ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS

Fox News

Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.

In the videotape, made on July 24, James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named "Kenya" who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN's office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.

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Children as young as five to learn about masturbation and abortion under new UN guidelines

Dailymail.co.uk

Children as young as five should be taught about explicit sex acts, according to guidelines from the United Nations.

The advice also calls for youngsters to learn about abortion, same-sex relationships and sexually transmitted diseases.

The draft report on sex education has been compiled by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Read more: click here.

Va. Governor Uses 1½ Days Of Workweek For DNC Job

Kaine Adopts Schedule Despite Early Pledge
Washington Post
Thursday, July 9, 2009

RICHMOND -- Timothy M. Kaine said he has been spending a day and a half of each workweek handling fundraising and policy matters for the Democratic National Committee, a departure from his pledge to conduct most of his national party work by phone and fax and restrict it largely to evenings and weekends while he is governor of Virginia.

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CMI Commentary: ‘Question Authority’ – Especially When it’s on the Back of a Car

The stickier problems of bumper morality.
Culture & Media Institute

The other day I was driving behind a car with a “Friend of Tibet” Virginia license plate. That’s great and I’d like to be a “Friend” myself, but with the job and the family and cutting the lawn … Can I just become a “Facebook Friend of Tibet?” If so, am I entitled to the same preening as Tibet’s actual Friends?

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Democratic Leader Laughs at Idea That House Members Would Actually Read Health-Care Bill Before Voting On It

CNSNews.com

Washington (CNSNews.com) - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

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Laugh or Cry?

National Review Online

Much has been said about Maureen “I wanted to weave the idea into my column” Dowd’s latest take-down of Sarah Palin (“Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.”) Her hit-piece is a self-parody. Instead, of seriously critiquing the wisdom or folly of Palin’s controversial decision to step down from the governorship, we get child-like sentences on spec like this:

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H. J. Res. 5: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second...

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

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So Much for 'Energy Independence'

Wall Street Journal
By ROBERT BRYCE

Whenever you read about ethanol, remember these numbers: 98 and 190.

They offer an essential insight into U.S. energy politics and the debate over cap-and-trade legislation that recently passed the House. Here is what the numbers mean: The U.S. gets about 98 times as much energy from natural gas and oil as it does from ethanol and biofuels. And measured on a per-unit-of-energy basis, Congress lavishes ethanol and biofuels with subsidies that are 190 times as large as those given to oil and gas.

Those numbers come from an April 2008 report by the Energy Information Administration: "Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007." Table ES6 lists domestic energy sources that get subsidies. In 2007, the U.S. consumed nearly 55.8 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTUs), or about 9.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent, in natural gas and oil. That's about 98 times as much energy as the U.S. consumed in ethanol and biofuels, which totaled 98 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Meanwhile, ethanol and biofuels are getting subsidies of $5.72 per million BTU. That's 190 times as much as natural gas and petroleum liquids, which get subsidies of $0.03 per million BTU.

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The 'Absentee' Senator

Wall Street Journal

Franken wins by changing the rules.

The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.

Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.

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Detroit: The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy

Mackinac Center
By Mr. Jarrett Skorup / Posted: July 6, 2009

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted:

A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.

A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.

A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members.
A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don't have to guess, because there is such a city right here in our state: Detroit

Detroit has been dubbed "the most liberal city in America" and each of these "progressive" policies are alive and well there. How have they worked out?

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CBS, Helen Thomas Challenge Gibbs On "Controlled" Town Hall Meeting

Real Clear Politics

CBS' Chip Reid and Helen Thomas double teamed Robert Gibbs today at the daily press briefing on the "tightly controlled" town hall meeting President Obama will hold on health care. Gibbs kept saying lets have this discussion AFTER the meeting. Helen Thomas accused the White House of "controlling the press." She said almost all White House/Obama events are "prepackaged." She accused the White House of not "having any answers."

Proud To Be American? You Should Be Ashamed

Market-ticker.org

We have seen the largest looting operation in history perpetrated against The American People.

Over $5 trillion dollars in junk securities were marketed and sold. They had a real value of about $2 trillion dollars; the other $3 trillion, roughly, was pure fiction.

The banks created and sold these throughout the world, with the full knowledge and support of Congress, The Fed, and the banks themselves.

It was pure fraud.

Granting someone a "mortgage" based only on whether they can fog a mirror is proof positive of malfeasance, unless you disclose this fact to the buyers of these securities - a fact that was not disclosed until after the securities blew up.

Lenders, builders and others pressured appraisers to "hit the numbers" to support these fraudulent deals. Proof of that is found in the nearly-10-year-old Appraisers Petition bearing thousands of appraiser signatures.

That ratings were a "mistake", either real or intentional, is a matter of now-known historical fact.

Americans have sat on their butts through all of this, allowed their 401ks and IRAs to be trashed, their supposed "home values" to be pumped and then destroyed, and their hopes, dreams, employment and house have all vanished into the ether of fraud.

When this came to light the banks went to Congress, and supported by The Fed's intentional draining of liquidity to create an immediate "crisis", they got a $700 billion bailout bill passed - one that you, your children and grandchildren, will have to pay for.

The government then passed another near-trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill claimed to hold unemployment to 8%. It did not, because it was yet another "papering over" of the fraud, but that bill your children and grandchildren, along with you, will also pay.

Your savings accounts and CDs now yield an effective zero.

Your credit card interest rates have gone from 11% to 29%, all so that the banks can keep granting ill-advised credit to people who can't pay. Those who can pay - the rest of you - are being jacked for 30% a year in interest.

We have seen a few "tea parties" in which a few people showed up and which were immediately panned by "those in power" as "astroturf."

Contrast with this.

A few days ago, Iran held an election. It is alleged that there was massive fraud. The current President claimed victory under less-than-clear circumstances.

That's about 2 million people, out of 70 million population (roughly), or one in thirty-five Iranians in the entire nation who took to the streets to demand justice in a simple vote.

More strikingly, Tehran has a population of roughly 12 million; this means that one in six citizens of the city are standing in that crowd.

This, despite the fact that the government there has been shooting people, has arrested the opposition party and issued an order to burn the ballots so there can be no recount.

This, despite the fact that the Iranian population does not enjoy a Second Amendment, and thus is forced to fight a rogue government with makeshift molotov cocktails, rocks and clubs, should that rogue government choose to shoot.

And this was about an election. A President. One man.

In our nation we have literally had 1/3rd of our GDP - that is, 1/3rd of everything you worked for last year - stolen by a bunch of fraudsters with the explicit cooperation and assistance of the government.

We should be seeing 10 million Americans literally closing Washington DC with peaceful protest in the streets - making the entirety of the downtown inaccessible to vehicles and the normal conduct of business impossible, were Americans to display the same sort of anger over an insult vastly more serious than that served upon the Iranian people.

If one in six Americans had enough in America's big cities, there would be one million people in the Streets of Chicago - enough to fill Chicago's Loop from Lake Michigan to I-90/94 and from The Chicago River to beyond Soldier Field, rendering the city core impassable. (Roughly double the crowd that shows up for the 4th of July Fireworks, to put it in perspective. "Greater Chicagoland" has a population of ~7 million)

The same in NY City would result in a crowd of 3.3 million people.

Where are you America?

In America, if the government turns into a goon squad, you have the constitutionally-protected ability to shoot back. In Iran you have no such ability as the Iranian government has never recognized the unalienable rights as set forth in our Declaration.

So in Iran the population risks mass death to protest.

In America the population risks loss of some income since you'd have to cut work.

The Iranians take to the streets; we take to our couches and have another beer.

Grow a pair of balls America.

The people of Iran are putting us to shame.

PS: Those threats appear not to have been idle either:

Market - Ticker

Strange Inconsistencies in the $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery

Seekingalpha.com

Here’s yet another huge financial story that has been virtually blacked out by the US financial media. Although on the surface, this story appears to be a non-event, if we consider some of the released facts about this case, you will understand why I consider it to be a huge story. On June 8th, the Asia News reported the following story:

“Italy’s financial police (Guardia italiana di Finanza) has seized US bonds worth US 134.5 billion from two Japanese nationals at Chiasso (40 km from Milan) on the border between Italy and Switzerland. They include 249 US Federal Reserve bonds worth US$ 500 million each, plus ten Kennedy bonds and other US government securities worth a billion dollars each. Italian authorities have not yet determined whether they are real or fake, but if they are real the attempt to take them into Switzerland would be the largest financial smuggling operation in history; if they are fake, the matter would be even more mind-boggling because the quality of the counterfeit work is such that the fake bonds are undistinguishable from the real ones.”

Here are just a few fascinating facts about this case (at least they are being reported as “facts” at this current time):

(1) Though the smugglers have been identified in the press as “Japanese nationals” there has yet to be any confirmation if the smugglers were indeed Japanese or of some other ethnicity. How difficult is it to confirm the ethnicity of the smugglers and why is this information being kept secret?

(2) According to a brief Bloomberg article regarding this story, the seized bearer bonds allegedly were dated as of 1934. Since bearer bonds in denominations of $500 million did not exist in 1934, the bonds were deduced as fake, though the Italian police are still waiting for a declaration regarding the bonds’ authenticity from the SEC. There is something truly “off” about this declaration. How can the quality of the forged bearer bonds be so meticulous that they “are indistinguishable from the real ones”, yet the people involved in the alleged forgery so ill-informed as to not date the bearer bonds with a more recent year that would not immediately identify them as fraudulent? How hard would it have been to date the bearer bonds with a more recent year? An equivalent analogy would be if an expert art forger meticulously re-created a Picasso oil canvas and then erroneously signed the work with the wrong artist’s name. This story just does not add up.

(3) The Bloomberg story also reported that there is no known existence of the alleged 10 Kennedy bonds that were discovered in the smuggler’s suitcases, each with a denomination of $1 billion. Again, this discovery defies any logical explanation. Why would expert counterfeiters make 249 bearer bonds with denominations of $500 million apiece, each indistinguishable from the real thing, and then instead of just making 20 more such bonds, decide to make 10 bonds in denominations of $1 billion a piece in a bearer bond design that has never existed? Were the alleged counterfeiters just too lazy to confirm if Kennedy bearer bonds were ever a legitimately issued security? Again, this story makes no sense.

(4) On March 30, 2009, the US Treasury Department announced that USD $134.5 billion remained in its Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]. The stated amount of seized bearer bonds was $134.5 billion. Coincidence?

(5) The two well-dressed Japanese men opted to travel to Chiasso on a local train normally full of Italian manual laborers commuting to Switzerland. If they were really intent on successfully smuggling these bonds, counterfeit or real, why would they not take more care to select a travel route in which it was literally impossible for them not to stick out like two sore thumbs? Again, this part of the story defies all logic.

(6) The bearer bonds were discovered in a hidden briefcase compartment after a customs inspection. Again, if the bonds were indeed authentic and owned by a nation state, they could have been transported in a diplomatic pouch exempt from customs searches that would have guaranteed transport without detection.
Thus, all of the above irreconcilable and illogical points, other than the coincidence of the amount of the bearer bonds exactly matching the remaining TARP fund amount declared on March 30th, seem to indicate that not only were the seized bearer bonds counterfeit, but also that the smugglers were intent on being caught.
Before I continue, let’s review the purpose of bearer bonds.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of bearer bonds:

“A bearer bond is a debt security issued by a business entity, such as a corporation, or by a government. It differs from the more common types of investment securities in that it is unregistered – no records are kept of the owner, or the transactions involving ownership. Whoever physically holds the paper on which the bond is issued owns the instrument. This is useful for investors who wish to retain anonymity. The downside is that in the event of loss or theft, bearer bonds are extremely difficult to recover.”

If you recall the Michael Mann movie “Heat”, starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, during a daring daytime armored car robbery, the criminals specifically targeted millions of dollars of bearer bonds for theft precisely because of the above qualities of bearer bonds that make them very difficult to trace. Again, due to the properties of bearer bonds, it seems highly unlikely that $134.5 billion of bearer bonds would be transported, if they were real, by two men with no security, since theft almost guarantees that they would be lost forever.

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Argentine glacier advances despite global warming

Breitbart.com

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures.

Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago.

"We're not sure why this happens," said Andres Rivera, a glacialist with the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change."

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Ziegler Discusses Palin Response On MSNBC

Real Clear Politics

Radio talk show host John Ziegler appeared on MSNBC to discuss his interview with Gov. Sarah Palin, in which she responds to a verbal attack from "Late Show" host David Letterman. Ziegler hit MSNBC for it's pro-Obama bias, causing the ire of MSNBC'er Contessa Brewer. Brewer, a woman, did not seem to be offended by Letterman's "slutty" remark.

At the end of the interview, Brewer was so agitated with Ziegler that she requested his microphone be turned off.

UPDATE: John Ziegler tells Real Clear Politics that MSNBC played a trick on him right before he was set to go on air. Ziegler was originally supposed to be interviewed by Norah O'Donnell, an anchor he has had dust-ups with in the past. However, O'Donnell was reassigned to "breaking news" dealing with FIAT. Ziegler says it was "clear Norah O'Donnell ducked" him. "It was part of why I handled it the way I did," Ziegler says. "She was clearly afraid of doing an interview with me," he added.

John Ziegler hosts a radio show on KGIL-AM in Southern California.

The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims

WSJ.COM
Mr. Fratto was a colleague of mine in the Bush administration, and as a senior member of the White House communications shop, he knows just how difficult it can be to deal with a press corps skeptical about presidential economic claims. It now appears, however, that Mr. Fratto's problem was that he simply lacked the magic words -- jobs "saved or created."

"Saved or created" has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs. His latest invocation came yesterday, when the president declared that the stimulus had already saved or created at least 150,000 American jobs -- and announced he was ramping up some of the stimulus spending so he could "save or create" an additional 600,000 jobs this summer. These numbers come in the context of an earlier Obama promise that his recovery plan will "save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years."

Mr. Fratto sees a double standard at play. "We would never have used a formula like 'save or create,'" he tells me. "To begin with, the number is pure fiction -- the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it."

Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved."

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Britain's Health Service "Facing Funding Crisis"

ABC News

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is facing the biggest financial and organizational challenge in its 60-year history, with a 15 billion pound ($25 billion) shortfall looming after 2011, a report said on Wednesday.

The NHS Confederation, which represents health service managers, said recession and rising costs will squeeze the NHS budget by 15 billion pounds in the five years from 2011.

The two years leading up to 2011 would be "tough but manageable," its report said.

"In just under two years, the NHS will face the most severe constriction ever in its finances," it said. "Action is required now if the service is to remain true to its founding principles and continue to provide care free at the point of delivery."

The Confederation said funding shortages could lead to "across the board cuts," longer patient waiting lists, falling standards, and staff and patient dissatisfaction.

It added a cap on the budget for new drugs may have to be considered, and suggested looking at a "total resource ceiling" for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which assesses the cost-effectiveness of new treatments.

"With little or no cash increase from 2011/12 the NHS has to prepare itself for real terms reductions in what it can afford to do," NHS Confederation Chief Executive Steve Barnett said in a statement accompanying the report.

The NHS was launched 1948 as a health service promising to be free at the point of need. It has grown in more than six decades to become Europe's largest employer, with more than 1.5 million staff across Britain. It deals with eight patients every second.

RECESSION, DEBT, UNEMPLOYMENT -- LITTLE CASH FOR HEALTH

According to the government's Department of Health, the NHS budget for 2009/10 is almost 103 billion pounds, a 7.5 percent real-term increase on the previous year.

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Cry Baby For Obama

Toxic Mortgage Tycoons Herb & Marion Sandler and the ACORN Connection

The American Spectator
By Matthew Vadum

The "Glenn Beck Program" did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending. (The video clip is embedded above.)

Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network. Specifically, the charity gave $4,498,222 to American Institute for Social Justice (since 2003), $700,000 to Project Vote (in 2005), $525,000 to ACORN (2000–2001 according to Activist Cash). This excludes any contributions that either Sandler may have made personally to ACORN or its affiliates.

According to the "Glenn Beck Program," the Sandlers paid ACORN to send out protesters to hound Wells Fargo Bank, which competed with Golden West, the Sandlers' bank. If true, this is an explosive allegation.

The Sandlers have also given heavily to the Center for Responsible Lending, an ACORN ally that champions the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Their foundation has given the Center at least $11,200,000 since 2005.

The Sandlers are also deeply involved in an effort to push America's journalistic culture even farther to the left. They have given a reported $10 million to ProPublica, a left-leaning investigative journalism outfit. Cheryl K. Chumley profiled ProPublica in last month's Foundation Watch.

Coverage uneven for abortion doctor, soldier

The Washington Times

Two apparent politically motivated slayings within 24 hours resulted in some very uneven news coverage. The press paid far more attention to the killing of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller than it did to Army recruiter Pvt. William Andrew Long.

Some critics say journalists displayed clear pro-choice bias in their heavy Tiller coverage; others point to the doctor being a longtime controversial media figure.

Both stories were dramatic.

The Wichita, Kan., physician was shot while attending church Sunday. Authorities have charged Scott Roeder, who had a history of pro-life and anti-government writings. Pvt. Long was gunned down in a suburban Arkansas recruiting center a day later, and Muslim convert Abdulhakim Muhammad has been arrested. Authorities say he confessed to targeting soldiers to avenge U.S. military actions against Muslims.

A Google News search for "George Tiller" produced more than 10,000 hits Thursday afternoon, while a similar search for "William Long" yielded fewer than 1,400. A selective LexisNexis search by The Washington Times on Wednesday, based on the neutral words "recruiter" and "abortion doctor" and the respective locales turned up 98 newspaper stories on Dr. Tiller and six on Pvt. Long.

Every day from Sunday to Wednesday, the Associated Press moved three to six different-bylined stories mentioning the Tiller slaying. On no day has it moved more than one separate story on the Long killing.

The Washington Post had 28 news articles on the Tiller death through Thursday's editions, against just five on the Long slaying. A telephone call and an e-mail to Post ombudsman Andy Alexander were not returned.

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Never Talk About Religion in a Bar

By Michelle Wayland
NBCSanDiego.com

What started as an argument over religion at a bar escalated when one man shot another five times overnight, as the victim's sister watched in horror.

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Federal Civil Rights suit filed in Michigan over 'open-carry' ordinance

MCRGO

The Law Offices of Steven W. Dulan, PLC announces federal civil rights suit against City of Grand Haven and Ottawa County over open-carry ordinance.

The suit, brought under Title 42, Section 1983 of the U.S. Code, was filed on behalf of Christopher Fetters, an off-duty Air Force Security Officer who was attending the Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven last year. Mr. Fetters was openly carrying a holstered pistol, which is legal under Michigan law, as in most states. He was arrested and detained and charged with a violation of a Grand Haven city ordinance prohibiting open carry of firearms. His gun was initially seized, although it was later returned.

Michigan law prohibits local units of government from making any law with respect to firearms, (MCL 123.1102.) The public policy goal of the statute is to provide a uniform system of gun laws statewide so that citizens do not have to guess regarding what local rules might exist as they move from one locality to the next.

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Suspect in shooting death of abortion provider George Tiller may be charged today

The Wichita Eagle

With one bullet, a gunman ended the life and the controversial career of abortion doctor George Tiller, killing him as he stood in the foyer of his church Sunday.

Today, a 51-year-old Johnson County man could be charged with murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Tiller, who had been shot before by an anti-abortion foe.

The crime has drawn condemnation and outrage from the president and stirred strong emotions across the nation.

Tiller, 67, was shot once just after 10 a.m. Sunday as he stood in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church, 7601 E. 13th St., where he was serving as an usher. The gunman threatened to shoot two men who tried to apprehend him.

Wichita police said that the suspect was arrested without incident on I-35 in Johnson County about three hours after the shooting, following a statewide broadcast describing the suspect and his car.

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Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to fight shock-jock Michael Savage's lawsuit

Times On Line

Jacqui Smith will not back down against a right-wing American radio DJ who is suing after he was barred from entering Britain.

The Home Secretary included Michael Savage on a list of banned visitors that included a Hamas politician, anti-gay protesters and a Jewish extremist. Savage was furious to feature on the list and said that he would bring a legal action for defamation. Yesterday the Home Office announced that it would staunchly fight any proceedings.

It said: "He was excluded for engaging in unacceptable behaviour by making comments that might provoke others to serious criminal acts and foster hatred that might lead to inter-community violence.

"Any legal proceedings would be robustly defended; we stand by our decision to exclude this individual. Coming to the UK is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life."

Savage has been accused of racism and homophobia and once wished that a critical caller would die of Aids.

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I wish I were a liberal

American Thinker

I wish I were a liberal, because then everyone would like me. My family would start talking to me again, and chances are, my ex-husband would want to renew the marriage vows he broke when I started spouting conservative opinions.

I'd like to be a liberal because it's ever so much easier to allow others to form my opinions for me instead of researching an issue myself. That always gets me in trouble, especially when the facts I discover diverge from the latest politically correct consensus.

I'd like to be a liberal because then I'd be rewarded for all my shortcomings and nothing would ever be my fault. I'd be an important cog in the wheel of social justice, and a cherished warrior in the current fight for equality.

If I were a liberal, I would be free to have sex whenever and with whomever I want -- and be considered 'empowered' to boot. I could abort any inconvenience with nary a thought because my rights to my body trump the life I would have suctioned out of me.

I'd like to be a liberal because any guilt I would normally feel for what used to be considered deviant, irresponsible behavior may be assuaged by merely advocating the expenditure of other people's money on whatever the cause du jour is. Very cool. Especially since my stock portfolio has tanked.

I want to be a liberal because they care so much. They have a lock on all the fashionable emotions, like tolerance, diversity, equality and patriotism. And as long as my intentions were pure and I 'care', I wouldn't have to accept responsibility for any negative consequences that my actions might cause.

I'd like to be a liberal because everyone knows that conservatives are racist, homophobic, stupid and, well, beneath contempt. Conservatives are motivated by -- gasp -- profit, instead of being nice. Enough said.

It would be swell to be a liberal because I'd be able to redefine reality to my own specifications. I could turn failure into success, murder into choice, lies into 'misstatements', and theft into investment. I would automatically be considered wise, instead of opinionated. Best of all, I could make up the rules as I go along, change them in midstream and then demonize anyone who doesn't agree with me.

It's great to be a liberal because everyone knows they hold the moral high ground. They don't lie, cheat or steal. Oh, and they don't condone torture. The media says so, so it must be true.

Before I am able to join this community of man, however, there are a few ground rules:

I have to acknowledge that government is the best and only solution for any problems America has. Despite the fact that pretty much every government solution to date has been a disaster.

I must agree that America is bad and white Christian males are responsible for all that is wrong with the world. Further, I must agree that terrorists and third world dictators are either freedom fighters or misunderstood men of good would.

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Cap and trade bill includes unemployment benefits - Largest tax increase in history.

Examiner.com

Hold onto your hats folks, here it comes…

In a revealing editorial today, the Washington Examiner (not related to Examiner.com) revealed a huge unemployment package buried in the Waxman-Markley Cap and trade energy bill.

At first glance this just seems like more of the usual Washington shuck-n-jive. However, when one considers the implications of this, it becomes apparent that the writers of the cap and trade bill are very clearly aware that this bill will cost thousands of jobs. So much so that unemployment benefits for those losing their jobs because of it will go for THREE YEARS, 156 weeks. Obviously they are not expecting these hapless folks to find new work easily! The Washington examiner reports that these victims of Washington DC legislation and Congress will get 80% of their insurance premiums paid, a 1500$ relocation allowance, and job search expenses of up to 1500$.

If this is an energy bill… which by the way, is being sold as legislation that will create higher paying “Green” jobs, in higher numbers than those lost, then what are unemployment benefits for up to three years doing in it?

Note to all of those who are supporting this bill, both Nationally and locally here in Oregon, be prepared for your energy costs to go up by a minimum of 50%, and by some estimates up to 90%. Let’s put some numbers with that. Say your average electric bill for a year is 100$ a month. That’s 1200$ a year. Your bill will go up to 150$ a month, for a total of 1800$ a year with just a 50% increase. With a 90% increase that number will be 2280$, or 190$ a month. But that’s not all; the cost of your Natural gas will go up similarly. So will the grocery store’s electric bill, 50% higher refrigeration costs = 50% higher cost passed on to you the consumer. Your Hairdresser’s electricity cost will go up, and so will the cost of your shampoo blow-dry, and Color. Every single industry that uses power of any sort will go up, and your cost of living will rise exponentially.

All this for less that 2 tenths of a degree cooling over the next century, which will absolutely crack up the Chinese and Indians who are praying (if the communist government of China would admit to praying) that this legislation passes! Why?

Because it will absolutely kill the productive engine that is the lifeblood of the United States of America, the economic engine of the world! Of course they want it to pass, it will make them the world’s only superpower. Throw in the fact they own a huge swath of our national debt, and you should now be seeing a very dark black cloud rising over our future.

It should be stressed here, that even a COMMUNIST Government will not institute legislation that will destroy its economy to the extent that this bill will.

Cap and Trade vs. the American Dream

National Review
The global-warming bill got a chilly reception when it was introduced in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s global-warming subcommittee. It was not only the subcommittee’s Republicans but also a number of its Democrats who had serious questions about the proposal to slash greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unable to win subcommittee support for the bill, committee chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and his chief environmental lieutenant, Ed Markey (D., Mass.), had to withdraw it and go back to the drawing board. After intense closed-door negotiations, they returned to the full committee with a new version last Friday, May 15. Early indications are that this “new and improved” version now contains enough sweeteners to make it palatable to committee Democrats made queasy by the original draft.

These reluctant Democrats hail from states with heavy concentrations of manufacturing employment, lots of electricity generated from “dirty” coal, robust energy sectors (oil refineries, offshore platforms, etc.), and other characteristics that make their districts ground zero for any cap-and-trade scheme. Given all this, one would assume that the fruits of these negotiations would be a watered-down proposal that destroyed fewer jobs, imposed lower increases in energy costs, and demanded less austere lifestyle changes.

One would be wrong. Economists at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis plugged the new provisions of the draft proposal into a sophisticated model of the U.S. economy. The results were nothing short of astonishing: The negotiations succeeded in making the revised plan even more economically debilitating than the original.

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Charlotte Allen: Why I can't stand atheists

TwinCities.com

I can't stand atheists — but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores.

Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist.

My problem with atheists is their tiresome — and way old — insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What, did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?

Read Dawkins, or Hitchens, or the works of fellow atheists Sam Harris ("The End of Faith") and Daniel Dennett ("Breaking the Spell"), or visit an atheist Web site or blog (there are zillions of them, bearing such titles as "God Is for Suckers," "God Is Imaginary" and "God Is Pretend"), and your eyes will glaze over as you peruse — again and again — the obsessively tiny range of topics around which atheists circle like water in a drain.

First off, there's atheist victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us 'cuz we don't believe in God.

Although a recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16 percent of Americans describe themselves as religiously

unaffiliated, only 1.6 percent call themselves atheists, with another 2.4 percent weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists' failure to win converts to their unbelief, but atheists say the problem is persecution so relentless that it drives tens of millions of God-deniers into a closet of feigned faith, like gays before Stonewall.
In his online "Atheist Manifesto," Harris writes that "no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that ... God exists."

The evidence? Antique clauses in the constitutions of six — count 'em — states barring atheists from office.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled such provisions unenforceable nearly 50 years ago, but that doesn't stop atheists from bewailing that they have to hide their Godlessness from friends, relatives, employers and potential dates. One representative of the pity-poor-me school of atheism, Kathleen Goodman, writing in January for the Chronicle of Higher Education, went so far as to promote affirmative action for atheists on college campuses: specially designated, college-subsidized "safe spaces" for them to express their views.

Maybe atheists wouldn't be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God.

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Forwarding from vet’s link:

You’re a 19 year old kid. You’re critically wounded,
and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965,
LZ X-ray , Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 -
1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards
away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the
MediVac helicopters to s top coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine
guns, and you know you’re not getting out. Your family
is half-way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and
you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade
in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the
machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a
helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it
doesn’t seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on
it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so
it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into
the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not
to come.

He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire,
as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the
Doctors and Nurses.< /span>

And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took
about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have
gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman,died last Wednesday at
the age of 80, in Boise , ID ......May God rest his soul.....

I bet you didn’t hear about this hero’s passing,
but we sure were told a whole bunch about some Hip-Hop
Coward beating the crap out of his “girlfriend.”

Medal of Honor Winner Ed Freeman!

Shame on the American Media.

Let us remember him by forwarding this email

—
James M. Olsen
Shining City Media - “True to the Vision”
2412 Soundview Drive NE
Bainbridge Isl, WA 98110
(206) 276-5242 cell / (206) 570-7711 pager

GOP hates Palin

100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKE

New York Post

1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11

2. "There is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments." -- Obama during the campaign.

MORE: Obama's First 100 Days in Photos

3. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%!

5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15

6. "Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the 'teleprompt president' over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." -- Sky News, 3/18

7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.

8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own -- a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.

9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn't properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey's induction into the European Union.

10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.

11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands.

12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed "The Open Veins of Latin America." Obama didn't remark upon it. At least it wasn't DVDs.

13. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama "president of an empire." Obama didn't leave the room. "I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought," he said.

14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout.

15. "For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back." -- Associated Press, 3/18

16. "After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway." -- New York Post, 2/15

17. MEGHAN CLYNE ON: "I WON" AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP

18. "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." -- Department of Homeland Security intelligence report

19. Nixes a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill.

20. "Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn't have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border

21. "The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.' " -- New York Times, 3/14

22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR

23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record.

24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration's release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States.

25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

26. "Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they're invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. 'That's how we learn,' Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders." -- The Oklahoman, 4/23

27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions.

28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe.

29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

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Ira Einhorn: Founder of Earth Day and Killer

Ira Einhorn

(byname: the Unicorn) was a leading liberal icon and activist of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the late-1960's through the 1970's, advocating free love, ecology, and claiming to be a founder of Earth Day in 1970; however, he is best known for the brutal murder of his former girfriend (Holly Maddux) and his escape from justice for nearly two decades.

Protesters confront CNN reporter

Lost In An Energy Wilderness

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Energy Policy: The House approves a Senate-passed omnibus bill that puts 2 million more acres of energy-rich land off-limits. We need a government that leads us out of the energy wilderness and not into it.

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed on a 285-148 vote the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22), which confirms our theory that no good comes from legislation labeled "comprehensive" or "omnibus."

S.22 is a smorgasbord of 160 bills totaling more than 1,300 pages and, no, we're not sure how many who voted for it actually read it. A stimulus bill it is not, for it locks up an additional 2 million acres to the 107 million acres of federally owned wilderness areas. That total is more than the area of Montana and Wyoming combined.

Speaking of Wyoming, 1.1 million of these newly restricted acres are in that state. This bill, which also provides $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California, takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in that state, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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Look for higher fuel prices.....

Bitch "Jeanne Devon" Famed for Anonymous Anti-Palin Blog 'Outed' by Lawmaker

HuffPo

An Alaskan state legislator revealed in his constituent e-newsletter Friday the identity of an anonymous local blogger who was made famous by her criticisms of Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign season.

Mudflats blogger "Alaska Muckraker" (AKM) rose to blogger fame almost instantaneously when Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin was tapped to be John McCain's running mate, and the then anonymous blogger wrote "What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan's Perspective" under the penname AKM. Little was known about Palin in the lower 48, and AKM provided a much-needed window throughout the campaign season into Palin's performance as governor of Alaska from a progressive viewpoint.

AKM earned the ire of Alaska Representative Mike Doogan (LD-25) of Anchorage (who happens to be a writer by trade) when AKM wrote a blog post about a rude email that Doogan sent to his constituents. He had saved up all of the emails from constituents on the Troopergate issue, and in December he responded to all of them at once, CC'ing a list of about thirty perfect strangers together in one email, telling them,

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Anonymous Blogger Anonymous No More

The identity of the person who writes the liberal Democratic Mudflats blog has been secret since the blog began, protected by the Anchorage Daily News, among others. My own theory about the public process is you can say what you want, as long as you are willing to stand behind it using your real name. So I was interested to learn that the woman who writes the blog is Anchorage resident Jeanne Devon.

Best wishes,

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Another ugly liberal jealous of Palin.

AIG Bonuses Renew Call for Congress to Read Bills

CBS News

The fine print in the stimulus bill authorizing the AIG bonuses, which was rushed through the U.S. Congress at lightning speed, has led to a renewed call for politicians to read legislation before they vote on it.

That kind of rule may seem like plain common sense, but it's surprisingly common for members of Congress to be handed a bill that's hundreds or thousands of pages long -- and have only a few hours to read it before a vote. In other words, legislators may approve complex and important measures even though they may not know what they're actually voting on.

Jim Babka, executive director of a non-profit, non-partisan group called Downsize DC, says the AIG-bonus flap has prompted more interest in a project he's been advocating called Read the Bills Act.

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California May Ban Black Cars

Michael Arrington

Washington Post

The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. A presentation on the proposed legislation by the California Air Resources Board is below.

The problem isn't the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall. And dark colors just don't reflect well, so they are likely out. "Jet black remains an issue," says the report.

Democrat looking at taxing health benefit

ReutersUK

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday he would consider taxing U.S. workers on their employer-sponsored health insurance to help pay for extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

"I think that tax provision should be on the table," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who will play a major role in writing the legislation to revamp the U.S. healthcare system as promised by President Barack Obama.

"It's too aggressive. It skews the system," he said of the tax benefit.

Most U.S. workers with health insurance get it through their employers -- 160 million of them -- although recent surveys have shown that number is declining as businesses try to cope with the rapidly rising cost of insurance.

The employer-provided benefit is not taxed as income and critics say the tax break encourages workers to seek a more generous benefit package than they might want if it was taxed.

Eliminating the tax break was part of the health overhaul package proposed by Republican Senator John McCain in his unsuccessful presidential bid against Obama.

But taxing health insurance benefits as income will likely meet with strong resistance from labor unions who negotiate benefit packages on behalf of their members.

Baucus told reporters he does not favor eliminating the tax break but is looking at limiting it. The move would provide a much-needed source of revenue to help finance a broad overhaul that lawmakers hope will contain soaring costs and cover an estimated 46 million uninsured Americans.

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Eleven States Declare Sovereignty Over Obama’s Action

By A.W.R. Hawkins
HumanEvents.Com

State governors -- looking down the gun barrel of long-term spending forced on them by the Obama “stimulus” plan -- are saying they will refuse to take the money. This is a Constitutional confrontation between the federal government and the states unlike any in our time.

In the first five weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has acted so rashly that at least 11 states have decided that his brand of “hope” equates to an intolerable expansion of the federal government’s authority over the states. These states -- "Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California...Georgia," South Carolina, and Texas -- "have all introduced bills and resolutions" reminding Obama that the 10th Amendment protects the rights of the states, which are the rights of the people, by limting the power of the federal government. These resolutions call on Obama to “cease and desist” from his reckless government expansion and also indicate that federal laws and regulations implemented in violation of the 10th Amendment can be nullified by the states.

When the Constitution was being ratified during the 1780s, the 10th Amendment was understood to be the linchpin that held the entire Bill of Rights together. The amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

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Huffington Bastards

White House Press Secretary Defiles The Office of The President

Oklahoma City police officer pulls man over for anti-Obama sign on vehicle

NewsOK

The police officers who stopped Oklahoma City motorist Chip Harrison and confiscated a sign from his car told him he has a right to his beliefs, but the U.S. Secret Service "could construe this as a threat against President Obama," according to the incident report released this morning.

The sign, which read "Abort Obama Not the Unborn," was returned to Harrison later that day, the report said.

Police spokesman Steve McCool said this morning that the sign was taken in error, and Oklahoma City residents should not be worried that their First Amendment rights will be violated. He said a supervisor "intervened and quickly returned the sign" after Harrison called the police department.

"Obviously, it was not a good decision to confiscate the sign," McCool said.
Harrison, who could not be reached for comment this morning, told the officers that in his opinion the words "Abort Obama" meant to impeach him. He told the officers he does not believe in abortion because he is a Christian.

Harrison was stopped while driving a white truck on westbound Interstate 44 at SW 119th at 8:45 a.m. on Feb. 12, according to the police report.

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Barack Obama sends bust of Winston Churchill on its way back to Britain

Telegraph.co.uk

Barack Obama has sent Sir Winston Churchill packing and pulse rates soaring among anxious British diplomats.

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.
But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden's official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein's Churchill once ruled the roost.

Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather.

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Kansas budget crisis: State tax refunds on hold

KansasCity.com

State tax refunds, Medicaid reimbursements and payments to local schools are all on hold because of a political showdown between Kansas legislative leaders and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The Kansas Finance Council was to meet at 1 p.m. today to vote on whether to borrow $225 million from healthy state funds to cover expected payments to schools, state workers and taxpayers. The state did the same thing last December when it ran into a cash-flow problem.

But Republican leaders said they wouldn’t authorize the new loans until Sebelius, a Democrat, signs legislation designed to erase the state’s current year budget deficit. That bill, passed Thursday, cuts statewide school funding by $32 million and makes millions more in cuts to other state agencies.

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White House provides plane to senator for key stimulus vote

CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House has provided the use of a government airplane to a key Democratic senator in order to ensure the availability of what may prove to be the deciding 60th vote in favor of the $787 billion economic stimulus package.

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Cantor Confirms Beginning of Nationalized Healthcare in Stimulus Bill

Human Events

The United States Senate yesterday afternoon passed the largest spending bill in history by a 61-37 straight Democrat party-line vote, assisted by only three so-called Republican senators: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. 216 out of 219 Congressional Republicans opposed this immense spending bill that will cost the American taxpayers nearly $1.3 trillion dollars as passed by the Senate.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates a price-tag of $838.2 billion, $18.7 billion more than the House-passed bill, and would cost an additional $368.9 billion to service the debt.

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Obama supporter asks his to increase his McDonalds benefits

Freaking Unbelievable.

Senate Democrats Add Golf Carts to Stimulus

NEWSMAX

The U.S. Senate’s stimulus package includes $300 million for environmentally friendly modes of transportation, including “neighborhood electric vehicles” — which are, in fact, golf carts.

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Mother of Cole Victim On Obama:I Voted for Him, I Think I Made The Wrong Decision

Beyonce Slammed By Etta James

By Jarett Wieselman
New York Post

There's something scrappy in Hollywood's water -- mere days after the very unexpected Faye Dunaway/Hilary Duff feud was ignited, another old guard/new guard battle is blazing. This time around Etta James is kicking it old school -- and threatening to kick Beyonce's teeth in.

Now, I was under the impression that these ladies got on like gangbusters -- not only did Beyonce play Etta in 2008's "Cadillac Records," but Etta acted as a mentor to B and attended the December premiere. Well, that's all in the past because Etta is furious that Beyonce dared to sing her iconic "At Last" during the presidential inauguration.

"I can't stand Beyonce! She's going to get her ass whooped," Etta screamed (via) at an event celebrating her career. The chanteuse went on to slam Barack Obama for selecting Ms. Knowles to do the honors. "You know your president, the one with the big ears -- he ain't my president -- he had that woman singing for him at his Inauguration. How dare Beyonce sing my song that I been singing forever!"

I can't decide why this bothers Etta so much now -- Beyonce had previously sang the song at Fashion Rocks, for AOL Live Sessions and in "Cadillac Records." Guess this was just one time too many.

Obama pick, Nancy Killefer, withdraws as tax problems take their toll on nominees

TIMES ONLINE

President Obama’s promise to set a new ethical standard in politics took another knock today when his budget enforcer was forced to withdraw amid revelations that she did not pay her taxes on time.

Nancy Killefer, a director of the McKinsey management consultancy firm whose brief was to cut waste and improve government efficiency, is the third member of the White House team to encounter trouble over her personal finances. Reports said that she failed for over a a year and a half to pay employment taxes for her domestic help.

Ms Killefer’s decision to withdraw her nomination follows similar controversies with Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle over their failure to pay back taxes.
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Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary
BREITBART

Bill creates detention camps in U.S. for 'emergencies'

Jerome R. Corsi
WorldNetDaily
Sweeping, undefined purpose raises worries about military police state

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the secretary of homeland security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations.

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.
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Nearly 1M still without power in ice storm's wake

By BRUCE SCHREINER

MURRAY, Ky. (AP) - Utility crews renewed work in subfreezing temperatures Saturday in their effort to put the power back on for nearly a million customers left in the dark by an ice storm that crippled parts of several states this week.

Thousands of people in ice-caked Kentucky awoke in motels and shelters, asked to leave their homes by authorities who said emergency teams in some areas were too strapped to reach everyone in need of food, water and warmth.

A 20-degree temperature boost was forecast across much of the region, a boon to the power crews but one that carried with it the threat of flooding.

Dozens of deaths have been reported and many people are pleading for a faster response to the power outages. About 536,000 homes and businesses across Kentucky were without power, down from more than 600,000 the largest outage in state history, surpassing the damage last year from the remnants of Hurricane Ike.

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Real Men of Genius - Bud Lite ad saluting Obama fans



'Former Secretary of State, likes American Idol, would like to meet...': How Condoleezza Rice is now looking for love

Daily Mail
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has revealed she's looking for love.

With masses of free time suddenly on her hands, President Bush's former ally says she plans to focus more on finding romance.

Like so many women in high-flying careers, Ms Rice found herself having to choose between her personal life and her demanding role as Bush's right-hand woman.

For four years, her personal life had to come a distant second - but she is now ready to concentrate on herself.
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GOP elects first black national party chairman

LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Michael Steele was elected Republican National Committee chairman on Friday, defeating the incumbent party chief and three other challengers over six rounds of voting to become the first black to lead the GOP.

The former Maryland lieutenant governor takes over a beleaguered GOP as Republicans seek to rebound from back-to-back defeats in national elections that gave Democrats control of Congress and the White House.

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Arrogant at home, naive abroad. America is already suffering 'buyer's regret' over Obama

Mail Online

Yesterday, just eight days after the inauguration, President Obama had his £576bn so-called stimulus bill passed by the House of Representatives - but without a single vote from any Republican.

All 177 House Republicans opposed the bill. None of them fell for that 'bi-partisan' tripe, which is Democrat code for 'do it our way.'

Which gives me hope for the Republican Congressmen. Forget about 'change.' They know an old-style, Democrat pork-barrel piece of legislation - that is, a Bill designed to pay off or buy votes from vested interests - when they see one, and they aren't going to back it.

Congressman Eric Cantor, one of the leading House Republicans, says an analysis of the Bill shows it is mostly pork: just 12 cents of every dollar in the spending will go to any genuine economic stimulus, such as creating jobs.

Yet Obama was keen to have support from the Republicans. He didn't get it, because what he really wanted was submission from the Republicans.

Clearly the Republicans on the Hill don't reckon they are going to get any backlash from the voters in their districts because they have given a No to The One. They understand that already their voters don't like what Obama is doing, or indeed the arrogance with which he is doing it.

Just two days after the inauguration, when Republican legislators told the president they objected to the massive spending bill, Obama dismissed them with two words: 'I won.'

That was a particularly stupid mistake by the new president. Hard-left Democrats may cheer at such gloating, but most Americans don't like that kind of contempt being shown to Congress.

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