The Commentariat -- March 9, 2014

 

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "President Barack Obama on Saturday spoke to world leaders including David Cameron of Great Britain and François Hollande of France about the continuing crisis in Ukraine. Also on Saturday, secretary of state John Kerry warned his Russian counterpart that any steps to annex the Crimea region would 'close any available space for diplomacy'." ...

... In a Washington Post op-ed, Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attributes the Ukraine crisis to the Obama administration's "reset" of relations with Russia. ...

     ... CW: What you see here is the shaping of the 2016 presidential campaign. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we are going to hear again & again that she weakened the U.S.'s standing in the world, from emboldening the Russians to letting terrorists get away with murder (see Rand Paul/Benghaaaazi below). ...

... Historian Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books on Putin's takeover of the Crimea: "... propaganda is all that unites the tactics and the dream, and that unity turns out to be wishful. There is no actual policy, no strategy, just a talented and tortured tyrant oscillating between mental worlds that are connected only by a tissue of lies." ...

... David Remnick of the New Yorker on "Putin's pique."

Maureen Dowd sets up one her Diss-Obama columns, but she ends up criticizing everybody: Republicans, Democrats, pundits & Obama. Seems fair. ...

... Here's Obama, misspelling "RESPECT." CW: Sorry, I'm not shocked & horrified:

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "One day after riveting a packed convention ballroom, tea party darling Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) topped the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, his second consecutive victory in the conservative confab's contest. Paul won 31 percent of the vote (compared with the 25 percent he won last year), beating a crowded field of more than two dozen names, including a number of potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders. He crushed second-place finisher Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who came in with 11 percent." ...

Oh, just listen:

... Here's proof of Bachmann's claim to an "intellectual movement":

... Missed this one: Aqua Buddha Despatches the Clintons. Alexandra Jaffe of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Friday knocked former President Clinton as a 'throwback to a sort of troglodyte time,' where men took advantage of women in the workplace.... He said, however, he doesn't believe Clinton's indiscretions should disqualify his wife from the presidency. However, 'not sending reinforcements into Benghazi should disqualify her,' he said."

Hillary Stout, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal safety regulators received more than 260 complaints over the last 11 years about General Motors vehicles that suddenly turned off while being driven, but they declined to investigate the problem, which G.M. now says is linked to 13 deaths and requires the recall of more than 1.6 million cars worldwide."

The First Amendment Meets the Second Amendment. Andrew Wolfson of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "In an effort its spokesman has described as 'outreach to rednecks,' the Kentucky Baptist Convention is leading 'Second Amendment Celebrations,' where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ." Via Steve Benen. ...

... Glenn Blain & Rich Schapiro of the New York Daily News: "An upstate [New York] pastor is planning to give away an unholy raffle prize at an upcoming service: an AR-15 assault rifle. 'We're honoring gun owners and hunters,' the Rev. John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Troy, told the Daily News. 'And we're being a blessing and a help to people who have been attacked, viciously attacked, by socialists and anti-Christian people -- the politicians and the media.'" Also via Benen.

Congressional Race

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times on the special election -- to be held Tuesday -- to replace long-time Florida GOP Rep. Bill Young.

News Ledes

Guardian: "Vice-President Joe Biden has given a stark assessment of the ongoing unrest in Venezuela, accusing President Nicolás Maduro of widespread human rights violations and saying the situation reminded him of Latin America's troubled and violent past. In a written interview with El Mercurio of Chile, where Biden arrived on Sunday at the start of his seventh official visit to the region, he called the unstable situation in Venezuela 'alarming' and said the Caracas government lacked even basic respect for human rights."

Los Angeles Times: "At least a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns kidnapped by Syrian rebels near Damascus in December were released on Sunday, according to Syria's official news agency and Lebanese media reports."

Guardian: "... John Kerry on Sunday released a statement marking the seventh anniversary of the disappearance of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing on an Iranian island and was last year reported to have been working for the CIA at the time."

Washington Post: "Vietnamese aircraft located possible debris from the vanished Malaysia Airlines plane late Sunday, including a rectangular object that could have been a door, but officials said it was too dark to confirm if they came from the airliner. Experts had been puzzled by the failure to find debris from the airliner nearly two days after it disappeared from radar screens in the Gulf of Thailand and was presumed to have crashed with 239 people on board."

New York Times: "... the discovery that two of the passengers [aboard the Malaysian airliner that disappeared over the Gulf of Thailand] were carrying stolen passports also raised the unsettling possibility of foul play." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments.

The Commentariat -- March 8, 2014

Internal links removed.

** Steven Myers, et al., of the New York Times: "An examination of the seismic events that set off the most threatening East-West confrontation since the Cold War era, based on Mr. Putin's public remarks and interviews with officials, diplomats and analysts here, suggests that the Kremlin's strategy emerged haphazardly, even misleadingly, over a tense and momentous week, as an emotional Mr. Putin acted out of what the officials described as a deep sense of betrayal and grievance, especially toward the United States and Europe." ...

... CW: A good example, a la Dubya, of why a "leadership style" -- however much Giuliani, et al., admire it -- based on grievance & hurt feelings -- is bad for the world. Moreover, if Myers' reporting is right, then the right wing might STFU about Obama's failure to anticipate Putin's actions. Putin himself didn't anticipate them. ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments re: the Ukraine crisis. ..

... Steven Myers: "Russia signaled for the first time on Friday that it was prepared to annex Crimea, significantly intensifying its confrontation with the West over the political crisis in Ukraine and threatening to undermine a system of respect for national boundaries that has helped keep the peace in Europe and elsewhere for decades." ...

... Steve Mufson of the Washington Post debunks John Boehner's fantasy that "the United States can help Ukraine by approving more gas export terminals" in the U.S. ...

... Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is taking advantage of the rift between Russia and the United States over Ukraine to press ahead with plans to crush the rebellion against his rule and secure his reelection for another seven-year term, unencumbered by pressure to compromise with his opponents."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Edward J. Snowden ... said he raised his concerns to more than 10 officials, 'none of whom took any action to address them,' before he decided to give the documents to journalists. Mr. Snowden's comments, in written answers to questions by members of the European Parliament that were released on Friday, amplified previous assertions that he initially tried to raise concerns internally about surveillance collection he believed went too far.... The agency has previously said its internal investigation ... found no evidence that he had brought concerns to the attention of anyone." ...

... Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "After years of focusing on outside threats, the federal government and its contractors are turning inward, aiming a range of new technologies and counterintelligence strategies at their own employees to root out spies, terrorists or leakers. Agencies are now monitoring their computer networks with unprecedented scrutiny, in some cases down to the keystroke, and tracking employee behavior for signs of deviation from routine. At the Pentagon, new rules are being written requiring contractors to institute programs against 'insider threats,' a remarkable cultural change in which even workers with the highest security clearances face increased surveillance."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times on how the Justice Department got stuck investigating the Senate Intelligence Committee & the C.I.A., each of whom accuses the other -- probably rightly -- of spying on the other.

Gail Collins on women's reproductive health services, religious freedom (to impose your own beliefs on everybody else) & Texas.

Mattea Kramer in the Nation: "Washington is pushing the panic button, claiming austerity is hollowing out our armed forces and our national security is at risk.... Yet a careful look at budget figures for the US military -- a bureaucratic juggernaut accounting for 57 percent of the federal discretionary budget and nearly 40 percent of all military spending on this planet -- shows that such claims have been largely fictional." Kramer looks at the details & finds that the actual appropriations represent "a cut of less than 1 percent from Pentagon funding this year."

Charles Pierce: "There is no question that Aqua Buddha was the breakout star [at CPAC].... It was truly a stunning performance. A speech shot through with applause lines with almost no actual substance to it at all." ...

... CPAC, Where Reality Is Not Allowed in the Door. Dylan Scott of TPM: "Conservative radio host Michael Medved said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference that no state has ever banned gay marriage and any claim to the contrary is 'a liberal lie.' ... To be clear: 30 states have banned same-sex marriage in their state constitution, usually by legally defining marriage as between a man and a woman, according to the Human Rights Campaign." Other liberals lies: slavery used to be legal in the South, American women were not allowed to vote, and Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A. ...

... More Stupid Things Wingers Say. Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "Top social-conservative strategist Ralph Reed compared President Barack Obama to segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference." CW: Let's add to Amanda Marcotte's list, linked below: "Making education fact-based & inclusive." ...

... More Stupid Things, Ctd. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "The Department of Justice's public affairs staffers think Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) could use a history lesson on the civil rights movement. On Friday, the day after Jindal compared [AG Eric] Holder to segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace at the Conservative Political Action Conference, DOJ employees mailed Jindal a copy of a book by civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). They inserted a yellow sticky note on page 199, where Lewis writes about Vivian Malone, one of the first African-Americans to integrate the University of Alabama, who walked past Gov. Wallace that day. Malone is Holder's late sister-in-law...." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Comparing legal objections to Louisiana's highly dubious voucher program -- which is extremely light on any sort of educational accountability for use of tax dollars at conservative evangelical madrassas, to efforts to bar African-Americans from public schools -- is precisely the sort of rhetorical jiu-jitsu we've come to expect from conservatives trying to parry accusations of (and historical association with) racism." ...

... CW: I find disturbing the bellicose language these "religious freedom fighters" invoke. Is it any wonder that a few wingers feel justified in harming the President when they listen to elected officials make speeches like this?:

... Carrying on with the Crazy, Amanda Marcotte of AlterNet, in Salon, notes the many ways evil secularists are persecuting American Christians. Includes filling out paperwork, taking money from gays & doing what they ask. CW: Look, these want to be persecuted so they can be more like Jesus. But secularists refuse to cooperate by actually persecuting them. That's just mean. In fact, you might call it a form of -- persecution. ...

... Digby: "They're getting so filled with contradictions they are pretty much reduced to speaking gibberish." Digby wrote this in response to Paul Ryan's fake story about the boy who lost his soul because he got a hot lunch instead of a bag lunch (see yesterday's Commentariat). But her observation of course has a much broader application. ...

... CW: To prove that I am one secularist who is good at persecuting, I commend you to watch the clip of Ryan's delivery:

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker: "Ryan later ... [said] in a Facebook post that he regrets 'failing to verify the original source of the story.' What he doesn't seem to regret, however, is the fact that in stealing Maurice [Mazyck]'s story, he and [Scott Walker sidekick Eloise] Anderson used it to shit on everything [Mazyck] stands for today. [Maczyk is cofounder of the No Kid Hungry campaign.] They divorced it from the kindness he received and accepted. Their honesty problem isn't about attribution; it's about exploitation." ...

... Dana Milbank: The CPAC convention (and its offshoot convention of ultra-ultra conservatives "The Uninvited") shows not that the Republican party is engaged in civil war but in chaos. ...

... MEANWHILE, Down the Road. Josh Glasstetter of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "The Family Research Council's executive vice president, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (retired), was caught on a 'hot mic' following a panel yesterday at the National Security Action Summit, which was held just down the street from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).... Boykin told [a] reporter that President Obama identifies with and supports Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and uses subliminal messages to express this support.... Now consider the fact that he once served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and is still viewed as a credible expert on terrorism by Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee." CW: Glasstetter reports an anti-Jewish comment by Boykin, but I think Boykin was being facetious.

Beyond the Beltway

Laura Vozzella & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Maureen McDonnell comes across as insecure and sometimes erratic in hundreds of pages of e-mail exchanges among staff members at the governor's mansion and two management consultants at Virginia Commonwealth University. The consultants were brought in to bring order to the seemingly dysfunctional workplace that was Virginia's executive mansion. The messages portray the governor as willing to devote high-level staff to helping his wife cope but reluctant to delve into the problems himself." ...

... The AP story is here.

Sometimes, in the interest of journalism, political reporters must watch porn movies. Nate Sunderland & Jeff Robinson of the Idaho Statesman report on Gov. Butch Otter's (R) performance in what became a soft-porn movie. CW: There's no reason to think Otter had anything to do with the porn bit, but since Gale Collins very much enjoys writing about Butch Otter, it was awfully nice of the Statesman to provide her some humorous material.

The President's Weekly Address

News Lede

New York Times: "A 12-mile-long oil slick spotted between Malaysia and Vietnam on Saturday afternoon is thought to be the first sign that a missing Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 people aboard went down in the waters between southernmost Vietnam and northern Malaysia, according to Vietnam's director of civil aviation."

The Commentariat -- March 7, 2014

Internal links removed.

Here's the Guardian's liveblog of events re: the Ukraine crisis. ...

... Steven Myers, et al., of the New York Times: "Leaders of both houses of Russia's Parliament said on Friday that they would support a vote by Crimea to break away from Ukraine and become a new region of the Russian Federation, the first public signal that the Kremlin was backing the secessionist move that Ukraine, the United States and other countries have denounced as a violation of international law." ...

... Carol Morello & Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "Pro-Russian lawmakers in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea sparked a showdown reminiscent of the Cold War on Thursday, accelerating their bid to leave Ukraine and join Russia in a move that President Obama, the new government in Kiev and European leaders described as provocative and illegal. Lawmakers in the autonomous region voted Thursday to join the Russian Federation and hold a referendum March 16 to validate the decision. The regional parliament, now led by Sergei Aksyonov -- a businessman and politician known around Kiev as the 'Goblin' because of his alleged ties to organized crime, vowed to nationalize Ukrainian state industries and begin setting up government ministries separate from Ukraine, which it joined in 1954 when the nation was still a satellite of the Soviet Union." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama held an hour-long telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday afternoon in an effort to resolve the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, according to the White House. The White House statement indicated no breakthrough or even any progress in the dispute about Russian troop movements into Ukraine's Crimea region and Russia's support for a referendum on making Crimea a part of Russia." Here's the White House readout. ...

... Lidia Kelly & Alissa DeCarbonnel of Reuters: "After an hour-long telephone call, Putin said in a statement that Moscow and Washington were still far apart on the situation in the former Soviet republic, where he said the new authorities had taken 'absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern and Crimea regions.'" ...

... AFP: "The United States on Thursday sent six additional F-15 fighter jets to step up NATO's air patrols over the Baltic states, mission host Lithuania said as West-Russia tensions simmered over Ukraine." ...

... Natalia Antelava of the New Yorker on the precarious position of Crimean Tatars. ...

... Darlene Superville of the AP: "Russia's intervention in Ukraine has put Obama's [weekend vacation] plans in doubt, making it very likely the family will end up at the White House.... The weekend stay was to be tacked on to a visit by Obama and his wife Friday to Coral Reef High School in Miami, where they are to address students on the importance of education."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: President "Obama has fixed ideas about how best to pursue peace in the Middle East, and a far less solicitous style than his secretary of state, John Kerry, who has drawn close to [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu over many hours of painstaking negotiations. With the deadline nearing for the Israelis and Palestinians to sign on to an American framework accord, Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry have fallen into a good-cop, bad-cop routine with Israel -- a strategy that may push through a deal but will bruise feelings along the way."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday rejected a controversial bipartisan bill to remove military commanders from decisions over the prosecution of sexual assault cases in the armed forces, delivering a defeat to advocacy groups who argued that wholesale changes are necessary to combat an epidemic of rapes and sexual assaults in the military. The measure, pushed by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, received 55 votes -- five short of the 60 votes needed for advancement to a floor vote -- after Ms. Gillibrand's fellow Democrat, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, led the charge to block its advancement." ...

... BTW, Here's McCaskill, speaking to Nora Caplan-Bricker of the New Republic immediately before she filibustered Gillibrand's bill:

I can assure you, I am not filibustering Senator Gillibrand's bill. There is a requirement in the Senate that for controversial things and major issues, 60 votes are required. I spent a day on the floor arguing for these votes [to occur on both military sexual assault bills]. I have never stood in the way of these votes going forward. For people supporting Senator Gillibrand to try to make me out as the bad guy on this is unfair.

... CW: McCaskill has taken the political lie to a new level. I cannot imagine what her problem is, but it's pathological. And, yeah, Claire, I'm so unfair. ...

... Chris Carroll & John Vandiver of Stars & Stripes: "The top Army prosecutor for sexual assault cases has been suspended after a lawyer who worked for him recently reported he'd groped her and tried to kiss her at a sexual-assault legal conference more than two years ago."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: On Thursday, President "Obama was appearing at a town hall-style event at the Newseum to encourage the Latino community to sign up for health-insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act. But the hosts, Jose Diaz-Balart of Telemundo and Enrique Acevedo of Univision, turned their sights on another issue: immigration. 'Your reputation has been tarnished among Latinos over deportations,' Acevedo said, referring to the administration's removal of nearly 2 million immigrants who were in the country illegally. 'How can you ask the Latino community to trust you?' 'I would challenge the premise,' Obama shot back testily as he sat onstage before a live audience of 150."

Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, the Affordable Care Act's central goal, according to a pair of new surveys. Only one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private plans through the new marketplaces enrolled as of last month, one of the surveys shows. The other found that about half of uninsured adults have looked for information on the online exchanges or planned to look."

Jay Newton-Small of Time interviews Bernie Sanders. Bernie says he would be better president than Hillary Clinton. CW: No kidding. ...

... John Nichols of the Nation interviews Sanders. He says he is prepared to run for president.

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "In a strongly worded letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the Congressional Black Caucus lashed out at [Rep. Darrell] Issa [R-Calif.], who on Wednesday halted a hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee without allowing any Democrats to speak.... But Boehner defended Issa's actions during his weekly news briefing, saying that the California congressman was not out of line to cut off Cummings' microphone and walk out.... House Democrats also attempted Thursday to introduce a resolution condemning Issa's behavior at the hearing and have called on him to issue a public apology to [Rep. Elijah] Cummings [D-Md.]. However, in a party-line vote, the House tabled the resolution."

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "A measured Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, returning to the national political spotlight at a convention of conservative activists on Thursday, chided Washington for its political dysfunction, played up his social conservatism and urged the Republican Party to broaden its electoral appeal.... And he defended the billionaire Koch brothers.... The crowd responded warmly, interrupting Mr. Christie about a half-dozen times with applause and giving him a standing ovation." CW: Sorry, I can't help seeing a parallel between Christie & the new mafioso boss of the Crimea, not to mention the parallel between their respective separatist followers. ...

... Tom Moran of the Star-Ledger: Christie "took his familiar shots at President Obama over his failure to solve the fiscal crisis in Washington. The president is not a real leader, he says. But what about Trenton's fiscal crisis? And what about Christie's leadership? He pushed hard last year for a tax cut, tilted to the advantage of the state's wealthiest families, and claimed against all evidence that the state could afford it. Now he has flip-flopped, and is warning of a looming fiscal crisis that will require tough sacrifices. That is not sturdy leadership. It is the herky-jerky dance of a political opportunist." CW P.S.: I don't think there's a real "fiscal crisis in Washington" anyway. ...

... A Story Paul Ryan Found "Too Good to Check." CW: Glenn Kessler's takedown is fascinating. the origins of the story come from people whose purpose in telling it was to expand school lunch programs:

The left is making a big mistake here. What they're offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy, Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn't want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand. -- Paul Ryan, speaking at CPAC

... Speaking of Ryan & his diabolical efforts to starve needy children -- "The Hammock Fallacy." Availing himself a a school lunch program or food stamps, Paul Krugman eats Paul Ryan for lunch. ...

... Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times sums up yesterday's CPAC speeches. "So what were Republican presidential hopefuls telling conservatives Thursday on opening day of the annual CPAC conference? Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: Washington sucks. Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan: Democrats suck. Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: Everyone but governors sucks." Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... AND Mitch McConnell brandished a rifle at CPAC. ...

... WHICH may make you wonder what Wayne LaPierre of the NRA had to tell the folks at CPAC. Charles Pierce obliges. "The woods are full of monsters."

Public Policy Polling: "PPP's newest Arizona poll finds that John McCain is unpopular with Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike and has now become the least popular Senator in the country."

Elsewhere Beyond the Beltway

"The Gunshine State." Barbara Liston of Reuters: "Every Wednesday afternoon, Doug Varrieur steps into his backyard in the Florida Keys, aims his .380 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol and fires shots that ricochet through city halls around the state. Varrieur, 57, discovered a little-noticed part of Florida law which prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights in any way, and in December he set up a personal gun range on his property in a residential subdivision.... Municipal leaders, who were shocked to realize there was nothing they could do about it.... Numerous city and county leaders now trying to regain some control over recreational gunfire in their communities, particularly in dense urban zones. Palm Beach and Broward counties in south Florida have a lawsuit pending to overturn the law, noting that it forced them to rescind restrictions, for example, on taking guns into child care facilities." ...

     ... CW: These loons can pack heat. I am packing my belongings & moving out of Florida.

Margaret Hartmann of New York: "... on Thursday, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill outlawing taking 'up-skirt' photos in public. Just a day earlier, the state's highest court ruled that an accused Peeping Tom didn't violate the law because technically the women he photographed on an MBTA trolley were clothed. Under the new law, which Governor Deval Patrick's aide said he will sign, taking "up-skirt" pics will be punishable by more than two years in prison or a $5,000 fine."

News Ledes

New York Times: "... the Army captain who has accused Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair of sexual assault took the witness stand on Friday on the first day of his closely watched court-martial. During five hours of testimony, the 34-year-old captain chronicled in detail a three-year affair that included casual sex ... but also, she said, violent moments where he forced her to perform oral sex and threatened to kill her if she disclosed their relationship."

AP: "Malaysia Airlines said Saturday it lost contact with a plane carrying 239 people on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and search and rescue teams were trying to locate the aircraft."

Bloomberg News: "Employers added more workers than projected in February, indicating the U.S. economy is starting to bounce back from a weather-induced setback. The jobless rate unexpectedly climbed from a five-year low. The 175,000 gain in employment followed a revised 129,000 increase the prior month that was bigger than initially estimated.... Unemployment rose to 6.7 percent from 6.6 percent as more people entered the labor force and couldn't find work."

Guardian: "A Natiional Guardsman and a civilian have been killed in Caracas after a group of men on motorcycles rode into a neighbourhood to remove a street barricade erected by anti-government protesters. The clash that erupted on Thursday in the mixed industrial and residential district of Los Ruices heightened tensions on the same day the Venezuelan government expelled foreign diplomats for the second time in a month."

Reuters: "Western countries voiced concern on Thursday that tensions in Libya could slip out of control in the absence of a functioning political system, and they urged the government and rival factions to start talking. Two-and-a-half years after the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, the oil-rich North African state is struggling to contain violence between rival forces, with Islamist militants gaining an ever-stronger grip on the south of the country."