| Chuck Todd |
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Congress is filled with crooks and creeps Washington, May 29
Lester Holt: Let’s turn now to Chuck Todd our political director and moderator of Meet the Press.
Chuck. these are just allegations. But sometimes things are whispered. They’re rumored. What are you hearing in Washington right now?
CHUCK TODD: I talked to multiple colleagues. People that were very close to Dennis Hastert when he was in Congress. Many of his Congressional lieutenants. A bunch of his former staffers.
And I could tell you they all said collectively – not a whiff.
I had one said they coulda knocked me over with a feather when they found out about it. Saying this was a guy – the reason he was picked to be Speaker by his Republican colleagues was that they were scandal plagued at the time. And he was considered to be the most ethical of the bunch.
I had another member say to me he can’t believe he allowed himself to be Speaker with this in his background. Sorta shaking his head.
But I can say this Lester. This does two things. Number One. It only adds to this long list of Illinois politicians that have gotten into trouble over the years.
But it really is a stain on Congress.
I had one say to me: People sit there and tell me the place is filled with crooks and creeps. I want to say that it is not. But if Dennis Hastert is a crook and a creep – Maybe the whole place really is.
| FIFA |
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FIFA arrests stun but not surprise football world
BY KYLE ANDREW BROWN
Zurich, May 28 – “It is a difficult time for football and FIFA,” says Sepp Blatter the four time president of football’s governing body after the end of an astonishing day in Zurich. Eleven of his confederates were arrested by Swiss police in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The New York Times scooped the American press in its early East Coast editions. It reported police went to Zurich’s luxurious Baur au Lac hotel where the execs were gathered for the annual meeting of the International Football Federation.
Fourteen indictments “are just the beginning, said Brooklyn federal prosecutor, Kelly Currie, at a press conference attended by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
She said the 2010 World Cup awarded to South Africa was corrupted. Defendants “corrupted the world football affairs to enrich themselves,” accuses Loretta Lynch. “This is the World Cup of fraud,” said Richard Weber, a senior U.S. Treasury. Today we issued the red card.”
According to judicial sources cited by the New York Times the charges relate to money laundering, racketeering and numerous embezzlement committed in the past twenty years. Also contracts for marketing and TV broadcasting rights.
An unnamed law enforcement official told the Times: “The system has lasted too long. We are struck by its power and the fact that it touches all parts of Fifa. We have here in a case of institutionalized corruption “.
Le Figaro summarized what has long been acknowledged in the football world:
“For many years, FIFA has undergone investigations involving its transparency and mode of governance. The case paid bribes in the selection of the last World Cup. Lack of transparency on executive compensation is often pointed to as the organization recorded exceptional sales ($ 7 billion between 2011 and 2014). The label “impenetrable Byzantine Empire” often glued to the back of FIFA could now be quickly torn.”
In a remarkable statement FIFA’s public affairs director said just hours after the arrests:
“FIFA is fully cooperating with the law, it is the victim in this case.”
Reporting by Maxime Brigand / Le Figaro contributed to this report.
La Fifa suspend onze de ses membres, suspectés de corruption
2015-05-28 12:09:48 AM
| Sunday Papers |
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FIFA arrests are just U.S. anger over Russia World Cup 2018
In Moscow the most discussed topic last week was about FIFA. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin said: “Said after the arrests in Zurich: “This, at least, very strange.These officials are not U.S citizens, and if an event happened, it did not happen in the United States, and the United States does not have to do with it. This is another blatant attempt extend its jurisdiction to other states.”
Anyone – anywhere – in the world, who does not violate the laws of his country, any user of Internet resources, such as Google or Facebook, runs the risk of being caught and transported to the United States.
Gazeta
May 29, 2015, 8:58
South China Sea islands are Chinese plan to militarise zone, claims US
The Chinese dredger barges can reach up to 30 metres below the surface, cutting out and scooping up huge quantities of sand and coral for land reclamation projects. The technology is sophisticated, but the idea is simple: debris is collected from the seabed and piled up until it creates an island.
However, China is the only power to have begun turning reefs, which are under water at high tide and therefore not considered land under international law, into permanent islands.
The Guardian
2015-05-30, 11:47:31 PM
Bob Schieffer Signs Off From Face the Nation
Bob made his way to a local Washington station and, in April 1969, summoned the nerve to walk in on the CBS News bureau chief without an appointment. He was let into the executive’s office by a secretary who mistook Schieffer for another Bob — longtime NBC News reporter Robert Hager — who actually had an interview scheduled that day. Schieffer talked his way into the job and never left.
Millennial Monitor
2015-04-12
Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide
Washington, May 30 – In an alley in Denver, police gunned down a 17-year-old girl joyriding in a stolen car. In the backwoods of North Carolina, police opened fire on a gun-wielding moonshiner. And in a high-rise apartment in Birmingham, Ala., police shot an elderly man after his son asked them to make sure he was okay. Douglas Harris, 77, answered the door with a gun.
The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.
Washington Post
2015-05-30, 22:18:18
Beau Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s Son, Dies at 46
Mr. Biden’s death marks a second tragic loss for the vice president, whose first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident in 1972 when the station wagon they were driving in to go Christmas shopping was hit by a tractor-trailer. Beau Biden and his brother, Hunter, were also injured in the crash, but both survive.
New York Times
2015-05-30, 22:42:16
Ted Cruz requests federal assistance for Texas
“The federal government’s role, once the Governor declares a disaster area and makes a request, I am confident that the Texas congressional delegation, Sen. Cornyn and I, and the members of Congress both Republicans and Democrats will stand united as Texans in support of the federal government fulfilling its statutory obligations, and stepping in to respond to this natural disaster.”
Salon
2015-05-30, 11:13:33 PM
Hillary Clinton’s strong start
The number of people who question Clinton’s trustworthiness must be of concern to her team, and it’s a figure that Republican ad-makers and opposition-research shops will be seeking to increase. But this issue needs to be weighed against the fact that Presidential elections are about leadership—and most Americans think of Clinton as an experienced and strong leader.
New Yorker
2015-05-30, 11:39:50 PM
Can Tony Abbott again deny his party a conscience vote on same sex marriage?
In case you haven’t noticed, our Prime Minister is a pretty conservative guy. His views on social issues such as these may be old-fashioned and out of step with modern Australia but, contrary to the claims of some of his critics, they’re not rooted in hatred or homophobia.
But in return for our respect, Abbott should afford the same respect to others: starting with those in his party room.
The Age
‘San Andreas’ movie destroying S.F. is great fun, bad science
The latest Big Disaster movie is wiping out San Francisco this week as a monster earthquake and tsunami swallows the city and drowns the Golden Gate Bridge — all in less than two hours on the silver screen.
The film’s “biggest blooper,” he said, is giving a magnitude of 9.6 to the quake that topples every skyscraper in San Francisco, destroys Los Angeles, and opens a horrendously deep chasm across the verdant landscape while frightened hordes flee crashing buildings in both cities.
San Francisco Chronicle
2015-05-30 22:41:31
How a crash unearthed Australian Motor Finance’s multimillion-dollar fraud
If Stephanie had arrived at work that day, it’s likely she would have spent some time processing loans that had fallen behind on their payments. She was covering for a colleague who was away. She knew the routine, but it wasn’t a job she would regularly have done.
That morning, Stephanie didn’t make it to work. As a result, the job of prepping the paperwork was given to someone more junior. He didn’t follow the normal drill. Instead of passing the loan documents to someone ready to doctor them, he sent them straight to the bank.
The Age
2015-05-31
Conrad Black – Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has emasculated the high court of Parliament
I had always supported the whole idea of a Charter of Rights, not because I thought it would increase anyone’s rights or would add anything useful to the common law, but because it was Trudeau’s brilliant tactic for confusing the Quebec nationalists by dismissing the demand for increased powers for Quebec as the mere vanity of office holders [Conrad Black is a convicted felon related to securities fraud in the U.S.]
National Post
2015-05-31 12:41:46 AM
Marilyn Monroe at 89 – Her Secrets
We are drawn back into the story, over and over again, trying to cut through the fog to get a sense of the real woman, based on the assumption that long before the look and voice were perfected, a real, albeit troubled, human being existed. In time, she may have become the myth, and that was certainly what killed her, and in so doing, made it forever impossible for us ever to know for certain whether she was a victim of her own fantasies, or our own.
San Francisco Chronicle
2015-05-30, 22:41:31
| Politoons |
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| Crimea Vacation |
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Discount Crimea summer airfares
BY KYLE ANDREW BROWN
Moscow, June 1 – Summer tourist travel into Sevastopol, Crimea is being boosted with the allocation of one third of passenger seats at discount prices. Eight national airlines offer the discount fares from 32 Russian cities.
Participating airlines will receive the cost differential of discounted fares from the Federal Transport Ministry. 822 million rubles has been allocated to the program reports Ria Novosti.
First Channel / Ria Novosti
| United States Forecast |
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| Australia Forecast |
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