The week the dam broke in Russia and ended Putin's dreams

Telegraph

This was the week when the country’s long-festering crisis turned virulent. A last-ditch attempt to defend the exchange rate by raising interest rates to 17pc failed within hours, yet the shock is surely enough to set off a chain of corporate failures and push banks over the edge. Traders in the City watched open-mouthed as the dam broke on Black Tuesday. The event exposed the awful reality that the Kremlin does not have the infinite foreign reserves that many had supposed. “What is happening is a nightmare that we could not even have imagined a year ago,” says the central bank’s deputy chief, Sergei Shvetsov. The currency has since stabilised at 60 to the dollar. But it has lost half its value in a year. Russia’s $2.1 trillion (£1.3 trillion) economy has shrunk to $1.1 trillion, half the GDP of California. The external debt of Russian banks and companies has by mathematical effect ballooned to 70pc of total output. “A Russian downgrade to junk is only a matter or time,” says Tim Ash, from Standard Bank."

Russia is heading for a 'full-fledged economic crisis' warns former finance minister, with the country's output expected to fall by 3.6%

Daily Mail

Russia's government has pushed the country into an economic crisis by not tackling its financial problems fast enough, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has said.  His comments came as the central bank bailed out its first victim of the collapsing currency and authorities announced a tax on grain exports to protect domestic stocks. A poll of 11 economists also predicted that Russia's gross domestic product would fall 3.6 per cent next year. Russia has been hit by what Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev recently called a 'perfect storm' of plummeting oil prices, sanctions related to its military action in Ukraine, and a flight of investors' capital. A lack of structural reforms has compounded the problem, making the economy overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues."

Tony Blair gets sweaty over Wendi Deng question

Telegraph
Tony Blair has said he will never discuss the nature of his relations with Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch. The former Prime Minister lost his cool when questioned on the subject in a recent interview, banging his coffee cup “so loudly into its saucer that it spills and everyone in the room jumps.”

Revealed: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants 'waved through' UK border with no checks... including convicted KILLERS

Daily Mail

In one case, an applicant disclosed to UK Visas and Immigration they had fled their country of nationality after stabbing someone to death. When asked why this had not been considered, managers said the information was recorded in a paper file which was not routinely checked. In another case, officials made the ‘very poor decision’ not to revoke the British citizenship of someone who used forged documents. There was ‘far too much reliance’ on self-declaration so, unless an applicant revealed their financial problems or offences such as tax avoidance or benefit fraud, no other checks were made, the report added. No evidence was found of any consideration given to prosecuting applicants who used deception to obtain British citizenship, apart from a small number of cases involving organised crime, the inspector revealed."

Zoella quits internet after Girl Online ghostwriting row

Telegraph
Zoella has announced she is quitting the internet after admitting that she did not write her best-selling novel Girl Online. .....It emerged this weekend that a ghostwriter, Siobhan Curran, was responsible for Girl Online.   .....

---------------
Some bloggers claimed to have found an archived, deleted post on Curham's website about being asked to write a novel in six weeks, which could in theory fit with the timeline from Zoella announcing her novel to its release.
Despite chronicling much of her life on social media and in her YouTube vlogs, Sugg rarely mentioned working on her novel, which is about a teenage girl whose blog goes viral after she meets a rock star, before publication.(Telegraph)

------------------

EU Wankers gone mad…

E.M.Smith
I really have to wonder just how long the strain between the EU and the UK can stand before the UK says “Chuck it all, you wankers” and goes their own way (as they always have).
The Brits have an astounding ability to ‘tolerate’ and put up with shite… but at some point, it goes all Celtic on your arse and I suspect that point is near."

How Norway beats the EU

CapX
The EU is a child of its time, reflecting the corporatist assumptions of the 1950s, when the future was thought to lie with large conglomerates. In the Internet age, geographical proximity barely matters. Euro-scepticism is in tune with the spirit of the age. Look upon Norway, all you Euro-nostalgics, and see what you might be if only you would embrace the modern world."

Labour MP Frank Field says Britain will turn 'very nasty' if the strain mass migration puts on public services isn't addressed

Daily Mail

Britain will turn ‘very nasty’ if politicians continue to ignore the pressure immigrants put on housing, schools and hospitals, a Labour MP has warned. Frank Field said there is no plan to address the strain on public services, despite the population increasing by the size of Birmingham every two-and-a-half years. The former employment minister said this level of immigration must be questioned at a time of deep spending cuts. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Yet there are no plans for increasing housing or places in schools, at a time when we will in the next parliament, have to make cuts greater than the cuts made in this parliament."

77% Increase in Immigration From Romania and Bulgaria

Guido Fawkes
"So the government’s net migration figure has gone the same way as the deficit figure, the wrong way…"

A social disaster in the US

Catallaxy Files 

Watch the video ...... HERE

Miliband and his clique of millionaire allies a 'Berlin Wall' between Labour and ordinary working class voters.

Daily Mail

But Mr Field accused the Labour leader of surrounding himself with a clique of wealthy out-of-touch aides and MPs who did not understand ordinary workers. He said: ‘It’s the north London set we’ve got to control. They are a Berlin Wall trying to prevent us reaching out to our voters and like the Berlin Wall they’ve got to be demolished. ‘Ed’s trying to move us on immigration and welfare and with one blast of a tweet she wrecks that and puts us back to square one. The real problem we have is that there’s a whole group of them.’

Rochester by-election: Ukip has started a class war - and is winning

Telegraph
If there really is a class war going on, Labour has totally abandoned its position as the voice of the workers. On the day of the election, Emily Thornberry had to resign from the shadow cabinet after posting a bizarre tweet of a house covered in St George’s flags that many interpreted as a snobby comment about white van drivers. She may well have been totally innocent of ill-meaning, but by resigning/being sacked she helped add to the impression that Labour is now dominated by a metropolitan elite that looks down its noses at ordinary people. It’s the party of students and their professors, of NHS bureaucrats, welfare workers, actors, Marxist intellectuals, teachers who don’t believe in teaching, and male potters who get their kicks by dressing up as women and calling themselves artists. In short, Labour is bourgeois."

Why Adele was right to ignore Bob Geldof and Band Aid

Telegraph
But anyone who refuses to go along with Geldof is pilloried or sworn at; so, when a Sky News presenter asked him a perfectly reasonable question yesterday morning about the tax practices of some of the artists featured on the song, his only answer was “it’s b******s”. This is the kind of response you might expect from a 21-year-old with a YouTube channel, but from a 63-year-old trying to engage the public in a subject as grave as Ebola, it just seems churlish. How can he expect us to take him seriously if he cannot behave in a serious manner himself?
Nobody wants a world full of Ebola, but nor do I want a world full of Malaria and HIV and Tuberculosis and numerous other diseases – not to mention conditions such as hunger and poverty - that are destroying the lives of many millions of Africans every day.
Certainly, I don’t want to be told how to behave philanthropically by a man worth an estimated £32 million, a man who is said to use tax avoidance schemes (it is telling that when a journalist asked him two years ago how much tax he paid, Geldof exploded at her, saying: 'My time? Is that not a tax?’ Well, no, Bob, it isn’t).
I don’t want to be implored to give charitably by a band that travels in separate private jets because they don’t get on (One Direction), or by a man who avoids Irish taxes while simultaneously telling the Irish government to help developing countries (Bono)."

As Somerset faces new floods, we're set to pay £600m for Third World flood defences... Tory MPs fury at new aid giveaway

Daily Mail

• David Cameron to offer more financial help to flood-prone countries 
• Water has already been seen rising again on the Somerset Levels 
• Area was submerged in water earlier this year after failure to dredge rivers
• MPs said sending money abroad 'did not send out the right message'

But many Tory MPs believe voters are sick of seeing taxpayers’ money sent abroad to tackle fashionable causes.The massive giveaway risks becoming a propaganda gift to Ukip which is confident of winning the by-election. The party has exploited public scepticism about climate change and the value of foreign aid. Some of the funding will go on flood defences amid fears that climate change will lead to more adverse weather. But Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, said: ‘At a time when we in our own country have suffered from flooding and devastation, with potentially more to come, this doesn’t send out the right message. ‘The overwhelming mood in the country is that the first duty of government is to look after this country. It sends a confusing message to people affected by flooding here that we are spending so much on flood defences overseas rather than at home. I don’t think this will help us win the general election.’

Obama and the vanguard party of the left

Catallaxy Files 

Sultan Knish has a quite insightful column on Obama versus the Democrats which he sees as a war to the death between “the-win-power-by-saying-anything-that-gets-votes-whether-you-mean-it-or-not” wing of the party versus “The Progressives” who actually have a radical far left agenda that if people actually knew what it was would avoid Democrats like the plague. The Progressives are our modern version of the Bolshevik cell that lies in wait for their moment. The win-by-saying-anything group just likes the power and the perks and riches that come with it. As for the Progressives:

Their goal is to transform the country. If they can do that by winning elections, they’ll win them. But if they can’t, they’ll still follow their agenda. "

 

 

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragging about deceiving the American people, who he thinks are too stupid to know what’s good for them

Catallaxy Files

He is saying that the people who put Obamacare together knowingly understood that if Americans had understood the Affordable Care Act, that they would have rejected it because they are too stupid. They therefore by intent made the Act impossible to understand to fool them into supporting what they would otherwise have rejected because it was good for them. When the good part will arrive no one asks. This is a marry in haste, repent in leisure moment which is the entire story of the Obama administration."

Into Iraq again

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)

Australian special forces are going into Iraq on an “advise and assist mission” in the field. The US now has 3000 soldiers there.
One of US President Barack Obama’s biggest blunders was not leaving 10,000 US soldiers in Iraq in 2011.
Tony Abbott has announced the deployment after talks with Obama in China."

George Osborne’s claims of an EU budget victory don’t stack up

CapX / Daniel Hannan
 The only thing the Chancellor has achieved is a slight delay in the payment. Britain will cough up next year rather than now, and will not be billed for interest in the mean time. Well, OK, fine. But the bill remains the same. The PM had said he wouldn’t pay ‘anything like’ the sum in question. In fact, as the European Commission has confirmed, the sum has not changed by a single euro. "

U.K. Fails to Win Budget Payment Cut as EU Defies Cameron

Bloomburg
Britain failed to win a cut in an extra budget payment demanded by the European Union, complicating Prime Minister David Cameron’s efforts to fend off an anti-EU movement at home.
EU finance ministers agreed in principle today to stretch out Britain’s payment of a 2.1 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) bill until September 2015. While the accounting arrangement includes an accelerated refund, it would leave the U.K.’s overall contributions to the EU untouched.
The bill, part of an EU funding reallocation that forced Britain and eight other countries to pay more, has lengthened the list of grievances that prompted Cameron to propose a referendum in 2017 that could take Britain out of the bloc.
“The U.K. will pay the whole amount without any penalties attached or interest rates,” Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan told reporters after the Brussels meeting. “The installments will be paid over a period of time.”

EU surcharge deadline to be delayed until after the general election

Telegraph

Confidential diplomatic proposals seen by the Telegraph indicate that 1 June or September 2015, safely after elections next May, is the “foreseen new deadline” for the revised British payment to the Brussels budget. The delay, designed to give political breathing space, was granted at the request of the Government but any failure to reduce the overall surcharge will be controversial for Tory backbench MPs.  ........EU finance ministers are expected to ask the European Commission to amend Brussels regulation 1150/2000 to prevent an “automatic” surcharge on the 1 December in order to allow for “exceptional flexibility with regard to the time period for payment”.
The sum will then be paid off on an instalment plan over “a reasonable period of time”, according to the compromise proposal."

Immigration from outside Europe 'cost £120 billion'

Telegraph

The report analysed figures from 1995 to 2011, during most of which the Labour government was pursuing vigorously pro-immigration policies.

It found that migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) made a negative contribution to the public purse of £117.9 billion because they consumed more in public expenditure – including NHS costs, welfare hand-outs and education – than they contributed in taxes.....
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said the report confirmed the huge cost of immigration.
"As for recent European migrants, even on the authors' own figures - which we dispute - their contribution to the Exchequer amounts to less than £1 a week per head of population," he said....... Between 1995 and 2011 the foreign-born population in the UK doubled from 3.5 million to about 7 million.   ......
At the same time the number of European immigrants in this country grew at a far higher rate, tripling from 723,000 to 2.3 million.
That huge surge was mainly due to the previous Labour government’s decision not to impose controls on the eight eastern Europeans, including Poland, which joined the EU in 2004."

--------------------------------

What Can Be Done? (MigrationWatch)

US midterms: Barack Obama has crippled the Democrats

Telegraph
By pursuing his own agenda so arrogantly and with such disregard for alternative opinion, he crushed what still remained of Blue Dog Democrat conservatives or Clinton moderates - and of this failed experiment in pursuing a shrinking ideogical base of voters, Ed Miliband should take note"

Is President Barack Obama doomed to be "the lamest duck" in recent US history?

Telegraph

Is Mr Obama doomed to be "the lamest duck" in recent US history?

The man who was, not so long ago, the Democrat poster boy has seen his presidency undergo two terrible midterm elections in a row. In fact, having lost in total 70 House seats as of Wednesday morning, after this 2014 midterm election his presidency has witnessed the worst outcome of any two-term president going back to Harry S. Truman."

Republicans in control: Obama a ‘lame duck’ for last two years of his presidency as conservatives sweep to landslide victory in midterm elections

Daily Mail

Wins across US give conservatives control of both houses of Congress

Results were even worse than expected for Obama's Democrats

'Star power' of Hollywood and Clintons failed to help Democrats

Incoming Senate Leader says it is time to 'turn this country around'

Mitch McConnell said President Obama's government 'cannot be trusted'

 Obama kept low profile during voting, meeting with senior aides

Embracing Ebola

Real Science
Last week, President Obama hugged a cured Ebola nurse.  ....
This week he traveled to New Jersey to have another nurse released from quarantine, who immediately violated the terms of her at home quarantine agreement and went out for a bike ride. If she gets hit by a car or falls off her bicycle – she is spreading body fluids. I crashed last week on a slippery bridge and had blood pouring down from my knee.
No doubt Obama is on the phone with her, telling her to be responsible and abide by the agreement he made with the governor of New Jersey. If you like your Ebola, you can keep your Ebola."

Dave's ready to 'do a Thatcher' on EU money-grabbers

Daily Mail
A British Prime Minister defying the law and simply refusing to pay the Brussels bill is unprecedented. But Cameron has no other choice. For if he endorses this cheque, he would be signing away his chances of winning the next Election."

Tattoos: a mark of conformism

Spiked
Tattooed types, though, still believe they’re bravely striking a blow against buttoned-up conservatives everywhere. In fact, to be part of mainstream society nowadays, you actively have to cultivate your inner hippie. From Tony Blair to Richard Branson, an adolescent disdain for formal dress in formal situations is the new orthodoxy. Good riddance, some may think; what people wear shouldn’t matter anyway. But the whole point of neutral and formal wear is that it’s meant to show that a person is putting the job first and that they respect the position of responsibility they hold. A demand for tattoos to be accepted in a workplace environment is a refusal to take your position or yourself seriously."

Britain's huge debt pile poses risk to UK recovery

Telegraph
At £52.1bn this year, debt interest is projected to be higher than the day-to-day spending budgets of the Business, Innovation and Skills and Defence departments combined, and almost as much as the education budget.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that debt interest payments will rise to £75.2bn by the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year."

Remember Obama promising voters they could keep their health cover? And he would stop ebola?

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)
Andy McCarthy tours the astonishing mendacity and incompetence of Barack Obama:


Of course you can keep your health coverage, and your doctor. And we’ll cover everyone while your premiums plummet. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda is “decimated” and these Islamic State guys are just the jayvee team. In fact (fact?), they’re not even Islamic — although they may not be quite as “secular” as the Muslim Brotherhood. Just extremists. (Extreme about what? Don’t ask.) Jihad is just a “purification of the self” . . ."

Ebola: a relentless tide we have to stop while we still can

JoNova (Australia)
The bad news -Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the disease was still out of control. Thanks to the mistake with a plane, a few US schools have closed, and whole neighborhoods are being roped off. How fast does a 19Kb string of information spread? Outside Africa, Norway has one case, Germany has had one death, one survivor, and one case. Spain has lost two, and is treating one. France and the UK have a survivor each. Today, at least, Senegal has been declared free of Ebola.
The WHO organization has admitted it botched the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

“In a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, the agency says “nearly everyone” involved in the response failed to notice the potential for Ebola’s explosive spread.

The agency acknowledged that its own bureaucracy was a problem, pointing out that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are “politically motivated appointments” made by the WHO regional director for Africa.”

The good news - CSL have said they will develop a plasma product from survivor’s blood. At the moment this is the most pragmatic possible treatment. There are 3000+ survivors who have antibodies, which appear to save the lives of victims (Brantly, Writebol, an American journalist, and hopefully the Texan nurses). It could still take a long time to produce, and it all hinges on how fast it can be done. It could save the medical staff who are so at risk and so important. That would mean more medical staff and other volunteers would be happy to volunteer. Then it could be provided to some patients and their sole carer to potentially stop transmission from wiping out whole families, or leaving children orphaned, and importantly reduce the Ro rate.
CSL say the biggest problem is getting blood of survivors. Dare I suggest: pay them, and the free market will provide. The survivors will benefit. The GDP per capita in these West African nations is $400 – $800 US a year. Our money makes much more difference there than waiting to spend it on victims here.  Stop it at the source. "

How the World's Top Health Body Allowed Ebola to Spiral Out of Control

Bloomberg
Poor communication, a lack of leadership and underfunding plagued the World Health Organization’s initial response to the Ebola outbreak, allowing the disease to spiral out of control.
The agency’s reaction was hobbled by a paucity of notes from experts in the field; $500,000 in support for the response that was delayed by bureaucratic hurdles; medics who weren’t deployed because they weren’t issued visas; and contact-tracers who refused to work on concern they wouldn’t get paid."

Ebola Virus Affected Countries and Areas

http://www.mapsofworld.com/thematic-maps/ebola-outbreak.html

http://www.liveebolamap.com/

WHO says Ebola is 'most severe acute health emergency in modern times'

Telegraph

The Ebola outbreak is the "most severe acute health emergency in modern times", the World Health Organisation has warned.

The agency's director-general Margaret Chan said the epidemic had proved "the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health emergency".

She added that new cases of Ebola are now "rising exponentially" in the three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

In a statement to a regional health conference in the Philippine capital Manila, she said: "I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries.

"I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure."

Doubling Time and the Future

E.M.Smith
This is a simple posting about what the doubling time of a virus means for our future expectations.
We can expect a 3 week or so doubling of cases of Ebola until such time as we gain control of the spread or develop an effective cure. That may take a while. So what happens until that point? How much worry and how much time?

Why Ed Miliband must accept home rule for the English, by Labour MP Frank Field

Daily Mail
What Parliament must do is set to work on determining a new formula to redistribute resources so that the poor are treated equitably in whichever of the four countries they live. The current Scottish feather-bedding by Westminster has had its day. But it must be phased out over a good period of time so as not to injure future Scottish prosperity.
Thursday’s referendum result has shaken up the political kaleidoscope in an almost revolutionary manner. Never in my 35 years in Parliament has politics been more important. Our future is now more in our hands than ever before. If that doesn’t excite politicians and voters alike, nothing will."

Scotland votes 'No': How the 'No' side won the referendum

BBC
Scotland has voted No to independence in a referendum, meaning its 300-year old union with the UK will continue. So how did the No campaign win?

This is the start of a long constitutional wrangle for the UK

FT Comment

...What is more, all the major political parties in Westminster have promised a new, dramatic but vague round of devolution to Scotland. Fleshing this out, getting it through parliament and then balancing it with new powers of self-rule for England could be the work of years, not months. There is no clean answer to the governance of the UK, no rationalist blueprint that pleases every component of a multinational kingdom in which one nation, England, is so dominant. Imagine if Bavaria accounted for 85 per cent of Germany’s population.

Still, the first few steps in this long and tortuous path are now possible to discern. In a statement outside 10 Downing Street on Friday morning, David Cameron, the visibly relieved Conservative prime minister, said that he would seek English votes for English laws. This can denote several things but his version appears to be a system in which only MPs with constituencies in England can vote on legislation that affects only England. For the most part, this means public services such as healthcare, education and aspects of welfare. Because the Tories are the biggest party in England – by seats since 2010, and by votes since 2005 – the implications of this reform are profound. It is quite possible that Ed Miliband could win next year’s general election for Labour but have no parliamentary majority on some of the most important matters of government."

Scotland independence vote: The idiot's guide

Stuff NZ
Aye, breaking up is hard to do. And hard to understand. So for all you wee lassies and laddies out there, we have prepared this Idiot's Guide to the Scottish Independence Referendum."

Scottish referendum: Alone, Scotland will go back to being a failed state

Telegraph
Nevertheless, let me try to explain why Scotland is not – and is highly unlikely to become – a Scandinavian country.
Scottish history offers proof that even the most failed state can be fixed – by uniting with a richer and more tranquil neighbour. For most of the early modern period, the Scots kingdom was Europe’s Afghanistan. In the Highlands and the Hebrides, feudal warlords ruled over an utterly impoverished populace in conditions of lawlessness and internecine clan conflict. In the Lowlands, religious zealots who fantasised about a Calvinist theocracy – government by the godly Elect – prohibited dancing, drinking and drama. John Knox and his ilk were the Taliban of the Reformation. Witches were burnt in large numbers in Scotland, not in England. ...................
The Union of the Parliaments in 1707 turned “Scotlanistan” into the Silicon Valley of 18th-century Europe, with Glasgow University as Stanford. The Union was a success partly because it sublimated these bitter Scottish divisions in a larger United Kingdom, while at the same time launching the country on an extraordinary economic boom that only really ran out of steam in the Sixties.
As in every heavy industrial economy, Scotland’s coalmines, steelworks and shipyards were bound to be shuttered or shrunk in our time. Pittsburgh, Essen and Turin did not fare much better than Glasgow. Yet somehow the story took root that Scotland’s economic restructuring was all the fault of the arch-bampot Margaret Thatcher. And then came Alex Salmond with his fairy tale that an independent Scotland could become a Scandinavian paradise.
Hardly any Yes voter appears aware that Sweden turned away from egalitarianism long ago. None of them seems to ever have bought an eye-poppingly expensive drink in Norway, much less seen a Danish tax bill.
The reality is that, as an independent country, Scotland would be far more likely to revert to its pre-1707 bad habits than to morph magically into “Scandland”. For this debate on independence has opened some old rifts and created some new ones, too."

Another Blair chicken comes home to roost: How former PM is to blame for the rise of the SNP and offering the independence vote in the first place

Daily Mail

• Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh but has not campaigned on referendum
• He supported devolution as Prime Minister and set up Scottish Parliament
• The SNP's election victory in 2011 paved the way for independence vote
• But Blair is considered too toxic to be invited on the campaign trail
• Only 60% of Labour voters say they plan to vote No in tomorrow's poll 

Scottish independence: 'Yes campaign every bit as dodgy as Iraq dossier'

Telegraph

One of the key themes of the Yes independence campaign – I saw it scrawled on a No poster in Edinburgh only last night – is that a “free Scotland” will no longer be tricked into illegal wars based on lies.

But as the BBC reporter who first exposed those lies, I believe that Scotland is being led over a cliff by a dossier every bit as dodgy as the one that took us into Iraq.

Like the whole of Britain in 2003, Scotland in 2014 is being asked to fix a problem that does not exist. Back then, it was an imaginary threat from Iraq. Now, it is an imaginary threat to the NHS, 45 minutes from destruction if you vote No."

At last someone amongst the American elites has said it

Catallaxyfiles
President Obama’s left-leaning political ideology combined with sympathies for Islam acquired from being raised by a Muslim stepfather paralyze him as he faces the threat posed by the Islamic jihadist group ISIS, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told WND in an interview.
“In defending America against radical Islamic terrorism, Barack Obama cannot be trusted,” DeLay said.
“Barack Obama was raised a Muslim, and he claims he is a Christian, and I can’t say for sure whether he’s a Christian or not, but he has shown over the last few years that he has great sympathies with Islam,” DeLay explained.
“You combine that with Obama’s political orientation that is far to the left,” he continued, “and you get a president who hates war, hates the military, and you have a formula for military inaction when it comes to combating radical Islamic terrorists like we are seeing in ISIS.”

Barack Obama's 'disastrous presidency' is all Republicans need to win Senate

Telegraph
Barack Obama's presidency continues to be degraded and destroyed. The beheading of a second American journalist by Isil (for dealing with which Obama recently said he has "no strategy"), coupled with Vladimir Putin's continued provocations in Ukraine, only reinforce an image of impotence and malaise. ..........But in fact Obama's approval rating has now fallen to 38 per cent, according to the most recent Gallup survey - and Republicans are more likely to win by virtue of simply avoiding making mistakes than they are by revealing some grand policy proposal or other, any one of which is certain to alienate somebody.......Some have even dubbed this a "Seinfeld" election -- meaning that it's about nothing. But that's wrong, as it is about something: checking and restraining a disastrous presidency."

Carol Mills is a decent person who has been left by the Speaker in an impossible position

ConHome
The only thing that Mills is guilty of is applying for a position for which she must have known she was under-qualified.  While she clearly had the managerial credentials and ability to run the House of Commons Service, she is a career civil servant, not a parliamentary chamber official."
"An irony of this sorry affair is that had Mills applied to become Clerk of the Australian House of Representatives, she would have been ruled ineligible. "

The bell tolls for Cameron's cosy clique

Daily Mail

There is overwhelming support for Mr Carswell’s reasons for defecting: the PM is too keen on the EU, has lost control of our borders and is part of a cosy Westminster clique.

Mr Cameron’s difficulties stem from his failure to address this substance, while being distracted by the style – what Thatcher’s biographer Charles Moore yesterday called his ‘weakness for the political equivalent of Botox’. Time is running out for Mr Cameron. If he does not reconnect with his lost Thatcherites then Ed Miliband will be our next Prime Minister."

Do nothing, and we invite the tide of terror to our front door

Telegraph

As the problem of Isil worsens by the day, it is surely time to bring back control orders 

No option looks very appealing, to put it mildly; and yet doing nothing is surely the worst of all. If we let Isil get their way, then we will be acquiescing, first, in a gigantic and violent change in international borders. Next, we will be allowing a new and hideous regime to be born: a country where black-flag waving jihadis compete to show they have the most bigoted and reactionary understanding of their religion by persecuting women, Jews, Christians, gays, Yazidis and Shi’ites. The place would be a giant training ground for terrorists and wannabe jihadis. We need to try to close it down now, before it gets worse.  "

The ‘Buckingham Bonaparte’ is cornered

Spectator
Yesterday’s Times leader could not have been any clearer:
‘Mr Bercow has done some good things as Speaker, and some of these would not have happened without his prickly personality. He has not minded irritating the executive by allowing more time to debate topical controversies. Yet he should beware of thinking that annoying everyone means he must be doing everything right.
‘A Speaker relies on the consent of the Commons to respect his or her authority. They are there to ensure free debate and good decision-making. They should avoid becoming the story itself. There has always been the feeling about Bercow that he rather too much enjoys the attention that his cussedness brings. On this occasion, he should show that he is willing to listen to others and make another appointment.’

The weakest US president ever?

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)

A serious question: when the US last have a president this weak?

President Obama returned to his vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard after briefly interrupting his vacation for two days of meetings in Washington, D.C.
Obama met with his economic team Tuesday before leaving the White House at 4:22 pm to return to his vacation home.
He did not react to the news that broke later that evening about an ISIS video that showed the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley."

----------------------
Ed: Update

• The Obama administration knew James Foley's captors were considering killing him to avenge airstrikes; Foley's family received an emailed warning a week ago and told the White House
• Obama seemed to double down on attacking ISIS after a militant beheaded Foley in a shocking video
• 'One thing we can all agree on is a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century,' a defiant Obama said
• Secretary of State John Kerry said Foley 'was brave and bold, and no masked coward can ever steal the legacy of this courageous American'
• US Secret Service and UK intelligence are searching for Foley's executioner, who spoke with a British accent in the video
• Nearly a dozen new airstrikes near the Mosul Dam came after gruesome video showed an ISIS militant cutting off photojournalist's head
• ISIS threatened to kill a second American journalist if airstrikes continue; White House has confirmed the footage is authentic
• Foley's parents issued a statement stating their son was 'innocent'
• Obama spoke from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard and played golf immediately after delivering his remarks (Daily Mail)

Why should Obama worry about Iraq when there’s Martha’s Vineyard?

Andrew Bolt Herald Sun (Australia)
A perfect snap-shot of the disengaged presidency of Vacationer-in-Chief Barack Obama:

The U.S. military campaign launched in Iraq Friday could go on for months, President Barack Obama said Saturday from the White House, but noted that he would not provide a specific timeline.
“I’m not going to give a particular timetable,” Obama said before leaving for a two-week summer vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.

Reader cynical1:

Rome, meet Nero.

UPDATE
Even Hillary Clinton is now attacking Obama for his lethal lack of leadership:

President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion…
Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the “failure” that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

But I suspect the right call was actually the one Russia took. Hold your nose and back Assad.

[ED: published in full here due to the articles importance. ]

Obama can’t just lift one finger to stop the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)
Barack Obama pulled out of Iraq too soon, three years ago, and threw away the victory.
Obama then did not intervene in Syria, allowing the jihadists to grow in strength. (Indeed, what support he gave was to the rebel side.)
Obama then did almost nothing as jihadists from Syria swept into northern Iraq, beheading and shooting civilians.
Obama now belatedly does something but very, very little."

Poorly Managed HealthCare.gov Construction Cost $840 Million, Watchdog Finds

WSJ

The federal agency in charge of building the HealthCare.gov insurance website suffered from poor management and skimpy scrutiny of its contracts, a congressional watchdog is set to tell lawmakers Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services "undertook the development of HealthCare.gov and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices, despite facing a number of challenges that increased both the level of risk and the need for effective oversight," said William T. Woods, director of acquisition and sourcing management for the Government Accountability Office, in testimony planned to be delivered before a House panel Thursday. The office is also releasing a report with its findings."

"The Obama administration was not up to the job, and American taxpayers are now paying the price," said Tim Murphy (R., Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel. "Despite repeated assurances to our committee that everything was 'on track,' it turns out it was on track to disaster." ..........

Lessons in lies: How the BBC, school text books and even exam boards have twisted history to smear Florence Nightingale and make a saint of this woman

Daily Mail

• Commemorative statue of Mary Seacole was unveiled in London last month
• Seacole has been treated with huge reverence - but is surrounded by myth
• Presented as medical pioneer - though she was never even a nurse
• Even school exams award marks for repeating falsehoods about Seacole
• Florence Nightingale - an actual pioneer - is often denigrated in comparison 

Indeed, Seacole’s supporters, including the BBC, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), reputable publishers and school exam boards, seem determined to elevate this Victorian businesswoman and adventurer almost to the status of a modern-day saint. But the truth is that she was never a nurse.

Although school history books now treat her as an equal to Florence Nightingale, Seacole never nursed in a hospital, did not start a nursing school, never wrote books or articles on nursing. Indeed, she never did anything to rival Nightingale’s truly pioneering work to improve healthcare.

Yet while her modern cheerleaders champion Seacole as ‘the real angel of the Crimean War’, and the RCN parades her as a role model, Florence Nightingale, who founded the nursing profession, is being increasingly undervalued and even denigrated. As an academic who has edited Nightingale’s writings, I have been left baffled, frustrated and wearied by the refusal of the pro-Seacole lobby to recognise historical facts." .......

The less heroic reality is that she went to Crimea in the spring of 1855 to set up a provisions store that sold luxury items (such as tinned lobster) to officers, and a restaurant and bar where they could dine and drink champagne. It was hardly fare for rank and file soldiers. Rather than ministering to the sick and wounded, Seacole’s main work by day was food preparation."

From symbol of hope to incarnation of sleaze, lies and greed: This week marks 20 years since Tony Blair became Labour leader. Now Dominic Sandbrook asks - has any former PM sunk so low?

Daily Mail
Two decades on, Mr Blair’s star could hardly have plunged to lower depths. His story has become perhaps the ultimate political morality tale, and far from being remembered as a symbol of youthful innocence, he now seems the incarnation of spin, sleaze and naked self-interest.

Of course, the journey from saviour to scapegoat is one of the most familiar political trajectories of all. However, the extraordinary thing about Tony Blair’s 20-year odyssey is that it has been so drastic and so complete. Thanks to the endless corruption scandals, the cash for peerages row, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the shameless pursuit of post-premiership wealth, his image is now so tarnished that it takes real effort to recall the atmosphere in July 1994, when he was elected to succeed the late John Smith as leader of the Labour Party.      .........

Of course, talk is cheap. But when he became Prime Minister three years later, Tony Blair had probably the best inheritance of any new government in the 20th century. Not only was the economy buoyant, but the Thatcher governments of the Eighties had taken most of the difficult decisions for him. There was no need to confront the unions, the IRA or the Soviet Union — all had effectively been beaten.  .......Right from the start, he and his henchmen, notably the bullying Alastair Campbell, encouraged a culture of shameless mendacity and obsessive control-freakery. In power, these tendencies became exaggerated. Cabinet government gave way to sofa government and television showmanship took precedence over parliamentary democracy.   .........
Instead, in an apparent bid to prove that he lacks an iota of shame, irony or self-knowledge, Mr Blair decided that it was his mission to bring peace to the Middle East. Well, given that Israel and the Palestinians have spent the past week firing rockets at each other, we all know how that worked out.
On top of that, Mr Blair has spent the past seven years whoring himself around the world. He is now worth an estimated £30 million — although he insisted this week the figure was nearer £20 million — having been said to have taken £125,000 from the Chinese for a  single speech on philanthropy, as well as a reported $13 million from Kazakhstan’s autocratic president Nursultan Nazarbayev in return for unspecified ‘advice’. Blair denied making any personal profit."

This weak and timid President talks big... and does nothing: A devastating attack on Obama by a top Washington insider

Daily Mail

• Clark S. Judge believes Obama's reaction to the tragedy was 'disconnected'
• Immediately 'reverted to script' to praise his administration
• Former adviser to Ronald Reagan says it confirms 'chaos' of foreign policy 

All good scams must end

The Black Steam Train
A few years ago, I casually complained to my local YMCA about their 'Indigenous' display.  I wanted to let them know that what they had done had the potential to offend people, despite how well-meaning they were obviously trying to be.  I expected an answer in the realm of 'we read a history book and that was our inspiration', but was taken aback when instead I was informed that this was the work of a local traditional owner, who oversaw the entire project.

This was the first whiff I had of Scammers posing as Aborigines right under my own nose.  So I started to hunt around, and in my searches, became all too familiar with the name Sonia Murray, aka Scams a'Plenty. ...."

Inside President Obama’s secret schedule

YahooNews

There’s what the White House announces to the world he’s doing. And then there’s what he really does. "

America at the Crossroads on the Fourth of July

Roger L Simon, PJ Media
America is at a crossroads — we always seem to be, but this time we really are.
We are living under the administration of a president that is now the least popular since World War II.  A full one-third  of those polled by Quinnipiac rate Barack Obama the worst president since 1945.  (Reagan is rated the best.) What accounts for this?  There are dozens of reasons that have been detailed on these pages and many others.  The man has lied to us multiple times — and to himself as well, no doubt — and many people now apparently sense this.  But I think the deepest reason, the motivating cause, stems from a time Barack Obama actually didn’t lie, but told an important truth.
Back on July 27, 2004, a then obscure Illinois senator made himself famous by standing in front of the Democratic National Convention and speaking these words: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is a United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America, a Latino America, an Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”
Did he believe those words?  Maybe. Once upon a time.  But evidently not very deeply. The fact is he betrayed them completely and almost everything he has done wrong has stemmed from that betrayal.  He has acted in the most partisan and deceitful manner, surrounding himself with a tiny group of yes-women and yes-men,  making a mockery of his self-proclaimed transparency, shamelessly exploiting interest groups in a way that could only divide our society while diminishing America’s place in the world,  and allowing evil forces to grow across the globe.
All of this while being convinced he is always doing the right thing. The rest of us are wrong.  He is not the commander-in-chief. He is the moral narcissist in chief.  It’s not “I think, therefore I am.”  It’s “I believe — therefore it is.”
But most of the country seems to realize that now.  And his poll numbers reflect it.  Sometimes it seems as if his only real supporters are government employees, food stamp recipients,  and the editorial board of the New York Times.  Whatever the case, that 2004 speech to the DNC is so far in the rear view mirror we might as well be on Battlestar Galactica."

The Imperial President and the Imperious Idiot

WUWT
The Founding Fathers were very concerned that the President should NOT have this kind of imperial powers, and for good reason. They’d seen the damage that strong-men had done in a variety of monarchies and tyrannies. So they devised a system of “separation of powers”—Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws.
Sadly, we have fallen very far from that, and President Obama has done immense damage to that system by “solving” every problem, from glitches with Obamacare to interim appointments to immigration reform to destroying coal plants, by imperial proclamation. At this point, all I can do is fervently hope he doesn’t listen to Lester Brown …
Gotta say … 2016 can’t come fast enough for me."

Multi-culturalism is responsible for terror in our midst

Express
But by far the worst error has been the state's addiction to immigration and multiculturalism. Domestic jihadism is the direct creation of a political class obsessed with open borders and the transformation of our society's structure. Thanks to these two strategies, the Muslim population of Britain has now reached almost three million, while one in 10 British children under the age of four is Muslim. The pro-immigration brigade tells us that this is no problem, since the "vast majority" of Muslims are moderate. But that is more self-deceit at odds with the evidence. One independent survey showed that 40 per cent of Muslims here want to live under Sharia law; another revealed that 32 per cent of Muslim students at university felt killing in the name of religion is justified.
Such attitudes have been reinforced by the state's fixation with cultural diversity which, instead of promoting integration, encourages migrant groups to cling to their traditional customs, practices, even languages. That is how we have ended up with Muslim enclaves dominated by the burkha, sharia tribunals, forced marriages, and ballot box fraud. Nor do the mosques do much to promote social cohesion. A recent study found that, out of Britain's 1,700 mosques, just two follow a modernist interpretation of the Koran, while a quarter do not even allow women on the premises.
And the truth is that Islamic extremists have contempt for our society. Their allegiance is entirely to their hardline doctrine, not to this country.
INDEED, it is absurd to describe them as "British" at all, for they have complete disdain for the normal responsibilities of British citizenship.
They are interested only in exploiting us, whether it be through welfare or education or housing or legal aid."

Blair under growing pressure to stand down as Middle East peace envoy after diplomats demand his removal

Daily Mail

Mr Blunt said: ‘It's time to end Tony Blair's personal calvary as quartet envoy following his disastrous statesmanship in office on the Middle East. His role as envoy was neutered politically almost as soon as it began, and is now a distraction from the increasingly desperate need for a comprehensive peace deal.’

The letter adds to growing calls for Mr Blair to stand down. Last week former foreign secretary Lord Owen criticised Mr Blair for his claims that the 2003 invasion was not a factor in the current unrest in Iraq.

‘Tony Blair should no longer be allowed to speak for the EU on the Middle East and someone else found for helping Palestine without his past record and crusading messianic fervour,’ he said."

Note to Hilary Clinton..... about Julia Gillard

Labor admits: Gillard was on track to win just 40 of 150 seats (Andrew Bolt,Herald Sun)

A Labor report admits Julia Gillard was on her way to utterly destroying Labor when she was replaced by Kevin Rudd. But Gillard loyalists couldn’t accept the switch and helped cripple Labor’s campaign:  ...."

Half a million EU passports given away to eastern Europeans by Hungary which allow them to live in Britain

Daily Mail
A little-known loophole has enabled half a million people from some of eastern Europe’s poorest countries to obtain Hungarian citizenship and, as a consequence, a European Union passport.
A law introduced in 2011 has allowed an extra 550,000 non-EU residents to apply for Hungarian nationality and, with it, the right to live anywhere in Europe – including Britain.
The ‘passport giveaway’ was intended to enable people whose ancestors lived in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to claim citizenship.
But the system has also attracted applicants who admit they have little emotional attachment to Hungary and only tenuous ancestry.
For some people in eastern Europe’s poverty-stricken nations, the scheme presents a chance to escape to wealthier countries such as Britain, Germany and Switzerland.
Yesterday a report by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine, said the ‘European citizenship route’ was becoming ‘an increasingly important way into the UK for those whose origins lie outside the EEA (European Economic Area)’.  
His report looked at more than 100 sample cases from the Home Office between April and September last year. It found that more than a third of Western European nationals applying for citizenship for their partner were born outside the EU.  
The Hungarian passport giveaway is just one route. In neighbouring Serbia alone, 112,000 new passports were issued between 2011 and the end of March this year."

Outlawed: The 'spy' cars that automatically issue parking fines totalling £300million after protest by privacy campaigners

Daily Mail

Ministers will announce CCTV cameras issuing parking fines will be illegal

Such cameras have issued 10 million fines totalling more than £300million

Councils insist that cameras keep the road safe, especially near schools

But critics say they are used in an overzealous way by greedy authorities

What We Can Learn From The White House

Real Science
President Obama is teaching us that there are enough laws currently on the books to make all activities illegal by executive order, and enough judicial precedent to effectively nullify each individual section of the Bill of Rights.
In other words, all three branches of government are completely corrupted, and actively working together to destroy freedom in the US."

Blair's bizarre claims - and the reality: One of Britain's most distinguished generals says former Prime Minister is in 'complete denial' over Iraq

Daily Mail

Anyone who doubts Tony Blair's self-delusion over Iraq should look at the 2,800-word essay he has posted on his website in defence of his decision to go to war.

He remains in complete denial over the disaster he inflicted not only on the people of Iraq, but also on many millions throughout the Middle East as a result of the 2003 invasion.

It goes without saying that if you start a war, you should be sure that the end result will be demonstrably better than the situation prior to the conflict.

Only someone who has lost touch with reality could possibly claim Iraq today is more stable or that life has become better for its inhabitants.

Blair accepts not a shred of responsibility and still refuses to apologise for taking us to war. So let us examine what he says point by point – and show his false logic for what it is."

The slaughter that shames Tony Blair: Outcry from all sides over former prime minister's 'Crusader' call for a new blitz on Iraq as the country descends into a bloodbath

Daily Mail
Iraq descended to new depths of savagery yesterday – as Tony Blair washed his hands of all blame for the bloodshed.
With Islamist jihadists now in control of large areas of the country, appalling pictures emerged showing the mass execution of government soldiers by masked fanatics.
Dozens of terrified men in civilian clothes lie in a shallow ditch before being executed in cold blood by Islamist extremists.
The Iraqi Army deserters, some wearing football shirts, were taken to scrubland where they faced a firing squad of Al Qaeda-inspired insurgents.
But, to derision from Left and Right, Mr Blair insisted that the sectarian violence tearing the country apart had nothing to do with his own actions in supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

Another shabby day for the marshmallow President: As his Taliban hostage swap sours, why Obama is a pygmy compared with the wartime leader Roosevelt

Daily Mail
But Obama today finds himself being compared - and not always by Republican enemies - with that most pitiful of modern presidents, Jimmy Carter, the man who presided over the humiliation of the Tehran Embassy hostage drama; remembered for the symbolic photograph of himself falling on his face while out jogging.
Maybe this week’s image of Obama alongside Bob Bergdahl, father of the newly-liberated Taliban hostage and one of the most obvious fruitcakes ever to sport an Old Testament prophet’s beard, will end up on the same page of history.
Whoever let the president get photographed in such company?
The judgment of the Leader of the Free World looks terrible. He has 30 months left to serve in office, but unless some amazing lightning stroke descends on him, Obama’s presidency seems set to end in failure.
Precisely because he is America’s first black chief executive, the man on whom such huge hopes rested five years ago, this makes his plight today all the more wretched."

Obama ignored chances to rescue Bergdahl on the ground because he WANTED a terror trade to help close down Guantanamo Bay, claim Pentagon sources

Daily Mail

'The president wanted a diplomatic scenario that would establish a precedent for repatriating detainees from Gitmo,' a Pentagon official says

He described a conversation with a State Department liaison who said 'the president isn't going to leave office with Gitmo intact, and this was the best opportunity to see that through'

Obama has promised to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2008 and tried to order it shuttered on his first day in office

The White House hurried its decision-making about retrieving Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, leaving intelligence officials too little time to assess how damaging it would be to release five Taliban leaders in exchange for him

Military commanders, meanwhile, were unwilling to mount a dangerous rescue operation to save a presumed U.S. Army deserter

The result, sources say, was the perfect storm as Obama aims to be rid of 'Gitmo' before he leaves office in 2017

Obama makes 'absolutely no apologies' for Bergdahl terror trade and dismisses anger as controversy 'whipped up' in Washington

Daily Mail

Obama appeared in Brussels alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron during a G7 meeting in Brussels

He insisted that 'we had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated,' despite a fit-looking Bergdahl who appeared in a Taliban video during Saturday's hostage hand-over

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday that giving Congress 30 days' notice, as federal law requires, 'would have seriously imperiled us ever getting him out'

Hagel said the decision to swap five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl was 'unanimous' inside the West Wing of the White House

The president dismissed a swarm of objections from Congress as 'par for the course' when he makes tough decisions

Sen. Ted Cruz says he will introduce a bill ordering the halt of all detainee deportations from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp

'Drugged but not near death': Senators shown Bowe Bergdahl video that 'forced Obama to act' leave unconvinced that Taliban terror trade had to take place

Daily Mail

Senators shown a video sent to the US by the Taliban in January that administration says forced them to override intelligence concerns and swap Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees in Guantanamo

Claims to show Bergdahl in ill health and it was feared he would die

But lawmakers at secret meeting last night who were shown the video left unconvinced that it showed him on the verge of death

Senators said he 'did not look good' but not near death

Lawmakers outraged they were not consulted - a law signed by Obama six months ago says President must give them 30 days notice before a prisoner is freed from Guantanamo

Defense Sec Chuck Hagel today said the decision to release Bergdahl was 'unanimous' within the White House

UK dream ending for undocumented migrants

Aljazeera
Nearly two years ago, Singh decided he wanted to go home. He walked into the offices of the UK Border Agency to provide his fingerprints and begin his application for a process known as Assisted Voluntary Return or AVR.
The scheme was touted as a quick-fix solution for getting rid of unwanted immigrants, whereby applicants sign a form, are issued travel documents and sent home on flights bought for them by the Home Office.
Twenty months later, Singh is still waiting to find out when he will become eligible to return. Meanwhile, he sleeps alongside three others, beneath shopping trolleys, in the car park of a supermarket.
Like hundreds of other migrants, he destroyed his passport in the belief it would make it harder for authorities to forcefully deport him. "I am stuck here," the 54 year-old says. "If only I had my passport I would sleep at the airport until they let me go home."
The hardship and desperation of sleeping on cold cement have left him helpless and confused. "If all the seats on my plane home are full I don’t mind, I will stand on the plane all the way home."
"Bhupinder is not alone. There are many, many others who also hope to return home but cannot," said Rita Chadha of RAMFEL, the Refugee and Migrants Association of East London."

Taliban release deal reveals Obama as weak

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)
....Everything about this swap flagged a US surrender. Next to the President on the weekend stood Bergdahl’s pony-tailed father, Robert, who’d grown an Islamic-style beard since his son was captured. In front of the cameras he gave a Muslim blessing in Arabic: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” He then spoke in Pashto, the language of his son’s captors.
Later, Robert Bergdahl even sent a tweet promising the Taliban: “I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death over every Afghan child, ameen!”
Not surprisingly, Taliban leader Mullah Omar hailed the deal as a “big victory”, but for the US it was a propaganda disaster. So, having weakened the US militarily and diplomatically in his six feckless years, what else can Obama do?
Well, he’s since announced he’ll force US power stations to cut emissions by a third to “stop” a global warming that actually paused 16 years ago. So he’ll weaken the US economically, too.
Bergdahl’s release is the ultimate symbol of Obama’s presidency."

Democrat Law Professor: Because of Obama’s lawlessness what is emerging is an imperial presidency

The Right Scoop
We’ve been hearing Mark Levin say for years now that Obama acts like an imperial president. Now, even Democrat Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, is making a similar case, arguing that because the executive branch has become so dominant (read ‘lawless’) that an imperial, uber presidency is emerging."

Bergdahl, Obama, Rice and lies told to the American people

Fox News
Apart from Bergdahl’s family, it’s hard to imagine much support for releasing terrorist leaders during the war in exchange for a soldier who deserted or was a traitor."

Boehner: Lawmakers briefed on Bergdahl trade 2 years ago, had 'serious' concerns

Fox News
House Speaker John Boehner and others provided new details Tuesday about the prior deliberations, and voiced grave concern that the administration charged ahead with the prisoner swap over the weekend without Congress' approval.
Boehner, who called for hearings on the decision, said the administration "never satisfactorily answered" lawmakers' questions and concerns that surfaced from the beginning about the proposed trade. Further, Boehner alleged that the only reason the administration failed to notify Congress is "the administration knew it faced serious and sober bipartisan concern and opposition."
"The administration has invited serious questions into how this exchange went down," Boehner said in a statement.
The details emerge as the Obama administration tries to cool a growing bipartisan storm on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both parties are voicing frustration that the White House and Pentagon did not adhere to a 2013 law requiring a 30-day notice for any transfer of Guantanamo inmates, before freeing five senior Taliban leaders. "

The trade that turned toxic for Obama: Taliban twist the knife with propaganda video of moment fighters waving white-flag-on-a-stick handed 'deserter' Bowe Bergdahl over to Black Hawk special forces

Daily Mail

• Video shows Bergdahl clean shaven in a white pickup truck and surrounded by armed guards before handover to Navy Seals
• In the video he appears well and is able to walk unaided - despite U.S. officials' claims that his health was a major concern that led to the trade
• Fellow soldiers have spoken of their surprise at the POW's healthy appearance
• A former Navy SEAL and hostage expert told MailOnline: 'He appears as healthy was when he was captured'
• US government was sent videos around Christmas showing Bergdahl to be in a bad state
• But analysts have now questioned whether Washington was duped into making the trade by lies over Bergdahl's health
• Video also shows footage of five detainees arriving in Qatar after release
• Fellow soldiers have claimed Bergdahl deserted his post in 2009
• Top military officer has said Army might still investigate Bergdahl, the results of which could lead to desertion or other charges

My Theory About Obama’s Terrorist Release

Steven Goddard
Obama is always looking for ways to further weaken the other branches of government, so he seeks out sympathetic causes which he can use as an excuse to break the law. He got very sloppy this time, and didn’t realize that this particular breach of the law isn’t popular with anyone.
Now he is apologizing in hopes of avoiding impeachment.

Obama swaps five dangerous Talibani for a soldier who wouldn’t fight

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)

“These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid,” he wrote in an email to his parents on June 27, 2009.
Three days later, according to Rolling Stone, the 23-year-old soldier simply walked off his base in Patika province, carrying a knife, his diary and a small camera.
He was captured almost immediately… A Pakistani militant commander told AFP that Sgt Bergdahl ... helped with the cooking and became fluent in the Afghan languages of Pashto and Dari…
The Taliban’s demands were high: they would exchange one low-ranking US soldier for five senior Afghan fighters being held at Guantánamo Bay.
This week, Mr Obama agreed....
Republicans, meanwhile, have erupted in anger over the White House’s decision to release the Guantánamo detainees in secret and without informing Congress…
Senator John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, also raised concerns over whether the tiny state of Qatar could prevent the former prisoners from again threatening the US.

“These are the hardest of the hardcore, these are the highest of the high risk people,” Mr McCain said.

The rank hypocrisy of Tony Blair: He threw open Britain to millions of immigrants, but now sneers at Ukip

Daily Mail

There is a particular tone of voice that BBC presenters use when announcing that the airwaves are to be cleared for an interview with Tony Blair.

A solemn preamble conveys the sense that after that morning’s tawdry squabbling of contemporary pygmy politicians such as Nigel Farage, this is the main act.

In truth, very few of us outside BBC headquarters want to hear anything more from Mr Blair, apart, that is, from him uttering one single word. Which is why I stay tuned, in the forlorn hope that I might one day hear Blair say: ‘Sorry.’ 

That is, sorry for leading us into ill-judged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands of casualties on all sides; sorry for permanently damaging our country’s diplomatic standing by fatuously endorsing President George W. Bush’s cack-handed statecraft; sorry for changing, through a purposeful policy of mass immigration, the cultural fabric of our country without first asking if there was a consensus to do so.

Inevitably, Mr Blair was not actually in the BBC studio. On this occasion he was ‘joining us from Berlin’ - a change from Ramallah or Dubai or the other places between which he flits on private jets, and from which he tends to broadcast when taking a break from his crowded schedule of lectures delivered for a vast fee.

The most striking aspect of Blair’s performance yesterday was his assumption that the spectacular progress made by Ukip in last week’s local and European elections came out of the blue sky and had nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with him or the policies of the government he led.

‘I’ve always said you have to have proper controls in place on immigration,’ Mr Blair intoned, unchallenged.

This peculiar assertion is punctured by the research of Migration Watch, which estimates that immigration during the New Labour years added three million to our population.

It also ignores the account of a former Blairite speechwriter, Andrew Neather, that from late 2000 onwards the deliberate policy ‘was to open up the UK to mass immigration’.

More than that, New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was designed, Mr Neather said, to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

Well, the consequences of that shamefully irresponsible politicking are now to be seen, both in the eastern European migrants crammed six to a room in East London, and in Ukip’s electoral progress.

Nigel Farage would not be grinning at us from the pages of our newspapers with an empty pint glass on his head were it not for Mr Blair’s policies."

A kick in the pants that Westminster so richly deserved

Daily Mail
The public’s deep concerns over mass immigration, with its devastating impact on housing, hospital services and schools, and the loss of sovereignty to a corrupt, unaccountable Brussels, were dismissed as the ravings of bigots and fanatics.
Yesterday, as Ukip claimed 150 council seats across the country, the three established parties  paid a very heavy price for treating ordinary people with such contempt.   .......
Why can’t the Prime Minister understand that, by labelling Ukip as ‘scaremongers’ and ‘closet racists’, he is insulting millions of small ‘c’ conservatives who have deserted his party over his commitment to windfarms, gay marriage and foreign aid?

Who's your mob?

The Black Steam Train
If you’ve read any ‘Aboriginal’ media interviews, or watched NITV for longer than an hour, you’ve probably come across the question ‘Who’s Your Mob?’, and for those who never heard it, let me explain it to you, and for those who have – I want to tell you why I despise the term.   .......

Can anyone please explain to me how it is racist to say “All Aboriginal people are (insert derogatory stereotype of your choice)”, but not racist to think all Aboriginal people use poor grammar and are capable of speaking or understanding in only the most basic of English, or have only one way to ask one another where they are from, or who their family are.  I’m told only the first one is racist, the other, simply ‘cultural awareness’.  

If that is what passes as ‘cultural awareness’, you can take it and shove the whole idea.  I speak, read and understand English at a level you would hardly call remedial.  This is not a skill unheard of for an Aboriginal person to possess, in any location."

Dave and Ed just don't get it: by branding Ukip racist they're damning millions of decent Britons

Daily Mail

Much of the media has obediently been doing the work of the three main parties. The BBC's normally admirable political editor, Nick Robinson, interviewed Mr Farage in  the tones one might employ for a convicted international war criminal.

Most newspapers of Left and Right (though not the Mail) have depicted Ukip as an extremist party inhabited by fruitcakes, crooks or dangerous lunatics.

The normally Eurosceptic Times and Sun have been among Mr Farage's most unforgiving critics. Of course, Ukip harbours some undesirable characters, and the media would be failing in their duty if they did not expose them.

But I suspect that the majority of Ukip members are solid types who are not racist, and I am sure the same can be said for most people who will vote for the party today.

But here is the extraordinary thing. Despite this barrage of insults from the political class and much of the media class - surely unprecedented in scale in modern times - Ukip still rides high in most opinion polls, and it seems likely that it will outdo the Tories in today's vote, and very possibly Labour, too."