Comments »SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Wednesday that before Kim Jong Il’s death the United States offered to provide food aid if it halted its uranium enrichment program, and although Pyongyang blasted Washington for “politicizing” food shipments, it appeared to leave the door open for a deal.
Comments about the proposed deal, attributed to an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang, carried an indignant tone, but the North’s statement also said it would wait and “see if the United States has a willingness to establish confidence” with North Korea.
The statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency offers an early look at how the government now led by Kim’s son, Kim Jong Un, will handle two of North Korea’s most pressing issues: a long-running food crisis and international pressure to end its nuclear program.
Ron Paul persists after every attempt to ignore him
Comments »After a second place finish in the New Hampshire primaries, Ron Paul will take his campaign to South Carolina, bypass the Florida primaries, and head to Nevada where he hopes to get a head start in the push to garner Latino support in one of the recession’s hardest hit states.
The Nevada Caucus on February 4th, and the Florida primary on January 31st, will mark the first time that Hispanic Republicans will get their shot to significantly weigh in on the race for the GOP nominee –a point that has not been lost on the Paul campaign – which launched its Hispanics for Ron Paul National Coalition in an effort to organize Latino volunteers in states like Nevada, Colorado, and Washington.
According to the Paul campaign, they reportedly will bypass Florida because of the huge cost of advertising and campaigning in the state – which his campaign estimated to be about $9 million to compete for the state’s winner-takes-all 50 delegates. Instead, Paul’s Hispanic Outreach campaign continues pushing hard to win Republican Latinos in Nevada. Just over 9% of Nevada’s voter population is Latino.
“We’ve been working with several newspapers in the area, English and Spanish language local affiliates, and are focused on bringing out the Hispanic vote in Nevada for Dr. Paul,” said Fernando Cortes, the Deputy Controller and Director of the Ron Paul campaign’s Hispanic Outreach Program. Cortes, 28, controls 5 staffers in the coalition and 20 “mostly bilingual” volunteers thus far who are set to meet on a Saturday afternoon in Henderson, Nevada on January 14th to put in place an outreach strategy directed specifically to Latino voters in Nevada.
Romney appears to continue leading GOP primary
Comments »Mitt Romney stormed out of New Hampshire Wednesday with a historic achievement under his belt, having scored back-to-back wins in the first two nominating contests, and vowing to take that momentum into South Carolina.
The former Massachusetts governor was able to pull off a commanding victory in the New Hampshire primary, winning with 39 percent of the vote with 95 percent of precincts reporting.
Up next, South Carolina. The state is not the friendliest of territory for the candidate Newt Gingrich has branded as a “Massachusetts moderate.” Polls show Romney holding a modest lead in South Carolina, but Gingrich and Rick Santorum also are polling strong. However, Romney is rallying supporters on a message of creating opportunity and shaking the nation out of the doldrums represented, he claims, by the current president.
To that end, Romney scolded his opponents in New Hampshire for criticizing his record at investment firm Bain Capital over the last few days. He accused them of reading right out of the Democratic playbook.
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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1OnDHySL98 450 300]
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The EU makes a push to flay Hungary into shape. The EU wants a new constitution and some fear this may push the country back into Authoritarianism.
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Tim Tebow Declines to Endorse Any Presidential Candidates Despite Courtship
Sensing the excitement and loving his message, Tebow is also being courted by Republican presidential candidates. The quarterback recently told The Associated Press he’s been asked by more than one of the contenders for his support. He wouldn’t name names, but did say he’d declined the offer.
“I think you have to have so much trust in who you support, just from product endorsements to endorsing a candidate because if that person or company does something (bad), it reflects on you,” said Tebow, who’s a pitchman for Nike, Jockey and FRS energy drink.
Tebow has, however, placed himself in the political realm before – two Super Bowls ago when he starred in a Focus on the Family commercial with his mother sharing the story of how she gave birth to him in the Philippines in 1987 after spurning a doctor’s advice to have an abortion for medical reasons. After being criticized for that ad, he didn’t do an encore and instead tries to toe the line of showing his religion without shoving it down people’s throats.
That hasn’t stopped people from mocking him – and worse.
After Tebow was particularly bad in an ugly loss to Buffalo on Dec. 24, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher sent out a tweet that basked in the QB’s misfortune, blaming Jesus for the loss. “And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler `Hey, Buffalo’s killing them,’” Maher tweeted.
Maher, in turn, was roundly ripped for the post.
Less toxic was the recent skit on “Saturday Night Live,” where “Jesus” materializes in the locker room with an actor portraying Tebow, admits he is pulling some strings during these Bronco games, then after being told the New England Patriots are next on the schedule, suggests Tebow substitute his playbook, “the holy Bible,” for one with some Xs and Os.
The “SNL” Jesus also concedes that he, personally, prays to the Broncos place-kicker, Matt Prater, whose excellence has defined what the Tebow sensation has been about for most of this season: a bunch of teammates, motivated by a less-than-perfect leader who never gives up, coming together and picking each other up when the going gets tough.
A great story line that has held most of the year.
The twist on Sunday, though, was that for the first time this season, it could reasonably be argued that Tebow was a one-man show. In the win over Pittsburgh, he completed five passes of 30 yards or more. And with his defense struggling, he threw a perfect strike for the game-winner to receiver Demaryius Thomas, who didn’t have to change his stride and, thus, ran untouched into the end zone.
“He was the same Tim, calm and collected,” Thomas said. “He took it one play at a time and was in the huddle and said, `It’s either we win or we go home.’”
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Zero’s New Chief of Staff: Hedge Fund Exec. at Citi, Profited from Mortgage Defaults
5:56 PM, Jan 9, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
President Obama’s first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once sat on the board of troubled federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Bill Daley, the president’s chief of staff whose departure was announced today, was previously a top executive at financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. So of course there should be little surprise that Obama’s latest chief of staff, announced today by the president himself, also has deep ties to the financial industry himself.
From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank’s alternative investments division. And it was his division that made billions of dollars betting “U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments,” as the Huffington Post reported.
The piece also reported: “Lew made millions at Citi, including a bonus of nearly $950,000 in 2009 just a few months after the bank received billions of dollars in a taxpayer rescue, according to disclosure forms filed with the federal government. The bank is still partly owned by taxpayers.”
Of course, one should not begrudge Lew his personal, professional, and financial successes. But one might wonder what kind of message the president is sending with this appointment.
Read the rest here.
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Iran Sentences American Man to Death in CIA Case
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – An Iranian court has convicted an American man of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death, state radio reported Monday, in a case adding to the accelerating tension between the United States and Iran.
Iran charges that as a former U.S. Marine, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission. The radio report did not say when the verdict was issued. Under Iranian law, he has 20 days to appeal.
The 28-year-old former military translator was born in Arizona and graduated from high school in Michigan. His family is of Iranian origin. His father, a professor at a community college in Flint, Michigan, has said his son is not a CIA spy and was visiting his grandmothers in Iran when he was arrested.
His trial took place as the U.S. announced new, tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington believes Tehran is using to develop a possible atomic weapons capability.
Iran, which says it only seeks nuclear reactors for energy and research, has sharply increased its threats and military posturing against stronger pressures, including the U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank in attempts to complicate its ability to sell oil.
The U.S. State Department has demanded Hekmati’s release.
The court convicted him of working with a hostile country, belonging to the CIA and trying to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism, Monday’s report said.
In its ruling, a branch of Tehran Revolutionary Court described Hekmati as a mohareb, an Islamic term that means a fighter against God, and a mofsed, or one who spreads corruption on earth. Both terms appear frequently in Iranian court rulings.
In a closed court hearing in late December, the prosecution asked for the death penalty for Hekmati.
The U.S. government has called on Iranian authorities to grant Swiss diplomats access to him in prison. The Swiss government represents U.S. interests in Iran because the two countries don’t have diplomatic relations.
Hekmati is a dual U.S.-Iranian national. Iran considers him an Iranian since the country’s law does not recognize dual citizenship.
His father, Ali Hekmati, and family friend Muna Jondy, an attorney who has been speaking on behalf of the family, did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages left at their offices before business hours Monday morning.
Similar cases against Americans accused of spying have heightened tensions throughout the years-long standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran arrested three Americans in July 2009 along the border with Iraq and accused them of espionage, though the Americans said they were just hiking in the scenic and relatively peaceful Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
One of them was released after a year in prison, and the other two were freed in September in deals involving bail payments that were brokered by the Gulf sultanate of Oman, which has good relations with Iran and the U.S.
On Dec. 18, Iran’s state TV broadcast video of Hekmati delivering a purported confession in which he said he was part of a plot to infiltrate Iran’s Intelligence Ministry.
In a statement released the same day, the Intelligence Ministry said its agents identified Hekmati before his arrival in Iran, at Bagram Air Field in neighboring Afghanistan. Bagram is the main base for American and other international forces outside Kabul, the Afghan capital.
It is not clear exactly when he was arrested. Iranian news reports have said he was detained in late August or early September.
Hekmati’s father, Ali, said in a December interview with The Associated Press, that his son was a former Arabic translator in the U.S. Marines who entered Iran about four months earlier to visit his grandmothers.
At the time, he was working in Qatar as a contractor for a company “that served the Marines,” his father said, without providing more specific details.
