41 posts tagged “government”
Johanna Sigurdardottir was named new prime minister by the country's coalition political parties.
Iceland's previous coalition cabinet of PM Geir Haarde collapsed last month under the strain of an escalating economic crisis.
Ms Sigurdardottir's government said on Sunday it would immediately start to tackle Iceland's crisis.
"The government inherits enormous difficulties due to the banking and systemic collapse as well as considerable and rapidly increasing foreign debts and liabilities of the national economy," the new coalition said in a statement.
It said its priorities would be replacing the board of governors of the central bank and to ask a parliamentary committee to look at the possibility of entering the European Union...
Thrift store MP3 player contains secret military files
(CNN) -- A man walks into a thrift store.
It sounds like the opening line to a bad joke. And this case was a bad joke -- for the Pentagon.
Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files.
"The more I look at it, the more I see, and the less I think I should be," Ogle said with a nervous laugh in an interview with TVNZ.
The files included the home addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. The player also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the information appears to date to 2005.
The New Zealand journalist who first reported the story was able to contact at least one of the soldiers by dialing a phone number found in the files. He hung up once she explained why she was calling...
Afterthoughts:
A minor rant: Who in the hell are these people that are storing
confidential military files on MP3 players? Why is it so easy for
said person to copy the files onto it? and in my life experience if one
person is doing something at work, everyone is probably doing it. As I
key this comment I would bet someone at the Pentagon is heading out to
lunch with a thumb drive in their pocket. Sometimes I think my head is
going to explode.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee chairman subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove on Monday to testify about the Bush administration's firing of U.S. attorneys and prosecution of a former Democratic governor.
The subpoena by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., continues a long-running legal battle with ex-President George W. Bush's former White House political director. Rove previously refused to appear before the panel, contending that former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress.
The subpoena commanded Rove to appear for a deposition on Feb. 2 on the firings of U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Conyers also demanded testimony on whether politics played a role in the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat.
Bush upheld Rove's legal position, but Conyers said times have changed.
"That 'absolute immunity' position ... has been rejected by U.S. District Judge John Bates and President Obama has previously dismissed the claim as 'completely misguided,'" Conyers said in a statement...
The change in administrations may affect the legal arguments available to Rove, Conyers said.
"Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk," Conyers said.
By LARRY MARGASAK AP
In the first such strikes since the inauguration of President Barack Obama, suspected U.S. missile barrages today killed at least 18 people in the lawless tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.
The two raids suggested that the new U.S. administration intends to press ahead with attacks against Islamic militants in the rural areas, even though the campaign has been politically costly to Pakistan's Western-leaning civilian government. President Obama indicated during the campaign for the White House that he would continue to carry out strikes against "high-value" Al Qaeda and Taliban targets on Pakistani soil, particularly if the Pakistani military were unable or unwilling to act. That declaration ruffled some feathers in Pakistan, where the U.S. raids are extremely unpopular.
Although Pakistani leaders have repeatedly lodged formal diplomatic objections to the American airstrikes, the government is widely believed to have given tacit permission to U.S. forces to carry out such raids -- as long as they do not involve sending ground forces into Pakistani territory.
Pakistani news reports cited security officials as saying that at least five of those killed in today's strikes in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies -- long known as a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- were militants. Dozens of such raids have been carried out in the last six months by the Bush administration, killing several important Al Qaeda-linked figures. But scores of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, also died, according to local officials.
The first of today's attacks took place in the North Waziristan village of Zharki, with missiles striking at least two structures, according to security officials. A short time later, a separate strike was reported in South Waziristan. The American military in Afghanistan refused any comment on the raids, but U.S. forces are known to operate unmanned Predator drones from bases on the Afghan side of the border, together with newer Reaper aircraft...
via Americablog:
Yesterday, the Obama transition team included a
question about DADT in their weekly online Q&A with incoming White
House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. In that Q&A, Gibbs reads a question from Thaddeus in Lansing, Michigan. Thaddeus asks:
Gibbs answers:
"Is the new administration going to get rid of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy?"
"Thaddeus, you don't hear a politician give a one-word answer much, but it's 'Yes.'"
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.
Mission of 51 Percent - Put Women Forward
1. To educate the public about the significance and advantages of proportional representation for women in all areas of civic life.
2. To examine and explain what misogyny is, particularly how its differs from sexism and why it deserves separate scrutiny especially in so far as it is among the causes and symptoms of a lack of proportional representation in every sector of public life.
From the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 -- October 2008:
Nearly half (47%) of the public reports someone in their family skipping pills, postponing or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. For example, just over one-third say they or a family member put off or postponed needed care and three in ten say they skipped a recommended test or treatment – increases of seven percentage points from last April’s tracking poll which asks the same question...
The Posse Comitatus act of 1878, described in Wikipedia:
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law () passed on June 16, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force and State national Guard forces (when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police or peace officer powers that maintain "law and order" on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.
The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.
Okay, they say they were there for "training" purposes on setting up roadblocks. C'mon they could come up with something better than that couldn't they? Is this the first step in making the public climatized to military road blocks within our borders? I don't know but the "training purposes" meme just doesn't work for me. I would think / hope that even conservative republicans would be a bit concerned about this.
The California Highway Patrol in the
High Desert and the Twentynine Palms Marine Base are receiving dozens
of calls complaining about a controversial DUI checkpoint. Military
Police joined the CHP for a recent checkpoint in Yucca Valley. The
Friday night checkpoint was in front of the Yucca Valley Home Depot on
Highway 62. What has High Desert residents confused is that they are
not used to military police so far from the Marine Base. From the local radio to internet blogs, residents were concerned the Military Police presence violated federal law. The
original California Highway Patrol news release mentioned the military
presence. One released shortly later doesn't mention the military,
arising community suspicion of a cover-up. Congress passed the
Posse Comitatus Act more than a hundred years ago forbidding the
military from enforcing civilian law such as traffic stops. Marine
Lt. Thomas Beck tells News Channel 3 the Military Police were not
arresting people. They were just watching the checkpoint to see how
they should do it on base...
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.
US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws
By DAVID CRARY – December 19, 2008
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.
In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.
Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review...
According to some of the declaration's backers, U.S. officials expressed concern in private talks that some parts of the declaration might be problematic in committing the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In numerous states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.
Carolyn Vadino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the U.N., stressed that the United States — despite its unwillingness to sign — condemned any human rights violations related to sexual orientation.
Gay rights activists nonetheless were angered by the U.S. position...
