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Latest Articles: United States News
(I just have to share the good news) Special grand jury returns 21-count indictment against Whitley Sheriff; Hodge Taken Into Custody
Post Date: 2010-11-08 18:00:51 by Murron
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I just had to share this bit of good news with all of you, it's what many of us in this area have been waiting for....poetic justice!~ Murron Special grand jury returns 21-count indictment against Whitley Sheriff; Hodge taken into custody Tampering with evidence, abuse of public trust alleged; News Journal obtains grand jury report A special grand jury tasked with investigating possible wrongdoing by current Whitley County Sheriff Lawrence Hodge has returned a 21-count indictment today, charging Hodge with 18 counts of abuse of the public trust and three counts of tampering with physical evidence. Since it was empanelled on June 25, the special grand jury has met on eight prior ...
Alaska's Murkowski on cusp of write-in win
Post Date: 2010-11-08 11:47:08 by go65
4 Comments
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is on the cusp of vindication after waging a high stakes — and long shot — write-in campaign to keep her job. Initial returns show write-in ballots holding a 13,439-vote edge over GOP nominee Joe Miller, and though it's not clear how many of those are for her or will be counted as valid, she's confident enough in her winning to tell supporters that they'd "made history." The write-in count starts Wednesday in Juneau. Murkowski needed broad-based support — from fellow Republicans, Democrats, independents — to be successful in what was a three-way race (Democrat Scott McAdams has conceded). And ...
Liberals Are Terrified Because Pelosi And Reid Are Still Around
Post Date: 2010-11-08 10:43:12 by WhiteSands
18 Comments
The election result was really the worst-possible result for Obama's 2012 re-election prospects in part because Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- two much-hated Democrats -- aren't going anywhere. The Democrats held the Senate, and Reid held of Sharron Angle, so on that side of Congress, he's still the man in charge. And Pelosi wants to stay on as Minority Leader, though she's angered the NYT (!) editorial page, which has asked her to step aside. They claim it's because she's not a good communicator, and thus her skill set doesn't match the job, but that's not the real reason. It's because everyone hates her, and she'll hurt the Democrats in 2012. ...
MSNBC Ends Keith Olbermann's Suspension Tuesday
Post Date: 2010-11-08 00:44:31 by WhiteSands
2 Comments
NEW YORK -- MSNBC says Keith Olbermann will be back on the air Tuesday, ending his suspension for violating NBC's rules against making political donations. MSNBC's chief executive Phil Griffin said late Sunday that after several days of deliberation, he had determined that two days off the air was "an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy." The left-leaning cable network's most popular personality acknowledged donating $2,400 apiece to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. NBC News prohibits its employees from making political donations unless an exception is granted in advance ...
Calif borrows $40M a day to pay unemployment
Post Date: 2010-11-07 21:05:29 by WhiteSands
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With one in every eight workers unemployed and empty state coffers, California is borrowing billions of dollars from the federal government to pay unemployment insurance. The Los Angeles Times reports that the state owes $8.6 billion already, and will have to come up with a $362-million payment to Washington by the end of next September. The continued borrowing means federal unemployment insurance taxes are going to increase, upping the annual payroll costs $21 a year per worker. California tops the list of 32 states that have borrowed a total of $41 billion to pay claims. The state took out its first loan from the federal government early last year, to deal with rising payment of ...
Obama, on '60 Minutes,' blames his leadership
Post Date: 2010-11-07 20:54:23 by WhiteSands
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President Barack Obama acknowledged a series of errors since taking office, admitting that he misjudged the pace of the economic recovery, that he has sometimes strayed from his campaign promise to change the tone of debate in Washington, and that leadership “isn’t just legislation.” “We were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that we stopped paying attention to the fact that, yeah, leadership isn’t just legislation, that it’s a matter of persuading people and giving them confidence and bringing them together, and setting a tone,” Obama said in an interview conducted Thursday for airing Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” ...
Texas Considers Medicaid Withdrawal
Post Date: 2010-11-07 18:41:57 by Brian S
3 Comments
Some Republican lawmakers — still reveling in Tuesday’s statewide election sweep — are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program. Far-right conservatives are offering that possibility in impassioned news conferences. Moderate Republicans are studying it behind closed doors. And the party’s advisers on health care policy say it is being discussed more seriously than ever, though they admit it may be as much a huge in-your-face to Washington as anything else. “With Obamacare mandates coming down, we have a situation where we cannot reduce benefits or change ...
WA voters say no to state income tax Initiative 1098
Post Date: 2010-11-07 18:17:58 by WhiteSands
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SEATTLE - Associated Press reports Washington voters have rejected a state income tax on top 1 percent of earners. Early returns show voters rejected Initiative 1098 being rejected with about 65 percent of the vote to 35 percent in unofficial returns. Initiative 1098 would institute a new state tax on the top 1 percent of incomes to pay for education and health programs while trimming state property and business taxes. The campaign follows January’s overwhelming decision by Oregon voters to increase taxes for corporations and wealthier households. "I'm particularly gratified the way Initiative 1098 is going down to defeat. I don't think we're going to see that kind ...
Video: Federal Contractor Telling His Employees to Vote For Murkowski
Post Date: 2010-11-07 18:14:07 by WhiteSands
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Fraud in Alaska: Video of a federal contractor telling his employees to vote for Murkowski "because she is on the appropriations subcommittee, and that committee steers a lot of funds to Alaska. If her opponents win this election, I can tell you they will not get on that subcommittee".
Reagan Budget Chief Slams GOP On Taxes 'This Is Not 1981 -- This Is Not Morning Again In America'
Post Date: 2010-11-07 17:56:13 by Brian S
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David Stockman says Wall Street 'doesn't deserve' extension of tax cuts; US becoming 'banana republic of finance' A former Reagan administration budget director who was behind the largest tax cut in US history now says the US can't afford any more tax cuts, and both major parties are participating in a "big lie," pretending that no tax hikes are necessary despite a three-decade record of growing budget deficits. In an interview with ABC's Christiane Amanpour, David Stockman warned that government services, including military spending and social programs, would have to be cut back significantly and taxes would have to be raised to avoid financial ...
Keith Olbermann unites conservatives and liberals: Does anyone besides MSNBC think he should be suspended?
Post Date: 2010-11-07 15:41:53 by go65
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“Hey there — anything crazy happen where you work today?” said Rachel Maddow at the start of her MSNBC show on Friday night. She was referring, of course, to the suspension of her prime-time neighbor, Keith Olbermann, for making donations to three Democratic congressional candidates. According to NBC News policy cited by MSNBC president Phil Griffin, its employees cannot do that unless they have prior permission. Griffin put out the usual boilerplate: that “these activities jeopardize his [...] standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Come on: Does anyone think Keith Olbermann is an impartial journalist? ...
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell Says Banning 'Earmarks' Is Complicated
Post Date: 2010-11-07 13:48:09 by Brian S
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell says banning pork-barrel projects known as "earmarks" from congressional legislation is more complicated than it appears but that he is willing to consider such a ban. McConnell says that ending the common practice of slipping funding requests for home-state projects into legislation won't cut spending. A ban on earmarks will only limit the discretion of where to spend the vast federal budget and not curb spending. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has said he wants to ban all lawmakers' requests for specific spending. President Barack Obama has backed that idea. McConnell says Republicans are ready ...
AARP Raises Insurance Costs for Employees
Post Date: 2010-11-06 18:30:28 by WhiteSands
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The AARP’s health insurance costs are going up next year due to rapidly rising medical costs that are partly fueled by the health overhaul, the AP is reporting. Premiums for the group’s employees will rise by 8% to 13% next year, the story says. The association is changing co-pays and deductibles to avoid a 40% tax on high-cost health plans that goes into effect in 2018, according to the AP. About 4,500 people are covered by the group’s plans. In an Oct. 25 email, Jennifer Hodges, the AARP’s director of compensation and benefits said, “Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost management standpoint but also to ensure that AARP’s plans fall below ...
What the Next Speaker Must Do ,Secrecy, arrogance, and the abuse of power have shattered the bonds of trust between the people and their elected leaders. Repairing that trust requires sweeping change, beginning with an end to earmarks.
Post Date: 2010-11-06 16:42:07 by WhiteSands
6 Comments
What the Next Speaker Must Do Secrecy, arrogance, and the abuse of power have shattered the bonds of trust between the people and their elected leaders. Repairing that trust requires sweeping change, beginning with an end to earmarks. By JOHN BOEHNER I grew up in a small house on a hill in Cincinnati, Ohio, with 11 brothers and sisters. My dad ran a bar, Andy's Café, that my grandfather Andrew Boehner opened in 1938. We didn't have much but were thankful for what we had. And we didn't think much about Washington. That changed when I got involved with a small business, which I eventually built into a successful enterprise. I saw firsthand how government throws obstacles ...
Republicans Backtrack After Proposal on Aid to Israel Draws Heavy Criticism
Post Date: 2010-11-06 13:02:38 by Brian S
5 Comments
GETTY IMAGESRising Power: In an interview, Rep. Eric Cantor suggested approving aid to Israel separately from the rest of the foreign aid budget. Republicans now say the comment was over-hyped. Washington — Virginia Republican Rep. Eric Cantor has provoked heated reaction with his proposal that American assistance to Israel be taken out of the annual foreign aid bill and be passed separately, on its own — a suggestion that appeared to telegraph his party’s intention to significantly reduce foreign aid now that the GOP has gained control of the House of Representatives. The roughly $3 billion a year provided by the United States for Israeli military purchases is a product of ...
152 Arrested in Oakland Cop Sentencing Protest (Rioters take cops gun)
Post Date: 2010-11-06 12:54:39 by Hondo68
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Demonstrators clash with police during street protests in reaction to the conviction and sentencing of BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, Calif., Friday, Nov. 5, 2010. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at a BART station on Jan. 1, 2009. He was sentenced to two years in prison.(CBS/AP) Police arrested 152 protesters who streamed through the streets Friday - some breaking windows and knocking down fences - after a white ex-transit officer received the minimum two-year prison sentence for fatally shooting an unarmed black man on a California train platform. The case against defendant Johannes Mehserle has provoked racial ...
Violence After Sentence in Oakland Killing
Post Date: 2010-11-06 12:46:35 by Brian S
2 Comments
OAKLAND — Protesters vandalized storefronts and clashed with the police here on Friday night after a white former transit police officer was given what they considered to be a light sentence for the killing an unarmed black man. But protests initially seemed less violent than others that have surrounded the controversial case. The authorities said one officer was hit by a car — perhaps by a police vehicle — and another officer’s gun was stolen and turned on him. That protester was arrested, Police Chief Anthony W. Batts said, and a police police spokesman said 152 people had been arrested. “You have a very aggressive crowd,” Chief Batts said. The ...
Executive Order--Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice
Post Date: 2010-11-06 02:31:49 by WhiteSands
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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered that: Section 1. Order of Succession. Subject to the provisions of section 2 of this order, the following officers, in the order listed, shall act as and perform the functions and duties of the office of Attorney General, during any period in which the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, and any officers designated by the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508 to act as Attorney General have died, resigned, or otherwise become unable to ...
The $200m a day Obama roadshow: President heads to India...with a mini-America in tow
Post Date: 2010-11-06 02:20:53 by WhiteSands
3 Comments
Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America. While lesser mortals – the Pope, Queen Elizabeth and so on – are usually happy to let their hosts handle most of the security and transport arrangements when they venture beyond their home shores, the United States creates a mini-America on the move to ensure that nothing is left to chance. Today, Barack Obama arrives in India at the start of a ten-day tour of Asia. At the heart of the White House caravan is ‘The Beast’, a gigantic, ‘pimped-up’ General Motors ...
White Ex-Transit Officer Given 2-year Prison Term
Post Date: 2010-11-05 23:00:33 by Murron
4 Comments
White Ex-Transit Officer Given 2-year Prison Term LOS ANGELES – A white former transit officer was sentenced to the minimum possible prison sentence of two years Friday for fatally shooting an unarmed black man on a California train platform, angering the victim's family and friends, who demanded a much harsher punishment. The case against defendant Johannes Mehserle has provoked racial unrest at every turn, and police in Oakland, the scene of the killing, were on alert for more problems following a sentence that many thought was too light. Wanda Johnson, the mother of Oscar Grant, shouted, "Oh my!" when Superior Court Judge Robert Perry issued the two-year sentence. ...
'Hillary voters' abandon Democrats
Post Date: 2010-11-05 22:48:37 by WhiteSands
3 Comments
The blue-collar voters who supported Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential run deserted her party in droves on Tuesday, according to a new poll. Democrats' support from white, non-college-educated male voters dropped 12 percent from 2008, according to a survey Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted Nov. 2-3 for Democracy Corps and Campaign for America's Future. Only 29 percent of blue-collar men support Democrats in 2010, down from 41 percent last cycle, according to the survey of 1,000 2008 voters, of which 897 voted on Tuesday. "These are gigantic losses," Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, whose firm conducted the survey, said on a conference call with reporters ...
Coburn Boldly Calls For Cutting Pentagon’s ‘Sacred Cows’: ‘Taking Defense Spending Off The Table Is Indefensible’
Post Date: 2010-11-05 20:48:31 by go65
2 Comments
This morning, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has an op-ed in the Washington Examiner titled “What Republicans Can Accomplish In The 112th Congress.” In the op-ed, Coburn lays out a legislative agenda that he thinks Republicans should pursue in the new Congress. Many of these are boilerplate conservative ideas, like refusing to raise the debt ceiling and relying entirely on spending cuts instead. Yet at one point, Coburn breaks with many of his Republican colleagues — and his party’s own much- touted “Pledge For America” — by calling for cuts to the defense budget. He writes that “Republicans also should resist pressure to take all defense ...
Dem pollster: What Obama really needs is an Oklahoma City moment
Post Date: 2010-11-05 20:48:12 by WhiteSands
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Occasionally, political pundits get so wrapped up in their analysis that they don’t think through all of the implications of their commentary. That happened to Mark Penn, longtime Democratic pollster, in his appearance on Hardball last night, in the most charitable explanation possible. Eyeblast’s Joe Schoffstall clips this magic moment from the discussion with Chris Matthews on how disconnected Barack Obama has become from the American electorate, and what it will take for him to reconnect, using Bill Clinton as an example: President Clinton reconnected with Oklahoma. And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with ...
Repeal and Replace? Not so fast. An insurance-company defector explains why the most controversial provision of the health-care law will survive.
Post Date: 2010-11-05 14:22:27 by go65
4 Comments
Conservatives who voted for congressional candidates because they pledged to repeal and replace the health-care-reform law are in for a rude awakening. Once those newly elected members of Congress have a little talk with the insurance industry’s lobbyists and executives, they will back off from that pledge. They will go through the motions, of course. They’ll hold hearings and take to the floor of both Houses to rail against the new law, and they’ll probably even introduce a bill to repeal it with much fanfare—but it will all be for show. That’s because health insurers, one of Republican candidates’ biggest and most reliable benefactors—the industry ...
MSNBC Suspends Olbermann After Donation To Dems Disclosed [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2010-11-05 14:08:45 by Brian S
61 Comments
News network MSNBC has suspended host Keith Olbermann indefinitely after a news report stated he donated to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates. Mediaite quotes MSNBC President Phil Griffin as saying, "I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay." Politico reported Friday: Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest ...
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