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MONTGOMERY, Alabama --- Mike Hubbard, speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives and a powerful leader in the state Republican Party, has been indicted by a grand jury and charged with 23 counts, including using his office for personal gain and soliciting things of value. Hubbard, 52, who led a historic Republican takeover of the state Legislature during the 2010 election, was charged after an investigation in his home county that has lasted more than a year. The charges against Hubbard include 23 class B felonies. Those charges include: Four counts of using of his office as Chairman of the...

Ebola patient Amber Vinson's family hire a high-profile attorney after defending her as 'in no way careless' for flying while sick - as 153 people in Ohio declared at risk Billy Martin is a D.C.-based lawyer who represented Wesley Snipes during his tax case, NFL player Michael Vick while he fought dog-fighting charges Nurse Amber Vinson, 29, cared for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital She flew to Ohio and back while carrying Ebola, triggering quarantines Miss Vinson was not diagnosed until after return and family said CDC comments tried to 'mischaracterize' her actions Some 153 people are...

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’ – Sigmund Freud Though the mystery of feminine wants has stumped poets, philosophers, and the father of psychoanalysis, today’s Democratic politicians think they’ve found the key — at least to the political desires of most women: a single-minded focus on the gynecological. Republicans, whipsawed by the results of 2012 races that featured large gender gaps, particularly among single women, and aware that women have trended Democrat...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds a steady race, with Kay Hagan leading at 46% to 43% for Thom Tillis and 5% for Sean Haugh. This is the third month in a row that Hagan has held an advantage of either 3 or 4 points. In a two candidate race Hagan still leads Tillis 47/44, indicating that Haugh's potential 'spoiler effect' on the race is waning. Haugh's supporters only say their second choice would be Tillis by a 34/30 spread now, considerably closer than the difference was earlier in the campaign. Both candidates remain unpopular in the closing stretch of...

A Daily Telegraph article - and there will be many like this - attempts to pit Pope Francis against the Catholic Church. In these analyses, Francis is the great 'enlightened one', the great 'moderniser' (think Tony Blair, the Labour Party and Clause 4 or David Cameron, the Tories and 'gay marriage') and the Church is out-dated, unfair, unenlightened, even evil. Even Catholics - perhaps even Cardinals and Popes - continue to believe the Church is a political entity or Party. It is not. Let's be clear about this. If Pope Francis desires to tamper with, dilute, modify, edit or remove...

The Obama administration’s new Ebola czar will be paid, but the White House on Monday declined to say how much former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain will be making in his new position. White House spokesman Eric Schultz confirmed that Klain, who starts work Wednesday, would take home a paycheck, but he said the amount would only be revealed in the annual disclosure of White House staff salaries. That report is typically released at the beginning of July, which means Klain will likely have already left the administration by the time his salary is disclosed. Last week, press secretary...

A devastating new Politico poll reveals voters believe America has spun off its axis and is "out of control." "An overwhelming majority of voters in the most competitive 2014 elections say it feels as if events in the United States are 'out of control' and expressed mounting alarm about terrorism, anxiety about Ebola and harsh skepticism of both political parties only three weeks before the Nov. 4 midterms," reports Politico. The poll, which surveyed states and districts in the most competitive congressional races, found that 64% of Americans believe "things in the U.S. feel like they are out of control...

Christian ministers in Idaho have been told that they have to either perform same-sex weddings or (face jail time and fines). Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, are facing legal trouble because they want to uphold the laws of the Bible and support traditional marriage. Todd Starnes, author of "Godless America," appeared on Fox and Friends this morning and shared the latest on this interesting legal story, which centers on a city ordinance, passed last year, that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. "Here is the issue," Starnes explained....

Keep digging, Wendy! Tapped-out Team Davis reduced to playing the sex aid card. This is not a joke....She is now attacking Abbott now on sex aids.......following on from the marriage attack earlier.....

If you caught any of this Sunday morning’s panel segments, you probably saw the left-of-center guest lamenting the scourge of Republican fear-mongering surrounding the spread of the Ebola virus overseas and in the United States. It is a theme echoed on Sunday by President Barack Obama who returned to the campaign trail this weekend after taking a week to directly oversee the government’s response to this crisis of Republican invention. He did not go as far as some on the left who have determined that voicing concern over Ebola’s spread from West Africa to the United States is, like virtually...

Joyce Thacker has been given the pay-off as she was named as one of the people singled out for criticism in a new report into the child sex abuse scandal ... Shamed former Rotherham children's services boss Joyce Thacker has received a £40,000 pay-off. The revelation comes as Mrs Thacker is among key figures in the town's child sex abuse scandal singled out for criticism in a new report. Mrs Thacker agreed the five-figure sum as a pay-off for leaving her £130,000 per year job, which took immediate effect last month. Furious abuse victims said Mrs Thacker should donate her...

Europe faces yet another recession, and the prospect is shaking global financial markets. To eliminate the persistent threat of collapse, Europe must drop the euro, and Germany must abandon mercantilism. When the euro was adopted in 1999, domestic prices -- the face values for bonds and loans -- and bank accounts were translated into euros according to prevailing exchange rates for national currencies at the time. Initially, the single currency posed few significant problems. Over time, however, differences in labor market policies and geographic conditions that are difficult for governments to alter caused productivity to grow more rapidly in Germany...

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2014. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $42.1 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.5 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $37.5 billion and net profit of $7.5 billion, or $1.18 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 37 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Thomson Reuters‘ analysts consensus called for Apple to report net income of $1.31 per share on revenue of $39.84...

We previously wrote about the deer sterilization program run by the Village of Cayuga Heights, NY, which borders the Cornell University campus and has large deer and faculty populations. After years of bitter debate, Cayuga Heights decided that the deer population would be controlled through sterilization at enormous expense: NY Town spends $2,984 per deer in sterilization programBecause Reproductive Health Care Is A Cervine Right The Cayuga Heights deer control was mostly a failure because, you know, deer move around, so sterilizing deer in Cayuga Heights didn’t prevent new deer from coming into the area. And so on. As far...

The Rev. Al Sharpton is expected to hold a four-day tribute for the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson at the end of this month. Sharpton will be in the Missouri town from October 31 to November 4 in reference to the four hours that the teenager's body was left lying on the street. Sharpton is leading a wave of outcry after a Friday report suggested that investigators do not have enough evidence to charge a police officer over the shooting of Michael Brown. Details revealed by the New York Times included the first account of the shooting...

The nation's four major pro sports leagues and the NCAA want to stop New Jersey's plans to allow legal sports betting, just days before it's due to start. They filed legal papers in federal court in Trenton on Monday, seeking an injunction that would stop the state from allowing casinos and racetracks to offer sports betting. Monmouth Park, a horse track, is the only location that has said it's ready to accept wagers. Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law Friday that effectively repeals the state's laws against sports gambling.

Despite no official action from the president ahead of the election, the Obama administration has quietly begun preparing to issue millions of work authorization permits, suggesting the implementation of a large-scale executive amnesty may have already begun. Unnoticed until now, a draft solicitation for bids issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Oct. 6 says potential vendors must be capable of handling a “surge” scenario of 9 million id cards in one year “to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.” The request for proposals says the agency will need a minimum of four million cards per year. In...

Late yesterday, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, responded to questions sent as a follow-up to his October 14th interview with Catholic World Report. He confirmed that he is leaving his positiion as Prefect, remarked on the reactions against the Relatio released this past Monday, reflected on the importance of the texts issued by the ten small groups, and commented on the recent controversy over an interview given by Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany. CWR: Not to discount or question other reports, but can you confirm that you will indeed be leaving...

Never mind the negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. Far more urgent developments are afoot. While the foreign ministers were busily counting how many centrifuges could spin in Iranian facilities, President Obama and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have arranged a working relationship throughout the Middle East that effectively puts American policy at the service of Iran.Long the goal of Obama, who sent a private emissary to Tehran as early as the 2008 election campaign to tell the Khamenei regime he wanted to be their friend, there is now a de facto alliance between the two...

Donald and Evelyn Knapp at the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Photo courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom. Boise. Idaho, Oct 20, 2014 / 12:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two Christian ministers in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, could face legal punishment or be forced to sell their nearly 100-year-old wedding chapel for declining to perform same-sex “wedding” ceremonies. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel with the legal group Alliance...