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(The terror was real, say judge, victims) Waukesha, WI - When a ski-masked Matthew S. Baker shoved a handgun into Kari Mirek's back, walked her to the cash register and put the gun up to her head, Mirek said, she feared for her life. She didn't know the handgun Baker was using to rob the Wonderland Tap in the City of Pewaukee was a fake. The bartender had no way of knowing that Baker wasn't going to shoot her. Her terror on the night of March 6, 2007, was real, she told Waukesha County Circuit Judge Lee S. Dreyfus Jr....

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 – Showing appreciation for the men and women that risk their lives to defend the United States is essential, and yet rumors and fears about ethical restrictions that limit the amount of gift giving is a concern for many philanthropic organizations. Lee Bradley, director of the Department of Defense Ethics, Standards and Conduct Office came on ASYLive BlogTalkRadio yesterday to clarify some of these concerns. "I recognize that a whole lot of people believe that gift rules are very restrictive, ... but federal employees really live by the creed of ‘public service is a public...

Hating Bush C'mon, everybody's doing it!By Christopher Cook Look, I know that President Bush has disappointed us in many ways. He's lousy at selling even his best ideas. His first term was a smashing success; his second term has been much less effective. He's made some mistakes, and he's deviated from core conservatism in several areas. The left hates him the way the Democrats hated Lincoln—not just political hate, but a burning, visceral, personal hate. But we conservatives and Republicans, however disappointed we may be in aspects of his conduct of the office of president, should do two things:a) we...

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, MAY 16, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The election of president in Lebanon is a "top priority" for the country, the Maronite patriarch of Antioch told the U.N. Security Council at the beginning of his visit to the United States. Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir addressed the council Thursday, where he spoke of the various issues facing the nation. He also met with privately with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The cardinal's visit is part of a multi-continent trip he began May 4. His first stops included Qatar and South Africa. His scheduled stops in the United States include New York, Philadelphia, and Houston,...

Fire That Burned House Near Mayor's Summer Home Followed Threatening Note About Cougar Shooting In City CHICAGO (CBS) ― Police believe an arson fire that destroyed a home in Grand Beach, Mich., might have been directed at the nearby summer home of Mayor Richard M. Daley in retaliation for the shooting of a cougar. As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, the fire burned the homes of two of the mayor's neighbors in Grand Beach, Mich., three weeks ago. Sources say Mayor Daley got a mysterious warning letter three days before the fire broke out. Thus, detectives are now checking out...

One of the wisest American former officials I know asked me a few nights ago: “Michael, put on your thinking cap, and tell me where the United States will be four years from now, if Barack Obama is president.” I had been trying to avoid that question in my own mind. I have tried to tell myself the old proverb (told me by my father), “God takes care of children, drunks, and the United States of America.” I have tried to imagine that Obama will not be president. But I should try to do the responsible thing: follow the trail...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 – The deputy secretary of defense called on Congress to act quickly to pass the fiscal 2008 supplemental legislation for the war on terror. In a May 15 letter, Gordon England told Congress the legislation is urgent and needed before the House and Senate recess for Memorial Day. “Absent additional Congressional action, the Army will run out of military personnel funds by mid-June and operation and maintenance funds by early July,” England said in the letter. Civilian personnel funding and money for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program also is included in the operations-and-maintenance accounts. “CERP funding...

California Sen. Barbara Boxer in an interview this week dismissed the uproar over whether likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will be able to attract the white working class or women in November. "Nobody's ever said to me, I'm not voting for you because you're Jewish, and I don't believe they vote that way, or because you're a woman," Boxer said. "They want to know what I believe in, what I care about, not the color of my skin or my religion. I just really get insulted by that, to be honest. I really do." As a super delegate,...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 – The Defense Department needs to worry more about what warfighters need right now than what they may need down the road, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last night. In a speech to the Business Executives for National Security group, Gates said he will work for the remainder of his time in office to ensure the department fulfills its “sacred obligation” to support U.S. servicemembers now fighting on the front lines. This means doing all that is needed to “see that they are successful on the battlefield and properly cared for at home,” Gates...

Barack Obama's campaign hopes it will. They're putting out the word that they hope to announce on the night of May 20, after the results come in from the Kentucky and Oregon primaries, that their candidate has the 2,025 votes needed for the Democratic nomination. That would mean that the nomination would be settled before the May 31 rules committee meeting on the status of the disqualified Michigan and Florida delegations; this would deprive Clinton of a grievance but would not deprive Obama of the nomination. The June 1 primary in Puerto Rico, in which it seems possible Clinton could...

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden vowed Friday to fight Israel for the liberation of the Palestinians, claiming their cause is at the heart of al-Qaida's holy war with the West. The terrorist leader's third statement this year was released to coincide with the Jewish state's 60th anniversary and came out as President Bush was wrapping up his visit to Israel to celebrate the occasion. "We will continue our struggle against the Israelis and their allies," bin Laden said in a 10-minute audio posted on an Internet site used frequently by al-Qaida. "We are not going to give up an...

Reacting to the decision of the California Supreme Court to ignore Proposition 22, which declares that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," and was passed with a whopping 61 percent of the vote, an outraged Michael Reagan urged California voters to join him in refusing to vote for any ballot measures in the State of California in the 2008 November election since the courts can simply nullify their votes whenever they want to. Reagan, whose father Ronald Reagan served two terms as California’s governor before winning the presidency in 1980, said "I...

The cooperation agreement reached between prosecutors and an employee of the call-girl ring known as Emperors Club VIP will come in handy should the Manhattan U.S. attorney, Michael Garcia, decide to charge Governor Spitzer with a crime. The woman, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, who entered a guilty plea to money laundering and prostitution-related charges yesterday, would be a key witness against Mr. Spitzer if the former governor is charged in connection with patronizing an Emperors Club prostitute... Lewis, who booked clients for the call-girl service, had several phone conversations with Mr. Spitzer to hammer out the logistics of payment and...

New paper for the Journal of Political Economy exposes the economics of election year promisesMention the words “vote buying” and modern-day political villains Jack Abramoff and Tony Rezko probably come to mind, or perhaps special interest groups that donate to a politician’s campaign and expect support when relevant bills come to vote. It may shock American sensibilities to learn that, in an economic sense, our votes are bought with every election in the form of campaign promises that are paid later at a cost to the voter in the form of taxes. While the Tammany Hall era of beer and...

Renton (Washington State),May 15 Indian Navy will soon have an edge in the Indian Ocean once it inks $2.2 billion deal for eight maritime patrol planes from Boeing.The agreement is expected to be signed soon. The Boeing P-8i Poseidons long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR)patrol aircraft will enable the Indian Navy to operate a platform almost simultaneously with the USNavy. Richard Buck,Boeing's international programme manager for P8,said that India would be able to leverage on the substantial investment made in the P8 by the US Navy. A lot of issues relating to the P-8i for the Indian Navy are still in the...

Today in Watertown, South Dakota, Barack Obama responded to comments about appeasement made by President Bush in the Israeli Knesset yesterday. He linked John McCain to Bush, saying that McCain "embraced" the comments in a conference call with bloggers.

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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had barely been on the job a month back in 2004 when he ordered the city to issue marriages licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Thousands of same-sex partners flocked to City Hall to exchange vows. For four weeks, a steady stream of ceremonies stretched into the night, and lines of eager couples wrapped around the block. And as quickly as the couples could say, "I do," the scene of women marrying women and men marrying men sparked a nationwide uproar. Proponents called the move bold. Opponents called it defiant and blatantly illegal. People on...

"Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he—he dove for the floor."

Vatican City, May 16, 2008 / 02:12 pm (CNA).- One day after California overturned a ban on same-sex marriage, the Holy Father has firmly stated that only marriage between a man and a woman is moral.Yesterday, California’s Supreme Court came to a 4-3 decision overturning the state’s law preventing homosexuals from being recognized as married.While the Pope did not directly mention the ruling in California in his address to the Forum of Family Associations and the European Federation of Catholic Family Associations, Benedict XVI stressed the importance of the traditional family for the good of society. "The union of...

Food stamp recipients pinched by high food prices By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago. For days, Brown said, she has been turning cans of "whatever we got in the cabinet" into breakfast, lunch and dinner for her children, ages 1 and 3. "Ain't got no food left, the kids are probably hungry," said Brown, a 23-year-old single mother who relies heavily on her $312 monthly allotment...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- An anti-war Democratic congressman is demanding to know why there were uniformed Defense Department personnel watching House proceedings from a public gallery Thursday, who they were and what they were doing. "If they were here on official duty, this was an abhorrent misallocation of our military resources at a time of war," Northern California Rep. Pete Stark asserted Friday in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Stark, an 18-term incumbent known for his liberal positions and outbursts of temper, said he observed the contingent of 20 or so officers, apparently Army generals, in the gallery for...

FRESNO -- Two Modesto men are facing mandatory 20-year prison sentences after being convicted of running a medical-marijuana operation that federal prosecutors labeled a criminal enterprise, authorities said today. Luke Anthony Scarmazzo, 28, and Ricardo Ruiz Montes, 28, were convicted by a federal jury Fresno on Thursday of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, growing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute. The conviction for running a criminal enterprise carries a mandatory sentence of at least 20 years. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger is to sentence both men Aug. 4. Federal officials said the case sends a message to...

Another 50-50 Myth Debunked by: Bethany Stotts, May 16, 2008 Do Americans live in a democracy or in a scum-ridden, corrupt regime run by elite interests? Skeptics tend to believe the latter. “Start with this reality: the Powers That Be don’t want genuine democracy...They intend for politics to be a spectator event for us, scripted by the one-tenth of 1 percent of elites who put up the controlling money,” write Jim Hightower and Susan DeMarco in their book, Swim Against the Current. While hyperbolic (as is much of Hightower’s writing), their argument exemplifies how research placing American voter turnout at...

Conservationists or Environmentalists? by: Melinda Zosh, May 16, 2008 Although the Endangered Species Act of 1973, signed by Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon, was intended to save thousands of plants and animal species, only a handful have been saved, but at an enormous human cost. “Five species have recovered out of 1355 species in the past 35 years,” said M. David Stirling, author of Green Gone Wild: Elevating Nature Above Human Rights. Over that same time period, 50 million people have died from malaria and 10,000 jobs have already been misplaced, as a result of the act. “I have a...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries. But exactly how much is something of a mystery because state auditors do not have access to sheriffs' private accounts. How could anyone turn a profit feeding men and women for an...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Texas mayors and business leaders filed a class-action lawsuit Friday alleging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff hoodwinked landowners into waiving their property rights for construction of a fence along the Mexican border. Members of the Texas Border Coalition said Chertoff did not fairly negotiate compensation with landowners for access to their land for six-month surveys to choose fence sites. The coalition of mayors and business and community leaders is seeking an injunction to block work on the fence. They also want a federal judge to rescind all the agreements with landowners and to order Chertoff to start...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - After running one of Silicon Valley's powerhouse companies for six years, Carly Fiorina now has her sights set on the White House. Not for her — not yet, at least. But for John McCain. Fiorina, 53, joined the Republican senator's presidential campaign this spring. She brings with her a long list of wealthy friends and supporters and intimate insight into how some of the largest corporations work, having been at the helm of Hewlett-Packard Co. and before that, senior management at AT&T Inc. and its spinoff Lucent Technologies. While the new gig is her first in...

Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 05/16/2008 Pelosi Statement on President Bush’s Failure to Pressure Saudi Arabia to Increase Oil Production Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on record oil prices as news reports indicate that Saudi Arabian officials have rejected pleas from President Bush to increase oil production. In trading today, oil reached a record more than $127 a barrel: “As record oil prices continue to burden American families and businesses, reports indicate that the President’s visit to Saudi Arabia today to push for increased production has failed. Despite considerable influence, the...

Sen. Barack Obama is a foreign policy disaster just waiting to happen. Consider Obama's evolving stance on Iraq. In 2002 he was a staunch opponent of the war. Then in his book The Audacity of Hope, he confessed that he "began to suspect" that he "might have been wrong" about the war. In 2003 he told CNN that he absolutely wanted "to make sure that the troops have sufficient support to be able to win." During the DNC convention in 2004, the junior Senator stated that failure in Iraq would be "a disaster and a betrayal of the promise that...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's army lodged a formal protest Friday to "allied forces" in neighboring Afghanistan over a suspected U.S. missile strike this week that killed 14 people in a Pakistani border village. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Pakistan concluded that Wednesday's attack on a house in Damadola village was launched by drones from Afghanistan. Abbas said a formal protest was lodged Friday with "allied forces" in Afghanistan, an apparent reference to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force that is fighting the Taliban-led insurgency there. The U.S. is among the nations contributing to ISAF. Abbas said 14 people...

At 5:43 into this video, Barack Obama asserts that "has never said" he'd negotiate with terrorists. The problem with this is one of two things: Barack Obama is either lying through his teeth, or he doesn't consider the Iranian regime terrorists. Either way, he's off.

US will stop sending oil into strategic reserves By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago The Energy Department says it has canceled oil shipments into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve beginning in July when the current purchase contract expires. The move came days after Congress passed legislation requiring the president to suspend the shipment into the reserve in hopes of lowering gasoline prices. The Energy Department said it will not sign contracts for new shipments of 76,000 barrels of oil a day for the six-month period beginning July 1. President Bush had opposed halting the shipments, arguing that...

Just when the news was filling with stories about a Republican Party gasping for air, along comes the California Supreme Court's 4-3 decision yesterday legislating gay marriage. The GOP certainly hasn't done anything to deserve such luck. Recall how in November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Court, also by a 4-3 vote, issued a similar gay marriage pronouncement. It dogged Democrat John Kerry all the way to Election Day. The issue got so hot that the liberal fever swamps came to believe that Karl Rove had invented this greatest of all "wedge" issues. Nope. Judges invent wedge issues. Always have. As...

Press conference denounces Utah raid On May 13, pro-immigrant organizations held a press conference and emergency rally to protest the ongoing raids and deportations targeting undocumented workers across the United States. Community leaders and organizers demanded that the raids and deportations be stopped and called for immediate and comprehensive immigration reform. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on May 12 in Postville, Iowa, at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, is a prime example of these racist attacks against the working community. About 700 workers, more than half of the plant’s workforce, were arrested in the raid. As...

GENEVA (Reuters) - A special U.N. human rights investigator will visit the United States this month to probe racism, an issue that has forced its way into the race to secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. The United Nations said Doudou Diene would meet federal and local officials, as well as lawmakers and judicial authorities during the May 19-June 6 visit. "The special rapporteur will...gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a U.N. statement said on Friday. His three-week visit, at U.S. government invitation, will cover eight cities -- Washington D.C., New York,...

“We, the members of the New Republican Party, believe that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people... Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home... The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when?...

The Grand Old Party looks, and acts, like the Going Out Party. After losing three congressional special elections in as many months, in what were assumed to be “Republican” districts, some Republicans are finally waking up to the fact that they have squandered the Reagan legacy and consequently, are about to be relegated to the minority status wasteland they occupied for five decades after WWII. The Party of Reagan withered under the “kinder, gentler” administration of Bush(41), consequently suffering further indignity under two “era of big government is over” Clinton terms, only to be further disenfranchised by Bush(43)’s “compassionate conservatism.”...

Say what you want about President Bush. No president has ever been able to do as much to advance the cause of racial harmony and a color blind agenda. He did this the logical and old fashioned way, by appointing prominent and competent people of all races and creeds, thereby exposing the idiocy of racial prejudice for what it is. Enter Rev. Jeremiah Wright and some of Bill Clinton’s more scorched earth supporters. After eight years of unprecedented unity among people of all races, at a time when racism was exposed as a bankrupt philosophy by the straightforward reality of...

As promised 2006 election: 1) Beg Muslim countries to drill more of their own oil to INCREASE supply(yes) 2) Raise Tax on oil (yes) 3) Use more corn and farm resources for fuel instead of food (yes) 4) Increase illegals food stamps to pay for increasing food prices due to #3 (yes) 5) Cut gas tax prior to election, raise even higher after election as Clinton did 1993(yes) 6) Release strategic oil supply to INCREASE supply before election, draw back to DECREASE supply after election(yes) 7) Drill our own oil to INCREASE supply (no) 8) Build more domestic refineries (no)...

When American voters think of the term "maverick," they often think of Senator John McCain because McCain has spent decades associating himself with that term. To some degree, McCain is right to call himself a "maverick," having independently departed the company of both his party and his constituents on many issues over the years. The fact is, not so long ago every Republican was a "maverick," an independent thinker prone to placing the long-term interests of freedom and liberty far ahead of partisan politics aimed at only serving the party interests at the expense of national interests. Every Republican should...

The critical question in the 4-3 decision of the California Supreme Court to require homosexual marriages in that state is not whether that is a better policy. It is, who should decide that question? The majority said that this was a “good” policy, and they would therefore require it. The minority said that the court had no business making that decision. Back up a little bit. Like almost all states, California had a statute which defined marriage as involving “one man and one woman.” Not two men. Not one man and four women. Not a man, a woman, and a...

Law to Protect Right Whales May Hamper Ferry Operations Legislation designed to protect migrating right whales could have an unintended, devastating impact on ferry services to the Vineyard and Nantucket, the Steamship Authority has warned. Under draft rules attached to the legislation, any sighting of a right whale would trigger the imposition of a strict, 10-knot speed limit on ships more than 65 feet long, operating within a so-called “dynamic management area” with a 36-mile radius, for 15 days from the time of the sighting. A single sighting could lead to the cancellation of high-speed ferry services around the Islands,...

Click on link to see story - copyright rules prohibit it's posting here. Bottom line 3 of the 4 judges in CA homo-marriage ruling were appointed by Republicans.

Olympia--Starting in July, retailers will start charging sales taxes on Internet customers in Washington. About 1,100 online retailers have agreed to charge the tax to avoid being sued by the state. The tax is based on where the customer lives. Retailers have to identify 350 tax districts.

Middle name Hussein is only one reason terror thugs like Barack Obama Friday, May 16th 2008, 4:00 AM Barack Hussein Obama wants it both ways. Any American who uses his full name is trying to scare voters, his wife charges. But Obama says he understands why Islamic terror group Hamas looks at his middle name and trusts him. Ditto for his plan to meet with Iran's madman president and other rogue leaders. Obama sees his open-door policy as evidence he will end President Bush's "cowboy diplomacy." When Bush slammed that plan Thursday as "appeasement," Obama accused him of a...

COLUMBIA -- The kids taking the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test this week and next might not face the same grueling schedule next year under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate. The Senate amended a House bill that changes the PACT to a test that is less concentrated in one time period and offers faster results to parents and teachers on how the children did and what they need. Instead, essay-type tests, which take longer to grade, will be given in March and multiple-choice tests in May. The House version called for one more year of the PACT, but...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling,...

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military. Just ask Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country. Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, winning the Combat Action Badge. But he's now stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned stateside early because the Army couldn't ensure his...

There is – or at least should be – only one standard by which to judge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal: Does it stop the "crazy deficit spending" that he pledged to end when he was elected five years ago, or at least make significant progress toward fiscal responsibility? Sadly, not only is the answer "no," but Schwarzenegger has apparently abandoned even the pretense of truly balancing the state's books, and would bury the state even deeper in the quicksand of borrowed money, bookkeeping gimmicks and pie-in-the-sky assumptions on revenues and spending. This seemingly endless cycle of mounting debt...