According to President Clinton’s staff he had two stents put in today.

Well, bravo.  This was just an attempt to use Health Care Reform to undermine Roe v. Wade.  I wish these guys would get their religion out of our government.  Abortion is legal and it’s a health care issue and thus should be covered as health care.

WASHINGTON — The Senate has rejected an effort to stiffen abortion restrictions in the health care bill.

The vote was 54 to 45.

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah wanted to ban any insurance plan that gets taxpayer dollars from offering abortion coverage. The stronger restrictions mirrored provisions in the House-passed health care bill.

The Senate bill currently allows insurance plans to cover abortions but tries to separate private funds from federal money. It specifies that abortion coverage can only be paid for with private dollars.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said the legislation is about access to health care, not abortion.

Rest of Article

Initial reports are the shooter walked into this office building and opened fire.  He has not been apprehended, SWAT teams are looking for him.  Evidently the shooter was fired two years ago from Reynolds, Smith and Hill.

Reports on the number of people killed  are conflicting at this time.

ORLANDO, FL –Orlando Police are searching for a gunman who injured as many as 17 people at the 16 story Gateway Center at 1000 Legion Place around 11:30 a.m.

Orange County Sheriff’s Spokesman Jim Solomons says his department is backing up Orlando police and they’re still looking for an armed man wearing a light blue polo shirt and jeans.

Police have identified the person they are looking for as Jason Rodriguez. He is driving a 2002 Nissan Silver SUV with Florida tag D119UX, His birth date 9/28/69.

He was a former employee at Reynolds, Smith and Hills Engineering, Architectural Firm. That’s a transportation engineering firm. The company confirms he was laid off in June, 2007.

REST OF ARTICLE

UPDATE:  The commander of Fort Hood said that the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was in custody and hospitalized in stable condition, contradicting earlier reports from officials that he had been killed in what is believed to be the deadliest mass shooting on a U.S. military base.SOURCE

Local news is reporting Hasan graduated from Virginia Tech.

Correction via CNN….Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan, M.D.

CNN is reporting that Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist who was upset about being deployed to Iraq.  These are initial reports subject to change as more information comes in.

UPDATE:

The slain gunman was identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, according to a law enforcement source. The source believes he is 39 or 40 years old.

Ten of the other dead also were soldiers, while the remaining one was a civilian police officer who was working as a contractor on the base, Cone said. SOURCE

I’ll update as information becomes available.  I was out for a few hours and haven’t caught up yet on all the news.

FORT HOOD (November 5, 2009)—Fort Hood remains on lockdown late Thursday afternoon after a shooting that apparently involved three soldiers that left 12 people dead and 31 more injured.

A soldier whom officials identified as the gunman is dead.

Two other soldiers are in custody in connection with the shooting, but their roles were not clear.

The shooting started at about 1:30 p.m., according to a military statement, reportedly in the Sports Dome, which now serves as a center for soldiers and families preparing for deployment.

One of the dead is a civilian police officer, Fort Hood confirmed.

All available ambulances and paramedics in the area responded to the post.

Some of the wounded were taken to Darnall Army Medical Center and others were flown or taken by ambulance to Scott & White Hospital in Temple.

REST OF ARTICLE

• Is 71 years old. Married with no children. Lives in Marstons Mills, Mass.

• Graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in 1960 and Harvard Law School in 1964. Admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1965.

• Assistant to Senator Kennedy from 1969 to 1977.

• Partner in the Boston law firm of Sullivan & Worcester LLP from 1977 to 1990.

• Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1985 to 1989.

• Co-founded the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987, which works to secure and host debates among the presidential candidates. Currently is co-chairman of the group.

• Engineered a coalition of groups that successfully prevented the New England Patriots from moving their stadium from Foxboro, Mass., to Hartford, Conn., in 1990.

• Chairman of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs from 1992 to 2001. The NDI is a think tank that works to promote democracy abroad.

• Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

• A member of the board of directors at the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.

• Runs a Boston-area business consulting firm, Kirk & Associates.

• A trustee of Stonehill College, a small Catholic college near Boston.¹

(CNN) — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick named Paul G. Kirk as the interim U.S. senator from Massachusetts on Thursday.

“[Kirk] shares the sense of service that so distinguished Sen. Ted Kennedy,” Patrick said.

Kirk will not seek the open seat in January’s special election, Patrick said, “but for the next few months, he will carry on the work and the focus of Sen. Kennedy, mindful of his mission and his values and his love of Massachusetts.”

REST OF ARTICLE

¹SOURCE

(Photo: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Kennedy’s Life and Career

SOURCE

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all.”

President Obama’s Statement

President Obama was notified about 2 a.m., aides said, and spoke to Kennedy’s widow, Victoria, a short time later. In a statement released Wednesday morning, Obama paid tribute to Kennedy, pointing out that “virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. . . .

“Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time,” the statement said. “. . . . Our hearts and prayers go out to” the Kennedy family. SOURCE

President Clinton is said to have delivered a message to  Kim Jong Il from President Obama.

The two women arrested in March are  journalists  employed by the California-based cable channel Current TV.  They were convicted and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for politically motivated crimes.

Former US President Bill Clinton arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to try to negotiate the release of two American journalists convicted by the communist state of “grave crimes,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

[snip]

Some analysts have held out hope that Clinton’s visit could end a cycle of provocative military action and lead to Pyongyang’s return to fresh dialogue.

SOURCE

By Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

Sunday, July 12, 2009

While the pinstripe crowd fixates on troubled assets, a stalled stimulus and mortgage remedies, it turns out that a more sure-fire financial fix is within our grasp — and has been for years. New research says a healthy dose of estrogen may be the key not only to our fiscal recovery, but also to economic strength worldwide.

The sexy new discussion in policy circles around the world, thanks to the recession, is whether a significant shift of power from men to women is underway — or whether it should be. Accounting giant Ernst & Young pulled out charts and graphs at a recent power lunch in Washington with female lawmakers to argue a provocative bottom line: Companies with more women in senior management roles make more money. The latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine sweepingly predicts the “death of macho.” Economists at Davos this year speculated that the presence of more women on Wall Street might have averted the downturn. Adding to this debate is the fact that the laid-off victims of this recession are overwhelmingly men.

All those right-brain skills disparaged as soft in the roaring ’90s are suddenly 21st-century-hot, while cocky is experiencing a slow fizzle.

The numbers make a compelling case. The studies Ernst & Young rounded up show that women can make the difference between economic success and failure in the developing world, between good and bad decision-making in the industrialized world, and between profit and loss in the corporate world. Their conclusion: American companies would do well with more senior women.

And it’s not only one study, but at least half a dozen, from a broad spectrum of organizations such as Columbia University, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs and Pepperdine University, that document a clear relationship between women in senior management and corporate financial success. By all measures, more women in your company means better performance.  SOURCE

S.C. police: ‘We believe a killer is off the streets’

Police in Gaston County, North Carolina, shot and killed a suspect during a possible robbery early Monday, then called in police from South Carolina who have been chasing a serial killer. The weapon found on the man matches the gun used in a series of killings in South Carolina, investigators said. “We believe a killer is off the streets,” the director of South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division said.

Developing Story

A news reporter in Alaska, Andrew Wellner, the Frontiersman, reports that Sarah Palin said she could do more outside of government. Wellner went on to say that he believes she might be aligning to run for senator. Palin did not take any questions from reporters after the announcement. Wellner said Palin also commented, “you are naive if you don’t see a full court press from the national level picking away right now a good point guard.”

If I had to guess the real reason I would guess a scandal is brewing. I’m watching the video and she is obviously agitated.
She went on to say that the decision has been in the making for awhile. She talked about Trig being mocked and ridiculed….I don’t know what she’s talking about. She almost sounds like she’s hyperventilating. She rambled on and on about the troops and doing the right thing for Alaska. All in all, in my opinion, a very strange announcement.

Below is an excerpt from the Vanity Fair article with a link to the complete article:

It Came from Wasilla

Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.

By Todd S. Purdum August 2009

The crowds begin streaming into the Evansville Auditorium and Convention Centre a couple of hours before the arrival of the “special guest speaker” at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner on a soft Indiana spring evening—nearly 2,200 people in the banquet hall, 800 more in an adjacent auditorium watching the proceedings on a live video feed. The menu is thick slices of roast pork and red velvet cake, washed down with pitchers of iced tea, and when Sarah Palin finally enters, escorted by a phalanx of sheriff’s deputies and local police, she is mobbed. The organizers of the dinner, billed as “the largest pro-life banquet in the world,” have courted Palin for weeks with care packages of locally made chocolates, doughnuts, barbecue, and pastries, and she has requited by choosing Evansville, a conservative stronghold in southern Indiana, as the site of her first public speech outside Alaska in 2009. Like Richard M. Nixon, who chose the coalfield town of Hyden, Kentucky, for his first post-resignation public appearance, Palin has come to a place where she is guaranteed a hero’s reception. She is not only a staunch foe of abortion but also the mother of a boy, Trig, who was born with Down syndrome just a few months before John McCain chose Palin as his running mate. The souvenir program for this evening’s dinner is full of displays for local politicians and businesses, attesting to their pro-life bona fides. An ad for Hahn Realty Corporation reads, “If you need commercial real estate, call Joe Kiefer! Joe is pro-life and a proud supporter of the Vanderburgh County Right to Life.” REST OF ARTICLE