May 24, 2014

Pre-book tour, GOP tries to define Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON (AP) — On any given day, Republicans call Hillary Rodham Clinton a deeply flawed future presidential candidate.

Or a formidable one.

Or, with the right amount of Republican-led scrutiny, one who might not run after all.

As the former secretary of state, first lady and New York senator prepares for a high-profile book tour in June, Republicans are using a variety of approaches to try to define Clinton and drive down the mostly positive approval ratings she built while in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet.

At the same time, the GOP is building an anti-Clinton infrastructure that aims to undercut her appeal more than two years ahead of the presidential election.

“Ultimately our goal is to stop Hillary Clinton,” said Garrett Marquis of the Stop Hillary PAC, which formed last year and has raised $500,000 and says it has 250,000 enlisted supporters.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/24/pre_book_tour_gop_tries_to_define_hillary_clinton/

May 24, 2014

APNewsBreak: VA OKs more private care for veterans

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will allow more veterans to obtain health care at private hospitals and clinics. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki (shin-SEHK’-ee) announced the change Saturday.

He says VA facilities are enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner. In cases where officials cannot increase capacity at VA centers, Shinseki says the agency is “increasing the care we acquire in the community through non-VA care.”

The VA is facing allegations that veterans have died while awaiting treatment at VA centers, and that employees have falsified appointment records to cover up delays in care.

Arizona Sen. John McCain and other lawmakers have called for the VA to allow more veterans to receive medical care at private hospitals.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/05/24/apnewsbreak_va_oks_more_private_care_for_veterans/

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/24/apnewsbreak_va_oks_more_private_care_for_veterans/

May 24, 2014

Obama to argue for avoiding overreach overseas

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting critics of his foreign policy, President Barack Obama will soon outline a strategy for his final years in office that aims to avoid overreach as the second of the two wars he inherited comes to a close.

The president will make the case for that seemingly more limited approach during a commencement address Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The speech will come amid growing frustration in the White House with critics who contend that Obama has weakened America’s standing around the world.

A White House official says Obama will address his decision to pull back a military strike in Syria and his inability to stop Russia from annexing territory from Ukraine. The official insists on anonymity to preview the president’s speech.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/24/obama_to_argue_for_avoiding_overreach_overseas/

May 24, 2014

The empire strikes back: How Brandeis foreshadowed Snowden and Greenwald

So-called liberals attack the whistle-blower duo -- and a brilliant Supreme Court justice saw it all coming

ANDREW O'HEHIR

In the famous wiretapping case Olmstead v. United States, argued before the Supreme Court in 1928, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote one of the most influential dissenting opinions in the history of American jurisprudence. Those who are currently engaged in what might be called the Establishment counterattack against Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden, including the eminent liberal journalists Michael Kinsley and George Packer, might benefit from giving it a close reading and a good, long think.

Brandeis’ understanding of the problems posed by a government that could spy on its own citizens without any practical limits was so far-sighted as to seem uncanny. (We’ll get to that.) But it was his conclusion that produced a flight of memorable rhetoric from one of the most eloquent stylists ever to sit on the federal bench. Government and its officers, Brandeis argued, must be held to the same rules and laws that command individual citizens. Once you start making special rules for the rulers and their police – for instance, the near-total impunity and thick scrim of secrecy behind which government espionage has operated for more than 60 years – you undermine the rule of law and the principles of democracy.

“Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher,” Brandeis concluded. “For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/24/the_empire_strikes_back_greenwald_snowden_and_the_lessons_of_louis_brandeis/

May 24, 2014

Chicago-area porn-hating Catholic priest arrested for exposing himself at a gas station

By Tom Boggioni
Saturday, May 24, 2014 16:04 EDT

A Chicago-area Catholic priest,who has campaigned in his parish against Internet pornography, has been arrested for publicly exposing himself at a gas station, reports WREX13.

Monsignor Aaron R. Brodeski, 44, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of public indecency relating to an incident at a Road Ranger Gas Station, where witnesses say he exposed himself inside the gas station and then again in the parking lot.

According to Winnebego County Sheriff Deputy Chief Dominic Iasparro, Brodeski’s actions were observed by adults but no children were present.

Employees at the gas station contacted authorities who were able to track Brodeski down after being provided with his license plate number.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/24/chicago-area-prn-hating-catholic-priest-arrested-for-exposing-himself-at-a-gas-station/

May 23, 2014

‘It was my opinion’: Utah man jailed for threatening to cut black teenager’s throat

By Arturo Garcia
Friday, May 23, 2014 17:44 EDT

A 70-year-old Utah man was arrested for failing to appear in court in connection with federal hate crimes for threatening a Black teenager living in his neighborhood, KUTV-TV reported on Thursday.

Retired postal worker Robert Keller was charged with two federal misdemeanor counts of criminal interference with a right to fair housing for using both threats and a racial slur against the teen in a letter to both the teenager’s family and their local homeowner’s association.

“If it were my daughter, I think I wrote I’d slice his throat,” Keller said in the letter, according to KUTV. “Basically if you don’t remove him I will take care of it for you.”

Keller admitted to KUTV that he wrote the letter in an effort to “open their eyes,” having become upset that the teenager was living with white relatives and socializing with other white residents.

“I said, ‘What is going to happen down the road, when the black kid starts chasing these girls?’” Keller was quoted as saying. “What I seen set me off, when he was walking down the street with a white gal.”

The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that Keller was originally charged with state misdemeanor harassment charges after the teenager’s family used surveillance camera footage to identify Keller in late 2013. The family then took the matter to Tri-State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which alerted federal authorities.

Keller’s attorney, Terry Hutchinson, told KUTV that his client was not aware that he was scheduled to be in court to face the additional federal charges, and that prosecutors want to “make this a publicity case.” Keller was arrested on Tuesday on a federal warrant after missing his second appearance, and faces up to one year in prison on each federal count.

“To me, it’s not a threat,” Keller said of his choice of language. “It’s my opinion. Of course, I wrote it down, which was a mistake.”

Watch KUTV’s report on Keller’s letter, as aired on Wednesday, below.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/23/it-was-my-opinion-utah-man-jailed-for-threatening-to-cut-black-teenagers-throat/

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Posted with permission

May 23, 2014

Tea Party hero Steve King challenges Sen. Chuck Schumer to a “duel”

The Iowa congressman doesn't seem to fully understand what that word means, however

ELIAS ISQUITH

Pushing back against charges that his brand of xenophobia is keeping the GOP from bringing immigration reform to the House floor, GOP Rep. Steve King attempted to prove he wasn’t a reactionary loon by challenging Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer — a vocal proponent of immigration reform — to a “duel.”

“If we’re going to have some kind of a challenge of rhetoric bouncing back between the House and Senate, let’s do it face to face,” King said Thursday while on the House floor. “Let’s do it eye-to-eye. Let’s have that duel — not like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton — but …. like real men do it today. Not dueling pistols at 50 paces; let’s do this with microphones within arm’s reach.”

Seemingly believing xenophobia to be a kind of disease, King added that his idea for a “duel” (which the rest of us might call a “debate”) would help lawmakers “get to the bottom of this and … determine who actually had the xenophobia.”

Schumer, along with other Democrats, had previously taken a rhetorical tact intended to portray Steve King as the face of GOP resistance to immigration reform and as a kind of xenophobic tail wagging the Republican Party dog.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/tea_party_hero_steve_king_challenges_sen_chuck_schumer_to_a_duel/

May 23, 2014

Kerry agrees to testify on Benghazi attack

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry is willing to testify before the House Oversight panel investigating the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, an appearance that should make subsequent testimony before a newly formed select committee unnecessary, the State Department said Friday.

In a letter to Chairman Darrell Issa, a clearly annoyed department said diplomatic responsibilities prevent Kerry from testifying on May 29, the date of a committee subpoena. The department offered alternative dates of June 12 or June 20.

The department said Kerry’s testimony should be sufficient and “would remove any need for the secretary to appear before the select committee to answer additional questions.”

There was no immediate word from Issa, who is pursuing an ongoing investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/kerry_agrees_to_testify_on_benghazi_attack/

May 23, 2014

House bans the military from acknowledging climate science, national security be damned

Source: Salon

A budget amendment forbids the Pentagon fromspending to study or prepare for the impacts of climate change

LINDSAY ABRAMS

The notoriously anti-science House Science Committee has hit a new low, voting on Thursday to approve a spending bill amendment that “would prohibit defense spending on climate change research and the social cost of carbon analysis.” Translated: The Pentagon is being ordered to ignore climate science.

Specifically, the amendment, which was introduced by Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., forbids the Department of Defense from in any way utilizing the findings and recommendations of the National Climate Assessment or the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment on climate change, two landmark, comprehensive reports reflecting the work of hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists and experts — or, as McKinley referred to it, “ideology.” In so doing, it renders all that knowledge and understanding effectively irrelevant to national defense.

This is a problem, because understanding and preparing for climate change is an important thing the Department of Defense needs to be able to do, in order to, you know, defend us. Their words: “DOD expects climate change to challenge its ability to fulfill its mission in the future.” Natural disaster response, increased conflict tied to drought and food and water security and other “non-traditional” security challenges are all things the military’s been actively working to address. In its 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, as a recent example, the Pentagon identified the impacts of climate change as “threat multipliers” that “may increase the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions.” It’s even looking for ways to reduce its own carbon footprint, by cutting back on energy use and switching to renewables.

Not necessary, according to McKinley. “Climate change alarmists contend that man-made CO2 is the cause of climate change,” he explained on the floor. “Most people may not realize that 96 percent of all the CO2 emissions occur naturally.” The bill passed Friday, and is now on its way to the Senate, where, for all of our sakes, it will hopefully die.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/house_bans_the_military_from_acknowledging_climate_science_national_security_be_damned/

May 23, 2014

Anti-LGBT activist: Liberalism violates all 10 Commandments, embraces sex with animals

By David Ferguson
Friday, May 23, 2014 10:49 EDT

Strident anti-LBGT crusader Matt Barber said in an interview with conservative radio host Steve Deace that liberalism “embraces” bestiality, incest and other abhorrent sexual behaviors.

Barber, head of anti-LGBT site BarbWire.com, was discussing a column he published this week in which he alleged that liberalism violates all 10 of the Christian Bible’s Ten Commandments.

Deace asked Barber, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, how does liberalism violate that commandment, Matt?”

Barber chuckled, then said, “Steve, we could do a series of shows on just the Seventh Commandment alone and how liberalism — on multiple levels — violates the Seventh Commandment.”

According to Scripture, Barber said, sexual congress is only appropriate when it’s “between a man and a woman within the bonds of marriage. Anything outside of that would have fallen under adultery.”

“Liberalism pushes values-neutral, so-called comprehensive sex education,” he went on. “‘If it feels good, do it, kids, just be safe about it.’”

“‘Have all the sex you want to,’” he mocked. “‘Aw, marriage, that’s archaic. You don’t have to wait until you’re married. In fact, we’re going to encourage you to experiment with different things, different people, all kinds of stuff; including of course, homosexuality.’”

“Clearly, throughout the Old and New Testaments,” he said, “it’s not even an arguable fact” that the Bible says homosexual conduct is wrong.

“Bestiality, incest, and all,” said Barber. “Liberalism, it seems, embraces all perversions of God’s design for human sexuality, which, again, is only appropriate within the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Listen to audio of Barber’s remarks, embedded below:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/23/anti-lgbt-activist-liberalism-violates-all-10-commandments-embraces-sex-with-animals/

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Posted with permission