US urges 'immediate release' of elderly American held in N. Korea - Yahoo News

US urges 'immediate release' of elderly American held in N. Korea - Yahoo News
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
The United States called Saturday for the "immediate release" of Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Californian detained in North Korea.
The Korean War veteran was plucked off a plane last month as he was leaving the reclusive state after a tourist visit.
"Given Mr Newman's advanced age and health conditions, we urge the (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) to release Mr Newman so he may return home and reunite with his family," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
In addition to calling for Newman's "immediate release," Hayden also urged Pyongyang to free another American, Kenneth Bae.
The 45-year-old tour operator was arrested a year ago and sentenced to 15 years' hard labor on charges of seeking to topple the government.
"We continue to urge the DPRK authorities to grant him amnesty and immediate release," Hayden said.
"We remain deeply concerned about the welfare of the US citizens held in custody in the DPRK."
The State Department said the Swedish Embassy, acting on Washington's behalf since the United States has no formal ties with Pyongyang, was given "consular access" to Newman on Saturday.
Earlier, North Korea for the first time officially admitted holding Newman, saying he has been detained for "hostile acts" against the communist country.
Newman was held after entering the North "under the guise of a tourist," the official KCNA news agency said.
KCNA said Newman had committed crimes both as a tourist and during his participation in the Korean War six decades ago and published an apology running to nearly 600 words -- parts of it written in poor English -- in which he allegedly confessed to his crimes.
The retired financial executive has been accused of infringing upon the "dignity and sovereignty" of the secretive state and "slandering its socialist system, quite contrary to the purpose of the tour," the report said.
The American had also masterminded espionage and subversive activities during the 1950-53 Korean War and was involved in the killing of North Korean soldiers and innocent civilians, it added.
"I realize that I cannot be forgiven for my offensives but I beg for pardon on my knees by apologizing for my offensives sincerely toward the (North Korean) government and the Korean people and I want not punish me," KCNA quoted Newman as saying.
The State Department said it had seen the KCNA report according to which Newman apologized for the "misunderstanding" that led to his detention.
However, the diplomatic agency said it had "no other information regarding the reason for his detention."
"At this time, the Department recommends against all travel by US citizens to North Korea," it said in echoing Hayden's calls for both Newman's and Bae's release.
Newman's wife Lee has said her husband of 56 years, who has heart problems, was detained on October 26 shortly before takeoff in Pyongyang. He had just completed a 10-day tour of the country, "a trip he had looked forward to making for a long while," she added.

White Writers Join N-Word Debate - The Root

White Writers Join N-Word Debate - The Root
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
White writers are coming forward to say they cannot sit on the sidelines in the debate over who can use the "N-Word," if anyone. The latest is Mike Wise, Washington Post sports columnist, who responded in Friday's printed Post, "I deserve a seat at this table. This is about the world my 3-year-old is going to live in."Wise isn't the only one. Garret Mathews, a retired metro columnist for the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press, wrote Thursday in the Indianapolis Star about a visit to an Indianapolis high school where the word was bandied about by black students. He taught them about the civil rights movement. "I tell the students the N-word was used by white racists as far back as the 19th century to reinforce the stereotype that persons of color are lazy and stupid," Mathews wrote.
Even Rush Limbaugh, patron saint of conservative talk radio, entered the fray. After Michael Wilbon, co-host of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," said last week that he uses the N-word "all day, every day of my life" and that white people have no right to tell black people how to use it, Limbaugh said Wilbon should have used the occasion to scold white liberals wedded to "political correctness" — not all whites.
The latest controversies over the N-word have come from the sports world. The NBA fined Los Angeles Clippers forward Matt Barnes $25,000 last week after his ejection after L.A.'s' 111-103 victory over Oklahoma City the previous night. Officially, Barnes was dinged for "failing to leave the court in a timely manner … and using inappropriate language on his Twitter account."
"I love my teammates like family, but I'm DONE standing up for these n—–!" Barnes wrote, referring to his fellow Clippers, Ben Golliver reported for Sports Illustrated. "All this s— does is cost me money."
Before that, black players in the Miami Dolphins locker room said they had no problem with white players calling them the word. The Dolphins' Richie Incognito, according to news reports, left a voice mail calling teammate Jonathan Martin the N-word. Incognito later apologized after the incident became public.
Most recently, John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, a group formed to promote diversity in hiring in the NFL, said Thursday that Trent Williams, offensive tackle for the Washington Redskins, directed the N-word at umpire Roy Ellison after Ellison had attempted to stop players from the Washington and Philadelphia teams from directing abusive language at one another, Mark Maske and Mike Jones reported Friday in the Post. Williams and Ellison are black.
On Friday, the NFL suspended Ellison for one game without pay for “making a profane and derogatory statement" to Williams, Maske and Jones reported Saturday.
Wise wrote, "All this time I had it in my leftist-engineer head that this word was the most vile, disgusting, loaded word in the history of the English language, and now it's an accepted synonym for 'man' or 'dude' or 'partner?' More jarring, Wilbon said he used it 'all day, every day, all my life,' specifying on 'Pardon the Interruption,' 'I have a problem with white people framing the discussion for the use of the N-word.'
"Okay.
"And I have a problem with anyone of any ethnicity telling me that my values and beliefs about eradicating slurs from public and private conversation are less important than having agency over them for personal use — no matter who it hurts, including millions of African Americans who want the word abolished and should have just as much say.
"Actually, it's deeper than that. When you think you're fighting for a less hostile, less confusing and more mutually respectful country for our children to live in and then you find out your idea of a shared purpose wasn't shared by people you like and respect, a real hopelessness sets in.
"The N-word is filth; it's disrespectful, confusing and uplifts no one. I know of no other minority in the world co-opting a dehumanizing, racial slur used by its oppressor.
"Yet I’m told, 'You don’t get it; you’re white.'
"No. That doesn't work for me. I deserve a seat at this table. This is about the world my 3-year-old is going to live in.
"Spending my formative years in a rural part of Hawaii, where welfare and food stamps were how many families in Ewa Beach got by, I grew up as one of a few 'haole' kids among an ethnic stew of poor- to middle-class Filipino, Samoan, Tongan, Hawaiian and Japanese kids. I would not wish some of the early prejudice and violence I experienced on any prepubescent teen. But in hindsight, I now feel being a minority, even for a few years, should be a prerequisite for every person of a dominant culture; it makes you see and feel what people on the other side see and feel.
"It's where I gained a real affinity and appreciation for diversity, for experiencing the world outside my own ethnic prism. I want to continue that for my son, to impart the one-world values my father imparted on me. I don't want him to experience the word in any form.
"When I am told, 'This isn't about you,' I feel like I’m being judged by the color of my skin and not the content of my character.' . . ."
Wise joins Tom Joyce of the Mount Airy (N.C.) News, Skip Bayless of ESPN and Jack Dickey of Time magazine among whites who have said they cannot keep silent.
Dickey zeroed in on NBA analyst Charles Barkley, a Hall of Famer who said, "White America don't get to dictate how me and Shaq [O'Neill] talk to each other." Dickey picked apart Barkley's logic in a blog post headlined, "Charles Barkley Is Still Not a Role Model."
Jenice Armstrong, Philadelphia Daily News: Rest of Dolphins owe as much blame in Incognito flap (Nov. 13)


Bryan Burwell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: N-word isn't acceptable in the workplace


Connie Cass, Associated Press: Young people say online slurs common, not OK


Chris Chase, USA Today: Adrian Peterson hears 'crazier things than just the N-word' in NFL locker rooms


Michael DiRocco, ESPN.com: Jaguars react to potential ban of N-word


J.R. Gamble, the Shadow League: Stephen A. Smith Says White Opinion Must Kick Rocks, Leave Fate Of N-Word to Blacks


Justice B. Hill, BET: The N-Word Defines Blackness in All the Wrong Ways


Ernest Hooper, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times: Learning n-word's origin might help curtail its use


Mark Maske, Washington Post: Fritz Pollard Alliance urges NFL players to stop using N-word


Piers Morgan, CNN: Debating the "N" Word and the "F" Word with Charles Blow, Don Lemon, and Noah Michelson


Lateef Mungin, CNN: Massachusetts high school cancels football games after racial slur spraypainted on player's home


Bob Raissman, Daily News, New York: Bryant Gumbel on 'Real Sports' says no one should ever use N-word


Gyasi Ross, Huffington Post: Richie Incognito, Redskins and Racism in the NFL


George Willis, New York Post: LaTroy Hawkins: Keep N-word out of locker rooms (Nov. 13

Extension of Benefits for Jobless Is Set to End - NYTimes.com

Extension of Benefits for Jobless Is Set to End - NYTimes.com
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
1.3 million people will lose access to an emergency program providing them with additional weeks of jobless benefits. A further 850,000 will be denied benefits in the first quarter of 2014.

Related

• Caught in a Revolving Door of Unemployment (November 17, 2013)

Congressional Democrats and the White House, pointing to the sluggish recovery and the still-high jobless rate, are pushing once again to extend the period covered by the unemployment insurance program. But with Congress still far from a budget deal and still struggling to find alternatives to the $1 trillion in long-term cuts known as sequestration, lawmakers say the chances of an extension before Congress adjourns in two weeks are slim.

As a result, one of the largest stimulus measures passed during the recession is likely to come to an end, and jobless workers in many states are likely to receive considerably fewer weeks of benefits.

In all, as many as 4.8 million people could be affected by expiring unemployment benefits through 2014, estimated Gene Sperling, President Obama’s top economic adviser.

“Historically, there has not been a time where the unemployment rate has been this high where you have not extended it,” Mr. Sperling said in an interview. “Why would you not extend now, when you’re dealing with the nearly unprecedented levels of long-term unemployment coming off such a historic recession? This would be the wrong time to do it.”

Democrats are pushing for an extension of the emergency insurance program as part of the broader budget talks designed to avert a repeat of the government shutdown in October. But negotiators in the House and Senate are discussing a relatively small deal focused on replacing or altering the sequestration cuts, which would probably not include an extension of the jobless program.

Both Republicans and Democrats are skeptical that even such a small deal is possible given how divided the parties are.

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chairwoman of the Budget Committee, “clearly supports the policy, is interested in doing it and is hopeful there will be a path in this budget conference,” said a senior Democratic aide with knowledge of the discussions. “She will continue to work with Republicans to see if it’s possible in this deal.”

Republican aides declined to discuss the talks. But Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the House budget chairman, “is committed to finding common ground,” said William Allison, a spokesman. “He hopes both parties can work together to cut spending in a smarter way.”

Congress initially created the federally funded unemployment insurance extension in 2008, as a way to combat poverty and to help unemployed workers get through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Congress has repeatedly extended the program since then, with the Congressional Budget Office calling it among the most effective forms of government stimulus.

But with each extension, legislators have haggled over the program’s cost and over how many weeks of benefits the government should provide. Extending the current program through 2014 would cost about $25 billion. The program has cost roughly $250 billion so far.

The end of the emergency program would come as the economy is improving, if slowly. Employers are now adding jobs at a pace of around 200,000 a month, and the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.3 percent.

But weakness persists beyond the headline numbers. About four million Americans have been looking for work for more than six months, and the share of the working-age population with a job has declined over the past year.

In part that is because the government has slashed spending even as private businesses have picked up their hiring. Sequestration forced federal agencies to enact sudden budget cuts this year. And a number of recession-era programs beyond the emergency jobless aid program are ending. This month, for example, an expansion of the food stamp program expired.

The left-of-center Economic Policy Institute has estimated that the expiration of the emergency jobless benefits program would reduce job growth by 310,000 positions next year because consumers over all would have less money to spend. Michael Feroli, chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase, has estimated that it would drain about four-tenths of a percentage point from first-quarter economic growth.

Already, about 2.5 million unemployed people who have not worked in six months or more are receiving no federal jobless benefits.

Those include Jonathan Galliher, a 31-year-old computer programmer in Chicago who is living with family and freelancing while searching for a full-time job. “For a long time, I felt like I didn’t have any momentum,” he said. “It has been difficult. I spend my days sitting at home, working and not really seeing a lot of other people. That kind of isolation is not good for people.”

The odds of finding a job once out of work for a long spell are slim — about 1 in 10 during any given month. That has spurred hundreds of thousands of workers to simply drop out of the labor force, with long-lasting economic consequences for those workers and for the country.

“When I go for an interview and I get asked, ‘What have you been doing for the last four years?’ ” said Nancy Copeland, 56, who lives in Kansas City, Kan., and is looking for a job in medical billing. “I’m made to feel like it’s the Sunday night before a term paper is due, I’ve known about it for months, and I just started on it Wednesday afternoon and now my mom is asking me why I waited so long.”

Virginia cop under investigation for Tasing a suspect for 40 seconds | The Raw Story

Virginia cop under investigation for Tasing a suspect for 40 seconds | The Raw Story
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
A Fredericksburg, Virginia police officer is under investigation after video surfaced of him using a Taser for more than half a minute on a non-armed suspect, seemingly breaking his department’s protocol.
WRIC-TV reported that the suspect, 36-year-old Lantz Day, was released from a local hospital on Wednesday after placing a $3,500 bond and faces an obstruction of justice charge following his Nov. 9 encounter with police.
Day was picked up after the gray Buick sedan in which he was riding reportedly hit at least five parked cars. The driver fled the scene before an unidentified officer reached the vehicle. Video filmed by a witness shows Day attempting to do the same, before the officer uses his Taser and continues to employ it after Day drops to the ground. Day can be heard yelling, “Stop it” and screaming in the footage.
“I remember a high level of voltage,” Day told WRIC on Wednesday. “And I remember screaming out at one point. And after that, I just remember being in a jail, being in a tank in a jail, freezing.”
Fredericksburg Police spokesperson Natatia Bledsoe told ABC News that the department’s investigation is standard protocol following the use of force by an officer.
“We’re not investigating whether it should have been deployed,” Bledsoe explained. “The suspect was legally detained, noncompliant and attempted to flee.”
However, WRIC reported that the department’s policy on the use of force states, “A subject fleeing from an officer, by itself, is not justification for the Taser to be deployed and is prohibited.”

RALEIGH: NAACP adds churches and other plaintiffs to NC elections-law challenge | State Politics | NewsObserver.com

RALEIGH: NAACP adds churches and other plaintiffs to NC elections-law challenge | State Politics | NewsObserver.com
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
Six churches from across North Carolina have added their names to an NAACP lawsuit challenging new state elections law.
In an amended complaint filed in federal court this week, the historically African-American churches in Merry Hill, Brevard, Durham, Hickory and Chapel Hill complained that cuts to the number of days for early voting and the ban on same-day registration and voting would have a negative impact on them.
The churches contended they would have to divert money for food banks, computer classes and other social-service programs to help get members who need assistance to the polls and proper locations for IDs and supporting documentation.
Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem contends that the reduction in the number of days for early voting, allowing only one Sunday, “will place a strain on the church’s transportation services, will make it difficult for the church to operate the programs as they have in the past, and will lead to a reduction in the number of voters and congregants the church is able to transport to the polls.”
During the 2008 and 2012 elections, many African-American churches across North Carolina offered “Souls to the Polls” programs that encouraged voting by taking church-goers from services directly to the polls during early-voting periods.
“Emmanuel Baptist Church must now divert substantial resources and attention away from other critical missions to assist members if its congregation, the residents of the surrounding community it serves, and other contituents who stand to have their right to vote burdened by the law,” the amended complaint states.
Ray Starling, the general counsel for House Speaker Thom Tillis, a Cornelius Republican, questioned Thursday whether the churches would have standing to join the case. He maintains the lawsuit is more about politics and building support among Democratic strongholds than the constutional questions about the elections-law changes.
"It's further proof that it's not about the law, it's about turf and politics," Starling said.
Irv Joyner, a N.C. Central University law professor who is helping with the NAACP lawsuit, argued the churches should have standing.
“Historically, the center of political activity in the African-American community has been the churches,” Joyner said. “In every respect, the history of the African-American churches have shown that they are suffering the ill effects, as are their congregants, that this law has brought.”
The amended complaint adds six individuals as plaintiffs, too.
In August, when Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law sweeping revisions to North Carolina's voting procedures, the stroke of his pen set off a flourish of lawsuits.
Rosanell Johnson Eaton, a nonagenarian in Franklin County, was a lead plaintiff in a suit filed in August by the state NAACP and a voter rights organization.
A proponent of early voting who has spent years helping others get to the polls, Eaton claims that provisions of the new law are too restrictive and will hinder her ability to vote.
She has a North Carolina driver’s license, but she fears that the name on it may not match the name on her certified birth certificate. The reason is that she was born at home and a midwife inaccurately wrote her name on her birth certificate, she said.
In the lawsuit filed in August, Eaton contended the new law will force her to “incur substantial time and expense” to correct her identification documents.
Joining Eaton in the amended complaint are: Carolyn Q. Coleman, an African-American county commissioner from Guilford County, Mary Perry, an 84-year-old Wendell resident, and Armenta Eaton, 64, also of Franklin County.
Three African-American college students, Baheeyah Madany, 20, an N.C. Central University business major, Jocelyn Andreka Ferguson-Kelly, 19, at Winston-Salem State University, and Faith Jackson, a Winston-Salem State nursing major, have added their names to the complaint. They contend the new ID restrictions will render them ineligible to vote unless each obtains the required identification.
In September, the Obama administration decided to sue North Carolina to block the new voting rules, including the oft-debated photo ID provision.
In announcing the federal government’s plans, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder contended that his office would show that key provisions of North Carolina’s elections law are “both discriminatory in intent and in impact.”
The complaint was filed in North Carolina’s Middle District, where the NAACP and other civil rights groups have filed their recent challenges of the new elections law.
The Republican-led legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory have voiced support for the law changes, particularly the Voter ID provision, arguing that the measures were necessary to prevent the possibility of voter fraud.
Critics have said the measures were designed to suppress the votes of Democrats in a state where few voter fraud cases have been brought.
The ID provision that goes into effect for the 2016 elections requires voters to show a valid, government-issued ID before casting a ballot.
Other provisions trouble the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department and plaintiffs in the NAACP lawsuit. Some of them begin in 2014.
Among the provisions are:
• The early voting period will be one week shorter. County election boards, however, are required to provide the same number of hours for early voting.
• Straight-ticket voting will be prohibited, and candidates will appear on the ballot in alphabetical order by party – beginning with the party whose nominee for governor received the most votes in the most recent election.
• People no longer will be able to register and vote on the same day.
• Voters who show up at the wrong precinct no longer will be able to cast a vote there with a provisional ballot.
In 2016, voters will have to show one of eight authorized photo IDs: an N.C. driver’s license that has not expired, a special ID card for non-drivers, a driver’s license issued by another state but only within 90 days of the voter’s registration, a U.S. passport, a military ID card, a veteran’s ID card issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a tribal enrollment card issued by the federal government, or a tribal ID card recognized by the state. Student IDs are not included.
Voters without a valid ID will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. But to have it count, they must go to the elections board within six days (nine in presidential elections) and show a valid ID.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/11/14/3371415/naacp-adds-churches-and-other.html#storylink=cpy

 

White Supremacist Confronted with DNA Results on Live TV: ‘You Have a Little Black in You’ | Mediaite

White Supremacist Confronted with DNA Results on Live TV: ‘You Have a Little Black in You’ | Mediaite
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
The white supremacist leader attempting to turn a rural North Dakotan town into a neo-Nazi-controlled paradise recently underwent a DNA test for a syndicated talk show. As it turns out, he’s got some Sub-Saharan African genetics in his blood.
As we’ve previously reported, 62-year-old Craig Cobb has been attempting to transform Leith, N.D., into a safe haven for fellow white supremacists. Along the way, he’s faced fierce opposition from the locals, including a zoning board that has used several ordinances in its favor.
While he seems like the last person to ever appear on a syndicated daytime talk show, Cobb somehow agreed to appear on The Trisha Show. He also submitted his DNA for testing as part of the show’s ongoing “Race in America” series.
Host Trisha Goddard read Cobb’s genetic results aloud on-the-air, much to the delight of the audience who laughed and applauded as it was revealed that the white supremacist is 14-percent Sub-Saharan African.
Cobb immediately waved away the results as “statistical noise” and refused Goddard’s mocking fist-bump. “I tell you,” he said. “Oil and water don’t mix.”
“You have a little black in you!” Goddard shouted at Cobb, who refused to meet her touch on two occasions.
In an exclusive interview with the DailyMail, Cobb said he agreed to the show’s test because “I assumed it was science,” but was upset to find that it was actually the product of “craven and debased executives,” whose “goal is to shock” and “promote multiculturalism.”
Even if another test showed similar results, Cobb said he’d still fancy himself a “border guard for the purebreds.”

Watch the video, via DailyMail:

Does the 60 Minutes retraction hurt the GOP's case on Benghazi? - Yahoo News

Does the 60 Minutes retraction hurt the GOP's case on Benghazi? - Yahoo News
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:

"I see criticism from the left where they go, 'You guys are covering a phony scandal,'" Steve Doocy, co-host of Fox & Friends, said two weeks ago. "60 Minutes doesn't cover phony scandals."

Related Stories

• '60 Minutes' Corrects Its Benghazi Story: 'We Are Very Sorry' The Atlantic Wire
• '60 Minutes' apologizes for flawed Benghazi report Associated Press
• Sen. Graham not backing down on Benghazi demands Associated Press
• CBS admits error in Benghazi '60 Minutes' story Associated Press
• The Benghazi Conspiracy Is Too Good a Story Not to Be Told The Atlantic Wire

It turns out that isn't entirely true. Yesterday, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan apologized on 60 Minutes for a story the show aired featuring Dylan Davies, a security contractor who said he was at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the night it was attacked.

In the now retracted story, Davies talked about scaling the 12-foot walls of the embassy during the attack, hitting an al Qaeda member in the head with the butt of his rifle, and seeing J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, dead in the hospital..

His supposedly first-hand account bolstered accusations that security at the compound was inadequate. Specifically, his claim that he disobeyed orders not to go to the consulate added to the perception that the Obama administration failed to send enough help on the night of the attack.
The problem? Davies told the F.B.I. and his Britain-based employer, Blue Mountain, an entirely different story, saying that he never even reached the compound.

Before that came to light, Republicans were eager to push the CBS News report as evidence of the White House's incompetence in Benghazi.
The day after the Oct. 27 piece aired, the Republican National Committee put out a press release titled, "CBS Exposes Latest Benghazi Blunders." Several Republican politicians, including Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), some of the most fierce critics of the White House's response to Benghazi, passed the story around on Twitter.

The most drastic calls to action, however, came from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The day after the 60 Minutes report aired, Graham blasted the White House and claimed that he was "going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to Congress."

That would mean delaying nominees Janet Yellen, chosen as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and Jeh Johnson, who was picked to become the next head of the Department of Homeland Security.

So does the retraction hurt Graham's case?
Graham says no. Even after the 60 Minutes correction, Graham told CNN's Candy Crowley that his threat still stood because his core argument, and that of the 60 minutes' report, remains unchanged.

The 60 Minutes story says that the attack on the consulate was not a protest but a pre-planned al-Qaida attack that you could see coming for months. The people who said that were not the British contractors...

Oversight's important. I want to perform oversight — I'm not trying to prosecute a crime, I'm not trying to defend a British contractor...Fourteen months after the attack we haven't heard from those who survived the attack and that's what I'm after. Congress has a duty. [The Guardian]

That sentiment was echoed by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who said in a statement, "Our position on Benghazi hasn't changed. What happened with the 60 Minutes piece is on CBS and 60 Minutes."

There are certainly still legitimate questions that need to be answered about Benghazi, discredited witness or not. Who, exactly, planned the attack? What was the C.I.A. doing in the area? Why wasn't the U.S. consulate more prepared? Republicans have been pushing for answers on Benghazi long before Davies talked to 60 Minutes. The fact that he wasn't a credible eyewitness doesn't completely destroy their case against the White House.

But this latest round of outrage centered around the now discredited 60 Minutes story and, likewise, should be apologized for, writes Politico's Marvin Kalb:

Republicans seized on the 60 Minutes story to call for new investigations of the Obama administration's defense of its actions during the Benghazi attack. Will Senator Graham now apologize for jumping the gun on the Benghazi story and lift his hold on Obama's two nominees? Tune in. In broadcasting, the story generally trumps the apology in impact and consequence. [Politico]

Saying producers at CBS aren't the "only ones who owe the public an explanation for having shown poor judgment," Steve Bennen at The Rachel Maddow Show similarly argues that Graham should apologize and stop blocking the administration's nominations:

Graham seized on the 60 Minutes report to bolster his conspiracy theories, but the segment has been retracted and discredited. The senator has said he needs to block all pending nominees because he wants to talk to survivors of the Benghazi attack, but survivors have already agreed to deliver congressional testimony.

In other words, what we’re left with is a senator throwing a tantrum for no particular reason. He’s single-handedly bringing all Senate confirmation votes to a halt to get what he’s already been given, and because of a CBS report that CBS no longer believes. [The Rachel Maddow Show]

Prisons and Sentencing Reform | Equal Justice Initiative

Prisons and Sentencing Reform | Equal Justice Initiative
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. The increase in the jail and prison population from 200,000 to 2.3 million in the past 40 years has lead to unprecedented prison overcrowding and put tremendous strain on state budgets. “Tough on crime” policy has created a growing underclass of ex-prisoners who are barred from productively re-entering society by increasingly numerous and onerous restrictions on things like applying for a driver's license, adopting a child, voting, and receiving federal aid for education or food in many states.
Alabama’s prisons were built to hold 14,000 prisoners. Today, they hold 28,000. The state faces an overcrowing crisis created by the tremendous increase in the number of people sent to prison in the last 25 years.
Alabama spends only $26 a day per prisoner; the national average is $62. It spends the least of any state in the country on medical care for inmates. Alabama’s prisons have the highest inmate to correctional officer ratio in the county. Many have waiting lists for solitary confinement. Unsafe prison conditions have given rise to lawsuits in which courts have found that crowding in state and local facilities is “barbaric.”
Alabama inmates have been forced to sleep on concrete floors in facilities were the “sardine-can appearance of cell units more nearly resemble the holding units of slave ships during the Middle Passage of the eighteenth century than anything in the twenty-first century.”
Alabama also is home to some of the nation's harshest sex offender registration and residency restrictions. Alabama's Community Notification Act applies to everyone convicted of a sex offense, regardless of the nature of the offense. It bars people from living within 2000 feet of a college, school, or day care center. Many people have been left homeless or deprived of critical medical care because they cannot find homes that comply with the CNA. Indeed, people have been convicted of a felony offense and sentenced to 10 additional years in prison because they were unable to identify a CNA-compliant residential address prior to their release from prison.

Democrats unite on new military sexual assault bill | MSNBC

Democrats unite on new military sexual assault bill | MSNBC
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:

Senators at odds over competing proposals to change the way the military deals with its epidemic of sexual assault cases have united on a separate plan designed to address another flaw in the justice system.
On Tuesday, Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and 11 others introduced a proposal to change the way court martial preliminary hearings are conducted. Joining efforts was Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, author of proposed reforms competing with changes designed by Gillibrand. The new bill would change Article 32 hearings to be more like preliminary hearings in civilian criminal trials.
This is the most recent major piece of legislation introduced designed to address sexual assault in the military this year. Reforming the military justice system to better prosecute sexual assault cases has been a major focus since a series scandals broke just as the Defense Department released a report estimating there were 26,000 incidents of unwanted sexual contact during the 2012 fiscal year. Of those, only 3,374 were reported, and only 302 of those were prosecuted. Of those who reported, more than 60% of victims said they experienced retaliation for reporting their assaults.
The proposed reforms will be folded into a larger defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate is expected to debate before the Thanksgiving recess. The opening for debate would allow Gillibrand another chance to pass her Military Justice Improvement Act, a bill that would reassign convening authority for sexual assault cases and other serious crimes to a military prosecutor. Currently decisions about prosecution are made by an officer within the accused attacker’s chain of command.
The defense bill currently includes reforms supported by Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin and McCaskill. McCaskill’s reforms would leave authority within the chain of command.
Both senators’ proposals include reforms that would strip commanders of their ability to overturn jury convictions, mandate dishonorable discharges for anyone convicted of sexual assault, and make it a crime to retaliate against victims who report a sexual assault, but this disagreement over chain of command has caused deep divisions, even within the Democratic Party.
While veterans groups and many advocates for survivors of sexual assault support Gillibrand’s bill, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate. On Monday, Levin said that Gillibrand’s amendment would need to get 60 votes to be approved; Gillibrand has already collected the support of 45 other senators. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham also said Monday that he would do “whatever it takes” to stop Gillibrand’s amendment from passing.
Reforms to the military justice system and policies surrounding sexual assault cases will be one of the most contentious points of debate during the Senate’s work on the full defense bill, no small feat for legislation that includes bans on transferring prisoners from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Boxer’s Article 32 reform bill could face an easier path thanks to both its broad coalition of supporters and recent events in a high profile case. The bill would make testimony by victims voluntary, something that is already allowed for civilians at Article 32 hearings. It would also, among other things, limit the scope of the proceedings to probable cause, which would protect victims from questions designed to impugn credibility and character.
“When military victims of sexual assault are forced to endure hours of insensitive and intrusive questioning by military justice officials, they are treated more like perpetrators than victims,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday. “Limiting the scope of Article 32 proceedings and requiring a military lawyer to oversee them will ensure that victims of sexual assault are not further harmed by the same military justice system that is put in place to protect them.”
The ongoing court-martial process for former Naval Academy football players accused of raping a female midshipman has allowed a glimpse into the way military sexual assault cases are prosecuted and inspired lawmakers to write this new bill. During the Article 32 hearing, the young woman who alleged she was assaulted by three men at a party was subjected to five days of cross-examination by a dozen defense lawyers, during which she was asked about what she was wearing and about how she performed oral sex.
Two of the three men accused in the Naval Academy case face court martial early next year. The Superintendent of the Academy referred those cases to trial after the officer who presided over the pretrial hearing recommended none of them face court martial and reportedly harshly criticized the alleged victim’s character.
The Naval Academy case is not the only high-profile military sexual assault case to continue to cause controversy. Last month, when it was announced that James Wilkerson, a Lt. Col. whose jury conviction for sexual assault was overturned unilaterally by the officer in charge of the court martial, would retire Jan. 1 at a reduced rank, Rep. Jackie Speier called the reduction a “slap on the wrist.” Despite being convicted of sexual assault by a jury, Wilkerson will still receive his military pension.
In addition to Boxer’s bill and the full defense bill debate, advocates and survivors are continuing to speak out about their experiences and call for change. Service Women’s Action Network, the Iraq and Afghan Veterans Association, and the Vietnam Veterans Association released an open letter Tuesday urging lawmakers to pass Gillibrand’s proposal. “Military sexual assault is a multi-generational issue. For decades, it has been swept under the rug yet continues to rear its ugly head,” said Marsha Four of Vietnam Veterans of America in a statement Tuesday.
This year’s push for reform marks only the latest push in the wake of scandal. For decades, military leaders have lamented the lack of a “silver bullet” solution to sexual assault in the armed forces. In September, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services met to discuss reforms and recommended that the Department of Defense support Gillibrand’s bill.
“Separating military justice decision-making from the chain of command will make it possible for commanders to concentrate on improving the climate in their commands that helps prevent sexual assaults,” said Nancy Duff Campbell, Co-President of the National Women’s Law Center said at a press conference about military sexual assault and proposed reforms held Wednesday. “They can model the behavior they expect from those they command.  This is the leadership job that commanders should be called upon to do and the job for which they have particular expertise.”
Anu Bhagwati also rejected the argument that commanders must retain control or face chaos in the ranks. “Often, we see the military justice reform debate framed as a choice to support either sexual assault survivors or military readiness,” she said in a statement released Tuesday. “Today, we want to be clear. A vote for Sen. Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) is a vote for our troops, and a vote for a stronger military.”

Blogger Compares Slain TSA Agent To Nazis After LAX Shooting

Blogger Compares Slain TSA Agent To Nazis After LAX Shooting
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:

Are Transportation Security Administration agents like Nazis? Blogger Rachel Burger seems to think so.
Here's what Burger wrote on a libertarian website in a piece about last week's shooting at Los Angeles International Airport that left TSA agent Gerardo I. Hernandez dead:

As a Jew, I am consistently reminded of the Nuremberg Trials when it comes to the TSA. Those who slaughtered the Jews in the Holocaust were “just following orders,” but that did not mean that they were any less accountable. Just following orders, just doing the job that they signed up for, did not excuse their actions. Of course, the Nuremberg Trials specifically addressed war crimes, but I think that the idea of just following orders extends beyond that. Being an ethical person requires critical thinking about everyday actions, whether commanded or not. Hernandez signed up to the TSA, an organization devoted to “protect” travelers from terrorists. He could have had very good reasons to do so: he could have believed in the mission and needed to support his family (and on not very much, I might add). He was not a decision maker -- he was an everyday guy doing his job. Hernandez, when infringing on Fourth Amendment rights, was “only following orders.” He might have been a good guy at home, but he was not entirely innocent in this situation. Doing without introspection does not absolve evil deeds.

If unarmed airport agents don't immediately strike you as being a lot like Nazis, you may be surprised to learn that Burger is hardly alone in making this comparison. Ann Coulter called TSA airport screenings "Hitler's last revenge." "We Are All German Jews Now" is the title of a piece on the TSA by Murray Sabrin, a former New Jersey Libertarian Party candidate for governor and the child of Holocaust survivors.
There are so many instances of the TSA being compared to Nazis that in 2010 writer Christopher Elliott, who's long written about the TSA, took stock of them, noting that some seemed sort of facile, while others, like Sabrin's, were more thorough. (Coulter's contribution was dismissed as merely "awkward.")
Elliott also pointed out that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones thinks that the TSA goes further than the Nazis. Here's Jones, also writing in 2010:

It has taken the federal government and its Department of Homeland Security -– an agency on the drawing board well before September 11, 2001 -– to implement police state tactics in regard to travel that far surpass anything devised by the Nazis. Even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government planned to create and impose a police state control grid on the American people. For instance, the Bill of Rights crushing Patriot Act was devised well before the attack and its predecessor, the 1996 Antiterrorism Act, was rushed into law following the first suspicious attack on the World Trade Center and the equally suspicious attack in Oklahoma City. Habeas corpus law was forever changed by the law touted by then president Bill Clinton.
Armed with its new and draconian palette of laws and mandates, the federal government, including the FBI, the CIA, and the Pentagon, have exploited the September 11 attacks to go after the real enemy –- the American people.

Elliott cites one Holocaust Museum employee who said in an online forum that she's "not sure what Hitler has to do with airport security. And, if you are trying to compare airport screening to the treatment of targeted groups during the rise of the Third Reich, then I suggest [you] read more than just the first section of the Holocaust Museum in D.C."
Indeed, there are plenty of critics, even within libertarian circles, which are sometimes criticized as too prone to invoking the Third Reich, inaptly.
Gina Luttrell, the editor of "Thoughts On Liberty," where Burger's piece was published, spoke up in the comments section of the piece:

In all our years of friendship and partnership I have never, ever disagreed more -- or more vehemently -- with what you've said here. (a) How is a TSA officer anything remotely like a person who facilitated the holocaust? The difference is so vast that I think you do disservice to the holocaust itself by comparing the two.
(b) Though I think the blowback analogy is more apt, I still think that there is not a fair connection being drawn between foreign policy which deprives the lives and liberties of people across the globe, and the United States government asking you to be scanned before you take part in an otherwise entirely voluntary transaction. It's not as if the gov't puts so much pressure on the citizenry via TSA screenings that it "blows back." One can simply travel by other means if you are really that worried about it (which I did, as you know, for two years before they made the scanner optional.
(c) If you do so roundly condemn violence, as you claim, it seems like the best course of action here would be to actually condemn that violence and not say "Well, what do you expect?" When you say "well, it's just blowback," I think that gives an A-OK for other people to do the same thing.
(d) Compiling all of this into one entire "Rachel, you are so, so wrong" pie is that TSA agents are COMPLETELY UNARMED. They are defenseless against a firearm attack. I don't see how you can't just uniformly, unilaterally, condemn that kind of action. The dude can't have possibly thought that he would do some good or change things (much like what many terrorists profess to believe), nor will his actions.
(e) See: Victim Blaming - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming
I'm sure there are others, but I'll leave it there for now.

Even Burger herself seems to be walking back her argument, sort of.
"No, I absolutely do not think that TSA employees are akin to Nazis," she wrote in an email to HuffPost, before regaining enthusiasm for her original point. "The idea that 'just following orders' does not absolve government agents (whether soldiers or TSA agents) from moral or legal responsibility for their actions is made most famous by the Nuremberg Trials. I believe that this principle applies to people who commit rights violations on behalf of the state."
Burger declined to specify which rights Hernandez was violating when he was killed, other than to say, "Hernandez, in his role as a TSA agent, was violating the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens. It ethically compromises him because he is violating guaranteed liberties."
What we can say for sure: There's one law that even Burger likes to follow. That's Godwin's law, which says that every Internet debate will eventually devolve into someone calling someone else a Nazi.

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Sharpton demands profiling guarantee from Macy's - Yahoo News

Sharpton demands profiling guarantee from Macy's - Yahoo News
JohnButts@JBMedia - Reports:
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he and other civil rights leaders had a "brutally honest" meeting Monday with the CEO of Macy's over racial profiling, and demanded that the department store lay out how they will guarantee the practice doesn't happen before the holiday shopping season begins.
The meeting on Monday with CEO Terry Lundgren follows an incident in which an actor on the HBO series "Treme" was detained by police after buying his mother a $1,350 Movado watch. Robert Brown filed a lawsuit last month after he said he was stopped inside Macy's flagship Manhattan store last June because he is black.
Brown's accusation came after two other black shoppers said they were racially profiled and detained by police after making expensive purchases at Barneys New York.
In a statement, Macy's said it doesn't tolerate discrimination of any kind and "considers its loss prevention policies to be among the very best and most progressive in the retailing industry."
In the meeting with Sharpton, "the company reiterated its deep commitment to diversity and inclusion," the statement said, adding that the company expressed its intention to hold itself to high standards in dealing with customers and law enforcement to provide the best shopping experience.
Sharpton, who met with the CEO of Barneys last week, said civil rights leaders felt "particularly offended" over allegations concerning Macy's, citing a $600,000 settlement that Macy's reached with the New York attorney general in 2005 over racial profiling complaints. The store had also agreed to change its security practices.
"This was a particularly biting meeting because we frankly resented having to come here again," he said.
Sharpton said he was told by Macy's executives that the store did not racially profile customers, and that Macy's employees weren't responsible for Brown being detained by police.
"Barneys said they didn't make the call, Macy's said they didn't make the call," Sharpton said. "Until they find the invisible man, we may recommend we be invisible in their stores."
The New York Police Department disputes those accounts. Commissioner Ray Kelly has said it is standard practice for retailers to call police if they believe crimes have been committed.
Sharpton said Macy's needs to make it clear how they will guarantee profiling won't happen, because "we are not going to go through the holidays and have people shop where they are going to be profiled."
He said Macy's had agreed to respond to his request by Wednesday. A Macy's representative did not respond to an email to confirm the timeline.