Holder lashes out at Issa during tense hearing, calls conduct 'shameful'

• 

WASHINGTON –  Eric Holder lashed out at his chief antagonist Wednesday at a congressional hearing where the attorney general was questioned on recent administration scandals, telling Republican Rep. Darrell Issa at the end of a tense exchange that his conduct is "shameful." 

Holder’s comments came after Issa accused him of purposely and repeatedly keeping information from Congress. 

“No, that’s what you typically do,” Holder responded. Following crosstalk, Holder added, “That is inappropriate and is too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It’s unacceptable and it’s shameful.” 

The heated exchange with the lawmaker who led the charge against Holder regarding the botched Operation Fast and Furious came during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that examined a new set of scandals. Holder was grilled on a series of allegations, including the way the agency tried to find out who was behind a government leak to The Associated Press. 

The AP, along with several lawmakers, say the Justice Department infringed on the constitutional rights of the press when it secretly obtained two months' worth of phone records. Lawmakers tried to get answers out of Holder Wednesday but voiced frustration after Holder repeatedly rebuffed questions by claiming he wasn’t involved in the decision-making process. 

Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner was among the group of bipartisan lawmakers who pressed Holder on why the Justice Department secretly collected telephone records. 

Holder said he had recused himself from the case because "I am a possessor of information eventually leaked." 

He also said he was unable to answer any questions on why the department he oversees failed to negotiate with the AP prior to obtaining subpoenas -- something which is standard practice in these cases.

Holder testified that all the decisions made in the case fell on Deputy Attorney General James Cole’s shoulders. Sensenbrenner then suggested having Cole testify before the House Judiciary Committee. While Congress could call Cole to testify, he would be prohibited from discussing any ongoing case. His testimony would likely yield few answers.

"There doesn't appear to be any acceptance of responsibility for things that have gone wrong," Sensenbrenner said, after suggesting administration officials travel to the Harry Truman Presidential Library and take a photo of the famous sign, "the buck stops here."

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said he was "troubled by the notion that our government would pursue a broad array of phone records over a period of time." But like Sensenbrenner, he was unable to pull any new information about the AP case from Holder.

On Monday, AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt disclosed the government’s action in a letter to Holder that was made public.

In it, Pruitt called the collection of phone records at four AP bureaus a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” of the news agency’s freedom of press rights granted under the U.S. Constitution.

The AP case immediately sparked bipartisan outrage, leading members of both parties to publicly question the government’s actions.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the attorney general should resign over the issue, adding: "Freedom of the press is an essential right in a free society."

Holder acknowledged Priebus’s calls for his resignation during his opening remarks, though again noted that he was not behind the subpoena. 

On Wednesday, New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he plans to reintroduce legislation that would protect journalists from revealing their sources. The bill, which was brought up in 2009, has since stalled in Congress.

The Obama administration has been very aggressive in going after government workers leaking classified information. To date, the White House has brought indictments against five workers. The Defense Department is pursuing a sixth case against the U.S. Army soldier accused of sending classified documents to the anti-secrecy online group WikiLeaks.

Under Holder’s command, the Justice Department has prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all of the AGs who came before him – combined.

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Katy Perry's dad calls her a 'devil child' in sermons, report says

Published May 02, 2013

The Sun

Pop star Katy Perry has been branded a “devil child” — by her own dad.

Firebrand preacher Keith Perry also claims watching his daughter’s gigs is so hellish he ends up weeping because the fans are worshipping the singer instead of God, The Sun reports.

And, in a string of sermons, he urges congregations to “pray for Katy”, whose hits include "I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It."

Keith and wife Mary are currently touring American churches as star speakers.

The pair show a video making Katy out to be a “devil child” who needs “healing”.

Speaking in Santa Fe Springs, California, Keith ranted: “They ask how can I preach if I produce a girl who sang about kissing another girl?

“I was at a concert of Katy’s where there were 20,000," he said. "I’m watching this generation and they were going at it. It almost looked like church."

“I stood there and wept and kept on weeping and weeping," he added. "They’re loving and worshipping the wrong thing.”

Go to The Sun for more.

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View the original article here

Hagel calls N. Korea 'real and clear danger,' as US plans defense system in Guam

• 

• • 

    How dangerous is North Korea?

  • 

    Bias Bash: Media serious enough on N. Korea threat coverage?

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that North Korea's rising threats pose a "real and clear danger," as the Pentagon continued to take precautions with a plan to deploy a missile-defense system to Guam. 

A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the military will deploy an Army system shown as a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Guam. The system is capable of shooting down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. 

This follows the positioning of two U.S. destroyer ships in the region, along with plans to have two sea-based radar systems in the western Pacific. 

Hagel, speaking Wednesday at the National Defense University, said the cascade of threats out of North Korea must be taken "seriously," given the country's nuclear and missile-delivery capacity -- though analysts say the country still could not fire a nuclear-tipped missile all the way to the continental United States. 

"As they have ratcheted up (their) bellicose, dangerous rhetoric -- and some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies, starting with South Korea and Japan," Hagel said. He also cited the "threats that the North Koreans have leveled directly at the United States regarding our base in Guam, threatened Hawaii, threatened to the West Coast of the United States." 

The Kim Jong Un regime has toggled in recent weeks between threatening the U.S. and threatening South Korea. 

The latest development was North Korea reportedly announcing it had "ratified" a strike plan against the United States. Also Wednesday, it decided to bar South Korean managers and trucks delivering supplies from crossing the border to enter a jointly run factory park called Kaesong. 

The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the Koreas, whose three-year war ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty. 

The Kaesong move came a day after the North said it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons that North Korea is developing and has threatened to hurl at the U.S., something experts don't think it will be able to accomplish for years. 

The North's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of U.S. military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine and North Korea says are invasion preparations. 

In a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Hagel cited North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and said Washington and Beijing should continue to cooperate on those problems. 

"The secretary emphasized the growing threat to the U.S. and our allies posed by North Korea's aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and expressed to General Chang the importance of sustained U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation on these issues," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement describing the phone call. 

Little also disclosed that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit China later this month. It would be Dempsey's first trip to China as head of the Joint Chiefs. 

Hagel also invited the Chinese defense minister to visit the United States this year. 

Fox News' Justin Fishel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

What to Cut: Calls to shed debt-burdened Fannie, Freddie

• 

More than five years after the housing bubble burst -- sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin from which it has yet to fully recover -- the two government-backed entities at the heart of the bust remain deeply in debt. 

At a time when the government is struggling just to pay its bills, the sustained troubles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to lead to calls from many to privatize the mortgage giants. 

"The biggest problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that they are financial institutions with a social mission," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. 

That social mission, critics say, is to heavily subsidize mortgages for people who don't meet sound lending qualifications. "Lower income homes have a tougher time paying mortgages and when the housing market started to go under, that was the first to go," Schatz said. 

Both Fannie Mae, which was founded in 1938 during the Great Depression, and Freddie Mac, created in 1970, had historically been restricted to so-called prime loans -- or high-quality loans. That ended in 1992, under the George H.W. Bush administration, when Congress passed the Safety and Soundness Act, which required the Department of Housing and Urban Development to promote affordable housing. 

American Enterprise Institute scholar Edward Pinto said this "actually planted the seeds of the destruction of Fannie and Freddie" by feeding "the boom and the bust." 

Pinto said that bad choice led to another when, in 1995, the Clinton administration created  the National Homeownership Strategy. "Its cornerstone was doing away with downpayments. So you had now Fannie and Freddie, instead of doing prime loans, were doing progressively more risky and risky loans." 

The George W. Bush administration also pushed low-income homeownership, but sounded alarms about the health of Fannie and Freddie as early as the fall of 2003, when ex-Treasury Secretary John Snow told a congressional committee: "We need a strong, world-class regulatory agency to oversee the prudential operations of the GSE's (government-sponsored enterprises)." 

Some refused to pay heed to Snow's warning. The then-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, told Snow: "The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see ... then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing." 

Today, taxpayers are stuck with the bill for the government's poor judgment. 

"In June 2011, the Congressional Budget Office said that taxpayer liability for Fannie and Freddie had reached $148 billion and could go up to $317 billion," Schatz warned. 

Pinto believes the government further distorts the mortgage market through its 12 federal home loan banks, the Federal Housing Administration, and Ginnie Mae. 

The departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs also provide mortgage assistance. 

But Pinto singles out FHA, in particular. "It has really become the escape valve for riskier lending," he said. "They could take the riskiest loan that they'll do, and they'll price it the same in terms of a guarantee fee or an insurance fee as the least risky product they'll do. That's because Congress won't let them price for risk. They basically said we don't want you to price for risk, we want you to have these distortions." 

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said this was all done "in the name of doing good" but described it as a "misdirected compassion for something that you couldn't actually accomplish."

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View the original article here

Kerry calls for 'immediate' release of American in Iran after letter detailing abuse

• 

Secretary of State John Kerry, in a first-ever statement from his office on the case of imprisoned Iranian-American Saeed Abedini, called Friday for Abedini to be “immediately released” and said he is “disturbed” by reports that he’s suffered physical and psychological abuse at the Iranian prison where he’s being held.

The statement was released by Kerry late Friday afternoon, and it came after the attorneys representing Abedini’s family released a letter the Christian pastor sent to his wife describing how he was beaten and denied medical treatment because he was seen as "unclean" because of his faith.

Kerry's call for the pastor’s release marks the first such formal statement on the case. The full statement from Kerry read as follows:

“I am deeply concerned about the fate of U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who has been detained for nearly six months and was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on charges related to his religious beliefs. I am disturbed by reports that Mr. Abedini has suffered physical and psychological abuse in prison, and that his condition has become increasingly dire. Such mistreatment violates international norms as well as Iran's own laws.  

“I am also troubled by the lack of due process in Mr. Abedini's case and Iran's continued refusal to allow consular access by Swiss authorities, the U.S. protecting power in Iran.  I welcome reports that Mr. Abedini was examined by a physician and expect Iranian authorities to honor their commitment to allow Mr. Abedini to receive treatment for these injuries from a specialist outside the prison. The best outcome for Mr. Abedini is that he be immediately released.”

Attorneys for Abedini's wife, Naghmeh Abedini, as well as lawmakers who have rallied on the prisoner’s behalf, have been urging Kerry to get directly involved. Republican lawmakers expressed dismay last Friday when the State Department did not provide a witness for a hearing at which Naghmeh Abedini testified.

Since that hearing, and the attention it received, the Obama administration has taken additional actions. State Department representatives met with Naghmeh Abedini last week, and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday directly called for Abedini's release during a meeting in Geneva. An attorney for the family called that the "first pro-active statement by ... our administration" in the case.

State Department and White House officials have previously addressed Abedini’s case in public before, but only when questioned about it by reporters and others.

The Kerry statement late Friday marks a new level of escalation in the administration’s statements.

Hours earlier, a letter was released which was received by Saeed Abedini's family this week, though it may have been written weeks ago.

The letter from Saeed Abedini to his wife described in detail how he's been mistreated at Iran's notorious Evin Prison. He described how he saw his face for the first time in the mirror of an elevator.

"I said hi to the person staring back at me because I did not recognize myself," Abedini wrote. "My hair was shaven, under my eyes were swollen three times what they should have been, my face was swollen, and my beard had grown."

The pastor explained how, despite his situation, he is trying to focus on "forgiveness." He said he forgave the "interrogator who beat me" as well as the doctor who "did not give me the medication that I needed."

Abedini wrote that a nurse would not provide him with treatment because she said "in our religion we are not suppose to touch you, you are unclean." He wrote that he could not fall to sleep one night because of the pain, as he listened to the sound of "dirty sewer rats with their loud noises and screeches."

Attorney Jordan Sekulow, though, told Fox News on Friday that he has since received a medical review. Sekulow said Abedini was promised he'd be moved to a hospital outside the prison, though cautioned that the family would have to see that happen to believe it.

Sekulow, meanwhile, drew attention to a statement delivered Thursday in Geneva by Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. representative on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

She said: "Iranian officials continue to restrict these communities' freedom to practice their religious beliefs free from harassment, threat or intimidation. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini's continuing harsh treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities exemplifies this trend.

"We repeat our call for the government of Iran to release Mr. Abedini, and others who are unjustly imprisoned, and to cease immediately its persecution of all religious minority communities. The United States also repeats its call for the government of Iran to provide without delay the urgent medical attention Mr. Abedini needs."

Donahoe came under criticism for neglecting to specifically address the case at a recent meeting in Geneva on Iran's human rights record. Donahoe instead broadly criticized "the Iranian government's ceaseless campaign of abuse" against those who dissent.

Abedini has been held in Iran's Evin Prison since September of last year and was sentenced to eight years in prison in January -- accused of evangelizing and threatening national security.

Naghmeh Abedini met Saeed in 2002 and they married two years later. Both had converted from Islam to Christianity -- Saeed became a U.S. citizen in 2010.

The Iranian government does not recognize his American citizenship, though it had enabled him to travel freely between both countries until this past summer, when he was pulled off a bus and placed under house arrest, according to his supporters.

View the original article here

FAA to close 149 air traffic towers, senator calls for using untapped research money to save them

• 

  March 9, 2010: In this photo, an American Eagle flight waits for release from the air traffic control tower at Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill.AP/The Pantagraph

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it will close 149 air traffic control towers, in a move one lawmaker said was akin to "removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads." 

That  lawmaker, Republican Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, also claims the FAA could save the towers by tapping into millions of dollars in unspent FAA research money. 

Yet the FAA moved forward Friday with plans to shut down the air traffic control facilities, describing them as a necessary cutback due to the sequester.

"These were very tough decisions," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a written statement. 

The cuts will affect small airports starting April 7. The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers under procedures that all pilots are trained to carry out. The FAA decided to keep open 24 towers that were on the original list of possible closures. 

"We will work with the airports and the operators to ensure the procedures are in place to maintain the high level of non-towered airports," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement. 

But the plan has raised concerns about the impact on safety and the potential financial effect on communities that rely on airports as key economic engines for attracting businesses and tourists. 

"The administration's decision to shutter these air traffic control towers is short-sighted and dangerous," Moran said in a statement "Closing control towers is equivalent to removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads. It is clear that this administration is putting its top-line message, that spending cannot be cut without severe consequences, before the safety and well-being of Americans." 

Moran is pushing an amendment to take $50 million from "unobligated FAA research and capital funds" from past spending bills and use that to save the air traffic control towers. The amendment did not receive a vote when proposed as part of the recently passed 2013 stopgap spending bill -- it's unclear whether it could get a vote Friday as an amendment to the 2014 budget resolution. However, any amendment to the 2014 budget package would have no effect this year, and the senator is considering introducing the proposal as a stand-alone bill. 

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association also blasted the decision announced Friday, while spreading the blame between Congress and the administration. 

"The closure of these air traffic control towers will reduce the overall margin of safety of our entire aviation system," association president President Paul Rinaldi said. "Ultimately, the partisan posturing in Washington that led to sequestration is the reason for today's decision and its destructive effects on aviation. The FAA made a bad situation worse by not utilizing a well-thought-out process for evaluating the value of air traffic control towers before ordering their closure." 

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., also voiced concern that "75 percent of the towers the Obama administration is closing are located in Republican congressional districts." 

Under the sequester, the FAA has to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities at small airports with lighter traffic. The changes are part of the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect March 1. 

All of the airports targeted for tower shutdowns have fewer than 150,000 total flight operations per year. Of those, fewer than 10,000 are commercial flights by passenger airlines. 

Airport directors, pilots and others in the aviation sector have argued that stripping away an extra layer of safety during the most critical stages of flight will elevate risks and at the very least slow years of progress in making the U.S. aviation network the safest in the world. 

Airlines have yet to say whether they will continue offering service to airports that lose tower staff. Any scaling back of passenger service could have major economic impact for communities. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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IRS calls 'Star Trek' parody video a mistake

WASHINGTON –  Nobody's going to win an Emmy for a parody of the TV show "Star Trek" filmed by Internal Revenue Service employees at an agency studio in Maryland.

Instead, the IRS got a rebuke from Congress for wasting taxpayer dollars.

The agency says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show "Gilligan's Island," cost about $60,000. The "Star Trek" video accounted for most of the money, the agency said.

The IRS said Friday it was a mistake for employees to make the six-minute video. It was shown at the opening of a 2010 training and leadership conference but does not appear to have any training value.

The video features an elaborate set depicting the control room, or bridge, of the spaceship featured in the hit TV show. IRS workers portray the characters, including one who plays Mr. Spock, complete with fake hair and pointed ears.

The production value is high even though the acting is what one might expect from a bunch of tax collectors. In the video, the spaceship is approaching the planet "Notax," where alien identity theft appears to be a problem.

"The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars," the agency said in a statement. "There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources."

The agency said it has tightened controls over the use of its production equipment to "ensure that all IRS videos are handled in a judicious manner that makes wise use of taxpayer funds while ensuring a tone and theme appropriate for the nation's tax system."

The agency also said, "A video of this type would not be made today."

The video was released late in the day Friday after investigators from the House Ways and Means Committee requested it.

"There is nothing more infuriating to a taxpayer than to find out the government is using their hard-earned dollars in a way that is frivolous," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. "The IRS admitted as much when it disclosed that it no longer produces such videos."

The film was made at an IRS studio in New Carrollton, Md., a suburb of Washington. The agency said it uses the studio to make training films and informational videos for taxpayers.

"The use of video training and video outreach through the in-house studio has become increasingly important to the IRS to reach both taxpayers and employees," the agency said. "In the current budget environment, using video for training purposes helps us save millions of dollars and is an important part of successful IRS cost-efficiency efforts."

IRS YouTube videos have been viewed more than 5 million times, the agency said. A video on the IRS website called "When Will I Get My Refund?" has been seen 950,000 times this filing season.

The disclosure of the "Star Trek" video comes as agencies throughout the federal government face automatic spending cuts, including employee furloughs at many of them.

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller has told employees they could be furloughed five to seven days this summer. The furloughs, however, will be delayed until after tax filing season so refunds should not be affected.

The agency said the "Star Trek" video "was a well-intentioned, light-hearted introduction to an important conference during a difficult period for the IRS."

Congressional investigators initially sought both the "Star Trek" video and the "Gilligan's Island" video but after viewing them determined that the "Gilligan's Island" video was a legitimate training video. The IRS did not release the "Gilligan's Island" video.

"The video series with an island theme provided filing season training for 1,900 employees in our Taxpayer Assistance Centers in 400 locations," the IRS said. "This example of video training alone saved the IRS about $1.5 million each year compared to the costs of training the employees in person."

View the original article here

Kerry calls for 'immediate' release of American in Iran after letter detailing abuse

• 

Secretary of State John Kerry, in a first-ever statement from his office on the case of imprisoned Iranian-American Saeed Abedini, called Friday for Abedini to be “immediately released” and said he is “disturbed” by reports that he’s suffered physical and psychological abuse at the Iranian prison where he’s being held.

The statement was released by Kerry late Friday afternoon, and it came after the attorneys representing Abedini’s family released a letter the Christian pastor sent to his wife describing how he was beaten and denied medical treatment because he was seen as "unclean" because of his faith.

Kerry's call for the pastor’s release marks the first such formal statement on the case. The full statement from Kerry read as follows:

“I am deeply concerned about the fate of U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who has been detained for nearly six months and was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on charges related to his religious beliefs. I am disturbed by reports that Mr. Abedini has suffered physical and psychological abuse in prison, and that his condition has become increasingly dire. Such mistreatment violates international norms as well as Iran's own laws.  

“I am also troubled by the lack of due process in Mr. Abedini's case and Iran's continued refusal to allow consular access by Swiss authorities, the U.S. protecting power in Iran.  I welcome reports that Mr. Abedini was examined by a physician and expect Iranian authorities to honor their commitment to allow Mr. Abedini to receive treatment for these injuries from a specialist outside the prison. The best outcome for Mr. Abedini is that he be immediately released.”

Attorneys for Abedini's wife, Naghmeh Abedini, as well as lawmakers who have rallied on the prisoner’s behalf, have been urging Kerry to get directly involved. Republican lawmakers expressed dismay last Friday when the State Department did not provide a witness for a hearing at which Naghmeh Abedini testified.

Since that hearing, and the attention it received, the Obama administration has taken additional actions. State Department representatives met with Naghmeh Abedini last week, and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday directly called for Abedini's release during a meeting in Geneva. An attorney for the family called that the "first pro-active statement by ... our administration" in the case.

State Department and White House officials have previously addressed Abedini’s case in public before, but only when questioned about it by reporters and others.

The Kerry statement late Friday marks a new level of escalation in the administration’s statements.

Hours earlier, a letter was released which was received by Saeed Abedini's family this week, though it may have been written weeks ago.

The letter from Saeed Abedini to his wife described in detail how he's been mistreated at Iran's notorious Evin Prison. He described how he saw his face for the first time in the mirror of an elevator.

"I said hi to the person staring back at me because I did not recognize myself," Abedini wrote. "My hair was shaven, under my eyes were swollen three times what they should have been, my face was swollen, and my beard had grown."

The pastor explained how, despite his situation, he is trying to focus on "forgiveness." He said he forgave the "interrogator who beat me" as well as the doctor who "did not give me the medication that I needed."

Abedini wrote that a nurse would not provide him with treatment because she said "in our religion we are not suppose to touch you, you are unclean." He wrote that he could not fall to sleep one night because of the pain, as he listened to the sound of "dirty sewer rats with their loud noises and screeches."

Attorney Jordan Sekulow, though, told Fox News on Friday that he has since received a medical review. Sekulow said Abedini was promised he'd be moved to a hospital outside the prison, though cautioned that the family would have to see that happen to believe it.

Sekulow, meanwhile, drew attention to a statement delivered Thursday in Geneva by Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. representative on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

She said: "Iranian officials continue to restrict these communities' freedom to practice their religious beliefs free from harassment, threat or intimidation. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini's continuing harsh treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities exemplifies this trend.

"We repeat our call for the government of Iran to release Mr. Abedini, and others who are unjustly imprisoned, and to cease immediately its persecution of all religious minority communities. The United States also repeats its call for the government of Iran to provide without delay the urgent medical attention Mr. Abedini needs."

Donahoe came under criticism for neglecting to specifically address the case at a recent meeting in Geneva on Iran's human rights record. Donahoe instead broadly criticized "the Iranian government's ceaseless campaign of abuse" against those who dissent.

Abedini has been held in Iran's Evin Prison since September of last year and was sentenced to eight years in prison in January -- accused of evangelizing and threatening national security.

Naghmeh Abedini met Saeed in 2002 and they married two years later. Both had converted from Islam to Christianity -- Saeed became a U.S. citizen in 2010.

The Iranian government does not recognize his American citizenship, though it had enabled him to travel freely between both countries until this past summer, when he was pulled off a bus and placed under house arrest, according to his supporters.

View the original article here

Black caucus renews calls for Obama to show more diversity in Cabinet nominations

The Congressional Black Caucus renewed calls Monday for President Obama to nominate more blacks to Cabinet posts.

“You have moved forward with new Cabinet appointments and yet, to date, none of them have been African American,” the group's chairwoman, Democratic Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, told Obama in a letter. “You have publicly expressed your commitment to retaining diversity within your Cabinet. However, the people you have chosen to appoint in this new term have hardly been reflective of this country’s diversity.”

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who is black, was said to be in the running for for secretary of state, however, Rice withdrew her name because of wavering congressional support, following her misstatements last year in the aftermath of the fatal Sept. 11 terror attacks in Libya.

The caucus' criticism of Obama follows similar concerns about a lack of diversity at the highest levels of the administration.

“It’s embarrassing as hell,” Democratic New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, a founding black caucus member, said in early January.

A week later, during Obama’s final press conference of his first term, he defended his record and asked the public to reserve judgment until he completes his picks.

“I’m very proud that in the first four years we had as diverse, if not more diverse, a White House and a Cabinet than any in history,” he said. “I would just suggest that everybody kind of wait until they’ve seen all my appointments, who’s in the White House staff and who’s in my Cabinet, before they rush to judgment.”

The president's second-term Cabinet nominations so far include corporate executive Sally Jewel for Interior secretary; Ernest Moniz, a physicist of Portuguese descent, for Energy secretary, and two white men who served in the Senate, John Kerry as secretary of state and Chuck Hagel as Defense secretary.  

The Congressional Black Caucus also suggested that everyday black voters are especially upset with Obama, considering their overwhelming support for him in the 2012 election.

In his first term, the president’s Cabinet included one black man, a man of Hawaiian-Japanese descent and four women. They were Attorney General Eric Holder, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

A caucus spokeswoman on Monday named three potential black nominees that Rep. Fudge suggested to the president, all Democrats: North Carolina Rep. Mel Watt for Commerce secretary, California Rep. Barbara Lee for Labor secretary and South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, for Transportation secretary.

View the original article here

US calls out UN diplomats for coming to budget meetings drunk

UNITED NATIONS -- The United States thinks the United Nations has a drinking problem.

Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella, who represents the U.S. on the U.N.'s budget committee, said in remarks Monday that the tense process of negotiating the world body's annual budget is made more complicated by the number of diplomats who turn up drunk.

The U.N. budget is finalized in December, when holiday parties apparently lead to some revelry spilling over into budget negotiations.

Torsella said the U.S. is making "the modest proposal that the negotiating rooms should in future be an inebriation-free zone."

Some tipsy negotiating partners have left the U.S. "truly grateful for the strategic opportunities," he said.

But Torsella said the committee should "save the champagne for toasting the successful end of the session."

View the original article here

Rachel Maddow calls Scalia a 'troll,' like blogger 'using N-word'

Editor's note: A version of this opinion piece appeared on the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog.

Imagine for a moment a Fox News host calling one of the liberal Supreme Court justices such as Sonia Sotomayor a "troll."

Liberal heads would explode across the fruited plain including in newsrooms from sea to shining sea.

With that as pretext, check out what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Comedy Central's Daily Show Thursday:

RACHEL MADDOW: It's weird to see Antonin Scalia in person. It’s weird.

JON STEWART, HOST: Does he, you know, I only read some of the transcripts of what he was saying. And he was saying certain thing like, “We've got to get rid of this because it's one of the last vestiges of racial preferences,” the Voting Rights Act I guess.

MADDOW: He said that, he said when Congress re-upped the Voting Rights Act, they looked into whether or not it was still necessary. Ten months of debate, 21 hearings, 15,000 pages of evidence, and in the Senate they voted 98-0 yeah we still need that. But he said, “That vote really, what does that vote mean?”

STEWART: Didn’t he say something like, “We told them to fix this in 2006 but clearly they won’t or can't, so we have to do it for them?”

MADDOW: Because it’s not, it’s not a real vote. It’s a racial entitlement now. Voting is a racial entitlement, something that you are entitled to on the basis of your race. 

Wait a second. Do you know how that sounds? 

But I think he does know how that sounds, and that's the neat thing about being there in person because you can see oh, actually, he's a troll. He’s saying this for effect.

STEWART: I see.

MADDOW: He knows it’s offensive and he knows he's going to get a gasp from the court room which he got. And he loves it. He's like the guy in your blog comment threads using the N-word. “Ahh! Oh, made you mad? How about if I say this? Did it make you mad? Did it make you mad?”

STEWART: Does he do anything like this, did he go, “Oh, and by the way, I have something for you?” Ba-boom. [Raises middle finger] Was he like, he’s just that guy?

MADDOW: He's that kind of guy.

STEWART: Wow!

MADDOW: So, when we're all shocked that he said something so blatantly racially offensive – we’re talking about the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Act -- he's thinking, “Oh, yeah, I did. That’s right.”

STEWART: Ba-boom.

MADDOW: Yeah, so that's, that’s neat to see. It’s also neat to see Sonia Sotomayor from way down at that “I’m new here” end of the bench sort of lean around the bench and give him what for. All of her questions are technically to the lawyers, but she is talking to Antonin Scalia every time, and it's like a brawl between them. It’s just so great.

STEWART: Are the people that have been there a long time and know Scalia when he says it do they do one of these, but the new kid is a little shaken by that or just angered by that at least?

MADDOW: Ready for it and has a rejoinder that’s going to, that would make him feel embarrassed if he wasn't a troll who loves to make people mad.

Let's rewind the tape here, so to speak: “He’s a troll… He's like the guy in your blog comment threads using the N-word.”

I guess that despite the outrage that would happen if a Fox News host said this about a liberal jurist, Scalia is fair game because he’s conservative.

So, here's an exit question: Are these media double standards starting to make you sick?

Noel Sheppard is associate editor of the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org. He welcomes feedback at NewsBustersNoel@gmail.com.

View the original article here

Rachel Maddow calls Scalia a 'troll,' like blogger 'using N-word'

Editor's note: A version of this opinion piece appeared on the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog.

Imagine for a moment a Fox News host calling one of the liberal Supreme Court justices such as Sonia Sotomayor a "troll."

Liberal heads would explode across the fruited plain including in newsrooms from sea to shining sea.

With that as pretext, check out what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Comedy Central's Daily Show Thursday:

RACHEL MADDOW: It's weird to see Antonin Scalia in person. It’s weird.

JON STEWART, HOST: Does he, you know, I only read some of the transcripts of what he was saying. And he was saying certain thing like, “We've got to get rid of this because it's one of the last vestiges of racial preferences,” the Voting Rights Act I guess.

MADDOW: He said that, he said when Congress re-upped the Voting Rights Act, they looked into whether or not it was still necessary. Ten months of debate, 21 hearings, 15,000 pages of evidence, and in the Senate they voted 98-0 yeah we still need that. But he said, “That vote really, what does that vote mean?”

STEWART: Didn’t he say something like, “We told them to fix this in 2006 but clearly they won’t or can't, so we have to do it for them?”

MADDOW: Because it’s not, it’s not a real vote. It’s a racial entitlement now. Voting is a racial entitlement, something that you are entitled to on the basis of your race. 

Wait a second. Do you know how that sounds? 

But I think he does know how that sounds, and that's the neat thing about being there in person because you can see oh, actually, he's a troll. He’s saying this for effect.

STEWART: I see.

MADDOW: He knows it’s offensive and he knows he's going to get a gasp from the court room which he got. And he loves it. He's like the guy in your blog comment threads using the N-word. “Ahh! Oh, made you mad? How about if I say this? Did it make you mad? Did it make you mad?”

STEWART: Does he do anything like this, did he go, “Oh, and by the way, I have something for you?” Ba-boom. [Raises middle finger] Was he like, he’s just that guy?

MADDOW: He's that kind of guy.

STEWART: Wow!

MADDOW: So, when we're all shocked that he said something so blatantly racially offensive – we’re talking about the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Act -- he's thinking, “Oh, yeah, I did. That’s right.”

STEWART: Ba-boom.

MADDOW: Yeah, so that's, that’s neat to see. It’s also neat to see Sonia Sotomayor from way down at that “I’m new here” end of the bench sort of lean around the bench and give him what for. All of her questions are technically to the lawyers, but she is talking to Antonin Scalia every time, and it's like a brawl between them. It’s just so great.

STEWART: Are the people that have been there a long time and know Scalia when he says it do they do one of these, but the new kid is a little shaken by that or just angered by that at least?

MADDOW: Ready for it and has a rejoinder that’s going to, that would make him feel embarrassed if he wasn't a troll who loves to make people mad.

Let's rewind the tape here, so to speak: “He’s a troll… He's like the guy in your blog comment threads using the N-word.”

I guess that despite the outrage that would happen if a Fox News host said this about a liberal jurist, Scalia is fair game because he’s conservative.

So, here's an exit question: Are these media double standards starting to make you sick?

Noel Sheppard is associate editor of the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org. He welcomes feedback at NewsBustersNoel@gmail.com.

View the original article here