Nearly half a century since his murder, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was honored in a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Gwen Ifill examines the life and legacy of Evers — a World War II veteran and the NAACP’s first field secretary in the South — with Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion-Ledger newspaper.
I’ll admit, I got more than a little excited about this…
After becoming China’s president in March, Mr. Xi Jinping has made playing footsie with President Barack Obama one of his first priorities. The strained relationship between China and America has become even more so over trade disputes, allegations of Chinese cyber espionage and America’s decision to assertive itself more deeply into the Asia-Pacific region — a move the Chinese government is not at all happy about.
However, amidst all the political jostling between the head-of-states, both American and Chinese citizens will get to delight in the prospects of their significant others, Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan, duelling it out for title of “Best First Lady, Ever!”
Of course we’re not talking fisticuffs of any kind (Michelle is indeed in excellent physical condition, but Peng was an actual soldier in the Chinese Liberation Army!), but a competition of style, grace, formidability, political prowess and charm. In my opinion, up til now Michelle has had no 21st century competition on any of these fronts, but I’m getting the impression that Mrs Xi Jingping is going to be a strong contender.
And like America’s First Lady, Peng Liyuan is a charmer.
She’s taken center-stage during Mr. Xi’s tour of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, exchanging high fives with youngsters and trying her hands at playing steel drums for delighted audiences.
Liyuan has accepted offers from China’s Ministry of Health and World Health Organization in Geneva to become a “goodwill ambassador” in the promotion of HIV/AIDS awareness, the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis and the support of antismoking health campaigns.
The glamorous 50 y.0. Peng is also one of China’s most prominent folk singers, taking top billing at the country’s gala military concert at Chinese New Years for over 20 years. And as a former entertainer, it will be safe to conclude that she’ll know the power of just the right wardrobe!
China’s leaders have kept their wives discreetly in the background ever since the disastrous rise and fall of Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s fourth wife, Jiang Qing, who used her marriage to Mao to seize political power in China in the 60’s and 70’s. President Xi’s election marks a game change from the status quo.
The media has played Michelle’s Obama’s absence at the recent meet-and-greet with President Jinping, Liyuan and President Obama, as a snub of China’s new First Lady. I think this assertion is ludicrous and uncharacteristic of Mrs. O, who exhibits nothing but total dedication and loyalty to her husband’s political career. However, she has stated and made it clear on more than one occasion, that she is ‘First Mother’ first and foremost to her daughters. You’ve gotta respect that.
No official word yet on when the two First Ladies will “face-off”, but you can bet when they do–all eyes will be on them.
Well, that wasn’t the exact reason given by his former employer Booz Allen Hamilton, when they issued a statement confirming that Edward Snowden – the 29 year old who took responsibility for leaking national secrets to the media and to the world- was fired on Monday. According to the statement, Mr. Snowden was fired for “violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy.”
In other works, Snowden was fired for being a mole.
The company said that Snowden, who had been assigned to a team in Hawaii for less than three months, was earning a salary “at a rate of $122,000.” Snowden claimed he made about $200,000, a figure that could have included overtime pay and other bonuses.
Snowden, a computer technician from Maryland who previously worked for the CIA and the National Security Agency, had been holed up in a sleek hotel in Hong Kong for weeks before checking out on Monday. His whereabouts are unknown.
He and his girlfriend moved out of their rented bungalow in a Honolulu suburb on May 1 after the owner told them he wanted to sell the property, a real estate agent told The Times. Neighbors in the middle-class Waipahu neighborhood said in interviews that the couple had lived there for a few months but kept mostly to themselves.
Snowden told Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which reported many of his leaks, that he had left Hawaii without telling his girlfriend where he was going.
Tim Tebow has only been in the league for three years and has already played for two different teams, the Denver Broncos which he was originally drafted and most recently the horrible experience in New York with the Jets. Now though after being rejected by the Jacksonville Jaguars, the entire Canadian Football League, and even the Arena Football League, he has been signed by the powerhouse New England Patriots for and undisclosed length and money.
If Bill Belichick can’t find a use for Tebow I’ll be shocked
While I am not a Tim Tebow fan I am very happy for him to have been signed to a team. Tebow has the heart and desire to compete that most stars lack on top of that he has the work ethic to match that of any superstar. I’m glad he’s finally on a team that can utilize his skills that he will bring, especially since he is now working again with ex Denver Broncos coach Josh McDaniels once again in New England. Most importantly the media circus that has followed Tebow around his rather short career will be silenced in New England as all media circus’s have been before. I wish Tim Tebow the best of luck and most of all I am happy he may finally have a chance to play the game he so desperately wants to.
Absolutely amazing!
Obama administration officials held 22 separate briefings or meetings for members of Congress on the law that has been used to justify the National Security Agency’s controversial email monitoring program, according to data provided by a senior administration official.
According to the official, the sessions that took place over the course of 14 months starting in October 2011 touched on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which gives the attorney general and director of national intelligence the authority to gather intelligence on non-U.S. citizens for up to one year. Section 702 has been cited by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as the legal basis for the NSA’s PRISM program, which has allowed the government to track email communication data.
The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the existence of the PRISM program and another data-monitoring action last week. In defending PRISM from criticism, Clapper stated that U.S. citizens were not, and are not, targeted for the data dragnet. He and others have also insisted that Congress has had ample opportunity to review the program and provide feedback.
To buttress that claim, the senior administration official — discussing the matter only on condition of anonymity — sent over the following list of meetings and briefings that took place.
10/19/11: Meeting with Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Staff
1/10/12: House Judiciary Committee Staff Briefings (majority and minority separately briefed)
1/11/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefings (majority and minority separately briefed)
3/5/12: Meeting with Nancy Pelosi
3/8/12: Meeting with Harry Reid Staff
3/15/12: Law Briefing for Senate Judiciary Committee staff
3/15/12: Briefing for Senate Leadership Staff
3/21/12: Meeting with Mitch McConnell Staff
3/23/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing at NSA
3/27/12: Meeting with Jim Langevin
3/28/12: Meeting with Jan Schakowsky
3/29/12: Thompson Meeting*
3/29/12: Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall Meeting
4/10/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing (in Virginia)
4/20/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing at FBI
5/4/12: Senate Judiciary Committee Staff Briefing
5/31/12: House Judiciary Committee FAA Hearing (unclassified)
6/7/12: House Judiciary Committee MEMBER Briefing (classified)
6/11/12: Meeting with Patrick Leahy Staff
6/21/12: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing (classified)
7/18/12: Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse/Richard Blumenthal Meeting
12/10/12: Akaka Meeting
* The Washington Post reported the meeting as with Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.).
Note to all racists, do not film yourself being racist, and if you do, don’t put it on the internet.
A Florida woman who filmed herself berating Dunkin Donuts employees for not giving her free food has been identified as Taylor Chapman, a 27-year-old Broward County resident and former low-budget commercial spokeswoman, according to The Smoking Gun.
Chapman went off on workers at a Fort Lauderdale store last week after claiming an employee the night before didn’t honor the company’s policy of comping her meal after forgetting her receipt.
In the 8-minute video — which Chapman appears to have posted online — the iPhone-toting crackpot unleashes an avalanche of profanities and threats, at one point calling the employee who wronged her a “little f—-g sand n—-r.”
“Because I’m about to nuke your whole f—- planet from Mars,” Chapman seethes after spotting the worker who served her the night before.
“You think you all are tough big fat Arabs bombing the Trade Center? I’ll show you tough.”
“This s— is about to go live b—-h. Right on Facebook,” she says.
The Dunkin’ Donuts employees remained courteous during the ordeal and assured Chapman she could get whatever she wanted for no charge.
“I want my bacon crispy and I want my people to be nice,” she mutters at one point to another customer.
The video went viral on Sunday and Monday, and Chapman was quickly outed by The Smoking Gun and other sites as the Coolata-loving creep.
Thousands of commenters on YouTube and other sites slammed Champan for the abuse.
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit grandmother testified Monday that she could only watch in terror as masked police officers with guns drawn stormed her home in a hunt for a murder suspect that led to the fatal shooting of her 7-year-old granddaughter.
Officer Joseph Weekley is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the May 2010 death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was asleep on a couch when police raided the house.
Aiyana’s grandmother, 50-year-old Mertilla Jones, said after a flash-bang grenade exploded through a window she rolled onto the floor and was lying on her stomach facing the door when Detroit special response team members forced their way inside.
“As soon as they came in, their guns were just pointing right there, and he pulled the trigger,” Mertilla Jones said of Weekley. “I seen the light leave out of her eyes and the blood started gushing out her mouth and she was dead.”
h/t – the grio
And even when the tech people did warn us, we didn’t listen.
“In 1999, Scott McNealy, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems, summed up the valley’s attitude toward personal data in what became a defining comment of the dot-com boom. “You have zero privacy,” he said. “Get over it.”
But the naive attitude continues:
Mr. McNealy is not retracting that comment, not quite; but like Mr. Metcalfe he is more worried about potential government abuse than he used to be. “Should you be afraid if AT&T has your data? Google?” he asked. “They’re private entities. AT&T can’t hurt me. Jerry Brown and Barack Obama can.”
AT&T and Google can’t hurt me? Think again Scott. They can raise my bill with bogus charges or keep track of ads I click on and use that data against me if they want. It’s then up to me to cleanse my own record. The government can go after me too, but they don’t have the financial incentive to do so. Guess which one I’m more afraid of?
The people who brought us the computer revolution were smart, but were perhaps too smart. Their bias was toward maintaining data and recovering information if the system crashes. That’s why you truly cannot erase the footprints you make on your machine or in cyberspace. Now that the Congress has passed laws and the courts have upheld their legality, it should surprise no one that the government is mining the data in the name of national security.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
A Polish news crew reporting live from outside an apartment complex in the north-eastern city of Łomża unwittingly captured some breaking news as their cameras inadvertently recorded a crime in progress.
As the reporter for 24-hour news channel TVN24 went on about two local parents accused of keeping their kids locked indoors for five years, a thief could be seen in the background stealing a bouquet of roses from a flower shop.
Two employees are then seen emerging from the store before quickly returning inside, presumably to phone the police.
Andrzej Czapka was ultimately identified and apprehended, thanks in large part to his appearance on the news.
“I’d broken up with my girlfriend and I wanted to win her back with some flowers but I had no money,” he is quoted as telling the police. “I didn’t even see the film crew.”
h/t Gawker
