Politics News on The Huffington Post

Ukraine Protesters Claim Control Over Capital

Joanna Zelman — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 01:09:56 -0500

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A leader of the protesters in the Ukrainian capital says they are in full control of the city after the signing of a peace deal aimed at ending the nation's three-month political crisis.

Media reports say that President Viktor Yanukovych has left the capital for his native eastern Ukraine after surrendering much of his powers and agreeing to early elections this fall. The changes came as part of Friday's Western-brokered deal intended to end violence that killed scores and left hundreds wounded. The claims of his departure could not be immediately confirmed, however.

Andriy Parubiy, a leader of the protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan, said Saturday that protesters are now in full control of the capital. Many of the protesters are continuing to demand Yanukovych's immediate ouster.

Federal Reserve Transcripts Show Fretting About Inflation As Economy Collapsed

Shahien Nasiripour — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 21:11:43 -0500

Top Federal Reserve officials were haunted by an imaginary inflation epidemic during eight months preceding the cataclysmic 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. While much of the central bank's top policymaking committee was focused on a phantom menace, officials who recognized the true danger -- a banking crisis -- frequently underestimated the scope of the problem, relying on poor information and neglecting the Fed's leverage over troubled firms as the world’s lender of last resort, newly released transcripts show.

The documents, made public Friday after their customary five-year lag, reveal Fed officials’ distrust of financial institutions and skepticism of the government’s ability to spot risks. Some central bank officials worried their tools to pump money into the economy ultimately would have little effect. Others were concerned that the Fed was artificially propping up prices of various financial assets and simply acting on the whims of Wall Street traders.

In a sign of Fed officials' priorities, the word "inflation" appears more than 1,500 times in transcripts of the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee meetings in 2008. But in those months preceding Lehman's collapse, the word “crisis” garners about 50 mentions.

Some of the more vocal committee participants, such as James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, argued in 2008's pre-September months there was little, if not “zero,” systemic risk in the financial system. Others, such as Harvey Rosenblum, a top official at the Dallas Fed, worried about the damage to the Fed’s reputation if it was found that the Fed had helped financial institutions, on preferential terms, “that everybody who reads The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and looks at the Internet knows was in trouble.”

Taken together, the transcripts provide the most detailed record to date of what senior Fed officials thought as they grappled with a burgeoning crisis that began the previous August following mortgage market turmoil. It intensified in March with the failure of investment bank Bear Stearns, then climaxed in September as the federal government allowed investment bank Lehman Brothers to fail, and bailed out housing giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and insurer AIG. That fall, actions of the officials may have rescued the entire U.S. financial system.

That August, internal Fed studies predicted financial institutions would eventually record some $900 billion in losses, the transcripts show. By that point, U.S. and European financial institutions had already written down the value of their assets by about $400 billion. Kevin Warsh and Randall Kroszner, then Fed governors based in Washington, doubted the health of financial institutions and their ability to weather losses. Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed, suspected European banks were masking losses by playing games with their balance sheets.

The hesitancy by senior Fed policymakers, which some of them attributed to lack of clear data on the health of financial institutions and their skepticism of other regulators’ abilities to properly oversee the companies under their watch, help explain why Fed officials that year appeared to lurch from crisis to crisis, without a firm understanding of what they were doing, the ultimate effects of their actions, or whether they’d actually be able to jolt the then-moribund economy back to life.

In other words, senior Federal Reserve officials doubted their power to help, just as the world increasingly relied on their ability to act.

“I really am extremely nervous about the current situation,” Frederic Mishkin, then a Fed governor, said that July, according to a transcript. “We’ve been in this now for a year; but boy, this is deviating from most financial disruptions or crisis episodes in terms of the length and the fact that it really hasn’t gotten better. We keep on having shoes dropping.”

Mishkin’s worries were echoed by Ben Bernanke, then Fed chairman; Janet Yellen, then president of the San Francisco Fed and Bernanke’s successor; and Timothy Geithner, who at the time led the New York Fed. Geithner left the Fed after newly elected President Barack Obama tapped him for treasury secretary.

Doubts about the health of major U.S. and European lenders and investment banks persisted, despite the Fed's status as the nation’s most powerful regulator, as officials appeared reluctant to leverage the institution's powers to overhaul bad banking practices or secure better data about exposures and risks.

For example, Yellen said the Office of Thrift Supervision, a federal regulator that Congress dismantled in 2010, didn’t tell the Fed that it had downgraded IndyMac, a California thrift that was borrowing from the Fed in order to stay in business. Jeffrey Lacker, Richmond Fed president, said his bank examiners often were more critical of the health of financial institutions than were OTS officials.

Lacker told Bernanke, “I think it is outrageous that the OTS downgraded [IndyMac] and didn’t inform the San Francisco Fed. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that the unacceptability of that sort of behavior is communicated at the highest levels to the OTS.”

Still, even though the Fed initiated unprecedented programs to flood the financial system with easy money, divisions among policymakers appear to have tempered the Fed’s actions.

“I think it would be wise ... to take a newspaper across the snout and call for a 25 basis point increase,” Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, said that August in calling for the Fed to raise its main interest rate by 0.25 percent. “We’re always talking about tightening at some point. I think it just becomes increasingly difficult to take that first step. I grant you that the economy is weak. The financial situation is brittle. That hasn’t changed in my view, but the inflationary behavioral patterns that I’m beginning to hear about reinforce my concern[s].”

At the time, Fed officials outside Washington and New York reported hearing from contacts in the business community that prices were rising, inflation was looming, and the Fed’s credibility to maintain stable prices may be in question.

In one notable exchange, after Fisher ticked off a list of “chilling anecdotes” about coming inflation, Bernanke asked him what he said was a “very innocent question.”

“Official statistics just don’t show anything like that outside of oil, gas, gasoline, and the direct commodity price increases. Do you believe that the [government’s consumer price index] is not an accurate measure?”

Fisher responded that what he heard was consistent with the data, but that he was “just trying to report what I’m hearing from the field.”

In addition to preoccupation with what proved to be phantom problems, misjudgments over the scope of the crisis were routine, transcripts show. In September 2008, a few days after U.S. officials, including those at the Fed, decided to let Lehman Brothers fail -- a decision viewed by some as among the major policy errors of the crisis -- Bernanke told colleagues, “I think that our policy is looking actually pretty good.”

In the weeks after that, the Fed grew more aggressive, culminating in a December decision to drop its main interest rate almost to zero, where it has remained.

Bernanke, who at times has been criticized for public statements in which he underestimated the crisis, comes across in the transcripts as doubtful about the strength of the economy, worried about the financial system’s ability to heal and almost dismissive of inflation fears.

He often was joined by Yellen, who has been praised for the foresight she appeared to possess in 2007 as the mortgage market began its collapse. In August 2008, in response to statements by other Fed officials that the Fed was unjustified in its attempt to prop up the economy, Yellen said: “We are likely seeing only the start of what will be a series of bank failures that could make matters much worse. Given these financial headwinds, it is not clear to me that we are accommodative at all.”

Despite those concerns, the Fed as an institution underestimated the weakness of the economy and the looming disaster that would play out in financial markets. In the months leading up to September and the bailouts that would ensue, some at the Fed thought there was little it could do to alleviate the real-world consequences of weaker financial institutions.

“At the end of the day, no matter where policy comes out in terms of regulatory policy from the Fed and other bank regulators or accounting policy from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] or [Financial Accounting Standards Board], it strikes me that those changes in policy are less determinative of how things shake out,” Warsh warned that August. “That is, management credibility is so in question that the cure is not likely to come from accounting rules or regulators but from the markets’ believing that what management says is what management believes and will act on it. As a result, I think that many of these financial institutions are operating in a zero-defect world, which is posing risks to the real economy.”

Others, such as Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed, warned his colleagues during the same meeting against propping up the financial system for no better reason than to benefit Wall Street.

“We must be cautious in using monetary policy or other tools at our disposal as a form of forbearance that delays the necessary adjustments in the pricing of various financial claims,” Plosser said. “I think we need a high hurdle ... before we intervene to stem liquidity desires on the part of traders or attempt to influence the price of specific asset classes.”

Plosser was joined by Lacker, who said, “I believe what we’ve done has been to subsidize selected borrower classes and prop up prices of various financial assets, and I think the problem we face now is the tremendous dependency of financial institutions and markets on our credit.”

To this day, the Fed continues to be dogged by criticisms that its actions have mainly benefited big banks and Wall Street.

As rescue operations intensified in 2008, Geithner suggested in June that the Fed seriously consider what role it wanted to play as a regulator in the future. Several Fed officials suggested expanding the scope of the Fed's authority, giving it more scrutiny over investment banks and other financial firms. Then and now, the Fed shared regulatory powers with other banking and securities regulators.

But Yellen stood out by noting that the central bank was doing a lousy job with the companies it already had authority over.

"What is going on raises fundamental issues about how we conduct consolidated supervision," Yellen said that June. "I am not at all convinced that the way we are carrying out supervision now would have prevented a Bear Stearns-type of episode within an institution that is currently solidly under our supervision."

Yellen was among the most attentive Fed officials concerning regulatory matters, joining then-St. Louis Fed President William Poole (who preceded Bullard) in January 2008 to suggest that banks were rewarding excessively risky behavior with expansive pay packages.

Citing a 2005 paper by economist Raghuram Rajan, who has since become India’s top central banker, in which he noted the misaligned incentives between managers of financial institutions and investors, Yellen said, “I don’t know what they were thinking, but everybody was rewarded for the quantity and not the quality of [mortgage] originations. He warned us before any of this happened that this could come to no good, and I think he did have some suggestions about compensation practices. These were not popular suggestions."

Yellen then suggested that the Fed reform its rules on pay for bank executives and traders.

"I think this is worth some thought," Yellen said. "I don’t know what the answer is in terms of changing these practices. Maybe the market will attend to them, but it seems to me that we have had an awful lot of booms and busts in which this type of incentive played a role."

But Geithner, then leader of the New York Fed, an institution often viewed as the link between the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington and financial firms on Wall Street, quickly pushed back.

"When you think about what you can do through supervision and regulation, to affect that stuff is hard," Geithner said.

Geithner appeared in the early months of 2008 to be among the most optimistic Fed officials when assessing the overall strength of the financial system.

In March, days after he helped arrange and subsidize JPMorgan Chase's bargain-basement acquisition of Bear Stearns, Geithner continued to believe the banking system had enough money to weather the coming storm.

"It is very hard to make the judgment now that the financial system as a whole or the banking system as a whole is undercapitalized," Geithner said. "Some people out there are saying that. ... But based on everything we know today, if you look at very pessimistic estimates of the scale of losses across the financial system, on average relative to capital, they do not justify that concern."

Geithner’s then-upbeat outlook appeared to have reflected an uneasiness in acknowledging that the financial system was hurtling toward collapse. At least one of his colleagues, Mishkin, was afraid to publicly admit the truth.

“I don’t think we should be shy about saying it. We are in a financial crisis, and it is worse than we have experienced in any other episode of financial 'disruption,' which is the word I use,” Mishkin said that March. “I will not use 'financial crisis' in public. ‘Financial disruption' is still a good phrase to use in public, but I really do think that this is a financial crisis."

The Fed would eventually pump trillions of dollars into the financial system to help banks, investment firms, industrial companies and other institutions that had never before so relied on a taxpayer-funded safety net. Congress would authorize the Treasury Department to spend more than $700 billion to bail out U.S. banks, insurers, auto companies and other firms.

The U.S. economy would lose some 8 million jobs. Millions of families would lose their homes due to widespread foreclosures. The effects of the recession, which began in 2007, would be magnified by the financial crisis, leading to government spending to cushion the blow that produced record federal budget deficits and in turn prompted U.S. officials to limit aid to the poor.

Leading economists, such as Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser during the early years of his presidency, now worry of permanently reduced U.S. economic growth.

Georgia Men Used Facebook To Plot Anti-Government Militia Uprising, Prosecutors Say

Ryan J. Reilly — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 19:07:44 -0500

WASHINGTON -- Three Georgia men were charged in federal court this week with plotting an attack against the government designed to trigger martial law and encourage other militias to join their violent uprising.

Brian Edward Cannon, Cory Robert Williamson and Terry Eugene Peace participated in online chats last month about an operation they were planning against the government in February, according to federal prosecutors. Their discussions were reported to the FBI, which had two cooperating witnesses in the case.

Cannon told an FBI cooperating source on Feb. 8 that the group was planning to "start a fight" with the government by attacking power grids, transfer stations and water treatment facilities, which they hoped would trigger martial law, according to prosecutors. Cannon said he would invite the FBI's source to a private Facebook group, where plans were being made, according to the government.

Later, on Feb. 15, Cannon told another FBI informant the types of weapons that Peace allegedly wanted. The FBI gave the cooperating informant 12 non-working pipe bombs and two high-temperature thermite devices. The three men met with the cooperating informant, who handed over the thermite devices. The three suspects were arrested as the cooperating informant went to obtain another box of supplies.

Peace allegedly encouraged members of his militia to review guerrilla warfare tactics, accumulate supplies and prepare their families. He told them that "guerilla (sic) warfare primary targets included TSA, DHS, non-emergency FEMA, road blocks, etc."

One of the FBI's cooperating sources, who has no prior convictions or felony charges but has been paid by the FBI, was supposed to meet with Peace in Memphis on Feb. 5, but that meeting was scrapped. Instead, the FBI informant talked with Peace over a secured chat website. There, a person using the moniker "Chief" said the group would try to "restrain the violence toward people" and instead would "target infrastructure."

"The group with me will move first mainly to make a point," the person using the handle Chief wrote, according to the FBI. "I stand by what I say. The other groups should start within the next 24 - 48 hours in order to keep the operational tempo up so that when one unit is done another is hitting nonstop."

Peace tried to obtain a thermite bomb, which he believed would destroy the engine of a police mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle. He said most sheriffs and police departments had one or two such heavy vehicles.

Cannon and Williamson appeared in federal court on Friday, and both were ordered detained. Peace will make his appearance on Monday. All three men will be represented by federal public defenders or court-appointed lawyers due to their financial situation.

“This case is a stark reminder of the threat we face not just from abroad but from within our own borders from our own citizens,” Sally Quillian Yates, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement. “When plans turn violent, law enforcement must step in to protect our communities from harm. Fortunately, the FBI was able to stop these defendants before they were able to carry out their plans.”

'Everything Rubio Touches Has Turned To Sh*t'

Joanna Zelman — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 18:35:53 -0500

It was a mere two days after the 2012 election, and the shock of defeat had barely worn off when the Republican Party’s answer suddenly became clear, and it was Marco Rubio.

Climate Change May Lead To More Crime As Planet Warms, Researcher Says

Nick Visser — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 18:10:02 -0500

It may be time to prepare for a warmer world with some hot-headed inhabitants.

New research suggests that as our planet continues to warm due to continued greenhouse gas emissions, humanity will experience a significant uptick in crime and violence, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The study, written by Matthew Ranson and published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, predicts "an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft between 2010 and 2099."

Ranson merged data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting database and NOAA weather records for a 30-year period along with climate projections from 15 global circulation models for his research, which predicts an increase in crime rates between 1.5 and 5.5 percent by 2090.

One of the most striking details noted in the paper is that set periods of higher temperatures, including hour-by-hour or week-long spikes, could result in a rise in crime that could ultimately cost the planet as much as $115 billion in social costs by the end of the century.

“The broader context here is that climate change will influence our lives in a variety of ways beyond how much water we can spare for such things as farming,” he told the L.A. Times.

Despite a particularly frigid start to the year in much of the U.S., the planet experienced its fourth warmest January on record in 2014. California is still in the grips of the worst drought since the 1500s, and even the weather at this year's Winter Olympics has been particularly warm.

A comprehensive study published last year also linked a warming planet with an increase in violence, and a leaked draft of a report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a rise in many human ills, including war, starvation, poverty, flooding, extreme weather and disease.

Ted Cruz On Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro 'Taking A Page' From Castro Playbook

Sabrina Siddiqui — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 18:01:14 -0500

WASHINGTON -- With all eyes on the bloodshed in Ukraine, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) offered a sharp warning Friday on another political crisis: demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

Cruz issued a statement as anti-government protests in Venezuela's western state of Tachira reached their largest since the death of the country's longtime president Hugo Chavez nearly a year ago. Violent clashes between protesters and security forces have left eight dead and about 137 injured, the government said on Friday.

"As opposition protests drag into their second week in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is taking a page out of the Castro playbook to violently oppress Venezuelans who are demanding an end to his disastrous rule," Cruz said. "Activists have been detained and abused, and even shot dead in the streets."

The Texas Republican condemned the arrest of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who could face up to 10 years in prison on charges of arson and conspiracy. Authorities dropped initial plans to pursue murder and terrorism charges against Lopez, whose arrest has widely been regarded as a politically motivated move to silence Maduro's dissenters.

Cruz said Lopez "faces the summary judgment of a makeshift kangaroo court," while adding that "the perseverance of the protestors in the face of these thuggish tactics suggests there are still many who do not accept the failed socialist policies of Hugo Chavez and his hand-picked successor as inevitable." He added that the United States should press for Lopez's "immediate and unconditional release."

Cruz's comparison of Maduro to the Castro regime is not surprising, given the senator's strong feelings toward Cuban President Raul Castro and his predecessor and brother Fidel Castro. Cruz's father fled Cuba before Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, and Cruz himself walked out of Nelson Mandela's memorial service when Raul Castro delivered a speech. A spokesperson for Cruz told Newsmax at the time that Raul Castro "has wrongly imprisoned and tortured countless innocents."

Cruz also criticized President Barack Obama's administration for not taking greater steps in encouraging the Organization of American States to supervise a recount after Maduro's controversial election last April, when he defeated opposition leader and Gov. Henrique Capriles in Venezuela’s closest presidential election in 45 years. Cruz said the OAS should send a delegation to Venezuela to investigate alleged human rights abuses under Maduro.

The White House, for its part, has focused its attention this week on the violent clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in Ukraine. At least 75 people have been killed in Kiev since Tuesday and an estimated 571 left injured.

On Friday, CNN's Jake Tapper asked Tony Blinken, Obama's deputy national security advisor, why the U.S. is not showing the same aggression toward Maduro as Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Blinken said the crisis in Venezuela was "a problem of [Maduro's] own making and they need to resolve it."

"When it comes to Venezuela, we've been very clear in our views but we also don't want to give Maduro the excuse of making the United States look like the problem," Blinken said. "Putting the United States in the middle of the story just creates an easy distraction and an ability for him to point pictures at something that is not the problem."

Obama's National Security Council tweeted later in the day that it was "deeply concerned" about Venezuela's decision to revoke CNN's press credentials, after Maduro said Friday that CNN journalists were engaging in "war propaganda." "#Venezuela needs to live up to its int’l obligations & respect freedom of speech, assembly, press; engage in real dialogue w/ its ppl," the NSC said in a subsequent tweet.

Deeply concerned by #Venezuela’s decision to revoke @CNN press credentials. Freedom of press = essential element of democracy
— @NSCPress (@NSCPress) February 21, 2014

#Venezuela needs to live up to its int’l obligations & respect freedom of speech, assembly, press; engage in real dialogue w/ its ppl
— @NSCPress (@NSCPress) February 21, 2014

Agent Orange Posed A Health Threat To Servicemen Long After Vietnam: Study

Lynne Peeples — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:59:47 -0500

Military veterans who say they were sickened by lingering amounts of the herbicide Agent Orange aboard repurposed airplanes after the Vietnam War now have some strong scientific support for their claims.

A study published on Friday refutes the U.S. Air Force and Department of Veteran Affairs' position that any dioxin or other components of Agent Orange contaminating its fleet of C-123 cargo planes would have been "dried residues" and therefore unlikely to pose any meaningful exposure risks.

That contention has been the basis for the VA's denial of benefits to sick veterans.

"It's a question of science and ethics," said Jeanne Stellman, an Agent Orange expert at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and senior author of the paper, which found standard-exceeding exposures likely occurred after the war -- via skin contact, inhalation and ingestion.

"The VA has set up policy that is based on bad science," she added. "That's resulted in really inequitable treatment."

Veterans who sprayed or handled Agent Orange herbicide during the war, or who spent any time on the ground in Vietnam, are automatically eligible for health care and disability compensation under federal Agent Orange legislation. The government presumes that certain conditions such as prostate cancer, Parkinson's disease and Type 2 diabetes are a result of exposure to the chemical.

Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told The Huffington Post that, in her opinion, the VA's presumption should be expanded to include those who flew in the post-war planes.

"We can't prove it, but everything in here is supportive of the fact that they were exposed and could have been quite highly exposed," said Birnbaum. "In fact, it would be reasonable to assume that those who flew in these planes after the war were more likely to be exposed than those servicemen who had boots on the ground in Vietnam."

Perhaps no one knows better than retired Lt. Col. John Harris the consequences of the VA's apparently arbitrary distinction between possible pre- and post-war exposures.

When HuffPost first covered the concerns of Harris and other veterans last July, he described how the VA initially denied him Agent Orange-related benefits for his diabetes, despite his 12 years of working, eating and sleeping onboard what he refers to as "noxious" C-123s after the war. But when he later found records of a one-hour refueling stop he'd made with a fighter jet in Vietnam during the war, the VA granted his refiled claim.

While Harris is happy to have coverage, he remains frustrated for his comrades.

"I'm absolutely positive that I was exposed to Agent Orange and dioxin in that 12-year period," he told HuffPost after hearing about the new study. "I think the VA is lying, cheating and stealing to prove a case that is unprovable."

In a statement to the HuffPost last July, a VA spokeswoman stated that "even though residual Agent Orange may be detected in C-123 aircraft by laboratory techniques years after Agent Orange use, any residual [dioxin] in the aircraft would have solidified and be unable to enter the human body in any significant amount."

VA spokeswoman Genevieve Billia told HuffPost in email on Friday that the agency "wants to ensure that all Veterans, including those who served on C123s, receive the benefits to which they are entitled under the law," and that it will "continue to review new scientific information on this issue as it becomes available."

"VA does not presume by regulation that these Veterans were exposed to Agent Orange," said Billia.

To show that such exposures likely did happen, Stellman said, her research team had to be "very clever."

After a decade of spraying more than 10 million gallons of Agent Orange to destroy enemy cover and crops, the C-123s underwent no testing -- or decontamination, for that matter -- prior to their new stateside assignments with the Air Force Reserve. Between 1971 and 1982, about 1,500 men and women served aboard 34 C-123s that were previously deployed in Operation Ranch Hand.

It wasn't until 1979, when crews complained about chemical smells, that officials took the first measures of potential contamination. Samples of wiped surfaces in 1994, and again in 2009, supplemented this 1979 air sample data. All but three of the planes have since been smelted.

Stellman, Richard Clapp of the Boston University School of Public Health, Fred Berman of Oregon Health and Science University and Peter Lurker, an environmental engineering consultant and former U.S. Air Force researcher, used this sparse data in three different models. All resulted in estimated exposure levels that exceeded health guidelines for the contaminants.

The team noted that their findings may be extremely conservative.

The levels of toxic chemicals -- measured years, even decades, after the veterans were aboard the C-123s -- were likely much higher immediately after the war, researchers said. Airborne levels may also have been particularly high while the planes were airborne, due to extreme temperatures, changes in pressure and vibrations.

One of the models that researchers used, which Stellman suggested was based on a "high school chemistry" concept, demonstrated how the old herbicide could have evaporated and attached to dust particles.

"The VA, whether out of ignorance or malice, has denied the entire existence of this entire branch of science," said Stellman. "They have this preposterous idea that somehow there is this other kind of state of matter -- a dried residue that is completely inert."

Clapp, one of the co-authors, emphasized how "exquisitely toxic" dioxin is at any dose. The chemical has been linked to a host of health effects including cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

"Exposure to even tiny quantities is not ignorable," he said.

"We do show plausible exposure," added Clapp. "These veterans should be compensated, too."

Retired Maj. Wes Carter, who himself served aboard C-123s after Vietnam, has been leading the effort on behalf of this group of post-war veterans. He said he knows of only one such comrade who has received Agent Orange benefits from the VA, his close friend retired Lt. Col. Paul Bailey.

Bailey was among those struggling to secure benefits for himself and his family last July, when he was gravely ill with cancer. He died of the disease in October.

Bailey expressed his frustrations to HuffPost back in July.

"We've proved over and over that we've been exposed to dioxin, but the VA is refusing to accept the evidence," said Bailey, who worked as an air medical technician and flight instructor aboard the C-123s. "They're just dragging their feet."

Weeks before Bailey's death, the VA reversed its initial denial of his claim.

"The fact that Bailey got approved, that gives me hope," said Harris, adding that his hope is further bolstered by the new scientific findings. "There are a lot of others out there that need this help, too."

Scott Brown Trailing Jeanne Shaheen In Senate Match-Up Polls

Ariel Edwards-Levy — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:45:21 -0500

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) would have an 8-point lead in a match-up against former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) this fall, according to a poll released Friday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

The survey, conducted on behalf of the League of Conservation Voters, found Shaheen taking 47 percent to Brown's 39 percent -- the third poll in a row to show her with a clear edge over him. A WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll gave Shaheen a 10-point advantage, while a survey from the Republican firm Harper Polling found her 5 points ahead.

Although Shaheen has held an advantage in nearly all polling released since 2013, two January surveys had found the race either narrower or tied.

HuffPost Pollster's average, which includes all publicly available polling, gives Shaheen a lead of just under 9 points.

The League of Conservation Voters earlier this month announced a $200,000-plus TV ad buy targeting Brown.

The former senator is reportedly serious about laying the groundwork for a possible candidacy, although he has yet to announce whether he's running. Brown told Fox News on Thursday, "I'm going to make some decisions and we'll see what happens." New Hampshire's filing deadline is in June.

The PPP poll used automated phone calls to survey 1,354 New Hampshire voters between Feb. 19 and Feb. 20.

HUFFPOST HILL - Canada Delivers Something Worse Than Justin Bieber To United States

Eliot Nelson — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:43:45 -0500

Jealous that Scott Walker got himself a Chris Christie-type scandal, Christie went and got a himself Bob McDonnell-type scandal. Steve King isn't runing away from his racist comments about immigrants, probably he doesn't have the calves for it. And we weren't sure what, if anything would bring down the Keystone Pipeline, but given Twitter's reaction to America's olympic hockey loss to Canada, we now have a better idea. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, February 21st, 2014:

CHRIS CHRISTIE USED MANSION FUND TO... CHRIS CHRISTIE - Christina Wilkie: "In January 2010, as newly elected New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) took office, there was a major change at the top of the Drumthwacket Foundation, a nonprofit that has restored and helps maintain the majestic, white-columned governor's mansion in Princeton, N.J. John Strangfeld, the chairman of insurance giant Prudential, and his wife, Mary Kay Strangfeld, volunteered to serve in the top two positions on the foundation's board. They were elected chairman and vice chairman, respectively, by the rest of the board that same month. The posts may have appeared largely ceremonial. But within the Christie universe, they were significant. The governor and his family don't live at the mansion, but the first couple is invested in its restoration and upkeep. In 2012, Chris and Mary Pat Christie hosted 72 events there, or about one every five days. The governor is the honorary chairman of the Drumthwacket Foundation. His wife is the president. The Strangfelds, in turn, played the role of fundraiser. Behind the scenes, they helped raise money from other donors to ensure the foundation's success, and they were good at it. Prudential itself has given gifts totaling at least $150,000 over the last several years." [HuffPost]

HOUSE DEM RIFT - Samantha Lachman: "Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) broke with his party's political establishment Friday, and announced his endorsement of attorney Eloise Gomez Reyes, who is running in a competitive primary to represent California's 31st District. The endorsement by Becerra, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, could serve as a powerful boost to Reyes as she takes on former Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) and Pete Aguilar, the Democratic mayor of Redlands, Calif. 'Eloise is a proven leader who will get the job done in Washington for families in the Inland Empire,' Becerra said in a press release sent Friday after an event outside the San Bernardino, Calif. City Hall…. Becerra's endorsement highlights a rift in the House's Democratic leadership team over which candidate would best serve the district, as Aguilar has the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee." [HuffPost]

But will Joe Baca refer to Reyes as "some bimbo"?

UAW SAYS CORKER RUINED ELECTION - Dave Jamieson: "After a narrow and devastating loss at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant last week, the United Auto Workers union has asked the federal labor board to set aside the election results because of 'a firestorm of interference' from outside groups and politicians, including Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn). The union submitted its appeal to the National Labor Relations Board on Friday, according to a UAW press release. Labor board officials will now have to consider whether the statements by lawmakers interfered enough to potentially sway votes and taint the election. The board could essentially order a do-over. In its 13-page appeal, the UAW said that 'threats' made by Tennessee lawmakers were 'clearly designed to influence the votes' of Volkswagen workers, who eventually voted 712-to-626 against UAW representation last week. The appeal cites Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R), state Senate Speaker Bo Watson (R) and Corker, among others. 'The campaign included publicly-announced and widely disseminated threats by elected officials that state-financed incentives would be withheld if workers exercised their protected right to form a union,' the union said in a statement." [HuffPost]

CORKER DOES IT AGAIN! Formally accused of spoiling a union election by promising jobs if the vote failed, Bob Corker is sorry that people will lose jobs because of the accusation. "Unfortunately, I have to assume that today's action may slow down Volkswagen’s final discussions on the new SUV line," he said. Nice doublin' down, Bob!

DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Phil Wahba: "The struggles of the low-income U.S. consumer are playing out in Wal-Mart Stores Inc's grocery aisles. The world's largest retailer, which gets more than half its sales from groceries, on Thursday gave a disappointing full-year forecast. It blamed sharp cuts in food stamp benefits and higher payroll taxes that are will hit disposable income for its core customers." The "sharp cuts" actually reflect the premature expiration of a 2009 benefits increase. Democrats were responsible both for the increase and for taking it away last year. Republicans just kinda sat there like, "huh." [Reuters]

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DEMS LEARNING TO LOVE THEM SOME BILLIONAIRES - Harry Reid hoped you liked that Edible Arrangement, Marc Lasry. Sam Stein: "A hedge fund manager is pledging to spend $100 million in an effort to tip the balance of congressional elections and advance his personal agenda. And Democrats couldn't be more ecstatic. Tom Steyer is not one of the Koch brothers, the energy tycoons who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to elect Republicans and rid the country of Obamacare. Tom Steyer is not Paul Singer, the New York-based hedge fund manager who has bankrolled conservative causes and, more recently, helped pass marriage equality in his home state. Steyer is a Californian, a billionaire and an environmentalist. This past week, he became one of the biggest fundraisers in Democratic circles, fêting Democratic senators at his San Francisco home and pledging to spend $50 million of his own money -- to be matched by $50 million in donations -- on ads pushing tougher action on climate change. For lawmakers who have spent the past few years warning about the pernicious influence of money in politics, Steyer's entrance into the world of mega-donors would seem to present a tricky proposition. A counterweight against the Koch brothers is nice. But there are plenty of instances in the not-so-distant past of Democrats lamenting how unrepresentative democracy had become in the post-Citizens United world, where billionaires could pour millions of dollars of their personal wealth into shadowy campaign organizations." [HuffPost]

ENERGY BILL TO GET SECOND CHANCE, JUST LIKE DAVID VITTER - Kate Sheppard: "A bipartisan energy efficiency bill that got sidetracked last fall in the Senate is expected to come into play again next week. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act last year. It went up for debate on the Senate floor in September, but got derailed when Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) attempted to use the bill to force a vote on delaying Obamacare. Vitter said that he had 'nothing against this bill and the provisions of it.' But the fiasco succeeded in keeping the energy efficiency legislation from ever getting a vote. A few weeks later, the fight over Obamacare managed to shut down the federal government for 16 days. Now Shaheen and Portman are planning to bring the bill back. A spokeswoman for Shaheen confirmed to The Huffington Post that the bill is expected to come up at some point next week, but could not offer an exact date. Other sources suggested that Wednesday is the day they expect it to be reintroduced." [HuffPost]

STEVE KING LOVES BEING AN UNAPOLOGETIC RACIST - That's why John Boehner thinks he's an asshole. Samantha Lachmnan: "In an interview with an Iowa newspaper published Wednesday, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) defended controversial remarks he has made about immigrants. 'I'm not going to apologize,' he insisted to the Iowa Daily Reporter. 'What I've said is objectively true, and any time that Republicans have criticized me, it's not because of what I said, it's because they disagree with my agenda.' King told Newsmax in July that granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children would be a mistake, because, in his eyes, most are engaged in activities other than excelling in school. 'For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds -- and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,' King said." [HuffPost]

More diplomatically, the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler undertook the tiresome chore of trying to figure out what King was talking about. Kessler's conclusion: "King’s claim about valedictorians and smugglers is a nonsense fact, designed to suggest an aura of authenticity to an otherwise objectionable statement. It appears King heard something, from someone he has not named, and had blown it into 'facts' for which he feels little need to provide evidence."

SALLIE MAE IN (MORE) TROUBLE - Shahien Nasiripour: "The Illinois attorney general has launched a broad probe into Sallie Mae, leading a coalition of state prosecutors investigating whether the embattled student loan giant used anti-borrower practices. Lisa Madigan, Illinois' top law enforcement officer, is 'taking a comprehensive look at all of Sallie Mae’s practices, including servicing and collections,' a spokeswoman said. Illinois is among about a half-dozen states investigating Sallie Mae, people familiar with the probes said. Sallie Mae, or SLM Corp., is the nation’s largest lender of student loans outside the Department of Education and the biggest servicer of student debt. It’s also the focus of increasing federal and state government scrutiny, as officials are growing concerned that procedures employed by companies like Sallie Mae when collecting monthly student loan payments or pursuing bad debts resemble the shady practices used by mortgage companies during the height of the housing crisis. The Department of Justice, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are among the federal agencies -- none of them the Department of Education -- formally investigating the company’s treatment of borrowers, securities filings show." [HuffPost]

Liberal darling Tom Perriello is moving to State: "Former Rep. Tom Perriello is leaving the Center for American Progress to head the State Department's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which analyzes U.S. diplomatic and development efforts abroad. Perriello was the president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the progressive think tank's advocacy arm, and had represented rural Virginia as a Democrat for one term before being wiped out in the 2010 tea party wave. His consistent progressive voting record bucked the conventional wisdom that swing-district Democrats should moderate their views. Though he lost, his race was much closer than in similar districts, where Democrats were defeated by double digits. Perriello said one of his top objectives will be to make sure the reality of climate change is integrated into the State Department's strategic vision. The review, produced every four years, was first launched in 2010 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and is modeled after a similar Department of Defense project. The 2010 review includes only passing references to climate change." [Grim]

Maybe the strongest case yet for why social media directors should exist: "RGA spokesman Jon Thompson’s background features New Jersey governor and RGA chair Chris Christie, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker." [BuzzFeed]

KEYSTONE ON TRACK - Amanda Terkel: "On Wednesday, the race for Nebraska's U.S. Senate seat wasn't Democratic candidate Dave Domina's top concern. That's because a judge had just struck down the law that allowed the Keystone XL pipeline to cut through the state, and Domina was the attorney who won the case. Domina represented three landowners trying to block the route approved by Gov. Dave Heineman (R) for the project. The law would have allowed TransCanada Corp., the company building the pipeline, to seize property from individuals who refused to give up their land. The judge ruled that the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, and not the governor, should have made the decision whether TransCanada had such eminent domain powers. 'TransCanada is not authorized to condemn the property against Nebraska landowners. The pipeline project is at a standstill in this state,' Domina said on the day of the decision. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) said the state plans to appeal the ruling, which the Associated Press noted, 'could add months of uncertainty to the project.' The $7 billion pipeline would connect the oil sands in western Canada to refineries in Texas. The Obama administration has delayed making a decision on whether to allow the project to go forward and faces pressure from environmental groups to block it. Domina has said he personally opposes the pipeline and would like to see Secretary of State John Kerry block it." [HuffPost]

BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here is a sleepy meerkat

GUY WHO WORKED FOR BILL CLINTON FELT SPIRITUALLY HUNGRY - No kidding. WaPo: "Mike McCurry was President Bill Clinton’s spokesman during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky years, so suffice to say he knows what it’s like to feel uncomfortable at a podium. But his typical audience these days scares him in a new way. A few weeks ago, McCurry, 59, became a teacher in religion and politics at Wesley Theological Seminary, from where he graduated last spring. It marked his official transition from a hard-charging, super-political spin doctor who quietly attended church to a very public evangelizer for the idea that religious values can save 'the frozen tundra' of today’s politics. 'I had no problem getting up and doing briefings before millions of people, but I am fearful in front of 12 students that I can’t really fake it,' says McCurry, who spent more than two decades as a political spokesman before going on to do communications for corporations and non-profits. “I’m laying it on the line about who I am and what I believe in a way that’s different. When you’re spokesman for someone else, they don’t care what you think.. These people want to know who I am.'" [WaPo]

COMFORT FOOD

- Project Tango is a Google undertaking that would let smartphones map 3D environments. [http://bit.ly/1br3TGW]

- An introduction to the accents of the British Isles. [http://bbc.in/1l64pxq]

- A history of rhyming in popular music. [http://slate.me/OhTKCA]

- "House of Cards" but with more Larry David. [http://huff.to/1goqzp1]

- The Sochi wolf was a prank devised, once again, by Jimmy Kimmel. [http://bit.ly/1bRM6t5]

- FAO Schwarz employees put Tom Hanks' "Big" keyboard dance to shame. [http://bit.ly/1jlhdNn]

TWITTERAMA

@HuffPostMedia: In a way, we're both winners. But in another, more accurate way, Canada is the winner.

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HUFFPOLLSTER: Early Voting In Florida Special Election A Warning Sign For GOP

Mark Blumenthal — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:36:32 -0500

A report on early voting in the special election in Florida's 13th District suggests no turnout advantage for the Republicans. We take a closer look at the race. A Democratic data scientist quantifies Obamas get-out-the-vote advantage over Romney. And it's still not 2016 yet. This is HuffPollster for Friday, February 21, 2014.

THE FLORIDA 13 SPECIAL ELECTION - On March 11, Florida will hold a special election in the state's 13th Congressional District to choose a successor to the late Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R), who died in October. Two polls conducted in early February give Democrat Alex Sink a narrow lead against Republican David Jolly.

Today's News - Adam Smith reports that 64,000 absentee ballots have been cast in the race so far (ballots were sent out on February 7): "Of those, 42 percent came from Republicans and 39 percent from Democrats, so you might think this is good news for Republican nominee David Jolly. Wrong. Democrats and Republicans alike have predicted Republicans would have a significant turnout advantage in Congressional District 13, probably by at least seven percentage points.That Republicans have only a three point advantage at this point has to be troubling for Jolly. Consider that in 2012, Republicans turned in nearly six percent more absentee ballot votes than Democrats in the district. That was a presidential year where the Obama machine had a huge get-out-the-Democratic vote effort. Jolly allies think 2010 is a more comparable year, but if so Republicans should be even more worried by the early vote so far...In 2010 (the district lines were slightly but not significantly different), Republicans accounted for 46.4 percent of the nearly 112,000 absentee votes cast and Democrats 35.4 percent." Note: According to statistics published by Florida's Department of State, 37.5 percent of the District's 468,704 voters are registered as Republicans and 35.2 percent as Democrats. [Tampa Bay Times, Florida Dept. of State]

Background - Rep. Young’s passing in October set off a flurry of activity among the two parties to capture what the Cook Political report calls "an evenly split district": President Obama won the district by a single point in 2012, and since 2000, the presidential contests in the district have been decided by margins of 2 percentage points or less. The Democratic nominee is former Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink (D), who was also the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor. The GOP nominee is David Jolly (R), a former aide to Rep. Young. The Tampa Bay Times reported in early February that outside groups were spending more than $4 million "to support and trash" Sink and Jolly: "More than $2.6 million has been spent on television ads for Sink, including $1.9 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Jolly supporters have shelled out $1.6 million, including more than $700,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee. This outside spending far outstrips television buys by the candidates' own campaigns." [Tampa Bay Times; see also Cook Poltical, NYTimes, Politico]

Polling - Two surveys conducted in early February showed Sink leading. A Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/WUSF Public Media poll that used live interviewers to call landline and mobile phones from February 4 to 9 had Sink ahead of Jolly 42 to 35 percent, with 4 percent for Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby. An automated poll conducted by St. Leo University (that used an automated, recorded voice methodology to call landlines and an online internet panel to reach cell-only households) found Sink leading Jolly 46 to 37 percent, with 12 percent for Overby. [Tampa Bay Times, SaintLeo, Pollster compilation]

Handicapping - House race handicappers, who closely follow the campaigns, are a bit more guarded in their assessments of this race. Both the Cook and Rothenberg political reports continue to rate the race as a "toss-up." Sabato's Crystal Ball shifted its rating to "leans Democratic" in January, characterizing the race as "Sink's to lose." [Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato]

What will it mean for 2014? - Not much, argues Jon Bernstein: "Special elections simply don’t predict very much about the upcoming election cycle results. At least one [academic research] paper hints that takeovers by one party in multiple special elections mean something, but with only one election, we’re talking about a very, very, weak signal at best. [Bloomberg]

HuffPost's Stephen Calabria provided reporting

DID OBAMA'S GOTV EFFORTS DESERVE THEIR HYPE? - Aaron Strauss: "In the immediate aftermath of the 2012 presidential election, some academics were skeptical that the Obama campaign deserved so much post-election media hype….Here’s what I found: The Obama campaign was indeed more effective than the Romney campaign at turning out their supporters. This effect is clearest among those who were not highly likely voters to begin with — who are exactly the voters that a GOTV campaign would target…. Among those whose turnout probability was below the median likelihood, independents (whom neither campaign targeted) were actually slightly less likely to turn out in battleground states than non-battleground states. By contrast, Obama campaign’s mobilization tactics increased turnout among targeted Democrats by about 1.7 percentage points, relative to independents. The Romney campaign was also effective, but less so: their supporters were about 0.6 percentage points more likely to turn out than non-targeted independents….What does this mean for vote margins? To take the closest battleground state in 2012—Florida—I estimate that targeted GOTV efforts by Obama netted an additional 42,000 votes, while Romney’s efforts turned out an additional 7,000 votes, for a difference of 35,000 Obama votes. Those extra votes account for about half of Obama’s winning margin in Florida." [The Monkey Cage; see also Mindless Philosopher]

-Political scientist Alan Abramowitz has doubts: "Why I am skeptical of claim that Obama GOTV effort affected election results: my analysis shows no effect of turnout or swing state status...Controlling for Obama 2008 vote share, Obama did no better in higher turnout states or swing states in 2012." Replying to Strauss: "But this is a very small effect on a fairly small group that is hard to see in the overall election results." [@AlanIAbramowitz via Storify]

-Strauss responds: "disagree. Analysis is across all battl[eground] states. Effect is plenty big to make the diff in v close elections." [@aaron_strauss]

NYHAN: IGNORE THOSE POLLS - Political scientist Brendan Nyhan posts another in his regular reminders about early 2016 trial-heat poll questions: "In their book The Timeline of Presidential Elections, the political scientists Christopher Wlezien and Robert Erikson find that polls conducted even 300 days before an election have virtually no predictive power; their forecasting power comes later in a campaign...Just as a reminder: We are currently 990 days away from the 2016 election....As a general rule, candidates with high name recognition and favorable public profiles often appear formidable in these early polls, but campaigns serve to remind people of the state of the country and their partisan loyalties. As a result, candidate quality matters less than most journalists assume...and the economic fundamentals—which can’t be known at this early date—matter much more. And while trial heats may have some limited value as a snapshot of a candidate’s standing with the public, simple polling statistics like a politician’s favorable/unfavorable numbers are easier to interpret and comparable with a longer time series of historical data." [CJR]

HuffPollster adds: The early 2016 polls do come with a hidden benefit. They allow for two years' worth of articles about the lack of predictive power of early 2016 polls.

HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL! - You can receive this daily update every weekday via email! Just enter your email address in the box on the upper right corner of this page, and click "sign up." That's all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime).

FRIDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-PPP (D) finds Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) trailing his challengers. [PPP]

-Hillary Clinton maintains a positive image in the U.S. [Gallup]

-Fewer Americans than in almost two years say the U.S. economy is worsening. [Bloomberg]

-Brendan Nyhan reminds us, yet again, of the poor predictive value of early 2016 trial heat polls. [CJR]

-SurveyUSA polls the nation and nine states on the Keystone XL for NextGenClimate Action. [SurveyUSA]

-Investors bet Obamacare will remain remaining in force. [Businessweek via WonkWire]

-Some Republicans are bemoaning a talent gap between their party and the Democrats. [National Journal]

-Charlie Cook explains why money is a poor predictor of election outcomes. [National Journal]

-A Democratic-sponsored poll gives Jeanne Shaheen a lead over Scott Brown in New Hampshire. [WMUR]

-Frank Luntz (R) named "communications analyst" for Fox Sports 1. [Futon Critic]

-26 percent of Americans are fans of mixed martial arts fighting. [PublicMind]

White House Hails Ukraine Deal, Awaits Concrete Action

Shadee Ashtari — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:35:28 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Friday praised an agreement between Ukraine's president and the opposition to end violence and said it should be implemented immediately.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the deal was consistent with what Washington was advocating, but added that the U.S. will closely monitor whether there is concrete action to implement it. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed the agreement, which is aimed at ending the months-long standoff fueled by public anger that Ukraine was abandoning closer ties with Europe in favor of a deal with longtime ruler Russia.

The White House had been considering levying sanctions on officials in Ukraine who were responsible for stoking the violence, but Carney indicated that the U.S. would hold off while monitoring the implementation of Friday's accord.

"Our focus today is on working with our European partners as well as the government and the opposition in Ukraine to ensure the agreement's implementation," Carney said. "We are not ruling out sanctions to hold those responsible for the violence accountable, especially should there be further violence or violation of the agreement."

Friday's agreement restores a previous constitution that limits presidential powers. Ukraine's parliament also voted to give the protesters amnesty.

At the Pentagon, military officials were trying to arrange a phone call for later in the day between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Ukrainian counterpart. The Pentagon said Thursday that the ministry of defense in Kiev was not accepting Hagel's calls, but on Friday military officials received word through U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the NATO commander in Europe, that Ukrainian Minister of Defense Pavlo Lebedyev wanted to talk.

Steve Beshear: Alison Lundergan Grimes Better Off Without Obama

Paige Lavender — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:30:24 -0500

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) said Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), is better off without President Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

According to Politico, Beshear said former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be "very helpful" to Grimes in Kentucky, and said Vice President Joe Biden "has a pretty good standing with Kentuckians."

“[Residents] know [Biden] from some of his prior races as well as the work he’s done in the United States Senate," Beshear said. "I think that Vice President Biden would be a positive force.”

But when it was suggested that Obama may hurt Grimes' campaign, Beshear had to agree.

"That might be right," he said.

Former President Clinton will try to give Grimes a boost next week when he attends a Tuesday fundraiser for her campaign. The Hill reports Jonathan Hurst, Lundergan Grimes’ senior adviser, said he has made the race “a top priority."

Most Air Travelers Support Ban Of Cell Phone Calls On Planes

Gregory Fink — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:23:31 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — It looks like the government is more conflicted about cellphones on planes than most travelers. Even as one federal agency considers allowing the calls, another now wants to make sure that doesn't happen.

Passengers — particularly those who fly often — oppose allowing calls in flight, polls show. In line with that sentiment, the Department of Transportation signaled in a 22-page notice posted online Friday that it wants to retain a ban on the calls. But the notice comes just two months after the Federal Communications Commission voted to pursue lifting the ban. Transportation regulates aviation consumer issues. The FCC has responsibility over whether the use of cellphones in flight would interfere with cellular networks on the ground.

Congress is also getting into the act. Lawmakers are pushing legislation to require transportation regulators to implement a ban on the calls.

Echoing some travelers' concerns, the Transportation Department said in its notice on Friday that it believes allowing passengers to make cellphone calls "may be harmful or injurious" to other passengers.

This is because "people tend to talk louder on cellphones than when they're having face-to-face conversations," the department said. "They are also likely to talk more and further increase the noise on a flight, as passengers would not be simply talking to the persons sitting next to them but can call whomever they like."

Some planes already have seat-back phones in place, but they are rarely used, it said.

The "concern is not about individual calls, but rather the cumulative impact of allowing in-flight calls in close quarters," the department said.

In an Associated Press-GfK poll three months ago, 48 percent of those surveyed opposed letting cellphones be used for voice calls while planes are in flight, while 19 percent were in favor and 30 percent were neutral. Among those who'd flown four or more times in the previous year, the rate of opposition soared to 78 percent.

Delta Air Lines told the government last year that 64 percent of its passengers indicated that the ability to make phone calls in flight would have a negative impact on their onboard experience.

Among the most ardent opponents of lifting the current ban are flight attendants, who worry that phone conversation will spark arguments between passengers and even acts of violence.

"Allowing passengers to use cellphones during commercial flights will add unacceptable risks to aviation security, compromise a flight attendant's ability to maintain order in an emergency, increase cabin noise and tension among passengers and interfere with crewmembers in the performance of their duties as first responders in the cabin," said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents nearly 60,000 flight attendants at 19 carriers.

The current FCC ban was adopted in 1991 based on concern the calls planes might interfere with cellular networks on the ground, but technological advances have resolved those worries. In 2005, the FCC cleared the way for airlines to begin offering Wi-Fi in flight.

Last October, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates safety, dropped its ban on the use of personal electronic devices such as tablets, music players and smartphones to send email, to text or to surf the Internet during takeoffs and landings. The agency said it is no longer worried the devices will interfere with cockpit electronics. However, phone calls during takeoffs and landings are still prohibited.

____

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Marijuana May Prevent Blindness In Retinitis Pigmentosa Sufferers

Hunter Stuart — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:22:40 -0500

It's long been accepted that marijuana has direct benefits for glaucoma patients, but a new study suggests that pot may also prevent blindness for sufferers of another disease.

That disease is retinitis pigmentosis, a degenerative condition that destroys the millions of microscopic light sensors (known as photoreceptors) in the human eye and has no known cure. Researchers at the University of Alicante in Spain may have stumbled on an effective therapy with marijuana, which they say might be able to significantly slow down the destruction of those light sensors.

To conduct their study, the scientists gave a synthetic cannabinoid to a group of rats over a period of 90 days and found that these rats had a whopping 40 percent more photoreceptors left in their eyes than untreated rats did. Rats that were given the drug also experienced "improved connectivity between photoreceptors and their postsynaptic neurons," which receive and process light signals.

"These data suggest that cannabinoids [the active chemicals in marijuana] are potentially useful to delay the retinal degeneration in retinitis pigmentosa patients," the study notes.

This was the first time marijuana had been studied as a therapy for the disease.

But it may be too early to break out the celebratory spliffs. Researchers note in the study that they were not able to identify the exact mechanisms by which cannabinoids delay vision loss in retinitis pigmentosis patients, and they stress that more research is needed to form definitive conclusions.

The study was published earlier this month in the journal Experimental Eye Research.

Justice Department Revises Its Media Records Rules

AP — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 17:12:52 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced Friday it is revising its rules for obtaining records from the news media in leak investigations, promising that in most instances the government will notify news organizations beforehand of its intention to do so.

The revised procedures are designed to give news organizations an opportunity to challenge any subpoenas or search warrants in federal court.

News organizations are to be informed of an impending document demand unless the attorney general determines that notice would pose "a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave harm to national security or present an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm," the new rule says.

The rule emphasizes that members of the Justice Department may apply for a search warrant to obtain a journalist's materials only when that person is a focus of a criminal probe for conduct outside the scope of ordinary newsgathering.

The regulation follows disclosures that the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed almost two months' worth of telephone records for 21 phone lines used by reporters and editors for The Associated Press. Separately, the department secretly used a search warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist.

The episodes, which involved leaks of classified material, prompted widespread criticism from lawmakers, the news media and civil liberties groups. President Barack Obama ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to review the Justice Department's policy for obtaining such material.

The department said its changes are designed to safeguard the essential role of the free press in fostering government accountability and an open society, while protecting national security and law enforcement.

The revisions also ensure more robust oversight of the process by senior department officials and extend policies to cover the use of subpoenas, court orders and search warrants, it added.

AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said that the news organization is still reviewing the new regulations but that the Justice Department appears to be following through on what Holder promised in July.

"These new regulations should provide significantly greater protection for journalists," Pruitt said. "This is important as the regulations, more so than the courts, traditionally have provided the bulwark of protection for journalists from the reach of federal prosecutors. We are hopeful that these regulations will be enforced as intended and that Congress will pass a federal shield law to further protect journalists."

Jane Kirtley, a University of Minnesota professor of media ethics and the law who speaks often on First Amendment issues, said she was troubled that there remain instances under the new rules in which the government might not notify news organizations of plans to obtain records, such as when the government believes notice would threaten national security.

"It seems that in times of crisis, there's a tendency to see everything as a major national security breach," she said. "Obviously the intelligence community is always going to represent security breaches as a big deal. My question is, are they all created equal? Do they all rise to the level of severity to justify what I see as an intrusion into press independence?"

The rule says that the attorney general may authorize subpoenas to members of the news media when the director of national intelligence certifies the significance of harm from a leak of classified information.

The current DNI, James Clapper, has weighed in strongly against the media in the Edward Snowden controversy, repeatedly referring to reporters who received stolen documents from Snowden as "accomplices."

The Justice Department issued an unofficial version of the rule on Friday. The official version will be published in the Federal Register, probably next week.

In the AP story that triggered one of the leak probes, the news organization reported that U.S. intelligence had learned that al-Qaida's Yemen branch hoped to launch a spectacular attack using a new, nearly undetectable bomb aboard a U.S.-bound airliner around the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death.

In the Fox News story, reporter James Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials had warned Obama and senior U.S. officials that North Korea would respond to a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning nuclear tests with another nuclear test. Fox attributed the story to sources inside North Korea.

In the leak probe of the AP story, a former FBI explosives expert later pleaded guilty to possessing and disclosing classified information. The investigation of the Fox story resulted in a State Department expert on North Korea pleading guilty to passing classified information to a journalist.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.