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Storm test for candidates on eve of US election
by Margaret Carlson, October 31 2012, 09:45 | 0 Comment(s)
FACE-OFF: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney answers a question as President Barack Obama listens during the first 2012 US presidential debate, in Denver on Wednesday. Picture: REUTERS
WHO would you rather weather a storm with? That is what this presidential campaign has come down to, and the choice is between the candidate with no responsibilities and the one already in charge (although not yet in charge, despite the hopes of his ardent supporters, of the wind and rain). This election’s October surprise is a surprising late-season hurricane.
For Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the best strategy is to first, do no harm. If he truly has momentum, as some polls and pundits would have it, then mum’s the word. When he goes unscripted, it is never pretty. "Corporations are people, my friend"; "I’m not concerned about the very poor"; his infamous apathy for "the 47%": This is not a man practised at expressing common cause with the little guy.
So far, this week, so good.
Mr Romney has been both grounded in the details (bring those campaign yard signs inside; "in high winds they can be dangerous and cause damage to homes and property") and full of lofty rhetoric ("I’m never prouder of America than when I see how we pull together in a crisis," he said on Sunday night). From afar — wisely he has not donned the cliched parka, lest it blow in the wind — he says he is getting updates on the storm from the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and the governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell.
At all costs, Mr Romney must avoid putting himself at the centre of the disaster.
That did not work out well on Libya, when he jumped ahead of the president with his ill-considered statement after the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked. Mr Romney has another reason to keep quiet: he may not support the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As always with Mr Romney, it’s hard to know where he actually stands. In a Republican primary debate in June, he — in his conservative phase — said more responsibility for disaster relief should fall to the states.
"It is simply immoral," he said, for the federal government "to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids".
As governor of Massachusetts, Mr Romney had no catastrophe to compare to this. When floods ravaged the state in May 2006, many mayors complained that he had vetoed flood-prevention funds a few years earlier. The Democratic mayor of one town said Mr Romney only "showed up for the pictures" after the flood.
Which is why Mr Romney as mere candidate may be better off than Mr Romney as actual officeholder. No public official, not even the most powerful, is more powerful than Mother Nature. No matter what President Barack Obama does, Sandy will result in more people dying and losing their homes, while millions of others will be frustrated and angry (and in the dark). So much for those early-voting returns, which Mr Obama seems to be winning.
Natural disasters usually cause elected officials to lose their jobs, not keep them.
Michael Bilandic, Richard Daley’s successor, was ousted as mayor of Chicago by a snowstorm. The younger George Bush’s presidency did not recover from his slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina. Mr Christie got it wrong when he decided not to interrupt his 2010 Christmas holiday in Disney World for a storm in New Jersey.
So maybe Hurricane Sandy gives Mr Obama a chance to appear presidential. And unlike Mr Bush, Mr Obama did not hire a political hack as head of the FEMA. Mr Obama has had some experience travelling to the sites of natural disasters. He saw what remained of Joplin, Missouri, after tornadoes blew through in May last year. He visited the Gulf Coast several times just after the oil spill in 2010.
And he stopped himself (almost in midair) from making a mistake this time. On Monday morning, instead of remaining in Florida to keep a crucial campaign appearance with former president Bill Clinton, he returned to Washington. Did the Big Dog call and say he could handle it alone, not to risk the blowback? Or did Mr Obama rethink the situation for himself? Did someone on his staff describe the split screen that awaited him, with the raging storm on one side and Mr Obama disembarking from Air Force One in sunny Orlando on the other?
Elected officials cannot control the weather, but how they respond to it does matter.
Mr Obama does not have the minister-in-chief demeanour of Mr Clinton, which carried the country through the Oklahoma City bombing. And it would not be presidential to adopt the tweeter-in-chief persona of mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, offering to shovel his constituents’ sidewalks after a snowstorm.
Still, Mr Obama might try to channel a little of Mr Booker’s man-of-the-people energy with Mr Clinton’s I-feel-your-rain warmth. He could come out on the other side of the storm better than he went in if he drops the cool.
Bloomberg
Read more: http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2012/10/31/storm-test-for-candidates-on-eve-of-us-election
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Lingering questions about Benghazi
By David Ignatius, Oct 30, 2012 11:17 PM EDT
The Washington Post Published: October 31
*** David Ignatius Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.
This column has been updated with the administration’s response.
The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails. But Fox News has raised questions about the attack that deserve a clearer answer from the Obama administration.
U.S. ambassadors killed in the line of duty U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens is the eighth American ambassador to die in the line of duty since 1950. Here are the others...
Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reported Friday that CIA officers in Benghazi had been told to “stand down” when they wanted to deploy from their base at the annex to repel the attack on the consulate, about a mile away. Fox also reported that the officers requested military support when the annex came under fire that night but that their request had been denied.
The Benghazi tragedy was amplified by Charles Woods, the father of slain CIA contractor Tyrone Woods. He told Fox’s Sean Hannity that White House officials who didn’t authorize military strikes to save the embattled CIA annex were “cowards” and “are guilty of murdering my son.”
Barack Obama, commander in chief: Images of the president in his role as head of the U.S. military.
The Fox “stand down” story prompted a strong rebuttal from the CIA: “We can say with confidence that the agency reacted quickly to aid our colleagues during that terrible evening in Benghazi. Moreover, no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”
So what did happen on the night of Sept. 11, when Woods, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two others were killed? The best way to establish the facts would be a detailed, unclassified timeline of events; officials say that they are preparing one and that it may be released this week. That’s a must, even in the campaign’s volatile final week. In the meantime, here’s a summary of some of the issues that need to be clarified.
First, on the question of whether Woods and others were made to wait when they asked permission to move out immediately to try to rescue those at the consulate. The answer seems to be yes, but not for very long. There was a brief, initial delay — two people said it was about 20 minutes — before Woods was allowed to leave. One official said that Woods and at least one other CIA colleague were “in the car revving the engine,” waiting for permission to go. Woods died about six hours later, after he returned to the annex.
The main reason for the delay, several sources said, was that CIA officials were making urgent contact with a Libyan militia, known as the February 17 Brigade, which was the closest thing to an organized security force in Benghazi. The United States depends on local security to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities everywhere, and officials wanted to coordinate any response to the consulate attack. After this delay, Woods and his colleague proceeded to the consulate.
Here’s my question: Was it wise to depend on a Libyan militia that clearly wasn’t up to the job? Could it have made a difference for those under attack at the consulate if Woods had moved out as soon as he was, in one official’s words, “saddled and ready”?
Second, why didn’t the United States send military assistance to Benghazi immediately? This one is harder to answer. The CIA did dispatch a quick-reaction force that night from Tripoli, with about eight people, but it had trouble at first reaching the compound. One of its members, Glen Doherty, died along with Woods when a mortar hit the roof of the annex about 4 a.m.
What more could have been done? The Pentagon’s answer is that there wasn’t enough time to deploy forces that could have saved American lives. George Little, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, told me on Wednesday, responding to an initial online version of this column: “Within a few hours, Secretary Panetta ordered all appropriate forces to respond to the unfolding events in Benghazi, but the attack was over before those forces could be employed.”
Administration officials argue that the military, in real life, isn’t a “911” rescue number. Two Joint Special Operations Command teams were moving that night to the Sigonella air base in Sicily, for quick deployment to Benghazi or any other U.S. facility in danger across North Africa. But officials say that the teams didn’t arrive in Sicily until Sept. 12, many hours after the Benghazi attack was over.
As for armed drones or AC-130 Spectre gunships, officials say that they were too far away to help. Unclassified data put the range of Predator and Reaper armed drones at 770 miles and 1,150 miles, respectively. The nearest known base for armed drones, in Djibouti, is about 1,700 miles from Benghazi. Regarding the Spectre gunships, Little said: “No AC-130 was within a continent’s range of Benghazi.”
If these rebuttals are accurate, that raises another troubling question: At a time when al-Qaeda was strengthening its presence in Libya and across North Africa, why didn’t the United States have more military hardware nearby?
Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire. But the anguish of Woods’s father is understandable: His son’s life might have been saved by a more aggressive response, had one been possible. The Obama administration needs to level with the country about why it made its decisions.
A final, obvious point: The “fog of battle” that night was dense not just in Benghazi but also in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere. As one official concedes, “The reports were all over the map that night, and there was a lot of confusion.” America needed better intelligence. That’s the toughest problem to address, but the most important.
davidignatius@washpost.com
Read more about the Benghazi investigation:
_ The Post’s View: Playing politics with Benghazi
_ Jennifer Rubin: Obama needs to come clean on Benghazi
_ David Ignatius: CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks
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Posted at 11:30 AM ET, 10/31/2012 Oct 31, 2012 03:30 PM EDT TheWashingtonPost
Obama’s Libya stonewalling isn’t working
By Jennifer Rubin
President Obama is having no luck convincing voters and the media there is nothing amiss regarding his handling of the Benghazi attack.
My colleague David Ignatius is among the latest to acknowledge that there are real questions about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012, and why there was no deployment of forces for a rescue attempt. (“Why didn’t the United States send armed drones or other air assistance to Benghazi immediately?. . .Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire. But the anguish of [slain Tyrone] Woods’s father is understandable: His son’s life might have been saved by a more aggressive response. The Obama administration needs to level with the country about why it made its decisions.”)
It is not lost on Obama critics that the president’s visible presence in overseeing Sandy clean-up operations (which are essentially run by state and local authorities once the president releases funds) stands in sharp contrast to his role in Benghazi. Was he consulted on the rescue? Did he call it off?
Quite apart from what Obama did or didn’t do once the attack was underway, there are still many open questions, as Paul Wolfowitz reels off:
- The persistent misleading comments about the motives of the attackers.
- The failure to do more in advance to respond to the evidence — including pleas by Ambassador Stevens himself — to provide better security for US facilities in Benghazi or for the Embassy in Tripoli.
- The low priority given to AFRICOM — which had hardly any forces assigned to it — despite growing evidence since the start of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya almost two years ago that the governments in those countries (particularly in Libya) were incapable of providing adequate security.
- The failure, after Qaddafi’s fall, to begin quickly training, equipping, and organizing capable Libyan forces so that the new Libyan government — which is evidently pro-American — could exercise better control over security. (To be fair, we were also slow previously in building up Afghan and Iraqi security forces, but why make the same mistake a third time?)
- The strategy of “leading from behind” during the Libyan uprising, which left the training and equipping of the Libyan opposition to governments that do not share our views about which groups should be armed — and even gave priority to Islamist militias over others.
- The current repetition of that same mistake in Syria, creating a situation where Islamist groups appear to be the ones which are best armed. As he puts it, “The administration has a lot to answer for, even if the facts confirm that it did its best, once the attacks began, to protect the personnel who had been endangered by its previous policy failures.”
Interestingly, likely voters don’t like what they have seen. In the latest CBS/New York Times poll likely voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the Libya attacks by a margin of 51 percent to 38 percent. Among independents disapproval is even higher at 57 percent.
Libya won’t be the decisive issue for the vast majority of voters, but it has cast Obama’s foreign policy leadership in a negative light. Moreover, win or lose next week, Obama owes the country an explanation of what he knew, when he knew it and what he did. Or was he AWOL during the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years?
By Jennifer Rubin | 11:30 AM ET, 10/31/2012
*** 250 Comments
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obamas-libya-stonewalling-isnt-working/2012/10/31/ab946652-235a-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
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Fierce foe praises Obama's 'wonderful' storm response
Updated Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:23am AEDT
ABC NEWS
President Barack Obama wins glowing praise from Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie for his response to superstorm Sandy.
President Barack Obama has won glowing praise from a fierce foe for his handling of superstorm Sandy, which has killed at least 30 Americans and caused widespread destruction along the east coast.
Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie has repeatedly attacked Mr Obama on the campaign trail, claiming the Democrat does not deserve a second term in the White House.
But just hours after the worst of the storm knocked out power for 2.4 million people in New Jersey, south of New York City, Mr Christie gave Mr Obama a glowing character reference.
He said he had asked the president to cut through bureaucratic "mumbo jumbo" and help New Jersey, and he "got on it".
The president has been all over this, he deserves great credit.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie
"The president has been all over this, he deserves great credit," Mr Christie said.
"He gave me his number at the White House, told me to call if I needed anything, and he absolutely means it.
"It's been very good working with the president, and his administration has been coordinating with us great - it's been wonderful."
The praise from Mr Christie, who is mentioned as a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate should Mr Romney lose, represented the kind of publicity a campaign, for all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on it, simply cannot buy.
It came just a week before the election, with polls showing the race as a dead heat.
"I don't give a damn about election day," the outspoken governor said.
"It doesn't matter a lick to me at the moment. I've got bigger fish to fry."
Sandy made landfall in New Jersey yesterday morning (AEDT), leaving behind a trail of flooded homes, toppled trees and downed power lines in the nation's most densely populated region.
At least 30 people were reportedly killed along the eastern seaboard.
Mr Obama again cancelled his campaign activities for Wednesday and will instead visit New Jersey to assess the damage and recovery efforts.
Asked on Fox News whether he would tour parts of his state with Mr Romney, Mr Christie replied: "I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested," he said.
"I've got a job to do here in New Jersey that's much bigger than presidential politics, and I couldn't care less about any of that stuff.
"If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don't know me."
On Tuesday Mr Romney transformed what was intended originally to be a campaign stop into a storm relief event in Ohio, taking donations of food and supplies to storm victims.
But he will return to full campaign mode with three rallies in the key swing state of Florida on Wednesday.
Mr Romney will stump for votes in two crucial districts in Florida - the cities of Jacksonville in the north and Tampa in the centre - as well as in Coral Gables, near the Democratic stronghold of Miami.
Mr Romney is seen as having a more narrow route than Mr Obama to the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House.
With some national polls showing Mr Romney slightly ahead, Mr Obama is clinging to slim leads in many of the eight or so swing states where voters will likely determine the outcome of the election.
A RealClearPolitics average of polls gives Mr Romney a 1.3 percentage point edge over the president.
A CNN survey released on Monday showed Mr Romney at 50 per cent support and Mr Obama at 49 per cent.
ABC/wires
Topics: us-elections, storm-event, weather, storm-disaster, united-states
First posted Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:19am AEDT
VIDEO:
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-31/fierce-foe-praises-obamas-wonderful-storm-response/4343296
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conbenho
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01112012
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Air Raids Increase as Battle for Strategic Areas Intensifies in Syria, Rebels Say
Narciso Contreras/Associated Press
A destroyed street in Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday.
By HANIA MOURTADA and HWAIDA SAAD
Published: October 31, 2012
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian activists claimed on Wednesday that the government was increasingly resorting to air power to shore up beleaguered army units battling rebel fighters for strategic territories in the north.
Government forces unleashed a string of air raids across the north of the country, as well as in the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital, the activists said.
In Idlib Province, in northern Syria, the air offensive intensified against the key crossroads of Maarat al-Noaman, which the rebels captured in early October. Located in the middle of the supply route between Syria’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, Maarat al-Noaman is indispensable to the Syrian government.
As the two sides wrestle to control it, activists warned that a humanitarian crisis was looming. “Most residents of this area have been displaced,” said Ahmad Kadour, a spokesman for the rebels in the area. “It’s very cold, there is no heating and the most essential nutritional supplies have completely stopped. We can’t even get bread.”
Given the random shelling, the ill-equipped first aid stations are struggling to treat wounded civilians, he said. “There is an alarming lack of medical staff, and these hospitals can’t handle serious cases such as microsurgery, head injuries and amputations,” he said, speaking via Skype.
Also in the north, activists said the military dropped barrel bombs — old storage tanks or metal cylinders packed with explosives — from a helicopter, hitting a bakery in Atareb, west of Aleppo. “I saw pieces of bodies flying in the air,” said Aboul Haytham, an activist who said he was close to the bakery when the attack took place. Many of the victims were taken to Turkey because the local hospital could not handle them, he said.
The bakery, the only one in town, served thousands of people, he said.
Army units were staging raids on rebel hide-outs in and around Aleppo, reported SANA, the official Syrian news agency, inflicting heavy losses in men and matériel.
Around Damascus, warplanes attacked the eastern Ghouta district, an agricultural belt where fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army concentrate, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a rebel organization that tracks the conflict from Britain.
Several videos posted by activists showed black clouds of smoke billowing into the sky from the town of Saqba, after warplanes purportedly bombed residential neighborhoods and factories there. The videos could not be independently verified.
“Look at this! Arabs and the rest of the world, look at this shelling, which has been taking place for 10 days straight,” a man could be heard yelling out of camera range.
The Free Syrian Army, however, insisted that the government’s ground forces had managed to advance only a few yards in the area. “Regime forces are desperately trying to regain control of eastern Ghouta,” said Abu Ghazi, an activist. Government soldiers have failed to retake the towns of Irbeen and Harasta despite subjecting them to continuous airstrikes, he said.
In the town of Zamalka, 15 residents died and many more were wounded in two air raids targeting the downtown area, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that tracks the violence.
In a related development, several Damascus residents complained that the number of jets and helicopters hovering overhead in the past few days had been unusually high, while security measures designed to weed out members or supporters of the rebel forces have increased to the point of paralyzing commerce.
Moaz, an activist in Damascus, said government troops had erected several checkpoints outside shops and the once-crowded cafes in the commercial area of Al Bohsa, known for its concentration of electronics shops, and in adjacent neighborhoods.
“Traders are sitting outside their shops doing nothing,” he said, with owners of sidewalk cafes taking in their tables.
In another Damascus development, a bomb exploded near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a sacred pilgrimage shrine for Shiite Muslims that is in an eastern suburb of Damascus. Accounts of the attack by the Syrian Observatory and Ad Dounia, a private satellite channel close to the government, differed.
An explosive device planted in a motorcycle detonated near a hotel by the shrine, killing eight people and wounding many more, the observatory said. But the television report said there were two bombs, one planted in a garbage can and a second that was dismantled before it exploded. SANA said six people were killed and 13 injured in the Sayyida Zeinab attack after an “armed terrorist group” planted a bomb in a garbage bag.
Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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Superstorm Sandy: US East Coast counts cost - live
At least 48 dead across the US East Coast after Superstorm Sandy, as President Barack Obama set to visit New Jersey and businesses and services attempt to re-open.
New York taxis are stranded on a flooded street in Queens Photo: Xinhua /Landov / Barcroft Media
8:10AM GMT 31 Oct 2012
This page will automatically update every 90 secondsOn Off Tweet @barneyhenderson if you are affected by Superstorm Sandy.
• Death toll reaches 48 across US and Canada
• Obama tells East Coast: America is with you
• Governor Christie: devastation 'unthinkable'
• New York's stock markets to reopen Wednesday
• More than 8.2 million households without power
• Fire rips through Queens destroying 50 homes • Levee breaks in New Jersey causing evacuations
Latest 09.03
Here is a Telegraph video of an aerial view of the New Jersey destruction:
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9642169/Hurricane-Sandy-live.html
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Syrian activists report 23 dead in Damascus suburb
Published October 30, 2012 Associated Press
Oct. 29, 2012: In this photo, a rebel sniper aims at Syrian army positions in the Aleppo Jedida district, Syria. (AP)
BEIRUT – Anti-regime activists say Syrian forces have killed at least 23 people in a restive suburb of the capital Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 civilians were killed in an airstrike Tuesday on the city of Duma, northeast of Damascus. Five other rebel fighters were killed in clashes with regime forces nearby.
Syrian forces have stepped up their use of airpower against rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad as opposition fighters have made gains on the ground.
Activist say more than 35,000 people have been killed since Syria's troubles began in March, 2011.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/30/syrian-activists-report-23-dead-in-damascus-suburb/#ixzz2ArJl5uvy
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When corporations bankroll politics, we all pay the price
Letting taxpayers fund parties directly could revive our rotten system – and at £1 per elector, it would be cheaper too
George Monbiot
The Guardian, Monday 29 October 2012 21.30 GMT
Jump to comments (448)
‘Despite attempts to reform it, US campaign finance is more corrupt and corrupting than it has been for decades.' Illustration: Daniel Pudles
It's a revolting spectacle: the two presidential candidates engaged in a frantic and demeaning scramble for money. By 6 November, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will each have raised more than $1bn. Other groups have already spent a further billion. Every election costs more than the one before; every election, as a result, drags the United States deeper into cronyism and corruption. Whichever candidate takes the most votes, it's the money that wins.
Is it conceivable, for instance, that Romney, whose top five donors are all Wall Street banks, would put the financial sector back in its cage? Or that Obama, who has received $700,000 from both Microsoft and Google, would challenge their monopolistic powers? Or, in the Senate, that the leading climate change denier James Inhofe, whose biggest donors are fossil fuel companies, could change his views, even when confronted by an overwhelming weight of evidence? The US feeding frenzy shows how the safeguards and structures of a nominal democracy can remain in place while the system they define mutates into plutocracy.
Despite perpetual attempts to reform it, US campaign finance is now more corrupt and corrupting than it has been for decades. It is hard to see how it can be redeemed. If the corporate cronies and billionaires' bootlickers who currently hold office were to vote to change the system, they'd commit political suicide. What else, apart from the money they spend, would recommend them to the American people?
But we should see this system as a ghastly warning of what happens if a nation fails to purge the big money from politics. The British system, by comparison to the US one, looks almost cute. Total campaign spending in the last general election – by the parties, the candidates and independent groups – was £58m: about one sixtieth of the cost of the current presidential race. There's a cap on overall spending and tough restrictions on political advertising.
But it's still rotten. There is no limit on individual donations. In a system with low total budgets, this grants tremendous leverage to the richest donors. The political parties know that if they do anything that offends the interests of corporate power they jeopardise their prospects.
The solutions proposed by parliament would make our system a little less rotten. At the end of last year, the committee on standards in public life proposed that donations should be capped at an annual £10,000, the limits on campaign spending should be reduced, and public funding for political parties should be raised. Parties, it says, should receive a state subsidy based on the size of their vote at the last election.
The political process would still be dominated by people with plenty of disposable income. In the course of a five-year election cycle, a husband and wife would be allowed to donate, from the same bank account, £100,000. State funding pegged to votes at the last election favours the incumbent parties. It means that even when public support for a party has collapsed (think of the Liberal Democrats), it still receives a popularity bonus.
Even so, and despite their manifesto pledges, the three major parties have refused to accept the committee's findings. The excuse all of them use is that the state cannot afford more funding for political parties. This is a ridiculous objection. The money required is scarcely a rounding error in national accounts. It probably represents less than we pay every day for the crony capitalism the present system encourages: the unnecessary spending on private finance initiative projects, on roads to nowhere, on the Trident programme and all the rest, whose primary purpose is to keep the 1% sweet. The overall cost of our suborned political process is incalculable: a corrupt and inefficient economy, and a political system engineered to meet not the needs of the electorate, but the demands of big business and billionaires.
I would go much further than the parliamentary committee. This, I think, is what a democratic funding system would look like: each party would be able to charge the same, modest fee for membership (perhaps £50). It would then receive matching funding from the state, as a multiple of its membership receipts. There would be no other sources of income. (This formula would make brokerage by trade unions redundant.)
This system, I believe, would not only clean up politics, it would also force parties to re-engage with the public. It would oblige them to be more entrepreneurial in raising their membership, and therefore their democratic legitimacy. It creates an incentive for voters to join a party and to begin, once more, to participate in politics.
The cost to the public would be perhaps £50m a year, or a little more than £1 per elector: three times the price of a telephone vote on The X Factor. This, on the scale of state expenditure, is microscopic.
Politicians and the tabloid press would complain bitterly about this system, claiming, as they already do, that taxpayers cannot afford to fund politics. But when you look at how the appeasement of the banking sector has ruined the economy, at how corporate muscle prevents action from being taken on climate change, at the economic and political distortions caused by the system of crony capitalism, and at the hideous example on the other side of the Atlantic, you discover that we can't afford not to.
Twitter: @georgemonbiot
A fully referenced version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com
*** 448 Comments
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/capitalism-bankrolls-politics-pay-price
____________
Every election costs more than the one before; every election, as a result, drags the United States deeper into cronyism and corruption. Whichever candidate takes the most votes, it's the money that wins.
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HMS Bounty: Captain missing after Hurricane Sandy sinks ship, 42-year-old woman identified as dead crewman
National Post Wire Services and National Post Staff | Oct 30, 2012 11:18 AM ET | Last Updated: Oct 30, 2012 11:20 AM ET
This image provided by the US Coast Guard shows The HMS Bounty, a 180-foot sailboat, is shown submerged in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Sandy, approximately 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, October 29, 2012. .
Claudene Christian, 42, has been identified as the woman who died after the HMS Bounty sank
A Canadian-built replica 18th-century sailing vessel got caught in Hurricane Sandy’s wrath and began taking on water Monday, forcing the crew into lifeboats in rough seas off the North Carolina coast.
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 people by helicopter and spent much of the day searching for two missing crew members.
One of them, 42-year-old Claudene Christian, was found unresponsive in the water on Monday evening.
The coast guard said was taken to a hospital in Elizabeth City, where she was later pronounced dead.
Christian lived in California and joined the Bounty’s crew in May, according to her Twitter account.
“I live, work [and] travel the Sea aboard the HMS Tall Ship Bounty. As a descendant of Fletcher Christian, played in four movies by Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Marlin Brando [and] Mel Gibson, I’m sure my ancestor would be proud… However, this time, there will be no Mutiny on this Bounty… At least not at the hands of me, a new generation of Christian family sailor,” she wrote on Facebook.
Her Linkedin profile said she owned Cheerleader Doll Company, which manufactured and distributed “Officially Licensed” replica cheerleader fashion dolls.
According to her profile, she studied sports information at the University of Southern California and graduated in 1992.
Rescuers continued to search for the missing captain of HMS Bounty, 63-year-old Robin Walbridge.
A photo taken from Claudene Christian's Facebook page shows her on the HMS Bounty..
Both Christian and Walbridge were wearing survival suits designed to help keep them afloat and protected from cold waters for up to 15 hours.
Carol Everson, general manager of the pier where the vessel docks, said Walbridge was from St. Petersburg.
Walbridge learned to sail at age 10, according to his biography on the Bounty’s website. Prior to the Bounty, he served as first mate on the HMS Rose — the Bounty’s sister ship.
Earlier in the day, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Randy Haba helped pluck several crew members off a 25-foot rubber life raft. He was also lowered to a crew member floating in the water alone. He wrapped a strap around his body, and raised him to the chopper.
“It’s one of the biggest seas I’ve ever been in. It was huge out there,” Haba said.
The HMS Bounty — which was built at Smith and Ruhland Shipyard in Lunenburg, N.S. for the 1962 film “Mutiny on the Bounty” — had left Connecticut last week en route to Florida.
“They were staying in constant contact with the National Hurricane Center,” said Tracie Simonin, the director of the HMS Bounty Organization. “They were trying to make it around the storm.”
In this handout image supplied by the US Coast Guard, The HMS Bounty, a 180-foot sailboat, is submerged in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Sandy approximately 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, on October 29.
The Coast Guard received a call from the ship’s owner late Sunday, saying communication had been lost with the crew. The Coast Guard later received an emergency distress call from the Bounty, confirming its position.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Robert Parker, Operational Commander for the Atlantic Area, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the ship had taken on about three metres of water when the crew abandoned it.
Amid high winds and 5.5-metre seas, two helicopters flew in for the rescue around dawn Monday, plucking crew members from the lifeboats.
Lunenburg Mayor Laurence Mahwinney called the incident a tragedy, saying the town’s residents were praying for the safety of the crew members.
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Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter said he hoped all the ship’s crew and their rescuers would make it home safely.
“The Bounty was a spectacular ship and a symbol of Lunenburg’s proud tradition of shipbuilding,” Dexter said in a statement released Monday. “It is a sad loss for the community, but no ship is as important as the safety of its crew. I commend everyone involved for their swift action.”
Gerald Zwicker, 76, who worked on the building of the HMS Bounty in 1960, said he was devastated when he heard the ship had been abandoned.
“I really feel bad about it. It’s a piece of history gone. It’s a big loss,” he said in an interview from his home in southern Nova Scotia.
“They were talking about that hurricane all last week. They should have been out of that area.”
Zwicker recalled making $1.12 per hour as a labourer who handled enormous pieces of timber and wielding an adze to carve out the ribs on the vessel’s hull.
“We were proud to have built her. It was the only vessel ever built that I worked on that was used for a movie,” he said.
A crewman from the replica tall ship HMS Bounty is aided in the water by a member of the U.S. Coast Guard next to a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 90 miles (144 kms) southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, October 29, 2012. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew who abandoned the HMS Bounty while in the path of Hurricane Sandy off North Carolina, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts, the Coast Guard said. .
Zwicker last visited the ship in August when the replica docked in Nova Scotia for a tall ships festival. He proudly showed family members the bowsprit and stern and explained the details of his work.
Ralph Getson, a historian at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, said residents of the community and shipwrights considered HMS Bounty an example of the province’s shipbuilding heritage and are saddened by its loss.
“Those fellows worked. There wasn’t much to make your job easy. It was hand work … It was an example of Nova Scotian craftmanship,” he said.
Those rescued Monday were taken to Elizabeth City. Most of the crew were in their 30s, although one man appeared to be in his 70s, Coast Guard officials said.
The mother of one of the crew members said she had talked to her daughter after the rescue. Mary Ellen Sprague said her 20-year-old daughter Anna Sprague had been aboard the HMS Bounty since May. The ship had travelled to London, then to St. Petersburg, Fla., and was going to spend the winter in Galveston, Texas.
“She was probably the youngest member of the crew,” Mary Ellen Sprague said.
A crewman of the replica tall ship HMS Bounty is lifted from the water by a member of the U.S. Coast Guard in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 90 miles (144 kms) southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, October 29, 2012. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew who abandoned the HMS Bounty while in the path of Hurricane Sandy off North Carolina, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts, the Coast Guard said.
She said she hadn’t learned many details yet because her daughter, normally talkative and outgoing, was being uncharacteristically quiet.
She was very upset because the ship’s captain and another crew member were still missing at the time, Sprague said from her home in Savannah, Ga.
The Bounty has docked off and on over the years at The Pier in St. Petersburg, Florida., and was scheduled to eventually arrive there in November, said Everson.
“It’s devastating,” Everson said. “Obviously you want all of the crew to be safe. It’s a shame that the vessel has gone down because it’s a tremendous piece of history.”
The ship was permanently docked in St. Petersburg for many decades. In 1986, it was bought by Ted Turner, and in 2001, it was purchased by its current owner, New York businessman named Robert Hansen.
About 10 years ago, the ship underwent a multi-million dollar restoration.
*** 16 Comments
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/30/hms-bounty-captain-missing-after-hurricane-sandy-sinks-ship-42-year-old-woman-identified-as-dead-crewman/
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