Not able to discuss except to say that this is what unions do.  So proud of these folks.

By Ryan J. Reilly, Huffington Post, March 14, 3013

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer seemed to indicate Thursday they'd consider a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico "natural-born" and eligible to run for president. Their comments, directed at Puerto Rican-born Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), came during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Supreme Court's budget.

[....]

Kennedy noted that the "likely explanation" for the natural-born citizen clause of the constitution was that the founding fathers were trying to prevent European royalty from occupying the White House.

"That's the probable reason," Kennedy said. "I wasn't there at the time."

Associated Press, March 16, 2013

PITTSBURGH—The mother of a man charged in a fatal shooting at a western Pennsylvania bar is now accused of having illegally provided her son with firearms.

Sixty-year-old Gloria Mazzocco of Imperial was charged Wednesday in Allegheny County with conspiracy, violations of the uniform firearms act and providing a firearm to a person barred from possessing one [ ....]

Hat tip: Joe Nocera's Day in Gun Violence blog @ nytimes.com

Finally time to really seriously lock up your guns?

Edit to add: This is a case of mental illness, see the updated news in my first comment; added to my headline.

In an announcement reminiscent of "Dewey Defeats Truman", TBogg jumps the gun and reveals the new pope to be Marisa Tomei I.

Sad, as with her star-studded career, she might have been regarded the world's first SuperPope, and would certainly have looked better in Prada than the previous pope.

Plus the name "Raymond J. De Souza" evokes a writer of detective novels, not the shepherd of the world's sheep.

Still, it marks a departure of the Papacy out of depressing grey Central Europe to warmer southern climes, where mass will now be conducted clockwise due to the reversed Coriolis force.

Rumors have it the new Pope will take his vows wearing a Gaucho hat and boots. However, many rumors have previously been shown to be dead wrong.

I'm also left wondering how we'll make a movie about Benedict what with Heath Ledger gone...

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated. It’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

– President Barack Obama

One of the enduring myths of the Iraq War is that George W. Bush’s “surge” of 30,000 US troops into Iraq in 2007, reduced the number of attacks on US troops and effectively defeated the Sunni-led insurgency in Baghdad. This is entirely false.

By Benjamin Weiser, New York Times, March 12/13, 2013

A New York police officer was convicted on Tuesday in a bizarre plot to kidnap, torture, kill and eat women, ending a trial whose outcome hinged on the delicate legal distinction between fantasy and reality.

The trial had drawn widespread attention in part because it involved a police officer’s disturbing behavior, but also because it raised a fundamental question: When does a virtual crime, contemplated in Internet chat rooms, become an actual crime?

There was no evidence that any of the women whom the officer, Gilberto Valle, was accused of plotting to kill were harmed. But prosecutors argued that the officer took actual steps to further his plot [....]

One of Officer Valle’s lawyers, Julia L. Gatto, called the verdict “devastating” and said the defense did not believe that the government had proved its case.

“This was a thought prosecution,” Ms. Gatto said. “These are thoughts, very ugly thoughts, but we don’t prosecute people for their thoughts. And we’ll continue to appeal and continue to fight for Mr. Valle.” [....]

By Kenneth Roth (Executive Director of Human Rights Watch,) New York Review of Books, April 4, 2013 issue

[.....] What does international human rights and humanitarian law require? Not necessarily abolition of the drone program. Yes, there is something disconcerting about drone operators killing their targets from the comfort and safety of their office—making war too easy, as some contend. But discrepancies of power have been inherent in warfare since the advent of the bow and arrow. And from the perspective of avoiding civilian casualties, drones are an advance. Like all weapons, they are only as good as the information available to their operators and their operators’ willingness to abide by legal constraints. But with their pinpoint accuracy and ability to hover for lengthy periods to verify a target and select the most propitious moment for attack, they have the potential to reduce the costs of war to civilians.

However, drones have set off controversy since they do kill civilians and are deployed far from any traditional battlefield where combatants are fighting the United States. Some have suggested they are counterproductive, arousing much resentment in the targeted countries and creating more terrorists than they stop. Killing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces fighting US troops may be a necessary evil in a traditional armed conflict like the one in Afghanistan. But what is the justification in places like Yemen, Somalia, or possibly soon Mali? And where does northwestern Pakistan fit?

There are several conceivable rationales for the use of drones in such places, but the Obama administration has articulated none of them with clarity. [.....]

Agence France Presse via Dawn, March 11, 2013

BAGHDAD: Al Qaeda’s Iraqi front group claimed an attack on a convoy in west Iraq that killed 48 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqi guards, in a statement posted on jihadist forums on Monday.

The soldiers had entered Iraq for medical treatment and were being transported through the western province of Anbar on their way back to Syria when the attack took place on March 4, according to the Iraqi defence ministry.

Islamic State of Iraq fighters were able to destroy a column of “the Safavid army with its associated vehicles” carrying “members of the Nusairi army and Syrian regime ‘shabiha’,” the statement said [....]

Also see:

Qaida claims responsibility for killing 48 Syrian soldiers in Iraq
Xinhua, March 11, 2013

BAGHDAD [....] The self-styled Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), al-Qaida front in Iraq, confirmed in a statement posted on an Islamic website that its fighters in the desert of Anbar province "entirely destroyed the convoy of the Safavid (Iraqi) army with the buses carrying members of the Nusairi (Syrian) army."

The Safavid refers to the Iranian dynasty (1499-1736) that established Shiite Islam in Iran as an official state religion and frequently fought the Islamic Sunni world, while the Nusairi is a derogatory term refers to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The statement said the attack came after al-Qaida intelligence followed the transfer of the Syrian soldiers who resorted to the Iraqi army following a battle with the Syrian rebels who seized a border crossing point with Iraq's northern province of Nineveh [.....]

and:

Al-Qaida Says It Killed 48 Syrian Soldiers in Iraq
Associated Press, March 11, 2013

By Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul, guardian.co.uk,  10 March, 2013

Strained US-Afghan ties have suffered a fresh blow after newly appointed US defence secretary Chuck Hagel cancelled plans for his first joint news conference with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the second reminder of serious tensions in a brief visit to Afghanistan

US officials cited security concerns, but the decision came just hours after the Afghan leader accused America of colluding with the Taliban to keep foreign troops on Afghan soil. Afghan officials said the presidential palace, where the men planned to meet the press, was totally safe.

"It doesn't make any sense," said one Afghan official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to discuss the sensitive issue. "It was supposed to take place at the palace, we don't see any security problems there." [......]

By Declan Walsh & Waqar Gillani, New York Times, March 9/10, 2014

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An enraged Muslim crowd attacked a Christian neighborhood in Lahore on Saturday, setting fire to more than 150 houses and 2 churches, in a new display of religious intolerance as Pakistan reels from violent persecution against other minorities.

In Peshawar on Saturday, a bomb exploded in a mosque, killing at least 4 people and wounding 28, the police said.

In Lahore, several thousand people attacked the Joseph Colony, a Christian neighborhood of about 200 homes, after a report that a Christian sanitation worker had blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad. [....]

On Thursday, Mr. Imran accused Mr. Masih, 28, of blasphemy, sending a shiver of apprehension through the Christian population. People began to leave their homes that evening, and on Friday, the police prepared charges against Mr. Masih.

On Saturday morning, several thousand people, including ethnic Pashtuns who worked in nearby factories, set upon the colony. Some were armed with batons and pistols, the police said. [.....] “Even a single household has not been spared,” [.....] The devastation was a testament to the intolerance sweeping across Pakistani society. [.....]

Also see:

To Fight India, We Fought Ourselves
By Mohsin Hamid, New York Times Guest Op-Ed, Feb. 21/22, 2013

LAHORE, Pakistan--ON Monday, my mother’s and sister’s eye doctor was assassinated. He was a Shiite. [....]

Minority persecution is a common notion around the world, bringing to mind the treatment of African-Americans in the United States, for example, or Arab immigrants in Europe. In Pakistan, though, the situation is more unusual: those persecuted as minorities collectively constitute a vast majority. [....]

At the heart of Pakistan’s troubles is the celebration of the militant. Whether fighting in Afghanistan, or Kashmir, or at home, this deadly figure has been elevated to heroic status [....]

By Marc Santoro and William K. Rashbaum, New York Times, March 8, 2013

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who once served as a spokesman for Al Qaeda, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in federal court in Manhattan on Friday morning, where he was charged with conspiracy to kill Americans.

John P. Cronan, one of the prosecutors, said in court that Mr. Abu Ghaith made extensive comments to law enforcement officials after his arrest. He referred to a 22–page document, which was not released publicly, that detailed his statements. Mr. Cronan also referred to audio recordings of statements Mr. Abu Ghaith made to foreign authorities, some of which he said still need to be translated.

The appearance of Mr. Abu Ghaith before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in the cavernous ceremonial courtroom in Lower Manhattan, only blocks from the site of the 9/11 terror attack, was fraught with symbolism, even as the details of both his role in Al Qaeda and his arrest remained unclear [....]

Also see:

Document: Official Indictment Against Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (PDF)

Background, from yesterday:

Bin Laden Relative With Qaeda Past to Have New York Trial

Background, from Oct. 9, 2001:

Bin Laden Spokesman Threatens More Strikes