Azmin's man strikes at Zaid

Nik Nazmi: 'Loyal deputy' is Zaid's latest gimmick

Sep 20, 10 5:45pm

PKR communications director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has dismissed Zaid Ibrahim's pledge to become a loyal deputy to the party president as a mere gimmick.

“Now, the latest gimmick is to return (the) president's power. Hopefully he will also have more organisational discipline and collective responsibility,” said Nik Nazmi on his Twitter page.

Nik Nazmi's retort comes just hours after Zaid Ibrahim pledged to become party president Dr Wan Azizah Ismail's deputy and help her exercise her legitimate authority, in a posting on his blog.

Zaid had argued that some party leaders had regarded Wan Azizah as a mere figurehead while the president's powers were assumed by de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim.

He argued that the party president's powers as defined by the party constitution should be upheld rather than to entrust those powers to Anwar, whom Zaid explains is really just an ordinary member.

Nik Nazmi said that Zaid's statement was misguided and that he failed to understand the background as to why Anwar was made de facto leader in the first place.

'Do your homework first'

“If only he checked with the members who were at the 2007 PKR congress who understood why the exceptional position was created (for Anwar).

“I forgot - he (Zaid) was still in Umno at the time... Now (he criticises) Umno culture! Well done,” wrote Nik Nazmi sarcastically.

In 2007, Anwar was in a three-corner fight for the party presidency against Wan Azizah and Abdul Rahman Othman. Anwar and Abdul Rahman withdrew from the contest at the last minute, paving way for Wan Azizah to win uncontested.

Anwar had explained at the time that he had to withdraw from the contest because he may be in violation of the Societies Act 1966.

According to the Act, Anwar who was released from jail in 2004 was prohibited from holding any party post for five years; in other words, up until April 2008.

Despite calls by supporters at the time to challenge the ban on the grounds that it was unjust, Anwar decided to accept the prohibition.

The 2007 party congress as a result agreed to crown Anwar de facto leader, a post that the Registrar of Societies does not recognise.

Malaysiakini 

Angry Rich

Anger is sweeping America. True, this white-hot rage is a minority phenomenon, not something that characterizes most of our fellow citizens. But the angry minority is angry indeed, consisting of people who feel that things to which they are entitled are being taken away. And they’re out for revenge.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

No, I’m not talking about the Tea Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.

These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again.
Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.
The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street. Thus when New York magazine published an article titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was talking about financial wheeler-dealers whose firms had been bailed out with taxpayer funds, but were furious at suggestions that the price of these bailouts should include temporary limits on bonuses. When the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman compared an Obama proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland, the proposal in question would have closed a tax loophole that specifically benefits fund managers like him.
Now, however, as decision time looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts — will top tax rates go back to Clinton-era levels? — the rage of the rich has broadened, and also in some ways changed its character.
For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.
At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.
Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.
And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.
You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.
And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.
NYT

Infighting in Malacanang Palace

Infighting tagged worst under Aquino

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 08:22:00 09/20/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Infighting is not a strange thing in Malacañang but the alleged factionalism between the “Samar” and “Balay” groups in the Aquino administration is the worst, according to two senators who said they “have seen it all” after the Edsa revolution.
“There is always [discord in any administration]. You can’t take that away except that in this administration, the factionalism is deeper and [worse] than previous ones,” said Sen. Edgardo Angara, who was executive secretary during pardoned plunder convict Joseph Estrada’s short-lived tenure as president.
“From Aquino to Ramos to Erap to Gloria—I have seen [these administrations] close hand and I know how different factions fight each other. But this is the only administration where there are too many factions and competition is very fierce,” Angara said.
Even before he stepped into power last June 30, President Benigno Aquino III’s core team of supporters—assembled hastily for his surprise candidacy in the May 2010 elections—has always been filled with tension and conflict.
On one end are groups and individuals who frequent his campaign headquarters on Samar Avenue in Quezon City and on the other end are supporters and kibitzers who make the Balay headquarters of the Liberal Party at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City, their meeting place.
Angara said these groups have competed for Cabinet seats, government posts and budget allocations.
“Competition is good because it will inspire and motivate others to be at their best, but it can also be destructive because they can destroy each other. If the goal is to destroy each other, they will destroy their own boss and their own administration,” he said.
This factionalism has also led to what critics describe as the amateurish way the Aquino administration has been running government in its first three months, as the President has been forced not only to choose the best people to run the government but to maintain the balance of power between his warring allies.
Sen. Joker Arroyo, who was executive secretary in the administration of President Aquino’s late mother Corazon, described the current Aquino administration as no better than a “student council or student government” with a list of blunders and bloopers piling up as the days pass.
Arroyo said Malacañang has become a “hit or miss” administration where the President has been forced to use his political capital and own up to his people’s mistakes.
“His people think the President should cover for them because he’s like Teflon—no amount of criticism can stick to him. But this is totally wrong, the officials around the President are supposed to protect him, not the other way around,” Arroyo said.

Lady Lawyer's Wrath

Sep 20, 2010

Probe into mother's bloodbath

People hug each other front of the Elisabethen-Krankenhaus hospital in the southern German town of Loerrach. Four people were killed and at least one person seriously injured when a woman armed with a gun opened fire in and around a hospital in the southern German town of Loerrach. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BERLIN - GERMAN investigators said on Monday they believe a domestic row drove a woman to murder and torch her estranged husband and small son and kill a hospital employee before being shot dead by police.
Investigators suspect that the 41-year-old lawyer shot dead her husband and their five-year-old son when they were visiting her flat in Loerrach in southwest Germany late on Sunday.
The mother, who has not been named, had recently separated from her husband, and the son lived most of the time at his father's home, police said.
The woman then set the apartment, which doubled as her law practice, ablaze with the dead bodies inside, police believe. Their charred remains were later recovered from the smoking wreckage, reportedly along with empty petrol cans.
But just as emergency services arrived to put out the fire, the woman ran across the road to the Saint Elizabeth hospital, armed with a handgun, shooting two bystanders on her way and leaving them seriously injured.
Media reports said that panic broke out inside the hospital, with patients screaming for help and seeking refuge in rooms, the cellar and even on the roof.
Authorities said that the hospital employee, who according to press reports worked in the hospital's gynaecological department, died from gunshot and stab wounds to the head. They were at a loss to say whether the woman bore any particular grudge against the hospital or any of its employees. -- AFP

Sakmongkol punches again

Losing by default — Sakmongkol AK47

September 17, 2010

SEPT 17 — Now that I have written several articles in Bahasa Melayu, l shall revert to English. The central theme of my articles is that if there is anyone to be blamed for the confusion about how Umno should treat Perkasa, it’s the Umno president.
Umno has forfeited its role as spokesman of Malay leadership by default. First, the Umno president is giving out ambivalent messages. He hasn’t given unqualified and absolute support to his foot soldiers. He is asking his people to distance themselves from Perkasa but undercuts this call by saying we are not at war with Perkasa. And what does “distancing” mean exactly? It’s not a question of at war or at odds. It’s a case of stating clearly that Umno doesn’t share the same ideals of Perkasa.
It’s a case of saying that Umno has a better programme and agenda than Perkasa will ever have. Right now, Umno hasn’t done that beyond discussing whatever programmes which seem never to have been finalised yet in labs conducted by consulting companies.
Otherwise we are better off by shutting up. The core element of Perkasa’s struggle is the retention of NEP and of Malay rights. It is to this element that Umno leaders must argue. Unfortunately they don’t have the grey matter to argue against the idea.
Malays in general are not averse to reason and sensibility. It is a mark of mental and cerebral deficiency if you resort to name calling as a means to counter Datuk Ibrahim Ali’s Perkasa.
How would you argue against NEP? Start by asking what has NEP turned into at the hands of achievement-challenged Umno leaders?
1. It stands for social immobility.
2. It stands for getting on in life by way of cutting corners, working less and wanting a free lunch.
3. It stands for a system that does not match rewards with ability and hard work..
4. It stands for a system that makes putting in less effort but getting more benefits, respectable.
But before that, we have to state the following. If whatever privileges are already enshrined in our constitution, to wit Article 153, then why do we need organisations like Perkasa to add validity to this Article?
It suggests that we are not confident of our own constitution. Or Perkasa can clearly see that there is no longer Umno in the future. If there is no Umno then the constitution can be changed. By the way, Article 153 provides for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to ensure a few things pertaining to Malay privileges are protected.
To me then, it’s not Article 153 that we should focus our attention on. It’s the primacy of the institution of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. If that is the case, vest in him paramount authority as the final arbiter and veto power to ensure not only Malay privileges but to include other things as well — how and why Petronas money is applied or that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong has the final authority to endorse plans to spend extraordinary amount of public funds.
Two, Malays will forever be the majority group in this country. I find it impossible for Malays to forsake what is important to them regardless of whatever party they belong to.
So where is the steam that pushes Perkasa? Ini pun orang Umno tak boleh debat.
This is the way we should argue why NEP must be abolished. It’s not that Malays will drop off dead if the NEP is abolished. I have long held the view that rights are what we fought for and earned and not gotten gratuitously. This is what the NEP is instilling — that rights are a given because they are so. Also because it’s written in our constitution.
The validity of NEP doesn’t depend on Article 153. That Article provides for powers to be exercised by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in matters concerning government positions, scholarships, etc. Even then, such powers are to be exercised with circumspect, the most important qualification being, in so far as they do not injure the legitimate rights of other Malaysian races.
I want to tell our Malaysian Chinese brothers, they are not the only ones pissed off with the NEP. The majority of Malays are equally angered. Because the NEP has turned out to actually be a fight to control the turf by competing Malay elites, the superbumis, the puteras in the bumi. The majority are treated as cannon fodder by these people in working out a solution with the elites of other Malaysians.
How many per cent of the Malay population benefited from the RM54 billion offer to take up equity in listed companies? We know so many cashed out that the value held by Bumiputeras is now only RM2 billion. I have written sometime ago, let the government list out those who have cashed out and permanently bar them from even applying for new shares.
So I come to my first contention that the NEP, far from empowering the majority of Malays, represent a hurdle for social mobility. So when the majority is denied access to wealth-creating resources, this breeds enmity and social tensions.
The social mobility which the NEP sought to achieve was enjoyed by the privileged few. Because the mobility meant for Malays are differentiated. For some, the privileged, the well connected, it’s a programme that allows cutting corners. Pink forms here and there, easy financing, sometimes free shares because of who they are. For the majority, the mobility has to be earned the hard way — work hard, toil the land, study harder.
The NEP represents unequal outcome through unequal opportunities. What we wanted were equal opportunities resulting naturally in unequal outcomes.
How can I be persuaded that NEP is good for the Malays? — sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Hj  Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.