Cutesy Title Here

latimes:

Think Congress is sophomoric? A study says you’re right: Oratory in the House and Senate has dropped a full grade, to the high school sophomore level, an analysis finds.

Photo: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), left, with his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). A study found the younger Paul’s oratory to be at an eighth-grade level. Credit: Ed Reinke, Associated Press

think-progress:

Meet Maureen Russo: An eligible voter who couldn’t vote, thanks to a voter purge being conducted by Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

More at ThinkProgress

(via stfuconservatives)

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

• Prominent Palestinian writer Salameh Kaileh spent three weeks in detention in various Syrian prisons over suspicion that he was handing out leaflets calling for Assad’s downfall. Kaileh described the prisons as a “human slaughterhouses” and “hell on earth.”
• UN Sec’y General Ban Ki-Moon told Christiane Amanpour that there is “no Plan B” for Syria at this moment.
• The violence in Syria spilled further over the border into Lebanon, igniting clashes throughout the week.
• Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a deal that will lead to elections and a unity government in the West Bank and Gaza.
• A huge suicide bombing in Sana’a, Yemen, on Monday, killed more than 100 and was claimed by militants connected with Al Qaeda.
• The Lockerbie bomber died in Libya on Sunday.
• Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi, who assisted the CIA in ascertaining bin Laden’s whereabouts, has been sentenced in Pakistan to 33 years for treason.
• It’s been another very bloody week in Karachi.
• On Tuesday, the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid voted to cut aid to Pakistan by 58% and threatened further cuts if Pakistan doesn’t reopen supply lines. 
• At the Chicago summit, NATO leaders decided on a permanent timetable in which Afghan forces will take over combat command in mid-2013 and NATO combat forces will leave by 2014. 
• US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, will be leaving his post this summer.
• Five kidnapped aid workers are apparently being held for ransom in Shahr-e Bozorg, Afghanistan. Negotiations are ongoing. 
• The State Dept. spent $1800 per student per day in 2010 for its Anti-Terrorism Training program in North Africa, the Middle East and South and Central Asia. The total money spent on programs like this since 9/11 is $1.4b. The State Dept’s Inspector General released a report on these programs for public consumption this week.
• Talks over the Iranian nuclear program resumed in Baghdad this week, hitting a snag on negotiations over sanctions.
• The military junta in Guinea-Bissau has handed over power to a civilian government.
• Dioncounda Traoré, the interim president of Mali, was beset by protesters on Monday, who stormed the presidential palace and beat him unconscious.
• A yearlong probe identified 1800 cases of fake parts in US military equipment. A suspected million such fake parts are out there, and 70% of these parts can be traced back to China.
• CNAS released a policy report outlining suggestions for reforming the structure and operation of the military.
• A 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room shows that the Army has had extensive concerns about the long-term health risks associated with the combat burn pit operated at Bagram Airfield. Service-members have been coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with puzzling health problems, most likely associated with exposure to these burn pits. A recent animal study also came to light showing that burn pits not only adversely affects lungs in the short term, but has serious long-term impacts on the immune system.
• Two female Army reservists have filed suit in district court to remove the restriction on combat service in the military based “solely on sex,” saying the restriction violates their 5th amendment right to due process.
• A new GAO report says that wounded service-members are now waiting an average of a year for their official disability evaluation. This is a big increase, and the wait time has been on the up for the last three years.
• Congressional investigators want an explanation within 10 days from the Defense Logistics Agency as to why the military was double-billed and excessively charged to the tune of $750m for food supplies.
• One of the owners of a firm involved in propaganda operations for the Pentagon has publicly admitted to creating a series of websites in a misinformation campaign attacking two USA Today journalists who had reported on the contracting company.
• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the ACLU’s challenge to the 2008 FISA Amendments, the warrantless wiretapping legislation which grants the NSA the power to tap the international phone calls and emails made by US citizens. Just this Tuesday, a Senate panel voted to extend these provisions, which the White House hopes to extend beyond its year-end expiration date.

Photo: Logar province, eastern Afghanistan. During a helicopter transport, US Army medic with the C Company 3/82 Dustoff medevac attends to an Afghan National Army soldier wounded by gunshot. Danish Siddiqui/Reuters.

motherjones:

So much going on here.

theweekmagazine:

When Obama endorsed legal gay marriage this week, he cited his daughters Sasha and Malia as factors in his evolving stance, noting that some of their friends have gay parents in admirably committed relationships. That was enough to provoke Bristol Palin, who fired off a blog post chiding Obama for being influenced by what “teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.” Instead, she said, the president should have explained “to Malia and Sasha that, while [their] friends’ parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage.”

This isn’t the first time Bristol has written an open letter to Obama, nor is it the first time she’s stirred up controversy. Here, a brief history of Palin’s notable flaps:

• February 16, 2009 — In her first interview since giving birth, Bristol tells Fox News  that abstinence policies are simply “not realistic at all.”
   
• May 6, 2009 — Now a pro-abstinence spokesperson, Bristol says on Good Morning America that “regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only… 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy.” She insists her February statement was taken out of context.
   
• Jan. 27, 2011 — Washington University in St. Louis disinvites Bristol from a “Sex Week” panel discussion on abstinence. Students had objected to Palin’s keynote speech and, especially, her proposed $20,000 fee. It’s not like she brings a “unique and engaging perspective” to the topic, says Sean Janda at Student Life.
   
• April 5, 2011 — Tax documents show that, as an abstinence ambassador for the Candie’s Foundation, Bristol earned $262,000 in 2010, while in the same period the foundation spent just $35,000 on grants to health and counseling clinics for pregnant teenagers. “For every dollar Bristol gave to the cause, she gave $7.50 to herself,” says E.D. Kain at Forbes.
   
• May 3, 2011 — Bristol hits the red carpet at the Candie’s Foundation benefit gala in New York, sporting a new look — or more specifically, a new face. Rumors abound that she had plastic surgery on her nose, chin, jaw, and cheeks. Palin responds that she had medically necessary “corrective jaw surgery” that, along with a liquid diet, incidentally “improved the way I look.”
   
• Sept. 22, 2011 — Palin gets in a shouting match with a fellow patron at a West Hollywood watering hole. After Bristol falls off the mechanical bull she was riding, a man insults her and her mother, using crass language. Why don’t you like my mom? Bristol shot back. “Is it because you’re a homosexual and that’s why you hate her?”

But wait, there’s more… 

why is anyone listening to this unwed mother/hypocrite, single digit IQ’d bimbo? how you one be touting religion and marriage when she couldn’t be bothered to marry BEFORE she got knocked up? shouldn’t she go to hell for that, i mean that was a CHOICE she made, though she tried to play it off that he basically forced her..ugh, just ugh, why am i even commenting on this twat

theweekmagazine:

Meet Rep. Bob Dold, the Republican trying to save Planned Parenthood. The Illinois politician wants to keep taxpayer dollars trickling to the women’s health organization the GOP loves to hate. He’s introduced a bill that would prevent agencies and governments from denying it family-planning dollars just because it offers abortion services. 

Who is this guy, and will lawmakers approve his bill?