Monday, April 20, 2009
Don't believe the hype.............
Two Federal Reserve policy-makers, Vice Chairman Donald Kohn and New York Fed chief William Dudley, both pointed to signs that measures taken by the U.S. central bank are indeed working to help revive the economy. And Paul Volcker, a senior economic adviser to the Obama administration and a former Fed chairman himself, said the rate of the economy's decline is set to slow. Mr Volcker, who like the other officials spoke at a conference of policy-makers and academics at Vanderbilt University, said, however, that the economy faces a "long slog" toward recovery....Link
Not-So-Secret Holiday..........
SAN FRANCISCO — On Monday, somewhere in New York City, 420 people will gather for High Times magazine’s annual beauty pageant, a secretly located and sold-out event that its sponsor says will “turn the Big Apple into the Baked Apple and help us usher in a new era of marijuana freedom in America.”....Link
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Were Democrats Aware of Torture Program?...
One day after the Obama administration released four gruesome Bush-era legal opinions that described in shocking detail the torturous methods CIA interrogators were permitted to use to extract information from alleged “high-value” detainees, a majority of Democrats have remained collectively silent on whether the disclosures warrant a full-scale criminal investigation. By comparison, revelations by the New York Times earlier this week that the National Security Agency, during George W. Bush’s last days in office, went above and beyond the legal limits imposed by Congress on its domestic surveillance activities was met with widespread condemnation by powerful Democratic leaders, who demanded investigations and said those who broke the law must be held accountable....Link
IPCC chief slams tactics of G20 police.......
Senior police officers face serious questions over the "unacceptable" trend of officers disguising their identity during clashes with protesters, the chair of the independent police watchdog warned yesterday, as it began formally investigating a third alleged assault on a G20 protester. Nick Hardwick, chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), called for a national debate over how police maintain public order and demanded much tougher political accountability, warning that police should remember they were "the servants not the masters" of the people. He is also seeking the necessary resources for the watchdog to conduct more investigations independently from police - as it is doing over the death of Ian Tomlinson, the news vendor who died after being caught up in the G20 protests - and expanding its remit in cases where there is evidence of wider systematic problems....Link
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Obama: 'We are on an unsustainable course'...
US President Barack Obama, faced with mushrooming budget deficits, announced he will convene his first full cabinet meeting Monday and ask his secretaries for specific plans to cut spending. He also added to his administration two new officials, Jeffrey Zients and Aneesh Chopra, whose task will be to streamline processes, cut costs and make the government more efficient...Link
Illegal under International law...................
The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration. President Barack Obama’s release on Thursday of four Bush administration memos sanctioning torture has been widely praised. However, word that government will go so far as to offer a fully-paid legal defense for agents who applied torture techniques to terror war prisoners has triggered loud criticism....Link
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