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glaringly missing from the summary was mention of $15 million in fees paid by Burkle's Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund since 2002

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday laid out an early legislative agenda that Democrats are hoping will distinguish the party's priorities from those of the Republicans heading into the new Congress. In a letter to her troops, the California Democrat outlined the party's focus at the launch of the 2016 presidential cycle, including efforts to increase working class wages, hike infrastructure spending and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move their headquarters overseas. “In sharp contrast to Republicans whose first vote in the new Congress will be to advance additional tax cuts for the wealthy and special interests,...

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke issued a warning to Republicans who have criticized House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) for speaking to a white nationalist group in 2002, saying they "better be looking over their shoulders." In an interview with Fusion, Duke said he has ties to politicians on both sides of the aisle, and he is ready to release names if criticism of Scalise continues: Overall, Duke was rather flabbergasted by the new focus on Scalise. He said he has hosted both Democratic and Republican legislators at everything from conferences to his children’s birthday parties. He said...

A takeaway has been closed by police after a would-be customer filmed a three hungry, huge rats chowing down on pizzas at the shop. Disgusted Evgeny Ivanov, 26, had gone to the fast-food outlet at a bus station in Nizhny Novogorad, Russia, when he spotted the helping themselves to the pizzas. Police confirmed they had ordered the outlet to be closed and the food destroyed.

On Tuesday, Senate Democrats will use some of their last hours in the Senate majority to release the much-anticipated report about the CIA's methods of extracting information from terror suspects, called "enhanced interrogation" by some and "torture" by others. The report is 6,000 pages long, but only the 480-page executive summary will be released. It is contentious, opposed by both Republicans and former CIA officials who argue that it not only is false, but that it will bring harm to American personnel abroad.

Only 10 Senate Democrats are up for re-election in 2016, the residual benefit of the shellacking they took in 2010 when tea party Republicans swept into office. The only two challenges Democrats likely will face will be defending Michael Bennet's seat in Colorado and Reid's in Nevada. In a presidential year, Bennet, who managed to survive in 2010, will be the favorite. Reid may be the most vulnerable, but he is a tenacious campaigner and in the past pulled off re-election in the face of stiff odds.

In most parts of the earth there is neither light nor liberty; and even in the best parts of it they are but little encouraged, and coldly maintained; there being, in all places, many engaged, through interest, in a perpetual conspiracy against them. They are the two greatest civil blessings, inseparable in their interests, and the mutual support of each other; and whoever would destroy one of them, must destroy both. Hence it is, that we every where find tyranny and imposture, ignorance and slavery, joined together; and oppressors and deceivers mutually aiding and paying constant court to each other....

May today be the day of defeat that you so richly deserve. That is all!

Dem in Illinois county Published October 22, 2014 watchdog.org Facebook0 Twitter0 Email Print CHICAGO — Early voting in Illinois got off to a rocky start Monday, as votes being cast for Republican candidates were transformed into votes for Democrats

A trio of House Democrats is calling on President Obama to allow U.S. troops in West Africa to provide direct care to Ebola patients. The Obama administration has already committed around 4,000 U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in the affected West African countries, but they are performing tasks such as building treatment centers and training local providers, not directly providing care. Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.) want to change that.

Chicago is the rattiest city in America, according to pest control company Orkin. The company released a top 20 list with Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City trailing Chicago. “Each city on this list is a major urban area that provides ideal conditions for rats and mice to thrive,” said entomologist and Orkin Technical Services Director Ron Harrison, Ph.D. in the release. The list was based soley on the number of treatments performed by Orkin in the past year. Orkin estimates rats and mice invade 21 million American homes each year and one-third of Americans saw a rodent...

....During an address to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics Sunday in San Diego, someone in the 3,000 person crowd began to goad her using a bullhorn.

An audit by the New York City comptroller’s office shows the number of pest complaints including rat problems jumped by more than 2,000. The report says citizen calls about pests to the city’s 311 hotline plus online reports went from 22,300 in fiscal year 2012 to 24,586 the next year. …

Our famously gaffe-prone vice president, Joe Biden, has outdone himself. He stumbled through not one, not two, but three gaffes in less than 24 hours. For him, that's a personal best or, more accurately, a personal worst.. Yet if it is better to be criticized than ignored in politics, he can take little comfort from the way that hardly anyone outside of the Republican National Committee, whose website called it "Gaffetastic," seemed to care.

James Vanderbilt's Truth, the high-profile movie chronicling the scandal that derailed Dan Rather's career, has gotten the greenlight to begin shooting this fall. Brett Ratner's RatPac Entertainment and Echo Lake Entertainment will finance the movie, starring Robert Redford as the iconic news anchor and Cate Blanchett as Mary Mapes, Rather's producer. At the same time, FilmNation has come aboard to represent international rights and will pre-sell the project to foreign buyers at the Toronto Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday night (based on the cast, it's sure to whet appetites). Mythology Entertainment is the driving force behind Truth, which was...

**SNIP** But the impression the president left with Mr. Reid was clear: Capitol Hill is not my problem. To Democrats in Congress who have worked with Mr. Obama, the indifference conveyed to Mr. Reid, one of the president’s most indispensable supporters, was frustratingly familiar. In one sense, Mr. Obama’s response was a reminder of what made him such an appealing figure in the first place: his almost innate aversion to the partisan squabbles that have left Americans so jaded and disgruntled with their political system. But nearly six years into his term, with his popularity at the lowest of his...

Democrats running for re-election in California’s parched San Joaquin Valley are refusing to link the state’s historic drought to climate change, despite the direct connection drawn by President Obama and his chief scientist, Stanford University physicist John Holdren. Politically, most Democrats have come to see climate change as the new same-sex marriage – an issue moving irreversibly in their favor. But not in the Central Valley, where Republican climate-change denial apparently still holds sway. Amanda Renteria, a Democrat challenging freshman Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, told the Hill, “Climate change doesn’t really belong in the question, or answer.”

New Delhi: Air India has been forced to ground one of its planes after crew spotted rats scurrying around the cabin, The Times of India reported on Tuesday. The plane was on its way from New Delhi to Calcutta when staff became aware of the infestation, the newspaper said. "Rats on board an aircraft can lead to a catastrophe if they start chewing up electric wires," the paper quoted an unnamed airline official as saying. "If that happens, pilots will have no control on any system on board leading to a disaster." No one at the airline was immediately available...

According to a new study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, rats can feel regret – a cognitive behavior once thought to be uniquely human. “Regret is the recognition that you made a mistake, that if you had done something else, you would have been better off,” said Prof David Redish from the University of Minnesota, who is the senior author on the study.

SAN FRANCISCO — While authorities are trying to keep track of a San Francisco woman who was breeding rats in her room at a residential hotel and releasing them in public parks, they say their hands are tied as far as trying to stop her. She's been nicknamed "Rat Girl" by the people who've followed her behavior over the years. But officials told KTVU the situation is no laughing matter because her affection for rats could endanger her health and the health of the San Francisco public...