Rand Paul detained: Rep. refuses airport patdown after alarm

In a harshly worded attack on the Transportation Security Administration, which handles security screenings at US airports, Ron Paul, known for his strident libertarian views, said the TSA 'gropes and grabs our kids and our seniors and does nothing to keep us safe.'

By Thomas Ferraro and John Crawley, Reuters / January 23, 2012

In a harshly worded attack on the Transportation Security Administration, which handles security screenings at U.S. airports, Ron Paul, known for his strident libertarian views, said the TSA "gropes and grabs our kids and our seniors and does nothing to keep us safe."

After Rand Paul refused the patdown, he was escorted out of the airport security area in Nashville,Tennessee, by local authorities, the TSA said. Paul missed his flight to Washington, but was later rebooked and rescreened without incident.

As favorites of the anti-Washington Tea Party movement, Paul and his father, who is a U.S. Represenative from Texas, have helped lead the charge against what critics call excessive federal intrusion, from healthcare to body searches.

At a Senate hearing last June, Rand Paul challenged TSA Administrator John Pistole over his agency's random patdowns of travelers at airports, including the case of a 6-year-old girl from his home state of Kentucky.

"This isn't to say that we don't believe in safety procedures," Paul said. "But I think I feel less safe because you're doing these invasive exams on a six-year-old. It makes me think you're clueless that you think she's going to attack our country and that you're not doing your research on the people who would attack our country."

On the campaign trial, Ron Paul has called for the abolition of the TSA on the grounds that it wastes taxpayer money and violates personal liberties.

Rand Paul has recommended that authorities eliminate patdowns as part of everyday security, saying TSA should more heavily emphasize non-invasive methods for assessing risk.

The senator has even complained that close screening of members of Congress and other frequent fliers known to airlines and security officials is a poor use of security resources.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a leading member of the Obama administration, weighed in on the controversy at the time, saying she would avoid pat downs if possible.

More than 650 million passengers fly on U.S. airlines, most using one of the more than 400 airports where TSA operates checkpoints.

The agency defends its procedures, which they say are needed to ensure passenger safety.

Paul's personal showdown with airport security unfolded as he headed to Washington to address an anti-abortion rally and to return to work after a long congressional holiday break.

The senator's father, Ron Paul, tweeted that his son was detained for refusing a full-body pat-down "after anomaly in body scanner."

The TSA did not say what triggered the alarm and denied Paul had been detained.

Obama Administration: Religious Employers Must Pay for the Pill

Creative Crop / Getty Images

Many church-affiliated institutions will have to cover free birth control for employees, the Obama administration announced Friday in an election-year move that outraged religious groups, fueling a national debate about the reach of government.

In a concession, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said nonprofit institutions such as church-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social service agencies will have one additional year to comply with the requirement, issued in regulations under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

“I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Sebelius said in a statement.

Yet the concession was unlikely to stop a determined effort by opponents to block or overturn the rule. If they fail, some predicted that religious employers would simply drop coverage for their workers, opting instead to pay fines to the federal government under the health care law.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” said New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

Officials said the administration’s ruling was carefully considered, after reviewing more than 200,000 comments from interested parties and the public. The one-year extension, they said, responds to concerns raised by religious employers about making adjustments. Administration officials stressed that individual decisions about whether or not to use birth control, and what kind, remain in the hands of women and their doctors.

Underscoring the sensitivity of the decision, Obama personally spoke with Dolan on Friday to inform him of the announcement, an administration official said.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a powerhouse law firm based in Washington that tackles religious freedom issues, predicted in a statement that religious groups “will never pay for abortion drugs in violation of their religious beliefs.” Many religious conservatives consider the morning-after birth control pill to be an abortion drug.

Liberals and women’s rights groups praised the decision, saying that women who work for religious employers should not have to accept a lower standard of health coverage.

“The administration stood firm,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “As a result millions will get access to contraception, and they will not have to ask their bosses for permission.”

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a member of Senate leadership, said, “The president made the right decision by putting access and the reproductive rights of women first.”

Birth control use is virtually universal in the United States, and most health insurance plans cover the pill, usually with copays. Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned.

At issue is a provision of the health care law that requires insurance plans to cover preventive care for women free of charge to the employee. Last year, an advisory panel from the respected Institute of Medicine recommended including birth control on the list, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies.

Sebelius agreed, issuing a new federal regulation last summer.

That rule, however, exempted houses of worship and their employees, as well as other institutions whose primary purpose is to promote religious belief. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other places would not be required to cover contraceptives, it specified.

It was a different story for religious-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social service agencies.

Although many of those employers had not traditionally covered birth control, the new regulation required them to do so. Catholic hospitals, which at a critical moment had defied the bishops to back Obama’s health care law in Congress, immediately sought a broader exemption. On Friday they were denied.

Representing some 600 hospitals, the Catholic Health Association expressed disappointment.

“The challenge that these regulations posed for many groups remains unresolved,” said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the group. “This indicates the need for an effective national conversation on the appropriate conscience protections in our pluralistic society, which has always respected the role of religions.”

The administration says between 1 million and 2 million people work for religious-affiliated institutions, though it’s not clear how many would be affected. Some states already require religious employers to cover the pill.

For religious-affiliated employers, the requirement will take effect August 1, 2013, and their workers in most cases will have access to coverage starting January 1, 2014.

Women working for secular enterprises from profit-making companies to government will have access to the new coverage starting January 1, 2013, in most cases.

Workplace health plans will have to cover all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ranging from the pill to implantable devices to sterilization. Also covered is the morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex and is considered as tantamount to an abortion drug by some religious conservatives.

However, the new regulation does not require coverage of abortions.

Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.

Oy vey! Yiddish making a comeback at colleges

 

By DORIE TURNER

The Associated Press

ATLANTA — A group of American college students stands in a semicircle, clapping and hopping on one foot as they sing in Yiddish: "Az der rebe zingt, Zingen ale khsidim!"

Yiddish teacher Miriam Udel, left, leads a class in singing a song to teach Yiddish at Emory University Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Atlanta. This isn't music appreciation or even a class at a synagogue. It's the first semester of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta, one of just a handful of such program at colleges across the country studying the Germanic-based language of Eastern European Jews. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Yiddish teacher Miriam Udel, right, hops on one foot while leading a class in a song to teach Yiddish at Emory University Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Atlanta. This isn't music appreciation or even a class at a synagogue. It's the first semester of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta, one of just a handful of such program at colleges across the country studying the Germanic-based language of Eastern European Jews. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Elizabeth Friedman, 18, holds her textbook while singing along during a Yiddish class at Emory University Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011 in Atlanta. This isn't music appreciation or even a class at a synagogue. It's the first semester of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta, one of just a handful of such program at colleges across the country studying the Germanic-based language of Eastern European Jews. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

"When the rebbe dances, so do all the Hasidim," the lyrics go.

This isn't music appreciation or even a class at a synagogue. It's the first semester of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta — one of just a handful of college programs across the country studying the Germanic-based language of Eastern European Jews.

The language came close to dying out after the Holocaust as millions of Yiddish speakers either perished in Nazi concentration camps or fled to other countries where their native tongue was not welcome. Emory and other universities like Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and McGill University in Canada are working to bring the language back, and with it, an appreciation for the rich history of European Jewish culture and art.

"If we want to preserve this, we need to do so actively and consciously," said Miriam Udel, a Yiddish professor at Emory who uses song to teach the language. "The generation that passively knows Yiddish is dying out. There are treasures that need to be preserved because we'll lose access to them if we let Yiddish die."

Experts estimate there are between 1 million and 2 million native Yiddish speakers in the world, but only about 500,000 speak it in the home — mostly orthodox Jews. When YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City began offering summer programs in Yiddish in 1968, they were the only such program in the world.

Now, they compete with summer intensive Yiddish programs in Tel Aviv, Israel; Ottawa, Canada; Indiana and Arizona, said YIVO's dean, Paul Glasser. About 20 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada now offer some Yiddish courses, though just a few of them have degrees in the language.

The interest has grown because of the younger Jewish generation, which doesn't feel their parents' embarrassment that their family spoke Yiddish rather than English, Glasser said.

"Eighteen-year-olds today don't have that," he said. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. No one can question their American-ness."

Emory student Matthew Birnbaum, a junior, said he took Udel's Yiddish class because he feels a personal connection to the language — his grandparents still speak it.

"It's taught me a lot about my own roots and where my people have come from," he said. "It's been a really interesting learning experience, not just from the language perspective but also from the historical perspective."

It's not just college classes where the interest in Yiddish has grown.

Klezmer music has made a comeback with young musicians like Canadian Yiddish hip-hop artist Socalled — whose real name is Josh Dolgin — and Daniel Kahn, a New York-based folk singer who is recording with some of the most popular Yiddish performers in the world.

At the Folkspiene national Yiddish theater and the New Yiddish Rep theater company, both in New York City, young actors flood auditions for "Gimpl Tam" and "The Learning Play of Rabbi Levi-Yitzhok, Son of Sara, of Berditchev." The Congress for Jewish Culture holds coffee houses monthly where young Yiddish musicians perform and bring in guest speakers like graphic novel artist Ben Katchor, hoping to appeal to a younger audience.

A search for Yiddish on Facebook produces dozens of links to groups like "Di Kats der Payats (The Cat in the Hat in Yiddish)" and "Yiddish Slang Dictionary."

"This is what everyone in Yiddish is trying to do: to get to the younger generations and show people what's out there," said Shane Baker, president of the congress and a non-Jewish actor who appears in Yiddish productions at Folkspiene and New Yiddish Rep. "They used to say in the family: 'Speak Yiddish so the children don't understand if you're talking about something serious or arguing.' Now a hook is: 'Speak Yiddish so your parents won't know what you're saying.'"

At Emory, Udel's students spend a semester learning Yiddish grammar through songs and reading before performing the music a cappella at Atlanta nursing homes and Emory's Jewish student center. The performances give them more confidence in their language abilities and help them connect with older Yiddish speakers, she said.

All the students in this semester's class are Jewish, Udel said, but she's had non-Jews — or goyim — in past years.

The class had only a handful of students when upperclassmen registered for courses over the summer, but the class filled up during freshman registration, Udel said.

Emory freshman Elizabeth Friedman, 18, said she signed up because she was unsure what to take during her first semester at college. She said the class, which has become like a family, is a fun respite from her "dense" pre-business coursework.

"That is why I love this class — there's so much interaction, so much teamwork and much talking, it's like you're learning so much without feeling the stress," the Los Angeles native said. "In the final, I realized how much I learned from the beginning because I was never naturally good at languages."

The $1.2 million waterfront home where prosecutors say a Seattle chiropractor and his wife lived while claiming more than $135,000 in welfare assistance under multiple federal aid programs. (AP)

SEATTLE - A Seattle chiropractor and his wife live in a $1.2 million waterfront home and have spent the past eight years flying to Moscow, Paris, Israel, Turkey, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

All the while, federal authorities say, the couple was collecting more than $100,000 in public welfare payments.

Now, the U.S. attorney's office is suing David Silverstein and Lyudmila Shimonova, accusing them of filing false claims and demanding that the couple pay back more than $135,000 in federal housing assistance since 2003. Prosecutors are also seeking tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

In gaining housing assistance, Shimonova represented that she lived alone with her two children and that her household assets were less than $5,000. Silverstein received the monthly benefits of $1,272 as Shimonova's purported landlord, the government said.

Shimonova also received benefits under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, as well as Social Security cash reserved for people who can't work due to age or disability and whose assets fall below a certain threshold — $3,000 for a married couple or $2,000 for a single person, the complaint said.

Meanwhile, they were traveling the world, according to Department of Homeland Security records.

Michael Radyshewsky, a federal welfare fraud investigator, wrote in an application to search the couple's home that they took weeklong trips to Moscow in 2003, Dominican Republic in 2005, and Mexico and France in 2009. In 2007, they went for 12 days to Israel, and this past June they took a two-week trip to Turkey.

Silverstein said Tuesday his lawyer asked him not to comment. The home did not appear to have a listed phone number, and no contact information for Shimonova could immediately be found.

US Cherokees expel descendants of slaves from tribe

September 09, 2011

Associated Press  TULSA, Okla.

One of the nation's largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners' assistance and other services.

The Cherokee Nation acted this week after its Supreme Court upheld the results of a 2007 special vote to amend the Cherokee constitution and remove the slaves' descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls.

The 300,000-member tribe is the biggest in Oklahoma, although many of its members live elsewhere.

Olive Anderson, 70, of Kansas City, Mo., called the letter she received "a slap in the face." "It tears me up to think they can attack my ancestors," Anderson said.

The tribe never owned black slaves, but some individual members did.

They were freed after the Civil War, in which the tribe allied with the Confederacy. An 1866 treaty between the tribe and the federal government gave the freedmen and their descendants "all the rights of native Cherokees."

But more than 76 percent of Cherokee voters approved the amendment stripping the descendants of their citizenship. Tribal leaders who backed the amendment, including then-Principal Chief Chad Smith, said the vote was about the fundamental right of every government to determine its citizens, not about racial exclusion. The freedmen's descendants disagree. "It's a red man, black man issue just like it's a white man, black man issue," said Raymond Nash, 64, of Nowata. "It's embarrassing, really. It should have been over a long time ago."

Along with losing services, Nash and other descendants of freedmen won't be able to vote in the hotly contested Sept. 24 election for principal chief that pits Smith against longtime tribal councilman Bill John Baker. The election is being held after the tribe's Supreme Court tossed out the results of a June election, saying it could not determine with a mathematical certainty who won. The results had flip-flopped between the two during weeks of counts and recounts. Baker had twice been declared winner, but so had Smith.

"This definitely is a setback for our freedmen people because we were all eager to vote in the upcoming election," said Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. "The attitude is more like, 'We can't put them in chains, so we'll do anything we can to take away their rights.' It's a matter of racism and politics." Smith has supported the results of the 2007 voter-approved amendment. "I've consistently supported the Cherokee Nation's right to determine their own national identity," he said Friday. "Cherokees say this: We don't care what you look like, as long as you've got Cherokee blood. It's about identity and self-governance."

Baker hasn't explicitly said he supports the amendment and the expulsion of the freedmen, but he issued a statement saying, "I respect the decision of the Cherokee people and believe fully in our right to self-govern."

After Cherokee Supreme Court upheld the 2007 vote on Aug. 22, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development temporarily froze $33 million in funds while it studies the issue. Federal lawmakers who believe the amendment violated the freedmen's civil rights had lobbied federal agencies to cut funding to the tribe. Joe Crittenden, who is serving as acting principal chief until the new election is held, said the tribe, which has a $600 million budget, has enough money to carry it for "a few months" without cutting HUD-related services or jobs.

Crittenden said Cherokee leaders have been having weekly conversations with the local and regional HUD offices.

"We are confident that future federal funding will continue once the issues are resolved," he said. HUD referred questions to its local office, which did not respond to messages left by The Associated Press.

Woman's breast implant explodes during paintball: New high-impact sports risk?

A silicone breast implant. The rupture of one internally is often painful and could be deadly. (Donna McWilliam / Associated Press)

• Areas of the South account for three-quarters of the growth in the black population with Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston leading all other metro areas in gain. For the first time, the black population dropped in the New York, Chicago and Detroit areas.

Neighborhood segregation held steady for Hispanics and Asians but declined for     
blacks. The study found that older and northern metropolitan areas continue to      register the highest segregation levels for minority groups and that blacks remain more residentially segregated than either Hispanics or Asians.

Postal Service Seeks to Cut 120,000 Jobs, Ditch Federal Health Plans

Published August 11, 2011

FoxNews.com

Westboro church to picket Betty Ford funeral services

CAPTION

By Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images

The Grand Rapids Press reports that the small congregation, consisting mostly of family members of founder Fred Phelps, announced on its website that it will demonstrate because Ford divorced her first husband, then married the future president, Gerald Ford.

CAPTION

By Bill Pugliano, Getty Images

The group, based in Topeka, Kan., plans to picket Tuesday at services at Saint Margaret Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif., and Thursday at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids when her casket travels to the Gerald R. Ford Museum for burial.

The church has become notorious for picketing the funerals of military personnel, calling their deaths God's punishment for U.S. tolerance of homosexuals. The Supreme Court ruled that their demonstrations are protected by the First Amendment.

Banker’s son mines gold for Obama

Gifford breaks the family mold

“It sort of freed me from being looked at in the same lens as other people.” said Rufus Gifford, on telling his family he is gay (Jeff Haynes for The Boston Globe)

By Jim Axelrod

As a symbol of the Fourth of July holiday, it is easy for the conversation this time of year to turn to iconic American flags, like the flag the Marines raised at Iwo Jima; the one firefighters put up at ground zero; and the one that flew over Fort McHenry and was the inspiration for what would become our national anthem.

As the space shuttle program comes to an end this week, CBS News decided to look into the flags the astronauts left behind on six trips to the moon. What's become of them?

CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the first flag on the moon, it was an act of pure symbolism. A U.N. treaty would not allow the U.S. or any other country to claim the moon as its territory.

Smithsonian curator Allan Needell says the flags planted by the crews of all the Apollo missions that landed on the moon were goodwill gestures to the world.

"By and large, the symbol was very much understood for what it was, as a symbol of pride, but also a symbol of humanitarian accomplishment," Needell says.

As Tom Moser knows, it was also a politically sensitive symbol. An engineer on the NASA team that designed the first flag to go to the moon, Moser was told to keep it hush-hush.

"It was not a military, Department of Defense secret. It was just the fact that politically we didn't want the word out before the event happened," Moser says.

From the beginning, there were technical problems. The Apollo 11 astronauts had difficulty getting the pole deep enough into the lunar soil. And they had trouble extending the full apparatus, designed to keep the flag upright and outstretched in a place where there is never any wind.

Things did not turn out perfectly on the moon, as the flag ended up being bunched up a bit anyway, curator Needell says.

However, the minor malfunction made for an even better effect, the sense that old glory was waving in the breeze.

The flags waving behind are now among the most defining images of our time. But what happened to them is a question University of California Santa Barbara librarian Annie Platoff has been trying to answer.

Her research can account for four of the flags, including the one planted by the Apollo 17 mission. She believes the first two from Apollo 11 and 12 did not survive the ignition gases of the lunar liftoff.

"It wasn't the intention for the flag material itself to last. It was just to be there during the, the event - the landing and departing from the moon. We didn't have a requirement that the flag, the U.S. flag, had to withstand all the environments for eons," Platoff says.

Made from nylon just like the ones at a dime store, though ordered off the shelf from a government supply catalogue, Annie Platoff's theory is they are probably darkened and maybe more than a bit tattered.

"I would guess, over time, 40 years, the combination of sun-rot and micro-meteor impact is probably devastating. I mean it's not a pretty picture to paint. The only way you're going to test these theories is to go back to the Moon and look at the flag," Platoff says.

Chances are, with so much of the space program coming to an end, it is not likely that American astronauts will be the ones to discover whether, after the rocket's red glare, our flag is still there.

Ohio now allows concealed guns in bars, malls, stadiums

CAPTION

By Terry Gilliam, AP

The law, Senate Bill 17, prohibits gun owners from consuming alcohol or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they bring their licensed weapons into establishments that serve alcohol, Reuters notes. Businesses can ban concealed weapons for safety reasons. Already the Cincinnati Bengals football team has said it will ban weapons from its stadium.

Ohio joins 42 other states that allow licensed concealed firearms to be carried into restaurants, but, as The Plain Dealer of Cleveland wrote before Kasich's signature, "only a handful of states, Tennessee and Arizona among them, have concealed carry laws as broad as Ohio's pending law in terms of where gun owners can pack."

Last fall, Kasich, a Republican, defeated the incumbent Democrat, Ted Strickland. The Plain Dealer points out that "the NRA and gun lobby heavily favored Strickland while blasting Kasich for his anti-gun positions as a member of Congress in the 1990s."

One watering hole where guns won't be allowed is close to lawmakers, literally and figuratively -- the soon-to-open bar in the Ohio Statehouse, its first.

The law also relaxes regulations for carrying weapons in a vehicle.

In a related change in Ohio gun laws, Kasich also signed a measure (House Bill54) that allows people with minor drug convictions to apply for full gun-possession rights.

Woman selling 'suicide kits' reignites right-to-die debate

Sharlotte Hydorn, 91, says she's 'just interested in helping people' who might otherwise suffer painful deaths. FBI agents raided her home last week in an investigation of possible mail fraud or other violations.

Sharlotte Hydorn, 91, is interviewed by local media outlets at her home in El Cajon. The great grandmother sells "suicide kits" for $60 apiece by mail. (Marty Graham, Reuters)

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

May 30, 2011, 6:24 p.m.

Reporting from El Cajon, Calif.—

Sharlotte Hydorn peddles a product touted for its deadly simplicity. Inside her butterfly-decorated boxes are clear plastic bags and medical-grade tubing. A customer places the bag over his head, connects the tubing from the bag to a helium tank, turns the valve and breathes. The so-called suicide kit asphyxiates a customer within minutes.

Orders come from all over the world, from people young and old, depressed and terminally ill. "People commit suicide by jumping out of windows and buildings, and hanging themselves," said the 91-year-old former elementary school science teacher. Her product, she says, ends lives peacefully, leaving people "eternally sleepy."

• Related
• FBI investigating 91-year-old woman's mail-order suicide kits
• Oregon death sparks debate over suicide kits

In December, one of Hydorn's $60 devices was found over the head of a dead 29-year-old man from Eugene, Ore. His death triggered a wave of media attention that doubled her orders to 100 per month, but placed Hydorn under scrutiny from politicians and law enforcement agencies that culminated last week with a raid of her ranch-style home outside San Diego.

FBI agents seized dozens of boxes ready for shipment as part of an investigation into possible mail or wire fraud violations and whether Hydorn has violated a law prohibiting the sale of adulterated and mishandled medical devices. In Oregon, where assisted-suicide is legal under certain conditions, lawmakers have introduced a bill that would outlaw any device sold with the intent that another person use it to commit suicide.

Hydorn has been compared to Jack Kevorkian, the physician who went to prison in 1999 for assisting suicides. But the Dr. Death image doesn't fit this gregarious woman who dispenses advice on dying with a neighborly demeanor that is disarming.

Wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, the tall and slender woman told reporters last week that hers is a mission of compassion. The "exit bags" end lives of suffering through humane means, she said. The federal investigation leaves her more bewildered than concerned, and she almost laughs at the prospect of going to prison.

"Do I look like a criminal?" Hydorn said, standing on her manicured front lawn.

Her critics would say yes. Even people who believe in assisted-suicide said she peddles the product without knowing the circumstances or identities of the buyers. While some suicidal people are rational, others are not, said Alan Berman, executive director of the American Assn. for Suicidology, a suicide-prevention organization.

"What if this was a young person masquerading as an adult? What if this was a person with a totally treatable psychological condition who was not otherwise given the opportunity to get treatment?" he said. "She's not evaluating who she is providing the product. Clearly, she's doing no due diligence to defend her behavior as compassionate."

Hydorn became interested in assisted-suicide after watching her once-healthy husband die from a long battle with colon cancer 30 years ago. He passed away in a hospital bed and she regrets not being able to respect his wishes to die in the comfort of home.

Over the years, Hydorn said, she has witnessed the deaths of about 50 people using the helium-hood method. Like other assisted-suicide advocates, she has role-played with people first, showing how the bag works. It's not necessarily a grim exercise, she said. One woman who saw the bag inflate joked: "I always wanted to be the Cat in the Hat," Hydorn recalled.

In a workshop at her home in an unincorporated area of El Cajon, east of San Diego, Hydorn assembles the packages with her adopted son and ships them to customers from Singapore to Cyprus. Many orders come from Florida and other areas with large populations of senior citizens. She doesn't know how many people have died using her product, but she regularly receives letters of gratitude from loved ones, she said.

Some aren't so appreciative. After Nick Klonoski died last December in Eugene, Ore., his brother Zach blamed Hydorn at a hearing in front of Oregon state lawmakers. The packaging, he said, disguises the device's lethalness and comes with instructions that tell users, when buying helium, to avoid suspicion by asking for party balloon tanks rather than helium tanks.

"In a society where so many people suffer from depression and other mental-health disorders, this company has found their niche in the market by peddling death," he said at the hearing this month. "This is analogous to putting a gun-vending machine next to a depression clinic."

Hydorn makes no apologies for Klonoski's death, saying that he pondered his suicide for months and had not acted impulsively. She concedes that in the future she may require people to send copies of their drivers' licenses to prove their age, however.

Her immediate concern is getting the kits, or refunds, to people whose orders were confiscated by FBI agents. It's not about the money, she said. "It was never my intention of getting into the business of killing people. I was just interested in helping people," she said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

SEIU Protesters Disrupt Ohio Senators’ Dinner, Accost Restaurant Workers

Ohio’s fight over collective bargaining spoiled dinner for a number of Republican state lawmakers Wednesday evening.

Easy Street Cafe

Following the state Senate’s vote to limit the bargaining power of public employees, a group of union protesters burst into a local eatery and confronted a small group of GOP senators who were having dinner.  The Columbus Dispatch reports:

After the vote on Senate Bill 5, seven Republican senators, including President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, grabbed dinner at the Easy Street Cafe. As the lawmakers neared the end of their meal, a group of five to 10 union supporters angry about the passage of the bill hours before burst into the restaurant and began shouting.

The commotion eventually led to pushing and shoving with the restaurant staff and owner, before police arrived to calm the situation as a police helicopter hovered overhead. No senators were involved in the physical altercations, and no charges have been filed.

“It could have (gotten physical),” said Sen. Frank LaRose, 31, a Fairlawn Republican who served as a Green Beret. “The group was agitated and they were shoving the owner, and he had nothing to do with this.”

LaRose said it didn’t take special intelligence training to notice that while the lawmakers were eating, a woman walked past the window several times, poked her head in the door and got on her cell phone.

“It was planned,” LaRose said. “They gathered as a group and waited until they had about 10 people before they caused a disturbance.”

When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled “Can I have your attention?“ and then shouted ”something nasty,” LaRose said. Soon after, the rest of the group of men and women joined in with a chant.

Restaurant owner George Stefanidis says police came after the protesters refused to leave. Witnesses said Stefanidis and his restaurant staff tried to hold the group back from the senators, but the altercation got heated when the agitators began pushing and shoving.

“They stormed through my dining room,” Stefanidis said.  “I told them they had to leave, and they wouldn’t.  There were about 70 people in the restaurant at the time.

“I understand [the protesters'] argument, but they should do that some other place,” he added.  “It just ruined the whole night.”

Moran, however, was unapologetic about the ambush.  “The moment of discomfort Senate Republicans may have felt as a result of my expressing my opinion pales in comparison to the extreme discomfort and financial hardships that public employees will endure as a result of SB5.”

 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/seiu-protesters-disrupt-ohio-senato...

First Lady’s New Chief of Staff: Dem Fundraiser & ‘Soros-Friendly Bundler’

• Posted on November 16, 2010 at 11:06pm by Meredith Jessup

Tina Tchen

Nearing the midpoint of Michelle Obama’s inaugural term, there is a reported shake-up going on amongst the first lady’s senior staff.  Obama’s chief of staff, Susan Sher, is reportedly stepping down after having been on the job for just under a year and a half.  Before her White House stint, Sher served as Obama‘s superior at the University of Chicago Medical Center and as an attorney for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s administration.

Stepping into Sher’s shoes is another close confidante of the Obamas: Tina Tchen.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Among the many moves afoot, Tina Tchen, who is responsible for working with outside groups, is preparing to move to the East Wing to serve as First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, according to two Democrats close to the White House.

It’s part of a shuffle that gives the White House a chance to consider how it wants to organize itself for the coming two years, when it will face a more hostile, more Republican Congress. Interim Chief of Staff Pete Rouse is studying how to reorganize the place so it is ready for the next stage.

Tchen may be filling a new position, but she is no newcomer to Washington politics.  Tchen has been a longtime friend and political ally of the Obamas and is close friends with White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, another Chicago veteran associate of the first couple.

Tchen has led of the White House Office of Public Engagement, an operation overseen by Jarrett which, among other things, fought for Obama’s failed Chicago Olympics bid last year.  The office was also implicated for representing the White House in taxpayer-funded efforts to recruit artists and produce projects to advance the Obama agenda.

In addition, conservative author Michelle Malkin has pointed out that Tchen also worked as a “high-powered campaign finance bundler”“personally raised more than $200,000.” for the Obama camp in 2009 and

According to White House visitor logs that have been made public, Tchen has also personally met with infamous liberal financier George Soros.  Tchen was just one of a handful of White House senior staff members to have one-on-one meetings with Soros.  The billionaire also met privately with director Larry Summers and David Lipton, both of Obama’s White House National Economic Council.

A “Jonathan Soros”, purportedly George Soros’ son Jonathan, also logged a personal White House visit with First Lady Michele Obama in May.

(AFP) – 11/15/2010

WASHINGTON — Gay rights activists briefly handcuffed themselves to the White House's north gate on Monday, urging President Barack Obama to repeal a ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

Thirteen demonstrators organized by the GetEQUAL campaign for gay rights -- including nine veterans, a Catholic priest and other advocates -- were arrested after shouting they were "proud to serve" and vowing: "We will not disappear."

"Today, we have sent a loud and clear message to the US Senate and President Obama that we expect them to make good on their promises to end this inhumane law this year, during the lame-duck session of Congress," GetEQUAL co-founder and director Robin McGehee said in a statement.

She was among those arrested.

The protest came ahead of the Pentagon's Internal Review into the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, due on December 1.

According to The Washington Post, the long-awaited report, which included a survey of troops, found that the United States could lift the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces with little risk to current war efforts.

The White House is pushing for repeal of the 1993 law this year in a lame duck session of Congress before a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives is sworn in next year.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court kept the ban intact as lower courts review the issue after a federal appeals court stayed another court's injunction of the policy.

"I sincerely pray our country's elected leaders in Congress and the White House will have the courage to repeal this law and make this the last time I have to come back to this fence and be arrested in protest of a law in direct contrast with our values and beliefs as Americans," said former staff sergeant Miriam Ben-Shalom, who was discharged in 1976 for declaring and admitting she was a lesbian.

Copyright © 2010 AFP

CBS Features NY Mayor Bloomberg Speculating Bomber Was Mad About ObamaCare

By Brent Baker (Bio | Archive)
Mon, 05/03/2010 - 19:37 ET

With Katie Couric drawing him out, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed the Times Square car bombing was likely “homegrown” as he proceeded, in an interview excerpt run on Monday's CBS Evening News, to speculate it could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Could be “anything,” but the first thing Bloomberg thinks of are those who don't like ObamaCare, presumably conservatives or Tea Party activists.  

Audio: MP3 clip

From part of Couric's interview with the mayor aired on the Monday, May 3 CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: Law enforcement officials don't know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but, at this point, the mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: If I had to guess -- 25 cents -- this would be exactly that, somebody-

COURIC TO BLOOMBERG: A home-grown?

BLOOMBERG: Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.

CBSNews.com version of Couric's interview.

By Najlaa Abou Mehri and Linda Sills BBC Radio 4, Crossing Continents

Young Arab women wait in an upmarket medical clinic for an operation that will not only change their lives, but quite possibly save it. Yet the operation is a matter of choice and not necessity. It costs about 2,000 euros (£1,700) and carries very little risk.

The clinic is not in Dubai or Cairo, but in Paris. And the surgery they are waiting for is to restore their virginity.

Whether in Asia or the Arab world, an unknown number of women face an agonising problem having broken a deep taboo. They've had sex outside marriage and if found out, risk being ostracised by their communities, or even murdered.

Sonia says she considered suicide after her first sexual relationship

Now more and more of them are undergoing surgery to re-connect their hymens and hide any sign of past sexual activity. They want to ensure that blood is spilled on their wedding night sheets.

The social pressure is so great that some women have even taken their own lives.

Sonia wants to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. She is a slender young brunette studying at art college in Paris.

Although born in France, Arab culture and traditions are central to Sonia's life. Life was strict growing up under the watchful eyes of a large traditional Arab family.

Virginity certificates

"I thought of suicide after my first sexual relationship," she says, "because I couldn't see any other solution." But Sonia did find a solution.

She eventually went to the Paris clinic of Dr Marc Abecassis to have surgery to restore her hymen. She says she will never reveal her secret to anyone, especially her husband to be.

I believe we as doctors have no right to decide for her or judge her Dr Abecassis

"I consider this is my sex life and I don't have to tell anyone about it," she says. It's men that are obliging her to lie about it, she says.

Dr Abecassis performs a "hymenoplasty" as it's called, at least two to three times a week. Re-connecting the tissue of the hymen takes about 30 minutes under local anaesthetic.

He says the average age of the patient is about 25, and they come from all social backgrounds. Although the surgery is performed in clinics around the world, Dr Abecassis is one of the few Arab surgeons who talks openly about it. Some of the women come to him because they need virginity certificates in order to marry.

"She can be in danger because sometimes it's a matter of traditions and family," says Dr Abecassis. "I believe we as doctors have no right to decide for her or judge her."

With Chinese manufacturers leading the way, there are now non-surgical options on the market as well. One website sells artificial hymens for just £20 (23 euros). The Chinese hymen is made of elastic and filled with fake blood. Once inserted in the vagina, the woman can simulate virginity, the company claims.

'Caught out'

But this was not an option for Nada. As a young girl growing up in the Lebanese countryside she fell in love and lost her virginity. "I was scared my family would find out especially since they didn't approve of my relationship," she says. "I was terrified they might kill me."

After seven years in the relationship, her lover's family wanted him to marry someone else. Nada attempted suicide. "I got a bottle of Panadol and a bottle of household chemicals," she says. "I drank them and said, 'That's it'."

Even if society accepts such a thing, I would still refuse to marry her Noor

Nada is now 40, and found out about surgical hymen restoration just six years ago. She married and had two children. Her wedding night was a stressful ordeal. "I didn't sleep that night. I was crying," she says. "I was very scared but he didn't suspect anything."

It's a secret that Nada - which is not her real name - will carry to her grave. "I am ready to hide it until death," she says. "Only God will know about it."

But it's not only the older generation that subscribes to traditional views about sex before marriage, when it comes to choosing a wife.

Noor is a trendy professional who works in Damascus. He's fairly representative of young Syrian men in a secular society. But although Noor says he believes in equality for women, underneath the liberal facade lies a deep-rooted conservatism.

"I know girls who went through this restoration and they were caught out on their wedding night by their husbands," he says. "They realised they weren't virgins. Even if society accepts such a thing, I would still refuse to marry her."

Muslim clerics are quick to point out that the virginity issue is not about religion. "We should remember that when people wait for the virgin's blood to be spilled on the sheet, these are all cultural traditions," says Syrian cleric, Sheikh Mohamad Habash. "This is not related to Shariah law."

Christian communities in the Middle East are often just as firm in their belief that women should be virgins when they marry.

Arab writer and social commentator, Sana Al Khayat believes the whole issue has much to with the notion of "control".

"If she's a virgin, she doesn't have any way of comparing [her husband to other men]. If she's been with other men, then she has experience. Having experience makes women stronger."

It may be the 21st Century but the issue of virginity in Arab culture can still be a matter of life and death, especially for women like Sonia and Nada.

And while hymen repair may be a quick fix, it can't reconcile centuries of ingrained tradition with the attitudes of modern society.

Border States Deal With More Illegal Immigrant Crime Than Most, Data Suggests

FOXNews.com

Arizona lawmakers say their new immigration enforcement law will them fight an illegal immigrant crime wave that is sweeping the state, a claim that is backed by studies and statistics that suggest border states have a disproportionately high number of criminals who are illegal immigrants.

A Guatemalan illegal immigrant prepares to board a plane at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport during his deportation process July 10, 2009. (Reuters Photo)

Arizona lawmakers say their new immigration enforcement law will help them fight an illegal immigrant crime wave that is sweeping the state, a claim that is backed by studies and statistics that suggest border states have a disproportionately high number of criminals who are illegal immigrants.

"We've been inundated with criminal activity. It's just -- it's been outrageous," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer told Fox News. 

"Crime is off the chart in this state," added Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, president of the Arizona Association of Sheriffs.

Critics have called Arizona officials racist, intolerant and downright unconstitutional for passing the law, which makes illegal immigration a state crime and allows police to demand documentation from anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant.

While the correlation between illegal immigrants and crime is almost impossible to quantify precisely, the available numbers indicate that Arizona -- as well as California and Texas -- are dealing with increased crime as a result of high illegal immigrant populations and activity. 

Part of this is because some of those immigrants are being arrested based on immigration-related charges. A Pew Hispanic Center report last year said "increased enforcement" of immigration laws accounts for part of the trend. 

But there are other crimes, many of which are drug-related. Furthermore, illegal immigrants and smuggling organizations have been linked to some specific violent crimes in Arizona. Local officials frequently cite the rash of kidnappings in their state in defending the new law. The Department of Justice's latest National Drug Threat Assessment says there were 267 kidnappings in Phoenix last year and 299 in 2008. The report said the victims usually have a connection to immigrant smuggling groups or drug traffickers. 

The report also showed that assaults against U.S. law enforcement on the southwestern border are on the rise. The report found that the number of attacks on Border Patrol agents increased 46 percent to 1,097 incidents in fiscal 2008. The report said the assaults were mostly related to immigrant smuggling.

Together, Arizona, California and Texas are now home to 4.7 million of the 11 million illegal immigrants the Department of Homeland Security estimates are in the country. 

Other states with high illegal immigrant populations -- like Illinois -- do not have a lot of illegal immigrant prisoners. Federal statistics show the illegal immigrant population is actually underrepresented in Illinois prisons. 

But a comprehensive study released late last year from the Center for Immigration Studies cited federal law enforcement data showing that illegal immigrants made up a disproportionate share of the state prison populations in California and Arizona.

In 2004, the year when the data was most recently available, 12.4 percent of California prisoners were illegal immigrants, as compared with an estimated 6.9 percent of the state population. In Arizona, 11.1 percent of the prison population was undocumented, compared with 7 percent of the overall state population. In Texas, the percentage was also slightly higher in the prisons than it was statewide. 

A Government Accountability Office study from 2005 also found that most illegal immigrant arrests were happening in California, Texas and Arizona. The study sampled a prison population of more than 55,000 illegal immigrants, and found that 80 percent of all the arrests were in those three states. 

But overall, it's hard to say that illegal immigrants have triggered a crime explosion in any of these states, though the recent killing of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal immigrant has served as a rallying cry for advocates of tougher enforcement. 

FBI statistics show California and Texas had a violent crime average slightly higher than the national average 2008, while Arizona's average was slightly lower.

Jessica Vaughan, a co-author of the Center for Immigration Studies report and policy director at the think tank, said the bottom line is that connections between illegal immigrants and crime are hard to draw. 

"We didn't find any evidence to support the idea that either immigrants are more prone to crime or less prone to crime than ... legally resident Americans," she said. "It's very tricky." 

Vaughan said part of the problem is that no federal database keeps a dependable count of how many illegal immigrants are convicted of crimes. Federal prison data, for instance, breaks out non-citizens in its data, but that covers several groups and not just illegal immigrants. 

Some jurisdictions do keep track, though, and with the data that is available, Vaughan said it's apparent that there is a connection between illegal immigrants and certain types of crimes, like drug trafficking and identify theft. And, she said, illegal immigrants have a tendency toward recidivism. 

The GAO report found that of the undocumented residents surveyed, almost all of them had more than one arrest. They averaged about eight arrests per person. Nearly half of the offenses were for drug crimes or immigration violations. 

But for those immigrants who are being caught and convicted, their immigration status itself is often the offense.

The Pew Hispanic Center study from February 2009 found that even though Hispanics make up 13 percent of the adult population, they accounted for 40 percent of sentenced federal offenders in 2007. Almost half of those offenses were immigration-related.

More Global Warming Profiteering by Obama Energy Official

Ex-Gore associate and current Obama energy official Cathy Zoi is exploiting global warming for her own mega-gain. (And see the exclusive PJTV interview with Christopher Horner.)

Surprising documents made available to this author reveal that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green” policies.

Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection — founded by Al Gore — to serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, now manages billions in “green jobs” funding. But the disclosure documents show that Zoi not only is in a position to affect the fortunes of her previous employer, ex-Vice President Al Gore, but that she herself has large holdings in two firms that could directly profit from policies proposed by the Department of Energy.

Among Zoi’s holdings are shares in Serious Materials, Inc., the previously sleepy, now bustling, friend of the Obama White House whose public policy operation is headed by her husband. Between them, Zoi and her husband hold 120,000 shares in Serious Materials, as well as stock options. Reporter John Stossel has already explored what he sees as the “crony capitalism” implied by Zoi being so able to influence the fortunes of a company to which she is so closely associated.

In addition, the disclosure forms reflect that Zoi holds between $250,000 and $500,000 in “founders shares” in Landis+Gyr, a Swiss “smart meter” firm. She also still owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in ordinary shares.

“Smart meters,” put simply, are electric meters that return information about customer power usage to the power company immediately and allow a power company to control the amount of power a customer can consume. These smart meters are a central component of the Obama administration’s plans to reduce electricity consumption as part of the “smart grid.”

In a rare moment of candor, Obama “Energy Czar” Carol Browner said to US News & World Report last year: “We need to make sure that …[e]ventually, we can get to a system where an electric company will be able [sic] to hold back some of the power so that maybe your air conditioner won’t operate at its peak, you’ll still be able to cool your house, but that’ll be a savings to the consumer.” (emphasis added)

Clearly, DoE funding to encourage the adoption of “smart meters” would very likely lead to much increased sales by Landis+Gyr — and a potential windfall for Zoi. But surely Zoi doesn’t participate in the relevant “energy efficiency” policy?

In fact, as a condition of her employment with the Obama administration, while Ms. Zoi maintained significant security holdings in Serious Materials and Landis+Gyr, she promised to “not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect on the[ir] financial interest” without obtaining a waiver first.

But then, if she doesn’t participate in decisions that could have a “direct and predictable effect” on her Landis+Gyr holdings and she doesn’t participate in decisions that could have a “direct and predictable effect” on her holdings in Serious Materials, it seems worth asking in which decisions she can participate.

Doesn’t Zoi’s involvement in these issues raise serious ethical or legal issues?

Given her position and the breadth of the decisions and duties from which she would have to recuse herself if someone with the rather glaring conflicts as Ms. Zoi has follows through on her promises to avoid participating in decisions that would impact companies in which she oddly has retained a substantial financial interest — what decisions and policies is she participating in? Has she obtained waivers? If so, on what; if not, why not? Re-read her title. Re-review her investments. What, precisely, is she doing on our dime and how come she is permitted to carry such obvious conflicts of interest that either preclude her from working on nearly any matter of substance under her purview, or trigger automatically serious ethical and other considerations? And, what happened to that whole ethical, transparency thing?

(See the exclusive PJTV interview with Christopher Horner.)

Gun law dispute sinks voting rights bill for DC

AP – People walk past an electronic sign with the amount of federal taxes paid by District of Columbia residents …
 

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer Jessica Gresko, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 21, 3:09 am ET

WASHINGTON – For some residents of the nation's capital, a bill to give them a voting member of Congress wasn't worth the price: severely weakened gun laws.

"As much as I want the vote in the city, I think the gun ban is hugely important," said Betsy Cutler, 41, a paralegal who lives in Adams Morgan, a neighborhood of bars and restaurants where she has heard gunfire more than once.

House members had been expected to vote this week on a bill that would have granted, for the first time, the District of Columbia's 600,000 residents a voting representative. But politicians said Tuesday they had decided to pull the measure, calling an amendment supported by the National Rifle Association destructive to D.C.'s gun laws.

The NRA pushed to bar the city from prohibiting or interfering with the public carrying of firearms, either concealed or openly. Opponents said the amendment would have made it easy for people to carry firearms without permits and would have stopped D.C. from prohibiting guns in city-controlled buildings.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the measure was needed because the city has not complied with a 2008 Supreme Court ruling requiring it to revise its gun laws.

A federal judge in D.C. recently ruled, however, that limitations on gun ownership that Washington put in place after the ruling were acceptable. Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the original case, had challenged the new regulations.

The voting rights bill would have increased full House membership from 435 to 437, giving D.C. residents a vote while adding a temporary at-large seat for Republican-leaning Utah, which narrowly missed out on getting an extra seat after the 2000 census.

Government worker and lifelong D.C. resident Yvonne Cooper, 51, said gun rights and voting rights shouldn't be linked. And bike messenger Derrick Stewart, 48, who was born in Washington, said accepting the change would be "selling out."

D.C. resident David Slenk said he represents a minority of people who are glad the bill didn't move forward.

"I fully understand that not many people think that way nowadays," the 23-year-old said. "I think it was set up as a protection so that D.C. would not get undue influence because the federal government is here, and I think that is appropriate."

Saydah Cruz, 22, who works in D.C., said she too supports the city's strict gun laws. "I am surprised, but I think it was for the best," she said of the decision to pull back the bill. "We want to keep crime rates down and safety up."

City politicians had lined up to oppose the measure before it was pulled. At least six of the 13 members of the District of Columbia Council, including its chairman, said they would not support the bill if it weakened local gun laws.

But the city's mayor, Adrian Fenty, had a different attitude. He had said he supported efforts to go forward with the bill, believing that gun rights advocates would try to weaken the city's gun laws even without a voting rights bill.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the district but is not allowed to vote on the House floor, sponsored the bill and supported pulling it rather than accepting the gun amendment.

Norton had said she was willing to work with a Senate version of the bill passed last year with a weaker gun amendment, but she ultimately determined that language the NRA wanted — it had support in the House — was not acceptable.

It wasn't the first time Norton had seen such a bill fail. Most recently, in 2007, the House passed a voting rights bill before it was blocked in the Senate.

"I'm feeling ready for the next fight," said Norton, the city's representative in Congress since 1991. "I was always prepared to be set back

Posted on Wed, Apr. 21, 2010

Alaska will join health care overhaul lawsuit

Erika Bolstad | The Anchorage Daily News

last updated: April 21, 2010 08:00:25 AM

Obama skips Polish funeral, heads to golf coursecarriespoliticalimpact Voting party line: Specter, yes; Brown, no Canceled Poland trip frees Obama for golf vey ices a lack oftrust