Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been widely criticized (including by the author) for his comprehensive attack on environmental protections in Australia from stripping pristine areas of protection to his selection of pro-development environmental officials to his endangering of the Great Barrier Reef. However, even when others change the subject, Abbott returns to one of his most controversial measures. When asked on the country’s leading morning show what he thought was his biggest achievement as Australia’s Minister for Women, Abbott said . . . repealing the carbon tax.
Category: International
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
It should not surprise any of the regular visitors to this blog that I have written many articles detailing the abuses of many of the Big Banks and the resulting fines that they have paid on multiple occasions. When a taxpayer reads about Billion dollar settlements being paid by Banks and financial companies as a result of a Justice Department investigation, they probably assume that the entire amount of the fine is being paid.
Those very same taxpayers may be surprised to learn that in many cases, the Banks are able to deduct from their taxes up to 75% of the fines and settlements made with the Justice Department. Continue reading “Just How Much of Big Bank Fines Are Actually Paid and Who Profits?”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an interview, American civilian Dean Parker of Colorado tells of his mission to help the Kurdish people battle the ISIS. He joined the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) after seeing a BBC News broadcast showing the rescue of civilians from the war torn regions in the Levant and felt compelled to join the resistance to save the Kurds and the Yezidi people from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State.
His interview brings a new facet to the difficulty the YPG and others face along with some insights into what the Kurdish people value in their respect of other religions and creeds falling under their umbrella and in need of protection.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We recently reported HERE arrests made around Turkey of journalists, police, and opposition critical of President Erdogan. Now, an arrest warrant has been issued against Cleric Fethulla Gülen who is presently residing in the United States as an exile.
The Turkish government accuses Gülen of orchestrating a terrorist plot to seize power in Turkey. He has been an outspoken critic of the president and that certainly appears to be a motivator in another campaign to eradicate political opponents of the leadership of our NATO ally.
Continue reading “Turkish Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Dissident Under “Terrorism” Accusations”
Mexico is fixated on an extraordinary murder case involving psychologist María Alejandra Lafuente Caso, 40. Lafuente Caso is accused of drugging, murdering, and chopping up the body of her husband Allan Carrera Cuellar, 41. She has claimed spousal abuse as a defense.
Mark Oberholtzer, owner of Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, has suddenly found his business advertised internationally. However, it is not quite the exposure that he was hoping for. A recent picture of the Islamic extremist brigade Ansar al-Deen Front in Syria shows their fighters firing an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a truck proudly displaying his name and logo. Can anyone say “misappropriation of name or likeness”? My expectations is that a tort lawsuit is not troubling these extremists as a priority concern.
I have long argued in my column as well as numerous blog postings that our country is legally bound to prosecute people responsible for ordering torture during the Bush Administration. There is no question that water boarding is torture as recognized by President Obama, Attorney General Holder, the United Nations and virtually every expert in this field. However, while you may want to try to rewrite legal precedent (as did John Yoo and Jay Bybee in their infamous Torture Memos), you should not try to rewrite history. That is what former Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be doing this month. He told Chuck Todd on Sunday that we never prosecuted anyone for water boarding — an assertion that I and others have repeatedly raised over the years. The statement is simply false and adds historical revisionism to legal revisionism in our sordid foray into torture.
Continue reading “Cheney Offers Tortured View of History In Defending Waterboarding”
There are continuing rumblings in the media about the threat of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) lawyer David Boies over media sites using material hacked from the studio, including embarrassing emails where executives dish on leading stars like Angelina Jolie and the disclosure of contract information. Boies has warned that such material must be ignored or destroyed and suggested legal repercussions in the use of “stolen information.” But how serious is this threat? In my view, not very.
Continue reading “Is The Threat of David Boies To Media Over Use Of Hacked Documents Real?”
There is an interesting story out of London where banker Jonathan Burrows has been banned from working in the financial services industry. Another cases of fudged books or fraudulent earnings reports? No, Burrows was nabbed skipping the full fare on his commutes to work from Stonegate to London — paying roughly 7 pounds instead of 21 pounds for the daily trips.
Continue reading “London Banker Loses Job And Is Banned From Working In Industry Because . . .”
The news continues to grow worse over global warming. The Peru meeting revealed new research showing that time is running out for humanity to act on climate change. Now to new reports indicate that we may have underestimate the rate of loss on the huge ice sheet of West Antarctica — new calculations under global warming could mean a rise in global sea levels of as much as 23 feet. That would create massive changes in the coasts of the world.
Despite the public pledge of President Obama to pull out of Afghanistan, we continue to spend huge amounts of money in the war and the Obama Administration has fought to keep U.S. troops in the country. Now an estimate from the Financial Times and independent researchers put the cost of the war at roughly $1 trillion with a commitment of hundreds of billions more in the coming years. There continues to be no serious debate over our ongoing losses both in personnel and money in this war.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another showing of international support for the activities in revealing to the public the abuses of the NSA, whistleblower Edward Snowden, journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras each received the Carl von Ossietzky award in Berlin today.
The award is bestowed to honor those who exhibit extraordinary civic courage or commitment to the spread or defense of human rights.
Continue reading “Snowden, Greenwald, And Poitras Receive Prestigious Human Rights Award In Berlin”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
This past week’s news reports of the Senate report on the CIA Torture program were both distressing and enlightening. I was dismayed to not only read what the full extent of the CIA’s Torture program was, but also when I read pundits and former CIA officials claim that rectal rehydration was merely a medical procedure! I was further discouraged when commenters on this blog made claims that waterboarding and other torture tactics were either necessary or what the devils deserved.
Very few pundits or commenters seem to care if the so-called Enhanced Interrogation techniques were legal or ethical when the CIA resorted to them shortly after 9/11. This “debate” over the actions taken in our name by the CIA has gone from a report based on the CIA’s own words to denials that the techniques were torture, to claims that great intelligence value was gained using the torture and claims that it was a biased report written by Democrats. Continue reading “The CIA Lost Its Soul and Took Ours With It”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We have written HERE and HERE of the continuing effort by the Erdogan Government of Turkey in attacking opposition by heavy handed actions against journalists and media critical of the government and President Erdogan. In another sign of the descent into suppression of opposing views the Turkish government ordered its police forces to raid the newspapers and publications deemed to have links to a rival of the President
A new poll shows broad support for carbon limits, including half of all Republicans. The poll comes out as scientists warn (as reported in the NY Times) that time is running out on climate change and, without decisive action, the world could eventually become uninhabitable for humans. Today, the Pope added his voice to the overwhelming weight of world scientists that time is running out. Likewise, island nations are now demanding action and calling on the world to witness the loss of their very existence to the rising seas.