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Latest Articles: United States News
Judge skeptical of ex-senator's campaign cash use
Post Date: 2013-03-11 17:14:40 by calcon
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge sounded skeptical Monday of former Sen. Larry Craig's claim that he properly used $217,000 in campaign funds for his legal defense after his arrest in a 2007 airport bathroom sex sting. Craig contends that the airport bathroom trip fell under his official, duties as senator because he was traveling between Idaho and Washington for work, and therefore the legal fees could be paid for with campaign money. But at a hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that such a broad reading of official travel could be taken to extremes. What if a lawmaker was arrested in an airport for robbing a kiosk or consorting with a prostitute, she asked. ...
Half-naked man with assault rifle shoots up bar, killing one in Pennsylvania
Post Date: 2013-03-11 16:40:12 by Ferret Mike
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A man with at least four weapons — including a military-style M4 assault rifle — is in police custody after he allegedly killed at least one while shooting up a bar in North Fayette, Pennsylvania. Allegheny County police said that the shooter may have been talking on the phone to his girlfriend at the Fort Pitt Inn before briefly leaving. He later returned to the bar with three weapons and opened fire, according to KDKA. The station reported that one of the two men who were shot in the neck and head died from his injuries. The other man was at a local hospital in critical condition. WPXI reported that the dead man had been killed with the M4 assault rifle, while other reports ...
Judge Blocks New York City’s Ban on Big Sugary Drinks
Post Date: 2013-03-11 16:21:11 by Ferret Mike
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A judge invalidated New York City’s ban on large sugary drinks on Monday, one day before it was to go into effect, dealing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a major blow. The decision by Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of State Supreme Court in Manhattan blocks the city from putting the rules into effect or enforcing them. Justice Tingling said the rule banning the drinks was “arbitrary and capricious.” In his opinion, Justice Tingling specifically cited a perceived inequity in the soda rules, which applies to only certain sugared drinks — beverages with a high milk content, for instance, would be exempt — and would apply only to some food establishments, like ...
Mitt Romney's brother thinking of Senate race
Post Date: 2013-03-11 16:18:12 by Ferret Mike
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Could a Romney be running for the U.S. Senate? Scott Romney, older brother of the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, is reportedly thinking about running for the Senate seat in Michigan of retiring Democrat Carl Levin. CBS News reports Romney, who ran for state attorney general in 1998 and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention last year, is "interested and seriously looking at" the 2014 race. Levin upended the Michigan political scene when he announced Thursday that he would not run for a seventh term next year. Both parties have vowed to go after the seat, which Levin has held since 1979. The Romneys, of course, have long ties to Michigan politics. Family patriarch ...
FLASHBACK: Drone strikes on US citizens justified in leaked DOJ memo
Post Date: 2013-03-09 20:10:33 by A K A Stone
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As the use of unmanned aerial drones for military purposes has intensified, the Obama administration has been working — in secret — to codify a set of rules which govern its covert campaigns in the Middle East and Asia. Now a confidential Justice Department white paper has revealed a rough legal framework for one of the drone program's most controversial aspects: the targeted killing of American citizens without due process. According to the 16 page document obtained by NBC News, a target in these cases must be believed to be a "senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida" or an "associated force" who "poses an imminent threat" to the United ...
Rand Paul says John McCain doesn’t always respect him
Post Date: 2013-03-09 00:39:31 by A K A Stone
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* R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) responded to criticism Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has lobbed against him, saying in an interview, ”I treat Sen. McCain with respect, I don’t know if I always get the same in return.” McCain, who opposed Paul’s filibuster of now-CIA Director John Brennan, also referred to Paul, along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), as “wacko birds” in a separate interview.
Two thumbs up: Roger Ebert tweets support for Rand Paul
Post Date: 2013-03-09 00:36:48 by A K A Stone
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US drones taking out our civilians without benefit of a trial? I'm with Rand Paul on this one.
Sen. Rand Paul Is Early Grassroots Frontrunner in 2016 Presidential Poll
Post Date: 2013-03-09 00:30:08 by A K A Stone
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March 7, 2013 -- Houston, TX -- Last week, Contract from America launched a 2016 Presidential Poll at www.contractfromamerica.com/polls/poll to gauge the opinions of grassroots conservative activists. After 181,000 votes have been cast, Senator Rand Paul is the early frontrunner, with Governor Scott Walker and Senator Marco Rubio rounding out the top three. Governor Chris Christie is in last place. The Contract from America 2016 poll is based on a crowdsourced, Condorcet preference voting model which prevents the vote-stuffing found in other polls and elicits deeper voter preferences. The Contract From America's 2016 Presidential poll is the first poll in the nation to take a deeper ...
Newt Gingrich: John McCain attacks on Rand Paul ‘sad’
Post Date: 2013-03-08 22:51:22 by A K A Stone
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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is slamming Sen. John McCain for criticizing Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, saying it’s “sad” for someone who was once known as a maverick in Congress. “What I find sad about Sen. McCain’s recent comments both to Ted Cruz, when Ted Cruz was frankly raising legitimate questions [about Benghazi] and with Rand Paul, is, you know, when I first knew John McCain in the House — he was a maverick. In the Senate, for years, he was a maverick,” Gingrich said Thursday on Fox News. He continued: “Of everybody I know in the Senate, I didn’t know anybody who had a better record of bucking the leadership, doing what he ...
McCain calls [senators] Paul, Cruz, Amash ‘wacko birds’
Post Date: 2013-03-08 16:59:19 by Ferret Mike
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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is continuing to criticize his fellow Republicans for their filibuster of incoming CIA Director John O. Brennan over drone policy. In an interview with the Huffington Post, McCain referred to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) as “wackos.” “They were elected, nobody believes that there was a corrupt election, anything else,” McCain said. “But I also think that when, you know, it’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone.” Asked to clarify, McCain said he was referencing “Rand Paul, Cruz, Amash, whoever.” McCain and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham ...
Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years
Post Date: 2013-03-08 16:19:09 by Ferret Mike
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Scientists like Brian Bencivengo of the National Ice Core Laboratory examine ice cores to determine past air temperatures at the location from which the core was obtained. Global temperatures are warmer than at any time in at least 4,000 years, scientists reported Thursday, and over the coming decades are likely to surpass levels not seen on the planet since before the last ice age. Previous research had extended back roughly 1,500 years, and suggested that the rapid temperature spike of the past century, believed to be a consequence of human activity, exceeded any warming episode during those years. The new work confirms that result while suggesting the modern warming is unique over a ...
Obama picked up GOP senators’ dinner tab
Post Date: 2013-03-07 15:32:21 by Ferret Mike
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President Obama personally paid for a dinner out in Washington for a dozen Republican senators, the White House has confirmed. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) chats with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), outside of the Jefferson Hotel following a dinner with President Obama. (AFP PHOTO/Mandel) The dinner, which took place at the Jefferson Hotel, is part of an ongoing charm offensive as Obama looks to cut a budget deal with rank-and-file Republicans rather than GOP leadership. The meal lasted over two hours. Asked how the conversation went, Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) both flashed reporters a thumbs-up sign. Along with McCain and Coburn, the attendees were Sens. Bob Corker ...
Dennis Rodman Hammered -- Sean Penn, Michael Moore Get a Pass [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2013-03-07 08:27:13 by A K A Stone
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Former NBA star Dennis Rodman traveled to communist North Korea, a trip financed by a documentary filmmaker. Rodman appeared neither officially nor unofficially as part of the U.S. government. An incredulous George Stephanopoulos of ABC subjected Rodman to a grilling more suitable for a corrupt, double-dealing politician: "When you said you love Kim (Jong Un) and think he's awesome, were you aware of his threats to destroy the United States and his regime's horrendous record on human rights? ... Do you think you have a responsibility to ask him about it so that you don't be perceived as sort of propping up his regime, his cult of personality? ... (He's) a 'great ...
Randpage: Hour 8 / Rand Paul vows to speak 'as long as it takes' to block Brennan
Post Date: 2013-03-06 20:05:15 by We The People
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WASHINGTON -- In a rare, traditional filibuster, Sen. Rand Paul vowed to speak on the Senate floor "as long as it takes" to draw attention to his concerns about the Obama administration's policy regarding the targeted killing of American terrorism suspects. The Kentucky Republican took to the floor before noon Wednesday to block an expected vote on the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA, with aides saying he could continue for hours. Paul, beginning his remarks, said he would continue "until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important." "Are we so complacent with our rights that we would allow a president to say he might ...
Rand Paul slams Attorney General Holder for 'refusal' to rule out drone strikes in US
Post Date: 2013-03-06 19:57:57 by We The People
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Sen. Rand Paul is blasting Attorney General Eric Holder's assertion that the government could conceivably use drones against its own citizens in the U.S. as "frightening," saying such an action would violate the Constitution. Paul, R-Ky., was responding to comments by Holder released Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee approved the nomination of John Brennan, President Obama's pick to be his next CIA director. Paul said in a statement obtained by Fox News that Holder sent him two letters regarding the constitutionality of the use of legal force, such as drones against Americans and on U.S. soil, after Paul petitioned Brennan to speak on the matter. In the ...
'America Doesn't Torture'—It Kills
Post Date: 2013-03-06 14:04:09 by Ferret Mike
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President Barack Obama walks to the Marine One helicopter, February 13, 2013. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst If the president can order the killing of
American citizens abroad should he decide they are involved with Al Qaeda, can he assassinate suspected Al Qaeda–connected US citizens in London or Berlin? What about a suspect’s teenage son, a junior in a Canadian boarding school? If he can drop hellfire missiles on a house in northwestern Pakistan because he believes a terrorist cell is meeting inside, could he blow up a motel in Florida where supposed terrorists are staying and chalk up any dead vacationers as “collateral damage”? Of course not. Pakistan is completely ...
McDonald's Guest Workers Stage Surprise Strike
Post Date: 2013-03-06 13:47:59 by Ferret Mike
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Alleging unpaid wages and repeated retaliation, McDonald's workers in central Pennsylvania launched a surprise strike at 11:00 this morning. The strikers are student guest workers from Latin America and Asia, brought to the United States under the controversial J-1 cultural exchange visa program. Their employer is one of the thousands of McDonald's franchisees with whom the company contracts to run its ubiquitous stores. “We are afraid,” striker Jorge Victor Rios told The Nation prior to the work stoppage. “But we are trying to overcome our fear.” The McDonald's corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The J-1 visa program is ...
Sen. Rand Paul: Is Obama Administration Hiding Arms Trade to Jihadists?
Post Date: 2013-03-05 19:56:27 by A K A Stone
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As he did during last month’s hearings on the Benghazi attacks, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) once again brought up the possibility of an Obama administration cover-up of the role played by the CIA in providing weapons to opposition forces in Syria. During an interview Sunday night on WABC Radio’s “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” Paul said, “There has been a lot made of the political cover up of President Obama’s administration saying this (Benghazi attack) had something to do with a homemade film from some guy in Los Angeles. But in reality the question is, or the secondary quotation is, why would they do a cover up? What are they covering up?” Continuing ...
Zimmerman Stuns Court, Waives Right to 'Stand Your Ground' Hearing in Trayvon Martin Case
Post Date: 2013-03-05 13:24:47 by Ferret Mike
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ABC News - Zimmerman Stuns Court, Waives Right to 'Stand Your Ground' Hearing in Trayvon Martin Case (ABC News) George Zimmerman's attorneys stunned court observers Tuesday when they waived their client's right to a "Stand Your Ground" hearing slated for April that might have led to a dismissal of the charges in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin a year ago. However, the defense lawyers didn't say whether they would waive the immunity hearing outright. They left open the possibility for that hearing to be rolled into Zimmerman's second degree murder trial. Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch captain in his Florida subdivision, shot ...
Arpaio loses appeal on pink-underwear case
Post Date: 2013-03-04 17:31:55 by Ferret Mike
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The 9th Circuit said dressing inmates in pink underwear — a hallmark of Joe Arpaio — appeared to be punishment without legal justification. The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s appeal of a ruling that criticized a decision by his jail officers to force pink underwear onto a mentally ill inmate who erroneously believed jailers were trying to rape him. The refusal by the court means the lawsuit by the estate of Eric Vogel appears headed to trial for a second time. Arpaio’s office won the case at trial, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the verdict and called for a new trial in a ruling a year ago. The 9th Circuit ...
Plight of the bumblebee: Disappearance?
Post Date: 2013-03-03 10:46:23 by A K A Stone
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WASHINGTON It's not just honey bees that are in trouble. The fuzzy American bumblebee seems to be disappearing in the Midwest. Two new studies in Thursday's journal Science conclude that wild bees like the American bumblebee are increasingly important in pollinating flowers and crops that provide us with food. And, at least in the Midwest, they seem to be dwindling in an alarming manner, possibly from disease and parasites. Wild bees are difficult to track, so scientists have had a hard time knowing what's happening to them. But because of one man in a small town in Illinois in the 1890s, researchers now have a better clue. RECOMMENDED: Fewer bees in US threaten almond ...
Is Massachusetts more racist than Mississippi, as Chief Justice Roberts hints?
Post Date: 2013-03-03 10:43:53 by A K A Stone
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In deciding whether to strike down a portion of the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is focusing on whether the South has redeemed its racist history. Massachusetts, though, has a quibble with Chief Justice Roberts. Massachusetts officials came out swinging this week after Chief Justice John Roberts argued in a hearing on the constitutionality of a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Mississippi may be more sensitive to black voting rights than Massachusetts. That's important because Mississippi, often derided as a backwards backwater due to its ugly racial history, has to run any changes to its voting laws by the US Department of Justice, while Massachusetts, broadly seen ...
Minimum wage politics. Republicans need to wake up. [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2013-03-03 01:27:00 by Ferret Mike
41 Comments
If you believe, as I do, that the $1.75 increase in the minimum wage will have relatively little actual impact on the economy in either direction, it begs the question of why the parties have so vehemently squared off on this issue. The answer is found in the polling on the minimum wage. It turns out the president's proposal is overwhelming supported by the American people. A number of polls have confirmed that something in the 60 to 70 percent range support the increase. Of course, among Democrats it's even higher at about 90 percent. Independents are at about the national average and even about half of Republicans think it is a good idea. Yet, even though the proposal probably ...
Poll shows 61 percent of Californians back gay marriage
Post Date: 2013-03-01 13:47:42 by Ferret Mike
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A gay marriage supporter carries a sign at the 41st LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) Pride parade in San Francisco on June 26, 2011. -- Credit: Reuters/Susana Bates (Reuters) - California voters favor same-sex marriage by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, a poll showed on Thursday, a month before the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over a gay marriage ban approved by the state's residents in 2008. The Field Poll found 61 percent of surveyed voters in California believe gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to wed, the highest level of support the organization has ever found on that question in the state. The findings represent a shift in public opinion on the matter since ...
Tea Party Hits Record Level Of Unpopularity In Public Opinion Poll
Post Date: 2013-02-28 19:15:35 by Ferret Mike
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The Tea Party is more unpopular than ever before, according to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, with just three in 10 voters holding favorable views of the movement. Half of respondents said they view the party unfavorably. Those numbers represent a considerable dive in support since the Tea Party's heyday in 2009, when a majority of voters rated it favorably. Many of the Senate challengers with Tea Party backing were defeated in 2012, and the movement suffered another PR blow after a falling out among the leadership of the Tea Party group FreedomWorks. Although most members of the House's Tea Party Caucus were reelected in November, the group had some high-profile losses, ...
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