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Capitol Alert

The latest on California politics and government

October 27, 2011
Obama administration approves California Medi-Cal cuts

Gov. Jerry Brown scored a budget win Thursday as the Obama administration approved a major share of Medi-Cal cuts that health care providers and patient advocates said would cut off medical access to the state's most vulnerable residents.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will allow the state to cut reimbursement rates by 10 percent this fiscal year for a variety of Medi-Cal providers, including physicians, pharmacists and optometrists. The state Department of Health Care Services says it will not cut rates paid to pediatricians or home health providers.

California Medical Association CEO Dustin Corcoran said Thursday his group will file suit asking the court to immediately block this latest round of Medi-Cal cuts.

The state expects to save a significant part of the projected $623 million associated with the rate cut, though it may fall short due to excluding some services.

October 27, 2011
Jerry Brown wants voters to approve his pension overhaul plan

Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a 12-point public pension reform plan this morning that would ask voters to increase the age at which future state and local government employees could retire with full benefits and place them in riskier retirement plans than current workers.

Speaking to reporters this morning, Brown said he wants all of his proposals to go before voters on the November 2012 ballot.

"It saves a lot of money," Brown said. "This program is a very decisive step forward...We'll have to contend with unfunded liabilities as we move forward."

The plan would also impact current and future workers by mandating employers and employees equally share the cost of pension contributions. Currently, most employers pick up the majority or all of those costs.

Reaction to Brown's plan came swiftly.

Convincing the Democratic-controlled Legislature to place his package on the ballot is a substantial hurdle, Brown acknowledged.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Brown's plan is a "provocative" one on which he would keep an open mind.

"The abuses that a small number of people take advantage of absolutely must be resolved," Steinberg said in a statement. "But we can't forget that the vast majority of public sector employees are middle class workers and their average pensions are far from exorbitant....

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said his members would "carefully consider" the proposal, but did he not embrace its contents. "I believe the governor is working hard to solve California's long term fiscal challenges, and the Assembly will work with him to bring stability to our pension system in a manner that does right by taxpayers and public servants alike," he said in a statement.

California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro called the proposals a "small step in the right direction," in a press statement and criticized Brown for deferring most of the savings for many years, since the provisions with the biggest cost impacts won't be felt for years, since they apply only to future employees.

"California can't wait 500 years for a solution," Del Beccaro said.

California Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Allan Zaremberg had a different take.
"We commend the Governor for a bold and substantive proposal that addresses California's unsustainable state and local pensions and retiree health care costs," Zaremberg said. "The Legislature should embrace this common sense plan."

October 27, 2011
California GOP disclosed donors late, Common Cause says

California Common Cause said today that it has filed a complaint with the state's watchdog agency alleging the state GOP violated disclosure laws in connection with a referendum drive to kill the state's newly drawn Senate districts.

The California Republican Party has made numerous contributions, totaling $936,000, to the referendum drive since late September, state records show. The goal is to qualify a ballot measure aimed at overturning Senate maps created by a state citizens commission.

Common Cause contends that the state GOP failed to comply with laws requiring it to disclose within 10 days the source of money used to make contributions of $5,000 or more to the referendum effort -- or to any state ballot measure.

The party ultimately made the public disclosures -- Tuesday it itemized $1.86 million in donations received. But state records suggest the paperwork for roughly $800,000 of that amount was tardy by days or weeks.

"This is a major party that understands disclosure laws, so the way we look at it, they're either purposely doing this or they have really sloppy bookkeeping," said Phillip Ung of Common Cause. "We think it's more the former than the latter."

Mark Standriff, state GOP spokesman, said the party moved quickly to make the required disclosures once it realized its contributions to the referendum drive triggered a 10-day window for reporting.

"It's very common for major political committees to file amendments on very complex reporting regulations on a regular basis," Standriff said. "In fact, what this frivolous complaint by Common Cause brings to light is the fact that, if anything, they should be commending us for being transparent and proactive. ... It's always our intent to be fully compliant."

Common Cause released a copy of its allegations and documentation to the media. Spokeswoman Tara Stock confirmed this afternoon that the Fair Political Practices Commission had received the complaint and would have two weeks to respond to it.

In a related matter, Common Cause said it filed a complaint with the FPPC alleging that the Republican-backed coalition leading the referendum drive -- Fairness & Accountability in Redistricting -- is legally required to identify itself with a name or phrase that discloses donors of $50,000 or more.

Standriff and Dave Gilliard, a political strategist leading FAIR, declined comment today on Common Cause's allegation.

Editor's note, 4:50 p.m.: This post was updated to reflect that the FPPC confirmed receiving the complaint.

October 27, 2011
GOP fights Senate maps on a new front -- federal government

A Republican-backed coalition that failed to persuade the California Supreme Court to kill the state's newly drawn Senate maps is now asking the federal government to reject the lines as a dilution of Latino voting power.

Fairness & Accountability in Redistricting - leaders of a separate referendum drive against the state Senate maps -- has filed arguments with the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the legality of the new boundary lines, attorney Charles H. Bell Jr. said.

Stan Forbes, chairman of the state's 14-member California Citizens Commission, countered today that he is confident the Senate districts will be given thumbs-up by federal officials.

"We were very careful in meeting (requirements), we were very careful in creating the districts, and everything we did was vetted by our Voting Rights Act attorneys," Forbes said.

Republican officials have expressed concern since their adoption in August that the new Senate districts favor Democrats and could give that party a two-thirds majority in the upper house, the margin needed to raise taxes or fees.

The federal government is required to monitor redistricting in four California counties -- Yuba, Monterey, Kings and Merced -- to ensure that minority voting power be preserved.

The 11-page challenge filed by Bell notes that redistricting lowered from six to five the number of Senate districts in which Latinos comprise 50 percent or more of the voting age population.

October 27, 2011
Labor balks at Jerry Brown's pension plan

Less than 24 hours after Gov. Jerry Brown briefed labor leaders on the major pension changes he will propose this morning, labor interests that helped elect the Democratic governor suggested he is in for a fight.

"The governor has indicated that labor will not like many of his proposals," Dave Low, chairman of the union coalition Californians for Retirement Security, said in a prepared statement. "He is right."

Low said many of Brown's proposals would circumvent collective bargaining, a cause Brown championed when he was governor before, from 1975 to 1983.

At a press conference this morning, Brown will propose a higher retirement age and less-generous pension benefits for newly-hired state employees. He will also propose prohibiting the purchase of additional retirement service credit, or "airtime."

"Unions across California have negotiated major retirement concessions, including increased payments by employees and two-tier benefits," Low said. "These concessions have already saved the state, cities, counties and other entities hundreds of millions of dollars. We are strongly opposed to imposing additional retirement rollbacks without bargaining."

October 27, 2011
AM Alert: Capitol hopefuls get schooled in leadership

The candidates are coming. Well, a few dozen of them.

The Leadership California Institute is running a one-day conference at Sacramento's Citizens Hotel offering "Lessons in Leadership" to Democrats and Republicans who hope to be next year's first-term legislators.

The event is drawing some big-name speakers from the Capitol crowd, among them former Assembly Speakers Willie Brown, Bob Hertzberg and Curt Pringle, as well as former Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte.

As of Wednesday, the conference website listed 40 candidates expected to attend. Seventy percent are Democrats, and 30 percent are Republicans.

Meanwhile, three women's groups are hosting "Women's Dialogue: New Lines, New Opportunities" tonight on what the newly drawn political districts and the top-two primary system could mean for women running in the 2012 elections.

Capitol Alert Staff

Jeremy White Jeremy B. White covers California politics and edits Capitol Alert's mobile Insider Edition. Twitter: @capitolalert

Amy Chance Amy Chance is political editor for The Sacramento Bee. Twitter: @Amy_Chance

Dan Smith Dan Smith is Capitol bureau chief for The Sacramento Bee.

Christopher Cadelago Christopher Cadelago covers California politics and health care. Twitter: @ccadelago

Micaela Massimino Micaela Massimino edits Capitol Alert.

Laurel Rosenhall Laurel Rosenhall covers the Legislature, the lobbying community and higher education. Twitter: @LaurelRosenhall

David Siders David Siders covers the Brown administration. Twitter: @davidsiders

Dan Walters Dan Walters is a columnist for The Sacramento Bee. Twitter: @WaltersBee

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Sacto 9-1-1
May 28, 2013
Coroner's Office identifies male victim in Citrus Heights double homicide

The Sacramento County Coroner's has identified the male victim in last week's double homicide in Citrus Heights as Enrique De La Cruz, 29.

De La Cruz and 41-year-old Gladis Janeth Quinteros Ramos, both of Citrus Heights, were found shot to death about 11:30 p.m. May 21 inside a car on the shoulder of Birdcage Street.

Officers responded to a report of shots fired in the 6000 block of Birdcage Street, where they found the two dead inside the vehicle.

Police said a light-colored sedan was seen speeding from the scene northbound on Birdcage toward Greenback Lane around the time of the shooting. Witnesses also reported seeing a white pickup truck driving away southbound on Birdcage Street.

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Home Front

A blog about the economy and the Sacramento-area real estate market.

March 21, 2008
Pushing the rock back up the mountain

In January it failed by a single vote to win a two-thirds majority in the California Senate. That was SB926, a bill that would make lenders meet for a personal face to face workout session with their struggling borrowers before they could begin the foreclosure process.
The bill also aimed to make banks maintain their repossessed properties to minimize impacts on state neighborhoods. As a foreclosure prevention measure it was a favorite of housing activists and Democrats and disliked immensely by the lending industry. The lenders prevailed.

Now the bill is back as SB1137 and has a first hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 25, at 1 p.m., Room 112.

This bill, too, would force lenders and loan servicers to meet with borrowers to try and work things out, at least by phone, and not begin foreclosure proceedings until 30 days after that meeting. (Or, not begin foreclosure until 30 days after showing that they seriously tried to find the borrower and failed).

The requirement to maintain properties is again in the bill, introduced by Senate President Don Perata of hard-hit Oakland, Sen. Ellen Corbett of San Leandro, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Mike Machado, who represents one of the hardest-hit regions for foreclosures in the U.S., San Joaquin County. All are part of the Senate's ruling Democratic majority.

So again, as foreclosures continue to rise, the Democrats will try to outmanuever the lending industry inside the Capitol. The bill is once more an ugency measure that would take effect immediately upon winning two-thirds majorities in the Senate and Assembly and a signature from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It is a long way back up the mountain. It is possible it will be months before it takes effect if it passes at all. The bill has to clear the Senate by May 30, the Assembly by Aug. 31 and get a green light from the governor by Sept. 30.

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Monthly Archives: July 2012

Philip Stein Watches – Perfect Choice for Summer. Fall 2012 Design Supports Mental Health

Philip Stein has the perfect summer watch for any barbeque, cocktail party, or summer wedding. The all-white Philip Stein watch complements every summer outfit. The dual time zone feature helps you keep track of what time it is back home and at your vacation destination. On the hottest summer days, the ceramic white case and [...]

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Blacksocks for Men – Italian socks available by mail

Blacksocks manufactures and sells luxury men’s socks by “sockscription.” Blacksocks is aimed at time-starved executives, who want one less hassle in their lives with the convenience of having socks delivered right to their door. Blacksocks are made in Italy and you can buy them in any desired quantity or by subscription, which delivers three or [...]

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A Fuse #8 Production
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Fusenews: Then They Came for Rainbow Brite, and I Still Said Nothing

A very funny first post starts of the Battle of the (Kids’) Books and gets the ball rolling.  Plus the fancy dancy brackets are up and there’s more than one doozy in the mix.  Who will win?  Will Jon Scieszka prefer The Graveyard Book or The Trouble Begins at 8 (I honestly have no idea)?  […]

Review of the Day: The Problem with the Puddles by Kate Feiffer

The Problem with the Puddles By Kate Feiffer Illustrated by Tricia Tusa Paula Wiseman Books (Simon & Schuster) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-4169-4961-9 Ages 8-12 On shelves now It didn’t grab me at first. Not the first chapter. Not necessarily the second either. As a children’s librarian that reads whole mountains-worth of children’s literature I have to […]

Kidlit Drink Night Reminder

Quickie reminder.  Kidlit Drink Night is tonight.  And a double reminder that the bar is below the street level, so keep that in mind.  I’ve two competing schedules at work that day.  One say I get off at 5.  The other says I get off at 6.  So hopefully I’ll be there on time, but […]

Video Sunday: Xavier Says Ha Ha Ha, We Have Nothing in Common

Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo. Undoubtedly you already saw this video on Horn Book or Children’s Illustration, but I don’t mind following suit.  There’s something intense about the sheer level of quantification shown here.  One begins to wonder how it might apply to other fairy tales.  Say, Hansel & Gretel, […]

Fun Facts About the Coretta Scott King Book Awards

Hey, dude.  The 40th Anniversary of the Coretta Scot King Book Awards is nigh.  Full credit to Meghan Clinton for typing up this list of facts: CORETTA SCOTT KING BOOK AWARDS 40TH ANNIVERSARY FUN FACTS     Lillie Patterson was the first author to receive the Coretta Scott King Book Award for “Martin Luther King, […]

Fusenews: A Strange Unwieldy Sense of Loss

My Twilight bag finally bit the dust yesterday. It had been a gift from Little, Brown & Company. A red and black bag with the words "The Twilight Saga" emblazoned on the side.  I’ve never made much secret of my mirth when it comes to all things sparkly vampire, but this bag was different. It […]

Review of the Day: Dinotrux by Chris Gall

Dinotrux By Chris Gall Little, Brown and Company $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-02777-9 Ages 4-8 On shelves June 1st Once in a while a picture book author will mix dinosaurs in with another popular genre. The logic behind this is clear. If dinos sell and trains sell, why not write something like All Aboard the Dinotrain? As […]

The Library-Lovin’ Challenge

Bloggers are some of the most selfless people I know.  They’re constantly doing good work, contributing to goodly causes, and being rather upstanding citizens in the process.  And, of course, by "bloggers" I actually mean to say "other bloggers". Not me. I’m sort of a leech on society. I’m high profile but I don’t actually […]

Fusenews: And Then He Ate Twenty-Two Cupcakes. But He Was Still Hungry.

I’m going to start a movement.  A movement that will get my favorite children’s literary blogs published as books.  The fact that Peter at Collecting Children’s Books hasn’t been snapped up for publication leaves me breathless and befuddled (I mean, did you see his piece on Maurice Sendak’s ACTUAL first book?).  And as for Seven […]

Poem of the Day: For Poetry Friday

"HOW DOTH THE GLIB LIBRARIAN" By Robin Rose Yuran How doth the glib librarian Strive mightily to please; She crosseth both her little i’s And dotteth all her T’s. But grizzled adversarian Doth rob her dewey glow; He pillage page and cracketh spine As through the stacks he go. That snaggle-toothed barbarian With atavistic chin, […]

Review of the Day: Adventures in Cartooning

Adventures in Cartooning By James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost First Second (an imprint of Roaring Brook) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-59643-369-4 Ages 7 and up On shelves March 31st Too often a kid will walk into a library, ask for a book on drawing, and be taken to the requisite “How to Draw a [Blank:]” […]

For Your Consideration: The Where the Wild Things Are Trailer

Many thanks to Jana Warnell for the link.

Children’s Literary Cafe: April

My newest creation. Those of you with a taste for theater may enjoy this one: The Children’s Literary Cafe at the new Children’s Center at 42nd Street is pleased to announce our event on Saturday, April 4 th at 2:00 p.m.: What does it take to adapt a work of children’s literature from the page […]

One Shot Recs Over the Fence: Ultra-Violet Catastrophe!

I believe it was Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray who came up with the original notion: "I know that we all review books all the time but honestly half the time (or more) we are reviewing good books that are not necessarily books we love. How many gush worthy books do we write about? So […]

Fusenews: So If I Have the Algorithm Correct, Reviews Are to Cupcakes as Books Are to Cakes

My library has not experienced the run on Alexander Key I’d hoped for with the release of the film Race to Witch Mountain.  Some of you may recall that the original Disney film Escape to Witch Mountain was actually based on Alexander Key’s children’s novel of the same name.  I anticipated that perhaps a publisher […]


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As the speaker for yesterday’s Davos British business leaders’ lunch, Boris Johnson had the audience in his hand in his usual colourful way. I grabbed his very new Chief Economic Adviser, Dr Gerard Lyons, former Chief Economist at Standard Chartered, on the way out.

How did he think we are doing economically? He told me the last big economic gathering was the IMF last October in Tokyo.  There, he said, the mood about the global economy was pessimistic, but now, three months later, the mood had improved, if only slightly.  There was more confidence about China and the US but still a lot of caution about Europe. Many continental economies, he said, are focusing less on the Europe debate that David Cameron seems to want to get going and more on the need to get their own economies out of recession.

12 issues for £12

Infrastructure is the buzz word at Davos: In his speech Boris called on the Chancellor to ramp up investment in housing, road and rail. ‘There’s a boom in infrastructure,’ said Lyons. As to his new job he said  – ‘I’ve gone from one great role to another’.   There speaks the economist politician.

What do business leaders say about the economy?  Ian Cheshire is the Group Chief Executive of Kingfisher plc – Europe’s largest home improvement retailer and the owner of B & Q. This is his third Davos and he agrees that this year the mood is less gloomy than last, when there was fear for the future of the Euro and what might happen to it. ‘This year’, he said, ‘the feeling is no longer suicidal but we are still fairly depressed because of the lack of growth in Europe.’  With China’s economy showing 7 per cent growth and the U.S. with 3 per cent growth, he said, many are asking what is the starting gun to re-start growth in the UK where growth is nearer 0 per cent?

Tags: David Cameron, Davos, EU, Europe, European Union, UK politics, World Economic Forum


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There’s a big to-do between France and Britain at the moment, with France accusing Britain of protecting oligarchs’ money in London.

President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party said that before lecturing France on halting its £1 billion sale of aircraft carriers to Russia, ‘David Cameron should start by cleaning up his own back yard’ and stop cosying up to Russian billionaires resident in London.

12 issues for £12

The French can talk. Our man in Cannes, Taki, often describes how France has let the Cote d’Azur become the ‘the resort that has replaced the Crimea’ – it’s been taken over by oligarchs:

‘Courchevel, the French Riviera, even St Moritz have been Dresdened by the Russians, their obnoxious spending and lack of basic manners amounting to a grotesque deformity.’

St Tropez was ‘once upon a time sleepy fishing village, now the focal point for Russian oligarch excess, outrageously ugly super-yachts, and what is commonly known as the scum of the earth, the nouveaux-riches of the 21st century.’

So take it from someone who, grudgingly, moves in similar circles to Russian oligarchs: for every ounce of English hypocrisy there have been 28.3 grams of French hypocrisé.

Tags: Britain, France, Francois Hollande, Money, Oligarch, Russia, Ukraine


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EU spending: the budget austerity doesn't touch – Telegraph Blogs

Wednesday 29 July 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Mats Persson

Mats Persson is Director of Open Europe, a think-tank with offices in London and Brussels, and an advisory board member of Open Europe Berlin.

EU spending: the budget austerity doesn't touch

The European Union has proposed increasing its budget

The European Union has proposed increasing its budget next year

Spot the odd one out:

Average cut to UK government departments: -19%
Total cuts in public spending in Greece: -20% (as share of GDP)
Number of Greek civil servants fired under austerity programmes: 150,000
Overall cuts to Government spending in Latvia: -22%
Cuts in Latvian civil servants’ pay: -25%
Proposed increased to the EU’s 2013 budget: 6.8%.

Yes, that’s right, the European Commission has just tabled its proposal for next year’s EU budget. The numbers – a 6.8% increase at a time when everyone else is cutting – speak for themselves.

Remember, this is the same Commission that is currently drawing up blueprints for austerity in the member states, leading to hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs, squeezed wages and cost-cutting wherever possible. EU-mandated budget targets took another victim, in the form of the Dutch government, only this week.

So, if the boot was on the other foot, what would an austerity programme for the EU budget look like? Here are some suggestions:

• Like all other government departments across Europe, the EU institutions would cut back significantly on staff, starting with Commission departments (DGs) such as culture and "communication" – whose added value is virtually non-existent (why is the EU involved in culture?). The Commission’s proposal to cut 1% of its staff is hardly impressive.

• Since 2004, the number of EU quangos and committees has doubled, now at 52, with the cost to European taxpayers of these bodies increasing by over 33% over the last two years. There’s massive deadweight here (also partly the fault of governments themselves) to be cut. For example, one body – the Economic and Social Committee, costing €130mn a year – has been around since the 1950s but there’s no evidence that it has ever had any actual impact on EU policy, at least in recent times (for a more detailed discussion on this, see here).

• Roughly a third of the EU budget comes in the form of "direct" subsidies to landowners irrespective of what they actually do with their land (under the label the "single farm payment"), with recipients ranging from the Queen to pony clubs. In effect, this is income support for a random group of people that comes with no incentive whatsoever to pursue any meaningful economic activity. Clearly, if economics were the guiding principle, this would be changed overnight.

• Another huge chunk of the EU budget goes towards so-called “structural funds”, meant to help poorer regions catch up with richer ones. However, all regions, no matter how rich, still get cash. While these funds make sense for poorer countries that are in a transition stage, why in the world are Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and others paying for each other’s regional policies under a hugely expensive recycling scheme? A lot of the cash goes to projects with no economic value whatsoever. Again, if economic logic prevailed, this would change. Crucially, the structural funds are the wrong type of money for weaker countries in the Eurozone. Firstly, they are pro-cyclical (requiring "match-funding", meaning that when a country needs the funds the most, they can least afford to tap them). Secondly, they are poorly targeted and wholly unresponsive to economic changes. For example, almost 30% of the funds in the Spain still go towards infrastructure, despite this sector having been subject to over-investment for more than a decade and one of the drivers of the euro crisis.

• The list is in fact much longer. For example, why does the European Parliament still travel every month between Strasbourg Brussels at a yearly cost to taxpayers of €180bn?

• At the same time, there clearly are areas where the EU budget could add value, such as pooling resources for R&D, but, under the Commission’s proposals, the funds allocated are pocket change.

The Commission says it needs the extra cash in order to honour spending commitments made in previous years, i.e. they have "bills to pay". True, the mechanics differ from national budgets in that it is more complicated to move funds from one spending area to another, but apart from that, the EU budget is facing exactly the same pressures as national spending programmes: if there’s not enough cash in the pot, prioritise.

Extraordinarily, the Commission had a €1.4bn surplus in last year’s budget. It can’t even spend all the cash it has. The sad part is that there are so many better ways Europe could spend €140bn a year. No wonder the public’s confidence in the EU is dropping like a stone.

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Ed Miliband has told the Blairites: there's no place for you in this party. He'd better watch his back – Telegraph Blogs

Wednesday 29 July 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Dan Hodges

Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

Ed Miliband has told the Blairites: there's no place for you in this party. He'd better watch his back

Meet the executioner

It’s a massacre. Twigg gone. Byrne gone. Murphy gone (or sent to DfID, which amounts to the same thing).

Ed Miliband has culled the Blarites. As ever with Labour’s leader, a supposedly bold action is currently being followed by a desperate attempt to spin the narrative the other way. But no one’s being fooled.

There are promotions for youthful New Labourites Tristram Hunt and Gloria de Piero. Hunt will use his formidable academic intellect to join battle with Michael Gove on his own terms. De Piero will deliver Labour’s message in a way voters will relate and warm to. But neither has experience of government. And both are still learning their political craft. Caroline Flint is now left standing as the only Blairite member of Miliband’s team to have run a government department.

There will be efforts to portray this as a generational shift, rather than political score-settling. But again, that argument is not borne out by the facts. All the Brownite old hands have been left untouched. Which is just as well, because if they’d been cast aside Labour’s front bench would have resembled an 18-30 cruise.

Another argument is that this was just a pruning of the dead wood, an offloading of the “underperformers”. But is anyone honestly claiming that Hillary Benn, Owen Smith or Sadiq Khan have been setting Westminster alight? To be fair to Sadiq Khan, he isn’t even trying to, but is instead laying the groundwork for a run at the London mayoralty.

A case can be made that both Byrne and Twigg were relatively ineffective in their roles. But that was primarily because Miliband himself tired to force them to go against their modernising instincts. The same charge cannot be made of Murphy, who had gone a long way to making Labour the Armed Forces' friend.

As I wrote this morning, Ed Miliband has done away with the pretence the shadow cabinet is a grand collaboration presided over by a benign and Zen-like primus inter pares. Today was an exercise in naked power. Enemies were silenced. Debts repaid. Loyalty demanded.

Miliband has moved to address the perception he is a weak leader. And he may have some success with that. But at what I suspect will turn out to be at a heavy price

The impression of Labour’s lurch to the Left has now been cemented. Correctly, because that’s precisely where Labour is lurching.

The shadow of Len McCluskey will also loom large over the new shadow cabinet’s first meeting. A year ago the Unite leader wrote a piece demanding the heads of Twigg, Byrne and Murphy. Today he has been handed them.

But the biggest impact will be on Labour’s fragile, and mythical, unity. Until now the remaining Blairites in Labour’s ranks have been content to sit back and wait for Ed Miliband to lose the 2015 election, then pick up the pieces afterwards. They will see today as an act of war. Miliband has signalled there is no place for them in his party, and they will respond accordingly.

They will also have learnt a lesson from Andy Burnham. Aware his leader was lining him up for the chop, Burnham chose to come out fighting, forcing Miliband to retreat. His colleagues will have noted it is aggression, not loyalty, that Ed Miliband responds to.

And there are two more significant things to arise from this reshuffle, over and above Labour’s shadow cabinet political balance. The first is Ed Miliband has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt his primary focus is his party, rather than the voters. He believes if he can keep his activists happy and unified he can win in 2015 almost by default. He’s wrong, but it’s what he honestly believes.

The second is that the depth of  Miliband’s bench is way too shallow. It was noticeable that the Cabinet was left almost untouched by the Government’s own reshuffle, again communicating the message that they are a group of serious politicians getting on with their jobs. The election is now less than 18 months away, and with time Tristram Hunt, Gloria de Piero and Vernon Coaker may well develop into formidable politicians. But they are going up against the likes of George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, Theresa May, William Hague and David Cameron. It’s not looking like a fair fight.

And those are just the enemies to Ed Miliband’s front. After today he has several more standing behind him.

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falkands – Telegraph Blogs

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September 10th, 2013 16:16

Gibraltar National Day is a celebration of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination

  Today is Gibraltar National Day, which commemorates the 1967 referendum, when Gibraltarians voted for the first time on their sovereignty. In that referendum, 99 percent of the Rock’s inhabit... Read More

December 31st, 2009 6:54

The Thatcher years: no time for soundbites when we felt the handbag of history on our shoulders

Oh, the nostalgia! The opening, under the 30-year rule, of archives revealing Margaret Thatcher’s governmental processes makes one long for the days when Britain was in secure hands. You did not hav... Read More


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Gerry Adams – Telegraph Blogs

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January 14th, 2013 9:53

Northern Ireland is devolved: let local politicians clean it up

I keep reading or hearing hand-wringers saying that the Prime Minister must do something about the violence in Northern Ireland. "Look how he took control when there were London riots", they say. "Wha... Read More

December 12th, 2012 14:55

Pat Finucane was shockingly murdered, but that doesn’t make him a human rights lawyer

The Prime Minister was right today to apologise unconditionally for the appalling involvement of some agents of the British state in the gruesome murder of Pat Finucane.  But let’s bust the myth th... Read More

November 12th, 2011 21:20

American Way: Whiff of scandal now taints Barack Obama

Rick Perry’s brain freeze and Herman Cain’s alleged penchant for blondes have fixated the American media in recent days. Liberals, sensing there might yet be hope for President Barack Obama, are e... Read More

September 30th, 2011 9:08

The people of Northern Ireland know the dark truth about Martin McGuinness

A smiling Martin McGuinness joined the line-up of Irish presidential candidates on Wednesday, positioned right next to Dana, the former Eurovision song contest winner. In his bid for the presidency, h... Read More

June 9th, 2011 15:52

When is the Left going to stop glamorising murderers?

Can the IRA be compared to the ANC? On Twitter yesterday Liberal Conspiracy’s Sunny Hundal announced that “people from Sinn Fein want to write articles for Libcon. Interesting times. I can see tha... Read More

February 10th, 2011 8:56

The Queen's visit to Ireland will be a moment of historic and beautiful reconciliation

When George V visited Ireland soon after becoming king no one imagined he would become the last monarch to see the country in a century. His father, Edward VII, had gone four years earlier and was pop... Read More

June 18th, 2010 8:00

Gerry Adams demands inquiry into 1971 Para killings

And so it begins. According to a BBC report, the families of 11 people killed by the Army in 1971 have said they want an independent international investigation into the deaths: They were killed by th... Read More

June 2nd, 2010 15:46

Gerry Adams, man of peace, comes out for the Gaza flotilla

Watching Israeli government spokesmen being argued with, rather than questioned, by BBC presenters over the last 24 hours, it was interesting to be reminded of how pleasant our state broadcasters ca... Read More


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skewered – Telegraph Blogs

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December 17th, 2009 19:43

Climategate: Monckton and North spit-roast Pachauri

A couple of must-reads if you haven't seen them already. First, the splendid Christopher Monckton's thoroughgoing demolition of a speech given at Copenhagen yesterday by the IPCC's increasingly thread... Read More


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Wednesday 29 July 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Tom Chivers

Tom Chivers is the Telegraph's assistant comment editor. He writes mainly on science. Not a poet - that's the other Tom Chivers. Read older posts by Tom here.

NYT columnist: 'I smoked weed when I was young. But I grew out of it, so it should stay illegal'

I quite like David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, usually. He seems wise and not mad, which are really my two chief criteria for opinion writers. But he's written a startlingly smug, patronising and complacent piece in today's NYT in response to the legalisation of marijuana in Colorado, and since I have a very high threshold for smug, patronising and complacent, you know it's pretty bad.

He smoked weed as a teenager, apparently. Which he just presents as one of the things you do, growing up. But he grew out of it – shocked, partly, after he smoked it before a class in which he had to give a presentation, and wasn't very good at giving the presentation. And he and his friends discovered "higher pleasures" – sport, the arts, "science or literature". So they all dropped the bongs.

All fair enough so far (although if he has a glass of wine during the interval at the opera, then it might somewhat undermine his point). But then he goes on to say that, even though he smoked it, and was fine, and grew out of it, and "I don’t have any problem with somebody who gets high from time to time", it shouldn't be legalised. Why? Because:

Laws profoundly mold culture, so what sort of community do we want our laws to nurture? What sort of individuals and behaviors do our governments want to encourage? I’d say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.

In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be

I've done the whole thing about whether or not legalisation actually does encourage drug use before. The evidence suggests it doesn't, I believe, but I won't bang on this time.

More on drug laws

Morally, and empirically, our drug laws are useless
Chief Medical Officer states facts; Government ignores them
Buk-buk-bukaaaw: Coalition still chicken over drug laws

But what I will say is this: notice that, in David Brooks's youthful experimentation, his "been there, done that" memoirs, in which no real harm is done to him by this relatively safe drug, there is not a section in which he is arrested, imprisoned for possession, given a criminal record and barred from several professions later in life. And in fact most of these "I took drugs in my youth, but it was a youthful indiscretion, and I regret it, so we shouldn't legalise them" memoirs are all similar in a noticeable way: they're written by successful people whose lives weren't ruined by a criminal prosecution. That's the "subtle tip of the scale", that's the way the government apparently "encourages the highest pleasures": by locking up people and destroying their future lives.

Even if – even if – the legalisation of drugs increases use (which it probably doesn't), we have to think very carefully about whether the costs we pay, in ruined lives and prospects (in America, disproportionately those of young black men), are worth the costs. Mr Brooks, if you'd been arrested for drugs in your youth, you might have written a very different column. Of course, you'd be unlikely to be employed by The New York Times to do so.

More by Tom Chivers

When drug companies don't publish trials, real people die
Can we drop the Today programme 'guest editors' thing?
No wars, no Muslim takeovers: boring predictions for 2014

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The UFC World podcast: Gareth A Davies with Gegard Mousasi, Brad Pickett, Conor McGregor, Ramsey Nijem, Luke Barnatt – Telegraph Blogs

Wednesday 29 July 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Gareth A Davies

Gareth A Davies has been a sports journalist for The Daily Telegraph since 1993. He is Boxing and MMA Correspondent. Has been intrigued by fight and combat sports from a young age. Personal sporting passions are rugby, cricket, and martial arts. Also covers the Paralympic Games. Hates getting his hair cut. Follow on Twitter @GarethADaviesDT

The UFC World podcast: Gareth A Davies with Gegard Mousasi, Brad Pickett, Conor McGregor, Ramsey Nijem, Luke Barnatt

On this week's UFC World podcast, host Gareth A Davies is joined by victorious Berlin headliner Gegard Mousasi, who has moved to No 7 in the UFC middleweight rankings. Mousasi says he "can beat anyone in the top ten, that he has "the tools to defeat anyone". He wants to fight before the end of the year, and doesn't mind who, as he's never turned a fight down. But he thinks he'll be given someone coming off a win – it could be Luke Rockhold, Tim Kennedy, or even CB Dolloway.
Luke Barnatt, who suffered a shock points defeat, talks about his dismay at the judges decisions.
Barnatt feels that "everyone thought he won." He says that Strickland apologised for running from him, said he said he was scared of him, and he thought Strickland had one take down which Barnatt escaped from quickly. "I can't see how the judges scored it the way they did," he tells Gareth. Big Slow also thinks all will be forgotten if he performs well next time out.
Barnatt adds: "I want the next fight to be where I can entertain; I'm not interested in a rematch."

This week's UFC World podcast on soundcloud

Ramsey Nijem talks about family life – a period spent lodging with his granny, which was a hoot – and Brad Pickett tells us how surprised how ordinary Renan Barao was made to look by TJ Dillashaw. Pickett explains that if he doesn't get a title shot at 125, he'd move back up to 135.
Pickett also believes that Dillashaw put on the best underdog performance in combat sports history. Finally, Conor McGregor is… well, Conor McGregor. As ever, the featherweight is taking over the world, and deeply proud that UFC Dublin could be the fastest-selling event in UFC history, as tickets go on sale this Friday. It's a packed UFC World podcast. Enjoy.

UFC World podcast host Gareth A Davies can be contacted on Twitter: @GarethADaviesDT

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 Munchak holds off on quarterback decision | Titans Insider

Munchak holds off on quarterback decision

November 5th, 2012 | by JOHN GLENNON, The Tennessean | Comments

Titans coach Mike Munchak said he’ll wait to see how Jake Locker’s rehabilitation is going this week before deciding on which quarterback will start against Miami on Sunday.

Locker underwent his weekly MRI on Monday, in order to see how much progress has been made in the left shoulder he dislocated on Sept. 30. But it doesn’t sound like a decision will be made between Locker and Matt Hasselbeck until Wednesday at the earliest.

“I think hypothetically if we got to Wednesday and we thought he was able to take the next step and take (game) reps, then it would be more of seeing how he did physically and mentally (through the rest of the week), getting ready for an actual game again,” Munchak said. “Then if we felt he was there, it would be the final step of, `Hey, listen, he’s ready to play.’”

The Titans have a bye week following the Miami contest, so Locker would get two more weeks of rest if he doesn’t play against the Dolphins. But Munchak said that wouldn’t be a determining factor in this week’s decision.

“If we, after talking to doctors tomorrow, feel (not playing him) is the best thing to do because of where he’s at, then (we would sit him),” Munchak said. “But if we say, `Hey, he can play, he’s ready to go,’ then why wait?”

In parts of four games, Locker has completed 67-of-106 passes (63.2% completion rate) for 781 yards, with four touchdowns and two interceptions.

“I think he’d provide a spark if we were winning or losing,” Munchak said. “That’s why he’s our starter. That’s why we always answer the question the same. When he’s healthy and we felt he’s ready to play, that we’d put him in there because he brings a different kind of spark than Matt does.”


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This is a lesson in how to lose friends and alienate people.

Last Sunday my organization This World: The Values Network hosted its annual Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala, honoring Michael Steinhardt, Ambassador Ron Dermer and Senator Cory Booker, the actor Sean Penn, and John Prendergast. New Jersey governor Chris Christie was the keynote speaker, with Governor Rick Perry of Texas giving dinner co-hosts Sheldon and Miriam Adelson an award for all they do for the global Jewish community.

There was widespread media speculation that in the wake of Christie calling the West Bank “the occupied territories” at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas he would use the opportunity “to make amends” to the pro-Israel community.

Christie devoted his speech to a criticism of American foreign policy. He spoke of how we no longer hold tyrants accountable and how our friends are feeling let down by America’s growing impotence on the world stage. He criticized the Obama Administration for drawing a red line in the sand on chemical gas in Syria without following up with consequences.

The speech seemed an appropriate follow-up to the remarks I had given moments earlier, of the need to bring healing to the world through the spread of Jewish values. Christian values ask us to turn the other cheek and love our neighbors, which is fine, but not when it comes to the confrontation with evil and mass murder. I spoke of the Jewish Biblical commandment to never “stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” I implored the crowd to get behind the spread of Jewish values in the form of political policy that would indict a man like Bashar Assad who gasses children with impunity.

Christie’s speech received global media coverage, perceived as an indictment of American policy that allows atrocities to continue and does little to support liberty and freedom.

But Christie did not mention Israel, and that has led to a week of non-stop attacks on the governor by pro-Israel groups. The attacks have ranged from “He’s no friend of Israel” to the particularly absurd “He’s pro-Arab and an enemy of Israel.”

The non-stop assault on the governor by pro-Israel critics is confusing. Is their intention to make their words into prophecy?

Here are the facts.

First, Christie accepted my invitation to speak at the dinner. He’s a busy guy and I’m grateful. I’m amazed that this simple fact of his accepting to speak yet again before a staunchly pro-Israel crowd is being overlooked. Ours was a Jewish values dinner and I’m going to show hakarat hatov, the most supreme of all Jewish values, gratitude.

Second, Christie told a press conference in Trenton, reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, that at the dinner he called for a “robust, direct foreign policy that actually allows our friends to feel a sense of security, and allows our enemies to understand that if you mess with our friends, we’re going to take you on.” He said that if people didn’t interpret the speech “as supportive of Israel, they weren’t smart enough to be in the room,” and added, “I don’t go to these things to pander.”

Truth be told, I wish he would not have omitted mention of Israel. But to jump from there to declaring him no friend of Israel is sheer stupidity and the worst kind of pro-Israel activism.

Christie has made only one foreign trip in all the time he has been governor of New Jersey. That was a visit to the State of Israel. He was accorded a rare honor in being invited for dinner at the home of Prime Minister Netanyahu who has repeatedly praised him, declaring him to be a good friend of the Jewish state. High ranking Israeli diplomats have told me repeatedly that Christie regularly responds to requests they make of him to bolster the Jewish state and his support of Israel is solid.

Christie told me that his commitment to Israel is unshakable and there is no reason to believe it isn’t. So why didn’t he mention Israel? I’m assuming that with the media expectation that he was going to “make amends,” he decided that anything he said would be perceived as insincere and an attempt to pander. I disagree with that calculation. But that does not change the strong friendship he has always shown the Jewish community and Israel.

I discussed with Governor Christie his support of Imam Muhammad Qatanani, a man whose presence in New Jersey I repeatedly criticized during my Congressional campaign. The governor told me he came to know the Imam when he was US Attorney. I conveyed to him our community’s serious concerns about a man who was arrested by Israel for his connections to, and support of, Hamas. This is something Governor Christie should and must address.

But the sheer lunacy of judging a man’s entire career by one or two speeches and relationships, against the wider body of support he has always demonstrated to Israel, is an affront to Jewish values. As I said at the dinner,’’I could care less what people believe. I don’t judge them by how they vote. And I don’t much care if they make verbal gaffes. What I do care about is what they do. Hamaaseh who ha’ikar — action is everything.”

America should not be supporting Israel because the Jewish community appreciates or demands it but because Israel’s cause is just. Developing a moral American foreign policy, as Christie advocated, that supports nations that battle evil terrorists and does not force them to make peace with parties who seek their annihilation is one of the strongest ways to support Israel.

What a shame to unnecessarily push people into the enemy’s camp when the Jewish people and Israel are in need of every friend we have.


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Pathway to profitable women-owned enterprises

Francesco Strobbe's picture

Pathway to profitable women-owned enterprises @ Evgeni Zotov / FlickR

Women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia are disadvantaged from the start. They have less access to the finance, networks, and education which help their male counterparts advance. They face regular discrimination and harassment from society--sometimes even from their own families and communities. The challenges a woman entrepreneur in Ethiopia faces in growing her business are overwhelming.

Education post-2015

Andreas Schleicher's picture

Next week, UNESCO will convene the world’s educational leaders in Incheon to set the agenda for educational development over the next 15 years. Those who think that’s mainly an agenda for the developing world should read our new report Universal Basic Skills - What Countries Stand to Gain. The report shows the scale of the effort that is ahead even for many of the wealthiest nations to develop the essential skills that can transform lives, generate prosperity and promote social inclusion. And with a new global metric of the quality of learning outcomes, the report demonstrates that the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated countries and poor and badly educated ones.

The fumble that may have saved his life

Alexander Ferguson's picture

Ahmad Sarmast may owe his life to a fumble with his cellphone. He bent down in his seat to pick up his mobile just as a suicide bomber detonated his charge behind him at a music and theatre performance at the Institut Français d’Afghanistan in Kabul.

The founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music survived the December blast that killed one and injured more than 10. Dr. Sarmast suffered perforated ear drums and shrapnel in the back of his head.  But the experience has not deterred him from his ambition of reviving and rebuilding Afghan musical traditions through establishing and leading the country's first dedicated music school.

“Music represents the right to self-expression of all the Afghan people,” he told me during a tour of the modest building in a suburb of Kabul where ANIM is housed.

girl playing piano

The institute’s young musicians, many of them former street vendors or orphans, have toured the world to showcase Afghan music and present a more positive face of the war-torn country. An ensemble played at the World Bank in 2013 and went on to perform amid great acclaim at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall in New York.

Skilled Women Are Breaking Labor Force Barriers in Bangladesh

Ahamad Tanvirul Alam Chowdhury's picture

Dolly owns and runs “Lovely Fashion,” a tailoring shop in Tongi near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. She is in her mid-twenties and earns around BDT 12,000 (USD 150) a month.  “I work hard. I can support my family to live with dignity in the society,” says Dolly. “Finally I have peace of mind and financial independence.”

Dolly working in her tailoring shop
Dolly working in her tailoring shop

The Best School for Entrepreneurship is on the Job, Not in the Classroom

Wolfgang Fengler's picture

This has been a very engaging debate and I want to thank Omar as well as the organizers and contributors. In this concluding statement, I’d like to highlight both those areas where we agree and those where we still end up with different perspectives.

We can agree on the following:

Skills Gaps and Jobs Strategies

Omar Arias's picture
Working at a call center in Romania The blog I posted to debate with my Bank colleague Wolfgang Fengler the chicken-and-egg question of which comes first, skills or jobs, generated a rich exchange and contributions. While the question was framed around tackling the problem of unemployment in the Western Balkan countries, it naturally applies to almost any country. I want to thank all of those who took the time to write, whether or not they agreed with my main thesis: that countries should invest and strive to develop the basic skills that lay the foundation for the technical or job-specific skills that should be in turn acquired a la par with the changing needs of labor markets.

A Ranking of Adult Workers and Their Skills

Stefano Scarpetta's picture

Elementary school, Gimhae, Korea. Photo: Flickr/65817306@N00 (Jens-Olaf Walter)

In the world’s richest countries, those with greater inequality in skills proficiency also have higher income inequality, according to the first OECD Survey of Adult Skills (also known as PIAAC), which measures the skills of 16-65 year-olds across 24 countries. The survey includes assessments of adult reading, numeracy, and place in the digital divide. The OECD's Stefano Scarpetta (Director of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs) tell us that this is the first ever comprehensive survey of the actual competencies of OECD adult workers.

Shipbuilding Promises Hope for Skilled Workforce

Ahamad Tanvirul Alam Chowdhury's picture
A view of the Khulna Shipyard

Promoting career opportunities through industry linkages for those who complete technical and vocational education is now a reality in Bangladesh. The local shipbuilding industry is thriving with strong growth potential. Currently, the demand for technically skilled workers in Shipbuilding industry is high. The industry is likely to become a major employment provider for the technically skilled workers in Bangladesh. Not surprising, that 55 of the 72 welders who had completed their training from Khulna Shipyard Technical Training Centre (KSYTTC) were absorbed by a private shipbuilding and light engineering firm, Khulna Shipyard Limited (KSY) in August 2014. The same company will hire 30 more in the coming month.

Africa Impact Evaluation Podcast: Economic Empowerment of Young Women in Africa #AfricaBigIdeas

When it comes to helping young women in Africa with both economic and social opportunity, what does the evidence tell us?  Broadcaster Georges Collinet sat down with researchers and policymakers to discuss the hard evidence behind two programs that have succeeded in giving girls a better chance at getting started in their adult lives.

Why Performance Measurement for Development Professionals is Critical: Learning from Miller’s Pyramid

Tanya Gupta's picture

According to a training report  no less than $55.4 billion in 2013 was spent on training, including payroll and external products and services, in the US alone. The US and other countries spend a significant amount of money on employee development with the implicit assumption that training is correlated to improved on- the- job performance.   However, what exactly should we measure to ensure that this money is well spent? What is it that we need to measure to determine that employees are performing as expected and thus benefitting from these training expenditures?

Two responses that we often get to this “what should be measured” question are “performance” and “competencies”. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the United States defines  performance measurement as the “ongoing monitoring and reporting of program accomplishments, particularly progress toward pre-established goals.”  Performance measures, therefore, help define what success at the workplace means (“accomplishments”), and attempt to quantify performance by tracking the achievement of goals. Competencies are generally viewed as “a cluster of related knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Parry 1996), and are thought to be measurable, correlated to performance, and can be improved through training.  While closely connected, they are not the same thing. Competencies are acquired skills, while performance is use of those competencies at work. Measurement of both is critical.


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European Pressphoto Agency
    A residential neighborhood in Shanghai. How many residents will become divorcees this year?

    China is seeing a rush of divorces after new property curbs were announced over the weekend, as couples sought to dodge forking out more money to sell or buy homes.

    At the Changning district marriage registration center in Shanghai, staff saw an increase in the number of people applying for divorces, according to a staffer interviewed by China Real Time. “There’s definitely an increase, but not a massive one. Usually there could be about 20 cases we handle a day, and after the new rules, it was about 30,” said its director, who would only give her surname Yu.

    “We end usually at 11:30 a.m., but today, it was extended to 12:30 p.m.,” she added.

    Local media reported that marriage registrars in Shanghai and Nanjing saw record numbers of divorce applications after the new property curbs were announced.

    At 5 p.m. Monday, Nanjing city recorded 294 divorce cases, double the usual number, said the Guangzhou-based Xin Kuai Bao newspaper.

    Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
    People line up at an office to register for marriage or divorce in Shanghai on March 6, 2013. Chinese couples are flocking to get divorced to evade a new tax on home sales after the government cracked down on property speculation.

    The number of people applying for documents stating that they are single also rose in the last few days, Ms. Yu said. “Typically there are around 100 applications a day, we’re seeing close to 200 now,” she added.

    China’s State Council, or cabinet, said late Friday it would strictly enforce a 20% tax on profits from the sale of the seller’s second or subsequent home. Currently, most sales are taxed at only 1% to 3% of the home’s value. China will also raise down payments and mortgage rates on second-home sales in cities where prices had risen too fast.

    While details are still hard to come by, sellers appear to believe divorce is one potential way to dodge the tax. A couple with two homes, hoping to sell one, could get a divorce so that each apartment belongs to an individual, treating both as first homes. The sale of one of the homes will then be tax exempt.

    The government hasn’t released additional information, and date of implementation remains unclear. In some cities, the announcement also triggered a rush among property owners to sell ahead of the policy’s implementation.

    Long queues of owners, many of them with their property deeds in their hands, were in evidence at a government housing office in Shanghai when China Real Time paid a visit on Tuesday. Many were trying to register their home sales before the tax increase went into effect.

    Some observers have noted that the divorce rate could rise further when the tax is in force.

    Fake divorces aren’t new in China. In 2010, when cities rolled out restrictions limiting families to only one additional home purchase, many couples sought fake a divorce to bypass the rules.

    “The reason that they give is that they’ve lost mutual affection for each other, but we don’t know what the actual reason is,” Ms. Yu said.

    The Shanghai Daily reported that in the past two days, a pregnant woman had also sought a divorce at a registration center in Yangpu district in Shanghai. “She told me she came here to avoid possible loss in the property transaction, and I could say nothing,” the paper said, citing an official at the center.

    – Esther Fung

    Sign up for CRT’s daily newsletter to get the latest headlines by email.

    For the latest news and analysis,


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Corruption Currents
Commentary and news about money laundering, bribery, terrorism finance and sanctions.

Protiviti Releases Fifth Edition of AML Guidance

Protiviti, a business consulting and auditing firm, released the fifth edition of its guide to complying with U.S. anti-money laundering requirements.

The newest iteration contains answers to 1,700 separate questions on AML compliance and related areas. That is an increase from the 140 questions Protiviti published in its first edition 10 years ago in the wake of the Patriot Act, according to Carol Beaumier, executive vice president of global industry programs at Protiviti.

“In part, that’s symptomatic of how much the issue has continued to evolve over the years,” Beaumier said in an interview.

This year’s guidance contains sections on new areas of import including the intersection of AML and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, new requirements for non-bank mortgage lenders and the impact of proposed requirements on money services businesses.

Beaumier said that the synergy between AML requirements and FATCA, which requires foreign financial institutions to report detailed information on U.S. account holders to the Internal Revenue Service, was among the chief concerns of Protiviti’s clients.

On the horizon, Beaumier said that the Treasury Department’s proposed rules that would require financial institutions to identify the beneficial owners of their account holders are spooking banks.

“A lot of financial institutions find it kind of scary when they think about the extra due diligence that will be required,” she said.

Beaumier said Protiviti would be monitoring the rule-making process on beneficial ownership and would update the guidance as needed.

Click here to find the fifth edition.

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    • Protiviti is still around? My firm contracted them to do some work for us a few years back and was absolutely fleeced. I wished WSJ would be more careful when allowing these types of firms to publish schlock under the guise of marketing rhetoric.

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7:37 pm ET
Oct 15, 2013

A Sampling of New Facts From Twitter’s IPO

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A Thai farmer returns from his rice fields on June 10, 2014, in Ban San Ka Wan, Thailand.
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Among the pressing tasks facing Thailand’s ruling military junta is cleaning up the mess from the former government’s disastrous rice-subsidy scheme.

One thing’s for sure: The subsidy is dead, at least for now.

Thai army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power May 22, officially confirmed last Friday that there are no plans to revive the multibillion-dollar program. That ends speculation about the future of a program that cost Thailand its crown as the world’s largest rice exporter and was a significant factor in the previous government’s downfall.

“Today, if you ask me, there will definitely be no rice scheme, but whether we will have one in the future is a different matter,” Gen. Prayuth told senior military and government officials at a meeting on the country’s budget.

The decision could be left to the new interim government, which Gen. Prayuth said will be set up by early September at the latest.

Ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra launched the rice subsidy in October 2011, shortly after she was elected.

Under the program, the government offered to buy rice from local farmers for up to 50% above the market rate in a bid to boost incomes and spending among a key constituency. The premise was that by hoarding rice Thailand would be able to force up rice prices globally, reaping a larger profit when the stocks were eventually sold.

But the program backfired as India and Vietnam ramped up their own rice exports, knocking Thailand from its spot as the world’s top producer and forcing prices down.

State warehouses were flooded with an estimated 10-15 million tons of rice that Ms. Yingluck’s administration was forced to sell in order to pay farmers after the plan’s financing became unsustainable, driving down prices further. Still, many farmers went unpaid for months, and a few committed suicide after finding themselves unable to pay off debts.

Shortly after taking power, Gen. Prayuth ordered the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, the state farmers bank, to disburse overdue payments to about a million farmers, a total of about 90 billion baht, or $2.7 billion. About 75% of those funds have been disbursed, the bank said.

Groups of farmers recently have asked the junta to provide some form of assistance, with some even proposing a 40% profit guarantee. Gen. Prayuth said Friday that the military would focus on helping farmers reduce costs of production, such as for seed and fertilizer, and on promoting agricultural cooperatives.

Meanwhile, the acting permanent secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office — now controlled by the junta — on Friday banned the relocation of any rice stocks in state warehouses until they’ve been counted and audited.

It’s unclear how many tons of rice are still sitting in the warehouses, as the Yingluck administration was reluctant to disclose the amount – or the extent of the program’s financial losses.

The country’s anticorruption panel said in May that the program cost the state about $9.2 billion, and indicted Ms. Yingluck for mismanaging it. The panel forwarded its verdict to the Senate to begin impeachment proceedings against Ms. Yingluck, which could result in a five-year ban from politics, but the Senate was dissolved after the military took power.

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High Voltage: Clean Energy and the Transmission Hurdle

Wind power’s march to maturity is perpetually dogged by one hurdle even bigger than the eternal debate over clean-energy tax credits: How to move the juice. The Department of Energy’s warned about it, T. Boone Pickens is trying to deal with it, and Al Gore’s aware it stands in the way of his grand plan to power America with 100% clean energy.

Just how tricky will it be to tackle the transmission issue? Today, two big U.S. utilities—Duke Energy and American Electric Power—announced a joint venture to build 240 miles of high-voltage transmission line in Indiana. The new lines are needed, the companies said, to handle the wind power that’s expected to come online in coming years—wind farms, more even than other power stations, are generally remote from population centers.

If the Duke/AEP deal is anything to go by, overhauling the U.S. transmission network to make it wind-friendly will be neither cheap nor quick. Duke and AEP said the new venture will cost an estimated $1 billion. Ratepayers in the Midwest and the Mid-atlantic regions will pick up the tab for that. Securing land rights and regulatory approval, and drafting the line’s route means it won’t be completed until 2014 at the earliest—meaning it will take about nine times longer to build than a typical wind farm it’s meant to serve. And that’s just for one part of Indiana.

Which is to say that shifting America’s entire energy mix to renewables like wind and solar power isn’t as easy as flicking a switch. Even if that’s exactly the image clean-energy proponents are using to drum up support. Al Gore’s “We” campaign will air a new ad tonight during the Olympic Games, called “Switch,” in which all kinds of people take part in a new event: pushing a 25-foot high white light switch. The ad says: “The answer is simple. To power our country with 100% clean energy in ten years, all we need is your help.”

That, and a few hundred billion dollars of new investment in transmission lines.

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    • I've just read all the previous comments and it seems to me no one is addressing the outstanding problems. With wind generation: It doesn't stop a single regular generator. The wind stops blowing and the generators have to be running to pick up the load. The wind doesn't blow all the time. With solar: We only get about six to eight hours of sunlight per day and we are without electricity for the rest of the day. In Indiana we get 35% sunlight in the winter days. So much for solar energy. At this time the only alternative to ordinary electric generators is nuclear power. It's that simple. Everything else is a waste of time until good alternative means of power generation is developed.
      Comment by Ed Sparks - August 14, 2008 at 5:12 p.m.

    • Eric, all we're talking about is 92x92 miles of desert.

      Or 1/3rd the size of farmland we currently have devoted to corn ethanol.

      We got a orders of magnitude more warm desert than that in the US.

      The land area requirement for US/China/India/MiddleEast doesn't really have a place in any serious discussion on solar energy.

    • I just did a little, and I mean less than 15 minutes, research on solar power vs. nuclear power. According to the New American the maximum, which is far more than the recoverable, amount of solar power available per acre in Albuquerque, NM, a region of the country blessed with a lot of sunshine, is 970 kW/acre.
      The largest nuclear power plant in the US is the Palo Verde plant in AZ. It covers 4,000 acres and produces 3.2 GW from its three reactors.
      Now, to get that same 3.2 GW from a solar array operating at 100% (a physical impossibility) the solar plant would require a little less than the same 4000 acres, ~3,300. This sounds like a great deal but in reality the physical maximum efficiency of modern solar cells only allows a conversion rate of about 10%. “The problem of maximizing power from sunlight has been known for at least 30 years, and is primarily one of physical limitations, not engineering technology.”
      So this 3,300 acres in reality would require 33,000 acres to produce the same 3.2 GW as a nuclear power plant. That also assumes the entire 33,000 acres is covered, which, again is impossible. There needs to be spacing for panel movement, personnel, and probably vehicle traffic. So lets conservatively say to generate 3.2 GW during the peak sunshine hours would require 35,000 acres. That’s a lot of acreage for a plant that would only be able to produce electricity for 8-10 hours on a good sunny summer day.

    • I just signed up with the Pickens Plan. LOL. I stated that OIL was frothy earlier this morning and then got the breaking news BP shut the pipeline...

      The SquakBox pimps tried to pimp the market down, oil up, and are now surprised it is even..

      I read an interesting comment, “Without the slightest doubt, the technology for a hydrogen economy exists or can be developed in reasonable time. Also, hydrogen is an appropriate energy carrier for particular niche applications, or it may become an important medium for electricity storage with reversible fuel cells. But hydrogen can never establish itself as a dominant energy carrier.

      It has to be fabricated from high grade energy and it has to compete with high grade energy in the market place. Hydrogen cannot win this fight against its own energy source. Physics is eternal and cannot be changed by man. Therefore, a “Hydrogen Economy” has no past, no present and no future. The road to sustainability leads to an “Electron Economy”. ”

      Does a Hydrogen Economy Make Sense? Ulf Bossel, Ph.D. European Fuel Cell Forum

      I'm hearing the moaning of outdated MSM where newspaper sales are flat or declining, MSM print in decline, and a world moving away from oil.

      Gold also is yesterday's idea.

      Short both, blah blah blah...

      maybe a tropical storm etc, etc, but consumers are consuming less.

    • ==The country is going to hell because of their socialist policies, and now you want the government to “pay you” to put solar panels on YOUR roof. Not with my tax dollars, thank you. Light a candle.==
      Oh come now.
      As if taking out gigantic loans from foreign banks, and paying the high interest off with Income Taxes is preferable.
      Before you start moaning about how tax dollars are spent, you might want a little perspective.
      Kind of sick how people like you insist that "Magically" putting Tax dollars on a foreign bank's credit card is some unlimited source of free money.
      And then you moan and complain when Democrats ask to spend less, and pay less.
      How hypocritical.

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Medicare Won’t Pay Hospitals to Remedy Flubs

    • Extra-ordinarily detrimental for physicians. It will increase malpractice premiums enormously.
      Bed sores,particularly heel ulcers, in patients with diabetic vascular disease,are nearly impossible to prevent in patients with strokes.

    • This is just an incremental step toward a system that pays only if the patient is cured. Watch for a precipitous drop in the numbers of doctors training to become cancer specialists, neurosurgeons, geriatricians, cardiologists, endocrinologists, etc.
      The whole medical situation is becoming surreal. Everyone now believes that the best medical care is that which costs the least. Of course, the least expensive medical care is just to let the patient die--I'm sure they'll think of that soon.

    • As a practicing hospitalist, who pays close attention to these issues, it certainly hits close to home.

      Lets see what happens. I am nervous that CMS might pounce hard and exert undo, unnecessary pressure. However, I think this is a good thing. Hospitals, and we as docs, need to clean up are act. My two cents, and I know many will disagree.

    • Wow! What a slippery slope. All things bad are not preventable. More cost shifting to others to cover the costs of caring for these patients. Other questions remain to be answered. For example, if a dermatologist was called to help manage a hospital acquired bed sore, or an infectious disease specialist called to help manage mediastinitis, who would pay them for their time, or would they be expected to do it for free. If the bed sore patient subsequently acquires an infection in the bed sore site that leads to a more prolonged hospitalization, would those days be covered by Medicare? My fear is that with this sort of system, certain patients that may be more predisposed to these hospital complications will be shunned by hospitals and physicians alike. The goal to minimize hospital errors is admirable, but this plan is less than half-baked.

    • Payments for doctor and hospital fees are paid from separate buckets, and submitted differently. My guess is this will just be a DRG trim for hospital stay and wont impact reimbursement for docs...yet

    • As Medicare goes, so goes the rest of the insurance industry. The problem with this policy though is that it is focused on the money not on the patient. they tried to positvely incentivize providers at such a low rate no one cares, now they negatively incentivize the system to give the care we should be giving in the first place. I thought professionals answered to a higher authority...the patient. We are not making cars here. There are times that free market mechanisms have no place in healthcare, this is one of them.

    • Maybe it's time those who make the mistakes pay for them. This could increase honesty between patients and their physicians, who could realize that for some reason their insurance company isn't picking up their bill, and begin to ask why instead of taking things at face value in an intimidating situation.

    • brad writes: "Payments for doctor and hospital fees are paid from separate buckets, and submitted differently. My guess is this will just be a DRG trim for hospital stay and wont impact reimbursement for docs…yet"

      DRGs for physician care are already being discussed. The problem: how do you establish a DRG for the care of chronic incurable conditions like atopic dermatitis or psoriasis, especially when there is so much variation in the severity and course of the disease from patient to patient?

      Sara, you'd better be more sure that you're penalizing actual mistakes and not just bad results. Many physician's practices already are hanging by a financial thread. It may take something like a general strike to get the public to see that they actually do need their doctors.

    • As already stated by another reader, some ulcers are just not preventable. In a world where we have reduced the use of restraints (generally a good thing), falls are also sometimes inevitable. I don't consider those "never" events. However, I will keep an open mind and see if this new scheme changes behavior and outcomes. I agree that the healthcare establishment has not performed particularly well up to now on many of these issues, but the government and insurance companies need to stay open to the possibility that some of these outcomes will occur anyway.

    • i guess dana reeves should be dinged for the care provider to her husband christopher, as he died with bed-sores.

    • This has been debated for some time now. CMS made this decision at this point to find a way to cut costs. I do not beleive it has much if anything to do with improving quality. The growth of the cost structure of Medicare is unsustainable and CMS is using as many "backdoor" methods to reduce cost as possible. The comment about this not impacting physician payment is correct this rule is only for hospitals--CMS assumes that it can force hospitals to force physicians to start to either change processes or assume some risk (certainly not true for most hospitals and physicians at this point)
      I believe that CMS plans not to pay for falls with injury (exactly what level of injury to be worked out); Stage 3/4 decubitus ulcers that develop after admission; central line infections; ventilator associated pneumonia; air embolism (associated with vascular procedures); ABO incompatable blood transfusions; and what I thought was to be sternal wound infections (rather than mediastinitis as reported above). The cost savings to CMS for these events will be closer to 50+ times what CMS has stated if they withhold DRG payment for these issues--less if they "just" trim the DRG, when I last reviewed the comments the methodology of payment reduction was still open to question (seemed to me to be dependent upon how much money they needed to cut). Recall that Medicare is already at best just about a breakeven for many if not most hospitals

      We should expect to see more of the same type of cuts very soon, and yes, the next round of cuts will hit physicians' pocketbooks

    • Of the 7 "mistakes," 4 of them :B ed-sores,
      Two kinds of catheter-associated infections, Giving patients the wrong blood type,and In-hospital falls, are directly related to quality of Nursing care and staffing ratios. Maybe now with the cost of "dys-quality" being quantified and being able to clearly demonstrate the effect on the hosptial's bottom line, there will be a reassesment of salaries and working conditions.

    • There are going to be instances in which complications are unavoidable. However, these numbers are probably lower than once thought, ie, converse to "stuff happens in hospitals, we cant prevent it."

      Enough data has been amassed re: provider behavior and systems design, that complications related to lines, vents, bedsores, etc., should be much lower than current levels. From CMS perspective, status quo does not cut it. From third party payers doubly so. Docs and nurses can believe payment system should not change for the 5-10% of cases that are unavoidable, or the other side can say change should occur for the 90% that is. On the net net, payers on on the winning side. The train has left the station and providers need to improve. We can do much better. That does not mean we should trust CMS or any payer to do the right thing though. We have to monitor this situation closely.

    • This "remedy" appears to be designed to penalize bad results, not real mistakes. Bedsores and infections are sometimes unavoidable, even with the best care. It is a hallmark of some diseases. This is a very ill-advised means to cut costs; it is actually a cost shift from CMS to the hospital and, eventually, physician.

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By Amit Agarwal

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    The Google Search team recently rolled out a new Page Layout update to search algorithms that is likely to affect the search rankings of sites that have a low content-to-ad ratio above the fold.

    The Google AdSense program, first introduced in 2003, has played quite an important role in the growth of independent, one-man publishing houses around the world.

    As a small web publisher, you are good at creating content but handling sales is not your niche, nor do you have the resources to manage a separate sales team. So you outsource your ad sales to Google and it ensures that your ad inventory never goes to waste, irrespective of the geographic region of the visitor. All Google takes is a 32% share from your ad revenue.

    For a publisher to be successful with Google AdSense, the thing they need most is organic traffic from search engines, and lots of it.

    You can have a large base of loyal readers who visit your website daily, but the organic search traffic is likely to form the bulk of your advertising revenue. That’s because visitors coming through search engines are in the mode to “seek information” and the contextual Google Ads displayed on your site are very likely to interest them. Regular readers help spread the “influence” and are most likely to share your content on social networking sites, but it’s the search traffic that will help pay the big bills.

    The AdSense team offers an official heatmap to help publishers decide where ads should be placed on a page. The orange regions above the fold get the maximum attention of visitors, while the beige and white regions in the graphic are mostly ignored. Another video from Google – Bigger is better – recommends that publishers use larger ad units for better performance.

    In other words, bigger ads placed above the fold have been the “winning combination” for AdSense publishers all these years.

    But not any more.

    The Google Search team recently rolled out a new Page Layout update to search algorithms that is likely to affect the search rankings of sites that have a low content-to-ad ratio above the fold.

    According to Google engineer Matt Cutts, “[if a website] doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”

    With the recent algorithm update, ad placements that were originally recommended in the heatmap can suddenly bring your site into Google’s own crosshairs and you run the strong risk of a demotion in search results if your ratio of content to ads is not improved.

    The change may affect the bottom-line of small publishers in the short-term, but it’s likely to improve the overall online experience of the average user. How often do we land on pages that are cluttered with ads while the actual content is tucked somewhere down below. Now that ad placement in the above-the-fold region is a factor in search rankings, such cluttered sites may find it hard to make it to the first page of Google.

    Ads are often seen as a necessary evil. They are the sole reason why most small websites survive and are able to deliver a never-ending stream of content for free.

    You can’t do without advertising but there can be more creative ways to deal with the problem while keeping Google happy and not affecting your site’s performance. For instance, publishers can consider switching to a wider layout that fits more content above the fold.

    Also, there’s no standard criteria to measure the area that constitutes “above the fold” as it will vary with every device. Web content that’s displayed above the fold on a large-screen desktop screen may only be visible after a couple of scrolls on a small netbook screen. That’s where modern web techniques like Responsive Design can help. Take into consideration the pixels available on the user’s screen and adjust the ad layout accordingly to deliver a better user experience.

    Amit Agarwal writes a tech blog. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or send him an email at amit@labnol.org

    You can follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.


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• By

Lindsay Lohan, who recently completed a stint in rehab, guest-hosted “Chelsea Lately” last night.

In her monologue, Lohan said, “As you all know, for the past 90 days, I’ve been on a lovely court-ordered vacation in Malibu…No, but on a real note, it was really great and wonderful. It was.”

She thanked the celebrities who held up the tabloid industry in her absence, as she put it. Those “celebs” included Anthony Weiner, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and the Royal Baby.

“How come when Kanye acts like an idiot, he gets a gold record, but when I act like an idiot, I get a police record?” Lohan said.

Watch the video below.

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