[NATION.PK] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... has become the opposition the government wanted: disorderly, one-dimensional and losing momentum. In the last three years, PTI's opposition has sounded more like a dragged election campaign in a post-election hangover. This single dimension opposition has fragmented PTI internally, and damaged its credibility externally. And in the end, the party that had introduced itself as the only hope for change within the democratic system is itself hoping for a new lifeline to restore its momentum.
PTI's role as a shadow government has been fairly disappointing. Within a democratic setup, the only way to change the status-quo is methodical opposition on all issues, with due proportion, and on all avenues of public discourse. The singular focus on rigging has neglected the issues of economy, energy, foreign policy, security, and accountability, amongst others. To maintain the legitimacy of its cause, and for the sake of the due process, an effective opposition would have exhausted all platforms, including the parliament, the higher courts, and the media, regardless of its chances of success at each venue. So far, PTI has only exhausted these avenues for election rigging, at the cost of all other issues of public interest. This single point maximalist position has put PTI from the street to the sidewalk. Fittingly, an opposition that claims to be better than the incumbent government, without actually being an effective opposition first, loses its claim to either.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2015 00:00 ||
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[Wash Post] BLUF: Congressional investigators criticized testimony from former Secret Service director Mark Sullivan after the April 2012 scandal in which 13 agents were implicated in bringing prostitutes back to their hotel before the president's arrival in Colombia. Although thoroughly vetted and background checked, Zulu sign language interpreter Thamsanqa Jantjie met all the qualifications for presidential access, except one.
Sullivan, appearing about a month after the episode, assured lawmakers that the behavior of the agents and officers involved did not point to a larger cultural problem in which such behavior was tolerated by managers. But the investigation found that several agency employees had previously acknowledged to Secret Service investigators that they had engaged in similar misconduct elsewhere, including having had sex with foreign nationals in Italy, Russia, Ireland and New York City.
Sullivan could not be reached for comment.
The report cited a number of colorful e-mail exchanges between Secret Service staff suggesting that arranging liaisons with prostitutes was a widely known and accepted practice. Before the Colombia trip, one senior supervisor e-mailed 54 employees, cracking that the motto of the trip was "Una Mas Cerveza Por Favor," Spanish for "one more beer, please." In another note, an agent wrote to a colleague, "Swagg Âcologne-check/Pimp gear-check/Swagg sunglasses-check/Cash for dem hoes-check."
The report said that the openness of the communication indicates that the Secret Service employees "did not believe their misconduct would be punished." The closing two paras above, may provide some hint as to the source of the problem.
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.
