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Not very much, at least in England...Read the original here.
Twitter unmasks anonymous British user in landmark legal battle | Technology
Twitter's actions have prompted concerns over free speech on the internet. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle / Rex Features
Twitter has been forced to hand over the personal details of a British user in a libel battle that could have huge implications for free speech on the web.
The social network has passed the name, email address and telephone number of a south Tyneside councillor accused of libelling the local authority via a series of anonymous Twitter accounts. South Tyneside council took the legal fight to the superior court of California, which ordered Twitter, based in San Francisco, to hand over the user's private details.
It is believed to be the first time Twitter has bowed to legal pressure to identify anonymous users and comes amid a huge row over privacy and free speech online.
Ryan Giggs, the Manchester United footballer named as being the plaintiff in a gagging order preventing reporting of an alleged affair with a reality TV model, is separately attempting to unmask Twitter users accused of revealing details of the privacy injunction.
However, Giggs brought the lawsuit at the high court in London and the move to use California courts is likely to be seen as a landmark moment in the internet privacy battle.
Ahmed Khan, the south Tyneside councillor accused of being the author of the pseudonymous Twitter accounts, described the council's move as "Orwellian". Khan received an email from Twitter earlier this month informing him that the site had handed over his personal information. He denies being the author of the allegedly defamatory material.
"It is like something out of 1984," Khan told the Guardian. "If a council can take this kind of action against one of its own councillors simply because they don't like what I say, what hope is there for freedom of speech or privacy?"
Khan said the information Twitter handed over was "just a great long list of numbers". The subpeona ordered Twitter to hand over 30 pieces of information relating to several Twitter accounts, including @fatcouncillor and @ahmedkhan01.
"I don't fully understand it but it all relates to my Twitter account and it not only breaches my human rights, but it potentially breaches the human rights of anyone who has ever sent me a message on Twitter.
"A number of whistleblowers have sent me private messages, exposing any wrongdoing in the council, and the authority knows this."
He added: "I was never even told they were taking this case to court in California. The first I heard was when Twitter contacted me. I had just 14 days to defend the case and I was expected to fly 6,000 miles and hire my own lawyer – all at my expense.
"Even if they unmask this blogger, what does the council hope to achieve ? The person or persons concerned is simply likely to declare bankruptcy and the council won't recover any money it has spent."
A spokesman for south Tyneside council said the legal action was brought by the authority's previous chief executive, but has "continued with the full support" of the current head.
He added: "The council has a duty of care to protect its employees and as this blog contains damaging claims about council officers, legal action is being taken to identify those responsible."
Twitter had not returned a request to comment at time of publication.
I don't really need to add anything here. I agree with the UK Telegraph, and I'm not sure the motivation on the side of this administration. Read the original here.
President Obama’s Top Ten Insults Against Britain – 2011 Edition – Telegraph Blogs
In March last year I published a list of Barack Obama’s biggest insults[1] against America’s biggest ally Great Britain, during his time in office. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, including the Gulf oil spill and the White House’s campaign against BP, the now infamous Obama-Sarkozy press conference [2]earlier this year, and the release by Wikileaks of US government documents revealing the Obama administration had betrayed Britain[3] in order to appease the Russians over the New START Treaty.
In honour of President Obama’s state visit to Britain this week, here’s an updated and revised list, as a reminder to readers of the president’s less than stellar track record when it comes to US-British relations. The US president will no doubt be careful not to offend his hosts when he travels to London, and he will receive a warm welcome from the Queen and the Prime Minister, as any American president would. But the prospect of an embarrassing diplomatic gaffe or insensitive remark cannot be ruled out from a world leader whose administration has all too often specialised in them. As I noted in my original piece:
Without a shadow of a doubt, Barack Obama has been the most anti-British president in modern American history. The Special Relationship has been significantly downgraded, and at times humiliated under his presidency, which has displayed a shocking disregard for America’s most important partner and strategic ally.
There are a multitude of reasons for President Obama’s dismissive approach to the UK, and here are a few: an obsession with engaging and appeasing America’s enemies rather than cultivating allies; personal animosity towards Britain because of his grandfather’s role as a Mau Mau supporter in 1950’s colonial Kenya; Democrat resentment over British support for the Bush Administration over Iraq; left-wing disdain for the idea of Anglo-American exceptionalism and world leadership; support for supranational institutions such as the European Union over the supremacy of the nation state.
1. Siding with Argentina over the Falklands
For sheer offensiveness it’s hard to beat the Obama administration’s brazen support for Argentina’s call for UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands, despite the fact that 255 British servicemen laid down their lives to restore British rule over the Islands after they were brutally invaded in 1982. In a March 2010 press conference in Buenos Aires with President Cristina Kirchner, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Argentina a huge propaganda coup[4] by emphatically backing the position of the Péronist regime.
In June last year, Mrs. Clinton slapped Britain in face again by signing on to an Organisation of American States (OAS) resolution [5]calling for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, a position which is completely unacceptable to Great Britain. To add insult to injury, the Obama administration has insisted on using the Argentine term “Malvinas” to describe the Islands[6] in yet another sop to Buenos Aires.
2. Calling France America’s strongest ally
In January this year, President Obama held a joint press conference at the White House [7]with his French counterpart, literally gushing with praise for Washington’s new-found Gallic friends, declaring: “We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.” As I noted at the time:[8]
Quite what the French have done to merit this kind of high praise from the US president is difficult to fathom, and if the White House means what it says this represents an extraordinary sea change in US foreign policy. Nicolas Sarkozy is a distinctly more pro-American president than any of his predecessors, and has been an important ally over issues such as Iran and the War on Terror. But to suggest that Paris and not London is Washington’s strongest partner is simply ludicrous.
These kinds of presidential statements matter. No US president in modern times has described France as America’s closest ally, and such a remark is not only factually wrong but also insulting to Britain, not least coming just a few years after the French famously knifed Washington in the back over the war in Iraq.
3. Downgrading the Special Relationship
Barack Obama very rarely refers to the Special Relationship, and has hardly even mentioned Britain in a major policy speech, either before or since taking office. The Anglo-American alliance is barely a blip on Obama’s teleprompter screen, and he acts as though it simply does not exist. The Special Relationship has also been largely erased from the official lexicon of the State Department, and is barely used by US officials in London. Despite being America’s only major reliable ally when the chips are down, London is now treated in Washington as though it were the same as any other European power, albeit less charitably than either Paris or Berlin.
4. Supporting a federal Europe and undercutting British sovereignty
The Obama administration’s relentless and wrongheaded support for the creation of a federal Europe, from backing the Treaty of Lisbon to the European Security and Defence Policy, is a slap in the face for the principle of national sovereignty in Europe. British sovereignty is non-negotiable, and Obama’s willingness to undermine it is both insulting to Britain and self-defeating for the United States.
While the Bush Administration was divided over Europe, the Obama team is ardently euro-federalist. Hillary Clinton described the Lisbon Treaty as “a major milestone in our world’s history”[9], and in an interview with The Irish Times in 2009[10] stated: “I believe [political integration is] in Europe’s interest and I believe that is in the United States’ interest because we want a strong Europe.” And in May last year, Vice President Joe Biden described Brussels as the “capital of the free world.”[11]
And the US Ambassador to London, Louis Susman, has warned Britain[12] that “all key issues must run through Europe.” According to a report by The Parliament.com[13], in a private meeting with British MEPs at an event in the European Parliament in January, Susman called for a stronger British commitment to the EU, emphatically warning against British withdrawal:
I want to stress that the UK needs to remain in the EU. The US does not want to see Britain’s role in the EU diminished in any way. The message I want to convey today is that we want to see a stronger EU, but also a stronger British participation within the EU. This is crucial if, together, we are going to meet all the global challenges facing us, including climate change and security.
5. Betraying Britain to appease Moscow over the New START Treaty
In February, The Daily Telegraph broke a major story[14] with damaging implications for the Special Relationship, revealing that Washington “secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty.” According to The Telegraph report[15]:
Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week. Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.
A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal. Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.
Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.
6. Placing a “boot on the throat” of BP
The Obama administration’s relentless campaign against Britain’s largest company in the wake of Gulf oil spill was one of the most damaging episodes in US-UK relations in recent years, with 64 percent of Britons[16] agreeing that the president’s handling of the issue had harmed the partnership between the two countries according to a YouGov poll. The White House’s aggressive trashing of BP, including a threat to put a “boot on the throat”[17] of the oil giant, helped wipe out about half its share value, directly impacting the pensions of 18 million Britons.[18] This led to a furious backlash in the British press, with even London mayor and long-time Obama admirer Boris Johnson demanding an end to “anti-British rhetoric, buck-passing and name-calling”.[19]
7. Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office
It is hard to think of a more derogatory message to send to the British people within days of taking office than to fling a bust of Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office[20] and send it packing back to the British Embassy – not least as it was a loaned gift from Britain to the United States as a powerful display of solidarity in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Obviously, public diplomacy is not a concept that carries much weight in the current White House, and nor apparently is common sense.
8. DVDs for the Prime Minister
Readers of this blog will know I’m no fan of Gordon Brown, but whatever one thinks of his third-rate premiership, Brown traveled abroad not as a private individual but as the leader of America’s closest ally. He represented 61 million Britons including the Armed Forces, as well as a huge amount of British trade and investment with the United States. He was however treated shabbily when he visited the White House in March 2009, and denied a Rose Garden press conference as well as a dinner. To cap it all, the decision to send him home with an assortment of 25 DVDs [21]ranging from Toy Story to The Wizard of Oz – which couldn’t even be played in the UK – was a breathtaking display of diplomatic ineptitude that would have shamed the protocol office of an impoverished Third World country.
9. Insulting words from the State Department
The mocking views of a senior State Department official[22] following Gordon Brown’s embarrassing reception at the White House in March last year says it all:
There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.
One would have thought that this kind of monumentally shallow insult would have resulted in at least a formal apology and a reprimand for the official involved, but unfortunately Obama administration apologies are strictly reserved for the French and assorted enemies of the United States.
10. Undermining British influence in NATO
Despite Nicolas Sarkozy’s distinctly unflattering opinion [23]of Barack Obama, the US president has gone to great lengths to appease French interests, even going as far as apologising to the French people [24]in Strasbourg for hurting their feelings over the war in Iraq. The Obama administration has also done its best to give Paris a lead role in the NATO alliance at Britain’s expense, granting it one of two supreme NATO command positions – Allied Command Transformation (ACT). This, despite the fact that France has for decades been ambivalent and obstructionist over NATO, and is failing to carry its weight in Afghanistan.
References
^ I published a list of Barack Obama’s biggest insults (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ Obama-Sarkozy press conference (www.c-span.org)
^ had betrayed Britain (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ gave Argentina a huge propaganda coup (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ y signing on to an Organisation of American States (OAS) resolution (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ to describe the Islands (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ held a joint press conference at the White House (www.c-span.org)
^ I noted at the time: (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ “a major milestone in our world’s history” (www.state.gov)
^ an interview with The Irish Times in 2009 (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ the “capital of the free world.” (www.whitehouse.gov)
^ has warned Britain (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ a report by The Parliament.com (www.theparliament.com)
^ broke a major story (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ The Telegraph report (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ 64 percent of Britons (today.yougov.co.uk)
^ a “boot on the throat” (www.youtube.com)
^ directly impacting the pensions of 18 million Britons. (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
^ an end to “anti-British rhetoric, buck-passing and name-calling”. (www.thisislondon.co.uk)
^ fling a bust of Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ an assortment of 25 DVDs (www.dailymail.co.uk)
^ mocking views of a senior State Department official (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ distinctly unflattering opinion (www.timesonline.co.uk)
^ apologising to the French people (www.whitehouse.gov)
Take a drink every time he says "uh". Then basically die of alcohol poisoning in 15 minutes. I disagree when people say that he's a great orator. If you've ever seen him speak without a Teleprompter, as rare as it is, it's very different than when he's reading off the Teleprompter. Apparently, the LA Times believes it is because he's too smart to talk straight...What's the verdict? Is he good at reading in public and not at actual speaking, while the LA Times digs deep (way deep) to find a way to praise him? Or am I just a hater, and the LA Times is correct: he's actually too smart to speak...read the original here.
Meghan Daum: Obama The Intellectual Stammerer
Apparently, a lot of people consider President Obama[1]
to be bumblingly inarticulate. "The guy can't talk his way out of a paper bag!" a reader wrote to me recently. "Sarah Palin[2]
is a brilliant speaker. It's the president whose sentences are undiagrammable," said another in response to a column I wrote about Palin. It's not just my readers, nor is it exclusively conservatives, who hold this view. A Google[3]
search of "does Obama have a speech impediment" turns up several pages of discussion among the president's supporters and critics alike.Admittedly, the president is given to a lot of pauses, "uhs" and sputtering starts to his sentences. As polished as he often is before large crowds (where the adjective "soaring" is often applied to his speeches), his impromptu speaking frequently calls to mind a doctoral candidate delivering a wobbly dissertation defense.
But consider this: It's not that Obama can't speak clearly. It's that he employs the intellectual stammer. Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can't keep up. The stammer is commonly found among university professors, characters in Woody Allen[4] movies and public thinkers of the sort that might appear on C-SPAN[5] but not CNN[6]. If you're a member or a fan of that subset, chances are the president's stammer doesn't bother you; in fact, you might even love him for it (he sounds just like your grad school roommate, especially when he drank too much Scotch and attempted to expound on the Hegelian dialectic!).
If you're not, chances are you find yourself yelling "get to the point already!" at the television screen every time Obama's search for the right word seems to last longer than the search for Osama bin Laden[7]
. And thanks to its echoes of the college lecture hall, you may think it comes across as ever so slightly (or more than slightly) left wing.
That's kind of ironic, given that the godfather of the intellectual stammer is arguably none other than the paterfamilias of the conservative movement, William F. Buckley[8] Jr. With his slouch, his glazed-eyed stare and a speaking style that suggested the entire Oxford English Dictionary was flipping through his mind while he searched for a word like "dithyramb," he makes Obama's extemporaneous speech seem canned — not to mention pedestrian — by comparison. In fact, if the people critiquing Obama's meandering speech patterns were to see an old "Firing Line" segment, I daresay they would think Buckley was drunk or otherwise impaired.
Granted, Buckley didn't hold political office (he made an unsuccessful run for mayor of New York in 1965). He was more an observer than a decider, which is pretty much the opposite of what you need to be to lead a nation. Obama, as much as his critics might hate to admit it, is more than a phlegmatic egghead. He's proved he can act decisively; whatever his faults, he's leading the nation far more effectively — albeit less colorfully — than Buckley would have led New York. (When asked what he'd do if he won the mayoral election, he famously responded, "Demand a recount.")
Obama's problem is not that he's an intellectual (for the sake of argument let's define it as someone who is scholarly, broadly informed and distinguished as a thinker). It's that he sounds like an intellectual. Unlike other presumed political brainiacs — Bill Clinton[9] or Newt Gingrich[10], for example — he isn't able to bury his ideas behind a folksy regional accent or good-old-boy affectations when he wants to. Nor is he effective at "keeping it real" when he falls into traditionally African American cadences that he clearly never used when he was growing up.
By speaking as though he hails from everywhere, he ends up being from nowhere. The result is that people look at him and see not a Hawaiian or a Chicagoan or even a black man, but a university man.
Of course, the president enables that stigma by stammering his way through town hall meetings and other public dialogues as though they were philosophy lectures. Irritating? Sure. But inarticulate? Sorry, folks, but you'll have to find another adjective. And take your time. The right word is usually worth waiting for.
mdaum@latimescolumnists.com[11]
References
^ Barack Obama (www.latimes.com)
^ Sarah Palin (www.latimes.com)
^ Google Inc. (www.latimes.com)
^ Woody Allen (www.latimes.com)
^ C-SPAN (tv network) (www.latimes.com)
^ CNN (tv network) (www.latimes.com)
^ Osama bin Laden (www.latimes.com)
^ William F. Buckley (www.latimes.com)
^ Bill Clinton (www.latimes.com)
^ Newt Gingrich (www.latimes.com)
^ mdaum@latimescolumnists.com (www.latimes.com)
One question I have is...what has he done to qualify to win this award? Is it like the Nobel prize he won for talking a lot so that people might think about stuff more? You can imagine my lack of shock considering the past on the application of "smart diplomacy" and "restoring our standing in the world" which apparently means insulting our allies and apologizing to our enemies. I saw kids who did this in grade school. It got them beat up and friendless. Read the original here.
Barack Obama Snubs British Scientists By Refusing To Receive Royal Society Medal
But Mr Obama’s aides responded to the invitation with a “very short” note in which they said the president would rather spend time at a south London state school.
Mr Obama visited The Globe Academy in Southwark with David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on Tuesday.
The two leaders swapped a number of high-fives with pupils before rolling up their sleeves for a game of table tennis against two schoolboys.
A British government source close to the Obama visit said: “The Royal Society was really keen to do something with Obama and they expected him to be very honoured by the medal.
“Instead they received a very short response from his people saying that it would be better for him to visit a state school.
“The inference they took from that was that he was more interested in cultivating his street cred than in building links with British scientists.”
Bill Hartnett, the Royal Soctiety’s communications chief, confirmed that the offer had been rejected but insisted that no offence had been taken.
He said: “There were some early discussions about whether the visit was an opportunity for him to come to the society and meet some of the UK’s brightest and best young scientists as well as some of our fellows.
“We also discussed giving him the King Charles II Medal which is presented to heads of state.
“We put it to the Department of Business who sounded out his people and we were told it wasn’t possible.
“We were not offended. The idea was in its early stages so there was never any real expectation of it happening.”
Had Mr Obama accepted the invitation, he would have been greeted by Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, who won a Nobel prize in 2001 for advances in genetics and cell biology.
Instead he met pupils at the Globe Academy who had won an award for designing a lunchbox which folds out into a plate.
Read the original here.
House Members In The Know Score 'Abnormal' Stock Profits, Study Says
It’s no secret that members of Congress[1] qualify as political insiders, but a new report strongly suggests that they also may be insiders when it comes to trading stocks.
An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives[2] outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.
“We find strong evidence that members of the House[3] have some type of non-public information which they use for personal gain,” according to four academics who authored the study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives[4].”
To the frustration of open-government advocates, lawmakers and their staff members largely have immunity from laws barring trading on insider knowledge that have sent many a private corporate chieftain to prison.
The watchdog group OpenSecrets.org said on its blog Wednesday that the findings suggest “that U.S. House[5] members are using their powerful roles for more than just political gain.”
The professors reviewed more than 16,000 common stock transactions carried out by about 300 House[6]members as revealed in the members’ financial-disclosure forms from 1985 to 2001.
In a 2004 study, the same professors found that U.S. senators also enjoy a “substantial information advantage” over the average investor — and even corporate bigwigs — when it comes to picking stocks. The latest study shows that members of the Senate[7] outperform their House[8] colleagues by an average of 30 points per month.
Despite the GOP[9]’s reputation as the party of the rich, House[10] Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample.
“Given the almost folkloric belief that Wall Street invariably favors Republicans, the superior performance of trades made by Democratic representatives may seem surprising,” the study authors said.
One theory is that Democrats were the majority for most of the years under review and thus held more leadership posts, giving them greater access to nonpublic information. Once they took power in 1995, Republicans may have limited their ability to profit from the perks of political power because of their lack of leadership experience.
Strict laws ban corporate executives from trading on their insider knowledge, but no restrictions exist for members of Congress[11]. Lawmakers are permitted to keep their holdings and trade shares on the market, as well as vote on legislation that could affect their portfolio values.
The rationale is that requiring lawmakers to divest their economic holdings would “insulate a legislator from the personal and economic interests that his/her constituency, or society in general, has in governmental decisions and policy,” according to the House[12] ethics manual.
Even so, concerns about members of Congress[13] enriching themselves based on inside information has prompted at least one House[14] bill, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which would limit the ability of lawmakers to buy and sell stock shares.
First introduced in 2006, the bill has yet to reach the House[15] floor. Its sponsors, Reps. Louise McIntosh Slaughter, New York Democrat, and Timothy J. Walz, Minnesota Democrat, reintroduced the bill in March.
“This is a matter of equality under the law,” Mr. Walz said at the time. “The same standards we have established for Wall Street should apply to Congress[16]. The potential for abuse is obvious and troubling, and there is simply no good reason Congress[17] should get to play by a separate set of rules in the stock market.”
Opponents of the bill argue that the best way to restrain lawmakers from abusing their access to inside information is full disclosure and transparency. All members of Congress[22] are required to file annual financial disclosure reports that include their stock purchases and sales.
Any member viewed as taking unfair advantage of the system may be voted out of office. “However, the electoral process can only be an effective restraint against unethical conduct if the electorate is well-informed both in terms of the assets held by their representatives and the representatives’ voting records,” the study said.
The study also found that House[23] members are less likely than senators to play the market. About 16 percent of House[24] members purchased common stock in the years 1993, 1995 and 1997, compared with 27 percent of Senate[25] members.
The difference is “most likely attributable to the fact that the average senator is far wealthier than the average representative,” the study concluded.
The study also found that the best stock pickers were House[26] members with the least seniority. Calling this finding “counterintuitive,” the report suggests that junior members of Congress[27] have more incentive to invest aggressively because they have less access to campaign funding.
“Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise,” the report said.
The authors recommend a policy requiring more timely and complete reporting of congressional security transactions, similar to those now mandatory for business executives.
“Reporting requirements similar to those imposed on corporate insiders could be appropriate for helping voters evaluate the behavior of their representatives in terms of the pursuit of personal profit versus obligations to the public interest,” said the study. “Such prompt reporting could also help level the playing field for all investors.”
The authors of the report are Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.[28]
References
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House of Representatives (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ U.S. House of Representatives (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ U.S. House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Senate (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ GOP (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Story Continues → (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ View Entire Story (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Click here for reprint permission. (license.icopyright.net)
^ click here (oascentral.stansberryresearch.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Senate (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ House (www.washingtontimes.com)
^ Congress (www.washingtontimes.com)
It's the hypocrisy. I don't care what the DNC Chair drives at her house. She can buy whatever she wants. But I find it hypocritical and disingenuous to rip into other people and make accusations, and then turn around and do the same thing. Worse even, is there's no shame or remorse in getting caught being so hypocritical, they attempt to explain it away. I don't know if it's confirmation bias, but I feel like lately, especially the last 5-10 years, the Dems have doing this more often than Republicans? This is kind of like Al Gore and why I hate him. He can live in whatever gigantic house he wants, I envy him, I wish I could make that kind of money and buy that house. But to make your money lecturing the rest of the public that they're using too many of the earth's resources is hypocritical and disingenuous, and he should be taken to task, as should the DNC Chair. Read the original here.
DNC chairwoman doesn't drive American
By Michael O'Brien - 05/26/11 04:40 PM ET
The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) appears to drive a foreign car, despite criticizing Republican presidential candidates for supposedly favoring foreign auto manufacturers.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the DNC, ripped into Republican presidential contenders who opposed President Obama's 2009 bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler.
"If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes," she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor.
But according to Florida motor vehicle records, the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company. The car appears to be hers, since its license plate includes her initials.
The DNC and Republican presidential hopefuls have locked horns this week over the 2009 bailouts, especially as President Obama has looked to build some political report by taking credit for Chrysler's rebound, to the extent that the automaker was able to pay back the remainder of its loans from the federal government.
"They can try to distract from the issue if they want," said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan. "But if Republican opposition researchers are snooping around garages, they should know that if Republicans — who said that we should let the U.S. auto industry go bankrupt — had their way, they wouldn’t find a single American made car anywhere."
He added: "Besides, Chair Wasserman Schultz voted in Congress to save the American automobile industry, Republicans would have let it go down the tubes."
-- This post was updated at 6:55 p.m.
Also, this headline seems misleading. It's not the students who are claiming white supremacy, it's the school that is claiming that the students might be claiming it.Read the original here.
Soquel Students Suspended For White Supremacy Claims
SOQUEL, Calif. - Students banned from a Central Coast school for wearing a white t-shirt.
On Wednesday, Soquel High School suspended at least two students. The students say it's because of allegations, they're part of a white supremacist group.
"All the girls wore pink, all the sports guys wore tank tops," says Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly. "We were all going to wear white so that was the plan. Just wear white t-shirts to identify ourselves and look back and say that was our group of friends right there."
Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly wore a white t-shirt for his senior class photo Tuesday. About 10 of his friends did the same. That decision may seem harmless. But Soquel High suspended Donnelly for three days because of it.
Donnelly said the school told him people were offended and intimidated by his group, claiming they're a white supremacist gang.
"I do think this is BS," says Donnelly. "I'm not a white supremacist in any way shape or form. If I did say white power, I would probably say it just as much as I say black power."
He's not the only one upset.
"I feel disrespected," says Soquel High Senior David Mine.
Mine also wore a white t-shirt and was also suspended. He's missing out on finals and that could jeopardize his graduation.
"I'm Asian," says Mine. "I don't see how I can be a white supremacist. I'm against it completely."
Soquel High Principal Ken Lawrence-Emanuel was very tight-lipped about it, saying students' punishments are confidential. But told me the school got several complaints about a white pride group on campus.
"Safety is always first at Soquel High," says Lawrence-Emanuel. "We want to make sure we do everything we can to keep people from feeling and being safe on campus."
But, the students don't agree and are ready to fight it.
"It's a pretty bad feeling to be labeled something you're not," says Donnelly.
Donnelly said nobody's ever accused him of being a white supremacist before and plans on appealing the schools decision. He'll even take it to court if he needs to.
Submitted by Azenith Smith, Central Coast News
Read the original here.
Medvedev Uncorks a Stunner on U.S. Missile Defense Shield
President Obama had just finished touting the “outstanding relationship” he and Dmitry Medvedev have built between themselves and their nations – the American leader even used the “reset” button metaphor again – when the Russian president turned to the thorny issue of Washington’s plan to upgrade its missile defense shield, and uncorked a stunner.
“I have told my counterpart, Barack Obama, that this issue will be finally solved in the future,” Medvedev told reporters in Deauville, France, “like, for example, in the year 2020.”
It wasn’t merely that Medvedev had chosen a date almost comically far into the future to suggest when the two nations might come to terms; the particular date he chose carried special meaning. 2020 is the year when the State Department has estimated the U.S. will deploy the SM-3 Block IIB, a missile still on the drawing board but being designed to intercept medium- and intermediate-range missiles that might be launched from the Middle East.
Since the Russians purport to see the Block IIB as a threat to Moscow’s own ballistic missile arsenal, Medvedev’s reference to the projected date of its deployment, in an otherwise cordial photo-op with the American president on the sidelines of an international summit, sent an unmistakable signal.
“He puts that marker out there,” explained Michael McFaul, the senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, “to say that we have to have cooperation [on missile defense] before then, because if we don't, then we're going to have to think about these more dire scenarios.”
In a briefing with reporters after the two presidents spoke, McFaul said the Russians are “wrong” to express concern about American intentions or capabilities with respect to the Block IIB. “First of all, let's just be clear, this is a concept -- it doesn't exist,” McFaul said. “This is way in the future….Their argument is, ‘That's what you have today. That's your technological abilities today. We don't know what your technological capabilities will be in 2020.’…What we say, and what the president said again today, is: ‘Cooperate with us, work with us, get into our system. You get into our system and cooperate, you'll have much better visibility and much better understanding about our real capabilities and these fictitious ones.’”
The mini-summit occurred on a day when the U.S. House of Representatives passed – almost unanimously – a half-trillion-dollar defense spending bill that threatens to delay implementation of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The accord was just finalized in February, and Obama cites it as a major foreign policy accomplishment.
One provision of the bill forbids the use of federal funds to retire a nuclear warhead unless the heads of the Departments of Defense and Energy certify that the remaining U.S. nuclear arsenal is being modernized. Another bars the commander in chief from adopting a new nuclear targeting strategy, or from removing certain weapons systems from Europe, without notifying Congress. The White House has threatened to veto the bill if those provisions remain in the final version of the legislation that reaches the president’s desk.
Aides to the president argued that the personal dynamic between the American and Russian presidents can serve to assuage concerns in their respective legislatures back home.
“I think what we've seen happen is they can drive the relationship and they can push, frankly, their own governments who have habits, I think, of mistrust,” said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, while traveling with the president.
Another divisive issue the two nations – and their legislatures – will have to work out is how much sensitive technology relating to missile defense they should share. A group of 39 Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, wrote to Obama in April, demanding written assurance he would not provide to Moscow “early warning, detection, tracking, targeting, and telemetry data, sensors or common operational picture data, or American hit-to-kill missile defense technology.”
The White House never responded to the letter.
A former Soviet military officer contacted by Fox News dismissed such concerns as evidence of residual Cold War distrust that is both unnecessary and unwise.
“It's really obsolete thinking, archaic,” said Dmitri Trenin, now director of the Moscow center for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I think the Pentagon, because it very much reflects the view of the uniformed military, is less interested in missile defense cooperation with Russia than is the political leadership. For the political leadership, this is a project that could change the political relationship….And I would say the same thing applies to Russia. The Kremlin may be more eager to get an agreement with the United States, whereas people at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation would be more interested in having more money flowing their way, to build missile defense against the United States.”
“It's Russia that's locked in the Cold War mentality,” Kirk countered in an interview with Fox News. “I think Russia wants to achieve by agreement what it cannot achieve by espionage, that with this data-sharing it would learn the most sensitive aspects of our missile defenses.”
Read the original here.
A 62% Top Tax Rate?
Democrats have said they only intend to restore the tax rates that existed during the Clinton years. In reality they're proposing rates like those under President Carter.
By STEPHEN MOORE
Media reports in recent weeks say that Senate Democrats are considering a 3% surtax on income over $1 million to raise federal revenues. This would come on top of the higher income tax rates that President Obama has already proposed through the cancellation of the Bush era tax-rate reductions.
If the Democrats' millionaire surtax were to happen—and were added to other tax increases already enacted last year and other leading tax hike ideas on the table this year—this could leave the U.S. with a combined federal and state top tax rate on earnings of 62%. That's more than double the highest federal marginal rate of 28% when President Reagan left office in 1989. Welcome back to the 1970s.
Here's the math behind that depressing calculation. Today's top federal income tax rate is 35%. Almost all Democrats in Washington want to repeal the Bush tax cuts on those who make more than $250,000 and phase out certain deductions, so the effective income tax rate would rise to about 41.5%. The 3% millionaire surtax raises that rate to 44.5%.
But payroll taxes, which are income taxes on wages and salaries, must also be included in the equation. So we have to add about 2.5 percentage points for the payroll tax for Medicare (employee and employer share after business deductions), which was applied to all income without a ceiling in 1993 as part of the Clinton tax hike. I am including in this analysis the employer share of all payroll taxes because it is a direct tax on a worker's salary and most economists agree that though employers are responsible for collecting this tax, it is ultimately borne by the employee. That brings the tax rate to 47%.
Then last year, as part of the down payment for ObamaCare, Congress snuck in an extra 0.9% Medicare surtax on "high-income earners," meaning any individual earning more than $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000. This brings the total tax rate to 47.9%.
But that's not all. Several weeks ago, Mr. Obama raised the possibility of eliminating the income ceiling on the Social Security tax, now capped at $106,800 of earnings a year. (Never mind that the program was designed to operate as an insurance system, with each individual's payment tied to the benefits paid out at retirement.) Subjecting all wage and salary income to Social Security taxes would add roughly 10.1 percentage points to the top tax rate. This takes the grand total tax rate on each additional dollar earned in America to about 58%.
Then we have to factor in state income taxes, which on average add after the deductions from the federal income tax roughly another four percentage points to the tax burden. So now on average we are at a tax rate of close to 62%.
Democrats have repeatedly stated they only intend to restore the tax rates that existed during the Clinton years. But after all these taxes on the "rich," we're headed back to the taxes that prevailed under Jimmy Carter, when the highest tax rate was 70%.
Taxes on investment income are also headed way up. Suspending the Bush tax cuts, which is favored by nearly every congressional Democrat, plus a 3.8% investment tax in the ObamaCare bill (which starts in 2014) brings the capital gains tax rate to 23.8% from 15%. The dividend tax would potentially climb to 45% from the current rate of 15%.
Now let's consider how our tax system today compares with the system that was in place in the late 1980s—when the deficit was only about one-quarter as large as a share of GDP as it is now. After the landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986, which closed special-interest loopholes in exchange for top marginal rates of 28%, the highest combined federal-state marginal tax rate was about 33%. Now we may be headed to 62%. You don't have to be Jack Kemp or Arthur Laffer to understand that a 29 percentage point rise in top marginal rates would make America a highly uncompetitive place.
What is particularly worrisome about this trend is the deterioration of the U.S. tax position relative to the rest of our economic rivals. In 1990, the highest individual income tax rate of our major economic trading partners was 51%, while the U.S. was much lower at 33%. It's no wonder that during the 1980s and '90s the U.S. created more than twice as many new jobs as Japan and Western Europe combined.
It's true that the economy was able to absorb the Bush 41 and Clinton tax hikes and still grow at a very rapid pace. But what the soak-the-rich lobby ignores is how different the world is today versus the early 1990s. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, over the past two decades the average highest tax rate among the 20 major industrial nations has fallen to about 45%. Yet the highest U.S. tax rate would rise to more than 48% under the Obama/Democratic tax hikes. To make matters worse, if we include the average personal income tax rates of developing countries like India and China, the average tax rate around the world is closer to 30%, according to a new study by KPMG.
What all this means is that in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest.
Despite all of this, the refrain from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and most of the Democrats in Congress is our fiscal mess is a result of "tax cuts for the rich." When? Where? Who? The Tax Foundation recently noted that in 2009 the U.S. collected a higher share of income and payroll taxes (45%) from the richest 10% of tax filers than any other nation, including such socialist welfare states as Sweden (27%), France (28%) and Germany (31%). And this was before the rate hikes that Democrats are now endorsing.
Perhaps there can still be a happy ending to this sad tale of U.S. decline. If there were ever a right time to trade in the junk heap of our federal tax code for a pro-growth Steve Forbes-style flat tax, now's the time.
Mr. Moore is a member of the The Journal's editorial board.
Socialized medicine. Regardless if this is systemic or not, there should be no stories like this about medicine. Read the original here.
Elderly Patients Dying Of Thirst: Doctors Forced To Prescribe Drinking Water To Keep The Old Alive, Reveals Devastating Report On Hospital CareBy Sophie Borland[1]
Last updated at 9:33 AM on 26th May 2011
Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital.
The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards.
Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders.
The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.
Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year.
Another 300 die malnourished. The latest report – by the Care Quality Commission – found patients frequently complained they were spoken to in a ‘condescending and dismissive’ manner.
The watchdog said three of 12 NHS trusts visited in the past three months were failing to meet the most basic standards required by law.
They were: Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust and Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in North London.
The findings follow a joint campaign by the Mail and the Patients Association last year which exposed shocking examples of substandard care.
Similar failings were highlighted earlier this year by the Health Service Ombudsman who cited cases of patients left to become so thirsty they could not cry for help.
Since February, a team of inspectors from the CQC – including a nurse and an elderly patient – have been visiting 100 NHS trusts unannounced to check elderly patients are treated with dignity.
They found other, less serious concerns at a further three trusts: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Homerton University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London and the Wye Valley NHS Trust – meaning just half of hospitals were providing the most basic standards of care.
The results of the remaining trusts will be published later this year but the watchdog said the findings from this first wave of inspections was likely to be a ‘snapshot’ of all hospitals across the country.
At Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire, inspectors reported ‘major’ concerns on nutrition. Doctors often have to prescribe ‘drinking water’ for patients to ensure nurses remember to give them enough fluids.
At Ipswich Hospital, the elderly are made to suffer the indignity of using a commode by their bedside because staff are too busy to take them to the toilet.
Inspectors also found routine examples of patients’ meals being dumped by their bed while they were asleep and then taken away again untouched.
Emergency call buttons are often left out of patients’ reach and they often have to press them seven times before a nurse responds. One elderly man was forced to attract attention by banging on his water jug or shouting.
Other concerns included staff not closing the curtains around a patient’s bed before examining them. The three failing trusts will be given several months to improve before being inspected again. If they are still not deemed to be up to scratch the worst could be fined, and the relevant wards shut down.
Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: ‘The overwhelmingly majority of people of this country would never treat their older friends and relatives like this, and yet this is the experience of too many people on hospital wards.
‘These are not the extras, these are not try-to-dos. These are must-dos.’
Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘Every patient should be properly fed and treated with dignity as part of basic care in hospitals, and it is extremely worryingly that a quarter of the first twelve hospitals to be spot checked were non-compliant in both areas.’
Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘The most important people in the NHS are its patients – that’s why I wanted the CQC to look into the treatment of older patients and stamp out poor care fast.’
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics revealed that in 2009, 816 hospital patients were listed on death certificates as having died suffering from dehydration.
References
^ Sophie Borland (www.dailymail.co.uk)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1390925/Elderly-patients-dying-thirst-Doctors-forced-prescribe-drinking-water-old-alive-reveals-devastating-report-hospital-care.html#ixzz1NT9pbQTT
Dear Sir Paul Nurse, nobel laureate. #1, I'm sure throughout history, the one thing that has propelled science forward is the hoarding and hiding of information. God forbid, people want to know what drives your conclusions. #2. I'm sure that organised campaigns for request of data is unheard of in science. #3. I'm sure there's no curiosity as to the data being used after it has been found that data has been falsified in the past regarding these issues? Read the original here.
Freedom Of Information Laws Are Used To Harass Scientists, Says Nobel Laureate | Politics
Sir Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2001, says information laws are being abused to intimidate scientists.
Freedom of information[1] laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society[2].
Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse[3] told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.
Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study[4] into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions".
Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change[5]debate to intimidate scientists.
"I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it's intimidating."
It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. "It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That's going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently."
Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. "I don't actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful."
Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists' work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. "It's also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience," he said. "It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden."
Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia[6]'s (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals' research from being published at all.
In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA's climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct[7], but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness", although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team's honesty or integrity.
"The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing," said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. "Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress."
Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. "In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy's questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn't really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn't about science at all; it was about procedure."
He added: "I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it's very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record."
Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests.
Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email.
"There's no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public," he said. "There's a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don't reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they're doing behind the scenes."
He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. "Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent," he said. "Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public's confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people's trust."
References
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Freedom of information (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Royal Society (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ a major Royal Society study (royalsociety.org)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on University of East Anglia (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ cleared of any misconduct (www.guardian.co.uk)
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