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Tax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

“The staff photographer for President Bush took a million photos. The President kept all of them. This week, the GWB Presidential library opens in Dallas. If someone wants to view a million photos of Bush, he can. I don’t know who goes to a Presidential library. There are 13 of these libraries. Bush’s cost $250 million. It has 15 acres of fake prairie. It has 227,000 square feet. To house what? They cost millions a year to run. They are built by private donors. No one knows who. No one knows why. What we do know is that taxpayers funded a full-time photographer who spent 8 years taking pictures of George W. Bush.” Continue reading →

Tax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

Rep. Barbara Lee: Repeal AUMF to stop ‘this state of perpetual war’

“Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) on Wednesday called for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be repealed. ‘I’m convinced that if we do not repeal this authorization to use force that I voted against in 2001, we are going to see this state of perpetual war forever,’ she told Current TV’s John Fugelsang. Congress approved the AUMF just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, giving the President authority to wage war ‘against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.’ Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against it, describing it as a ‘blank check’ for war.” Continue reading →

Egypt holds Swiss teacher over ‘terrorist name’

“A Swiss primary school teacher from the canton of Bern who went to Egypt for a holiday is being held there on suspicion of being a terrorist because of his name. Rolf Künti, 29, went to the North African country with a colleague for a one-week holiday. But on the day of his planned return to Switzerland he was detained on Monday at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport where he was told by customs he was banned from leaving, according to Swiss media. ‘They told me that my name was that of a terrorist if you translate it into Arabic,’ Künti is quoted as saying by 20 Minuten, the online news site.” Continue reading →

Sen. Rubio ‘open’ to cutting off all Muslim student visas

“Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Wednesday said that he was ‘open’ to considering the idea of halting all student visas from Muslim countries as a reaction to this month’s Boston Marathon bombings, even though the two men suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings emigrated from Russia as refugees. ‘We need to be open to changes that provide more security,’ Rubio replied. ‘I don’t like profiling anybody or singling or generally leading, on the other hand student visas are something this country does because it’s in our national interest but you don’t have a right to a student visa.'” Continue reading →

Prague sends aid package to Texas blast town in honor of shared Czech heritage

“Prague said Wednesday it will send thousands of dollars in funds to West, the small Texan town levelled last week by a factory explosion and whose residents are largely of Czech origin. The government has approved assistance of four million koruna (150,000 euros, $200,000), on the suggestion of Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. Last week’s massive explosion at a fertiliser plant in the town of 2,800 residents killed at least 14 people, injured around 200 others and destroyed dozens of homes. Around three quarters of the town’s residents have Czech roots, making it one of the state’s main immigration hubs from the Central European country.” Continue reading →

Swiss court orders stolen East German millions returned

“The ruling, upholding an earlier verdict by a lower court, concerns the transfer into a Swiss bank of 128 million euros from the communist East Germany after the impoverished country’s demise in 1990. This transfer by Rudolfine Steindling, a colourful Austrian communist dubbed ‘Fini the Red’ who died last year, was conducted by a former subsidiary of Bank Austria, itself now part of Italy’s UniCredit. In the 1990s Germany, by then reunified, complained that Steindling had no right to the money, which was amassed by East Germany charging fees from Western firms investing there, and that Bank Austria knew this.” Continue reading →

Lucerne orchestra axes concert with Depardieu over tax shopping

“The orchestra in the central Swiss city decided to scrap the May 25th concert over worries that the political waves caused by Depardieu’s tax avoidance activities would overshadow the performance. The film actor, one of the highest paid in France, recently took up official residence in Belgium and obtained Russian nationality to lower his income tax bill. Depardieu was criticized as ‘rather pathetic’ by French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault last December for his departure to Belgium, which sparked an angry response from the actor, who said he was handing back his French passport.” Continue reading →