Purveyor
Purveyor's JournalDespite Pleas For Clemency, Obama Declines To Pardon Israel Agent Jonathan Pollard
US President Barack Obama granted clemency to 21 criminals over the weekend, as part of the pardons and commutations traditionally approved ahead of the Christmas holiday. Obama pardoned 13 criminals and commuted the sentences of eight.
Most of the convicts on the list were drug dealers and thieves, some of whom would have received lesser sentences if convicted of the same crimes today.
Despite a recent request from his close ally and former cabinet member Bill Richardson, Obama did not include Israel agent Jonathan Pollard on his holiday clemency list. Pollard is in his 29th year of a life sentence.
Richardson called on the president to commute the convicted spy's life sentence in a letter on Tuesday.
MORE...
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Despite-pleas-for-clemency-Obama-declines-to-pardon-Pollard-335740
US Nuclear Missiles Are A Force In Much Distress
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The hundreds of nuclear missiles that have stood war-ready for decades in underground silos along remote stretches of America, silent and unseen, packed with almost unimaginable destructive power, are a force in distress, if not in decline.
They are still a fearsome superpower symbol, primed to unleash nuclear hell on a moment's notice at any hour of any day, capable of obliterating people and places halfway around the globe if a president so orders.
But the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, is dwindling, their future defense role is in doubt, and missteps and leadership lapses documented by The Associated Press this year have raised questions about how the force is managed.
The AP revealed one missile officer's lament of "rot" inside the force, and an independent assessment for the Air Force found signs of "burnout" among missile launch crews.
The AP also disclosed that four ICBM launch officers were disciplined this year for violating security rules by opening the blast door to their underground command post while one crew member was asleep.
more...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NUCLEAR_MISSTEPS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-21-17-43-44
How Israel Sank into the Quagmire of Apartheid
WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (IPS) - When one writes a book about Israel, one must expect that it will be analysed not for its quality but for its ideological bent.
The critique will generally be based on whether or not the work is “balanced,” which usually means whether the reviewer feels their own point of view was given a fair hearing in the book. On this basis, Max Blumenthal’s new book, "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel", was doomed to failure before it was ever published.
But that expectation, which seems so especially prevalent for any book about Israel, is bound to fail because Blumenthal’s book is not an attempt to ask what Israel is. Rather, it is an effort by a journalist to answer the question of why Israel is what it is today.
The bulk of Blumenthal’s research was done simply by being in Israel and talking to the people there. He offers us a series of snapshots that don’t reveal new and hidden facts about the issues that made headlines in Israel, and often beyond, during his four years of research for this book.
Rather, they sum up and coalesce into a picture of an Israel drifting increasingly to the right, descending into fascism and with an opposition that is increasingly being boxed in and weakened.
MORE...
http://www.iede.co.uk/news/2013_3718/how-israel-sank-quagmire-apartheid
From Pussy Riot to Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Putin Has Been Underrated
Before criticising Russia's president, the west should recognise its own history of betrayal towards his countryGeoffrey Wheatcroft
The Guardian, Friday 20 December 2013 15.30 EST
A very merry Christmas to Pussy Riot, Greenpeace and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, not to say to Vladimir Putin. At his somewhat bizarre annual press conference, with 1,300 journalist waving flags to capture his attention, Putin announced that Khodorkovsky, like the others, would be released from prison. Putin may not be a very lovable or gentle creature, but yet again he has shown himself to be unusually cunning, for all that he has been not only derided but consistently underrated.
Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, more than 20 years ago, the west has made every conceivable mistake in dealing with Russia. In what was meant to be the End of History, with the universal triumph of liberal democracy and market capitalism, American zealots attempted to impose free markets on Russia after more than 70 years of what had passed for socialism. The unhappy outcome should have been no surprise.
This is not a defence of Putin's in many ways unlovely regime. No journalist can feel much fondness for a country where troublesome investigative reporters have a habit of turning up dead. But external policy is a quite different matter, even if the inability to distinguish between the internal character of the Russian regime and its foreign concerns is a very old story. Successive generations of starry-eyed people in the west were enchanted by the Soviet myth, and then disenchanted by what Malcolm Muggeridge sarcastically called "the left's stations of the cross": the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939; the Czech putsch in 1948; the suppression of Hungary in 1956.
Now it may be little consolation to Poles, Czechs and Hungarians, but on each occasion Russia was behaving like a great power. Beating up smaller neighbours is what great powers do: see the US record in Latin America. On Friday Putin said that Stalin was no worse than Oliver Cromwell, which may seem a little quaint, but it was Stalin who almost apologised for bullying demands on Finland with the words, "I am not responsible for geography."
MORE...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/pussy-riot-khodorkovsky-vladimir-putin-russia
'Untrue Statements' Anger Over Work To Make H5N1 Bird-Flu Virus MORE Dangerous To Humans
Some of the world's most eminent scientists have severely criticised the arguments used by some influenza researchers who are trying to make the H5N1 bird-flu virus more dangerous to humans by repeatedly infecting laboratory ferrets.
More than 50 senior scientists from 14 countries, including three Nobel laureates and several fellows of the Royal Society, have written to the European Commission denouncing claims that the ferret experiments are necessary for the development of new flu vaccines and anti-viral drugs.
They also said it is "untrue" to state that the new mutations in the laboratory strain of H5N1, which have enabled the bird-flu virus to be airborne transmissible between ferrets and, potentially, people, have already been seen in nature.
The letter signed by 56 eminent scientists, many of whom are national science academicians, was designed to correct "misstatements" made by the president of the European Society of Virology, Professor Giorgio Palu, who they claim made "incorrect" assertions about the need to carry out the research in an earlier letter he had sent to the Commission.
The ferret research is being carried out by Ron Fouchier and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. He has been involved in a legal dispute with the Dutch government which has insisted that he needs an export licence before his H5N1 work is published in a scientific journal.
MORE...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/untrue-statements-anger-over-work-to-make-h5n1-birdflu-virus-more-dangerous-to-humans-9018666.html
Katie Couric's Talk Show To End After This Season
Katie Couric is calling it quits on her weekday talk show as she heads to Yahoo.
Couric and Disney-ABC, which produces the syndicated "Katie" show, said Thursday it will wrap after this, its second season. Shuttering the show was a joint decision, both parties said.
"While production will continue on 'Katie' through June 2014, we've mutually agreed that there will not be a third season of the show," they said.
"Katie" will continue to air through the summer.
The announcement was widely expected. Last month, Couric, 56, announced she is joining Yahoo to anchor an expansion of the Internet company's video news initiative. She will serve as the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's global anchor, a role she described as a "work in progress."
MORE...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/katie-courics-talk-show-to-end-after-this-season/
Tax Meat To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Say Scientists
Meat should be taxed to encourage people to eat less of it, so reducing the production of global warming gases from sheep, cattle and goats, according to a group of scientists.
Several high-profile figures, from the chief of the UN’s climate science panel to the economist Lord Stern, have previously advocated eating less meat to tackle global warming.
The scientists’ analysis, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, takes the contentious step of suggesting methane emissions be cut by pushing up the price of meat through a tax or emissions trading scheme.
“Influencing human behaviour is one of the most challenging aspects of any large-scale policy, and it is unlikely that a large-scale dietary change will happen voluntarily without incentives,” they say. “Implementing a tax or emission trading scheme on livestock’s greenhouse gas emissions could be an economically sound policy that would modify consumer prices and affect consumption patterns.”
There are now 3.6 billion ruminants on the planet – mostly sheep, cattle and goats and, in much smaller numbers, buffalo – 50% more than half a century ago. Methane from their digestive systems is the single biggest human-related source of the greenhouse gas, which is more short-lived but around 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet.
MORE...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/20/tax-meat-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-say-scientists/
Memo To Conservatives: The First Amendment Does Not Entitle You To A Reality TV Show
The right to free speech isn’t just a fundamental American value; it’s enshrined in the first amendment to our constitution. If only the most loud-mouthed among us actually understood what it says. Here’s what the First Amendment offers: you can say, write or publish pretty much whatever you want, no matter how offensive (with a few exceptions), and the government can’t step in and censor you or put you in jail. Here’s what the first amendment doesn’t do: allow you to say, write or publish whatever you want, no matter how offensive, and also entitle you to a giant pay check from your starring role on a cable reality TV show.
This isn’t exactly Harvard-level legal theory, but many Republicans, Christian organizations and garden-variety tweeters enjoy spouting off about their love of freedom and the Constitution while remaining disturbingly unaware of what the Bill of Rights actually says and means. The right-wing passion for a set of ideals they claim to revere – but remain ignorant of – is not new, but it’s news again this week. They’re up in arms at the suspension of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson for a series of homophobic and bigoted remarks he made to GQ magazine. Professional consequences for bigoted comments, they say, violate the constitutional right to free speech.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said:
Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views.
Yes, everyone is entitled to express his or her views. Not everyone is entitled to keep their jobs, though, if they decide to express views that are entirely odious and potentially costly to their employer. Certainly the founders didn’t mean “free country” as short-hand for “free to be on the reality show of your choice.”
Jindal’s argument that liberals are tolerant of everything except intolerance is Tweedle Dumb to the similarly vapid adage “everyone is entitled to their opinion”. Everyone has opinions; but why, exactly, are all opinions deserving of the same deference and respect? Especially when they come from people who can’t tell the difference between promoting tolerance and respect of all human beings, and objecting when someone makes a comment that demonizes an already marginalized group?
MORE...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/20/memo-to-conservatives-the-first-amendment-does-not-entitle-you-to-a-reality-tv-show/
Unsanctioned Fight: How Bob Menendez Defied Obama On The Biggest Diplomatic Deal Of His Presidency
Bob Menendez was furious.
In a blistering monologue, the Democratic senator from New Jersey let loose on two Obama administration officials, telling them exactly what he thought about their resistance to his plan for new sanctions on Iran. He had modified his proposal to make it a bit softer, he said at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in December 2011, only for the administration to “vitiate” his amendment.
The result, he said with typical bite, “really undermines, certainly as it relates to this member, your relationship with me for the future.”
Two years later, Menendez is now the chairman of the committee, and he is once again clashing with the administration on Iran, this time as a vocal skeptic on one of President Barack Obama’s most significant foreign policy breakthroughs—an interim deal to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Only now Menendez has a more prominent platform for his aggressive approach, even as the White House again tries to dissuade him.
Working with 25 lawmakers from both parties, Menendez on Thursday rolled out a new round of provisional sanctions on Iran (set to take effect if talks fail), despite stern warnings from the White House and Secretary of State John Kerry—Menendez’s predecessor as the Foreign Relations chairman—that such steps could undermine negotiations aimed at reaching a long-term deal to stall Tehran’s march toward nuclear weaponry.
The White House immediately threatened a veto, and Obama took an oblique swipe at Menendez’s bill in his year-end news conference Friday. “I’m not surprised that there’s been some talk from some members of Congress about sanctions,” he said. “I think the politics of trying to look tough on Iran are often good when you’re running for office—or if you’re in office.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/bob-menendezs-unsanctioned-fight-with-the-white-house-101396.html#ixzz2o9WHoDxL
Guest Lineups For The Sunday News Shows
“Meet the Press” on NBC• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman, Senate Rules Committee
• Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), ranking member, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
• Christine Lagarde, managing director, International Monetary Fund
• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
• Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member, Senate Armed Services Committee
• Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs
“Face the Nation” on CBS
• Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell
“This Week” on ABC
• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman, House Intelligence Committee
• Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
“Fox News Sunday” on Fox
• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R)
• Pastor Joel Osteen
“State of the Union” on CNN
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
• Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)
• Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.)
• Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)
Profile Information
Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 29,876
