Kidnapped Cleveland woman, Amanda Berry, hailed a ‘hero’ after desperate 911 call
[FoxNews-AP]
May 07, 2013
- SUMMARY
- 3 brothers arrested in the case
- All 3 women were missing for about a decade
- Child found in suspect’s home believed to belong to one of the women
- Neighbors say there was never any evidence girls were inside home
- All 3 women were released from hospital, and will return to family
From the left, Pedro J. Castro, Onil Castro, Ariel Castro, were arrested shortly after police say three kidnapped women were removed from a Cleveland home after missing for around a decade.
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May 6: Amanda Berry, right, hugs her sister Beth Serrano after being reunited in a Cleveland hospital. (AP Photo/Family Handout courtesy WOIO-TV)
Rice Pins Faulty Libya Story on Intel
[FoxNews-Reuters-AP]
Published: October 16, 2012
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice blames talking points from intelligence community as source of controversial account of Libya attacks, as lawmakers continue to press White House for a clearer explanation; and, in her first public comments on Libya since her controversial account days after the attack, blamed intelligence community talking points for the faulty narrative.
The light-on-details explanation Monday came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took responsibility for any security failures leading up to the consulate attack last month.
But with the accounts coming as both presidential candidates head into a debate Tuesday night that will focus in part on foreign policy, neither appeared to settle mounting questions on the Hill about how the administration got the story so wrong.
Rice did not offer many details on the nature of the intelligence updates or whether they reflected a more nuanced version of events than the one she told the Sunday after the attack. In those interviews, Rice repeatedly claimed the deadly assault was a “spontaneous” reaction to protests over an anti-Islam film.
The administration later acknowledged it was a coordinated terror attack on the anniversary of 9/11.
Networks That Hyped Romney’s ‘Bombshell’ Tax Tape Now Skip ObamaCare ‘Penalties’
[MRC.org]
Subscribe to Scott Whitlock
The same networks that have been hyping secret video of Mitt Romney talking about who pays taxes, hyperventilating about the Republican’s “seismic” bombshell,” have, thus far, completely ignored the revelation from the Congressional Budget Office that “significantly” more Americans will have to pay a “tax penalty” for being uninsured, many in the middle class.
All three evening newscasts on Wednesday and the morning shows on Thursday totally skipped this report. The Associated Press explained, “The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what critics see as broken promises.” Writer Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar added, “Nonetheless, in his first campaign for the White House, Obama pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.”
Yet, World News, the NBC Nightly News, the CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning and Today all avoided the topic.
GMA opted for more important topics, such as an amusement park mishap that caused several people to be stranded on a roller coaster for hours.
Will Stockton, CA Become Largest U.S. City In Bankruptcy?
[Breitbart.com]
June 26, 2012 by Tony Lee
Officials in Stockton, California had until 11:59 p.m. on Monday to reach a deal to restructure the city’s debt to avoid bankruptcy under a new California mediation law. That deadline has passed and, according to the Associated Press, a Stockton spokesperson said what happened in those negotiations was confidential and would not be announced until Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, where members will meet to potentially discuss and vote on a plan to restructure their debt, according to The Fresno Bee.
If Stockton city officials failed to gain concessions, mainly from public sector employees and their representatives, the city manager will file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on Wednesday, making Stockton the largest U.S. city to be in bankruptcy.
According to the Bee, the city already made drastic cuts to the public sector but previous “multi-year labor contracts for city workers with escalating costs and generous retirement plans” prevented the city from digging out of its fiscal hole.
Another city in California, Vallejo, filed for bankruptcy and is getting back its fiscal solvency by, as Walter Russell Mead has written, ditching the “blue model” of expensive labor contracts and unsustainable pensions.
It is something Stockton should be aware of. But, as Mead has also noted, the time to ditch the “blue model” before the city is a step away from falling off the fiscal cliff.
Photo credit: Otto Vondrak
Blind Chinese Activist Who Fought Forced Abortions Arrives in NYC With Wife and Children
[CNSNews-AP]
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press
May 20, 2012
Blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng arrives at Washington Square Village on the campus of New York University, Saturday, May 19, 2012, in New York. Chen escaped from his village in April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S. Embassy after seven years of prison and house arrest. He is planning to study law at NYU. But before that, he says he is planning to spend time recuperating. (AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)
NEW YORK (AP) — A blind Chinese legal activist who escaped house arrest, endured a nearly month-long diplomatic tussle and a hurried daylong flight paused ever so briefly upon his arrival in New York City before taking up a familiar fight.
Taken from a hospital in his homeland and put on a plane for the U.S. after Chinese authorities suddenly told him Saturday to pack and prepare to leave, Chen Guangcheng embraced his new surroundings at New York University and renewed his call to fight injustice.
“I believe that no matter how difficult the environment nothing is impossible if you put your heart to it,” he told a cheering crowd at NYU shortly after arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday evening.
#OccupyLondon Protesters Force Iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral to Close
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Oct 21st 2011 at 8:51 am
by Publius
From the Associated Press:
Protesters who have camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in central London for six days have forced the venerable cathedral to close to visitors for the first time since World War II, church officials said Friday.
The Dean of St. Paul’s, Rev. Graeme Knowles, said the decision to shut the doors of the iconic London church to visitors and tourists following the afternoon service was made with “heavy hearts” because of health and safety concerns.
Senate Passes Stopgap Spending Bill to Avert Shutdown
[FoxNews.com]
Published September 26, 2011
AP – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill Sept. 23 to discuss his fight with Republican lawmakers over whether funding for victims of natural disasters should be paid for by cuts to other government programs.
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Monday night to send a temporary spending bill to the House to avoid a government shutdown, Democrats and Republicans appeared to have reached a final-hour resolution to an impasse over disaster aid.
The vote in the Senate was 79 to 12 to fund the government through Nov. 18, giving the two sides more time to haggle over long-term spending levels. The Senate also approved an even shorter-term spending bill — funding the government into next week — by a voice vote to give the House time to reconvene and approve the followup legislation.
Ken Salazar awards ONE deep water drilling permit … to BP?
HotAir.com
posted at 7:56 pm on March 3, 2011 by Bruce McQuain
Yes, according to AP:
BP Plc, whose Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history last year, co-owns the well that was granted the first deepwater drilling permit since the disaster.
BP is Noble Energy Inc’s partner in the well, holding a 46.5 percent interest, BP said.
Noble operates the Santiago well that received a permit from U.S. regulators on Monday to resume drilling in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf, about 70 miles (110 km) south of the Louisiana coast.
Nullification Of UnConstitutional Laws
PersonalLiberty.com
January 31, 2011 by Bob Livingston
Nullification, the idea that States don’t have to follow laws that are unConstitutional, is a growing movement in the United States. Legislators in as many as 11 or 12 states have either introduced nullification measures or plan to once their State legislatures are in session.
Many of these states are among the 25 that have sued the Federal government over the mandates in Obamacare — the unConstitutional and farcical legislation that would require Americans to purchase healthcare insurance whether they want it or not.
Now the zombie talking heads and pundits in the mainstream media are using lies and tired arguments to try and “educate” the populace that nullification is a losing proposition. (Watch the video to see a response to the zombies and their mindless questions.) Their points? The Federal government is supreme. Nullification equals racism. Nullification equals slavery. Only Neo-Confederates would get behind such a thing. Say it enough and the sheeple will believe it… and comply.
From a Jan. 26 story by The Associated Press:
“The efforts are completely unconstitutional in the eyes of most legal scholars because the U.S. Constitution deems federal laws ‘the supreme law of the land.’ The Idaho attorney general has weighed in as well, branding nullification unconstitutional.”
And:
Dem State Lawmakers Defecting to GOP Post-Election
Breitbart.com
By SHANNON McCAFFREY
Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) – Staggering Election Day losses are not the Democratic Party’s final indignity this year. At least 13 state lawmakers in five states have defected to Republican ranks since the Nov. 2 election, adding to already huge GOP gains in state legislatures. And that number could grow as next year’s legislative sessions draw near.The defections underscore dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party—particularly in the South—and will give Republicans a stronger hand in everything from pushing a conservative fiscal and social agenda to redrawing political maps.
In Alabama, four Democrats announced last week they were joining the GOP, giving Republicans a supermajority in the House that allows them to pass legislation without any support from the other party. The party switch of a Democratic lawmaker from New Orleans handed control of Louisiana’s House to Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.
In Georgia, six rural Democratic state legislators—five from the House and one in the Senate—have switched allegiance to the GOP since Nov. 2. In Maine, a House Democrat flipped; in South Dakota, a Democratic state senator.
Federal Judge Allows Multi-State Suit Against Health Care Law to Proceed
FoxNews.com
Published October 14, 2010
In this Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 file picture, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum speaks during a gubernatorial candidate debate in Tampa, Fla. (AP)
A multi-state lawsuit against the federal health care overhaul will go forward, after a Florida federal judge on Thursday rejected the Obama administration’s request to dismiss the case.
District Judge Roger Vinson dismissed four of the six counts in the lawsuit led by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is representing a challenge from 20 states. But he allowed two counts, including one challenging the law’s controversial requirement that Americans buy health insurance, to proceed. Opening arguments are scheduled for mid-December.
McCollum, hailing the decision as a “victory” of sorts, said the move confirms the “significance” of the states’ challenge.
“This ruling is a victory for the states, small businesses and the American people. It is the first step to having the individual mandate declared unconstitutional and upholding state sovereignty in our federal system,” he said in a written statement.
Did NJ Democrats Plant a Fake Tea Party Candidate in Congressional Race? (Beware of FAKES)
TheBlaze.com
- Posted on October 8, 2010 at 7:48pm by
Scott Baker
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey Republican congressional candidate criticized his Democratic opponent Friday amid mounting evidence that Democratic officials planted a tea-party candidate in the race to siphon off conservative votes.
“My opponent, John Adler, represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country today,” Republican Jon Runyan said. “I would ask for an apology. But frankly, an apology from someone like Congressman Adler would be so meaningless that it’s not worth seeking.”
He spoke at a news conference Friday as Adler, a first-term Democratic lawmaker, and his campaign remained mum about a report in the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill in which Democratic operatives speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed what Republicans have believed for months: That tea-party candidate Peter DeStefano was put on the ballot by Democrats.
The operatives said a county Democratic employee is running at least the Web elements of DeStefano’s campaign.
Tea party organizations, which have denounced DeStefano since he entered the race in June, called on him Friday to quit.
DeStefano and Adler have previously denied the accusations. DeStefano, Adler and top officials in Adler’s campaign and did not return calls or e-mails from The Associated Press on Friday.
In an August interview with the AP, DeStefano excoriated both Adler and Runyan.
Final Q2 GDP: 1.7%
HotAir.com – Reuters – AP
posted at 9:30 am on September 30, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
printer-friendly
Commerce released its final revision of the annualized rate of growth from the second quarter. Initially estimated at 2.4% in July, the number got sharply revised to 1.6% in August. Now, with the final numbers in place, economic growth still looks moribund:
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter of 2010, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 3.7 percent. …
The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, nonresidential fixed investment, exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The deceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected a sharp acceleration in imports and a sharp deceleration in private inventory investment that were partly offset by an upturn in residential fixed investment, accelerations in nonresidential fixed investment and in federal government spending, and an upturn in state and local government spending.
The third quarter numbers for “Recovery Summer” will be out at the end of next month. That won’t look much better, thanks to a summer of almost across-the-board declines and a crash in home sales and construction. We will be lucky to get to 1.7%, unless September delivers some eye-popping upticks in sales and lowering of inventories, which have grown all summer long thanks to low demand.
Proposal to End Military Abortion Ban Complicates Defense Budget Bill
FoxNews.com
Published September 20, 2010
AP
Jan. 5, 2009: Roland Burris talks with the media after arriving at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Linthicum, Md.
Add abortion to the list of hot-button social issues that could derail a sweeping budget blueprint for the nation’s military.
An amendment from Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., to end a longstanding ban on abortions at U.S. military hospitals overseas is attached to the defense authorization bill set to come up for a vote in the Senate.
The move has been widely opposed by social conservatives and only further complicates the debate over the defense spending package. Senate Democrats already have drawn the ire of Republicans by trying to add to the bill measures to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gays from serving openly in the military and provide young illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military a pathway to citizenship.
The Senate will meet Monday to resume consideration of the defense bill, with a vote to start formal debate set for the following day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that even if the Senate clears that hurdle, which requires 60 votes, the defense bill likely will not come up for a final vote until after the November election.
Muslim employee claims Disneyland banned her from wearing head scarf in front of customers
Muslim Employee: Disney Banned Her Head Scarf
ANAHEIM, Calif. August 18, 2010 (AP)
A Muslim woman who works as a hostess at a Disneyland restaurant alleged Wednesday the theme park would not allow her to appear in front of customers while wearing her head scarf.
Imane Boudlal, 26, appeared outside the resort’s Grand Californian Hotel after filing a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She said when she wore the hijab to work Sunday, her supervisors told her to remove it, work where customers couldn’t see her, or go home.
Boudlal, who wore the scarf in observance of Ramadan, chose to go home but reported to work for the next two days and was told the same thing.
Jobless claims still mainly staying the same
HotAir.com
posted at 12:55 pm on June 24, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
printer-friendly
After spending much of 2010 criticizing the media for misreporting unemployment figures, I feel the need to credit them for getting something right — even if the AP only gets it half-right, as they do today. The Department of Labor’s new figures on initial jobless claims show a reduction of 19,000 from the previous week, which had sharply spiked upward. However, even while promoting the decline as “the largest amount in two months,” the AP mainly focuses on the fact that nothing much has changed this year at all:
Initial claims for jobless benefits fell by the largest amount in two months last week, but remain above levels consistent with healthy job growth.
Despite the drop of 19,000, claims are at about the same level they were at the beginning of the year. The stubbornly high level of requests for jobless aid is a sign hiring remains weak even as the economy recovers.
The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 457,000. That’s slightly below economists’ forecasts of 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
First-time requests for unemployment insurance have been stuck at about 450,000 since the beginning of this year. New claims dropped steadily last year after reaching a peak of 651,000 in March 2009. Claims need to fall closer to 425,000 to signal sustained job growth, many economists say.
Israel Navy Kills 4 Palestinian Militants Off Gaza
FoxNews.com | Associated Press
Published June 07, 2010
AP – June 7: Palestinians look at a boat used by Palestinian militants after they were killed by Israeli forces off the coast of Gaza.
JERUSALEM — Israeli naval forces shot and killed four men wearing wet suits in the waters off the coast of Gaza Monday, and a militant group said they were members of its marine unit training for a mission.
The attack was the latest escalation in tensions over the 3-year-old blockade of Gaza. It came a week after Israel raided a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies and hundreds of activists protesting the closure of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory. Israeli soldiers killed nine activists in a clash on one of the flotilla boats, bringing fierce international condemnation and new pressure to ease the blockade.
Vice President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. is closely consulting with Egypt and other allies to find new ways to “address the humanitarian, economic, security, and political aspects of the situation in Gaza.” He spoke in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
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