A new report released last week by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) shows that a whopping 32.4 million people were forced to flee their homes last year, and 98% of that displacement was due to climate and weather related events. While displacement occurred disproportionately in Asia and Africa, rich countries were also affected – and there were particularly high numbers in the U.S.
Spy Games: It appears the Justice Department’s surveillance of The Associated Press was not an isolated incident. According to an article in The Washington Post, the DOJ spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen in connection with a 2009 investigation into a North Korea leak, tracing his phone records, tracking his comings and goings from the State Department through security badge access records and obtaining a warrant to search his personal emails.
The investigations ensnaring the White House have unified the Republican Party, energized a political base shattered by election losses and given common purpose to lawmakers divided over a legislative agenda.
President Obama found himself in the unusual position on Monday of echoing GOP outrage over revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party groups, while slamming his adversaries for creating “a sideshow” for reviving a long simmering imbroglio over his administration’s response to last year’s attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Libya.
Gay rights groups criticize decision not to add same-sex protections to immigration bill
A decision by Senate Democrats not to add protections for same-sex couples to a landmark immigration reform bill has angered gay rights advocates and put the White House on the defensive over whether President Obama will insist on the provision going forward.
Girl Arrested and Expelled From High School Over Gay Relationship
Earlier this school year, Florida’s Sebastian River High School senior Kaitlyn Hunt began a relationship with a fellow classmate, a 15-year old girl. This past February, soon after her 18th birthday, she was arrested and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12–16 years of age.
In Guantanamo, Have We Created Something We Can’t Close?
The crisis at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp keeps growing in size and intensity. According to the military’s own count, 100 of the 166 men held in the prison there are now on hunger strike, and the 27 most in danger of dying are being force-fed.
![Think Obama’s In Trouble? That Depends On Your Party
Public opinion about the scandals plaguing the Obama administration is decidedly mixed.[[MORE]]
Republicans believe that the trio of controversies — concerning Benghazi, the IRS, and the Justice Department snooping on media phone records — are evidence enough that President Obama is either running a government motivated by partisan politics, or is badly out of touch.
Democrats, however, are proving to be much more forgiving.
“These things are being used for political purposes,” says Lois Yatzeck, a retired minister in St. Louis. “Obama’s political foes are taking advantage of it.”
Yatzeck’s read on the situation is widely shared. Public opinion polls suggest that Republicans are paying much more attention to these matters and are much more likely to disapprove of Obama’s handling of them. Democrats, meanwhile, have been more steadfast in support.
As a result, even as Congress and the rest of Washington have been consumed by these issues for more than a week, the president’s approval ratings have yet to take any noticeable hit.
“Part of the issue is that people’s opinion of the president is already baked in,” says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. “These are rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats, not the leaders in Washington, and yet we found this very large gulf between them.”
Consider The Source
A walk along Delmar Boulevard reveals that many people are skeptical about the current trio of scandals — and whether they should even be considered scandals.
The retail-and-restaurant stretch runs through University City, a heavily Democratic enclave just outside St. Louis, near Washington University. Some people there suggest that the current controversies represent opportunism on the part of Republicans and conservative media figures such as Rush Limbaugh.
“It’s the same thing as always,” says bookseller Scott Bartlett. “The people I hear pointing fingers aren’t right about anything.”
To the extent that there have been abuses, as with the IRS targeting conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, Bartlett and others along Delmar shrug it off as business as usual.
Michael Kelley, a high school teacher in University City, says that he’s inclined to share Bartlett’s skepticism about Obama’s political opponents. “There’s no doubt that the other side of the aisle is taking every opportunity they have to take advantage of these things,” he says.
But Kelley is troubled by some of the stories. He feels there are more questions yet to be answered, particularly in regard to the administration’s handling of the attack in Benghazi, Libya, last September.
Still, Kelley says, “So far, I haven’t seen a trail lead back to the White House.”
Not One Simple Scandal
The fact that there are multiple controversies on the political radar helps to complicate matters. And these are not straightforward stories about sex or money-grubbing.
There’s a lot of back and forth about these issues and their interpretation. Congressional Democrats may express outrage about the IRS, but in general they have been willing to cut Obama a good deal of slack, as was clear from their questioning of administration officials Tuesday in the Senate banking and finance committees.
The public as a whole is more inclined to react strongly to scandals when leaders of both parties say there’s something serious to be upset about, says Adam Berinsky, an expert in public opinion at MIT. That’s not happening, so far.
Even as more evidence comes to the fore, the minds of partisans may not be swayed by it, he says. That was the case in 1998, when Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton for lying about his affair with a White House intern.
“People pick their teams and stick with them,” he says.
It’s normal for partisans to defend the leader of their party and their party’s brand. What’s striking today, Berinsky says, is that so much more of the public thinks in strongly partisan terms than they used to, meaning presidential approval ratings barely budge in response to changing circumstances.
“As with so many stories these days, it comes down to partisanship,” says Regina Lawrence, a journalism professor at the University of Texas who has studied reactions to scandals. “Partisan dynamics are so much stronger now even than they were during the Clinton years.”
Should Have Known Better
If you cross the Missouri River from St. Louis, you come into St. Charles County, one of the richest sources of Republican votes in the state. Most of the people walking along the brick-paved Main Street of the city of St. Charles are Republicans, and most of them are highly upset with Obama.
“People should be outraged,” says dental hygienist Sylvia Stone. “People should be disturbed that Americans died in Benghazi, and they blamed it on a video that had nothing to do with it.”
While Democrats like Kelley — and much of the media coverage — have been concerned with the question of how much the president knew, Republicans say ignorance is no excuse.
“The president saying I learned about it in the press — you’re either incompetent or being dishonest,” says Bob Sutton, a retiree visiting St. Charles from Pennsylvania. He says he believes it’s the latter.
Watch The Independents
Obama was never going to gain much traction with either Sutton or Stone. Politically, he has to worry more about people like Robert Baker, a self-described independent.
He voted for Obama last fall but is “terribly disappointed” in the proliferation of scandals that have broken since.
“The president is our highest office, and we hold it to a higher standard,” says Baker. “Without knowing all the details yet, I would like to think he had his finger on what was going on around him, and it seems like he didn’t.”
Baker worries that most people aren’t tuned in. “People tend to pay attention when it hits them in the pocketbook,” he says.
Baker recently lost his job in the disaster restoration business, but he thinks most people are willing to cut the president some slack as the Dow Jones average rises and the economy picks up.
“With unemployment getting better and the housing market getting better, people are getting lazy and not paying attention,” he says.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/61f2fbcfcd1aad3281068afef5f062ab/tumblr_mn8ngx0SPI1rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
![Gay rights groups criticize decision not to add same-sex protections to immigration bill
A decision by Senate Democrats not to add protections for same-sex couples to a landmark immigration reform bill has angered gay rights advocates and put the White House on the defensive over whether President Obama will insist on the provision going forward.[[MORE]]
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) agreed Tuesday night to withdraw an amendment to the immigration legislation that would allow foreign, same-sex spouses and partners to apply for visas after it became clear that fellow Democrats would vote against it to preserve Republican support for the bill.
Several key gay rights groups did not accept that rationale, arguing that the issue was a matter of principle and fairness for the estimated 30,000 same-sex, binational couples that remain unable to unite in the country. They are currently barred from receiving a spousal visa under the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
“Today it became clear that our so-called ‘friends’ don’t have the courage or the spine to stand up for what’s right,” said Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, co-director of the GetEQUAL advocacy group. He added that Democratic lawmakers “are content to buy into the false choice that Republicans created — holding a sorely-needed immigration bill hostage in order to cement inequality into law.”
Three Republicans joined the Judiciary Committee’s 10 Democrats in approving the immigration bill 13-5 and send it on to the full Senate, where Leahy could choose to reintroduce the gay rights protections.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that Obama supports the provision, but he declined to say whether the president would insist on it being added to the bill. Obama has told liberals privately that he understands a comprehensive immigration package will not contain all the elements he would like because it requires compromise with Republicans.
The Associated Press, citing two unnamed sources, reported that Obama asked Leahy to hold off on the amendment until the bill emerged from the committee. The White House and Leahy’s office declined to comment on the report.
Obama has “made clear that he supports that and would like to see Congress support that,” Carney said. “He’s also made clear that he doesn’t expect to get everything he wants in this bill.”
Republicans who helped develop the package warned repeatedly that they would withdraw their support if the gay rights provision was added.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the bipartisan coalition, cited opposition from the Catholic Church.
“It would break the coalition in my view,” Graham warned Leahy. “You got me on immigration, you don’t have me on marriage. If you want to keep me on immigration, let’s stay on immigration.”
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the bill’s lead negotiators, said late Tuesday that Republicans “made it perfectly clear in plain words and on multiple occasions that if this provision is added to the bill they will have no choice but to abandon our collective effort.” He called it “one of the most excruciatingly difficult decisions I’ve had to make in 30-plus years in public office.”
Leahy said he withdrew the amendment “with a heavy heart.”
Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin denounced the four Republicans in the bipartisan immigration group — Graham and Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.).
“It is deplorable that a small number of senators have been able to stand in the way of progress for lesbian and gay couples torn apart by discriminatory laws,” Griffin said. “We are extremely disappointed that our allies did not put their anti-LGBT colleagues on the spot and force a vote.”
Some lawmakers hope that the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on two gay marriage cases next month, will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, thereby opening the door for same-sex couples to apply for visas.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/4531cdba09f4a1a538177daf2799faa8/tumblr_mn8mic03Q11rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
![Eric Garcetti wins Los Angeles mayor’s race
Eric Garcetti has won the race to be the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles, becoming the first Jewish mayor in the city’s history.[[MORE]]
City Controller Wendy Greuel conceded defeat early Wednesday to Garcetti, a City Council member and former council president, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Garcetti, 42, will succeed Antonio Villaraigosa, who was unable to run again because of term limits. Garcetti takes office July 1.
“Thank you Los Angeles — the hard work begins but I am honored to lead this city for the next four years,” Garcetti tweeted shortly before 3 a.m. PT. “Let’s make this a great city again.”
Here are five things to know about the new mayor:
Historic election: Garcetti is the first person of Jewish faith to lead Los Angeles. His mother is of Russian Jewish descent. His father, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, is Mexican American of Spanish and Italian descent. During the campaign, the mayor-elect described himself as having “an Italian last name” and being “half Mexican and half Jewish.” At the age of 42, Garcetti is also the youngest Los Angeles mayor in more than a century.
Obama supporter: He was an early backer of Barack Obama’s presidential bid and campaigned for him in Iowa in 2008. Garcetti was co-chairman of Obama’s campaign in vote-rich California during the 2012 election. The mayor’s job is non-partisan but Garcetti and Greuel, like Villaraigosa, are Democrats. She was a Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter in 2008 and worked in Bill Clinton’s administration at the Housing Department.
Actor: Garcetti is a card-carrying member of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors. He played himself on the soap opera, All My Children, but played a mayor onThe Closer. His father was a consulting producer on the cop show that starred Kyra Sedgwick.
Rhodes Scholar: The mayor-elect studied at the London School of Economics and Oxford University on the prestigious scholarship. Garcetti got to know Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., while they both studied abroad as Rhodes Scholars. Garcetti became friends with Ben Jealous, head of the NAACP, when they both attended Columbia University.
Military service: Garcetti’s eight-year commitment to the Navy as a reservist in the intelligence service runs through the end of this year.
As Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, once wrote: “Garcetti has something in common with roughly 85% of the world’s population. You name it, he’s done it.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/24fc37004aa8c46a42587b5bcf55b124/tumblr_mn7c6wdq3b1rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
![Girl Arrested and Expelled From High School Over Gay Relationship
Earlier this school year, Florida’s Sebastian River High School senior Kaitlyn Hunt began a relationship with a fellow classmate, a 15-year old girl. This past February, soon after her 18th birthday, she was arrested and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12–16 years of age.[[MORE]]
Hunt’s parents claim the the family of their daughter’s girlfriend has never approved of the same-sex relationship and has since made Hunt a target. According to The Examiner:
“They are out to destroy my daughter, because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay. They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100% differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality – with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.”
The other girl’s family has taken even more action against Hunt: “The girl’s family petitioned the school board and got Kaitilyn expelled from school, weeks before graduation. This decision was made in spite of a judge declaring she could continue to attend school as long as she didn’t have contact with the girl.”
More from Opposing Views, who reports on a plea deal that Hunt has been offered:
Her mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, claims State Attorney Brian Workman offered her daughter a plea deal that she has until Friday to accept or face trial. The plea deal includes “two years house arrest and one year probation.”
Her father, Steven R. Hunt, said the school disapproved of the relationship from the beginning. Hunt reportedly had good grades and participated in cheerleading, chorus and basketball. She was voted “most school spirited.” But when she began dating another girl from the basketball team, her coach dropped her citing that the relationship would cause “drama.”
Hunt’s family has started a petition on Change.org (which has so far netted over 36,000 signatures) as well as a Free Kate Facebook page.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6215cc4fdcc3ac7b04a72345dd4c7796/tumblr_mn5e7dUkAb1rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
![Nintendo disables same-sex marriage avatar in popular game
Nintendo’s Japanese Tomodachi Collection: New Life for 3DS has disabled it’s ‘bug’ that allows same-sex marriage between male Miis.[[MORE]]
The company has released a statement saying that anyone experiencing ‘human relations that have become strange’ should update the program.
Once the program is updated the ability for male Miis to marry each other is disabled.
Pictures of the same-sex couples have been posted on social networking sites and some people have bought the game because of the default.
Tomodachi Collection: New Life gamers have taken to popular gaming blogs to discuss the update.
RecoilBrian posted to Kotaku: ‘If Nintendo is doing what I think they’re doing, then I just lost a little bit of respect for them. And calling it “strange”? Very poor choice of words.
‘Why is it that the world is seeing an increased support for gay rights, yet when it comes to kids, homosexuality is suddenly a dangerous thing that they need to be protected from? I’m tired of these double standards.’
And LordDisco said: ‘With the patch available, Nintendo is in no position of blame.
‘People who support the original can continue to play as normal, and people who don’t support it can download the patch and “fix” it all right up. It’s all a matter of perspective here.’
But some believe that by creating the update Nintendo is saying they do not support same-sex marriage and that if they had left the bug they would have remained natural.
The Sims 3, also a strategic life simulation game allows same-sex marriage. Electronic Arts the publisher of The Sims 3 and Nintendo’s competitor, support The Sims 3’s decision for same-sex Sims to marry.
Now that the update has been introduced some believe the original version will become a collectors item.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/232f3cdb6a7b250af54ffce1053e741b/tumblr_mmtf9uCfZe1rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
![In Guantanamo, Have We Created Something We Can’t Close?
The crisis at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp keeps growing in size and intensity. According to the military’s own count, 100 of the 166 men held in the prison there are now on hunger strike, and the 27 most in danger of dying are being force-fed.[[MORE]]
Last month, guards had to forcibly subdue a camp where even the most cooperativedetainees are held.
The hunger strike was triggered by a February search of inmates’ Qurans, though the details are hotly disputed. What’s remarkable, however, is that everyone — including detainees, lawyers and the military — agrees that the real reason for the unrest is simply the frustration that the camp has stayed open so long.
A Question Of Morality
If the hunger strike is intended to draw attention, it’s working. After months of silence on the issue, President Obama renewed the pledge he made four years ago to close the prison.
“It is not a surprise to me that we’ve got problems in Guantanamo,” he said at a press conference last month. “I continue to believe that we’ve got to close Guantanamo.”
There hasn’t been any will in Congress to do that, however. No one — neither Republican nor Democrat — wants detainees kept in their state. Polls also show a majority of Americans don’t want Guantanamo to close. And even though 86 prisoners have recently been cleared for release, nobody seems to be leaving.
Lt. Col. Stuart Couch was assigned as a prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay in 2002. For him, the job was also personal. Before becoming a lawyer, he’d been a pilot in the Marine Corps. He then went to law school, and his friend Michael Horrocksgot a job with United Airlines.
Horrocks was the co-pilot for United Flight 175, the second plane to hit the World Trade Center.
Couch’s feelings about his mission began to change during his first trip to Guantanamo in October 2003. Following the sound of heavy metal music, he saw a detainee shackled in a dark room with a strobe light at one end.
“The music was deafening,” Couch tells weekends on All Things Considered host Arun Rath, “There were these two civilian men there, and I asked what was going on and they shut the door in my face. When I saw that scene, it was the first inkling that I had that there was a problem with what was going on at Guantanamo.”
Couch was told the technique was approved; he took that to mean it was policy-driven.
As a prosecutor, he says, he knew the manner in which prisoner statements were taken was going to be essential.
“So when I saw what I saw,” he says, “I thought we might have problems with the evidence we have against these detainees.”
Couch says he had reservations from a moral perspective, as well. He took his concerns to his superiors, in particular regarding the case of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a detainee since 2002. Couch says Slahi had been subjected to advanced interrogation techniques to get information.
“Knowing the information I did, I had an ethical obligation to provide the information … to any defense attorney that would represent Slahi in the future,” Couch says, “so that he could avail himself of the protections of the U.N. torture convention.
“Ultimately for me, though, from a moral perspective as a Christian, I just felt what had been done to this man was reprehensible and for that reason I would have nothing else to do with the prosecution,” he says.
Couch abandoned the case in May 2004; Slahi still has not had his day in court.
Balancing Justice With Security
Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg says she feels that the prison represents a significant shift in American values. Rosenberg has been reporting on the detention camp since it was established in 2002.
“Before Sept. 11, I never imagined that we would be talking about holding people forever who we couldn’t charge, for whom there was either insufficient evidence to bring them to trial or for whom the evidence was so tainted that we couldn’t bring them to trial,” Rosenberg tells Rath.
In the critical days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Alberto Gonzales was in President Bush’s inner circle as his attorney general. Asked whether the U.S. jeopardized its ability to convict its enemies in a rush to extract secrets from them, Gonzales says Bush understood the consequences.
“But as far as he was concerned,” Gonzales tells Rath, “that was the balance that we were going to strike in order to make sure that not another life here in America would be at jeopardy.”
Gonzales says he still believes, as he did in 2001, that the detention center at Guantanamo serves an essential purpose, and there is no immediate need to shut it down.
“I fundamentally disagree with President Obama on this,” he says. “I think that if you go visit Guantanamo … I’d have to say that today the facility is much better — in terms of the protections [and] amenities given to the detainees there — than what you might find in state and local facilities in this country.”
Gonzales says he doesn’t understand what President Obama and people like Couch mean when they say the prison is inconsistent with American values.
“It’s totally consistent with international law, it’s totally consistent with our Constitution [and] it’s totally consistent with our tradition and our practice,” he says. “People still may not like it … but it is lawful.”
Gonzales does say that Guantanamo was never meant to be a long-term solution to the issue of detention. He says he hopes the Obama administration will be more successful than the Bush administration was at finding an alternative solution.
Even if Obama succeeds in closing the camp, he’s been less clear about addressing the root cause of the current crisis: the hopelessness of the inmates’ indefinite detention.
Rosenberg says she thinks we’ll have the prison in Guantanamo, or the same thing under a different name, forever.
“I can’t see how we’re going to get out of this,” she says. “I imagine that down the road, they’ll find a way to get some more people home, but I don’t see how they’re going to be able to, if not empty the cells, then end the kind of detention that we think of as Guantanamo.”
Whatever the debate, the facts on the ground in Guantanamo Bay tell their own story: The military is spending millions on new infrastructure around the prisons, including a cardiac care unit to accommodate an aging inmate population.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/38d847a903fd4f8d76591d3e18dab6f3/tumblr_mmq459Qf3l1rsnuz0o1_500.jpg)
