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Rules challenged as violating 'principles of free expression'

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Posted: January 30, 2010
12:10 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Roseville, Calif., shopping mall

Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man talking to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.

The case developed several years ago when a youth pastor was arrested at the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., for having a conversation about religion with two other people.

Matthew Snatchko, who works with youth at his church, was interrupted in the middle of a conversation by a security guard. A second guard joined the confrontation and told Snatchko he was being placed under citizen's arrest for "trespassing."

The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.

A short time later the charges were dropped, but officials with the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.

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DEARBORN, Mich. —  Ford Motor Co. says it made $2.7 billion in 2009, its first annual profit in four years.

Ford says it benefited from cost-cutting, debt reduction and popular cars and trucks like the Ford Fusion sedan and Escape SUV. It's enjoying customer goodwill for avoiding bankruptcy and refusing federal aid.

Ford's net income of 86 cents per share rose from the year before, when it lost a record $14.6 billion.

Vanderbilt religious 'staff' says, 'I go with what Islam teaches'

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Posted: January 29, 2010
12:20 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Vanderbilt University is distancing itself from a Muslim chaplain after he told a gathering of students homosexuality is punishable by death under Islam.

"I don't have a choice as a Muslim to accept or reject teachings. I go with what Islam teaches," said Awadh A. Binhazim, who is listed on the Vanderbilt website as "Adjunct Professor of Islam at the Divinity School" and an adviser to the Muslim Student Association. His comments came earlier this week at a diversity event for students.

He was asked directly, "Under Islamic law is it punishable by death if you are a homosexual?"

Binhazim said, "Yes. It is punishable by death."   MORE  PLUS   VIDEO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BOSTON – Scott Brown says he has already told Senate Republican leaders they won't always be able to count on his vote. The man who staged an upset in last week's Massachusetts Senate special election, in part by pledging to be the 41st GOP vote against President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that he staked his claim in early conversations with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip Jon Kyl.   MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she would not serve a full eight years if President Barack Obama wins another term, hoping eventually to retire to writing and teaching.

Clinton, who has spent two decades in the national spotlight and narrowly lost her own bid to be president in 2008, said she enjoyed her job as the top US diplomat but found it physically grueling.

Asked by talk-show host Tavis Smiley if she would serve eight years, she replied: "No, I really can't."

CONCORD, N.H. – It was Harriet Richardson Ames' dream to earn her bachelor's degree in education. She finally reached that milestone, nearly three weeks after achieving another: her 100th birthday.

On Saturday, the day after receiving her diploma at her bedside, the retired schoolteacher died, pleased that she had accomplished her goal, her daughter said. Ames had been in hospice care.

"She had what I call a 'bucket list,' and that was the last thing on it," Marjorie Carpenter said Tuesday.

Ames, who turned 100 on Jan. 2, had earned a two-year teaching certificate in 1931 at Keene Normal School, now Keene State College. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in South Newbury, and later spent 20 years as a teaching principal at Memorial School in Pittsfield, where she taught first-graders.

Through the years, she had taken classes at the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth Teachers College and Keene State to earn credits for her degree. With her eyesight failing, she stopped after retiring in 1971 and was never sure if she had enough credits.

Her wish for a degree became known when a Keene State film professor interviewed her a couple of years ago for a piece on the college's own centennial, which the school celebrated last year.

The school decided to research her coursework and see if it could award Ames her long-sought diploma. The offices of the provost, registrar and other departments worked quickly in the last month to determine, that indeed, it could.   MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Less than a penny of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts.

Two weeks after President Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti earthquake relief, U.S. government spending on the disaster has nearly quadrupled to $379 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Wednesday. That's about $1.25 each from everyone in the United States.

Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just under one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.

Relief experts say it would be a mistake to send too much direct cash to the Haitian government, which is in disarray and has a history of failure and corruption.

"I really believe Americans are the most generous people who ever lived, but they want accountability," said Timothy R. Knight, a former US AID assistant director who spent 25 years distributing disaster aid. "In this situation they're being very deliberate not to just throw money at the situation but to analyze based on a clear assessment and make sure that money goes to the best place possible." MORE>>>>>

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple Inc. will sell the newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting.

The iPad, which is larger in size but similar in design to Apple's popular iPhone, was billed by CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday as "so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone."    MORE with VIDEO!!!>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Treasury Dept. to Investigate Treasury Secretary Geithner about AIG Bailout

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

-BY: Noel Brinkerhoff----   Special prosecutor Neil Barofsky, charged by the Department of the Treasury with investigating the federal government’s bailout of Wall Street in 2008, is now turning his attention to the rescue of AIG by the New York branch of the Federal Reserve—which means examining the actions of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. It was Geithner who was in charge of the New York Fed in the fall of 2008 when the decision was made to pay off banks that had billions of dollars in securities insured by AIG.

 

Among the issues being investigated by Barofsky are why the Fed in Manhattan sought to keep the names of AIG’s trading partners a secret, and why it was reluctant to acknowledge that banks received 100 cents on the dollar for their AIG contracts when they agreed to tear them up.

 

The Fed’s decision to aid AIG’s partners to the tune of $62 billion has been called a “backdoor bailout” by some lawmakers.

 

 

An Investigator Presses to Uncover Bailout Abuse (by Mary Williams Walsh, New York Times)

(CBS)  After repeated requests, Congressman Stephen Buyer finally agreed to sit down for a brief interview with CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

The subject: a small non-profit he founded in 2003. Who's paying for it and what are they getting in return?

Sharyl Attkisson: Where did the $25,000 to start the foundation come from?

Rep. Stephen Buyer: You know what? I was asked that question and I don't recall.

Attkisson: How can you not know where the $25,000 came from?

Buyer: I don't. Serious. I don't recall.

In fact, six years after the Frontier Foundation started, it's collected more than $800,000. Yet it hasn't spent a penny on scholarships.

It can be difficult to know where Buyer's re-election campaign ends and his Frontier Foundation begins. His campaign and Foundation shared office space. Until August, his campaign manager also ran his Foundation - inviting select donors to golf outings with Buyer at posh resorts.

MORE PLUS Video>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

According to NPR, “In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed.”

The BBC recently reported on The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq by Helen Benedict. This book examines the extreme difficulties female soldiers have in serving abroad. Benedict interviewed several women in the military to get a deeper understanding of the issue, and some of their stories were real eye openers.

Army specialist Chantelle Henneberry spoke of some of her experiences in Iraq, “Everybody’s supposed to have a battle buddy in the army, and females are supposed to have one to go to the latrines with, or to the showers – that’s so you don’t get raped by one of the men on your own side. But because I was the only female there, I didn’t have a battle buddy. My battle buddy was my gun and my knife.”

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While suicide appeared the most likely motive, no further details would be released while investigations continued......

The death of the World Economic Forum's chief of security, Markus Reinhardt, was confirmed Tuesday by the government of the Swiss canton of Grison. The police commander heading security at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland was found dead in his hotel and local authorities said  that his death appeared to be suicide. Police said in a statement on their website. "All indications point to a suicide," the statement said. WEF founder and executive founder Klaus Schwab said in a statement that the organisers appreciated Reinhardt's professionalism and kindness over years of co-operation. "The Security Forces continue to have our full confidence and trust in their work," the statement said. Reinhardt, 61, had headed the canton's police force since 1984

He was also known locally for a controversial case in which he authorised the shooting dead of a man who had taken refuge in his apartment after starting a shooting spree, injuring one officer.

Reinhardt was put on trial charged with murder in 2002, but was acquitted, Le Temps said.

When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.

The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.

The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency's hunt for weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.

Story continues >>>>>>>

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities said Monday they are considering a petition to tear down a statue of US President Barack Obama as a boy, only a month after the bronze was unveiled in Jakarta.  The statue of "Little Barry" -- as Obama was known when he lived in the capital in the late 1960s -- stands in central Jakarta's Menteng Park, a short walk from the US president's former elementary school.

Critics say the site should have been used to honour an Indonesian and 55,000 people have joined a page on social networking website Facebook calling for the statue to be removed.

"We've been discussing for the past two weeks what to do with the statue... whether to take it down, move it elsewhere or retain it. We're finding the best solution," Jakarta parks agency official Dwi Bintarto said.

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Forward:  I think he has been dead for years!  Editor The Plain Truth

Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.

"The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said.   MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BEIJING – Melamine-tainted dairy products were pulled from convenience store shelves in southern China more than a year after hundreds of thousands of children had been sickened in a massive milk safety scandal, a government spokeswoman said Monday.

The announcement calls into question the effectiveness of a crackdown launched by Chinese officials to improve product safety after a number of scandals, including the contamination of baby formula in 2008 and the recent discovery of the toxic metal cadmium in cheap jewelry.

Frozen milk products and cartons of milk dating from early 2009 were taken off the shelves after health inspectors tested them and found melamine, said Ling Hu, a Guizhou provincial government spokeswoman.   MORE>>>>>>>>>

A messianic Jewish leader isn't surprised that a recent Gallup survey shows Americans are more than twice as likely to express "prejudice" against Muslims than against Christians, Jews, or Buddhists.

The analysis from the Gallup World Religion Survey is part of a project on finding ways to increase understanding between Americans and Muslims. It reveals that nearly two-thirds of Americans say they have little or no knowledge of Islam. Still, a majority dislike the faith.
 
Just over half of Americans polled said they feel no prejudice against Muslims; however, 43 percent acknowledged at least "a little" prejudice against Muslims, making a significantly higher percentage than that of the other faiths in the survey.
 
Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, says no one should be surprised by this poll.
 
"How else are Americans supposed to act when political correctness let an Army major at Fort Hood go and shoot up and kill or wound dozens of American military personnel?" she wonders, also making mention of "the Christmas bomber who tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253."
 

Just a few days after Democrats lost Ted Kennedy's old senate seat Republicans in nearby Rhode Island think they can defeat Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Teddy's son.

His opponent, John Loughlin, a state representative, has already raised more money than any candidate before him who opposed Kennedy.

GOP Chairman Giovanni Cicione said on Wednesday that what happened to Martha Coakley could happen to Patrick Kennedy too.

Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle maker, reported a fourth-quarter loss Friday, its first quarterly shortfall in 16 years, hurt by restructuring costs and the sluggish economy. Harley-Davidson has come under pressure over the last year as the tight credit markets and the weak economy led consumers to shun purchases of its high-end, heavyweight motorcycles. The company has been reorganizing its business through layoffs, factory closures and closing or selling unwanted brands. Harley said shipments of its bikes to dealers in 2009 fell 27 percent, to 223,023. For 2010, Harley said it expects shipments to fall another 5 to 10 percent to 201,000 to 212,000 motorcycles. Harley-Davidson said it lost $218.7 million, or 94 cents a share, during the fourth quarter. That marks its first three-month loss since the fourth quarter of 1993 and contrasts with a profit of $77.8 million, or 34 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue tumbled 40 percent, to $764.5 million from $1.28 billion a year ago.

Poll finds 56% of all Americans and 58% of those 18-29 years old say abortion 'morally wrong'

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the eve of the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the United States, a new survey shows a strong majority of Americans believe abortion to be "morally wrong."

"Millennials" (those 18-29) consider abortion to be "morally wrong" even more (58%) than Baby Boomers (those 45-64) (51%). Generation X (those 30-44) are similar to Millennials (60% see abortion as "morally wrong"). More than 6 in 10 of the Greatest Generation (those 65+) feel the same.

The Obama administration is preparing to handle applications from as many as 200,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants who want to live and work legally in the United States under a new immigration program unveiled last week in the aftermath of Haiti's destructive earthquake.

The federal government will begin accepting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications on Thursday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency will process the paperwork.

Mayorkas was in Miami Wednesday to meet with local immigrant aid groups to South Florida to talk about the daunting task of handling the likely blizzard of applications from Haitians seeking the opportunity to remain in the United States.

Administration officials approved TPS for Haitians last week as part of an effort to help Haiti recover from the earthquake that left an estimated 200,000 people dead and about 1.5 million homeless.

The TPS designation is reserved for selected undocumented migrants from countries disrupted by natural disasters, armed conflicts or other emergencies.

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