Politicians Category
Politicans and world leaders making news and in the news, and spouting hot air
How Long Before Obama Is Gerald Ford?
WHERE’S Barack?
Last week, Obama couldn’t tell Sioux City from Sioux Falls. Yesterday, he couldn’t tell Sunrise from Sunshine. These aren’t the most egregious mistakes in the world — they don’t compare to, say, claiming that a president should meet with terrorist financiers without asking them to stop paying for terrorism — but they do show at least a little incompetence in handling information and details. How many times did Gerald Ford bump his head before comedians started portraying the former star athlete as an uncoordinated boob?
What Obama character traits will the satirists pick up on?
Posted: 24th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
John McCain’s Health Matters
Jonathan Cohn in The Plank: We will learn about McCain’s health
Posted: 24th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Tony Blair Chased For An Unpaid Bill
A KNOCK at the Blairs’ door:
Tony and Cherie Blair were threatened with the bailiffs over an unpaid bill at their constituency home, expenses documents released by the Commons show.
The Blairs got a reminder notice from Northumbrian Water in November 2005, addressed to “Mr C L Blair” for £147.
“Your account may be transferred to a debt recovery agency…We appreciate that you may be experiencing some financial difficulties,” it said.
Read all about that and more in Cherie’s next book…
Posted: 23rd, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (5)
Having It Toff With Kevin Maguire
The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire is obsessed with “toffs”.
After Labour’s disaterous top a toff campaign in Crewe, he’s still at it:
Brown’s challenge is to set out a vision and cut out the errors but Toff Cameron’s in the driving seat.
Anorak prefers the word “nob” to Toff, anyway…
Posted: 23rd, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (3)
Mark Steele On Raytheon
IN Northern Ireland: “There’s a trial currently taking place in Belfast, that seems to explain plainly how nothing makes any sense. It revolves around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire. John Hume, who’d just won the Nobel Peace Prize was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the ‘peace dividend'”
Posted: 23rd, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Touring The Iain Dales
OBSEQUIOUS Tory wannabe Iain Dale is the eponymous star of DALE’S TOURS, “my new weekly slot for TELEGRAPH TV, in which I go round the country talking to Tory activists, councillors and candidates.”
TV executives worried about the power of the internet should sleep easy – especially if they adhere to the Dale mantra: Tune in and drop off…
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment (1)
Christian Fundamentalists Aborted: Nadine Dorries Tagged
TORY MP Nadine Dorries proposed a 20-week limit on abortions.
Dorries tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Last night the Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend the chamber. When they arrived in the chamber, because normally only a third of them even vote on this issue, they were dragooned.”
As Dawn Primarolo MP said: “She has asserted many things as fact which are not.”
Dories has a website – The 20 Weeks Campaign. The domain was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON).
Nadine has righteousness of her side. Nadine will fight on. But she wears the badges of defeat, and it is alleged that she is to be electronically tagged.
The source goes on to say that Nadine has now been issued with a “reality curfew”, strictly limiting her access to religious fundamentalists when Parliament is in session.
“The electronic tag ensures that Ms Dorries has the freedom to pursue her beliefs,” says a Tory spokesperson, “without endangering others.”
Adding: “We support her right to choose”…
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (7)
Michael Savage On Edward Kennedy
EDWARD Kenedy is ill. Satire is dead. Michael Savage, of the syndicated US radio show The Savage Nation tries to play up to his name::
Summary: On the day it was announced that Sen. Ted Kennedy had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage opened his show by interspersing audio of Kennedy singing “Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes” with clips of news reporters discussing Kennedy’s diagnosis and audio from Kindergarten Cop in which Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character says, “It’s not a tumor.”
Says Savage:, “No gloating today, no laughter, all serious. You don’t joke about a man’s cancer. I do it, but I won’t do it today; it’s something I will not do.”
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Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Gambian President Will Cut Head Off Every Gay
Afrik.com has this terrifying headline:
President plans to kill off every single homosexual
Know that:
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh says he will “cut off the head” of any homosexual caught in his country…
He said the Gambia was a country of believers, indicating that no sinful and immoral act as homosexual would be tolerated in the country.
He warned all homosexuals in the country to leave, noting that a legislation “stricter than those in Iran ” concerning the vice would be introduced soon.
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Carla Bruni Is Politic’s Amy Winehouse
THE MIRROR reports that French First Lady Carla Bruni has insisted a song about drugs called My Junk will stay on her new album.
Mirror readers weened on celebrity cocaine learn that Junk is slang for heroin.
“My guy, I roll him up and smoke him,” she sings. The Elysée Palce is reportedly uncomfortable with the line, it being a perceived slight on Sarkozy’s lack of size, his being no bigger than a herbal cigarette.
Elsewhere on the album, Bruni gives full throat to a tale about her love affair with French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Her version Bob Dylan’s You Belong To Me includes the line: “See the pyramids along the Nile… Just remember darling, all the while, you belong to me.”
While and Nile is decent rhyme. And there is hope that if Mrs Sarkozy continues in such a vein she could do for pop music what Amy Winehouse has done for politics.
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Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Cherie Blair Promises To Be A Good Girl
IF Cherie Blair needs to keep her writing hand in she could always design those phone box calling cards.
Says the Mail: “Cherie: ‘I can use contraception AND be a good Catholic girl.’”
If this promise can be accompanied by a shot of Cherie dressed as a nun, dangling a condom from her fingers and affecting a look of wide-eyed innocent curiosity, she may well counter those allegations that’s he has cashed in on her husband’s name and prostituted the position of self-styled First Lady…
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (4)
Profiling Schoolchildren And Weeding Out The Baa Baa Black Sheep
CLASSROOM troublemakers as young as five will not be expelled from school but placed in “sin bins”.
The Mail notes: “They will be sent for a spell in a specialist unit where they will be given anger management classes alongside normal lessons to prepare them to return to their schools.”
This may be just the Mail’s take on the news because over in the Guardian the same White Paper is given the headline: “Sin bins for pupils to be scrapped.”
Ministers moved yesterday to scrap so-called sin bins for disruptive pupils and replace them with specialist centres run by private companies, charities and academies, in an admission that the policy has failed.
So sin bins are out. As the Independent says: “Disruptive pupils to be sent to specialist ‘sin bins’ run by private companies.”
So much for the non sin-bins sin bins. What of the policy?
The Mirror says that “ministers are so anxious to catch youngsters before they offend that those who have out-of-control brothers or sisters or a mum or dad in jail could be sent to one of the units – even if they have done nothing wrong”.
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Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Race To The White House: Time For A Ron Paul Front Porch Campaign
THE Presidential wannabes sit on a porch and wait for the voters to arrive:
The best part about a Front Porch Campaign is that the fanatic supporters of a candidate will also go camp out near the “front porch.” Some 600,000 Harding supporters visited his hometown of Marion, Ohio, during the 1920 campaign. Imagine if all the old ladies who love Hillary went to wherever she lives (Scranton?) and stayed there until November. Better yet, imagine if Ron Paul’s wacky followers all moved to Ron Paul’s front yard in Texas, and stayed there forever!
Big porch? Small porch?
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (8)
HDTV Killed John McCain
DID John McCain Create an HDTV Monster?
I found myself gasping at McCain’s mug as transmitted in glorious HDTV. Wrinkles, blotches, liver spots, scarry tissue—none of these were hidden by McCain’s makeup. As McCain cracked wise (“What do we want in our next president? Certainly someone who is very, very, very old.”), I found myself thinking, Jeez, he doesn’t look like a guy who’ll turn 72 this August. He looks like a guy who’ll turn 82.
TV killed the Republican star…
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (2)
Labour: After The Flood And Dunwoody Syunts
NEW Labour: The dam’s burst. Now voters just want to wallop Labour…
Of course, plenty are still loyal. Dunwoody has been canvassing only Labour stalwarts, who greeted her with fond memories of things her mother did for them. “Always Labour!” they said, and the latest ICM poll in Crewe shows 37% still are. Old Crewe railwaymen tell Tory canvassers they’d rather boil their heads than vote for the party that privatised the railways. But 45% tell ICM they’ll vote Conservative, sweeping away a 16% Labour lead in 2005. As a national swing, Labour would lose 150 seats.
Vote Dunwoody – like her mum:
Yesterday afternoon Ms Dunwoody was accompanied by Schools Secretary Ed Balls – perhaps the Prime Minister’s closest disciple – at the naming of a school building after her mother, who was widely respected as an independent-minded local MP.
Cynical…
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment
Photoshopping Russian Minister Out Of A Tights Spot
RUSSIA’S Minister of Health is meeting President Dmitry Medvedev.
Image is important in Russian politics, and photos of the meeting have been altered – note the ripped tights -lest they corrupt minds and undo the Russian stereotype…
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Photojournalism, Politicians | Comments (3)
John Prescott On Christopher Mayer’s Serve ‘N’ Tell
QUOTE of the day: Menu-oir writer John Prescott to Briton’s former ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Mayer, author of DC Confidential:
“I am alarmed that you are perfectly happy to profit from tittle-tattle, betraying confidences and by character assassination…”
File under: Beyond Irony…
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (5)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Dream Sequence
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is addressing the Global Classrooms Model United Nations Conference, in New York, 15 May.
This is an extract from his speech:
So, please indulge me while I tell you a true story about someone I know very well. His name is Han Seung-soo, currently the Prime Minister of Korea, where I come from.
When he was a young boy, he lived in an isolated village in the mountains of my country, Korea. He had to get up at dawn and travel for miles, crossing two different rivers, just to get to school. The only thing that kept him going was the dream that he might one day become President of the United Nations General Assembly.
He later wrote that this great dream, I quote “offered one destitute boy the hope and sense of purpose needed to continue studying”…
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Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Hail, Snow And Drought To The Chief: Barack Obama Warms Up
SAYS Barack Obama: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”
Is 72 degrees the optimum temperature for eating? If it is, perhaps the heat could be adjusted and America’s feeding frenzy gauged. It might turn out that Oprah Winfrey, a leading Amerian eater and Obama acolyte, eats less fat at 79.2 degrees.
In which case, expect her to go long on SUVs and champion global warming with gusto.
Says Obama: “That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.”
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Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Ben McBean’s Army: Gordon Brown, Celebs And Crisps At The Sun Global Recognition Award
EVERYONE wants Ben McBean in their private army.
McBean is one of the Daily Mail’s Harry’s Heroes, on account of his having been injured in Afghanistan (he lost two limbs) and labelled a hero by Prince Harry Baseball cap.
Ben McBean is part of the Mirror’s “Honour the Brave” slogan, which seeks to equip each retuning injured serviceman with a medal.
He’s a leading player in the Sun’s “Help for Heroes” campaign, the one backed by actor Ross Kemp, he of ITV’s Ultimate Force show, and so well placed to explain what being a soldier is all about. Kemp spoke at the City Salute, addressing the injured, McBean included.
And here is Mr McBean in the Sun, receiving tribute on behalf of the Armed Forces and a Sun Global Recognition Award, sponsored by Walkers crisps.
Gordon Brown is there, shaking hands, being wowed and talking about a return to the values of cheese and onion.
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Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (5)
Gemma Garrett On Politics’ Motley Crewe
MORE panting news from the Crewe and Nantwich by-election where Gemma Garrett is bidding to become an MP.
“I’m campaigning on lots of different issues but the main one is about pay for British troops,” says Miss Great Britain, dressed in stockings, suspenders and business like open-necked shirt.
Gemma represents, and is representative of, the Beauties for Britain party, which aims to “wipe out politics’ sleazy image” by replacing it with good old fashioned soft porn.
“I want people to know I am campaigning on proper politics and real issues,” says she, even if her twin manifestoes appear booster by borrowed policy directives…
Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Celebrity Quote Of The Day: Lil Wayne Says Obama Heralds The End Of The World
SAYS US rapper Lil’ Wayne in Blender:
“The world is about to end in 2012… ’cause the Mayans made calendars, and they stop at 2012. I got encyclopedias on the bus. The world is about to end as we know it. You can see it already. A planet doesn’t exist – there’s no more Pluto. Planes are flying into buildings – and not just the Twin Towers. Mosquitos bite you and you die. And a black man and a woman are running for president.”
Wayne should ask his co-rapper 50 Cent what to do…
Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, Politicians | Comments (9)
Beyond Parody: Empty Nodding Heads On Bush, Obama And Hitler
CHRIS Matthews on Hardball, a US politics show. Nodding heads are nodding…
Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Tony Blair Years: Binge Eating, Sex, Dead Babies And Greed
TO the offices of Tony Blair,where the paper shredding machcine is in use:
Some of Tony Blair’s expenses claims, which the High Court last week ruled should be disclosed to the public, have been shredded. The documents, itemising Blair’s claims for household expenses during a year of his premiership, were destroyed in the midst of a legal battle over whether they should be published. All MPs’ expenses are funded by taxpayers.
Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website
It is a criminal offence to destroy documents to prevent their disclosure under freedom of information (FOI) laws, but Westminster officials say they were unaware that the files were the subject of a legal challenge. They insist they were destroyed by mistake.
Very soon, the only record of the Blair years will be found in his colleagues’ and wife’s notes and memoirs. And we will mistake his tenure for a time of binge eating, unprotected sex , dead children, and greed…
Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (5)
Boris Johnson’s Sunday Service
BORIS Johnson is writing in the News of the World:
“I WAS as sickened and horrified as everyone else in Britain by the murder of altar boy Jimmy Mizen at a baker’s shop in London last weekend.
Amen.
I won’t pretend there is some messiah-like solution. But I do believe investment in the right areas will reap huge rewards.
I’ll do my part and tackle this menace in London. I pray the government follow my lead and do the same for Britain.
Here endeth the lesson…
Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (2)
