April 29th. As reported earlier, today the United States Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision. The case of Kansas v. Ventris revolved around whether prosecutors could use evidence gained in admitted violation of the 6th Amendment right to counsel to impeach a defendants testimony at trial (i.e. where a defendant claimed one thing in their testimony, could the prosecution bring otherwise inadmissible evidence in to show that the defendant was likely lying). The Kansas Supreme Court had said “No”, the U.S. Supreme Court said “Yes”.
– Thirty-five perecent (35%) Strongly Approve while 31% Strongly Disapprove of his performance as president. This is the finding for Obama’s 100th day in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
– Seventy-three percent (73%) expect government spending to go up during the Obama years. This marks one of the biggest changes in perception about the president since he was elected. Last November, just 54% expected Obama would preside over a growth in government spending. On Inauguration Day, 63% held that view.
– Twenty percent (20%) expect their taxes to go down during the Obama years while 36% expect a tax increase.
– Sixty-nine percent (69%) now say Obama is politically liberal.
– Forty-nine percent (49%) say the president is doing a good or excellent job on the economy. Thirty-four percent (34%) say he is doing a poor job.
NEW YORK — Black players accounted for 10.2 percent of major leaguers last year, the most since the 1995 season. The sport had reached an all-time low of 8.2 percent in 2007, according to Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. The percentage of black pitchers rose to 5 percent from 3 percent and the percentage of black infielders went up to 9 percent from 7 percent. “I feel encouraged. It’s not a huge leap, but it’s a step forward,” said Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson. “I think we have to feel encouraged, not only feel encouraged but feel inspired by progress so that we can not only sustain what we have, but work harder to see that we get that number up in future reports.”
TOKYO/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG may have overtaken Toyota Motor Co to become the world’s top-selling carmaker in the first quarter, thanks to government incentives that fueled demand in VW’s major markets.
Although overall VW deliveries to customers fell 11 percent to around 1.39 million vehicles, the Wolfsburg-based group dramatically increased its share of the global passenger car market by 130 basis points to 11.0 percent.
In today’s news from K-State for Tuesday, April 14, 2009:
1) RESEARCH: K-State Senior From Eudora Researches Physics Of Liquid Surfaces (Hometown interest for EUDORA)
2) MANHATTAN interest/ TIMELY:Symposium On Engaging, Energizing And Empowering Communities Through Leadership In Action To Be April 20 At K-State
3) SALINA interest/ TIMELY: NASA Traveling Exhibit To Be Part Of K-State At Salina’s Open House
4) More Than 40 Undergraduate Students Receive K-State Cancer Research Awards (Hometown interest for CHANUTE; CLYDE; DERBY; DODGE CITY; EMPORIA; GARDEN CITY; GODDARD; HALSTEAD; HORTON; LEAWOOD; MANHATTAN; MOUNT HOPE; MURDOCK; OLATHE; OVERLAND PARK; SHAWNEE; STAFFORD; TOPEKA; WAKEENEY; and
WESTWOOD)
5) SALINA interest/ TIMELY: K-State At Salina Receives Glass Cockpit Learning Equipment From Garmin Ltd. (Hometown interest for OLATHE and
SALINA) (more…)
Most lefties claim that “no” means “no,” but not where it concerns unions that have lost the organizing argument over and over again. We can see that refusal to listen to the workers in the case of Unions vs. Wal-Mart. Repeatedly Wal-Mart workers have generally refused to unionize, yet instead of taking that as an answer, the unions continue to push. And they are at it again.
The United Food and Commercial Workers is stepping up its efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers yet again.
Since February, about 60 UFCW organizers have been dispatched to more than 100 Wal-Mart stores in 15 states to get workers to sign union-authorization cards. The cards are attached to flyers that feature a photograph of President Barack Obama and a quote from a 2007 speech he gave to UFCW activists in Chicago. “I don’t mind standing up for workers and letting Wal-Mart know they need to pay a decent wage and let folks organize,” Mr. Obama said in 2007. A White House spokesman said Thursday that the president stands by the statement.
The union is also flying several pro-union Wal-Mart employees to Washington to agitate before members of Congress to force the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) on the country.
ATLANTA - A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a federal charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant’s arm to get to the lavatory, the FBI said Wednesday.
Joao Correa, 43, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he had a bathroom emergency 30 minutes into a March 28 Delta Air Lines flight from Honduras to Atlanta, but found the single coach aisle on the Boeing 737 blocked by a beverage cart. He said he asked if he could use the lavatory in business class, but was told no.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Burger King advertisement for new Tex-Mex style hamburgers, which features a squat Mexican draped in his country’s flag and an American cowboy, has offended Mexican officials who want the spot pulled.
Mexico’s ambassador to Spain said posters for the new “Texican whopper,” a cheeseburger with chile and spicy mayonnaise, inappropriately display the Mexican flag, which is draped over the diminutive wrestler like a poncho.
“This advertisement denigrates the image of our country and uses improperly Mexico’s national flag,” Jorge Zermeno wrote in a letter to Burger King in Spain, the Reforma newspaper reported on Monday.
In the JCCC Trustee race, in which the top 4 candidates (out of 10) won, Peter Jouras came in fifth, and I came in sixth. He didn’t beat me by much, but my guess is he spent at least $35,000 on the race (3 county-wide mailings and tons of signs). Jouras spent far, far more than I did, and he was endorsed by most of the major liberal-socialist-big-government groups (NEA, faculty union, Mainstream Coalition; all but Mission Hills/Arizonian Steve Rose), but he and I fared about the same. When I won the trustee race in April 2005, the turnout was 30%, which is closer to a representative sample of voters. That year, the marriage amendment carried the county 60-40 and Overland Park Mayor Gerlach beat a well-financed Democrat 60-40, and those proportions probably wouldn’t deviate much if held during a higher-turnout election.
Moran-Tiahrt: you’ll hear at times from supporters of one campaign or the other about how their candidate is better-known in Kansas’ Third Congressional District. I haven’t seen any evidence to verify that statement.
Thornburgh: I didn’t test Brownback’s name, because I had been told by a reliable source that his name ID was virtually 100% state-wide. One could certainly argue that it’s not a good thing for Thornburgh that Tiahrt and Moran have competiting name recognition levels, when Johnson County voters have never seen the congressmen’s names on local ballots.
I am reassured by the general accuracy of my own poll after looking at another poll taken on April 17 by the well-respected firm SurveyUSA. HT to Bagyants.com, which first made me aware of this poll that tested likely 2010 voters for the Republican primary (not all voters, therefore). Part of the poll’s breakdown includes region: NE, SW, and Western; though, I don’t know exactly how they define these terms.
Innovation is the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry. Over the last century, that industry has been responsible for thousands of new drugs, based on hundreds of thousands of smaller incremental innovations. The breakthrough “blockbuster” drugs taken by millions of patients today were not produced from thin air. Most represent the combined weight of seemingly small improvements achieved over time. The advantages of incremental improvements on existing drugs are paramount to overall increases in the quality of health care. As the pharmaceutical industry developed, classes of drugs-those with similar chemical composition and which treat similar conditions-have grown to provide physicians with the tools they need to treat diverse patient groups. Still, critics have been highly condescending about what they call “Me-too” drugs-drugs within the same chemical class as one or more others already on the market-which they claim add little or no therapeutic value and are nothing more than an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to fleece unsuspecting consumers.
GREENWOOD, S.C. Her cordless phone stores 17 voice messages, and tonight the inbox is full. Edith Childs, 60, grabs a bottle of water, tosses her hat on the living room floor and scowls at the blinking red light. A county councilwoman, she spent the past 12 hours driving rural roads in her 2001 Toyota Camry, trying to solve Greenwood’s problems, but only now begins the part of each day that exhausts her. Childs slumps into an armless chair and steels herself for a 13-minute confessional.
On February 12, the Arkansas General Assembly passed legislation to increase the state’s excise rates on all tobacco products. As required by the bill, on March 1 the cigarette tax went from 59 cents to $1.15 per twenty-pack. But the same tax rate will not be enforced statewide. In a novel provision, the legislation, Act 180 of 2009, included a lower, variable rate for certain towns and stores located near the Arkansas border.
This paper will explore how Maryland got into its current deficit and will suggest what might be done about it. It builds on the extensive work of Senior Fellow Cecilia Januszkiewicz, who detailed many of the deficit problems in 2008 papers and op-ed pieces and proposed procedural solutions. This paper will take a complementary approach, looking at the operation and policy rationales relating to specific programs in greater detail.
A federal judge on Tuesday denied former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’srequest to travel to Costa Rica to participate in a television reality show.
“I don’t think this defendant in all honesty … fully understands the position he finds himself in,” U.S. District csaid, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Blagojevich, a Democrat, is awaiting trial on federal corruption charges, including allegations that he tried to sell President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine if convicted. The former governor has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.
Blagojevich had requested that the judge loosen his bond agreement after signing on to the NBC reality show “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here.” The network describes the show, set to air in June, as a “Survivor”-like program in which 10 celebrities are dropped in the jungle to “test their survival skills.”
(CNSNews.com) - The spending bills approved for fiscal 2009 by the Democratic Congress include 10,160 earmarks that will cost taxpayers $19.6 billion, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).
CAGW, a watchdog group that monitors federal spending, released its “Congressional Pig Book” Tuesday listing the earmarks in the appropriations for 2009.
NEW YORK - The Fox network is sticking with its regular schedule over President Barack Obama this week.
The network is turning down the president’s request to show his prime-time news conference on Wednesday. The news conference marks Obama’s 100th day in office. Instead of the president, Fox viewers will see an episode of the Tim Roth drama “Lie to Me.”
It’s the first time a broadcast network has refused Obama’s request. This will be the third prime-time news conference in Obama’s presidency. ABC, CBS and NBC are airing it.
Here’s Jerry Houseman of the Sacramento School Board sharing his lovely thoughts about taxes and tea parties. Via Glenn Reynolds who writes, “I like all the talk about police and parks. As my father-in-law once said, when they want to raise taxes all they talk about is policemen and firemen and teachers, but when it’s time to spend the money it goes for a leather chair in some office downtown you’ve never heard of…
For just the second time in more than five years of daily or weekly tracking, Republicans now lead Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 38% would choose the Democrat. Thirty-one percent (31%) of conservative Democrats said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate.
Overall, the GOP gained two points this week, while the Democrats lost a point in support. Still, it’s important to note that the GOP’s improved position comes primarily from falling Democratic support. Democrats are currently at their lowest level of support in the past year while Republicans are at the high water mark.
Over the past year, Democratic support has ranged from a low of 38% to a high of 50%. In that same time period, Republicans have been preferred by 34% to 41% of voters nationwide.
Amid the continuing fiscal meltdown for print media, a group has come up with a pay scheme that would make paying for reading a little less painless - at least a lot less cumbersome than the absurd mirco-payment method.
Though no one has yet signed on, the idea is quickly gaining currency. In essence, a reader can go to a central site and make a payment, which allows him access to numerous affiliated publications.
There’s much heft, at least in terms of name recognition, behind the venture at Journalism Online LLC. Among the principals include Court TV founder Steven Brill, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery Jr., who has headed communications companies like Tele-Communications Inc., Global Crossing and the YES Network, and now runs InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in media.
Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.
In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.
