Did Senior Thatcher Era Politicans Rape and Murder Boys?

Photo Illustration by Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast

With stories that sound like something out of the Vatican and Catholic priest circles, a victim and others are claiming that a pedophile abuse ring ran rampant during the Thatcher years and that powerful British politicians worked to keep the abuse and possible some murders covered up.  As most readers know, the Thatcher regime was anything but friendly to gays, yet if the stories are true, gay sex and the abuse of boys was a fixture with some in Thatcher's government.  Why is it that the loudest homophobes are always the ones desiring or engaging in abusive gay sex?  The Daily Beast looks at the sensational allegations.   Here are highlights:

Scotland Yard detectives believe that an organized pedophile ring at the heart of the British establishment was responsible for the murder of three young boys and the violent sexual abuse of dozens more.

A survivor, known as Nick, described regular “abuse parties” that were held at a luxury apartment block near Westminster during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. He said he watched a Conservative Member of Parliament strangle one boy to death, and witnessed another young boy brutally murdered in front of a Cabinet minister.

Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, who is leading an investigation of the alleged “VIP” abuse network said today: “I believe what Nick is saying to be credible and true.”

Nick says children between the ages of seven and 16 were taken to the events, including regular Christmas parties, which were often held at Dolphin Square, an exclusive building on the River Thames that was popular with MPs who needed second homes in London close to the Houses of Parliament. He has described the partygoers as a cross-section of some of the most powerful men in Britain including Sir Peter Hayman, a long-time MI6 chief.

A Scotland Yard inquiry has been established to investigate whether the Metropolitan Police was guilty of overlooking the crimes of powerful figures, or whether some kind of cover-up operation was in place.

Over the years, several MPs have alleged cover-ups or suggested that investigations were shut down by senior security officials. In 1981, Sir Peter Hayman, a former diplomat and intelligence operative, was outed by Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, who used Parliamentary privilege to name him as a pedophile in the House of Commons. Dickens continued to investigate the pedophile ring, which he claimed included “big, big names,” and he passed a 40-page dossier of evidence to the Home Secretary in 1983.

Dickens claimed his name subsequently appeared on a hit-list and his house was broken into by burglars who scoured his office but never stole any possessions. “The noose around my neck grew tighter after I named a former high-flying British diplomat on the Floor of the House. Honorable Members will understand that where big money is involved and as important names came into my possession so the threats began,” he told the House of Commons in 1985.
Current Labour MP John Mann has suffered no personal threats but says his investigation into allegations of a VIP pedophile network were also shut down by the authorities. As a local politician in Lambeth, South London, he said he became aware of allegations that young boys in care homes were being recruited as rent boys and taken to Dolphin Square.  “We were told this by several sources. It was very specific: there were sex parties there, and they involved Tory MPs,” he told the Daily Mail last month.

He passed the information to the police who came back to him after three months to apologize and say they had been instructed to stop looking into the abuse parties. “They'd been forced to drop it,” Mann said. “Pressure had come from on high in the police service.”

A former senior detective at the Metropolitan Police, Clive Driscoll, said earlier this year that he had been hastily removed from an investigation that had begun in Lambeth into child abuse when his superiors saw a list of suspects, which included several MPs, that he wanted to investigate.

The investigation into an alleged cover-up is just one of 18 strands of inquiry currently ongoing as part of Operation Fairbank, which was first set up in 2012 into allegations of a VIP pedophile ring. 

In total, officers said 600 emails or tip-offs had been received by more than 40 officers working on Operation Fairbank. Thus far, just five people have been arrested.

Sea Level Rise Putting America's Largest Navy Base at-Risk

If you listen to Republicans - e.g., Senator Inhofe - climate change and global warming aren't happening.  It's all a conspiracy in the minds of these lunatics.  The real conspiracy is between the Koch brothers and the oil and coal industries which seek to perpetuate the myth that climate change is not occurring and that humankind have no role in the visible changes occurring. As local TV-13 reports, the signs are clear at the Norfolk Naval Base - which boasts that it is the largest in the world - and Senator Tim Kaine says that it is time to address reality.  He and those like him who are in touch with objective reality will have an uphill battle given the GOP control of the Senate starting next month.  Here are article highlights:

Touring a flood-prone neighborhood blocks from the world's largest Naval base, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said Thursday, the time to act is now. Kaine is calling for a combination of needed infrastructure investments, and a reduction of U.S. dependence of carbon-based energy sources.

Probably the most sobering thing to me dealing with this sea level rise issue is the affect on the main Naval base," Kaine said. "Being on Armed Services, this is the center of Naval power in the world and such an important center for America. And when you contemplate the main road into the base eventually being underwater three hours a day in 2040, not because of storms but because of normal tidal action, by 2040, being underwater three hours a day, that was the one thing that made me snap back and say, I've got to take this seriously."

Kaine's comments follow an October Department of Defense report which concluded that Naval Station Norfolk would be at-risk, if, as many scientists have predicted, sea level rises 14 to 18 inches in the next 20 to 50 years.

"We have the time to make the investments to improve the infrastructure," he said. "We just really have to find these resiliency investments to protect this important key to America's national security."

The GOP likes to depict itself as the party of national security yet lunatics like Inhofe are acting as military leaders did on the evening of December 6, 1941.   Not wanting to admit/believe something doesn't make it not true.  At least not outside of the insane asylum known as the Republican Party.

flooded Navy pier parking lot

Why Putin's Bubble Has Burst

I have noted before that throughout the centuries, Russia has been plagued by bad rulers.  Those who bear the worse consequences of such misrule are typically the Russian people.  With Russia's economy imploding and its currency in a free fall, all of Vladimir Putin's misrule is catching up with him and the picture is not a pretty one.  Putin, of course blames the west for Russia's woes rather than look in the mirror for the ultimate cause of that nation's misfortune.  Like Adolph Hitler, who Putin seems to be trying to emulate in many ways, the fault is never his or that of his corrupt cronies.  A column in the New York Times looks at how Putin and company have brought Russia to this point.  Here are excerpts:

If you’re the type who finds macho posturing impressive, Vladimir Putin is your kind of guy. Sure enough, many American conservatives seem to have an embarrassing crush on the swaggering strongman. “That is what you call a leader,” enthused Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, after Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine without debate or deliberation.

But Mr. Putin never had the resources to back his swagger. Russia has an economy roughly the same size as Brazil’s. And, as we’re now seeing, it’s highly vulnerable to financial crisis — a vulnerability that has a lot to do with the nature of the Putin regime.

The proximate cause of Russia’s difficulties is, of course, the global plunge in oil prices, which, in turn, reflects factors — growing production from shale, weakening demand from China and other economies — that have nothing to do with Mr. Putin. And this was bound to inflict serious damage on an economy that, as I said, doesn’t have much besides oil that the rest of the world wants; the sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict have added to the damage.

But Russia’s difficulties are disproportionate to the size of the shock: While oil has indeed plunged, the ruble has plunged even more, and the damage to the Russian economy reaches far beyond the oil sector. Why?

Actually, it’s not a puzzle — and this is, in fact, a movie currency-crisis aficionados like yours truly have seen many times before: Argentina 2002, Indonesia 1998, Mexico 1995, Chile 1982, the list goes on. The kind of crisis Russia now faces is what you get when bad things happen to an economy made vulnerable by large-scale borrowing from abroad — specifically, large-scale borrowing by the private sector, with the debts denominated in foreign currency, not the currency of the debtor country.

When the nation’s currency falls, the balance sheets of local businesses — which have assets in rubles (or pesos or rupiah) but debts in dollars or euros — implode. This, in turn, inflicts severe damage on the domestic economy, undermining confidence and depressing the currency even more. And Russia fits the standard playbook.

Russia’s elite has been accumulating assets outside the country — luxury real estate is only the most visible example — and the flip side of that accumulation has been rising debt at home.

Where does the elite get that kind of money? The answer, of course, is that Putin’s Russia is an extreme version of crony capitalism, indeed, a kleptocracy in which loyalists get to skim off vast sums for their personal use. It all looked sustainable as long as oil prices stayed high. But now the bubble has burst, and the very corruption that sustained the Putin regime has left Russia in dire straits.

It’s quite a comedown for Mr. Putin. And his swaggering strongman act helped set the stage for the disaster. A more open, accountable regime — one that wouldn’t have impressed Mr. Giuliani so much — would have been less corrupt, would probably have run up less debt, and would have been better placed to ride out falling oil prices. Macho posturing, it turns out, makes for bad economies.

I feel bad for average Russians suffering because of Putin's misrule.  The ultimate solution?  Rise up and drive Putin from power and take back the wealth stolen by Putin and his cronies.

Thursday Morning Male Beauty

Judge Vacates Conviction in 1944 Execution of 14 Year Old Black Youth

If one wonders why blacks in America do not trust the American criminal justice system - and why police induced "confessions" should always be suspect - look no farther than the case of 14-year-old George J. Stinney Jr., who was executed in South Carolina.  Stinney is the youngest American ever executed and when one looks at the "trial" he received, it quickly takes on the appearance of a legalized lynching.  No doubt, "godly" white folks pushed for his conviction and applauded his execution.  After all, since he was black, in their minds, it's not as if he were human, right?  Sadly, that mindset is alive and well in the South and seemingly many police departments in America.  The New York Times looks at the vacating of Stinney's kangaroo court conviction.  Here are excerpts:

Calling it a “great and fundamental injustice,” a South Carolina judge on Wednesday vacated the 1944 murder conviction of 14-year-old George J. Stinney Jr., the youngest person executed in the United States in the last century.

Judge Carmen T. Mullen of Circuit Court did not rule that the conviction of Mr. Stinney for the murder of two white girls in the town of Alcolu was wrong on the merits. She did find, however, that the prosecution had failed in numerous ways to safeguard the constitutional rights of Mr. Stinney, who was black, from the time he was taken into custody until his death by electrocution.

The all-white jury could not be considered a jury of the teenager’s peers, Judge Mullen ruled, and his court-appointed attorney did “little to nothing” to defend him. His confession was most likely coerced and unreliable, she added, “due to the power differential between his position as a 14-year-old black male apprehended and questioned by white, uniformed law enforcement in a small, segregated mill town in South Carolina.”

The order was a rare application of coram nobis, a legal remedy that can be used only when a conviction was based on an error of fact or unfairly obtained in a fundamental way and when all other remedies have been exhausted.

Two white men who had helped search for the girls also testified, and a cellmate of Mr. Stinney’s recounted conversations in which Mr. Stinney said he was innocent and had been made to confess. Less than three months passed between the murder and the execution; the trial and sentencing took less than a day.

Some of the problems of due process highlighted in the ruling were not rare in the Jim Crow South.

Yet another less than proud legacy of the South.

GOP Lawmaker: Women Need Man’s Permission for Abortion Absent "Legitimate Rape"

GOP State Representative Rick Brattin

Despite constant Republican Party claims that there is no GOP war on women, actions speak much louder than words and demonstrate that there is indeed a GOP war on women.  How else to explain Missouri Republican Rick Brattin's new bill which states that “[n]o abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion.” It's legislation right out of the wet dreams of Victoria Cobb and her fellow Christofascists at The Family Foundation (will Del. Bob Marshall introduce a similar bill here in Virginia?).  The GOP has seemly learned nothing from the Todd Akin debacle.  The Raw Story looks at this mindset that views women as chattel property of men.  Here are highlights:

Republican lawmaker in Missouri is introducing a bill that will require women to receive consent from the man who impregnated them before getting an abortion, Mother Jones‘s Molly Redden reports.

State Representative Rick Brattin filed the bill, which states that “[n]o abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion.”

The two exceptions to the requirement are “in cases where the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced was the victim of rape or incest,” or if the woman has “a notarized affidavit attesting to the fact” that the man who impregnated her is deceased.

Brattin told Mother Jones that while the bill allows for an exception in the case of rape, the woman seeking an abortion will have to prove that she has been raped.

“Just like any rape, you have to report it, and you have to prove it,” he said. “So you couldn’t just go and say, ‘Oh yeah, I was raped,’ and get an abortion. It has to be a legitimate rape.”

He insisted that he was using the phrase “legitimate rape” differently from former Missouri representative Todd Akin, who claimed that women cannot become pregnant from a “legitimate rape” because her body will “shut the whole thing down.”

“I’m just saying if there was a legitimate rape, you’re going to make a police report, just as if you were robbed,” he said by way of clarification. “That’s just common sense.”

 Common sense anywhere except in the sane, non-Christofascist world.

The GOP and the Rise of the Paranoid South

Today's Republican Party is best defined by who its members hate - typically anyone who isn't a white, heterosexual conservative Christian.   When one looks at The South and it's long history of being defined by who it hates - e.g., blacks followed by Yankees - it's no surprise that The South has become a bastion for the GOP.  Stated another way, a reactionary party now holds sway in a reactionary region.  A piece in Salon looks at The South's paranoia against those deemed "other" by the white establishment and how it is playing into the nation's political climate. Here are some highlights:

The Civil War ended in 1865. Before the war, it was common parlance in America to speak of two regions: the “North” and the “South,” which were divided, above all else, over the issue of slavery. After the war, however, the idea of the “North” gradually disappeared from American culture, but “The South” as a regional, cultural and ideological construction has lived on. The South still maintains a persistent hold on American culture, and while the Old Confederacy is unlikely to ever “rise again” in another militant bid for national independence, the South has continued to rise again as a political force to be reckoned with, most recently in the 2014 midterm elections . . .

Thus, we come to the vexing question of Southern history: Is the South “exceptional” when compared to the rest of the country?  Southern exceptionalism is a concept that historians discuss ad infinitum – yet it resists a straightforward definition. In the broadest sense, however, Southern exceptionalism is the idea that the South is a nation-within-a-nation: a distinct cultural region where the past maintains a persistent influence on both the present and the emerging future.

Southern exceptionalism, then, positions the South as a cultural and geographical “other” within the greater United States where, as Mississippi-born author William Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” This “othering” of the South has solidified in the region a cultural conservatism that manifests in a preference for laissez-faire economics, the existence of widespread inequality, a proclivity toward religious fundamentalism and racial strife, and suspicion of the federal government. When combined, these characteristics have constructed a cultural levee against a wave of outside forces that allegedly threaten to destroy Southern society.

Southern exceptionalism continues to rear its nebulous head. For example, consider the 2014 midterm elections. As the AP pointed out, the so-called “Solid South” — a regional political bloc that, in the not-too-distant past, gave its whole-hearted support to the Democratic Party — is now a solid political lock for the Republican Party. 

So the question remains: is the South exceptional? I’d argue that, in one crucial way, it is. While no one can reasonably claim that the South’s ills and strengths are unique to that region alone, the South’s tendency toward one-party rule, fueled by a deep suspicion of the supposed threats posed by outsiders, continues to make Dixie exceptional.

[T]he supposed threats posed by outsiders has been a common thread running through this history of one-party dominance. As historian Glenn Feldman writes in “The Irony of the Solid South,” the locus of the modern Republican Party’s united power in the South can be traced back to the end of the Civil War, an era that planted the seeds of a “Reconstruction Syndrome,” characterized by “very strong anti-black, anti-federal government, anti-liberal, anti-Yankee, anti-outsider/foreigner, and pro-militarily patriotic beliefs.”

Since the end of Reconstruction, the South has been fertile ground for reactionary politics, and it’s no coincidence that the hallmarks of “Reconstruction Syndrome” echo the tenets of modern conservatism. And while these hallmarks are not unique to the South, they’re nonetheless most concentrated there.

[A] general fear of outsiders continues to fuel the reactionary conservatism that drives white Southerners to the GOP. The Republican South is, for all intents and purposes, the white South, and race is an issue that always simmers below its political surface. GOP dominance speaks to the white South’s need to protect itself from a host of nefarious outsiders. In this past, those outsiders consisted of blacks, abolitionists, Yankees and Republicans. These days, those groups have been replaced by liberals, gays, atheists, minorities and Barack Obama, who symbolizes a changing America that threatens the white South’s cultural clout.

Even as shifting demographics in Southern states like North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia threaten to erode the power of the white conservative vote, the 2014 midterm results demonstrate the enduring strength of a reactionary force powered by the long arc of Southern history. That history encompasses a potent mixture of change and stagnation, but until the unique power of the white South is curtailed, the echo of Southern exceptionalism will continue to reverberate like the Rebel yell across the American political landscape.

 Having lived in the South now for the majority of my life, at times it is like living in one huge insane asylum.  Indeed, if one looks at Mississippi and Alabama, parts of the South have become even crazier than they were 30 years ago.  It's no wonder the GOP is flourishing in much of the region.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Ireland to Hold Referendum on Gay Marriage

Next May, Ireland will hold a referendum on gay marriage.  Not surprisingly, the criminal conspirators in the Irish Catholic Church hierarchy that aided and abetted predator priests has come out in opposition to marriage equality for same sex couples.  The good news is that at this point in time the Catholic Church is so discredited and reviled by so many in Ireland (a one time bastion of Catholicism) that its opposition may boost the vote of those in favor of same sex marriage.  Here are excerpts from coverage in The Guardian:

A referendum on legalising gay marriage in Ireland will be held in May, the Republic’s deputy prime minister announced on Tuesday evening.

Tánaiste and Irish Labour leader Joan Burton confirmed that the cabinet in Dublin had agreed to hold the vote then.

“The fact that this referendum is now to take place is a mark of the progress that has taken place in this country in recent years and decades, and indicates the extent to which attitudes to lesbian and gay people have changed,” Burton said in Government Buildings.

A gay Christian group was among the first to welcome the announcement. Dr Richard O’Leary, chair of the Church of Ireland group Changing Attitude Ireland, said: “In the forthcoming referendum on marriage Christians will be campaigning on both sides.”

He added: “Although Catholic bishops have expressed opposition, Christians can still use their freedom of conscience to vote yes to civil marriage equality, like they did 20 years ago in favour of the availability of civil divorce.”

The latest opinion poll in the Irish Times found that 71% of the Republic’s electorate would vote yes and allow for legal gay marriages in the state.

A yes vote would mark another defeat for the temporal power of the Catholic church in a country it once dominated.

Jerry Buttimer, who presents Cork South Central in the Irish parliament said: “As a gay man and member of Fine Gael, I am immensely proud that this referendum has been brought forward by this Fine Gael/ Labour Government. However the hard work is only starting now.

“We must be fully committed to this campaign and leave no stone unturned in explaining the importance of a yes vote. I truly believe the referendum will be passed and that Ireland will be lauded across the world as a leader in social justice and equality.”

I for one hope the yes vote passes by a huge margin and that it sends a strong message to the bitter old men in dresses in the Vatican and bishoprics that they days of power and control of people's lives is waning. 

George W. Bush Cancels Appearance at Swiss Charity Gala Over F of Arrested

While Barack Obama and the U.S. Justice Department appear prepared to ignore their obligations under international law to prosecute George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, et al, for war crimes and torture crimes, even dimwitted Chimperator Bush realizes that by leaving American territory, he risks arrest by nations who do not ignore their obligations international law.   Hence Bush's cancellation of his scheduled appearance at a Swiss charity event in Geneva in February.  The Daily Mail has details.  Here are highlights:

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland over fears he could have been arrested on torture charges.

Mr Bush was due to be the keynote speaker at a Jewish charity gala in Geneva on February 12.
But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the country.

Criminal complaints against Mr Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials said.  Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against him in the Swiss city tomorrow for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay.

Reed Brody, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, said: 'He's [Bush] avoiding the handcuffs.'

The action in Switzerland showed Mr Bush had reason to fear legal complaints against him if he travelled to countries that have ratified an international treaty banning torture, he said.

Mr Brody is a U.S.-trained lawyer who specialises in pursuing war crimes, including Chile's late dictator Augusto Pinochet and Chad's ousted president Hissene Habre.

He said: 'President Bush has admitted ordering waterboarding which everyone considers to be a form of torture under international law.  'Under the Convention on Torture, authorities would have been obliged to open an investigation and either prosecute or extradite George Bush.'

Switzerland and the U.S. are among 147 countries that have ratified the 1987 treaty.

Of course, the one I truly want to see in handcuffs and standing trial is the entreatingly foul Dick Cheney.  Better yet, I would love the opportunity to see Cheney convicted as a war criminal and punished accordingly.  I will leave it to readers to surmise the punishment that would please me the most.