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Hissyspit's JournalGOP 'Party Animal' Unmasked as Holocaust Revisionist
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/03/gop-party-animal-unmasked-as-holocaust-revisionist/GOP ‘Party Animal’ unmasked as Holocaust revisionist
By Rory Carroll, The Guardian
Friday, May 3, 2013 18:22 EDT
To those who knew him, or thought they they knew him, he was a cerebral, fun-loving gadfly who hosted boozy gatherings for Hollywood’s political conservatives. David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders, where they could scorn liberals and proclaim their true beliefs.
Over the past five years Stein’s organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein’s cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll.
There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – it was known to a close circle of confidants – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998.
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Some of Stein/Cole’s erstwhile friends are media figures with blogs, newspaper columns and syndicated radio shows. They put a lid on the story. Not a word has been published or broadcast. “When people found out it was, ‘Oh my God, get the fuck away from him.’ There was debate about whether everyone would look guilty by association,” said one entertainment industry artist, a member of Republican Party Animals, who requested anonymity. “The reason we were all so pissed at him is it plays into every horrible stereotype about the right.”
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U.S. Officials Say Israel Has Launched Airstrike Against Target in Syria
Source: Associated Press
@AP: BREAKING: U.S. officials say Israel has launched airstrike against target in Syria. -MM
@AP: MORE: U.S. officials say Israel launched an airstrike into Syria, apparently targeting a suspected weapons site: http://t.co/ehIqC9mXAr
OFFICIALS: ISRAEL LAUNCHES AIRSTRIKE INTO SYRIA
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
— May. 3 10:30 PM EDT
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Home » Israel » Officials: Israel launches airstrike into Syria
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say Israel has launched an airstrike into Syria, apparently targeting a suspected weapons site.
The officials say the strike occurred overnight Thursday into Friday. They say it does not appear that a chemical weapons site was targeted.
One official says the strike appeared to hit a warehouse.
Israel has targeted weapons in the past that it believes are being delivered to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/officials-israel-launches-airstrike-syria
Pentagon Blames UnitedHealth for Failures Under Contract
Source: Bloomberg
[B[Pentagon Blames UnitedHealth for Failures Under Contract
By Kathleen Miller
May 03, 2013 12:00 AM EDT
The Pentagon rebuked UnitedHealth (UNH) Group Inc., the nation’s largest insurer, after military families began experiencing long delays getting medical-care referrals from the company.
The backlogs occurred almost as soon as Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth took over a contract, valued as much as $20.5 billion, from TriWest Healthcare Alliance Corp. It assumed responsibility on April 1 for the western region of the military’s health-care system, known as Tricare.
UnitedHealth’s “failure to meet contractor requirements” has prevented a large number of beneficiaries in one Tricare health plan from obtaining timely access to specialty care, Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in a memo yesterday to other military leaders.
Woodson, calling the situation “extraordinary,” said the Pentagon stepped in to grant a temporary waiver so the plan’s members in the western region could get specialty care without UnitedHealth’s authorization and not incur penalties.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-03/pentagon-blames-unitedhealth-for-failures-under-contract.html
Guantanamo Camp Burns Through $900,000 a Year Per Inmate
Source: Reuters
Guantanamo camp burns through $900,000 a year per inmate
Fri May 3, 2013 8:30pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.
The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.
By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.
The high cost was just one reason Obama cited when he returned this week to an unfulfilled promise to close the prison and said he would try again. Obama also said that the prison, set up under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush and long the target of criticism by rights groups and foreign governments, is a stain on the reputation of the United States.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE94211N20130504
Boston Bomb Suspect Died of Gunshots, Blunt Trauma
Source: CBS News
Boston bomb suspect died of gunshots, blunt trauma
May 03, 2013
BOSTON A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings died from gunshot wounds and blunt trauma to his head and torso, his death certificate says.
Worcester funeral home owner Peter Stefan has 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body and read details from his death certificate on Friday. The certificate cites Tsarnaev's "gunshot wounds of torso and extremities," Stefan said.
Tsarnaev died last month after a gunfight with authorities a few days after the deadly marathon bombing. Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing the scene.
Tsarnaev's family was making arrangements for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near a college attended by his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, on Friday.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57582873/boston-bomb-suspect-died-of-gunshots-blunt-trauma
Obama Supports Including Gays in Immigration Bill
Source: Associated Press
OBAMA SUPPORTS INCLUDING GAYS IN IMMIGRATION BILL
May. 3 8:03 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — President Barack Obama says he supports recognizing gay unions in a broad immigration bill pending in Congress but won't say whether he would sign legislation that fails to do so.
Obama says that recognizing same-sex relationships in the bill is "the right thing to do." But he says it would be premature to telegraph what he will or won't do before lawmakers send him a bill.
Gay rights supporters are pushing for an amendment to the bill to allow gays to sponsor their partners to come to the U.S.
But Republicans, including some who helped draft the bill, have made it clear that amending the legislation in that fashion would cost their support.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/obama-supports-including-gays-immigration-bill
Howard Kurtz’s Belated Comeuppance (On Kurtz' Lies About Gary Webb, Bush Winning Florida...)
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/03/howard-kurtzs-belated-comeuppanceHoward Kurtz’s Belated Comeuppance
May 3, 2013
Exclusive: Media critic Howard Kurtz has lost his job as Washington bureau chief for Newsweek/Daily Beast after a blog post in which he falsely accused basketball player Jason Collins of hiding his past engagement to a woman while coming out as gay. But Kurtz’s journalistic abuses have a much longer history, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For nearly a quarter century, Howard Kurtz has served as hall monitor for Washington’s conventional wisdom, handing out demerits to independent-minded journalists who don’t abide by the mainstream rules. So, there is some understandable pleasure seeing Kurtz face some accountability in his ouster as bureau chief for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
However, the more salient point is that Kurtz, who continues to host CNN’s “Reliable Sources” show, should never have achieved the level of influence in journalism that he did. Throughout his career, he has consistently – and unfairly – punished journalists who had the courage to ask tough questions and pursue truly important stories.
When one looks at the mess that is modern journalism in the United States, a chief culprit has been Howard Kurtz. Yet, his downfall did not come because of his smearing of fellow journalists – like Gary Webb and Helen Thomas – but rather from a blog post that unfairly criticized basketball player Jason Collins after he revealed that he was gay.
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While Webb was held to the strictest standards of journalism, it was entirely all right for Kurtz — the supposed arbiter of journalistic standards — to make judgments based on ignorance. Kurtz faced no repercussions for disparaging an embattled journalist who was factually correct. (Kurtz’s sloppiness regarding Webb was similar to Kurtz’s cavalier approach to Collins’s brave announcement as the first player in a major U.S. team sport to declare that he is gay.)
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On Nov. 12, 2001, the Post’s headline was “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush” and Kurtz backed that judgment up by dismissing anyone who actually looked at the statistical findings of the recount as a kook. Kurtz’s sidebar – headlined, “George W. Bush, Now More Than Ever” – ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists” those who thought Gore had won.
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Same-Sex Marriage Becomes Legal in Rhode Island
Source: CBS News
Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Rhode Island
May 02, 2013
PROVIDENCE, R.I. Rhode Island on Thursday became the nation's 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed, as a 16-year effort to extend marriage rights in this heavily Roman Catholic state ended with the triumphant cheers of hundreds of gays, lesbians, their families and friends.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed the bill into law on the Statehouse steps Thursday evening following a final 56-15 vote in the House. The first weddings will take place Aug. 1, when the law takes effect.
"I've been waiting 32 years for this day, and I never thought it would come in my lifetime," said Raymond Beausejour, a 66-year-old gay North Providence man who has been with his partner for 32 years. "For the first time in my life, I feel welcome in my own state."
After Chafee signed the bill, the hundreds of people who gathered on the Statehouse grounds erupted into cheers as a chorus sang "Chapel of Love."
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57582680/same-sex-marriage-becomes-legal-in-rhode-island
IBM Makes Tiny Movie by Pushing Molecules Around
Source: Associated Press
IBM MAKES TINY MOVIE BY PUSHING MOLECULES AROUND
Associated Press
— May. 1 12:11 AM EDT
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Scientists have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.
IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever — a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.
Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometers — there are 25 million nanometers in an inch — but hugely magnified, the movie (http://bit.ly/17ZmHIt ) is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.
The movie is titled "A Boy and His Atom."
Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM's principal scientist for the project, said Tuesday this is the first time anything so small has been maneuvered to tell a story.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ibm-makes-tiny-movie-pushing-molecules-around
In this undated image taken from video and provided by IBM, a boy composed of carbon monoxide molecules rides a skateboard in a scene from what IBM claims to be the world's tiniest stop-action movie. Entitled “A Boy and his Atom,” the one minute video employs individual carbon monoxide molecules that are rearranged to show the boy carrying out various activities. Each of the 242 frames measures 45 by 25 nanometers which is one billionth of a meter. (AP Photo/IBM)
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