This is a serious poll. Please respond. I cannot understand why it is “newsworthy” enough to appear in print on the top stories of Yahoo. Please help me understand. I NEED TO KNOW.
TAMPA, Fla. – A group of Tampa inmates is offering a taste of what it’s like jail — no locks, bars or handcuffs required. But you’d better have an tough stomach to use more than a dash of their “Jailhouse Fire Hot Sauce.” Minimum-security Hillsborough County Jail inmates offer it in “Original,” “Smoke” and “No Escape” varieties, all made from their jail-grown peppers.
They came up with the recipe and started selling it in 2005. Since then, horticulture instructor Allen Boatman estimates they’ve made $10,000 on the sauce. Each bottle is $7.
The income is used to keep up the greenhouse and buy basic supplies.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – In her first communication since leaving office, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin described in an Internet posting Friday that President Barack Obama‘s plan to overhaul the health care system was evil.
“Who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course,” the former vice Republican presidential candidate wrote on her Facebook page.
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil,” Palin wrote.
An e-mail sent to Palin’s spokeswoman to confirm authorship was not immediately returned Friday.
Obama, a Democrat, campaigned on a promise of offering affordable health care to all Americans, as the United States is the only developed nation that does not have a comprehensive national health care plan for all its citizens.
He has proposed a system that would include government and private insurers. Republicans say that private insurers would be unable to compete, leaving the country with only a government-run health program. They warn that could leave Americans with little control over their health care.
Republican criticism has included claims that the reform plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have. However, millions of Americans already face rationing, as insurance companies rule on procedures they will cover.
Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.
Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.
In the posting, Palin encouraged her supporters to be engaged in the debate. “Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back,” Palin wrote.
“Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late,” the posting said.
Palin resigned as Alaska governor on July 26 with nearly 18 months left in her term. She cited not only the numerous ethics complaints that had been filed against her also her wish not to be a lame duck after the first-term governor decided not to seek re-election next year.
Palin, popular with conservatives in the Republican party, has said she wants to build a right-of-center coalition, and there is speculation she will seek the presidency in 2012. In the two weeks since she resigned, Palin has made only one public appearance, giving a Second Amendment rights speech last Saturday before a gun owners group in Anchorage.
Palin also has been largely silent before Friday’s post. She was a voracious user of the social networking site Twitter, and promised to keep her supporters updated with a new private account after she left office. But that hasn’t happened, leaving some of her fans begging for updates in the past two weeks.
Let’s face it, Bill Clinton has star quality. As one who loved him (despite his failings), I was ready for him to leave the White House and do his foundation work outside the mass media view. But you have to give it to the guy. He can charm a psycho like Kim Jong Il.
What is all this chatter about messiness behind the diplomatic success. OF COURSE, the behind-the-scenes is messy. The photo-ops are supposed to look effortless. If we saw our leaders cracking under pressure and looking sweaty and tired (except after an invigorating jog), we would think they are weak and we would be scared.
This is not investigative reporting; it is called filling up air time. Hey, I have a lot of hot air to spare. Call me and I’ll help out.
LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (Reuters) – Not in my backyard! Not in my state! Not in my country!
That was the response from politicians and business leaders in Kansas on Monday to moves by President Barack Obama to transfer terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to facilities in the United States, perhaps including Kansas.
“This is a patently bad idea,” Republican Senator Sam Brownback told reporters in the northeast Kansas riverside community of Leavenworth near the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base, which was cited this weekend as a possible new home for the Guantanamo prisoners.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that a government task force was considering as possible sites Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a 604-bed maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan, that is scheduled to be closed.
An Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed on Monday that those sites were being looked at but said there were “many, many options” under consideration.
“No final decisions of any sort have been made,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Administration officials reportedly have been considering building a court facility within a prison site to avoid the need to transfer defendants between sites within the United States.
Obama has pledged to close the prison at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo by the end of the year but faces strong opposition from fellow Democrats and Republicans in Congress to transferring the remaining 240 prisoners to U.S. soil for detention and trial.
Harsh interrogations that some see as torture and the detention of suspected Islamic militants without trial at Guantanamo, opened for prisoners in President George W. Bush’s war against terrorism, have seriously damaged the United States’ international reputation.
Brownback said the inmates should stay at Guantanamo and vowed to work with other members of Congress to prohibit any funds from being used to move the prisoners to American soil.
He and other opponents say moving to a U.S. site would make the community a target for terrorist attacks and note that Leavenworth is close to rail lines and the heavily trafficked Missouri River.
They say no move is needed at all as the detainees are already being held “appropriately and safely” at the prison in Cuba, where there are also court facilities.
“NO” TO DETAINEES
“This community has spoken loud and clear. They don’t want the detainees here,” Republican U.S. Representative Jerry Moran told Monday’s news conference.
But the Obama administration counters that the U.S. court and prison systems have handled terrorism cases in the past and could deal with Guantanamo detainees. A number of convicted militants are already being held in U.S. prisons.
Congress has set strict limits on moving detainees until certain conditions are met, including informing lawmakers first and spelling out any threats prisoners could pose or how they were mitigated.
The 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth is already a hardened high-security facility that could be further protected by the surrounding military base.
Business leaders in Leavenworth, about 40 miles from the Kansas City metropolitan area, say locating detainees near their community will depress property values, discourage new business development and put the residents at risk.
“We are not afraid of the prisoners breaking out,” said Leavenworth-Lansin Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Tim Holverson. “We are more concerned with their friends trying to break them out. We don’t want to be a target.”
(Reporting by Carey Gillam, additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by David Storey)
Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok. Lemme get this straight.
Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana, Sen. John Ensign, Nevada, Gov. Mark Sanford, S. Carolina — what do these gentlemen and Sen. Stanley have in common? They are sanctimonious, self-satisfied “family-values” politicians who were hoisted on their own petards.
Worse, Sen. Stanley, who took lewd pictures of his 22-year old intern during the time of their affair, blames her. He is 47 and she is 22. He has a family and presumably of suitable age, discretion and intelligence to represent the State of Tennessee.
He isn’t hiding behind a 22 year-old, is he? Nah. Can’t be. Only someone gutless and unprincipled would do that. So, it can’t be. WAIT. I think Pauly IS a gutless, unprincipled loser. And he is angry that he has to resign. As if he did nothing to bring about this morality play.
I get it: she let herself into his apartment. She put the camera in his hand. She put his . . . . Wow, now I get it. It is a lily-livered lefty lemming conspiracy (thank you, Lou Dobbs for that phrase) to expose GOP hypocrisy.
Where is the outrage? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
July 22 is an important day. On that date in 1904, a baby was born in Jamaica. Her name was Carmelita. Leta for short. For various reasons, poverty, and support of two young children among them, she came to the States and became a baby nurse for newborns of affluent families. Her stints lasted two or so weeks. She liked to tell us that she took care of the children of Tommy Dorsey (of the Big Band era).
By the time she came into my family’s lives, her two daughters were grown, with careers, married, with kids of their own. (Over the years, we met her immediate family (including husband, daughters and siblings, Mary and Poppy) and sometimes I played with one of her grandchildren.)
My mother was pregnant with my sister (the eldest of the three of us) and her obstetrician recommended Leta. My mother call Leta and asked to meet her for an interview. According to my mother, Leta said she didn’t give interviews but she would come at the appointed day. (In those days, deliveries were induced. My mother had them planned for Fridays, since, as an executive in a cosmetics company, she needed to have us on a schedule.)
It was a snowy day and Leta met Dad, Mom and my sister at home. That was that. Leta extended the two week stay to a month. Then my mother told my father in no uncertain terms that he was to make an offer that Leta couldn’t refuse so that she would stay on indefinitely. And, that he was not to fail in this mission. (You would have to have known my mother to realize that my dad’s very life and happiness depended upon his success.) Much to Mom’s (and more to Dad’s) relief, Leta stayed. In short order came my brother. I came three years later and Leta called me Miss Prim (short for Princess).
Leta ruled the house. She would open the refrigerator on Monday and announce it was so empty, you could sleep in it. Then she just started buying provisions. On Fridays, she would tell my parents that she expected us in the same condition as she left us — bathed, fed, happy, etc. We knew that Leta expected a call from us on Saturdays during which we would give a status of my parents’ parenting and spill the beans on everything. She stayed with us for 20 years.
Leta was the daytime mother of my youth. She spoiled me. She was larger than life. She was everything to me. When I grew up, I started to see her limitations (as is the case with all heroes when children grows up). I ran away from dealing with it and her. There were many years in which we were not in contact but she came to all family events, all graduations, etc. My parents went to all her family events.
When I read Shel Silverstein’s book, “The Giving Tree,” Leta was the ever-giving tree and I was the self absorbed, taking child. I have that book as a reminder of how Leta was a gift in my life and little I appreciated her in my adult years until the end.
One day she called me and said she forgave me for not calling and that we should “let bygones be bygones”. We said “I love you” to each other and we hung up. The next week, my dad called to say that Leta was in the ICU in a hospital in the Bronx and that she was in bad shape. My sister and I went to visit her and the nurse looked at us and said, “Who are you?” And two 30-something white girls said simultaneously, “Family.” My sister is a doctor so the staff accommodated her requests for things like a waffle mattress to make Leta more comfortable. Leta’s eyes were wide with a big smile on her face when she saw us. When my brother walked into her room a few days later (he lives far away), her vital signs started going haywire because she was so happy. My sister said, “Lee, if you don’t calm down, we’ll have to leave.” She gathered us up in her enormous arms and hugged us tight. We were hunched over the bed and didn’t let go until our backs felt like they were going to break. My sister and I visited every other day until she died. She couldn’t talk but she knew we were there and she was happy to see us.
We went to the funeral and my mother was asked to give a eulogy. I introduced myself to people in her family about whom I heard but never met. No recognition. Then, Unice walked in and said, “Miss Prim!!” and then I saw recognition in many faces. I realized that the part of Leta’s family I never met never knew my real name. They just knew me as Leta’s princess.
Leta’s memory is a blessing in my life for some many reasons and on so many levels.
Michael Jackson is still dead and his children are in his mother’s custody. Congress is in recess. So far, no more GOP family values scandals. The beer summit concluded. What is there to report about?
Hmmmmmmm.
Nah, not those. Too heavy. Berlusconi’s love and sex scandal!! Ahaa. G-d bless Italy.
Just like Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, the Second 100 Days is a creation of the 24-hour news RE-cycle.
The challenges we face as a nation cannot be meaningfully calibrated to a 100-day meter. Life is not a 2 hour action movie, during which the hero and heroine vanquish the menacing threat to our planet and have a steamy sex scene to celebrate a hard day’s work of keeping us safe.
Pundits think that the citizens of our great country don’t have the attention span to consider the issues. That we can only think in sound bites. That scare tactics will taint our thinking. That we believe that a government can plausibly be measured in 100-day increments. That the media is keeping government honest as opposed to creating high ratings.
I know we are smarter.