Pat Dollard

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By Sara A. Carter KANDAHAR, Afghanistan |The sirens blared as a Taliban rocket attack rattled troops across Kandahar Air Field for the second time last week. Army Sgt. 1st Class Teresa R. Coble and other members of her unit at the base’s media-support center hit the floor, lay flat on the dusty cement and protected [...]

By GARY BAISE Politico Having served in the Nixon administration at both the Department of Justice and the FBI, I know firsthand what can happen when government officials start using police powers to achieve political and policy objectives. It can lead to a dangerous abuse of power and establish ominous precedents that threaten the civil [...]

Now, some reading this will think, “Ok, what’s the big deal?” I’ll state it plainly. The big deal is that at no point in history has The United States of America had a President who has intentionally done so much to damage our society through the disguise of ‘change’. Never in our history have we [...]

By CALVIN WOODWARD WASHINGTON (AP) – In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making “immoral” and “obscene” returns while “the bodies pile up.” But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically [...]

Politico By ALEXANDER BURNS A series of upsets and close calls in big-city elections is producing the first group of politicians to fall victim to voters’ economic frustrations: America’s mayors. While political observers are focused on the outcome of the Nov. 3 gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey for early insights into the 2010 [...]

Politico By DAVID ROGERS Costs and the political calendar are catching up with health care reform. Having bet the farm, President Barack Obama needs a win and is willing to settle for a cheaper bill and a weaker public insurance option. Democrats in Congress, increasingly worried about the 2010 elections, want stronger medicine for fear [...]

BAGHDAD (AP) – Iraqi security forces blocked streets around the capital Monday and conducted intense searches at checkpoints as authorities investigated the massive security failure that allowed two truck bombs to strike what was supposed to be one of the city’s safest areas and kill 155 people. The country’s worst attacks in more than two [...]

CHICAGO (AP) – Chicago is cashing in on its much-criticized parking meter deal. The city has seen a 26 percent spike in the number of parking meter violations, which has brought in $7 million more in revenue. That’s according to city records provided to the Chicago Tribune in response to a Freedom of Information Act [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to suspend federal guidelines at hospitals and speed up how infected people might receive treatment in a disaster. The declaration that Obama signed late Friday means Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Senate plan to tackle global warming would add about $100 a year to the energy costs for a typical household, according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency. The analysis released late Friday by the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, generally [...]

Politico: The Democratic National Committee, often relatively inactive in the year after a presidential election, is ramping up its hiring and aggressively broadening its mission under the direction of Obama campaign veterans intent on applying the lessons of 2008 to races in 2010 and 2012. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the DNC chairman installed in January [...]

Times Online: President Obama will almost certainly not travel to the Copenhagen climate change summit in December and may instead use his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to set out US environmental goals, The Times has learnt. With healthcare reform clogging his domestic agenda and no prospect of a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen, Mr [...]

The Wall Street Journal: WASHINGTON—There’s nothing neutral in the battle between AT&T Inc. and Google Inc. over the future of the Internet. Google, the powerhouse of Silicon Valley, and AT&T, champion for the old-line phone industry, are marshaling political allies, lobbyists and—in AT&T’s case—labor unions for a fight over proposed “net neutrality” rules that could [...]

(AFP) – The White House Friday highlighted a new multi-million-dollar technology fund for Muslim nations, following a pledge made by President Barack Obama in his landmark speech to the Islamic world. The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing [...]

Dallas News: Dallas police wrongly ticketed at least 39 drivers for not speaking English over the last three years, Police Chief David Kunkle announced Friday while promising to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty. Pending cases will be dismissed, and those who paid the $204 fine for the charge, which [...]

Washington Post: Sensing that victory in the race for Virginia governor is slipping away, Democrats at the national level are laying the groundwork to blame a loss in a key swing state on a weak candidate who ran a poor campaign that failed to fully embrace President Obama until days before the election. Senior administration [...]

NY Times: STOCKHOLM — Shopping for oatmeal, Helena Bergstrom, 37, admitted that she was flummoxed by the label on the blue box reading, “Climate declared: .87 kg CO2 per kg of product.” “Right now, I don’t know what this means,” said Ms. Bergstrom, a pharmaceutical company employee. But if a new experiment here succeeds, she [...]