August 11, 2014

Canadian court: US can extradite terror suspect

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — An appeals court ruled Monday an Iraqi-born man should be extradited to the United States to face charges that he helped coordinate Tunisian jihadists believed responsible for a suicide attack in Iraq in 2009 that killed five American soldiers outside a U.S. base.

Sayfildin Tahir Sharif, who holds dual Canadian-Iraqi citizenship, was arrested in 2011 on a U.S. warrant and has been fighting extradition to New York.

The prosecution alleges Sharif worked from Edmonton, Alberta, to help a Tunisian man enter Iraq in 2009 and detonate a truck filled with explosives at a military checkpoint, killing five U.S. soldiers. Prosecutors contend that evidence from intercepted Internet and phone conversations shows that Sharif was directly involved in supporting Tunisian terrorists. Sharif never left Canada as part of the alleged conspiracy.

The terror network is also accused of blowing up an Iraqi police station, killing seven Iraqi officers.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/08/11/canadian_court_us_can_extradite_terror_suspect/

August 11, 2014

US Postal Service loses $2B this spring

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service says it lost $2 billion this spring despite increasing its volume and charging consumers more money to send mail.

The agency’s quarterly loss was significantly higher than its $740 million loss during the same three-month period last year. The agency said revenue jumped 2 percent compared to last year. But because of compensation and benefit costs, the agency continues to face a deficit.

Agency officials said the Postal Service would likely remain in bad shape unless Congress acts on reform legislation. In a statement released Monday, the agency said it would have to default on a congressionally mandated payment of $5.7 billion this September for health benefits for future retirees.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/08/11/us_postal_service_loses_2b_this_spring/

August 11, 2014

ReaganBook Founder Calls For Boycott Of Target Over Gay Marriage

Source: TPM

ByAHA GARCIA Published AUGUST 11, 2014, 2:11 PM EDT

Janet Porter, of ReaganBook fame, announced on Monday that she will be boycotting Target because the retail store has taken "aim at natural marriage."

Porter made her announcement in response to Target's support of marriage equality during her daily radio commentary, which runs on her "Faith2Action" website.

Porter said Target was "using your hard-earned shopping dollars to stand for counterfeit marriage."

"Target added their name to a legal defense brief to redefine marriage and undermine the voters in Wisconsin and Indiana who protected marriage between one man and one woman," she said.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/janet-porter-target-boycott-marriage-equality

August 11, 2014

Huckabee Clarifies He 'Never' Said Obama Should Be Impeached

By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published AUGUST 11, 2014, 1:14 PM EDT

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Saturday clarified that he never called for President Obama to be impeached.

Last week, he told Iowa radio host Steve Deace that Obama "has done plenty of things worthy of impeachment." But during an interview with Iowa reporters on Saturday, Huckabee said that impeachable offenses don't necessarily mean a president should be impeached.

"Let me be very clear. I never said he should be impeached. In fact I was explicitly clear," he said, according to the Des Moines Register. "As often is the case, only half of what I said got quoted. I was asked the specific question: Had he committed impeachable offenses. And I said yes."

"But he's not going to be impeached, and he shouldn't be," Huckabee continued. "Impeachment ought to be something that would be used in the rarest and most unusual of circumstances."

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/huckabee-obama-should-not-be-impeached

August 11, 2014

Coakley Holds Solid Lead in Massachusetts

A new Boston Globe poll in Massachusetts finds Martha Coakley (D) leading Charlie Baker (R) in the gubernatorial race by double-digits, 42% to 31%.

Coakley is also way ahead of Steve Grossman (D) in the Democratic primary, 45% to 18%.

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http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/08/11/coakley_holds_solid_lead_in_massachusetts.html

August 11, 2014

Poll: Majority Says Don't Deport Children, Contra Obama And GOP

Source: TPM

By SAHIL KAPUR Published AUGUST 11, 2014, 10:06 AM EDT

Most Americans say unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border should be allowed to stay at least for a while, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Fifty-one percent of Americans surveyed said they shouldn't be deported, a figure that cuts against the views of the Obama administration and congressional Republicans, who disagree about how to treat them but agree that they should be sent back quickly.

Of the 51 percent, 38 percent said the U.S. should care for the children until it was safe for them to return to their home countries, while 13 percent wanted to let them stay.

Thirty-two percent of Americans said the undocumented children should be swiftly deported.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reuters-poll-unaccompanied-minors-border

August 11, 2014

Politico: Chuck Todd Will Probably Be The Next 'Meet The Press' Host

Source: TPM

By TOM KLUDT Published AUGUST 11, 2014, 9:37 AM EDT

Beltway oracle Mike Allen comes bearing news on this Monday morning.

According to Politico's most famous (and best-connected) reporter, NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd has been tapped as the likely replacement for the much-maligned David Gregory on "Meet the Press."

SIREN: Chuck Todd, a political obsessive and rabid sports fan, is the likely successor to David Gregory as moderator of “Meet the Press,” with the change expected to be announced in coming weeks, according to top political sources. The move is an effort by NBC News President Deborah Turness to restore passion and insider cred to a network treasure that has been adrift since the death in 2008 of the irreplaceable Tim Russert. Although Todd is not a classic television performer guaranteed to wow focus groups, his NBC bosses have been impressed by his love of the game, which brings with it authenticity, sources, and a loyal following among newsmakers and political junkies.

Allen crammed several other "Meet"-related nuggets in Monday's edition of "Politico Playbook," his daily newsletter of name-drops and Washington gossip.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chuck-todd-meet-the-press

August 11, 2014

Judge extends moratorium of Ohio executions as debate over new 2-drug combination continues

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal judge has extended a months-long moratorium on executions in Ohio as debate over the state's new two-drug combination continues. The moratorium was to end this week. The new order extends it through Jan. 15.

That will delay executions scheduled for September, October and November and highlights the ongoing problem faced by states in obtaining drugs to put inmates to death.

The one-page order by Columbus federal judge Gregory Frost issued Friday affects the state's latest death penalty policy change, which was announced in late April and increases the amount of the sedative and painkiller Ohio uses.

On Jan. 16, an Ohio inmate repeatedly gasped during the record 26 minutes it took him to die, and an Arizona inmate who took nearly two hours to die July 23.

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Read more: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/270746651.html

August 11, 2014

Tucker Carlson: More Kids Die 'In Their Bathtubs' Than From Gun Accidents

By CATHERINE THOMPSON Published AUGUST 11, 2014, 7:33 AM EDT

Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Saturday sharply criticized the network's report on securing firearms away from children, arguing that more kids die "drowning in their bathtubs" than from gun accidents.

Carlson was reacting to a "Fox & Friends Weekend" segment about a bill in New York state that would require firearms be safely stored with a locking device, which would prevent children from using them.

"The point of that package was guns are scary, gun owners are a threat to you and your children," he said. "The truth is, well, obviously a child's death is the worst tragedy imaginable. Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns."

"So, I would like to see a package on, do you have a bathtub at home? Because I need to know that before I send my child over to your house," he added. "A little perspective might be helpful."

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tucker-carlson-rips-fox-gun-safety-package

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August 11, 2014

Why Liberals Should Back Iraq Intervention

Michael Tomasky

Yes, the United States helped create ISIS. But that hardly means we shouldn’t try to correct the error. In fact, it means just the opposite.

We once thought, mistakenly, that the collapse of communism would bring with it the end of internal arguments within the broad left about American interventionism and, to dust off the old word that still gets plenty of exercise in some quarters, imperialism. There was, during the Cold War, a mainstream liberal-left that was anti-communist, and that sometimes rightly (Turkey, which Truman helped keep out of Stalin’s hands) and sometimes very wrongly (Vietnam) supported American action, including the military kind, to check the Reds. And there was a tendency farther to the left, where opinion might have been split on the USSR or China or Tito or Castro, but where said opinion clearly coalesced around the idea that most of the tragedy and evil in the world emanated not from Moscow but from Washington. Think George Kennan vs. Noam Chomsky.

That’s a history you either know or you don’t; I’ll not rehearse it further here (and actually I wasn’t entirely fair to Kennan above, since he was an early opponent of the Vietnam War). My point today is simply that this clash of ideas was supposed to stop mattering in 1991, when history “ended” and the Soviet Union ceased to be.

Well. History kept going, and it keeps reminding us that some things never change. Over the past decade, the same battalions have lined up against each other over Iraq and Syria and the larger questions that we face from the occupied territories to the Levant to Mesopotamia, lobbing exactly the same rhetorical grenades today as they did in the duck-and-cover era. And we’re hearing the arguments right now, with respect to the U.S. decision to bomb ISIS. Any thinking person should have reservations about getting drawn in to endless conflict and about the inevitable unintended consequences. But the logic of the anti-interventionist left is built today around the same moral flaw that it was during the Cold War. And the case against ISIS is about as clear as a case like this ever gets: We have to try and stop them.

You get into an argument with someone on the anti-intervention left—I’ve had lots of ’em, and as younger man I generally took that side—and what happens is, they tend to mention the United States’ great sins and crimes and think they’ve clinched the argument. Guatemala. Mossadegh. Allende. The Central American death squads. Indochina, East Timor, the Shah, our brief covert support for the Khmer Rouge. See, they say? That’s what you inevitably get when you want America to “exert her influence.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/11/why-liberals-should-back-iraq-intervention.html