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November 17, 2012
Justin Patten: "Can Mediation Save The BBC?"
A few years ago in London, I was finally able to meet Justin Patten, a solicitor who focuses on employment practices and related litigation out of Hertfordshire, the ancient, embattled county just north of greater London. This month at his well-regarded Human Law Ezine he asks "Can Mediation Save The BBC?", a short but thoughtful piece triggered by the investigation into whether the beloved British Broadcasting Corporation, now in its 85th year, enabled or condoned a pattern of sexual misconduct between Sir Jimmy Savile, a BBC star who died last year, and underage or very young women "on BBC property and while he worked for the BBC". The BBC also faces the question of whether a pedophile ring had operated there for decades. The scandal hasn't just shaken the BBC and its public image. It continues to threaten its leadership and BBC jobs at several levels.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2012
Dem Businessman Erskine Bowles: "This Magic Moment".
Business Insider notes that Bowles, North Carolina businessman, educator, former White House Chief of Staff and Democratic co-chair of President Obama's 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett yesterday that "now" is the time for a debt deal on Capitol Hill. Bowles and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the commission's Republican co-chair, wrote the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan, a bipartisan proposal which President Obama would not approve after its release in December 2010.
"I think this is truly the magic moment," Bowles said.
"We've got a second-term Democratic president who is willing to put entitlements on the table. We've got a Republican speaker who really gets it, who understands the dangers we face and is willing to put revenue on the table."
"We've probably got as many as 50 members in the Senate, equal number of Republicans and Democrats who are for a balanced plan," Bowles added.
"But most importantly, what we have, we have this fiscal cliff, this crisis, which really will create chaos if we go over the fiscal cliff and we don't immediately get a deal thereafter."
Posted by JD Hull at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2012
Neoconservative Bill Kristol on Congressional Deadlock: "Let People Float New Ideas".
Me? Generally, I like free markets. I don't like progressive taxes. I want everyone to know achievements will not be (1) discouraged as dreams or (2) penalized once accomplished. I also dislike (read: hate) partisan-line or cookie-cutter thinking--on the Right, the Left or the Middle. When I can't see the logic or merit of the other side's case, I will, on occasion, tolerate compromise "just because". And I know how stubbornly "being right" is always expensive and unproductive.
In mid-February last year I spotted Bill Kristol, founder of The Daily Standard, former Daniel Moynihan aide and the closest thing to living royalty in American conservatism--his dad, Irving, was Managing Editor of Commentary and a Rock Star of the Right--in the sumptuous lobby of a west coast Ritz-Carlton and wondered two things. First, had this precocious (and by all accounts) brilliant neocon preppie with a Harvard Ph.D ever stayed in even a Cambridge Holiday Inn? Secondly, how flexible, really, was he ideologically?
I just got my answer on the second one, and I think Bill Kristol has big ones. Well done, sir. See Fox News clip below.
And in The Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON -- Conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said Sunday the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much-criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy.
"It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "It really won't, I don't think. I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer."
"Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile?" he asked.
One of the biggest fights as Congress returns will be over taxes, as cuts put in place by former President George W. Bush are set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans want to extend those tax cuts for all income brackets, while Democrats want to raise revenue by allowing them to expire for wealthy Americans.
Exit polls last week found that six in ten voters supported ending the tax cuts on the wealthy, but House Republicans have remained adamantly opposed to allowing any of the rates to expire, instead supporting other changes to the tax code. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) indicated on Friday that was unlikely to change.
"By lowering rates and cleaning up the tax code, we know that we're going to get more economic growth," he said at a press conference. "It'll bring jobs back to America. It'll bring more revenue. We also know that if we clean up the code and make it simpler, the tax code will be more efficient. The current code only collects about 85 percent of what's due the government. And it's clear that if you have a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, that efficiency -- the effectiveness and efficiency of the tax code increases exponentially."
Posted by JD Hull at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)