CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez was a fighter. The former paratroop commander and fiery populist waged continual battle for his socialist ideals and outsmarted his rivals time and again, defeating a coup attempt, winning re-election three times and using his country's vast oil wealth to his political advantage.
[News24] Former US President Bill Clinton has said that poverty is fuelling the violence now sweeping across Nigeria's north. Right, Bill. Got a problem? Give somebody money.
Clinton, speaking on Tuesday in southwestern city of Abeokuta, said the violence happens in regions that have incredible poverty compared to the more prosperous cities in Nigeria's south.
Clinton said the problems "appear to be rooted in religious differences," but take root in poverty. He said strong state and federal government agencies should help, but he cautioned against oil-rich Nigeria simply taking a "divide the pie" approach of throwing money at the troubled areas to stop the violence. Hmmmmmmm...sounds familiar. No matter the problem the solution is always the same. Reminds me of another proposed world solution...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Mr. Clinton---Please read the book, Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, and then get back to us with your thoughts. Be prepared to discuss inclusive states vs extractive states and how they apply to today's successes and failures of nations.
Then when you are all smartened up, go to the white house and enlighten your buddy up there. He needs some enlightenment.
And if you see the new SoS, ask him why he threw away $250 million into the toilet for Egypt.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/05/2013 0:27 Comments ||
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#2
Religion, Corruption, Oil Money. What could go wrong?
[POLITICO] There is no "set price" to meet with President Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday amid continued outcry over the role of Organizing for Action, the outside group supporting the president's agenda. "Of course there's no set price! How much you got?"
"Any notion that there is a set price for a meeting with the president of the United States is just wrong," Carney said during his daily briefing. "All his principles prices are negotiable!"
Since OFA is intended to back the president's agenda, it makes sense that Obama would meet with the group, Carney said. "As anyone would expect, the president would likely meet with their representatives to discuss his agenda."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2013 00:00 ||
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There is no "set price" to meet with President Obama,
#5
So Jay admits that there is a price you have to pay to meet the President. He just doesn't know what it is.
Reminds me of the old joke about the guy who asks a woman if she would have sex with him for a million dollars. After she said yes, he said he didn't have a million. How about $10? She got angry and asked if he thought she was a prostitute. He replied that she had already established that, and they were just negotiating the price.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/05/2013 9:38 Comments ||
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Anyboody here surprised?
The White House Council on Environmental Quality has convened a series of meetings with federal regulators over the past nine months as the Obama administration shapes environmental impact analyses for the building of terminals to export coal to Asia. Anything is in bounds for Champ and his people if it hurts the American economy. As the famous man once said, don't delay the revolution...
While CEQ downplays its involvement in the deliberations, a former CEQ official and other analysts suggest the White House role highlights the sensitive policy issues at stake, as the administration is under pressure to assess the possible climate change impact of burning U.S. coal in Asia. No doubt they'll consider the cost to US jobs lost by burning Australian coal in Asia.
At issue is how broadly the government should extend its analysis: whether to consider the impacts of each of the Pacific Northwest export terminals through narrowly tailored individual environmental impact statements or to assess their cumulative effects together, which would allow for a comprehensive analysis of possible climate change impacts.
CEQ has declined to say what it has been telling the agency regulators, and emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have been heavily redacted. Nonetheless, in the next few weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to announce a narrow approach to the environmental analyses, judging from statements the corps has made in recent months and unredacted portions of the emails.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/05/2013 14:54 ||
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I wonder if the Chinese, er, Asians would be burning so much coal if we hadn't granted them most favored nation trading status? IOW, how much of their coal is burned to produce the stuff they sell to us? I know, I know. If we didn't buy it then somebody else would. Or, would they? What if we had shown some backbone, integrity and leadership instead of just greed? Would it then have been possible for us to continue making computers?
During the month of February--as President Barack Obama was warning Americans they would see dramatic effects in their lives if "sequestration" of some planned federal spending kicked in--the federal government's debt climbed by $253.5 billion.
That one-month increase in the debt was nearly six times as much as the $44 billion in spending cuts the Congressional Budget Office estimates will take place in all of fiscal 2013 as a result of sequestration.
In its Budget and Economic Outlook for Fiscal Years 2013-2023, published in February, the CBO explained that only $44 billion in planned federal spending will be cut during this fiscal year as a result of sequestration.
The CBO also says additional cuts that will be "attributable" to fiscal 2013 will actually take place "in later years"--not in fiscal 2013.
"By CBO's estimate, budgetary resources for defense (other than spending for military personnel) will be cut by around 8 percent across the board, and nondefense funding that is subject to the automatic reductions will be cut by between 5 percent and 6 percent," said CBO. According to that estimate, discretionary outlays will drop by $35 billion and mandatory spending will be reduced by $9 billion this year as a direct result of those procedures; additional reductions in outlays attributable to the cuts in 2013 funding will occur in later years."
The combined $35 billion in discretionary cuts and $9 billion in mandatory cuts--or $44 billion--that will actually take place this year equal approximately one-sixth of the new debt the federal government accumulated in February.
Bottomline: In February alone, the government borrowed nearly 6 times as much as it intends to save with the sequester over the rest of the fiscal year.
#2
Seventy percent of those cases are carried out by criminal repeat offenders.
In California the PEOPLE passed a ballot initiative commonly call the Three Strikes law. According to this law, after being convicted of three felonies, a criminal gets life in prison with no possibility of parole. Ever since that law was passed, various legislators, judges and do gooders have been trying to get it repealed.
I don't care if the prison is a tent city surrounded by concertina wire out in the desert. These people need to be separated from the rest of society.
I never felt the need for a gun but if I was a woman I am quite certain that I would have one, especially on a college campus because the predators know that is where the girls are.
#3
"I don't care if the prison is a tent city surrounded by concertina wire out in the desert. These people need to be separated from the rest of society."
After "Truth in Sentencing" was passed in Virginia, EU (under a Republican governor, dontcha know), crime when down. Can't imagine why. /sarc
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/05/2013 11:34 Comments ||
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#4
Barbara, the other thing that needs to be done is to change the laws on felony.
A crooked accountant that embezzles $50k and is charged with 3 felonies doesn't belong in Mad Maxes Austrailia. 3 armed robberies that netted $500? Behind the wire for life.
#5
I read an article once that described crime data like a hockey stick. Most of the crimes are commited by group on the end of the stick. We all take insane measures (insurance, locks, etc) because we have never accepted this fact and just 3 strikes them out of the herd (and tossed out their enablers in government).
#6
Yeah, and as far as sex offenders are concerned, there is no such thing as rehabilitation unless it involves a surgical procedure below the belt. One strike should be all it takes to put them away for good.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/05/2013 16:29 Comments ||
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#8
Just run this all 2014, Colorado will flip back Red fast.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/05/2013 17:21 Comments ||
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#9
The spiritedlongleggedwoman with whom I live, is a psychotherapist of some renown. She says there is no effective treatment for rapists and pedophiles. They, she says, should be locked up permanently as no amount of therapy, treatment, love, and understanding will stop them from striking at the next available victim that hits their hot button.
That being said, I suppose being insensitive to a rape victim is an offense only a Republican can commit. If this amoral idiot had been a Republican, it would be on the cover of Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and a lead story on MSNBCPMS. Oh and the "gray lady" would have sent a reported to Washington for an exclusive.
Of course, I am still waiting for all of the liberal whiney assed women's organizations to say something about what's going on in Egypt and Syria, and to Christian women in Nigeria.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/05/2013 18:27 Comments ||
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#10
Kind of amazed that the legislator who so blithely dismissed her and blew her off is female. Then again, I'm not amazed that a woman who looks like Helen Thomas' younger sister can live with sacrificing the young pretty ones.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[POLITICO] There is no "set price" to meet with President Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday amid continued outcry over the role of Organizing for Action, the outside group supporting the president's agenda.
