Palin Turkey Pardon Press Conference Shows Bird Being Killed

While Sarah Palin holds a press conference for the traditional pardoning of a Turkey, we see (video below) in the background a bird being killed while the Alaska Governor speaks.

Bush Declares War on Endangered Species

His final act of destruction, the President wants to throw out the rules that protect endangered species. Bush, like Hitler, is pursuing a scorched earth policy in his final days of power. He destroyed the economy, our armed forces, and now the environment.

Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.

The rules must be published Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, he can undo them with the stroke of a pen.

The Interior Department rushed to complete the rules in three months over the objections of lawmakers and environmentalists who argued that they would weaken how a landmark conservation law is applied.

A Nov. 12 version of the final rules obtained by the Associated Press has changed little from the original proposal, despite the more than 250,000 comments received since it was first proposed in August.

The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

Jobless Claims Jump Unexpectedly to 16-year High

This is more catastrophic news. Claims for unemployment benefits is a leading a indicator for the economy. With it falling to the highest levels in 16 years (1992), we are seeing a crisis getting even worse. The greatest indication of a collapsing economy is a climbing unemployment rate. The government must do everything possible to stop the bleeding in employment. People must keep their jobs or descend deeper. Where is Obama in all this? This nonsense about there being only "one president at a time" must thrown out the window. Get out there and start leading. If you wait until January it could be too late.

New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That's much higher than Wall Street economists' expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

That is also the highest level of claims since July 1992, the department said, when the U.S. economy was coming out of a recession.

The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was even worse: it rose to 506,500, the highest in more than 25 years.

In addition, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance rose sharply for the third straight week to more than 4 million, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was in a painful recession.

Suit forces eHarmony to offer Gay Dating Service

Let's see, it is not legal to get married if you are of the same sex but it is required that homosexuals be treated equally in a all segments of society. This is getting frightening. What next--will they require that we keep company with gays and lesbians a be accused of discrimination? Or how about a polygamist suing eHarmony for not having a service for them as well? We are obviously headed for a cultural war in America.

Online dating service eHarmony has agreed to create a new website for gays and lesbians as part of a settlement with a gay man in New Jersey, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said on Wednesday.

The website will provide a dating service with "male seeking a male" or "female seeking a female" options, the Attorney General's office said in a statement.

eHarmony said it will launch the new same-sex dating site, named "Compatible Partners," by March 31.

The settlement was the result of a discrimination complaint filed by Eric McKinley against eHarmony in 2005, which will be dismissed under the settlement agreement.

eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family.

VP Cheney, Gonzales Indicted in Texas

It is a shocker: Vice President Dick Cheney and former U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, are being indicted. Finally Whether they get convicted and go to jail is another question. The irony is that it is happening in Texas. The criminal-in-chief, George W., will pardon the 2 long before there was any chance the charges would stick. It would happen on January 19th.

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.