Jesus Malverde
Jesus Malverde's JournalIsrael says Kerry remarks on Iran nuclear threshold 'not acceptable'
Source: Reuters
Israel described as "unacceptable" on Monday remarks by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability.
"In the past, and also recently, what we heard from the Americans, including publicly, and from the Europeans and even from the Russians, was that Iran must be distanced years - not months but years - from nuclear weaponry," said Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of nuclear affairs.
Iran, which denies seeking nuclear arms, is in talks with Washington and five other world powers on rolling back its work on uranium enrichment and a potentially plutonium-yielding reactor.
Briefing U.S. senators last week, Kerry stopped short of saying negotiators would "settle for" a timeline of six to 12 months in which Iran could amass enough fissile material for a nuclear device but said it would be "significantly more" than the current two months it would take.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/14/us-iran-nuclear-israel-idUSBREA3D0BM20140414
Republicans who once reviled Tesla, now praise it.
For years, Tesla Motors could get no love from the GOP.
The electric automaker neatly embodied two things many Republicans hated: green technology and federal stimulus loans. Conservative commentators railed that Tesla used $465 million in taxpayer money to build novelty cars for the rich. Sarah Palin cited Tesla as an example of "crony capitalism." Even Mitt Romney, who based his presidential campaign on business smarts, called the company a "loser."
Now, quite suddenly, Republicans, who have been struggling to appeal to a wider swath of voters, are singing the company's praises.
In recent weeks, Tesla has won support from such figures as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly.
"Everybody on the planet should be rooting for Tesla," O'Reilly said on his March 31 show. "I mean everybody, even the traditional car companies that will have to compete."
Snip
Way to update party image
Backing the company in its fight with dealerships could offer Republicans a way to update their image as a pro-business party, and possibly make inroads in the Democratic bastion of Silicon Valley, analysts say.
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Republicans-who-once-reviled-Tesla-now-praise-it-5399733.php
Defense official on Ukraine policy: Israeli policy needn't be identical to U.S.'
Source: Haaretz
Israeli policy is driven by its own security interests and does not need to be identical to that of the U.S., a senior defense official said Sunday in response to Haaretz's report that White House and State Department officials in Washington have built up a great deal of anger over Jerusalem's "neutrality" regarding Russia's invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.
Senior figures in the Obama administration have expressed great disappointment with the lack of support from Israel for the American position on the Ukraine crisis and with the fact that the Israeli government puts its relations with the United States and with Russia on the same plane.
The head of the Defense Ministry's political-security department, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad said in response to Haaretz's report that Israel's policy on the matter was driven by its own security interests, which should not be confused with that of the U.S.
"Israel is following the events… and we have here a plethora of security challenges," Gilad said in an interview with Army Radio on Sunday morning. "Israel is watching the conflict in Ukraine and recording the events, and focusing on the issue of national security which will influence not only our present, but our future as well."
"The U.S. is involved in its own way, but our [Israel's] security interests should not be defined as identical to that of any one else, even the U.S.," he added.
Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.585374
Hillary Rodham Clinton's swing through San Francisco underscores the change in the media's view
Hillary Rodham Clinton's swing through San Francisco underscores the change in the media's view of her as a candidate.
No longer do they treat her like a relic from the past with a luggage store full of baggage. Suddenly, Hillary is new. Suddenly, she is a positive force. Smart, clever, charming and, most of all, relaxed.
It all points out how critical a mistake it was for her to reject her husband's advice to emphasize the personal touch the first time she ran.
On any given day, Bill Clinton sends out hundreds of birthday cards to supporters across the county. Most of them include a personal note.
That one-on-one personality is at the heart of his success. But it wasn't until Hillary Clinton teared up in an interview when she talked about what kept her going on the campaign trail in 2008 that she turned things around and beat Barack Obama in New Hampshire.
Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/50-years-after-sit-ins-some-things-unchanged-5398158.php?cmpid=hp-hc-bayarea
S.F. landlords offer tenants tempting offers to move out
There's $50,000 on the table if the Reyes family is willing to leave the Mission District apartment that has been home for 24 years.
"It seems like a lot of money, it does, but when you think about it, when you think about your future, it doesn't go as far as you think it does," said Jacqueline Reyes, 19, who has lived in the studio with her parents all of her life.
The rent-controlled space costs the family $549 a month - a nearly impossible price to match in today's scorching real estate market.
As an influx of wealth reshapes the city, housing advocates allege that the main way for landlords to replace longtime tenants with those willing to pay more has become rather simple: offer a pile of cash.
Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/S-F-landlords-offer-tenants-tempting-offers-to-5398027.php
Damascus and Rebels Trade Blame in Gas Attack
Source: NYTIMES
Syrian state television and antigovernment activists reported Saturday that poison gas had been used in a rebel-held village in the central province of Hama, with each side blaming its enemies for an attack they both said sickened more than 100 people.
The attack took place Friday evening in the village of Kfar Zeita, sending streams of choking patients, including children, to poorly equipped field hospitals, according to local medics and videos posted online. Opposition activists said government helicopters had dropped improvised bombs on the village, covering it with a thick smoke that smelled of chlorine.
While the opposition reported the attack soon after it happened, Syrian state television first mentioned it the day after in an urgent news banner during a broadcast. It blamed the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, for the attack, adding that two people were killed and more than 100 others affected by the gas. A subsequent banner announcement said the Nusra Front was preparing two more chemical attacks. It was the first time since last year that both sides agreed that toxic weapons had been used. On Aug. 21, 2013, sarin gas attacks in suburbs of Damascus killed hundreds and led President Obama to threaten airstrikes on Syrian government targets. The strikes were averted by a deal to dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. Western officials say there is clear evidence that the government carried out the August strikes, while the government blames insurgents.
Allegations of a new attack carry high stakes. If the government used toxic arms now, that would suggest that it felt it could act with impunity because of international reluctance to punish it militarily. Since the Aug. 21 episode, government tactics like starving rebel areas and bombing residential neighborhoods have continued unabated, killing many more people than chemical weapons have. But the killings have produced little international response beyond a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an end to the violence and for increased access for groups providing humanitarian aid.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/world/middleeast/damascus-and-rebels-trade-blame-in-gas-attack.html?_r=0
Window opens on secret camp within Guantanamo
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Attorney James Connell has visited his client inside the secret Guantanamo prison complex known as Camp 7 only once, taken in a van with covered windows on a circuitous trek to disguise the route on the scrub brush-and-cactus covered military base.
Connell is allowed to say virtually nothing about what he saw in the secret camp where the most notorious terror suspects in U.S. custody are held except that it is unlike any detention facility he's encountered.
"It's much more isolating than any other facility that I have known," the lawyer says. "I've done cases from the Virginia death row and Texas death row and these pretrial conditions are much more isolating."
The Camp 7 prison unit is so shrouded in secrecy that its location on the U.S. base in Cuba is classified and officials refuse to discuss it. Now, two separate but related events are forcing it into the limelight.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/window-opens-secret-camp-within-guantanamo-151856167.html
'More freedom sometimes in North Korea than in the United States': Mike Huckabee stuns New Hampshire crowd with TSA gripe comparison
Fox News personality and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee stunned a New Hampshire crowd on Saturday by likening the federal government's treatment of airport passengers to the totalitarian regime of Kim Jong-un.
'My gosh, I'm beginning to think that there's more freedom in North Korea sometimes than there is in the United States,' he told a partisan crowd at the inaugural New Hampshire Freedom Summit.
'When I go to the airport, I have to get into the surrender position, people put hands all over me, and I have to provide photo ID in a couple of different forms to prove that I'm not going to terrorize the airplane,' he deadpanned.
In a speech filled with jokes, Huckabee seemed deadly serious.
Read More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2603519/More-freedom-North-Korea-United-States-Mike-Huckabee-stuns-New-Hampshire-crowd-TSA-gripe-comparison.html
Rand Paul Explains His Controversial Comments About Dick Cheney
On Friday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul addressed comments he made in 2009 about former Vice President Dick Cheney that made headlines this week after Mother Jones posted video of the controversial remarks Monday.
In the clip, Paul seemed to suggest Cheney wanted to invade Iraq to benefit his former employer, Halliburton. The comments drew increased attention to Paul's unorthodox libertarian foreign policy views.
After making a speech at a New Hampshire Republican Party rally in Dover, N.H. Friday, Paul told Business Insider his comments have been mischaracterized. He backtracked a bit, saying he wasn't trying to question Cheney's motives. However, he said the general appearance of a "conflict of interest" lingers when people like Cheney go back and forth between the private sector and government.
In his 2009 remarks, Paul noted Cheney was staunchly against invading Iraq during the George H.W. Bush administration, only to reverse course and become one of the War's most fervent supporters when he became vice president. Paul repeated that criticism again on Friday.
"I do think it's a problem with people going from government to Wall Street back to government — from government to contracting back to government," Paul said. "Because I think there's at least the appearance and the chance of a conflict of interest. And in his case, there was a policy of thinking it was a bad idea to invade Baghdad — then going to work in private for a contractor, coming back and now saying it was good. I don't know what his thought process is, and I'm not trying to say. I'm just saying there's an appearance that there could be a conflict of interest."
Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Rand-Paul-Explains-His-Controversial-Comments-5397462.php
S.F. women's rights advocate accused of raping wife
While attorneys for a women's rights advocate and prominent Twitter engineer accused of raping her estranged wife say the accuser is "out for revenge," a friend who says she was present after the incident said Friday that the wife just wants to teach her children that criminals must face justice.
Dana McCallum, 31, was arrested Jan. 26 on suspicion of rape. She was charged a few days later with five felonies: three counts of spousal rape, one count of false imprisonment and one count of domestic violence, according to the San Francisco district attorney's office.
McCallum, whose legal name is Dana Contreras, had been separated from her wife for about a year but maintained a polite, and at times sexual, relationship with her, authorities said.
She went over to her wife's two-bedroom home in San Francisco the morning of Jan. 26 while she was highly intoxicated, according to Erin Caton, a friend of the wife's. Her three children and one of their friends had let McCallum in without realizing she was drunk, Caton said, so the wife steered her into another room, where McCallum allegedly attacked her.
"
The wife) called me that morning and told me that she had been raped and asked me what to do," Caton said. "She was crying nonstop."
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-women-s-rights-advocate-accused-of-raping-5396746.php
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Name: Jesus MalverdeGender: Male
Hometown: SF
Current location: Japan
Member since: Fri May 17, 2013, 11:44 PM
Number of posts: 10,274
