Priest says he was bullied into taking fall for Pope in abuse scandal

The church official who initially said it was his fault that a paedophile priest was given succour in Pope Benedict XVI’s former diocese has broken ranks, alleging he was bullied into taking responsibility to protect the pontiff.
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Poll: 75% of Americans say tax dollars are wasted

CNN | Apr. 15, 2010

(CNN) -- Nearly three-quarters of Americans say that the government wastes their tax dollars, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday also indicates that roughly half the public believes the tax system is unfair, and as a result, four in 10 say they're angry about the amount of taxes that they pay.
Seventy-four percent of people questioned say that a lot of their tax dollars are wasted by the government; 23 percent say that some of their tax dollars are misspent and three percent say that not much of their tax dollars are wasted.

Americans are split on their overall opinion of the country's tax system: 49 percent say it's fair and 50 percent say it's unfair, according to the poll.

"Six in 10 Democrats say that the tax system is fair," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Republicans are split down the middle, with 49 percent calling it fair and 51 percent thinking it is unfair."
Four in 10 questioned say that they are angry about the amount of taxes they pay; 36 percent say they're satisfied and just under one in four say they don't have particular feelings on the issue.

Nearly half of Republicans questioned say they're angry, but that figure drops to 44 percent among Independents and 29 percent among Democrats.

The poll indicates growing public frustration with taxes over the past couple of decades.
"This is a significantly higher level of anger than existed during the 1980s," Holland added. "In 1985, only 27 percent were angry about the amount of taxes they had to pay, possibly a reflection of the tax cuts that Ronald Reagan instituted in his first year in office."

However, it appears that Americans aren't taking their anger out on the Internal Revenue Service.
"Only a quarter of all Americans think that the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished," Holland said.
Six in 10 say that the tax cuts passed in 2001 under George W. Bush that are set to expire this year should be made permanent, according to the survey.

The poll was conducted April 9-11, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

China ups Iran gas sale amid US ire

Press TV – April 17, 2010

China’s plans to increase gasoline exports to Iran will effectively thwart US efforts to choke off the country’s energy sector, a recent report reveals.
Forbes reported on Friday that state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.’s trading unit, ChinaOil, has already sent 600,000 barrels of gasoline to Iran in two $55 million shipments. According to the article, the trading unit of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec), Unipec, has also agreed to sell some 250,000 barrels to Iran through a third party in Singapore.
The report comes at a time when Washington is exerting pressure to halt Iran’s low-level nuclear activities by targeting the country’s gasoline trade.
A bipartisan slate of US senators and lawmakers, tabled a motion in April 2009 that advocated tough sanctions against countries that sell refined petroleum, including gasoline, to Iran. The Islamic Republic has been under US sanctions ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled a US-backed monarch in Iran.
Tehran says Washington has long been using sanctions, which normally pressure ordinary people in a country, as a tool to force independent nations bow to its “illogical demands.”
On Friday, Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi warned that US-led sanctions against Iran will fail to achieve their desired results as the country has managed to become self-sufficient in oil production and products. Mirkazemi further added that Iran has become “quite the expert in tackling sanctions imposed by Western countries” over the past three decades.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Russia, China urge diplomacy in Iran nuclear case
• Israel: Sanctions must target Iran energy sector
• China snubs US call for harsher Iran sanctions
• China Selling Fuel to Iran
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Holy Mistake! Congress Wipes Out Congressional Health Care Insurance

Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Looks like Congress is having one of those "Holy S---!" moments; it appears they have royally mucked up their own health insurance - for all 535 members of Congress and untold congressional employees. In a hurry, they forgot to get it right and wrote it all wrong; now it's the law...

Now Congress is in the same boat they built for the rest of America, without a clue what the new health care reform will mean to them. The beauty of their delimma is pure poetic justice to some -they have written law requiring that they move into a system that doesn't yet exist.'

Read more...

Who had the idea to shoot Reuters cameramen in the first place

Mezan Center: “Israel Deliberately Killed Reuters Cameraman”
Saed Bannoura

April 17, 2010 - On the third anniversary of his deal, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights reported that the Israeli army deliberately shot and killed Palestinian cameraman, working for Reuters, Fadel Shana’a, 23, in the Gaza Strip. Center called on the International Community, regional and international Press Agency and agencies that defend the freedom of press to practice more pressures on their governments to seek the prosecution of Israeli official involved in such crimes... Read all

'We are inadvertently creating incentives for people to be killed rather than captured.'

"inadvertently" ?


Just in from CLG:
New rules on terror custody being drafted --The Obama administration guidelines aim to help decide whether captured suspects are tried or face indefinite detention, U.S. officials say. 


15 Apr 2010 The Obama administration is for the first time drafting classified guidelines to help the government determine whether newly captured terrorism suspects will be prosecuted or held indefinitely without trial, senior U.S. officials said. At least in the short term, Bagram air base in Afghanistan would be the most likely prison to hold the suspects, they said. 


A former State Department official said that the Obama administration, by not laying out a clear policy for holding terrorism suspects, is resorting to airstrikes and other covert tactics in an effort to kill militants.