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Continue reading …Three words you don’t want to hear in the same sentence: credible, threat, unresolved. Unfortunately, that’s the word out of the National Counterterrorism Center. USA Today reports that NCC director Matthew Olsen, along with Janet Napolitano and Robert Mueller, today told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that while Sept. 11…
Continue reading …CNN's legal contributor, and former legal analyst, Sunny Hostin stated Tuesday that the sex abuse cases involving the Catholic clergy could be considered war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). “I mean this is a war crimes tribunal and that is not to say that perhaps these crimes don't qualify as war crimes because we know that sex crimes and sexual violence do qualify,” she maintained. However, she added that most cases seen by the ICC stem from genocide or violence in war-torn countries. Hostin's statement came during CNN's coverage of the efforts of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to have the pope prosecuted by the ICC for “crimes against humanity.” [Video below the break.] Both experts hosted by the network acknowledged that the case will probably not even reach the court. However, Sunny Hostin gave credence to the lawsuit. “I don't think it's a frivolous lawsuit by any stretch of the imagination or a frivolous complaint,” Hostin claimed. “I think that it's probably a good move by SNAP.” CNN anchor Randi Kaye asked guest John Allen of the heterodox National Catholic Reporter if the suit “could be a good thing,” noting it could bring the whole issue “more to the forefront again.” Allen affirmed that it would be a “long shot” for the case to reach the ICC. He did opine that “it's unquestionably a good thing for the victims and their advocates” that the issue is receiving attention. A transcript of the segment, which aired on September 13 at 1:24 p.m. EDT, is as follows: RANDI KAYE: Some victims of priest abuse want the pope prosecuted for crimes against humanity. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also called SNAP, claims the pope and other church leaders, quote, “tolerate and enable the systemic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.” To support its claim, SNAP has filed more than 20,000 documents with the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. A Vatican spokesmen tells CNN he's aware of the filing but he has no comment. Last June the pope had this to day about the ongoing abuses. (Video Clip) POPE BENEDICT XVI (through translator): We do insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again. And that — (End Video Clip) KAYE: Now, the pope says that he's doing everything he can to protect children and prevent these abuses, but SNAP still claims that he and other officials are turning a blind eye to the issues at hand. So, is this just a big PR stunt or does the group really have a legitimate case? Here to weigh in, legal contributor from “In Session” on TruTV, Sunny Hostin. Sunny, nice to see you. This is a pretty serious case to talk about with you today. Does SNAP have a real case here? SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN legal contributor: You know, I think it certainly has a real case. But the question is whether or not it really will even get there. Whether or not the International Criminal Court will even open up an investigation. I mean this is a war crimes tribunal and that is not to say that perhaps these crimes don't qualify as war crimes because we know that sex crimes and sexual violence do qualify. But the type of crimes that historically are brought before this court are things like the violence in Libya, Randi, that we've seen recently, child soldiers in Darfur, genocide. Things like that. And so this certainly is a bit different. It's also a court of last jurisdiction, last resort. And so I think in that sense, because a lot of these crimes are being prosecuted in the United States priest by priest, church by church, that sort of lends against having it tried in front of this type of court, an International Criminal Court located in the Netherlands. So I don't think it's a frivolous lawsuit by any stretch of the imagination or a frivolous complaint, but certainly will it withstand scrutiny by the ICC, I think is going to be pretty difficult. KAYE: When you hear the pope being accused of crimes against humanity, I mean, can you prosecute the pope? Can you prosecute the Vatican? HOSTIN: Well, that's the thing. I mean, you know, the Holy See is certainly not a member state of the court. However, they are – you know, there are churches around the world and in those jurisdictions they are sort of members of this court. So it is a stretch. But the reason they're suing or filing this complaint against the pope is because he was the leader of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and he had responsibility – overall responsibility – for overseeing and prosecuting these abuse cases. And so in that sense, he would be someone that would be subject to suit in front of the ICC. But again, I think it's such a political hot potato, Randi. I think it's unlikely that this will succeed in front of this court. But it succeeded in the sense that it's brought this issue, once again, in front of the international community. And it's such an important issue. People and children were harmed and continue to be harmed. And so, for that reason alone, I think that it's probably a good move by SNAP. KAYE: Sunny, hang with us. I want to bring in CNN's Vatican analyst, John Allen, who's also out with a new book, “The Future Church.” John, I want to get your take on this case. If it is picked up by the ICC, the International Criminal Court, what could this mean for the pope and what could it mean for the Vatican? JOHN ALLEN, senior correspondent, National Catholic Reporter: Hey, Randi. Well, I would agree with what Sunny just told you, it's certainly what I've been hearing from international law experts around the world today, which is, it's a long shot that the ICC would touch this. But if that were to happen, it really would be a novelty because while the Vatican has been sued before for its role in the sexual abuse crisis, most prominently in American courts, there's currently a case in federal district court in Oregon that's going on. In each of those cases, it's been able to invoke its sovereign immunity under international law. Of course the Holy See is a sovereign state. The pope is a head of state. They have diplomatic relations with 179 countries. And so they've been able to use that, if you like, as a shield. And so none of these cases have ever gone beyond the jurisdictional stage of whether courts can even hear them. If the ICC were to open a case for the first time, the Vatican could, at least in theory, be compelled to defend its records, not on jurisdictional grounds, but on the merits. And that would certainly be a new development. KAYE: John, is there any way that this could be a good thing? I mean, like Sunny mentioned, it might bring it more to the forefront again.
Continue reading …Tuesday’s links get techy with Cold War gadgets and DIY weapons. Spread the Twitter Love: Is Yoko Ono following you on Twitter? Don’t feel special. (Techland) Tech Generation Gap: Watch this adorable elderly couple try to figure out a webcam for nearly three minutes. It’s worth it. (The Daily What) Weird Weapons: The rebels in
Continue reading …When last week’s flood hit upstate New York, the Johnson City Petco failed to evacuate its animals—and 100 drowned. The news made its way across the blogosphere ( see here for one example ), and now the village mayor has called for a police investigation to see whether the…
Continue reading …The diabetes epidemic is getting worse, the International Diabetes Federation said today, estimating that 366 million people across the globe now have the disease. In comments delivered at a European meeting in Lisbon, the group called the numbers “staggering,” noting that 4.6 million people die of diabetes every year,…
Continue reading …Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy This “little girl” gaffe ended up as fodder for the Rewrite of Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word Monday night. Basically a journalist did some gumshoe reporting on Governor Nikki Haley’s French vacation : Gov. Nikki Haley’s weeklong trip to Europe in June in search of “jobs, jobs, jobs” cost South Carolinians more than $127,000. But the governor and her entourage of more than two dozen returned without any finished deals to bring new employers to the Palmetto State. Haley, who captured the governor’s office preaching fiscal restraint, spent the cash so she, her husband and the rest of the state’s contingent could stay in five-star hotels; sip cocktails at the Paris Ritz; dine on what an invitation touted as “delicious French cuisine” at a swanky rooftop restaurant; and rub elbows with the U.S. Ambassador to France at his official residence near the French presidential palace. Instead of asking for a correction (which is what’s done when a newspaper gets something wrong ), Haley went after the reporter on Laura Ingraham’s radio show: HALEY: God bless that little girl at the “Post and Courier.” Her job is to try and create conflict. My job is to create jobs. In the end, I`m going to have jobs to show for it. Yeah, the jobs created in France. Oui! What Lawrence didn’t cover is how horribly sexist and dismissive this is. This is perhaps the most deplorable thing you can say about a professional woman who challenges you. I’m immune to being called a dude, drag queen or tranny. When I say something funny, I’m often called a lesbian – a compliment to lesbians, for sure. The c-word, the b-word, and the w-word. Calling me ugly, fat, old, stupid, bimbo, ditzy, over-Botoxed etc. etc. etc. I don’t even notice anymore. I write under my real name. I have a column that runs in over 85 newspapers and all over the Internets. If I didn’t want to be personally insulted by technology empowered strangers, I’d go live in a cabin and tap out my manifesto on a word processor. But the phrase “little girl,” (I’ve gotten, “silly little girl” twice in my professional career) its like no other. It’s hard to think of anything more condescending than calling someone a feckless female child. Yes, Republicans like to cry “feminist” when its suits them, but Haley sure loves the language of the “get back in the kitchen” crowd. The great thing about her using the phrase is now her vacation is national news. Good going, Haley. It’s a proud moment for “little girls” everywhere. Full transcript of the clip above after the jump. O`DONNELL: Time for tonight`s Rewrite. Nikki Haley, the Republican governor of South Carolina and a rising star in the Republican party, is in trouble. She did something inappropriate to a little girl and she got caught doing it. Now she says she regrets it, but still hasn`t been able to bring herself to apologize either publicly or to the little girl. Little girl`s name is Renee Dudley and she is 25 years old. What Haley did that Haley now calls inappropriate is call Renee Dudley a little girl. Because Haley didn`t like the article Renee Dudley wrote for Charleston, South Carolina`s “Daily Post and Courier,” under the headline, “European Vacation or Legitimate Business?” In the fully researched, meticulously reported piece, Renee Dudley revealed that Nikki Haley and her entourage spent at least — at least 127,000 dollars on a trip to Europe in June, in search of, quote, “jobs, jobs, jobs.” The first place Nikki Haley decided to go to look for jobs for South Carolinians was, of course, Paris, a place that every Republican knows is full of people who want to set up businesses in South Carolina. Perhaps the “let`s go looking for jobs in Paris” strategy explains why Nikki Haley`s state has a higher unemployment rate than the national average, almost two full percentage points above the national average. Renee Dudley`s reporting details how Nikki Haley chose to stay in five-star hotels and run up a bar bill at the Paris Ritz, provoking the South Carolina Democratic party chairman, Dick Harputlian (ph), to be quoted in Renee Dudley`s article as saying, Nikki Haley was, quote, “channeling Marie Antoinette.” On Laura Ingraham`s radio show, Nikki Haley said this when asked about Renee Dudley`s article. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: God bless that little girl at the “Post and Courier.” Her job is to try and create conflict. My job is to create jobs. In the end, I`m going to have jobs to show for it. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Calling the reporter a little girl and thinking she was done with it did not sit well with South Carolinians. And so Nikki Haley had to put out a damage control statement that stopped short of an apology. “The story painted a grossly inaccurate picture and was unprofessionally done. But my `little girl` comment was inappropriate and I regret that. Everyone can have a bad day. I`ll forgive her bad story if she`ll forgive my poor choice of words.” Nikki Haley has yet to contest a single fact reported by Renee Dudley, not one word, not one sentence. She has not disputed anything in Renee Dudley`s original reporting. Now I, for one, am not horrified by Haley`s average daily hotel bill on the European trip, or any of the expenses listed in Renee Dudley`s report, which, as I said, remains uncontested for accuracy. I actually think foreign travel by American government officials is a good thing. I especially think Republicans need to learn more, a lot more about France, a country they normally use as a punch line of their empty headed, jingoistic jokes about the world we live in. And I`m an admitted socialist in a country where people like Nikki Haley are simply socialism condemners, who constantly make socialistic choices and actually support socialistic programs. Government intervening in the marketplace is not a capitalist idea. Government inserting itself into the marketplace in a heavy-handed way, either through begging or special tax deals, trying to influence business decisions — private business decisions, to suit the government`s current mood is a purely — purely socialistic idea. There is, at least, one Republican in South Carolina who understands this. South Carolina Republican State Senator Tom Davis said this in Renee Dudley`s article: “if you get the fundamental things right, solid education and health care, capital will come to the state.” Davis said “those are the functions of government, not creating jobs. It`s a socialist state when the government`s core function is to create jobs.” Well, at least he`s half right. He`s calling health care one of the functions of government, which is, of course, a purely socialistic idea about the functions of government. He doesn`t seem to realize that. But he`s right to say that making job creation government`s core function is a socialist idea. It is one of the socialistic ideas that I`m happy to support if done modestly, with the recognition that the real burden of job creation will always belong to the private sector. If you want to see how horrible government is at making job creation a core function, get yourself into Cuba before the country opens itself to at least Chinese-style capitalism. It would be too much for me to expect a Republican rising star to admit her and her party`s hypocrisy about socialism. And I guess it`s too much for me to expect a 39-year-old professional woman who happens to be a governor to apologize to a 25-year-old professional woman for calling her a “little girl” on a radio show hosted by a 47-year-old professional woman.
Continue reading …The Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen taped this past Saturday in Los Angeles, and HuffPost Comedy was there live blogging and tweeting the night’s highlights. In case you missed it, trust us: it was “winning.” The roast airs on Sept. 19 at 10:00 p.m., but you don’t have to wait that long to hear some of the night’s funniest jokes. For starters, third-time roast master Seth MacFarlane did a great job kicking off the night with some all-too-real material about Sheen’s destructive lifestyle. Needless to say, things got a little dark. Seriously, like, obituary dark. Check out what some might call a “Too Soon” moment from the top of the roast below. WATCH: Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen RELATED: Exclusive interviews from the Roast red carpet if(typeof AOLVP_cfg===’undefined’)AOLVP_cfg=[];AOLVP_cfg.push({id:’AOLVP_1155833634001′,’codever’:0.1, ‘autoload’:false, ‘autoplay’:false, ‘playerid’:’61371448001′, ‘videoid’:’1155833634001′, ‘width’:480, ‘height’:270, ‘stillurl’:’http://pdl.stream.aol.com/pdlext/aol/brightcove/aolmaster/1612833736/1612833736_1155870377001_ari-origin05-arc-145-1315856890300.jpg?pubId=1612833736′, ‘playertype’:’inline’,’videotitle’:’Charlie Sheen Roast Red Carpet’,’videolink’:’#’}); Video by Daylan Williams
Continue reading …The left is already out attacking last night's CNN Tea Party debate, with the New York Times leading the way as it cried “the first event hosted jointly by a major news organization and a Tea Party group” has “left some questioning whether the network had gone too far in reaching for centrist credibility.” That charge only makes sense in a liberal world view that thought Brian Williams' biased performance at last week's NBC News/Politico debate was somehow soft and uncontroversial. In fact there were far more liberal questions (13) to the GOP candidates at this Tea Party debate than there were conservative-oriented questions at the NBC News debate last week (just one). The Tea Party gets credit for helping restore balance to the agenda, but it's not like liberal ideas were shut out. A study of the questions asked at both debates does show Blitzer was more balanced than Williams, in part, because he was involved in a forum where Tea Partiers themselves were able to ask questions of the GOP candidates. Whereas Williams, along with the Politico's John Harris, were able to run rampant with one question after another from the left. A review of the 54 total questions asked by Williams and Harris to the Republican candidates shows that 25 of them came from the left, with just one from the right. Twenty-eight questions were neutral. So of those questions with an agenda almost all of them (96 percent) were from the left (4 percent from the right). In contrast, a review of the 62 total questions posed to GOP candidates at the CNN debate shows only 13 of them came from the left, 21 from the right, with 28 being neutral. So of questions with an agenda 62 percent were from the right, 38 percent were from the left. However, it should be noted that since this debate was sponsored by the Tea Party seven questions from the right were asked by Tea Partiers themselves. Of the questions asked by Blitzer 14 were from the right and 13 from the left, with 28 being neutral. While Williams and Harris lobbed one loaded lefty question after the next at GOP candidates, at their respective debate, Blitzer for the most part, asked straightforward questions or threw to Tea Partiers in the audience, and then just stood by as the candidates responded. Blitzer's opening questioning was typical: BLITZER: Let's start off here in Tampa. We have a Tea Party activist. Please identify yourself and ask your question. TEA PARTIER: My question: How will you convince senior citizens that Social Security and Medicare need to be changed and get their vote? BLITZER: Good question. Let me begin with Michele Bachmann. Congresswoman, how do you do that? How do you go ahead and change, reform Social Security, Medicare, while at the same time getting votes? Blitzer then asked follow-ups of the candidates that spurred back and forth exchanges, that while occasionally led to Republicans fighting each other, also allowed each candidate to further explain their similarities and differences with their primary opponents. This was a far cry from Williams, who instead set out to hammer individual Republicans with liberal agenda questions that tried to depict the GOP candidates as somehow cartoonishly out of step with mainstream values. As was the case with Williams' line of questioning of Texas Governor Rick Perry, as noticed by the MRC's Brent Baker. “Williams hit Texas Governor Rick Perry from the left on his state's poor economic indicators (“no other state has more working at or below the minimum wage”), chastised him for cutting education funding and, citing how 'your state has executed 234 death row inmates,' demanded to know whether he's 'struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?' Williams was taken aback when the audience applauded Perry's death penalty record, prompting a befuddled Williams to follow up: 'What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?'” Even though, unlike Williams, Blitzer was able to have actual conservative Tea Partiers ask questions directly of the candidates, Blitzer, himself, did manage to sneak in some questions from the left. Like when he asked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann the following: “The Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, which went across the board, were not offset with spending cuts, and as a result, potentially, a lot of economists think, the deficit went up and up and up.”
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