March 26, 2014

UPDATED: Report Details Killing Of Bombing Suspect's Friend

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIKE SCHNEIDER – MARCH 26, 2014, 8:23 AM EDT

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Chechen mixed-martial-arts fighter grew increasingly agitated as he wrote a confession about his role in a 2011 triple slaying that got renewed attention after the Boston Marathon bombing, flipping a coffee table at an FBI agent and charging a Massachusetts State Police trooper with a pole before the agent shot him dead, according to an investigative report.

The report released by State Attorney Jeff Ashton's office in Orlando on Tuesday cleared the FBI agent of any criminal charges in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev last May. Separately, the Justice Department filed its own report Tuesday, echoing the Florida findings.

Todashev was shot after being questioned in his Orlando, Fla., apartment for nearly five hours by the FBI agents and two troopers about the 2011 triple murder in Waltham, Mass. The FBI learned of Todashev during their investigation into his former sparring buddy, Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

It wasn't long before authorities focused on whether the men had any involvement in the Waltham killings. In that case, three men were found in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana. One of the victims was a boxer and Tsarnaev's friend.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-details-killing-bombing-suspects-friend

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Reports Make Ibragim Todashev's Death at the Hands of FBI Clearer (and Weirder)

The FBI agent who shot and killed murder suspect Ibragim Todashev during an interrogation in Florida was cleared of criminal responsibility for the death in a pair of reports on Tuesday. But the reports — one from the DOJ's Civil Rights division, and another from a Florida prosecutor — don't seem to answer all of the questions circulating from the death of Todashev, who faced questioning in connection to an unsolved 2011 triple homicide. Investigators believed that homicide had a connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers behind the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings.

Things got even more complicated late on Tuesday, when Boston Magazine published an image of what could be the unfinished confession letter Todashev wrote by hand during the interview where he was killed. The image corresponds with that of a redacted photo released in the Florida prosecutor's report, although the authenticity is not verified. According to Boston Magazine's transcription, the letter reads:

My name is IBRAGIM TODASHEV
I wanna tell the story about the robbery
me and Tam did in Waltham in September
of 2011. That was (?) by Tamerlan.
(?) [?] he (?) to me to rob
the drug dealers. We went to their
house we got in there and Tam had
a gun he pointed it (?) the guy that
opened the door for us (?)
we went upstairs into the house
(?) 3 guys in there (?) we put them
on the ground and then we (?)
(?) taped their hands up

The existence of the written confession, it should be noted, is firmly in the "what we know" category about Todashev's death, even before the release of today's reports. We know law enforcement officers went to his Florida home several months after the Boston bombings to question the Chechen about the 2011 triple murder and his relationship to Tsarnaev. After several hours of questioning, we know Todashev was ready to confess. What we didn't know is how the situation changed from Todashev's confessing his crime to his shooting death at the hands of an unnamed FBI agent.

more
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/03/recent-reports-make-ibragim-todashevs-death-clearer-and-weirder/359609/

March 26, 2014

Katrina vanden Heuvel - Voters should know who’s holding up their health care

With one week remaining before the March 31 deadline for health coverage this year, a Republican filing a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act has become a familiar, if tiresome, sight.

But Republicans filing a lawsuit against the law on the grounds of copyright infringement? That’s something new.

Yet that is effectively what happened this month in Louisiana. On March 14, the state’s lieutenant governor sued the progressive group MoveOn.org over a billboard criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal’s refusal to expand Medicaid in the state. The billboard uses Louisiana’s tourism slogan — “Pick Your Passion!” — and adds: “But hope you don’t lose your health. Gov. Jindal’s denying Medicaid to 242,000 people.” The lawsuit claims that the MoveOn ad will “result in substantial and irreparable harm, injury, and damages” to the Louisiana tourism office — as if denying health insurance to the neediest will not cause the state “substantial and irreparable harm.”

Legal experts say Jindal’s ploy has no chance of succeeding, thanks to the First Amendment. (This would be the same First Amendment that the governor passionately invoked in defense of “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson’s right to spew racist and homophobic vitriol.)

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-voters-should-know-who-is-holding-up-their-health-care/2014/03/25/fd649356-b39d-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html

March 26, 2014

Pope Francis replaces German 'bishop of bling' over €31m residence

Monsignor Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was removed from his post after church inquiry into the cost of his new complex

Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 26 March 2014 08.31 EDT

Pope Francis has permanently removed a German bishop who has been called the 'bishop of bling' from his diocese amid criticism of his €31m (£26m) residential complex.

Francis had temporarily expelled Monsignor Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst from Limburg in October pending a church inquiry.

At the centre of the controversy was the huge price tag for the construction of a new bishop's residence complex and related renovations.

Tebartz-van Elst defended the expenditures, saying the bill was actually for 10 projects, and there were additional costs because the buildings were under historical protection.

more
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/pope-francis-replaces-german-bishop-of-bling

March 26, 2014

O'Reilly Goes Off On 'Race Hustlers' Who Slammed Paul Ryan

CATHERINE THOMPSON – MARCH 26, 2014, 7:59 AM EDT

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly backed Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) disputed comments on a culture of "inner city" men not working on Tuesday night, arguing "race hustlers" would have branded the congressman a racist no matter what he said about poverty.

O'Reilly pressed Ryan on a conversation he had with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who labelled his remarks a "thinly veiled racial attack," and asked if Lee apologized after Ryan clarified that the comments were inarticulate.

"She does not believe that I have these views," Ryan said. "She knows me well, and she knows that I don't have a racist bone in my body."

"Then why did she imply you did?" O'Reilly asked.

more:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-oreilly-paul-ryan-race-hustlers

March 26, 2014

Joe Biden comments on LGBT discrimination raise eyebrows

By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE | 3/26/14 5:05 AM EDT

Once again, Vice President Joe Biden has raised hopes in the LGBT community for another major administration move on gay rights.

Two years after getting ahead of President Barack Obama in saying he supported gay marriage, Biden on Saturday called LGBT workplace discrimination “close to barbaric” and “bizarre” in a speech to the Human Rights Campaign.

But he did it without mentioning an executive order that’s been waiting for Obama’s signature for two years to ban LGBT government contractors from firing people because of their sexual orientation.

It’s not like advocates have let the White House forget that the document is there. Outside groups who’ve been leading the charge on the executive order have continued to put the pressure on top administration officials in private meetings at the White House.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/joe-biden-lgbt-workplace-discrimination-executive-order-human-rights-campaign-105018.html#ixzz2x4o3RW9y

March 26, 2014

Mitt Romney blames Hillary Clinton for Ukraine crisis

By TAL KOPAN | 3/26/14 6:45 AM EDT

Mitt Romney blames former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with President Barack Obama for the situation in Ukraine, saying they both misunderstood the world stage.

“There’s no question, but that over the four years where he and Secretary Clinton were working together, and now the year since then, it’s hard to name a single country that holds America in more esteem and respect than when the president took office five years ago,” Romney said on Fox News’s “Hannity”on Tuesday. “It has not been a time of building America’s respect and admiration and esteem and frankly our soft power or our hard power around the world.”

Romney invoked Clinton — seen as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 — when asked about Obama’s response to a question during a press conference in Europe on Tuesday about Romney’s 2012 assertion that Russia was the U.S.’s No. 1 geopolitical foe and whether the situation in Ukraine proves that to be true. Obama was dismissive, but Romney said the president knows it is accurate, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

“We need a president that understands that not everybody around the world has the same interests. Some people around the world want to oppress other people and expand territory, and take from the resources of other people,” Romney said. “That’s what’s happening. The jihadists want to do that, clearly Russia is intent on doing that.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/mitt-romney-hillary-clinton-barack-obama-ukraine-russia-105038.html#ixzz2x4nR7DZe

March 26, 2014

The invisible primary: GOP preps as Chris Christie stumbles

By ALEXANDER BURNS and MAGGIE HABERMAN | 3/26/14 5:04 AM EDT

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio spent the past year getting battered over immigration reform — and building a presidential-level political operation with heavy investments in digital and data analytics. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has already visited New York City four times this year, pushing into big-money turf once dominated by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has gamed out his 2016 options with a small team of longtime advisers, while Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has met with prominent conservatives, urging him to consider the race.

The Republican presidential field is aflutter with behind-the-scenes activity even at this preliminary stage, giving early shape to a race that has been defined in public by a handful of outsized media personalities, including Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Christie’s “Bridgegate” stumbles have now thrown the race wide open: Strategists for likely and potential candidates all see the Garden State Republican as deeply and perhaps fatally compromised. Reform-minded Republican governors are eyeing the race more eagerly, thanks to the void opened by the Fort Lee traffic scandal. Others in the field, like Rubio, could find their nuts-and-bolts preparatory work all the more valuable in view of Christie’s woes.

There is no shortage of ideological and strategic fault lines in the Republican lineup, but the most important developing division may be the one separating these two groups of candidates: the prepared and the unprepared.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/2016-republican-hopefuls-chris-christie-105028.html#ixzz2x4n33clF

March 26, 2014

Chris Christie update: Guv’s losing the Politico primary

Also: Why Christie will never escape Bridgegate and how his internal inquiry is playing in the Garden State

ELIAS ISQUITH

Along with plenty of other changes, one thing Bridgegate has done to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is permanently damage what was once an enviable relationship with the press. For years, Christie could seemingly do no wrong in the national media’s eyes, despite there being more than a few local New Jersey reporters willing to shed some light on the governor’s darker practices. Yet a new report from Politico — historically, one of Christie’s biggest fans in the media — shows that even the most clueless and Beltway-blinkered members of the press corps are starting to realize that Christie just ain’t what he used to be. At this rate, Christie’ll soon have only Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace singing his praises.

Here’s what you should know about Christie:

- Politico’s new piece on the shadow presidential primary happening right now within the GOP is framed around a truth long understood outside the Beltway but only just now starting to really sink in among the media’s political elite: He’s no longer the party’s 2016 frontrunner. The report finds that insiders within the party and potential candidates now consider the race wide-open and believe Bridgegate has permanently — maybe even fatally — wounded Christie as a political figure.

- In that same vein, Philip Bump of the Wire makes a persuasive argument that, in the court of public opinion, Christie will never truly be cleared of any Bridgegate wrongdoing. No matter how many investigations are released without proof that the governor knew about the engineered Fort Lee traffic snarl, there will be plenty of people — especially Democrats — who will find more questions to ask and more reasons to raise suspicion. Don’t believe him? Google the following words: “Barack,” “Obama,” “Benghazi.”

- Proving Bump’s point, the Star-Ledger has a report on how the upcoming Christie-controlled internal inquiry, which reportedly finds the governor innocent, is playing among politicians and political insiders in the Garden State. The short answer: They think it’s a patently compromised joke and are lending it very little credence, if any at all.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/26/chris_christie_update_guvs_losing_the_politico_primary/

March 26, 2014

In New Poll, ‘Sobering’ News for Both Parties on Midterm Elections - Pot Could Sway the Vote

Eleanor Clift

Battleground pollsters report Democrats and Republicans are ‘universally despised’—but marijuana referendums might boost voter turnout in November.

Countering a wave of speculation that Republicans will make big gains in November, GOP pollster Ed Goeas cautions that the midterm elections still have the potential to be “highly competitive,” an assessment echoed by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who says both political parties are “universally despised” by the voters. “If we do our job right, it could be more of an anti-incumbent year,” rather than an anti-Democratic year, she told reporters as she and Goeas released their latest Battleground poll (PDF) on the state of the two parties as they jockey for position heading into the midterm elections.

President Obama’s weak job-approval rating of 43 percent is a drag on his party, but Democrats hold the advantage over Republicans in key areas related to the middle class and have double-digit leads when it comes to protecting Social Security and Medicare. On the downside, the Democrats’ overriding weakness in turning out their vote in an off-year election is “reminiscent of 2010,” when a smaller, whiter, and older electorate elected a Republican House. The intensity that voters feel is what drives them to the polls, and Democrats typically lag behind Republicans by 10 or 15 points in the midterms. The Battleground poll measures the current intensity gap at 17 points. “Pretty sobering,” Lake said.

To boost turnout for Democrats, Lake advocates a “more muscular approach to the economy” even if Obama can’t get anything through Congress. “You can’t pass it but you can lay it out,” she said. “Republicans would like Obama to be up for reelection, but he’s not; Congress is up for reelection.” A bolder agenda from Obama that puts Congress on the defensive would highlight that distinction. Goeas countered that “Obama’s name is not on the ballot, but his policies are,” and Republicans are framing the fall election as a referendum on Obamacare.

The two pollsters sparred over their analysis of the data they commissioned together, sharing the numbers with reporters over a breakfast Tuesday sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Goeas said he “almost fell off the chair” when he heard Obama say in a speech last week in Miami that the American electorate agrees with the Democrats on every issue. Republicans are favored in the Battleground poll on the economy, the federal budget and taxes, and voters trust them more on foreign policy, an attribute that bodes well for 2016.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/25/in-new-poll-sobering-news-for-both-parties-on-midterm-elections.html

March 26, 2014

The GOP Just Screwed Ukraine Out of Billions to Hurt Obama

Michael Tomasky

Agreeing to IMF reforms would have helped him. So now Republicans’ mission to weaken the president is spilling over into foreign policy, too

You know those people who carry on all the time about how the United States looks weak to the world, and how we have to do everything we possibly can to help poor Ukraine stand up to the evil Vladimir Putin? Well, guess what they just did? They just made the United States look weak to the world—and they actually just reduced (yes, reduced) the amount of global aid that can flow to Ukraine to help it stand up to the evil Vladimir Putin.

The deal was this: The Obama administration’s aid package to Ukraine placed before the Senate included some long-sought International Monetary Fund reforms. These reforms, which the administration agreed to in 2010 with the leading nations of Europe, and which those nations have already signed off on, would have helped Ukraine get more money from the IMF after this quick tranche from the United States ran dry. It’s complicated, but in essence, the reforms shifted money from one narrow spending category to a broader one that could be tapped by countries for projects like building and sustaining democracy, of which Ukraine is in rather desperate need. So while there wasn’t a specific dollar figure on the table, the IMF reforms could potentially, a Senate Democratic aide explained to me, have led to several billion more in aid to the country.

What’s to object to? To Republicans, this: The reforms include an increase in the U.S. contribution quota to the IMF of $63 billion. They would also give more voice to emerging nations. Now, these two measures are offset by the facts that 1) the overall U.S. expenditure on the IMF wouldn’t go up, because the U.S. would be allowed to decrease other commitments by a like amount, and 2) the U.S. would still have enough voting shares at IMF meetings to retain the veto power it has currently.

But those points don’t matter on the right, of course. Over there, it all spells a diminution of American power, the hated global governance, like Pat Buchanan’s old warnings about sending our boys out to global hotspots donning light-blue (i.e. United Nations) helmets. John McCain and Bob Corker, to their credit, supported the aid with the IMF reform tacked on. But most Republicans didn’t, and even though the full package easily passed a procedural vote, Democrats were getting the strong sense that an aid deal with the IMF stuff included wasn’t going to make it.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/26/the-gop-just-screwed-ukraine-out-of-billions-to-hurt-obama.html