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Sen. John McCain is urging senior citizens to cut up their AARP membership cards and mail the pieces back to the organization, claiming AARP has betrayed them. Sen. John McCain is urging senior citizens to cut up their AARP membership cards and mail the pieces back to the organization, claiming AARP has betrayed them. Citing AARP's past opposition to proposed cuts in Medicare, McCain expressed dismay Thursday that the senior group has suddenly changed its position to support $460 billion in cuts to the program proposed by Democrats to help pay for health care legislation. "Shame on AARP," McCain, R-Ariz.,...

While huge crowds greet her with roars of "Run Sarah Run!" as she tours the country in a bus, many national Republicans look on nervously, worrying the unparalleled enthusiasm she generates among some conservatives isn't enough to power a Republican victory over Barack Obama in 2012. "People look at her and see themselves: patriotic, religious, family oriented outsiders looked down on by a liberal elite," said Jim Broussard, political science professor at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. "But what makes her so attractive to her base makes her less attractive as an actual candidate, because you can't win with just...

“It probably will come as no surprise to you that I have no authority...to grant amnesty from federal prosecution to anyone who follows the referenced ordinance.” The referenced ordinance, enacted on November 10, 2009 by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, requires San Francisco law enforcement officers to report information regarding the immigration status of a juvenile arrested for certain felonies only after judicial proceedings have been completed. Like the would-be bank robber above, City Attorney Dennis Herrera asked in a letter to Russoniello the same day the ordinance was enacted, for assurance "that if the City proceeds to...

"SEIU is the largest union of immigrant workers in the country..."

Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, has accused senior Conservatives of being “climate saboteurs” and undermining the Copenhagen summit, which starts on Monday. Mr Miliband said: “We have to beware of climate saboteurs, the people who want to say that this is in doubt and want to cast aspersions on the whole process. The science is clear and settled. ”It is profoundly irresponsible for people who have held, in the case of Nigel Lawson, high office and David Davis as Shadow Home Secretary, to be doing what they are doing.”

NJ Democratic legislators are busying themselves this holiday season with a last minute attempt to tie the hands of incoming Republican governor Chris Christie. From the moment the votes were counted on Election Day, these folks have been foaming at the mouth about how “important” and “urgent” it was that this bill get passed before Jon “Speedy” Corzine leaves office. At issue is the way in which the NJ governor deals with a potential U.S. senate vacancy. Under the current system, the governor can appoint a replacement for the open seat or call a special election. Or both. The new...

The admiration Hillary Clinton feels for her British counterpart is a matter of public record. David Miliband, she told the world in an interview for Vogue, is "vibrant, vital, attractive and smart". US Secretary of State she might be, but to meet him, she said, was to develop "a big crush". Quite how special their transatlantic relationship is, however, became clear for all to see today when the pair found themselves sitting next to each other at the meeting of foreign ministers at the Nato headquarters in Brussels. Mr Miliband appeared delighted at the seating arrangements, with the presence of...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12

Next month's opening of the Burj Dubai tower, the world's tallest building, will bring Dubai's era of exuberant expansion to a juddering halt as hundreds of other building projects are already mothballed. Plunging property prices and weak demand had already put a dampener on new schemes even before last week's shock announcement by state-owned giant Dubai World that it wants to halt debt payments for six months. "It's not exactly going to improve investor confidence," said Matthew Green, associate director at property agency CB Richard Ellis, which has reported a 55 percent year-on-year drop in downtown Dubai commercial rental rates...

WILKES-BARRE – In a courthouse still struggling with the fallout from the juvenile justice scandal that cast doubt on thousands of rulings by ex-judge Mark Ciavarella, the fact that Judge Michael Toole continued adjudicating for weeks after signing a plea agreement on corruption charges sits like a ticking time bomb with a potential no one can predict. “I just can’t really comment,” Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Basil Russin said Thursday, “We’ve got to figure out what happens next. It may be nothing, it may be something vital.” “Certainly, any defense attorney can make any motion they like,” District Attorney...

“Planned and choreographed” incident similar to USAir Flight 300 Security incident aboard AirTran Flight 297 suggests terror “Dry Run”On November 17, an incident took place aboard AirTran Flight 297 scheduled to fly from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport to Houston that the media does not want to cover and everyone from the airline to the TSA and other government agencies want to keep very quiet. The reasons, I have been told, is fear of predatory lawsuits, negative publicity from accusations of religious profiling, and the obligatory subjugation to mindless mandatory Muslim sensitivity training that make a mockery of our American system of...

The Senate voted Thursday to keep nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts in its overhaul of the health care system, protecting the bill's major source of financing against a Republican attack. On a vote of 58 to 42, the Senate rejected a proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to send the bill back to committee with orders to strip out the cuts, a move that would effectively have killed the measure. Two Democrats -- Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jim Webb of Virginia -- voted with all 40 Republicans on the amendment. The vote was among the first cast on...

December 4, 2009 Copenhagen targets not tough enough, says Al Gore Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night. Mr Gore said that to avoid the worst ravages of climate change world leaders would have to come together again to set more drastic reductions than those now planned. “Even a final treaty will have to set the...

A Taliban detainee in Pakistan claims Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden was seen in Afghanistan in January or February of this year, the BBC reports. The inmate, who said he met bin Laden numerous times before the Sept. 11 attacks, said he met with a contact who had seen the Al Qaeda leader days before in Afghanistan. "In 2009, in January or February I met this friend of mine. He said he had come from meeting Sheikh Osama, and he could arrange for me to meet him," he said. The detainee reportedly said the contact is a Mehsud tribesman....

The UN panel on climate change says claims UK scientists manipulated global warming data to boost the argument it is man-made should be investigated. The allegations emerged after e-mails written by members of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were posted on the internet. Robert Watson, one of the government's chief scientific advisors, has called for all the raw data to be published. Norfolk police are investigating whether computers were hacked.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, sends his regrets — but he is unable to meet Gordon Brown in Downing Street today as planned because of a longstanding engagement. With the President of Benin. Mr Sarkozy promised Mr Brown that he would visit London to calm fears that the City is about to be saddled with French-style regulation. But amid his gloating over the appointment of a Frenchmen to the key Brussels job overseeing financial reforms, his visit today has been abandoned. A spokesman for Mr Sarkozy cited “longstanding” engagements, including a meeting with President Dr Thomas Yayi Boni of Benin,...

The controversy was sparked by the publication of hacked emails on websites run by climate change sceptics, possibly in a bid to derail next week's Copenhagen conference. The websites suggested that scientists had manipulated data to support a theory of man-made climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme the claims were serious and he wanted them investigated. ''We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it,'' he said. ''We certainly don't want to brush anything under the...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "A former Guantanamo detainee has emerged as a leading ideologue and theologian for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – one of the strongest al Qaeda affiliates in the world. Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and then handed over to American officials who transferred him to Guantanamo. Rubaish was held there until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen. In February 2009, the Saudi...

Joseph Stalin sent millions to their deaths during his reign of terror, and his name was taboo for decades, but the dictator is a step closer to rehabilitation after Vladimir Putin openly praised his achievements. The Prime Minister and former KGB agent used an appearance on national television to give credit to Stalin for making the Soviet Union an industrial superpower, and for defeating Hitler in the Second World War. In a verdict that will be obediently absorbed by a state bureaucracy long used to taking its cue from above, Mr Putin declared that it was “impossible to make a...

As she prepared her daughter for college, Anne Sweeney insisted that a television be among the dorm room accessories. “Mom, you don’t understand. I don’t need it,” her 19-year-old responded, saying she could watch whatever she wanted on her computer, at no charge. That flustered Ms. Sweeney, who happens to be the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. “You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall,” she told her daughter, according to comments she made at a Reuters event this week. “You have to have one.” But she does not, actually. For 60...

Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists. In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question. A leading al-Qaida ideologue for the terror network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has developed his own theologically-based theory of collateral damage that allows militants to kill Muslims when it is unavoidable. Even the Iraqi affiliates of Osama bin Laden's terror group, who are known to...

The current Left -- or the Socialists -- in Europe were born out of the fire of revolution and war. They came from a determination to change a historical and implacable social order, a drive to ensure that causes of two devastating continental wars in the twentieth century never reoccurred. The Left in the United States, while professing commonality with their European counterparts, have evolved out of peace, economic prosperity, and a determination to impose a rigid social order under the guise of classless society. European Socialism, while desirous of guaranteeing equality of outcome and opposed to unfettered capitalism, nonetheless...

UPDATE,...Earlier today, I contacted Tedd Petruna, the brave passenger on AirTran Flight 297, who–with another Texan–saved the day from apparent Islamic terrorists, leaving him a voicemail message asking for confirmation of the e-mail and events below. Mr. Petruna called me back, tonight, and confirmed that he did write the e-mail below and that it’s all true. WAKE. UP. AMERICA. We are under siege. I begin with the caveat that I don’t know whether or not this is true. However, it certainly sounds like it is, and the guy-Tedd J. Petruna of NASA–has his e-mail address and home and work phone...

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Cuba hit back Thursday at 60 prominent U.S. black leaders who challenged its race record, with island writers, artists and official journalists calling the criticism an attack on their country's national identity. The five-page signed statement, distributed by Cuban government press officials in an e-mail, defended Cuba's progress in providing social and personal opportunities for blacks and people of mixed race. But it focused more on Cuba's past than the racial inequalities of contemporary Cuban society that came under criticism from Americans such as Princeton University professor Cornel West; Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of President Barack...

Chicago-based Thomas More Society attorneys appeared in St. Joseph County Criminal Court today to argue for dismissal of trespass charges against pro-life advocates because campus police acted improperly. The charges were brought by local prosecutors based on complaints by University of Notre Dame security police during Obama protests last May at the University. In addition to the motion to dismiss, Thomas More Society attorney Tom Dixon argued that Judge Jenny Pitts Manier had an actual or perceived bias based on her prior rulings, her husband's outspoken criticism of Catholic pro-life teachings as a philosophy professor at Notre Dame and other...

Speaking to the conservative talker Rusty Humphries today, Sarah Palin left the door open to speculation about President Obama's birth certificate. "Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?" she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above). "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers," she replied. "Do you think it's a fair question to be looking at?" Humphries persisted....

It never rains but it pours. You would think climate experts would know that. Clearly, they don’t. Instead, supposed climate scientists have been caught in a storm of their own making over documents released onto the Web raising huge questions about how global warming “science” has been done. At issue is an enormous dump of data from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit that was leaked or hacked and placed online. The data included more than 1,000 e-mails – many of them back-and-forth communications among prominent scientists. The private e-mails showed potentially unethical or illegal behavior and a...

Al Gore apparently has canceled a high-priced speaking engagement during the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen. As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, the Nobel Laureate was slated to lecture about his new book "Our Choice" where attendees could pay over $1,200 a ticket for the right to meet the Global Warmingist-in-Chief and have their picture taken with him. According to Danish newspaper Berlingske, this has been canceled due to "unforeseen changes" to Gore's schedule (rough translation follows, h/t Marc Morano):

San Francisco » The Mormon church and Boy Scouts of America were named as defendants in lawsuits Monday claiming childhood sexual abuse by youth leaders decades ago. Alleged victims filed suits against both organizations in San Francisco and Seattle, and against the church alone in Portland, Ore. The plaintiffs are all represented by Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who has brought similar suits against the church and the Boy Scouts in the past. In the suit filed in San Francisco Superior Court, three brothers claim the church ignored their complaints about being molested by their Silicon Valley Boy Scout and Mormon...

~ It’s Finally Friday!! ~ FORT HOOD SERVICE AT ARLINGTON Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. console the family members of Lt. Col. Juanita Warman during a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery, Nov. 23, 2009. Warman, who was at Fort Hood preparing for a late-November deployment, was the highest-ranking soldier killed during the shooting rampage on Fort Hood, Texas. U.S. Army photo by Alex McVeigh Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served...

EU ACTA Analysis Leaks: Confirms Plans For Global DMCA, Encourage 3 Strikes Model Monday November 30, 2009 The European Commission analysis of ACTA's Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the U.S. is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law (the EC posted the existence of the document last week but refused to make it publicly available). The document contains detailed comments on the U.S. proposal, confirming the U.S. desire to promote a three-strikes and you're out policy, a Global DMCA, harmonized contributory copyright infringement rules, and the establishment of an...

Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results 0939154709. Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers. 1047388489Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.0872202064 Keith Briffa is funding Russian dendro Shiyatov, who asks him to send money to personal bank account so as to avoid tax, thereby retaining money for research.826209667There are many more.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is calling the leaked e-mails from climate scientists at a British university research unit a "theft" and "crime" that should be investigated, despite calls from Republicans to investigate the contents of the e-mails themselves, not the way they were leaked. "You call it Climate-gate. I call it E-mail-theft-gate," Boxer said at a hearing Wednesday on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which she chairs. She suggested that a criminal conspiracy might even be at play in bringing the once private e-mails to public light. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, ranking Republican on the panel and a...

Passenger Jets Were 200 Vertical Feet Apart. the FAA is investigating a Nov. 23rd incident where two passenger jets nearly collided in the airspace over Colorado. the two planes merged on Air Traffic Control radar at the same altitude and in the same moment. "They were within a blink of an eye of colliding," and "It was the ugliest thing I've ever seen in all my years." The incident is classified as an "operational error" ...a mistake made by an air traffic controller. Several planes were en route to Denver on an arrival path from the northeast, called "Sayge Six."...

Brian David Mitchell and a murderous polygamous family patriarch shared many similar traits and operated in very similar ways, an expert on religious cults and their members who commit crimes testified Wednesday. Richard Forbes, a retired law enforcer for both Salt Lake and Los Angeles counties, investigated killers Ervil LeBaron and Charles Manson during his career. Forbes is an expert on LeBaron and his followers. During the third day of Mitchell's competency hearing in federal court, Forbes compared the man accused of kidnapping and raping Elizabeth Smart to LeBaron and other religious cult leaders. Both men used revelation as a...

Here's the reaction from two Republicans running to be California's senator in 2010 to President Obama's Afghanistan plan

If you plan to mail a Christmas card or gift to someone serving with the U.S. military in Iraq or Afghanistan, time is running short to ensure it arrives by the holiday. The U.S. Postal Service this week said Friday is the deadline for sending first-class mail and Priority Military Mail to those serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. "That's the recommended deadline presented to us by the military postal system," Maureen Marion, spokeswoman for the postal service, said Wednesday. You have more time, though, if you plan to send items to someone in the armed forces serving in Asia, Europe...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a darling of the Tea Party crowd, credited that movement with blocking Democratic health care reform efforts and predicted the conservative activists behind the movement could ultimately thwart the passage of that bill and others.. "The only reason we don't have national health care right now is you - is the people outside of Washington," DeMint told a gathering of Tea Party activists gathered Wednesday night in Washington for the premiere of a documentary about the movement. "I think we do have a shot at stopping this thing," he said of the health care reform bill...

Former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman is gradually returning to the spotlight after months of near silence, a move that some insiders in Washington and Minnesota view as a precursor to a 2010 gubernatorial bid. Five months after the conclusion of his bitter, protracted Senate battle against Democrat Al Franken, Coleman is beginning to cut a higher profile, increasingly voicing his opinions in carefully chosen interviews and public appearances. While Coleman has remained publicly coy about his intentions, the timing of his return to the public eye comes just a few months before the state precinct caucuses in February, the start...

Here is a letter, posted on Politico, written by the Chairman & CEO of Comcast. Since Comcast is acquiring NBC, which -- as part of GE -- has been President Obama's biggest cheerleader, some may have had concerns that he was losing a tool. Not so. As this letter makes clear, Roberts is willing to degrade himself even more than Immelt in order to get his share of the golden goose. http://www.politico.com/static/PPM143_091203_wh_healthcare_letter.html

With the world losing the battle against global warming so far, experts are warning that humans need to follow nature's example: Adapt or die. That means elevating buildings, making taller and stronger dams and seawalls, rerouting water systems, restricting certain developments, changing farming practices and ultimately moving people, plants and animals out of harm's way. Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big topic at the U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen next week, along with the projected cost — hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it going to countries that cannot afford it. That...

Former Republican Congresssman John Hostettler announced today he's launching a bid to challenge Indiana Senator Evan Bayh next year. Hostettler represented Indiana's 8th Congressional district for six terms from 1994 to 2006, eventually losing in a landslide to Democrat Brad Ellsworth.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told reporters Thursday that he would not vote to advance healthcare reform legislation unless it includes language that would restrict access to abortions for women who receive federal subsidies. Nelson’s stance puts Democratic leaders in a difficult position as they brace for difficult votes on two amendments to their healthcare legislation. The Senate will soon consider an amendment offered by Nelson that would be similar to the abortion amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that the House adopted last month. The Senate will also consider an amendment offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would...

In 2008, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its president Trita Parsi filed a defamation lawsuit against me. The discovery process has unearthed very valuable documents that clarify the working of NIAC and the relation of its president to influential people connected to the Iranian regime. Some of these documents raise serious concerns about the possible threat that Parsi's connections has on U.S. national security. Some examples follow. On September 28, 2006, Trita Parsi sent an e-mail to Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador at the United Nations. The e-mail contains a press report that the "UN Envoy Bolton Unlikely...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) on Wednesday sought to put distance between former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) and himself. Huckabee, in an interview with Christianity Today, stressed that the two potential 2012 presidential candidates have different "political direction[s]" and questioned both of their statuses as presidential contenders. "We're both Republican, we're both pro-life—there are a lot of similarities that way—but she has a very different political direction than I do," he said. " I'm not sure of her future politically, and I'm really not sure of mine either." Questions about Huckabee's political future have sprouted up after it was reported...

The Prime Minister of Pakistan today slapped down a suggestion from Gordon Brown that his country should do more to hunt down Osama bin Laden, insisting on a visit to Downing Street that the al-Qaeda head was not even on Pakistani territory. Mr Brown ruffled feathers in Islamabad when he used a weekend interview to complain that both bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri were still at large eight years after the attacks of 9/11 and urged Pakistani security forces to get their act together. Western intelligence officials believe both men are holed up in the tribal areas of...

Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to help African-Americans through the bleak economy. Soon after withholding their votes on a wide-ranging financial services bill, 10 CBC members said they are pressuring the White House to do more. The House Financial Services Committee voted 31-27 in favor of the bill, but the lawmakers’ boycott came on a major financial measure the administration wants to see Congress pass this month. “We have not been forceful enough in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable of our population,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who...

Dec. 3, 2009, 10:57 a.m. EST Services side of economy contracting again ISM non-manufacturing index falls to 48.7% By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The service sectors of the U.S. economy contracted in November after two months of expansion, the Institute for Supply Management said Thursday. The ISM's non-manufacturing index fell to 48.7% from 50.6% in October. Readings under 50% indicate more firms said business was worsening than said it was improving. Read the full report. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting the index to rise to 51.5%. See our complete Economic Calendar and forecasts for this week's data....

Android goes for iPhone weak spot: porn apps Bill Andad - Dec 3rd, 2009, 9:45 am Yes there are 100,000 or so apps for the iPhone, but thanks to Apple policy if it's porn you are after there's not an app for that. The construction of an Adult App Store for Android devices, however, could soon swing this particular market segment towards the iPhone competitor. The MiKandi App Store is strictly an adults only affair, and claims to be the world's first fully mobile adult app store. Although currently only available for Android users, the developers are already talking about...

Nicolas Sarkozy has pulled out of a planned trip to London on which he was supposed to calm fears that French-style regulation will be imposed on the City. It was reported this morning that Mr Sarkozy was to make a short visit to Number 10 to smooth relations in the wake of his gloating about the appointment of former French minister Michel Barnier to the EU’s internal market portfolio. But a spokesman for the French president said: “Nicolas Sarkozy will not go to London tomorrow. “There will be a meeting between Brown and Sarkozy on the sidelines of the European...