Author: jlpagano

If Sean Fitzpatrick did not commit a crime then we need new laws. Now.

~ jlpagano

Oh, how this makes my blood boil.

Here are some viewpoints on the role former Anglo-Irish Bank chairman Sean FItzpatrick played in the Irish banking crisis.

According to the judicial system…

But Judge John Aylmer ruled this morning on day 126 of the trial that the investigation carried out by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement fell short of the impartial, unbiased investigation that an accused is entitled to.

According to Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett…

Mr Boyd Barrett claimed Mr FitzPatrick walked free because of a set-up and not a blunder. “This stinks to high heaven,’’ he added.

Leas Cheann Comhairle Pat “The Cope’’ Gallagher intervened to say he was referring to a trial and should “refrain lest there might be consequences’’.

Mr Boyd Barrett said: “There is a direct link between Seánie FitzPatrick’s rotten, corrupt activities and Anglo Irish Bank and the families this week being sent to Garda stations or are sleeping in parks because there are no homes.’’

…and then we have the viewpoint of the Irish Times Legal Affairs correspondent Colm Keena

“Sean Fitzpatrick did not commit a crime.” (paraphrase)

It won’t surprise you to learn that my own views would tend to lean towards those of Deputy Barrett.  And while the Irish mainstream media takes such great pains to point out that he was speaking under “privilege” as if it is some kind of cowardly act, I would put forward the proposal that the opposite is the case.

Maybe it’s true that technically Fitzpatrick did not break any laws.  And I would go further in pointing out that watching him “sent down” will not make me feel any better about what the Irish banking sector did to this country.

But if the way he comported himself in both managing Anglo Irish loans and his own personal ones was “legal”, then surely it must be a priority of our parliament to bring proper laws into existence.  And if we can’t bring down a sentence on him in a court of law, how about one from the court of public opinion, making sure the new laws get known as (at least commonly assuming the Dáil would never approve it) The Sean Fitzpatrick Laws.

On the subject of what actually has been done to improve legislation since the crash, here is but one recommendation of the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis published in 2016…

A personal remuneration clawback provision linked to medium term performance should be part of the employment contract for senior executive management and board members.

Just to break that down…basically it seems to suggest that if a bank is losing money, the “bigwigs” at the bank should not make money in terms of bonuses.

BUT ISN’T THAT BLOODY WELL OBVIOUS???????  Did it really have to take a group of elected representatives the guts of three years to come up with stuff like that???

Like I said, blood boiling.  At least we have people like Deputy Barrett who are free to speculate as to what is really going on amongst the ranks of the establishment without fear of prosecution under libel laws by our nation’s real cowards.

#IANWAE

Help convince FF to stop vulture funds in Ireland by signing this petition from Uplift.ie

~ jlpagano

Needless to say we’re big believers in social media activism for progressive causes here at FPP so we’d like you to help them spread the word on this petition…

from Uplift.ie

‘We have more homeless people in Ireland than any time since the famine’

Fr. Peter Mc Verry

If we don’t act now, homelessness in Ireland could get much worse. A terrifying new breed of property buyers known as ‘Vulture Funds’ are swooping in to make a quick profit on the housing market in Ireland. [1] This could lead to evictions and home repossessions on a scale we’ve never seen before.

But, there’s a really good chance we could stop this if we act now. As we speak, Fianna Fáil are thinking about adopting a Bill that would take power away from Vulture Funds. If they get behind this Bill – it would most likely pass in the Dáil. This would mean that people in mortgage arrears could stay in their homes. [2]

We need to act quickly though. As we speak, Fianna Fáil are considering whether this Bill is a good move for them politically – and they’ll have panicked Vulture Funds ringing them up already. But, if we build a massive petition that goes viral – they’ll realise this is an issue voters care really deeply about – and they’ll be forced to listen to us instead.

We’re going to need a signature from every single Uplift member if we’re going to get noticed. So, how about it Jeff, can you add your name?

Yes, I’ll add my name 

Vulture Funds own almost 90,000 properties and almost €10.3 billion worth of assets in Ireland. And what’s worse is that they’ve paid less than €20,000 euro worth of tax. [3]

The Bill being considered by Fianna Fáil right now could seriously help curb the rise of Vulture Funds. It would set up a Government Agency that would look after people in mortgage arrears. Putting it simply – it would mean that people couldn’t be made homeless, just because they can’t pay their mortgage.  [4]

This could be a huge moment in our history. One where ordinary Irish people like you and me stand up and say no to the power of profit over people. We could show the world that we won’t stand by while people are pulled from their homes so vultures can get rich.

But first, we need to make sure our politicians are on our side – not the side of big global corporations.

So can you join the fight and sign the petition today?

#IANWAE

80% of Irish people vote for FF or FG according to FF TD?

~ jlpagano

“Historically, over recent decades or even the last election, the vast majority of Irish people vote for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, the figure might vary 60, 70, maybe 80 percent.”

The above statement, made by Fianna Fáil TD Seán Fleming on the latest Irish Times “inside Politics” podcast, illustrates one of the core reasons we have this very website First Person Plural.  It’s a myth that needs to be destroyed in the public domain once and for all.

In fairness to the podcast host Hugh Linehan, he did offer something of a rebuttal to Fleming’s claim when he pointed out that the figures were down in the most recent election in 2016, but it was nowhere near the kind of response that was truly warranted.

The so-called “Civil War” parties received a combined total of 49.8% of the popular vote in the 2016 general election.  In 2011, the combined total was 53.5%.  So the reality is that the figure has been nowhere near the 60% mark since the 2007 election, the third Bertie victory just before “the crash”, where they combined for over two-thirds of the vote, ie 68.7%.

But even those numbers aren’t enough to crunch in order to get a true picture of the Irish political taste.

Recently in France they had their presidential elections, and among the headlines from those results are how “low” their turnout figures were.  For the first round 77% of the electorate voted, for the second round it was just under 75%.  In other words, it was considered a bad thing that a quarter of the people failed to register their vote.

Not since 1997, Bertie’s first election victory, has an Irish general election cracked the 70% barrier.

And in last year’s ballot, despite all the anger surrounding the way the country was failed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour both before and since the crash, as many as 1,147,534 registered voters failed to turn up on election day.

For me, those votes are up for grabs, and I would argue a significant proportion of those voters would be perfectly willing to vote for anyone but FG or FF (or even Lab) if a decent unified platform was put before them.

If not, the perception that there are only two “serious” options will endure.  Fleming was almost gleeful in the podcast painting FF as some kind of left wing option simply because they are slightly to the left of Fine Gael.

#IANWAE

Stat sources – Wikipedia & Irish Independent

 

 

Can you dispute any of these ten points as basic human rights?

~ jlpagano

1. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE FREE.
2. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HEALTHY.
3. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE BRILLIANT.
4. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE.
5. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE LOVED.
6. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE COURAGEOUS.
7. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE ALIVE.
8. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE TRUSTED.
9. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE EDUCATED.
10. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

What is your reaction to those ten points?

  1. Is it something like  – “Yes, they all make sense.”
  2. Or is it something like – “No, that’s bullshit.”
  3. Or is it something like – “Hmmm….tell me what the source is first?”

If it is the second one, fine.  Off you go.  You’re welcome to this site, but you probably won’t find anything you want here.

If it’s the third one, fine – here’s the source.

Now you know the source, is your answer 1 or 2?

Just a thought for the day.  Hat-tip to The Edge of Sports podcast.

Sorry we haven’t been posting much lately.  We hope to get back to it soon.  JLP

#IANWAE

Marches planned across the US pressuring Trump to release his tax returns #TaxMarch

~ jlpagano

April 15 is traditionally income tax filing day in the US.  When it falls on a Saturday, you actully have until the following Monday, but Americans across the country are using the weekend date to voice their concerns over the President’s failure to release his returns.

Throughout the campaign he switched between promising he would release his returns and stating he couldn’t because they were “under audit”.  Well this new filing can’t be audited yet so he surely has an opportunity to prove all the doubters wrong by simply showing us what he has been hiding all this time.

When we didn’t see Obama’s birth certificate, he took that to mean that he was born outside the US.  When we didn’t see Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails, he took that to mean she was engaged in criminal activity.  So using his own logic, what are we to take from his refusal to do what every presidential candiate has done for the last 40 years?

Here’s what the organisers of the “Tax March” have to say :

The Tax March is a movement gaining momentum around the country to demand transparency and fairness from our Commander-in-Chief. Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump told the American people he would release his tax returns. Despite intense public pressure, President Trump has not yet done so – breaking with 40 years of precedent in the process. His administration’s excuse? “People don’t care.”

We do care. Without seeing his tax returns, we have no idea what he’s hiding – shady business deals? Financial ties to foreign countries? Conflicts of interest? – or who his policies are really benefitting.

On April 15, we’re marching on Washington and in communities across the country to send a clear message to Donald Trump: You work for us, and we demand answers.

It will be interesting to see how the marches are covered by the mainstream media, if at all.

#IANWAE

Mainstream media and “deranged” liberals square off over Trump’s Syrian attacks

~ jlpagano

The bible on which Donald Trump was sworn in as President was still warm from his touch as Sean Spicer launched the administration’s first attack on the mainstream media.  We later learned they were considered “the enemy of the people” and purveyors of “fake news”.

But all that changed once the attacks were being launched in a more conventional military fashion.  Then all the insults were miraculously forgotten.

Among the most notable admirers of Trump’s unique foreign policy style, which involves informing fellow super powers of your actions over chocolate cake apparently, was CNN’s Fareed Zakaria who claimed that he was “finally being presidential”.

Look – of course he’s entitled to his opinion, nobody is disputing that.  But this article of his in the Washington Post appears to be a sign of him being unable to cope with the backlash he received from the “Left”, as he goes the route of cherry picking the most abusive comments and constructs an absurdly straw man view from the “liberal” standpoint.

From the response on the left, you would have thought I had just endorsed Trump for pope. Otherwise thoughtful columnists described my views as “nonsense” and a sign that the media has “bent over backward” to support Trump. (Really?) One journalist declared on television, “If that guy could have sex with this cruise missile attack, I think he would do it.” A gaggle of former Obama speechwriters discussed how my comments were perhaps “the stupidest” of any given on the subject.

So basically when your opponents use hyperbole it means they’re “deranged” yet it’s ok for you to suggest you had endorsed Trump for the papacy?

A lot of people disagree with you, Fareed.  Get over it.

Meanwhile here’s Lee “Geeky Jesus” Camp with his take on the whole affair, which would be much closer to our view here at FPP.  Yes, we know his show is backed by Russia Today.  But while we don’t always agree with his show’s viewpoint, it often makes a lot of sense.

For another example of the gap in opinion here’s The Young Turks appraising Fox News’ “This is what freedom looks like” narrative…

#IANWAE

“A lot won, a lot more to do”, claims #Right2Water movement

~ jlpagano

A statement from the Irish #Right2Water campaign that is definitely worth reading…

After a day of FF being FF again and working with FG to re-open the door to water charges down the line the Oireachtas Committee have finalised and voted on a report which will now go before the Dail.

You the water movement have achieved the following:

– charges as they were are gone

– bills as they were are gone

– domestic charges will be paid through general taxation (with the exception set out below)

– a consensus on a referendum will be stated (but no date will be announced don’t believe FG or FF will do this)

– further relief has been given to those in private schemes

– money will be paid back to those who paid their bills

Thanks to FF doing an about face however there will now be

– meters in new builds and refurbishments

– a charge (as opposed to penalties in last weeks report) to anyone consistently using 170% of the average use per adult (currently 133 litres a day)

This means we continue to live in a country where privileged elites who have always abused their position continue to spin and lie and twist in order to keep alive their ideological efforts to privatise and commodify our human Right2Water.

In this case they kept going until they finally got a legal opinion (their 9th) that they could buy to say what they wanted it to say.

Still the campaign has ensured they have been set back years from where they were three, two and even one year ago by the water campaign. Without you, the water campaigners, they’d probably be about to sell it now while your bills for a full household would be in four figures.

You won, for now, on general taxation, but like the bin charges, they are going to spend years trying to roll back on this.

We at R2W are not happy with this outcome as there is more to do. But remember what has been achieved. Remember where we were, and how hopeless it was, three short years ago. And remember also that this is very far away from what FG, FF, Irish Water and most of all the Labour Party who did most to try to commodify our human Right2Water wanted to do to us.

We have only just begun.

Be proud and keep going.

We will.

#IANWAE

Is what should be a “Trump Bump” at the polls already more like a “Trump Slump”?

~ jlpagano

On Tuesday, the Amercian people had their first chance to tell Donald Trump in a meaningful way what they thought of his overall performance so far.

He had appointed as director of the CIA Mike Pompeo, who had been a Republican member of the House of Repreasentives from the 4th district of the state of Kansas, and thus there needed to be a special election to fill his seat.

I’ll let the Kansas City Star tell you more…

Pompeo, a Republican who won by 31 percentage points in November, gave up his seat in the 4th Congressional District in January to serve as Trump’s director of the CIA.

GOP strategists warned in recent days that Democrat James Thompson, a civil rights attorney, was in striking distance against Estes, Kansas state treasurer from Wichita…

Trump made a personal push for Estes on his Twitter account Tuesday morning.

“Ron Estes is running TODAY for Congress in the Great State of Kansas,” Trump tweeted. “A wonderful guy, I need his help on Healthcare & Tax Cuts (Reform).”

In the end, Estes prevailed with 53 percent to Thompson’s 45 percent.

The fact that Trump got involved so late in the race (Pence did too…between them they did some “robo-calling“) shows how worried the GOP was.  And for a district that is so strongly Republican (Brits would call it a “safe seat”) to see a majority drop from 31 points to just 8 in the space of 5 months shows the fears were justified.

Many people ask me if there’s any point in bringing attention to all the crazy things that have happened in this administration…will there actually be any consequences?

Well if we’re hoping for impeachment then it’s only results like this that will help bring it about.  The Republicans currently control both the House and the Senate – the chances of either one flipping to the Democrats before the mid-terms in November 2018 are very slim.

BUT if enough results like this one in Kansas keep happening, there’s every chance a group of Republicans fearful of losing their own seats will see the benefit of speaking out against the sitting president.  And next week, there’s another special election which the Democrats might just win.

Tom Price was promoted from representing Georgia’s 6th district to being Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services despite numerous allegations of using his congressional office to personally profit from changes in legislation.  You may remember Price for standing beside the President as the Democrats were being blamed for the failure of Trumpcare.  Now his seat needs filling and the Democrats are confident they can overturn a 23-point deficit from last November.

Believe it or not, I’m not 100% excited by the prospect of the Democrats doing well right now.  Sure, anything that hurts Trump & the GOP is overall a good thing, but despite their having this much power, the Dems have done precious little to address their own failures in recent times.

It remains to be seen what changes will be made by new party chair Tom Perez but if more of these early special elections go his party’s way, he could be tempted to “sit tight” and do nothing, hoping the Repubicans implode so he won’t have to go the more “radical” (a word the MSM would probably use, I’d use “sensible”) route of giving more seats at the top table to the ever-growing Progressive wing.

We will still be following the events from “Georgia 6th” next week with much interest though.

#IANWAE

 

Trump probably won’t call media coverage of his Syrian air strikes “fake news”

~ jlpagano

As always, FAIR.org are on the ball to point out pro-establishment sentiment in the mainstream media.

The headline of the piece by Adam Johnson pretty much says it all – “Five Top Papers Run 18 Opinion Pieces Praising Syria Strikes–Zero Are Critical“…

No need to debate the morality or utility of the strikes, because the scene played out per usual: Dictator commits an alleged human rights violation, the media calls on those in power to “do something” and the ticking time bomb compels immediate action, lest we look “weak” on the “global stage.” Anything that deviates from this narrative is given token attention at best.

One thing the “failing” New York Times does point out, however, is the evolution of President Trump’s opinion on how to deal with Syria since 2013…

Of course the use of chemical weapons was disgusting.

But the failure to note the profound lack of sincerity in the president’s verbal response (which included him clearly forgetting the name of “Sarin” gas) demonstrates that when it comes to military matters at least, very little has changed in mainstream opinion , even with this administration.

Since the airstrike people seem a lot more interested in fawning over their knowledge of the hardware used to carry out the attack than they do remembering exactly what it was supposedly being done for.

It was bombs being dropped on children.  Children.  Never mind the gas for a moment.  Bombs being dropped on children.  If anything appears to be an afterthought in the media, it’s that. JLP

#IANWAE

ADMIN UPDATE

~ jlpagano

Our goal here at FPP is to bring you at least one post per day but in recent times we have had broadband issues and thus we have needed to give priority to our monetized website.  We hope to be back to “normal” soon.

#IANWAE