The Hollywood Liberal

Israelis Gather on Hilltops to Watch Gaza Bombing
Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian: As the sun begins to sink over the Mediterranean, groups of Israelis gather each evening on hilltops close to the Gaza border to cheer, whoop and whistle as bombs rain down on people in a hellish warzone a few miles away. Despite reports that millions of Israelis are living in terror of Hamas rockets, they don’t deter these hilltop war watchers whose proximity to Gaza puts them within range of the most rudimentary missiles. Some bring their children.

Issa Can’t Prosecute Lerner Because of Reagan
Although legal experts warned at the time that little would come of Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) attempt to prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress, Republicans on Issa’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee were infuriated to learn Thursday that a key obstacle is a Reagan administration legal opinion. The conservative lawyer Theodore Olson, while serving in Reagan’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1984, wrote that Congress cannot force a prosecutor to take a contempt of Congress accusation to a grand jury. The prosecutor has discretion not to pursue the charge. “We believe Congress may not direct the executive to prosecute a particular individual without leaving any discretion to the executive to determine whether a violation of the law has occurred,” Olson wrote

Saudi stock market to allow foreign investment
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet has approved opening the country’s stock market to foreign investors next year.

What U.S. intelligence knows about Flight 17 shoot-down
Senior intelligence officials say pictures posted on social media, phone calls point to pro-Russian rebels, but it’s not an airtight case

White House: Court’s ruling on Obamacare subsidies has “no practical impact” on consumers
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says the ruling by a federal three-judge panel that the government cannot dole out subsidies to consumers on federally-run Obamacare marketplaces ignores the obvious intent of Congress to make subsidies available nationwide.

Court blows a hole through Obamacare subsidy system
District court ruling, if upheld, could make Obamacare too costly for many customers

STUDY: PBS NewsHour Airs Four Times More Climate Coverage Than ABC World News

A Media Matters study found that most network nightly news programs this year are on track to offer no more coverage of global warming than they did in 2013. However, PBS NewsHour remains a notable exception, covering climate change more than any other network and interviewing the largest number of scientists on the topic.

During the first six months of 2014, PBS NewsHour produced more news that featured climate change than any other major network evening broadcast, continuing a trend that Media Matters identified in both 2012 and 2013. The program aired 28 stories that at least mentioned global warming, nearly as much as all coverage combined from ABC World News, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News during the same period, and four times the amount of coverage from ABC World News alone. Among all major nightly news programs, ABC by far offered its viewers the least coverage that gave any substantial mention of global warming, with only seven stories. While it is worth noting that NewsHour is an hour-long broadcast compared to the half hour broadcasts on the other networks, it nonetheless offered more than double the number of stories offered by its closest network news competitor, CBS Evening News. 

ABC World News‘ lack of climate coverage so far this year correlates with its 2013 coverage when the program aired the fewest stories among all network nightly news shows, a flip in coverage from 2012 when the network was second only to PBS in such coverage.

Of the 28 stories that PBS NewsHour aired, 16 were segments focused on global warming. PBS NewsHour‘s coverage offered analysis of significant policy developments and major international reports, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon pollution standards and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report that found climate change already has taken a toll on the planet and warned that food security and economic growth would be undermined if carbon pollution is not drastically cut. The program also connected unusual events, such as diseased starfish in the Pacific Northwest and coastal flooding on Alaska’s North Slope, to the broader climate context.

More scientists were interviewed about climate change on PBS NewsHour than on any other network nightly news broadcast. During the first six months of the year, the NewsHour featured 14 scientists in its reports on global warming, nearly as many as the combined total of 16 scientists who appeared on all nightly news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC. For an issue firmly based in scientific research and evidence, PBS NewsHour relied heavily on scientists, only turning to six media figures and six politicians during the first half of 2014. 

Methodology

This report analyzes news coverage of “climate change” and “global warming” that aired on PBS NewsHour, ABC World News, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News between January 1, 2014, and June 30, 2014. Our analysis includes any segment devoted to climate change, as well as any substantial mention (more than one paragraph of a news transcript and/or or a definitive statement about climate change). Transcripts from Nexis and Media Matters‘ internal video archives, as well as the Internet Archive online database, were used to collect these stories.

The Day of the Hawk
Pat Buchanan, RealClearPolitics
The bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie was premeditated mass murder. Gadhafi was taking revenge for Reagan’s raid on Tripoli in 1986. The downing of KAL 007, flying from Anchorage to Seoul, was mass murder in the second degree. Seeing an aircraft intrude into Russian air space, Soviet officers brutally ordered it shot down. The downing of the Malaysian airliner that took the lives of 298 men, women and children was not deliberate terrorism. No one wanted to massacre those women and children. It was a horrendous military blunder, like the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus by the…

Obama Touts Job Training Law as 21st Century Tool
Michael Cipriano, RealClearPolitics
President Obama signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act into law on Tuesday, saying it will expand economic opportunities for middle-class workers. The law, which aims to ensure that workers have access to the training and skills they need for jobs in demand today, was written in response to a Georgetown University study that projected 11 million workers will lack the necessary postsecondary education or skills training for the 21st century job market. “Even as we are creating new jobs in this new economy, we have to make sure that every American has the skills to fill those…

Remploy services to be privatised
Remploy, which once ran factories employing disabled people, is to be privatised, the government announces.

Lib Dem MP criticised for Gaza tweet
Lib Dem MP David Ward is accused of making “vile comments” on social media about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Blast, a Fire and an Israeli Soldier Goes Missing
Israeli officials said they were uncertain whether the soldier had been captured by Palestinian forces in Gaza or killed in combat.

Memo From Guadalajara: Promises of Hope Tarnished by Lack of Change
Even as the president garners international praise for pushing through reforms in energy, education and taxes, voters are less willing to embrace platitudes without true transparency.

World Briefing: U.N. Warns of Polio Risk in War Zones
The United Nations expressed concern about the possible spread of polio in the war-ravaged countries of Syria and Iraq and beyond on Tuesday.

Sinosphere Blog: Film Has Crowds Swarming to Beijing House, Haunted or Not
Chaonei No. 81, arguably Beijing’s most celebrated “haunted house,” had already seen a steady stream of visitors over the years.

World Briefing: Turkey: Officers Arrested in Spy Case
Dozens of Turkish police officers were detained on Tuesday and accused of spying on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his top aides.

Russian and American News Media Give ‘Mirror Image’ Accounts of MH17 Crash
From: Nation in the News

In Russia and in the US, the media play the blame game. 

The Downing of Flight 17 Should Trigger Talks, Not More Violence
From: Katrina vanden Heuvel

The deaths of the MH17 civilians ought to be the occasion for a cease-fire and a renewal of talks.

We’re Arresting Poor Mothers for Our Own Failures
From: Bryce Covert

Mothers like Shanesha Taylor and Debra Harrell are caught in a childcare Catch-22 that we made for them.