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Two Sick Puppies Walk To Human
Hospital, Wait In Lobby
In
what may be one of the most 'aww'-inducing stories of the day, two sick dogs
from Corpus Christi, Texas, made their way to a human hospital and waited
patiently in the lobby, KIII TV reports.
According
to the station, hospital staff treated the "emaciated" pups, and a
doctor carried them to the station's van, which then transported them to the
Gulf Coast Humane Society.
This
isn't the first time a furry friend has figured out how to get the help and
attention of humans. Back in October, after being rescued and nursed back to
health, one cat led RSPCA inspector Jon Knight to her litter of kittens for
help.
"When
she started to get really vocal at first I thought she was calling to the
kittens, but then it became clear that she was actually calling to me," Knight told STV.
"I began to follow her and she took me through the rear garden, across a
ploughed field and into a farm yard."
Had
the cat not lead Knight to her litter, the kittens would have only lasted
around two more days.
Similarly,
last year a rat terrier named Rowdy barked like crazy to get his owner's
attention when he realized there was another dog, Casper, stuck in an 8-inch drain pipe.
According to ABC News 10, it's
possible that Casper, a 15-year-old miniature schnauzer, had been stuck in the
pipe for up to three days.
Correction: We say in our video report that
the doctor drove the dogs to the humane society. He helped load them in the car
but didn't join for the ride.
Facebook De-Friending Leads To
Murder Charge: Marvin Potter Allegedly Kills Billy Payne Jr. And Billie Jean
Hayworth
MOUNTAIN
CITY, Tenn. -- A father who was upset after a Tennessee couple deleted his
adult daughter as a friend on Facebook has been charged in the shooting deaths
of the couple, authorities said Wednesday.
The
victims had complained to police that Marvin's Potter's daughter was harassing
them after they deleted her as a friend on the social networking site, Johnson
County Sheriff Mike Reece said Wednesday.
Potter,
60, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in last week's
slayings of Billy Payne Jr. and his girlfriend, Billie Jean Hayworth. The
couple was shot to death in their Mountain City home in the far northeast
corner of the state. Their 8-month-old baby was found unharmed in Hayworth's
arms.
"It's
a senseless thing," the sheriff said.
Authorities
have been involved other cases where Potter's daughter, Jenelle Potter,
believed she had been slighted by someone. Marvin Potter's friend, Jamie Curd,
has also been charged in the killings. Curd, 38, had romantic feelings for
Jenelle Potter, 30, the sheriff said.
Potter
and Curd were arraigned Wednesday. Potter asked for time to hire an attorney
while Curd was assigned a public defender who did not immediately return a
phone message. Assistant District Attorney General Matthew Roark said Curd's
initial bond was raised to $1.5 million while Roark agreed to put off a bond
hearing for Potter until next week, when he is expected to have an attorney.
Potter remains jailed on his initial $200,000 bond.
The
victims lived with Billy Payne Sr., who was the last person to see them alive.
He told detectives he saw Hayworth get up to feed the baby before he left for
work at about 5:30 a.m. on Jan. 31.
The
slayings were discovered about five hours later when a former neighbor stopped
by to pick up mail the family would save for him.
The
younger Payne was found in his bedroom, and Hayworth was found in the baby's
room.
President,
National Action Network
Contraception Isn't a PR Game;
It's a Woman's Right
Posted:
02/ 9/2012 1:09 pm
In
public relations, 'spin' is the term people use when they would like a topic or
story covered in a specific manner, in a certain light. In the realm of
politics, unfortunately, some elected officials and their mouthpieces like to apply the same tactics
while masking the truth from everyone. Case in point: contraception and the
Catholic Church. Before falling victim to the hype, let's get one thing clear,
this issue isn't about religious freedom or the federal government; it is about
the rights of women all across this country to have access to appropriate care.
It is about protecting the rights of those workers at religious institutions
who may not be of that faith (and have no choice but to find work there), but
deserve the same health care that a woman in corporate America does. This is
about the notion that some religiously affiliated hospitals and schools
receive federal money and therefore cannot deny a woman a
federal guarantee. Let's get one thing straight, this is real 'class warfare'
from the right and this time the victims are the most vulnerable -- women from
lower-income neighborhoods.
Everyday,
women from all corners of this nation head to work in religious Catholic
hospitals and universities providing the necessary services so many of us rely
on. Even in my hometown of New York City, many of the finest hospitals are
religiously affiliated, and simultaneously staffed by an overwhelming number of
women from the outer boroughs of Manhattan or from poorer neighborhoods within
the city. In the unfortunate circumstance that you fall gravely ill in the Big
Apple, chances are pretty high that a nurse, secretary, orderly, etc. helping
to save your life works at this institution not because of her unyielding faith
to religion, but because of her dedication to helping others. And though we may
not want to face reality, often times, this woman is working at this facility
because there simply are no other options available for her to provide for her
family. Don't these women deserve the same rights as those on Wall St.? Why
should they be denied access to contraception because their employer may be
religiously opposed to the idea? If an institution is employing women from all
sectors of society, how can they possibly dictate what these women can and
cannot do when it comes to their own bodies?
As
pundits and legislators scream about the federal government infringing on the
religious rights of people, they might want to remember that many of these religious
facilities have no trouble accepting federal aid. From Medicare to Medicaid and
more, these institutions are taking taxpayer money to provide
services, and should therefore provide appropriate coverage for their own
employees. You cannot accept money from the federal government and then turn
around and say 'federal government, you must do what I say'. This is hypocrisy
at its highest and a coy attempt at slowly stripping away the liberties of all
women. First, they will attack those without a voice; tomorrow, they will
attack you.
There's
a reason why most women -- including Catholic women -- use birth control and
have no objection to its widespread usage. Unlike what the spin-doctors would
have you believe, birth control pills aren't only utilized to prevent
pregnancies, but rather a multitude of women use them for other health care
needs. From regulating a woman's menstrual cycle to preventing ovarian
problems, women everywhere take birth control as a means of protecting their
own health, their bodies and the health of their future children. No one should
be denied that right.
As
Republicans realize more and more everyday that their potential candidate
(whoever that may be) doesn't present a real challenge to the President, they
will continue to fabricate these sorts of social wedge issues. Playing games
with people's beliefs, they will try to make us think that President Obama is
somehow infringing on our religious freedoms, when he in fact already exempted
over 300,000 Churches from this rule. But when a religious institution employs
people of all faiths and services people from all faiths, they have no right to
obstruct women from having access to vital services. If it's women today,
tomorrow they could just as easily decide to stop offering coverage to
homosexuals, divorced individuals or any other group. Where would you draw the
line?
Don't
believe the spin, this isn't about religious freedom, this isn't about the
President, this isn't about states' rights; it's about women -- all women --
having the ability to control their own health and well-being. And no man,
hospital or university should ever be allowed to tell them otherwise.
Alyssa Bustamante Verdict:
'Thrill Killer' Gets Life With Possible Parole For Killing 9-Year-Old Elizabeth
Olten
EFFERSON
CITY, Mo. (AP) — A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling,
cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt
to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility
of parole.
Alyssa
Bustamante, 18, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and armed
criminal action in the October 2009 slaying of Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins,
a small rural town west of Jefferson City.
The
judge also ordered the teen to serve a consecutive 30-year term in the armed
criminal action charge.
Bustamante
was 15 years old when she confessed to strangling Elizabeth, repeatedly
stabbing her in the chest and slicing the girl's throat. She led police to the
shallow grave where she had concealed Elizabeth's body under a blanket of
leaves in the woods behind their neighborhood.
With
her hands shackled to her waist and her feet shackled together, Bustamante rose
and faced Elizabeth's mother and siblings before she was sentenced Wednesday. "I
know words," she said, pausing to take a deep breath and struggling to
compose herself, "can never be enough and they can never adequately
describe how horribly I feel for all of this." She added: "If I could
give my life to get her back I would. I'm sorry." Elizabeth's mother,
Patty Preiss, who on the first day of Bustamante's sentencing hearing called
her "an evil monster" and declared that she "hated her" sat
silently, staring forward during Bustamante's apology.
The
Olten family declined to comment to reporters, as did Bustamante's family. Bustamante
had been charged with first-degree murder and by pleading guilty to the lesser
charges she avoided a trial and the possibility of spending her life in an
adult prison with no chance of release. The teenager's defense attorneys had
argued for a sentence less than life in prison, saying Bustamante's use of the
antidepressant Prozac had made her more prone to violence. They said she had
suffered from depression for years and once attempted suicide by overdosing on
painkillers.
But
prosecutors sought a longer sentence. They noted that Bustamante had dug two
graves several days in advance, and that on the evening of the killing had sent
her younger sister to lure Elizabeth outside with an invitation to play.
Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that the teenager told
him "she wanted to know what it felt like" to kill someone.
Prosecutors also cited journal entries in which Bustamante described the
exhilaration of killing Elizabeth.
"I
strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead,"
Bustamante wrote in her diary, which was read in court by a handwriting expert.
"I don't know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over
the 'ohmygawd I can't do this' feeling, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm kinda
nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol." Bustamante
then headed off to a youth dance at her church while a massive search began for
the missing girl.
Kaplan
University: Preying On 'Pain' And 'Fears' Of Low-Income Students Is Not
'Remotely Deceptive
"Boiler room" sales
tactics at some for-profit colleges have attracted unprecedented government and
law enforcement scrutiny over the past two years. But at Kaplan University,
owned by the Washington Post Co., marketing techniques such as preying on the "pain" and
"fears" of low-income students should come as no
surprise, according to the company's lawyers.
There was "nothing remotely
deceptive" about the flyers guiding Kaplan recruiters, according to the Washington Post Co.'s defense against
a recently dismissed shareholder lawsuit that claimed the company had
fraudulent business practices.
"If you can help them uncover their true pain and fear,"
one flyer stated, "if you get the prospect to think about how tough their
situation is right now, if you talk about the life they can't give their family
right now because they don't have a degree ... you dramatically increase your
chances of enrolling this prospective student."
Responding to allegations, the company's lawyers wrote in
their August motion to dismiss, "Plaintiff may think this language
unbecoming for an educational institution, but it is not fraudulent." The
lawyers also wrote, “It merely encourages admissions advisers to 'ask probing
questions to explore student motivation' and to 'keep digging until you uncover
their pain, fears and dreams.'" U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein
dismissed the case on Dec. 23.
As the for-profit college industry has fought back against
increased federal government regulation over the past year, the industry's top
brass has often argued that its schools serve a noble cause: educating low-income,
first-generation college students who have nowhere else to turn.
Chief among those spokesmen is Donald Graham, the chairman and chief executive
of the Washington Post Co.
"A disaster is shaping up for
lower-income students who want a higher education," Graham wrote in
an op-ed in the Wall
Street Journal last year.
"The [administration's] proposed regulations may start with good
intentions, but the result will be less access for our nation's most needy
students."
But Kaplan and the Washington Post
Co. struck a decidedly different tone in a filing defending the
company from the investors' class action, essentially acknowledging some of the
more controversial tactics and questioning why anyone would object to such a
culture.
"Investors would hardly be surprised or disappointed to
learn that a 'for-profit' education company would operate like a
business," lawyers wrote in response to allegations that Kaplan University
had a "corporate culture that transformed supposed admissions advisors
into sales persons, potential students into 'leads' and student enrollment into
sales."
They went a step further in questioning why investors suing
the Washington Post Co. found "something sordid" in Kaplan's use of
"football-field sized call centers" and reliance on
"telemarketing techniques and sales goals."
"This was neither sordid nor secret," the lawyers
wrote. "It is standard practice in the for-profit sector and was
well-known to the market for years."
Nearly 30 percent of students at Kaplan schools defaulted on
federal loans within three years of graduating or leaving its schools -- one of
the highest default rates of any publicly traded college corporation, according
to the Department of Education.
Kaplan spokeswoman Melissa Mack wrote in an email that her
company disagreed with many of the allegations of the suit's plaintiffs and
that "they never even addressed the nature, content and quality of
Kaplan's educational offerings, which are very much part of its culture."
"Our motion was very much based on the argument ...
that the factual allegations of the complaint were unfounded and that there was
nothing false or misleading about any of the company's statements," Mack
wrote.
Mack cited an assertion in the Washington Post Co.'s motion
last year: "The allegation that it 'mandate[d] ... predatory and deceptive
recruitment and enrollment practices' is unsupported, and the isolated abuses
alleged are, in any event, immaterial."
The lawsuit against the Washington
Post Co. was a class action brought on behalf of shareholders who claimed the
company's stock price plummeted once fraudulent business practices were revealed
by increased government scrutiny. A federal judge dismissed the case late
last month, ruling that plaintiffs failed to establish that Kaplan or the
Washington Post Co. "knowingly or recklessly misled the market."
Mack told HuffPost last year that recruiters no longer use such flyers.
Mack told HuffPost last year that recruiters no longer use such flyers.
See Kaplan University's flyers for
recruiters here.
Wall Street Bankers Quitting To
Start Their Own Businesses
Shane
Robinson celebrated his Merrill Lynch job offer over lunch and cocktails at a
trendy Manhattan restaurant. His bosses toasted him and asked what he planned
to do with the $10,000 end-of-internship bonus. Robinson, then 24, in late
2007, said he would probably save it. "Why?" he recalls them asking.
"Just go spend it -- you're going to make a lot more."
As the
economy started to spiral downward less than six months later, bonuses dried
up, layoffs ensued and the young banker was told by his superiors that he might
want to begin looking for other opportunities.
"It
left a bad taste in my mouth," Robinson says. "Why would I want to
have my fate determined by things that are outside my control? If I'm going to
fail, I would much rather fail because of my own doing."
Not long after the recession hit, Robinson decided to
ditch finance. He contacted A.J. Steigman, a former Merrill Lynch colleague who
had quit to start a sneaker store, and the two hashed out plans to create an
urban clothing website that was part social network, part e-commerce. For
months, they slept on friends' couches while fundraising in different cities.
They spent countless hours online, building the core technology and a community
around their streetwear
blog. Finally, in 2010, the duo secured $265,000 from investors to
make their startup Soletron a reality.
Soletron's founders' path from high-finance to
high-tech is becoming increasingly well-trodden, according to economists,
venture capitalists and startup CEOs -- especially now, as we see some
contraction once again on Wall Street, not to mention the stigma Occupy Wall
Street protesters have bestowed on the "1 Percent." As employee dissatisfaction
spreads through the financial services industry amid waning profits, slashed bonuses
and layoffs, New York's bustling world of tech startups is attracting and absorbing fed-up
financiers, offering them jobs, cash and a shot at creating empires of their
own.
"At the end of 2008, we started seeing more
people who graduated from college three or four years before, went to work at a
large bank, but became disillusioned with Wall Street and were moving on to
tech and entrepreneurship," says Matt Harris, a managing partner at Village Ventures, a Manhattan-based venture-capital
firm. Harris says that over each of the past three years he has seen the flow
of talent from Wall Street to Silicon Alley increase.
For many
Wall Street refugees, a "logical next step is technology and
entrepreneurship," Harris says. That's because the world of tech startups
"has some of the same elements as Wall Street," including the
adrenaline, the high stakes and -- for a lucky few -- the outsized returns.
Bankers "are accustomed to the prospect of being able to earn a really
good living," he adds. "And while entrepreneurship is risky, when it
works, it can really pay off."
According to a recent study, an average successful startup raises
$25.3 million, sells for $196.8 million and gives its shareholders a 676
percent return. While those numbers represent a small percentage of all
startups, they leave bankers, who have watched their salaries shrink and their
colleagues get axed, squirming in their penny-loafers.
From
2008 to 2011, national employment in the financial services industry fell by
7.3 percent, while high-tech employment excluding manufacturing jumped 7.1
percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In
startup hubs like New York, where large numbers of new tech companies have
popped up in recent years, the trend is even more pronounced.
The number of investment bank and brokerage firm employees
in New York dropped by 17 percent from 2008 to 2011,
according to analysis of government data by The New York Times.
The number of bankers aged 20 to 34 fell by 25 percent in the same period.
Meanwhile, in New York's high-tech sector, employment shot up by 30 percent
from 2005 to 2010, city officials report.
While layoffs at large Wall Street
banks continue to
winnow the number of employees in New York's financial services sector, the
allure of starting or joining technology
firms in a city where Internet startup investments
are soaring has pushed
some bankers to the exits.
Glamorized
media accounts of financiers turned successful startup CEOs provide added
encouragement to professionally frustrated Wall Streeters.
There's the poster-boy in Silicon Valley, Mark Pincus,
who began his career as a lowly stock analyst, graduated into private equity,
but ultimately dumped finance to launch Zynga, the social-gaming startup that
recently sold shares to the public at a
$7 billion valuation.
Then there are the homegrown New York stories of Wall
Street number-crunchers who started some of the city's hottest startups,
including Vinicius Vacanti, the founder of Yipit,
Andy Dunn of Bonobos,
Alexa Von Tobel of Learnvest and Barry Silbert of SecondMarket.
Silbert, for his part, spent the early part of his
career as an investment banker selling off pieces of bankrupt Enron. He soon
discovered that the way people buy and sell illiquid assets was ripe for
disruption, and went on to build an online marketplace that facilitated such
transactions. That marketplace, now known as SecondMarket, currently employs
140 people in New York, is worth an estimated $200 million and has changed the way private-company
shareholders trade their stock ahead of an initial public offering.
But for each successful startup that has grown out of
a Wall Street hangover, or received a boost from ex-Wall Street talent, there
are at least 100 new businesses that flop, creating and then ultimately
destroying jobs. Some fear those numbers will grow as the threat of a startup credit crunch becomes more real.
As such, some experts believe established tech giants
like Google and Facebook -- rather than the droves of young New York-based
startups -- are the drivers of the city's rising high-tech employment numbers.
Facebook, for its part, is opening a large office in New York, the social
network recently announced,
and Google already employs about 1,200 engineers in the city. It's at these large
technology companies, not at Goldman Sachs, where the new "status jobs"
are, a former Goldman analyst recently told The New York Times.
Regardless of which group draws more people away from
Wall Street -- the tech giants or the tech startups -- Google and Facebook
building engineering talent in New York is a net positive for the city's
startup community, according to John Frankel, a partner at ff Venture Capital,
who spent 21 years at Goldman Sachs before he became a full-time venture
investor in 2008.
"Google
and Facebook, much like Goldman, attract a lot of very smart people to New
York," Frankel says. "And many ex-Googlers end up starting their own
businesses here. Much like people in finance move from big Wall Street banks to
hedge funds after a few years, folks often spend two to three years at Google,
get fed up with whatever aspect there, and then go off and do their own
thing."
In the past week alone, Frankel says several people
currently employed on Wall Street have sought him for advice on transitioning
into the tech sector. One, a 55-year-old banker, told Frankel that he's
thinking about creating a group that helps funnel Wall Street refugees into
positions at high-growth startups. (Arguably, those mechanisms already exist in
the form of New York's growing network of incubators
and accelerators, many of which have seen an increase in the number
of applicants with finance backgrounds.)
But perhaps the flow of talent from Wall Street to
Silicon Alley, and more broadly, from financial services firms to
entrepreneurial technology firms nationwide, is just a fad. After all, previous
economic downturns have caused the financial services industry to shrink in the
short-term. And perhaps this time around, it's just that the contraction is
coinciding with a '90s-style tech startup bubble that will soon pop and send
all the Zuckerberg-wannabes back to their trading desks.
Harris,
of Village Ventures, who was investing in startups in the immediate aftermath
of the late-'90s bubble popping, is concerned about what exactly draws the best
and brightest to startups in the age of Facebook.
"I
think venture capitalists have been guilty of creating a monolithic and, on
average, incorrect view of what entrepreneurship means," Harris says.
"If entrepreneurship means building the next Facebook, then 99.9 percent
of people involved are going to be really disappointed with the outcomes.
"But
I don't think this is just a phase," he adds. "Entrepreneurship is
about building a career for yourself that doesn't rely on a large corporation
and a boss to give you direction and give you security and give you a paycheck.
Whether you should raise venture capital is an open question. Whether the
outcome is an acquisition or a merger or just a lifetime job in a company that
you own part of or all of is another open question. In most cases, the answer
is you should not raise venture capital and you should never sell the business
-- this is just how you live."
"As
for going to back to a world in which people just check their own initiative at
the door of a large company when they take the job there and don't reemerge
until they're laid off," Harris says, "people's thinking on that has
changed."
Correction: An earlier version of
this report incorrectly stated that SecondMarket has 200
Willard's
new ad, which he's started running in South Carolina, is a counterpunch on all
the Bain attacks he's taken from his rivals -- and it's very likely to be effective. Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been the
hardest on Romney over his record at investment firm Bain Capital. Perry calls
it "vulture capitalism." Gingrich has urged Romney to hold a press
conference solely to discuss his business dealings.
On
Thursday, Perry lost a key South Carolina donor to the Romney campaign over his
remarks. Ex-Perry supporter Barry Wynn said Perry's attacks were "like
fingernails on the chalkboard."
Republican
New York Rep. Michael Grimm also released a statement saying the attacks would
have a "negative effect on the party."
"When
GOP candidates, especially those who identify themselves as conservatives, use
phrases like 'vulture capitalism' or adopt leftist rhetoric, they are
jeopardizing the strength and unity of the party," he said.
In
addition to never criticizing Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh, a Republican
must never say mean things about any corporation. They're people after all --
and they have feelings, too.
Of
course, Willard's ad also includes this audio and graphic:
OBAMA: FREE MARKETS ON TRIAL
Yeah.
I
suppose Obama is putting "free markets on trial" on the same wingnut
planet where he's apologized for America, raised taxes, nationalized the energy
industry -- and surrendered to the terrorists.
On
Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced a new initiative to combat
outsourcing. The so-called 'in-sourcing' initiative would push a
series of policies that would create jobs in the United States, including
inviting more foreign companies to invest in U.S. jobs. Some of the suggested
policies include tax breaks for companies that create jobs in the U.S. and tax
disincentives for companies that continue to engage in outsourcing.
The
White House announcement was made in conjunction with an in-sourcing forum that
brought 14 large and small U.S. companies to meet with President Obama and
discuss what kinds of policies might work to encourage the generation of jobs
here instead of abroad. The 14 were Ford, DuPont, Otis Elevator, Intel,
Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, Master Lock, Lincolnton Furniture, GalaxE
Solutions, AGS, KEEN, Chesapeake Bay Candle and NOVO 1.
Some
of the companies involved in the forum called for deregulation and lower
corporate tax rates. Another tactic, used successfully by GM, is to increase
productivity by increasing the use of automation and paying workers less.
Rep.
Tim Bishop is calling on the president to focus on call centers:
In
a letter, Bishop urged the President to consider the "U.S. Call Center and
Consumer Protection Act," the bipartisan bill he sponsored to bar
corporations that outsource U.S. call center jobs from receiving federal grants
and loans, as a framework for Executive action to encourage the retention and
growth of call center jobs in America.
Highlighting
the fact that U.S-based call centers account for approximately three percent of
jobs in the American workforce, Bishop wrote: "I hope your Administration
will seriously consider the remedy my colleagues and I are confident will
reduce the incidence of outsourcing by creating new incentives to insource call
center jobs and provide a measure of stability and longevity to a sector of
America’s workforce that needs our help as our economy continues to
recover."
Bishop's
"U.S. Call Center and Consumer Protection Act," which is co-sponsored
by Reps. Dave McKinley (R, WVA-1), Mike Michaud (D, ME-1), Mike Grimm (R,
NY-13) and Gene Green (D, TX-29), would require the U.S. Department of Labor to
track firms that move call center jobs overseas; the firms would then be
ineligible for any direct or indirect federal loans or loan guarantees for five
years. The provision is partially a response to the practice of companies
taking millions in incentives from local taxpayers to open call centers in the
U.S., only to off-shore their operations a short time later and leave local
communities devastated and still paying the bill.
Bishop's
bill also requires overseas call center employees to disclose their location to
US consumers and gives customers the right to be transferred to a US-based call
center upon request. The legislation has the full support of the 700,000-member
Communications Workers of America.
The
Communications Workers of America have
already come out in favor of this bill. India and the Philippines, the
recipients of many of the outsourced call center jobs, are lobbying against the
bill.
WASHINGTON
— Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been spending large amounts on
airfare as a congressman, flying first class on dozens of taxpayer-funded
flights to his home state. The practice conflicts with the image that Paul
portrays as the only presidential candidate serious about cutting federal
spending. Paul flew first class on at least 31 round-trip flights and 12
one-way flights since May 2009 when he was traveling between Washington and his
district in Texas, according to a review by The Associated Press of his
congressional office expenses. Four other round-trip tickets and two other
one-way tickets purchased during the period were eligible for upgrades to
first-class after they were bought, but those upgrades would not be documented
in the expense records.
Paul,
whose distrust of big government is the centerpiece of his presidential
campaign, trusts the more expensive government rate for Continental Airlines
when buying his tickets. Paul chose not to buy the cheaper economy tickets at a
fraction of the price because they aren't refundable or as flexible for scheduling,
his congressional staff said. "We always get him full refundable tickets
since the congressional schedule sometimes changes quickly," said Jeff
Deist, Paul's chief of staff. Paul might have to pay out of his own pocket for
canceled flights in some cases if he didn't buy refundable tickets, Deist said.
But
records show that most of the flights for Paul were purchased well in advance
and few schedule changes were necessary. Nearly two-thirds of the 49 tickets
were purchased at least two weeks in advance, and 42 percent were bought at
least three weeks in advance, the AP's review found. Paul charged taxpayers
nearly $52,000 on the more expensive tickets, or $27,621 more than the average
Continental airfare for the flights between Washington and Houston, according
to the AP's review of his congressional expenses and average airfares compiled
by the Department of Transportation. The more expensive tickets have other
benefits as well, including allowing Paul to upgrade to first class when his
staff reserves a flight because his frequent government travel gives him
membership in an elite class of Continental customers who earn travel perks.
Upgrades to first-class with cheaper fares are possible, at times limited to
available seats days before the flight. But those upgrades are not guaranteed
and some require ticket changes at the airport, according to the airline's
frequent flyer rules.
The
AP reviewed congressional travel before the Iowa caucuses for the two members
of Congress running at the time – Paul and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.
Bachmann later ended her presidential campaign. House records show Bachmann,
like most other congressional members, also paid the more expensive government
rate for airfare. But her staff would not provide access to more detailed
expense records that show when and what type of tickets were purchased.
Paul's
congressional staff provided access to all expense records requested. Congressional
members don't have to pay the government rate for travel, but most do,
including many like Paul and Bachmann who advocate cuts in federal spending. "You
could almost always beat the government rate," said Steve Ellis, vice
president of the Washington-based Taxpayers for Common Sense, a federal budget
watchdog group. "They need to be walking the walk, and one of the ways
they can do that is to be fiscally responsible for how they spend their member
office money."
Jesse
Benton, Paul's campaign manager, didn't respond to a written request to explain
how Paul's use of more expensive airfare, which allows him to fly first class,
corresponds with his commitment to cut federal spending. Instead, he sent a
statement that started, "No one is more committed to cutting spending than
Dr. Paul." But Paul's congressional travel conflicts with claims in
campaign appearances that he's the most frugal and serious deficit hawk in the
race. "The talk you hear in Washington is pure talk, because there is
nobody suggesting, the other candidates are not talking about real cuts," Paul
said in a speech to supporters last week after his second-place finish in New
Hampshire. He has proposed cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget during
his first year as president, and has confronted other candidates in public
forums as "big government conservatives." "You're a big spender,
that's all there is to it," Paul told former Sen. Rick Santorum of
Pennsylvania during a GOP debate in New Hampshire.
Paul
boasts on his website about declining other congressional perks, such as a
pension and all-expense-paid travel "junkets" that other lawmakers
take. And he says he regularly returns money from his congressional account to
the treasury. But when it comes to his congressional travel, Paul has opted not
to search for cheaper airfares that could mean returning more of his office
account to the treasury, which uses any money returned by House or Senate
members to help reduce the federal deficit. Paul paid $51,972 for his
government-rate flights between Washington and Houston between May 2009 and March
2011, or more than twice the $24,351 average airfare on Continental for travel
between Washington and Houston. The average airfare figure represents the price
for all tickets purchased for Continental flights between Washington and
Houston, including economy and first-class travel, according to the
Transportation Department's Domestic Airline Fares Consumer Report, which
collects airfare information for the nation's busiest travel routes.
Paul's
staff regularly booked him in first class on flights when tickets were
purchased, according to expense records. His office paid between $1,217 and
$1,311 for each round-trip flight, compared to the average airfare for that
trip ranging from $528 to $760, according to the airline fares consumer report.
The
period reviewed by the AP was the most recent period for which complete
congressional expense records were available.
Just
to be clear, it's only living off the government when you do it, not when our Electeds do it. Are we
clear now?
To
avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2011, Republicans succeeded in their campaign to cut the federal Pell Grant program
by effectively kicking up to 100,000 low-income students off the rolls.
Last
week, Arkansas constituent Kelly Eubanks, a college student who has two jobs
and two children, confronted her Congressman, Rep. Steve Womack (R), at a town
hall meeting over his attack on the program she now relies on. But instead of
any explanation, Womack lashed out at Eubanks, telling her to pay her
own way by “joining the military” like he did. After refusing to
answer her question, he finally just asked her to “be quiet and listen.” Blue
Arkansas reports:
According
to Kelly and a handful of other witnesses, Womack happily retorted that
it wasn’t the federal government’s job to pay for education (he’s doing this in
a college town mind you) and then quickly added that he paid for his education
by joining the military, apparently suggesting that the mom of two do
the same and totally oblivious I guess to the fact that it was, in fact, the
federal government that paid for his education then. Well Womack tried
to skirt the rest of Ms. Eubanks question and she proceeded to try and get him
to address the discrepancy she pointed out. Well at this point,
according to Kelly and several other people that were in the room, Womack blew
a gasket. He skirted the rest of my question and I called him out on
it.. he ended up getting pissed off.. and screaming at me.. “are you going to
be quiet and listen”, [Eubanks said.]According to Kelly, some of his
aides came up and tried to get the mike from her, but she held her ground and
kept her cool, insisting her congressman answer her question.
Oh
my goodness. They do get testy when they're held accountable!
White Supremacists Showcased At
CPAC Conservative Conference
Two
white supremacists are set to speak at panels at CPAC, the Conservative
Political Action Conference that will also feature speeches by Mitt Romney,
Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.
The
first white supremacist is Peter Brimelow the owner of the website VDare, which
is labeled by the SPLC as an anti-immigration hate website. VDare has featured
the works of noted white supremacists, Jared Taylor, Sam Francis, Virginia
Abernethy, Kevin MacDonald as well as conservative pundits, Michelle Malkin and
Pat Buchanan.
Brimelow
has been a featured guest on the white supremacist talk show “The Political
Cesspool” and is a prominent anti-immigration activist despite the fact he was
born in England. Brimelow will speak on a panel called “The Failure of Multiculturalism:
How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity.”
The
other white supremacist is Robert “Bob” Vandervoort who spoke on a panel called
“High Fences, Wide Gates: States vs. the Feds, the Rule of Law & American
Identity.” Vandervoort works for the site ProEnglish.com and also was the
organizer for Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance which met regularly
with the Chicago Chapter of Council Of Conservative Citizens.
American
Renaissance is white supremacist organization run by notorious racist Jared
Taylor that organizes a conference of racists including neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux
Klan including David Duke and Stormfront owner, Don Black. The Council Of
Conservative Citizens is another white supremacist organization.
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