Another Republican Politician Involved in a Sex Scandal

Another one bites the hypocritical dust:

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, a conservative Republican with evident presidential ambitions, abruptly announced Tuesday he carried on an extramarital affair for much of last year with a woman on his campaign staff, a confession that jarred his scandal-weary state as well as his party.

"It is the worst think I have ever done in my life," Ensign said in a brief appearance before reporters. He provided few details other than to say he does not intend to resign from Congress, and he did not disclose what prompted his decision to declare his infidelity. "If there was ever anything in my life that I could take back, this would be it," he added.

Ensign, 51, belongs to the men's group Promise Keepers, a Christian ministry. A member of the Senate Republican leadership, he was chairman of the party's campaign committee leading up to the 2008 elections in which Republicans lost eight seats to Democrats.

His announcement drew no public reaction from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the party's leader in the Senate, or other members of the leadership.

[...]At home, Ensign's admission comes on top of a string of disclosures and allegations about Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons. Since his election in 2006, Gibbons has been accused of sexual assault, sending love notes on a state phone and improperly firing a state employee. In recent court documents related to divorce proceedings, his wife, Dawn, accused him of a history of infidelity.

Within the Senate, Ensign's admission of an affair placed him in a lengthening line of Republicans to grapple with such issues. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, retired at the end of his term last year, several months after pleading guilty in connection with charges resulting from an airport bathroom sex sting operation.

Last summer, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized for a "very serious sin in my past" after it was disclosed that his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by a Washington-area escort service that prosecutors have said was a front for prostitution.

The list is long and shocking:

• Randal David Ankeney is the Republican activist who was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He was charged with six counts related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her. Ankeny has also been accused of sexually assaulting another girl. Source: Denver ABC Article
• Bob Barr is the Republican Congressman from Georgia who sponsored the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, saying "The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." He was married three times, and paid for his second wife's abortion (she also suspected he was cheating on her). he failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife and was photographed licking whipped cream off of strippers at his inaugural party.
• Parker J. Bena was a Republican activist and a key player in the campaign to elect George W. Bush as President. Bena was charged and later pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and lying to the FBI. Bena reportedly told the feds that he had received an unsolicited e-mail containing pictures of children (some as young as three years old) performing various sexual acts, but agents learned that he had in fact voluntarily entered a number of child pornography websites and downloaded the images himself. This is said to have involved acts with children as young as 3 years old, on his home computer. Parker J. Bena was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Source: DemocracyUnderground.com
• Louis Beres is a past chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. Three of his family members accuse him of molesting them as children, when they were pre-teens. In an Editor and Publisher article, in August 2006, Beres confessed to the accusations facing him. The Portland Mercury

Obama wants Financial Watchdog to Protect Consumers

What we really need is a revolutionary consumer bill of rights. Buyer beware is still the law of the land. We need comprehensive laws that protect consumers. But the lobbies won't allow it. But the President gets credit for trying:

When President Obama takes the podium on Wednesday to talk about his proposals for avoiding the next financial crisis, he is expected to unveil one idea that speaks directly to consumers and their pocketbooks.

Obama will call for the creation of a new financial watchdog agency. Its mission will be to protect consumers from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.

Proponents have dubbed it a "financial products safety commission" akin to the federal agency that oversees safety of toys and other products. Obama himself broached the subject on Jay Leno's "The Tonight Show" in March.

"When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face, there's a law that says, 'Your toasters need to be safe,' " Obama said. "When you get a credit card or you get a mortgage, there's no law on the books that says, 'If that explodes in your face, financially, somehow you're going to be protected.' "

The consumer protection idea is one of a series of legislative proposals Obama will lay out on Wednesday -- from beefing up the power of the Federal Reserve to giving regulators authority to wind down big banks.

The consumer protection plan is the only one that already has broad support among key Democrats and could gain a consensus in Congress.

And it's also the only one that so far the banking industry uniformly doesn't like.

"It's bad for the consumers," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group for banks.

Financial industry advocates object to the idea of carving out the enforcement of consumer protection from the mandates of existing regulatory agencies that oversee companies. They argue that consumer protection is intertwined with ensuring that a financial firm is on stable footing.

Obama AMA Speech: Transcript, Video (6-15-09)

Watch the complete video or read the transcript of President Obama's speech before the American Medical Association. Excerpt below:

From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we've confronted as a nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II. In recent months, we've taken a series of extraordinary steps, not just to repair the immediate damage to our economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting and sustained growth. We're here to create new jobs, to unfreeze our credit markets. We're stemming the loss of homes and the decline of home values.

All this is important. But even as we've made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and it remains difficult. And we also know that one essential step on our journey is to control the spiraling cost of health care in America. And in order to do that, we're going to need the help of the AMA. (Applause.)

Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care -- almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, as I think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do.

Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It's an escalating burden on our families and businesses. It's a ticking time bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America.

It's unsustainable for Americans like Laura Klitzka, a young mother that I met in Wisconsin just last week, who's learned that the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten had spread to her bones, but who's now being forced to spend time worrying about how to cover the $50,000 in medical debts she's already accumulated, worried about future debts that she's going to accumulate, when all she wants to do is spend time with her two children and focus on getting well. These are not the worries that a woman like Laura should have to face in a nation as wealthy as ours. (Applause.)

Stories like Laura's are being told by women and men all across this country -- by families who've seen out-of-pocket costs soar, and premiums double over the last decade at a rate three times faster than wages. This is forcing Americans of all ages to go without the checkups or the prescriptions they need -- that you know they need. It's creating a situation where a single illness can wipe out a lifetime of savings.

Our costly health care system is unsustainable for doctors like Michael Kahn in New Hampshire, who, as he puts it, spends 20 percent of each day supervising a staff explaining insurance problems to patients, completing authorization forms, writing appeal letters -- a routine that he calls disruptive and distracting, giving him less time to do what he became a doctor to do and actually care for his patients. (Applause.)

Iran Election: A Gift to the Israeli Lobby, Neocons

The apparent stolen election in Iran is a victory for those who want to bomb that country. Israel plans on bombing Iran sometime in the near future. A victory for Moussavi would've made it more difficult to argue for an attack on Iran. Now we face more disaster in that region.

Iran's supreme leader may have ordered an investigation into allegations of election fraud, but a near-clampdown on information and conflicting reports from Tehran make it unclear what Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's stance really is.

If confirmed, the order would mark a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offer hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer says, however, that the reports of an investigation being ordered can not be confirmed, and may be premature.

What CBS News can confirm is that the Guardian Council has received pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's official complaint of fraud, and has said it will report back within 10 days.

The President's hands are tied now:

The re-election of Iran's hard-line president and a tough speech by Israel's hawkish prime minister signaled an increasingly difficult road ahead for President Obama's hopes for ending Tehran's nuclear threat and brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

A setback on either foreign policy front would have been unwelcome in the Obama White House, but difficulties on both issues - which are deeply entangled - were likely to slow progress on the president's ambition of changing the landscape across the Middle East.

Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Mr. Obama's effort to engage Tehran after a nearly three-decade estrangement would continue, nevertheless. Mr. Obama, shifting course from his predecessor, has said he wants to talk to the theocratic regime in Tehran, with the central goal of stopping it from producing a nuclear weapon. He has set a year-end deadline for a positive response to his overture.

AMA Resists Obama's Plan to Reform Health Care Industry

It is the American Medical Association that is responsible for the sad state of the health care industry. And if the President wants to reform it he's got a war on his hands. The Clinton administration learned, to the chagrin of the Democrats, that taking on the AMA is risky politically. And those Congresspeople bought off by the AMA will resist any reform of the health care industry:

President Barack Obama, continuing to barnstorm for his health care proposals, will urge doctors gathered in Chicago to support wider insurance coverage and targeted federal spending cuts.

Obama planned to tell the American Medical Association's annual meeting in his hometown on Monday that overhaul cannot wait and that bringing down costs is the most important thing he can do to ensure the country's long-term fiscal health, a senior administration official said.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's remarks before they were delivered.

The nation's doctors, like many other groups, are divided over the president's proposals to reshape the health care delivery system. The White House anticipates heavy spending to cover the almost 50 million Americans who lack health insurance and has taken steps in recent days to outline just where that money could be found.

For instance, Obama wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by about $200 billion and cut $313 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. He also is proposing a $635 billion "down payment" in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system.

To an audience of doctors Obama plans to say the United States spends too much on health care and gets too little in return. He says the health industry is crushing businesses and families and is leading to millions of Americans losing coverage, the administration official said.

Obama's turn before the 250,000-physician group in his latest effort to persuade skeptics that his goal to provide health care to all Americans is worth the $1 trillion price tag it is expected to run during its first decade.

The president plans to acknowledge the costs. But he also will tell the doctors it is not acceptable for the nation to leave so many without insurance, the official said.

Unified Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats on Capitol Hill have said they are nervous about how the administration plans to pay for Obama's ideas.

The New York Times reported Monday that Obama has been quietly making a case for reducing malpractice lawsuits to help control costs, long a goal of the AMA and Republicans. Obama has not endorsed capping jury awards

Obama has got a battle ahead of him:

Obama is up against powerful interests -- with diverse standpoints, and strong messaging and money behind them. (Quick -- list three things the opponents of health-care reform will say about the Obama plan? Now tell us what the Obama plan is.)

He could use the AMA doctors to get it all done. With a 12:15 pm ET address, the president brings a sense of urgency with him to Chicago.

“The president will use this address to the American Medical Association to outline why health care reform that brings down costs can't wait another year or another administration,” a senior administration official tells ABC’s Jake Tapper.

“The president will address the heart of problem of rising costs: that we're spending too much money on treatments that don't make Americans any healthier, and that our system equates more expensive core with better care. He'll lay out his vision for a system that replicates best practices, incentivizes excellence, and closes cost disparities -- and he'll ask for our medical professionals' help in getting the job done.”

He’ll reiterate that his plans “include a health insurance exchange where private plans compete with a public option that drives down costs and expands choice. The president will be clear about what a public option does and doesn't mean for patients, physicians, and our broader health care system.”

A recent series of hate crimes can be attributed to several factors. The large number of guns out there in America makes it easy to commit hate crimes. Additionally, we live an increasingly morally and intellectually deteriorating society where reason is being crowded out by hate. That is the legacy of the Bush years. Lowering standards of living with no hope in site leave many alienated and frustrated. Those are the ones willing to through their lives away by seeking vengeance against some scapegoat. Further inflaming them is the hateful rhetoric of one party that is willing to incite this element. And most of that hate is directed at Barack Obama.

This concerns me greatly. And it should you. It is a culture of hate reminiscent of the Kennedy years. And it could end up the same way. And if it does, the Republicans will be largely to blame.
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Update: This article by the well known NY Times columnist, Frank Rich, echoes my words. I did not read it until after I had written the above.

H.I.V. Found in 22 Actors in Sex Films Since 2004

This is another reason why the porn industry should be shutdown. Porn "actors" should be treated like regular prostitutes under the law. And porn producers should be treated like pimps:

Health officials in Los Angeles said Friday that 22 actors in adult sex movies had contracted H.I.V. since 2004, when a previous outbreak led to efforts to protect pornography industry employees.

The officials accused an industry-supported health clinic of failing to cooperate with state investigations and of failing to protect not only industry workers but their sexual partners as well.

“We have an industry that is exposing workers to life-threatening diseases as part of their employment,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County. “That is outrageous and anachronistic. These infections are virtually entirely preventable.”

They are breaking the law. Shut them down:

Occupational health officials have long argued that failing to require that performers wear condoms during intercourse and other acts is a violation of safe-workplace regulations.

But Deborah Gold, a senior safety engineer with the California occupational health department, said violations in the pornography industry were so widespread that the state had a difficult time cracking down.

“Many of these companies have two sound stages where they do two to four scenes a day with actors hired from talent agencies,” Ms. Gold said. “In that case, it’s clearly a violation” to have performers have sexual intercourse without condoms.

Six Flags Files for Bankruptcy

A sign of the times:

Six Flags, the big theme park operator, filed for bankruptcy in early Saturday morning in Delaware after failing to reach an agreement with lenders over a plan to reorganize its debt outside of court.

Six Flags became only the latest company to prove unable to cope with its debt load at a time when previous solutions like refinancings are largely unavailable. The theme park operator, which had $2.4 billion in debt, faced nearly $300 million in payments to preferred stockholders due in August.

But the company is hoping to make its ride through bankruptcy a short one. In a statement, Six Flags said that it is seeking court approval for a pre-negotiated restructuring plan, one that has the unanimous approval of its lenders. That proposal would eliminate $1.8 billion in debt and slice off the $300 million in preferred stock payments.

“The current management team inherited a $2.4 billion debt load that cannot be sustained, particularly in these challenging financial markets,” Mark Shapiro, Six Flags’s chief executive, said in a statement. “As a result, we are cleaning up the past and positioning the Company for future growth.”

In its bankruptcy filing, Six Flags said that 37 of its subsidiaries, including parks like Great Adventure and Hurricane Harbor, had also sought court protection. The parks will continue to operate normally, but analysts have questioned whether attendance would fall off as some consumers shun waiting in line for roller coasters at a bankrupt theme park operator.

Afghan Violence hits Highest Level since 2001

There will be no military victory in Afghanistan. And it is likely that the Taliban will prevail. The unstable situation in Pakistan guarantees defeat for us there. Unfortunately, the President will continue to pursue a military solution with the loss of more American lives. The solution is what was done in Serbia and in our own country. Vice President Biden offered it for Iraq. But it won't happen. We do not have the necessary leadership or vision to solve the problem:

The violence that has surged for two years in Afghanistan reached a new high last week, and more difficulty lies ahead, the United States' top war zone commander said Thursday.

Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit the highest level since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban.

"Some of this will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must," Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a speech at the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security.

"But there is no question the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years in particular and there are difficult times ahead," he said.

WHO Declares 1st Flu Pandemic in over 40 Years

Why isn't this getting more media coverage. Why aren't politicians calling for action to be taken. Do you trust them to protect us? We should be demanding the government start taking more measures to insure greater preparedness. The 9-11 and the economic meltdown happened because we are not vigilant. Wake up before it's too late.

The World Health Organisation declared an influenza pandemic on Thursday and called on governments to prepare for a long-term battle against an unstoppable flu virus.

The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

"With today's announcement, WHO moves from an emergency to a longer-term response. Based on past experience, this pandemic will be with us for some months, if not years, to come," WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said in a letter to staff, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

People aged 30-50, pregnant women or people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes or obesity are deemed at highest risk, she told a news conference.

Countries from Australia to Chile and the United States are also reporting that the new virus, commonly known as swine flu, is "crowding out" seasonal flu, becoming the predominant influenza strain, she said.

In fact the government is doing the opposite when they should be protecting us.

Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making.

Via The Nation:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."


Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.

But we should not panic. Just prepare:

It's official: We're in a swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization declared today.

"The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, said at a news conference.

That sounds scary. But neither the H1N1 swine flu virus nor the disease it causes are any worse today than they were weeks ago.

The only thing that's changed is that the WHO now officially acknowledges that H1N1 swine flu is circulating in communities in widespread parts of the globe, and that all nations can eventually expect to see cases.

"This does not mean there is any difference in the severity of the flu. This is not, at this point, a flu pandemic that is anywhere as severe as the 1918 pandemic," said Thomas R. Frieden, MD, in his first news conference since taking over as director of the CDC.

The announcement also triggers the pandemic preparedness plans of nations not yet affected by swine flu. It will have little or no effect on the U.S., which since mid-April has been aggressively putting national pandemic plans into action.

"For all intents and purposes, the U.S. has been in a flu pandemic for some time," Frieden said. "But this means the virus is here and is here to stay, and we must prepare our response."

You would think Iran, given all the propaganda, was an Islamo-dictatorship. It turns out that country has a thriving democratic electoral process. We are constantly bombarded with the quotes of the current President Ahmadinehad. We are led to believe that he is the next Hitler. It turns out he is no different a politician than the typical Republican nowadays. The language could be equated with the utterances of Dick Cheney. And it comes down to the same thing, pandering to neo-fascist elements in both countries. The Islamo extremists want to destroy Israel and their benefactors the U.S. In this country the Bush-Cheney administration was controlled by the neocons, a powerful pro-Israel clique. The Iranian people are just as victimized at the hands of politicians as are Americans.
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Russia urges U.S. to Drop Missile Shield to help ties

If President Obama is really smart (he is quite smart) he will give the Russians what they want on this issue. Pursuing the shield matter has a disaster for relations between our two countries. We need Russia as a bulwark against the rapidly growing threat from China.

Russia said on Thursday that full dialogue with the United States on missile threats could only begin if Washington dropped its plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.

"Only a rejection by the United States of plans to create a ... missile defense system in Europe could lay the groundwork for our fully fledged dialogue on questions of cooperation in reacting to potential missile risks," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters.

He said that Moscow viewed the U.S. missile plans as a way to counter Russia's strategic forces, but he added that Moscow hoped to find a way to reach a compromise with Washington.

2 Japanese Carrying $134 bil. Worth of U.S. Bonds Detained in Italy

Very suspicious:

Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday.

The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan.

I'm for tasing individuals who resist arrest. It gives cops more options. But using it against a 70+ year-old great grandmother? That's just plain stupid. And the fact that the brass defended that trooper is doubly insane. The woman was resisting but the officer could have easily subdued her and placed cuffs on the tiny woman. This case makes it more difficult for legitimate uses of the tactic to be employed by other police departments. The result will be a backlash. Congress might have to step in and provide guidance. You canno use excessive force against the citizenry and expect there not be consequences. This will ultimately undermine our ability to fight real crime. It also undermines the publics' trust in law enforcement.
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Video: David Letterman's Top Ten List on Palin's NY Visit

This was predictably hysterical. See the video. Listed below:

Top Ten Highlights Of Sarah Palin's Trip To New York:

10. Visited New York landmarks she normally only sees from Alaska

9. Laughed at all the crazy-looking foreigners entering the U.N.

8. Made moose jerky on Rachael Ray

7. Keyed Tina Fey's car

6. After a wink and a nod, ended up with a kilo of crack

5. Made coat out of New York City rat pelts

4. Sat in for Kelly Ripa. Regis couldn't tell the difference.

3. Finally met one of those Jewish people Mel Gibson's always talking about

2. Bought makeup from Bloomingdale's to update her "slutty flight attendant" look

1. Especially enjoyed not appearing on Letterman

Sarah, you might imagine, was not happy:

California-based radio show host John Ziegler asked Palin what she thought about the joke during his show on KGIL-1260 yesterday. Palin said Letterman was “sad” not to realize she was in New York “doing some good things here for good people,” including an autism walk.

“That’s pretty pathetic, good ol’ David Letterman,” Palin said.

Poll: 52% Say No One Speaks for the Republicans

It keeps getting worse for the Republicans. This USA Today/Gallup poll shows how bad it really is:

Republicans, out of power and divided over how to get it back, are finding even the most basic questions hard to answer.

Here's one: Who speaks for the GOP?

The question flummoxes most Americans, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, which is among the reasons for the party's sagging state and uncertain direction.

A 52% majority of those surveyed couldn't come up with a name when asked to specify "the main person" who speaks for Republicans today. Of those who could, the top response was radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh (13%), followed in order by former vice president Dick Cheney, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Former president George W. Bush ranked fifth, at 3%.

So the dominant faces of the Republican Party are all men, all white, all conservative and all old enough to join AARP, ranging in age from 58 (Limbaugh) to 72 (McCain). They include some of the country's most strident voices on issues from Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court to President Obama's policies at home and abroad. Two are retired from politics, and one has never been a candidate.

This comes in the wake other polls showing a party in decline:

A new Gallup analysis shows that the precipitous decline in the number of people who identify themselves as Republicans is widespread across nearly every demographic group -- a development that suggests that there is no simple solution to solving the party's current problems.

As we have written about before, the number of self-identifying Republicans stood at 21 percent last month -- the lowest it has been since the fall of 1983.

This tendency for people to disassociate themselves with the Republican Party is echoed in Gallup's data. Combining several months of surveys -- with a large sample of more than 7,000 adults -- shows that over the last eight years self-identifying Republicans have gone from 44 percent to 39 percent while self-identifying Democrats have risen from 45 percent to 53 percent. (These numbers push independents who lean in one direction or the other into the party toward which they lean.)

It's a white male party. This Gallup poll is from 6/1:

More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, or are blacks or members of other races. By contrast, only 12% of Democrats are white conservatives, while about half are white moderates or liberals and a third are nonwhite.

Baptist Preacher Calls for Obama's Death on FOXnews

This is another example of FOX promoting anti-Obama hate. Found this shocking story at Firedog Lake:

Crazy Christian Wiley Drake--pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., former running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes, a former second vice-president of the SBC--boasted after the assassination of Dr George Tiller that he had prayed for Tiller's death. On a recent webcast of his daily radio talk show, Drake the murder of Tiller "an answer to prayer."

Then he appeared on Alan Colm's Fox radio show and explained that Tiller's real sin wasn't abortion but not being right with Jesus, though Dr. Tiller's church thought he was right enough with Jesus to been usher. He also laid out his prayer style to Fox's Alan Combs:

Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don't like that, they need to talk to God. God said it, I didn't. I was just agreeing with God.

When Colms asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying "imprecatory prayer," Drake hesitated before answering that there are several.

The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama.

Colms then asked:

Are you praying for his death?

Drake replied:

Yes

Colms pressed on:

So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?

The pastor replied:

Yes.

British Police used Water Torture on Drug Smugglers

This is the result of Bush/Cheney's torture policies. The police are now the law breakers. We are headed back to the middle ages. And they call this freedom.

Six Metropolitan police officers have been suspended from duty following ­allegations they used a form of water-based torture on suspected drugs ­smugglers, it emerged last night.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was investigating the conduct of officers based in Enfield, north London, during drugs raids in the borough last November.

Neither the IPCC nor Scotland Yard would comment on the nature of the ­allegations but sources said the officers were accused of pushing suspects' heads into buckets of water.

One IPCC document is said to use the word "waterboarding" – the CIA technique condemned as torture by Barack Obama – in connection with the allegations.

The torture claims are part of an ­investigation which also includes accusations that evidence was fabricated and suspects' property was stolen. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial, it was reported last night.

Review: Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS Neck-And-Neck

A new challenge to iphone and blackberry:

The smart phone wars have heated up over the past few days with the release of Palm's new Pre and Apple's announcements of a new iPhone, a cheaper price for its existing phone and a new operating system for users of all iPhones.

The Palm Pre, which hit stores on Saturday for $199 after rebate (and a two year contract with Sprint) is a very worthy competitor for Apple. Unlike the iPhone it has a physical keyboard which, while a bit small, is quite good. But it also has a touch screen that you can use to launch programs, zoom, shrink or move windows and dial the phone, although there's no onscreen virtual keyboard for entering text.

One of the things I like best about the Pre is that you can synchronize it over the air. Rather than connect it to a PC or Mac to move over contacts and calendar items, you simply sign in to your existing accounts and it brings over all the data via the Sprint network. It works with Google's calendar and Gmail, Yahoo and other web-based services as well as for businesses with Microsoft Exchange servers. Apple does this through its $99 a year MobileMe service but Palm does it for free with a variety of services.

Gingrich Speaks at GOP Event not Palin

Report: U.S. to Allow 10 Banks to Repay TARP

Veteran LA police detective charged with murder

New World Trade Deal by 2010: WTO Chief

44% - Free Traders, Again (Pew)

Congress Pushes to Impeach Convicted Federal Judge

Russia expands ban on US imports of meats

Egypt: 5 more students test Positive to Swine flu

Who is challenging Ahmadinejad's power?

Gingrich speaks at GOP event after Palin flap

China reports 11 new H1N1 cases, total reaches 100+

US military releases Iraqi Shiite militia leader

Gunmen throw grenades in Acapulco, 3 police killed

Spanish Internet Music Piracy Developer on Trial

Where The Jobs Are: Summer 2009

British Hacker Fights U.S. Extradition

Pirate Party wins in Sweden

Study: Conservatives more likely to read opposing viewpoints than liberals

Scarborough falsely claimed KSM and Zubaydah "were not asked" about an Iraq/Al Qaeda link

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