Currently viewing the tag: “means”
The hell it isn’t, if you’ll pardon the language. And the fact that Hasan can’t see that is just one reason why this court should never have opened in Britain.
Amazingly, that quotation, from a video at the Guardian (around 4:00 — note how he almost chuckles), appears in commentary by Guardian writer Afua Hirsch in a piece that primarily defends Sharia, pooh-poohing anti-Sharia measures in the U.S. and saying “there are ways in which the English courts are playing catch-up with what these tribunals have been doing for years.”
From “Time for the sharia courts to open up,” by Afua Hirsch for the Guardian, March 9 (thanks to Twostellas):
[…] The result is not exactly a PR dream, as far as busting myths about Islamic law are concerned. Dr Suhaib Hasan, who is seen presiding over one woman’s request for a divorce, asks her whether her husband has ever subjected her to violence.
The video link above identifies Hasan as a member of the Sharia Council.
“He has hit me in the past, yes,” she replies. “He hit me once.”
“Once only,” Hasan replies. “So it’s not a very serious matter.”
Qur’an 4:34: Allah says you can hit your wife.
This is exactly the kind of thing that prompts alarm about giving religious tribunals authority in some sensitive areas as marriage and divorce – it’s hard to think of a clearer example of how sharia can diverge from English law, which now requires much less than hitting a woman once to constitute domestic violence.
On the other hand, there are ways in which the English courts are playing catch-up with what these tribunals have been doing for years. “Our role is not like an English court where if [a couple] are asking for divorce, we proceed at once, we try to find any possibilities for a reconciliation,” says Hasan, displaying the mediatory approach towards divorce that the English family courts are now desperately trying to adopt.
There is no excuse for ignorant prejudice against sharia law, but this film shows that there are valid concerns about the way sharia tribunals operate. And if they really want to demonstrate their compatibility with a modern, secular society, then greater openness – of the kind this film demonstrates – must be the way forward.
No excuse for ignorant prejudice. That’s fine. We deal in the informed refusal to compromise on human rights.
By: Sami Moubayed
When locked away at the Camp David resort back in 1978, United States officials from the Carter administration would often say: “Menachem Begin needs to consult his people, given that Israel is a democracy, before committing to any concession to the Egyptians.” That would immediately be followed by another phrase: “It shouldn’t be a problem for president [Anwar] Sadat; there is no public opinion that matters in Egypt — or anywhere else in the Arab world. Arab leaders can do as they please and get away with it without being questioned or scrutinised by their own people.”
Similar remarks were made by the Israelis at every juncture of the Middle East peace process, notably in Madrid, when Yitzhak Shamir said he could not yield on the issue of colonies because hardliners were threatening to walk out on his Likud government. The Israeli negotiator in Madrid, Yossi Ben Aharon, would often remark that Shamir has to make sure his people are consulted, whereas the Arabs could grant concessions left and right, without reporting to their people. That seemed to be so true for the Arab world, where for many years leaders took very unpopular decisions that pleased the West, often in complete contradiction to what their constituencies wanted. A clear example is the Gulf War of 1991, when the Arab street was pro-Saddam while Arab leaders were engaged in Operation Desert Storm that strove to eject his army from Kuwait. Petitions were signed and declarations were made against joining the Americans in the Arabian Desert but at the end of the day, Arab leaders did as they pleased — and got away with it. That entire logic collapsed — probably never to return — the minute “public opinion” began to matter, bringing down Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, on February 11, 2011.
Mubarak’s thundering fall from grace was due to a variety of reasons: corruption, nepotism, misuse of public office and the president’s wish to bequeath power, which he had held for 30 long years, to his son Jamal. Another reason that cannot be overlooked is his insistence on taking decisions, vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, in complete disregard for what the Egyptian street wanted. During the war on Gaza in 2008, for example, the Egyptians were furious with Israel and begging the government to open the Rafah Crossing to ease the suffering of the Palestinians. Mubarak did not care what his people were saying; as far as he was concerned, if Hamas prevailed in Gaza, his borders would no longer be with the embattled Palestinian strip but, rather, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even during the 18-day revolt that prevailed in Tahrir Square, Mubarak’s intelligence services, and some Egyptian dailies, were saying that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the uprising in Cairo, showing just how strong Iran-o-phobia was in the upper echelons of the Egyptian government. Young Egyptians even toyed with the idea of chanting anti-Iran slogans to shelter themselves from the ready accusations of being “agents for the Shiites”.
Shortly after Mubarak’s resignation, the Egyptian military command came out saying that they would uphold all international agreements signed by the previous regime — which includes the Camp David Accords. That agreement, very unpopular among grassroots Egyptians, was a reality of life that they had to accept and live with. The same cannot be said, however, for many of Mubarak’s foreign policies vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict. Precisely because he believed that “public opinion does not matter”, Mubarak went to great lengths trying to please the Americans and Israelis during his 30 years in power, starting with the 1991 decision to back the second Gulf War, to his 2008 indifference to what was happening in Gaza. In a nutshell, Mubarak was pro-American, anti-Iranian and certainly both anti-Hezbollah and anti-Hamas. Whoever succeeds him in the Egyptian presidency next September will certainly be an exact opposite of Mubarak — in age, ideology, character and policies. The Egyptians are not expecting another Jamal Abdul Nasser, but certainly someone who is more committed to the Arab world than Hosni Mubarak was.
There are immediate winners and losers in the new equation that will emerge in Egypt. The obvious losers are Israel and the US, who, furious at having lost a traditional ally, are still uncertain about how to deal with the new Middle East, “where public opinion matters”. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose own days are numbered in power, will also feel uncomfortable with no Mubarak in power, and so will the former Egyptian president’s Lebanese ally Sa’ad Hariri. Syria is certainly to gain, welcoming back a traditional ally that had always been committed to Arabism in its broader form. “Big Sister Egypt”, after all, was the cornerstone of modern Arab nationalism from 1952 until the late 1970s. Many in Syria hope the ouster of Mubarak will bring the clock back ticking — even if symbolically — to pre-November 19, 1977, the day Sadat landed in Occupied Jerusalem. Hezbollah shares this view and Iran is thrilled to see the end of Mubarak’s reign, regardless of who succeeds him at the presidency. Hamas is more concerned, given Mubarak’s strong support for the Fatah Movement and their opponent, President Abbas. During the hours of reconciliation talks that took place in Cairo 2007 onwards, Mubarak clearly took sides with Fatah, trying to pressure Hamas leaders into taking positions that empowered Fatah in the Occupied Territories, at their expense. They are now keeping their fingers crossed that the new leader of Egypt will continue to play the go-between in Palestinian reconciliation talks, more in favour of Hamas or, at least, more at arm’s length from both Palestinian groups.
Symbolically, ten days after Mubarak’s ouster, two Iranian warships en route to Syria were allowed through the Suez Canal. Israel snapped that this was a “provocation” but its words fell on deaf ears in Cairo. Mubarak would not have let it happen but post-Mubarak Egypt did not seem to care that the Israelis were furious. The Iranians were making a statement: They could send their ships to the Mediterranean, which Nato countries consider their maritime backyard.
Although the ships were not carrying weapons, Israel’s hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman barked: “To my regret, the international community is not showing readiness to deal with the recurring Iranian provocations. The international community must understand that Israel cannot forever ignore these provocations.”
This was the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iranian ships have passed through the canal, an act that is likely to be repeated in different forms in the next few months. All options are now on the table, ranging from granting a licence for Hamas to operate in Egypt (which will be strongly lobbied for by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood) to quarantining the Israeli diplomatic mission in Cairo. Pro-Palestinian sentiment will be freely allowed on the streets of Egypt, in the mass media and in the new parliament.
The haunting commitment to the closure of the Rafah Crossing will probably end; new Egyptian authorities have already opened it for three hours daily, permitting more than 600 Palestinians to cross into Egypt from Gaza.
The anti-Hezbollah tone of the Egyptian press will be quieted while Egypt’s involvement in Lebanese affairs, which often ran in direct confrontation with Hassan Nasrallah — much to Israel’s pleasure — will come to a halt.
An example that comes to mind is how revolt leaders in Iran shut down the Israeli embassy in Tehran, tore down the flag and gave the premises to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) after ousting Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979. The Iranian youth then did not want to sound, look or act like the pro-US and pro-Israeli shah. And today, the new Egyptian leaders will not want to sound, look or act like Hosni Mubarak.
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Sami Moubayed is a university professor, a political analyst and the editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria. This article appeared in Gulf News (Weekend Review) on March 4, 2011 entitled, “Times Turn with the Tide.”
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We had touched on the controversy of the London School of Economics accepting a £1.5 million donation from Saif Gaddafi.
I had missed this great quote from the director of the school, Sir Howard Davies, made in the Times of London last Monday to defend the donation (quoted in Just Journalism):
Sir Howard defended the LSE’s new Middle East Centre, half of whose board support an academic boycott of Israel. “The biggest donor to the School in the past year is George Soros, who of course is of Jewish origin. We operate, I believe, a very balanced view.”’
We love taking money from both Jewish and Arab haters of Israel! How much more balanced can one be?
(Davis has just resigned over accepting the Libya donation.)
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday, Sen. Jim DeMint argued that if PBS, CPB, and Sesame Street can afford lavish salaries for their executives, then surely they have the money to survive as private, non-commercial broadcasters. (He doesn't even mention how people chipping in $ 25 to "save" shows like Sesame Street might feel misled if they saw the salary numbers.)
PBS President Paula Kerger even recorded a personal television appeal that told viewers exactly how to contact members of Congress in order to "let your representative know how you feel about the elimination of funding for public broadcasting." But if PBS can pay Ms. Kerger $ 632,233 in annual compensation—as reported on the 990 tax forms all nonprofits are required to file—surely it can operate without tax dollars.
The executives at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes the taxpayer money allocated for public broadcasting to other stations, are also generously compensated. According to CPB's 2009 tax forms, President and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison received $ 298,884 in reportable compensation and another $ 70,630 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations that year. That's practically a pittance compared to Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, who received more than $ 1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.
Harrison was a wildly controversial choice when she was appointed to the CPB by President Bush in 2005, since she had been co-chair of the Republican National Commitee from 1997 to 2001. Once appointed, she quickly "went native," becoming a fierce protector of the subsidized liberal sandbox. DeMint continued:
Despite how accessible media has become to Americans over the years, funding for CPB has grown considerably. In 2001, the federal government appropriated $ 340 million for CPB. Last year it got $ 420 million. As Congress considers ways to close the $ 1.6 trillion deficit, cutting funding for the CPB has even been proposed by President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission. Instead, Mr. Obama wants to increase CPB's funding to $ 451 million in his latest budget.
Meanwhile, highly successful, brand-name public programs like Sesame Street make millions on their own. "Sesame Street," for example, made more than $ 211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $ 956,513 in compensation in 2008. With earnings like that, Big Bird doesn't need the taxpayers to help him compete against the Nickleodeon cable channel's Dora the Explorer.
PS: The sad state of the National Lampoon brand is proven by an attempt by "humorist" Philip Rodney Moon to explore how terrible PBS will get if conservatives defund it, including a show called "Mr. Roger Ailes' Neighborhood."
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday, Sen. Jim DeMint argued that if PBS, CPB, and Sesame Street can afford lavish salaries for their executives, then surely they have the money to survive as private, non-commercial broadcasters. (He doesn't even mention how people chipping in $ 25 to "save" shows like Sesame Street might feel misled if they saw the salary numbers.)
PBS President Paula Kerger even recorded a personal television appeal that told viewers exactly how to contact members of Congress in order to "let your representative know how you feel about the elimination of funding for public broadcasting." But if PBS can pay Ms. Kerger $ 632,233 in annual compensation—as reported on the 990 tax forms all nonprofits are required to file—surely it can operate without tax dollars.
The executives at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes the taxpayer money allocated for public broadcasting to other stations, are also generously compensated. According to CPB's 2009 tax forms, President and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison received $ 298,884 in reportable compensation and another $ 70,630 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations that year. That's practically a pittance compared to Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, who received more than $ 1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.
Harrison was a wildly controversial choice when she was appointed to the CPB by President Bush in 2005, since she had been co-chair of the Republican National Commitee from 1997 to 2001. Once appointed, she quickly "went native," becoming a fierce protector of the subsidized liberal sandbox. DeMint continued:
Despite how accessible media has become to Americans over the years, funding for CPB has grown considerably. In 2001, the federal government appropriated $ 340 million for CPB. Last year it got $ 420 million. As Congress considers ways to close the $ 1.6 trillion deficit, cutting funding for the CPB has even been proposed by President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission. Instead, Mr. Obama wants to increase CPB's funding to $ 451 million in his latest budget.
Meanwhile, highly successful, brand-name public programs like Sesame Street make millions on their own. "Sesame Street," for example, made more than $ 211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $ 956,513 in compensation in 2008. With earnings like that, Big Bird doesn't need the taxpayers to help him compete against the Nickleodeon cable channel's Dora the Explorer.
PS: The sad state of the National Lampoon brand is proven by an attempt by "humorist" Philip Rodney Moon to explore how terrible PBS will get if conservatives defund it, including a show called "Mr. Roger Ailes' Neighborhood."
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday, Sen. Jim DeMint argued that if PBS, CPB, and Sesame Street can afford lavish salaries for their executives, then surely they have the money to survive as private, non-commercial broadcasters. (He doesn't even mention how people chipping in $ 25 to "save" shows like Sesame Street might feel misled if they saw the salary numbers.)
PBS President Paula Kerger even recorded a personal television appeal that told viewers exactly how to contact members of Congress in order to "let your representative know how you feel about the elimination of funding for public broadcasting." But if PBS can pay Ms. Kerger $ 632,233 in annual compensation—as reported on the 990 tax forms all nonprofits are required to file—surely it can operate without tax dollars.
The executives at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes the taxpayer money allocated for public broadcasting to other stations, are also generously compensated. According to CPB's 2009 tax forms, President and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison received $ 298,884 in reportable compensation and another $ 70,630 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations that year. That's practically a pittance compared to Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, who received more than $ 1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.
Harrison was a wildly controversial choice when she was appointed to the CPB by President Bush in 2005, since she had been co-chair of the Republican National Commitee from 1997 to 2001. Once appointed, she quickly "went native," becoming a fierce protector of the subsidized liberal sandbox. DeMint continued:
Despite how accessible media has become to Americans over the years, funding for CPB has grown considerably. In 2001, the federal government appropriated $ 340 million for CPB. Last year it got $ 420 million. As Congress considers ways to close the $ 1.6 trillion deficit, cutting funding for the CPB has even been proposed by President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission. Instead, Mr. Obama wants to increase CPB's funding to $ 451 million in his latest budget.
Meanwhile, highly successful, brand-name public programs like Sesame Street make millions on their own. "Sesame Street," for example, made more than $ 211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $ 956,513 in compensation in 2008. With earnings like that, Big Bird doesn't need the taxpayers to help him compete against the Nickleodeon cable channel's Dora the Explorer.
PS: The sad state of the National Lampoon brand is proven by an attempt by "humorist" Philip Rodney Moon to explore how terrible PBS will get if conservatives defund it, including a show called "Mr. Roger Ailes' Neighborhood."
President Obama still doesn’t “get it”.
From the Senate Republican Communications Center:
‘Living Within Our Means?’
According To The President, A $ 1 Trillion Stimulus Boondoggle And A Budget That Grows Debt To Over $ 20 Trillion Is ‘Living Within Our Means’
PRESIDENT OBAMA YESTERDAY: “A Budget That Makes Sure We Are Living Within Our Means.” “That’s why I’m calling on Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress to begin meeting immediately with the Vice President, my Chief of Staff, and Budget Director so we can find common ground on a budget that makes sure we are living within our means.” (The White House, Press Release, 3/2/11)
President Obama During Stimulus Roll Out: ‘We’ve Got To Get Serious About Living Within Our Means’
PRESIDENT OBAMA IN 2009: “[W]e’ve Got To Get Serious About Starting To Live Within Our Means, instead of leaving debt for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. That’s not the responsible way.” (President Obama, Remarks At A Caterpillar Plant, 2/12/09)
STIMULUS PACKAGE: Adds $ 814 Billion To The Debt
CBO ON STIMULUS COST: “When ARRA Was Being Considered, The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) And The Staff Of The Joint Committee On Taxation Estimated That It Would Increase Budget Deficits By $ 787 Billion Between Fiscal Years 2009 And 2019. CBO Now Estimates That The Total Impact Over The 2009–2019 Period Will Amount To $ 814 Billion.” (“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output From July 2010 Through September 2010,” Congressional Budget Office, 11/10)
President Obama During Budget Roll Out: ‘We’re Living Within Our Means’
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “We’re Going To Have To Get Serious About Cutting Back On Those Things That Would Be Nice To Have But We Can Do Without. That’s What Families Across The Country Do Every Day – They Live Within Their Means.” (President Obama, Remarks On Unveiling Of The Budget, 2/14/11)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “[T]he Most Important Thing I Can Do As President Is Make Sure That We’re Living Within Our Means, Getting A Budget That Is Sustainable…” (President Obama, Press Conference, 2/15/11)
WHITE HOUSE BUDGET: Grows Debt To Over $ 20 Trillion Within 5 Years
Table S-14. Federal Government Financing And Debt; Total, Gross Federal Debt
Actual 2010: 13,529 [Billion Dollars]
2011 Estimate: 15,476 [Billion Dollars]
2012 Estimate: 16,654 [Billion Dollars]
2013 Estimate: 17,750 [Billion Dollars]
2014 Estimate: 18,761 [Billion Dollars]
2015 Estimate: 19,776 [Billion Dollars]
2016 Estimate: 20,825 [Billion Dollars]
2017 Estimate: 21,867 [Billion Dollars]
2018 Estimate: 22,924 [Billion Dollars]
2019 Estimate: 24,023 [Billion Dollars]
2020 Estimate: 25,165 [Billion Dollars]
2021 Estimate: 26,346 [Billion Dollars]
USA TODAY: “Obama’s Budget Ducks Tough Choices… He Whiffed.” “President Obama likes to talk about those ‘Sputnik moments’ when the nation rises to difficult challenges like the one posed by the Soviet space program in the 1950s. On Monday, he had a chance to turn his federal budget proposal into his own such moment. He whiffed. … It’s becoming hard not to conclude that Obama doesn’t much care about the debt threat or has decided to wait until after the 2012 elections. Either would be a shame, and economically risky.” (Editorial, “Our View: Obama’s Budget Ducks Tough Choices,” USA Today, 2/15/11)
THE WASHINGTON POST: “The President Punted. Having been given the chance, the cover and the push by the fiscal commission he created to take bold steps to raise revenue and curb entitlement spending, President Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal, chose instead to duck. To duck, and to mask some of the ducking with the sort of budgetary gimmicks he once derided.” (Editorial, “President Obama’s Budget Kicks The Hard Choices Further Down The Road,” The Washington Post, 2/15/11)
ERSKINE BOWLES, Democratic Chairman Of The Fiscal Commission: “The White House Budget Request Goes ‘Nowhere Near Where They Will Have To Go To Resolve Our Fiscal Nightmare.’” (“Obama Spending Plan Criticized For Avoiding Deficit Commission’s Major Proposals,” The Washington Post, 2/14/11)
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Q&A: What 24-hour negotiating extensions means for NFL
USA Today What are the ramifications of Thursday's extension of the negotiating window for the NFL and the players association? Q: Does the 24-hour extension of the collective bargaining agreement mean a deal is imminent? A: Hardly. … Issues in NFL Labor Negotiations NFL owners and players extend deadline to get new CBA by 24 hours NFL and players' union extend deadline by a day |
Dictators ruled the Arab countries of the Middle East after World War One. These leaders have subjugated their people and made war on Israel and have brutalized each other in tribal and religious conflicts. During the dominance of the British Empire, peace and security with relative freedom for minorities were the order of the day in the Middle East, not an ideal constitutional republic like the USA or the democracies of Europe but much better than what is currently on display in the Middle East.
Many of our great leaders of the past including John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States saw the threat long before our “War on Terror.” Regarding Islam, he said: “…undistinguishing, and exterminating war, as part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his (Mohammad) doctrine was violence and lust – to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.”
Adolf Hitler was very regretful that Islam was not the religion of Germany, “The Mohammedan (Islam) religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”
The great statesman Winston Churchill commented in 1899 when writing about Islam, which included a most prophetic and ironic statement pertinent to this very day: “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread through Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science against which it vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
So, our great leaders of the past, along with confirmation of evil by evil i.e. Hitler, they did not have to deal with the political correctness of the left because there was no left to speak of until Karl Marx came along. The truth was spoken loud and clear with no fear of being labeled a bigot or an Islamaphobe.
We are at the crossroads in the Middle East between brutal secular dictators and an Islamic Caliphate; that is the current policy based on our actions in the West. Maybe we should look at a third option to protect the freedom of the rest of the world bar the Middle East. Perhaps the USA and Europe should return to becoming Colonial powers, bring stability to the region and stamp out the Islamist ideology.
We might also consider martyring a few of the clerics who spew hatred and instigate suicide bombers to attack innocents in their own countries and in the West. Islam is the greatest threat to the world since Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; we stand ignorant or neutralized by our own political correctness from the enablers of evil on the left and the cowards in the Republican party who prefer the seat of power in Washington. They fear taking on the pathetic main stream media which is an embarrassment to what a free press should be in a free country.
The fourth estate has become a bullhorn for the now Marxist party of America, otherwise known as the Democratic Party. Our country and way of life is being destroyed from within; freedom of expression is being stifled as well as the ability to enact policies that are for the welfare of this nation and the free world.
Our apathy on the right has allowed our great nation to be overtaken by the radical left who is in the process of destroying the Country in a deliberate attempt to drown us in debt as well as allow evil to prevail with the “Religion of peace” dominating us.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are advising the President on Middle East Policy and hold positions of leadership at the DHS while “protecting” us. We see our leaders in the FBI, CIA, the Armed forces crushed by political correctness endangering the citizens of the country. Our borders are open for terrorists and closed to Christians fleeing from persecution.
Strong circumstantial evidence from our efforts in helping Christians in Pakistan shows that the State Department refuses all Christians from Pakistan for visitors visas because they fear they might claim political asylum in the USA. Why? The State Department is very well aware of the severe persecution of Pakistan Christians. That Department, supposedly made of up of people of the “Christian faith” choose a policy on par with how we refused to help fleeing Jews from Europe prior to World War 2. It is an outrage and a disgrace.
Americans who believe in freedom based on the principals laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution need to stand up and petition our leaders or become leaders themselves. Storm clouds have risen again, freedom needs to be protected, evil denied. Judeo Christian values and our civilization is under attack; the US needs to lead in the fight for its preservation.
After Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen’s radio rant Thursday and subsequent show shut-down,…
B&C – Breaking News
Wisconsin’s GOP Gov. Scott Walker seems to have terrible trouble defining the term “compromise” in any meaningful, recognizable way.
Walker warned of “dire consequences” if the AWOL Senate Democrats — who left the state last week to prevent the Senate from getting the necessary quorum to vote on Walker’s budget bill — don’t return to Madison immediately.
The people who will suffer if the Democrats stay away, Walker said, will be the very state workers they say they’re trying to protect.
“Failure to act on this budget repair bill means at least 1,500 state workers will be laid off before the end of June,” he said. “If there’s no agreement by July 1, another 5-6,000 state workers as well as 5-6,000 local government employees would also be laid off.”
Walker said that if the Democrats don’t come home soon, the responsibility for those potentially 10,000 plus layoffs will fall squarely on their shoulders.
Walker again made it clear that he was not going to be the one to back down or yield to compromise.
“We’re broke in this state because, time and time again, politicians of both political parties ran away from the tough decisions and punted them down the road for another day,” he said. “We can no longer do that.”
To recap, Walker gets what he wants — stripping state employees of most of their collective bargaining rights — or he’s going to lay off thousands of them. Keep in mind that the state employees’ unions have agreed to Walker’s pay cut demands already. Stripping their bargaining rights will not resolve Wisconsin’s budget problem, the action is purely punitive in nature.
And America doesn’t exactly back Walker on this.
Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.
Even Republicans are evenly split on this. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly are against what Walker’s doing. Again, Wisconsin state employee unions have agreed to take an 8% pay cut. But Walker refuses to listen. It’s his way or the highway.
But this is what Republicans mean by compromise: You do 100% of what we say, and in turn you agree to enjoy being screwed over by it. Does anyone think that when Walker releases his budget plan next week that those thousands of state employee layoffs won’t be part of his plan to close the gap?
Of course the whole fight over union bargaining rights is to pull crap like this when nobody’s watching.
Madison – Today, Governor Scott Walker signed Special Session Assembly Bill 5 which requires a 2/3s vote to pass tax rate increases on the income, sales or franchise taxes.
“I went to work today, met with my cabinet, and signed legislation that will help government operate within its means,” Governor Scott Walker said. “Wisconsinites can’t turn to raising taxes to balance their own family budgets when times get tough. This bill will ensure that we don’t kick the can down the road for a quick budget fix only to slap a long-term tax hike on the backs of Wisconsin taxpayers. I thank Senator Leah Vukmir and Representative Tyler August for their leadership on this issue.”
You know what other state requires a 2/3rds super-majority to raise taxes? California. So now that raising revenue is impossible in Wisconsin, guess where every dollar of that $ 3.6 billion shortfall is going to come from, Wisconsin?
Enjoy your Tea Party governance, folks.
The events in Wisconsin are bringing the idea of “countervailing powers” back into the discussion. The concept comes by way of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who was trying to understand an economy where the competition was not between lots of small companies, as the early neoclassical models had assumed, but a smaller number of large institutions. Organized labor was one of these forces — they were in competition with producers and retailers and distributors and the government, representing some portion of the American working class. I spoke this morning with Jamie Galbraith, John Kenneth Galbraith’s son, and an economist at the University of Texas at Austin. An edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Ezra Klein: Walk me through the idea behind “countervailing powers”.
Jamie Galbraith: “The concept of countervailing power” is the subtitle of my father’s first major book, “American Capitalism.” For him, the American economy was made up of large organizations, and to function properly, there had to be a system of checks and balances, of which unions were a critical element. But not the only element. Corporations were acting as countervailing forces on one another. Producers countervailed against retailers and retailers against distributors. There was a whole ecosystem of checks and balances. But the government is not, by any means, a pure representative of the working population. It’s a mediator of all the voices that impinge on it. And if the workers have no organized voice in it, well, we get the government we have now.
Your father was detailing these ideas in the 1950s. The economy, thanks to globalization and technological change and policy decisions and a host of other factors, is rather different today than it was then. Is the “countervailing powers” concept still relevant now?
No question the world became much more complicated when the internal system that developed in the United States became exposed to competition and interpenetration with Europe and Japan and more recently, China. But what happened to the unions was first and foremost an enormous attack on them from the American right, which culminated in the 1980s with the Reagan administration. Then, as manufacturing jobs inevitably declined, labor was blocked from effectively organizing in the rest of the private sector, particularly the service sector. But that’s not been true in every country. And those countries which have high union coverage manage to stay in the forefront of competitiveness in world industry. If you ask why is it that the Scandinavian countries did so well, it’s not because Sweden discovered oil — that was Norway. Rather, having to pay decently high wages means businesses have to stay on the front of the technological curve.
And what if labor never gets off the mat, and initiatives like the one in Wisconsin succeed? Are there any other actors in the economy who can play the countervailing role that labor has traditionally played?
There are certainly other organizations in the system. Voluntary associations and churches and so forth. But there’s nothing able to play the role as effectively on economic issues as an organization based on economic roles. Everything else is divided up into particular concerns — many of which are very important, like civil rights and environmental issues. But what has faded out is an organization with a clear and coherent focus on the economic position on the working population. And not the working population composed of manufacturing workers, but the mass of service sector jobs and others who are not organized.
Now the battle has been joined.
It has long been understood that the 2010 elections were just the beginning of the struggle to reverse America’s current decline. It will take at least two or three election cycles to correct decades of bad policy choices. We aren’t staring into the fiscal abyss because of any single policy or event, but rather the cumulative effect of dozens, if not hundreds, of flawed decisions made by fickle politicians who capitalized on the fact that the American public was largely disengaged. In the end, these decisions created a vast political class who live off the fruits of others’ labors.
When a business wants to increase its future earnings, it has to find new markets and sell more of its product. For the political class its the same, only their markets and products are government services. As a result, every year, public sector unions spend tens of millions of dollars lobbying for bigger government and filling the campaign coffers of the politicians who acquiesce to their demands. In addition to bigger government, they’ve won pay packages higher than the private sector, almost 100% job security and the ability to retire in their fifties with lifetime retirement income and health benefits. All paid for by us. Unlike private sector unions, every dollar funding government employees’ pay, pension and benefits comes out of our paychecks.
In other words, we’ve created an enormous taxpayer-funded lobby whose sole mission is to resist any effort to control government spending. As the old saying goes, we’ve seen the enemy and, while they may not be us, we are funding them.
This is why the current political fight in Wisconsin is critical.
As long as public sector unions maintain a near-monoply hold on government spending decisions, we will never be able to get our fiscal house in order. Breaking their hold isn’t sufficient to restore some fiscal sanity, but it is a necessary first step.
If there is any doubt how important the fight in Wisconsin is, look no further than the left’s reaction to it. Governor Walker’s proposal calls on public employees to pay more into their retirement fund and pay around 12% of their health insurance premiums. It also ends collective bargaining for most public employees, which mostly affects union bosses rather than rank and file members and is an important measure to forestall a future fiscal crisis.
For this, tens of thousands of public school teachers called in ’sick.’ So many, in fact, that hundreds of schools across Wisconsin have been closed for days. They pressed school children into service as fellow protesters, most not understanding the issue at hand. They drew up signs comparing the governor to Hitler and called the GOP Nazis. Several GOP Senators have faced multiple death threats. When all of this wasn’t enough to stop the proposal, their allies in the Senate simply fled the state to prevent a vote from happening.
Now, President Obama is weighing in to support the unions and the national Democrats’ Organizing for America is helping to coordinate the union protest. The left-media industrial complex will give the unions cover to allow maximum pressure on the brave GOP Senators. Just a few years ago, all of this would have been sufficient for the unions to carry the day. But no longer.
Now there is us.
We have to win this fight. The Democrats are a wholly unserious party-they just had a press conference on Capitol Hill against spending cuts with a cartoon Aardvark. The GOP is better, but it is a bit like the shell-shocked soldier returning to the trenches. Yes, it is back in the fight, but it is a bit shaky and uncertain. It needs cover and support. When a politician like Governor Walker bravely steps out of the trench, he needs us to have his back. If we do, others will join him.
Tomorrow there is a rally of patriots in Madison. Get there if you can. Make a phone call or send a note of support. Do anything…but Do Something.
As an American President once said, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
The debate in the House of Representatives over spending cuts has left many observers utterly unraveled. Exhibit A: the President’s veto threat.
The core of the threat is that if he is presented a bill that cuts spending in ways or amounts he doesn’t like “while continuing to burden future generations with debt, the President will veto the bill.” On this basis, apparently the President would veto his own budget proposal. According to the President, his budget is full of painful spending cuts and heavily burdens future generations with rapidly mounting debt.
The President’s outside chorus has come equally unhinged. Take, for example, the claim by the Economic Policy Institute that cutting $ 100 billion from the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2011, as the Republicans originally pledged, would destroy 994,000 jobs. If this were true, then we would truly be as addicted economically to a rapidly growing budget as President Obama’s recent budget suggests. If this were true, we could never slow the growth in government. If this were true, then we would be doomed.
Fortunately, it’s not true. It’s not even wrong as a matter of exaggeration. Cutting spending now is probably the most pro-jobs policy Congress can enact quickly, especially given the budget deficits we now face.
The issue is ultimately straightforward: The President and his allies suggest that one can stimulate the economy through increased deficit spending. The notion is to increase total demand by increasing government demand. If this worked, then the fiscal surge of the past two years should have been sufficient to put the economy into overdrive. It didn’t.
As the Administration has repeatedly tried, one can misuse sophisticated economic models to demonstrate that increased deficit spending stimulated the economy. This folly is reminiscent of the joke about the economist stuck on a deserted isle with nothing but canned food to eat and no can opener. When asked how he survived, he replied, “I assumed a can opener.” These models assume that deficit spending is stimulative, so, of course, that’s what they show. I may assume I can outrun Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt. But my assumption doesn’t put me on the victory stand complete with flag and national anthem.
Curiously, if the Administration really believed its own theory that the spending stimulus boosted the economy, then the President’s own budget would put him in a state of raw panic. According to his figures, the deficit declines as a share of our economy from a record 10.9 percent in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2013. By their theory, this represents a power blast of fiscal restraint portending almost sure recession. Either they do not believe the deficit forecast they released February 14, or they do not believe in demand-side stimulus. They can’t have it both ways.
As I testified before a House of Representatives Oversight Subcommittee earlier this week, demand-side stimulus has failed, as it always does, because the theory conveniently excludes the inconvenient truth that deficits have to be financed by borrowing, and by government borrowing more there is less saving left in the economy for the private sector. So government spending goes up, private spending goes down, and total demand is shifted but not increased.
What the economy needs now is relief from Washington’s predations and relief from Washington-created uncertainties, foremost of which derives from the record budget deficits expected under President Obama’s policies. Cutting spending and thereby restoring our nation’s fiscal house provides credit markets some assurance that the United States government intends to change course before crashing headlong into financial reality, and it provides taxpayers some assurance that they won’t be asked to pay for Washington’s excesses.
“It’s a reimagining of the middle east, what is possible,” says poet Remi Kanazi of the revolution in Egypt, and Laila El-Haddad notes the direct impact that the Mubarak regime had on Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza, which shares a border with Egypt. Laila and members of her family-including her small children-had been detained by the Mubarak regime.
What does regime change mean for the Palestinian people? And what effect will the wave of civil rights protests and activism across Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Iran and Libya have? Laila and Remi join us to discuss.
