Drone issue puts strain on U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Pakistanis protest U.S. drone attacks in tribal areas Friday, April 22. The details of the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan are hidden behind smoke and mirrorsA Pakistani official says U.S. personnel have left Shamsi Air BaseU.S. official: "It's news to us, and we would know"The drone program is the best way to tackle militants in Pakistan, U.S. officials believe (CNN) -- One thing is certain: Missiles are regularly fired from the sky above Pakistan's tribal areas, sometimes killing what the United States and Pakistan describe as terrorists, sometimes hitting innocent civilians by mistake. But the rest of the details of America's drone campaign in Pakistan are concealed behind smoke and mirrors -- a series of claims and counter-accusations that reflect the controversy of what some call the largest campaign of extrajudicial executions in recent history.
The statement -- disputed by U. However, a separate U. But Pakistan sees the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty. ‘RomneyCare’ Facts and Falsehoods | FactCheck.org. Summary BOSTON — It has been nearly five years since Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney signed the state’s landmark health care law amid the political flourish of a fife and drum corps and 300 guests in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. The overhaul is largely seen as a blueprint for the sweeping federal legislation that followed, making the state a political target for critics of President Obama’s efforts.
Brian Rosman, research director for the advocacy group Health Care for All, still has his ticket from Romney’s signing displayed in his downtown office. Obviously, Rosman’s group is pleased that the state has tried to cover as many of the uninsured as possible. But the law passed with support from a wide range of stakeholders. Massachusetts’ game plan shares several characteristics of the national legislation, but there are differences, including one major distinction: The level of vitriol directed at the federal law doesn’t exist here. Yes, the politicians. Analysis Blueprint for the Federal Law? California set to teach gay history and rights in schools. Mexican Cartels Get Heavy Weapons from Central America, U.S. Cables Say. MEXICO CITY – The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper.
Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington. The assertions appear in embassy cables written after three bilateral conferences on arms trafficking that took place between March 2009 and January 2010 in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Phoenix; and Tapachula, Mexico, respectively. The cables’ authors note that Mexican officials and politicians never hesitate to remind U.S. diplomats that Mexico’s drug war – which has claimed 35,000 lives in the last four years – is fueled by Americans’ demand for illegal drugs and by guns bought in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. “While there are 30,000 U.S. U.S. Planned Parenthood Did One Abortion Every 95 Seconds—As Many in One Year as Live In Cincinnati. Planned Parenthood supporters at a rally in Philadelphia, Pa. (AP photo/Matt Rourke) (CNSNews.com) - Planned Parenthood performed 332,278 abortions in the United States in 2009, according to a fact sheet the group published last month.
That is about as many as the 333,012 people who lived in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The 332,278 abortions Planned Parenthood performed over the 365 days of 2009 equals an average of 910 lives terminated per day--or about 38 per hour, or one every 95 seconds. Planned Parenthood, according to its most recent annual report, also received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts during its fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2009. Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Tait Sye recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that 90 percent of that $363.2 million came directly from the federal government or from Medicaid, a federal-state program. The Pence amendment was approved by the House on a 240-to-185 vote. Top 10 Logical Fallacies in Politics - E. Magill.
The human brain is wired all wrong. Those not versed in logic are blissfully unaware of how much our brain messes up the most basic of arguments, leading to the mess of random thoughts, non-sequiturs, cognitive dissonance, white lies, misinformation, and syntax errors that we call consciousness. Luckily, there is one place where all of these logical misteps can be exemplified: politics. What follows is a crash course in some of the most prevelant fallacies we all make, as they appear in modern American politics. And though I consider these the "top 10" logical fallacies in politics, they are not in order, for reasons that should become clear rather quickly. President Bush and Senator Kerry, congratulations on making it through an entire televised debate without answering a single question! The man who invented Western philosophy, Aristotle, considered ignoratio elenchi, which roughly translates to "irrelevant thesis," an umbrella term that covered all other logical fallacies.
E-PaperTrail. President Obama Finances Offshore Drilling in Brazil. Insurers gain big in health reform’s first year. By Russ Britt, MarketWatch LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — It was supposed to make insurance companies tow the line, but a year after the Affordable Care Act won contentious passage in Congress, the nation’s managed-care providers don’t seem to be suffering much.
Shares of the six major insurance companies in the S&P 500 are up an average of 16% over the last year, which beats all other multiple-company sectors in health care. When included with the broader “health providers and services” group — which also includes drug distributors, diagnostic laboratories and one hospital company — the sector is up 12%, a close second to a handful of companies that make diagnostic tools. And individual insurers are among the biggest gainers over the last year, with Humana Inc. /quotes/zigman/229688/delayed/quotes/nls/hum HUM +1.01% up more than 31%, good enough for the No. 2 spot overall among all 51 S&P health-care companies. Industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. Credit unions sue Wall Street banks. Taking Stock. Arizona Senate defeats controversial birthright measures. (CNN) - A series of hot-button immigration bills in Arizona that in part proposed stripping citizenship rights of children of illegal immigrants went down in defeat Thursday, averting for now a legal showdown that would likely have reached the Supreme Court.
A divided state Senate voted against a string of proposals that aimed to deny citizenship rights to children of illegal immigrants born in the United States, prevent illegal immigrants from acquiring drivers' licenses, and require schools and hospitals to check the legal status of students and patients before offering services. Specific portions of the measures – including a ban on citizenship and access to schools for children of illegal immigrants - appear to expressly conflict with previous Supreme Court rulings and were drafted in hopes the high court would reconsider its decades-old holdings in that area of law. "Arizona supports these laws. They expect us to stand up and do what's right," Pearce said after the bills' defeat. Senate passes short-term spending bill. Washington (CNN) - The Senate easily passed a spending bill Thursday to keep the government funded for three more weeks as lawmakers and the White House work to bridge their deep divide on a larger spending package that will run through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The vote was 87 to 13. Four Democrats and nine Republicans voted against it. The House already passed the stopgap bill, which - at the insistence of Republicans - cuts $6 billion from current funding levels. Now it will go to President Barack Obama to be signed into law. With support waning for additional short-term spending bills, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle vowed to make this the last temporary measure before striking agreement on a longer-term bill. For several weeks - and as recently as Wednesday - top aides to the president and congressional leaders have met quietly behind the scenes to resolve their differences over that longer-term bill. “I have to hand a bouquet to Speaker Boehner. Sen. Sen. Debt ceiling: Danger ahead - Mar. 17.
By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerMarch 17, 2011: 3:55 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The debt ceiling is one deadline lawmakers really can't afford to blow. But they now have raised the risk of doing just that. With the passage on Thursday of yet another temporary spending measure to fund the government for three weeks, lawmakers jacked up the prospect for trouble by stoking the likelihood of fiscal brinkmanship. As a result, they could fail to raise the country's legal borrowing limit before it's reached, or they could raise it just in time but in a manner that unsettles markets.
Either situation could create new problems for the U.S. and global economies. The latest funding bill will expire April 8. The Treasury Department, meanwhile, now estimates that the debt ceiling could be hit between April 15 and May 31. Not insignificantly Congress will be out of session next week and the last two weeks in April. How did we get to this ridiculous crossroads? That won't get much love from the markets. Critics Trash Talk Obama For Doing ESPN Brackets During Multiple Crises : It's All Politics. Being president means getting criticized, even when you do something as ostensibly non-controversial as appearing on ESPN to unveil your NCAA March Madness brackets.
(Actually, President Obama picked Kansas to beat Ohio State in the finals which will be pretty controversial in some quarters. Is he writing off Ohio's electoral votes for 2012?) Anyway, some are questioning the propriety of the president giving ESPN a few minutes of his precious time with all the crises going on, from the federal budget battle to Libya to Japan. Obama used the first few moments of the ESPN taping to ask viewers to donate to Japanese relief efforts, proving he wasn't ignoring the world beyond the walls of the White House.
But even that was questioned, with a reporter asking White House press secretary Jay Carney if it was appropriate for the president to discuss the Japan tragedy while standing before a white board with his brackets. Not surprisingly, Carney defended the president. Here's the exchange: White House wants new copyright law crackdown | Privacy Inc. The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws. The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders.
(See CNET's report last month previewing today's white paper.) Some of the highlights: The White House is concerned that "illegal streaming of content" may not be covered by criminal law, saying "questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works. " Fight Against Government Flab Is Personal for These Politicians. Obama Urged to Seize Reins as Crises Pile Up - FoxNews.com. President Obama gestures during a speech in Arlington, Va., March 14.AP A conflict approaching civil war in Libya. An end-times tsunami in Japan. A Congress that can't reach a budget. And ... gender inequality? The topic of President Obama's weekend radio address has raised some eyebrows, as Obama has met mounting crises with the same restraint and cool that characterized his slow-and-steady campaign for president.
To some critics, the tone set by the White House in light of recent upheaval may hurt the president's public image. Amid chaos around the world and on Capitol Hill, Obama's Saturday radio address was devoted to Women's History Month and a call to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, a proposal meant to address the income gap between men and women. "I don't know if they don't realize the disconnect and maybe they don't care ... but it does matter," Dana Perino, former White House press secretary under George W. On Libya, the issue has much less to do with image. Retired Gen. Sen. Private+vs+Public+Jobs. Passive news reports may lead readers to feel they can't find the truth. Passive news reporting that doesn't attempt to resolve factual disputes in politics may have detrimental effects on readers, new research suggests.
The study found that people are more likely to doubt their own ability to determine the truth in politics after reading an article that simply lists competing claims without offering any idea of which side is right. "There are consequences to journalism that just reports what each side says with no fact checking," said Raymond Pingree, author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University. "It makes readers feel like they can't figure out what the truth is. And I would speculate that this attitude may lead people to tune out politics entirely, or to be more accepting of dishonesty by politicians.
" The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Communication. "Choosing among government policies is simply not like choosing among flavors of ice cream. Journalism Warning Labels. Contents Not Verified It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there's no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.
I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I've been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well. The articles these stickers are attached to are used strictly as an illustration: I'm not passing judgment on the specific articles or journalists. Hopefully that'll stop anyone claiming I've libelled them. Let's start with the obvious one. I'm not sure how these newspapers would fill their pages without these. Oh yeah, that's what they use. The Daily Mail's attempt to classify everything as either 'causing' and 'curing' cancer is already well documented, but there are plenty of wacky medical claims in all the newspapers. Enough said, really. Make your own! Contact. Affidavits Reveal Allegation Against Fox News Leader.
Confirmed: Union-Bashing Right-Wing Media Stars Hannity, Limbaugh and O'Reilly Are AFL-CIO Union-Affiliated Members | News & Politics. February 25, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. When it comes to the Wisconsin union fights, right-wing pundits Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have a couple of things in common. For starters, have all voiced their opposition to the plight of public employee unions in the state. On Feb. 18, Limbaugh said on his radio program, "We are either on the side of the Wisconsin protesters or we are on the side of our country.
" On the Feb. 18 edition of "The O'Reilly Factor," O'Reilly stated, "Governments can't afford to operate" because of "union wages and benefits. " As it turns out, all three of them belong to the American Federation Television and Radio Artists union (AFTRA), which is the AFL-CIO affiliate for television and broadcast workers.
Yes, you read that right. When asked, AFTRA reps wouldn't state whether the three were members, but it did say in an official statement (see the entire statement below): Working in America: Public vs. Private Sector - George Stephanopoulos' Bottom Line. Cuts hit home for House GOP freshman. Congressional Budget Chief Warns of Burgeoning U.S Debt.