The Osterley Times

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Brown under siege as Congress caps bankers' bonuses.

The vast majority of us do our jobs for our salaries and can be expected to be fired if we do not come up to scratch. Only in the banking sector do people expect bonuses if they do the job for which they are being paid. And, in the top echelons of the banking sector, they are being paid very well indeed.

With the recent bailout, public anger over this practice has forced Barack Obama to cap the bonuses paid to top executives; and the fact that Obama has acted in this way means that Gordon Brown will now be under pressure to follow suit.

Gordon Brown was under rising pressure to clamp down on the City's bonus culture last night after the US Congress agreed to drastic curbs capping senior bankers' bonuses at a third of their salary.

The measures, which are expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama this week, would apply to dozens of staff at American banks bailed out by the taxpayer and could cost Wall Street's wealthiest millions. Cash bonuses would be banned in favour of long-term share options, with the restrictions extending beyond a handful of top executives to senior brokers and traders.

The measures go further than the White House wanted, after Congress significantly toughened the fiscal stimulus package it passed late last week. Obama had originally planned only to cap salaries and his new treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, had lobbied against the draconian new measures. But they will be seen as reflecting growing public anger.

Brown has so far only said that people should not be rewarded for failure, which is his way of avoiding bankers who have lost their company money from receiving bonuses, but he has not addressed the overall subject of the bonus culture.

RBS is paying out £1bn in bonuses for 2008 - the year it made the biggest loss in British corporate history, at an estimated £28bn - while ousted HBOS directors received up to £4.5m, as well as tens of millions of pounds in pension entitlements. Eric Daniels, chief executive of the merged Lloyds-HBOS, waived his most recent bonus, but is entitled to nearly £1m in basic pay, plus a £1.8m bonus and benefits such as school fees for his son.

Brown has opted, so far, to take the route which is inarguable; you shouldn't get a bonus if you lost your company money. You especially shouldn't get a bonus if your company is now only surviving because of money which you have had to borrow from the public purse.

However, public anger over this issue is rising and, with Obama addressing this in the states, it will only be a matter of time before Brown is forced to do the same.

I watched Question Time on playback TV last night and the Labour representative was being battered, clinging to his line that failure must not be rewarded whilst it was obvious that the audience wanted to see an end to this practice altogether. And it was galling to watch the Tories pretend that, they too, shared the audiences anger. Suddenly, the Tories are presenting themselves as the friend of the common man and Labour find themselves defending the worst practices of the city. The world appeared, momentarily, upside down.

Critics argue that the City bonus culture has spread to the public sector, with chief constables, senior NHS executives, local government chiefs and others all now routinely receiving bonuses for meeting targets that were once considered part of the job.

The anger of the Question Time audience appeared to be focused on the fact that these bonuses only seem to apply to people at the very top of the food chain, people who are already being very well paid for their services. It would be unthinkable, for example, to give your cleaner a bonus simply for doing her job, so why are these massive bonuses being paid to people who already receive seven figure salaries?

The recent financial crisis, and especially the fact that public money is being used to bail these banks out, has exposed a culture of greed which most people appear to find abhorrent.

Public anger was now greater than ever. With regulators the only real casualty of the week, and the banks seemingly unmoved, respondents to the IoS poll conducted by ComRes were as furious as mere statistics can ever suggest. Asked if there should be a legal limit on pay in bailed-out banks, 84 per cent agreed, and 82 per cent thought that senior executives should repay bonuses.

I suppose the bankers got away with this as long as public money was not needed to finance what they were doing. But, now that public money is involved, the public appear to be insisting that this practice must stop. Brown will be a fool if he allows the Tories to portray themselves as the party willing to curb the city's worst excesses and himself to be cast as the defender of a practice which most of us find distasteful.

Click title for full article.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Alberto Gonzales still can't recall.

Gonzales popped up on British TV the other night to be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. He's still pulling that "I can't recall" bullshit.

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men.

It's stunts like this which make it very hard to take the Republican party seriously anymore. They are up in arms over a proposal to spend $30 million on mice when no such proposal exists.

“There are no federal wetland restoration projects in line to get funded in San Francisco,” Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill said. “Neither the Speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. The idea that $30 million will be spent to save mice is a total fabrication.”

A total fabrication. And yet that is what numerous Republican speakers (about half way through the video we get to the mouse stuff) chose to address when voicing their opposition to the stimulus package.

They, frankly, look simply ridiculous when they hone in on this kind of utter nonsense. How can anyone take these people seriously? And, more importantly, how can one hope to achieve bipartisanship with idiots?

Lars Larson supports war crimes on national TV.

I spoke about this the other day but it's interesting to listen to Hardball on the subject of whether or not the Obama administration should prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes.

It's fascinating to watch Lars Larson frame this debate as a matter of "guts" for Obama, implying almost that the Democrats don't have the courage to prosecute. This is trying to have this both ways. If the Democrats prosecute - which I strongly feel that they should - he will cry witch hunt. If they don't, he will cry cowards.

Towards the end of the interview Larson shows his true colours when he admits that waterboarding is torture but says that he finds it "appropriate". It's this aspect of the American right wing which most appalls me. They do now actually appear on national television openly supporting war crimes. Indeed, he probably thinks it takes "guts" to commit them; "guts" which cowardly Liberals like myself lack.

In the end he even admits that, in the right circumstances, he would support pulling people's fingernails out. This how extreme the American right wing have now become. And they are not ashamed of this, they are proud because they feel they are displaying "guts".

Larson is blatantly an idiot and Matthews does a good job of handing him enough rope until he eventually hangs himself.

Limbaugh falsely claimed homeless woman at Obama town hall asked for a "car" and a "new kitchen".

It's so important for Rush Limbaugh to portray Democrats and their supporters as people wanting the government to give them things, that he's willing to lie to make his case.

Discussing President Obama's February 10 town hall event in Fort Myers, Florida, Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that a homeless woman at the event asked Obama for a "car" and a "new kitchen." In fact, the woman, Henrietta Hughes, was simply saying that she needs housing. She stated: "I have an urgent need -- unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in. We need urgent, and the housing authority have two years waiting on this, and we need something more than a vehicle and parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help."

During the February 10 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh said, "There's another bite coming up here -- a crying woman named Henrietta asks Obama for a car, for a new kitchen, and a bathroom." Limbaugh went on to assert: "Obama tells her to talk to his staff after the town hall. She asks for a car, a kitchen, and a bathroom."

Limbaugh also highlighted this incident on his website in an article entitled, "Americans Beg Their President for Free Stuff at Town Hall Meeting."

You see, as far as Limbaugh is concerned it's all typical liberal, "the state should look after me" nonsense.

And he even implies that this is the deliberate work of the Obama team and that this is what they want:

LIMBAUGH: Do you think that the people who chose these people to ask questions on the Obama staff might have jobs right now? Did they purposely select these people for these questions? Do you think so? If they didn't, then some heads are going to roll. If they did purposely scour that crowd for these kinds of questions -- and there was more than just this one, so you have to assume this is what they wanted -- they want people looking at Obama this way. "Well, OK, going to do everything we can to help you; a lot of people in your position; lot of people; well, we can help you; have you talk to staff after the town hall."

Having endured the last eight years when the president and the entire White House seemed focused only on giving corporations what they wanted I think there is something positive about a president who realises that ordinary people sometimes need help; indeed, that their need is greater than corporations like Haliburton who can actually look out for themselves very well.

But to Rush that is all that is wrong with liberalism. Individuals who ask for help are "whiners". Companies who use lobbyists to argue for their special interests are realists who are playing the game as it should be played.

And to make that point he's willing to lie and to distort what Henrietta Hughes actually said.

Click title for full article.

Hat tip to Media Matters.

US Congress passes stimulus plan.

I am always quite frankly amazed when the people who presided over eight years which saw a massive surplus turn into a massive deficit suddenly decide to pretend that they are the people most concerned with fiscal responsibility. The people who waged wars whilst giving themselves tax cuts, whose policies it could be argued led to the very financial mess which we all now find ourselves in, suddenly feel that now is the time for them to present themselves to the public as the responsible financial alternative to Democratic recklessness.

And yet, as the US Senate finally passes Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, that is exactly what they are doing:

Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said: "This isn't Monopoly money. It's real. It adds up, and it has to be paid back, by our children and by their children."

McConnell had no difficulty passing the cost of both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war on to his children and his grandchildren, but he balks at the thought of passing the stimulus plan on to them.

As do, it appears, almost all Republicans. Every Republican in the House rejected Obama's plan and a mere three voted for it in the Senate.

The Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, praised the three Republicans who had voted for the bill and said it was the most important piece of legislation he had worked on.
"The country is in trouble and we're so fortunate we were able to get it passed," he said.
"It's going to give this country a shot in the arm."
Earlier, Mr Obama had said that in the longer term the government needed to rein in spending, and that "we are going to have to once again live within our means".

Obama may sensibly talk of "living within our means" in the future, but it is the Republican party - who ran up massive deficits - who are now attempting to portray themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility.

After the last eight years I frankly find that hard to stomach.

Whatever happens over the next 16 months, President Bush will leave office having presided over one of the fastest accumulations of government debt in the history of the United States.

During his time in office, federal debt held by the public – Washington's equivalent of a credit-card balance – will have increased by more than 50 percent, to about $5.5 trillion. Uncle Sam will be paying interest on that sum for years to come.

I understand that there are some people who disagree with the size of the stimulus package, and that their concerns are perfectly valid.

However, I find it unbelievable that the Republicans can object to the stimulus on the grounds of fiscal responsibility.

From the start of Bush's term through the end of this fiscal year, US spending rose 7 percent per year, notes Brian Riedl, a Heritage Foundation budget expert.

That's double the spending growth rate of the Clinton years.

The Republicans lost all of their rights to claim to be good stewards of the economy and presided with what appeared to be fiscal recklessness. Which is what makes their present protestations ring so hollow.

UPDATE:

Andrew Sullivan:

Mark Murray:
With zero House Republicans voting for the stimulus -- and with just three Senate Republicans expected to vote for it later this afternoon -- it's worth noting that 28 House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats voted for the final passage of Bush's big tax cut in 2001. (And remember, too, that Bush had barely won the presidential election the year before.) The size of that 2001 tax-cut package? $1.35 trillion.
Bipartisanship means nothing if it is only ever respected by one party. The GOP is borderline autistic in its understanding of the necessary to-and-fro of democratic government. Or rather: its ideological nature prevents it from engaging in the actual tasks of pragmatic government. Or from seriously thinking of the long-term national interest rather than the short-term partisan one.

So the people who championed a $1.35 trillion tax cut now lecture us on the need for fiscal responsibility? Unbelievable.

Click title for full article.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Goldberg: "A man needs a humorless feminist like a fish needs a bicycle.'

I've already pointed out the hypocrisy of the people who told us it was "ageist" to bring up McCain's age during the last election, now feeling free to make fun of Helen Thomas's age. After all, Helen Thomas isn't asking to run the free world with Sarah Palin as her possible replacement, so I think the stakes were slightly higher during the election when they were bleating that the subject of age should be off limits.

But the arrogance of right-wing media critic Bernard Goldberg is simply astounding:

But it's interesting to me that these left-wingers who didn't say a word when their fellow left-wingers called George Bush a moron, when they called Dick Cheney a fascist, when they called Sarah Palin a racist, and when they threw Oreo cookies at Michael Steele because he had the nerve to be a conservative black man -- they didn't say a word about all of that.*

So here's my political analysis, and feel free to bleep this: Screw them. Screw them. They are unimportant people, they are unimportant people who shouldn't be taken seriously.

When you made a good-natured joke, I very seriously said that Helen Thomas' 15 minutes were up in the Lincoln administration. And you know what? If they want to take shots at me, and if they want to take shots at you, they need to know one thing: They're throwing spitballs at battleships. Bring it.

Did you get that? He sees himself as a battleship. Freud could have a field day with this guy.

President Obama Address To Lincoln Banquet.

Obama's admiration of Lincoln is blatantly obvious. And, as Lincoln said, there are some things which only government can do. That is the very point of government. I love the fact that Obama has the courage to repeat these arguments. The Republicans have for so long argued that, "government is the problem" that it has become a mantra.

No-one wants the government interfering in every aspect of our lives, but there are also things - abolition of slavery, eradication of disease - that only governments can properly do. As Obama points out here, the Republican mantra is simply a, "rejection of any common endeavor" and such a rejection, "cannot rebuild our levees or our roads or our bridges. It cannot refurbish our schools or modernise our medical system. It can't lead to the next medical discovery. Or yield the research and technology that will spark a clean energy economy. Only a nation can do those things."

He really is making the argument that Reaganism is dead. And, like Reagan, Obama is a brilliant communicator.

UPDATE:

I wonder if Obama has read “The Man Who Sold the World”, the book on Reagan by Kleinknecht:

“By discrediting government as a legitimate and meaningful presence in the lives of Americans,” he writes in his final chapter, “The Second-Rate Society,” “Reagan repudiated the very concept of national leadership. By exhorting Americans to place self-interest above all, he undermined the spirit of sacrifice and the possibility of a common effort to solve our most pressing national problems.”

That's exactly the shortfall Obama is identifying in this Republican "big government is bad" philosophy. The only thing Obama is not doing is to directly state that he is repudiating Reaganism. That just hangs in the air, unspoken.

There's a great review of this book over at Truthdig:

In a fiery and lucid introduction he writes, “This book is born of annoyance: a great bewilderment over the myth that continues to surround the presidency of Ronald Reagan. It gives voice to a vast swath of psychically disenfranchised Americans, millions of them, lumped most thickly in the urban areas on either coast, who never understood Reagan’s appeal.” Kleinknecht’s thesis is nothing less than that Reagan was the “obvious enemy of the common people he claimed to represent, this empty suit who believed in flying saucers and allowed an astrologer to guide his presidential scheduling. ...” The great conundrum “is this: none of [the] unmistakable harbingers of American decline is being laid where it belongs—at the door of Ronald Reagan”

I said when this economic crisis began that I thought we were witnessing the death of Reaganism. But the Republicans are finding it very hard, even after all that has happened, to adjust and find a new voice. That's why they continue to harp on about tax cuts and deregulation. It is literally all that they know.

How the flying Dutchman was stopped in his tracks.

He had been told in advance that if he tried to enter Britain he would be turned back, so Geert Wilders' journey from Amsterdam to the UK was always political theatre of the worst kind. He had been invited by a member of the Ukip party, to show his controversial film, Fitna, in the House of Lords; a film which argues that the Koran is a "fascist book".

Yesterday, as he was inevitably turned away, he reached for the Churchill analogy.

"My message to the British Government is that I am sad that the ghost of Chamberlain still resides in Britain instead of the ghost of Churchill. I would say to [Britain], even if you don't like me, even if you don't like my thoughts, be brave and defend freedom of speech. If you don't then you are weak and you are cowards."

When the plane landed at Heathrow at 2pm, the circus continued. Two plainclothes immigration officers walked on to the plane and escorted Mr Wilders off for questioning – pursued by the media pack and bodyguards. "Is this how Great Britain meets a democrat?" the blond populist demanded.

He was sent back to Amsterdam on the next flight at 4.30pm. It is thought to be the first time Britain has refused entry to an elected European politician since the creation of the EU in 1993.

Mr Wilders seemed happy to have used the one-hour flight to rail against the British Government, which he accused of appeasing "Islamofascists" and stifling free speech. He repeated some of the criticisms of Islam that have made him so reviled.

This has actually got nothing to do with free speech; it has, however, got a lot to do with hate speech.

It is illegal in Britain to incite hatred and, by condemning an entire religion as "fascist", Wilders is certainly asking that we all should begin to hate Islam. It is for that reason which he has been refused entry. It was suspected that, whilst he was here, he might seek to commit a crime. Indeed, he was coming here purely for the purposes of inciting hatred against an entire religion.

And, of course, like most stupid right wingers, he sees nothing wrong in calling for the banning of books whilst protesting that his own free speech is being curtailed.

"I don't see a problem there," he said. "I'm talking about the Koran, I'm not talking about the people. Unlike in the UK, in Holland we have banned [Hitler's] Mein Kampf and I see a comparison between the two books. They are both books full of totalitarian ideologies and they both incite violence."

Hitler also banned and burned books, although that seems not to concern Wilders. Muslim groups in Britain have praised the government's decision to ban him.

Mohammed Shafique, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, a group that promotes interfaith dialogue, said: "Mr Wilders' film is all about demonising and attacking Islam and Muslims. He is a modern-day Hitler, his hatred on Islam is based on fiction and his presence in the UK may lead to community tensions. This is not about freedom of speech but about stopping the incitement to religious hatred this man promotes. The Government has been right in banning this man and there should be no let-up in letting him through."

I wish both sides would give up on the Hitler analogies, as neither has obviously ever heard of Godwin's law.

I personally think that most Brits would have survived his visit and that most of us are wise enough to recognise his hate speech as the rubbish that it was. By banning him we have handed him a publicity opportunity that he has now done his best to exploit. It would have been better if he was allowed to show his offensive film and the public were also allowed to protest outside as he did so. However, I do understand that the government were probably concerned about the level of anger he might generate as he did so. So one can find many arguments for and against him being allowed entry.

However, I do find it rather rich that people like Wilder are the very first to scream about their right to free speech whilst they seek to silence that same right for others.

Click title for full article.

Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics.

Around 34% 0f Americans, according to a new poll, want neither an independent panel to look at Bush's suspected war crimes nor for there to be any criminal investigations into his behaviour whilst he was fighting the war on terror.

However, that still leaves a further 62% demanding that his actions be looked into, and disagreeing only on how this should be done.

Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.

Even more people want action on alleged attempts by the Bush team to use the Justice Department for political purposes. Four in 10 favored a criminal probe, three in 10 an independent panel, and 25% neither.

The ACLU and other groups are pressing for inquiries into whether the Bush administration violated U.S. and international bans on torture and the constitutional right to privacy. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and his Senate counterpart, Patrick Leahy, have proposed commissions to investigate.

I have no great faith that the Obama administration will do what needs to be done here, but I take comfort from the fact that most Americans are willing to see the right thing done here.

Bush has, in my opinion, clearly broken the law. However I understand some American reticence to see him rot in jail. I share that reticence.

I have no wish to see him jailed for what he has done, I merely want it established under law that what he did was illegal.

Obama can pardon him as far as I am concerned. I merely want it noted that no American president should ever seek to emulate what he has done, citing his actions as a precedent.

Leahy, D-Vt., this week proposed a "truth commission" to assemble facts. He said the panel could offer immunity from prosecution for everything but perjury. "We need to get to the bottom of what happened and why," he said.

As long as that panel would eventually state whether or not the Bush administrations actions were legal or illegal then I would be happy for that to be the end of the matter. This is not about witch hunting the previous administration, this is simply about establishing what is legal and what is illegal so that the Bush crimes can never be repeated.

And, from the recent poll, it would appear that a majority of Americans agree with that premise. Obama has said that he wants to "move forward", and Leahy has given him a way to do so which avoids prosecution but still achieves the kind of closure on the Bush years that the majority of the American public wants.

Click title for full article.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Chairman Frank Asks CEOs - Why do you need bonuses?

Barney Frank asks the same question that I asked a couple of days ago. Why do bankers need to be bribed to do the job for which they are already being paid a very high salary to do?

Minister: I couldn't live on benefits.

The Employment minister Tony McNulty is in the papers today stating what I think is the bloody obvious: It is impossible to live on the benefit we currently pay to the unemployed.

Mr McNulty's admission came in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview when he was asked how he expected people to make ends meet on £60 a week.

He replied: "We just need to work with them to try and get them back into work at the earliest opportunity." Challenged about whether he could survive on that income, he conceded: "I don't think I could. I'd be the first to say that." The minister added: "I think it's very, very difficult and in most instances – not everybody – people will have other support from the state as well, through a range of other benefits."

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said the comments proved the need for an increase in jobseekers' allowance, adding: "Even government ministers admit they couldn't live on today's unemployment benefit of less than £10 a day – one of the lowest relative to wages in the developed world."

As unemployment inevitably rises in the current recession, more and more people are going to find themselves relying on this measly handout from the state. A handout which even the Employment minister admits is simply impossible to live on.

So what will their choices be? They will either find a way to supplement this income on the black market or they will turn to crime.

None of us want to create a situation where people can simply choose to live off the state, but we also need to bear in mind that unemployment benefit is there to catch any of us if we should fall.

Our present benefit payments simply don't do that. I can't think of anyone who could survive on what we currently pay. But, from the days of Thatcher onwards this subject has become so toxic that we are not allowed to state the bloody obvious. Very few of us become unemployed through choice. And any of us who do would find it impossible to live on what we currently allow for the unemployed.

Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman, said: "The minister isn't telling people on benefit anything they don't already know. What is appalling is that he doesn't appear to want to do anything about it."

This is one of the things which I, as a lifetime Labour supporter, find hardest to swallow. We have accepted the Tory positioning on such matters as if they are gospel. And, in doing so, we have stopped asking if our benefits system does its job.

If unemployment benefit is insufficient to live on, then we, as a society, have removed the safety net. I find that deplorable.

Click title for full article.

Rival leaders court the 'kingmaker of the right'.

As predicted, both Livni and Netanyahu now find themselves dancing at the court of the quasi fascist, Lieberman, in the hope of forming a government.

Mr Lieberman has emerged as one of the main beneficiaries of Tuesday's vote, with a probable 15 seats and considerable power to make or break each leader's chances of forming a government. He met each of them in Jerusalem yesterday, without committing to either.

His apparent indispensability casts serious doubt on whether any government capable of negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians can emerge from the current political imbroglio.

Lieberman walked out of the Olmert's cabinet because he objected to any negotiations with the Palestinians, so one can only fear for what peace prospects will be left for any government which relies on Lieberman's support in order to function.

The election of Obama offers, I think, the greatest chance to achieve peace in the Middle East for decades. Here, at last, we have an American leader who is willing to support Israel but also to recognise the suffering of the Palestinians.

The results of this election could not have been worse in my eyes. It places an intractable fascist in the role of king maker.

The people of Israel simply are out of step with the mood of the times, and especially out of step with the message coming from the Obama camp.

On the pronounced shift to the right demonstrated by the election results, the prominent Haaretz commentator Aluf Benn said yesterday: "The Obama message of new hope and new energy in the peace process failed to reach Israeli voters."

Israel has surged to the right and, in doing so, has made the achievement of peace ten times harder.

Mr Netanyahu has little interest in negotiations on a "final status" deal with the Palestinians. Ms Livni is likely to find herself heavily constrained if she depends for survival on Mr Lieberman – and possibly, despite its stated preference for Mr Netanyahu, on the right-wing ultra orthodox party Shas, which now has 11 seats.

It no longer matters whether Livni or Netanyahu or becomes Israel's Prime Minister as, whoever does so, will now be constrained by their need to please Lieberman in order to stay in power. Netanyahu would find this easier to do as he does not believe in peace. Livni would find her government horribly restrained were she ever to gain power on Lieberman's back.

For Obama, and for anyone hoping for a peace deal in the Middle East, the results of this election simply couldn't have been worse.

Perhaps some will argue that Israel will now negotiate from a position of strength, but my fear is that Israel will now refuse to negotiate at all.

Click title for full article.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fleischer: I kept Bush from calling on 'dotcoms and oddballs'.

O'Reilly is so determined to run down all things Obama that he accuses Obama of breaking protocol by having a list which he refers to when calling for questions at a press conference. However, even Ari Fleischer finds himself unable to join O'Reilly in his latest round of Obama baiting:

O’REILLY: George Bush came in with a list of guys he was going to call on?

FLEISCHER: Yes, I used to prepare it for him. I would give him a grid, show him where every reporter is seated. And there are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot coms and other oddballs who come in there. They’re screened.

O’REILLY: Like the Huffington Post. Now it gets called on.

FLEISCHER: And I used to seat them all in one section. I would call it "Siberia." And I told the President, "Don’t call on Siberia."

I actually think it's a good thing that the Huffington Post now gets called on. They probably have more readers in day than many of the broadsheets, so why shouldn't they get to ask questions?

But it's blatant that O'Reilly is simply looking for ways to fault Obama when he latches on to Obama continuing a practice which is was obvious that Bush employed and sees a fault when Obama does it that he didn't notice when this was done by Bush.

Scarborough: Perhaps We Don't Know What We're Talking About.

Even Joe Scarborough has now come to the realisation that perhaps Obama is on the money here and that Republicans, "don't know what we're taking about".

I watched the insane Lyndsey Graham the other day state:

Graham: What we've lost is a young president's promise to change things. Please don't say this is change I can believe in. And please don't underestimate how the public is pulling for you, but they don't like this bill.

Graham is actually doing what the Republicans always seem to do, he's imagining that his views are universal and that, when he speaks, he speaks for Americans as a whole. The Republicans seem to have no idea how out of touch they are. The reality, as Scarborough admits, is that 67% of the public approve of Obama's handling of the stimulus and 58% disapprove of the way the Republicans have handled this issue.

And yet Graham can stand up and insist that the public don't like this bill. The Republican party are talking to themselves on this issue. They are ignoring the fact that both Obama and McCain fought an election on the economy and that the public backed the ideas of Barack Obama. They are insisting that their ideas should prevail even though they lost the election.

He condemns, "the attitude, we won, we write the bill" as if the fact that one side won should actually be an irrelevance. He appears to think that the same Republican mindset which created this disaster should actually be the way out of it, despite the fact that his views were rejected by the electorate.

Lyndsey Graham epitomises why the Republicans deserve to be out of power for generations: they are simply too stupid to be trusted.

BillO mocks Helen Thomas, calls her "old lady", "wicked witch of the east"

During the last US election we were told that it was ageist to bring up the fact that electing McCain would actually be electing the oldest president in the history of the US.

And, for the most part, the subject was left alone.

But, now that the election is over, watch the way Billo attacks Helen Thomas for being old.

O'Reilly: The White House press corps looked intimidated to me... Except for that, what's her name? The old lady, Helen Thomas. [squawking sound]

Colmes: Is that your Helen Thomas impression?

O'Reilly: Yea! [squawking sound]

Colmes: I didn't know you did impersonations.

O'Reilly: It's like the wicked witch of the east! If I were Obama, I would've poured water on her, and she would dissolve!

Colmes: It's not nice to make fun of an old woman, Bill.

O'Reilly: It doesn't matter.

Billo doesn't seem to get it. Helen Thomas is a legend. To attack her for her age should be beneath even this crackpot.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Kadima and Likud claim victory in Israel poll.

The Israeli election has ended, highlighting - for me - all that is wrong with proportional representation.

Tipzi Livni has actually secured 28 seats whilst Netanyahu has secured 27. However, now the bartering will begin between the other parties who secured even less votes to see who can form a government and the parties that did not secure the majority of the votes will now assume a power - completely out of touch with their popularity - and decide who next governs Israel.

Now the views of the more extremist parties begin to assume a power which does not reflect the way most Israelis think.

Even though Livni won the elections she may yet lose the government. Her party has the largest number of seats but she may not become prime minister if, as expected, the right-wing parties can together muster a larger coalition.

Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right leader, came in third with 15 seats, a sizeable gain for him. Behind him came Ehud Barak, the Labour leader and defence minister, whose party had just 13 seats, one of its worst election results.

"Everything is wide open and up for negotiations," said Mitchell Barak, a pollster from Keevoon Research. He said a national unity government, bringing together the main parties, was most likely. "The only question is who is going to head it," he said.

Livni, 50, claimed that role for herself. "The people of Israel have chosen Kadima, and we will complete this task by forming a unity government headed by us," she said in a speech to party supporters. If successful she would be only the second woman elected prime minister in Israel's history.

There was stunned silence at Netanyahu's party headquarters in Tel Aviv when the exit polls were announced. For months leading up to the election he had been comfortably ahead, but his lead narrowed sharply in the final days. In part the rise of Lieberman took votes away from the Likud, although the right wing as a whole looked set to dominate.

Yet Netanyahu, 59, sounded just as victorious as his rival, and also promised a "broad and stable" government. "The question is not what the polls said. The question is what reality says," he said in a rousing speech to his supporters. "With God's help, I will lead the next government."

I have always favoured the "first past the post" system where one party eventually takes all. The notion of someone like Lieberman deciding who will rule the country simply appals me. Why should someone who so few people voted for assume such power?

Such a close final result also makes Lieberman a kingmaker. If Livni can draw him into a coalition she might hope to find a majority, but including him might cost her the support of some of the more left-wing parties.

So, we now have a quasi fascist holding the deciding vote. That strikes me as a bonkers system. I understand the arguments which state that in such a system every view is counted, but this is a perfect example of how, in such a situation, the views of the minority actually carry more weight than one would ever want.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Jon Stewart slams BillO for "right to privacy" hypocrisy.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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Bill O'Reilly's hypocrisy simply knows no bounds and Jon Stewart is right to call him on it.

Bush Faithful Rewarded With Jobs.

Why am I not remotely surprised to read this?

Fred F. Fielding, Emmet T. Flood, William A. Burck and Daniel M. Price worked together at the White House under George W. Bush. Less than two weeks before leaving office, Bush made sure the senior aides shared a new assignment, naming them to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

The appointments are for six years and are potentially lucrative, paying up to $3,000 a day plus travel and other expenses if an appointee is chosen to hear a case. Bush also named two other prominent Republican lawyers to the agency, which attempts to broker international finance disagreements.

Nearly half of Bush's appointments after Election Day were filled by donors who gave a total of nearly $1.9 million to Republicans since 2003, according to an analysis of the postings. At least 20 of the positions were filled by former Bush aides, plus others filled by old hands from the administrations of Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Putting his buddies into jobs which they were spectacularly unfit for is something which Bush turned into a kind of art form. I mean who could forget when he placed Michael Brown in charge of FEMA. It's not as if that didn't work out well.

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Should the US be facing war crimes investigation?

Some lawyers, very low down the chain, have been left vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes. One of them talks here about how she feels about the position the Bush regime have left her in.

To counter this, David Rivkin appears arguing that Bush was essentially right, as he also argued in this article in the WSJ:

What Mr. Obama's national security team will quickly discover is that the civilian criminal-justice system is an inadequate tool to deal with terrorists. President Bush's policies -- particularly treating captured terrorists as unlawful enemy combatants and employing a military court system to try them -- were dictated by the very real need to defend American citizens, not by disdain for the rule of law.

It is simply ludicrous to argue that a legal system which can deal with serial killers and murderers is somehow "inadequate" when it comes to dealing with terrorists.

Indeed, by his own admission, one of the reasons why Rivkin finds the civilian criminal justice system "inadequate" is because it denies the government what he defines as "maximum flexibility".

"Maximum flexibility" is another way of saying that no rules apply and that the gloves are off. It is a recipe for war crimes.

Rivken also appears to be arguing that there is no link whatsoever between big decisions like the one to suspend the application of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda detainees and the abuse which followed, which he continues to maintain were committed by "bad apples". Thankfully, his view is becoming - increasingly - an isolated one.

There are very few people who do not now believe that torture was official US policy. The real question now is what the Obama administration are prepared to do to investigate whether or not war crimes have taken place.

If Obama is not prepared to this, then the international community has an obligation to investigate any war crimes which the US is ignoring. Somewhere, however far down the line, the international community are going to have to acknowledge that what was done here was illegal and that it must not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

Israel's election cliffhanger as Livni closes gap with Netanyahu.

The election is Israel is turning into a cliffhanger with Livni closing on Netanyahu as we approach the day for the vote, but it is still expected that Israel will, when this is all over, be led by a right wing administration.

Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, is slightly ahead, and given the combined size of the rightwing parties that would support him he is thought most likely to lead the next coalition government. But up to a fifth of voters are thought to be undecided, according to opinion polls.

Israel's proportional representation voting system is complicated and no single party will be able to form a government without bringing four or five other parties into a coalition. Even if Livni's Kadima party emerges with the largest number of seats most analysts think she would struggle to put together a like-minded coalition with enough seats to have a majority in the Knesset, or parliament.

"It will be very, very difficult for Livni to form a government, even if Kadima turns out to be the bigger party, because every government of Livni would depend on a rightwing party," said Yossi Verter, a political commentator for the left-leaning Ha'aretz newspaper.

It saddens me that Netanyahu will probably win this election as I do not believe that he has any interest in peace. For the first time in years we have, in the US, a president who is seriously prepared to take the Palestinian viewpoint into consideration and willing to push forward for a peace deal. The last thing which is needed is an obstructionist like Netanyahu in power in Israel.

And Netanyahu will probably rely on the support of people like Avigdor Lieberman to form his government. As far as I am concerned Lieberman is a quasi-Fascist and will bring about the collapse of Netanyahu's government in the unlikely event that he attempts to make peace.

Israel simply couldn't make a worse choice than the one she appears to be about to make at this time. Pulling off a peace deal in the Middle East was always likely to be Obama's stiffest challenge, but the election of Netanyahu will probably make that almost impossible. Almost.

If Obama pushes forward with the sense of fairness and logic which has epitomised his run for office then he might, might, just be able to make the impossible possible. But the election of Netanyahu will make this much harder to pull off.

Click title for full article.

Obama: This is a "Full-Blown Crisis".

Obama has come out fighting against Republican apathy about what to do regarding the economic crisis.

Conventional ideas popular with economic conservatives, like tax cuts, would not work and a failure to act could turn crisis into catastrophe.

"This is no ordinary run of the mill recession," he said.

Obama says that the real danger here is that we create a "negative spiral" and that inaction ignores the fact that we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Three point six million jobs have been lost and more than half of those jobs have been lost in the last three months.

The situation is getting worse by the day.

"If there is anyone out there who still doesn't believe this constitutes a full blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don't know where their next pay cheque is coming from," Obama said in prepared remarks before taking questions.

I don't know what the Republican answer is to this problem which Obama inherited, but as he makes clear here, "I am happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place. Because those theories have been tested and they have failed. That's part of what the election in November was about."

The Republican theories were rejected by the electorate. And yet they continue to insist that their theories are the only way forward here.

The locations, though chosen to demonstrate Obama's connection to the hardships of ordinary Americans, also contain an implicit threat to Republican hold-outs against the rescue plan.

Indiana and Florida are traditionally Republican states that voted for Obama in November, and his appearance was also intended as a subtle threat that those who stand in the way of the package could face a potential backlash.

In Florida, the message was underscored by the scheduled appearance with Obama of the state's governor, Charlie Crist.

Obama did not hold back from taking a tough line against those Republican opponents, taking advantage of the primetime television audience to lay the responsibility for the economic recession squarely on George Bush and the Republicans.

"I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now," he said.

"The notion that I just came in here ginned up to spend $800 billion dollars - that wasn't how I envisioned beginning my presidency."

I admit that the Republican position on this simply baffles me. Obama did not set out to be president during the worst economic crisis for decades, he inherited this from a Republican president.

What I hear from McCain and others is a reluctance to accept that their ideas have been tried and that they have failed. Tax cuts, it turns out, are not the answer to everything. And yet that seems to be the only thing the Republicans have in their bag.

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Monday, February 09, 2009

No rewards for failure, insists Brown.

Gordon Brown is insisting that there should be no bonuses for bankers who lose money:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted today that there must be "no rewards for failure" in Britain's banks.
Speaking to an audience of economists in London, Mr Brown promised that he would "sweep aside" the short-term bonus culture in banks and ensure that rewards are provided only for long-term sustainable success, with "penalties" for those who take irresponsible risks.

The policy of "no rewards for failure" would be pursued "aggressively", said the Prime Minister, adding that banks in which the state now holds a majority stake would pay no bonuses to board members and no dividends to shareholders this year.

Mr Brown said: "I believe, as a society, we should support hard work, effort, enterprise and responsible risk-taking.

"We should not in any way condone, but should punish, irresponsible and excessive risk-taking."

I'd take this even further and ask why do these people deserve bonuses at all? Most of us agree on a fee and then do the work that we are contracted to do for that fee. Why is there a stratum of society which needs to be promised bonuses in order to do their job properly?

I know people argue that they require incentive but some of these people are already taking seven figure salaries, so what further incentive do they need?

If a million pounds a year isn't enough incentive to make them eager to do their job properly then maybe they ought to move on to another job. There will be plenty of people in line eager to accept that meagre salary.

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McCain: Stimulus Plan is "Generational Theft".

It's simply extraordinary to listen to McCain - of all bloody people - talk of "generational theft".

This is the man who backed both the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts whilst running to be president, what is that if not "generational theft?" Bush inherited a massive surplus and left office with an enormous deficit which was caused by two things; his tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars which Republicans were keen to support but not, apparently, keen to pay for.

The cost of that they passed down the line to be paid for by their children and their grandchildren. So it's a bit bloody rich to listen to McCain complain here about "generational theft". The hypocrisy that he is indulging in here is quite breathtaking.

Pakistan identified as biggest foreign policy test.

It says a lot about the good sense of the Obama administration that he can admit that Pakistan is the situation that "scares" him. I never felt that Bush ever understood the situation in Pakistan, as every pressure he placed on Musharraf simply made the situation worse. It's all well and good to demand that Pakistan must help in the war on terror but, anyone who believes in democracy as Bush claimed to do, must understand that in a democracy it is very hard to work against the will of the people, and many of the people did not agree with what Bush was asking Pakistan to do.

The situation is much more nuanced and difficult than Bush ever acknowledged.

The country is threatened by a growing Islamist insurgency, economic collapse and a crisis of governance as it struggles to establish democratic rule. The Obama administration believes Pakistan is key to its objectives of pacifying Afghanistan and going after al-Qaida and has appointed a pugnacious diplomatic troubleshooter, Richard Holbrooke, as a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We often call this situation Afpak," said Holbrooke at a conference in Munich yesterday, before flying to Islamabad. "There will be more focus on Pakistan," he said. "A new and fragile democracy has emerged ... but the situation in Pakistan requires attention and sympathy."

I am delighted to hear Holbrooke talk of sympathy, for that is exactly what is needed here. The last thing we need is for a continuation of the Bush policy of simply laying down the law and demanding that the Pakistan government comply with American wishes.

That policy will result in possible civil unrest in Pakistan, which is the last thing we need in a country with nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is al-Qaida's headquarters, while its tribal territory, which runs along the Afghan border, is used by the Taliban to launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Some Pakistani extremists who previously focused on Afghanistan, have now turned inwards, spawning a vicious Pakistani Taliban movement which challenges the writ of the state. Obama warned in a television interview this month that the spillover of the war in Afghanistan risks "destabilising neighbouring Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons".

The security situation in Pakistan seems to deteriorate daily. Last week's headlines, for instance, included: a bombing of a religious procession in the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan, which claimed at least 27 lives; government helicopter gunship attacks that killed 52 militants in the Khyber area of the tribal region; the kidnapping of a senior UN official by gunmen; and the beheading of a Polish engineer who was abducted five months ago. A videotape of the execution was released last night by his captors.

I have no idea what policies Obama is going to pursue in Pakistan but I am delighted that he appears, at least, to acknowledge that there is no political consensus in Pakistan when it comes to what to do about al Qaeda. Indeed, there is some question over whether the civilian government are actually in charge of their own army.

"The civilian leadership is weak and fearful of the inevitable in Pakistan, that it oversteps the mark and runs the risk of being removed [by the army]," said Rashed Rahman, a political analyst based in Lahore. "It's a non-functional government."

The army has repeatedly shown that it will not bow to civilians on national security, refusing a government order last year, for instance, to place the top spy agency, the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, under government control.

Bush acted as if Musharraf was duty bound to accept his goals as his own. That was a suicidal policy which ignored political reality.

Obama, at least, is willing to accept that political reality and shape policy which is sympathetic to it. We all know what we would like them to do, but saying it doesn't make it doable.

Obama, unlike Bush, appears to have grasped that.

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Sunday, February 08, 2009

Criticism rises from ex-Bush officials.

The Bush administration were always a regime of dangerous radicals who felt that the rules did not apply to them, and that seems to be the case even once they have left office.

Dick Cheney says President Obama's policies will make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans. Alberto Gonzales says the new attorney general could be undermining the morale of U.S. intelligence officials.
And Andrew Card, George W. Bush's first chief of staff, took Obama to task for allowing shirtsleeves and loose collars in the Oval Office -- arguing it was a clear departure from Bush's sterner sartorial rules.

The knives are already out just two weeks after Bush left the White House, as some of his closest friends and former aides begin lobbing sharp criticisms at the Obama administration.

The comments mark a departure from the rules of decorum that held sway during the final weeks of the Bush administration, when the departing president and his aides made a point of fostering a cordial relationship with the Obama team.

Normally, outgoing administrations make a point of never criticising the new president, but we shouldn't be surprised that this bunch of torturing, Constitution ignoring, partisan thugs have wasted no time in breaking with protocol.

"It's certainly unbecoming, especially for a former vice president," Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in reference to the remarks by Cheney and others. "It reinforces the fact that there's a lot of bitterness about the low public standing of Bush and the administration as they left office, and the soaring standing of Barack Obama. A lot of these people are still caught up in these ideological battles and can't let go."

Clinton maintained his silence, even after right wing sources attempted to blame him for 9-11, and only broke it when Chris Wallace made the terrible mistake of bringing the subject up during an interview. Clinton, at that point, destroyed him, and the notion that Bush had been diligent on the subject of terrorism prior to 9-11.

But we shouldn't be surprised that the Bush administration lack dignity once out of office, nor that they refuse to behave as protocol demands.

They are, after all, what they have always been. Dangerous ideologues who believe that normal rules don't apply to them.

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C.I.A. Dir Nominee Panetta Retracts Statement On Torture.

Jonathan Turley makes the very good point that it's impossible to condemn terrorism whilst, simultaneously, refusing to prosecute war crimes as they are both cut from the same cloth.