Rocketships, hes just a republican politician guy, he always has been. But basically, republican politics is just what heritage does. Even if they want to seem slightly more imparkal about it. It was a little embarrassing when they hired jim demint. What was more embarrassing, they decided to fight the prospect of Immigration Reform in our country by releasing a pseudo academic analysis of why Immigration Reform was a terrible idea. A terribly expensive, terribly bad idea to reform immigration policy in this country. Turned out that under jim demint the Heritage Foundation had hired as a senior policy analyst to right that report, a man whos whole academic career is about ranking ethnic groups by their i. Q. Race is dinner in all sorts of ways, and probably the most important way is in i. Q. Decades of psycho metric testing has indicated that in at least in america, you have jews with the highest average i. Q. , followed by east asians. These are real differences, theyre not going to go away tomorrow. That is the guy who jim demint hired as senior policy analyst to crunch the numbers on Immigration Reform. Lo and behold, the heritage study finds when a guy like that crunches the numbers. It turns out that immigrants are terrible. Theyre so dumb and they can never get smarter. Not without better breeding at least. Thatas really embarrassing for the Heritage Foundation. Its also embarrassing they never fired that guy once everybody reported what his background was when the report came out and freaked everybody out. After his background came out, they never explained why they hired him in the first place. The Heritage Foundation is still sights the report as if its good science. Heres the thing about the Heritage Foundation. Jim demint is the president of the group now, the head of research at the Heritage Foundation is this guy. Do you remember him . Do you remember david adding ton . During all of the i think during the scariest scandals of the bush administration, the stuff about memos saying that torture is actually legal and cooking up the fake case for the iraq war and everything elsewhere it seemed like dick cheney and dick cheneys office were really the prime mover behind some of these most scandalous things in the bush administration, all of those scary things had david adding ton right at the center of them. He was the guy they called cheneys cheney, when dick cheney wanted to get something done, david adding ton was the guy who would find a way by hook or by crook. Jim demint runs the Heritage Foundation and bizarrely, also david adding ton is banned from ever traveling to russia. Yes. Same goes for john yu, the Justice Department lawyer who david adding ton got to write the memo that torture is legal. He can teach at berkeley law school, but he cannot go to russia. Also, general jeffrey miller, who ran guantanamo and abu ghraib in the early days. He cant go to russia. Also, weirdly, pree berara. Remember him announcing all those new york legislatures getting arrested. He cannot go to russia. By name he is banned. Same goes for brendan mcguire, whos an assistant u. S. Attorney. Same goes nor this random new york judge. Same goes for this list of people. We have a list of 18 banned americans, banned by name. U. S. Citizens by name who are not allowed to go to russia for any reason, ever. Starting in april of this year, and going on indefinitely. This list is russias response to 18 russians who are never allowed to come to our country. You have 18, then weve got 18. It all happened after president obama signed this law last december thats named for a russian lawyer who died in prison in russia. He died in Police Custody while he was investigating alleged corruption by russian officials. He had been in jail already for about a year when he died. After he died, russia went ahead with prosecuting him after death. There was evidence that he had been tortured and beaten prior to dying in prison, nobody was ever held accountable for killing him. In protest of that, this u. S. Law was passed by the u. S. Congress and signed by president obama in december. And it banned from entering into the United States, a whole list of russian officials. 18 russian officials thought to be either connected with this specific death or accused of other human rights abuses. Russia, of course, was enraged by this, enraged by the rebuke, enraged that the United States would try to take some sort of moral high ground on human rights issues, russia protested voer sirrously and it ultimately led to the tit for tat list, banning 18 americans by name, if were going to ban 18 russians by name. It also led to a ban on American Parents adopting russian orphans. And it not only banned American Parents from adopting russian children in the future, it halted adoptions that were already well underway for hundreds of families. Hundreds of russian kids, more than 300 who had already met their new american families, who had been told they would be going home to their new home with their new parents, those hopes were just ended in a gutwrenchingly abrupt way. Those kids were told that they would remain in their orphanages. There are 600,000 children living in overcrowded russian orphanages. Many are disabled and now parents in this country who wanted to bring a child here from russia can no longer do th that. It was may of this year when a really strange story broke in russia. Russia announced they had arrested an american spy who was in moscow, they said, trying to recruit russian Intelligence Officers to become double agents. And, you know, that is a thing that is maybe a plausible thing that can happen in the world. Weve all seen the movies, the circumstances around this alleged cia spys arrest, the circumstances were so strange, that the whole thing seemed like a parody of itself. The alleged american spy was caught by the russians wearing an insane looking blonde wig as a disguise . He also had a crude spy kit which included a paper map of mass cow and a knife and a flashlight and a compass. Also according to the video and photos released by the russians, he was carrying a letter he was going to give to some russian intelligence official, a letter that began with dear friend. Were ready to offer you 100,000 to discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation. To discuss your cooperation, is there a nigerian prince involved . It was a strange and kind of impossible to believe story that broke in may of this year, when he got this perp walk of this alleged spy. That was just a couple weeks before russia announced they were going to sell one of their most advanced antiaircraft Missile Systems to the government in syria. Over the loud objections of the white house in the state department and the european union, since then, Vladimir Putin has signed into law, a bill that makes it illegal to talk about gay people in a way that is not hateful in russia. Can you not talk about being gay in a positive way or you will be arrested. That is the law. Theres a provision in the law that says, even if you are a visitor to russia, gay foreigners and tourists can be arrested and held two weeks and expelled from the country for being gay or pro gay. Being pro gay means saying gay affirmative things or displaying a gay flag or Holding Hands with someone of the same sex. Its a new law signed into law roughly six months before russia is scheduled to host the Winter Olympics. Hanging over all of these developments is the fate of this young man, edward snowden, leaker of details of secret nsa surveillance programs stuck in limbo at the moscow airport for more than a month, before he was granted temporary asylum in russia. Between us and russia, things are not awesome right now. Things have not been awesome for i dont know things have not been awesome since 1947 basically. But theyre bad enough now on trivial levels and on deeply serious levels, that the white house today essentially said, lets call the whole thing off. The white house today announcing that president obama has cancelled a scheduled one on one meeting between him and Vladimir Putin next month, during the g20 summit in russia. Given our lack of progress on issues, such as missile defense, arms control. Global Security Issues and human rights and Civil Society in the last 12 months. We have informed the russian government we believe it would be more constructivto postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda. Russias disappointing decision was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship. That was the announcement today at the white house. The president giving some behinds that he was going to go in that direction in his interview last night on the tonight show with jay leno. Now, were you surprised that russia granted snowden asylum . I was disappointed because even though we dont have an extradition treaty with them, traditionally, we have tried to respect if theres a law breaker or alleged law breaker in their country. We evaluate it and try to work with them. They didnt do that with us. There have been times where they slipped back into the cold war thinking and the cold war mentality. Something that shocked me about russia. Im surprised this is not a huge story. Suddenly homosexuality is against the law. This seems like germany, lets round up the jews, the gays. It seems like that, you round up people you dont want. Why is not more of the world outraged at this. Ive been clear, when it comes to universal rights, when it comes to peoples basic freedoms, that whether you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality, that i think should transcend every country. Now, whats happening in russia is not unique. When i travelled to africa, there were some countries that are doing a lot of good things for their people, who were working with and helping on development issues, but in some cases have persecuted gays and lesbians. Do you think it will affect the olympics . You know, i think putin and russia have a big stake in making sure the olympics work, and i think they understand that for most of the countries that participate in the olympics, we wouldnt tolerate gays and lesbians being treated differently. The United States is in this interesting position right now, in that our relationship with russia is pretty terrible. It is a very important relationship and it is bad right now. Our president has to be in russia for another meeting coming up in a couple weeks. Even though hes going to be in russia, hes not going to talk to putin while hes there, and theyve announced it weeks in advance. The fact that russias about to host this giant legitimately international, global event. Which is the Winter Olympics next year. And their new antigay law has become a focus not just in the United States, but a broader worry and concern, and increasingly protest around the world. Steven fry today writing to David Cameron in the u. K. , civilized nations should not give russia the honor of hosting the olympics, arguing that an absolute ban on the russian Winter Olympics of 2014 is simply essential, stage them elsewhere at all costs. Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilized world. So what happens next here . Joining us now is charles cane, a professor at georgetown university. Author of odessa, genius and death in a city of dreams. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thanks for having me. Do you think it is important in the larger scope of u. S. russian relations for president obama to have cancelled this meeting with the russian president and not made any bones about it . Well, i think its an important step certainly, but i think for most of the people who were involved in making that decision, this was seen as the appropriate and prudent step to take. That is hes not cancelling his trip to russia, hes certainly going to go to the g20 summit. Hell probably meet puten around that summit itself, hell be in the photograph with him. Hell be seen at the meetings with him. At the same time. Its very important not to have a high level summit at a time when relations are particularly bad between russia and the United States. And i think if you look at whats going on at lower levels within the u. S. Government, those talks are continuing with the defense officials, with Foreign Ministry officials in russia. At all different kinds of levels, this isnt a break in relations, so much as it is an important symbol of how bad things have become. But really nothing more than symbolic at this stage. In terms of the statement from the u. S. Government and sort of public rebuke of president putin, does he wear this as a badge of honor at home . Does that buy him points domestically . Oar does it look bad more him domestically . I think it buys him some points. Americans probably have a tendency to overestimate what we do matters. The fact is, that putin remains among Many Russians really quite popular. Anything he can do to be seen as a strong leader or standing up to the United States, exposing what he considers the double standards of the u. S. And the international system, this does buy him points at home. But the fact is, if you look at the russian blogs and russian media, the latest announcement really hasnt garnered the kind of attention in moscow or elsewhere that its garnered in the United States. How about the issue that president obama touched on last night on the tonight show of all places about the olympics and whether or not russia cares very much about international opinion, particularly on this issue of gay rights heading toward the olympics, it seems like with this much lead time, it might become a very big demonstrative conflict for russia at those games. Well it could be. And to me, this is what is shaping up to be the really important issue. Not just in u. S. russia relations, but in russias position in the world. Russia is taking these olympics very seriously, theyre taking place this coming february, russia is launching the largest torch ceremony. The longest torch ceremony held ever. 65,000 kilometers the torch is going to go across every constituent part of the russian federation. This is a chance for russia to demonstrate its status, showcase itself to the world. But the question of gay and lesbian rights is now becoming not just a side issue, which i think russians always saw it as being, but its going to become one of the central issues in the way that russia is perceived. This is a step in my mind a step forward for the whole question of gay and lesbian rights. This is now a human rights issue. And i think over the coming months, were going to see more and more countries following the path that steven fry wants britain to fall. Charles king, thank you very much for your time tonight. Its helpful to have you here, appreciate it. 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If this summer had one news story that was so dramatic, so, i dont know what happens next, so edge of your seat, that it basically wrote its own movie trailer, it would be the case of the missing excia guy. The former cia station chief accused by the Italian Government, of kidnapping someone off the street. The cia guy fled the country, the italians tried him and convicted him anyway in absentia, along with 22 other americans. Interpoll has been looking for him. Hes been off the radar. Until a couple weeks ago, when he turned up because he got nabbed in panama. What is he doing in panama . I have no idea. But he was arrested while trying to leave that country picks up at the border, on an interpoll alert. Its all very cloak and dagger, and thats before you get to the part of him disappearing again right after he was arrested in panama. He was arrested. It seems like the u. S. Government has interceded in some way. The trail has gone cold. Now tonight one of the other people convicted alongside him, who did not disappear is talking