Another Obama lie from 2013: We aren't rifling through ordinary emails of American citizens . . . right now

The Guardian had the quote here:

He added: "This is not a situation in which we are rifling through the ordinary emails of German citizens or American citizens or French citizens or anybody else. This is not a situation where we simply go into the internet and start searching any way that we want. This is a circumscribed, narrow system, directed at us being able to protect our people and all of it is done with the oversight of the courts."

But by 2015 they were, at Yahoo.

I guess they wanted in on the action, since 500 email accounts had been hacked the year before. 

Globalist elitist Matthew Continetti thinks "a homogenous world", "universal principles" and "hybrid identity" are noble ideas

Here.

He differs not from Obama in holding to them.

Not a conservative, of course. But The Grauniad of all places provided some needed reactionary commentary on this in August here.

Hey Guardian.co.uk! The Eiffel Tower goes dark every morning at 1:00AM

They don't call it "The Grauniad" for nothing

Foolish French soccer star imagines that the horror they've just experienced "has no religion"

Seen here:

'The France midfielder Lassana Diarra has revealed that his cousin, Asta Diakité, was killed during Friday night’s attack. Diarra played 80 minutes of the match against Germany. In a statement posted on twitter, he said his cousin was like “a big sister to me … In this climate of terror, it is important for all of us who are representatives of our country and its diversity to speak and remain united against a horror that has no colour, no religion.”'

Yeah, that religion that just attacked you atheists once again wasn't real. It was just in your imagination.

It's not just religious people who are ideologues.

Two Syrians involved in Paris attacks, not just one

One at the theatre attack, another at the stadium attack.

The Guardian is live-blogging the investigation, here, but won't definitely say they were Syrians until the fingerprints are linked to the passports.

Gee, suicide bombers blow themselves up and they just happen to find Syrian passports on the bodies/nearby, but the bombers could have stolen/forged them.

Wouldn't want to accuse Syrians falsely now would we?

Muslim terrorists are smuggling weapons into Europe hidden deep inside cars

Reported here by Ian Traynor: 

"The man was stopped in a Volkswagen Golf with Montenegrin plates near Germany’s border with Austria on 5 November. Officials found a pistol under the bonnet, prompting them to take the car apart. In doing so, they uncovered a sophisticated smuggling operation, with automatic weapons, 200 grammes of dynamite, hand grenades and ammunition concealed in the car’s bodywork, according to Bavarian public radio.

"Examination of the suspect’s mobile phone and the car’s GPS system indicated the detainee was en route to Paris."

As usual the UK Daily Mail screws it up, shows old Hurricane Sandy loop from 2012 hitting New York, calls it Joaquin

You've got the wrong loop, fellas. Joaquin is headed out to sea, as your own graphic shows.

Video here, where they also report:

"Hurricane Joaquin, however, has become less of a threat to the United States as forecasts show the storm curving into the Atlantic and weakening in the upcoming days." 

Imagine that! Joaquin "has become less of a threat" even though they show video of it slamming into Staten Island! The damn thing's headed toward Bermuda you morons!

You can always count on The UK Daily Mail to cover a story, you just can't count on it to get it right.

I hereby nominate it for A Grauniad.

Flip-flopping Scott Walker ends campaign for president, declares war on Trump

Scott Walker's entire political career comes to an ignoble end, lashing out at the man who seized the issue of the time, illegal immigration, from his hands.

Watch Walker triangulate again in the near future and moderate his position on amnesty back to what it was just a couple of years ago. Walker never really opposed amnesty. He just wanted the Republican base to think he did, and now proves it.

The Guardian had the money quotes, here:

“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top,” Walker said. “With this in mind, I am suspending my campaign indefinitely.” Walker encouraged other candidates to do the same, “so that voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current frontrunner.”

A small man was he, not ready for prime time.

Alexis Tsipras and Syriza consolidate power in Greece without the anti-austerity rebels

At this hour with 75% of the vote counted, Alexis Tsipras and Syriza are set to return to power and head the Greek government for the next four years with 145 seats and a coalition with the Independent Greeks as before, but without the Syriza rebels who left to form Popular Unity. The latter isn't polling even 3% and will not win one seat, meaning there is no viable party representing anti-austerity or a return to the drachma. Turn out at 56% hasn't been this low since 1946 when only 53% turned out when leftists boycotted the election.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has resigned today

Blow by blow coverage is provided in the UK by the Telegraph here and the Guardian here.

The next two largest political parties have a chance to try to form a government, but it is thought likely that they'll be unsuccessful and that snap elections will occur in a month.

Tsipras remains very popular, but will have to shed Syriza's Left Platform rebels to consolidate power in the new election with new blood, if he can get that far.

Greeks pass third draconian austerity/bailout package 222 to 64 with 11 abstentions

Looks like Alexis Tsipras' Syriza MPs defected in a big way: 32 No votes this time with 11 abstentions and 1 absent. This could prove fatal to Tsipras' continuance as Prime Minister. The Syriza coalition of the Left with 149 members partners with Independents with 12 in the 300 seat parliament. Tsipras' core support in parliament appears to have fallen to 39%.

The "erratic Marxist" Yanis Varoufakis voted No, after voting Yes and No previously, and reportedly offered to resign his seat so that Tsipras may appoint a reliable vote to replace him. 

The Guardian has full coverage here.

The Grauniad strikes again: 3 week bank closure cost the Greeks . . . just 3 Euros!

Seen here.

Mario Draghi: ECB is Greece's biggest depositor

There's real power, and then there's just power

Seen here this morning:

"We now have a total exposure of €130bn to Greece, that makes us the biggest depositor."

That's actually more than was on deposit at the end of May: 129.9 billion EUR. Deposits are down 108 billion EUR since September 2009, about 45%, squirreled away in other banks outside Greece, and under mattresses at home, which makes it a little risky to leave, say to protest in the streets. Europe has played Greece like a fiddle.

Euro Group creditors made a bundle off Greece's problems in 2014: 13 billion EUR

Moody's on Greece indicated today that the debt/GDP burden was already 177% before Syriza was even elected in 2015, but one man's debt burden is another man's opportunity.

Seen here:

'We assess Greece’s Fiscal Strength as `low’, because of the country’s high debt burden, which stood at around 177% of GDP at the end of 2014, one of the highest debt burdens in the universe of Moody’s-rated countries. Moreover, the potential to meaningfully improve the debt trend over the next 3-5 years is highly uncertain given that the large-scale reforms that could spur growth are currently hampered by ongoing political uncertainty.'

-------------------------------------------

Eurostat shows Greek GDP in current euros was just shy of 179.1 billion in 2014, down 26% from the 2008 peak. Greece is in a long, severe depression. Central government debt rose to 324 billion EUR at the end of 2014 and actually dropped to 313 billion EUR in the first quarter of 2015. Syriza was elected to power on January 25, 2015.

Those awful conditions developed under years of austerity government, after years of profligacy,  which Syriza promised to end. Now that Syriza has been forced to double down on austerity, expect conditions in Greece to worsen dramatically without debt forgiveness or a generational period of grace from repayment obligations. 

Little discussed in that regard, however, is the fact that in 2014 Greece is said to have paid an interest rate on its debts of 4% nominal and 2.6% effective.  This is happening in a world where the ECB has just decided to keep the headline lending rate at the record low level of 0.05%.

Whatever else may be said, Euro Group creditors by comparison are making a killing off Greece's predicament: almost 13 billion EUR in debt service revenues in 2014 alone.

If Europe is serious about keeping Greece in the Group, maybe it could start by stopping the profiteering.

IMF signals that it cannot now participate in the third bailout of Greece

Here, which The Guardian considers a "cannonball" shot into the bailout:

Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far. ... Greece cannot return to markets anytime soon at interest rates that it can afford from a medium-term perspective. ... Greece is expected to maintain primary surpluses for the next several decades of 3.5 percent of GDP. Few countries have managed to do so. ... Greece is still assumed to go from the lowest to among the highest productivity growth and labor force participation rates in the euro area, which will require very ambitious and steadfast reforms. ... [G]overnance issues ... are at the root of the problems of the Greek banking system. There are at this stage no concrete plans in this regard. ... The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date—and what has been proposed by the ESM. There are several options ... maturity extension ... of, say, 30 years on the entire stock of European debt, including new assistance. ... Other options include explicit annual transfers to the Greek budget or deep upfront haircuts. The choice between the various options is for Greece and its European partners to decide [i.e. not the IMF].

Whatever you may think of Alexis Tsipras, tonight's interview showed him a true leader of Greece and an adept politician

The Grauniad is predictably impressed, here, but for many good reasons:

"Even if you think Alexis Tsipras has misplayed the crisis, it’s hard not to be impressed by his composure in tonight’s interview."

Tsipras, from the summary, pledges to go down with the ship, if necessary, and Tsipras admits Greece may well do so:

“The worst thing a captain could do while he is steering a ship during a storm, as difficult as it is, would be to abandon the helm.”

According to the polling data the people still love him, no doubt not in the least because he is made of the stuff which refuses to blame others, including Varoufakis.

IMF may have to back out of latest Greek bailout deal reached in Brussels early Monday

According to the story here, the International Monetary Fund, which has finally been calling for debt restructuring for Greece, i.e. haircuts, forgiveness, some say too little and too late, now believes the agreement reached this weekend falls far short of making Greece's debt sustainable. 

That fact means the IMF cannot agree to additional bailout sums according to its rules, which means the latest bailout would fall apart as the IMF would have to withdraw the 16+ billion Euros it has pledged in the deal.

In addition London is objecting to the proposed source of summer bridge loans to Greece which it says were previously ring-fenced against use for future bailouts. The Eurogroup doesn't seem to care about this very much, signaling that it intends to break the rules.

What a shock, huh?

The Greek referendum was close in only one place: Conservative Sparta

The vote was less close in Kastoria in the north, with "No" winning 52%-47%.

You'll notice The Guardian got the graphic at the top and the bottom totally backwards, which isn't the first time on this story. Someone reported yesterday, I believe, that Varoufakis would resign if the vote were NO when in actuality he said he would resign if Greece voted Yes.

The artists are smoking something at The Grauniad. 

British newspaper and David Cameron government try to smear Edward Snowden

The Guardian reports on the story, here:

'Downing Street and the Home Office are being challenged to answer in public claims that Russia and China have broken into the secret cache of Edward Snowden files and that British agents have had to be withdrawn from live operations as a consequence.

'The reports first appeared in the Sunday Times, which quoted anonymous senior officials in No 10, the Home Office and security services. The BBC also quoted an anonymous senior government source, who said agents had to be moved because Moscow gained access to classified information that reveals how they operate. ...

'[Eric King of Privacy International] added that if Downing Street and the Home Office believed that Russia and China had gained access to the Snowden documents, then why was the government not putting this out through official channels.

'He added: “Given Snowden is facing espionage charges in the US, you would have thought the British government would have provided them with this information.”'

The Guardian destroyed the Snowden hard drives in front of British security in July 2013 after the British government threatened to shut down the newspaper, as reported here:

'New video footage has been released for the first time of the moment Guardian editors destroyed computers used to store top-secret documents leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

'Under the watchful gaze of two technicians from the British government spy agency GCHQ, the journalists took angle-grinders and drills to the internal components, rendering them useless and the information on them obliterated.'

The Guardian acknowledged at the time that the Snowden files exist in other jurisdictions:

'[The Guardian's] Rusbridger told government officials that destruction of the Snowden files would not stop the flow of intelligence-related stories since the documents existed in several jurisdictions. He explained that Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian US columnist who met Snowden in Hong Kong, had leaked material in Rio de Janeiro. There were further copies in America, he said.'

So . . . who in the United States would want the twofer of smearing Snowden by outing British operatives?

Liberalism simply caved in fear at the front door to Charlie Hebdo, bringing death to its followers

A happy and especially healthy New Year!

When push comes to shove, certain things, like your own flesh and blood, become more important than the cause of liberalism. It's what they do that counts, not what they say.

Corinne "CoCo" Rey, quoted here:

Eleven-thirty am, in Paris. Corinne Rey, known as Coco, a cartoonist who works for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, had just picked up her daughter from a nearby creche. “When I got to the front door of the magazine’s building with her, two masked and armed men threatened us – violently,” she said. “They wanted to get inside, go upstairs. I tapped in the entrance code … They spoke perfect French. They said they were from al-Qaida.”