civilisation from within"?

Israeli navy diverts Gaza-bound yacht.

2010-09-29T07:45:00.005+01:00

Israel has turned away yet another boat headed for Gaza.

The Israeli navy today boarded a yacht carrying 10 Jewish activists who were attempting to break the sea blockade around Gaza, forcibly diverting the vessel to the nearby port of Ashdod.

"There was no resistance, no violence," an Israeli military spokeswoman said. "Before we boarded, we twice asked the captain not to cross the international line into Gaza waters but he refused."

But, one only has to look at who was on board to see how clearly Israel is losing the PR war over it's Gaza blockade.

Among the passengers are an Israeli Holocaust survivor, an Israeli whose daughter was killed in a suicide bombing in 1997, and a former Israeli air force pilot.

Hardly the "terrorists" that Israel usually claim are attempting to break it's blockade. All people of conscience are now waking up to the injustice of this.

Just how stubborn is Netanyahu? For how long will he insist on defending this PR nightmare for his country?

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