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A congressional race with an official Tea Party candidate in the running appears to be good news for Democrats. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds that in a three-way congressional contest with a Tea Party candidate on the ballot, the Democrat picks up 40% of the vote. The Republican earns 21% support, while nearly as many (18%) favor the Tea Party candidate. Twenty-one percent (21%), however, remain undecided. Not surprisingly, Republicans and unaffiliated voters are more likely to be undecided than Democrats. (To see survey question wording, click here.) This is a slightly improved...

The good news: The lunatic minister in Florida has been persuaded (or threatened) into not burning the Koran. Book burning is despicable, cowardly and un-American. The bad news: Would anyone believe, in the days immediately following 9/11, there would come a time in this country, when radical, lunatic Muslims would dictate to the American people and its government, that certain forms of protest would not tolerated- and the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and an American general would meekly acquiesce? Damn it, the AP said it wouldn't broadcast photos, audio or even...

The real motivation for the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona's new immigration statute was the ONLY one not mentioned in the department's brief: The Obama administration has no intention of enforcing the immigration laws against the majority of illegal aliens already in the country. It is that policy alone which conflicts with SB 1070: Arizona wants to enforce the law; the Obama administration does not. Under SB 1070, a law enforcement officer can only make an inquiry about immigration status during a LAWFUL stop for a non-immigration offense. The Justice Department and U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, in striking down...

Teams of American special forces have been authorised to conduct spying missions intended to pave the way for a military strike on Iran in case President Obama orders one, US government sources have confirmed. The military units would penetrate Iranian territory to reconnoitre potential nuclear targets and make contact with friendly dissident groups, according to a secret directive written by General David Petraeus. The document's existence was disclosed for the first time yesterday. It authorises an expansion in the use of US special forces throughout the Middle East, US officials said. However, it is the possibility of American troops operating...

The U.S. economy is not only shedding jobs at a record rate; it is shedding more jobs than it is supposed to. It’s bad enough that the unemployment rate has doubled in only a year and a half and one out of six construction workers is out of work. What truly troubles President Obama’s economic advisers is that, even adjusting for the recession, the contraction in employment seems way too high. As one administration official said, “This has been a very steep job loss.” One proof, he added, is that the country is deviating from the standard (among economists) jobs...

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a bill that would bar welfare recipients from using taxpayer-backed benefit cards to buy alcohol.

Bailing out the banks is going to increase the debt spiral and finally cause the destruction of the world's biggest economy, Rogers said. "I think it's astonishing, they're ruining the US economy, they're ruining the US government, they're ruining the US central bank and they're ruining the US dollar," he said. "You are watching something in front of our eyes, very historically, which is basically the destruction of New York as a financial center and the destruction of America as the world's most powerful country."

Cannot post due to copyright issues: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/07/is-the-media-trying-to-elect-obama.html

ATLANTA -- Alcohol was a factor in the death of a 25-year-old man who fell down a stairwell at Turner Field during a game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets. Justin Hayes of Cumming, Ga., suffered head injuries Wednesday night and was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. He fell about 150 feet from the club level to the landing on the field level during the eighth inning. The investigation is "pointing toward drinking. Alcohol was a factor," said Atlanta police department spokesman Ronald Campbell on Thursday. Campbell said Hayes may have been sliding down the handrails when he...

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday. Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.

Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Census of Population, an analysis of workers and jobs in the central cities and lower- and higher-income suburbs of the largest 150 metropolitan areas indicates that: Roughly 65 percent of all residents and nearly 60 percent of all jobs are now located in the suburbs, with over a third of each in the higher-income suburbs. More individuals now live in the higher-income suburbs than in the central cities, and nearly as many jobs are in the higher-income suburbs as well. Population grew strongly during the 1990s in the lower-income suburbs, while job growth...

When Michael Rosenblum and Justine Harris met in college and started dating, they were convinced they could never get married. He came from a conservative Jewish household where the family kept kosher. She hadn't been raised in a very religious family, but after years of attending Catholic mass with friends, she joined the church as a young college student. Though they were having a good time together as a couple, "we saw (our different religions) as a big stumbling block," Rosenblum said. Ultimately, they decided that scrapping the relationship because of religion wasn't worth it and ended up marrying. But...

CHICAGO - A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms. The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said. "Many families are going to relate to these findings and say that grandma was right," said lead author Dr. Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine. The research appears in December's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's conservative prime minister rejected European Union criticism Thursday of a proposal to fire teachers for "homosexual propaganda," saying it was not in the interest of society to have more gay people. Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said homosexuals did not face discrimination in his country, responding to an EU parliament vote to send a mission to Poland to investigate recent anti-gay comments by senior officials. "Nobody is limiting gay rights in Poland," Kaczynski told reporters hours after the vote. "However, if we're talking about not having homosexual propaganda in Polish schools, I fully agree with those...

DNC: The More The GOP Learns About Rudy, The Less They Like Him Fri, 04/20/2007 - 09:37 — admin April 18, 2007 -- As Rudy Giuliani heads back to New York today for another campaign fundraiser, the reviews are in for his first campaign swing through Iowa, and the results are hardly encouraging. From criticism of his “big-city” politicking, to an “anti-Giuliani” petition circulating in Iowa and a spate of polls showing that the race is tightening, it is clear that the more Hawkeye State Republicans learn about the Rudy they don’t know, the more they’re turning away from his...

Released: March 14, 2007 Zogby Poll: Voters Believe Media Bias is Very Real Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet/Zogby Poll shows American voters are skeptical political motivation may be behind blogs run by mainstream news organizations The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn’t take political sides, a recent IPDI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. The Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet is based at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Nearly two-thirds...

WASHINGTON - Democrats have unveiled a massive spending bill combining the budgets of 13 Cabinet agencies with increases in aid for lower-income college students, while cutting President Bush's funding requests for foreign aid and closing military bases. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, Tuesday slammed Democrats' plans to advance the huge $463.5 billion measure through the House on Wednesday without giving Republicans or rank and file Democrats a chance to offer changes in an Appropriations Committee session or on the floor. Most lawmakers — and the public — were to get their first chances to read the budget tome Tuesday,...

David Paulin writes at The Big Carnival of the degeneration of the Chavez regime into a thug state. It has gotten so bad that some of Chavez's leftist supporters are now disowning him, as they see that socialism is just an excuse for power and riches being grabbed. ".... a remarkable news conference in Caracas [was] given by Luis Miquilena, 87, who guided Chávez to his first landslide election win. A long-time leftist, Miquilena left Chávez's cabinet five years ago, and at the news conference he savaged El Presidente. Miquilena thus joined a long list of former Chávez allies who...

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi plans to sideline colleagues who are hawkish on national security in the Democratic leadership in the House. Democratic Party sources said as House Speaker, Ms. Pelosi plans to block moves that would place hawks into important chairmanships. The sources said a key casualty would be Rep. Jane Harman, a six-term member of Congress who has cooperated with Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. "Nancy Pelosi wants total party discipline," a source in the Democratic Party leadership said. "If you played ball with the Republicans during this session, then you're not going to be given an important chair...