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WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's choice for a top job with the Treasury Department is having tax problems. A congressional report says Obama's nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, Lael Brainard, was late in paying real estate taxes in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The report by the Senate Finance Committee staff also challenges the accuracy of a deduction Brainard claimed for running an office from her home. The challenge led Brainard to reduce the deduction on her 2008 return. The committee's top Republican is unhappy that the committee staff had to submit 10 sets of questions...

President Obama's school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk. The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus.(continued)

ublished: August 24, 2009 TABOR CITY, N.C. — A sheriff says a North Carolina state senator shot one of two intruders at his home and hospital officials say the man is in fair condition. Multiple media outlets reported that Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten said that 74-year-old Sen. R.C. Soles of Tabor City shot Kyle Blackburn late Sunday afternoon. A spokeswoman at Loris Community Hospital in South Carolina said Monday that Blackburn was in fair condition. Batten says the shooting occurred when two men went to the senator’s house and tried to kick in his front door. No charges have...

Report: Obamas to Rent Martha's Vineyard Farmhouse for August Vacation The Blue Heron Farm -- located on the island's western end in Chilmark -- is a 28.5-acre private residential compound with an apple orchard, swimming pool, golf practice tee and basketball court. FOXNews.com Monday, July 27, 2009 The Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark, Mass. (The Boston Herald). President Obama and the first family will rent a scenic farm house on Martha's Vineyard for their vacation during the last week of August, the Vineyard Gazette reported Monday. The Blue Heron Farm -- located on the island's western end in Chilmark --...

Elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance. Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get. The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if "it's my...

You may not have been aware of this, but on Saturday you were supposed to sit around in the dark for sixty minutes, starting at 8:30 PM, in order to celebrate "Earth Hour." Now, you may be wondering: what exactly would that accomplish? I'm not entirely sure what the answer to that question is supposed to be, but I think the general theory was that the darkness was going to inspire legions of dirt faeries to fly in, sprinkle magic Pixie dust everywhere, and that was supposed to cool the earth off -- or something. I don't even think the...

WASHINGTON - While out on the campaign trail in May of 2008, Barack Obama told the audience at a rally in Oregon that the United States must lead by example on energy efficiency and fighting global warming. "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," he said. When Obama took office, the fact that he was photographed without a jacket made news -- previous president George W. Bush had a strict jacket-required policy...

California's multibillion-dollar deficit hasn't stopped the state from shelling out an estimated $1.3 million to keep 40 new and returning lawmakers rolling in style during these toughest of times. Nearly all 28 of the newly sworn-in members of the Assembly, plus several of the 52 holdovers, have leased new wheels through the state - at a cost well below what the average wage slave pays at the dealer. On the Senate side, nine of the 11 new members - all of whom just moved over from the Assembly - picked up new rides along with their new titles. Among them,...

The most telling appointment Barack Obama has made since becoming President-elect has nothing to do with his Cabinet or senior advisors. It was the appointment of Sidwell Friends School, a private grammar school in Washington D.C. to which the Obamas have reportedly decided to send their two daughters. I applaud Obama's commitment to the education of his daughters, choosing to send them to the best schools.It is just too bad that Obama opposes extending that choice to families whose children are relegated by geography and by income to schools he knows and everyone knows will fail them. And Obama does...

Did someone ordered a surge in vanities and I missed it. It seems there's new one posted every five minutes today.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

Ted Kennedy has called Nantucket Sound near his Massachusetts estate “a national treasure” — but that didn’t stop the senator from having oil dumped from his yacht into its waters. A local photographer spotted an oil slick coming from Kennedy’s yacht Mya as Kennedy and his guests left the vessel in a launch following a race that ended in Hyannis, the Cape Cod Today newspaper reported. The lensman was so shocked that he rowed his dinghy out to question the crew member left aboard the yacht. He asked the crewman, “What the hell are you doing?” The crewman said that...

<p>Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been linked to a prostitution ring, the New York Times is reporting on its Web site. He not expected to continue his term, multiple sources in the state Legislature tell CBS 2, setting off one of the largest scandals in modern New York state political history.</p>

<p>Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning. He is set to make an announcement . . .</p>

aving climate campaigner Al Gore round to your house is to open yourself to a self-flagellating guilt trip, Irish rock star Bono confessed Thursday. Sharing a stage with the former US vice president at the annual gathering of world movers and shakers in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, the U2 frontman joked that their friendship was a source of pressure on the domestic front. "He's been round my house and it's like... here's the recycler Al, you know... I've got a posh car, but it runs on ethanol Al," Bono said. Acknowledging that a career in rock music was...

Because the Boston Globe was looking into it. From the paper, posted a short time ago: Mitt Romney, who has taken a tough stance against illegal immigrants in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, has continued to employ a company that uses illegal immigrants to do lawn work at his home. Responding to inquiries from the Globe, which had observed the work taking place at his house and interviewed the workers, Romney tonight fired the company for failing to comply with the law… Romney has made illegal immigration a central campaign issue in his bid for the nomination. At...

As irrefutable evidence mounts that Nobel Laureate Al Gore's climate alarmism is about nothing other than lining his supposedly green pockets with green currency, manmade global warming skeptics around the world wonder when the former vice president's house of cards will collapse. Without question, if Gore were to lose the support of almost universally adoring Hollywoodans, the scam would implode quicker than a Democrat demanding a recount after losing a close election. As such, the following comments by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford, reported by the New Statesman last week, should bring hope to folks not buying the snake oil...

Are the stars aligning for another Al Gore moment in the presidential campaign? The former-vice-president-turned-climate-change-crusader long has hovered over the campaign despite his professed disinterest in becoming a candidate. Now, with rumors of a possible Nobel Peace Prize swirling, he's once again back in the conversation. The peace prize announcement is due on Friday, so he doesn't have long to wait to learn if he has pulled off a unique grand slam for 2007: an Oscar, an Emmy, a bestseller and a Nobel. It would vault him once again back into the center of speculation about whether he might jump...

A subprime lender with ties to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has moved to foreclose on more than 130 homes in South Carolina since the S.C. native went to work for its parent company, an analysis of courthouse records shows. The lender, Green Tree Financial, also was once the subject of a $30 million class-action verdict involving thousands of South Carolinians. Edwards’ ties to the company are disquieting to some supporters of the North Carolinian. On the campaign trail, Edwards has insisted he is the champion of lower-income families. Edwards’ ties to Green Tree also could hurt him with voters...

'GREEN' GORE GOES GULFSTREAM: VIDEO CATCHES ECO-WARRIOR ON LUXURY PRIVATE JET Fri Sep 07 2007 07:48:23 ET **Exclusive** As former Vice President Al Gore waits to hear if he has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless effort on climate change, a new video will air this weekend capturing Gore on a fuel-guzzling private jet! FOXNEWS host Sean Hannity is set to unleash the damning video this Sunday night, network sources reveal. Developing...

Veteran actress and feminist Jane Fonda has been slammed for not paying her female employees working in the actress' radio network Green Stone Media. The twice Oscar winner and the radio network's co-founder Gloria Steinem have been accused of "putting their own reputations above their female employees' finances." According to the New York Post, Fonda and Steinem are 'refusing to pay severance, and the founders won't file for bankruptcy protection because it would publicly embarrass Jane and Gloria.' However, the 'Klute' star's spokesperson has denied the reports and said that the accusations are unfounded. "This is pure speculation. There is...

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills. Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

The White House yesterday ridiculed Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton for complaining about President Bush's decision to keep former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. out of jail, saying their criticism smacks of hypocrisy. "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," press secretary Tony Snow said. The White House also suggested that a slew of pardons granted by Mr. Clinton on his final day in office were never properly investigated and said they ought to be. "This provides a nice chance to go back and look at the Clinton pardons....

John Edwards may be running for the White House as a populist concerned about "the other America," but that doesn't mean he has to sit in the cheap seats. The ex-North Carolina senator attended Thursday night's NBA finals in Cleveland, watching from the courtside "Platinum Suites" VIP seats costing thousands of dollars. "He should sue himself . . . for political malpractice," said Dan Ronayne, deputy communications director of the Republican National Committee. Countered Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz: "Breaking news - a candidate from North Carolina likes basketball. Wait till they find out he had a hot dog."

This is about a week old now, but if you haven't seen it, watch until the very end when Edwards answers the question "right or privilege?" Here's the full transcript of the "Right or Privilege" portion: Question: A college education? Edwards: Right. Q: Health care? E: Right. Q: A livable wage? E: Right. Q: Owning a handgun? E: Privilege. Q: American citizenship for someone not born here but has worked here for one year? E: Working for one year? That's a hard one, because I think people have to earn citizenship. I think I would have a period be longer...

Parking Lot at Al Gore Event in Northern California Filled With Gas-Guzzling SUVs Posted by Noel Sheppard on May 25, 2007 - 10:26. This is way too funny, folks, and requires all potables, combustibles, and sharp objects to be properly stowed.There was a meeting of Al Gore sycophants in Marin, California, on Wednesday. And, rather than liberal, Northern California attendees coming on environmentally-friendly bicycles, by horseback, or in hybrid vehicles, the parking lot at the Marin Civic Center was filled with gas-guzzling SUVs, trucks, and minivans.Was this just another example of the party to the left living the “Do as I...

Apple board member and former US vice president Al Gore would win the presidency if he ran for election, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would be elected," Jobs told Time Magazine. "But I think there's a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see." The report explains the background Gore's strenuous campaigning to persuade people to address the growing threat of climate-change caused environmental collapse. "We have dug ourselves into a 20-foot hole, and...

"He's pretty, he has flowing locks, he's young-looking," Andrew Sullivan has said of the lovely and talented John Edwards. But Edwards is more than just a pretty face. He's also loaded. The San Francisco Chronicle alone reports that he raked in $55,000 in taxpayer dollars for a single speech at the University of California's Davis campus. Topic of the speech: "Poverty, the great moral issue facing America." [Snip] BusinessWeek, meanwhile, reports that after losing the 2004 vice presidential election, Edwards "started a nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty": Rather than recruiting outside poverty experts, the Center for Promise & Opportunity became...

Democrat John Edwards has eloquently established his credentials as an advocate for the poor with a presidential campaign focused on the devastating effects of poverty in America. But the former North Carolina senator's populist drive has hit a series of troubling land mines: a pair of $400 haircuts, a $500,000 paycheck from a hedge fund, and now a $55,000 payday for a speech on poverty to students at UC Davis. The problem now facing the Democratic presidential candidate is whether the pileup of headlines, including the latest regarding hefty fees from university speeches reported Monday by The Chronicle, threatens to...

This generation is one that thrives on media publicity, and right now global warming is in the spotlight. From melting icecaps to rising temperatures and sea levels, global warming seems to be the hot topic. With the help of Al Gore's Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," the issue of global warming has been projected from television screens worldwide, including those at Central York High School. Both Gregory Wimmer and Eric Webb, teachers of global studies and environmental sciences at Central, have used Gore's film as a teaching tool. "In a social studies classroom, "An Inconvenient Truth" allows for an...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who as a Democratic presidential candidate recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show. The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed Monday.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who as a Democratic presidential candidate recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show.

Former Vice President Al Gore is harshly critical of President Bush in his new book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he claims that "the current White House has engaged in an unprecedented and sustained campaign of mass deception." In an interview with ABC News, Gore goes one step further on the war in Iraq, calling it "the worst strategic mistake in the whole history of the United States." However, Gore refuses to place the blame squarely on Bush. "When our country made a decision to invade Iraq, it's too partisan to simply blame that on the current president," he...

Uh-oh. Don’t look now, but somebody who wants to be President forgot to take their medicine. It remains uncertain as to whether the failure to follow the prescription will be politically costly. But the Senator formerly known as Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to be caught in another little conflict, and this one could be a problem with, shall we say, “the faithful.” By “the faithful,” I mean the left-wing contingency within the Democratic Party that long ago abandoned any historic, western understanding of the relationship between the human person and the earth (an understanding that is so commonplace for most...

A Vallejo woman reportedly suffered minor injuries Friday when her car was rear-ended by an SUV driven by a state senator talking on a cell phone while driving through Solano County. State Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, was driving her new state-issued 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV at 10:40 a.m. on eastbound Highway 12 at Beck Avenue when she rear-ended Ellen Butawan, 31, of Vallejo, California Highway Patrol Officer Marvin Williford said. Butawan's 2005 Honda sedan was slowing behind a 2003 GMC Savana van that had stopped at a red light, Williford said. The impact forced Butawan's car into the...

Let us say right up front that it's terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity. We're also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator's spokesman, "John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he's had." While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just...

Leonardo DiCaprio sat down with The Hollywood Reporter and a handful of select film publications at the Hotel du Cap in Cannes on Saturday to discuss his upcoming environmental documentary "The 11th Hour." The film, which premiered in a special Out of Competition screening Saturday at the Festival de Cannes, uses a barrage of images and reams of interviews with the world's top environmental scientists to paint a bleak but still optimistic picture of the fate of our planet. "Hour" was directed by sister Nadia Conners and Leila Conners Petersen, who wrote the script with DiCaprio. What was the most...

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Hollywood star and long-time environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio has a message for the world: go green now, before it's too late. As DiCaprio tells it in film documentary "The 11th Hour", launched on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, people are living in the last minutes of the final hour before it may be too late to do anything about global warming. "Global warming is a reality. It is happening," DiCaprio told reporters gathered for the movie's debut. Last year "An Inconvenient Truth" explored the same environmental issue by telling of former U.S. Vice President Al...

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio sent out a message about global warming at the Cannes Film Festival. The heartthrob has made a film, the 11th Hour, warning that human beings face extinction as a result of the environmental crisis. At a press conference in the South of France following the screening, The Blood Diamond actor, 32, attacked US President George Bush, saying: "It's very simple. He's done very little for the environmental movement." The Titanic star's latest film, which he narrates, follows another environmental warming documentary by former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, shown at the Cannes Film Festival last year....

The religion of the left seems to be environmentalism, and the everyone knows what happens when religious figures on the right are exposed as hypocrites. Ted Haggard, Jim Baker and others have claimed to stand for one thing and privately lived a life that conflicted with their stated beliefs, and the media covered it non-stop. In contrast, the media ignore that the darling of the Democratic presidential candidates has again been nailed as an environmental hypocrite. Barack Obama was outed as an SUV driver in 2006, who said at the same time, "the blame for the world's higher temperature rests...

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday that he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty—and to make money too. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection but he has more to learn. Edwards has made eradicating poverty a focus of his second White House bid. Edwards, a multimillionaire after years as a trial lawyer, would not disclose how much he got paid for a year of consulting beginning in October...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used her clout to get lawmakers to back a San Francisco redevelopment project near her multimillion-dollar rental properties, disclosure documents reveal. Pelosi got House members to authorize $25 million to improve the Embarcadero port area, clearing the way for cruise-ship-dock development and other improvements to aid the neighborhood's comeback. [Snip] "The appearance is obviously not good, and she needs to be forthcoming about how this impacts her financial interest," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told The Post. [Snip] Pelosi is the ninth richest member of the House, according to last year's disclosure reports, with stocks and real-estate...

Prominent political fundraisers who backed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign are reserving support for the current slate of 2008 Democrats in hopes the former vice president will swoop in for another White House bid. H.E. "Sonny" Cauthen Jr. told The Washington Times he has been flattered to get calls from candidates asking for his help this time around, but said he is hesitating on picking one while he waits to see what Mr. Gore decides. "If he wants to run, I would be very supportive of that," said Mr. Cauthen, a founding partner of the Washington lobbying firm Cauthen Forbes...

The Senate is considering the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. In it, there is an earmark benefiting Nancy Pelosi (§ 5054 of H.R. 1495). The earmark would redevelop part of San Francisco's waterfront. Within 5,400 feet and 9,000 feet of the area Nancy would have redeveloped, she owns properties with rental income around $3 million. Call 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senator's office. Tell your Senator you want to make sure Nancy's earmark is permanently blocked. Kill Nancy's earmark.They are: 1301 Sansome LLC Pelosi Real Estate Partnership Rent Income: $1 million (2005) 945 Battery LLC Pelosi Real Estate Partnership...

Laurie David has been called the high priestess of Hollywood activism: She's raised millions of dollars for environmental causes, helped bring Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth from lecture hall to big screen, and used pop-culture channels to spread the word about global warming. (snip) I woke up the morning after the election, November 3, and cried for three straight days. I couldn't stop. Not because my candidate lost, which he had, but because of what it meant for the solutions to global warming. We had just reelected a president who surrounds himself with advisors and staff culled from the oil...

A city police officer who recently received an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been charged with drunken driving, authorities said. Specialist Charles Beebe's SUV was pulled over Wednesday in Aurora, Ind., after a motorist reported that he had forced two vehicles off the road, the arresting officer's report said. Beebe failed a field sobriety test and agreed to a chemical test. His blood-alcohol content was 0.08 percent, the point at which a motorist is considered legally drunk in Indiana, according to the arrest report. Beebe, 54, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Lawrenceburg, Ind., and was released on $1,500...

WASHINGTON | A parody broadcast by radio personality Rush Limbaugh about Sen. Barack Obama’s popularity with many white voters is drawing fire from critics, who say that it’s racist. The clip, “Barack the Magic Negro,” features a comedian imitating the singing voice of the Rev. Al Sharpton, bemoaning Obama’s popularity with whites who will “vote for him and not for me cause he’s not from da hood.” Obama’s campaign called the song “dumb,” although a spokesman said that the campaign doesn’t think anyone is taking the song seriously.

It is the haircut that will not die. He can spin it, he can gel it, he can mousse it. But it is not going away. John Edwards' $400 haircuts will live forever. The Smithsonian Institution is probably trying to find the clippings now. They will be put in a glass case so schoolchildren of the future can learn from them. I was willing never to write about the haircuts again. Edwards got two of them for $400 each and charged them to his campaign, which means he charged them to his campaign contributors. When this became public, he said...

H aven't we heard enough from Al Gore, the U.S. windbag turned Hollywood celebrity who presumes to lecture Canadians on their environmental responsibilities? The failed U.S. presidential candidate spends a lot of time in Canada, perhaps because he finds it fertile ground for self-enrichment. The multi-millionaire with a carbon footprint the size of a Sasquatch was in Toronto at the weekend, preening himself among adoring fans. He was introducing a showing of his Oscar-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth, that apocalyptic vision of a world in meltdown that has earned him the soubriquet of "the world's most famous environmentalist." Gore, whose...