30 March 2012
Voters ready to rebel: MP Galloway
Addressing jubilant activists outside his campaign HQ, the Respect Party MP said Bradford had spoken for voters who want "political leaders they can believe in, who say what they mean, do what they say and don't lie to people".
Mr Galloway's victory on a remarkable 36.5% swing was a catastrophic result for Ed Miliband, who had not been expected to face a serious challenge in a safe seat at a time when Labour is riding high in the polls nationally.
The Labour leader promised to learn the lessons from the defeat, and said he would visit Bradford in the weeks to come to find out what went wrong.
"It was an incredibly disappointing result for Labour in Bradford West and I am determined that we learn lessons of what happened," said Mr Miliband.
Mr Miliband is facing tough electoral tests in the polls for local councils and the London mayoralty on May 3, and may also be confronted with a rash of parliamentary by-elections this autumn, with several MPs expected to quit Parliament to stand for police commissioner or elected mayor in cities including Bradford in November.
Mr Galloway said Labour had lost touch with its traditional core voters, telling BBC Radio 4's The World At One: "If Labour doesn't go back to being a Labour Party again, it will never command the support - let alone the enthusiasm - of the kind of people who supported it for at least 100 years."
All three main parties were facing a backlash from voters angry over austerity and British involvement in wars overseas, he said.
"There is a tidal wave waiting to break all over the country, not just in Bradford," said Mr Galloway. "There are very large numbers of people disenchanted and alienated from the political process and from all three major parties. If a backside could have three cheeks, then British politics is that three-cheeked backside."
Mr Galloway, an ex-Labour MP who was expelled from the party in 2003 after urging British troops to disobey "illegal" orders to invade Iraq, won 18,341 votes to the 8,201 for Labour candidate Imran Hussain in a contest sparked by the resignation due to ill-health of Marsha Singh.
[ed. A clear case of multiculturalism biting the establishment on the (three-cheeked?) bum and showing the threat that it really is...]
Parents of murdered British students criticise Barack Obama
29 Mar 2012The parents of two British students murdered in Florida have criticised President Barack Obama for his lack of compassion over their sons' deaths.
His failure to respond to three letters sent to the White House was because there was no "political value" and not worthy of a few minutes of his time.
They spoke out as teenager Shawn Tyson began a life sentence after being found guilty of the murder of James Cooper and James Kouzaris last April.
The 17 year old, who shot the men as they begged for their lives, will die in prison.
His conviction of first degree murder carries an mandatory life sentence without the chance of parole.
The powerfully built teen even looked bored as emotional DVD presentations about the dead men prepared by their grieving parents were shown in court.
Tyson, who has the word 'Savage' tattooed across his chest didn't show a flicker of emotion, slumping in his seat as he was forced to watch a montage of photos showing the victims from early childhood to young men.
Two close friends of the dead men who had attended the eight day trial in Sarasota, Florida. had also delivered highly emotional impact statements to the court prior to the sentencing.
Paul Davies and Joe Hallett spoke of the "living hell" they and others who knew the men had suffered since the murders.
During the eight day trial they had been shown graphic crime scene and autopsy photos shown in court.
Later speaking after Tyson was jailed Davies and Hallett lashed out at Mr Obama saying the deaths of their friends was "not worthy of ten minutes of his time."
Davies said:"We would like to publicly express our dissatisfaction at the lack of any public or private message of support or condolence from any American governing body or indeed, President Obama himself.
"Mr Kouzaris has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and is yet to even receive the courtesy of a reply.
"It would perhaps appear that Mr Obama sees no political value in facilitating such a request or that the lives of two British tourists are not worthy of ten minutes of his time."
The rebuke follows Mr Obama's personal intervention into the shooting in Florida of a young black teenager by a white-Hispanic neighbourhood watch captain.
The death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin has sparked nationwide protests with his supporters claiming he was victim of a racist attack.
Mr Obama entered the controversy last week by saying if he had a son he would have looked like Martin.
The alleged assailant in Martin's death has not been charged with any crime having claimed he was attacked first and used Florida's 'stand your ground' law to shoot in self defence.
The criticism of the US President was made on behalf of the Cooper's parents Stanley and Sandy, from Warwicks, and Peter and Hazel Kouzaris, from Northampton by Davies in a statement read outside the courtroom.
The parents of the two victims did not attend the trial but they had access to the proceedings from a live video feed.
The filmed interview of the Kouzaris's was played to the court while a message from Sandy Cooper was read out by the prosecutor.
The victims close friends delivered an emotional impact statement with Hallett telling Tyson he hoped he would be haunted by his actions.
He told him: "Imagine them being killed. Now try to imagine that they died because someone creept up on them and shot them numerous times for no good reason. Welcome to our world. Every night you go to sleep, every morning you wake up, I want you to think of my friends who you murdered. Their images will be imprinted on your conscience up until your very last breath in life."
29 March 2012
Obama’s ‘flexibility’ to lie after election
March 27, 2012
Turns out he’s not Kenyan after all. He’s KGB. All this time, people were worried that President Obama was born in Africa and that his radical agenda had been crafted by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Saul Alinsky on the streets of Chicago’s South Side.
Now we know his real radical hidden agenda is in service of the Kremlin.
Mr. Obama reached the darkest low of his presidency this week in South Korea when he was caught on an unseen mic plotting with the leader of one of our oldest adversaries to thwart the will of American voters and advance the interests of enemies who want to see the world’s last remaining beacon of freedom finally destroyed.
“On these issues — but particularly missile defense — this can be solved,” he tells Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, like in a scene from a Cold War spy movie.
But, Mr. Obama explains to his handler, he needs more time, and he needs to get into a position where he is no longer answerable to American voters.
“This is my last election,” he says. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Speaking in robotic Russian spy-speak, Mr. Medvedev promises to convey the message to incoming President Vladimir Putin: “I understand. I transmit this information to Vladimir.”
Not since the tapes of Richard Nixon has a U.S. president been caught uttering such sinister words in an unguarded moment. And, one could easily argue, Mr. Obama’s dishonest scheming puts Nixon to shame because it is American voters — not his political enemies — he is selling down the river.
It was particularly chilling to hear Obama’s words of betrayal uttered in such a familiar voice that has served to raise the hopes and inspire the dreams of so many of us. It is now official: We fell for a complete and total lie.
His cold, calculating message reveals a deep dishonesty many of us still did not dream Mr. Obama was capable of. It is a duplicity in allegiance unthinkable for an elected American president. Literally, he overrides the interests of American voters who will go to the polls with those of Moscow and Tehran, with whom he will deal after his re-election.
Understandably, our longest-standing and most steadfast friends in Poland and Israel shuddered with every deceitful word.
The question now is, Mr. President, what other secret deals have you made with our foreign enemies? What other tricks do you have up your sleeve that you plan to jump on us after you have been re-elected and we no longer have something you want?
Of course, don’t expect the press to ask any such questions. They largely laughed off the matter. “No shock or awe there,” Bloomberg News actually wrote in an editorial.
The stridently liberal and increasingly irrelevant Washington Post barely covered the story, except as just another technical goof-up with a microphone. The paper actually compared the incident to then-President George W. Bush inadvertently being caught calling a New York Times reporter a nasty name.
It is this incestuous and deeply un-American collusion between the press and Mr. Obama that gave the president the astonishing bravado to come out the next day and joke about the incident by asking: “Are the mics on?”
How do you say “hilarious” in Russian?
Is it any wonder so many people still do not believe Mr. Obama or the press when they say his birth certificate is real and he was born in the U.S.?
28 March 2012
Justices poised to strike down entire healthcare law
The Supreme Court's conservative justices said Wednesday they are prepared to strike down President Obama’s healthcare law entirely.
Picking up where they left off Tuesday, the conservatives said they thought a decision striking down the law's controversial individual mandate to purchase health insurance means the whole statute should fall with it.
The court’s conservatives sounded as though they had determined for themselves that the 2,700-page measure must be declared unconstitutional.
"One way or another, Congress will have to revisit it in toto," said Justice Antonin Scalia.
Agreeing, Justice Anthony Kennedy said it would be an "extreme proposition" to allow the various insurance regulations to stand after the mandate was struck down.
Meanwhile, the court's liberal justices argued for restraint. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court should do a "salvage job," not undertake a “wrecking operation." But she looked to be out-voted.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they shared the view of Scalia and Kennedy that the law should stand or fall in total. Along with Justice Clarence Thomas, they would have a majority to strike down the entire statute as unconstitutional.
An Obama administration lawyer, urging caution, said it would be "extraordinary" for the court to throw out the entire law. About 2.5 million young people under age 26 are on their parents' insurance now because of the new law. If it were struck down entirely, "2.5 million of them would be thrown off the insurance rolls," said Edwin Kneedler.
The administration indicated it was prepared to accept a ruling that some of the insurance reforms should fall if the mandate were struck down. For example, insurers would not be required to sell coverage to people with preexisting conditions. But Kneedler, a deputy solicitor general, said the court should go no further.
But the court's conservatives said the law was passed as a package and must fall as a package.
The justices are scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to debate the law's Medicaid expansion.
[ed. March 21, 2010. Speaker Nancy Pelosi with an oversized gavel walking through a crowd of tea-party protestors upon the passing of Obamacare... this was symbolic, provocative, confrontational and one in the eye for ordinary Americans who overwhelmingly rejected this piece of unconstitutional, top-down socialist legislation...]
Eurozone finance ministers must raise ONE TRILLION euro bailout for the 'mother of all firewalls' says OECD chief
* Angel Gurria says an impressive firewall is crucial because the eurozone's debt crisis is not over
* Ireland also reveals it will stage a referendum on the European Union fiscal treaty on May 31
By Anthony Bond
27 March 2012
The eurozone bailout fund should be increased to 1 trillion euros to provide 'the mother of all firewalls', the head of a leading international development body said today.
Angel Gurria, the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said eurozone finance ministers need to impress finance markets with the size of their rescue fund for indebted countries when they meet later this week.
Mr Gurria said an impressive firewall was crucial because the eurozone's public debt crisis was not over despite calmer financial markets this year, warning that the bloc's banks remain weak, debt levels are still rising and fiscal targets are far from assured.
Investors and many European officials want ministers to agree to a combination of the 17-nation currency area's two rescue funds to nudge the International Monetary Fund into backing debt-stricken European economies, should they need help.
Despite Mr Gurria's repeated calls for a euro bailout fund of around 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion), the bloc's finance ministers look more likely to agree to a level nearer 700 billion euros when they meet on Friday in Copenhagen.
Speaking today, Mr Gurria said 'The mother of all firewalls should be in place, strong enough, broad enough, deep enough, tall enough, just big.'
Eurozone finance ministers are expected to agree on combining the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) with its permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel signalled for the first time on Monday that she was prepared to consider boosting the firewall's resources.
As the eurozone economy flounders for the second time in just three years, the OECD said in a report the 17-nation area needed ambitious economic reforms and there could be no room for complacency.
'The pressure has come down, but we can't draw too much comfort from signs of healing,' Mr Gurria said at the report's presentation in Brussels.
'Risk spreads remain at unsustainable levels for some countries and have showed signs of creeping up in the last few days,' he told a news conference.
In a departure from forecasts by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, the OECD sees 0.2 percent growth in the bloc in 2012, rather than an outright contraction, although an OECD official said that is likely to be downgraded.
While international economists are divided over just how deep any downturn will be this year, most agree that weak business confidence and budget austerity is eating into the purchasing power of European households, driving up unemployment and leaving Asian and U.S. demand holding the key to growth.
Two years into the eurozone's sovereign debt saga, EU leaders' commitment to fiscal discipline and the European Central Bank's stimulus of 1 trillion euros to banks have cooled the panic in money markets which late last year drove Italian and Spanish bond yields to near unsustainable levels.
IRELAND SETS DATE FOR REFERENDUM ON TREATY
Ireland's foreign minister says his debt-crippled country will stage its referendum on the European Union fiscal treaty on May 31.
Eamon Gilmore told lawmakers today that the government was confident of winning majority public support for the pact.
It proposes tighter spending and deficit rules for the 17 countries which use the euro.
Ireland is the only eurozone member to take the fiscal treaty to a popular vote.
Anticipating a possible rejection by Ireland, the treaty's designers decided it can become law once only 12 eurozone members ratify it.
Should the public in Ireland vote to reject the tougher rules, the government could be blocked from tapping EU rescue funds in any future bailout.
Ireland's government currently relies on a (euro) 67.5 billion ($90 billion) EU-IMF credit line due to run out in 2013.
27 March 2012
Dominic Raab: Time to re-negotiate the European Arrest Warrant
Writing exclusively for PoliticsHome, Tory MP Dominic Raab says the UK should consider the 'nuclear option' of withdrawing from the flawed European Arrest Warrant
During his visit to Washington, David Cameron brushed aside the claims of ‘poodle’ that dogged Tony Blair, tackling head on the thorny question of extradition with President Obama. Welcome as that is, rough justice under the UK-US treaty is dwarfed by the scale of arbitrary fast-track extradition under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW).
Just ask Graham Mitchell, who faces extradition to Portugal for first degree murder, even though he was cleared of the crime by Portuguese judges 17 years ago - and the victim is still alive. So much for the double jeopardy rule, that you can’t be tried twice for the same offence, unless there is decisive new evidence.
Or take the case of Andrew Symeou, a British student, whisked off to Greece under an EAW for involvement in a fight at a night club that left another man dead - despite eye witness accounts that Symeou was not in the club at the time.
Fast-track EAW extradition is based on the assumption that standards of justice are adequate across Europe. These cases show that assumption as a fraud. In Andrew Symeou’s case, Greek police beat identical statements out of witnesses that were then retracted. Symeou spent nearly a year in foul prison conditions before receiving bail. He was abused by guards and witnessed another prisoner being beaten to death. The trial proceeded at a crawl, with translators who spoke little English. After a harrowing two year ordeal, he was cleared and left to re-build his shattered life.
These are not one-off cases, as Fair Trials International a group that supports the victims, attests. Between 2004 and 2011, 90 people were extradited from the UK to the US – including 27 UK nationals. Over the same period, 3,107 were extradited from Britain under EAWs – including 193 British citizens. The numbers are rising – we now cart off one UK citizen to face justice in Europe each week. Of course, many may be guilty and we need effective extradition to fight terrorism and organised crime. But, as the Mitchell, Symeou and many other cases highlight, this should not come at any price. The EAW’s broad net is swallowing up too many innocent people.
The US system is often criticised for its aggressive plea-bargaining. But it is not subject to the same level of endemic corruption and chronic incompetence that afflicts many European justice systems. The Baker review into extradition acknowledged the problem, but meekly urged the UK to work to improve penal conditions and standards of justice across the EU. Fine intentions, but we need action to protect our citizens now.
As for reciprocity, last year 2 people were extradited from the UK to the US for every 1 coming the other way. In contrast, we surrendered 9 to the EU for every 1 extradited back to Britain. If the US arrangements are lop-sided, what about the EAW?
The EAW needs to be re-negotiated. Easier said than done, but we have some negotiating leverage. We now receive a third of all European Arrest Warrants, so it would be a blow to the system if the UK withdrew from the arrangements altogether. That nuclear option is open to the UK, as part of Britain’s looming 2014 decision on whether to opt out of 130 EU crime and policing measures under the Lisbon Treaty. UK Ministers should be deploying the prospect of the ‘opt out’ to press for re-negotiation of the EAW in Brussels, so that it incorporates a modest list of basic safeguards to shield the innocent.
In December, the House of Commons unanimously backed reform of Britain’s US and EU extradition relations. We need to restore some balance to both.
Dominic Raab is the Conservative MP for Esher & Walton
Strauss-Kahn Charged in France With Prostitute Procurement
Heather Smith
March 27, 2012
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, was charged by three investigating judges in the northern French city of Lille with procurement in a prostitution ring, prosecutors said.
The charge stems from an investigation into a prostitution ring linked to the Carlton hotel in Lille. Investigators uncovered evidence women had been hired to travel as far as Washington to have sex with the then-chief of the IMF.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, turned himself in Feb. 21 and was held overnight to answer questions as investigators sought to determine whether he knew the women were prostitutes, or how they were paid. French builder Eiffage SA filed a complaint for embezzlement after an internal probe found an employee spent as much as 50,000 euros ($66,790) to pay for prostitutes for Strauss-Kahn.
"The three investigating judges in Lille in charge of the so-called Carlton affair have charged Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn with aggravated organized procurement of prostitutes," prosecutors said last night in a statement.
The charges followed a closed-door meeting yesterday between Strauss-Kahn and judges. Prosecutors said Strauss-Kahn was ordered not to contact other people involved in the case, including the eight other people charged in the case, witnesses and the press, according to the statement. He was released on a 100,000 euro bond.
20 YearsPaying for sex is legal in France, while procuring prostitutes for someone else isn't. Under the French penal code, procurement in the context of a prostitution ring can be punished by as much as 20 years in jail and 3 million euros.
Strauss-Kahn "declared with the greatest firmness that he is not guilty of any of these deeds and never had the least awareness that the women he met could have been prostitutes," Richard Malka, one of his lawyers, said last night upon leaving the judges' offices in Lille. His lawyers will hold a press conference today in Paris.
The former IMF managing director gave up his post last year after being arrested in New York on charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid. Local prosecutors dropped that case because of concerns about his accuser's credibility and Strauss- Kahn returned to France, where he faced a separate accusation of attempted rape, which was also dropped.
Civil SuitTomorrow, a hearing in New York state court in the Bronx is scheduled in the civil suit of Nafissatou Diallo, the maid who said Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her. His lawyers asked New York State Supreme Court Justice Douglas E. McKeon to dismiss the case, arguing Strauss-Kahn should have diplomatic immunity.
Diallo is seeking unspecified damages for what her lawyer called "violent and deplorable acts" committed when she came to clean his room at the Sofitel in midtown Manhattan.
McKeon said he will listen to arguments from both sides tomorrow and issue a written decision on Strauss-Kahn's motion about two to three weeks later. McKeon, who has been a judge in New York City since 1989, said he has never dealt with a case involving diplomatic immunity before.
Diallo's lawyers say they have spoken with women from "throughout the world" about their sexual encounters with Strauss-Kahn and are confident they can use the information in the civil case.
"Some of the people we've spoken to have said that he did things against their will and that he was violent," Douglas Wigdor, a Diallo lawyer in New York, said in November. The stories "show Mr. Strauss-Kahn's violence against women and his modus operandi toward a lack of consent."
The New York case is Diallo v. Strauss-Kahn, 11-307065, New York State Supreme Court (Bronx County).
26 March 2012
Former NAACP leader accuses Sharpton and Jackson of 'exploiting' Travyon Martin
March 26, 2012
Former NAACP leader C.L. Bryant is accusing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of “exploiting” the Trayvon Martin tragedy to “racially divide this country.”
“His family should be outraged at the fact that they’re using this child as the bait to inflame racial passions,” Rev. C.L. Bryant said in a Monday interview with The Daily Caller.
The conservative black pastor who was once the chapter president of the Garland, Texas NAACP called Jackson and Sharpton “race hustlers” and said they are “acting as though they are buzzards circling the carcass of this young boy.”
Jackson, for example, recently said Martin’s death shows how “blacks are under attack” and “targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.” (SEE ALSO: Jesse Jackson says Trayvon Martin ‘murdered and martyred’)
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, killed Martin, a 17-year-old black man who was unarmed at the time of his death, last month. Zimmerman has claimed to have shot Martin in self-defense and has not been charged with a crime.
But Bryant, who explores the topic of black-on-black crime in his new film “Runaway Slave,” said people like Jackson and Sharpton are being misleading to suggest there is an epidemic of “white men killing black young men.”
“The epidemic is truly black on black crime,” Bryant said. “The greatest danger to the lives of young black men are young black men.”
Bryant said he wishes civil rights leaders were protesting those problems.
“Why not be angry about the wholesale murder that goes on in the streets of Newark and Chicago?” he asked. “Why isn’t somebody angry about that six-year-old girl who was killed on her steps last weekend in a cross fire when two gang members in Chicago start shooting at each other? Why is there no outrage about that?”
Bryant said he worries that “people like Sharpton and those on the left” will make Martin’s death a campaign issue in the presidential race.
He speculated that they will “turn this evolving tragedy of this young man into fodder to say… if you don’t re-elect Obama then you will have unbridled events or circumstances like this happening in the streets to young men wearing hoodies.” (RELATED: Herman Cain criticizes ‘swirling rhetoric’ after Martin shooting)
He also criticized President Obama for his “nebulous statement” responding to Martin’s death that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
“What does that mean?” Bryant asked. “What was the purpose in that?”
[ed. Sharpton and Jackson (and Farakhan) are race hustlers extraordinare and have been so for a very long time. It isn't in their interests for black people to aspire, attain or achieve anything...]
Australian Labor party nearly wiped out in Queensland
26 Mar 2012
Australia's ruling Labor Party is reeling from a devastating loss in a state election in Queensland, increasing the pressure on Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister.
The extent of the loss – which left Labor with just seven seats, down from 51 – surprised Ms Gillard, who pledged to listen to the message from the state's electorate.
The outgoing premier, Anna Bligh, who was the first woman to win an election in Australia at state or federal level and was widely hailed for her leadership during last year's flood crisis, stepped down as leader and is resigning from parliament.
"This result is absolutely shattering for the Australian Labor Party," she said. "This is much more than a loss – it is without doubt a devastating defeat."
[ed. Another socialist government bites the dust which means....it is a beautiful day!]
