NEW YORK TIMES: Mitt Romney, who has relentlessly wielded the issue of illegal immigration against his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in the past few months, is facing an embarrassing new revelation that the landscaping company at his home in Massachusetts was found for a second time to be employing illegal immigrants.Mr. Romney announced yesterday that he had fired the company, Community Lawn Service of Chelsea, Mass. The announcement came just before The Boston Globe published on its Web site the results of an inquiry it had been conducting over the last two months on the firm. The Globe […]
Does Mike Huckabee Have A Willie Horton Problem?
Little Rock, Ark. — As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman. In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond’s initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
Italian Court Orders Tweety Bird, Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck Testify ROME, Italy (AP) — Tweety may get a chance to take the witness stand and sing like a canary. An Italian court ordered the animated bird, along with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his girlfriend Daisy, to testify in a counterfeiting case. In what lawyers believe was a clerical error worthy of a Looney Tunes cartoon, a court in Naples sent a summons to the characters ordering them to appear Friday in a trial in the southern Italian city, officials said. The court summons cites Titti, Paperino, Paperina, Topolino […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
Supremes Say City Council Has NO Say Over Casino Built In, Um, The City SugarHouse has won a major victory in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in its fight to build a casino on Philadelphia’s waterfront. The high court has ruled in favor of SugarHouse Casino in its battle with city council over zoning and other necessary approvals. Councilman Frank DiCicco has led the casino fight in council. His spokesman is Brian Abernathy: “We were surprised – maybe not shocked, but certainly surprised. More than anything, I think we’re outraged by the court’s decision.” Abernathy, who says he interprets the high […]
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE: Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program FOUR Years Ago
In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings. “We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009.” The entire NIE report will remain classified, however the office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified […]
DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT: Didn’t Need To See THAT
Eric Draper/White House In the Blue Room of the White House, before the Kennedy Center Honors, from left, the pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher; the movie director Martin Scorsese; the singer Diana Ross; President Bush; the songwriter Brian Wilson; Laura Bush; and the actor and writer Steve Martin. [via NEW YORK TIMES]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
STOPPING THE INSANITY: Teddy Bear Teacher Pardoned By President Of Sudan KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s president on Monday agreed to pardon a British teacher jailed here after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, British politician Lord Nazir Ahmed said. Ahmed and another Muslim representative from Britain’s House of Lords, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday at his presidential palace to plead for Gillian Gibbons’ pardon. “The president has told us he has already signed the papers for her pardon,” Ahmed told reporters. Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahzoub Faidul told The Associated Press that […]
HALL MONITOR: Our Unofficial City Council Minutes
TIME CAPSULE: Lucien Blackwell presents proclamation to Maurice Barboza in Council chambers on February 25th, 1988. Also pictured, Anna Verna and young Ben Franklin. Unofficial Minutes of City Council Meeting at 10 a.m. on Thursday November 29, 2007 BY ABIGAIL SHEPHERD, CITY HALL CORRESPONDENT-IN-TRAINING 10:00 Is when the City Council meeting is scheduled to commence, but the Committee on Appropriations meeting being held in Council chambers is running late and seeing as how these guys dole out the dough, nobody has the balls to ask them kindly wrap it up. So we wait…and wait. 10:05 A group of […]
SURRENDERED: Man With Bomb Road Flares Takes 2 Hostages At Clinton New Hampshire Campaign Office
UPDATE: Nobody was hurt, and after the man, identified as Leeland Eisenberg of nearby Somersworth, was taken into custody, the police said he had nothing more than road flares taped to his chest. They would not discuss Mr. Eisenberg’s motive or mental state, but said he could face federal as well as state charges once the investigation was complete. [via NEW YORK TIMES/Photo by BRIAN SNYDER for REUTERS] PREVIOUSLY: (CNN) — Two people are being held hostage by an armed man at Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, police said Friday. Emergency crews arrive at the office […]
Sudan Rabble Calls For Teddy Bear Teacher’s Head
Thousands of protesters, many brandishing clubs and swords, took to the streets of Sudan’s capital Friday, demanding the execution of a British teacher who let her students name a teddy bear Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons, 54, was found guilty Thursday of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail. She was spared the more serious punishment of 40 lashes. That angered many in Khartoum, who rallied in Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace. Protesters waved sticks, knives, axes and swords.“Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” they chanted. “No tolerance, execution!” Others shouted, “Shame, shame on the U.K.” A cleric […]
NEWS CLUES: ‘So Local It Hurts’ Edition
Jannie Gets Out The Way Of The Barnes Move, For $12 Million And Naming Rights City Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell’s three-year holdout against moving the city’s youth detention facility to her West Philadelphia district paid off yesterday, as the city, state and school district announced plans for a $12 million community center named after her late husband. “This plan has been a long time coming, but the result was worth waiting for,” said Blackwell, who had refused to introduce legislation required for a new Youth Study Center at North 48th Street and Haverford Avenue without something “positive” for the community. […]
DRUG TEST: Frisking The Inquirer’s Super-Weed Bust Story For The Straight Dope On ‘The War On Drugs’
So the Inquirer is trumpeting a big marijuana bust on City Line Avenue that took 16 pounds of the dreaded “AK47″off the street, denying buzz to untold scores of suburban dad-rockers currently pumping iron out in the garage like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. A potent type of marijuana known as AK47 – so strong that some users are treated in emergency rooms for overdoses – has hit the Philadelphia area. Today, police laid out 16 pounds of the stuff [NOT pictured, above] they said they confiscated from a high-level dealer who supplied the suburbs: Michael Cascioli, 31, of the […]