Obama Cancels Summit With Putin

President Obama has canceled a trip to Moscow that had been scheduled for next month, where he would have met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Reasons for the cancellation include "a lack of progress in bilateral relations" since Putin retook the presidency, recently-passed laws against certain behavior by gays, and the Russian government's decision to grant temporary asylum to accused leaker Edward Snowden.

Read more at CNN, The Hill, NBC News, Reuters, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post.

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Monday Links

Some things going on out there:

From the Sporting News, Major League Baseball hands out 50-games suspensions to 12 players, and a much longer one to Alex Rodriguez.

From the Washington Post, a 15 million-year-old whale skull has been found on the banks of the Potomac, near the birthplace of Robert E. Lee.

Speaking of the Washington Post, it will soon be sold to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com.

From Bare Naked Islam, Egypt has banned Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan from entering Gaza.  (via Barracuda Brigade)

From Frontpage Mag, the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir admits their belief that Sharia law is imposed on Christians.

From the Washington Free Beacon, the new Iranian president Hassan Rowhani has appointed a holocaust denier as his country's foreign minister.  This, of course, makes his no worse than Rowhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  (via Pat Dollard)

From the Daily Caller, a conservative group has given their support to the Justice Safety Valve Act.

The American Thinker presents "The Dependably Unfaithful Colin Powell".

From Fox News, the U.S. military is spending $772 million on aircraft for Afghanistan, for which the Afghan military does not have the capacity "to operate or maintain".

From Reuters, a unit of the Drug Enforcement Agency is funneling information to authorities across the United States to help them start criminal investigations.

From the New York Post, the new owner of the Drake's Cakes brands has announced that Coffee Cakes, Devil Dogs, Ring Dings and Yodels will return next month.

And to finish with some humor, my blogosphere buddy Holger Awakens presents the Dem's poster boy.

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Brawley Starts Paying For Her Hoax

Tawana Brawley, who in 1987 falsely accused several white men of abduction and rape, has finally started to make payments to Steven Pagones, who sued her for defamation after being one of the men falsely accused.  At the time, Pagones was a prosecutor in Dutchess County.  He also sued her spokesmen, including a then-relatively-unknown Al Sharpton, winning the suit in 1998.  While various benefactors helped the other defendants pay their settlements, Brawley has evaded paying any damages until now, except for 10 checks totaling $3,764.61.  She has moved during the intervening years, most recently to Richmond, Virginia where she works as nurse.

The New York Post has the story.  Most of the sites that I can find which mention this development either link or refer back to them.  However, the American Thinker notes that Brawley will have her wages garnished, and suggests placing a copy of the first garnished check in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian, near Trayvon Martin's hoodie.

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Postal Service Photographing All U.S. Mail

The U.S. Postal service has confirmed that is photographs every letter and package mailed within the United States.  While the images are used mainly to sort mail, and are not kept in any single database, according to Postmaster Patrick R. Donahoe, they have been "used a couple of times" by law enforcement.  The program is called the Mail Isolation and Tracking system, and was created after the anthrax attack in late 2001, which resulted in the deaths of five people, including two postal workers.

Read the full story at the New York Times.

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Weiner Gets Pranked

"INTERNS WANTED" says the bogus flyer for the campaign of mayoral candidate and former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY).  In order to qualify, the flyer continues, you must not be a cop, a snitch or a "slutbag", the insult hurled at a former intern after she left.

Read the story at the New York Post.

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Cleveland Kidnapper Gets Very Long Sentence

Ariel Castro, who kidnapped three women from 2002 to 2004 and held them captive in his house until this past May, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 1000 years, after pleading guilty to 937 counts including abduction, rape and murder in a deal to avoid the death penalty.  With a sentence that long, he'd better hope that the religions which believe in reincarnation are wrong.

Read more at CNN, the Chicago Tribune, ABC News, Fox News and People(dot)com.

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Snowden Gets Asylum In Russia - For A Year

Edward Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted for revealing details about NSA surveillance programs, has been granted temporary asylum by the Russian government, allowing him to stay in Russia for up to a year.  Although his specific whereabouts are unclear, Snowden as left Sheremetchevo Airport, where he had been staying for about five weeks.  He has been given a "passport-like document" indicating his status as a "temporary refugee".  Snowden has not applied for permanent asylum in Russia, and is expected by some supporters to seek it elsewhere.

Read more at the New York Times, USA Today, CBS News, NBC News and CNN.

This new development begs two questions.  For a certain former Senator and Secretary of State, how's that reset button working out?  For the president, are you and your Russian counterpart enjoying that new flexibility?

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