Headlines Wednesday 19th May 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

Andrew Bonar Law PC (16 September 1858 – 30 October 1923), commonly known as Bonar Law, was a British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister. Born in the crown colony of New Brunswick, he is the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles. He was also the shortest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, spending 211 days in office.

=== Bible Quote ===

“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”- Hebrews 6:10

=== Headlines ===

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admits that she has not read controversial Arizona immigration law even though she's gone on television to criticize it.

The 'I Misspoke' Defense
Senate hopeful Richard Blumenthal admits misspeaking about Vietnam military service, but says it was rare

Interior Sec'y Grilled Over Oil Drilling
Lawmakers sharply criticize Interior Secretary Ken Salazar over government failures in offshore drilling

Battle Lines Drawn in Textbook War
Texas School Board, the authority behind most school textbook standards, meets for fight over what kids learn

This shocking image of a baby being used as a barricade against gun fire from government soldiers reveals just how uncivil Thailand's war has become

Our huge $12.5m deportation bill
THE high cost of running Christmas Island is revealed as our deportation expenses soar.

Aussies face fines if health kept secret
UP TO 50,000 people face a fine of $110 a day if they refuse to divulge their health details to researchers.

Dead man lay slumped for 10 hours in car
A MAN was dead over his steering wheel for 10 hours in a city street before anyone noticed him.

Girl, 16, runs away with man twice her age
TANYA van der Merwe fears for safety of daughter Celeste who must return home to South Africa.

Explorers stumble on Pinocchio tree frog
EVERYONE has heard of the wide-mouthed frog, but the long-nosed tree frog is no joke.

The secret past of wife killer Des Campbell
HE HAS been run out of two police forces and last night Des Campbell found himself in a jail cell, convicted of the calculated, greed-fuelled murder of his wife Janet.

Dead kids found in Spanish hotel room
SPANISH police were holding a British mum after her young kids were found dead in a hotel room.

=== Journalists Corner ===

The Primary Impact!
How these key races will affect the critical midterm elections. Bret Baier has insight, analysis & all the fallout!
All-Important Primaries!
As candidates are chosen in some of the country's biggest races, Ed Rendell and Rand Paul have insight.
===
And The Winner Is...
What will today's primary results really mean for November's midterms?
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Voter Intimidation Charges Dropped!
Why did the Feds "elect" to cancel the case against the Black Panthers?

=== Comments ===

On Pope John Paul's Birthday, What Could He Teach Obama?
By Jon Kraushar
Today would have been Pope John Paul II's 90th birthday. He was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland and died on April 2, 2005. He inspires us still. The leadership he brought in his fight for individual freedom is a leadership we yearn for today, as we struggle internally against the heavy hand of government and externally against the deadly hand of terrorism.

A new documentary hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich, “Nine Days That Changed The World,” tells the story of John Paul’s “nine-day pilgrimage to Poland in June of 1979 [that] created a revolution of conscience” that “helped Solidarity become the first officially recognized free trade union in the Communist bloc” and “eventually [led] to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.”

This documentary and a review of some of John Paul II’s pronouncements demonstrate the timelessness of his vision. His was a crusade for the proper balance of societal order and religious and personal freedoms. Let us consider his words in a contemporary context:

“Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.”

With this one quote, Pope John Paul II foresaw the continuing challenge that animates the debate over the right direction for America—at home and abroad. Many people shudder at the Obama administration’s reluctance to stress America’s exceptional leadership role among all nations.

Others are exasperated at the Obama administration’s vacillations in plainly identifying radical Islamic terrorism as the greatest threat to our national security and the security of our allies around the world, including Israel. And hovering over these controversies is the concern that America is losing its moral fiber and authority in misplaced gestures of political correctness and political spinelessness. (more at the link)
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China Criticizes America Over Human Rights Violations
By Bill O'Reilly
What I am about to tell you is simply amazing. China, a world-class human rights violator, is now accusing the USA of anti-human conduct, and the Obama administration is actually taking it seriously.

At a conference with Chinese officials last week, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner responded to charges from the Chinese that America has a human rights deficit. And in a stunning bit of stupidity, Posner himself brought up the Arizona anti-illegal alien law:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL POSNER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination, of potential discrimination. And that these are issues very much being debated in our own society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Are you kidding me?

The Chinese, who incarcerate people for political opinion, who have brutalized the nation of Tibet, who have no protections for freedom of speech, the press or anything else, are being asked to discuss the new Arizona law? Is this "The Twilight Zone"? Why would the Obama administration even bring it up?

Predictably, the anti-Obama forces are seizing upon the president's criticism of the Arizona law to hammer him in no uncertain terms:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING, R-IOWA: When he had an Irish cop and a black professor, who'd he side with? And he jumped to a conclusion without having heard the facts, and he ended up having to have a beer summit. The president of the United States has got to articulate a mission, and instead he's playing race-bait games to undermine the law enforcement in the state of Arizona and across the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

So this is becoming a huge political issue not just in America, but worldwide.

Once again, this Chinese thing is stunning. If you sneak into China, you'll wind up in a concentration camp or with a bullet in your head, and the Obama administration is discussing Arizona with these people? Totally beyond the pale.

"Talking Points" will remind you that more than 60 percent of Americans support the Arizona law, fully realizing that the federal government will not secure the border and the state had to do something.

Later this week, President Obama will meet with the Mexican president, and the Arizona law is sure to come up there as well. We will watch that very closely.
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ANY TAKERS? NO?
Tim Blair
Purchase this photo from Star Photos. Or any of these.
===
CLAIM IGNORED
Tim Blair
When he isn’t insulting retarded children, impersonating Pauline Hanson (while using an email address for the chairman of Fairfax), getting the Sunday Telegraph confused with the Daily Telegraph or making bizarre excuses for his contributors, Jonathan Green – the editor who doesn’t know what day it is – sometimes drops by the studios of ABC radio in Melbourne.

He was there a couple of weeks ago, interviewing – along with host Jon Faine – the editor in chief of The Age following columnist Catherine Deveny‘s removal from that paper. Deveny and many of her defenders had claimed that her dismissal was over just two Twitter items she’d posted during the previous Sunday’s Logies broadcast, a point editor Paul Ramadge wished to clarify:

I’ve actually had several discussions with Catherine over recent weeks about the language she was using on other media and how that could be perceived by many people who came to see her in many ways as either an Age representative or Age person. So I actually expressed concern to Catherine some weeks back now, prior to Anzac Day, in an unrelated set of comments she was making about the language. Just to at that point express my view that I think some people will see you as an Age representative and can you please just keep a check on some of the language you’re doing.

After Anzac Day I contacted her again and I had what Jonathan calls a “chat” and I expressed more concern … I expressed my opinion to her then in much firmer terms and then on the third account with the Logies, I came to the view – and I did seek the views of others as well – but I came to the view that I didn’t think Catherine was a good fit for the Age …

I actually did go through a process. I did have quite a few chats.

So Deveny wasn’t dismissed simply because of those Logies comments, but for a series of comments going back prior to Anzac Day – and Green was right there in the studio to hear the Age‘s editor explain this. Despite being thus informed, Green then published the following at the ABC’s Drum website, which he edits:

The Age columnist Deveny was dumped yesterday by The Age’s editor in chief Paul Ramadge, not because of anything she wrote for the paper, but because of some off-colour gags she sent out on Twitter during Sunday night’s Logie broadcast.

That’s not how Ramadge tells it. Perhaps Green simply doesn’t believe him.
===
Opposition cuts deep - to make Rudd’s mining tax the target
Andrew Bolt
The figure sounds substantial:

The Opposition’s treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, has announced Coalition plans for nearly $47 billion of savings in his budget speech to the National Press Club.

Some of the savings seem indeed sensible, as you’ll see from the list, and they include ones (mainly those for green programs, the NBN, government advertising and public service expanison) that you’d make even if the country were not so deeply in debt.

Now the Opposition must see how its figures stand up to the scrutiny - and the fear campaign to come. One danger is that small business may rebel over the cancellation of the puny 2 cents in the dollar cut in business tax, although they’ll still be ahead after cancellation of the increase in the superannuation guarantee levy. It’s amazing how easy it’s suddenly become to cut global warming programs now.

Much of the shaping of these cuts is dictated by the critical political decision (typically courageous from Tony Abbott) to oppose Kevin Rudd’s “super profits” tax on miners, representing an eventual loss of revenue of a claimed $9 billion a year.

This bit of media sniping was a storm in a teacup, although still not a good look for Hockey:

Mr Hockey earlier earned the ire of media at the Press Club by announcing the Opposition would slash spending by $46.7 billion to get the budget back to surplus - but failing during his address to detail what programs he would cut.

He said Mr Robb would release the detailed document later - which the finance spokesman did as soon as the event finished.

If only the media was as angry about the deficit as it is about the timing of the release of a Coalition plan to fix it.
===
Costello unloads: Budget a flop and a danger
Andrew Bolt

Peter Costello on fire - nailing the central Budget weakness, putting Ken Henry in his place ("flexible"), kicking the “super profits” tax, mocking Rudd’s explanation of it ("no idea”, “excruciating") and attacking the idea that the tax is needed because the minerals are a “finite resource”. Costello also warns that inflation is again the danger, not least because the workplace laws have been made too rigid by Rudd.

He has a very elegant way of cutting to the heart of economic issues and explaining their clear essence. Miss him yet? Gottliebsen clearly does.

Perhaps Costello’s best line is, sadly, unprintable in its entirety on this family blog. Speaking of Rudd’s rejection of almost all Henry’s “root and branch” tax review:

Ken Henry will say to himself, “My root and branch got r....ed.”

Here’s the message Costello says Rudd’s great new tax will send to our foreign competitors:

The Australians have gone out of business.

A link to the full interview in one hit is here.

(Thanks to several readers.)
===
How long before Rudd buckles?
Andrew Bolt
How long can Kevin Rudd go before backing down on his super tax, too?

Fortescue Metals Group says it is putting about $17.6 billion in new projects on hold because of the proposed new tax on mining profits.

Fortescue, a China-backed Australian iron ore producer that is the nation’s third-largest exporter of the steel-making raw material, said it was putting its $10.5 billion Solomon Hub project and its $7 billion Western Hub development on hold.

UPDATE

From Fortescue’s advice to the Australian Stock Exchange:

Implications of the Proposed Resource Super Profits Tax

• Solomon Hub >20,000 jobs – placed on hold
• Western Hub >10,000 jobs – placed on hold
• Chichester Hub expansion – proceeding

Fortescue Metals Group ("ASX:FMG" “Fortescue") wishes to advise that two of the Company’s three expansion projects have been placed on hold due to the financial impact of the Federal Government’s proposed Resource Super Profits Tax “RSPT”. The uncertainty in the financial markets caused by the proposed tax and the cash impost that RSPT payments will place on future business revenues has necessitated an urgent review of the economics surrounding the development of Fortescue’s major projects.

In particular...:

...in particular clarification (is) sought as to the Government’s “tax guarantee” for 40% of project losses in the event of bankruptcy. This initiative has been proposed by the Federal Government as an incentive for projects to proceed despite the tax however it is considered of no lending value by project financiers.
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Multicultural Melbourne
Andrew Bolt
An organised brawl between 45 children - in essentially an African vs whites confrontation - leaves a student in northern Melbourne with a broken jaw.

“I wouldn’t call it racial,” says the Victoria Police spokesman on radio, although it indeed started with racial taunting on Facebook.

Yes, fault on both sides - and what were the parents doing? But then there’s also this alleged rape.

(Comments off for legal reasons.)

UPDATE

Similar troubles in Canada.

UPDATE 2

Drug and gang warfare in just one province of Canada has taken a frightening toll among Somali immigrants and their children:

There is no province-wide count of how many people from the Somali community have been killed in Alberta, as the victims have been found in different jurisdictions.

But Ahmed Hussen, the president of the Canadian Somali Congress, says the death toll across the province is well into double-digits—unofficially standing at 29 -- since the summer of 2005.

===
Woody: Obama for dictator
Andrew Bolt
As I’ve often said, the Left is the natural home of the closet totalitarian. Take Woody Allen:

I am pleased with Obama. I think he’s brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him... It would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.”

(Thanks to reader Grid.)

UPDATE

Reader Polyaulax, a fervent warmist, sets me a challenge:

No matter how hard you try,it is impossible to find an image of Woody that makes him look threatening. And the Right is the natural home of the blatant alarmist.

Too easy:
(I’ve swapped the original picture here for this - of Allen, his then partner Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi, whom Allen later photographed nude and then married.
===
Henry plays politics yet again
Andrew Bolt
Exactly when was Ken Henry elected to Parliament?

ABORIGINES should have access to the money raised by the proposed tax on resource industry super profits, the head of Treasury, Ken Henry, has said.

Only one question left for the new Member for Wombat Hollow: is he a Green or a Labor man?

UPDATE

The Member for Wombat Hollow has also tried to commit his Government to sticking with a potentially devastating tax, according to Jennifer Hewett:

KEN Henry has just greatly narrowed the government’s room to move on the mining tax.

In a passionate defence of the tax to a room full of business economists yesterday, the Treasury secretary insisted that the 6 per cent bond rate at which the tax kicks in is absolutely essential to its design.

His protracted public explanation will undermine any attempt by the government to lower the political heat by altering the definition of what constitutes a “super profit”. Alternatively, a decision by the Rudd government to do so anyway will discredit Henry as the architect of the tax and as the government’s premier economic adviser.
===
Sail here, and you face this hell
Andrew Bolt
This will really show them Rudd means business:

PEOPLE believed to be asylum seekers staying at a three-star Darwin motel have been banned from speaking to the media… Up to 61 asylum seekers were transferred from Christmas Island to “an alternative place of detention” in Darwin late on Saturday.

But why is Rudd so reluctant to show how tough he’s being with these boat people?

UPDATE

Those boat people policies are working beautifully:

Immigration officials have been phoning churches and asking them about convents, monasteries and boarding houses where at least 100 people - mainly families and unaccompanied children now on Christmas Island - could be put up.

(Thanks to reader watty.)

UPDATE 2

Reader Bruce is puzzled:

Have they rung any Mosques?
===
The benefit of having a sister called Florence
Andrew Bolt
IT’S thanks to Bob Smith that someone is looking after Australia’s best interests, up there in business class.

It wasn’t until the President of Victoria’s Upper House got himself in the papers this week that I even knew we had important friends overseas he was keeping sweet.

I refer to this excuse he gave for his 10 taxpayer-funded trips in just three years: “Mr Smith stressed the importance of maintaining relationships with Victoria’s three international sister states: Jiangsu province in China, Aichi prefecture in Japan, and Busan in South Korea.”

Who knew we even had these sisters? Who even knew Aichi existed? Lucky, then, that we had Bob, shuttling to and fro, keeping alive a relationship the rest of us had recklessly ignored.

But so many politicians - even councillors - now do this thankless work, selflessly flying around the world to maintain ties with cities that offer us so much, even if we can’t say what.

Take the Mayor of Wagga Wagga, Kerry Pascoe, who the other day had to put up with all sorts of carping for deciding it was again time to go mend sister-city bonds with Nordlingen, a German town that’s hosting the delightful Festival of the Wall celebration, which apparently Germans think would be ruined without someone from Wagga Wagga to add a cosmopolitan tone.

In fact, all around Australia are politicians tending to our sister-city relationships, undaunted by the fact that so many of these twinned cities lie inconveniently far off, in places such as Italy, in particular.

If only they were close by, like, say Port Moresby, twinned only by Townsville, or Phnom Penh and Vientiane, shunned by all.

But our big-smoke politicians refuse to be daunted by the travel, and so Sydney’s trek to Florence, home of Michelangelo; Melbourne’s to Milan, gateway to Lake Como, and Hobart’s to L’Aquila, in the Apennine mountains.

And if it’s not Italy, it’s Greece - even harder to reach for our politicians, who nevertheless fly there to ensure bonds between us and nicer spots of that lovely land be maintained for the greater good.
===
Lucky Labor donor
Andrew Bolt
An unbelievably lucky coincidence:

A MAJOR Labor Party donor stands to earn up to $200 million on land he bought north of Melbourne a month before the State Government pushed to build a freight terminal on the site.

The $14.5 million, 202ha deal was settled on December 1, 2008. The next day the Government announced its controversial $95,000 a hectare growth areas infrastructure contribution tax would hit all future sales of land in the area…

The Weekly Times exclusively reveals that Perth property developer John Lawrence Simpson snapped up the land in the green wedge zone at Beveridge on May 7, 2008, a month before the Government began a campaign to make the site a major interstate freight terminal…

Mr Simpson has strongly denied he had any knowledge of the freight terminal when he bought the land and already owned an adjoining 800ha, all of which he jointly farms with Melbourne property developer George Adams.

UPDATE

Many readers ask if Kevn Rudd intends to tax these “super profits”, too.

(Thanks to reader CA.)
===
Even Faine isn’t buying
Andrew Bolt
Give Faine credit:

Julia Gillard on Abbott with Jon Faine on ABC 774: WELL, Tony Abbott wasn’t being up front, Jon. He was caught in a corner in a high-pressure interview so let’s not pretend that he’s gone to make some honest declaration here. It was forced out of him and I think it’s a truly remarkable admission. I mean, I think you’ve got an obligation to be as direct as you can with the Australian people.

Faine: Well, that rules Kevin Rudd out, doesn’t it?

Gillard: I think that that’s grossly unfair.

UPDATE

Lenore Taylor:

The Prime Minister claimed to be above it all, saying it was really a matter for Abbott to explain. That was at the same time as at least 10 Labor frontbenchers were piling in to attack the hapless Opposition Leader and the Labor Party was releasing a rapid-strike YouTube ad.
===
Five times too much for a Gillard canteen
Andrew Bolt
Yet more evidence of the astonishing waste:

SCHOOL canteens built by the Catholic school system under the $16.2 billion stimulus scheme are up to five times cheaper than those delivered by state governments.
The 500-strong St Lawrence Primary School at Bluff Point, near Geraldton, 420km north of Perth, is building a new architect-designed canteen measuring 10m by 7.5m - about the size of a double car garage - for $4053 a square metre.

By contrast, the tiny and unusable 8.47m by 3.1m canteens being built across NSW for between $550,000 and $600,000 are costing taxpayers $23,000 per square metre.

The Parents and Citizens Association of Tottenham Central School in central NSW, which has received one of those canteens, yesterday fronted a Senate inquiry into the Building the Education Revolution program to express dismay at what the school described as a “colossal waste of taxpayer and government money”.

“We thought it was going to be great . . . when you’re getting something worth $600,000, you don’t think small,” P&C president Rick Bennett said.

“The new canteen can’t even store all our freezers, and with a pie-warmer, meat slicer and microwave on the stainless steel bench, there is hardly any room to prepare food.”

And yet more evidence of a cover-up:

Fronting a Senate inquiry into the scheme yesterday, NSW Teachers Federation president Gary Zadkovich said NSW school principals who had spoken out against the scheme were ”pressured into silence” and told they were required to be “positive advocates for public education”.
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Hockey’s own NAPLAN test
Andrew Bolt
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey sits a big exam today, and already gets one tick:

JOE Hockey will today map out the Coalition’s return to economic conservatism, promising to cut the Rudd government’s controversial new e-Health scheme to save $467 million and announcing a review of the Trade Practices Act to help small business.... It is one of a number of cuts the Coalition will announce to prove it is willing to be tough in order to get the budget back into surplus.
===
They have ways to make you cooperate
Andrew Bolt
Wait until they get to the bit about the compulsory experiment:

UP to 50,000 people face a fine of $110 a day if they refuse to divulge information on their health and lifestyle to Australian Bureau of Statistics researchers… Participants will be weighed and measured and will be asked to give a blood and urine sample. They will also be asked detailed questions on what they drink and eat and their physical activity…

But participants would be compelled only to answer questions - providing a blood and urine sample and weighing in would be voluntary.
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Whitlam frail
Andrew Bolt
Love him or loathe, he’s now a national icon, and this is sad - although not so unexpected at his great age:

GOUGH Whitlam, Australia’s longest-living former prime minister, has moved into a nursing home at the age of 93.

- I'm disappointed he will never face a court for his crimes - ed.
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Bribing children to believe
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government has launched a new propaganda campaign aimed at convincing children the planet will fry from our gases (and Labor will save them):

It is vital that all Australians understand the significance of climate change so we can act now to protect our future way of life.

The Shout Out for Climate Change competition gives Australian students of all ages a creative platform to inform, engage and inspire others to discover more about climate change and take action.

Show you really, really believe and you can win a laptop or iPod.

(Thanks to reader Spin Baby, Spin.)
===
How could Rudd be so certain in his ignorance?
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd gloats in his ignorance, sneering at Liberals in Parliament:

…how is it that, in the 21st century, you could support this Leader of the Opposition, who says that the world was hotter in Jesus’ time? How could you actually hold to a belief, in defiance of total science around the world, that somehow in the last 2000 years the world has become cooler, not warmer? How could you stand behind a leader who says that the industrial revolution, in effect, did not happen?

JoNova presents the evidence from around the world that backs up Abbott and proves Rudd an enemy of science. I’ve already mentioned evidence from Europe, but JoNova notes:

A quick tour of peer reviewed research around the globe shows it was also warmer in China, North America, Venezuela, South Africa, and the Sargasso Sea 2000 years ago. And of course, Greenland tells an evocative tale.

(Thanks to reader Baa Humbug.)
===
Obama’s lucky aunt
Andrew Bolt
A political refugee from Kenya? Sounds unlikely to me. So what other factor did Barack Obama’s aunt have in her favour? I mean, apart from the obvious:

President Barack Obama’s Kenyan aunt can stay in the United States, a U.S. immigration judge has ruled, ending a more than six-year legal battle over her status…

(Zeituni ) Onyango, who is the half-sister of the president’s late father, applied for political asylum in 2002 due to violence in her native Kenya… Onyango’s asylum request was turned down in 2004. She appealed the rejection of her request twice, but was denied each time and ordered to leave the country. Onyango remained in the country illegally until April of 2009, when Judge Shapiro gave her permission to stay in the United States while he considered her case.

In February, Onyango arrived at an immigration court in a wheelchair and testified before the judge for more than two hours, her representative, Amy Cohn, told CNN at the time. Two doctors, including her personal physician, also testified on her behalf. Onyango’s medical condition was part of her legal defense against expulsion.

There is no evidence, however, that Obama intervened in this case. Unlike George W. Bush, who once again demonstrated he is the perfect gentleman:

The only president thought to have taken an executive decision on the matter is George W Bush. According to immigration officials he ordered that deportations be frozen before the 2008 election to spare Mr Obama the potential embarrassment of seeing his aunt removed.

- She knows that Obama was born in Kenya too - ed.