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David Letterman Affairs: Had Relationships With Employees, Targeted By Extortionist Top
LOS ANGELES — David Letterman acknowledged on Thursday's show that he had sexual relationships with female employees and that someone tried to extort him over the affairs. During the taping of his CBS late-night show in New York, Letterman discussed receiving a threat to either pay $2 million or risk the relationships being made public. In a release from the show's producer, Letterman said he referred the matter to the Manhattan district attorney's office and that an investigation ended in an arrest Thursday. Letterman did not identify the person he said was arrested. As part of the investigation, Letterman said he issued a "phony" $2 million check to the individual and the arrest followed – along with testimony by Letterman. "This morning, I did something I've never done in my life," said Letterman. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury." In his testimony, he said he acknowledged sexual relationships with members of his staff. "My response to that is, yes I have," Letterman said. "Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family." CBS spokesman Chris Ender said Thursday that "Letterman's comments on the broadcast tonight speak for themselves." Letterman and longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko married in March. The couple began dating in 1986 and have a son, Harry, born in November 2003. ___ On the Net: http://www.cbs.com More on David Letterman
 
Frank Dwyer: Political Haiku: Progressives Demand Protection for Rogue Diplomat DeMint after Mission to Honduras Top
When you put him in the airport squad car, please don't bump his empty head. More on Honduras
 
Sam Gustin: Nike Denies It Has Re-Signed Michael Vick, One Day After Vick's Announcement Top
Nike has sacked Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Michael Vick, contradicting the player's agent who said on Wednesday that the shoe giant had re-signed him. "Nike does not have a contractual relationship with Michael Vick," Nike said in a statement issued Thursday. Vick was released from prison in May after serving time for killing dogs for sport and profit. It's understandable that Nike would be wary of resuming business with a man convicted of running an illegal dog-fighting operation that horrified the nation. Yet on Wednesday, Mike Principe, managing director of Vick's agency, BEST, apparently believing that Nike had re-signed his client, announced as much at an event hosted by SportsBusiness Journal. Without disclosing details of an arrangement, Vick's agent, Joel Segal, said, "Mike has had a great relationship with Nike and is excited to be part of the Nike team again." But on Thursday, Nike denied that it had re-signed Vick but said it had agreed to supply "product" to him "as we do a number of athletes who are not under contract with Nike." Sponsors have been been assessing whether to hitch their wagons to Vick, who served as the ringleader of Bad Newz Kennels, a Virginia compound where 70 dogs, mostly pit bull terriers showing signs of abuse, were seized. Vick had funded and organized dogfighting games where attendees abused drugs and bet on the animals. Several dogs were killed; others were maimed. Nike and Vick had had an endorsement contract when he played for the Atlanta Falcons and thrilled NFL fans with his dynamic play. But the marketer dropped Vick after his guilty plea. Get to this story's End Zone on DailyFinance.com
 
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Michael Moore & Me Top
This week's Senator Sanders Unfiltered features a question from filmmaker Michael Moore. Submit your own video question for next week's show here . "Unfiltered" is produced by Brave New Films . Stay up-to-date with "Unfiltered" on Facebook . Follow Bernie on Twitter . Capitalism does a number of things very well: it helps create an entrepreneurial spirit, it gets people motivated to come up with new ideas and that's a good thing. But on the other hand, especially since the Reagan era, what we have seen in this country is an unfettered type of cowboy capitalism, and the result of that has been, that the people on top have made out like bandits and many of them are bandits. Today in America we have a situation that is quickly moving out of control. Stay up to date with the goings on in the Senate by signing up for the Bernie Buzz newsletter and joining his Facebook page today. Take our most recent web poll here strong> More on Capitalism: A Love Story
 
Sam Gustin: Hollywood, Recording Industry Beg Obama to Help Save Them From Pirates Top
Faced with the global menace of digital piracy, some of the largest entertainment companies in the world have banded together to beg the Obama administration to help their industries, which they claim are under assault by digital brigands. Among them are AT&T (T), CBS Corporation, Microsoft (MSFT), News Corp. (NWS), NBC Universal, Disney (DIS), NASCAR, the NFL and the NBA. "Hear us as we speak with one voice about the importance of creators' rights," the entertainment giants wrote in a melodramatic letter to President Obama published yesterday. "We are the essence of America. Since the founding of our country, our work has provided light in the darkness of conflict, humor in the depths of sadness, beauty in the face of ugliness, and reason in the dysfunction of division." In its letter to the President, the Copyright Alliance, as it calls itself, claims it was speaking on behalf of its "grassroots network of creators." The group says it represents artists whose "work brings significant cultural and economic value to our society - and contributes $1.52 trillion to the nation's GDP." But the letter goes on to say: "Yet that value is being disregarded as our rights and incentives to create are increasingly under threat," in a reference to the revenue supposedly lost due to illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. The Copyright Alliance is basically a coalition of entertainment companies, trade groups and others who advocate for a broad range of policies, including "effective civil and criminal enforcement of copyright laws domestically and internationally." Among its board members are Viacom (VIA), NBC Universal, the Motion Picture Association of America, and Time Warner (TWX), (which is the parent company of AOL, publisher of DailyFinance.) The letter comes on the heels of the White House's announcement of Victoria Espinel as Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, or IP czar, to help strengthen U.S. efforts to stop the sale of pirated or counterfeited music, movies, software and other goods. The new IP Czar post was created when then-President Bush signed the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act" -- or PRO-IP Act -- last October, handing a victory to Hollywood, the recording industry, and the major media companies, which had lobbied hard for its passage. Find the treasure buried at the end of this story at DailyFinance.com
 
Celebs Promote "Touch A Tit, Save A Tit": The Booby Scare (VIDEO) Top
Talented ladies Alyson Hannigan, Emily Deschanel, Kat McPhee, Minka Kelly and Jaime King are kicking off Breast Cancer Awareness Month with a comedic viral campaign titled " Save a Tit " to promote breast cancer prevention and early detection. Written and produced by Jaime King and Taryn Southern, the first installment in the celeb-fueled six video series is a slumber party scene titled "The Booby Scare." The comedic shorts are aimed at educating young women, many of whom don't stop to check themselves regularly. Panic ensues when Emily Deschanel finds a lump. The edgy and playful campaign is sponsored by Her Energy , maker of pink-lemonade energy drinks, which is donates a potion of all sales to charities such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. WATCH : THE BOOBY SCARE Featuring Alyson Hannigan, Emily Deschanel, Kat McPhee, Minka Kelly and Jaime King - watch more funny videos
 
John Ensign's Ex-Mistress, Husband Sought $8.5 Million Settlement Over Affair Top
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Ensign's former mistress and her husband sought an $8.5 million settlement from the Nevada Republican before the affair became public, The New York Times reported Thursday. Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a friend of Ensign, acted as an intermediary in negotiations last spring with the lawyer for Cynthia and Doug Hampton before Ensign publicly admitted the relationship with Mrs. Hampton, the Times said. According to the newspaper, Coburn rejected as "ridiculous" the $8.5 million figure suggested by the Hamptons' attorney, Daniel J. Albregts. The amount was to cover the purchase of the couple's home in Nevada, lost wages and pain and suffering. The Times said that the Hamptons' lawyer came back with a $2 million figure, which Coburn passed on to the senator, who flatly rejected it. Both Hamptons worked for Ensign while the affair was taking place; Doug Hampton as the senator's administrative assistant and Cynthia Hampton as treasurer for two Ensign-controlled campaign committees. Early last year, Coburn warned Ensign that if the affair did not end, Coburn would "go to Mitch," referring to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and tell him about the relationship. The Times story raised questions about whether Doug Hampton lobbied Ensign and whether the senator facilitated the arrangement. Federal criminal law imposes a one-year ban on former congressional aides lobbying their ex-bosses or office colleagues. After leaving his job working for Ensign, Hampton, in coordination with the senator and his staff, played a significant role in pushing the Washington agendas of NV Energy, the largest power company in Nevada, and Allegiant Air, a Las Vegas-based discount airline, the newspaper reported. The Times said that after Doug Hampton discovered the affair, Ensign played a role in helping Hampton get work representing NV Energy and Allegiant Air. Ensign has a long record of assisting Allegiant and NV Energy. According to the newspaper, Hampton spent the summer of 2008 strategizing on NV Energy with the senator's chief of staff, John Lopez, about how Ensign could intervene with the Interior Department to get an environmental assessment completed on a proposed NV Energy coal plant. Following requests from Hampton, said the newspaper, Ensign called the secretary of transportation last year on behalf of Allegiant Air. Ensign also arranged for Hampton and his clients to meet the new transportation secretary in a successful effort to resolve a dispute with a competitor, the Times said. On Thursday, Ensign's office responded to the Times story with an e-mail noting that it had previously been publicized that the senator helped Hampton get two jobs. Ensign's office did not reply to further questions. Coburn's spokesman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
 
Iran Agrees To Send Enriched Uranium To Russia Top
Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium to Russia to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said. More on Nuclear Weapons
 
Tony Blair Set To Become Europe's First President: Report Top
Tony Blair is in line to be proclaimed Europe's first president within weeks if the Irish vote "yes" in today's referendum. More on Europe
 
Newt Gingrich Makes "World's Best Persons" For Revoking Business Award He Gave To Strip Club (VIDEO) Top
Keith Olbermann named Newt Gingrich "World's Best Person" for revoking two of his Business Defense and Advisory Council Entrepreneur Awards after he discovered that one went a strip club and the other to a porn DVD superstore. The owner of the strip club, Dawn Rizos, was looking forward to the awards dinner: "I honestly thought that Mr. Gingrich wanted to honor our company because it's very successful," Rizos said. "Really, what's two more people to dinner? How rude!" WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Video
 
Josh Young: "If News is That Important, It Will Find Me." Top
There's one really powerful idea shaping the future of news. It's powerful, sure, and has wide-ranging implications for how citizens inform themselves about the world around them. Powerful and yet perfectly simple. "If news is that important, it will find me." The reporter responsible for surfacing this gem is Brian Stelter, whom we've written about before at the Huffington Post. While in college, he wrote the hit blog TVNewser before the New York Times hired him as a media reporter. Stelter deserves credit for picking up on the unassuming thought -- shared by a researcher conducting a focus group that included one surprisingly wise college student. But how could it be that news will find us? Isn't that just lazy -- the stuff an MTV-obsessed college student might say? Doesn't it take a supremely self-important culture of distraction and abbreviation to wish away civic responsibilities in favor of solipsistic consumption? I mean, how presumptuous?! It takes work to read the newspaper, doesn't it? Logging on and visiting websites works basically the same way. You have to seek out information around you. The newspaper or its website has the information. So you have to go to the information, asking to be informed. That is the news. But one important fact about the news media landscape is different. It's a game-changer, as they say. One account ( PDF ) of professor W. Russell Neuman shows just how much media there is in the world. Not all of it's news, of course. We don't know how much exactly, but we do know that there's more. And there's way more media in general. On top of that, it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between news media or pure entertainment (hello Jon Stewart!). From 1960 to 2005, the amount of media at our disposal skyrocketed. Even if we take into consideration the fact--maybe good, maybe bad, but certainly true--that Americans consumed almost twice as much media in 2005 as they did in 1960, the amount of media is astonishing. In 1960, if someone had a minute of attention to give to consuming media, there were 98 one-minute alternatives available. In other words, as Neuman and his co-authors Yong Jin Park and Elliot Panek write, "the ratio of supply to demand in 1960...is 98." And "that represents the fundamental metric of choice." Thus, "It is a human scale choice." But the present-day environment is different -- like night and day. Now, "there are over 20,000 minutes of mediated content available for every minute to be consumed." In fact, "the ratio is 20,943." Of course, "that is not a human-scale cognitive challenge." And so, the authors write, "humans will inevitably turn to the increasingly intelligent digital technologies that created the abundance in the first place for help in sorting it out." That is the challenge for a new generation of media consumers. We cannot sift through mountains of media options the same way we remembered which radio station tends to play our favorite tunes or which television broadcast on which channel. In fact, we are going to have to rely on one another to discover, filter, and share -- with ingenious technologies helping us out. But the news doesn't have to come to us only through our friends and family -- or anyone in particular. It will take all kinds of routes to us -- through one social network, onto to another, and into a blog we read for reasons totally unrelated to the news. Children of recent decades know this deep down. Most of them do, anyhow. It's natural, now, that news and information follows a roundabout path, circling and swooping around us, in constant motion. Everywhere's a watercooler. We feel this. Not only us youngsters, of course, but we have our own set of experiences, unique to us because this is all we've ever known. That's why it took a college student in a focus group and a young reporter to bring it to a newspaper. And that's why it's a shame that the Newseum isn't opening itself up to these simple insights from digital natives.
 
Ditka Endorses Hughes Over Kirk In Senate Race Top
Da Coach isn't backing the favorite. Former Bears coach Mike Ditka, a longtime conservative who stumped with Sara Palin during the 2008 presidential election, has endorsed little-known developer Patrick Hughes over GOP frontrunner Mark Kirk in the race for the U.S. Senate. "I pledge all my support to Patrick Hughes and I will help him in any way I can," Ditka said in a statement released Thursday by the Hughes campaign. "Patrick Hughes stands for the same mainstream values that Mike Ditka stands for. Patrick Hughes knows who he is and what he believes. He knows that Washington is not the answer to all of our problems today." Ditka's endorsement is a clear snub of U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, the favorite for the Republican nomination. The North Shore Congressman has come under fire from the right for not being conservative enough. More on Senate Races
 
"Psycho Talk": Schultz Slams Limbaugh For Calling Liberals 'Deranged Lunatics Obsessed With Death' (VIDEO) Top
MSNBC's Ed Schultz frequently chooses conservative radio host Rush Limabugh as the target of his "Psycho Talk" and this time Limbaugh made it for dismissing the new study showing that tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year due to a lack of health insurance. Schultz also criticized Limabugh for ranting that liberals are "deranged lunatics" who are "obsessed with death." WATCH: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Video
 
Antonio Villaraigosa: Clean Trucks: One Year Later Top
As Congress and world leaders continue to grapple with solutions to address climate change, cities across the United States are endeavoring to find workable solutions to address their specific air pollution challenges. Los Angeles has long been a leader in this area, and today marks the first anniversary of the launch of one of the most successful emissions reductions programs in our country's history - the Port of Los Angeles' Clean Truck Program. Partnering local government with businesses, we launched the Clean Truck Program to replace all of the 16,800 trucks entering the Los Angeles port each year with "clean trucks" -- trucks that either meet the Environmental Protection Agency's most recent clean emissions standards or run on alternative fuel. We instituted a Day-One ban on all pre-1989 trucks and infused $44 million in incentive funding into our local port trucking sector to bring thousands of EPA-compliant trucks to our port. These incentives have helped generate over $500 million in private investment in almost 2,500 clean trucks, which account for nearly half of an emerging fleet of more than 5,500 clean trucks currently serving our two local ports. Our program has been so successful in accelerating the replacement of old, diesel-powered trucks that in May our Harbor Commission approved $23 million in additional incentives for companies purchasing alternative-fueled trucks, specifically, natural gas (LNG and CNG) and a new category of electric-powered, zero-tailpipe emissions big rigs. This type of cooperation required the support of a broad group of stakeholders ranging from the motor carriers and cargo owners who invested in clean fleets, to the environmental, labor and faith-based communities who shared the common goal of finding a workable solution to air pollution. In other words, all parties involved wanted to find a way to effectively address truck pollution while keeping the cargo moving across our docks. No seaport had ever attempted such an ambitious program with such an audacious goal of replacing an entire drayage fleet with a clean fleet within five years. With the Clean Truck Program, not only have we achieved most of this fleet replacement within one year, but we have created a system to monitor and ensure truck ownership accountability for thousands of big rigs that move the goods through the Port of Los Angeles. Today, approximately 66 percent of the trucks that haul cargo containers in and out of our cargo terminals are model-year 2007 or newer. This dramatic fleet turnover has delivered an estimated 70 percent reduction for a program that set its target as an 80 percent emissions reduction by 2012. This emissions reduction is equivalent to removing 200,000 automobiles from our freeways in just 10 months time. Just as importantly, we've shown that taking dramatic action to curb carbon emissions can be good for economic growth. While new truck sales are down 60 percent nationwide, business at truck dealers near the Port of Los Angeles is up by one-third versus last year thanks to the Clean Truck Program. By any standard, this is a truly remarkable accomplishment. The emissions reductions made possible by the CTP are also helping the San Pedro Bay Ports move forward on massive "green growth" cargo terminal modernization projects that were paralyzed the first half of this decade due to air quality concerns and related legal threats. As a result, thousands of construction jobs are being generated at a time when our regional economy badly needs them. These projects will pave the way for tens of thousands of permanent jobs at the Port and throughout our regional economy in the decades ahead. The American Trucking Association has threatened our innovative solutions by getting a court order to temporarily block the City's ability to directly ban a motor carrier from bringing dirty trucks in our Port. We are vigorously fighting to protect the right of cities like Los Angeles to improve environmental and security conditions on our own land and protect the sustainability of our investment in clean trucks over the long term. At the same time, while defending our groundbreaking program, we need to clear the path to allow local governments the means to achieve federal clean air measures and more secure transportation hubs, acknowledging the need for different regional approaches. Here in Los Angeles, we are proud to be making an important contribution to the national goal of cleaner air and "greener" energy. We urge lawmakers in Washington to update federal law and allow a first-of-its-kind emissions reduction initiative like the Clean Truck Program to flourish.
 
"Late Show" Beats "Tonight Show" By Widest Margin In Years Top
With President Obama as his power-hitting leadoff man, David Letterman posted his biggest score in recent years in the late-night ratings, dominating NBC's "Tonight Show" last week by the biggest margin in more than 15 years. More on The Tonight Show
 
Eugene Volokh: Is the Obama Administration Supporting Calls to Outlaw Supposed Hate Speech? Top
That's what it looks like, with this Joint U.S./Egypt draft U.N. Human Rights Council resolution (dated Sept. 2005). The resolution generally seems to be an attempt to urge more protection for free speech throughout the world, and some praise it for that ; moreover, it lacks the exception for "defamation of religion" that some Muslim countries have urged. It may therefore be a step forward for Egypt, and an attempt to urge a step forward for some other countries. But I'm worried that it might be a step backward for our own constitutional rights, because of what seems to be the U.S. endorsement of the suppression of "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" and possibly of "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups." I say "seems to be" because some of the language in the resolution is pretty slippery, and of course it's always possible that I'm misunderstanding it. (It's also possible that past U.S. Administrations have taken similar views before, which I would condemn as well.) Here, though, is my thinking (all emphases added by me): 1. Paragraph 4 of the draft resolution "expresses ... concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence , and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents." 2. Paragraph 6 likewise "[s]tresses that condemning and addressing, in accordance with international human rights obligations, including those regarding equal protection of the law , any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence is an important safeguard to ensure the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of all, particularly minorities." 3. I suppose it's possible that the "effective measures" might simply include denunciation or other counterspeech, but that seems unlikely. The resolution quotes favorably the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Human Rights Council Resolution 7/36 . And article 20 of the Covenant (which in turn is favorably cited by resolution 7/36) expressly commands that "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law ." This suggests that the urgings in paragraphs 4 and 6 (possibly limited to the "incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" language but possibly even including the "incidents ... of negative stereotyping" language") are urgings that such speech "be prohibited by law." 4. Nor does this call for narrow prohibitions that would fit under the U.S. Supreme Court's narrow exception for "incitement." My understanding is that international definitions of "incitement" are considerably broader than the Court's definition in Brandenburg v. Ohio . First, I don't think "incitement" in such international documents is generally seen as limited to intentional incitement to imminently likely conduct (our First Amendment rule). Second, advocacy of mere hostility -- for instance advocacy that people should hate and be hostile to radical strains of Islam (and its adherents), or to Scientology, or to Catholicism, or to fundamentalist Christianity, or for that matter to religion generally -- is clearly constitutionally protected here in the U.S.; but the resolution seems to call for its prohibition. 5. Paragraph 10 also "expresses regret at the promotion by certain media of false images and negative stereotypes of vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, and at the use of information and communication technologies such as the Internet for purposes contrary to respect for human rights, in particular the perpetration of violence against and exploitation and abuse of women and children, and disseminating racist and xenophobic discourse or content." That might indeed be just condemnation -- and, depending on what it means, might be perfectly sound condemnation -- and not a call for coercive action. But note that the language of "express[ing] regret" is softer than the earlier paragraphs' calls for "addressing" and "taking effective measures ... to address and combat." And the presence of this softer "express[ing] regret" language here reinforces my view that the more insistent language in the other paragraphs calls for coercive measures. 6. But why the fuss, some might ask, if we're protected by the First Amendment? First, if the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it. So to be consistent with our position here, the Administration would presumably have to take what steps it can to ensure that supposed "hate speech" that incites hostility will indeed be punished. It would presumably be committed to filing amicus briefs supporting changes in First Amendment law to allow such punishment, and in principle perhaps the appointment of Justices who would endorse such changes (or even the proposal of express constitutional amendments that would work such changes). To be sure, I think it's quite unlikely that the Administration would indeed work to enact a specific Anti-Hate-Speech Amendment, or make support of article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into a litmus test for Supreme Court appointees. But it seems to me that the Administration's and the Nation's international representatives' calling for the suppression of "hate speech" throughout the world would have some significance. At least it would let other countries fault us for inconsistency when American law fails to punish such speech. 7. And beyond that, I'm worried that the Executive Branch's endorsement of speech-restrictive "international human rights" norms will affect how the courts interpret the First Amendment, so that over time, "an international norm against hate speech ... [would] supply a basis for prohibiting [hate speech], the First Amendment notwithstanding." And that worry stems not just from my fevered imagination, but from the views of Prof. Peter Spiro , a noted legal academic who is a supporter of this tendency. That's not fear-mongering on his part, but hope (hope-mongering?) and prediction. So anything that an Administration does to endorse international speech-restrictive norms might well have an effect on our own constitutional rights as well. 8. Finally, I've considered whether our reservation to the International Covenant , specifically saying that "Article 20 does not authorize or require legislation or other action by the United States that would restrict the right of free speech and association protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States," provides us with a loophole: The theory would be that the proposal only commits states to "take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations," and our reservation means that suppressing supposed hate speech isn't one of our "international human rights obligations." But I don't think that's a fair reading of the joint U.S./Egypt proposal, or at least the reading that fair third parties would take of our position. It seems to me that the proposals calls on everyone to act consistently with what the U.N. Human Rights Council and similar bodies see as everyone's "international human rights obligations" -- which unfortunately includes an obligation to ban supposed hate speech -- and not just what each country has expressly promised by the treaties they signed, subject to the reservations they attached. * * * In any case, that's my tentative thinking; please let me know what you think. More on Barack Obama
 

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