image toon - mny auto - GM = Giovernment Motors

Obama takes over General Motors

Of all the economic teams beavering away in Washington, any ranking of the least likely to produce credible results would have put the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry high on the list.

Headed by a former journalist turned investment whiz, the task force also includes a union industrial strategist, three climate change experts, a smattering of economists and a former legislative assistant to Hillary Clinton...

[And we'll all be shocked and surprised when it ends badly.]

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image toon - reps auto crpt - Geithner on Auto task force = ignore taxes owed

A Whiff of Fascism from the White House

[HT:MW]
There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House. Reports say that the head of GM is quitting under duress from the Obama administration: General Motors chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner is resigning at the request of the White House, clearing the way for the Obama administration to offer the company more federal aid...

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image toon - mny 1st auto - National Debt crater vs. government qualifications

Hero's welcome for GI injured in Afghan blast

With horns blaring, a six-car caravan packed with well-wishers sped up Lotus Street in Jefferson Park on Saturday to welcome home a hero. One by one, members of Warriors' Watch Riders hugged National Guard Staff Sgt. Nate Rivera, who returned last week from Afghanistan where he survived a roadside bombing.

"These soldiers make us proud to be Americans, We're honored to welcome them home."

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Talking ourselves to death: Obama must get tough on an increasingly dangerous Iran

Iran is making fools of everyone.

Even as it lies about its closeness to acquiring nuclear missiles, it continues to menace the political order throughout the Middle East, pressing on with rocketry and rearming Hamas and Hezbollah. And that mischief is nothing compared to what it will do if it is allowed to become a nuclear power.

President Obama's tentative video overture to the Iranians on Friday must not become an opportunity to let them buy more time for their nuclear program.

Nuclear Iran will be a threat to U.S. national security, worldwide energy security, the efficacy of multilateralism and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Having defied the world so brazenly, it will be emboldened to use terrorism to threaten or subvert others in the area.

And Iran, through its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, has the capacity to put direct pressure on Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians and the Iraqis. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands would join radical Islamist groups in the belief that Islamism is on the march.

Fundamentally, a nuclear Iran represents a unique threat. The fear of mutually assured destruction has long restrained other nuclear powers.

But there is a real risk that [the leadership of] Iran is not rational...

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Apologies Just Tell Our Enemies We’re Weak

First, President Obama sends a message to the Muslim world, effectively apologizing for the policies of George W. Bush. Excuse me, but shouldn’t the Muslim world be apologizing to America for their contributions to the radicalization of their brethren that led them to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11?

Then, Secretary of State Clinton criticizes the country she represents and does it on Mexican soil, no less. She blames the demand for drugs in America for the drug cartel wars being waged against each other and the Mexican government.

Great nations don’t apologize unless they are guilty of a serious moral affront (The Holocaust, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are two that come to mind as worthy of apologies).

But if an apology or confession is to be made, it should be delivered in private, not in public. Besides, what good does it do? Unless explicit policies accompany such confessions or apologies, I fail to see how it lowers the level of violence in Mexico or reduces the continuing threat of Islamic extremism - just the opposite in fact...

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Leading Iranian Official Ridicules Obama’s Overture

Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, on Wednesday criticized the United States in harsher terms than any other leading Iranian figure has done since President Obama extended his videotaped olive branch to Iran last week.

''“The problems will not be solved by them altering the words or selecting the terms they use,''

Mr. Larijani said, apparently a reference to Mr. Obama’s praise of Iran’s culture and history.

[I couldn't agree more.]

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Iran Clenches Its Fist

The danger is that direct talks may facilitate, not reduce, threats to U.S. interests

The State Department recently named Dennis Ross, a seasoned Middle East negotiator, as a "special adviser" to the Gulf region -- a bureaucratic but important prerequisite for direct talks with Iran. Unfortunately, a new envoy and a new diplomatic tone cannot disguise the ongoing substantive collapse of U.S. policy and resolve in the teeth of the Islamic Republic's growing challenge.

First, diplomacy has not and will not reduce Iran's nuclear program. Ironically, European leaders are belatedly feeling hollow in the pits of their diplomatic stomachs, now that their failed diplomacy has left us with almost no alternatives to a nuclear Iran. Imagine their dismay that President Obama is now "opening" to Iran, thus eviscerating their tentative efforts to "close" the diplomatic cover under which Iran has almost achieved the worst-case outcome, deliverable nuclear weapons.

Second, dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria as though they are unrelated to Iran's broader threat is exactly backwards. Mr. Obama is again following Europe's mistaken view that ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will help to resolve other regional problems. But concentrating on Gaza only increases Hamas's leverage, just as negotiating with Syria only enhances its (and thereby Iran's) bargaining power.

We should deal instead with diseases, not symptoms...

[Recommended > ]

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Gates prefers sanctions

Washington - Defence Secretary Robert Gates says that he thinks economic penalties rather than diplomacy are more likely to bring success to US efforts on Iran. Gates says that if enough economic pressure is placed on Iran, diplomacy might provide what he calls ''an open door'' for Iranians if they choose to change their policies. Gates says economic penalties are likely to get the Iranians to the table...

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Sudan's wanted president welcomed at summit

DOHA, Qatar–Sudan's president, who is sought by an international court on charges of war crimes in Darfur, received a warm welcome Sunday in Qatar, where he will attend this week's Arab League summit.

President Omar al-Bashir was greeted with hugs and kisses by Qatar's emir in a red-carpet welcome at Doha's airport on Sunday. He later had coffee with the emir and the head of the Arab League. The summit begins Monday.

The 22-country Arab League has already said it would not enforce the International Criminal Court's arrest order for al-Bashir issued on March 4 and the Sudanese leader visited Eritrea, Egypt and Libya over the past week in a show of defiance

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Islamist Hate Exposed By Traditional Values Coalition

The Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Fairfax, Va. went before the local planning commission Wednesday night to seek an expansion of their controversial and secretive school funded and controlled by the Saudi government.

A large group of residents near the school asked the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) for help in organizing and strategizing against the expansion, which has seen raids by local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and used anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-American textbooks.

The school is operated by the government of Saudi Arabia and there has been some confusion over whether federal or local officials should take jurisdiction over the extremist Wahhabi teaching and clandestine activities which have marked the ISA’s history... [snip]

The campus of the Islamic Saudi Academy operates under the principles of Shariah law.

The principal who was arrested for not reporting the sexual abuse of the five year-old student because he was following Shariah law when he turned the child back to her abusive father and suggested he “get control” of her.

Under brutal Shariah law, children do not have basic human rights and neither do women. [snip]

Local residents were astonished at the treatment they received from the commissioners as compared to the deferential and preferred treatment given to Islamic Saudi Academy proponents.

Virginians who expect fair treatment from their government are being outbid by the Saudi extremists who pump money and illegal grassroots support into the campaigns of the liberal Congressman and Board of Supervisor candidates’ campaigns...

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No more US dictating to Latin America: Biden

SANTIAGO: US Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the United States would no longer “dictate unilaterally” to Latin America, and that it had entered a new era in the historically troubled relationship. “The time of the United States dictating unilaterally, the time where we only talk and don’t listen is over,” Biden said in Santiago...

[Like with Columbia?]

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Canada passes Colombia, Peru trade deals

The House of Commons has passed the legislation needed for Canada's free trade agreements with Colombia and Peru to come into effect, improving conditions for the Canadian exporters looking to break into the South American market.

Stockwell Day, the Minister of International Trade, said Thursday the agreements would open new doors for Canadian companies doing business in the two countries by expanding market access in key sectors...

[Meanwhile in the U.S., nothing. {same reason: unions}]

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OBAMA'S MOST PERILOUS LEGAL PICK

[HT:YP]
JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh.

He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish... [snip]

Even though he's up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the "judicial wars." If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like.

[Recommended > ]

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Then >


"OPPOSE HAROLD KOH NOMINATION"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

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Hazards rooted in Sept. 11

With the financial meltdown in full force across the globe, finger-pointing for the problem has become a national preoccupation. Easy credit, low interest rates, mismanagement and political interference are often mentioned as culprits.

Overlooked in this heated debate, however, is Sept. 11, 2001, the day the Earth shook with horror. In addition to the more than 2,800 people who lost their lives on that fateful day, the world economy took a financial hit that accumulated to somewhere between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. By contrast, the terror operation cost about $200,000, a destructive leverage of at least 5 million to 1.

But that wasn't the end of it. The post-Sept. 11 trauma in the Middle East and fragile world economies reliant on oil inexorably put pressure on world oil supplies. U.S. failures to develop offshore oil resources and other non-oil and non-gas energy increased pressure on oil prices. These pressures climaxed with oil at $140 a barrel and caused the transfer of about $7 billion a day in liquidity from industrial economies to oil-producing nations.

Yet it is curious that this seemingly obvious point was not made by the Bush administration, nor was it raised during the recent presidential campaign. In fact, had this issue been addressed, it would have moderated the Obama claim that economic exigency was due to the bungling of the Bush economic team.

What turns out to be most noteworthy is that the events that preceded the economic downturn have been ignored or forgotten. Only eight years after Sept. 11, the nation seems to suffer from historical amnesia...

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Obama's energy policy will INCREASE dependence on foreign oil

President Obama’s energy policy is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil imports by eliminating oil and replacing oil with alternative renewable “clean” biofuel. That sounds good in speeches. It is quite impressive to all those who know little about oil or biofuels, which includes the majority of the public. The devil, of course, is in the details which no one seems to have investigated.

Ethanol subsidies began in 1979. Ethanol has had 30 years of taxpayer-assisted experience. Ethanol is the only “feasible” alternative renewable biofuel in the competition. All other biofuels lack the production potential that ethanol has. [snip]

According to Professor Chris Hurt of Purdue, in 2006 the US had about 79 million acres of corn. Professor Richard Meilan of Purdue estimates that one acre of corn will produce 450 gallons which is 10.7 barrels of ethanol. Using all of the corn crop land in the US for ethanol — no movie popcorn, no corn syrup sweetener, no bourbon, no tortillas, no grits, no corn to eat at all — ethanol production can reach only 845 million barrels in 2022, or 2.31 million barrels per day.

Department of Energy data shows that the US is producing 4.95 million barrels of oil per day and importing 9.00 million barrels of foreign oil per day. Including the 0.60 million barrels of ethanol per day, our current oil demand is 14.55 million barrels per day... [snip]

US oil production has been declining since 1985. This decline is almost ruler straight.

By 2022, it is estimated that US oil production would be approximately 3 million barrels per day. In 1972, foreign oil imports were 811 million barrels, 19% of demand, the year before the devastating Arab Oil Embargo. Currently, foreign oil imports are at a rate of 3.3 billion barrels annually, 62% of current demand, and are expected to increase in the future... [snip]

Everything is not going to be fine in the future under President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy. President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy is on a collision course to a national catastrophe. Among a great many other critical problems, it will cause an increase in our dependence on foreign oil.

[Difficult to 'brief' as looks at the facts from several angles {including the increased emission of CO2 ethanol use generates} - all of them seemingly no-brainers that we're handling exactly wrong - Highly Recommended > ]

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[click, sign, pass it on...]

domestic energy petition

image toon 1st mny grn engry = Oby's drilling for red ink

FACTS ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTH CARE

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex.

However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered, says Scott W. Atlas, a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center.

Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers:

• Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom*.
• Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom* and 457 percent higher in Norway.
• The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British* men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries:

• Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.
• By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians:

Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).
Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."
Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom:

• Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long -- sometimes more than a year -- to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.
• All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.
• In England*, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

[* Highlighted Britain's NHS throughout piece because it's the world's oldest government run health care system. So it's had the longest to learn how it's done, yet consistently ranks at or near the bottom of every category. What's that tell us?]

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WHAT BIG MISTAKE ARE WE MAKING?

The National Journal recently asked health policy experts what health care issue they would look back upon 10 years from now and really wish we had paid more attention to in 2009?

They said that in the current health care debate, we are making three very big mistakes:

• Believing that we can control health care costs without having anyone choose between health care and other uses of money.
• Believing that we can improve quality without having providers compete for patients based on quality.
• Believing that we can improve access by inducing people to drop their private coverage and join public plans that pay providers below market rates.

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image toon - mny hcare 1st fnn = heart attack now - wait untl health care

Clinton, Drugs, and Clinton

A story in Reuters is headlined, “U.S. to blame for much of Mexico violence: Clinton.”

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians. I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility.”

Let’s stipulate that drug use in America is a factor in what is happening in Mexico, even as we stipulate that Mexico is largely responsible for what happens within its own borders.

Perhaps it’s worth pointing out, then, that under Republican presidencies — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush — drug use went down significantly (drug use dropped among high school seniors every year from 1985 through 1992).

During the Clinton presidency, drug use went up. Under President Clinton’s watch, more than 50 percent of our high school seniors experimented with illegal drugs.

During the 2nd Bush presidency, illegal drug use by American teens again dropped - by 25 percent (and methamphetamine use dropped by 50 percent).

In order to make Secretary Clinton’s life easier — and life for both Americans and Mexicans better — let’s hope that President Obama follows the lead of his predecessor...

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Quincy Tax Day Tea Party this Saturday

An event coming up this weekend will be reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party more than two hundred years ago. It's all part of the Quincy Tax Day Tea Party this Saturday.

Thousands of people from all over Quincy, Western Illinois and Northeast Missouri are expected to crowd into Clat Adams Park in Quincy to protest the massive federal spending in stimulus projects and bail-outs...

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Tea Parties And Thugs

Media Bias: The press need not support every protest it covers. But when it ignores a grass fire movement against government spending while its favored politician watches closely, then there's dereliction of duty.

Five more "tea parties" took place last weekend to protest runaway congressional spending. The weekend protests were held in Orlando, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Solomon's Island, Md.; Lexington, Ky., and Ridgefield, Conn.

Showing up with hand-lettered signs were people not often seen at protests.

Bloggers and local press do cover these events, but the national TV and print media are conspicuous by their absence. Some big news outlets see these events as atomized and unlikely to lead the nightly news.

But the real reason the major media aren't interested in these protests is that they don't agree with them. In the final analysis, these affairs are really taking issue with the political party they helped elect with overt bias in the last election.

That's why a small scrum of Acorn-financed wackos on a bus tour to intimidate AIG execs last weekend made the news while the tea parties didn't... [snip]

Another 150 tea parties are set for tax day April 15.

[Including one in Pleasanton, for those interested]

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No 'Tea Party' in NY Times, But Room for Leftist 'Bus Tour' of AIG Homes

A left-wing "bus tour" protest prowled the affluent neighborhoods of Fairfield, Conn. on Saturday afternoon, looking for AIG execs to harass. The protest, run by a group sponsored by unlabeled leftists ACORN, were railing against the bonuses paid out to employees of the struggling insurance giant.

The New York Times found the stunt worthy of a full story in the national section of Sunday's paper: "Carrying a Populist Message Into A.I.G. Territory." (The online headline differs from the print version.)

Reporter Manny Fernandez, while sounding supportive, remarked drily that more media than passengers were in attendance.

Also left unmentioned by The Times was that the organizer, the Connecticut Working Families Party, is merely a front group for the controversial left-wing housing group ACORN.

A Nexis search indicates the Times has yet to devote a full story to any of the grassroots "tea parties" in opposition to Obama's big-spending package that have been held in various cities -- including one held in Connecticut on Saturday in its own back yard.

[The most pervasive spin: omission]

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Justice Department to San Francisco Police: Shut Up.

Allegations that presidential pal Bill Ayers was involved in the murder of a San Francisco policeman appear to be running into something of a gag order from at the Department of Justice.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Justice Department and the San Francisco Police Department have contacted the San Francisco Police Officers Association and told them not to talk about the Ayers case.

As mentioned in the AT article of Wednesday, March 18, the Police Association had sent out a letter of support to Kincaid and his Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism, observing:

There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, members of the terrorist group 'Weather Underground', are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station and other police stations throughout the United States during their 'tour of terror' in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

According to the Chronicle:

Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes confirmed that his union got a call from federal investigators telling them they had an "active investigation and should not be commenting on the case."

Exactly what did they say that would damage an "active investigation?" Are they claiming that no one knows the book is still open on that case? Are the statements above likely to compromise an "active investigation" if indeed it is truly active?

Mr. Holder, as Shakespeare said: "me thinks thou dost protest too much." So out with it! What, or who are you really trying to protect?

Friends of the President or not, Mr. Holder, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are two career criminal psychopaths, who have cheerfully left a lifetime path of destruction in their wake.

You need to step up to the plate, Mr. Holder. All these Weather Underground cases, and the park station bombing especially, need to be solved. If the heat is too much, either get out of the fire or help solve the case.

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image toon - lbrty libs reps msm - No one must ever critize Oby

CNN Defines 'A Moderate Republican'

After earlier this week defining what a moderate Democrat is, on Saturday CNN tried its hand at defining what a moderate Republican is.

CNN Newsroom featured a segment on governors who are refusing stimulus funds because of the inevitable Federal strings. Anchor Fredricka Whitfield had this exchange with CNN deputy political director Paul Steinhauser:

STEINHAUSER: Exactly. That is very -- a very different case there, too, because Arnold Schwarzenegger is very much of a moderate Republican. He's kind of on the different end of the spectrum from Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford and Bobby Jindal.

Right. That's why:

In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington bureau chief titled a column "Schwarzenegger's liberal views leave GOP flummoxed: Actor is pro-choice, pro-gun control and pro-gay rights." At about the same time, National Review editors determined "Schwarzenegger, it seems clear, does not merit conservative support."

The following year, columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote: "No matter what Schwarzenegger's boosters may claim, at the end of the day Schwarzenegger is a liberal Republican." Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who knows a thing or two about matters leftist, has written the "fact is that Schwarzenegger is for all intent purposes a Democrat to the consternation of Republicans and quiet glee of Democrats in the great Golden State."

The Sacramento Bee reported in 2007 that the UK's Daily Telegraph compiled a list of America's 100 most influential liberals and conservatives. Schwarzenegger made the list - as a liberal.

Then we have today's Arnold, the one who commends Barack Obama "for the courageous leadership and the great commitment that he has displayed over these last few months." The one who calls Obama a "fantastic partner." The one who counsels fellow Republicans: "You know, you've got to go beyond just the principles."

So that's what a moderate Republican looks like. If CNN hadn't told us, we might still think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a liberal. Oh, that's right. At CNN there's no such thing.

[First: control the language.]

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FLASHBACK >

CNN Defines 'A Moderate Democrat'

Let's briefly examine the congressional voting record of the "moderate Democrat" Ellen Tauscher...

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Palin won't budge on parental-consent abortion bill

JUNEAU -- State legislators are talking about compromising on a major abortion battle over parental consent, but Gov. Sarah Palin isn't interested in the deal.

The compromise under discussion would be legislation that requires parental notification but not consent. That means parents would have to be told about their teenager's plan to have an abortion but wouldn't have to give their permission for it to happen...

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'New York Times' Spiked Obama Donor Story

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer."

The former worker had been a “confidential informant for several months to Times reporter, Stephanie Strom...

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TEACHERS IN BID TO EXPEL UNION

Charter-school teachers to their union: Butt out.

The educators, at two city charter schools, have filed for permission from the state to cut their ties with the United Federation of Teachers.

The action, at KIPP Academy in The Bronx and KIPP Infinity in Manhattan, came after the UFT recently tried to meddle in the schools' business without consulting the staff first.

Earlier this year the teachers union filed a grievance against KIPP Academy's "at-will" employment practice and pushed for collective bargaining at KIPP Infinity without warning.

"None of that was with communication with teachers," said Matt Hureau, 28, who works at KIPP Academy. "It was the union acting and notifying the teachers afterward"...

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NBC's David Gregory, Unintentional Comedian?

File this one in the "When I Need a Laugh" folder:

David Gregory, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," told this week's Parade Magazine,

"I don't accept the proposition that I have an ideological point of view that comes through. I work very hard to avoid that."

As Newsbusters has documented, Gregory indeed has a habit of letting his bias "come through"... [long list...]

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image photo - fnn - Witch don't drink and fly