MSM Monitor

Romney Rebounds in Florida

2012-01-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

And he's being smug about it!

"Romney flexing his strength in Florida" January 30, 2012|By Michael Levenson and Matt Viser

HIALEAH, Fla. - Mitt Romney barreled through South Florida yesterday, bolstered by impressive poll numbers and a strengthening sense he will withstand a backlash from conservatives and Tea Party supporters to win the important Florida primary tomorrow.

Polls indicated that Romney has increased his lead in Florida to double digits, despite rival Newt Gingrich’s last-minute assists from former candidate Herman Cain and former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Just days ago the race was considered a dead heat; Romney’s surge follows his recent shift in strategy toward personally attacking Gingrich and calling in a roster of establishment figures to rattle his rival.

Yesterday, an increasingly confident Romney openly mocked Gingrich, saying he saw him on television “describing his excuses, and why he wasn’t doing so well here in Florida.’’

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"Mitt Romney would get major boost from win today in Florida" by Michael Levenson and Matt Viser | Globe Staff, January 31, 2012

DUNEDIN, Fla. - A confident Mitt Romney switched from scorn to pity yesterday, telling voters it was pathetic to see Newt Gingrich on the verge of a humiliating loss in today’s Florida primary. Voters began heading to the polls at 7 a.m. today.

“It’s sad,’’ Romney told a crowd of hundreds gathered under a relentless sun in a park in this coastal city 25 miles west of Tampa. “He’s been flailing around a bit trying to go after me for one thing or the other. You just watch it and you shake your head. It’s been kind of painfully revealing to watch.’’

Vastly outspent and buried under an avalanche of attack ads, Gingrich denounced Romney as a truth-twisting liberal as he sought to rally conservatives and Tea Party supporters in his final appeal to Florida voters.

“With your help, we’re going to win a great victory tomorrow,’’ Gingrich told a small but boisterous crowd in a Tampa airport hangar. “And when we win a great victory tomorrow, we’ll have sent a signal to [the liberal billionaire] George Soros, to Goldman Sachs, and to the entire New York and Washington establishment: Money power can’t buy people power.’’

But Gingrich’s prospects do not look bright.

A Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday showed Romney with a 14-point lead in Florida, up from 9 points three days earlier. Romney had the support of 43 percent of the state’s likely Republican voters, to Gingrich’s 29 percent, while Ron Paul and Rick Santorum had 11 percent each, the poll found. Only 7 percent were undecided, although 24 percent said they could change their minds.

The survey also indicated that Romney has wooed a broad swath of the Republican electorate, including groups that had been cool to him. According to the poll, he now leads Gingrich among conservatives, white evangelical Christians, and Tea Party movement members.

A win today would give Romney a major boost as the race scatters to the seven states that vote over the next month. Florida’s haul - 50 winner-take-all delegates - is more than any candidate has accumulated in the first three contests....

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Also see: Fight For Florida

Update: Romney wins Florida

Romney's Reminisce

2012-01-31T16:46:00.000-08:00

"Much unsaid as Mitt Romney cites his tie to Mexico" by Michael Kranish | Globe Staff, January 31, 2012

MIAMI - Mitt Romney, who rarely discusses his ancestry, has repeated a striking comment in Florida in recent days to soften his rhetoric about immigration and woo the crucial Hispanic voting bloc.

“My dad was born in Mexico,’’ Romney says at many campaign stops, as he expresses empathy and solidarity with immigrant families. It follows sharp rhetoric in places such as Iowa, where he decried what he called efforts to provide “amnesty’’ to the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants.

Then why was he allowed to run for president?

The story of Romney’s father, George, is one that many Cuban-Americans can relate to in this city of immigrants: A revolution sweeps through the homeland, prompting an exodus of people who, in many cases, left behind everything to come to the United States. But in this case, George Romney’s country of birth was Mexico, not Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

The issue of immigration is especially sensitive in Florida, where Hispanics make up 11 percent of the Republican primary electorate, and could provide the key to victory in today’s primary. Romney’s chief challenger, Newt Gingrich, has called Romney anti-immigrant; Romney said the charge was repulsive.

It is in this context that Romney has mentioned that he is the child of a born-in-Mexico father. But he usually ends the story there, failing to explain the circumstances or, even more strikingly, why it might be relevant to those he is trying to win over.

Were he to tell the rest of the story, it doubtless would resonate with many here: George Romney was born in Mexico and was 5 years old when a revolution forced his family members in 1912 to flee their Mormon colony and seek refuge in the United States. The Mormon exiles lost their homes, farms, and most of their belongings, were welcomed by the United States, and benefited from a $100,000 refugee fund established by Congress.

But there are other elements to the Romney story that may explain why he doesn’t tell the full tale on the campaign trail. The reason that George was born in Mexico is that his grandfather - Mitt’s great-grandfather - had taken refuge there in order to escape US laws against polygamy. It was this family patriarch, Miles Park Romney, who established the colony and lived there with four wives.

Mitt Romney has decried what he has called the “awful’’ practice of polygamy and has never visited the colony, even though several dozen of his cousins continue to live there.

Romney’s new emphasis on his father’s roots drew the attention yesterday of a host on “Fox and Friends,’’ who said during an interview with Romney that it was the first time he had heard the former Massachusetts governor discuss that aspect of his ancestry....

Romney’s discussion of his father’s Mexican birth has prompted rounds of discussion in online forums about how his father, when he ran for president in 1968, could have met the constitutional requirement that a president be a “natural-born citizen.’’

In George Romney’s case, representatives of his 1968 presidential campaign argued that he fit the constitutional requirement because George’s parents, who had gone back and forth from the United States to Mexico, were US citizens.

Accounts published during the campaign indicate that questions were beginning to be raised, but the matter became moot when George Romney dropped out of the race.

A Congressional Research Report published last November that explores the issue said the Constitution did not define what it means to be a “natural-born citizen,’’ and notes that competing views were expressed when George Romney declared his candidacy.

Seth Lipsky, the author of “The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide,’’ said that “in most past cases, Congress and the courts have been reluctant to open up doubts raised about candidates, and I think this reluctance is wise.’’

Yeah, the hell with what the governing document of the country says.

Don't get me wrong, readers; I'm not a birther regarding Obama (his real father is Frank Davis), and am aware that McCain was born in Panama.

What bothers me about the citizenship requirement is that the founders had a good reason for putting that in there, and I agree. No foreign-born citizen should be president of the United States. Back then it was because of the houses of royalty within Europe; now the threat comes from dual-national Israelis.

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Related: Breaking News: Mitt Romney Was Born in Mexico

Then he's ineligible!

Romney Remembers the 2000 Campaign

2012-01-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

He just doesn't remember for whom he voted.

"Romney attacks on Gingrich similar to Bush-McCain 2000" by Glen Johnson | Globe Staff, January 31, 2012

MIAMI - Newt Gingrich complains Mitt Romney has waged the nastiest, most untruthful campaign he can recall after he upset the heretofore GOP presidential front-runner in South Carolina.

He should dial the time machine back to 2000 and talk to John McCain.

George W. Bush, stunned by an 18-point New Hampshire primary loss to McCain, waged a scorched-earth campaign that year against him in, of all places, South Carolina. Now Romney, employing a campaign with striking parallels, is on the cusp of the same kind of agenda-setting win in Florida today that Bush scored 12 years ago.

Bush viewed South Carolina as his political firewall, much as Romney has viewed Florida in his quest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

With such make-or-break stakes, the then-governor of Texas abandoned all sense of decorum and accused McCain of flouting his own campaign finance rules. He also stood idly by while a surrogate speaker suggested the former Vietnam prisoner of war had abandoned fellow veterans.

During the past 10 days, Romney has taken on Gingrich with equal zeal, accusing him of being an “influence-peddler’’ and of lacking the temperament to be president. And the former Massachusetts governor, too, has stood by while surrogates have bird-dogged the former House speaker at his campaign events.

In 2000, the turn of events was enough to prompt the famously maverick McCain to complain: “All of the establishment is against me, and I’m proud of it. If you want business as usual, you don’t want me as president.’’

Gingrich has said virtually the same thing in Florida.

“There’s so many tomahawks in the air that you don’t have time to deal with them all,’’ said John Weaver, who was a top McCain adviser in 2000 and recently ran the campaign of Republican candidate Jon Huntsman.

“I think the mistake we made, and Newt is making, is you start talking about process and what the other guys are doing, and not talking about the positive vision that made people like you in the first place,’’ said Weaver.

Former Bush adviser Stuart Stevens, now plotting Romney’s campaign, did not return a call seeking comment. But another Bush adviser, Mark McKinnon, who is unaligned in the current campaign, said: “They both learned that the only way to win is pedal to the metal around the clock. Any time you let up, inevitably you pay for it.’’

Bush had won the 2000 Iowa caucuses and headed to New Hampshire confident of a back-to-back victories.

While McCain worked voters with his anti-Washington message and courted reporters aboard his “Straight Talk Express,’’ Bush kept an almost indifferent campaign schedule, complete with a sledding excursion.

Then, on Feb. 1, political adviser Karl Rove gave Bush the results of the first New Hampshire primary exit polls: He was headed for a big loss.

Plans for a campaign sea change began.

Bush flew the next day to Greenville, S.C., a conservative bastion and home of Bob Jones University.

There, in front of 5,500 people assembled in a cavernous hall, he quipped that it “feels a lot warmer here.’’ He then proceeded to underscore his new emphasis by focusing on morality and the military - and by using the word “conservative’’ six times in one minute.

A day later, Bush was flanked by an array of veterans as he attacked McCain’s most distinguishing biographical element - his military service - during a rally on the steps of a courthouse in Sumter.

Bush said there is “a big difference between being somebody who had a distinguished military career and someone who’s trying to lead the country.’’

Then he stood mute as Thomas Burch Jr., chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, said of McCain: “He came home and forgot us.’’

Foreshadowing the current campaign, McCain and Bush went on to exchange allegations over attack ads.

And similar to Romney’s attacks on Gingrich’s work representing Freddie Mac, Bush accused McCain of betraying his campaign finance credentials by raising money from lobbyists.

Both campaigns also accused the other of “push-polling,’’ trying to seed doubts by asking leading questions that are negative in tone. McCain also railed against phone calls accusing his wife of being a drug addict, of him having an illegitimate daughter, and of him fathering a black child - an allusion to the daughter he adopted from Bangladesh.

The confrontation reached a crescendo in a Columbia, S.C., debate before the primary....

Bush avenged his New Hampshire loss with an 11-point win in South Carolina, won the GOP nomination, and the presidency....

And the rest, as they say, is history.

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Related: Nominating Romney Means Return of Bush

Yeah, all his future advisers are the same PNAC crowd of W's.

And the old man is behind him, too.

How Gingrich Won South Carolina

2012-01-31T16:20:00.000-08:00

The agenda-setting, script-writing string-pullers awarded it to him.

Here is your MSM narrative:

"In Bible Belt win, Newt Gingrich’s sins were salvation" by Sarah Schweitzer | Globe Staff, January 31, 2012

South Carolina’s Greenville County is among the most socially conservative in the country. Home to Bob Jones University, it’s known as the buckle in the Bible Belt.

But in the recent Republican presidential primary, Greenville voters, like the rest of the state, bypassed three long-married candidates and handed votes to Newt Gingrich, confessor of two mistresses, both of whom he eventually took as brides.

“He was a dirtbag before when he was doing those things,’’ said Fletcher Mulnix, a 20-year-old senior at Bob Jones University who grew up in Travelers Rest, 11 miles north. “But he said he went to God and asked for forgiveness and I have to take his word on it.’’

Besides, he added, echoing a common refrain heard in Greenville in the lead-up to the primary, “we’re not electing a pastor.’’

As the presidential contest reaches a critical juncture with the Florida primary today, one question will be whether Gingrich can hold on to social conservative support, with evangelical voters expected to make up as much as a third of the electorate.

Interviews with South Carolina voters suggest that Gingrich’s infidelities and personal issues were, paradoxical as it might seem, dismissed. While evangelical Gingrich-backers found his indiscretions distasteful, they said their faith teaches that to sin is human and what matters most is that man seek forgiveness from God. Gingrich, they said, had shown sincere repentance, clearing the way for them to consider his political strengths.

“There is nothing an evangelical likes more than a penitent sinner and Newt’s been pretty penitent,’’ said Oran Smith, president and chief executive of Palmetto Family, a South Carolina-based evangelical organization that studies public-policy issues.

In this political climate, forgiveness was abundant for the candidate seen as most likely to beat President Obama, he said.

“There is a sense that we are pinned down at the beach in Normandy and we are going to find out if we are going to live or die and the personal characteristics of the general are just not that important right now,’’ Smith said.

Indeed, exit polls in South Carolina showed that evangelical voters backed Gingrich at a higher rate than nonevangelicals, delivering 44 percent of their vote to him. Statewide, Gingrich won 40 percent of the vote.

In South Carolina’s evangelical pockets, some observers said Gingrich’s sins might have boosted him and hurt Mitt Romney.

“Evangelicals recognize brokenness in people and they like it because that means a person is in need of God,’’ said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.

By contrast, he said, Mitt Romney’s image of moral perfection makes some evangelicals uncomfortable. “Mitt Romney is too perfect.’’

Steve Prothero, a Boston University religion professor put it this way: “The repentant sinner fits their story more closely than some guy who has been a goody two-shoes all his life.’’

Gingrich himself echoed that theme. In an interview last week with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich said, “I have not hidden from the facts of my life, that I have confessed my weaknesses, and that I have had to go to God for forgiveness and for reconciliation. . . . So, I think in that sense, it may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition.’’

Political observers note an equally remarkable factor in the contest was Gingrich’s win occurred with few mentions of his Catholicism - a religion that prompted evangelical leaders to oppose John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Indeed, Gingrich drew roughly the same amount of support from evangelicals as did Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, four years earlier.

To be sure, there were some for whom Gingrich’s indiscretions were too much - a justifiable position, according to Michael Hamlet, pastor at First Baptist North Spartanburg....

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Foggy Florida Highway

2012-01-31T16:17:00.000-08:00

"Florida highway pileup kills at least 10 people; Interstate 75 was shrouded in haze, smoke" by Mike Schneider | Associated Press, January 30, 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - A long line of cars and trucks collided one after another early yesterday on a dark highway so shrouded in haze and smoke that drivers were instantly unable to see the road. At least 10 people were killed.

When rescuers first arrived, they could only listen for screams and moans because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn for nearly a mile, police said.

Authorities were still trying to determine what caused the pileup south of Gainesville on Interstate 75, which had been closed for a time because of the mixture of fog and heavy smoke from a brush fire that may have been intentionally set. At least five cars and six tractor-trailers were involved; some burst into flame.

Steven R. Camps of Gainesville said he and some friends were driving home several hours before dawn when they were drawn into the pileup.

“You could hear cars hitting each other. People were crying. People were screaming. It was crazy,’’ he said. “If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of world.’’

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Ludie Bond, a spokeswoman for the Florida Forest Service said the fire had burned 62 acres and was contained but still burning yesterday. A similar fire nearby has been burning since mid-November because the dried vegetation is so thick and deep. No homes are threatened....

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Related: Fla. highway reopened minutes before deadly crash

Also see: Florida Fire Spreads to Alabama

"Alabama police find 5 dead in home" Associated Press, January 30, 2012

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Police found five people dead inside a Birmingham home when they arrived early yesterday morning to investigate a possible robbery, authorities said....

Doreatha Moss lived in the house, a white building with green trim now surrounded by police tape, until late 2010. “I don’t know anything about it now other than that there’s all the time a bunch of young guys hanging around there,’’ said Moss, who still returns to visit friends. “That’s not good.’’

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Fight For Florida

2012-01-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

"Ron Paul, though he did not get as much airtime as the two front-runners, scolded both for their Latin American policy, saying ‘‘this usually means that we impose ourselves, go and pick the dictators, undermine certain governments, also sending them a lot of money.’’

He's right, of course, so he's ignored.

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"Romney money edge washed away in Fla." January 26, 2012|Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

Fueled by the Adelson family’s second $5 million donation to assist Newt Gingrich, spending in the final week of presidential primary campaigning in Florida is expected to top $16 million.

Virtually overnight, the contribution from Miriam Adelson wiped out much of the money edge that Mitt Romney enjoyed in Florida just days ago. Like an earlier $5 million donation from her husband Sheldon, a casino magnate, the latest infusion went to a super PAC supporting Gingrich.

The donation - massive even by today’s inflated standards - provides the most graphic example of how wealthy individuals can have an outsized influence on political campaigns under the new rules since the US Supreme Court decision allowed unlimited donations to political action committees not officially affiliated with a candidate.

It’s not just wealthy GOP donors who have Romney in an unexpectedly close contest. Two labor groups and a pro-Obama super PAC have poured in more than $1 million to attack Romney. The two-front assault has the onetime front-runner from Massachusetts fighting to stave off a devastating defeat in next week’s Florida primary.

“For Romney, if he doesn’t win Florida, his campaign may pretty much be over, and Gingrich is looking for a knockout punch,’’ said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida. “They will do whatever it takes to win.’’

The Adelsons’ $10 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC is, while generous, not a record contribution from one family. It is, for example, far short of the $23.7 million billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros contributed in the 2004 election cycle to Democratic and liberal organizations. But those groups, known as 527s after the section of the tax code under which they operated, had restrictions on the timing and content of their electioneering messages. Those constraints were eliminated by the recent US Supreme Court ruling.

The Adelsons’ contributions to the pro-Gingrich super PAC have kept him in the ad war in Florida, an expensive venture by any campaign standard.

Winning Our Future, the super PAC backing Gingrich, says it will spend $6 million before next Tuesday in Florida, though as of yesterday the organization had purchased less than $3 million in broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet ads. A flight of ads mixing spots critical of Romney and promoting Gingrich was scheduled to start running today.

Rick Tyler, a spokesman for the super PAC, said that the total spending of $6 million would be on a variety of media, including Internet and social media, and that reports would be filed with the Federal Election Commission as early as today.

Gingrich and the Adelsons have been friends for many years and share a passion for the security of Israel. Last September, Forbes magazine rated Adelson the eighth-wealthiest American, with an estimated net worth of $21.5 billion built from casinos in Las Vegas, Singapore, and the Macao district of China.

Until now, the Romney campaign and an allied super PAC, Restore Our Future, had dominated the Florida airwaves, outspending the Gingrich campaign and its friendly super PAC by a more than 20-to-1 ratio dating back to December....

The Romney campaign may be getting some help in Florida from an unlikely source, a super PAC supporting Ron Paul, who is basically bypassing Florida. Endorse Liberty announced it will spend $1.4 million in Florida with what appears to be a mix of ads boosting Paul and attacking Gingrich, initial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission indicate.

Paul’s campaign is concentrating on caucus states and open primaries where independents can vote. Only Republicans may vote in the upcoming Florida contest....

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"GOP rivals make cases to Hispanics in Florida" January 28, 2012|By Glen Johnson

DORAL, Fla. - Hispanics, especially Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans, are being wooed by all four GOP candidates heading into Tuesday’s Florida primary....

Gingrich, repeating some of the promises he made earlier to a Latin Builders Association meeting in Miami, told the crowd he would reorient the US vision from the Middle East to points south.

Talk about pandering!

He not only urged the US military to move supervision of Mexico from its Northern Command headquarters in Nebraska to Southern Command in Miami, but he also called for rallying opposition to Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela....

Earlier, during his appearance before the Latin Builders Association, Gingrich called on Congress to immediately pass a part of the Dream Act that would put the children of illegal immigrants on a special path to becoming US citizens if they serve in the nation’s armed forces.

“I think there is no opposition to that part of the Dream Act,’’ he said. “I think it should go through immediately.’’

Those are the troops that will be marching south!

The Florida-based trade association is heavily populated by Cuban-Americans....

Cubans would be less affected than other Hispanics by either Dream Act change because they get special residency status if they flee the island and reach US shores.

The builders later endorsed Rick Santorum, who spoke after Gingrich....

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

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Also see:

Romney's returns open a window on the wealthy

Romney aides explain trusts

"Romney leads in Fla., but obstacles loom large; Campaign heeds lessons learned in 2008 failure" by Michael Kranish, | Globe Staff, January 29, 2012

MIAMI - Florida’s voters effectively ended Mitt Romney’s presidential dream four years ago. He won in only about one-third of the 67 counties, gained the support of only 9 percent of Cuban Americans, rejected advice from local advisers, and misplayed the ideological landscape.

Now the political battlefield, the issues, and the competition are different - but the stakes in Tuesday’s vote are even higher as the one-time front-runner battles to regain his primacy against the candidate who has emerged as his chief challenger, Newt Gingrich. After Romney was sent reeling by Gingrich’s victory a week ago in South Carolina, he has used a barrage of attacks in debates and television commercials to pull ahead in several recent Florida polls.

In order to win, analysts said, Romney must find a way to pick up support in what are considered several states within the state. There are swaths of traditionally conservative areas that may be most hospitable to Gingrich; condos filled with snowbirds from the north and Midwest that could be tilted to Romney; economically distressed suburbs and cities along the state’s midsection that are up for grabs; and a Hispanic community that is diverse and divided.

Until just a few weeks ago, Romney’s team thought it had everything in its favor in Florida. Romney had spent millions of dollars on television campaign ads, versus nearly nothing from Gingrich. But Gingrich’s 11th-hour support from a pro-Gingrich super PAC and his own recent fund-raising success may have cut into that advantage....

The result is that Romney and Gingrich go into Tuesday’s primary on a more even playing field than either anticipated, with Rick Santorum striving to hang on and Ron Paul mostly focusing elsewhere. Romney now hopes his early advantage in organization and money, an expected edge among absentee ballots cast before Gingrich won South Carolina, and his forceful debate performance Thursday will give him an advantage.

Brett Doster, the senior adviser of Romney’s Florida operation, said in an interview that the campaign has worked for months to gear messages to the diverse constituencies of the state. “We have the right message and the right kind of organization to take Mitt Romney’s message to every corner of Florida,’’ Doster said in an interview.

Yet Romney’s second-place finish in Florida in 2008 demonstrates how large his challenge may be. Romney lost by a 36-to-31-percent margin to Senator John McCain of Arizona and dropped out of the race after a lackluster showing in primaries held a week later. His top Florida advisers complained later that they had been ordered by Boston strategists to write seven campaign plans and that their suggestions on how to spend money had been rejected by the Boston team. Romney’s strongest areas then were around Jacksonville, in counties north of Orlando, and along affluent sections of the Gulf coast. But he lost by nearly 2-to-1 margins in much of southern Florida and trailed even farther behind in some counties bordering Georgia, where his state team had wanted more money to be spent. He picked up only 14 percent of the Hispanic vote, including just 9 percent of the Cuban-American vote, according to exit polls.

For Gingrich, the political landscape presents some unique opportunities. Gingrich hopes to win easily in rural areas and in the Panhandle that borders Georgia and Alabama, as well as among Tea Party movement members and working-class voters in cities and suburbs that have been hard hit economically.

Unlike four years ago, when the focus was on foreign policy, terrorism, and social issues, this election is mostly about economic concerns in a state with a 9.9 percent unemployment rate and a high number of home foreclosures.

Focus was on that? Not the way I remember it.

Much of the pro-Gingrich super PAC’s money is being spent to convince Floridians that Gingrich is the true conservative in the race while trying to persuade the Republican Party base that Romney is too moderate. That is the inverse of the challenge Romney faced in 2008. In that campaign, Romney’s strategy was to win over conservatives and hope that two key rivals, Senator John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, split the more moderate vote. The strategy failed when Giuliani’s campaign disintegrated and Mike Huckabee drew away some of the conservative vote that Romney was counting on.

“In 2008, Romney faced two moderate Republicans, and this time he is facing a real conservative,’’ Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich spokesman who is overseeing the pro-Gingrich super PAC, said in an interview.

At the same time, analysts said, the Gingrich campaign has positioned itself slightly to the left of Romney on issues that are important to key groups of Floridians, including Medicare and immigration. On other issues, such as Gingrich’s proposal to build a colony on the moon, Romney has accused him of pandering to state interests.

“Gingrich has been extremely attentive to the push-button issues among various groups,’’ said Susan MacManus, professor of political science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Tyler put it more bluntly: “You would have to be an idiot if you are running for president and not be aware of the state’s concerns.’’

For example, Gingrich courted senior citizens in the debate last Monday when he boasted about his role pushing for passage of a Medicare program that helped senior citizens buy prescription drugs, known as Part D. “I’ll say this in Florida: I’m proud of the fact that I publicly, openly advocated Medicare Part D. It has saved lives,’’ Gingrich said. About 3.3 million of Florida’s 18.5 million residents are enrolled in Medicare.

But some conservatives have said the prescription drug program was a mistake, in part because Congress didn’t provide for a way to pay for it and it has bloated the deficit. Romney called Gingrich’s support of the prescription plan “influence peddling’’ because he was working for health companies at the time, and Romney has been critical of the cost of the program.

Romney and Gingrich are also vying for the votes of Hispanics, who make up about 11 percent of registered Republicans. A poll by Latino Decisions released last week showed that Romney is making progress compared to four years ago; he led among Hispanic Republicans by a 49-to-26-percent margin over Gingrich.

Romney also must convince voters he is a true conservative. In 2008, he was the winner among Florida voters who said in polls that they were “very conservative.’’ But this time, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul all seek such votes. A potential problem for Romney is that independents, who typically are more moderate than registered Republicans, cannot vote under Florida’s rules.

The contest could be determined by a factor that didn’t exist in 2008: the Tea Party movement. Romney, who has run as a Washington outsider even though he is embraced by much of the Republican establishment, has kept a wary eye on the antiestablishment Tea Party. Gingrich, even though he was an insider as speaker of the House and consultant to Freddie Mac, has run as an outsider who embraces the Tea Party message.

Florida voters in 2010 rejected a moderate Republican candidate for governor, Bill McCollum, and elected Tea Party favorite Rick Scott of the GOP. But Scott’s success provides a mixed message for the Republican presidential candidates. He is both a very wealthy former businessman, like Romney, and a fiery grass-roots candidate, like Gingrich. Scott - like other key players such as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, former governor - has remained neutral in the race, underscoring the uncertainty that voters must resolve on Tuesday.

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"Rivals keep sniping as Florida vote nears; Surrogates on attack as well in 2-man fight" by Matt Viser and Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, January 29, 2012

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Newt Gingrich launched a frontal attack on Mitt Romney’s integrity yesterday as the former Massachusetts governor, content to let a barrage of ads and a growing cadre of Republican lawmakers blast away at Gingrich, reached out to voters to help him reestablish the primacy of his candidacy with a win Tuesday in Florida.

“You cannot debate somebody who is dishonest,’’ Gingrich told reporters, in explaining his lackluster performance in Thursday’s debate. “I can’t debate somebody who won’t tell the truth.’’

Then stop debating yourself.

Gingrich’s attempt to splatter the core of Romney’s image echoes his most recent ad, which refers to him as untrustworthy, and is expected to be a focus of his efforts to regain his footing in Florida after a pair of weak debate performances and sagging poll numbers. With its winner-take-all 50 delegates at stake, the primary probably will determine whether Romney regains an aura of invincibility or whether the race to the nomination becomes a drawn-out battle of attrition.

The primary has become a two-man contest between Romney and Gingrich, with several prominent former and current Republican lawmakers continuing to pummel the former House speaker as an erratic leader who would undercut the party’s chances to unseat President Obama in the fall.

That effort has spawned a backlash by anti-Washington Tea Party supporters, including former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who last night said in an online post that the GOP establishment were cannibals seeking to “kneecap’’ Gingrich.

Also last night, former rival Herman Cain, who dropped out late last year amid several accusations of unwanted sexual advances, endorsed Gingrich. The former Godfather’s Pizza executive said Gingrich was the right person to address the “crisis of leadership in the White House.’’

Of the other two candidates, former senator Rick Santorum returned to his home in Pennsylvania and Representative Ron Paul is focusing on caucus states that vote next month, a strategy that plays to his strength of passionate supporters and a strong organization....

Romney was joined at the Fish House restaurant in military-rich Pensacola by an unusual trio of actor Jon Voight, Senator John McCain, and Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia. Both Voight, a noted conservative, and McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, were unsparing in their assessment of Gingrich.

“I do not understand - do you? - why anyone would attack a person who’s successful in business, in the free enterprise system!’’ McCain said, alluding to Gingrich’s criticism of Romney’s career at Bain Capital....

Meanwhile, the campaign by many Republicans to paint Gingrich as alarmingly ill-suited to be president continued. At one of Gingrich’s events, at a putting green at the PGA Museum of Golf in Port St. Lucie, Romney sent three Republican members of the US House - Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, Connie Mack of Florida, and Mack’s wife, Mary Bono Mack of California - to serve as his own “truth squad.’’

“He’s a great thinker and a great historian,’’ said Bass, who served when Gingrich was speaker. “But the president is an administrator, not a philosopher. And a lot of times, he has to make decisions about hiring and firing. And Newt is a thinker, and it isn’t a fit.’’

R.C. Hammond, Gingrich’s spokesman, confronted both Bass and Connie Mack, sparring with them as reporters held out their audio recorders.

“Congressman, did you regret asking Newt for his endorsement earlier this year?’’ Hammond asked Bass. “He wrote a very nice op-ed in one of your papers asking that you be reelected.’’

Bass just smiled and said it was good to see Hammond, who is from New Hampshire.

Asked about the members of Congress bird-dogging his events, Gingrich said it does not reflect well on Romney....

--more--"

"Gingrich shows strength in conservative North Florida" by Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, January 29, 2012

MACCLENNY, Fla. - Far from the Cuban cafes and Art Deco nightspots of Miami sits this rural county seat named for a Confederate senator, where locals like bass fishing and dirt-track auto racing and identify more as Southerners than as Floridians.

“This isn’t Florida,’’ said Travis Barton, who owns Trav’s Barber Shop, a spacious strip-mall establishment where the mounted head of a deer that he shot greets patrons and the television is tuned to Fox News. “This is south Georgia.’’

Mitt Romney won deeply conservative Baker County in the 2008 Republican primary. But back then, he was running to the right of John McCain. Now, it is Newt Gingrich who may have the upper hand here, thanks to his Georgia roots and fiercely populist pitch. Romney’s Mormonism also concerns many in the heavily Baptist and Pentecostal county.

Like South Carolina, which Gingrich won, North Florida is a conservative proving ground and a barometer of the party’s passions. Winning the region is considered crucial if Gingrich is to carry the state on Tuesday and overtake Romney in the race for the nomination.

Stretching from the Gulf Coast city of Pensacola in the panhandle to Jacksonville on the Atlantic, the area includes liberal Tallahassee yet is still one of the most Republican regions of the state, where Tea Party movement activists and Christian conservatives play an outsized role in elections.

In Macclenny, the seat of Baker County, 30 miles west of Jacksonville, Gingrich is the talk of the town. Lois Adcock, who works at Studio One salon, estimated that 8 out of 10 of her customers - who include cattle ranchers, corrections officers at nearby Florida State Prison, and laborers at Northeast Florida State Hospital - are voting for the former House speaker.

“I would say Newt Gingrich would have the pull in Baker County, based on what I see and what I hear,’’ Adcock said during a cigarette break.

Unlike Romney, she said, “Newt can talk on both levels, because in Baker County, you don’t have a lot of wealth. You’ve got a few, but we’re more just everyday workers, middle-class people. And I think he cares about the middle class.’’

The county’s unemployment rate is 10.4 percent, compared to 9.9 percent in the state as a whole and 8.5 percent nationally. This month, the Food Lion grocery store announced it was closing, forcing 38 employees to scramble for new work. Downtown, some shops are plastered with “For Rent’’ signs.

“Nobody in Washington cares about the poor people!’’ said Lou Webber Sr., 78, pounding his fist on the counter in his auto shop, Webber Tire, where business is down 35 percent since last year.

Many worry that an effort by state lawmakers to privatize Northeast Florida State Hospital, the county’s largest employer, could lead to job cuts there. The Baker County Chamber of Commerce has been fighting the effort, despite its probusiness inclinations....

Ringed by fast food outlets and chain stores, Macclenny’s streets rumble with pickup trucks, and its small downtown includes a Christian thrift store, a Dixie Outfitters shop selling camouflage hats and Confederate flag T-shirts, and a Bargain Channel radio station where listeners can buy giant cans of boiled peanuts and discounted jewelry.

In 2008, Romney won Baker County, easily beating McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani. In the general election, McCain carried the county with a whopping 78 percent of the vote, compared to 21 percent for Barack Obama. Of Florida’s 67 counties, only two others gave McCain a larger margin of victory.

These days, Romney has not stirred much interest in the city of 14,000.

“There’s something about him that just doesn’t pan out,’’ Adcock said. “I don’t know if it’s his faith that worries me, because I don’t know anything about the Mormons. But he just doesn’t interest me, even when I listen to him. Newt does.’’

Barton said his customers don’t care that Romney has a stable family while Gingrich has a history of marital infidelity.

“They’d rather forgive a Christian for all his dishonest relationships than go with a Mormon,’’ he said. “North Florida is the Bible Belt.’’

******************************************

Romney’s strength in the area lies in Jacksonville, the financial heart of the region, and St. Augustine, a resort haven, which have more “Chamber of Commerce Republicans’’ than the rural communities of North Florida, said Matthew T. Corrigan, chairman of the political science department at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

Romney, he said, has tapped into former governor Jeb Bush’s fund-raising networks in the area, rounding up prominent backers such as John D. Rood, a wealthy Jacksonville investor and former ambassador to the Bahamas.

“Romney has financial connections here, in terms of fund-raising, he has an electoral history here, and if he doesn’t win here, I think it’s going to be a tough day for him,’’ Corrigan said of North Florida.

One Romney supporter in Macclenny, Tom Rumsey, an 82-year-old retired activities director at Northeast Florida State Hospital, said he likes the former Massachusetts governor’s combination of business and government experience.

He said he was dismayed, but not surprised, that Romney’s Mormonism is a stumbling block in the community.

A Pennsylvania native, Rumsey recalled that when he started working at the hospital more than two decades ago, two employees threatened to “take me out’’ because he was not from the area.

“There is prejudice here - it’s all over the country - but here it’s just more blatant,’’ he said. “It’s changing, but it’s a slow process.’’

Like a lot of small communities in North Florida that vote Republican in presidential elections, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Macclenny. That is a vestige of the era before Civil Rights, when conservative Democrats ruled the South. Since the 1980s, when the Democratic Party began embracing abortion rights and gay rights, Republicans have been gaining here.

************************************

“Historically, the rural South has been registered Democrat, and it’s taken people a while to get around and change their registration,’’ said Donald Marshall, chairman of the Baker County Republican Party. “For the most part, the people that live in Baker County are extremely conservative, and that’s the way they vote.’’

As the primary draws near, interest in the race is rising. About 100 voters a day have been streaming into the local elections office, in a former bank, to cast early ballots. On Wednesday, Dorothy Horton, 64, cast her vote for Gingrich. She made up her mind during the last debate in South Carolina, when Gingrich blasted CNN host John King for asking about his marital history.

Gingrich “got a little bit angry,’’ and showed “he’s somebody who’s going to fight for us,’’ Horton said.

“I was in the living room with my husband,’’ she said, “and I said, ‘I got my man.’ ’’

--more--"

Related: Mitt Romney jumps ahead in Florida

The Republican presidential candidate has a double-digit lead in Florida with the primary just two days away, new polls show.

Also see: Romney could have edge with Fla.'s early, absentee voters

Mitt Voted For Massachusetts Democrat

2012-01-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

It could be the issue that decides the nomination!

"GOP rivals make cases to Hispanics in Florida" January 28, 2012|By Glen Johnson

Yesterday, Gingrich began running an ad in Florida criticizing Romney’s explanation during Thursday’s debate of his vote for Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primary. Romney undercut his credibility when he tried to distance himself from that vote by saying, “I’ve never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot,’’ Romney said. “I have always voted for a Republican any time there was a Republican on the ballot.’’

The reality is that there was a Republican presidential primary in Massachusetts in 1992 between President George H.W. Bush and Pat Buchanan.

Furthermore, the answer was the latest evolution in Romney’s explanation about the vote.

This guy can't help but lie when he opens his mouth.

When first asked as a 1994 US Senate candidate about records showing him voting in the 1992 Democratic primary, Romney said he could not recall for whom he voted.

Then Romney told the Globe he voted for Tsongas because he preferred his ideas to his then-opponent for the nomination, Bill Clinton. Later, he added that it was proof he was not a partisan politician.

Yet in 2007, while making his first run for president, Romney offered a new explanation: He said he voted for Tsongas as a tactical maneuver, aiming to present the “weakest opponent’’ possible for Bush.

--more--"

Slow Saturday Special: Delahunt's Deal

2012-01-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

Cut before he left Congress.

"Delahunt, champion of wind project, now may profit from it; In Congress, he helped Hull secure $1.7m; as consultant, he’s in line for no-bid contract" by Glen Johnson | Globe Staff, January 21, 2012

As a congressman, William D. Delahunt helped Hull win $1.7 million in federal earmarks for an offshore energy program.

Now, a year after the Quincy Democrat left office, his new consulting firm stands to receive $72,000 from the same pot of money under a no-bid contract Hull has offered for strategic guidance on the project.

Both sides insist there is no conflict of interest, but the South Shore town has asked the US Department of Energy for its seal of approval, anticipating complaints about a revolving-door relationship.

And Delahunt was supposed to be one of the good ones.

Hull’s town manager said he has received verbal approval, but is awaiting written word.

Government watchdog groups have already rendered their verdict.

“It may not be illegal, it may not be unethical, but it’s certainly another reason why taxpayers hold Congress and its members in such low esteem right now,’’ said Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based group focused on earmarks. “It just adds to the perception that members are out to help themselves and not the taxpayers.’’

Mary Boyle, national spokeswoman for Common Cause, said: “This looks like a self-made golden parachute. He appears to be another in a long line of people who leave Congress to cash in. It obviously raises the question of whether he had this in mind when he left Congress and who was he advocating for: his constituents, or himself?’’

***************************************

Delahunt also was not immediately reachable for comment, but a top aide said he is not trying to cash in on his congressional service, only to offer his expertise to Hull.

“I think what’s been spun out there is that somehow we’ve been hired by the town to lobby, and that’s not true,’’ said Mark Forest, who served as Delahunt’s congressional chief of staff and is executive director of The Delahunt Group.

“We’re not lobbying; we’re providing guidance and counsel to the town,’’ said Forest. “And over the years, we’ve had a lot of experience in this area. And our hope is that there is something productive that can be done in this area.’’

Federal databases show Delahunt as the lone sponsor of two earmarks during his final two years in office for an offshore wind project sought by the Hull Municipal Light Plant, a town-operated utility. Earmarks are legislative provisions channeling federal money to a specific project, often derided as “pork-barrel’’ spending.

After they were targeted by Tea Party Republicans in Congress, a two-year moratorium was placed on them last February.

Delahunt’s first earmark, in 2009, was for $951,500. The second, in 2010, was for $750,000. His link to the two earmarks came through disclosure reforms instituted after his fellow Democrats regained control of the House in 2006.

In each case, the funding was provided by the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program. On both occasions, it was aimed at helping the light plant assess the prospects of generating power at an offshore wind farm akin to the Cape Wind project planned for Nantucket Sound.

Philip Lemnios, Hull’s town manager, said local leaders concluded last spring that building a wind-driven power plant would be too expensive, so they decided instead to consider building a wind-turbine test facility. Turbines convert kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy that is then converted into electricity.

Lemnios said he deemed Delahunt and his firm to be the most capable source of advice on that strategic shift. The Delahunt Group will be paid $15,000 a month for six months under the proposed contract, for a total of $90,000.

Eighty percent of the money will come from the Energy Department earmarks. The remaining 20 percent will come from the light plant.

“He didn’t lobby for it; he didn’t come in and inform the town that he was looking for this work,’’ Lemnios said. “I was aware that he had formed a group, and as I thought about how to move the project forward, I thought about him and brought him to the [light plant] board.’’

*******************************

Delahunt is already lobbying on other matters at the state level, announcing last March that he would represent the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe on state and federal casino gambling issues.

--more--"

Related: Delahunt won't take earmark money

"A big Delahunt footprint in Keating’s new district" January 26, 2012|By Frank Phillips

US Representative William R. Keating took a political risk when he moved from Quincy to Cape Cod to run in a newly configured congressional district. That decision put the first-term congressman in the middle of a potentially tough Democratic primary fight.

But that is only part of his problem.

Keating finds himself shadow boxing with another powerful Democratic political figure: former congressman and one-time Norfolk district attorney, William D. Delahunt.

Neither will publicly acknowledge their feud, but political observers familiar with the bad blood between the two say it is as acute as it is long-running.

In recent months, Delahunt has privately met with Keating’s potential Democratic rivals in the new district....

--more--"

Slow Saturday Special: Colorado Cares

2012-01-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

"Colo. reevaluates child care rules; Regulations are out of control, GOP argues" by Ivan Moreno | Associated Press, January 28, 2012

DENVER - Talk about red tape: Last year, Colorado’s Department of Human Services proposed regulating child care businesses down to the number of crayons per box and the color of dolls children can play with.

Also included: How many books child care centers should have, limits on computer and TV time, and bans on “googly eyes’’ and cotton balls, considered potential choking hazards.

Republicans in the Legislature say it highlights out-of-control government - and they introduced a bill yesterday limiting how far the state can go when it comes to regulating child care.

“This one is at the top of my list because it seems so contrary to what the governor has been saying he wants the state agencies to do,’’ said Senator Kevin Lundberg, a Republican. “I expected the governor, when he found out about it, to say, ‘Whoa, hold on a minute - this isn’t what I had in mind’ - and to pull the plug. But he hasn’t.’’

The state says it is backing off some of the more controversial proposals but is still in the process of drafting dozens of pages of new rules for more than 1,300 licensed child care centers and more than 800 licensed preschools.

“We continue to support the Department of Human Services as it works through a public process on the proposed regulations,’’ the office of Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Some child care providers say they worry excessive rules will put them out of business. And Lundberg, who is sponsoring the legislation, said he wants to ensure that the state only regulates health and safety matters.

Department spokeswoman Liz McDonough said new rules are needed because child care has evolved and is not just about putting children in front of the television for eight hours....

What's wrong with watching television?

--more--"

"Denver tries to fix mistaken-ID arrests" January 23, 2012

DENVER - Denver officials, facing criticism for hundreds of mistaken-identity arrests, say they plan to tighten procedures to make sure they have the right suspect before a person is booked....

--more--"

Fire and Ice in Montana

2012-01-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

"Wind gusts carry Montana wildfires" associated press, January 06, 2012

BROWNING, Mont. - A pair of rare winter wildfires fueled by 60-mile-per-hour gusts burned buildings and forced hundreds from their homes on Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation, but better weather conditions yesterday helped firefighters get a handle on the blazes....

“It’s probably the biggest grass fire in reservation history,’’ tribal spokesman Wayne Smith said. “It was just a wall of fire heading east.’’

--more--"

"A dog that was feared dead after he was swept away in a weekend avalanche that killed his owner showed up four days later at the Montana motel where his owners had stayed the night before going backcountry skiing....

And he is a cute little fella!

--more--"

"A bus crashed yesterday on an icy interstate highway in southwestern Montana, killing two people and sending more than 30 others to area hospitals, officials said....

--more--"

"Plains deer herds hit hard by disease" Associated Press, January 09, 2012

BILLINGS, Mont. - White-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months, wildlife officials and hunting outfitters said.

In northeast Montana, officials said 90 percent or more of whitetail have been killed along a 100-mile stretch of the Milk River from Malta to east of Glasgow.

Whitetail deaths also have been reported along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in western North Dakota and eastern Montana and scattered sites in Wyoming, South Dakota, and eastern Kansas.

The deaths are being attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease. Transmitted by biting midges, the disease causes internal bleeding that can kill infected animals within just a few days.

“I’ve been here 21 years and it was worse than any of us here have seen,’’ said Pat Gunderson, the Glasgow-based regional supervisor for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. “Right now it’s going to take a few years to get things back to even a moderate population.’’

In North Dakota, state wildlife chief Randy Kreil described the outbreak as the most extensive and deadly in two decades.

Mule deer, bighorn sheep, elk, and pronghorn also are susceptible to the disease, but it is particularly damaging to whitetail herds, animal health experts said.

Researchers say the virus that causes the disease does not infect people and there is no risk of eating or handling infected deer.

More precise estimates of the number of whitetail killed are expected after agencies conduct winter population counts and survey fall hunter success.

Periodic outbreaks of the disease occur in whitetail herds across the country. Wildlife officials say the Northern Plains outbreak stands out for the high number of deaths and wide area affected.

Animal health experts suspect it was triggered by an exceptionally wet spring that led to more of the biting midges that carry the disease. A warm fall meant the midges lingered and continued transmitting the disease to the deer.

--more--"

Also see: Yellowstone wolves help trees rebound, study says

Painting the Globe With a Broad Brush

2012-01-29T19:41:00.000-08:00

"Broad Institute, with $32.5 million gift, launching center to study human cells" by Mary Carmichael, Globe Staff

Scientists are launching an ambitious effort to diagram how the human genome controls cells by tracing the chemical pathways it uses to send instructions zinging through them like balls in a pinball machine.

The Broad Institute, a biomedical research juggernaut in Cambridge that is affiliated with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced today a $32.5 million gift from the Klarman Family Foundation to open a “Cell Observatory.” The center will allow researchers from Boston and around the world to investigate the molecular contents – not just the genes, but also the many chemicals that interact with them – of different human cell types, using large-scale techniques available only in advanced labs.

There is money out there, Americans.

“When people want to look at the stars, they reserve time in observatories to do their measurements and analyze the data,” said Aviv Regev, the project’s lead researcher. “There are many types of cells out there, and you need expertise to observe and analyze them, too. This would be a place where instead of looking at constellations in the sky, people could look at constellations in the cells.”

The ultimate goal is to catalog all the biochemical circuits inside human cells and to determine which configurations lead to disease. It is a task that could take a lifetime to complete, like deciphering who is whispering what to whom in thousands of simultaneous games of “telephone.”

Seth Klarman, the Boston hedge fund manager whose foundation is underwriting the project’s first phase, is known for making careful bets and winning them big. (Though little-known to the general public, he is a star among financial analysts, who buy copies of his lone, out-of-print book for thousands of dollars on Amazon.)

His family’s foundation, chaired by his wife Beth, has supported biomedical science before. It funds one of the nation’s largest centers for research on eating disorders at McLean Hospital in Belmont. Klarman also sits alongside Nobel laureates on the Broad Institute’s board....

Several other major research institutions, including the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and the University of California, San Diego are considering similar plans. There is talk of a “Human Circuit Project” in which centers would coordinate and share data as they did in sequencing the first human genome....

In theory there are more possible configurations of genetically-driven networks than there are atoms in the universe (in reality there are probably just hundreds or thousands).

What would a newspaper know about reality?

--more--"

Can't See the Boston Globe Forest For the Trees

2012-01-29T19:39:00.000-08:00

If a newspaper is unread does it make a sound?

"US unveils new rules for forests; Environmental activists praise policy guide" by Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post, January 27, 2012

WASHINGTON - Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, told reporters in a conference call that the rules require that planning decisions be “driven by sound science.’’

This from a government that claims jet fuel fires felled three skyscrapers into their own footprints at free-fall speed, and continually drives home the global-warming scam.

The debate over how best to manage forests, especially in regions such as the Pacific Northwest, has pitted timber companies against environmentalists and some scientists for decades. Yesterday, administration officials emphasized that they had sought input from an array of constituencies to develop a plan that could minimize these public disputes....

House Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican, said the concerns that he and other lawmakers expressed about the planning rule’s impact on jobs “apparently fell on deaf ears. These new Obama regulations introduce excessive layers of bureaucracy that will cost jobs, hinder proper forest management, increase litigation, and add burdensome costs for Americans.’’

Officials at the American Forest & Paper Association, which represents pulp, paper, packaging and wood products companies along with forest landowners, said they were “still reviewing’’ the blueprint. But the group had concerns “regarding the costly procedural requirements in the proposed rule,’’ vice president and general counsel Jan Poling said.

--more--"

Autistic Actors

2012-01-29T19:19:00.000-08:00

"Autism gaining greater visibility in films, TV" January 25, 2012|By Joseph P. Kahn

Premiering tonight on Fox TV is “Touch,’’ a drama centered on a mute, emotionally withdrawn 10-year-old named Jake who possesses genius-level math skills. Just released, meanwhile, is the film “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,’’ whose 10-year protagonist, Oskar Schell, exhibits mildly autistic traits. It earned an Oscar nomination for best picture yesterday.

And it reinforces the whole 9/11 myth.

Even as the American Psychiatric Association announced last week that it may restrict its definition of autism, a wave of movies, television dramas, and best-selling books is drawing pop culture attention to the mannerisms and behavior associated with the disorder. Whether the effect will prove beneficial - or trivializing and exploitative - is a matter of some discussion....

--more--"

Phoenix No Paradise

2012-01-29T18:20:00.000-08:00

"Long-hunted molester gets 560 years in prison" January 14, 2012

PHOENIX - A man dubbed by “America’s Most Wanted’’ as one of the most prolific child molesters in Arizona history was sentenced yesterday to 560 years in prison for abusing eight boys.

Arthur Leon Vitasek, 47, was sentenced by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein after being found guilty in November of 26 counts that included sexual conduct with a minor, child molestation, and public sexual indecency.

The charges stem from the molestation of eight boys from 7 to 15 years old in Phoenix and the suburbs of Paradise Valley and Mesa over a 15-year period beginning in 1990. Police suspect there are more victims.

Vitasek often targeted financially struggling single mothers, helping them with material items and showering their sons with gifts and attention, authorities said.

“This guy was a true classic predator,’’ Mesa police detective Steve Berry said yesterday. “You do want to get a maximum sentence on someone like that. You don’t want him to get another opportunity to hurt a child.’’

Vitasek was arrested in Texas in September 2006 after being on the lam for more than 18 months. “America’s Most Wanted’’ featured him on the program many times before his arrest.

Police in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie arrested Vitasek after a 16-year-old boy reported that Vitasek sexually assaulted him after they met on the Internet.

Grand Prairie police said that Vitasek was using a different name, Rich Loper, and that he admitted his real name only after a detective recognized him and repeatedly questioned him about his identity.

Vitasek told police that he was tired of being a hunted man.

--more--"

Further south:

Rep. Giffords will resign, concentrate on recovery

With tears and cheers, House bids goodbye to Giffords

Giffords, Tucson constituents say goodbye

Apathetic About Arizona Post

"Ariz. school district cuts ethnic studies" Associated Press, January 12, 2012

TUCSON - A school district in Tucson voted to dismantle its ethnic studies program after more than $1 million of monthly state funding was to be cut off in response to conclusions by Arizona’s public schools chief and a judge that the program violated the law.

The 4-1 vote Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District means courses in the district’s Mexican-American studies program will cease immediately....

The judge ruled that the program violated state law by having one or more classes designed primarily for one ethnic group, promoting racial resentment and advocating ethnic solidarity instead of treating students as individuals....

--more--"

Florida Fire Spreads to Alabama

2012-01-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

"US joins Fla. abortion clinic fire inquiry" January 03, 2012

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Federal investigators plan to join the investigation of a suspicious fire at a Florida Panhandle abortion clinic that has been the site of deadly violence in the past, officials said yesterday....

--more--"

"Ala. man accused of setting fire at Fla. abortion clinic" Associated Press, January 06, 2012

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Authorities arrested an Alabama man yesterday on federal charges of setting a New Year’s fire that gutted a Florida Panhandle abortion clinic long targeted by violence and protests....

--more--"

"Kosovo native charged in Florida terror plot" Associated Press, January 10, 2012

TAMPA - A Kosovo-born Muslim man was charged with plotting to attack crowded locations around Tampa, including nightclubs and a sheriff’s office, with a car bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives, federal authorities said yesterday.

According to a federal complaint, 25-year-old Sami Osmakac recorded an eight-minute video shortly before his arrest explaining why he wanted to bring terror to his “victims’ hearts’’ in the Tampa Bay area. Osmakac is a naturalized American citizen....

Osmakac was arrested Saturday - the day officials said he was planning his attack - after he allegedly bought explosive devices and firearms from an undercover agent.

Could you stop it with the false-flag frame-ups and patsy plots please?

The firearms and explosives were disabled by law enforcement before the sale.

Unlike the first WTC attack.

How about that, huh?

--more--"

"Ala. teacher arrested on sex abuse charges" Associated Press, January 06, 2012

ALABASTER, Ala. - An Alabama schoolteacher was jailed on charges of sexually abusing a fourth-grade female student, and police said yesterday that the man told them he molested more than 20 other girls over his 25-year career....

--more--"

"Storms batter South, leaving 2 dead, 100 hurt in Ala." Associated Press, January 24, 2012

CLAY, Ala. - Violent weather including possible tornadoes roared across the heart of Alabama yesterday, killing two people and injuring more than 100 others....

The storms flattened homes, knocked down trees, and peeled off roofs in the middle of the night in the rural community of Oak Grove, which was touched by both storms. The area near Birmingham has a history of being a tornado alley....

The storm system stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, producing hail, strong winds, and rain. Possible tornadoes were reported in Arkansas Sunday night....

Related: Huckabee relative, 2 others, killed in Ark.

--more--"

"SOUTHERN CHILL -- Charles Nance counted cots at an auditorium in Birmingham, Ala., yesterday for residents needing to get out of the cold. Temperatures in the low 20s were forecast overnight. At left, ice stopped the flow in the Wilson Park fountain in Florence, Ala. (Boston Globe January 4 2012)."

Ice in Alabama? In the alleged age of global warm.... awwwwwww, never mind!

"Missing teen Natalee Holloway declared dead" ASSOCIATED PRESS, January 13, 2012

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - An Alabama judge signed an order yesterday declaring Natalee Holloway dead, more than six years after the American teenager vanished on the Caribbean island of Aruba while on a high school graduation trip....

Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba on May 30, 2005. The 18-year-old was last seen leaving a bar early that morning with Dutchman Joran van der Sloot. Her body was never found and the ensuing searches for the young woman garnered intense media scrutiny and worldwide attention....

Natalee Holloway’s parents were divorced in 1993, and Beth Holloway sat in the back row of the courtroom, mostly staring at her hands in her lap during the hearing. She declined comment, but her attorney signaled it was a tough moment for her to see a judge sign an order declaring her daughter dead....

--more--"

Related: A Slooty AmeriKan MSM

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Mayhem in Maryland

2012-01-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

Caused by -- who else? -- the "terrorists!"

"Man caught in terrorism sting admits bomb plot" by Sarah Brumfield | Associated Press, January 27, 2012

Was that before or after the torture?

BALTIMORE - A Maryland man pleaded guilty yesterday to trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a military recruiting center in suburban Baltimore, saying he was motivated by what he saw as an American war on Islam....

The plot to bomb the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Catonsville in December 2010 was foiled by an FBI sting. An FBI informant first communicated with Antonio Martinez, 22, on Facebook after seeing public posts “espousing his extremist views’’ and recognizing him from a mosque he attended, according to court documents.

See: Say Hi to the FBI

Don't relax on the Web.

Authorities say Martinez’s ideas ranged from a bombing and armed attack to burning the building down. He told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to make jihadist activities his profession, dedicating his life to the cause, according to the plea.

Martinez decided on a car bomb after a discussion with the undercover agent because “using a bomb would allow him to commit further acts here and overseas,’’ prosecutor Christine Manuelian said.

The informant and the undercover agent gave Martinez repeated opportunities to back out, but he insisted he was committed, even after expressing reservations after a Somali-born teenager was arrested in Oregon in a similar sting, according to court documents.

--more--"

Also see: Outrageous and Obnoxious in Oregon

D.C. Metro

More from Baltimore: Poe fans call an end to 'Toaster' tradition

I call for an end to "terror" tyranny.

"Body found; may be son of slain Md. woman" October 19, 2011|Associated Press

CLARKSBURG, Md. - Maryland police found remains yesterday that they believe are those of a missing boy whose mother was discovered slain.

Investigators discovered the remains of a young African-American child yesterday morning in a wooded area of Montgomery County. Police Chief Thomas Manger says officers believe that it is the body of 11-year-old William McQuain.

Authorities began searching for William after Jane McQuain was found dead last week in the bedroom of her Germantown condominium.

Her estranged husband, Curtis Maurice Lopez, was arrested in North Carolina and charged in her death. Lopez has waived his extradition and is due back in Montgomery County.

Police have been searching different trails and parks in northern Montgomery County, based on information they say they have received.

Lopez had served more than a dozen years in prison in Pennsylvania before being paroled in 2000.

McQuain’s former boyfriend said last week that she had told him recently that she feared for her safety and worried that Lopez might harm her.

Police said witnesses had told them that they had seen Lopez loading boxes into McQuain’s car in the last few weeks.

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At least elections are orderly and fair:

"Ex-aide convicted in Md. voter fraud plot" December 07, 2011|Associated Press

BALTIMORE - A political aide to former Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich was convicted yesterday of conspiring to use Election Day robocalls in an effort to suppress black voter turnout during the 2010 gubernatorial election....

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Detroit Detour

2012-01-29T17:53:00.000-08:00

You will have to take the long way around:

"Detroit slashes precinct hours to enable more patrols; Effort to boost safety without spending more" by Corey Williams | Associated Press, January 13, 2012

DETROIT - Fighting crime is a 24-hour job, but Detroit police stations will be sticking to business hours.

The department is rolling out a plan to close precincts and district headquarters to the public after 4 p.m. It’s an effort to put more officers on patrol, especially in the most besieged neighborhoods, without adding to the city’s $200 million budget deficit....

Closing precincts to the public by late afternoon is not expected to save money. It just reassigns officers and their duties....

Like many police departments, Detroit’s force is under severe financial constraints. The city has about 2,700 officers, down from 4,000 a decade ago. Another 100 officers could be laid off by next month without federal grant money.

There are few areas to make cuts other than jobs, something the police chief and Mayor Dave Bing are loath to do, particularly in light of the city’s violent crime rate, one of the highest in the country, and a spike in murders....

Bing, who is trying to keep Detroit from being taken over by an emergency financial manager, is cutting 1,000 city jobs in the next few weeks. Services like fixing lights and sidewalks and cutting grass are being reduced. The mayor is also seeking medical and pension concessions from city unions....

Related: Detroit's Damn Unions

Compounding matters is Detroit’s size: 139 square miles. Although the population has fallen from 1.8 million in 1950 to 700,000 today, officers must still patrol a large area.

“We have done a disservice to our community by spreading ourselves thin, giving citizens the belief that we will respond to things that are not an emergency,’’ Police Chief Ralph Godbee said. The changes are mainly “for those brave men and women that are overtaxed out there’’ answering calls for service....

--more--"

Happy Holidays From Honolulu

2012-01-29T17:49:00.001-08:00

"4 mothers turn selves in over toy thefts" by Associated Press | December 29, 2011

HONOLULU - Four unemployed single mothers surrendered to police after they were seen on surveillance footage taking items from a Hawaii toy store before Christmas, Honolulu police said yesterday.

The women, ages 22, 25, 26, and 30, were arrested Tuesday at the Kaneohe police station, near the Windward Mall Toys “R’’ Us where police say there were among of a group seen hauling away merchandise Dec. 1.

They were arrested on suspicion of second-degree theft, booked, and later released pending further investigation, said Caroline Sluyter, a police spokeswoman.

Several of the women contacted attorney Myles Breiner last week after police released the footage and asked the public for help finding them. The remorseful women took the toys as gifts for their children, he said, and that he made arrangements for police to take the items from his office to be returned to the store’s manager.

One of the women is six months pregnant, Breiner said. A fifth woman and a man were not on the island and are expected to surrender, he said.

All five of the women are single and unemployed. One of them had a job until news of her arrest got her fired, Breiner said.

“This seemed like a very desperate situation,’’ he said, adding that he’s helping them pro bono. He is representing one woman and arranged for the others to get representation.

He said he is hoping for leniency from authorities.

--more--"

"Single moms suspected in 2d theft" Associated Press, December 30, 2011

HONOLULU - Members of a group suspected of hauling items out of a Hawaii toy store, who say they stole the toys as gifts for their children, are also suspects in a theft of two flat-screen televisions two days earlier, Honolulu police said....

Those were gifts for adult relatives.

Myles Breiner, the attorney who is representing one of the women and arranged for the others to get representation, could not be reached yesterday. He has said all the women are down-on-their luck single moms desperate to “meet their kids’ expectations.’’

Now here is an HDTV for your bedroom.

--more--"

New Jersey Nonsense

2012-01-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Don't get full up, readers:

"Wealthy N.J. county has dramatic rise in food stamp clients" December 18, 2011|By Elise Young, Bloomberg News

TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey’s Hunterdon County, the hilly region of horse farms and weekend retreats where last year’s median household income was almost $100,000, is a surprising new face of federal food aid.

Hunterdon, whose 2010 median household income of $97,874 was the highest in New Jersey and fourth-highest in the country, saw food stamp usage surge 513 percent between 2007 and 2010.

The percentage of US households using food stamps more than doubled in six of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation as more residents find themselves out of work and unable to sell their homes....

Nationwide, requests for food assistance rose during the past year in 25 of 29 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors. Unemployment was the primary reason for requesting aid, followed by poverty, low-wage jobs, and high housing costs, according to a recent survey. Eighty-eight percent of the cities reported an increase in the number of people requesting food assistance for the first time....

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"N.J. synagogue residence firebombed" January 12, 2012

RUTHERFORD, N.J. - New Jersey law enforcement officials urged residents and religious institutions to be vigilant after a Rutherford synagogue and its rabbi’s sleeping quarters were firebombed early yesterday, the fourth such incident within a month that has been classified as a bias crime against a Jewish center or religious institution in northern New Jersey.

Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli said there was no evidence yet linking the four incidents, but investigators had not ruled out that they might be connected. In addition to being classified as a bias crime, Molinelli said, yesterday’s fire at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford was possibly the work of more than one person. He said several incendiary devices were thrown at the building, which houses a synagogue on its first floor and the rabbi’s living quarters on the second. Molinelli said it was being classified as an attempted murder, after an incendiary device was thrown into the rabbi’s bedroom.

No one was seriously hurt.

Within the last three weeks in Bergen County, just across the river from New York City, a fire was set at a synagogue in Paramus and anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered at two other synagogues, one in Hackensack and the other in Maywood.

--more--"

Related: Hate Crime Hoaxes Appearing All Across America

Now maybe this one is real and everything the media says it is; however, you can understand my skepticism, right?

"Man, 19, charged with bombing synagogues" Associated Press, January 25, 2012

PARAMUS, N.J. - The suspect in two firebombings of New Jersey synagogues is a virulent anti-Semite who was so intent on sowing fear and destruction that he rode his bike to both locations when he couldn’t get access to a car, authorities said yesterday.

Anthony Graziano, of Lodi, an unemployed recent high school graduate, was charged with the Jan. 11 attack on a Rutherford synagogue and the Jan. 3 firebombing of a synagogue in Paramus. He was being held on $5 million bail.

That's a lot of pedaling with explosives on your perso.... oh, never mind.

The charges include nine counts of attempted murder, bias intimidation, arson, and aggravated arson. Graziano, 19, is scheduled to make an initial court appearance this morning.

“We have no doubt that the arson and attempted murder in Rutherford were a direct result of Mr. Graziano’s hatred of people of the Jewish faith,’’ said Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli yesterday.

It's not the faith or anything else that bothers me, it is the action of a select minority.

Molinelli and other authorities didn’t speculate on what may have spurred Graziano to action. They described him as a 2010 high school graduate and loner who lacked access to a car but searched for nearby synagogues on the Internet and rode his bike to the two locations and, at the Rutherford synagogue, threw several Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices before fleeing.

Nothing like a stoo-pid lid leaving a directional arrow back to himself.

He is believed to have acted alone.

Why is it every time the authorities or their mouthpiece claim such do I now doubt it?

Graziano’s father, whose name is also Anthony Graziano, told The Record newspaper that he sees his son infrequently but that his son had never said anything to suggest he had any animosity toward Jews. He called his son a great kid but said “he’s confused.’’

The Rutherford attack, which caused a fire in the residence of Rabbi Nosson Schuman, could have caused serious injury and possibly death.

--more--"

"Synagogue arson suspect faces new charges" Associated Press. January 28, 2012

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Authorities leveled additional charges yesterday against a teenager accused in the firebombing of two synagogues, saying that he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for creating Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails this week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus and traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano was planning for Jan. 7.

Graziano, 19, was charged yesterday with aggravated arson, bias intimidation, and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus Jewish community center.

Graziano was arrested earlier this week and has already pleaded not guilty to nine counts of attempted murder as well as bias intimidation and arson charges for a Jan. 11 attack on a Rutherford synagogue and a Jan. 3 firebombing of a Paramus synagogue.

--more--"

Let's try a different religion:

"Janitor convicted of murdering NJ priest in 2009" Associated Press, December 23, 2011

NEWARK - A former church janitor was convicted yesterday of murdering a New Jersey priest who was stabbed more than 30 times while brewing a cup of coffee in his kitchen.

Pooper-pump victim?

Jose Feliciano, 66, of Easton, Pa., did not deny stabbing the Rev. Edward Hinds to death in the rectory of St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Chatham in October 2009. But his lawyer told jurors during closing arguments on Monday that Feliciano killed him in a fit of rage over sexual blackmail.

The prosecution said Feliciano “slaughtered’’ the priest after Hinds discovered that Feliciano had an outstanding arrest warrant in Philadelphia from the 1980s for sexually touching a child, and fired him.

Feliciano contended the priest demanded sex in exchange for keeping quiet about the warrant.

Feliciano, who testified for eight days during the trial, was found guilty in Morristown of murder, felony murder, two counts of robbery, and two weapons counts. He is to be sentenced in February.

“I am proud and honored to have been part of a process to vindicate Father Hinds’s murder and the slander of his reputation, which obviously the jury soundly did not believe,’’ said Morris County prosecutor Robert Bianchi, who tried the case.

Hinds, 61, was in his clerical robes when he was killed while brewing coffee. His body was found on a Friday morning after he failed to appear for Mass.

The slaying rocked Chatham, a well-to-do community of about 10,000 residents, where Hinds was a familiar face and beloved presence.

--more--"

Also see: Christie says he would veto gay marriage bill in New Jersey

N.J. woman gives birth on train to Manhattan

Executing Some Ohio Posts

2012-01-29T17:22:00.000-08:00

"Danish drug maker sells drug used in US executions" December 23, 2011|By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The only US-licensed maker of a drug used by several states to execute inmates is selling the product to another drug manufacturer, saying pentobarbital - a sedative never intended for capital punishment - wasn’t an important product for the firm....

--more--"

Related: Slow Saturday Special: States Scramble to Execute

"Parents plead guilty to denying aid to son" January 12, 2012|By Thomas J. Sheeran

CLEVELAND - The parents of an 8-year-old boy who died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma after suffering for months from undiagnosed swollen glands have pleaded guilty to denying him medical treatment.

Monica Hussing, 37, and William Robinson Sr., 40, both of Cleveland, face up to eight years in prison at sentencing. They pleaded guilty Monday to attempted involuntary manslaughter in a plea deal before their trial was about to begin.

Willie Robinson collapsed at his home on March 22, 2008. Prosecutors say he had begged his parents to take him to see a doctor but was refused. Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a highly treatable cancer.

Hussing’s attorney, John Luskin, said his client took responsibility in the case, but because of her education and background, she did not realize the boy was seriously ill and was treating him with cold medication. “She is a mother that just did not have the capability to recognize’’ cancer, Luskin said yesterday.

Robinson’s lawyer, Thomas Rein, called it a “sad, horrific case’’ that drew inquiries from the White House as changes to federal health care law were being considered in 2009. “Had he had regular health coverage, it possibly could have prevented this,’’ Rein said of the boy’s death.

Luskin and Rein said the parents had financial problems and tried to get checkups for their children but could not afford it.

“The kid had what appeared to be swollen glands,’’ Luskin said. “This was not a tumor that was getting bigger. It would come and go. He would have his good days, he would have his bad days.’’

Hussing’s daughter, Lillian Hussing, said the family did not have money for medical care when they lived in Warren. She said they tried repeatedly to get help from social services and visited a free clinic, but left when told they would have to pay $180....

Prosecutors said that while the boy was suffering, the parents claimed financial hardship but paid $87 to have a pit bull treated for fleas. Luskin said the dog belonged to Hussing’s parents, and her parents paid for the treatment.

Trumbull County Children Services says it had worked with the family to provide Willie health care, getting involved after receiving a phone call in July 2007. Agency officials said a case worker visited the family at least monthly and pushed the parents to have a medical follow-up on his swollen neck but they didn’t.

However, Rein said a social worker who visited the family in January 2008 “indicated the kids were healthy and happy.’’ He said no one knew the boy had cancer until he died and an autopsy was performed.

And Lillian Hussing said a case worker had told the family the boy’s lump looked like a swollen gland and to hold off until they could secure financial assistance before getting it checked.

About two weeks after they moved to Cleveland, she said, her brother came down with something. Her mother treated him with cold medicine and he died within three days.

She said the boy never complained. “He played, he went outside, he wrestled, he played video games,’’ the boy’s sister said. “He was the happiest kid you could imagine. It never seemed like he was suffering.’’

--more--"

"Ohio man kills kin, self over care of terminally-ill wife" January 12, 2012

LOGAN, Ohio - A man repeatedly shot his adult son and two sisters-in-law in his living room, killing them in front of his terminally ill wife, then fatally shot himself on the front porch as family tension about the cancer-stricken woman’s care apparently boiled over, authorities said.

An earlier dispute about whether the woman should have been fed tea and toast or the orange her husband had peeled for her apparently set off the shooter, Paul Gilkey, 63....

--more--"

Also see: Man charged in Craigslist killings

"Ruling stands in ‘White Only’ pool sign case" by Associated Press January 13, 2012

A Cincinnati landlord who claimed a black girl’s hair products clouded an apartment complex’s swimming pool discriminated against the child by posting a poolside “White Only’’ sign, an Ohio civil rights panel said yesterday in upholding a previous finding.

--more--"

"SNOW BLOWER -- It was finally looking like winter in the Midwest as the season's first big snowstorm delighted skiers and snow-reliant businesses but thwarted commuters. One of them cleared snow from around her car in Berea, Ohio (Boston Globe January 14 2012)."

"Floor collapses at Ohio casino project" Associated Press, January 28, 2012

CINCINNATI - A floor collapsed into a V shape yesterday at the construction site of a new casino, sending workers sliding down to the ground and injuring at least a dozen of them.

Authorities said there were no life-threatening injuries in the collapse, which came weeks after a similar accident at a Cleveland casino with the same developer....

--more--"

Washington State Sound Off

2012-01-29T14:11:00.000-08:00

1-2-3-4.

"Environmental groups in Northwest sue over effect Navy’s sonar use has on marine life

SEATTLE - Conservationists and Native American tribes are suing over the Navy’s expanded use of sonar in training exercises off the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts, saying the noise can harass and kill whales and other marine life.

In a lawsuit being filed yesterday by the environmental law firm Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service say the service was wrong to approve the Navy’s plan for the training.

They said the regulators should have considered the effects repeated sonar use can have on those species over many years and also required certain restrictions on where the Navy could conduct sonar and other loud activities to protect orcas, humpbacks, and other whales, as well as seals, sea lions, and dolphins.

Instead, the Navy is required to look around and see if sea mammals are present before they conduct the training.

Kristen Boyles, a Seattle attorney with Earthjustice, said it the fisheries service job to balance the needs of the Navy with measures to protect marine life.

“Nobody’s saying they shouldn’t train,’’ she said. “But it can’t be possible that it’s no-holds-barred, that there’s no place where this can’t happen.’’

In 2010, the fisheries service approved the Navy’s five-year plan for operations in the Northwest Training Range Complex, an area roughly the size of California, about 126,000 nautical square miles, that stretches from the waters off Mendocino County in California to the Canadian border. The Navy has conducted exercises in the training range for 60 years, but in recent years proposed increased weapons testing and submarine training.

The groups want the permit granted to the Navy to be invalidated. They are asking the court to order the fisheries service to study the long-term effects of sonar on marine mammals, in accordance with the Endangered Species Act and other laws.

--more--"

"‘Barefoot Bandit' gets 61/2 years in prison" The Associated Press

SEATTLE A federal judge on Friday sentenced “Barefoot Bandit” Colton Harris-Moore, 20, to 6 1/2 years in prison for his infamous two-year international crime spree of break-ins and boat and plane thefts that ended in 2010.

Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States, authorities said. He flew a plane stolen in northwestern Washington to the San Juan Islands, stole a pistol in British Columbia and took a plane from Idaho to Washington state, stole a boat in southwestern Washington to go to Oregon, and took a plane in Indiana and flew to the Bahamas, where was arrested.

He earned his nickname because he committed several of the crimes without wearing shoes, and he attracted fans across the nation for his ability to evade police....

--more--"

Also see: Barefoot Bandit Has Smelly Feet

"Town to trace gunshots in bid to catch gangs; Violence alarms rural Washington state community" by Shannon Dininny | Associated Press, January 29, 2012

QUINCY, Wash. - Nearly two dozen slayings last year were believed to be related to gang activity east of the Cascade Range, which divides the bustling metropolitan regions in western Washington and Oregon from largely agriculture-driven cities and towns, yet another reminder of the gang violence invading farm towns tucked amid Northwest orchards and fields.

The violence in rural America largely attributed to Hispanic gangs is not new, said Quincy Police Chief Richard Ackerman. But law enforcement officials are more aware of the vexing problem and are working harder to address it with schools and parents, who work long hours and often fail to recognize the danger of these new “friends,’’ he said....

--more--"

Also see: Rewards, big risks on Rainier

Globe's Gay Northwest

I dunno, readers; I'm just not in the mood now.

Drawn to the Boston Sunday Globe

2012-01-29T11:46:00.000-08:00

I can't explain why I keep getting it.

"Need for courtroom artists fades as cameras move in; Some lament the passing of an art form" by Michael Tarm | Associated Press, January 29, 2012

CHICAGO - Sketch artists have been the public’s eyes at high-profile trials for decades - a remnant of an age when drawings in broadsheet papers, school books, or travel chronicles were how people glimpsed the world beyond their own.

Today, their ranks are thinning swiftly....

Same with newspaper circulation and readership.

While the erosion of the job may not be much noticed by people reading and watching the news, Maryland-based sketch artist Art Lien says something significant is being lost.

There is less of them, too -- although I did watch Ron Paul before basketball. He was on the Candy Crowley shown on CNN. It was a fair enough interview, although Ron was once again a heretic suggesting we should talk and trade with Iran.

Video or photos can’t do what sketch artists can, he said, such as compressing hours of court action onto a single drawing that crystallizes the events....

I'm tired of other people crystallizing events and getting them wrong.

--more--"

As I am drawn in further:

"Magnets popular with youth pose big risk if swallowed" by Lena H. Sun | Washington Post, January 29, 2012

WASHINGTON - Meredith DelPrete, age 10, was playing at school one day and did something that she said is popular among kids her age: pretending to have a pierced tongue. The Fairfax County, Va., fifth-grader took two tiny magnetic balls out of her pocket and placed one on top of her tongue and the other on the underside. The magnets, the size of a BB, are extremely powerful. They made it look like she had a tongue stud. She opened her mouth to show a friend.

This is what happens when you have a culture that is immersed in and glorifies self-mutilating perversions of the human body.

That’s when the tiny silver orbs rolled off. “I could feel them in the back of my throat. I tried to get them out, but I couldn’t. So I just swallowed them,’’ she said in an interview.

That accidental swallowing led to five days at Inova Fairfax Hospital, at least 10 X-rays, three CT scans, and an endoscopy. Finally, on Jan. 20, a surgeon used a metal instrument to manipulate the magnets into her appendix, avoiding major surgery. He then removed her appendix, and the magnets, doctors said.

Not only are they in children’s toys, but they are also in jewelry and are marketed as stress-relief toys for adults. The magnets that Meredith received as a gift are a popular brand known as Buckyballs, which are 5 mm in diameter. The labels warn to keep them away from children, not to put them in the nose or mouth, and that swallowed magnets can cause serious injury or death.

Hospitalized at the same time as Meredith was another 10-year-old, a boy, who had swallowed three ball-bearing magnets. He eventually passed them without incident, doctors said. A third case, involving a 9-year-old boy, was recently brought to Inova Fairfax and transferred to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, a doctor said. The boy’s condition could not be immediately determined....

When two or more magnets are swallowed, they can attract each other internally, resulting in serious injuries, such as small holes in the stomach and intestines, intestinal blockage, blood poisoning and death, according to safety and health officials....

Although parents of younger children are generally warned about the hazards of small toys, there is less public awareness among parents - and even medical professionals - about the risk of magnets, especially when older children use them to emulate tongue or lip piercings, according to parents, doctors, and safety officials.

“The potential for serious injury and death if multiple magnets are swallowed demands that parents and medical professionals be aware of this hidden hazard,’’ said Inez Tenenbaum, commission chairman. “This is not a children’s product and should be kept away from children.’’

Three doctors who treated Meredith said they did not know children were using magnets to mimic piercings.

“I had not heard about it until that evening,’’ said Sharon Day, an emergency-room doctor on duty when Meredith and the other 10-year-old were hospitalized. Day quizzed her two high-school-age children. “I said to my kids, ‘Are you guys doing this?’ . . . They weren’t, but they had heard about it.’’

Marsha Kay, who chairs the pediatric gastroenterology department at the Cleveland Clinic’s Children’s Hospital, said magnet ingestion is increasingly being reported among children in recent years.

“They’re very popular and perceived to be safe,’’ she said.

The first reports in the United States began appearing in 2005. That year, a 20-month-old boy died after swallowing nine cylindrical magnets from an older sibling’s toy building set, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The magnets had magnetically joined across two loops of intestine, causing a twisting of the bowel that led to a fatal bloodstream infection.

I vaguely remember hearing something about that.

Since 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has received more than 200 reports of children swallowing all kinds of magnets; at least 18 children required emergency surgery to remove the magnets.

At least two major toy manufacturers have issued voluntary recalls of toys with magnets since 2006; in 2010, the maker of Buckyballs and the commission issued a voluntary recall of Buckyballs magnet sets to update the labeling.

“This is a big, big problem,’’ said Ben Enav, the pediatric gastroenterologist who treated Meredith and the 10-year-old boy hospitalized at the same time. In the past year, he has had a third case, another school-age child who swallowed the same type of magnets and needed surgery because of a perforated intestine.

“I can see how an innocent bystander can think this seems all very benign and nothing to worry about, but if these things get separated and are floating through your intestine,’’ they can cause serious injury, he said.

Even urgent-care and emergency-room clinicians have assumed - incorrectly - that they can send a child who has swallowed magnets home. “They are not aware of how serious a problem this is,’’ Enav said.

Craig Zucker, chief executive for Maxfield & Oberton, the manufacturer of Buckyballs, said the company puts warning labels inside and outside the boxes. The company works closely with the safety commission to spread the message that the magnets should be kept from children.

--more--"

Sunday Globe Special: Gambling is Good For Your Health

2012-01-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

No wonder health care costs are so high:

"Hospitals woo patients with free parking, other perks; Marketing key as more take role in picking provider" by Michelle Andrews | Washington Post, January 29, 2012

WASHINGTON - A growing number of hospitals are seeking to attract new patients and keep existing ones by offering them an array of perks, including free parking, gift shop discounts, wellness seminars, and health screenings. Some of the most popular programs are social mixers that have nothing to do with health care - such as trips to casinos.

Those damn things are infecting our society. Better get to a doctor.

It is all part of a changing competitive environment in which hospitals market themselves directly to patients, who have begun to take a much more active role in choosing their health care providers - and are on the hook for a greater share of the costs....

Changes in health care policies are giving hospitals added incentive to develop relationships with patients. Under the 2010 health care overhaul, hospitals with higher than expected 30-day readmission rates for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia will face financial penalties starting this year.

The number of conditions subject to penalty will be expanded in subsequent years, and hospitals can help themselves by working with patients before they land in the hospital with an acute problem.

“Hospitals will have an expanding share of risk in their patient populations going forward,’’ says Tony Paquin, chief executive of Paquin Healthcare, an Orlando consulting and technology firm that has worked with more than 150 hospitals to develop loyalty programs. “Health care providers are just starting to figure out that they need to develop patient relationships if they’re going to improve their health long term.’’

Whose health are they looking after again?

Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills, Mich., started issuing free “Very Important Patient’’ cards in 2010. The program got its start as a referral service to link potential patients with Botsford doctors.

The cards entitle VIP members to free parking and a 10 percent discount on nonprescription drugs at the outpatient pharmacy and the gift shop, says Lynn Anderson, marketing and public relations manager at the 330-bed hospital in the Detroit suburb. VIP members can also get discounts at restaurants and service establishments such as an oil-change garage.

The program, which has more than 900 members, is open to anyone in the community. In addition to financial perks, it offers regular health education seminars on such topics as hip replacements, back problems, and acid-reflux disease, Anderson said.

“This is a way to get a mailing list and send them information,’’ she says. “In this day and age, with so much competition, you need to make a connection with patients.’’ There are seven other hospitals that compete with Botsford in its primary target market in the northern and western Detroit suburbs.

Luanne Dunigan, a 78-year-old retired nurse, signed up for Botsford’s VIP program after receiving a letter from the hospital. Dunigan had never been a patient at Botsford Hospital, but she told her grandson to take her to the emergency department there twice recently, once when she was having trouble swallowing and again when she had chest pain. The VIP program was a factor in her decision, she says, and she was pleased with the care she received. “It was the best hospitalization I ever had.’’

What, she get reward points or something?

--more--"

Sunday Globe Special: Maine in Metro

2012-01-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

"Blood found at site where Maine girl vanished" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, January 29, 2012
WATERVILLE, Maine - Shortly after a prayer vigil ended for a 21-month-old girl who vanished six weeks ago, State Police confirmed yesterday that blood has been found in the basement of the house where Ayla Reynolds was reported missing by her father.

Police said they do not know the source of the blood. Authorities also said they are frustrated that the three adults in the house when Ayla vanished might not be sharing everything they know, State Police spokesman Steve McCausland said.

“The three adults who were in that home that night, we feel, have information that they haven’t given us that might lead to Ayla’s location,’’ McCausland said.

The discovery of the blood, which McCausland termed “troubling,’’ was made early in the investigation after Justin DiPietro, Ayla’s father, called police at 8:51 a.m. Dec. 17 to report his daughter missing.

McCausland would not discuss how much blood was discovered or its exact location. He also said he did not know whether police had obtained a sample of DiPietro’s blood.

Wearing green pajamas that bore the words “Daddy’s Princess,’’ Ayla had been alone in a room on the night she disappeared. DiPietro had been sleeping in the basement with his girlfriend and her young son, according to a timetable posted online by a friend of DiPietro’s and reported by the Morning Sentinel newspaper.

As the massive search for Ayla drags on, McCausland said, “we are growing more concerned.’’

Bob Vear, who helped organize yesterday’s vigil and is a friend of DiPietro’s brother, downplayed the discovery of the blood, which he said the family had brought to his attention three weeks ago.

“It is possibly nothing more than somebody cut themselves shaving in the house,’’ Vear said.

Last week, before yesterday’s disclosure that blood had been found, many area residents were clinging to a belief that Ayla was alive and that someone who knew her - possibly to give the child a fresh start - might be involved in her disappearance from a house that held her father, two other adults, and two more children that night.

Pati Redeagle, who can see Ayla’s bedroom window from her next-door home, said last week she thinks this was no random crime. “Whatever happened, happened on a personal level,’’ Redeagle said.

The public details of the case are as familiar here as the century-old footbridge that spans the nearby Kennebec River: Ayla had been staying with her 24-year-old father at his mother’s house. The child’s mother, 23-year-old Trista Reynolds of Portland, had asked DiPietro to care for Ayla while Reynolds entered a rehabilitation program for her addiction.

Even at 21 months old, Ayla’s stay in Waterville reflected the latest stop in a zigzag course that her two young parents, who had never been in a relationship, tried to navigate as they went about their separate lives. For her mother, that course involved alcohol addiction and drug use.

According to police, DiPietro saw Ayla lying in bed at 10 p.m. on Dec. 16. Almost 11 hours later, as DiPietro and the others awoke, panic arose when Ayla was discovered missing.

The case attracted the national news media, who soon camped outside the modest home, where a mound of stuffed animals and candles lay in the melting snow last week.

A $30,000 reward has been raised; handbills, fliers, videos, and websites have been created; and several prayer vigils have been held.

“This is unique in Maine annals,’’ McCausland said of the investigation. Before Ayla’s disappearance, Maine authorities had never pursued a case in which a child had been taken from her home and been missing this long, he said.

“We’re looking at all scenarios,’’ McCausland said. “Nothing has been ruled in and nothing has been ruled out.’’

When asked, McCausland did not deny that some of those scenarios involve family members.

Reynolds, who lives with her mother and stepfather in Portland, is candid about her struggles and determination to be a sober mother.

“For the first few months, I don’t think I was the best role model, but neither of my children were neglected,’’ Reynolds said as she held Raymond, her infant son. “Even if I was messed up, I still interacted with my children.’’

As she was about to enter a rehabilitation program in October, Reynolds said, she asked DiPietro if he would bring Ayla to his mother’s home.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you just keep her until I get stable?’ ’’ Reynolds recalled. “I thought she was taken care of. I thought she was safe.’’

Redeagle, the neighbor, said that Ayla appeared to be happy, healthy, and well supervised.

“You could hear her singing with her Dad, ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star,’ ’’ Redeagle said. “She never was out alone, never for a second.’’

DiPietro could not be reached for comment, but acquaintances said he is distraught.

“It’s the first thing he thinks about in the morning, and the last thing he thinks about when he goes to bed,’’ according to Andrew Slack, 19, who said he had spoken briefly with DiPietro.

Shortly before Ayla disappeared, Reynolds said she asked a Portland court to declare that the child’s primary residence would be with her, although both parents would continue to share custody.

Reynolds and DiPietro have taken polygraph tests, but the results have not been released by State Police.

Reynolds said her exam ended prematurely because a medical condition, which she declined to disclose, prevented her from finishing. State Police have confirmed only that DiPietro has been tested.

Michael Roy, the Waterville city manager, said he has been heartened by the outpouring of concern for Ayla.

“That’s been a positive thing,’’ Roy said. “It’s certainly made us a lot more aware how precious life can be.’’

Vear, the community organizer and acquaintance of the DiPietros, said he remains hopeful.

“She’s somewhere,’’ said Vear, 53, who wore Ayla’s picture on his T-shirt as he walked along Main Street last week.

“I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t think that,’’ he said. “I wouldn’t be wasting my time.’’

--more--"

Also see: Milling Around Maine

Mississippi's Missing Files

2012-01-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

"No files on pardoned Miss. killers; Men were among 198 helped by outgoing Barbour" by Holbrook Mohr | Associated Press, January 26, 2012

JACKSON, Miss. - Pardon files are missing or do not exist for four convicted killers and another man who worked as trusties at the governor’s mansion and were pardoned by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour during his final days in office.

The Associated Press made public records requests for such documents, but state officials said yesterday that they do not have them on the trusties and some others pardoned by Barbour, a two-term Republican governor who left office this month.

Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat who has filed a legal challenge to dozens of the 198 pardons issued by Barbour at the end of his second term, said about 20 files are missing from a batch of several boxes that his office is examining.

Barbour’s lawyers said in court records that pardon files, which generally contain letters and other supporting documents that offer insights into the pardon process, don’t exist for the trusties.

“Mansion trusties do not have pardon files at the governor’s office or at the Parole Board. They have in a sense ‘living files’ because the governor and the first lady, as well as the highway patrolmen assigned to the governor’s security, observe them every day and provide the information on which the governor makes his decisions as to clemency,’’ according to a footnote in a legal brief in which Barbour’s attorneys argue that the pardons were valid and should be upheld....

--more--"

Related: Pardon Me Over Mississippi Post

Sweetening Pennsylvania Post

2012-01-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

Enjoy!

"Pa. carjack hoax mother gets 8 years in jail" Associated Press, January 27, 2012

PHILADELPHIA - The in-vitro treatments. The suburban house. The lavish trips and dinners out.

None of it was worth it, a soccer mom-turned-“abduction hoax’’ mom told a US judge yesterday before she was sentenced to over eight years in prison for a $1 million swindle.

Bonnie Sweeten, 40, of Feasterville, is infamous for an alarming 911 call that claimed she and her 9-year-old daughter had been carjacked by two black men. She said they had been stuffed into the trunk of another vehicle. She made an equally furtive call to her second husband.

See: Feasting and Fleeing on the AmeriKan Racial Divide

Sweeten, who is white, was instead on her way to the airport with her middle child in May 2009, about to use a coworker’s passport to board a flight to Florida. She feared an arrest looming in the fraud scheme. The FBI found the pair unharmed the next day at Disney World.

Sweeten’s voice cracked when she apologized for stealing $280,000 from an elderly relative after gaining access to his retirement account papers.

Sweeten, a paralegal, also stole $640,000 from the one-lawyer firm where she worked and took out a $150,000 loan on the lawyer’s real estate. She has already spent a year in prison for the fake 911 call.

Sweeten had developed elaborate means to steal the money, doctoring a judge’s order for law firm clients; telling her husband she had gotten a law degree, leading him to throw a party; and posing as her boss at the refinancing of the woman’s property. “Her conduct has shown that, at her core, she is a criminal,’’ Assistant US Attorney Denise Wolf argued in court.

Same for Wall Street, but I don't see them being hauled before the bar.

Sweeten and her husband, a self-employed landscaper, were spending $4,000 a month on their $400,000 mortgage and another $8,000 a month through debit purchases, according to the FBI.

Sweeten has been in custody since June 2009, just weeks after the daughter she eventually had with husband Larry Sweeten turned 1. She served nearly a year in state prison for the 911 hoax, and has been in federal custody since then. With time served, she’ll be eligible for release in 2018.

--more--"

Speaking of crooks:

"Corruption trial begins for Pennsylvania legislator" Associated Press, January 24, 2012

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A prosecutor yesterday described a once-powerful longtime Democratic lawmaker as a “common thief with uncommon access’’ to taxpayers’ money, as he became the first sitting Pennsylvania legislator to go to trial as part of a public corruption inquiry that started five years ago.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Ken Brown told jurors the evidence will show that state Representative Bill DeWeese illegally used legislative employees for political campaigning and fund-raising.

“We’re talking about public monies, monies paid by taxpayers, that were taken by this defendant and used for his own campaign work and for his own personal use,’’ Brown said an opening statement.

Defense lawyer William Costopoulos portrayed DeWeese as a hard-working legislator who misplaced his trust in subordinates in the House Democratic caucus, some of whom are expected to testify against him.

Costopoulos painted DeWeese as a man whose values were shaped by his working-class family, his service as a Marine Corps officer, and the constituents in his district in Pennsylvania’s southwestern corner who have elected him 18 times. DeWeese initially won his House seat in a 1976 special election.

DeWeese, 61, a former House speaker and the Democratic floor leader during the 2001-2007 period covered by the investigation, “has earned a good reputation for truthfulness, integrity’’ and respect for the law, Costopoulos said.

But the lawyer said DeWeese is “not a hands-on guy’’ and delegated most responsibilities for overseeing the hundreds of staffers in the Democratic caucus to others.

Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover opened the trial by banning coverage by reporters tweeting from the courtroom. He cited a proposed rule that the state Supreme Court is considering.

--more--"

"SMALLER JOB -- Richard Singer of Pottsville, Pa., unloaded his toy dump truck while clearing snow from a sidewalk in Pottsville. A weekend storm brought much of the Northeast its first significant snow of the winter (Boston Globe January 23 2012)."

"Parochial students rally against closures" January 10, 2012

PHILADELPHIA - Students at several Philadelphia-area Catholic schools slated for closure staged rallies yesterday to voice their opposition to an archdiocese plan that would shut 48 schools.

Dozens of students gathered outside St. Hubert’s High School for Girls carrying signs, chanting, and singing the school’s alma mater....

About 360 students from West Philadelphia Catholic High held a rally before classes began....

The Rev. Michael Marone, the school minister, said he and his students are very passionate about West Catholic. The students vowed that yesterday’s rally would be the first of many. “We have so many good people who are interested in our school, who love our school,’’ Marone said. “They come into the building, they meet our kids and they say how wonderful they are.’’

Officials in the archdiocese say declining enrollments are forcing the closures, which will displace almost 24,000 students....

--more--"

"1 killed, 7 hurt in shooting at party" December 19, 2011|Associated Press

DUQUESNE, Pa. - A shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party has left one person dead and seven others wounded, Western Pennsylvania authorities said yesterday....

--more--"

Prison Psychologist Given Probation For Rape Hoax

2012-01-27T18:03:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK:

"Calif. prison psychologist accused of faking rape" by Don Thompson Associated Press / December 9, 2011

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—She split her own lip with a pin, scraped her knuckles with sandpaper and had her friend punch her in the face. Investigators say she even ripped open her blouse, then wet her pants to give the appearance she had been knocked unconscious.

But it was all part of what authorities said Friday was an elaborate hoax by the woman to convince her husband she was raped so they could move to a safer neighborhood.

Charges filed by the Sacramento County district attorney allege Laurie Ann Martinez, a prison psychologist, conspired with the friend to create the appearance that she was beaten, robbed and raped by a stranger in April in her Sacramento home.

Martinez, her friend and two co-workers eventually told police the whole thing was a setup to convince Martinez's husband that they needed to move from a blighted, high-crime area three miles north of the state Capitol.

It didn't work. Instead, the couple filed for divorce six weeks after the April 10 incident, according to court records.

"If all you wanted to do is move, there's other ways than staging a burglary and rape," said Sacramento police Sgt. Andrew Pettit. "She went to great lengths to make this appear real."

Martinez, 36, a psychologist for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reported she had come home that day to find a stranger in her kitchen, authorities said.

"As she tried to run away, the suspect grabbed her and hit her in the face," court records say in describing what she told police. "She lost consciousness and then when she awoke she found her pants and underwear pulled down to her ankles."

Missing from her home were two laptop computers, Martinez's purse, an Xbox video game console, a camera and numerous credit cards that Martinez said the stranger had stolen.

In reality, the items were all at the home of her friend, Nicole April Snyder, authorities allege. Investigators say Martinez had Snyder punch her in the face with boxing gloves they bought for that purpose.

Martinez began crying hysterically when police arrived, according to court papers....

Maybe she can treat herself while she is in prison.

--more--"

Turns out she won't be going there:

"Ex-psychologist sentenced in staged rape" Associated Press, January 27, 2012

SACRAMENTO - A former California prison psychologist accused of staging a home invasion and sexual assault pleaded no contest to a felony conspiracy charge.

Prosecutors say Laurie Ann Martinez, 36, of Sacramento committed the elaborate hoax to persuade her husband that they needed to move.

In Sacramento County Superior Court on Wednesday, Martinez was sentenced to five years of probation and 180 days of electronic monitoring. She was also ordered to pay more than $4,000 in restitution for the police investigation.

Martinez made a frantic 911 call last April after she created a scene in her home that appeared as if someone ransacked the place and attacked her. She split her own lip and had a friend, Nicole Snyder, 33, wear boxing gloves to punch her in the face, police said.

According to the criminal complaint, Martinez rubbed sandpaper on her knuckles, ripped her blouse off to expose her top, dropped her pants to her ankles, and “urinated on herself to make officers believe she had lost consciousness,’’ the Sacramento Bee reported.

The women also removed two laptop computers, credit cards, a video game console, purse, and camera from Martinez’s home and hid them, according to the complaint.

Snyder, who cooperated with the investigation, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation. She was also ordered to do community service and pay restitution.

Prosecutors called Martinez’s behavior outrageous, saying it undermined the interests of true sexual assault victims.

Martinez’s attorney, Michelle Spaulding, said her client is “glad this is over and she would like to get her life back together.’’

Martinez has since lost her psychologist license and was fired from the Sacramento state prison in December.

Online court records show that her husband filed for divorce a month after she filed the false report, according to the Sacramento Bee.

--more--"

Who Made Flu?

2012-01-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

Will I get in trouble if I ask "Who Made Who?"

"Details of lab-made bird flu won’t be revealed" December 21, 2011|Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer

The U.S. government paid scientists to figure out how the deadly bird flu virus might mutate to become a bigger threat to people — and two labs succeeded in creating new strains that are easier to spread.

WTF????!!!!!!!!

On Tuesday, federal officials took the unprecedented step of asking those scientists not to publicize all the details of how they did it.

The worry: That this research with lots of potential to help the public might also be hijacked by would-be bioterrorists. The labs found that it appears easier than scientists had thought for the so-called H5N1 bird flu to evolve in a way that lets it spread easily between at least some mammals....

Your turn, Inspector Finch!

Would you really want to know, Americans? Would you really want to know your government has been sickening and experimenting on you all these years?

Related: Of Microbes and Mock Attacks - 51 Years Ago, The Military Sprayed Germs on U.S. Cities

But they would never do that now! They just lie about everything else.

Biological Warfare and the National Security State

But NOTHING HARMFUL, trust us!

The scary-sounding viruses are locked in high-security labs as researchers at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prepare to publish their findings in leading scientific journals. That’s the way scientists share their work so that their colleagues can build on it, perhaps creating better ways to monitor bird flu in the wild, for example.

But biosecurity advisers to the government recommended that the journals Science and Nature publish only the general discoveries, not the full blueprint for these man-made strains. Tuesday, the government announced that it agreed and made the request....

--more--"

"Scientists pause research with lab-bred bird flu" January 20, 2012|Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer

Scientists who created easier-to-spread versions of the deadly bird flu said Friday they’re temporarily halting more research, as international specialists debate what should happen next....

When do we release it?

What the scientists called a “pause’’ comes amid fierce controversy over how to handle research that’s high-risk but potentially could bring a big payoff. Two labs — at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison — created the new viruses while studying how bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people.

The U.S. government funded the work but last month urged the teams not to publicly reveal the exact formula so that would-be bioterrorists couldn’t copy it. Critics also worried a lab accident might allow the strains to escape. The researchers reluctantly agreed not to publish all the details as long as the government set up a system to provide them to legitimate scientists who really need to know. The National Institutes of Health is creating such a system....

Today, the so-called H5N1 bird flu only occasionally infects people, mostly those who have close contact with sick poultry. But when it does, it’s highly lethal. The lab-bred H5N1 strains were a surprise because they showed it was easier than previously thought for the virus to mutate in a way that lets it spread easily between at least some mammals — in this case, ferrets.

When was the last time you played in ferret feces with an open wound, readers?

--more--"

Related: Flu cases few, but infections common

Also see:

Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 Was Caused by Vaccinations

When doctors had tried to suppress the symptoms of the typhoid with a stronger vaccine, it caused a worse form of typhoid which they named paratyphoid. But when they concocted a stronger and more dangerous vaccine to suppress that one, they created an even worse disease which they didn’t have a name for. What should they call it? They didn’t want to tell the people what it really was — their own Frankenstein monster which they had created with their vaccines and suppressive medicines. They wanted to direct the blame away from themselves, so they called it Spanish Influenza.

Was The 'Spanish Flu' Epidemic Man-Made?

At a 1944 Nazi bacteriological warfare conference in Berlin, General Walter Schreiber, Chief of the Medical Corps of the German Army told Mueller that he had spent two months in the US in 1927 conferring with his counterparts. They told him that the "so-called double blow virus" (i.e. Spanish Flu) was developed and used during the 1914 war.

"But," according to Mueller, "it got out of control and instead of killing the Germans who had surrendered by then, it turned back on you, and nearly everybody else." ("Gestapo Chief: The 1948 CIA Interrogation of Heinrich Mueller" Vol. 2 by Gregory Douglas, p. 106)"

No, the eugenicist elite of our day would never do such a thing.... would they?

Indiana Dishonor

2012-01-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

The first item is a photograph in today's printed edition of my Boston Globe:

"HONORARY FIREFIGHTER -- The Indiana House of Representatives made Brandon Vinson, a 7-year-old with cystic fibrosis, an honorary firefighter yesterday. The boy's father, Greg, shown behind him, is an Indianapolis firefighter (Boston Globe January 27 2012)."

Doesn't that mean he is in a union?

The day before in print:

"Ind. House OK’s right-to-work legislation" Associated Press, January 26, 2012

INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives cleared the way yesterday to become the first right-to-work state in a traditionally union-heavy Rust Belt increasingly targeted by non-union foes.

The House voted 54-44 to make Indiana the nation’s 23d right-to-work state after Democrats ended a boycott which had stalled the measure for weeks. The bill is expected to face little opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate and could reach Republican Governor Mitch Daniels’s desk next week....

But what about the photo-op with the sick kid?

--more--"

"Indiana bill may breach unions’ stronghold in Midwest" January 15, 2012|By Timothy Jones

INDIANAPOLIS - When Greg Eckert joined the painter’s union in Fort Wayne 25 years ago, 1 in 5 Indiana workers was a dues-paying member of organized labor. Now it is 1 in 9.

Declining union membership and rising Republican clout have put Indiana on the edge of becoming the first so-called right-to-work state in an industrial region known for titanic labor battles that paved the way for modern-day contracts, health care, and retirement benefits.

A bill moving through the Republican-controlled General Assembly in Indianapolis would exempt nonunion employees from paying dues when working alongside union workers at private businesses.

Republicans view it as a cost-cutting, job-creating tool. Democrats call it a union-busting tactic that will lower wages.

And if the measure passes in Indiana, it may energize the right-to-work movement in a region that has repeatedly beaten it back....

--more--"

"Cruiser, detainee back in custody

KNOX, Ind. - A man accused of stealing a police cruiser while handcuffed in northwest Indiana, then using the police radio to ask how to unlock the cuffs, has turned himself in after two days on the run, authorities said yesterday.

William F. Blankenship, 22, was taken into custody late Thursday night at his family’s home in Knox, about 50 miles southeast of Chicago.

Blankenship had been arrested Tuesday on drug charges at a gas station in nearby Kouts. Police said that as the arresting officer searched Blankenship’s vehicle, the suspect somehow escaped from the police car’s backseat, climbed into the front, and drove off. He then used the police radio to ask where to find the car’s cigarette lighter and a key to unlock his handcuffs....

The officer whose squad car was stolen said he only realized the cruiser was gone when he looked up and saw the taillights leaving the parking lot.

Funny!

Kouts police Sergeant Dave Johnston said he believes Blankenship managed to contort himself to get the handcuffs in front of him, then hopped into the front seat.

The guy is a Houdini!

The squad car was found in a drainage ditch Wednesday, and authorities recovered the police weapons stored in the cruiser.

--more--"

Unfortunate Utah Post

2012-01-27T15:40:00.000-08:00

It's all the Boston Globe gave me to work with.

"3 Utah children home after icy plunge" Associated Press, January 03, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY - Three children trapped in an upturned car after it skidded into a river were released yesterday from a hospital, two days after they were saved by several passersby....

--more--"

"Utah police officer killed in shootout during drug raid" associated press, January 06, 2012

OGDEN, Utah - A shootout that erupted when police raided a home in Ogden on Wednesday night left an officer dead and wounded five others as well as the suspect, authorities said.

The officers from a task force went to the house in northern Utah as part of a routine drug-related investigation. They knocked on the door and identified themselves, Police Chief Wayne Tarwater said yesterday.

“When there was no answer, they forced entry,’’ he said. “When they entered, the officers came under fire.’’

Time to end the "drug war." Time to legalize.

The suspect, Matthew David Stewart, 37, has a limited criminal history. He suffered injuries that are not life threatening, though it was unclear if he was shot. Stewart was in a hospital under guard, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Weber County Attorney Dee Smith said officials hadn’t determined what charges Stewart might face.

“But it appears right now, with the information we have, that we have an aggravated murder as well as a number of other attempted aggravated murders,’’ Smith said.

The officer who was killed, Jared Francom, had a wife and two daughters, ages 3 and 5.

Authorities said the conditions of the injured officers ranged from serious to critical.

Police have not disclosed specific details about the shootout. Police said the warrant was based on credible information about possible drug activity.

Was there any, because this article sure leaves it vague.

--more--"

Related: Drug War Making a Killing in Boston

"Teen killed by miniature toy cannon" Associated Press, January 26, 2012

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah - Authorities say a 14-year-old boy fatally shot himself while playing with a toy cannon.

Tremonton police said Robby Ostberg was playing with the toy in his living room about 7:30 a.m. Monday when the miniature cannon went off. The boy was struck in the face and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities haven’t released detailed information about what kind of projectile hit Ostberg, but Hertel said her grandson sometimes wrapped gunpowder in tin foil and fired it a few feet away with the cannon.

This is what happens when you live in a culture of war.

The toy is described as an 18th century replica with a 6-inch metal barrel and a wooden base. Authorities said it had no firing mechanism and was meant to be purely decorative. Hertel said a neighbor gave it to the boy a few years ago.

The boy’s father didn’t know Ostberg had access to gunpowder, Hertel said.

--more--"

"Utah teens arrested in alleged school bombing plot" by Paul Foy Associated Press / January 26, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY—A Utah high school student bragged to police that he was smarter than the Columbine killers and was plotting with an older student to set off a bomb during a school assembly and escape in a stolen plane, court documents say.

Dallin Morgan, 18, and the 16-year-old boy were pulled out of school Wednesday and arrested after authorities learned of the plot, Roy police spokeswoman Anna Bond said Thursday.

The students prepared by logging hundreds of hours on flight simulator software on their home computers, and they planned to take a plane at Ogden Hinckley Airport after the bombing, Bond said.

The juvenile hinted at the plan in text messages to a friend, writing that both suspects wanted "revenge on the world" and "we have a plan to get away with it too."

He hinted at the plan by writing "explosives, airport, airplane" and added, "We're just gonna kill and fly our way to a country that won't send us back to the US," according to a probable cause statement police filed to make the arrests late Wednesday.

Talk about drawing attention to yourselves. Stupid kids.

The Associated Press isn't naming the 16-year-old because he is a minor.

The juvenile told investigators he was so "fascinated" by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that he visited the Littleton, Colo., school and interviewed the principal about the shootings that killed 13 people. Roy police said the principal, Frank DeAngelis, confirmed that the boy made his visit Dec. 12.

I still have questions about COLUMBINE, sorry. Nothing is ever as the government and mouthpiece media tell it.

Morgan was being held on $10,000 bail at Weber County jail on suspicion of conspiracy to commit mass destruction.

Is that the same charge leveled at liars who led us to mass-murdering wars?

The juvenile was in custody at Weber Valley Detention Center on the same charge. Prosecutors were weighing possible additional charges.

Both students had "absolute knowledge of the security systems and the layout of the school," Bond said. "They knew where the security cameras were. Their original plan was to set off explosives during an assembly. We don't know what date they were planning to do this, but they had been planning it for months."

School officials said there were no imminent plans to hold a school assembly.

Local and federal agents searched the school, two vehicles belonging to the suspects and their homes but found no explosives. The FBI is examining the suspects' computers, police said.

??????.... ??

The parents of both students "woke up in the middle of a nightmare," Bond said. "They've been very cooperative."

The other Roy High School student who received text messages tipped authorities to the plot Wednesday, said the school's safety specialist, Nate Taggart.

The student "came forward and had some suspicions but not a lot of information -- enough that it gave administration the ability to make some connections and identify the students involved," Taggart said.

The school has about 1,500 students.

--more--"

Supreme Court Sticks It to Tracking Tyranny

2012-01-27T13:29:00.000-08:00

And you thought "Enemy of the State" was just a movie.

"Court wrestles with police use of GPS" November 09, 2011|Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court invoked visions of an all-seeing Big Brother and satellites watching from above. Then things got personal yesterday when the justices were told police could slap GPS devices on their cars and track their movements, without asking a judge for advance approval.

The occasion for all the talk about intrusive police actions was a hearing in a case about whether the police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. The outcome could have implications for other high-tech surveillance methods as well.

The justices expressed deep reservations about warrantless GPS tracking. But there also was no clear view about how - or whether to - regulate police use of the devices.

The justices were taken aback when the lawyer representing the government said police officers could install GPS devices on the justices’ cars and track their movements without a warrant. To get a warrant, investigators need to convince a judge that there is reason to believe a suspect is involved in criminal activity.

“So your answer is yes, you could tomorrow decide that you put a GPS device on every one of our cars, follow us for a month; no problem under the Constitution?’’ Chief Justice John Roberts said.

Not only that, government lawyer Michael Dreeben replied, but FBI agents wouldn’t need a warrant either, if they wanted to rummage through the justices’ trash, use a low-tech beeper to track them, or tail them around-the-clock. Dreeben said the court has previously ruled that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in those circumstances.

Why did the word Gestapo just pop into my head?

Justice Samuel Alito expressed the court’s concern: “With computers around, it’s now so simple to amass an enormous amount of information. How do we deal with this? Just say nothing has changed?’’

--more--"

FLASHBACK:

"Supreme Court set to weigh in on the use of GPS to track suspects" September 11, 2011|By Adam Liptak, New York Times

WASHINGTON - In a series of rulings on the use of satellites and cellphones to track criminal suspects, judges around the country have been citing George Orwell’s “1984’’ to sound an alarm.

They say the Fourth Amendment’s promise of protection from government invasion of privacy is in danger of being replaced by the futuristic surveillance state Orwell described.

In April, Judge Diane P. Wood of the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that the surveillance using GPS devices would “make the system that George Orwell depicted in his famous novel, ‘1984,’ seem clumsy.’’ In a similar case last year, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the federal appeals court in San Francisco wrote that “1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last.’’

Last month, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the US District Court in Brooklyn turned down a government request for 113 days of location data from cellphone towers, citing “Orwellian intrusion’’ and saying the courts must “begin to address whether revolutionary changes in technology require changes to existing Fourth Amendment doctrine.’’

The Supreme Court is about to do just that. In November, it will hear arguments in United States v. Jones, No. 10-1259, the most important Fourth Amendment case in a decade. The justices will address a question that has divided the lower courts: Do the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track its movements for weeks at a time? Their answer will bring Fourth Amendment law into the digital age, addressing how its 18th-century prohibition of “unreasonable searches and seizures’’ applies to a world in which people’s movements are continuously and comprehensively recorded by devices in their cars, pockets and purses, by toll plazas and by transit systems.

The Jones case will address not only whether the placement of a space-age tracking device on the outside of a vehicle without a warrant qualifies as a search, but also whether the intensive monitoring it allows is different in kind from conventional surveillance by police officers who stake out suspects and tail their cars.

“The Jones case requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,’’ said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.

The case is an appeal from a unanimous decision of a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which said last year that the government was simply seeking too much information.

“Repeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,’’ wrote Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg.

He added: “A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups - and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.’’

Federal appeals courts in Chicago and San Francisco, on the other hand, have allowed the police to use GPS tracking devices without a warrant. The police are already allowed to tail cars and observe their movements without warrants, those courts said, and the devices merely allow them to do so more efficiently.

Yes, I love an efficient fascist state, don't you?

Judge Richard A. Posner, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel in the Chicago case, did caution that institutionalized mass surveillance might present a different issue.

The case to be heard by the Supreme Court arose from the investigation of the owner of a Washington nightclub, Antoine Jones, who was suspected of being part of a cocaine-selling operation.

Apparently out of caution given the unsettled state of the law, prosecutors obtained a warrant allowing police to place a tracking device on Jones’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. The warrant required them to do so within 10 days and within the District of Columbia. The police did not install the device until 11 days later, and they did it in Maryland. Now contending that no warrant was required, the authorities tracked Jones’s travels for a month and used the evidence they gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Of course, it is OKAY for the POLICE to BREAK the LAW, 'eh?

The main Supreme Court precedent in the area, United States v. Knotts, is almost 30 years old. It allowed the use of a much more primitive technology, a beeper that sent a signal that grew stronger as the police drew closer.

I'm reading a primitive pos.

--more--"

And the verdict?

"Supreme Court limits police use of GPS tracking; Officials must get warrants, justices rule" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, January 24, 2012

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a global positioning system tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days.

But the ruling avoided many difficult questions....

Although the ruling was limited to physical intrusions, the opinions in the case collectively suggested that a majority of the justices are prepared to apply broad Fourth Amendment privacy principles unrelated to such intrusions to an array of modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, and records kept by online merchants.

After checking their car when leaving the courthouse.

The case decided yesterday concerned Antoine Jones, who was the owner of a Washington nightclub when the police came to suspect him of being part of a cocaine-selling operation. They placed a tracking device on his vehicle without a warrant, tracked his movements for a month, and used the evidence they gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The government hates competition.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned his conviction, saying the sheer amount of information that had been collected violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches.

The Supreme Court affirmed that decision, but on a different ground....

--more--"

Roberts on Religion

2012-01-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

I really struggle to stay awake during Boston Globe sermons.

"High court gives churches latitude in hiring, firing" January 12, 2012|By Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON - In what may be its most significant religious liberty decision in two decades, the Supreme Court yesterday for the first time recognized a “ministerial exception’’ to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference.

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,’’ Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a decision that was surprising in both its sweep and its unanimity. “But so, too, is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission.’’

****************************

Whatever its precise scope, the ruling will have concrete consequences for countless people employed by religious groups to perform religious work. In addition to ministers, priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders, the decision appears to encompass, for instance, at least those teachers in religious schools with formal religious training who are charged with instructing students about religious matters....

Asked about professors at Catholic universities like Notre Dame, Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia who successfully argued the case, said: “If he teaches theology, he’s covered. If he teaches English or physics or some clearly secular subjects, he is clearly not covered.’’

The case, Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 10-553, was brought by Cheryl Perich, who had been a teacher at a school in Redford, Mich., that was part of the Lutheran-Church Missouri Synod, the second largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. Perich said she was fired for pursuing an employment-discrimination claim based on a disability, narcolepsy.

Is it just me or is the IRONY there a LAUGH RIOT!

You don't need a pill to cure insomnia. Just get religion.

Perich had taught mostly secular subjects but also taught religion classes and attended chapel with her class.

“It is true that her religious duties consumed only 45 minutes of each workday,’’ Roberts wrote, “and that the rest of her day was devoted to teaching secular subjects. The issue before us, however, is not one that can be resolved with a stopwatch.’’

Instead, the court looked to several factors. Perich was a “called’’ teacher who had completed religious training and whom the school considered a minister. She was fired, the school said, for violating religious doctrine by pursuing litigation rather than trying to resolve her dispute within the church.

Roberts devoted several pages of his opinion to a history of religious freedom in Britain and the United States, concluding that an animating principle behind the First Amendment’s religious liberty clauses was to prohibit government interference in the internal affairs of religious groups generally and in their selection of their leaders in particular.

“The Establishment Clause prevents the government from appointing ministers,’’ he wrote, “and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.’’

The decision was a major victory for a broad swath of national religious denominations who had warned that the case was a threat to their First Amendment rights and their autonomy to decide whom to hire and fire.

Some religious leaders had said they considered it the most important religious freedom case to go to the Supreme Court in decades.

Many religious groups were outraged when the Obama administration argued in support of Perich, saying this was evidence that the administration was hostile to historically protected religious liberties.

The whole government seems hostile to any civil liberties these days, from direct activism like protests to blog commentators such as myself.

The administration had told the justices that their analysis of Perich’s case should be essentially the same whether she had been employed by a church, a labor union, a social club or any other group with free-association rights under the First Amendment. That position was soundly rejected in yesterday’s decision.

“That result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,’’ Roberts wrote. “We cannot accept the remarkable view that the religion clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.’’

Requiring Perich to be reinstated “would have plainly violated the church’s freedom,’’ Roberts wrote. And so would awarding her and her lawyers money, he went on, as that “would operate as a penalty on the church for terminating an unwanted minister.’’

--more--"

"Judge rejects breakaway churches’ case" January 12, 2012|By Michelle Boorstein

WASHINGTON - A Virginia judge has ruled against seven conservative congregations that broke away from the Episcopal Church in 2006, rejecting their contention that they should be able to keep valuable church property that the national denomination also claims.

The case has drawn worldwide attention because it involves a cluster of large, prominent churches with well-known conservative pastors and because the issues at hand - particularly the Episcopal Church’s continued acceptance of same-sex relationships as equal to heterosexual ones - are roiling much of organized religion. Various Protestant congregations, in particular, have wound up in litigation across the country....

If they decide to not appeal, the seven congregations would have to vacate their churches, including some of the largest and most prominent in the region. Among them are The Falls Church and Truro Church in Northern Virginia, where thousands of people worship.

I imagine this case will be making its way to the Supreme Court.

--more--"

Huh, what? Sermon over?

The Anonymous Trap

2012-01-26T14:00:00.000-08:00

And now they want to tar Ron Paul supporters?

"‘Anonymous’ hackers target US security think tank" December 25, 2011|Cassandra Vinograd and Ramit Plushnick-Masti, Associated Press

The loose-knit hacking movement “Anonymous’’ claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals’ accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Isn't there something just a bit ironic there? Stratfor doesn't have stronger defenses?

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor’s confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos. The company’s main website was down, with a banner saying the “site is currently undergoing maintenance.’’

Proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor’s newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, however, with the main threat posed to individual employees who had subscribed.

“Not so private and secret anymore?’’ Anonymous taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Anonymous said the client list it had already posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit card details in part because Stratfor didn’t bother encrypting them — an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company....

Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor’s client list, Anonymous tweeted a link to encrypted files online with names, phone numbers, emails, addresses and credit card account details.

“Not as many as you expected? Worry not, fellow pirates and robin hoods. These are just the `A’s,’’ read a message posted online that encouraged readers to download a file of the hacked information....

It's a TRAP!!

--more--"

Related:

Anonymous Shuts Down Corporate and Government Websites Worldwide … The Timing Couldn’t Be Worse

"Thereby handing the US a justification for a crackdown on the internet, and proving to the less-insightful that anonymous was siding with the cyber-criminals all along (as well as Cass Sunstein)." -- Wake the Flock Up

I agree.

Also see: Would the US government attack its own websites and then blame "Anonymous" for the attacks?

No, the U.S. government would never do that.

"Amid recent protest, US already able to shut websites; Internet protest was silent in 2008" by Hiawatha Bray | Globe Staff, January 23, 2012

Google, Wikipedia, and the millions of Americans who joined last week’s protest against giving the government new authority over the Internet may have missed something: Federal agencies already have that kind of power, at least over websites registered in the United States.

Related: Bloggers Have Hand

Which is why government wants to cut them off.

Under a 2008 law called the Pro-IP Act, federal authorities can seize the assets of a company charged with copyright violations. The Justice Department exercised that muscle on Thursday, when it shut down one of the Internet’s most popular file-sharing sites: Megaupload.com, accused of distributing illegal copies of music, movies, and books.

A company’s assets include its Internet address, or domain name. Under the Pro-IP Act, the government can seize that domain name from organizations that violate copyrights as long as the online address ends in .com, .org, or .net. Those addresses are issued by a registry based in the United States and are subject to US law.

The Justice Department used “an authority that was [originally] intended for seizing a drug dealer’s cars as a method for shutting down an entire website,’’ said Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington....

Although the Pro-IP Act was a major expansion of the government’s power to regulate the Internet, opposition was muted at the time it was passed.

“I think there was generally just less attention to these issues of Internet freedom,’’ Sanchez said.

He said he believes it would be a different story if the law were put up for a vote today. One reason is the fallout from last year’s “Arab Spring’’ protests. Reports that embattled Middle Eastern regimes tried to cut off Internet access within their countries alarmed Americans who wouldn’t want their own government to have such power.

“The public was much more sensitized by all of these events,’’ Sanchez said.

Another factor, said Sanchez, was the rise of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, which are used by twice as many Americans now than in 2008, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The social networks made it much easier to quickly organize opposition to additional Internet regulations, Sanchez said.

Millions of Internet users may have participated in last week’s massive online demonstration, in which numerous websites, including Wikipedia, blacked out their pages, while sites like the search service Google posted protest messages.

The action was held in opposition to the Stop Online Privacy Act, under consideration in the House of Representatives, and its Senate counterpart, the Protect Intellectual Property Act. The two bills would force Internet service providers and search engines to block access to foreign websites that offer illicit files.

The furious opposition generated by the protest, which unleashed a flood of calls to congressional offices, prompted congressional supporters to delay indefinitely votes that would move the bills forward.

Critics said the proposed bills would give the government extraordinary power to censor Internet communication, similar to tactics used in authoritarian countries like China and Iran.

Related: Googling China

Your government is worse than theirs, American.

Yet the 2008 Pro-IP Act already lets the US government shut down websites accused of breaking copyright law, like Megaupload.

Even though Megaupload.com is based in Hong Kong, the company operated hundreds of computer servers on US soil and it had a US-issued .com address. That gave the Justice Department the opening it needed to crack down on the company.

According to the federal indictment, Megaupload and seven of its executives raked in $175 million by distributing illegally copied digital files, costing copyright holders more than half a billion dollars in lost revenues.

“They structured their business model to attract and profit from illegal activities,’’ said Kevin Suh, senior vice president of Internet content protection at the Hollywood trade group Motion Picture Association of America in Sherman Oaks, Calif., a proponent of the bills targeted by the Web protest.

“If this service were hosted and operated, for example, in a foreign country, our government would be essentially powerless to do anything about it,’’ said Cary Sherman, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, also a supporter of the two bills, in a statement celebrating the Megaupload shutdown. “That needs to change.’’

To hell with Hollywood!

There are many Internet domain name registries based outside the US. The world’s nations each have their own domains - .ru for Russia, for example. American agencies have no legal authority to confiscate a .ru domain name.

The protested bills would have let the government order American Internet companies to block US users’ access to foreign sites offering illegal materials. Because so many major file-swapping sites are based outside the United States, the recording and movie industries strongly supported the legislation.

But Cato’s Sanchez argued that the Pro-IP Act already gives the government too much power. Megaupload is probably in violation of US copyright laws, he said, but closing the site before it’s been found guilty in court sets an unhealthy precedent.

That's freedom?

“Our constitutional tradition has always rejected the idea of shutting down speech before someone is convicted of a crime,’’ Sanchez said.

Don't bother the AmeriKan government with the Constitution, will ya?

--more--"

Empire Benefits New England

2012-01-25T06:41:00.000-08:00

Then another war would do us good, huh?

"Military shift may shield N.E. jobs; Technology needs expected to rise" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff, January 23, 2012

“Even in a downturn there will still be pockets of winners,’’ said Todd Harrison, senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank....

Related: War Profiteer Piece of the Pie: F-35 Flying High in House

Where's my piece?

To highlight the greater role of air and naval power, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta over the weekend made a special trip to the USS Enterprise off the coast of Georgia to affirm the administration’s commitment to maintain a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers, despite the budget pressures.

Is that the same USS Enterprise that is now going to be sacrified in a false flag operation? Going to have to replace one soon?

Yup, this IS "a last-ditch effort to head off a major global war and indeed an extinction level event.... a nuclear WW3, all to please itty bitty Israel."

“Our view is that the carriers, because of their presence, because of the power they represent, are a very important part of our ability to maintain power projection both in the Pacific and in the Middle East,’’ he said....

And if someone sunk one, well.... off to war we go, right?

--more--"

Also see: The Engines of the Massachusetts Economy

Obama keeps it running:

"Obama outlines new military strategy for US; Efforts will focus on Asia, Pacific region" by Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker | new york times, January 06, 2012

WASHINGTON - President Obama outlined a broad new military strategy yesterday, one that refocuses the armed forces on threats in Asia and the Pacific region, continues a strong presence in the Middle East, but makes clear that US ground forces will no longer be large enough to conduct prolonged, large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meaning we are just going to bomb from offshore and on high.

In an unusual appearance in the Pentagon briefing room, Obama put his mark on a military strategy that moves away from the grinding wars he inherited from the Bush administration and relies more on naval and air power in the Pacific and the Strait of Hormuz as a counterbalance to China and Iran.

“Now, we’re turning the page on a decade of war,’’ Obama said in his prepared remarks....

To another decade or war, not that any of us will be around at the end.

His strategy embraces hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the military, making it an awkward codicil to the uneasy relationship he has shared with the military....

To that end, Obama wrote, his administration will continue to invest in counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, cyber warfare, and countering the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Obama arrived at the Pentagon early yesterday to describe the new strategy with his defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, and with General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials said it was the first time in history that a president had held a news conference at the Pentagon.

He said the country needed to remain prepared. “We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past - after World War II, after Vietnam - when our military was left ill-prepared for the future,’’ he said. “So, yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know - the United States is going to maintain our military superiority.’’

****************************

Panetta has made clear that troop reductions should be carried out carefully, and over several years, so that combat veterans are not flooding into a tough employment market and military families do not feel that the government is breaking trust after a decade of sacrifice, officials said.

All the lies and mistreatment of the soldiers after they are no longer useful has destroyed the trust, and I wouldn't worry about reductions with WWIII on deck.

--more--"

I'm really not seeing much change, sorry.

Patrick's State of the State Speech

2012-01-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

Depends on your point of view.

"Patrick administration avoids local aid cut in budget proposal; News welcome to cities, towns" by Andrew Ryan | Globe Staff, January 21, 2012

For the first time in four years, Massachusetts cities and towns may not face deep cuts in local aid, the lifeblood that helps cities and towns pay for police, trash pickup, tree trimming, and other services.

In its first volley of the budget season, the Patrick administration said yesterday that it would keep state aid to municipalities level, buoying the spirits of mayors, town managers, and selectmen as they begin hammering out spending plans for the coming year.

“The good news is there isn’t bad news,’’ said Mayor Thatcher W. Kezer III of Amesbury. “Revenues have stabilized. Local aid has stabilized.’’

*********************

In the recent fiscal climate, anything short of a cut is good....

Yeah, Hollywood (among other intere$t$) can eat our lunch -- with the state defending it(?) -- as you are left begging for scraps, fellow citizens.

--more--"

"Patrick seeks broad changes for community colleges" by Noah Bierman and Frank Phillips | Globe Staff, January 24, 2012

Governor Deval Patrick, speaking last night in his annual State of the Commonwealth address, proposed sweeping changes to the community college system, centralizing authority for 15 campuses and emphasizing job training.

Patrick highlighted the connection between the often overlooked schools and the unemployment problem. Encouraging more cooperation between schools and local employers, he said, would help the state’s 240,000 unemployed get the skills they need to fill an estimated 120,000 current job openings, many of which require specific training.

“We have a skills gap,’’ Patrick told the packed House chamber at the State House. “We can do something about that. We can help people get back to work. And our community colleges should be at the very center of it.’’

The 30-minute speech offered a narrow focus and lacked the lengthy list of new initiatives that often characterize such addresses. Beyond the community college proposal, Patrick introduced just two other initiatives: a health insurance payment overhaul and a criminal sentencing package, both of which he has previously supported.

Related: Massachusetts Health Ration

Unlike last year’s speech, when excitement from Patrick’s reelection was still spilling over, the governor delivered this address, his sixth, at a moment when he has been overshadowed politically.

His predecessor, Mitt Romney, is locked in a riveting Republican presidential primary contest.

Scroll: Politics

Are you riveted?

Patrick’s state party is focused on helping Democrat Elizabeth Warren challenge US Senator Scott Brown, a Republican, in what may be the nation’s most gripping Senate race.

See: Checking In on the Ma$$achu$ett$ $enate Race

Even Patrick’s lieutenant governor, Timothy P. Murray, has stolen the spotlight with growing interest in his mysterious high-speed rollover crash and in his ties with a former Chelsea Housing Authority chairman Michael E. McLaughlin, who is under federal investigation. Murray received a prolonged ovation from the friendly crowd when he was introduced.

Related: Chelsea Evictions

Also see: McLaughlin raised money for Murray

Murray asks for probe of McLaughlin fund-raising

Despite the budgetary challenges faced by his administration, Patrick cited the state’s high credit rating, its vast improvement in job creation, and his ability to curb public employee benefits without the turmoil that erupted in Wisconsin and other areas of the country....

Yeah, as LONG AS WE ARE IN GOOD with the BANKS we are COOL!!

Also see: New Rules For Unions in Massachusetts

Mass. House Worse Than Wisconsin

Unions Surrender Rights in Massachusetts

He's proud of the fact that unions here obediently bent over and took it?

As for the jobs, yeah, right. That's why tax collections are down but up(??).

Related: Massachusetts tax collections for December $194 million higher than projections

And I quote: "It was the third consecutive month that state tax collections beat estimates."

(Blog editor simply sighs)

Patrick again pushed to dramatically change the medical payment system, renewing an unsuccessful plea he made last year to end the fee-for-service model with a so-called global payment system that rewards doctors for coordinating care.

It's rationing, and it will be coming to you, Americans.

Message from Massachusetts: Don't get sick.

And the governor renewed his support for a modified version of the controversial “three-strikes’’ crime bill that would lengthen sentences for repeat violent offenders, requiring life sentences without parole for those whose third felony is murder or a “similarly heinous act of violence.’’

I thought Massachusetts was a liberal state.

Patrick, however, demanded that the strict new punishments be coupled with his plan to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. He said that state spending on prisons has grown 30 percent over the last decade because of longer sentences for first-time nonviolent drug offenders.

“We have moved, at massive public expense, from treatment for drug offenders to indiscriminate prison sentences and gained nothing in public safety,’’ he said. “Many come out more dangerous than when they come in.’’

But it did make a whole lot of people rich and helped create the prison industrial complex (complete with it$ probation and parole racket$).

Btw, the voters decriminalized marijuana, remember?

Throughout last night’s speech, the governor drew applause from fellow Democrats in the state’s political establishment, who greeted his initiatives warmly.

The future of the state’s community college system has faced renewed questions since November, when a pair of reports described it as disjointed and inadequate in its preparation of students for technical careers.

Patrick reinforced that assessment last night, citing successes within several individual colleges where programs train workers in fields like health care and precision manufacturing.

“We need that kind of sharper mission across the Commonwealth, so that community colleges become a fully integrated part of the state’s workforce development plan,’’ Patrick said....

Community colleges are often overlooked in a state dominated by elite universities including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but they tend to enroll vast numbers of students and play a crucial role in training workers.

Globe often focuses on those elite colleges, and pffft to workforce training.

See: Cutting Globe's Community College Classes

I thought community colleges were stepping stones for careers. Silly me.

The plan could meet internal resistance, as college presidents are being asked to cede much of their power to a central body. Patrick spoke with community college presidents earlier yesterday, catching many off guard....

Oh, the college presidents were caught off guard(?) again?

It was not the first time a Massachusetts governor has tried to centralize the community college system. The Romney administration put forth its own proposals, which foundered in the Legislature.

But Paul Grogan, chief executive of the Boston Foundation and author of an influential report on community colleges released two months ago, said this time could be different.

“There’s an accountability movement in education now, and also obviously there’s the tremendous problem created by the economy,’’ he said. “This is an opportunity for the schools to be something fundamentally more important than they have been.’’

Reaction to Patrick’s address last night ran along party lines, drawing praise from Democratic leaders in the House and Senate who said they share Patrick’s agenda.

Are you teachers and educators sure Democrats are your friend, and if so, who needs Republican enemies?

The Legislature’s small Republican minority said the governor’s community college plan did not do enough to address the state’s larger economic problems....

No, it doesn't, but that was likely the point. Go off on a tangent.

--more--"

Also see: Welcome to My World

You can see where I differ from the top, right?

The State of Obama's Campaign

2012-01-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

Which is why I won't be watching it.

"Obama to signal campaign themes tonight" by Tracy Jan | Globe Staff, January 24, 2012

WASHINGTON - Tonight’s State of the Union address gives the president a chance to steal the spotlight from the fractious Republicans and turn it toward his rallying call for economic and tax fairness. In doing so, Obama will seek to project his vision for government’s role in incubating a new prosperity for future generations.

The speech will also cement his reelection platform....

Click

--more--"

"Obama speech to define activist government to advance fairness" by Jackie Calmes | New York Times, January 22, 2012

WASHINGTON - President Obama will use his election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday to define an activist role for government in promoting a prosperous and equitable society, hoping to draw a stark contrast between the parties in a time of deep economic uncertainty....

State of the Union as campaign pitch! My question: where you been for the last three years?

Obama will again propose changes to the tax code so the wealthy pay more, despite Republicans’ consistent opposition. It is a theme the White House hopes will hit a nerve with voters....

Oh, it's hit a nerve! Why didn't they rescind the Bush tax cuts when they had a super-majority rather than extending them -- which now means social services need to be cut.

With most Americans registering disapproval of his economic record after three years, it is all the more imperative for Obama to define the election not as a referendum on him but as a choice between his vision and the vision of his eventual Republican rival.

Advisers and people familiar with the speech say Obama will expand again on the administration’s effort to resolve the housing crisis with both carrots and sticks to lenders dealing with homeowners behind on their mortgage payments - after yet another debate between his economic and political advisers.

The political team has long argued that most Americans oppose bold government action to stem home foreclosures, like forcing lenders to reduce borrowers’ principal, seeing it as rewarding those who had bought houses they could not afford. The economic team holds that until the housing market recovers, the broader economy cannot - and that all Americans suffer.

On Tuesday, Obama will flesh out his populist message with new proposals to spur manufacturing, including tax breaks for companies that “insource’’ jobs back to the United States; to double down on clean-energy incentives; and to improve education and job training initiatives, especially for the millions of long-term unemployed, the officials familiar with the speech said.

Why do companies need a tax break to employ Americans and bring jobs back?

Related: Solar Stimuloot Went to Goldman Sachs

And he is going to double down?

Obama is expected to harden his challenge to China to increase its currency’s value for fairer trade - addressing the one area in which Romney, the Republican candidate whom the Obama team still views as the president’s likely challenger, has struck a more populist chord that appeals to working-class voters that Obama needs if he is to be reelected.

So BASHING CHINA is going to be a campaign theme?

And I'M SURE IRAN will receive a mention tonight!

In the video preview, Obama said he would call for “a return to American values of fairness for all and responsibility from all.’’

“We can go in two directions,’’ he said. “One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few.’’

To that end, people familiar with his draft speech say, Obama will call for changing the corporate and individual income tax codes so the wealthy pay more, both to finance government investments and to alleviate the rise in income inequality in recent years. Obama will revive his call, made in September, to rewrite the individual code in a way that follows what he termed the “Buffett Rule’’ - making sure that, as the billionaire Warren Buffett has said, no secretary or other employee pays a higher effective tax rate than their better-paid bosses.

You guys had two years and all we got was a crappy corporate health plan with a tax attached to it.

His proposal takes on heightened political importance after Romney’s acknowledgement last week that he pays income taxes at about a 15 percent rate. That is a lower rate than most taxpayers pay, reflecting a tax break opened in the past decade by the Bush administration and a Republican-led Congress for taxpayers whose income relies on investments rather than wages.

Obama will also propose political changes, perhaps in campaign finance. Those would tap the sentiment of many Americans, expressed among both Tea Party and Occupy protesters on the political left and right, that the system is rigged against them and in favor of a privileged few.

And tonight's political pitch isn't going to change that impression.

Yet even if Congress went along, an unlikely prospect for much of the president’s agenda because Republicans’ opposition is expected to intensify in this election year, any changes would not affect this campaign season.

Just a lot of cheap hot air.

Already it has been influenced by independent super PACs of wealthy individuals, corporations, and unions unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling to spend unlimited sums on behalf of candidates....

No cheapness there, and it's appalling in the face of such suffering in AmeriKa.

--more--"

Why do I feel so slimy when I write about politics?

"Campaign battle looms on oil pipeline" by Kate Andersen Brower | Bloomberg News, January 20, 2012

WASHINGTON - President Obama’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline permit exposed a split in a core Democratic constituency and handed Republicans a new line of election-year attack.

Unions representing construction workers condemned the move, while labor groups - including the United Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers, and the Service Employees International Union - joined with environmental advocates in saying they support Obama’s decision. It also triggered criticism from congressional Republicans and the party’s presidential candidates.

“The Republicans’ argument that he’s trying to run a populist campaign firing up the liberal base and that this is all politics at the expense of jobs is going to be an important continuing issue through much of the campaign,’’ said David Gergen, director of Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership and an adviser to presidents of both parties.

Obama is heading into his reelection campaign with the nation still rebounding from the worst recession since the Great Depression and a high unemployment rate. The economy will be a prime focus of Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The jobs promised in the building of the Keystone pipeline were central to union support for the project originally, and the focus of GOP criticism of Obama.

Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, said that Obama’s decision shows “a lack of seriousness’’ about unemployment, economic growth, and US energy independence.

Another Republican contender, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, called it “a stunningly stupid thing to do.’’

The president blamed Republicans for forcing the action by setting a deadline as part a bill that temporarily extended a payroll tax cut.

Related: Tea Party Republicans Rolled Over Payroll Tax

Yeah, big win.

Obama in November had postponed a pipeline decision while the State Department reviewed a route that avoided a Nebraska aquifer that provides water for 1.5 million people.

--more--"

Related: Canadian oil pipeline will benefit China

What?

Update: Obama wants higher taxes on rich, incentives for jobs

Obama the Dictator

2012-01-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sure is acting like one.

"Bypassing Congress, Obama fills consumer post" January 05, 2012|By Bobby Caina Calvan

President Obama, in a politically provocative move that incensed Republican leaders, bypassed the Senate nomination process yesterday and appointed Richard Cordray to lead a contentious financial agency intended to rein in lending abuses and simplify the process for consumers.

Yeah, they are not angry about illegal torture, detentions, and wars, the unconstitutional spying, or the effort to shut down blogs under the cover of copyright protection.

“He’ll be in charge of one thing: looking out for the best interests of American consumers,’’ Obama, with Cordray at his side, told a raucous crowd of 1,300 assembled at a high school in Cleveland. “His job will be to protect families like yours from the abuses of the financial industry.’’

****************************************

The decision to install Cordray without Senate approval under the constitutional provision for making appointments when lawmakers are in recess was an audacious opening salvo in Obama’s reelection strategy of demonizing Congress.

Oh, it is all politics?

The president, announcing his decision before a political rally-like crowd, seemed to welcome a contentious second session of the 112th Congress, in which any attempts at bipartisan compromise appear in danger of being lost in all-out election-year war....

I'm tired of the war terminology coming from the war paper when it concerns politics -- or anything else.

--more--"

"Justice Dept. backs Obama on recess appointments; Says pro forma Senate sessions do not apply" by Charlie Savage | New York Times, January 13, 2012

Everything Hitler did was considered legal, too.

WASHINGTON - President Obama had the power to lawfully consider the Senate to be on a lengthy break - even though Congress contended otherwise - and make recess appointments, the Justice Department concluded in a previously secret legal memorandum it made public yesterday.

In the 23-page document, Virginia A. Seitz, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the Senate’s “pro forma’’ sessions - in which a single senator comes into the chamber to bang the gavel every three days - could not prevent Obama from being able to exercise his constitutional power to appoint officials when the body was in recess.

“The Senate could remove the basis for the president’s exercise of his recess appointment authority by remaining continuously in session and being available to receive and act on nominations, but it cannot do so by providing for pro forma sessions at which no business is to be conducted,’’ Seitz wrote.

The legal analysis of the memorandum tracked the arguments made by the White House counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, on Jan. 4, the day Obama appointed Richard Cordray as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and as well as three members of the National Labor Relations Board.

At the time, Ruemmler declined to say whether the Office of Legal Counsel had approved the step, leading some critics to speculate that the White House had either failed to consult the Justice Department or had rejected its conclusions.

Seitz’s memorandum was dated Jan. 6, but says that she had previously provided the same legal guidance orally to Ruemmler.

Translation: They wrote the memo AFTER the fact!

Obama was the first president to make recess appointments under such circumstances, although the tactic by Congress of using such sessions to block recess appointments is also new. It was first used by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, in late 2007, to prevent President George W. Bush from making recess appointments.

While Bush did not make any such appointments for the remainder of his term, Seitz’s memorandum cited a previously undisclosed memorandum completed in January 2009 by a Bush administration lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, John Elwood, saying she was drawing on his analysis.

Obama is worse than Bush?

After leaving government, Elwood wrote that presidents have the authority to take such a step.

So the Obama administration is drawing off Bush administration opinion and policy? Some f***ing change!

And it shows you the s*** fooleys that are AmeriKan politics. Republicans didn't care when Bush was making recess appointments while Democrats complained. Now the roles are reversed, and we are no longer fooled.

Still, Obama’s recess appointments remain deeply controversial. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, denounced the move the day it happened, saying Obama had “arrogantly circumvented the American people’’ and endangered “Congress’s role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch.’’’

Eight Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including its ranking member, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, sent a letter on Jan. 5 to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking whether the Office of Legal Counsel had been consulted and demanding that any legal conclusions it had reached be released.

Much of the criticism of Obama’s move has been based on the theory that the Senate has in fact been in session every three days, so the recess was only as long as a long weekend.

Traditionally, presidents have not made recess appointments during congressional breaks of fewer than 10 days, so Obama’s move raised the notion that he had established a precedent that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could gut the confirmation process by allowing presidents of either party to make recess appointments whenever the chamber was momentarily empty.

That does look like a dictatorship.

Seitz’s memorandum, however, said that the administration considered the Senate to be on a single long recess of 20 days - from Jan. 3, when its new pro forma session started, to Jan. 23, when members are scheduled to return to Washington and start conducting business again.

Critics of that theory have cited several arguments to bolster the view that the Senate has instead been in a series of shorter, three-day recesses.

For example, Congress has occasionally conducted business in pro forma sessions, including approving a payroll tax cut extension just before Christmas - a step Obama treated as valid because he signed the bill into law.

Related: Tea Party Republicans Rolled Over Payroll Tax

Also see: Democrats' Payroll Tax Problem

--more--"

"Obama seeks authority to merge federal agencies; Congress would have to approve the new powers" January 14, 2012|By Mark Landler, New York Times

WASHINGTON - President Obama announced a new campaign yesterday to shrink the federal government, a proposal notable less for its goal - the fight against bloat has been championed by every modern-day president - than for its challenge to a hostile Congress.

Obama called on lawmakers to grant him broad new authority to propose mergers of government agencies, which Congress would have to approve or reject in an up-or-down vote.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Obama, announcing the plan at the White House, said he would begin his pruning exercise by folding the Small Business Administration and five other agencies involved in trade and business into a single agency that would replace the Commerce Department.

So he is not waiting for a vote?

The White House said the consolidation would save $3 billion over 10 years and result in the elimination of 1,000 to 2,000 jobs, though he said those reductions would occur through attrition rather than layoffs.

“From the moment I got here, I saw up close what many of you know to be true: The government we have is not the government we need,’’ Obama told an audience of small-business owners.

It is not clear whether Congress, which has blocked the bulk of Obama’s legislative agenda, will go along with the initiative. White House officials said no president since Ronald Reagan has had the so-called consolidation authority Obama is seeking.

Republicans were immediately skeptical. They suggested that the White House was more interested in honing its reelection message than in reducing the size of government.

Related: The State of Obama's Campaign

“Yesterday, President Obama asked for a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt limit, today he is proposing to shrink the federal government,’’ said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “Unfortunately, President Obama does not have much of a record to back up his newfound, election-year enthusiasm for limited government.’’

**********************************

By putting the onus for streamlining government on Congress, however, Obama was seizing a core issue of Republican presidential candidates - and trying to turn it to his own political advantage.

It was the latest sally by the president, who has gone on the offensive against Congress as he embarks on his reelection bid. He appointed a new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, as well as other appointees to regulatory agencies, during a congressional recess to get around the opposition of lawmakers.

Under the terms of the reorganization proposed yesterday, six relatively small agencies - the Small Business Administration, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and the Trade and Development Agency - would be consolidated into a single agency focused on opportunities for the private sector....

But if Ron Paul suggested such a thing it would be radical and wrong.

Btw, all those agencies exist to funnel taxpayer dollars to profitable corporations.

--more--"

Also see: Republicans to retaliate in Obama appointees spat

White House Bedtime Book

2012-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Yawn.

"Michelle Obama disputes book’s take on her White House role" January 12, 2012|Washington Post, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama is challenging assertions she has forcefully imposed her will on White House aides and says people have inaccurately tried to portray her as “some kind of angry black woman.’’

Obama told CBS News she has not read New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book that characterizes her as a behind-the-scenes force whose strong views often draw her into conflict with President Obama’s top advisers.

“I never read these books,’’ she told CBS’s Gayle King in an interview broadcast yesterday.

Neither do I.

In the book, Mrs. Obama is said to have occasionally bristled at some of the demands and constraints of life in the White House....

The Kantor book, “The Obamas,’’ portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs. Neither the president nor his wife agreed to be interviewed for the book.

“That’s been an image people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I’m some kind of angry black woman,’’ Obama said.

“There will always be people who don’t like me,’’ she said.

Asked about an assertion of dissension between herself and Emanuel, now the mayor of Chicago, Obama said she has “never had a cross word’’ with him. The same, she said, applies to Gibbs.

--more--"

From what I heard she was only looking out for her man.

Bruin Goalie Blocks Obama

2012-01-24T20:59:00.000-08:00

And he is being sent to the penalty box?

"Disillusioned with politics, Thomas skips White House

WASHINGTON - Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas skipped a White House ceremony with President Obama yesterday to honor his championship team, saying his absence was an expression of his unhappiness with Washington as a whole and not a snub of the president.

“I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People,’’ Thomas, only one of two Americans on the Stanley Cup team, said in a statement. “This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country.’’

Thomas, the Stanley Cup MVP who played at the University of Vermont, is an avowed conservative and talk radio enthusiast who has previously criticized Obama’s policies. He was among the players Obama singled out for praise during the ceremony in at the White House.

--more--"

Related: Bruins try to move past Tim Thomas incident

WTF?

Next Day Update:

Team is used to to Thomas's ways

Thomas's stance draws some shots from Bruins fans

Double WTF.

Obama's Luncheon With Spike Lee

2012-01-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

I lost my appetite.

"Obama to ease travel rules for some foreign tourists

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - President Obama sought his piece of Florida’s political spotlight with a high-profile appearance at Walt Disney World, where he announced initiatives aimed at making it easier for citizens of China and Brazil to visit the United States.

“America is open for business,’’ Obama declared against the backdrop of Disney’s Cinderella castle and picture-perfect blue skies. “We want to welcome you.’’

Now drop those trousers.

From Florida, Obama headed to New York City for four campaign fund-raisers....

What is the carbon footprint on that?

The president also was to attend a $35,800 per ticket fund-raiser at the home of director Spike Lee....

C'mon, Spike! Do the right thing and support Ron Paul!

Beyond offering an opportunity to talk about the economy, Obama’s trip to Florida marked an attempt by the White House and his campaign to steal attention from Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination. In recent weeks Obama held a live video conference with Iowa voters during the Republican caucus; Vice President Joe Biden held a similar event with voters in New Hampshire on the night of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Obama was greeted in the Orlando area by ads from GOP front-runner Mitt Romney blaming the president for the state’s struggling economy. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, could take a major step toward securing the Republican nomination with a win in Florida’s primary.

While Obama carried Florida in 2008, the state is a top target for Republicans in the November elections. Florida twice backed Republican George W. Bush, providing the decisive electoral votes in the cliffhanger 2000 election that was decided after a 36-day recount.

It was stolen twice, readers.

--more--"

Related:

Stolen Elections (Part 1)

Stolen Elections (Part 2)

The fact that the media don't care and covers them up calls into question their credibility.

"White House quest to cut red tape may be a help to travelers"

WASHINGTON - The White House released final plans yesterday to streamline federal bureaucracy by eliminating 500 regulatory requirements across two dozen US agencies, an overhaul that could make it easier for travelers to obtain a visa and military contractors to get paid....

Making it easier for terrorists and corruption?

The Defense Department has finalized plans to speed up payments to 60,000 contractors and the State Department is reforming visa rules to “promote economic growth and tourism,’’ said Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, on a morning conference call with reporters....

--more--"

"US agencies want 1,000-plus contractors barred" December 28, 2011|Kathleen Miller, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration, under pressure from Congress to weed out government suppliers for ethics violations or poor performance, has proposed to ban almost as many contractors this year as President George W. Bush did in his entire second term....

Federal agencies are under pressure after a series of congressional hearings and reports from inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office faulted procurement officials for failing to keep unqualified or ineligible vendors out of the $500 billion-a-year federal market....

What a tax trough.

--more--"

Obama Dumps Daley

2012-01-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

How lewd.

"Obama shakes up inner circle; Daley resigns; Lew takes over as chief of staff" Globe Staff and Wires, January 10, 2012

WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday tapped his budget chief, Jacob J. Lew, to be his new chief of staff, replacing William M. Daley after a frustrating year in which Daley struggled to find his footing in a ferociously partisan Washington....

Related: Obama Banking on a Change in the Chief of Staff

Lew is a well-regarded veteran of the White House budget office, State Department, and Wall Street. His long experience on Capitol Hill, where he served for almost a decade as a top domestic policy adviser for House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip’’ O’Neill Jr., should put him in a better position to improve ties with Congress, officials said.

A graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown University Law School, Lew, 56, has served in a series of high-level positions over a three-decade career and is recognized as one of Washington’s most astute managers. When Obama named him budget director in July 2010, it was the second time he held the position, having served as budget chief in the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001.

“If there was a Hall of Fame for budget directors,’’ Obama said, “then Jack Lew surely would have earned a place for his service in that role under President Clinton, when he helped balance the federal budget after years of deficits.’’

Indeed, Lew is a rare breed in Washington whose skills and approach are touted on both sides of the partisan divide, even though the Queens native volunteered as a teenager for the presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, a liberal darling and anti-Vietnam War icon.

Amid the deep rancor of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over the federal budget last summer, he was still able to garner admirers in the GOP....

Daley, an affable former banker who is the son and brother of legendary Chicago mayors, proved to be an awkward fit on the Obama team. Recruited largely for his deal-making skills and ties to the business world, he failed to help his boss strike a huge budget deal with Republicans in the House.

Following that failed negotiation, which led to months of acrimony between the White House and Congress, some of Daley’s duties were transferred to Pete Rouse, a low-profile former congressional aide with closer ties to the president.

The news of Daley’s departure was first reported by the Chicago Tribune.

That Daley was frustrated by Washington was no secret. In October, he told a Chicago TV station that he planned to leave in January 2013, at the end of Obama’s first term. It was not clear what precipitated his decision to leave the White House now.

--more--"

Democrats' Payroll Tax Problem

2012-01-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Didn't we just go through all this?

"Back from break, Congress faces payroll tax talks" January 16, 2012|By Andrew Taylor

WASHINGTON - Republicans would cut federal employee benefits. President Obama would eliminate Saturday mail delivery and raise airline flight fees. Democrats in Congress would charge employers higher premiums for federal pension guarantees.

As Congress returns from a three-week holiday break, those are a few of the ideas for how to pay for extending an average $20-a-week Social Security payroll tax cut through the end of 2012 without adding to the government’s long-term debt.

Last year, Obama and fellow Democrats insisted on taxing the wealthy to offset the deficit impact of the payroll tax cut and of providing jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed. While still useful as campaign fodder, that idea is largely a bygone one.

Is that why they extended the Bush tax cuts?

House and Senate negotiators are drawing on Obama’s budget and the work of the defunct congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction to come up with the $160 billion or so needed to continue the tax cut and federal jobless benefits. Both of are set to expire Feb. 29.

Republicans controlling the House took a political drubbing in a December battle that produced a two-month extension of unemployment aid and the 2 percentage point tax cut for 160 million workers.

While House Republicans went after Democratic sacred cows such as federal worker benefits and health care spending, leading senators made progress on a bigger deal before it collapsed because of a lack of time, aides in both parties say.

Health care remains part of the equation. To prevent a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors under an outdated 1997 formula, negotiators are trying to find $39 billion in cuts elsewhere in health care spending. That would fix the problem for two years.

Some of the money being considered to offset the lost payroll tax revenue is practically free. For example, auctioning portions of the electromagnetic spectrum to wireless companies would raise perhaps $16 billion over the coming decade.

Obama wants to raise $4 billion more by selling off surplus federal property.

Umm, selling off public property is hardly "free" money.

There is an additional $3 billion to be reaped by preventing state and local government workers from improperly claiming Social Security benefits.

One idea considered likely to make it into the final package is the repeal of a tax break taken by businesses that buy corporate jets. It would raise about $5 billion over a decade.

Other ideas illustrate the uneasy trade-off of big spending cuts or new fees stretched out over a decade to finance only 10 months of a temporary tax cut.

For instance, eliminating Saturday mail delivery and other Postal Service changes raise enough money to pay for only about two months of the payroll tax cut. That may seem like a bad deal for many Americans, especially retired people who do not get the tax cut. The postal overhaul plan was proposed by Obama and embraced by the supercommittee, but so far has been left out of the payroll tax legislation.

Similarly, an Obama plan to double the Transportation Security Administration’s security fee for nonstop air travel from $5 to $10 a round-trip ticket would raise only enough money to pay for about one month of the tax cut. The idea gained currency in supercommittee deliberations but is not being pressed now, aides in both parties said.

But a new $100-per-flight fee on airlines and owners of private jets, which would bring in more than $1 billion a year, seems to be gaining momentum.

So is a proposal to raise billions of dollars by making businesses with underfunded defined benefit pension plans pay higher premiums to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures such plans. Many businesses and their GOP allies in Washington are resisting the proposals.

Related: Bush Bankrupted Pension Insurance Fund

I'll give you one guess who will be bailing it out, taxpayers.

Republicans’ proposal to trim the federal workforce through retirements and attrition faces opposition from Democrats who supported it as part of a big deficit-cutting package. Politically wrenching changes to Medicare appear to be off the table....

--more--"

Notice ending the empire never makes it into the conversation?

I Forgot to Watch Florida Debate

2012-01-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, readers. The fact is I rarely, if ever, watch cable news channels or network news broadcasts. As it is I can barely make it through the paper.

At least the Globe is there to tell us all we need to know, right?

"Romney swings hard at Gingrich in debate; Attacks GOP foe on ethics in Fla. debate" by Michael Levenson and Matt Viser | Globe Staff, January 24, 2012

TAMPA - A combative Mitt Romney last night painted Newt Gingrich as a disgraced former House speaker who had peddled influence in Washington, charges that Gingrich testily dismissed as the two rivals met for their first debate since Gingrich won the South Carolina primary....

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were largely sidelined in the debate, and did not even speak for the first 10 minutes.

I'm glad I didn't watch because it would have been a waste of time.

Both of them insisted, however, that they remain viable challengers for the nomination.

Not in the AmeriKan corporate media's eyes.

Santorum pointed out that the race has been highly volatile, with front-runners soaring and crashing for months. “If you’ve learned anything about this election, it’s that any type of prediction is going to be wrong,’’ he said.

Paul, as he has in the past, said he had no intention of launching an independent bid for the presidency, but would not rule it out. “I don’t want to,’’ he said. “But I haven’t been an absolutist.’’

Gee, the web version added a quote by him. Hoo-ray!

Just hours before the debate began, Gingrich got some good news: Miriam Adelson, the wife of the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, gave Gingrich’s allies $5 million, extending the former speaker a crucial lifeline as he battles Romney’s latest assault.

Related: Gingrich is Good To Go

So am I.

The contribution came with a caveat: Miriam Adelson asked for her money to be used only on ads that support Gingrich and do not tear down other candidates.

What was cut from my printed paper version:

The donation to Winning Our Future, and independent group that is supporting Gingrich's campaign, used the $5 million contribution from Sheldon Adelson to air a controversial documentary that skewered Romney's tenure at Bain Capital. The ad was deemed inaccurate, but only after its devastating portrait of Romney as a corporate raider had entered the political mainstream.

And Newt was complaining about his second wife being the story?

And no matter what happens, don't let the truth spoil the narrative.

--more--"

Related: Romney unleashes attacks against Gingrich

"Romney’s old investments stir up new financial questions, January 24, 2012

WASHINGTON - A day before Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney planned to release his income tax returns, his old investments in two controversial government-backed housing lenders stirred up new questions at the same time his campaign targeted rival Newt Gingrich for earning more than $1.6 million in consulting fees from one of the lenders.

Uh-oh.

Related: The Bain of Mitt Romney

Gingrich Got Rich From Freddie Mac

Maybe the question out to be who didn't, huh?

Romney’s latest financial disclosure report listed several investments, worth as much as $500,000, in lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Romney, Gingrich, and other GOP critics repeatedly have singled out the two quasigovernment entities as prime villains in the housing crisis that played a central role in the nation’s long and deep recession.

While continuing to denounce Gingrich for his consulting work for Freddie Mac, the Romney campaign sought to deflect questions about the former Massachusetts governor’s investments. They include a mutual fund worth up to $500,000 that includes assets from both lenders among other government income, and separate investments in each of the lenders in Romney’s individual retirement account, each worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

Related: Fed Funnels Made Millions Off Mutual Fund Bailout

Romney campaign officials said yesterday that a trustee handles the investments and that Romney had no role in choosing or managing them.

That makes all the difference, don't it?

The dimensions and the sources of Romney’s wealth, which he has estimated to be as much as $250 million, have become a central issue in the roiling GOP primary campaign.

--more--"

Update:

"Mitt Romney, whose prior refusal to release his tax returns provided a line of attack for Newt Gingrich and other rivals, earned more than $42 million over the last two years....

--more--"

Also see: Romney earned $20.9m last year, paid 15.4% in taxes

FLASHBACK:

"Bain often couldn’t lose with buyouts" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, January 14, 2012

Mitt Romney spent much more of his career in leveraged buyouts than in the investments in start-up companies known as venture capital....

With leveraged buyouts, the investment firm purchases a mature company, partially with its money and with debt it transfers to the company. The new owners then usually streamline the business and seek to resell it.

For example, in the same year that Romney invested in Staples, he led the firm in its $200 million acquisition of Accuride, a wheel rim maker that was part of Firestone. Bain put down only $5 million and borrowed the rest, using junk bonds from Drexel Burnham Lambert. Eighteen months later, Bain resold the company and reaped $121 million in its first taste of the big time in the go-go 1980s.

Soon after, Romney steered Bain Capital more toward debt-driven buyouts. There was more money at stake and less risk for Bain than betting on untested technology.

Venture capital is “absolutely more risky’’ than buyouts, said Howard Anderson, a venture investor and former entrepreneur who teaches at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

You know where venture capital comes from?

Related: VenCap Vroom-Vroom

No wonder tuition costs are rising and your pension statements have stagnated, America.

For one, he said, buyouts often involve companies that have been in business for a long time. Second, buyout firms tend to take profits out of deals quickly, even having the target companies take on enormous loans to pay the investors back.

“These guys have figured out a way to make money even if the company loses money,’’ Anderson said. “It’s heads we win, tails we win. Not always - but they can do that.’’

We call it a RIGGED GAME here!

Romney and his former partners at Bain Capital have said they make the most money by growing companies, not shrinking them. But they often make money no matter what.

Take a giant deal like Domino’s Pizza Inc. Bain led the $1.1 billion deal in 1998, putting down about $385 million in cash. The rest of the money was borrowed. Then, as Bain wanted to get its money out over the years, it had Domino’s borrow more to pay it back. Bain reaped a 500 percent return. Domino’s has $1.5 billion in debt on its books.

You know, this does NOT SEEM like a GOOD BUSINESS MODEL to ME!

Romney has been criticized for doing deals at Bain Capital where the firm made money but employees were laid off and the company was left with large debt loads, and sometimes bankruptcy.

And Mitt says that created jobs?

In a 1994 deal to acquire Dade International, an Illinois medical equipment company, Bain invested $27 million and made roughly eight times its money. But it also loaded up the company with $1.6 billion in debt; 1,700 people would lose their jobs, and the company briefly filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002.

Bain counters that Dade emerged from bankruptcy stronger and growing; it was acquired by Siemens for $7 billion in 2007.

Did that REPAIR all the SHATTERED LIVES caused by the deal?

--more--"

But Mitt paid his fair share!

Sunday Globe Specials: Haitians Hanker For the Days of Duvalier

2012-01-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

"Many Haitians are nostalgic for the era, when the country was more prosperous, tourists were not afraid to visit, and it was the world’s leading maker of baseballs.... Forced disappearances, illegal detentions, intimidation, torture, and executions of journalists, activists, political opponents, and others.... better days."

When it was a CIA way station for drugs.

"Haiti’s ex-dictator Duvalier may be poised for a comeback" by William Booth | Washington Post, January 22, 2012

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - For a notorious former dictator facing charges of crimes against humanity, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc’’ Duvalier is living a nice life in Haiti after his sudden return from exile a year ago.

Although technically under house arrest, the onetime “president for life’’ dines with his many admirers at the chic bistros of Petionville, where he can be found at Quartier Latin, having his poulet creole. His portrait , a very flattering one, is sold on the streets.

If money can be laundered, so can dictators. Duvalier was the commencement speaker last month at the law school in Gonaives, an appearance that the university’s president called “totally inconceivable.’’

The students cheered.

Last week, Duvalier drove himself - with a police escort - to the government’s memorial ceremony to mark the second anniversary of Haiti’s cataclysmic earthquake. The audience - which included President Michel Martelly, his prime minister, and Bill Clinton - rose to greet him.

What more is there to say?

Duvalier is back in Haiti, and it is very possible that he will never be tried for the crimes that his alleged victims and international human rights groups assert he committed: forced disappearances, illegal detentions, intimidation, torture, and executions of journalists, activists, political opponents, and others.

“I cannot believe my eyes,’’ said Boby Duval, who spent nine months in the mid-1970s in Fort Dimanche, one of three prisons known as “the triangle of death’’ during the reign of the Duvalier family - father and son, Papa Doc and Baby Doc - and the Tontons Macoutes, their paramilitary enforcers and secret police.

Duval, a bear of a man who now runs a popular soccer academy for thousands of children from the slums, entered the prison as a robust young athlete.

He emerged weighing 100 pounds. “They didn’t kill you in Fort Dimanche,’’ he said. “They starved you to death. I watched people die of starvation. And you never knew, ‘When am I next?’ ’’

Soon after Duvalier returned to Port-au-Prince in January 2011, after a 25-year exile in France, three cases were filed against him, alleging embezzlement of funds, human rights violations, and crimes against humanity.

See: Noriega is the News

Also see: No One Cares About Noriega Anymore

Although an older generation in Haiti recalls with a shudder the bad things that happened in the Duvalier years, many Haitians are nostalgic for the era, when the country was more prosperous, tourists were not afraid to visit, and it was the world’s leading maker of baseballs.

More than 60 percent of the Haitian population is younger than 25, so they have no memory of Baby Doc’s reign, only stories of better days.

Duvalier was a plump and pampered young man of 19 when he became “president for life’’ in 1971 after the death of his father, the far more ruthless Francois “Papa Doc’’ Duvalier, who once worked as a physician.

The younger Duvalier and his then-wife, Michele Bennett, were famous for their luxurious lifestyle and shopping sprees.

After the couple divorced in 1993, Duvalier endured a more modest exile, without the Ferrari or the mansion, living in a borrowed apartment, saying he was broke.

After months of delay in which three prosecutors came and went, his case is now before Judge Jean Carves, who has promised lawyers that he will soon rule on whether the matter will proceed to trial.

“He will be cleared of all charges. It is almost finished now; the judge is typing up the order to throw it all out,’’ said Duvalier’s attorney, Reynold Georges.

Georges said the crimes alleged - torture, disappearances - have exceeded the statute of limitations.

“Plus, they have no proof of anything,’’ he said in an interview.

Asked whether the rumors are true that Duvalier, now 60, is planning a return to politics, Georges said, “If he decides to run for president, he will be eligible, and if he runs, he will win, and I will support him.’’

--more ...--"

Related: Duvalier Double-Crossed by CIA

He was supposed to be leaving.

And if those were the good old days....

"Two years after Haiti quake, 550,000 still live in camps; Poor strategy, politics hamper reconstruction" by Trenton Daniel | Associated Press, January 08, 2012

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hundreds of thousands of Haitians' lives have barely improved since those first days of devastation....

It's been two f***ing years!

While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former President Bill Clinton, and others vowed that the world would help Haiti “build back better,’’ and $2.38 billion has been spent, Haitians have hardly seen any building at all.

Yeah, WHERE DID ALL THAT DAMN MONEY GO, Bill!!!??

At the time, grand ambitions were voiced for a Haiti rebuilt on modern lines. New housing would replace shantytowns and job-generating industry would be spread out to ease the human crush of Port-au-Prince, the sprawling capital with its 3 million people.

But now the government seems to be going back to basics, nurturing small, community-based projects designed to bring the homeless back to their old neighborhoods to build, renovate, and find jobs through friends.

The reasons for the slow progress are many. Beyond being among the world’s poorest nations and a frequent victim of destructive weather, Haiti’s land registry is in chaos - a drag on reconstruction because it is not always clear who owns what land.

Then there is a political standoff that went on for more than a year and still hobbles decision-making. After the quake, a disputed presidential election triggered tire-burning riots that shut down Port-au-Prince for three days. The international airport was forced to close and foreign aid workers had to hunker down in their compounds.

I'm SO SICK of EXCUSES. I can ONLY IMAGINE how the HAITIANS FEEL!!!!!

Related: Haiti's lifeline runway

Yeah, it's been a big success.

Even after the vote was resolved and Michel Martelly was installed as president in May 2011, there were further snags. The former pop star, new to politics, took six months to install a prime minister, whose job is to oversee reconstruction projects. He infuriated opposition politicians because his administration jailed a deputy without following the law and named a prime minister without consulting them first. They retaliated by trying to thwart him at every turn....

Another victim of the impasse was a reconstruction panel co-chaired by Clinton, the UN special envoy to Haiti. Lawmakers refused to renew its mandate, complaining it contained too few Haitians, though they may have been using it as a pretext to punish Martelly. But it meant that for the next six months there was no agency in place to coordinate home-building.

Meanwhile, government employees could be found napping at their desks while awaiting orders from their supervisors that never came.

The government and international partners say there has been some progress - 600 classrooms for 60,000 children to return to school, almost half of the 10 million cubic yards of rubble cleared, and roads newly paved in the capital and countryside....

The encampments of cardboard, tarps, and bed sheets that went up to cope with 1.5 million homeless people have morphed into shantytowns that increasingly look permanent.

More than 550,000 people are still living in the grim and densely packed camps that are squeezed into the capital’s alleyways and pitched on the side of rural roads. And many of those who left the camps, often being evicted or paid to go, say their new conditions are little better and sometimes much worse.

“I certainly wouldn’t call (reconstruction) a success,’’ said Alex Dupuy, who has written books about Haiti and teaches at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. “Other than putting a government in place . . . I haven’t seen any concrete evidence of recovery underway.’’

:-(

******************************

Of the 10 best-funded projects approved by a reconstruction panel not one focuses exclusively on housing. A US-financed $225 million industrial park includes housing for 5,000 workers. But it’s on the northern coast of Haiti, 150 miles outside the quake zone.

The highest-profile effort to house the displaced came three months after the quake, on the eve of the rainy season. The US military and actor Sean Penn bused 5,000 people from a flood-prone golf course to a cleared field in Corail-Cesselesse, north of Port-au-Prince. It was supposed to be the country’s first planned community, with factories and houses for 300,000 people.

That never happened.

So WHERE DI ALL THAT MERCY MONEY GO?

Today, the people of Corail-Cesselesse are ravaged by floods or bake in the heat in their timber-frame shelters.

--more--"

"Haiti earthquake survivor’s death spurs soul-searching; Woman fled quake, only to die alone in Boston" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, January 14, 2012

The cause of Winnie Henri’s death is unknown, and an autopsy will be conducted, but critics such as Nicole Bahnam, headmaster of Newcomers Academy in Dorchester, where Henri studied after surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston to remove cancerous adrenal glands, are asking how a 20-year-old woman with known medical problems could die on her own while in a Partners in Health, one of Boston’s highest-profile charities, program....

--more--"

Also see:

Ornate Back Bay pews are reborn in Haiti

Something stinks.

Jamaican Jive

2012-01-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

"US monitored deadly raid for Jamaica" December 10, 2011|Associated Press

KINGSTON, Jamaica - A US surveillance plane helped monitor the deadly 2010 raid by Jamaican security forces to capture a fugitive crime boss, the prime minister said, reversing earlier government denials.

Meaning government lied.

A US P-3 Orion aircraft provided aerial surveillance of the effort to capture Christopher “Dudus’’ Coke, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told reporters Thursday. The raid set off a fierce battle in a West Kingston slum that left more than 70 people dead.

Related: Jamaican Drug Dealer Too Doped Up to Fight

Holness said the United States had no other role in the raid in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood.

How can we believe that denial now?

“We would want to reaffirm our position that the US government or its military did not participate in the operations in West Kingston,’’ he said.

His statement came a day after Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson said at a news briefing that the United States had not provided any surveillance of the raid, denying a report in The New Yorker magazine.

Holness said that Nelson made the statement in error because Nelson was not aware of the details of the US assistance.

Uh-huh.

Previous government statements had also denied any US role in the operation. The prime minister said the surveillance was coordinated between the Jamaican Defense Force and the “relevant government agency’’ in the United States.

“The United States government initially made an offer to provide surveillance and technical equipment,’’ he said. “We accepted and followed the normal protocol of exchanging diplomatic notes to provide the government-to-government cover for such assistance.’’

--more--"

"Jamaica’s youngest leader in tough re-election bid" December 30, 2011|By David McFadden

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaicans braved bottlenecks for as long as four hours yesterday to cast ballots in fiercely contested national elections.

Previous votes have been marred by bloodshed, but there were few reports of trouble at polling centers for the 63 parliamentary races contested by the center-right Jamaica Labor Party and the slightly left-leaning opposition People’s National Party.

The vote hit some snags as fingerprint scanners meant to stop people from voting more than once worked intermittently.

The People’s National Party has tried tapping into voter disillusionment, especially among Jamaica’s many poor inhabitants, and complained of the slow voting process yesterday. The party also alleged that some ruling party candidates violated rules by campaigning on election day.

Lisa Shoman, of the observer mission for the Organization of American States, said her team has not observed “any disturbances or any issues that would cause us any serious concern.’’

I forgot to grab the link? Oh well.

"Jamaica’s opposition wins elections in a landslide" December 30, 2011|David Mcfadden, Associated Press

On Jamaica’s rutted streets, the complaints have been chronic — home ownership is out of reach for most wage earners, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed, water service regularly fizzles out and decent jobs are scarce.

Fed up with chronic hard times, voters in this debt-wracked Caribbean nation on Thursday threw out the ruling party and delivered a landslide triumph to the opposition People’s National Party, or PNP, whose campaign energetically tapped voter disillusionment especially among the numerous struggling poor.

The win marks a remarkable political comeback for former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was Jamaica’s first female leader during her year-and-a-half-long first stint in office that ended in 2007. The 66-year-old known affectionately as “Sista P’’ reached out to Jamaicans as a champion of the poor with a popular touch.

“She cares about the ghetto people,’’ said Trishette Bond, a twenty-something resident of gritty Trench Town who wore an orange shirt and a bright orange wig, the color of Simpson Miller’s slightly center-left party, which led the island for 18 years before narrowly losing 2007 elections.

As word of her election win emerged Thursday night, PNP supporters shimmied and shouted in the capital, Kingston, and motorists honked horns in celebration as they tore down the streets....

Simpson Miller defeated Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who at 39 is Jamaica’s youngest leader and leads the center-right Jamaica Labor Party.

Holness said the defeat will prompt a time of introspection and reflection for party leaders to examine what went wrong....

Maybe the lying didn't help, huh?

Holness warned during the campaign that an opposition win would scare away foreign investment and dash hopes of economic progress....

Simpson Miller is beloved by her supporters for her folksy, plainspoken style. She became Jamaica’s first female prime minister in March 2006 after she was picked by party delegates when P.J. Patterson retired as leader. But she was tossed out of office a year later in a narrow election defeat.

This time around, she has pledged to lift debt-wracked Jamaica out of poverty, secure foreign investment, and create jobs. Specifics are few, however.

Her party will face deep economic problems in this island of 2.8 million people, with a punishing debt of roughly $18.6 billion, or 130 per cent of gross domestic product...

Veteran opposition lawmaker Omar Davies said one of the first things the People’s National Party will do is get “a true assessment of the state of the economy,’’ a dig at Holness’ party which was accused of rarely providing citizens with a clear picture of the island’s dire fiscal straits....

Simpson Miller has been a stalwart of the People’s National Party since the 1970s. She was first elected to Parliament in 1976 and became a Cabinet member in 1989. Partisans have long admired Simpson Miller as a Jamaican who was born in rural poverty and grew up in a Kingston ghetto, not far from the crumbling concrete jungle made famous by Bob Marley.

During her brief tenure as prime minister, her support waned amid complaints she responded poorly to Hurricane Dean and was evasive about a scandal regarding a Dutch oil trading firm’s $460,000 payment to her political party leading up to 2007 elections....

Simpson Miller's party, which experimented with democratic socialism in the 1970s, is still perceived as more focused on social programs than the slightly more conservative Labor. There are no longer stark ideological differences between the two clan-like factions that have dominated Jamaican politics since the onetime British colony began self-rule in 1944. Jamaica became independent within the British Commonwealth in 1962.

--more--"

Also see: Jamaican Jibberish

One Final Plea to the Boston Globe

2012-01-23T16:15:00.000-08:00

"Judges get say on plea deals" January 13, 2012|By Martine Powers and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

The state’s highest court today confirmed a little-known judicial power to ignore prosecutors and shorten criminal sentences in plea deals if the judge believes “justice may not have been done.’’

In a 6-1 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court’s decided to make it clear that judges are allowed to shorten sentences because of mitigating circumstances. The court also asserted that prosecutors cannot revoke a plea deal if a judge shortens the agreed-upon sentence.

Justice Francis X. Spina, the cases’ sole dissenter, worried that the case could open the door to judges using their power to act as pseudo-defense attorneys.

Related: Boston Globe Designated Driver

Also see: North Carolina Nazis

State statute on judicial powers of sentencing is hazy: A judge cannot “impose a sentence that exceeds the terms of the [plea bargain] recommendation,” but the law says nothing about whether a judge can shorten the sentence agreement.

Over the years, a few judges took the ambiguity of that statute to mean that reducing sentences was allowable, and two of those cases prompted the high court’s ruling today that the practice is fair....

Tom Hoopes, chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Fair and Impartial Courts Committee, said the decision is part of a nationwide trend of giving judges more power to determine sentencing.
“The buck does, and should, stop with the justice,” Hoopes said.

Still, he said, he does not anticipate the decision having much of a day-to-day effect on the criminal court system.

“I think cases like this are so rare that they’re not going to really impact the way prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges do the business of justice,” Hoopes said.

Then why is it my right-hand corner, front-page lead?

--more--"

Patriot Preoccupation

2012-01-23T16:12:00.000-08:00

"With the Celtics in sunset and the Red Sox making luxury-tax avoidance their top priority, it’s nice to have the Patriots poised to put the Duck Boats back on the streets of Boston....

Why did he leave the Bruins out?

--more--"

Also see: Patriots game had all the old drama

The Skyline is the Limit!

2012-01-23T16:11:00.000-08:00

"Market heats up for office towers" January 16, 2012|Casey Ross, Globe Staff

Boston’s office towers are again hot commodities after several years of slow sales, a sign the city’s economic recovery is gathering speed as businesses expand and investors swarm opportunities to snap up trophy properties....

The increasing activity is one of the strongest indications yet that Boston’s business community is emerging from a downturn that resulted in hundreds of lost jobs, lower profits and confidence, and paralysis in both the residential and commercial real estate sectors.

Building owners are seeing their offices fill up, leading to higher rents, which makes their properties more attractive to potential buyers. Many buildings have been the objects of bidding wars in recent months, with pension funds, insurance companies, and overseas investors competing to own a piece of the skyline....

--more--"

Ike Don't Like

2012-01-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

You know what I don't like, readers?

"Eisenhowers want memorial redesigned" by Brett Zongker Associated Press / January 10, 2012

WASHINGTON—President Dwight D. Eisenhower's family wants a memorial in the nation's capital redesigned, saying the current plans overemphasize his humble Kansas roots and neglect his accomplishments in World War II and the White House.

Architect Frank Gehry has proposed a memorial park framed by large metal tapestries with images of Eisenhower's boyhood home in Abilene, Kan. In the park, a statue of "Ike" as a boy would seem to marvel at what would become of his life, leading the Allied forces and becoming president. From the White House, he integrated schools and the military, and created NASA and interstate highways. Additional sculpture elements would depict Eisenhower as general and president.

Gehry's idea echoed Eisenhower's speech when he returned to Kansas after the war and spoke of a "barefoot boy" who achieved fame in Europe. He came home "to say the proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene."

Anne Eisenhower, one of the president's granddaughters, sent a formal objection to National Capital Planning Commission on Tuesday on behalf of the family. Still, she noted Gehry is a talented architect.

"What one has to say is he's missed the message here," she told The Associated Press. "The mandate is to honor Eisenhower, and that is not being done in this current design. Or, shall we say, it is being done in such a small scale in relation to the memorial that it is dwarfed."

*****************************

Images of Eisenhower as a general addressing troops before D-Day and as president studying the globe would be represented in stone in "heroic scale," said Daniel Feil, the project's executive architect. With all the attention on Gehry's tapestries, some failed to see other aspects of the memorial, he said.

Feil said he does not expect to make any major changes to Gehry's design.

The memorial commission said David Eisenhower, the president's grandson who previously sat on the commission, never voted against any of the design proposals or voiced objections. He resigned from the group in December.

"In terms of the family, it's very hard in a sense to understand where all of it is coming from," Feil said.

Gehry has said he wants to make sure the Eisenhower family approves the design, but he has dismissed the idea of using a traditional statue, saying all the great sculptors are long gone.

Gehry's design follows the trend of other memorials honoring President Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II veterans and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Those memorials are broad spaces with many elements to engage visitors.

Susan Eisenhower, another granddaughter, said "Ike" is simply the wrong figure to memorialize with an avant-garde approach. He was a traditionalist and bewildered by modern art, she said.

That is where my printed, January 12(?) Globe ended it.

--more--"

Breaking News: Ron Paul Quits Presidential Campaign

2012-01-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

That's what the Globe would like you to believe anyway:

"Ron Paul made it clear that he is no longer running a national campaign.

Did he?

The Texas representative said he will largely skip Florida, the next to vote on Jan. 31, and concentrate instead on smaller caucus states like Nevada and Maine as he tries to preserve his campaign budget while picking up delegates....

Preserve his campaign budget?

I want to know where all that money bomb money has gone. I've never even seen a TV ad.

Is it possible that Ron Paul is also an energy-sapping, controlled-opposition diversion?

--more--"

Also see: The Globe's Ron Paul Paragraphs

Slow Saturday Special: Veteran's Choice

Don't get me wrong, readers. I'm not saying he shouldn't be out there trying, and I support what he says. It is just that nothing is as it appears in AmeriKa.

Sunday Globe Special: Rick Perry Returns to Texas

2012-01-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

You sure you don't want to reconsider?

"Out of race, Rick Perry shifts focus to home; Texans reveal mix of opinions after a rocky campaign" by Manny Fernandez | New York Times, January 22, 2012

AUSTIN, Texas - Governor Rick Perry of Texas has returned to a state that has been reeling from a series of crises, both natural and man-made.....

A record-breaking drought continues to strain public water systems and cost farmers and ranchers, including the state’s cotton and cattle industries, billions of dollars in lost income and additional production expenses....

Related: Sunday Globe Special: Texas Swill

Bottoms up!

Also related:

"TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IN TEXAS -- Alexander Veksler abandoned his car yesterday in Houston, where severe thunderstorms dumped several inches of rain on the drought-stricken region, causing flash floods and power outages (Boston Globe January 10 2012)."

Just a snapshot.

“I am concerned that the unfortunate results of Perry’s performance on the national stage may confirm the stereotype that much of the rest of the country has about Texas - the impression that Texas is a bunch of yahoos and people of low intelligence,’’ said Scott Caven, a Houston Republican who was Perry’s state finance chairman in his first two campaigns for governor....

A redistricting dispute between the state, minority groups, and the Justice Department has left Texas without any usable electoral maps for congressional and state House and Senate districts, creating uncertainty about the primary elections that were pushed back to April, as well as the Republican and Democratic state political conventions scheduled in June....

--more--"

Let's look at those maps:

"Court throws out judge-drawn Texas electoral maps" by Mark Sherman | The Associated Press, January 20, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court today threw out electoral maps drawn by federal judges in Texas that favored minorities. The unsigned opinion left the fate of Texas’ April primaries unclear.

The justices ordered the three-judge court in San Antonio to come up with new plans, but did not compel the use of maps created by Texas’ Republican-dominated state Legislature. Only Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have gone that far.

Controversy over the maps arose from redrawing political boundaries based on results of the 2010 census that found that Texas had added more than 4 million new residents, mostly Latinos and African-Americans, since 2000. The minority groups complained they were denied sufficient voting power by Republican lawmakers who sought to maximize GOP electoral gains in violation of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Texas will have 36 seats in the next Congress, a gain of four districts. A divided court in San Antonio drew maps that differed from the Legislature’s efforts, giving Democrats a chance to prevail in three or four more congressional districts. Republicans now represent 23 of the 32 current districts.

The high court said the judges appeared in some instances not to pay enough attention to the state’s choices. The judges made mistakes in their plans, particularly in altering district lines for state legislative and congressional seats in parts of the state where there is no allegation of discrimination on the part of the Legislature, the high court said.

‘‘In the absence of any legal flaw in this respect in the state’s plan, the district court had no basis to modify that plan,’’ the justices said, talking about state House districts in north and east Texas.

The court set no deadline for new maps to emerge from the court in Texas, although state officials have said they need to have something in place by February 1 to hold primary elections, already delayed once, on April 3. The Texas Republican party also has said that Texas may have no voice in the Republican presidential nominating process if the primary is held later than mid-April.

The complicated legal fight over redistricting in Texas is playing out in three federal courts. In addition to the Supreme Court and federal court in San Antonio, a three-judge court in Washington is evaluating the state plans under a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that forces states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get advance approval before making any changes to the way they conduct elections.

Even without the Washington court’s approval, Texas said it should be able to use its own maps just for this year because time is running short before the primaries.

The minority groups, as well as the Obama administration, say such an outcome is strictly forbidden by the Voting Rights Act and would, in essence, eviscerate the law’s most potent weapon, the advance approval requirement, also known as preclearance.

The justices chose not to allow the state maps to be used without preclearance. But Thomas, who earlier had said he would strike down the advance approval requirement, said Texas’ ‘‘duly enacted redistricting plans should govern the upcoming elections.’’

--more--"

Related: Court rules in favor of Texas abortion law

Someone else returning about the same time as Rick:

"Deported teen is returned to US, but questions remain

EL PASO - A 15-year-old Texas girl who was deported to South America in May after claiming to be an illegal immigrant was back in the United States and was expected to arrive in Dallas last night, her mother said.

Johnisa Turner said that her daughter, Jakadrien Lorece Turner, was on a flight from Atlanta. She had said earlier that she planned to meet her daughter when she arrives in Texas and that she has “a gazillion questions’’ for her....

She's a little ruuuuunaway!

The teen has become the center of an international mystery. Many facts of the case are unclear, but US and Colombian officials have pointed fingers over who is responsible for allowing a minor to be deported to a country where she is not a citizen.

Jakadrien’s family has questioned why US officials didn’t do more to verify her identify, while US immigration officials insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t - as she had claimed - a Colombian woman illegally living in the United States....

The teen, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was found in Bogota by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and US officials.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home’’ program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance, and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said. When the Colombian government discovered she was a US citizen and a minor, it put her under the care of a welfare program, the statement said.

Family members say they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said Jakadrien is a US citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen’s father had ties to Colombia. Jakadrien’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made.’’

Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said that the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process.

--more--"

Also see: Deported teen is returned to US, but questions remain

Sunday Globe Special: California's Central Valley

2012-01-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'll pass on the pipe, thanks.

"Calif. farm region is a meth network center, US says; ‘Super labs’ run by drug cartels are hard to find" by Gosia Wozniacka and Tracie Cone | Associated Press, January 22, 2012

FRESNO, Calif. - When a 23-year-old Fresno woman fatally shot her two toddlers and a cousin, critically wounded her husband, then turned the gun on herself last Sunday, investigators immediately suspected methamphetamine abuse in what otherwise was inexplicable carnage. It turned out the mother had videotaped herself smoking meth hours before the shooting....

Related:

"A woman shot her two children, their father, and a cousin hours after she took video of herself on her iPad as she smoked methamphetamine, police said, adding that she committed suicide as they approached her apartment"

A Bakersfield mother was sentenced Tuesday for stabbing her newborn while in a meth rage. An Oklahoma woman drowned her baby in a washing machine in November. A New Mexico woman claiming to be God stabbed her son with a screwdriver last month, saying, “God wants him dead.’’

“Once people who are on meth become psychotic, they are very dangerous,’’ said Dr. Alex Stalcup, who works with addicts in the San Francisco Bay Area suburbs. “They’re completely bonkers; they’re nuts. We’re talking about very extreme alterations of normal brain function. Once someone becomes triggered to violence, there aren’t any limits or boundaries.’’

The Central Valley of California is a hub of the nation’s meth distribution network, making extremely pure forms of the drug easily available locally. And law enforcement officials say widespread meth abuse is believed to be driving much of the crime in the vast farming region.

Chronic use of the harsh chemical compound can lead to psychosis, including hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations. The stimulant effect of meth is up to 50 times longer than cocaine, experts say, so users stay awake for days on end, impairing cognitive function and contributing to extreme paranoia.

“Your children and your spouse become your worst enemy, and you truly believe they are after you,’’ said Bob Pennal, a recently retired meth investigator from the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.

Meth originally took root in California’s agricultural heartland in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a poor man’s cocaine. Its use initially creates feelings of euphoria and invincibility, but experts say repeated abuse can alter brain chemistry and cause schizophrenia-like behavior.

Meth’s availability and its potential for abuse combine to create the biggest drug threat in the Central Valley, according to a new report from the US Department of Justice’s Drug Intelligence Center....

And the government is going after pot clinics!!!

Large tracts of farmland with isolated outbuildings are an ideal place to avoid detection, which is why the region is home to nearly all of the nation’s “super labs,’’ controlled by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations, said John Donnelly, agent in charge of the US Drug Enforcement Administration office in Fresno....

Related:

"Well-organized Mexican cartels have also moved to increasingly cultivate marijuana on public lands in the United States"

Looking more and more to me like the BIGGEST DRUG DEALERS are the GOVERNMENT ITSELF!

--more--"

Time to fast-track it out of the valley:

"Plans for high-speed rail are slowing down; Project’s starting location raises criticism in state" by Michael A. Fletcher | Washington Post, January 22, 2012

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Critics began panning the first leg of California’s futuristic high-speed rail network as a “train to nowhere’’ soon after officials decided to build it not in the major population centers of Los Angeles or San Francisco but rather through the state’s Central Valley farming belt.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. Spiraling cost estimates and eroding political and public support now threaten a project crucial to a 21st-century vision of train travel that President Obama promised would transform US transportation much as interstate highways did more than half a century ago.

A national high-speed rail network would not only support construction and manufacturing jobs but also would get Americans out of their cars, revitalize struggling downtowns, and spare the environment carbon emissions, and travelers untold hours wasted in traffic or in airport terminals waiting out delays.

Obama set a goal of providing 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years. But that lofty vision is yielding to the political gravity generated by high costs, determined opponents, and a public that has grown dubious of government’s ability to do big things.

Virtually none of the projects have gotten off the ground, and the one that has is in trouble....

More tax loot up in smoke.

--more--"

Cruising the California Coast

2012-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

There may be a few inland stops; I didn't have time to consult a map.

"Two firefighters and one other person were injured yesterday as a large fire pushed by strong wind gusts engulfed three buildings near San Francisco’s historic Alamo Square....

--more--"

"Writer who lied fights for Calif. law license" December 27, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO — A former journalist who became the subject of a Hollywood movie after he was caught fabricating articles in the late 1990s is fighting to become a lawyer in California over the objections of a state bar committee that has judged Stephen Glass, whose ethical missteps at The New Republic and other magazines were recounted in the film “Shattered Glass’’ and an autobiographical novel, morally unfit for his new profession....

Anybody remember Jason Blair?

Turns out fabrication is what the AmeriKan media does best.

The bar association’s lawyers said in written filings that even though Glass’s transgressions occurred when he was in his 20s, his attempts at atonement were inadequate and in some cases coincided with the publication of his novel. They faulted him for never compensating anyone who was hurt by his falsehoods.

Law and journalism “share common core values - trust, candor, veracity, honor, respect for others,’’ Rachel Grunberg, a lawyer for the State Bar of California, told the Chronicle. “He violated every one of them.’’

Then my newspaper also has failed.

--more--"

Time to go underground:

"Subterranean joyride gets driver arrested" by Associated Press, January 20, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - A man was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence yesterday after allegations that he shut down San Francisco’s subway system for more than two hours by driving his SUV onto the underground tracks, police said....

“We believe he was under the influence of alcohol.’’

--more--"

"Skydiver’s death blamed on risky landing" by Associated Press | December 29, 2011

PERRIS, Calif. - A dramatic high-speed landing maneuver known as “swooping’’ apparently caused the death of an experienced Canadian skydiver at a Southern California drop zone, authorities said yesterday.

Michael Ungar, 32, of Ontario, died Tuesday afternoon at Perris Valley Skydiving after landing hard at the Riverside County sport parachuting base about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Witnesses told Perris police and reporters that Unger’s parachute was open as he made the difficult maneuver and landed hard in a shallow pond at 2:01 p.m. Tuesday. Friends pulled him out of the water, the Riverside County coroner and Perris police said in a news release.

Swooping involves a high-speed dive to skim over the ground before landing. Parachutists are often traveling 40 miles per hour vertically and up to 60 miles per hour horizontally just before touching down on the ground.

“It’s risky because you are moving so fast,’’ said Jim Crouch, the safety director for the Fredericksburg, Va.-based United State Parachuting Association. “A lot of jumpers choose to land this way because it’s exciting. But it’s very unforgiving.’’

Accidents occur when parachutists start the maneuver too low and the parachute doesn’t have the ability to recover, or fill with air, and float the skydiver to the ground, Crouch said.

The maneuver has become so popular there are swooping competitions at drop zones around the country, said Crouch, who describes it as “a sport within a sport.’’

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"A federal judge ordered the US government yesterday to pay $17.8 million to a family that lost four members when a Marine Corps fighter jet crashed into their San Diego home in 2008....

--more--"

"Calif. man pleads not guilty in soldier shooting" by ASSOCIATED PRESS | December 30, 2011

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A California man pleaded not guilty yesterday to attempted murder in the homecoming party shooting of an Afghanistan war veteran.

The arraignment for Ruben Ray Jurado, 19, in San Bernardino County Superior Court lasted about two minutes. He was in custody at West Valley Detention Center. He faces a Jan. 9 hearing. His bail continues at $1 million.

In addition to attempted murder, Jurado faces four sentencing enhancements.

Army Specialist Christopher Sullivan has been in critical condition since being shot. His family said his spine was shattered and he is paralyzed.

The 22-year-old Purple Heart recipient had been recovering from injuries suffered in a December 2010 suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan. Sullivan is a member of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, an Army post that straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border....

--more--"

Related: A Hell of a Christmas

"A New Year’s Day shooting that left four people dead at a condominium near San Diego was a murder-suicide involving a 25-year-old Navy pilot who killed himself, officials said yesterday....

--more--"

Also see: 2 Navy pilots, 2 others shot dead in Calif.

"Father of killings suspect is homeless" Associated Press, January 16, 2012

YORBA LINDA, Calif. - The father of the man suspected of killing homeless men in Southern California is himself homeless and says his son last week showed him a picture of one victim as a warning of the danger of being on the streets.

Refugio Ocampo, 49, also said yesterday that his son came back a changed man after serving with the Marines in Iraq, expressing disillusionment and becoming darker as he struggled to find his way as a civilian.

The father said he lost his job and home, and ended up living under a bridge before finding shelter in the cab of a broken-down big-rig he is helping repair.

His 23-year-old son, Itzcoatl Ocampo, was arrested Friday in connection with the serial killings of four homeless men since late December.

Refugio Ocampo said that on Jan. 11 his son came to him with a picture of the first victim, who was killed on Dec. 20. “This is what’s happening,’’ the father quoted his son as saying.

“He was very worried about me. I told him, ‘Don’t worry. I’m a survivor. Nothing will happen to me. I will find something. Count on it,’ ’’ the father said.

His son entered the Marine Corps right out of high school in 2006 instead of going to college as his father had hoped. Itzcoatl Ocampo was discharged in 2010 and returned home to find his family in disarray, the father said.

Yeah, these wars have been so great for everyone!

--more--"

Related: DA says suspect killed homeless for the 'thrill'

"Body parts found in Calif. identified" Associated Press, January 21, 2012

LOS ANGELES - Coroner’s officials identified the man whose dismembered head, hands, and feet were found in a Hollywood park, but they are not releasing his name as police continue to hunt for his killer, authorities said yesterday.

The identity, age, and hometown of the victim were withheld because his next of kin had not been notified, and because police investigators had placed a “security hold’’ on the information, Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Ed Winter said.

The head was found Tuesday by a dog walker at Bronson Canyon, and police searchers turned up the man’s hands and feet during a two-day search that ended Thursday. The park reopened yesterday.

Police concluded that no other body parts had been dumped in the wilderness park a few miles from the Hollywood sign, but visitors who find anything should contact police, police Commander Andrew Smith said.

Dozens of police searched 7 acres of brush in the park for two days after Tuesday’s discovery of a man’s head in a plastic grocery bag. Two hands and feet believed to be from the same victim were found on Wednesday and Thursday before authorities concluded the ground search.

The man is believed to have been killed elsewhere, police have said. Coroner’s officials are trying to identify the man through fingerprints, dental records, and DNA databases, police said.

--more--"

Also see: Head, other body parts found in Los Angeles park

"Mother, daughter bond after 77 years apart" January 03, 2012

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen. She never thought she would see her Betty Jane again.

She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket. It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apartment in 2006....

--more--"

"California teen sentenced for killing gay student" December 20, 2011|By Greg Risling

VENTURA, Calif. — A Southern California teenager was sentenced yesterday to 21 years in state prison for killing a gay student during a computer lab class, capping an emotional and tumultuous case that drew widespread attention and raised questions about how schools should deal with sexual identity issues....

Prosecutors contended Brandon McInerney, 17, who had just turned 14, shot 15-year-old Larry King at E.O. Green Junior High School in a fit of homophobic rage because he was offended by the victim’s feminine clothing and his unwanted sexual advances....

Wouldn't that be harassment then?

School administrators were criticized for not doing enough in the weeks leading up to the killing at the Oxnard school to quell a simmering feud between the two teens and for allowing King to wear heels and makeup. School district officials have cited federal law providing the right of students to express their sexual orientation.

King’s father, Greg King, also blamed the school district for not doing more to tone down their son’s flamboyant behavior, adding that complaints were made to school officials before the shooting.

???????????

He added that his family could not forgive McInerney.

“You took upon yourself to be a bully and to hate a smaller kid, wanting to be the big man on campus,’’ Greg King said to McInerney during the sentencing. “You have left a big hole in my heart where Larry was and it can never be filled.’’

Well, yeah, killing him was the wrong thing to do.

King’s family and Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox wore buttons with the teen’s face on it, while some of McInerney’s supporters wore powder blue wristbands that read “Save Brandon.’’ Some teachers and jurors also attended the hearing.

During the trial, prosecutors portrayed McInerney as a teen who could not control his anger and was influenced by white supremacy ideology.

Here we go again!

Jurors rejected their assertion that the killing was a hate crime.

Aren't all crimes hate crimes? Who commits a loving crime? Bankers?

Prosecutors said the shooting in front of stunned classmates was first-degree murder and that McInerney should be punished as an adult.

After serving nearly four years since King’s slaying, with the additional 21 years McInerney will be released just before his 39th birthday.

--more--"

Globe's Gay Northwest

2012-01-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

Whatever makes 'em happy!

"Gay marriage support increasing in Wash.; State Legislature to debate bills to make it legal" by Rachel La Corte | Associated Press, January 22, 2012

OLYMPIA, Wash. - The last time same-sex marriage was debated in the Washington state Legislature, lawmakers voted to ban it. Fourteen years later, the issue is before the Legislature once again after a multiyear effort that has incrementally increased rights for gay and lesbian couples in the state.

And this time around, it looks like Washington could very well become the seventh state plus the District of Columbia to legalize same-sex marriage.

Sorry, I've moved beyond the issue and have raised the white flag on it. Just grant it to them and let's move on. Or like Ron Paul says, let each state decide. I'm against it, but I live in a state that sanctions it and I accept it. Next issue.

Gay marriage has won the backing of several prominent Pacific Northwest businesses, including Microsoft Corp. and Nike Inc., and just last week a conservative Democrat who once opposed same-sex marriage said he will now vote for it.

Bills to legalize same-sex marriage have been introduced in the House and Senate, sponsored by two gay lawmakers who have pushed for gay rights measures in past years. The bills will have their first public hearings tomorrow, before a Senate committee in the morning and a House committee in the afternoon. While gay marriage bills have been introduced in Washington state before, this is the first time the issue will receive a public hearing.

“If there’s one word to sum up where Washington is on marriage equality, it’s momentum,’’ said Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.

Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. Lawmakers in New Jersey and Maryland are expected to debate it this year as well.

Washington state, along with several others, including California, Oregon, and New Jersey, have laws that either recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships that afford same-sex couples some or nearly all of the rights to marriage.

The debate over same-sex marriage in Washington state has changed significantly since lawmakers passed Washington’s Defense of Marriage Act in 1998. The constitutionality of the act was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2006, but earlier that year, a gay civil rights measure passed after nearly 30 years of failure, signaling a change of mindset in the Legislature.

The quick progression of domestic partnership laws in the state came soon after, with a domestic partnership law in 2007, and two years of expansion that culminated in 2009 with the so-called “everything but marriage law’’ that was upheld by voters after opponents filed a referendum to challenge it.

That strategy was spearheaded by Democratic Senator Ed Murray, a gay lawmaker from Seattle who has led the push for gay civil rights and domestic partnerships and who is sponsoring the Senate marriage bill.

“The culture changes and the politics follows,’’ Murray said. “The most political act that changed the culture wasn’t in Olympia, it wasn’t me. It was people coming out to their families, to their workplace. That’s what’s changed people’s minds.’’

The state Senate is now just one vote shy of having enough backing to approve the bill, with a half-dozen lawmakers remaining uncommitted.

--more--"

Anything else bringing a grin to faces in Washington?

"US says Seattle police use excessive force" Associated Press, December 17, 2011

SEATTLE - Inadequate supervision and training has led Seattle police officers to too quickly resort to the use of weapons like batons and flashlights and to escalate confrontations even when arresting people for minor offenses, the Justice Department said yesterday.

The department launched an investigation last spring following the fatal shooting of a homeless Native American woodcarver and other reported uses of force against minority suspects.

The probe was aimed at determining whether Seattle police have a “pattern or practice’’ of violating civil rights or discriminatory policing, and if so, what they should do to improve.

Federal investigators said they found that Seattle police have engaged in excessive force that violated federal law and the Constitution.

The Department of Justice is conducting 20 investigations of police department across the country and the use of force is a prominent issue in most of them, Perez said.

--more--"

Time to wrap it up, readers:

"Seattle ban on plastic bags advances" December 20, 2011

SEATTLE - The City Council voted unanimously yesterday to ban single-use plastic bags from groceries and other retail stores.

Then how am I going to get my groceries to the car, and what is that fellow making them now going to do for work?

The ordinance also requires a nickel fee for the use of paper bags supplied by stores....

Now wait a minute!

Under the ordinance, money from the nickel fee goes to retailers to reimburse them for stocking paper bags. The previous law that was overturned would have required stores to return the money to the city, which was viewed by some people as a tax.

The new measure waives the paper bag fee for customers receiving food assistance and other government benefits. The city will make free or reduced-cost reusable bags available to people in need.

The ordinance applies only to single-use, checkout bags.

--more--"

"A 66-year-old snowshoer missing on Mount Rainier since Saturday was found alive yesterday by a team of rescuers, a national park spokeswoman said....

--more--"

"Northwest power outages could last days" Associated Press, January 21, 2012

SEATTLE - A storm that brought snow, ice, and powerful winds left a mess of fallen trees and power lines yesterday as tens of thousands of residents already without power faced the prospect of a cold, dark weekend, and flooding became a top region-wide concern.

While temperatures warmed and the icy, snowy conditions abated in western Washington and Oregon, slick roads and fast-melting snow brought challenges for road workers, city officials, and rescue crews. The region also faces more rain as swelling rivers lead to the worst flooding some counties have seen in more than a decade.

The storm continued its plod east, where it was expected to move into the Plains and Great Lakes regions by this evening.

In the Northwest, the system has been blamed for three deaths: a mother and her 1-year-old boy, who died after torrential rain swept away a car from an Albany, Ore., grocery store parking lot; and an elderly man fatally injured by a falling tree as he was backing an all-terrain vehicle out of a shed near Seattle....

--more--"

What you couldn't see on the web:

"PACIFIC NORTHWEST STORM -- A truck veered off Interstate 5 near Nisqually, Wash., during a snowstorm yesterday. The winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow in the region, closing schools, causing accidents on roads, and canceling flights. Weather forecasters warned that heavy rain combined with snow melt could lead to some flooding (Boston Globe January 19 2012)."

"DEADLY WATERS -- A tow truck worked to bring a school bus upright after it tipped in floodwaters yesterday in Salem, Ore. Earlier, raging waters from a flooded Oregon creek swept a carload of four people out of a parking lot and into a canal culvert. Only two survived, a father and son. The body of a mother and her 1-year-old son were recovered later (Boston Globe January 20 2012)."

They were photographs in my printed paper, readers.

Fun has kind of gone out of the Globe.

Cutting Through the Frozen Fart Mist

2012-01-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the vulgarity; however, that is the way I feel the AGW cult these days.

"Alaska hit with another big storm" January 13, 2012|By Associated Press

ANCHORAGE - The worst winter anyone can remember in Alaska has piled snow so high people can’t see out the windows, kept a tanker in ice-choked waters from delivering fuel on time, and turned snow-packed roofs into sled runs.

While most of the nation has gone without much seasonal snow, the state already known for winter is buried in weather that has dumped more than twice as much snow as usual on its largest city, brought out the National Guard, and caused a run on snow shovels.

As a Russian tanker crawled toward the iced-in coastal community of Nome to bring in much-needed fuel, weather-weary Alaskans awoke yesterday to more snow - over a foot was expected to fall in Anchorage - and said enough was enough....

--more--"

"Icebreaker helping fuel reach Nome" Associated PresS, January 09, 2012

ANCHORAGE - A Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting a path through icy seas for a Russian tanker carrying much-needed fuel for the iced-in Alaska city of Nome.

So no war with Russia, right?

Related: Global Warming on a Snowy Wednesday Morning

Or Monday as the case may be.

The 370-foot ship, hauling more than 1.3 million gallons of fuel, is scheduled to arrive later today or tomorrow.

Video released by the Coast Guard showed the two vessels moving steadily through ice jammed seas.

I was told the stuff was melting, pfft, pfft, pfft.

“They’re navigating through ice right now, taking a direct route for now,’’ said Jason Evans, the chief executive of Sitnasuak Native Corp., one of the companies undertaking the delivery.

The city of about 3,500 people in western Alaska normally gets fuel by barge. But it did not get its last prewinter fuel delivery because of a massive storm and it could run out before spring.

The tanker is being shepherded by the Healy, the Coast Guard’s only functioning Arctic icebreaker - a ship of special design with a reinforced hull made to move through ice.

Too many weapons of war on which to waste money.

If the mission is successful, it will be the first time petroleum products have been delivered by sea to a Western Alaska community in winter.

--more--"

"Tanker prepares to deliver fuel in icebound Nome" January 16, 2012

ANCHORAGE - The ice that has cut off a remote Alaska city for months will connect it to the world again as crews prepare to build a path over it to carry fuel from a Russian tanker that was moored roughly a half mile from the town’s harbor yesterday.

A Coast Guard cutter cleared a path through hundreds of miles of Bering Sea ice for the tanker as it made its way toward the city of 3,500 on Alaska’s western coastline, where residents are coping with their coldest winter since the 1970s.

PFFFFFFFFFFTT!!!

The tanker got into position Saturday night, and ice disturbed by its journey had to freeze again so workers could create a roadway across the 2,100 feet from the tanker to the harbor in Nome, upon which they’ll rest a hose that will transfer 1.3 million gallons of fuel. It’ll take about four hours to lay the hose, said Jason Evans, board chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.

Workers yesterday were walking around the vessel and checking the ice to make sure it is safe for the transfer. A Coast Guard spokesman didn’t know how long it will be before fuel flows, because crews must wait 12 hours to ensure that the disturbed ice has refrozen.

A storm prevented Nome’s 3,500 residents from getting a fuel delivery in November. Without the tanker delivery, supplies of diesel fuel, gasoline, and home heating fuel in Nome are expected to run out in March and April, well before a barge delivery again in late May or June.

The tanker began its journey from Russia in mid-December and has slowly made its way toward Nome, stalled by thick ice, strong ocean currents, and one Alaska’s snowiest winters in memory. It picked up diesel fuel in South Korea, then headed to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where it took on unleaded gasoline. Late Thursday, the vessels stopped offshore and began planning the transfer to Nome.

--more--"

"Crews to offload fuel to iced-in Nome" January 17, 2012

ANCHORAGE - Crews laid two hoses across a third of a mile of Bering Sea ice yesterday and were hoping to soon begin transferring 1.3 million gallons of fuel from a Russian tanker to the iced-in western Alaska city of Nome....

--more--"

"Fuel transfer runs smoothly in iced-in Alaska city" January 18, 2012

ANCHORAGE - This is the first time petroleum products have been delivered to a western Alaska community by sea in winter, and it relied on a Coast Guard icebreaker that cleared a path for the tanker over hundreds of miles. The mayor said festivities were planned, including a Coast Guard helicopter landing on the beach so children can look inside. Officials also set a basketball game between residents and Coast Guard crew members, who were invited to a pizza dinner....

That will give me gas.

--more--"

Related:

"A volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands sent up an ash cloud yesterday"

A different kind of gas that didn't linger in my newspaper.

Sunday Globe Special: Sadness in South Carolina

2012-01-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

Related: Witnesses Document Potential Vote Fraud in S.C. Primaries

I bet I know who got screwed.

"Gingrich roars to win in S.C.; Pugnacious conservatism key to victory" by Michael Levenson and Matt Viser | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Newt Gingrich, buried in an avalanche of attack ads in Iowa and deemed irrelevant after the results in New Hampshire, rebounded to victory last night in the South Carolina Republican primary, giving the two-fisted candidate a chance to consolidate conservative support and emerge as the strongest challenger to the formerly high-flying Mitt Romney.

The win capped a stunning, rapid reversal of fortune.

Which is why it stinks to high heaven.

After trailing badly here a week ago, Gingrich ended up with 40.4 percent of the vote, easily outpacing Romney’s 27.8 percent, according to results from 100 percent of the precincts. Rick Santorum placed third with 17 percent, and Ron Paul had 13 percent....

Related: Slow Saturday Special: Veteran's Choice

But somehow he came in fourth.

A surprisingly broad coalition, energized by Gingrich’s pugnacious performances in the two debates last week, carried him to victory and revived concerns about Romney’s ability to appeal to the party’s conservative base.

Romney has long been the most organized, disciplined, and well-funded candidate. But last night’s result showed how he has struggled to translate those advantages into a gut-level appeal to Republican voters. With his cutting, media-bashing debate performances, Gingrich tapped into voters’ desire for a bolder defense of conservative principles....

Romney must now find a way to court disaffected conservatives without abandoning his core message: that he is the most electable candidate, with the deepest economic experience. In South Carolina, that message was threatened by demands that he release his tax returns and by persistent attacks on his past support for abortion rights and the universal health care law he signed in Massachusetts.

With Gingrich poised to channel anti-Romney sentiment in Florida and beyond, Santorum and Paul will have to revive their campaigns on a costlier national stage.

Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, was endorsed in Texas last weekend by a group of conservative pastors who tried to rally religious conservatives to his side. He was also belatedly declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses, but those results seemed to hamper Romney more than boost Santorum.

Related: Santorum's Symbolic Victory

Yeah, it's all about the narrative!

Last night, after a disappointing finish, Santorum vowed to carry on to Florida....

Paul was unable to capitalize on his second-place finish in New Hampshire, and the Texas congressman is not planning to campaign in Florida. Instead, he will turn his focus to smaller states with caucuses, where lower voter turnout means he can use his army of followers to drive his supporters to the polls.

Paul will probably remain in the race for the duration, in part to influence the party platform at the convention. But he acknowledges that chances are slim that he will become the nominee.

“This is the beginning of a long, hard slog,’’ Paul said last night. “We will continue to do this, there is no doubt about it.’’

Gingrich’s victory capped an extraordinarily tumultuous week that began with Romney holding a double-digit lead in South Carolina. Then Santorum was declared the winner in Iowa on a recount, stripping Romney of his narrow win in that state. Rick Perry dropped out and endorsed Gingrich, calling him “a conservative visionary.’’ Gingrich’s former wife asserted that he had asked for an “open marriage’’ in 1999. But Gingrich turned questions about that episode into a denunciation of the “elite media’’ during a debate last week, a moment that seemed to crystallize conservative enthusiasm for the former speaker....

See: Bloggers Have Hand

But it is the MSM jerking you off!

After Florida, which votes Jan. 31, the next five weeks will feature contests in Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, Arizona, and Michigan.

Romney has several advantages that will help him in this new phase. He has more money in his campaign war chest, which will allow him to blanket the states with ads. That will be particularly crucial in Florida, which has multiple, costly media markets. A super PAC that supports Romney has been deluging the state with direct-mail fliers and ads attacking Gingrich.

Super PACs, a new fund-raising phenomenon that can solicit unlimited donations but cannot coordinate with a candidate’s campaign, have been a contentious and influential element in the race. A super PAC supporting Romney led the negative ad barrage credited with sinking Gingrich’s standing - and hopes - in Iowa.

Gingrich will face the biggest test yet of his unconventional campaign, which relies more on YouTube-ready debate performances than on grass-roots networks. To bolster his prospects in Florida, he is hoping to capitalize on the two debates scheduled for later this week - one tomorrow night in Tampa, and a second on Thursday night in Jacksonville.

Romney, after some hesitation, agreed yesterday to participate in both of those debates, even though his aides have grumbled that there have been too many debates and that they have created a circus-like atmosphere that does not always highlight Romney’s buttoned-down bona fides....

--more--"

"Suddenly for Romney, Florida win seems a must" by Christopher Rowland | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012

Now the Romney campaign is back to what his advisers have always described as Plan A: a potentially prolonged, state-by-state battle through the spring for a majority of nominating convention delegates.
Romney has the advantage in money and organization in Florida and elsewhere to help him win a war of attrition.

New Republican Party rules distribute delegates proportionally to the vote in the early states, a move intended to extend the battleground to Super Tuesday on March 6 and beyond....

The candidates are headed to Florida for the Jan. 31 primary, followed by caucus and primary elections next month, mostly in states that are more moderate than South Carolina: Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Arizona, and Michigan.

In addition to a friendlier schedule, Romney has the GOP establishment on his side and more resources. But South Carolina demonstrated that those advantages might not be enough in the face of a conservative electorate hungering for a fight - and a fighter.

--more--"

"Florida stands as challenge to Gingrich’s resources; He will need big money to make his case" by Brian C. Mooney | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Now comes the hard part for Newt Gingrich. After a ground-shaking win in South Carolina, resource-draining Florida awaits with its 10 media markets, and unless his performance here generates a gusher of new cash and bodies, he lacks the infrastructure and money of Mitt Romney, who has plenty of resources to fall back on.

Gone will be the intimate small town stops on long barnstorming tours of more compact states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It takes 4 1/2 hours to drive from Tampa to Miami and longer between other major cities. In Florida, you cannot run an effective statewide campaign without a heavy television presence, and that can eat up more than $1 million a week for a modest buy.

Romney’s campaign has already announced it started January with $19 million in cash on hand. Gingrich’s campaign, which was in debt as recently as last fall, has not yet disclosed its year-end financial status. Reports are due to be filed Jan. 31.

The former Massachusetts governor also enjoys the support of a super PAC, Restore Our Future, that has vastly outspent rival organizations backing Gingrich or other Republican presidential candidates....

Of course, Gingrich will have more debate opportunities to shine before the Florida primary. His winning and sometimes scintillating performances in debates have sustained his candidacy thus far. He does not have the machinery in place that Romney does, but he keeps talking about “big ideas’’ in a voice and vocabulary that fires up voters from the party’s base. But even as the former House speaker was surging in South Carolina, the Romney campaign was rolling out almost daily announcements of new supporters and prominent individual endorsements from various states.

Gingrich’s rise in South Carolina was more or less self-propelled. It wouldn’t have happened without a pair of pre-primary debates where he stole the show and Romney stumbled badly. Despite his uncanny ability to generate news, it will be a difficult act to duplicate going forward. After Florida, there is a series of contests in organization-rewarding caucus states, where Ron Paul’s campaign is focusing much of its resources, then a period of multistate contests: Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 28 and seven primaries and three caucuses on Super Tuesday, March 6. Six other multistate days will follow in a process that will not officially end until June.

Gingrich did not even qualify for the ballot in Virginia, one of the bigger Super Tuesday prizes, so he forfeits any chance at the 50 delegates at stake - a telltale sign of the campaign’s lack of focus on critical details. He also failed to qualify in Missouri (52 delegates).

In all, there will be 438 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday, with the largest being Gingrich’s home state of Georgia. Massachusetts, Romney’s home state, also votes that day....

I will give you one guess who I am voting for (smile).

“Gingrich just isn’t prepared for the Romney juggernaut when you move to a different level of playing field, with multiple states on the same day,’’ said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He’s a one-man show.’’

***************************

If the focus on whether Romney should be the nominee has revealed the resistance of the party rank-and-file, Sabato said, a similar focus on Gingrich is unlikely to produce a more favorable response from party establishment figures who have been highly critical of him, in some cases saying he would hurt the GOP ticket in the fall. The harsh on-the-record criticisms of Gingrich by former Republican colleagues who served with him in the House are an issue that could have some legs.

Gingrich’s rise in national polls and the new life breathed into his candidacy should help fundraising. Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich super PAC, has provided increased advertising cover after Gingrich’s friend, Sheldon Adelson, who controls a casino empire on two continents, kicked in $5 million shortly before the New Hampshire primary.

He must be the promoter.

See: Gingrich is Good To Go

Anyone have a problem with a Zionist Jew buying a potential president?

True to his word, Gingrich has conducted his campaign his own way. Quirky and prompting head-scratching at times, it certainly looks like a big-time operation, with the big blue bus featuring Newt’s smiling visage, a small fleet of black sport-utility vehicles, and a group of ultra-serious security men wired with earpieces and talking into their sleeves. If the campaign hasn’t been flush, it has not exhibited the type of shoestring budget appearance of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.

But the main attraction is the candidate. He keeps crowds waiting at almost every stop, but they rarely complain, and he always makes time at the end to shake hands, pose for pictures, and sign his books. Many times the stump speech has been followed by sales and signings of books by Gingrich and his wife, Callista, who is almost always at his side.

Yeah, Newt, the devoted and faithful husb.... ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

Sorry, readers, I thought I could get through it without cracking up but, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!

There will be a lot less time for that in Florida and beyond.

--more--"

While I was digging around South Carolina:

"Police looking for a South Carolina toddler missing since Thanksgiving have found a shovel and what appear to be bloody clothes in his mother’s Columbia home and in her car, according to search warrants....

--more--"

Also see: Judge blocks provisions of new S.C. immigration law

Church owns KKK-linked shop, judge rules

Voter ID foes cite S.C. governor's heritage

I guess that's why South Carolina voted the way it did.

Honestly, I'm sick of the endless stereotypes and prejudice the agenda-pushing paper promotes about Southerners 'round h're.