Most accounts of the ministerial meeting last weekend of the Group of 20 -- 19 nations plus the European Union, together representing the world's wealthiest economies -- implied that it continued to perform sterling service: heading off currency wars, keeping explicit protectionism under control and deftly managing the process of reforming governance at the International Monetary Fund.
Post-financial crisis, middle-income countries continue to rise in economic importance, and the recent shift in global leadership from the Group of 7 (the United States, Canada, Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan) to the G-20 is commonly supposed to accommodate the growing claims of "emerging markets" on the world stage.
Why do we praise healthy food, but never get around to calling our Congressman to let him know our wishes for the Food Safety bill? Read More... More on Health Care
TOKYO — Nissan is recalling 2.14 million vehicles worldwide including the popular March and Mycra subcompacts for an ignition problem that may stall the engine – its third-largest recall ever.
No accidents have been reported that are suspected of being caused by the defect, according to Yokohama-based Nissan Motor Co. The recall affects cars in the the United States, Europe and Japan.
A new poll conducted by Hays Research confirms what we already intuitively know. Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's candidacy is in big trouble.
The percentage of those who feel either "somewhat negative" or "very negative" about Miller has skyrocketed in recent weeks to an unbelievable 68%. Only 8% feel "somewhat negative" and the remainder, a jaw-dropping 60%, feel "very negative" about Miller as a candidate.
WASHINGTON — Some of the country's largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, including businesses that publicly support efforts to curb global warming, don't want the public knowing exactly how much they pollute.
Oil producers and refiners, along with manufacturers of steel, aluminum and even home appliances, are fighting a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that would make the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that companies release – and the underlying data businesses use to calculate the amounts – available online.
DOVER, Del. — Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's campaign threatened a radio station with a lawsuit if it posted video of an interview with the tea party favorite on the Internet.
During the interview Tuesday on WDEL-AM, O'Donnell snapped her fingers and beckoned a spokesman to her side after the host of "The Rick Jensen Show" pressed her on how she would have handled the New Castle County budget differently from her Democratic opponent Chris Coons, who is the executive of the state's largest county.
Perhaps using a reverse echo of MSNBC's new slogan ("Lean Forward"), Keith Olbermann launched into the tea party on Wednesday night during a special comment that included a bumper-sticker-ready catch phrase: "Vote Backward, Vote Tea Party."
The "Countdown" host railed against the movement, using an analogy to call their candidates, "a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the Trusts and the Robber Barons."
How strongly does Olbermann feel? He spent nearly 20 minutes on his harsh indictment of the tea party.
Based on opening remarks presented in the debate "Science and Religion: Confrontation or Accommodation" on October 7, 2010, at The 30th Anniversary Conference of Free Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism," Los Angeles.
Belief in ancient myths joins with other negative forces in our society to keep most of the world from advancing scientifically, economically, and socially at a time when a rapid advancement in these areas is absolutely essential for the survival of humanity. We are now probably only about a generation or two away from the catastrophic problems that are anticipated from global warming, pollution, and overpopulation. We can expect flooded coastal areas, severe climatic changes, epidemics caused by overcrowding, and starvation for much of humanity. Such disasters are predicted to generate worldwide conflict on a scale that could exceed that of the great twentieth-century wars, possibly with nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable nations and terrorist groups.
This is a time, if there ever was one, when science is needed to lead the way. It won't do so by sitting back and letting irrationality rule the day. And make no mistake about it; the irrationality we see on today's political scene, as exemplified by the Tea Party, is fueled by the irrationality of religion.
Roy Blunt, Missouri's GOP Senate candidate, didn't take kindly to being asked by a reporter recently about allegations that he had employed an illegal immigrant more than 20 years ago.
In the face of Democratic accusations that Blunt had hired an undocumented Nicaraguan woman in 1990 to do work for his wife at the time, a Missouri reporter asked the Senate hopeful at a Kansas City event to answer some questions regarding the matter.
Here's the dialogue between reporter Michael Mahoney and Blunt, from Fired Up Missouri:
Sharron Angle delivered a religiously charged speech at a church in Gardnerville, Nevada earlier this month and appeared to lump social programs such as Social Security and welfare along with what she called the "wicked ways" of abortion, divorce and gay marriage that had overtaken the nation.
During her speech, Angle cited a passage from the Bible and seemed to be confessing the sins of the nation in hopes that God would "heal" the land:
"I confess that we are a nation who has killed our children. I confess that we are a nation who has walked away from the family and allowed divorce even among our ranks. We have walked away from the biblical definition of marriage; one man, one woman, the two become one flesh," Angle said. "We as a nation have been walking away from our constitutional freedom and relying on government instead to take care of the widow and the orphan...we're saying 'well, the government we have all these programs now, aid for families with dependent children and medicare and social security."
NEW ORLEANS — Republican Sen. David Vitter again acknowledged unspecified "serious sins" during a candidates forum Wednesday night but offered no new information on the prostitution scandal that broke in 2007 when he was linked to a Washington call girl ring run by the "D.C. Madam."
Vitter made his remarks in answer to the first question in a televised forum of the six candidates vying for his Senate seat. Candidates were asked about the importance of family values, and Vitter said the scandal led him to redouble his commitment to live up to those values.
In theory, Google TV makes an enormous amount of sense.
The technology, which Google is making available to third-party hardware vendors, integrates traditional cable, satellite and broadcast TV with Web content.
It also lets you access the Web from your TV and takes advantage of Google's search capacity to locate movies, TV shows and video content.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the DSCC, piled on the recent criticism of Sharron Angle's Latino-based attacks ads, calling her latest spot "despicable" and agreeing that it is indeed "racist."
Speaking with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Tuesday, Menendez pounded the ad and claimed that it was part of what he saw as an effort to discourage Latino voters on election day.
"It tries to portray all Latinos in this country in a negative light in a state that has such a large, vibrant and productive population," Menendez said. "And it goes hand-in-hand with what Sharron Angle is doing to try to suppress that vote in Nevada."
Until now the dominant narrative this mid-term election year was that slow growth and high unemployment was sinking the party in power. But other numbers are now showing a new fault-line for 2010, 2012 and beyond. Outside special interest spending will equal or exceed spending by candidates themselves or party organizations in many competitive districts. While contributions to all candidates and party affiliates will slightly favor Democrats -- and be fully disclosed in FEC reports -- this new flood of money is weighted 8-1 for the GOP and largely hidden behind blandly named web sites. In 2006, a fifth of all non-candidate spending came from such groups (party affiliates the rest). This year, it's three-fifths.
Britain's most popular baby names have been released, and Jack, the reigning champ for 14 years, has been replaced this year by Mohammed, reports the AFP.
The name, a reference to the Muslim prophet, was denied the top spot due to a plethora of spellings listed separately, including "Muhammad and Mohammad," said the Daily Mail. However, the disparate spellings taken together formed the largest group, with 7,549 newborns given the name last year. The oficial top spot went to Oliver, with 7,364 newborns. The most popular girl's name was Olivia. The lists were compiled by Britain's Office of National Statistics.
The most frequent spelling alone, Mohammed, was the number four most popular name in London, while it was number one in "West Midlands region of central England which includes the city of Birmingham," according to the Sidney Morning Herald. It was number 16 in the general list, with the second most frequent spelling coming in at 36.
Vanity Fair sure knows how to mark an occasion. The magazine recently hosted an event at New York's Museum of Modern Art to celebrate the film "127 Hours" starring James Franco and helmed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Based on the autobiographical book by Aron Ralston, the film recounts how the canyoneer was forced to cut off his arm after it got pinioned by a boulder. C'mon, no spoiler that - everyone knows by now. In fact, viewers go in knowing that's going to be the money shot: you prepare for it, work up your courage for it - "man up," as Sarah Palin would say, to see how much you'll actually watch.
It's not really the costumes. It's not even the candy. The real reason we love Halloween--it's another excuse to get drunk. Endless Simmer scoured the web to find our top 10 favorite scary, beautiful and tasty libations.
Read the full list of our top 10 Halloween Cocktails, or watch the slideshow below and vote for your favorite.
As an academic, I've spent a lot of time and effort attending conferences to learn things I never knew before, and to meet like-minded people. And over the years have nurtured great friendships with people attending these conferences, and it is those relationships that are the greatest value in attending any event. Many of these friends, I only get to see once a year at the annual conference since we live so far apart and keep ourselves so busy throughout the year.
Just as there is a "slow food" movement that promotes local food, perhaps it is possible to organize an event that brings together local innovators inspired to "create change." Since the participants are local, there is an opportunity to meet more frequently and work toward developing new projects and ventures, especially around the area of sustainability and social enterprise. More than just sharing ideas, a community would be built that could take action. There are many new "experiments," communities to support the development of new models such as the Unreasonable Institute, Palomar5, and Y Combinator.
ST. LOUIS — The latest quest by 10 Missouri beer consumers who tried to block InBev's $52 billion takeover of U.S. beer giant Anheuser-Busch fell flat Wednesday when an appeals court refused to resurrect their antitrust lawsuit.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge's decision to throw out the lawsuit last year. The suit claimed the 2008 merger of Belgium-based Inbev and St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch – which created the world's largest brewer – would diminish competition and raise beer prices.
Vanity Fair sure knows how to mark an occasion. The magazine recently hosted an event at New York's Museum of Modern Art to celebrate the film "127 Hours" starring James Franco and helmed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Based on the autobiographical book by Aron Ralston, the film recounts how the canyoneer was forced to cut off his arm after it got pinioned by a boulder. C'mon, no spoiler that - everyone knows by now. In fact, viewers go in knowing that's going to be the money shot: you prepare for it, work up your courage for it - "man up," as Sarah Palin would say, to see how much you'll actually watch. But don't imagine Vanity Fair's screening, preceded by a reception, was held at the regular Moma theater for the schleppers with NPR totes. It was at a separate space featuring a jewel-box of a raked theater, perfect for a gathering of bold face names, cinephiles, and tastemakers. Just about every woman on hand was thin, beautiful, ageless - the successful man's essential accessory. They didn't even seem like trophies, these consorts. What's really changed? They could have been Betty Draper. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and his hair presided over a crowd that included a slimmed-down Matt Lauer, media legend Andrew Lack, Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, an intriguing beauty in crutches, and my orthopedist's brother. He was on his way to the Met to hear "Tales of Hoffman" (and if he wants an opera companion, I'm here). "James Franco is an amazing guy," I said to a man, who appeared as eager to chat with me as a Republican with Rachel Maddow. No need to spell out here that Franco's multiple careers make for a kind of performance art. He's studied fiction and filmmaking at various universities; just published his first collection of stories; is a doctoral candidate in literature at Yale - and acts in vehicles ranging from General Hospital, to the art film "Howl," to likely crossover hit "127 Hours."
I'm getting ready to go on a trip, and I'm so excited about the chance to write on a plane. Here are my 7 top reasons why planes are great places to work:
No internet connection so you can't stop to do a bit of research or look up another book or answer an email. All you can do is write.
No cell phone connection so you won't get a text about a kid who was left at carpool or a call from the insurance company about a great new program for prescription drugs.
Notre Dame junior Declan Sullivan, 20, sent messages to Twitter from the top of the camera tower where he was recording a football practice less than an hour before he fell to his death Wednesday.
In the first message, timestamped 3:22 p.m., Sullivan wrote, "Gust of wind up to 60mph well today will be fun at work... I guess I've lived long enough :-/."
The second message, which was sent at 4:06 p.m., less than an hour before his tragic fall at 4:50 p.m., reads, "Holy fuck holy fuck this is terrifying."
WASHINGTON — Get ready for the big tease. Republicans positioning for a possible presidential run are, to varying degrees, courting donors, testing messages and plotting strategies. They're visiting early primary states, wooing key activists and, all the while, stirring interest as they gauge whether to launch full-fledged campaigns.
"We can see 2012 from our house," Sarah Palin quipped recently, setting off another round of will-she-or-won't-she speculation.
The rise of independent groups in this election cycle has been unprecedented. No controls exist on outside dollars spent, and accountability and transparency are totally absent. Within this state there are benign-sounding 527 organizations and independent expenditure committees funding attack ads on statewide candidates. Under state law, 527s and independent expenditure committees are prohibited from coordinating with political parties, and are also required to file disclosure reports if any contributions are received or spending is made to fund political activities supporting or opposing candidates for state office. But one of these separate groups running "independent" attacks against State Treasurer Cary Kennedy appears to be ignoring these state law requirements. There is an awfully close connection between the "independent" group Sound Economy Colorado and the Denver County Republican Party:
This is seen by many as a highly contentious mid-term US election, and not just for the people of the United States.
People in other countries like Australia watch apprehensively as the US political system is on the verge of unraveling and landing in the hands of people who have shown little in-depth understanding of the inordinate power and scientific sophistication of the present day world.
By doing only bottom-up analysis, investors implicitly assume that external factors (the winds and hurricanes of the global economy) have no impact on these cash flows. That is a brave and careless assumption. Read More... More on Japan
Can we, in this day and age, set out to write a story about the science and spirituality of suffering and not include a serious perspective on the lived culture of a huge number of the world's inhabitants? Are we still writing as if our narrative is the narrative of Judeo-Christian tradition? Read More... More on Islam
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the family is the basic unit not just of society, but of heaven and eternity. But Elder Boyd K. Packer's ideas about family, society and threats to both are short-sighted and narrow. Read More... More on Family
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Tuesday (Oct. 26) called for former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to be spared the death penalty, and suggested it might intervene diplomatically on his behalf.
By Bruce Nolan The Times-Picayune/Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Some families may be debating whether to send kids out to trick-or-treat on Sunday night, but there's no debate in Louisiana's Livingston Parish, where local laws forbid the observance of Halloween on a Sunday.
By Bruce Alpert The Times-Picayune/Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS) When Sen. David Vitter admitted in 2007 to a "very serious sin" after his phone number appeared on the list of a Washington escort service, the "family values" Louisiana Republican's political career was suddenly on life support.
In the past 30 years, California has slipped from being a world leader in education, health care and public policy innovation to our current status as a case study in broken government. On Tuesday voters can fix that. Read More...
Amid so many distractions of late, many Americans have lost sight of a truly remarkable accomplishment: Three of the most powerful and influential people in the United States today are African-American men. Read More... More on Barack Obama
The government's star witness in the sentencing hearing of Omar Khadr continued to talk for hours on the stand today, explaining his view of why he believes that the Canadian captured in 2002 at the age of 15 is "highly dangerous."
But it turns out that much of the information Dr. Michael Welner relied upon, including the judgments that informed the bulk of his opinions about the future dangerousness of Omar Khadr, was based on the highly suspect opinions of a Danish psychologist whose work Welner had barely read and to whom he spoke only once on the telephone. Although those opinions were easily retrievable online, Welner said he'd never come across them before.
But it's not just the Danish psychologist's opinions that cast doubt on the objectivity of the government's expert. In fact, although not raised on cross-examination, Dr. Welner himself has stated opinions in an online magazine that reflect a deep-seated fear and mistrust of Muslims, calling into question the reliability of his assessment of Omar Khadr as a dangerous "radical Islamist."
For the first time ever, President Barack Obama met Wednesday with progressive bloggers and took their questions. Obama met with Joe Sudbay of AMERICABlog; Duncan Black ("Atrios"), who runs the site Eschaton; Barbara Morrill, who writes for the DailyKos; Jon Amato, who is the founder of Crooks and Liars; and Oliver Willis, of the site of the same name. The full text of the nearly hour-long session, as transcribed by the White House, appears below:
With all of the distractions of late, many Americans have lost sight of a truly remarkable accomplishment: Three of the most powerful and influential people in the United States today are African-American men. Read More... More on Barack Obama
SEATTLE — A philanthropic watchdog group is hoping to light a fire under charitable foundations that support education by releasing a report Wednesday that points out how few of them focus enough attention on helping the most needy students.
The study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy said that only 11 percent of American foundations devoted at least half their grants to programs that benefit vulnerable students. It looked at 672 foundations that gave at least $1 million to educational causes from 2006 to 2008.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. â€" A Notre Dame student died Wednesday after the tower from which he was filming football practice fell over. The university said the accident occurred at the LaBar Practice Complex. The 21-year-old man was transported to a South Bend hospital, where he died.
Notre Dame will not identify the student until family members are notified.
There are an abundance of haunted celebrity homes in the greater Los Angeles area, so it is only fitting that Los Angeles ranked 14th on the 2010 Zillow Trick-or-Treat Housing Index. If you're an LA local looking for some Hollywood-caliber spook houses be sure to visit these five 'hoods on Halloween night.
Top 5 Los Angeles Neighborhoods to Trick-or-Treat in 2010
WAUSAU, Wis. — Rural Marathon County has only 2 percent of Wisconsin's population, but it provides a glimpse of why U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the Senate's most prominent liberal Democrats, still finds himself in an uphill battle to win re-election next week.
The county, the state's largest at just under 1 million acres, is home to dairy farmers who help make Wisconsin the nation's No. 2 milk producer and ginseng farmers who lead the world in production of the bitter root. Many residents work at factories producing paper products.
With less than a week to go before the 2010 election this is the political silly season. But for Israel supporters, Democrats and Republicans, this is no laughing matter. Read More... More on Elections 2010
President Obama filmed an appearance on "The Daily Show" on Wednesday, during which the commander-in-chief and host Jon Stewart discussed Obama's presidency, the economy and issues such as health care reform.
Early in the interview, Obama mentioned that "people are frustrated," but also insisted that "there is still a lot of good stuff happening." Later, while discussing the president's health care legislation, Obama said, "When we promised during campaign 'change you can believe in,' it wasn't change you can believe in in 18 months."
Obama also defended the administration's handling of the financial crisis. "We saved taxpayers a whole lot of money," he said on the show. The president expressed a desire to reform the senate's filibustering rules, arguing that the current situation "makes it very difficult for us to move forward."
WASHINGTON — Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is apologizing for the 50,000 recorded telephone calls made to Nevada voters in which she supports a ballot measure to change the way state judges are selected.
O'Connor said Wednesday that she did not authorize the use of her recorded statement in the robo calls, which awakened many Nevadans after midnight Monday. The calls were supposed to be made midday.
When ex-actor Ronald Reagan won the presidency for the first time, I became convinced that American politics had become indistinguishable from show business. Nothing that has happened in the intervening years has caused me to change my mind on the subject. But the phenomenon of television personalities throwing their own pseudo-political "rallies" on the National Mall in Washington certainly breaks new ground in both the political arena and the entertainment world, I have to admit.
I'm speaking, of course, about the upcoming "rallies" on the Mall thrown by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, as a response to the "rally" thrown by Glenn Beck earlier this year. I began thinking about the subject a few weeks ago, when a friend of mine asked if I would be travelling to D.C. for Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" or Colbert's "Rally to Restore Fear" (now combined into one giant "rally"... to restore "sane fear," or perhaps "fearful sanity," one assumes). Well, no. No, I won't. Sorry about that.
Now, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, so to speak. I certainly don't want to annoy the fans of Stewart and Colbert, who are legion. I guess (to be scrupulously honest) that I don't mind annoying the Beck fans, but they already seem pretty annoyed -- so it'd be hard to even measure any effect my humble column would have on their level of annoyance, I suspect. But someone's got to point out the fact that these "rallies" are nothing more than glorified commercials for television shows. Beck and Stewart and Colbert are entertainers, not politicians or even activists.
There's a long history of Israel giving in to U.S. pressure in the last 18 months. The administration's efforts to push the Israelis to compromise suggest the president and his advisers would like to do more, if they felt politically safe. Read More... More on Israel
Anyone who's ever spent extended time with very young children will know what I'm talking about here. Whenever a particularly spazzy kid who's perhaps a little too hepped up on sugary snacks can't articulate what he or she wants, they tend to act out. Sometimes violently. Spitting, biting, screeching, hitting.
I think you know where I'm going with this.
Despite the fact that they're probably going to win a considerable number of congressional seats on Tuesday, the far-right appears to be unsatisfied with a significant electoral victory and is supplementing its would-be success by physically accosting anyone who isn't sporting an array of teabags erotically dangled from the brim of a tri-cornered hat.
Each time campaign season heats up, the public is on alert. They say most people vote more on character, perception, or gut feeling, i.e. who they like, than based on facts, experience, policy ideas, or other more wonky stuff. As one who's been on the outside and inside of campaigns and worked in government, I tend to believe there are basically two types of people in politics - whether they're appointed or elected. In an effort to help voters find the real deal in 2010, let's call it the crunch-splat vs. splat-crunch candidate personality test.
My junior high biology teacher, Jim Lockard, taught us the difference between animals that have exoskeletons and endoskeletons. Exoskeletons were like crabs, he said, the hard shell holding all of their soft parts together on the inside. Endoskeletons are what we have: an internal frame that soft tissue builds around. They protect a small amount of important organs, like the heart and lungs; the rest are relatively easy to permeate. The test to tell the difference, he said, was when you drop the creature, does it go "crunch-splat" when it hits the pavement, or "splat-crunch?" Gruesome, yet effective.
Hillary Clinton is a good example of crunch-splat. She's been in politics for a lifetime, as a political spouse, in the Senate, and now as Secretary of State. It took years for her to develop a crunchy protective shell, and even more years to thin it down so people can see who she really is on the inside. Now as Secretary of State, her approval ratings are finally soaring. She was never as tough on the outside as Al Gore or military leaders, but it took a long time for the public to see through the shell she constructed to defend herself.
A networked economy within the context of capitalism has driven a scenario where our online lives are increasingly a commodity to be tracked and mined, bought and sold, leveraged and re-leveraged, frequently without our explicit knowledge, consent or understanding of what this can mean to us in the future.
Companies with rich consumer data, and who know how to use it, reign supreme. Google has acknowledged that by tracking a person's messages and Internet movements, an algorithm can accurately predict where that person will go next. Tools of the trade include but are not limited to; tracking cookies, which follow us all over the Internet, "scraping services" which monitor social networks and discussion boards and capture personal information, or recommendations to friends as with "liking" on Facebook which makes our preferences instantly public. This creates a market for advertisers to bid for the privilege of tracking users in real time and showing us their content, even as we signal we may be making a purchasing decision- for example, by reading about a product, or entering keyword search terms.
This means that those who control access to our personal data can and sometimes do control our experience on the web - making us vulnerable to manipulation and infringing on our basic human liberties, namely, the right to self-direct the line between our public and private selves.
UPDATE! October 27, 2010: We have already raised $15,760 thanks to your hard work and support! Keep us going strong towards our huge $25,000 grassroots goal!
On October 23, just ten days before the November 2 election, the Arizona Democratic Party launched a new online effort and issued a challenge to our grassroots supporters--"10 in 10 for 2010." We challenged our friends and allies to donate $10 or more and recruit 10 friends to do the same so that we can KNOCK OUT the Republicans in 2010!
We've set a huge goal of raising $25,000 online from our grassroots supporters in the last few days before the election. It's our most ambitious online fundraising push yet--and we can't do it without you. Our Republican opposition will be watching closely to see if we can make it.
WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader John Boehner will campaign this weekend with Rich Iott, the Ohio Republican congressional candidate who found himself embroiled in controversy several weeks ago when photos surfaced of him dressed in a Nazi SS uniform.
The Iott campaign confirmed to the Huffington Post that the two will appear together at the Lucas County Republican Party headquarters. It is, if nothing else, a risky stop for Boehner to make just days before the election.
Iott's chances at winning the seat were seemingly downgraded after photos of him dressed in Nazi garb surfaced. But Boehner's visit suggests that Republicans feel the seat is within their grasp. Iott claimed that he was merely partaking in a historical reenactment and not out of latent sympathies for the Third Reich. Still, his candidacy became somewhat symbolic for the extremities of the GOP.
HuffPost Senior Politics Editor Howard Fineman appeared on MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday evening to predict the fallout from various possible midterm election results.
Ironically, the Democrats holding both houses of Congress would be the "worst possible scenario for Barack Obama" heading into his 2012 reelection bid, Fineman told host Chris Matthews.
Please bookmark this post and come back to it in a year or so. I say this because our collective memory, and especially that of mainstream news organizations, can be pretty short sometimes.
In case you haven't noticed, your liability insurance rates have been fairly stable for a few years now. I'm not talking about health insurance, which is guided by a whole different set of rules. I'm talking about the property/casualty sector, like auto insurance, medical malpractice insurance for doctors, D&O (directors and officers) insurance for businesses, really any kind of liability policy.
Perhaps you recall that in the early part of this decade, doctors were picketing state capitols about their medical malpractice insurance rate increases, some as high as 100 or 200 percent. You may have received letters in the mail explaining that your homeowners insurance was suddenly going up astronomically. If you're any kind of small business, you probably noticed that you were being unfairly price-gouged. And then, the huge increases just stopped.
Too many governments ignore or deny UN experts' allegations or block efforts to gain access to the country or to victims. The lack of state cooperation, however, is not the only challenge the independent experts face. Read More... More on Civil Rights
The first time you see the intersection of Washington and Atlantic, it's a shock. You're walking through a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood of brownstones, and suddenly you hit an eight-lane highway. Read More... More on Brooklyn
Appearing at a joint webcast this afternoon, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and filmmaker James Cameron unveiled a new ad urging voters to reject Proposition 23 on next Tuesday's ballot. The duo have been outspoken critics of the initiative, which would repeal AB 32, California's Global Warming Act of 2006. In the ad, Cameron calls Prop 23 "the ultimate real-life disaster...terminating our air pollution standards, sinking our clean energy economy, and exploiting out environment for profit."
MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash Wednesday in a Mexican Pacific coast state where drug-gang violence has risen this year. It was the third massacre in Mexico in less than a week.
The gunmen in three vehicles drove up to the car wash in the city of Tepic and opened fire without provocation, said Fernando Carvajal, public safety secretary of Nayarit state, where the city is located. Fifteen men were killed and three people were injured.
September 23, 2010 started as any other day in the 8th district of Florida, and the rest of the United States; coffee was brewed, workers started their day, children continued to receive inadequate educations, the rich got richer, and the sick got sicker. In the 8th district of Florida Alan Grayson led in the polls by 13%, and his campaign was planning to launch an ad that would certainly pull him a full 20% ahead of his opponent Daniel Webster. I can only imagine the now infamous "Taliban Dan" ad was released by the campaign to take Webster out at the knees, they certainly could not have predicted the backlash that followed. By September 29, 2010 Grayson had slipped behind Webster by 7 points. What's a candidate to do?
Wait it out... and that's what he's done. Grayson did not walk away quietly. He held his ground. Webster is a proponent of covenant marriage, Webster did vote to take away bingo and happy hour., People came down hard on Grayson for the "half truths" in Taliban Dan, but it turns out there were more truths than they realized. Perhaps that is why Webster refuses to face Grayson in a debate the weekend before election Tuesday. Today Fox News Orlando declared the race between Grayson and Webster too close to call only a few short days after the polls showed Webster with a 16 point lead over Grayson. Goes to show you after tempers settle, people do know what's best for them, and mom was right; time does heal all wounds.
U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller was at times stressed, paranoid and deceitful during his employment with the Fairbanks North Star Borough, according to records released under court order Tuesday afternoon.
When he got caught doing something wrong - using his colleagues' computers to advance his own political interests -- he lied about it repeatedly and at one point suggested it was his colleagues, not him, who had in fact broken borough policy, the records show.
Miller worked at the borough from 2002 to 2009 as a part-time attorney. Many records show he was a high performer -- achieving pay increases and exceptional performance reviews, and earning a master's in economics that the borough helped pay for. He was instrumental in litigation involving valuation of the trans-Alaska pipeline, which carries more than 10 percent of U.S. domestic oil production. He was so good, in fact, that his value to the case spared him the embarrassment of being fired when he broke the borough's ethics code, according to former borough Mayor Jim Whitaker.
For the next few days, we'll be celebrating the upcoming Rally To Restore Sanity/March To Keep Fear Alive by highlighting the ways in which "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" have long advocated reasonableness. You're invited to take part! Remember a "moment of sanity" that was dear to you? Send me an email and tell me about it!
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Armed with a slew of emailers who have discussed it, and having cited it twice myself, I think that today's as good a day as any to remind everyone of that time Jon Stewart appeared on the October 14, 2004 edition of CNN's televised temple of dumbed-down political discourse, Crossfire ("named after the stray bullets that hit innocent bystanders in a gang fight") and tore the show a new exit point for its alimentary canal. In a very contentious segment, Stewart put Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on blast -- referring to the co-hosts as "partisan hacks," and begging them to "stop hurting America."
Earlier this week, we made note of BP CEO Bob Dudley's complaint that the media, in their routine efforts to document the truth about what was happening in the Gulf of Mexico, had created such a gigantic "climate of fear" that he had no other choice but to wage a widespreadcampaign to harass and intimidatereporters. Because of the fear, you see! Such as, the "fear" that the correct oil spill rate might get reported, for example.
Well, if there's one thing Dudley can do, right now, to bring a renewed sense of peace and calm to the Gulf Coast region, it's this: he could roll on down to the bayou and tuck in to a heaping plate of freshly-caught shrimp. There's only one little thing to be concerned about, however, according to the Inter Press Service:
Massive slicks of weathered oil were clearly visible near Louisiana's fragile marshlands in both the East and West Bays of the Mississippi River Delta during an overflight that included an IPS reporter on Oct. 23. The problem is that, despite this, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has left much of the area open for fishing. Read More... More on Eat The Press
A majority of big companies cut their giving in 2009, according to a study released Wednesday by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, in New York.
$1.6 billion of interest, excessive fees, and other exorbitant costs are being charged to poor people every single day, making it almost physically and fiscally impossible for individuals to exit the poverty cycle. Read More... More on Poverty
Moving forward, the first quarter of the 2011 fiscal year will be a true test of how far the states have come in repairing their bruised economies. For some, it's not a question of hitting rock bottom, but how to climb out of the fiscal hole once they do. Read More... More on The Recession
Recent revelations about faulty foreclosure documentation provide a window into the reality of how banks operate -- and the view isn't pretty. Read More... More on Foreclosure Crisis
In 2010, money-laundering arrests have included criminal organizations from Central Eurasia, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the EU, Africa and the United States. It's a global issue. Read More... More on Cyber Security
The Karpouzosalata, one of Xandros signature salads, is made with organic local watermelon, heirloom tomatoes finished with sheep's milk feta, fresh mint and drizzled with honey and golden balsamic. Read More... More on Organic Food
The Republican Party could regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next Tuesday's midterm elections for the first time since losing power four years ago.
How's that for a scary Halloween trick?
Sure, there are familiar faces among those hoping to take power -- people like Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the GOP's leader in the House. The pumpkin skinned, chain smoker has complained for years that President Obama and Democrats have not reached across the aisle enough with the hope of finding "common ground."
Americans United for Safe Streets, a non-partisan group advocating gun control, is set to launch a seven-figure ad campaign Thursday targeting candidates on public safety and closing gun loopholes.
A television ad in Virginia features the brother of a Virginia Tech victim and mailings in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania call on Congressional candidates to fight gun crime.
The campaign will target a handful of Republican hopefuls and could be a boon to their Democratic counterparts, including Philadelphia-area Democrat Bryan Lentz, Ohio Democrat Betty Sutton, Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, and Michigan Democrat Gary Peters.
Rather than calling for a foreclosure moratorium, which is an overly-broad solution that creates a cascade of other problems, the government should address these mismatched incentives to servicers and how they can be realigned. Read More... More on Foreclosure Crisis
Unlike Americans, the French feel a responsibility to counter any assault on the rights which they've fought so hard to win. Read More... More on Retirement
A new Quinnipiac poll released today shows Andrew Cuomo is 20 points ahead of his Republican opponent, Carl Paladino (though Paladino claims the race is closer than polls would suggest).
The trailing alternatives, who provoked a real buzz at their sole gubernatorial debate last week, were all interviewed by Daily Intel today. For the most part the feisty group stuck to their respective messages (hookers, rent, etc) and all had something to say about their main challenger:
Once upon a time, in a land not too far away (read: The Netherlands), Prince Willem-Alexander took Argentine investment banker Maxima Zorreguieta's hand in marriage. It was February 2, 2002 and the pair married first in a civil ceremony in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam and then in a religious ceremony at the Nieuwe Kerk church in front of 1,500 guests. And in true, regal fashion, the royal couple took an ornate carriage across town to get from one part of the wedding to the other.
Join us in our nuptial nostalgia as we take a look back at the wedding of Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima.
The result of corporate interests attempting to hold fans hostage during labor disputes will likely cause significant damage to the loyalty and dedication of millions of Americans who watch football every week Read More...
Prone as we are in LA to earthquakes, fires, floods, civil unrest and terrorism, there are many risks associated with life in the big city. Tunneling under a small portion of Beverly Hills is not one of them. Read More...
Last month, Governor Schwarzenegger downgraded the possession of an ounce of marijuana to an infraction. But supporters of Prop. 19 would be wrong to stay away from the polls this November 2. The problem hasn't been solved. Read More...
Fie on all the naysayers who say the GOP is short on ideas! John Boehner is going to hit the ground running on his first day as speaker by ... figuring out what he's going to do on his first day as speaker. Utah Senate candidate Mike Lee proposed a budget that would return America to a simpler, more respectful time when its citizens wrote 'S's like 'F's and died at 50. And Mean Jean Schmidt had a Eureka! moment, discovering the one topic that shouldn't be explained to young children with puppets. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, October 27th, 2010:
LARSON MAY CHALLENGE HOYER FOR LEADERSHIP SPOT - Leading tomorrow's Roll Call: A competitive House Democratic leadership race appears to be brewing in the event the party loses the majority, writes Kathleen Hunter. "Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is considered the heir apparent to lead the Democrats if Pelosi stepped aside after a GOP rout on Nov. 2. But a source close to Caucus Chairman John Larson said Wednesday that Members had approached the Connecticut lawmaker about possibly mounting a challenge to Hoyer. And other ambitious junior Members could jump into a race as well, including Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Caucus Vice-Chairman Xavier Becerra."
EXCLUSIVE: MCCAIN FLAGRANTLY BREAKING HIS OWN LAW - When Democrats complained that John McCain's Senate campaign was illegally spending its money to back Raul Grijalva's opponent Ruth McClung, McCain whipped out docs showing he had filed with the FEC to make the independent expenditure. But that means he can't coordinate with the McClung campaign. HuffPost Hill snagged an email from the McClung camp to activists urging them to come into the McClung headquarters to do phone banking. The contact they give is a McCain staffer, Mike Sistak. It'd be difficult to define coordination any more clearly than that. Andrew Herman, a top election law attorney, calls the flagrant coordination "absurd" and "ridiculous." "It's certainly not within the letter and spirit of the law that bears the name of Mr. McCain," he said. Why does McCain hate Grijalva so much, beyond the obvious? Paging Howard Zinn: It's copper and uranium. "It's those two issues, the uranium industry up in the Grand Canyon and Resolution Copper," says Grijalva, who has blocked mining for both materials, digging that McCain wants to get going. "McClung doesn't have a campaign infrastructure," says Grijalva. "But McCain does have an infrastructure. And so their presence in these last remaining days will essentially be the McCain campaign." (McClung's camp says they're paying for half the costs of the office and that the staffer was listed as a matter of convenience to activists.)
Election Day is still six days off, but already Republican strategists are whispering that they outmaneuvered their Democratic counterparts.
The National Republican Congressional Committee and certain other GOP-allied groups adopted a reasonable but risky strategy, which proved effective. Those strategists decided to spend their limited financial resources early and in some not-so-obvious cheap media markets, hoping to put more seats into play and generate momentum for the cycle.
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