Utah senator Allen Christensen (R-North Ogden):
has proposed a bill that would require state wildlife officials to destroy or remove all wild wolves that wander into Utah even in areas where they are protected as an endangered species.
Wolves belong in Utah. While wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act in most of the state, the area where most of Utah's wolf sightings have occurred (east of I-84 and north of I-80) falls outside the federal protection zone and puts wolves at real risk.
If the state legislature passes this bill and allows wolves to be killed in this important wildlife corridor, it will be a huge step backwards for wolf recovery in the American West and a disaster for anyone who wants to see these magnificent animals return to their rightful home in Utah.
Senator Christensen summed up the legislation he's proposing by saying, "This bill simply says any wolf within Utah will be captured and killed. We don't want any of them here."
We need your help to stop this dangerous bill before it's too late. If you're outraged at Senator Christensen's statement, please fill out the form below to let your state legislators know that Senator Christensen doesn't speak for you and that you support wolves in Utah.
Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.
Let me guess: ACORN is behind this.
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In October, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) and 31 Republican co-sponsors offered a resolution praising Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe for their "investigation in the fraudulent and illegal practices and misuse of taxpayer dollars" by ACORN. In light of O'Keefe's arrest for allegedly attempting to wiretap Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) office in New Orleans, ThinkProgress contacted Olson's office for comment and received a statement that further praised O'Keefe's ACORN work, but also offered mild criticism of the allegations:
Individuals who lawfully expose wrongful activities by an entity like ACORN receiving federal tax dollars should be praised. However, if recent events conclude that any laws were broken in the incident in Senator Landrieu's office – that is not something I condone. Citizens have an important role in helping to expose waste and/or fraud when their tax dollars are being spent, but it must be done in a lawful manner.
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With the remarkable -and remarkably profitable - success of United Health Ins Corp's piratical policies, and clearly completely unafraid of any political or legal blowback thanks to its equally successful program of buying Senators with campaign contributions, one of the nation's worst and most predatory health insurance corpos has just upped the ante by threatening hospitals with ruin if they don't cave in to a patently ridiculous demand.
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The Media Double Standard
Back during the '08 presidential campaign, my take was that then-President Bush had set the bar so low that anyone who took the White House and managed not to put out the sun would be considered a great success. It was sort of tongue-in-cheek, but also somewhat serious. After all, the media cut Bush a lot of slack, reporting obvious crimes as "controversies" and treating the completely unnecessary invasion of Iraq with zero skepticism and 100% orgasmic glee. You'd think that a media so fawning toward the previous president would measure the current one by the same yardstick.But this hasn't been the case. All the excitement that had previously been reserved for the bombing of innocent people for no good reason has now been applied to Obama's approval ratings and a special election in Massachusetts that didn't go the way the pressident's party would've liked. A mere one year in, cable news has all but declared the Obama presidency a failure.
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Does the president have a telediction?
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Zsa Zsa's Hubby To Run For CA Gov!
Women's rights groups have joined the call for CBS to cancel the planned Super Bowl anti-abortion ad from Tebow and Focus On The Family.
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How many seven year olds do you know who could pull this off and be so selfless? You can still click through to his site here to donate more. Wow.
He's no Wyclef Jean or George Clooney, but that hasn't stopped seven-year-old Charlie Simpson from raising more than £136,000 ($220,000) for the Haiti earthquake.
Simpson from Fulham, west London had hoped to raise just £500 for UNICEF's earthquake appeal by cycling eight kilometers (five miles)around a local park.
"My name is Charlie Simpson. I want to do a sponsored bike ride for Haiti because there was a big earthquake and loads of people have lost their lives," said Simpson on his JustGiving page, a fundraising site which launched his efforts.
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Despite a crippling recession and tight credit markets, the American wind power industry grew at a blistering pace in 2009, adding 39 percent more capacity. The country is close to the point where 2 percent of its electricity will come from wind turbines.Good news.
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The American Wind Energy Association, in its annual report to be released on Tuesday, said the amount of capacity added last year, 9,900 megawatts, was the largest on record, and was 18 percent above the capacity added in 2008, also a banner year.
The group said the growth of wind power was helped by the federal stimulus package that passed a year ago, which extended a tax credit and provided other investment incentives for the industry.
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Give Barry credit where it's due. The stimulus is starting to work but you know the fiscal scolds won't allow another, something the alternative energy folks could use. We'll see what he has to say tonight.
Now, with all the hot air being wasted in Washington, if we put a wind farm on the Potomac ...
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Group Receives 'Tsunami of Vile Hate' After ABC Exposé on U.S. Military 'Jesus Rifles'
One excerpt from an email from a US soldier:
Nothing in my first 2 deployments prepared me for what happened with the Trijicon ACOG gun sights during my 3rd deployment to Afghanistan. I will never forget the day it occurred. It was morning and there was a mandatory formation of several companies. A very senior NCO was yelling at us which is not that unusual. He asked a private what it was that he (the private) was holding in his hand and the private said it was his "weapon" several times to which the senior NCO replied "and what ELSE is it"?
Finally, the senior NCO said that the private's rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ" and that we would be expected to kill every "haji" we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the "spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ" and that we should "bust open the head of every haji we find with it.'" He said that Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a "pussy 'Jewzzi' (combination of the word 'Jew' and Israeli made weapon 'Uzi') but the "fire arm of Jesus Christ" and made specific mention of the biblical quotes on our gun sights.
I'm sure this won't affect Bill O'Reilly's desire to kidnap and waterboard Nancy Pelosi one bit
During a recent stop of the Bold & Fresh Tour with fellow Fox News personality Glenn Beck, right-wing talker Bill O'Reilly couldn't help but to spin a hypothetical.
In his fantasy world where Obama hires him as a presidential adviser, O'Reilly explained the first thing he'd do is lavishly decorate his office. Thing two would be having the CIA director kidnap top Democrats and "waterboard" Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
He was, of course, "joking" during the Jan. 23 appearance. The audience roared with laughter, even as O'Reilly had cautioned, "Don't tell anyone I said this, please."
Yes, because advocating abduction and torture of a public official, especially a female one, is such a laff riot. Ladies and gentlemen, meet your teabaggers.
Keep reading: http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/01/im-sure-this-wont-affect-bill-oreillys.html
