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California Proposes Sales Tax Hike To Fund Transport, Government Services July 18, 2008 11:32 a.m. ESTVittorio Hernandez - AHN News WriterSacramento, CA (AHN) - To close California's $17.2 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered on Thursday hiking the state sales tax and using funds intended for transportation and government services.State legislators proposed the two measures, which the governor initially described as bad ideas, but he did not rule out adopting the measures to avoid a cash crisis in California.The lawmakers plan to close the budget gap by collecting $5.6 billion income tax increase on the rich and borrowing $1.1...

It's getting a little crowded under Bar ack Obama's bus. Washington power broker James Johnson got tossed under yesterday - joining Chicago wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the entire Trinity United Church of Christ. Officially, Johnson said he was leaving a three-member committee charged with vetting potential Obama running mates so that his ties to a mortgage company wouldn't become a campaign distraction. Fact is, Johnson had already become radioactive; the campaign would've been nuts not to jettison him. Now Obama needs to turn his attention to another member of that committee - Eric Holder, a former...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Protesters energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday that drew tens of thousands and brought Jane Fonda back to the streets.

(CBS) COMPTON, Calif. - Beginning this weekend, Compton residents can exchange their guns for gifts -- no questions asked -- as part of a city-sponsored endeavor to reduce violence. According to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, personnel will collect firearms in the parking lot of the Circuit City/Ralphs Grocery shopping center at Compton Boulevard and Alameda Street. The guns for gifts drive will continue over the next three Saturdays. For every gun turned in, participants will receive a $50 gift card to Circuit City, Ralphs Grocery or Toys "R" Us. "The largest challenge to this program...

'Arab vision' to advance peace process Arab League, PA, other Arab states meet to formulate Arab vision for peace in Middle East Roee Nahmias Published: 09.03.06, 14:11 The Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Arab League are holding intensive talks in recent days in an attempt to formulate an "Arab vision" for advancing the peace process. The final document is to be delivered to the United Nations Security Council at the end of the month, according to the east Jerusalem-based al-Quds newspaper. Hisham Yousef, head of the office of the Arab League's director-general, said...

SAN DIEGO -- Future costs for illegal immigrants in the United States will reach a half a trillion dollars, a Heritage Foundation researcher said Wednesday at congressional hearing in San Diego. The influx of illegal immigrants has effectively "imported about 10 million high school dropouts into the United States," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow in welfare and family issues for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Rector testified before the House Judiciary Committee, which convened at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot for one in a series of hearings on illegal immigration this month. The hearings are a rebuttal to...

Think the immigration debate is mainly about giving amnesty to the 10 million illegals already here? Think again. Amnesty is a drop in the bucket. The real issue is the staggering increase in legal immigration hidden in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, recently passed in the Senate. By a ratio of about 4-1, U.S. voters would prefer less immigration, not more. But the Senate bill would do just the opposite. The original bill would have allowed as many as 100 million people to legally immigrate to the United States over the next 20 years. We're talking about a seismic shift...

June 30, 2006 -- THE ISSUE: A comprehensive immigration plan that includes a guest-worker program. No one with any common sense believes the Senate immigration bill would really be enforced ("Base Desires," Dick Morris, PostOpinion, June 26). Rather, it would only begin another round of illegal entries into the country. The government has to show us that the borders are really being secured first. Peter Trotter Bloomfield, Conn. **** Morris' commentary would lead one to believe that the Republican base is all for amnesty. That is not the case. Grass-roots conservatives, who worked hard to get President Bush re-elected, support...

WASHINGTON - Sales of existing homes fell for the third time in the past five months in May, with the weakness led by a big drop in demand in the Northeast. ADVERTISEMENT The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales of previously owned homes dropped by 1.2 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.67 million units. The median price of the homes sold in May rose to $230,000 in May, up 6 percent from the same month a year ago. That represented a slowdown from huge double-digit price gains last year at the peak of...

I have recently joined "The Daily Kos". I have done so to pursue honest, reasonable, and rational debate. I have started posting on the site and became aware of an interesting and disgusting policy on. The troll policy is described as follows in the FAQ: "Dealing with trolls Trolling is a sad reality of internet life. Most trolls tend to be blatant, posting comments or diaries that are clearly intended to provoke an angry response. Other trollish messages are posted simply to disrupt the conversation in a diary. Directly replying to the content of a trollish message is usually a...

NORTHEAST FLORIDA -- The rise in foreclosures that analysts predicted would follow an easing in lending restrictions, low interest rates and creative mortgage products has emerged in metropolitan Jacksonville. Recently released data from California-based RealtyTrac Inc. showed the five-county metro area experienced a 39 percent increase in foreclosures over last year's first quarter, or 3,579 foreclosures for the first three months of this year compared with 2,570 for the same period in 2005. The increase was just above the national foreclosure increase of 38 percent for the first quarter, which RealtyTrac analysts said could mean foreclosures going above 1.2 million...

He wrote about 650 pieces; why do we always hear the same old six? By Gavin Borchert Man of the moment.It's Mozart's 250th birthday, and almost as prevalent as concerts of his music are complaints by critics that everyone plays Mozart all the time anyway. How do you keep standard repertory fresh and bring in audiences in such a situation? With Mozart's birth (1756) and death (1791) both celebrated every 50 years, we've barely had time to get over the 1991 party. Any music festival's first responsibility in programming, I suppose, is to justify itself—to convince concertgoers that saturation bombing...

Islamic websites yesterday posted a "last warning" warning by Rakan Ben Williams, who describes himself as an "al-Qaida undercover soldier" in the U.S., threatening two major operations designed to bring Americans "to your knees."

Coburn's Proposals Get KO'd In Senate Spat By Chris Casteel The Oklahoman WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's pork-busting got personal Thursday, prompting the equivalent of a schoolyard brawl in the staid Senate. Though Coburn wound up being pummeled like a new kid who doesn't know the playground rules, he got in a few licks before losing. Coburn, the freshman Republican from Muskogee, started the fight when he tried to knock out some "special projects" from a spending bill, including $500,000 for a sculpture garden at a Seattle art museum and another $950,000 for a parking lot at an art...

In a park in the Latvian capital Riga, a small group of protesters gathers, all Russian, some wearing paper hats inscribed with the word "Alien". Latvian police carry out a small, bureaucratic piece of harassment. With a tape, and much officiousness, they measure the distance between the demonstrators and the nearest public building, a school on the other side of the road. The protest is two metres too close, so the police move it a little further down the path. The protesters don't mind. They are there to object to a much greater injustice. More than 450,000 Russians and native...

LOUISVILLE, KY — Pizza for breakfast is nothing new. But Papa John's is testing something more than cold leftovers. A Papa John's in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, is offering pizza omelettes and pizza pastries to the breakfast crowd. It's the only outlet in the country that's test-marketing the AM pizzas. The pizzeria uses the same six-inch crust used at stadium concession stands. Customers can get a variety of ingredients in their pizza omelettes, including cheese, sausage, ham and green pepper. Officials of Papa John's say if the marketing test works out well, the breakfast offerings could be expanded to other outlets.

Bangor Daily News - Print this Article Bangor Daily News Photo by Denise HenhoefferPolice officers carry a man out of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor during a protest Thursday against the U.S. war in Iraq. By Tom Groening, Of the NEWS Staff e-mail TomLast updated: Friday, March 21, 200319 protesters arrested for trespassing in Bangor BANGOR - Police arrested 13 protesters Thursday at the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building on Harlow Street, and six more at U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe's office at One Cumberland Place on Thursday evening. All were charged with criminal trespassing.Dozens more participated...

just broke...was reading a Reuters report

Anti-war murmur grew with little press coverage By Tim Gallagher March 9, 2003 'The first casualty when war comes is truth," Sen. Hiram Johnson said in 1917. This time, however, the truth was wounded before the first missile was fired. This time, it was the news media that did not tell the truth. Now that we have the perspective of a few months it is obvious that the news media was very slow to recognize and report the burgeoning number of Americans who opposed war with Iraq, at least until a stronger case for war is built. The typical wartime...

Cannabis economy brings in £11bn Cannabis smokers just want to stay on the sofa and snack, spending hours engrossed in home entertainment. Red Bull and smoothies, 'Munchie' snacks such as Mars bars and Haribo jellies. Pizza chains. Video stores. Games consoles. Multichannel TV. And what scares them... Shiny, noisy places with too many choices such as Starbucks and McDonald's High-alcohol drinks and strong lagers such as Stella Artois Pubs with bouncers on the door: Businesses alerted to huge profits as study shows dope users have money to burn Ben Summerskill Sunday February 2, 2003 The Observer The stock market is...

President Bush and First Lady Laura continued their New Year's vacation in Crawford, Texas today. Bush gave his last Saturday radio address of the year and used the opportunity to share the successes as well as goals for the year ahead.