[Iran Press TV Latest] The political life of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is hanging by a thread as European and local elections open in the United Kingdom.
More than 2,300 seats are in play in the local council's election that began Thursday morning.
The result could lead to Brown being ousted by his own party, as the Labour party took a sudden nosedive in recent opinion poll ratings after public outrage over an expenses scandal.
Labour Parliamentarians have long been unhappy with Brown's performance, blaming him for the crippling credit crunch, the flaws in the tax system and the budget crisis. A letter is currently being circulated by Labour back benchers to request the Prime Minister's early resignation before the general elections.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, however, has urged Labour lawmakers to remain loyal to Brown. "Don't please, through your actions, make it any worse for the Labour Party than for the other parties who have all got to come to grips with this crisis affecting British politics," said Mandelson.
#2
The UK is so screwed up - they even made that pansy-waste Peter Mandelson a Lord. Small independent parties, some of which are bordering on fascism are keeping the Tories from a rout. But the handwriting is on Brownie's forehead not the wall and he is a goner. He just refuses to believe it.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/05/2009 13:29 Comments ||
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#3
So this means David Miliband becomes Labour top dog?
Posted by: ed ||
06/05/2009 13:59 Comments ||
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PRINCETON, NJ -- Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Dick Cheney have little in common politically, but they receive almost identical image ratings from the American public. According to a May 29-31 Gallup Poll, 37% of Americans have a favorable view of Cheney and 34% have a favorable view of Pelosi. Both Cheney and Pelosi are viewed unfavorably by at least half of Americans.
The similarity between Cheney's and Pelosi's ratings is notable given that the two have emerged as the leading voices on either side of this year's debate over whether the government's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against terrorist suspects constitutes torture.
Cheney came out of his brief vice presidential retirement in March to publicly defend the Bush administration's support of CIA interrogation policies, and on May 21 went head-to-head with President Barack Obama on the issue in separate national security speeches. Pelosi has condemned "waterboarding" and earlier this year supported a call to investigate Bush administration officials who authorized it; however, she recently fell into a public battle with the CIA over whether she was previously briefed on the agency's use of the coercive technique.
#3
Yeah but her unfavorables are better. Also, more people never heard of her than Cheney. That's not good. We need to raise her profile by shooting more botox into her eyelids and lips.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/05/2009 13:31 Comments ||
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#4
Newsweek's head stated that favorable/unfavorable media coverage swing peoples' impressions by 15% either way. So if Pelosi got the media's Republican treatment, then her numbers would be 4% pos, 80% neg, and 15% dumbass.
Posted by: ed ||
06/05/2009 13:54 Comments ||
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#5
If you look at this from a positive angle, Cheney's numbers have now risen above those of a known liar.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
06/05/2009 15:30 Comments ||
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#6
National ratings mean nothing to Pelosi. The only thing that counts are the ratings from her district. Every single person in America outside of the 8th congressional district could hate her and wish her all kinds of evil. However, as long as more than half of the actual voters in the 8th district vote for her, she will stay in Congress.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/05/2009 19:04 Comments ||
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#7
WHats remarkable is that the press has been protecting San Fran Nan, while pillorying Cheney.
Image what would happen if the media were not effectively state controlled in terms of ideology, and actually reported all the nes in a "flat" fashion.
Since Congress passed President Barack Obamas $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February, administration officials have traveled to at least 66 events across the country to tout the massive spending program or hand out stimulus cash to grateful local officials.
But a POLITICO examination of the travel reveals a distinctly political trend line: Top officials have hosted events predominantly in states that Obama won in 2008.
Whats more, the examination revealed that Obama officials all but avoided Southern states that Obama lost.
It is not unusual for a presidential administration to find ways to reward its supporters through federal largesse, particularly in this case, when the goal of the stimulus program is push money out the door to states and localities that can spend it quickly to jump-start the economy. The Bush administration was criticized in 2004 for sending Cabinet officials on trips that critics said doubled as campaigning for the presidents reelection bid.
But the numbers tell the tale: 52 of the 66 events were in states that backed Obama. And taken together, the itineraries amount to a veritable map of Obamas election-night victories big-money states like California and New York, swing states like Ohio and Colorado that Obama turned blue and other solidly Democratic states Obama kept in his column.
The events were weighted to big cities that provided Obama some of his biggest election-night margins: Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Of the other 14 events, Vice President Joe Biden and Cabinet officials often touched down in places where Obama lost narrowly and that Democrats hope to pull into their column by 2012, such as Missouri, Arizona, Montana and North Dakota.
Only two Southern states were visited by Cabinet officials for stimulus-related trips: Georgia and Kentucky, according to information provided by the White House and an examination of news releases from all 21 Cabinet-level agencies.
White House officials noted that stimulus spending is going to all 50 states based on a proportional formula. Biden holds weekly conference calls about stimulus projects with officials from all over the country, including Democrats and Republicans. As of May 28, those calls had included 46 governors, 51 mayors and 15 county executives, including officials from both parties.
And the White House sharply denied that there was any political motivation to the travel. Politics plays no role in implementation of the Recovery Act or highlighting its successes. Period, said Liz Oxhorn, press secretary for the Recovery Act.
Still, the stimulus bill has the potential to be a publicity bonanza for the Obama administration for years to come through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. As of mid-May, the administration had spent only 6 percent of the money Congress allotted for the program, and the White House says officials will continue to travel the country until all of the money is spent.
The events generally come in the form of roundtable discussions, upbeat speeches and sweeping announcements of billions of dollars for local communities. Some have all the hallmarks of campaign events, featuring banks of television cameras, flag-bedecked stages and local politicians working the crowds. Many generate the kind of admiring local media coverage that politicians crave and largely escape the attention of national outlets.
At one event in Arlington, Va., Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano handed over a made-for-TV, supersize check to the United Way.
Its always great to play Santa Claus when the sack is bottomless, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College in California. Pitney says theres a clear political rationale behind the travel pattern: Its better to shore up your base and spend time in swing states than it is to spend time in states that will probably go against you anyway.
Obama officials have visited 28 states and the District of Columbia, and the most heavily visited are Ohio, with six events, and four states that have played host to five events each: California, New York, Colorado and Indiana, all carried by Obama. Arizona, which Obama lost, had four events.
In recent days, the administration has been stepping up the pace, taking trips to Ohio and Indiana as part of its effort to focus on communities hardest hit by automaker bankruptcies. On Wednesday, for example, administration officials including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis held five events in Ohio and Michigan. The day before, they held eight events in New York, Indiana and Michigan featuring Biden, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others.
In the border state of Missouri on April 16, for example, Biden addressed a crowd of hundreds at a transformer factory operated by the power company ABB in Jefferson City. Standing before a group of smiling plant workers on a stage decorated with American-flag bunting, Biden delivered remarks, flanked by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon as audience members held up cameras and cell phones to snap pictures. Chu also spoke, and Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who is running for the Senate in 2010, worked the room along with several other local officials, including some Republicans.
The vice president touted $3.3 billion in smart-grid technology development grants and an additional $615 million in stimulus spending on smart-grid storage, monitoring and technology viability. Afterward, he greeted spectators along a rope line. The event was a success, garnering coverage in both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Columbia Missourian.
Missouri was a hard-fought battleground state in 2008. It was the last state in the nation to be decided, tilting toward Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) with a margin of less than 1 percentage point.
Biden will travel to Kansas, a state Obama lost, on June 11 for the first stimulus event held there.
Still, the White House says its stimulus events are not political rallies. Instead, they are intended to let Obama administration officials meet and gather ideas from the local officials and business leaders who are most affected by the stimulus spending. And the White House says the trips also help alert Americans to stimulus money they might not have known was available to them.
But not everyone agrees that the great stimulus road trip is free of political considerations. They have never left the campaign election trail, and I suspect they never will, said Katon Dawson, former South Carolina Republican Party chairman, who predicts the economic downturn will continue to generate voter anger through the election cycle. If theres going to be a throw the bums out mentality in 2010, the race is on to define who the bum is.
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.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Dick Cheney have little in common politically, but they receive almost identical image ratings from the American public. According to a May 29-31 Gallup Poll, 37% of Americans have a favorable view of Cheney and 34% have a favorable view of Pelosi. Both Cheney and Pelosi are viewed unfavorably by at least half of Americans.
