April 13, 2014

Report: North Korea executes official by flamethrower

Michael Winter, USA TODAY

As part of a second purge of top North Koreans following the execution of leader Kim Jong Un's uncle, 11 high-ranking officials have been imprisoned or put to death, including a security chief "burned alive" by a flamethrower, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday.

An additional 100 lower-ranking Workers Party officials were fired, an unidentified source told The Chosun Ilbo, while a third round of purges will target regional supporters of Kim's powerful uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was executed in December as "a traitor" after being convicted of "anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts."

In a separate report, the newspaper reported that North Korea intends to execute 200 high-ranking officials loyal to Jang and that about 1,000 family members might be interred in concentration camps.

Jang's elder sister, her husband, Jon Yong Jin, who was North Korea's ambassador to Cuba, and their son-in-law, who headed a trading company, were among those executed Sunday, according to the South Korean report, which could not be independently verified.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/08/north-korea-offical-executed-flamethrower/7475895/

April 13, 2014

9-Month-Old Baby Charged With Attempted Murder, Pakistani Court Realizes That’s Stupid & Drops Case

Yeesh.

Gavon Laessig
BuzzFeed Staff

Is this the adorable, squishy face of a murderer?



According to most rational humans, and now — finally — a Pakistani court, it most certainly is not.



Nine-month-old Musa Kahn was charged last week with attempted murder in Lahore after his family was involved in a protest against police and gas company workers.


This photo from April 3, of the crying baby getting finger-printed, quickly spread around the world.

Musa’s family, along with a lot of other people, were upset about a rise in gas prices and a cut in services. When the gas company — escorted by police — attempted to collect overdue bills, disgruntled customers started throwing stones.

When an assistant sub-inspector for the gas company complained that Musa’s family had beat him up, everyone — including the baby who can barely stand on his own — were hauled in by police.

Fortunately, on Saturday, the charges against the nine-month-old were dropped. “Police told the court that the nomination of Musa in the case of attacking police and gas company officials was a human error,” said defense attorney Irfan Sadiq.

When talking to reporters, Musa’s grandfather said it best: “He doesn’t even know how to pick up his milk bottle properly. How can he stone the police?”



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http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/9-month-old-baby-charged-with-attempted-murder-pakistani-cou

April 13, 2014

Fort Hood Shooter, Said To Be Bullied At Base, Is Buried In Puerto Rico

A close family member told BuzzFeed that Ivan Lopez-Lopez suffered severe bullying at Fort Hood. One of Lopez’s victims was allegedly one of the people who mistreated him.

Nicolás Medina Mora
BuzzFeed Staff

GUAYANILLA, Puerto Rico — The highway leading to this small city on the southern coast of Puerto Rico is littered with abandoned refineries. Their rusted metal tanks stand tall above the jungle, a stark reminder of the island’s economic woes.

Once a major oil hub, Guayanilla is now a struggling town. With unemployment hovering stubbornly around 20%, its population has diminished nearly every year since the refineries closed 30 years ago. Today, its streets are lined by wooden houses with tin roofs, and half of its 20,000 inhabitants live under the poverty line, according to Puerto Rico’s Office of the Comptroller.

It was here that Ivan Lopez-Lopez — who on April 3, killed three people before taking his own life at Fort Hood in Texas — was born and raised.

And it was here that grieving family members buried him on Saturday, struggling to understand how a man they knew as a life-loving musician could have come to such an end.

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedinamora/fort-hood-shooter-bullied-at-base-is-buried-in-puerto-rico

April 13, 2014

No Sign Of Social Issues As Conservative Leaders Preach To Activists

Cruz, Paul, and Huckabee compete for conservative activists’ attention — by ignoring marriage and abortion. “I think there’s an arrogance to having absolute litmus tests.”

posted on April 13, 2014 at 1:28am EDT

McKay Coppins
BuzzFeed Staff

MANCHESTER, N.H. — At a conservative conference Saturday billed as the “unofficial start” to the 2016 Republican primaries, right-wing heroes Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Huckabee competed for activists’ attention with ready-made messages for the movement, replete with Obamacare-bashing, foreign policy tough talk, and more than a few NSA phone-hacking jokes.

Conspicuously missing from their pitches: social issues.

In a sign of just how marginalized the religious right has become within the Republican Party, not one of the Great Right Hopes positioning themselves for presidential bids at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit — an event sponsored by Citizens United and the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity — tried to rally the crowd with condemnations of same-sex marriage, or abortion. And when reporters asked the prospective candidates about these issues, the replies that came back were feeble and vague, and studded with rhetoric about the importance of big-tent Republicanism.

Paul, who devoted a chunk of his speech to the need for softer criminal sentences for drug offenders, told reporters afterward that his light touch on traditional social issues is a function of his work to expand the Republican coalition. “I want a bigger party, not a smaller party. I want to win national elections, not lose them.”

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/why-social-conservatives-could-be-in-trouble

April 13, 2014

GOP Senator Questions If Sebelius Replacement Will Serve Obama Or The People

CAITLIN MACNEAL – APRIL 13, 2014, 9:29 AM EDT

Now that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has resigned, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) on Sunday indicated that Republicans may use the nomination hearing for her replacement, Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to harp on their issues with Obamacare.

Scott said on "Fox News Sunday" that he wouldn't go as far as to vote against Burwell because he does not like the health care law, but he said that senators need to better understand Burwell's loyalties and agenda.

"The questions that we have to get to, however, is whether or not Director Burwell will be serving for the President of the United states, with his agenda as the primary objective, or will she get into the details of the numbers, and she’s honestly strong on the numbers, and figure out whether seven million people actually signed up and paid, or whether, as other independent sources suggest, that we’ve had fewer than 5 million signed up and paid, as well as looking at the fact that when you have 6 million cancellations, and 7 million signed up by the President’s suggestions, that what is the actual number of those who signed up and paid," Scott asked.

He added that he needs to better understand "her approach to making sure that the American people are the primary objective and not politics," when it comes to Obamacare.

###

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tim-scott-obamacare-burwell

April 13, 2014

Top GOP Donor Still Supports Christie: Jeb Bush Has 'A Lot Of Baggage'

CAITLIN MACNEAL – APRIL 13, 2014, 10:19 AM EDT

Home Depot co-founder and prominent Republican donor Ken Langone is standing by his choice for the White House in 2016, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), despite the recent buzz surrounding former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

"Jeb would be a superb president, but I think Christie would connect better — we desperately need a president to connect to the people," Langone told Buzzfeed in an interview published Friday night.

Langone, who was recently under fire for comparing populist politics to Nazi Germany, said that the Bridge Scandal is just a "rough patch" for Christie. He added that if Christie ran for president, he would like need a staff upgrade.

"I told this to the governor and he took it respectfully — I respect loyalty, but if you’re moving onto a stage that’s far more intense and far more profound, you don’t have the luxury of having anything but the very best minds around you," Langone said.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/langone-christie-jeb-bush-2016

April 13, 2014

What the Archbishop of Canterbury Should Have Said About Gay Rights - By Gene Robinson

Justin Welby said the Church of England can’t rush on gay marriage because it could could become a rationale for violence against Christians in Africa. But that lets the murderers win.

I admire Justin Welby. The committee to nominate the next Archbishop of Canterbury was obviously thinking outside the box when they went beyond the usual deep-thinking, theological wizards and academicians to nominate this thoroughly 21st-century Christian to lead the Church of England. Welby spent most of his adult life in the business world, getting ordained as a middle-aged man, and serving as the Bishop of Durham for just over a year before becoming Archbishop. He is a man of deep faith and brilliant intellect, with a healthy dose of modernity and realism. I think they made a great choice.

Which is why I was stunned to read an account of Archbishop Welby’s response to a call-in show questioner about the newly-implemented marriage equality law in England. In response to a question about why the Church of England does not allow its clergy to officiate at civil same-sex marriages, Archbishop Welby responded:

“I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact,” Welby said. If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, “the impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes ‘round the world.”

Welby was referring to violence against Christians in Africa that the perpetrators have justified in connection with supposedly gay-friendly activities by the Anglican churches in the United States and Canada. He said he had been warned during a visit to South Sudan that Christians could face violence from Muslim neighbors who believed that having Christians nearby would make them gay.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/13/what-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-should-have-said-about-gay-rights.html

April 13, 2014

Thank Anti-Vaxxers for Lyme Disease

Kent Sepkowitz

LYMErix, a promising vaccine for Lyme disease introduced in the ‘90s, was taken off the market due to pushback from anti-vaxxers (among other groups). Is it time to bring the drug back?

Well it’s springtime once again. Flowers are blooming, love is in the air, and hopefulness abounds for one and all.

Except infectious disease specialists: for us, spring signals the start of Lyme season, a months-long slog through patient doubt and acrimony that makes us root for the bitter bite of winter to still the hopping, blood-sucking advance of the tick. April is indeed the cruelest month, not only breeding lilacs from the dead but awakening countless nymph ticks from a months-long slumber, each desperate to find a leg or hairy back to set up shop and take a vampiric meal.

First described almost 40 years ago, little has changed about Lyme diagnostics or treatment in the last few decades. What has happened however is the birth and continued growth of a group of patients who have chased the concept of the condition called “chronic Lyme disease” to the ends of science and beyond. Chronic Lyme is a protean disease said to affect primarily neurologic function; the remedy, according to believers in the syndrome, is long-term, if not indefinite, courses of intravenous antibiotics.

The group has substantial influence. In 2002 an FDA-approved Lyme vaccine was an unexpected victim of the ongoing struggle between chronic Lyme advocates and those who ascribe to the orthodoxies of allopathic medicine, a semi-derogatory term used to refer to those who went the boring route to medical school and who read conventional textbooks and ascribe to the accumulated wisdom and evidence of generations of traditional boring physicians (like me).

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/13/thank-anti-vaxxers-for-lyme-disease.html

April 13, 2014

Agenda 21: The U.N. Conspiracy That Just Won’t Die

Caitlin Dickson

In a new report, the Southern Poverty Law Center deconstructs the mythology that has surrounded the sustainability planning program since it was adopted at the U.N. Earth Summit more than 20 years ago.

It’s been called “the most dangerous threat to American sovereignty”; “An anti-human document, which takes aim at Western culture, and the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions,” that will bring “new Dark Ages of pain and misery yet unknown to mankind,” and “abolish golf courses, grazing pastures and paved roads,” in the name of creating a “one-world order.”

It’s been the subject of several forewarning books and DVDs; there are organizations dedicated to stopping it and politicians have been unseated for supporting it. Glenn Beck has spent a good portion of his career making people scared of it.

Not sure what it is? You’re not alone.

The Daily Beast got a sneak peek at a new report by Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights group, which deconstructs the mythology of Agenda 21 and the organizations, individuals, and even elected officials who’ve spent years promulgating the conspiracy theory surrounding it.

Before diving into the fiction that has inflated Agenda 21 to fear mongering status, we must first understand the facts. What, exactly, is Agenda 21?

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/13/agenda-21-the-un-conspiracy-that-just-won-t-die.html

April 13, 2014

Why Hillary v. Jeb Would Be Great for America

Mark McKinnon

They’re both qualified, respectful of each other (shocker!), and represent the vast majority of middle America. So what’s not to like about another Clinton/Bush race for 2016?

When you mention the prospect of Clinton vs. Bush 2016 a funny thing happens.

First, there is the reflexive response: "Oh no, not again. We don't need more dynastic politics in this country."

But upon further reflection, you realize Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton would be a great race and actually good for the country.

Let's review.

QUALIFICATIONS—THEY’VE BOTH GOT THEM.

Barack Obama won the presidency because in an election where the premium was on change, it mattered little that he was inexperienced. In fact, it was an asset.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/13/why-hillary-v-jeb-would-be-great-for-america.html