Kerry Comments Add to Mystery About Rogue CIA Agent Missing in Iran

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The intrigue over the rogue CIA agent last seen six years ago in Iran intensified Sunday with an accusation about a cover-up, Secretary of State John Kerry rejecting allegations the United States has abandoned the search and Iran distancing itself from the mystery.

Kerry expressed hope the new Iranian government would provide information on the whereabouts of the 65-year-old Robert Levinson and pushed back on the argument that the U.S. has stopped looking for the retired FBI agent.

“To suggest that we have abandoned him or anybody has abandoned him is simply incorrect, and not helpful,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I think the Iranian government has the ability to help us here, and we hope they will.”

Meanwhile, Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Levinson is not being held by the government and that he has “no idea” about who might have him.

Still, Zarif said his country “will certainly discuss” Levinson’s return should he be found.

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MSNBC Panelist’s Charge of Tea Party Racism Elicits Strong Response: ‘I Will Not Sit Here and Allow You to Say That’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Photo Credit: Newsbusters

Democratic strategist and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Angela Rye picked the wrong panel Sunday to accuse the Tea Party of being “racial.”

When he heard this during his appearance on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show, Republican strategist Ron Christie strongly objected saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

During a lengthy political discussion with Christie as the lone conservative against four extreme liberals (including the host, of course), Rye said, “I was just thinking, to me, in 2010, the Republican infighting took a particularly dangerous tone because it wasn’t just about infighting anymore. It was about taking our country back with the resurrection of the Tea Party. And it was very, very racial, whether any of them will admit it or not.”

Christie quickly refuted this saying, “Racial! I will not sit here and allow you to say that!”

“I said it, and I’ll say it again,” Rye responded.

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Gingrich Dismantles Robert Reich’s Rant on Income Inequality: ‘This is Baloney’ (+video)

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Newt Gingrich7232Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich heatedly disputed Robert Reich’s contention that the “War on Poverty’s” initial success was spoiled by decades of Republican “intransigence,” telling the former labor secretary his argument was “baloney.”

Gingrich and Reich appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” to discuss TIME magazine’s choice of Pope Francis as Person of the Year. Reich, a well-known proponent of wide-scale income redistribution, changed the topic to inequality in the United States today. ABC News host Jonathann Karl asked Gingrinch whether the Republican Party should be worried about poverty in America.

“Absolutely,” he responded. “How can you justify the level of wealth in those big towers in New York City and the level of poverty in those alleys? And without talking about government, surely a society that cared, that believed every person was endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, would come up with a better solution than 22,000 children that are homeless.

“I think that the Republican Party has an obligation to rethink some of its indifference to the very poor,” he continued, “and I think the Democrats have an obligation to ask themselves after 50 years of the ‘War on Poverty,’ isn’t it clear that government isn’t a very good –”

https://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90046&sitesection=dailycaller&VID=25447180

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SNL Mocks Obama Selfie, Fake Mandela Interpreter (+video)

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Photo Credit: Screen grab via NBC

Photo Credit: Screen grab via NBC

By Oliver Darcy.

President Barack Obama’s appearance at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service this week was subject to a “Saturday Night Live” skit that targeted the stage’s fake interpreter and the president’s now infamous selfie.

The skit opened with an actor playing Obama delivering an address on the “series of unfortunate events” that occurred at the Mandela memorial.

“First, I got roped into taking a selfie with the blonde female Danish prime minister,” the Obama actor said. “Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that. But, I talked to her afterwards and I can assure you, she was furious.”

“Some people said Michelle was angry at me for that….she was furious.”

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

How the West was lost by the selfie president

By Michael Goodwin.

My bookshelves sag with encyclopedic volumes arguing that America and the West are in decline. But proving that a picture is worth a thousand books, the “selfie” seen ’round the world ends the argument.

It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom.

President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment.

But the “selfie” episode also symbolizes the greater global calamity of Western decline. With British prime minister David Cameron playing the role of Obama’s giggling wingman, the “look at me” moment confirms we have unserious leaders in a dangerously serious time.

Iran marches toward nuclear weapons and already there is talk in military circles that a nuclear-armed Iran could mean mushroom clouds in the Mideast within five years.

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NSA Officials Consider Edward Snowden Amnesty in Return for Documents

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Photo Credit: Sunshinepress/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Sunshinepress/Getty Images

National Security Agency officials are considering a controversial amnesty that would return Edward Snowden to the United States, in exchange for the extensive document trove the whistleblower took from the agency.

An amnesty, which does not have the support of the State Department, would represent a surprising denouement to an international drama that has lasted half a year. It is particularly unexpected from a surveillance agency that has spent months insisting that Snowden’s disclosures have caused vast damage to US national security.

The NSA official in charge of assessing the alleged damage caused by Snowden’s leaks, Richard Ledgett, told CBS News an amnesty still remains controversial within the agency, which has spent the past six months defending itself against a global outcry and legislative and executive proposals to restrain its broad surveillance activities.

“My personal view is, yes, it’s worth having a conversation about,” Ledgett, who is under consideration to become the agency’s top civilian, said in an interview slated to air Sunday evening on 60 Minutes. “I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high. It would be more than just an assertion on his part.”

Snowden is in Russia, having been granted a year-long asylum that has sparked international intrigue. In June, the Justice Department filed a criminal complaint charging the 30-year old former contractor with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and “wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person”, although he has not yet been indicted.

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By Cracking Cellphone Code, NSA has Capacity for Decoding Private Conversations

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Photo Credit: Francisco Seco/AP

Photo Credit: Francisco Seco/AP

The cellphone encryption technology used most widely across the world can be easily defeated by the National Security Agency, an internal document shows, giving the agency the means to decode most of the billions of calls and texts that travel over public airwaves every day.

While the military and law enforcement agencies long have been able to hack into individual cellphones, the NSA’s capability appears to be far more sweeping because of the agency’s global signals collection operation. The agency’s ability to crack encryption used by the majority of cellphones in the world offers it wide-ranging powers to listen in on private conversations.

U.S. law prohibits the NSA from collecting the content of conversations between Americans without a court order. But experts say that if the NSA has developed the capacity to easily decode encrypted cellphone conversations, then other nations likely can do the same through their own intelligence services, potentially to Americans’ calls, as well.

Encryption experts have complained for years that the most commonly used technology, known as A5/1, is vulnerable and have urged providers to upgrade to newer systems that are much harder to crack. Most companies worldwide have not done so, even as controversy has intensified in recent months over NSA collection of cellphone traffic, including of such world leaders as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The extent of the NSA’s collection of cellphone signals and its use of tools to decode encryption are not clear from a top-secret document provided by former contractor Edward Snowden. But it states that the agency “can process encrypted A5/1” even when the agency has not acquired an encryption key, which unscrambles communications so that they are readable.

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Sister Wives: Judge Rules Key Parts of Utah Anti-Polygamy Law Unconstitutional

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/TLC, Bryant Livingston

Photo Credit: AP Photo/TLC, Bryant Livingston

Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties are hailing a federal judge’s ruling that key parts of Utah’s polygamy laws are unconstitutional.

Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties on Saturday hailed a federal judge’s ruling that key parts of Utah’s polygamy laws are unconstitutional, saying it will remove the threat of arrest for those families.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said in the decision handed down Friday that a provision in Utah law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.

The ruling was a victory for Kody Brown and his four wives who star in the hit TLC reality show “Sister Wives” and other fundamentalist Mormons who believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven.

The Brown family filed their lawsuit in July 2011 and fled Utah for Las Vegas last year under the threat of prosecution.

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Google’s Robots Give Amazon’s Drones a Run For their Money (+video)

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Photo Credit: David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Photo Credit: David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google has snapped up the creator of the world’s fastest running robot and other eerily realistic animal-like machines supplied to the U.S. military.

The internet company’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics is latest in a string of robotics acquisitions in a mysterious initiative led by former Android chief Andy Rubin.

As Amazon readies a fleet of delivery drones, Boston Dynamics is Google’s biggest prize yet in the robot wars.

Among the creations to crawl, jump and gallop from its labs are Big Dog, a four-legged robot that can clamber over uneven terrain such as snowy forests, even when assailed by kicks from its makers, and Cheetah, which claims to hold the record for the fastest legged robot in the world, running at more than 29 miles per hour.

Many of Boston Dynamics’ robots have been developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense’s research unit, Darpa, making Google a military contractor, at least for now.

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GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ Program Backs Pro-Abortion, Pro-Gay Marriage Candidates for Congress

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Although the Republican Party Platform opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is backing and promoting through its “Young Guns” program two congressional candidates who are homosexual, and who support same-sex marriage and abortion.

In addition, one of the “Young Guns” candidates, Carl DeMaio, has received $15,000 from the political arm of House GOP leaders Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), while the other candidate, Richard Tisei, “has won the support of the entire House Republican leadership, including a $5,000 check from the PAC run by the vice-presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.),” reported the Washington Post.

Richard Tisei, who is “married” to his male partner Bernie Starr, in Edgartown, Mass., is running for a congressional seat in the 6th District in the Bay State. Carl DeMaio is running for a congressional seat out of San Diego, Calif.

DeMaio, who is openly gay, supports abortion and same-sex marriage. In a press release, he said, “I see myself as a ‘new generation Republican’ who wants to challenge the party to focus on pocket-book, economic and quality of life issues in a more positive and inclusive way, rather than issues that are, frankly, none of the government’s business in the first place.”

Tisei supports same-sex marriage and is pro-abortion, having received a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. The NRCC is spending money on television ads attacking Tisei’s opponent, Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), as is YG Action, a political action committee founded by former aides to House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), reported the Washington Post.

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China Imposes First-Ever West Coast Shellfish Ban

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Photo Credit: KUOW

Photo Credit: KUOW

China has suspended imports of shellfish from the west coast of the United States — an unprecedented move that cuts off a $270 million Northwest industry from its biggest export market.

China said it decided to impose the ban after recent shipments of geoduck clams from Northwest waters were found by its own government inspectors to have high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.

The restriction took effect last week and China’s government says it will continue indefinitely. It applies to clams, oysters and all other two-shelled bivalves harvested from the waters of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Northern California. U.S. officials think the contaminated clams were harvested in Washington or Alaska. Right now they’re waiting to hear back from Chinese officials for more details that will help them identify the exact source.

State and federal agencies oversee inspection and certification to prevent the shipment of tainted shellfish. Jerry Borchert of the Washington Department of Health said he’s never encountered such a ban based on the Chinese government’s assertion that these U.S. safeguards failed to screen out contaminated seafood.

“They’ve never done anything like that, where they would not allow shellfish from this entire area based on potentially two areas or maybe just one area. We don’t really know yet,” Borchert said.

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