Other News For The Week Of Mar 15 - Mar 21

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news items themselves.

In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.

Of course articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there. As always, remember to excerpt heavily and to provide a link to the original source.

Related Articles:

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 12:01 am. You can leave a response.

33 Responses to “Other News For The Week Of Mar 15 - Mar 21”

Dave2882
March 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
This is old news so you might already know it. But it suggests that Obama is not as pro free-market as he claims:

Fortune

As co-sponsor of a bill that would bureaucratize most of the labor market, the presidential hopeful is flirting with a very bad idea…

Here is what Obama says about the free market on his website:

I believe that America’s free market has been the engine of America’s great progress. It’s created a prosperity that is the envy of the world. It’s led to a standard of living unmatched in history. And it has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery…We are all in this together. From CEOs to shareholders, from financiers to factory workers, we all have a stake in each other’s success because the more Americans prosper, the more America prospers.

— Barack Obama, New York, NY, September 17, 2007

————————–

Switching gears to a different topic:
Obama plans to pay for his health-care plan by repealing the Bush tax cuts (specifically for capital gains, dividends, and the upper income-tax brackets). Yet the Democrats plan to use repealing those same tax cuts to pay for balancing the budget. They can’t have it both ways.

As for how Clinton plans to pay for her health care plan, as far as I can figure out it’s voodoo. Her website describes it here.

——————————————————

Note: If this is worth further attention, I don’t mind if someone goes ahead and posts this in expanded format.
JohnMG
March 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Dave2882; …..”They can’t have it both ways…..”

Both Obama and Clinton know that all government programs sap the free market of its vitality. They also know that the average voter hasn’t a clue that this is the case. Government creates no wealth, produces no product, and generates no revenue. Before the government can dispense with anything, they must first take that “anything” away from the people. Redistribution of wealth is the only thing either of the two democrat candidates promise. It should surprise no one. Look at either’s resume’ and you’ll find that neither has ever toiled in the free market they condemn. Everything they’ve ever done has been financed and/or paid for with the government dime. It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.
mathews
March 15th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I’ve been boycotting KOS since day one and now Hillary’s minions are joining me, oh the horror!

Blogtalk: Pro-Clinton Bloggers Boycott Kos

By Sarah Wheaton
March 15, 2008

On Friday, it got to be too much for Alegre, a diarist on the flagship liberal blog DailyKos, who frequently writes in support of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our online community has tried to accomplish in this world,” Alegre wrote Friday evening. “No more.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....ut-of-kos/

[Moved to its own thread.]
CKO1986
March 15th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
DailyKos endorsement of Ralph Nader in 5…4…3….2…
navycopjoe
March 16th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Anyone know this guy’s party? They never mention it.

McGreevey aide says he had sexual trysts with ex-governor, wife
by Judith Lucas and John P. Martin/The Star-Ledger
Sunday March 16, 2008, 5:22 PM
http://www.nj.com/news/index.s.....d_sex.html

A former aide to James E. McGreevey said today that he had three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife before he took office, challenging Dina Matos McGreevey’s assertion that she was naive about her husband’s sexual exploits.

The aide, Theodore Pedersen, said he and the couple even had a nickname for the weekly romps, from 1999 to 2001, that typically began with dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s and ended with a threesome at McGreevey’s condo in Woodbridge.

They called them “Friday Night Specials,” according to Pedersen.

Pedersen described the encounters during an interview with The Star-Ledger. He said he wanted to refute the innocent image that Matos McGreevey has projected - both during the couple’s ongoing divorce battle and in interviews she gave after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned last week in a sex scandal. He said he was also incensed by her portrayal of herself as an unsuspecting wife in her book: “Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage.”

“I wanted to get this out now because it was so offensive to me that she goes on television playing the victim,” Pedersen said. “She’s trying to make this a payday for herself. She should have told the truth about the three of us.”

more at link
JohnMG
March 16th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Nope. I’d be willing to speculate, though. After all, we’re talkin’ Governor of Jersey here.
navycopjoe
March 16th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McGreevey

He’s a democrat. Why can’t democrats keep their damn pants on!!!!!!
Just another show of proof that the 60’s was a mistake.
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 2:13 am
From the Los Angeles Times:

Supreme Court to hear challenge to D.C. gun law

The justices’ decision on the individual right to keep and bear arms under the 2nd Amendment could reverberate throughout the U.S.

By David G. Savage

WASHINGTON — For more than 30 years, the District of Columbia has had the nation’s strictest gun-control law — a ban on having handguns at home for self-defense.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to that law from those who say it violates the 2nd Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

Few would cite D.C.’s gun ban as proof that gun control leads to crime control, as Washington continues to have one of the nation’s highest rates of violent crime. Even some gun-control advocates don’t support it.

The case has drawn wide attention not because of the district’s law itself, but because the court may decide for the first time whether gun rights are truly protected by the Constitution, like the right to free speech and the right to freely practice one’s religion.

If so, it could mark the beginning of new era in which judges around the country are called upon to decide whether the many restrictions and regulations of weapons infringe the rights protected by the 2nd Amendment.

“Whenever there is an individual right [protected by the Constitution], the burden is on the government to justify a limit on that right,” said Robert A. Levy, a libertarian lawyer at the Cato Institute.

An investment advisor who made a fortune and entered law school when he was 51, Levy has led the challenge to the D.C. gun ordinance, even though he lives in Florida and does not own a gun.

“I don’t have a personal interest in guns or hunting. What fascinates me is the meaning of the Constitution,” Levy said. He believes the 2nd Amendment should stand on the same footing as the 1st Amendment.

If the Supreme Court were to agree, the soft-spoken libertarian will have helped trigger a revolution in modern constitutional law.

The 1st Amendment’s protection for free speech can be both powerful and controversial. Dissidents who burn the American flag in public are shielded from prosecution, the high court has ruled, despite state and federal laws that made flag-burning a crime.

By contrast, the justices have said remarkably little about the 2nd Amendment and have never used it to strike down a gun law. Often the court has turned away gun rights claims and upheld lower court decisions that treated the 2nd Amendment as protecting only a state’s right to maintain a “well-regulated militia.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....8552.story

Let’s just hope that the Supremes don’t rule in a way that increases limits on gun ownership.
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 2:18 am
From the Los Angeles Times:

Gays fear an influx of hate

Slaying raises tension between homosexuals and the Sacramento area’s growing Slavic evangelical ranks.

By Eric Bailey

FOLSOM, CALIF. — One punch was all it took. One punch to forever divide. One punch to kill a young man.

On a hot summer afternoon along a placid lakefront in the Sacramento suburbs, Satender Singh had come with a group of fellow Fijians to celebrate his promotion at an AT&T call center. Three married couples and Singh, a lighthearted 26-year-old, drank and hooted and danced a crazy conga line to East Indian music.

An innocent outing? Not in the eyes of the Russian family a few picnic tables away.

Andrey Vusik, 29, fresh from morning church services with his young children in tow, stared with disgust as Singh danced and hugged the other men while their wives giggled. To the Russian, Singh seemed rude and inappropriate, a gay man putting on an outrageous public display.

Angry stares led to an afternoon of traded insults. As the long day slid toward dusk, the tall Russian immigrant approached with a friend to demand an apology. Singh refused. Vusik threw a single punch.

Singh’s head smacked into a concrete walkway. The joyful young man with the musical laugh died four days later of brain injuries.

Now, half a year after that angry Sunday afternoon at Lake Natoma, 15 miles east of the state Capitol, the case remains anything but resolved.

Vusik, a father of three, fled the U.S. and remains a fugitive, charged with involuntary manslaughter. Authorities suspect he is on the run in Russia, and the FBI has joined the hunt. Meanwhile, a young friend of Vusik — Alex Shevchenko — faces trial next month on hate-crime charges, accused of helping to inflame the confrontation last July 1 and then hurling a bottle as he fled.

The tragedy has exacerbated tensions between Sacramento’s gay community and the region’s booming population of Slavic evangelical Christians, whose most vocal congregants in recent years have mobilized on the streets and statehouse steps to protest homosexuality.

Shevchenko did not throw a punch, but he could face three years behind bars if convicted. Slavic leaders say the 21-year-old is being scapegoated. They say an isolated tragedy is being used to ostracize their community of refugees from the former Soviet Union.

“This was not a hate crime; this was a street fight,” said Roman Romasco, executive director of the Slavic Assistance Center in Sacramento. “From a street fight, they try to make a big case. From a little spark, they try to make a big fire. But you cannot blame the whole community over this.”

Gay rights activists in Sacramento, which has one of the larger per capita gay populations in the U.S., believe Singh’s death is the inevitable result of an organized campaign of homophobia imported from the old Soviet republics.

“The roots of what these guys did to Satender Singh can be traced to what’s being preached in their churches,” said Jerry Sloan, founder of Project Tocsin, a Sacramento-based group that monitors the religious right. “Some sitting in those pews believe they’ve heard it straight from God: that homosexuality is an abomination.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....9221.story

As opposed to say, certain churches in Illinois that preach hate and racism.
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 2:26 am
From the Los Angeles Times:

Maybe Bill could take a break

By Don Frederick and Andrew Malcolm

There was a new poll last week from the Wall Street Journal/NBC News showing support for Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has remaining tight nationally, with Obama edging ahead within the margin of error. There’s good news in the poll for Republicans — voters seem to like John McCain more than they like the Republican Party in general, suggesting a tighter race than Democrats had foreseen.

But a more interesting nugget is buried deep in the data. It seems that the more voters see of Bill Clinton, the less they like him.

The poll shows a significant shift in his approval rating from a year ago.

In March 2007, some 48% had a positive view of the ex-president, and 35% had a negative view. Now his negatives slightly outpace his positives, 45% to 42%.

Over the same time, Hillary Clinton’s positive number rose to 45% from 39% while her negative remained almost static, increasing to 44% from 43%.

As for Obama, the more voters saw of him — or, at least the more they learned about him — the more they liked him.

In March 2007 his positive number was 37%, and his negative 17%. Now Obama’s positive-negative numbers are 51% to 28%. In the earlier survey, 26% said they were neutral about him, and 20% said they didn’t know.

Now, 18% say they are neutral and 3% undecided. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....7438.story

After all Obama promises change. He refuses to say what, but change is good, right?

Sigh…
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 2:29 am
It’s almost too easy.

From the AP:

Clinton Library Builder’s CFO Disappears Amid Audit

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — John Glasgow had a healthy salary, with an opportunity to pick up stock in the construction company where he worked. He was the kind of guy who paid back a $500 bonus he got for completing an anti-smoking program because he started to light up again.

But now Glasgow has been missing since Jan. 28, with his car found abandoned the next day, and family and police say it’s impossible to tell whether he killed himself, was abducted or left to start a new life elsewhere.

His family said the easygoing 45-year-old felt overwhelmed and anxious about a company audit, but the company says no money is missing.

Police say there is no evidence of foul play, and no clues to his whereabouts.

“He may be under some kind of compulsion … some kind of blackmail, that’s a scenario you could dream up,” said his brother, Roger Glasgow. “We’re not suggesting any of these scenarios because we just don’t know. But it does open up a Pandora’s box of possibilities.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,338294,00.html
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 2:37 am
From the AP:

Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern on YouTube Clip: Homosexuality Bigger Threat Than Terrorism

OKLAHOMA CITY — A YouTube audio clip of a state lawmaker’s screed against homosexuality, which she called a bigger threat than terrorism, has outraged gay activists and brought death threats rolling in.

“The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it’s just a fact,” Rep. Sally Kern said recently to a gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol.

“Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades. So it’s the death knell in this country.

“I honestly think it’s the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat,” she said.

The former school teacher has been a magnet for coast-to-coast condemnation, including a jab from comedian Ellen Degeneres, ever since someone posted her comments on the Internet last week. State police said they are investigating death threats against her.

Back home in the Bible Belt, though, the response has been mixed. Kern has gotten support from her fellow Republicans.

“I would submit to you that the vast majority of the folks in our caucus, particularly those who consider themselves conservative, stand with and support Sally,” said state Rep. Randy Terrill.

Democratic Gov. Brad Henry, however, said Kern’s views are not representative of most Oklahomans. He said politicians should “think before you speak.”

“To have equated the gay community with terrorism … and to have called us the biggest threat to America is to dehumanize gay people in the worst possible way,” Denis Dison, spokesman for the Washington-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said Friday.

That group’s leaders fear remarks such as Kern’s coming from an elected official could lead to violence against gays.

Kern, who is finishing her second term, has tried unsuccessfully to pass bills to rid libraries’ children’s sections of books that have homosexual themes. She told the group that school children are being indoctrinated by gay activists.

“We’re not teaching facts and knowledge any more, folks,” she said. “We’re teaching indoctrination, OK, and they are going after our young children, as young as 2 years of age, to try to teach them a homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.”

In the same speech, she said gays are “infiltrating city councils” across the country.

“It spreads, OK, and this stuff is deadly and it’s spreading and it will destroy our young people,” she said. “It will destroy this nation.”

Kern said she made these comments on about four different occasions to small groups of Republicans, and she thinks the recording was made at one of these meetings in January. Various recordings of it have generated more than a million hits on YouTube.

Kern’s office received more than 23,000 e-mails in less than a week, mostly condemning her views, and thousands more to her home computer, many of them “vulgar, vile and profane,” she said.

Kern said she has no regrets for her statements and denies she was gay-bashing. Her Christian faith teachers her to be loving to individuals, but not their lifestyle, she said.

Some people, including Degeneres, did not take her remarks that way.

“Hi, it’s Ellen Degeneres, the gay one,” the comedian said when she left a message in a call to Kern’s office during her TV show this week.

Degeneres said she wanted to talk to Kern about some “misinformation.”

“I’m trying to figure out which society has disappeared that I didn’t know of,” she said.

Kern said she had no interest in talking to the entertainer. “That would be like throwing myself into the lion’s den and I’m not going to do that,” she said Thursday.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,338271,00.html

Ellen, she’s referring to past societies that have wholeheartedly embraced homosexuality and failed at some point thereafter, such as the Greek and Roman empires.

Was the embrace of homosexuality causal? No one knows, but Al Gore has tried to make the case for Global Warming with less data…
BillK
March 17th, 2008 at 3:20 am
If you hadn’t heard, from the AP:

JPMorgan to Buy Bear for $2 a Share

NEW YORK (AP) — Just four days after Bear Stearns Chief Executive Alan Schwartz assured Wall Street that his company was not in trouble, he was forced on Sunday to sell the investment bank to competitor JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of $2 a share, or $236.2 million.

The stunning last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system sparked by the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. Bear Stearns was the most exposed to risky bets on the loans; it is now the first major bank to be undone by that market’s collapse.

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock buyout, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened. The Fed also essentially made the takeover risk-free by saying it would guarantee up to $30 billion of the troubled mortgage and other assets that got the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank into trouble.

“This is going to go down in very historic terms,” said Peter Dunay, chief investment strategist for New York-based Meridian Equity Partners. “This is about credit being overextended, and how bad it is for major financial institutions and for individuals. This is why we’re probably heading into a recession.” …

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080316.....earns.html

Keep in mind Bear Stearns was selling for well over $100 share last year, over $50 last Thursday and closed at $36.54 last Friday.

They had to agree to a sale at $2/share Sunday to avoid bankruptcy, largely because the company was heavily financed by loans given to people who didn’t qualify for credit, didn’t pay their other bills and were given loans to buy houses with no money down.

Uh, Duh.

Still, with any number of banks in a similar situation (many insiders say Lehman Brothers and Citicorp will crash and burn in the same way this week), it suddenly feels like 1929 all over again, except it’s now foreign lenders calling the loans of US financial institutions because of their lack of liquidity (due to stupid, stupid investments in subprime mortgages) and the drop in the Dollar.

Remember when most of us were taught in school that banks and financial institutions had learned their lessons about extending credit so things like that could never happen again?

Now a firm that survived the Great Depression goes down because the MBAs running the place today must have skipped that chapter in their econ books.

Of course, what was one big factor in getting the subprime ball rolling? Why Congress and their outcries about supposed “redlining” that was preventing the poor and those with horrible or no credit history at all from buying homes, and of course the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which allowed activists to file “protests” that would prevent banks without a history of “community reinvestment” (read: providing loans in communities that normally wouldn’t qualify) from expanding or even opening new branches.
SG
March 17th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
From the New York Daily News:

Gov. Paterson admits to sex with other woman for years

Monday, March 17th 2008

Gov. David Paterson admits to sleeping with another woman while he was married to wife, Michelle.

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state’s new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with “a woman other than my wife,” beginning in 1999.

As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.

He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.

“This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point,” Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. “But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.”

In a second interview with Paterson and his wife Monday, only hours after he was sworn in to replace scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer, Michelle Paterson confirmed her husband’s account.

“Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods,” Michelle Paterson said. “What’s important is for your kids to see you worked them out.”

The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson’s personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.

They spoke in the governor’s office even as scores of friends, family members and political supporters were celebrating in the corridors of the Capitol his ascension to the state’s highest post.

Given the call-girl scandal that erupted last week and forced Spitzer’s stunning resignation, Paterson conceded that top government officials are bound to come under closer scrutiny for their personal actions.

The governor flatly denied what he called a “sporadic rumor in Albany that I had a love child” by another woman. “That’s just not true,” he said…

http://tinyurl.com/393zgu

What is in the drinking water in Albany?

Are they getting it from the Love Canal?
JohnMG
March 17th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
New slogan for Governor David Paterson;

“David Paterson–Not as sleazy as the last guy.”
pagar
March 17th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
“Not as sleazy as the last guy.” As far as we know right now.
JohnMG
March 17th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Well at least he wasn’t caught with one of those “nappy-headed ho’s”, and his wife said she had a chump of her own, too. They outed themselves rather than let someone else do it. If that aint class I don’t know what is!!
BillK
March 18th, 2008 at 2:02 am
From the AP:

Florida Dems Abandon Mail-In Vote Plan

By Brendan Farrington

Facing strong opposition, Florida Democrats on Monday abandoned plans to hold a do-over presidential primary with a mail-in vote and threw the delegate dispute into the lap of the national party.

While the decision by Florida Democrats left the state’s 210 delegates in limbo, Democrats in Michigan moved closer to holding another contest on June 3. Legislative leaders reviewed a measure Monday that would set up a privately funded, state-administered do-over primary, The Associated Press learned.

In Florida, a frustrated Democratic Party chairwoman Karen L. Thurman sent a letter announcing the decision.

“A party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it’s simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the party were to pay for it,” Thurman said. “… This doesn’t mean that Democrats are giving up on Florida voters. It means that a solution will have to come from the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee.”

Members of Florida’s congressional delegation unanimously opposed the plan, and Barack Obama expressed concern about the security of a mail-in vote organized so quickly. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign expressed disappointment with Florida’s decision.

“Today’s announcement brings us no closer to counting the votes of the nearly 1.7 million people who voted in January,” Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said. “We hope the Obama campaign shares our belief that Florida’s voters must be counted and cannot be disenfranchised.”

Obama’s campaign said it looked forward to an agreement on what to do about Florida.

“We hope that all parties can agree on a fair seating of the Florida delegates so that Florida can participate in the Democratic Convention, and we look forward to working with the Florida Democratic Party and competing vigorously in the state so that Barack Obama can put Florida back into the Democratic column in November,” said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor, …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....619D12.DTL

What are the Clinton do now, and what kind of payback will Florida be on the receiving end of should Clinton become the candidate and then President?
BillK
March 18th, 2008 at 2:06 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:

‘Grisly scene’ at country club home of GOP activist, lecturer wife

By Matthai Kuruvila and Jaxon Van Derbeken

Republican Party activist and his university lecturer wife were savagely beaten inside their country club home in Pleasanton and had been dead for at least a week before their pajama-clad bodies were discovered Friday, authorities said Monday.“It was just a horrible, grisly scene,” said Detective Sgt. Scott Dudek, a homicide investigator for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. “They were beaten severely. There was a lot of blood everywhere.”

He added that “these people suffered a great deal.”

No arrests have been made, and authorities would not speculate as to the motive. However, they did suggest that the couple had been targeted and indicated that some portions of the house had been ransacked.

“Do I believe it was a random act? No, I do not. Do I have proof? No,” Dudek said at a press conference.

The couple’s daughter and adult son “are devastated by the murders,” Dudek said.

He said Scherer and Abendroth were last seen together at 8 p.m. March 7 having dinner at the country club. They were probably killed that evening, investigators believe. The couple, both of whom were wearing pajamas, were found in the front part of the 4,000-square-foot home, police said.

Scherer was a former San Ramon Valley school board member and real estate investor who dabbled at high-stakes professional poker. He was also a reliable Republican volunteer, acquaintances said.

Scherer’s son, Ernest Scherer III, is a professional poker player, authorities said. They said they were exploring whether poker connections to the father or son had anything to do with the killings.

The younger Scherer, who lives in Southern California, and the couple’s daughter, a resident of Utah, could not be reached for comment.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....TVLBB9.DTL

It will be interesting to see if politics played any role; I’m sure the Kos folks are already gloating about it and saying they got what they deserve.
Noyzmakr
March 18th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Here we go!

Clinton’s First Lady Papers to Go Public
By ANDREW DeMILLO

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Thousands of pages of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s schedules as first lady are being released to the public after months of pressure and criticism that the Clintons were delaying the disclosure.

The National Archives, which operates the former President Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, announced Tuesday it would release 11,046 pages of Clinton’s daily schedules at the Little Rock facility and online Wednesday morning.

Clinton has faced criticism from fellow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republicans over the number of White House documents from her husband’s administration that have not been made public.

The documents to be released include schedules for 2,888 days and are the files from Patti Solis Doyle, who was the former first lady’s scheduling director. Doyle served as Clinton’s campaign manager but stepped down in February after a series of losses to Obama in the Democratic nomination battle.

The archives said 4,746 pages of documents have parts blacked out, mostly to protect the privacy of third parties, including their social security numbers, telephone numbers, and home addresses.

In addition, schedules for 19 days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated and his wife began first lady on Jan. 20, 1993, are closed to the public under the Presidential Records Act.

The archives also said schedules for 32 days were not included in Doyle’s files, but 27 of those days have now been located and will be released as soon as possible.

The daily schedules are the focus of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, against the archives seeking the release of the former first lady’s records, including phone logs and other files. Judicial Watch has also sued separately in federal court seeking the release of documents related to a White House task force on health care that Clinton headed as first lady.

The archives has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit over task force records or delay the documents’ release for at least a year. The archives has asked a federal judge to delay the release of her telephone logs for one to two years.

http://apnews.myway.com/articl.....3O600.html

Highly redacted, I’m sure. Delay the release for year? I wonder why? Let the games begin.
BillK
March 19th, 2008 at 2:25 am
From a joyous AP:

Camp Pendleton Marine Charged With Murder in Death of Iraqi Detainee

SAN DIEGO — A Marine was charged Tuesday with murder and dereliction of duty for his alleged role three years ago in the death of detainee in Fallujah, Iraq.

Sgt. Ryan Weemer is the third person charged in the case that centers on allegations that a Marine squad shot a group of unarmed captives during heavy fighting in November 2004.

The case came to light when Weemer, 25, applied for a job with the Secret Service. Investigators claim Weemer described the killing during a polygraph test that included a question about whether he had participated in a wrongful death.

Weemer was in the Marine Corps’ Individual Ready Reserve, meaning he had completed his active duty, until the Marine Corps reactivated him this week, said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine spokesman. The move allows the military to court-martial Weemer.

Weemer, of Hindsboro, Ill., has been assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division, while he awaits trial at Camp Pendleton. He was not being held in the brig.

Weemer’s attorney, Paul Hackett, reached by telephone, said he had not been notified that Weemer had been charged. He declined immediate comment. …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339052,00.html

Goody, goody, the Press gets to cover Fallujah again!
BillK
March 19th, 2008 at 2:30 am
From the Los Angeles Times, Government knows all, naturally.

Allstate must cut California auto insurance rates 15.9%

Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner orders Allstate to roll back prices more steeply than the company had wanted. The insurer is considering a legal challenge.

By Marc Lifsher

Allstate Corp., which covers about 1 of every 10 insured cars in California, has been ordered to cut its automobile rates by 15.9% — an average savings of $124 per car, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said Tuesday.

The new rate is effective April 14, and Allstate is considering whether to appeal the rate cut order in court.

“California’s consumers deserve a competitive marketplace in which to shop around for the best rates that meet their needs,” Poizner said in a statement.

“This reduction reaffirms my commitment to ensuring that excessive rates are not charged. At the same time, the rate reduction is fair and reasonable for the company.”

Allstate’s reduction is the latest in a series of rate cuts in California by dozens of automobile insurance companies since the summer of 2006. After losing a protracted court challenge, the industry began complying with regulators’ insistence that it primarily base its premium-setting formulas on a person’s driving record, number of years behind the wheel and total miles driven annually.

“It was very clear that they were charging too much,” said Douglas Heller, executive director of the Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, the Santa Monica-based advocacy group that successfully championed Proposition 103 in 1988. The voter-approved initiative turned insurance into a highly regulated business, similar to power companies and other public utilities.

http://www.latimes.com/busines.....4878.story

Obviously, Allstate feels differently:

Allstate contends that it is being unfairly singled out by Poizner in being forced to cut rates by a larger percentage than other insurance companies.

“Suppressing one company’s rates below the rest of the market is unfair to that company and not conducive to a healthy economy in California,” Allstate spokesman Peter DeMarco said.
Noyzmakr
March 19th, 2008 at 2:36 am
The AP reports…..”Investigators claim Weemer described the killing during a polygraph test that included a question about whether he had participated in a wrongful death.”

I’ve always said, %90 of people in prison are ther ’cause they can’t keep their trap shut.

Yes, the AP reports this story with breathless glee. A**holes.
Noyzmakr
March 19th, 2008 at 2:43 am
LA times reports…“California’s consumers deserve a competitive marketplace in which to shop around for the best rates that meet their needs,” Poizner said in a statement.

Sounds like to me the consumers nor Allstate get to compete for anything the state doesn’t regulate.
BillK
March 19th, 2008 at 2:49 am
You can see the liberals’ spit takes from here.

From the AP:

Bush Says Iraq War Was Worth It

By Terence Hunt

WASHINGTON — President Bush says he has no doubts about launching the unpopular war in Iraq despite the “high cost in lives and treasure,” arguing that retreat now would embolden Iran and provide al-Qaida with money for weapons of mass destruction to attack the United States.

Bush is to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on Wednesday with a speech at the Pentagon. Excerpts of his address were released Tuesday night by the White House.

At least 3,990 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in 2003. It has cost taxpayers about $500 billion and estimates of the final tab run far higher. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglizt and Harvard University public finance expert Linda Bilmes have estimated the eventual cost at $3 trillion when all the expenses, including long-term care for veterans, are calculated.

Democrats offered a different view from Bush’s.

“On this grim milestone, it is worth remembering how we got into this situation, and thinking about how best we can get out,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “The tasks that remain in Iraq — to bring an end to sectarian conflict, to devise a way to share political power, and to create a functioning government that is capable of providing for the needs of the Iraqi people are tasks that only the Iraqis can complete.”

In his remarks, Bush repeated his oft-stated determination to prosecute the war into the unforeseen future.

“The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable, yet some in Washington still call for retreat,” the president said. “War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much. In recent months, we have heard exaggerated estimates of the costs of this war.

“No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq,” Bush said.

Bush has successfully defied efforts by the Democratic-led Congress to force troop withdrawals or set deadlines for pullouts. It is widely believed he will endorse a recommendation from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, for no additional troop reductions, beyond those already planned, until at least September.

The U.S. now has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year’s buildup.

“If we were to allow our enemies to prevail in Iraq, the violence that is now declining would accelerate and Iraq could descend into chaos,” Bush said. “Al-Qaida would regain its lost sanctuaries and establish new ones fomenting violence and terror that could spread beyond Iraq’s borders, with serious consequences to the world economy.

“Out of such chaos in Iraq, the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened with new recruits … new resources … and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America,” Bush said in his remarks. “An emboldened al-Qaida with access to Iraq’s oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations. Iran could be emboldened as well with a renewed determination to develop nuclear weapons and impose its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And our enemies would see an American failure in Iraq as evidence of weakness and lack of resolve.”

Looking back, Bush said, “Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting … whether the fight is worth winning … and whether we can win it. The answers are clear to me: Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision and this is a fight America can and must win.”

Bush said the past five years have brought “moments of triumph and moments of tragedy,” from free elections in Iraq to acts of brutality and violence.

“The terrorists who murder the innocent in the streets of Baghdad want to murder the innocent in the streets of American cities. Defeating this enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will face this enemy here at home,” Bush said. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....7326.story

Did Bush get a new speechwriter? Why the hell hasn’t he been saying this in front of the press daily since the war began?

Funny how what Dingell claims is necessary for “victory” in Iraq is what they want for the US - a nanny state for all.

But of course without that “shared” power he demands; can you imagine what the Dems would say if Republicans cried about “sharing power?”
BillK
March 19th, 2008 at 2:58 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Only World War II was costlier than Iraq war

It was supposed to be a quick war and a cheap one. Five years later, 160,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. And the costs keep piling up - $12 billion every month - putting a strain on an already faltering economy.

The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future.

Because the money for the war is being borrowed, interest payments could add another $615 billion. A heavily depleted military will have to be rebuilt at a cost of $280 billion. Disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans, many of them severely injured, could add another half-trillion dollars over their lifetime.

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes, both of whom served in the Clinton administration, have included those calculations in a new study of the war’s long-term costs. Their estimate of the war’s price tag: $3 trillion.

“We are a rich country, and we can, in some sense, afford it. It’s not going to bankrupt us,” said Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor, who published the findings in a new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War.”

But Stiglitz said the war has contributed to a weakening economy - partly by feeding the instability that has sent oil prices to record highs - and has saddled the country with debts that will make it harder to respond to a recession, fix Social Security or meet other future needs.

“The best way to think about it is: What could we have done with $3 trillion?” he said. “What is the best way to spend the money, either for security or for our national needs in the long run? The stronger the American economy, the more prepared we are to meet any threat. If we weaken the American economy, we are less prepared.”

The White House has not disputed the analysis by Stiglitz and Bilmes but instead has attacked the idea that the escalating costs are a reason to withdraw.

“We have to ask ourselves what the cost would be of doing nothing, or of ratcheting back when we’re not ready to ratchet back, in terms of making sure that Iraq does not become a safe haven for al Qaeda, making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t fall back into the hands of the Taliban,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. …

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....VVL9GK.DTL

Seriously, which planet does the author reside on?

Who promised a “quick” or “cheap” war?

Didn’t President Bush, on September 11, 2001, state that the War on Terror would go on for decades, and that the only way we would know of our successes was in hindsight?

Where do these ideas even come from?

Once again, the War in Iraq? $500 billion.

The cost of a single attack in the United States (9/11)? Over $100 billion.

One can only imagine the cost of an attack bigger than two planes taking down some buildings.

Like, given Americans’ irrational fear of radioactivity, a single small-yield bomb detonated on Wall Street. New York City would be a ghost town for years, even in areas it was completely safe to occupy.

No matter. Think of all the government spending that could be bought with that money is all the left can picture.

I’m still waiting for the cost/benefit analysis of fighting Hitler and Tojo, and the stories of what a utopia America could have been had we not spent that money, either.
BillK
March 19th, 2008 at 3:04 am
More stomach-churning cr*p from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Granny activist makes up for last name

By Meredith May

As far as she knows, 91-year-old Marian Bush of Santa Clara is the oldest granny to protest with the international peace activist group, the Raging Grannies.

“My last name is Bush, and I’m from West Texas, so I have a lot to live down,” she said.

Rabble-rousing was never part of Bush’s life, but two significant things happened five years ago. The war started in Iraq, and her first grandchild was born.

“I got to thinking how my grandson would feel if he was called up to service for something that’s not defensible, and it made me really turn away from the whole thing and go in the opposite direction,” she said.

Then one day a friend in her water aerobics class turned to her and invited her to join the Raging Grannies.

Known for dressing up in frocks and bonnets, the Grannies use street theater, humor and satire to spread their message.

Bush wears her original 1940s-era long skirts, aprons and hats her sister made.

“For me it’s an opportunity to express how I feel,” she said. “I like the clowning up, being on the street corner and playing the tambourine. It has an impact, either way, on people who see us.”

Protesting at this stage in her life has Bush thinking about all the times before, when she kept quiet.

Mostly, she remembers watching the sky turn to fire just outside Albuquerque in July 1945.

She had just graduated from college and was working as an air traffic controller at Kirkland Air Force Base. Moments before the explosion she gave orders to a fleet of World War II B-29 bombers to take to the sky.

“I was terrified because I thought I had given a wrong command and the bombers had crashed in the air,” she said.

The next day, the newspaper reported that an ammunition dump had exploded in Alamogordo. In time, the atomic bomb test at what’s now known as the Trinity site was revealed.

“I didn’t know until World War II was over that it had been an atomic bomb,” she said. “That’s what’s happening right now. So often we don’t know the truth.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....QVJAHB.DTL

Sorry, Granny, that’s the point of secrecy. Seeing your actions now, it’s a damn good thing you didn’t know it was an atomic bomb or you would have been on the phone to Tokyo.

Of course government secrecy over the weapon that ended World War II, saving millions of Allied lives is nowhere near as important as the government “not telling the truth” at the time. Uh huh.

Feel free to be embarrassed about the last name Bush; it can’t be close to the shame felt by people across the US with the last names of Carter, Clinton, Pelosi, Reid, or yes, Kennedy.
Noyzmakr
March 19th, 2008 at 3:10 am
BillK says…”No matter. Think of all the government spending that could be bought with that money is all the left can picture.”

Just think of all the votes they could have bought.

3 trillion dollars?????? what??? Who do these idiots think their audience is. I guess the same leftist over at the Kos that bought into the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians. Idiots!!
Noyzmakr
March 19th, 2008 at 3:25 am
SFC reports of Granny….”Rabble-rousing was never part of Bush’s life, but two significant things happened five years ago. The war started in Iraq, and her first grandchild was born.”

She’s 91? when did she have her kids? At 71? She’s just now getting her first grandchild? Some great genes you passed on there granny.
pagar
March 19th, 2008 at 6:57 am
“- $12 billion every month - putting a strain on an already faltering economy.”

Here’s what is going on in America today
” Previous estimates show that highway crashes cost society $230.6 billion a year, about $820 per person.”

Over 19 billion per month spent, year after year, for something that is 100% preventable. Not even counting the 43,000 lives that could be saved.

Link
Noyzmakr
March 21st, 2008 at 3:53 am
Buuump buuump buuump Another one bites the dust

From WRAL

North Carolina House Votes to Remove Democrat
By GARY D. ROBERTSON
Associated Press Writer
.
RALEIGH, N.C.– A lawmaker accused of mishandling $340,000 in loans and contributions was removed from office by an overwhelming vote Thursday, the first expulsion of a lawmaker from North Carolina’s General Assembly in 128 years.
The House voted 109-5 to boot Rep. Thomas Wright, a Wilmington Democrat. At least 80 votes were needed.

Wright was immediately escorted from the chamber by the House sergeants-at-arms. Moments later, as he hugged his crying legislative assistant, he said he wasn’t even going to pack up his belongings.

“They can mail it to me,” he said.

Wright, who faces trial this month on charges of hiding or mishandling funds, had asked his colleagues not to expel him, arguing that he couldn’t adequately defend himself against their accusations without revealing his defense strategy to prosecutors.

“I am innocent of the criminal charges before me,” Wright said. “However, I need an opportunity to prove that. This is less than the appropriate setting to do that.”

His attorney, Irving Joyner, promised a legal challenge.

Rep. Rick Glazier, chairman of the ethics committee, told his colleagues before the vote that Wright was given ample opportunity to present evidence during the hearing. Glazier said Wright filed 22 incorrect campaign reports since 2000 and failed to fix any of them.

“Forty percent of the dollars Rep. Wright received for seven years was not reported,” Glazier said. “In the end, there is nary a substantive (campaign finance reporting law) in the statutes that was not violated repeatedly by Rep. Wright.”

Before voting to expel Wright, the House rejected an alternative proposal that called for his censure.
Only about a dozen lawmakers have been booted from office in state history going back to Colonial times, the most recent being Rep. Josiah Turner in 1880. The last to face major ethics accusations, former House Speaker Jim Black, chose to resign last year before prosecutors closed in during a corruption investigation that ultimately sent him to federal prison.

http://www.wral.com/news/natio.....y/2609420/

“….This is less than the appropriate setting to do that”

Uh….I think it’s now or never pal.

“….Glazier said Wright filed 22 incorrect campaign reports since 2000 and failed to fix any of them.”

Fix them? The best CPA in the world couldn’t hide all the money he stole. Some of the money was donated to charities he was representing and he pocketed the money for “personal expenses”.

“The last to face major ethics accusations, former House Speaker Jim Black, chose to resign last year before prosecutors closed in during a corruption investigation that ultimately sent him to federal prison.”

Another demonicrat who took several thousand dollars in a restaurant mens room from the states chiropractors lobbyist. Black also got his cronies jobs with the lottery commission after they lobbied him to push through the bill that brought the lottery to NC. He’s still in prison and will be for a long time.

Culture of Corruption anyone?
SG
March 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
An update on this long lingering case from the Baltimore Sun:

5 students responsible for attack

Juvenile court judge rules on brawl aboard city bus

By Melissa Harris and Gus G. Sentementes

March 19, 2008

A Baltimore juvenile court judge found five Robert Poole Middle School students responsible yesterday in the December attack on a city bus passenger and her boyfriend, concluding a divisive case fraught with racial overtones.

Judge David W. Young’s decision followed nearly two months of court hearings on the Dec. 4 fight in Hampden, described by several 911 callers as a riot. The attack prompted stricter safety standards on city buses and left Sarah Kreager, 26, with two broken bones around her left eye.

Nine black teens were initially accused of “rising up en masse” and attacking Kreager on the No. 27 bus after school had let out for the day.

Defense attorneys argued that Kreager’s left eye was already bruised when she boarded the bus and that when the students began snickering at her, Kreager’s boyfriend, Troy Ennis, ordered her “to spit on them [racial slur].”

But prosecutors said the youths attacked Kreager, who is white, after her boyfriend accused one of them of immaturity for refusing to relinquish an empty seat.

“We’re pleased the judge was able to reach justice and that Sarah Kreager and Troy Ennis have been vindicated,” Janet Hankin, the lead prosecutor in the case, said after the hearing. “This was a brutal, vicious and unnecessary beating, and what the respondents accused them of was untrue, unfair and uncalled for.”

Young had each teen stand with his or her attorney as he read his ruling. The youths - dressed casually in jeans and some in T-shirts - did not flinch or show emotion as they listened to the decision.

Four of the students were found involved - the juvenile equivalent of guilty - of first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and conspiracy in the attack on Kreager. They also were found involved in reckless endangerment in the attack on Ennis.

A fifth student was found involved for the reckless endangerment of Kreager and for second-degree assault and reckless endangerment against Ennis.

Earlier in the case, a sixth teen had admitted hitting Kreager. Young delayed cases against three others; those cases are likely to be dismissed.

“I don’t understand the state’s attorney’s argument,” Garland Sanderson, a defense attorney for one of the youths, said after the judge issued his ruling. “All I could gather was that there was an allegation that a group of black kids assaulted individuals on a bus. ‘We arrested a group of black kids. They must be guilty.’ There is no evidence outside of that.”

During closing statements, defense attorney Barbara Greene said, “There’s nothing like an ugly racial slur and a little spit to turn things ugly.”

And defense attorney Kimberly Thomas said her client was the victim.

“There’s a victim sitting right here, your honor,” she said, pointing to Nakita McDaniels, 15. “A victim, and she’s charged?” ….

http://tinyurl.com/396fwe

Note that this was still not deemed a hate crime.

Still, it is amazing that this much justice was done.

(Thanks to Clifcrds for the heads up.)
GuppyNblue
March 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
They still have to be sentenced but I’m sure it will be a slap on the hands. This whole trial was just a joke. Defense attorneys tried to make the victim into a racist perpetrator and local residents tried to make the whole thing into another Jena 6 (the MTA 9 they called it). I believe that if the case didn’t get some national attention it would have been just thrown out of court.

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