Robert Bales, Army Staff Sergeant Charged With Afghanistan Massacre, Pleads Guilty

SEATTLE — The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty in a deal that requires him to recount the horrific attack for the first time, his attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was “crazed” and “broken” when he slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby, lawyer John Henry Browne said.

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Major brands pull Facebook advertisements over hateful content

Facebook has once again come under fire for its content policy, which many organizations, companies, and users say is too lax in light of hate speech and violent content. Earlier this month, the social network finally banned videos of decapitations, but has still allowed large quantities of controversial content – many of it gender-based, according to some organizations – to persist. For this reason, more than a dozen big-name companies have pulled their advertisements from the social network.

Facebook

Yesterday, Facebook announced that, in light of the latest round of criticism, it will be making changes to its content policy immediately, which includes revising the materials its review team uses to evaluate content, training its team on the new guidelines, establishing a better communication with organizations, and holding users more responsible for controversial content that is allowed to remain on the site.

While such changes are welcome and are earning it praise from some organizations and users, it is presently a case of “too little, too late,” with over 12 advertisers removing their advertisements from the social network because they were being displayed next to offensive, controversial, and hateful content. Nissan is perhaps the most notable company on the list, with the auto maker saying it will put ads back on the website when Facebook implements the changes it announced yesterday.

According to the Associated Press, many Facebook advertisers were slammed with in excess of 5,000 emails collectively on the behest of a campaign started by Women, Action and the Media. According to the organization, much of the objectionable content on Facebook being allowed to remain focused on endorsing and mocking violence of various natures against women and children, among others.

Women, Action and Media’s Executive Director Jaclyn Friedman said of Facebook’s announced changes yesterday: “We are thrilled with the commitment [the social network] made. It’s about stepping up and being the industry leader that they already are.” According to Facebook, the changes it outlined are going into effect immediately.

SOURCE: Yahoo!


Major brands pull Facebook advertisements over hateful content is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Gay Donors Cutting Off Democrats Over Immigration Plan

* Donor: “stop investing in Democratic cowardice”

* Concerns that marriage provision would scuttle immigration bill

* Schumer focused on finding Republican support

By Rachelle Younglai

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – Some disappointed activists say they are yanking their support for the Democratic Party after Senate Democrats opposed a proposal in an immigration bill that would have allowed citizens to bring their foreign-born, same-sex spouses to the United States.

Jonathan Lewis, a Miami philanthropist who donated more than $35,000 in 2012, has stopped giving and is urging others to do the same until President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats stop breaking promises to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

“Now is the time to stop investing in Democratic cowardice and stand proud by withholding donations until we see our friends’ actions and deeds align with their rhetoric,” Lewis said in an email to Reuters.

“Pretty words about fairness and equality under the law from the president and Democrats in Congress do not absolve them from their moral duty to act,” he said.

Obama won points with activists when he endorsed same-sex marriage while running for re-election last year and then referred to it in his inauguration speech in January. Now almost every Democrat in the Senate and a few Republicans have come out supporting same-sex marriage.

But Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee helped keep a proposal out of a sweeping immigration overhaul that would have allowed citizens to petition for their same-sex spouses to immigrate to the United States – the same way that heterosexuals can be reunited with their spouses.

WAVERING SUPPORT

This comes as Obama has so far declined to sign an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

Shortly before voting to pass the bill out of committee on May 21, several committee Democrats said they could not support the amendment offered by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. They said they feared it would kill the entire immigration legislation and not get any Republican support.

“The issue of marriage is a fundamental right,” said Juan Ahonen-Jover, a Florida-based entrepreneur and philanthropist who spends his time promoting equal rights for the LGBT community. “Even prisoners on death row have the right to marry.”

Ahonen-Jover said he and his husband contributed $10,000 to Obama after the president announced his support for same-sex marriage in May 2012. He estimates that they have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party in the past.

Now, he said, they are not planning on giving until “the Democratic Party starts acting like Democrats and show some spine.” Ahonen-Jover and his partner have created a website, www.equalitygiving.org, that serves as a forum for other LGBT donors who want to make a difference politically.

Rachel Tiven, the executive director of the gay rights group Immigration Equality, said numerous donors she has spoken to are “very, very angry” and want Democrats to pay a price financially.

“They don’t expect that the support for gay rights is theoretical,” she said.

A spokesman for another gay rights group, Human Rights Campaign, stressed that Republicans also were to blame but said, “The betrayal the community feels is especially palpable toward the Democratic senators because they’ve been our traditional allies.”

The Senate immigration bill, which proposes sweeping changes to the current system and would give millions of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, is headed to the Senate floor in June where it is expected to undergo hundreds of amendments.

Although the Supreme Court could soon strike down a federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, activists are not counting on a ruling in their favor. Currently there are 12 states that allow same-sex couples to marry.

DISSATISFIED WITH SCHUMER

A number of LGBT activists say the immigration shift marks the third time that immigration bill sponsor New York Senator Charles Schumer, who opposed the Leahy amendment in committee, has let them down.

They said Schumer told them he was hoping to include the same-sex provisions also known as the Uniting American Families Act, or UAFA, in the immigration legislation he was crafting with seven other Democratic and Republican senators.

When the bill was introduced in April, Schumer called leaders in the LGBT community to say the equal marriage measure was not included, but told them not to worry because Democrats would vote in favor of the provision in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But on May 21, Schumer and other Democrats on the committee said they could not support the provision if it meant killing the entire immigration bill.

“Senator Schumer is and has always been a strong supporter of UAFA,” said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Schumer. “However, Republicans said they would walk away from the whole bill over this issue, which would have resulted in no immigration reform, as well as no UAFA.”

A Schumer aide said the senator would spend the next couple of weeks focused on getting the seven or eight Republicans needed to pass the same-sex provision in hopes that bipartisan support would help ensure passage of the entire bill.

“I was in total shock as the whole thing was happening,” said Ness Madeiros, whose visa expires in July and who could have to return to her home country Bermuda despite living with her wife and child in Minnesota.

Madeiros, who married an American, Ginger Madeiros, in Massachusetts, said she was bitterly disappointed by the Democrats.

“I thought they were in our corner,” she said. (Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Fred Barbash and Bill Trott)

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CBO: Tax Breaks Cost $12 Trillion Over Decade, Benefit Most Wealthy

* Top 20 pct of earners get half the benefit of top breaks

* Tax breaks on capital gains favor the wealthy

* Study favors Obama’s approach to tax reform -Democrats

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – The top ten U.S. tax deductions, credits and exclusions will keep $12 trillion out of federal government coffers over the next decade, and several of them mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans, a new study from the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The top 20 percent of income earners will reap more than half of the $900 billion in benefits from these tax breaks that will accrue in 2013, the non-partisan CBO said on Wednesday.

Further, 17 percent of the total benefits would go to the top 1 percent of income earners — families earning roughly $450,000 or more. The same group that was hit with a tax rate hike in January.

The benefits of preferential tax rates on capital gains and dividends, a break worth $161 billion this year, go almost entirely to the wealthy, including 68 percent to the top one percent of earners.

House Democrats, who requested that Congress’ budget referee conduct the study, argued that it backs up President Barack Obama’s proposed approach to tax reform and deficit reduction: raise revenues by limiting the amount tax preferences for the wealthy.

“This shows that we could achieve a significant amount of deficit reduction by limiting the preferences to the highest income earners,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Although the study did not provide income thresholds, U.S. Census Bureau data for 2011 shows the top 20 percent of household income extends to down to $101,582, a level that is considered middle-class in many parts of the United States. The lowest quintile topped out at $20,262 in the Census data.

MIDDLE-CLASS AID

But the study also showed that benefits for the largest of the tax preferences, the exclusion for employer-paid health benefits, worth $3.4 trillion over 10 years, are more evenly distributed, with well over half of the benefits going to the middle 60 percent of earners.

The middle 20 percent of earners also got the biggest benefit from excluding a portion of Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits, a perk worth $414 billion over 10 years.

Three other big tax breaks, the $2 trillion exclusion of net pension contributions and earnings over 10 years, the $1 trillion deduction for mortgage interest and the $1.1 trillion deduction for state and local taxes, also benefited the top 20 percent disproportionately.

Representative Sander Levin, the highest ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, the panel that is trying to advance tax reform this year, said the study shows that Republicans would have to greatly reduce tax breaks that benefit the middle class in order to achieve their goals of reducing tax rates and balancing the budget.

“The CBO report underscores the need to go beyond the rhetoric of lowering tax rates without indication of how that would be achieved or the implications for economic growth and tax equity,” Levin said.

A spokesperson for Ways and Means Committee’s Republican Chairman, Dave Camp, could not immediately be reached for comment on the study.

Republicans want to reform the tax code by eliminating certain deductions, credits and exclusions, but they do not want to divert any resulting revenues toward deficit reduction. Instead they want to use the savings to lower rates, which they say will accelerate economic growth and increase revenue collection.

Democrat Van Hollen said his favored approach would be to limit the total amount of deductions for the top 2 percent of income earners, or families earning $250,000 or more, while leaving intact much of the top 10 tax breaks, which also include deductions for charitable contributions and tax credits for earned income and children.

These latter two tax breaks, which are largely aimed at the working poor, provide two thirds of their $118 billion in 2013 benefits to the lowest 40 percent of wage earners, the CBO said in the study. Over 10 years, these two credits will cost $1.2 trillion.

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Best LA Donuts, Just In Time For National Donut Day (PHOTOS)

This story comes courtesy of MarPop.

By Mar Yvette

We hear about random food holidays all the time, but did you know that National Donut Day was actually started by the Salvation Army during WWI?? Celebrated annually on the first Friday of June, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the holiday that honors the “lassies” who first served the sweet treats to our armed forces. Today, thousands of donut shops sporting the National Donut Day poster will keep the tradition alive and donate a portion of their sales to the Salvation Army. So go on and buy a dozen. Or two. Who says eating donuts is bad for you?

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Chris Weigant: What I Would Have Said to Eric Holder

The Justice Department’s recent actions towards the media is so disturbing because it represents a step backward to a much uglier time, with fewer legal protections for the press. There is a very fine line between targeting leaking and targeting the media who print the leaks.
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Engadget Mobile Podcast 180 – 05.29.13

Engadget Mobile Podcast 179 - 05.09.13

It’s been three long weeks since you last heard us, but the news cycle has been far from quiet — we hope you’ll forgive our absence. In this episode we’ll focus on Google I/O and catch up on the latest in mobile from BBM to HTC. To apologize for being away, we’re also including an awesome downloadable ringtone for the noise of horror Brad makes whenever the word phablet is muttered. Get to streaming below and subscribe after the break.

Hosts: Myriam Joire (tnkgrl), Brad Molen

Producer: Joe Pollicino

Music: TychoCoastal Brake (Ghostly International)

Hear the podcast

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Edward Schneider: Cooking Off the Cuff: The Best Dressing for a Salad Is Steak Juices

Even if you hate salad, you’ll love it after this trick.
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Zester Daily: What Chef Roy Choi Is Teaching South Central L.A. Students

Chef Roy Choi is having a moment.
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August: the beautiful, Yves Behar-designed $199 smart lock

August smart lock

The home automation market is really starting to take off, and surprisingly, it’s door locks that are proving to be one of the biggest areas of interest. Established home security companies like Kwikset and mobile carriers (via unnamed OEMs) are working to combine smartphones and deadbolts, while startups like Smart Knob are using offline technology to simplify vacation rentals. August, the brainchild of Yves Behar and Jason Johnson, combines elements of both approaches and does so with Behar’s typical flair for stunning design. The primary way of unlocking an August-equipped door is through an app that pairs with the stylish mechanism via Bluetooth. But it skips out on the direct internet connection, which could leave it more vulnerable to hacks.

Instead, it passes all necessary online communications through the paired phone or tablet. In fact, it’s capable of operating without an internet connection at all, since it relies on algorithmically generated keys, similar to a secure ID token. Those “keys” are assigned to specific devices, that also have the app installed, which are identified via Bluetooth LE. Each lock is synced up with Augusts’ servers and attached to a unique account that you manage through the companion app. And, even if the batteries die, you can still use the old standby: an actual key.

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Source: August