Feb 26, 2010 8 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Politico: The House ethics committee's decision to admonish New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel over improper corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean leaves Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the ethics committee itself facing difficult questions. When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was admonished by the ethics committee in October 2004, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders went on the offensive ...
Continue ReadingFeb 25, 2010 9 Comments ›› Erik Wong
TMZ: Levi Johnston has been ordered to pay nearly $18,000 in back child support ... TMZ has learned. During a hearing in the child support case between Bristol Palin and Levi, the judge ruled Levi must pay $1,688.42 a month in support, retroactive to the child's birth -- December 27, 2008. Bristol was in court in Alaska for ...
Continue ReadingFeb 25, 2010 8 Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. Charles Rangel, the most powerful tax-writing lawmaker in Congress and a 40-year veteran of Capitol Hill, acknowledged Thursday that an ethics panel has accused him of accepting Caribbean trips from a corporation in violation of House rules. At least four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were also on the ...
Continue ReadingFeb 24, 2010 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Las Vegas Now: LAS VEGAS -- Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons says he's never taken bribes or kickbacks, nor has he ever fooled around on his wife. Gibbons had to answer questions of an extremely personal nature in a deposition taken earlier this month. He was questioned by the lawyer for a Las Vegas woman who alleges that Gibbons ...
Continue ReadingFeb 23, 2010 31 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Pajamas Media: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation†— the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Senator Inhofe also called ...
Continue ReadingFeb 17, 2010 10 Comments ›› Erik Wong
BBC: Three Malaysian women have been caned by the authorities for having extra-marital sex, say officials. They are the first women to receive such a sentence under Islamic law in the country. The punishments come as another Malaysian woman waits to hear whether her caning - for drinking beer - is carried out. Malaysia's majority Malays are subject to ...
Continue ReadingFeb 15, 2010 18 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
NY Times: WASHINGTON — Last winter, when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called the United States a “nation of cowards†for avoiding frank conversations on race, President Obama mildly rebuked him in public. Out of view, Mr. Obama’s aides did far more. Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina, the White House chief and deputy chief of ...
Continue ReadingFeb 14, 2010 13 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
ABC News: Former vice president Dick Cheney, in an exclusive appearance on ABC News' "This Week," offered a sharp critique of the Obama administration's handling of national security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying any achievements over the past year largely stemmed from policies implemented under President George W. Bush. "If [the administration is] ...
Continue ReadingFeb 13, 2010 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
NEW YORK (AP) - An interior designer is suing CNN anchor Anderson Cooper after she took an unusual fall
Continue ReadingFeb 13, 2010 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
Washington (AP) - -A federal appeals court Friday debated a privacy issue you probably hadn't considered: the government's ability to track your location at any time, if you carry a cell phone. As cell phones have morphed from cordless communication devices into pocket-sized PCs, cellular providers have developed and honed the ability to pinpoint your location ...
Continue ReadingFeb 12, 2010 7 Comments ›› Erik Wong
CNN: Washington - The White House has begun quiet preparations for the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy in coming months, government sources tell CNN. Top officials have no specific information that a particular justice will retire after the court's session ends in late June, but want to be ready for a variety of contingencies, those sources ...
Continue ReadingFeb 11, 2010 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
CNET: Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves. FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at ...
Continue ReadingFeb 10, 2010 22 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Telegraph: The envoy had only met the woman a few times, during which she had hidden her face behind a niqab, the Gulf News reported. After the marriage contract was signed, the ambassador attempted to kiss his bride-to-be. It was only then that he discovered her facial hair and eyes. The ambassador told an Islamic Sharia court in ...
Continue ReadingFeb 10, 2010 6 Comments ›› Erik Wong
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) - A video cassette purportedly showing two-time presidential candidate John Edwards and his former mistress in a sexual encounter is now in the hands of a North Carolina judge. Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones took possession of the tape Wednesday, a week after ordering that former Edwards aide Andrew Young hand over ...
Continue ReadingFeb 5, 2010 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
National Review Online: "Rahm felt very, very strongly that it was a mistake to prosecute the 9/11 people in the federal courts, and that it was picking an unnecessary fight with the military-commission people,†the informed source said. But it was about Gitmo and having Lindsay Graham on the White House side: “Rahm had ...
Continue ReadingFeb 3, 2010 11 Comments ›› Erik Wong
SYDNEY (AP) - Australia recently blocked several export shipments to Iran because of concern the cargo may have been destined for Tehran's nuclear weapons programs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday. The bans were ordered by the defense minister under laws aimed at preventing the proliferation of material that could be used in weapons of mass ...
Continue ReadingFeb 2, 2010 26 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to say Tuesday whether he thinks it's appropriate to try self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York civilian court, not far from the site of the attack. Prodded by Sen. John McCain to say if he agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder's choice ...
Continue ReadingFeb 1, 2010 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
The new York Times: WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether officials of Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm’s security work in Iraq after a deadly shooting episode in 2007, according to current and former government officials. The officials said that the Justice Department’s fraud section opened the ...
Continue ReadingFeb 1, 2010 8 Comments ›› Erik Wong
CNS News: Federal prosecutors are reviewing a request for an investigation into whether Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act for his frequent visits to the White House and with members of Congress in 2009. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and its subgroup the Alliance for Worker Freedom ...
Continue ReadingFeb 1, 2010 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
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Continue ReadingJan 30, 2010 20 Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review. In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich ...
Continue ReadingJan 29, 2010 2 Comments ›› Erik Wong
The Washington Post: Authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack, according to two sources familiar with the case, even as fresh details emerged about the intense and chaotic response to the Christmas Day incident. Seizing on the near miss, GOP lawmakers have mounted a sustained ...
Continue ReadingJan 29, 2010 12 Comments ›› Erik Wong
FOX News: WICHITA, Kan. — Jurors swiftly convicted an abortion opponent of murder Friday for shooting to death one of the only doctors to offer late-term abortions in the U.S., a killing the gunman claimed was justified to save the lives of unborn children. The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder, 51, ...
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