All-purpose news and politics thread

[Iangould]

As usual, Cavemold is talking nonsense.

Effective, not nominal tax rates are what matter.

Since he claims to have a degree in business management, Cavemold should know that.

While I'm at it: the claim that US corporate taxes are abnormally high is, of course, completely antithetical to the standard claim of the neofascists that sky-high European taxes are strangling business there.

[the4thpip]

Sign that the credit crunch in Europe is easing:

Several major European banks want to repay early the cheap money they borrowed from the European Central Bank, German daily Financial Times Deutschland reported Monday, citing unnamed banking sources.

Among the banks are Italy's Unicredit SPA (UNCFF, UCG.MI), France's BNP Paribas SA (BNPQY, BNP.FR) and Societe Generale SA (SCGLY, GLE.FR) and Spain's La Caixa, the newspaper said. The banks aim for repayment of around a third of the funds in one year instead of three, the newspaper said. The banks doubt whether it makes sense to repay all of the funds in three years, and they need financing running longer than three years, the newspaper said.

http://www.4-traders.com/UNICREDIT-S...port-14250899/

[Iangould]

Okay, things have been taking a rather ugly turn in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood's FJP got almost 50% f the vote in parliamentary elections with the more radical Islamist Party Al-Nour getting around another 15%.

Then the FJP reneged on previous pledges not to run a candidate in Presidential elections.

Then the FJP and Al Nour combined to give themselves an absolute majority of seats on the constituent assembly charged with writing the new constitution.

Now a wide range of groups from across Egyptian society are fighting back.

Al Azhar University, the preeminent Sunni scholarly body not just in Egypt but in the world has withdrawn from the Constituent Assembly along with representatives of Egypt's Copts, liberal political parties and representatives of the "revolutionary movement".

Al Azhar had circulated an 11-point declaration of constitutional principles which has been widely praised inside Egypt and which explicitly rejects any form of theocratic state and calls for the protection of the rights of women and of religious minorities.

The FJP claim they support the Al-Azhar Declaration but the Al-Azhar representatives on the Constitutional Assembly say they were being marginalized and ignored.

Attempts by SCAF to get the smaller political parties back to the constitutional negotiations have failed.

[7thangel]

Reality Check: Effective U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Much Lower Than Most Other Developed Nations

[Charles RB]

Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to win a seat and her party - the National League for Democracy - is expected to do well.

Unofficial results say she's won a seat - her supporters are taking it as gospel and very happy indeed. Lots of cautious optimism going on.

[Charles RB]

When Labour proposed spying on everyone's phone and net access, the Tories were against it - now the cabinet is proposing that very thing. The chances of it getting through Commons and Lords are titchy - David Davis is already on the warpath about it - but the fact they're trying at all is sickening.

And also stupid, because they've just had two political beatings over the last week and the NHS reforms are still overhead, why create a fourth public beating?

[Cavemold]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/02/travel...html?hpt=us_c2
Jet blue pilot singing the blues to court...

[king mob]

When Labour proposed spying on everyone's phone and net access, the Tories were against it - now the cabinet is proposing that very thing. The chances of it getting through Commons and Lords are titchy - David Davis is already on the warpath about it - but the fact they're trying at all is sickening.

And also stupid, because they've just had two political beatings over the last week and the NHS reforms are still overhead, why create a fourth public beating?

Because this is a good day to bury bad news. The fuel strike has been averted and it's all swings and whistles for the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, though Pastygate still trundles on.

[king mob]

Hah! It really is farcical, and the image of the Cabinet as a bunch of out-of-touch millionaire incompetants is starting to stick. This from Saturday's Guardian sums it up nicely:

Add to that the fact that George Osborne really is a fucked up weird little man as pointed out so wonderfully here by Jeremy Paxman.

Blair might have been a genocidal lunatic in the pocket of Bush, and Brown might have been utterly desperate but they were at least relatable by people unlike this utter scary freak.

[Ship]

I missed this the other day:

MP finally gets comeuppance for heroic feats of jackassery.

OTTAWA — Conservative MP Rob Anders has been removed from the Veterans Affairs Committee, something veterans’ advocates have been demanding since Anders fell asleep during a committee meeting in Halifax earlier this month.

Liberal MP Sean Casey said that Conservative MP Joe Preston — the chair of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee — quietly tabled an updated list of committee members in the House of Commons Wednesday.

“Mr. Anders’ name no longer appears on the list of Conservative members for the Veterans Affairs Committee,” Casey told Postmedia News.

Anders has been replaced by rookie Tory MP Corneliu Chisu and reassigned to the House-Senate Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulation.

After nodding off in a committee meeting held in Halifax some weeks ago, Anders denied falling asleep. He later went on the offensive, describing two war veterans, who volunteer their time to help homeless former soldiers, as “NDP hacks” and supporters of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

No one outside Canada will know who Rob Anders is (and not too many inside either I would guess).

Aside from the incident above, he's also been caught napping in the House of Commons, signed a Christmas card to Canadian troops in Afghanistan with the words "when in doubt, pull the trigger", and perhaps most memorably some years ago was the lone voice preventing unanimity on a vote to grant honourary citizenship to Nelson Mandela, because he's a "communist and a terrorist".

[Spike-X]

Sounds like an all-around classy guy.

[Michael P]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us...e.html?_r=1&hp

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

It gets better: The arrestee in this case was a black guy who was arrested for a traffic fine he'd already paid.

[Cavemold]

I can hear al sharpton now.. ......

[Rasputin9977]

Another shooting. As long as this great nation has lax gun laws, nutjobs will keep on killing innocent folk.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...6pLid%3D148595

[Ship]

Sounds like an all-around classy guy.

Oh yeah.

The funny bit is the two vets he accused of being NDP stooges are both card-carrying members of the Conservative Party.