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There is one consolation for Mayor Gavin Newsom now that he's dropped out of the governor's race - he won't have to take a $72,477-a-year pay cut. Newsom, who earns $246,464 as mayor of San Francisco, would have seen his pay drop to $173,987 if he had won the governor's race, as a result of the salary cuts imposed on state elected officers last week.

WALNUT CREEK — More than 40 employees at the downtown Target store quit their jobs after an internal probe raised suspicions about their immigration status, according to lawyers who have met with the workers. Managers summoned the overnight crew of the North Main Street department store to meetings last month and gave workers the chance to prove their eligibility to work in the United States by bringing in the proper documents, the lawyers and Target representatives say. Most of the questioned workers voluntarily resigned, Target spokeswoman Kate Gillen said. The Minnesota-based retailer would not say how many workers left the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, a government report showed on Thursday, as companies continued to cut payrolls amid uncertainty over the economic outlook. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 576,000 in the week ended August 15 from 561,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said.

The Obama administration filed court papers Monday arguing that a federal marriage law discriminates against gays, even as government lawyers continue to defend the law. Justice Department lawyers are seeking to dismiss a suit brought by a gay California couple challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. The administration's response to the case has angered gay activists who see it as backtracking on campaign promises made by President Obama. In the court papers, the administration urges law's repeal but says that in the meantime, government lawyers will continue to defend it as a law on the books. The government's previous...

Time is running out for the legislatures in Arizona, California, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to solve budget gaps. Reporting from Indianapolis and Denver -- The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War. But on Monday, as lawmakers raced to hammer out an agreement over school funding, state agencies began preparing 31,000 workers to be temporarily out of a job. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has warned residents that most of the state's services -- including its parks, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and state-regulated casinos --...

'I'm better off dead. I'm done': Michael Jackson's fateful prediction just a week before his death By IAN HALPERIN 28th June 2009 Genetic condition had ruined his lungs and left him unable to sing He became so skeletal, doctors believed he was anorexic He had nightmares about being murdered – and wanted to die He used swine flu as an excuse to avoid coming to England He thought he was agreeing to 10 concerts – it was 50 Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven – by a cabal...

We are already seeing Sen. Ensign being attacked by local liberals, and it is spreading to the national level. However, reserve your judgement for a moment. You must consider certain facts about the affair. * Ensign was separated from his wife at the time. * One they reconciled, he ended the affair. * The husband apparently demanded money from Ensign to keep quiet. So it will depend on your own value system as to whether he should really take heat for violating his vows. It would be understandable to hold scorn for Ensign since he slept with the wife of...

UPDATE, 5:55 p.m.: Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) has acknowledged an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer in a statement released by his office. "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions," said Ensign....

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled. As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty....

An openly-gay, teenage boy was just voted "Prom Queen" at Los Angeles' Fairfax High School in a campaign that began as a stunt -- but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and teen popularity. Sergio Garcia, 18, was crowned queen Saturday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. "I feel invincible," Garcia said in his tiara and charcoal-gray tuxedo. A few days earlier, he gave a speech that won over some cynics and led to an ovation and his unlikely victory. "At one time, prom may have been a big popularity contest where the best-looking guy or...

<p>LOS ANGELES – An openly gay teen was voted prom queen at Los Angeles' Fairfax High School in a campaign that began as a stunt . . . .</p>

Rick Strandlof, executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance and the man most colleagues knew as Rick Duncan, was front and center during the 2008 political campaigns in Colorado. He spoke at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol in July, co-hosted several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the national group Votevets.org. And the mostly Democratic candidates he supported — looking for credibility on veterans issues and the war — lapped it up appreciatively. Now, politicians are dealing with news that...

Dan Walters: What’s Plan B if five ballot measures fail? ShareThis By Dan Walters dwalters@sacbee.com Published: Friday, May. 1, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 3A Prospects are rapidly diminishing for the five ballot measures that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders say they need to keep the state budget from drowning in red ink. So, one might ask, what's Plan B? Rejection of three measures (Propositions 1C, 1D and 1E) would have a direct impact totaling nearly $6 billion on the 2009-10 budget, which was supposedly balanced by Schwarzenegger and legislators in February. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor has already...

State budget deal to be unveiled Monday Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross Sunday, February 8, 2009 Buckle your seat belts - the ride is about to get wild in Sacramento, with state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg planning to put a $42 billion budget deal up for a vote. The deal - a combination of cuts and tax hikes - is expected to be unveiled Monday, then put up for a vote Tuesday. Whether there are enough Republican votes to make it fly, however, is unknown. "Darrell has made it clear that there was no handshake agreement, and there may not...

CENTERVILLE, Utah — The man escaped with a few cuts to his arm, but the toilet made out much worse. Police say a man's gun fell out of its holster while he pulled up his pants after using the bathroom at a Carl's Jr. restaurant Tuesday. The gun fired when it hit the floor and shattered the commode. A few shards of porcelain cut the man's arm, and a woman in an adjacent restroom who was frightened by the noise reported she was having chest pain. Both people were checked at the scene and released. Police say they confiscated the...

<p>SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.</p>

(11-19) 16:21 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The fireplace police descended on the Bay Area on Wednesday. For the first time ever, residential fires are illegal under a new law, passed in July, that bans home burning on winter season Spare the Air days. The first such ban took effect at noon. Seventy inspectors from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District planned to spend the day and evening patrolling residential neighborhoods, looking for telltale chimney wisps. Violators will get warnings by mail. Repeat offenders face fines of as much as $2,000. The fireplace police say they are determined to keep...

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges. The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting...

First day back at work for the ‘Cuda, and it wasn’t uneventful. I’m giving you two versions, the nitty gritty 90-second hit from CNN and the extended director’s cut from MSNBC. No names are named, but the hint she drops about the NAFTA smear probably having come from one of her debate preppers is as heavy as a barbell. Who was in charge of prepping her? Among others, according to Fox News: Randy Scheunemann, her chief defender, as well as … Steve Schmidt and Mark Wallace, husband of Nicolle. Hmmmm.

House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi “drill nothing” energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning. The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing...

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds John McCain continuing to lead Barack Obama, 48% to 43% among registered voters.

Family Of Subway Robbery Suspect Says Customer Shouldn't Have Pulled Trigger POSTED: 10:30 am EDT June 29, 2007 PLANTATION, Fla. -- The family of one of the men who was shot by a retired United States Marine while they attempted to rob a Subway sandwich shop said the customer shouldn't have pulled the trigger. According to Plantation police, two armed men barged into the Subway at 1949 Pine Island Road shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, demanding money...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Senate candidate Al Franken says he will pay about $70,000 in back income taxes in 17 states going back to 2003. The Minnesota Democrat has been under attack by Republicans for failing to file tax returns in California for several years when the comedian-turned-candidate earned money there. Franken tells The Associated Press he never intended to avoid paying taxes. He says during the years in question, he paid his entire income tax bill to the city and state where he lived. Franken says he did this on the advice of his accountant, but that he...

Franken owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states By PATRICIA LOPEZ, Star Tribune April 29, 2008 DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, frontrunner in the race to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states, where he earned income going back to 2003. Franken on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he never intended to avoid paying taxes and that on the advice of his accountant, had paid taxes to the city and state where he lived. Franken has been under fire since early March, when a Republican operative revealed that Franken had...

By Michelle Malkin April 28, 2008 Heard E.D. Hill mention this earlier today. It’s been confirmed: Jeremiah Wright’s bodyguards are Nation of Islam goons. Several Farrakhan acolytes were also in the audience for Wright’s vaudeville performance at the National Press Club, including one of our favorite race clowns, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and America’s favorite race clown politician, Marion Barry. Also in attendance: Wacknut Obama supporter Rev. Michael Pfleger: Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the...

DENVER - A Colorado legislator known for kicking a photographer was ordered to leave the podium of the state House of Representatives on Monday because he called Mexican workers "illiterate peasants." State Rep. Douglas Bruce, who has a history of provoking controversy, made the comment during debate on a bill that would allow the state to help immigrant workers get temporary federal visas. The measure is intended to ease a shortage of farm workers in the state. "I would like to have the opportunity to state at the microphone why I don't think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in...

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties...</p>

Clinton scores a Hat Trick TRIBUNE-REVIEW BY: Salena Zito When it rains it pours, and Thursday it rained superdelegates for Hillary Clinton. Clinton scored a Hat Trick Thursday by picking up former Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff, former president of the Ohio chapter of the AFL-CIO Bill Burga and Jackie Speier, who took over the late Tom Santo's seat in Congress this week.

Pirates seized control of a French vessel carrying 30 crew members Friday off the coast of Somalia, the French government and the ship's owner said. Attackers stormed aboard "Le Ponant" as it returned without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea, said officials with French maritime transport company CMA-CGM. The corporate officials said they were in close contact with the French Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that a cruise boat and its crew had been attacked by pirates. The ship was in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast...

Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe. ADVERTISEMENT The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019. Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs...

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands. It's the first time I...

In a recent WND column, Janet Folger begs social conservatives to vote for John McCain. She believes McCain will rescue "most everyone" from our political "burning building" – when in fact McCain has already locked arms with the Kennedys, Feingolds and liberal Democrats to keep social conservatives "out" of politics while they burn our constitutional republic to the ground. Like our mutual friend Alan Keyes, I've been a lifelong Republican and never voted third party, but this time I've had enough

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=53014

The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Sen. Barack Obama gave at its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president, the denomination said Tuesday. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, belongs to the 1.2 million-member Protestant group through his Chicago congregation. In a letter the denomination received Monday, the IRS said "reasonable belief exists" that the circumstances surrounding the speech violated restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt organizations. The denomination has denied any wrongdoing. United Church of Christ, link to IRS letter: http://www.ucc.org/news/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1.html

John McCain is a well-known opponent of waterboarding. But he wants President Bush to veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using it, and other harsh interrogation methods, on terror suspects. McCain voted against the bill, which would let the CIA use only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote is controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding, yet McCain doesn't want the CIA to be bound by the manual and its prohibitions.

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said President Bush should veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects. McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual. His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding - a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes - yet McCain doesn't want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is...

"What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback and let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I have seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues. It it's made me proud."

2008-01-30) — Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards today quit the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, and immediately endorsed Republican frontrunner Sen. John McCain.

<p>For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.</p>

WELLINGTON — Six members of a family were arrested at The Mall at Wellington Green in an incident that began benignly enough over a pair of droopy jeans but ended like a chaotic scene out of the Cops TV show. An estimated 20 deputies, two canine units and a police helicopter swarmed the area surrounding the mall's food court, shutting down roads, all to arrest a 52-year-old man, his 50-year-old wife and four other relatives, ages 16 to 20, Thursday evening. It's a family affair. They get to spend the holiday in jail together," Palm Beach County sheriff's Lt. Jay...

Source is link only.STORY.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference. A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State...

Kiefer Sutherland was sentenced to 48 days in jail for racking up a second drunken driving arrest in three years and immediately reported to a lockup. The star of the television drama "24" arrived at the city jail and was being processed Wednesday evening, said Glendale, Calif., police officer John Balian. Sutherland, who pleaded no-contest in October to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of .08, had appeared in court with his lawyer earlier Wednesday and politely answered the judge's questions, said assistant city attorney Dan Jeffries.

WASHINGTON - A suspected Hezbollah mole who penetrated who penetrated the ranks of the FBI and CIA pleaded guilty Tuesday to falsely getting U.S. citizenship and snooping in FBI terrorism files. Former waitress Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, of Vienna, Va., admitted arranging a sham marriage with an American in Michigan to win U.S. citizenship. She parlayed that into sensitive jobs as an FBI special agent and a CIA operations officer, sources said. Sources told The News that Prouty is believed to be a double-agent planted in the agencies by Hezbollah or its supporters, though government officials downplayed her ties to...

Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they've come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.) But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society. Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients. It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about...

Wouldn’t you feel safer with a gun? British attitudes are supercilious and misguidedRichard Munday Despite the recent spate of shootings on our streets, we pride ourselves on our strict gun laws. Every time an American gunman goes on a killing spree, we shake our heads in righteous disbelief at our poor benighted colonial cousins. Why is it, even after the Virginia Tech massacre, that Americans still resist calls for more gun controls?

Rep. Tom Tancredo said 'Enough is enough' after two years and $114 billion. "The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-callled 'recovery' efforts has been mind-boggling," said Tancredo. According to the White House, the federal government has provided about $114 billion in funding and resources - or around $1 billion per week - a staggering figure. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that potentially more than $1 billion in taxpayer money has been squandered through waste, fraud and abuse. "The whole fiasco has been a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence at all levels" said Tancredo....

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo says that it’s time to end federal aid to regions of the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina, saying that it’s “time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station,” according to a report in The Hill. Click here to read the full story on TheHill.com. “The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called ‘recovery’ efforts has been mind-boggling,” said the Colorado Republican and long-shot presidential hopeful. Tancredo also criticized waste and fraud in the recovery effort, estimated at $1 billion. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast near New Orleans...

A Colorado Springs couple is complaining that U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn left them two threatening voice mails after they wrote a letter criticizing his fundraising. Jonathan Bartha and Anna Bartha told The Denver Post that Lamborn said there would be "consequences" if they did not withdraw their letter. Lamborn, in a call to The Associated Press, said he had never intended to threaten anyone and just wanted to warn them that they would embarrass themselves with a false claim that he accepted campaign funds from the gambling industry.