Pirouttes, not politics, as American Ballet Theatre makes long-awaited visit to Cuba

UK lawmaker pleads guilty over expenses charges
LONDON (AP) — A serving British legislator has pleaded guilty to charges connected to the country’s lawmakers’ expense Scandal. Eric Illsley, currently the House of Commons legislator for the Barnsley Central district, told a London court Tuesday that he now admitted he dishonestly claimed about 14,000 pounds (US$22,000). Illsely had previously denied three charges of false Accounting. Justice John Saunders said he will be sentenced next month. Last week, ex-lawmaker David Chay...

UK lawmaker pleads guilty over expenses charges (AP)
London – A House of Commons legislator pleaded guilty Tuesday to dishonestly claiming about 14,000 pounds ($22,000) in expense payments, an admission that could lead to his removal from Parliament and trigger a Special Election. Eric Illsley told a court in London that he now accepted three charges of false Accounting, which he had previously denied. His bogus claims were exposed during a Scandal over the expense claims of British lawmakers, in which it came to light that legislators had...

UK lawmaker pleads guilty over expenses charges
LONDON - A serving British legislator has pleaded guilty to charges connected to the country's lawmakers' expense Scandal. Eric Illsley, currently the House of Commons legislator for the Barnsley Central district, told a London court Tuesday that he now admitted he dishonestly claimed about 14,000 pounds (US$22,000). Illsely had previously denied three charges of false Accounting. Justice John Saunders said he will be sentenced next month. Last week, ex-lawmaker David Chaytor was jailed fo...

Ed Stein Cartoon
Scribbles from Gov. Rick Scott's meeting with Senate Republicans Rep. Brodeur files ‘Doc, don’t ask’ gun bill Rep. Garcia wears passport to Protest Immigration Bill The Sen. Hays challenge: Is this kid too fat? Sen. Hays doesn't like 'tubby baby.' Adam Putnam, veggie rapper? Rep. Allen West decries ‘opportunism’ in wake of Arizona shooting; has no plans to change Rhetoric SnapGot a Snap? Rick Scott fulfilled his campaign promise to get rid of the...

Sarah Palin Blasts The Idea That "Heated Rhetoric" Caused The Arizona Tragedy
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Sarah Palin has finally weighed in with a long, thoughtful reaction fo the Arizona tragedy and all the talk that it was somehow the result of "heated Rhetoric." Her essay is called America's Enduring Strength. Vigorous and spirited public debates during Elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don&rs...;

The Media Has Declared... WAR!
Newsrooms and Hospitals have one major thing in common: the "hush" is the loudest thing anyone ever hears. The "hush" is the moment when normal activity stops cold for an announcement of major events that will entirely reshape any usual activity. While both newsrooms and Hospitals stop on that kind of news -- and then, following it, race into a whirlwind of overdrive -- the similarities end there. Hospitals gird for the incoming and the flood of bad news to follow; most news...

Angle defends herself, tea party
Former Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Sharron Angle is blasting those blaming her for inciting the Arizona shooting that injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, saying the accused shooter went off the deep end long before the Tea Party movement started. In her first comments - coming three days after the shooting - Angle said in harshly worded statement that her critics were “dangerous and ignorant” and charge it was irresponsible to blame the political right for...

Nations eyes turn to Obama as mourner in chief in Tucson
President Obama will try to make sense of the senseless on Wednesday as he travels to a memorial service for six people killed in the Assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).  Obama will speak at the University of Arizona Wednesday evening in front of a crowd expected to include Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whom Obama defeated for president in 2008.  The address could be a key moment in Obama’s presidency, as the nation stops to hear what the president has to say about a

Court in Philadelphia weighs freedom for convicted killer, 82
The Federal Judges who heard the latest appeal in the legal saga of Louis Mickens-Thomas seemed inclined to release the 82-year-old inmate, who is being held at Graterford Prison in part for planting an unwanted kiss on a woman from his church. John Knorr, who argued Tuesday on behalf of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, barely had introduced himself before Circuit Judge Maryanne Trump Barry interrupted him. "You're a brave man for being here today, given the arguments we've h...

Is today's media engaged in "yellow journalism"?
Many would be quick to say - "of course they are"; however I'm going to argue that what we're seeing now is a somewhat different and more dangerous beast than traditional yellow journalism. The term "yellow" originally derived from a character known as the "Yellow Kid" in an old comic, Hogan's Alley, that ran in Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World, starting in the late 1800's. It is rather ironic that the vaunted Pulitzer Prize is named after one of the USA's earliest practitioner...

Legislators Stress Jobs, Funding for High-Speed Rail Project
State Senators heaped praise on Florida's High-speed Rail project Tuesday, touting it as a massive job creator that might not cost state Taxpayers a dime. Florida Department of Transportation officials told legislators the project's first phase, which would connect Tampa to Orlando, could create more than 48,000 jobs during the construction period, and that state construction costs could be borne by private companies hoping to become the first to build a High-speed Rail project in the United St...

Why Wasnt Loughner Committed?
What to make of Jared Lee Loughner’s reading list? His Internet rants and his political leanings? Answer: not much. In my other life, I’m a physician, and one who often deals with chronic Mental Illness. Obviously, I’ve never interviewed Jared Loughner, nor have I had the opportunity to speak to his friends and family. But given his age, his paranoid views, and his behavior, the suspect seems to be very mentally ill. Media reports are a dime a dozen and, with such a hot topic, qualit...

David Koch - working class hero or fraud?
David Koch Working Class hero or Fraud? "Koch said he “admire[s]” the Tea Party movement, saying that “the Rank and File are just normal people like us” reports Lee Fang of Think Progress in an interview with Tea Party Financier David Koch. When David Koch uttered the phrase "normal people like us", it's a deliberate attempt to create a frame or meme that people like David Koch and members of the Tea Party movement are the new normal. David Koch never had a normal life. ...

Forget civility. How about more truth in politics?
In the wake of last weekend’s horrific shooting, many observers have weighed in with both trenchant and idiotic takes on what the incident means and doesn’t mean. There has been some wonderful stuff — George Will, the National Journal’s Kathy Kiely and Josh Kraushaar, to name a few — along with gigabytes of left and right Jabberwocky. But as I have reflected on the tragedy, while marveling at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ resilience, my reaction has gradually metamorphosed fro

Berlusconi lawyer: Premier immune from prosecution
Source: Associated Press Berlusconi lawyer: Premier immune from prosecution By Associated Press Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - Added 1 hour ago ROME — Silvio Berlusconi’s lawyers sought to persuade a top Italian court Tuesday to uphold a law shielding the premier from two trials in a case fraught with political repercussions. Any decision by the Constitutional Court will have serious consequences: If the law is rejected, the trials — one for Bribery, the other for tax Fraud — will resume, d

John Gormley's new book is great
I just finished John Gormley's new book, Left Out: Saskatchewan's NDP and the Relentless Pursuit of Mediocrity. It is a great read, and I'm an Alberta boy. If I were from Saskatchewan, I think it would probably be called essential political reading -- and just plain fun, too. I'm partial to John, as we've become friends through his popular radio Talk Show, based in Saskatoon. So I knew he was a good storyteller. But the book is more than just well-written: the stories it tells about Saskatche...

Sarah Palin on 'America's Enduring Strength'
Greg Schaefer, the Republican national committeeman from Wyoming, has endorsed Reince Priebus for chairman of the RNC. “Greg has been . . . Go While surveying the newly-elected right-of-center governors, Rick Scott didn't immediately leap to mind as the most promising. Josh Barro recently . . . Go Taking the Love of Nature a Little Too Far? Sudan is one of the most retrograde countries in the world. Civil War has lasted since 1959 and cost 2 . . . Go It’s hard to describe the ...

Belarus KGB threatens to seize opponents son
"MINSK, Belarus — Ever since Riot Police officers crushed a large Protest against apparent Fraud in presidential Elections here last month, the security services — still called the K.G.B. in this authoritarian former Soviet republic — have been rounding up people across the country for even the most tangential affiliation with the opposition. Now, it seems, they have gone a step further. The government warned recently that it might seize custody of the 3-year-old son of an oppo...

Rush Limbaugh: Democrats Seek "to Profit Out of Murder"
Rush Limbaugh (Credit: AP) Rush Limbaugh is not exactly dialing down the Rhetoric in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson on Saturday. In his first comments on the tragedy, Limbaugh lashed out at the Democratic Party as one that "seeks to profit out of Murder," Roll Call reports, citing Limbaugh's comments as aired on a Tucson station. The Roll Call report also quotes Limbaugh saying that the political left "openly wishes for such disaster in order to prof...

Somber mood envelops Capitol
For as long as anyone can remember, Congress has honored, commemorated and mourned countless citizens, institutions and events, both famous and faceless, with after-hours floor speeches and voice-vote approval. But on Wednesday, the House will undertake such a ritual for one of its own under the intense spotlight of national attention — a moment that will bring lawmakers’ own mortality into sharp relief as they honor Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who is recovering ...

First Comes Fear
By ROBERT WRIGHT NYT People on the left and right have been wrestling over the legacy of Jared Loughner, arguing about whether his Shooting Spree proves that the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world are fomenting violence. But it’s not as if this is the only data point we have. Here’s another one: Six months ago, police in California pulled over a truck that turned out to contain a rifle, a Handgun, a shotgun and Body Armor. Police learned from the driver — sometime after he opened

Video: Chris Matthews Sarah Palin is Going to be Erased
Video: Chris Matthews ‘Sarah Palin is Going to be Erased’ More violent Rhetoric from tingles Chris Matthews and encouraging violence from MSNBC. Tingles had his libtard pals Cynthia Tucker and Richard Wolffe on “Hardball” tonight and said: “If she doesn’t get off of this and stop trying to have somebody else skate her off of it like Glenn Beck or this person Mansour, she is going to be erased” Pause “as a potential Candidate” Quit PREACHING...

'Cautious Optimism' for Rep. Giffords
AP/Office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Mark Kelly, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' husband, holds her hand in her room at University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz. the day after the shooting rampage in a photo just released by congresswoman's office. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is for those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of thought, expression, and worship. Read more... We invite all Americans who s...

Amazing Fantasy
If you haven't been paying attention to the narrative the professional Left is pushing on the Tucson shooting, let me recap it for you: Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Movement's use of inflammatory Rhetoric and violent imagery has claimed its first Victim. It directly inspired a potheaded, unemployed, occult-dabbling, 9/11 Truther, quasi-anarchist, anti-war, parents'-basement-dwelling, likely schizophrenic to shoot a Blue Dog Democrat who recently deserted Nancy Pelosi to vote for someone else f...

Angle: Media 'inappropriately attributing blame' for Tucson shooting
Former Nevada Senate Candidate Sharron Angle denied her campaign Rhetoric helped motivate the Tucson gunman and accused the media of "finger-pointing towards political figures" to boost Ratings. Angle's suggestion during the midterm campaign that voters could pursue "Second Amendment remedies" to settle political differences with Congress has been widely criticized in the wake of the attack that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in critical condition. "I have consiste...