Sunday, April 11, 2010

Muslim Woman Dies as Hijab Is Caught in Go-kart Axle

THE TELEGRAPH: An Australian woman has died after the Islamic head dress that she was wearing was caught in the axle of a go-kart during a family outing to a racing track.

The woman, 26, suffered severe neck injuries and went into cardiac arrest after her hijab, which covers the head and neck, became stuck in the kart's machinery while she was driving at high speed.

Paramedics managed to revive the woman after material from the hijab tightened around her throat and she was airlifted to hospital, where she later died.

Local media reports said that her husband and children were at the track at the time.

Police have opened an investigation into the incident, which took place at the Port Stephens Go-Kart track on the New South Wales midcoast, and have seized the go-kart for forensic examination.

Detective Inspector Peter Fox of Port Stephens local area command told Fairfax news websites that the longer part of the scarf was wedged down near one of the go-kart's wheel axles.

"[It appears] the scarf was pulled across her throat ... from one side of the body to the other side," he said.

Police said the woman and her family had been holidaying in Port Stephens, a popular coastal town, prior to the accident.

Signs at the track warn visitors about inappropriate footwear and advises drivers that they use the track at their own risk. However, there are no regulations about scarves or head dresses. >>> Bonnie Malkin in Sydney | Friday, April 09, 2010
South Africa: A Separate Homeland for Afrikaners?

THE TELEGRAPH: The death of Eugene Terreblanche has revived Afrikaner demands for their own homeland - and risks civil war. Jane Flanagan reports from Ventersdorp in South Africa

Photobucket
Supporters of slain white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche, salute his coffin as it is driven from the church in Ventersdorp. Photo: The Telegraph

As I drink tea in the sitting-room of Daniel and Margrieta Dreyers, it is easy to forget that apartheid ever ended. The couple, wearing the combat fatigues of the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) movement and surrounded by nick-nacks from a lifetime's devotion to preserving the rituals and traditions of the Boers, South Africa's original white settlers, are mourning the loss of their leader.

Mr and Mrs Dreyers have just returned from the funeral of Eugene Terreblanche and are filled with quiet anger over the loss of "Oom Gene" (Uncle Gene), under whose command of the AWB they had served for almost three decades. Looking through their "reminders of the golden years for the Afrikaners" offers them some comfort.

The porcelain ox wagon and drawings of the stout granite Voortrekker monument, arranged carefully around the room, bear testament to the Great Trek into the unforgiving South African hinterland 175 years ago, 
which earned the Afrikaners independence from the British and a reputation for being among the toughest and most resourceful pioneers in history.

"These treasures remind me why Afrikaners belong here, why we could never leave, and why we and South Africa are one and the same," Mrs Dreyers, a 64-year-old grandmother of five, explains quietly.

Her husband adds: "We fight to keep our land because our people suffered so greatly to win it. We fought wars and lost fine men for it, we worked this soil until our hands bled. We made this country what it is. Nothing bad can be done to us that does not serve to make us stronger."

Like an increasing number of Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans, Mrs and Mrs Dreyers believe the lawlessness in rural areas, which claims the lives of two or three white farmers or family members every week, can only end with another separation of whites and blacks. "A homeland for Afrikaners is what we want, and it is what God wants for us," Mr Dreyers, 70, says, before expanding into the sort of rhetoric that made his leader reviled by both the black population and liberal whites. >>> Jane Flanagan in Ventersdorp, South Africa | Saturday, April 10, 2010

THE OBSERVER: After Eugene Terre'Blanche's murder, the boers prepare for war once more: Many Afrikaners believe the killing of Eugene Terre'Blanche was part of a plot to unleash a deadly onslaught against white farmers >>> Alex Duval Smith | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Obituary: Lech Kaczynski

THE TELEGRAPH: Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in an air crash on April 10 aged 60, had been president of Poland since 2005.

Photobucket
Photograph: The Telegraph

An unashamed nationalist who sought to give Poland a more powerful voice in international affairs, his populist, Right-wing beliefs commended him to many Poles, particularly the large Roman Catholic population.

It was an enthusiasm not universally shared on the world stage. Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw – who served for a time as his prime minister – urged President George W Bush to install anti-missile missiles in Poland and pursued what many saw as a vendetta against former communists.

They campaigned vociferously against homosexuality, prostitution and abortion, and capitalised on the Polish mistrust of the Russians and the Germans (who in turn referred to the Kaczynski twins as "the Polish potatoes"). According to one analyst: "[The Kaczynskis] see the Germans as untrustworthy pigs and the Russians as worse."

Lech Aleksander Kaczynski was born on June 18 1949, 45 minutes after his twin. Their father was an engineer by profession, their mother a philologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Both their parents had taken part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, which left more than 150,000 Poles dead and their nation too weak to resist the subsequent predations of the Soviet Union. It was a disaster that proved formative for Lech. "At home I learned a conviction that Poland was under oppression, that the communist system had been forced upon us," he later declared.

The twins first became famous in Poland when they were 12, after being chosen to star in a fantasy film called Two Boys Who Stole The Moon (1962). Both then studied Law at Warsaw University, and after graduating Lech took up a teaching post at the University of Gdansk, where he completed a PhD.

By the end of the 1970s both twins were involved in trade union politics. Lech Walesa had been one of Lech Kaczynski's students, and his former teacher now began acting as his lawyer as the shipyard electrician took on the might of the communist state. >>> | Saturday, April 10, 2010

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Queen's sorrow at Polish air crash that killed president Lech Kaczynski: The Queen paid tribute last night to Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski, who died along with his wife Maria and 95 others when his plane crashed as it attempted to land at a Russian airport. >>> Nick Meo and Matthew Day | Sunday, April 11, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: Poland declares week of mourning after president among 96 dead in plane crash: Poland has declared a week of national mourning as the nation struggles to come to terms with the catastrophic plane crash that claimed the lives of the Polish president, his wife and dozens of the country's political and military elite. >>> Matthew Day in Warsaw | Saturday, April 10, 2010

THE ADVOCATE: Poland Mourns Death of Antigay President >>> Advocate.com Editors | Saturday, April 10, 2010

PINK NEWS: Gay rights advocating former Polish Deputy PM among dead in plane crash: The plane crash that killed the homophobic Polish President Lech Kaczynski has also claimed the life of Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, one of the most outspoken advocates for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) rights in Poland. >>> Staff Write, Pink News | Saturday, April 10, 2010
George Osborne Tells Peter Tatchell Conservatives Will Consider Full Gay Marriages

PINK NEWS: Shadow chancellor and Conservative general election campaign manager George Osborne met gay rights campaigner and Green party activist Peter Tatchell earlier today and promised to 'consider' gay marriages ahead of Mr Tatchell's event to persuade Conservative leader David Cameron to 'come out' more on gay rights. >>> Staff Writer, Pink News | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Somalia Islamists Al-Shabab Ban BBC Transmissions

BBC: The Somali Islamist movement al-Shabab has banned the BBC and closed down transmitters broadcasting the Somali language service inside the country.

Al-Shabab accused the BBC of fighting against Islam and supporting the transitional federal government, which the rebels are fighting to overthrow.

The group said the BBC had been broadcasting the agenda of crusaders and colonialists against Muslims.

The BBC said it was strictly impartial and spoke to all sides in the conflict.

The BBC has been broadcasting its services in Somali, Arabic and English across the country on a series of FM frequencies for at least a decade, and surveys suggest it is one of the most widely listened-to news services in Somalia. >>> By Peter Greste
East Africa correspondent, BBC News | Friday, April 09, 2010
Stupidity at the White House! Obama Moves to De-link Terrorism from Islam

DAWN: WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has ordered a revision of America’s National Security Strategy with the aim to remove terms that link Islam to terrorism, administration officials said.

The officials said the change would remove terms like “Islamic radicalism” from the National Security Strategy, a document that was created by the previous administration to outline the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war.

The US National Security Strategy outlines major national security concerns and the methods to deal with them. Such documents are prepared periodically by the executive branch of the government for Congress. US media outlets often refer to this document for borrowing terms to use in a report.

The Bush-era document describes the war against terrorists as “the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism … the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Thursday welcomed the announcement, saying it was a step in the right direction.

“We welcome this change in language as another step toward respectful and effective outreach to Muslims at home and abroad,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

He recommended that media professionals and commentators adopt similarly neutral and objective language and avoid “loaded” terminology. >>> Anwar Iqbal | Friday, April 09, 2010
The Hit Parade

Sudan's Multi-Party Election

Adopted Boy Sent Back

Dramatic Impact on Polish Politics

Photobucket
Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw in 2009. Photo: The Wall Street Journal

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: The death in a plane crash Saturday of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, together with the cream of the nation's conservative opposition and the entire command of the armed forces, will have a dramatic impact on the nation's politics, politicians and analysts said.

Mr. Kaczynski, together with his twin brother Jaroslaw, was a divisive character within Poland and in Europe. The twins pushed unashamedly for conservative values and a righting of historical wrongs with 20th-century foes Russia and Germany in ways that ruffled feathers and often seemed out of step with the times.

Yet with Mr. Kaczynski's passing, even visceral political foes recognized that the country's political scene has suffered a loss that won't be easily rectified, although one that could simplify life for the current government and for Poland's interlocutors.

"This is a tragedy that's second after Katyn," said former President Lech Walesa in remarks on television, referring to the 1940 slaughter of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD, precursor of the KGB, which Mr. Kaczynski had been on his way to commemorate. "Over there, they tried to cut off our head. The elite of our country has been killed again. It will take a while to fill this gap. This is a great loss."

Mr. Walesa had long since fallen out with Mr. Kaczynski, but Saturday's plane crash struck Poland as a national tragedy. The irony that Polish leaders were wiped out as they traveled to attend the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre was deeply felt by Poles.

The crash is likely to have a lopsided effect on Polish domestic politics, however, leaving the conservative Law and Justice Party with no obvious candidate for presidential elections. These were to be held in September or October, but will now need to be moved up to June at the latest. The candidate for the left-of-center Democratic Left Alliance, deputy speaker of parliament, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, also was on the plane when it crashed. There were no survivors reported. >>> Marc Champion and Marcin Sobczyk | Saturday, April 10, 2010

U.S. Community Mourns Plane Crash Deaths

Parlamentswahl: Was ist bloß mit den Ungarn los?

WELT ONLINE: Unser Korrespondent Boris Kálnoky begibt sich in seine alte Heimat Ungarn, um den erwarteten Rechtsruck bei der Parlamentswahl zu verstehen. Er sieht ein Land der Enttäuschten. Ein Land, das von Morden an Roma erschüttert wird. Er sieht einen mutmaßlichen Wahlsieger, dessen größtes Problem Arroganz ist.

Ich mag die Zeitungen nicht mehr lesen in meinem Land, das nach der Wende einmal der Musterschüler Osteuropas war: Ungarn. Jeden Tag neue Enthüllungen über Korruption und bankrotte Staatsfinanzen, während selbst ernannte Ordnungshüter in Fantasieuniformen durch die Straßen marschieren, rassistische Parolen grölen und patriotische Lieder singen.

Was ist eigentlich los hier, 20 Jahre nach dem Ende des Kommunismus? Am Sonntag wird gewählt, und so mache ich mich auf den Weg, die Lage zu erkunden und meine Entscheidung zu treffen: Wer kann Ungarn retten, und wovor muss es überhaupt gerettet werden? >>> Boris Kálnoky | Samstag, 10. April 2010
Bush Knew Guantánamo Prisoners Were Innocent, Former Colin Powell Aide Tells Court

MAIL ONLINE: George W Bush knew that hundreds of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay were innocent - but covered the fact up for political reasons, a top former aide has told a U.S. court.

Retired Army Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, testified that officials 'knew that they had seized and were holding innocent men at Guantanamo Bay'.

'I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell,' he said. 'I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President [Dick] Cheney and [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.'

'They simply refused to release them out of fear of political repercussions,' he continued.

Colonel Wilkerson heaped most of his criticism on the heads of of Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, saying they knew that the majority of the 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were not guilty of any crimes. >>> Mail Foreign Service | Saturday, April 10, 2010
Dhimmitude Alert! NHS: Preferential Treatment for Muslims

MAIL ON SUNDAY: Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed for religious reasons to opt out of strict NHS dress codes introduced to prevent the spread of deadly hospital superbugs.

The Department of Health has announced that female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.

This is despite earlier guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths.

The Department has also relaxed its ‘no jewellery’ rule by making it clear that Sikhs can wear bangles, as long as they can be pushed up the arm during direct patient care.

The move contrasts with the case of nurse Shirley Chaplin, who last week lost her discrimination battle against Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Trust, which said the cross she has worn since she was 16 was a ‘hazard’ because it could scratch patients.

Mrs Chaplin, 55, had worn the silver cross on a necklace since her confirmation. But the employment tribunal told her that wearing a cross was not a ‘mandatory requirement’ of her faith, even though Muslim doctors are allowed to wear hijabs or headscarves.

Last night she said of the sleeve concession to Muslims: ‘I don’t believe my cross is a danger so this is double standards. What can you say? It seems that life is stacked up against Christians these days.’

Politicians and Christian leaders, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, added that it showed the Government was prepared to accommodate minority faiths while Christianity was marginalised.

Lord Carey said of grandmother Mrs Chaplin: ‘The Muslim voice is very strong, so politicians and others are scared of it. We can only deduce that the hostility aimed at her is because she is a Christian.’

The revised rules, which health officials insist will not compromise hospital hygiene, were drawn up after female Muslim staff objected to exposing their arms in public. NHS relax superbug safeguards for Muslim staff... just days after Christian nurse is banned from wearing crucifix for health and safety reasons >>> Jonathan Petre | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Putin, Polish PM and Lech Kaczynski's Brother Arrive in Smolensk




Kaczynski, 50 ans d'engagement

leJDD.fr: Militant anti-communiste depuis ses 20 ans, Lech Kaczynski, mort samedi dans un crash d'avion, a eu une longue carrière politique, un temps proche de Walesa, avant de parvenir à la fonction suprême. Portrait d'un symbole de son pays.

Dès son enfance, il avait enthousiasmé la Pologne en jouant avec son frère jumeau Jaroslaw dans le très populaire film Histoire de deux enfants qui volèrent la Lune en 1962. A partir de cette célébrité, Lech Kaczynski, décédé samedi dans un crash d'avion à l'âge de 60 ans, a pu construire son succès politique. Mais c'est surtout grâce à son engagement, avec son frère, aux côtés de Lech Walesa, dans le mouvement anti-communiste Solidarnosc dans les années 1970 qu'il a acquis une véritable crédibilité auprès de ses concitoyens. Nommé conseiller au Comité de grève du port de Gdansk, ce fils de résistants est interné pendant onze mois en 1981 avec d'autres militants lors de l'imposition de la loi martiale.

Sa proximité avec l'ancien leader du mouvement démocratique, devenu président en 1990, lui permet de devenir le principal conseiller politique puis ministre de la Sécurité nationale. Mais Lech et Jaroslaw Kaczynski se brouillent avec le chef d'Etat. Le premier fera son retour au gouvernement en 2000, en devenant ministre de la Justice dans le gouvernement Buzek. Et les jumeaux passent alors à la vitesse supérieure: ils fondent le parti conservateur Droit et Justice (PIS) et Lech devient le maire de Varsovie en 2002. Un tremplin idéal vers la présidence. Poussé par son frère, son ainé de 45 minutes, il se présente en 2005 et remporte la mise. Jaroslaw avait refusé de devenir Premier ministre pour ne pas gêner son frère. "Jumeaucratie" >>> Vivien Vergnaud - leJDD.fr, Samedi 10 Avril 2010

WELT ONLINE: Kommentar – Kaczynskis Tod, ein zynischer Hieb der Geschichte: Viele Polen sehen ihre Heimat als "Christus unter den Nationen". In der Tat hat das Land eine leidgeprüfte Geschichte. Der Absturz der polnischen Präsidentenmaschine ist ein weiterer Meilenstein in der Historie polnischen Leids. Umso wichtiger ist eine lückenlose Aufklärung des Unglücks. >>> Von Klaus Christian Malzahn | Samstag, 10. April 2010

Lien en relation avec l’article:

LE POINT: La Pologne sous le choc après la mort de Lech Kaczynski >>> AFP | Samedi 10 Avril 2010

Related:

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Polish President’s Plane Crashes in Russia; 87 Dead >>> Ellen Barry and Clifford J. Levy | Saturday, April 10, 2010
Richard Dawkins: I Will Arrest Pope Benedict XVI

THE SUNDAY TIMES: RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations. >>> Marc Horne | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Carla Bruni Reins In the Heavies to Calm l’affaire Twitter

THE SUNDAY TIMES: After rumours of extramarital affairs, telephone taps and a plot to destabilise the French state, the latest episode in France’s presidential soap opera features efforts by Carla Bruni, the president’s wife, to rein in “the firm”.

A cluster of Nicolas Sarkozy’s closest advisers called themselves “the firm” years ago in a tribute to the ruthless lawyers of the John Grisham thriller. Like guard dogs, they have protected “Sarko”, always ready to rip his opponents to shreds.

Unleashed last week, however, one of these political pitbulls wreaked so much havoc that the nation was left wondering whether its master had lost his mind.

Just as gossip about marital discord in the Sarkozy household had dissipated, Pierre Charon, who handles sensitive matters for the president, managed to reignite “l’affaire Twitter” with claims of a plot emanating from abroad to discredit the French leader by spreading rumours about his love life over the internet.

The culprits would be rooted out, he promised, by a criminal investigation.

It was whispered that Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister and Sarkozy’s chief rival, had played a role in disseminating gossip that the president was having an affair with Chantal Jouanno, his ecology minister, and that Bruni, the singer and former model, was in a relationship with another musician. All have denied any infidelity.

Charon announced that the domestic intelligence service was investigating the rumours, which first surfaced on Twitter, the internet social networking site, in February.

One of the culprits, he had earlier alleged, was Rachida Dati, a former justice minister and a fallen presidential favourite. Sarkozy abruptly cancelled her car and bodyguards and told aides that he did not want to see the Euro MP and Paris district mayor ever again.
She suffered further humiliation when she went to Geneva to address an expatriate meeting on behalf of the president’s centre-right UMP party. Instead of booking her into the five-star hotel she had requested, the party, citing a need to crack down on expenses, put her in a room at the airport overlooking a car park.

Dati was said to have been on the verge of tears when told by reception that the hotel was full and she would have to share her room with a parliamentary aide. “That’s what happens when you attack the firm,” Charon told a group of Sarkozy supporters last week.

Dati has threatened to sue him or anyone else who links her to the rumours and appealed on Wednesday for an audience with the president so she could persuade him of her innocence. She has long been at loggerheads with Charon and other members of “the firm” such as Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister, who is one of Sarkozy’s best friends.

The bad feeling dates back to before Sarkozy was president, when Dati told Cécilia, his second wife, about his affair with a journalist from Le Figaro newspaper. >>> Matthew Campbell in Paris | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Anti-Semitism Stirs as Hungary Goes to Polls

Photobucket
A supporter of the far-right party Jobbik. Photograph: The Sunday Times

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Rabbi Shmuel Raskin and his 50 guests were celebrating the Jewish festival of Passover last weekend when two stones smashed though the double-glazed windows of his home in the centre of Budapest.

Police said they had probably been fired from a sling. The group continued with its ceremonies, but in silence and behind closed shutters. The incident was one of a series of hate attacks in Hungary amid an atmosphere of heightened racial tension in the run-up to today’s general election.

During a recent speech by Gabor Demszky, the mayor of Budapest, a mob chanted “Jewish pigs” and “To the concentration camps”. Election posters have been smeared with yellow Stars of David and anti-Semitic slogans.

Budapest rabbis describe racial epithets being shouted as they walk their children to school, slogans such as “Jews go to Israel” are daubed in the streets, accompanied by swastikas, while cars bear stickers with the slogan “Jew-free car”.

Critics connect the abuse to the rise of the extreme right-wing Jobbik party, which has been accused of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

The increase in violent attacks on minorities — a dozen Roma (gypsies) have been gunned down in recent years — has coincided with the emergence of Jobbik, which won 15% support in the European elections held in 2009. Opinion polls suggest that it will attract between 13% and 20% today.

Although the centre-right Fidesz opposition party of Viktor Orban, the former prime minister, is expected to win a landslide victory, Jobbik, led by Gabor Vona, a 31-year-old former history teacher, could become the second-largest party following a populist campaign dominated by attacks on corruption and “Roma crime”.

The party denies accusations of neo-Nazism but Gordon Bajnai, the caretaker prime minister, warned that the “monster” was at the door and threatening to “crush” Hungarian democracy. >>> Bojan Pancevski in Budapest | Sunday, April 11, 2010
Don’t Come Over Here, David Cameron, You Pinko

THE SUNDAY TIMES: The Republican party has lurched so far right that it can no longer recognise mainstream conservatism

Photobucket
Anti President Obama's health care plan placard - 'The 'Joker' Doctor will see you now'. Photograph: The Sunday Times

When I read the usual antiTory screeds in the British press and the dark admonitions that they might harbour some crypto-Thatcherite agenda beneath the air-brushed facade [sic], I feel as if I’m living on some other planet. From the vantage point of the current American right, the Cameron Tories are a bunch of pinkos.

David Cameron has insisted on his credentials as a green. Since the last US presidential election, when Senator John McCain ran as someone who took climate change seriously, the Republican party consensus has been that it is a total hoax and anyone who gives credence to it is a loony leftie.

Cameron is trying to reassure middle England that the NHS is safe with the Tories. But the Republican base is in uproar over President Barack Obama’s rather modest attempt to subsidise the working poor’s access to private insurance.

Since Obama’s election, Sarah Palin has gone from being a fringe member of the right to the centre of the Republican base. McCain has been forced to ask her to campaign for him in a primary battle against JD Hayworth, a much more doctrinaire rightwinger.

If the British right is somewhat crucified in its attempt to balance right and centre, the American right is simply choosing between far right and totally insane far right. And every time you think someone in the establishment will try to tamp down “Tea Party” excess, you realise there is no Republican establishment any more. It is a party run by its base and its base is run by the most radical members of the chat radio and Fox News media machine. >>> Andrew Sullivan | Sunday, April 11, 2010

Saturday, April 10, 2010