h/t Donald Sensing
Last week the president gave a speech on the deficit, rightly trying to convince Americans that it is now beyond unsustainable. Yet his theme was that the Republicans attempts to reduce it were cold-hearted, endangering the most vulnerable among us, such as those with Downs Syndrome, while protecting the proverbial rich from commensurate sacrifice. Let us, then, look at Obama, and the context of his speech, as a doctor might a patient. A long article, with a surprising conclusion. Of course, VDH is an Historian.
A report that the US government plans to sell off much of its remaining stake in General Motors this year despite the firm's lackluster share price caused investors to flee the stock Tuesday.
After the Wall Street Journal reported a government sale could come within the next six months, GM's shares fell by nearly 1.3 percent to end at $29.59.
The government sale would "almost certainly" mean that US taxpayers would take a loss from a politically controversial $50 billion rescue of the auto giant in 2009, according to the paper.
The government would need to sell its roughly 500 million shares for $53 dollars each in order to break even, but GM's stock is currently hovering at a price of just under $30 per share.
At the current price, the government would lose more than $11 billion, but the Obama administration is willing to accept the loss in order to cut its last ties to the auto manufacturer, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.
The summer sale would make it more likely that the government could unload the remainder of its shares before the 2012 election season.
#4
I recall years ago an article that appeared in some paper/magazine in the West concerning the manufacture of brassieres in the USSR. The bras looked like something that would fit on the bumper of a 1953 Buick; all large and unattractive. The gist of the article was that their economy was not market driven and no one wanted to buy the bras. So much for the wonders of central planning. It seems like we are heading in the same direction--at least so far as Washington's groupthink goes.
#6
Hello Darth; Back when GM was in trouble and its stock hit bottom a fellow went to several people wanting them to buy in on GM stock. $1000. was the investment. The return I was told was 10-1. Don't hold me to that but should their stock drop again then I'd bet you'll see investors move in. Could we be seeing them actually manipulating the market. Just a random thought of mine.
[Dawn] No less than 23 suspect Orcs and similar vermin have been acquitted of the charge in the past six months by the trial courts in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
That sounds alarming but only until one learns the reason -- weak prosecution.
Each of the 23 accused went free because the prosecution failed to connect them firmly with the seven terror attacks they were said to have a hand in. Mostly, the prosecution`s case collapsed because the trial judge found the witnesses and confessional statements unreliable.
"In my experience, the prosecution in suicide kaboom cases overwhelmingly relies on eyewitnesses to the incident who later identify the suspects during the identification parade in jail," said Advocate Basharatullah Khan who has represented accused people in such cases.
However, The infamous However... the prosecution case is usually very weak legally; for instance eyewitnesses are found by the Sherlocks after the accused have been tossed in the slammer. This weakens the case as ideally eyewitnesses` testimony should be recorded soon after the incident and not after the accused are tossed in the slammer, he pointed out.
This is exactly what happened in the case of Ghulam Mustafa Tabbasum and Shafiqur Rehman who were recently acquitted after having been tried for being involved in the suicide attack at the entrance of Rescue 15 in Islamabad in 2009.
The Margalla police in their preliminary investigation report did not mention any eyewitness. Later they added that two coppers claimed to have seen the two suspects roaming near the office of Rescue 15 two days before the suicide attack.
And if the eyewitnesses were found at the right time, the prosecution fails to fulfill legal requirements, making the testimony invalid. This was the mistake made by the prosecution which won the accused of the suicide attack on a police gathering near Melody Market in 2008, Qari Ilyas, his freedom.
The Aabpara police failed to fulfill all the legal requirements of holding the identification parade at the jail under the supervision of the judicial magistrate. The two police witnesses identified Ilyas in the absence of the magistrate and confirmed that they saw him `directing` the jacket wallah to attack the police gathering on July 7 2008. The testimony was thrown out of the court.
Lazy eyewitnesses also came to the rescue of Qari Ilyas in another case. Along with Mohammad Rizwan and Rao Shakir Ali, he was accused of a car boom blast outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June 2008.
The prosecution based its case on two police constables who said they saw the three outside the embassy soon before the blast. Later these two constables identified the three accused in a cop shoppe -- in violation of rules of the identification parade. In September 2010, all three were acquitted.
A month later, an anti-terrorism court acquitted five men in two suicide cases one -- outside the office of Islamabad police`s special branch and at the checkpost of Frontier Constabulary. The reason? The eyewitnesses.
One of the two witnesses never appeared in court and the other could not identify the five men in the court though he had earlier testified that he saw them near Jamia Faridia planning the suicide attacks.
"In all these cases, the Sherlocks had no legal means to link the suspected Orcs and similar vermin with the actual incident and as a result fabricated witnesses," Advocate Khan said.
A second main reason for the acquittal of terror suspects in the last six months is that the prosecution could not prove the circumstances in which the suspects were tossed in the slammer; in almost all the cases the families of the suspects alleged that the suspects had disappeared long before the police found them.
In support of their contention, the families could provide FIRs they had filed against the disappearance of their relative or moved the high court against the missing men, the lawyer added.
"Most recently, the Lahore High Court in Rawalpindi on April 12 acquitted nine men as it could not be proved that they had been tossed in the slammer from a house on the outskirts of Rawalpindi cantonment," the lawyer said.
These nine men had been tossed in the slammer and accused of the murder of Surgeon General Mushtaq Baig and for possessing explosives.
However, The wishy-washy However... they were acquitted earlier of the murder. But this year, though a magistrate had convicted the nine men for carrying kaboom and illegal weapons, the high court set aside the conviction. This decision came because the prosecution could not satisfy the court about the identity of the owner of the house in which these nine men were supposed to have been living at the time of the arrest, Basharatullah told Dawn .
However, The infamous However... in the last case, the prosecution`s blunder was so great that it has left observers bereft.
Former MMA MNA from Karak Shah Abdul Aziz was acquitted by a court from the charges of kidnapping and beheading a Polish geologist in 2008 in Jand, Attock. This is because the entire case was based on the confessional statement of Attaullah, the second accused. However, The infamous However... the case came to an abrupt end when it was discovered that Atta`s statement was written in English while he only spoke and understood Pushto.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/20/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
The model for Holder's prosecution of terrorists.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/20/2011 6:31 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
