Open for Discussion - Friday News Dump

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CIA director David Petraeus has resigned from his post, admitting he had an extra-marital affair.

In a statement, Mr Petraeus said he had submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama, and that he had shown "extremely poor judgement".

He described his behaviour as "unacceptable" for the leader of the nation's main intelligence agency.

 

CIA director David Petraeus resigns over affair

 

President Barack Obama would not sign legislation that extends the current lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, the White House said on Friday.

Obama would veto extension of tax cuts for top earners

 

Despite lingering concerns over voter intimidation, the Supreme Court has decided it will review the Voting Rights Act, The Associated Press tweeted Friday afternoon.

The Supreme Court Is Going To Review A Major Part Of The Voting Rights Act

 

And those are just a few of the news items reported today.  What have you heard?

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CEO throws tantrum

Glinda's picture

Citing what he perceives as an Obama administration “war on coal,” an Ohio coal mining executive and prominent Republican donor responded to the results of the presidential election by laying off more than 150 workers.

Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Co., the largest privately held coal company in America, blamed the layoffs on President Obama --  and, by extension, the voters who elected him -- in a memo to employees.

 

Coal executive explains layoffs with prayer lamenting Romney loss

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Benghazi?

Glinda's picture

Feinstein said she respects Obama’s decision to accept the Petraeus resignation, but wishes he hadn’t.

She also said Petraeus will not need to testify at hearings she is chairing next week into the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack.

CIA Director David Petraeus resigns, cites extramarital affair

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That's Wonkette's take on it.

Mehitabel's picture

Biographer Lady Revealed to be Petraeus Mistress, Linchpin of Behngazi Cover-Up Probably

 

Everybody’s all scandalized over theresignation of CIA director and retired Army General David Petraeus, who rather conveniently had to resign because of an affair one week before he had to testify about Benghazi, just sayin’, we should probably impeach the president.

 

But! Slate has uncovered the alleged Other Woman, which lends it a bit more credibility? She is not an Elizabeth Warren aide, as our friends keep yelling at us, but is, as Fred Kaplan writes pretty definitively, Paula Broadwell, who wrote this year’s (rather … friendly) biography of Petraeus. Turns out the thing should have had a picture of Fabio on the cover.

 

The timetable of the affair is still unclear — Broadwell was in Afghanistan with him a few years ago, doing “research” for her dirty book, which would be, like, whoa. But it is also possible that he found out yesterday that he was scheduled to testify about Libya and ran out his front door frantically looking to get himself into an affair, immediately, last night.

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Kerry for Secretary of State? NO, says Harry Reid.

Glinda's picture

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has told the White House that he will be “furious” if he loses Kerry from the Senate, to leave the Massachusetts Democratic Senate seat facing Republican Scott Brown with millions of dollars in the bank left over from his unsuccessful Senate race against Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

Hey, Harry, how does it feel when you want something not to happen that may very well happen?

LIke when Jan Brewer was elevated after Obama picked Napolitano?
 

Could Reid keep Kerry from becoming secretary of state

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Ah, so it was the "biographer."

Glinda's picture

Like anyone really cares.
 

The woman with whom Gen. David Petraeus was having an affair is Paula Broadwell, the author of a recent hagiographic book about him, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. [...]

Sources tell me that President Obama, who has been getting along with Petraeus very well in the past couple years, agonized for 24 hours over the letter of resignation before accepting it. The move no doubt ends the career of the most famous, and perhaps most strategically astute, American military commander in decades.

Petraeus Resigns Over Affair With Biographer

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Oh, my, the prez took 24 hours to consider the

Glinda's picture

resignation.  Ummm.  I'm thinking his advisors should have told him to wait at least a week to make the decision, as Barack just won an election three days ago and is still riding high on the win.  But ruh-roh, the topic has changed to Betraeus.  That's just bad staff work.

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Sssshhhh on drones

Glinda's picture

It seemed like a simple enough idea for an iPhone app: Send users a pop-up notice whenever a flying robots kills someone in one of America’s many undeclared wars. But Apple keeps blocking the Drones+ program from its App Store — and therefore, from iPhones everywhere. The Cupertino company says the content is “objectionable and crude,” according to Apple’s latest rejection letter.
 

It’s the third time in a month that Apple has turned Drones+ away, says Josh Begley, the program’s New York-based developer. The company’s reasons for keeping the program out of the App Store keep shifting. First, Apple called the bare-bones application that aggregates news of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia “not useful.” Then there was an issue with hiding a corporate logo. And now, there’s this crude content problem.
 

Begley is confused. Drones+ doesn’t present grisly images of corpses left in the aftermath of the strikes. It just tells users when a strike has occurred, going off a publicly available database of strikes compiled by the U.K.’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which compiles media accounts of the strikes.

Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

h/t Aigeanta

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Took the words right outta my mouth

geomoo's picture

It would be fun to apply the "usefulness" standard along the full array of iphone apps.  I would accept a generous definition of the term "useful" and still expect a significant percentage would fail to pass the mark.  Of course, no one has ever analyzed the other apps for usefulness, because NO ONE EVER GAVE A SHIT BEFORE.  Sorry, for the yelling.

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