Cap and trade or Smoot-Hawley?

Emblematic of the problems buried in the flawed "cap and trade" bill is a provision that only came to light in the final moments of the House debate.

A last-minute amendment, inserted in the early morning hours on the day of the vote, would tax goods that we import from countries that are unwilling to adopt carbon-reducing measures. So, the question becomes: Should our nation really levy trade penalties on countries that don't agree to limit their carbon emissions?

The provision is fraught with potential negative consequences. Some fear it's the return of the Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised tariffs on imported goods to record levels in the 1930s. Others, however, argue the provision is absolutely necessary should the bill, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., become law.

President Barack Obama, who pushed hard for the Waxman-Markey legislation, has rejected the trade penalty measure. "At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there," Obama said.

We are inclined to agree with the president on this issue.

But if Obama thinks the provision could harm global trade, he also ought to realize the competitive disadvantage that Waxman-Markey creates at home. Because if it does become law, the U.S. may have no choice but to levy a carbon tariff.

Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman argues that Obama is making a mistake by rejecting what he calls "the border adjustment."

The economist, a fierce advocate for "cap and trade," says that without the tax, the environmental benefits of the bill will be undermined.

Companies, he argues, would stop buying U.S.-made goods, which would cost more due to the demands to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the production process. Instead, they would buy goods produced by countries that are not saddled with the extra expense and regulation.

"The truth is that there's perfectly sound economics behind border adjustments," Krugman argues, claiming that imposing tariffs for non-economic reasons, such as cutting carbon dioxide emissions, isn't protectionism, but is simply leveling the playing field.

The argument, added to fears from industry that overseas competition would benefit at America's expense as a result of cap and trade, should be a key part of the upcoming Senate debate on this bill.

Waxman-Markey's tariff provision, as written, would begin imposing the tax in 2020. The president can waive the tariffs, but only if Congress approves the waivers.

Observers say the House bill wouldn't have passed without the tariff, because industrial state lawmakers feared job losses.

Now that it's out in the open, we hope the Senate can evaluate it carefully.

We oppose the bill because it relies far too much on theoretical clean-energy technology break-throughs to achieve the desired drops in greenhouse gas emissions. It also creates a new, complicated market for trading emissions that is susceptible to abuse.

It's a hugely transformative measure — which would lower global CO2 emissions by only a few percentage points — that risks crippling our economy.

Palin’s Threats To The Press Puts To Question Her Judgement

Opinion by Dolores M. Bernal, NEWS JUNKIE POST

There is something to be said of Sarah Palin’s threat to sue reporters and bloggers who write about the reasons she may have unexpectedly stepped down as Governor of Alaska. And that something is: poor judgement. No public official in their right mind should ever even think of picking a fight with the press, unless, they’re asking for their careers to be over.

Just in case you may not know about what’s transpired since Palin’s press conference Friday, let me bring you up to date. Several bloggers and some mainstream media reporters wrote that Palin is resigning as Governor of Alaska because she may be facing a criminal investigation over materials used to build her home in Wasilla, Alaska and those used to build the Wasilla Sports Complex. Palin’s lawyer Thoman Van Flein issued a letter over the weekend to media and bloggers that were talking about this, and stated that the soon to be ex-Governor of Alaska “will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law.”

You see, these allegations about Palin and the building materials were brought to light to folks in the mainland by Alaskan radio host and blogger, Shannyn Moore, and there was also an article about this by Max Blumenthal of the Daily Beast about the potential criminal investigation. Many other blogs picked up these reports and MSNBC and other mainstream folks did their job by reporting about it, even if they were just “rumors.”

Word of these reports got to Palin faster than a lighting and just as she is quick to leave her job, she is also quick at making threats to people without considering the facts and the consequences of what she is about to do.

If state legislators in Alaska have been the ones talking about this potential investigation, then what Moore, bloggers, and news reporters did was NOT at all a crime and they shouldn’t be subjected to threats and intimidation by Mr. Van Flein. Freedom of the Press is alive and well in America and our rights as journalists cannot be tramped upon by some defensive third class politician like Palin.

I challenge Moore, bloggers, and all other reporters to not be sheepish about standing up and reminding Palin that the press’ job is to report information because the public has a right to know what may be going on, especially after her sudden resignation. I mean, what did Palin expect? She walks out of her job with a terrible press conference where she used a ridiculous basketball analogy and where every other sentence just didn’t seem to make any sense. And now she wants to sue reporters over defamation? Come on, give me a break!

There is something terribly wrong about Palin’s view of the media if she thinks she can make us just shut up. No self-respecting reporter should feel like they need to retract anything they said this weekend. I’m not going to. Moore shouldn’t either. There was no defamation of character in any of this. If Palin feels like the press is ruining her “reputation,” she’s got it wrong. The only one ruining anything is her own self by her actions and the puzzling things that come out of her mouth.

China says dollar to remain leading world currency

* Vice minister sees dollar pre-eminence for years to come

* Idea of new reserve currency is 'academic discussion'

* China appreciates U.S. govt efforts for stable dollar

(Adds details, quotes, background)

ROME, July 5 (Reuters) - Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said on Sunday the U.S. dollar would continue to be the world's leading reserve currency for years to come.

"The U.S. dollar is still the most important and major reserve currency of the day, and we believe that that situation will continue for many years to come," He told a news briefing in Rome before this week's Group of Eight summit.

Beijing has floated the idea of an alternative to the dollar as global reserve currency and wants the topic broached at the summit starting in Italy on Wednesday.

The vice minister said Chinese officials had voiced concern about the safety of the country's dollar-denominated assets. "That is natural," he said.

He said many other countries over the years had been calling for the stability of the U.S. dollar. "We appreciate the efforts made by the U.S. government in that direction," he said, adding that it was the responsibility of the government issuing the reserve currency to maintain its stability.

He said discussion about reserve currencies had intensified since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, which he said had revealed "many shortcomings in the international monetary system".

However, he described this as an intellectual debate.

"You may have heard comments, opinions from academic circles about the idea of establishing a super sovereign currency. This is all, I believe, now a discussion among academics. It is not the position of the Chinese government."

Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the Chinese central bank, launched the reserve currency debate last March when he said the SDR, the International Monetary Fund's unit of account, might one day displace the dollar.

Some diplomats and bankers suggest Zhou's primary aim was to highlight attention on concern expressed by Premier Wen Jiabao about the safety of China's huge dollar holdings -- at risk if U.S. policy turns to greater tolerance of inflation.

Bankers reckon China holds perhaps 70 percent of its $1.95 trillion in official currency reserves in the dollar. (Reporting by Silvia Aloisi, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Robert S. McNamara Dies

McNamara died at 5:30 a.m. at his home, his wife Diana told The Associated Press. She said he had been in failing health for some time.

McNamara was fundamentally associated with the Vietnam War, ``McNamara's war,'' the country's most disastrous foreign venture, the only American war to end in abject withdrawal.

Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Ford Motor Co. - where he and a group of colleagues had been known as the ``whiz kids.'' He stayed in the defense post for seven years, longer than anyone since the job's creation in 1947.

His association with Vietnam became intensely personal. Even his son, as a Stanford University student, protested against the war while his father was running it. At Harvard, McNamara once had to flee a student mob through underground utility tunnels. Critics mocked McNamara mercilessly; they made much of the fact that his middle name was ``Strange.''

After leaving the Pentagon on the verge of a nervous breakdown, McNamara became president of the World Bank and devoted evangelical energies to the belief that improving life in rural communities in developing countries was a more promising path to peace than the buildup of arms and armies.

A private person, McNamara for many years declined to write his memoirs, to lay out his view of the war and his side in his quarrels with his generals. In the early 1990s he began to open up. He told Time magazine in 1991 that he did not think the bombing of North Vietnam - the biggest bombing campaign in history up to that time - would work but he went along with it ``because we had to try to prove it would not work, number one, and (because) other people thought it would work.''

Finally, in 1993, after the Cold War ended, he undertook to write his memoirs because some of the lessons of Vietnam were applicable to the post-Cold War period ``odd as though it may seem."

``In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam'' appeared in 1995. McNamara disclosed that by 1967 he had deep misgivings about Vietnam - by then he had lost faith in America's capacity to prevail over a guerrilla insurgency that had driven the French from the same jungled countryside.

Despite those doubts, he had continued to express public confidence that the application of enough American firepower would cause the Communists to make peace. In that period, the number of U.S. casualties - dead, missing and wounded - went from 7,466 to over 100,000.

``We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong,'' McNamara, then 78, told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of the book's release.

The best-selling mea culpa renewed the national debate about the war and prompted bitter criticism against its author. ``Where was he when we needed him?'' a Boston Globe editorial asked. A New York Times editorial referred to McNamara as offering the war's dead only a ``prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.''

McNamara wrote that he and others had not asked the five most basic questions: ``Was it true that the fall of South Vietnam would trigger the fall of all Southeast Asia? Would that constitute a grave threat to the West's security? What kind of war - conventional or guerrilla - might develop? Could we win it with U.S. troops fighting alongside the South Vietnamese? Should we not know the answers to all these questions before deciding whether to commit troops?

He discussed similar themes in the 2003 documentary ``The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.'' With the U.S. in the first year of the war in Iraq, it became a popular and timely art-house attraction and won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

The Iraq war, with its similarities to Vietnam, at times brought up McNamara's name, in many cases in comparison with another unpopular defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld. McNamara was among former secretaries of defense and state who met twice with President Bush in 2006 to discuss Iraq war policies.

In the Kennedy administration, McNamara was a key figure in both the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis 18 months later. The crisis was the closest the world came to a nuclear confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.

McNamara served as the World Bank president for 12 years. He tripled its loans to developing countries and changed its emphasis from grandiose industrial projects to rural development.

After retiring in 1981, he championed the causes of nuclear disarmament and aid by the richest nation for the world's poorest. He became a global elder statesman.

McNamara's trademarks were his rimless glasses and slicked down hair and his reliance on quantitative analysis to reach conclusions, calmly promulgated in a husky voice.

He was born June 9, 1916, in San Francisco, son of the sales manager for a wholesale shoe company. At the University of California at Berkeley, he majored in mathematics, economics and philosophy.

As a professor at the Harvard Business School when World War II started, he helped train Army Air Corps officers in cost-effective statistical control. In 1943, he was commissioned an Army officer and joined a team of young officers who developed a new field of statistical control of supplies.

McNamara and his colleagues sold themselves to the Ford organization as a package and revitalized the company. The group became known as the ``whiz kids'' and McNamara was named the first Ford president who was not a descendant of Henry Ford.

A month later, the newly elected Kennedy invited McNamara, a registered Republican, to join his Cabinet. Taking the $25,000-a-year job cost McNamara $3 million in profit from Ford stocks and options.

As defense chief, McNamara reshaped America's armed forces for ``flexible response'' and away from the nuclear ``massive retaliation'' doctrine espoused by former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. He asserted civilian control of the Pentagon and applied cost-accounting techniques and computerized systems analysis to defense spending.

Early on, Kennedy regarded South Vietnam as an area threatened by Communist aggression and a providing ground for his new emphasis on counterinsurgency forces. A believer in the domino theory - that countries could fall to communism like a row of dominoes - Kennedy dispatched U.S. ``advisers'' to bolster the Saigon government. Their numbers surpassed 16,000 by the time of his assassination.

Following Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson retained McNamara as ``the best in the lot'' of Kennedy Cabinet members and the man to keep Vietnam from falling to the Communists.

When U.S. naval vessels were allegedly attacked off the North Vietnamese coast in 1964, McNamara lobbied Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which Johnson used as the equivalent of a congressional declaration of war.

McNamara visited Vietnam - the first of many trips - and returned predicting that American intervention would enable the South Vietnamese, despite internal feuds, to stand by themselves ``by the end of 1965.''

That was an early forerunner of a seemingly endless string of official ``light at the end of the tunnel'' predictions of American success. Each was followed by more warfare, more American troops, more American casualties, more American bombing, more North Vietnamese infiltration - and more predictions of an early end to America's commitment.

McNamara's first wife, Margaret, whom he met in college, died of cancer in 1981; they had two daughters and a son. In 2004, at age 88, he married Italian-born widow Diana Masieri Byfield.

The Real Story Behind Palin's Bombshell

Anyone who is in any way surprised by Sarah Palin's announcement today that she will not be seeking re-election, and, even more significantly, is stepping down as Governor of Alaska, has not been paying close attention. The signs have been everywhere.

Palin has absolutely zero interest in running the State of Alaska. She steadfastly refused to live in Juneau after her first year there, had the gall to charge the state for residing at her home in Wasilla 600 miles away, and she basically mailed in her performance as the state's top administrator during Alaska's most recent legislative session. She has alienated virtually all the key legislators in her own party -- that's right, Republicans -- and had failed to move any key legislation forward since her return to Alaska from the national campaign trail last November.

In fact, her bizarre appointment for Attorney General, Wayne Anthony Ross, was rejected nearly unanimously by the state legislature -- a first in Alaskan history. Even in respect to energy policy, her supposed bailiwick, she has been categorically ineffective. When I asked those in-the-know what role Palin had played in putting together the recent pipeline deal between TransCanada and Exxon, their response was simple: "None."

None. That about sums up Palin's accomplishments as Governor of the Last Frontier.

The evangelical right can wallow in denial all they want about Palin being victimized by liberals or Democrats or even George Soros (some illiterate wingnut recently tried to link me to him), but the fact is that most of the people with really bad things to say about Palin -- from John McCain's staff to conservatives in Alaska -- come from the Republican Party. The charges of a left-wing conspiracy are so ridiculous as to be absolutely absurd.

But then what coming from the Palin camp isn't?

Moreover, Palin was facing what would have been a hugely embarrassing veto override by the Alaska legislature at the beginning of the next session in January over her politically postured refusal to accept Federal stimulus funds. If this past legislative session was a setback for Palin, the upcoming session would have been an absolute public relations disaster -- hardly the proper entree for her presidential campaign.

My sources in Wasilla tell me that Palin's father, Chuck Heath, has spoken repeatedly about the "liberal press" and dreaded "bloggers" taking their toll on his daughter. I recently discovered an early, telling email by Palin complaining to her pal Meg Stapleton about something a blogger had written in the Anchorage Daily News and how significantly it bothered her -- "kind of makes my stomach turn over," she wrote. Palin can dish, but she can't take it. She's got a terribly thin skin. When I reported here less than a month ago that Palin had clearly lifted passages from an article by Newt Gingrich and Craig Shirley (whose name she didn't even bother to mention) she and her entourage went apoplectic. What she had done was blatantly obvious and she would have been tossed from any reputable college or university for such slipshod citation. Palin, and the sycophants with whom she surrounds herself, simply have no moral compass.

Some pundits have said that Palin's resignation is out of character. Hardly. Don't forget that she resigned from her last statewide office -- that as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Sarah Palin is a quitter. She fancies herself something else. But, in the end, she quit her position at AOGCC and she has now quit her governorship. That's two-for-two at the statewide level. In Wasilla, there was nearly a recall launched against her as mayor. Trouble and turbulence have followed her everywhere.

More importantly, there are rumors in Alaska that more Ethics Act charges are in the works and that there is also a more serious Federal investigation focusing on Palin during her tenure as mayor in Wasilla and the building of her home and a sports complex in Wasilla, long speculated to have been linked. It's the one very touchy subject whenever you bring it up in the MatSu Valley. As someone who is writing a book on Palin, I can attest to the fact that there are always rumors flying about her, not all of them true, but this seems like a real possibility, especially given the timing of her announcement today.

Palin also has a multi-million dollar book project for Rupert Murdoch that she needs to complete in time for a spring release. That's some serious cabbage, and there were grumblings in Alaska about the book deal as well. There will be other lucrative, high-visibility media options for her shortly down the road. Don't be surprised to hear of one of those popping up soon. This frees her up to reach for the gold ring without her minions being able to register any complaints. In that respect, it's a logical move.

A longtime Republican in Alaska who has known Palin since she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 told me that Palin "enthusiastically embraced" her trip to Georgia last year in which she campaigned for Senator Saxby Chambliss. She sees herself doing that around the country in 2010, raising money for conservative Republicans and, by so doing, building support for a presidential candidacy in 2012. "She was absolutely adored in Georgia," said the GOP operative, "and she loved her role there --preaching her particular brand of conservatism to the already converted." And make no mistake about it: Sarah Palin is by far the biggest ticket item that GOP has in its dwindling catalog of candidates.

All of the recent public donnybrooks have taken their toll: First the article by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair and then the even nastier revelations of emails leaked by the McCain campaign which showed her to be an utter liar regarding her husband Todd's membership in the Alaska Independent Party. Even the seemingly innocuous interview in Runner's World, with its bizarre, braggadocio boast of her having more endurance than Obama, revealed her penchant for duplicity at every turn: the assertion that an injury she had sustained while jogging in Arizona had been kept top-secret, a contention thoroughly disputed by the inimitable Mudflats.

One of my favorite lies spewed by Palin today in yet another poorly scripted speech was that she campaigned for governor "four years ago...," when she, in fact, ran for governor three years ago and held her position for little more than two-and-half years. It's the little lies she always tells, the twists of truth, the distortions. Four years sounds like nearly a full term; three feels incomplete. So why not just call it four?

For all her projected toughness, Palin loves to play the victim. "Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt," she whined, implying that her problems are from out-of-state (yet another big lie). "Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations..." It wasn't quite Richard Nixon's "Checker's Speech," but it was close. In her own awkward vernacular, the Governor was essentially saying to Alaska, "You won't have Sarah Palin to kick around any more."

Here's a little bit of Alaska inside talk for you. Those close to the governor have consistently indicated to me that they privately blame Mitt Romney & Co. as the source of a lot of the media hits on Palin. It may even be true. But with today's announcement, Palin will soon be on equal footing with Romney -- no longer saddled by statewide office and free to travel and maneuver however and wherever she damn well pleases. Today's statement was a great equalizer for 2012.

By being a lame duck, Palin would have exposed herself to more negative coverage, more public failure. By stepping down she allows herself to regroup, get out from under the microscope and re-emerge as a national figure without the constant strain of serving as governor.

Some news sources are claiming that Palin is stepping away from politics permanently; perhaps. But I didn't hear that today. What I heard were typical Palin code words that she has her ambitions set for higher office, for a national stage. Her shots at Obama's stimulus package were just one of many signals aimed directly at Washington.

So do not think for a moment that this is the last we will be hearing from Sarah Palin. The Federal Election Commission will soon be reporting how much money Palin's SarahPAC has raised over the past four months. You can bet that Palin has a lot of gas left in her tank. She is the gift that John McCain gave us that will not go away.

Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn is at work on a book about Sarah Palin and her role in American politics, to be published by Macmillan/St. Martin's in 2010.

Insane Sarah Palin, Late At Night On July 4, Threatens To Sue Entire Internet, Via Twitter

How did you spend the Fourth of July? Maybe having a BBQ with friends and family, watching a fireworks show, and generally enjoying a happy patriotic holiday? Batshit-insane American Quitter Sarah Palin ended her own special “Independence Day” by posting a series of desperate grammar-challenged nonsense and vicious threats on her Facebook and Twitter pages. Really.

(Also: Sarah, you idiot, when do you plan to give up your Twitter name AKGovSarahPalin? Because, you know, you just quit being governor ….)

It is unwise to dwell on the past or be obsessed with an unknown future, but we should all appreciate the wonderful present — a present in which Sarah Palin is nothing more than a punchline. Because, had things gone very differently in November, this dangerous delusional numbskull would’ve been just an Ambien overdose away from the presidency.

Thank you, America, for steering clear of the Sarah Palin disaster.

So, after crazily quitting her elected position as governor of Alaska, via an alarming backyard last-minute press conference void of any explanation , at the classic 4 p.m. hour of the Friday-Holiday news dump, Sarah Palin is now twatting on the twitter about how her Anchorage attorneys are going to SUE THE AMERICAN MEDIA, for saying “WTF?”

Honestly, this is what Sarah Palin twatted on Saturday Night, July 4th, Independence Day, in America.

Her link goes to (of course) Scientologist nut and sub-literate weirdo Greta Van Susteren’s blog on FoxNews.com, where Greta has helpfully (?) posted seven pages of legal threats from Palin’s lawyers, although you can’t actually read beyond the first vague page of whining bullshit, because Greta/Fox can’t figure out how to operate the Internet.

But, from other websites, we gather Palin’s lawyers plan lawsuits against MSNBC, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, individual bloggers in Alaska, and other such anti-Palin forces such as “rain on your wedding day” and static cling.

Just go read this entire Anchorage Daily News article, which is hilarious.

Sarah Palin, a snowbilly grifter who spent her entire adult life desperately trying to become a Public Figure, apparently wants her attorneys to stupidly and pointlessly threaten American practitioners of free speech regarding our public figures and elected officials.

Happy fourth of July, you daft racist moron!

French Broadcaster Sued for Firing Employee Based on HADOPI Stance

It was the story of an e-mail heard around the world. You may remember Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim who expressed opposition in an e-mail to his member of parliament. That e-mail went back to his employer, TF1, who then promptly fired him because of his political views back in May. Now, Bourreau-Guggenheim is suing TF1 for discrimination.

His journey throughout all of this probably started off as a humble employee, working at Frances broadcaster, TF1. He probably had no idea that one day, he’d be the centre of a major political debate that the whole world is watching at the time.

Then, the HADOPI law debate came up. Three strikes and you’re out for copyright infringement online. At the time, the proposal would have no judicial oversight whatsoever – not to mention being forced to pay your subscription fee even though you have been, well, banned from the internet. Your name would be added to a blacklist so you can’t subscribe with another provider and the amount of time you were disconnected, at the time, was still being determined.

Not surprisingly, the law was just about as controversial then as it is now. For Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim at the time, he wasn’t exactly too keen on the law either. So, while at work, he sent an e-mail to his member of parliament to express his personal opposition to the “three strikes” law. His member of parliament’s office, who also happened to be part of the governing party, UMP, then forwarded the e-mail to the minister of culture who then forwarded the e-mail to his employer, TF1. Bourreau-Guggenheim boss then hauled him into his office where he was showed a copy of his e-mail before he was fired for “strategic differences”

His story hit several major French newspapers. He went from just a side-line employee to a front-line borderline celebrity who is against the French three strikes law. The story has since caused political waves.

Now, it seems, a new development has happened in this case. French newspaper, Le Monde, is reporting (Google Translation) that Bourreau-Guggenheim is suing his former employer, TF1, for discrimination. His lawsuit is based on article 225-2 of the penal code which addresses “violations of human dignity”.

The punishment for such a violation is up to three years in prison and a 45,000 euro fine. That article specifically deals with an employment dismissal based on a political viewpoint.

Le Monde makes an additional interesting point:

By revealing the affair in its issue of May 7, Libération had quoted from the letter explicitly refers to mail sent to Ms. de Panafieu. Including this clarification: “This correspondence was received through the office of the Minister of Culture, which has posed address the same day the company TF1. A path to strong symbolic resonance, given the suspicions about the relationship between power and sarkozyste audiovisual group, whose main shareholder, Martin Bouygues, is the near the head of state.

Another part of the article says:

It is true that the case has already made much noise but it has needed to add: wrangling in the Assembly, where the former Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, has been strongly implicated by the opposition; sanction against the member of his Cabinet who had transferred to the TF1 mail received from Ms. de Panafieu (Le Monde, 12 May).

Now committed criminal in a long process, Mr. Bourreau Guggenheim-must adapt to circumstances. To live this matter without further destroying his career. Say they have had “some contact with elected representatives of the opposition, which (l ‘) were invited to participate in debates on Hadopi”, the former part of TF1 should also “reassure (the) future employers” when is invited to an interview. TF1 who denounced “positions (…) radical expressed publicly,” he defends himself on these two points: “I am loyal, I have nothing being published at TF1. And I am not an extremist free download.”

At this point in time, it’s not hard to see this as a no win situation for the UMP of France, not to mention TF1 who is neck deep in this political fiasco as well. It would appear that Bourreau-Guggenheim has a number of additional options should things go sour for him including referring to the European Court of Human Rights. Though one can only imagine how much additional political damage that would cause for the government who is not only intending on pushing through the three strikes law at all cost, but also changing around the French court system and giving judges only approximately 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection.

This case about a French employee fired for opposing the three strikes law, unfortunately for TF1 and the UMP, isn’t going to go away any time soon.