Mike Pence Visits The Mayo Clinic

Mike Pence flouts rule on masks at hospital

New Back Drop

Fast and Furious Scandal Reaches Higher

"Fast & Furious" Hearings Raise More Questions Than Answers

The more information that comes out about the reckless "Fast and Furious" gun running operation conducted by the Phoenix BATFE office, the more clear it seems that knowledge of the operation, and approval for it, went a lot higher than the Phoenix field office, or even the BATFE.

There is now clear evidence, uncovered by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that senior Obama Administration officials were aware of this disastrous operation.

Last Tuesday, Rep. Issa conducted another round of hearings. Among those who testified were William Newell and William McMahon, BATFE Special Agents who oversaw the program in Phoenix . Those hearings revealed that senior Dept. of Justice officials, including former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, knew about the program.

~source, the NRA

Just ask one small question - if Bush had done this... what would the reaction be?

The cover up is as important as who approved it.

Priests Do It... Even Buddhists Do It too!

Don't worry, Catholics, you're not the only one! Seems that even though their beliefs are completely different, abusing children is universal -- and same with the incredibly dense support staff to enable it and hide the wrong doers from any light of justice!

(Read More)

A Tribune review of sexual abuse cases involving several Theravada Buddhist temples found minimal accountability and lax oversight of monks accused of preying on vulnerable targets.

Because they answer to no outside ecclesiastical authority, the temples respond to allegations as they see fit. And because the monks are viewed as free agents, temples claim to have no way of controlling what they do next. Those found guilty of wrongdoing can pack a bag and move to another temple -- much to the dismay of victims, law enforcement and other monks.

"You'd think they'd want to make sure these guys are not out there trying to get into other temples," said Rishi Agrawal, the attorney for a victim of a west suburban monk convicted of battery for sexual contact last fall. "What is the institutional approach here? It seems to be ignorance and inaction."

Paul Numrich, an expert on Theravada temples in the United States, said that like clergy abuse in other religious organizations, sex offenses areespecially egregious because monks are supposed to live up to a higher spiritual calling. The monks take a vow of celibacy."

One serial offender, Boa-Ubol, has been definitively caught with a DNA test — he fathered a child on a 14-year-old girl. His temple chastised him, and claimed that he had left the US to go to Thailand. Where is he now? California. In a temple. Working with children.

Doctored Image, No Bias?

On the right, Larry Downing/Reuters President Obama on the magazine cover and in the original photograph with Charlotte Randolph, president of a Louisiana parish, and Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard.

A metaphor for a politically troubled president? Fun with Photoshop?

There was President Obama on the cover of the June 19 issue of The Economist, standing alone on a Louisiana beach, head down, looking forlornly at the ground, presumably at a pile of garbage, perhaps the flag.

The problem was, he was not actually alone in the picture. The photograph was just edited to make it look that way. So what? It's cover art. Just ask OJ and Time Magazine, right?

The unaltered image, shot on May 28 by a Reuters photographer, Larry Downing, shows Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard and Charlotte Randolph, a local parish president, standing alongside the president. But in the image that appeared on The Economist’s cover, Admiral Allen and Ms. Randolph had been scrubbed out, replaced by the blue water of the Gulf of Mexico. Oh, that's what everyone's pissed about. It wasn't tar brown.

When it comes to its own photographers, Reuters has stringent standards regarding photo editing. “Reuters has a strict policy against modifying, removing, adding to or altering any of its photographs without first obtaining the permission of Reuters and, where necessary, the third parties referred to,” Thomson Reuters said in a statement on Sunday.

Editors from The Economist had no comment when asked on Friday about the cover image.

Reuters has had a photo-editing controversy of its own in 2006 after one of its freelance photographers altered images of the Israeli military incursion into Lebanon to make the damage from Israeli warplanes appear more severe. Reuters later stopped working with the photographer and removed his images from its photo archives.

Emma Duncan, deputy editor of The Economist, said this about the cover,

"I was editing the paper the week we ran the image of President Obama with the oil rig in the background. Yes, Charlotte Randolph was edited out of the image (Admiral Allen was removed by the crop). We removed her not to make a political point, but because the presence of an unknown woman would have been puzzling to readers.

We often edit the photos we use on our covers, for one of two reasons. Sometimes — as with a cover we ran on March 27 on U.S. health care, with Mr. Obama with a bandage round his head — it’s an obvious joke. Sometimes — as with an image of President Chavez on May 15 on which we darkened the background, or with our “It’s time” cover endorsing Mr. Obama, from which the background was removed altogether — it is to bring out the central character. We don’t edit photos in order to mislead.

I asked for Ms. Randolph to be removed because I wanted readers to focus on Mr. Obama, not because I wanted to make him look isolated. That wasn’t the point of the story. “The damage beyond the spill” referred to on the cover, and examined in the cover leader, was the damage not to Mr. Obama, but to business in America."

So settle down, ya'll. It's not political. It's just a crappy cover! Okay? It's not like they broke a story about a General who's shining light on a war that's all but forgotten about in America even though it's costing us a Trillion dollars to fight it. Rolling Stone, people! Can we get back to cat pictures now?

Pawnbroker PWND

Update: The Mighty Quinn wants to dump his new number 2!

That's right, there's been a major shift in the alternate storyline - Scott Lee Cohen is getting killed off by Quinn. He said Cohen "has an obligation to step aside" if his past becomes a problem.

"I always appeal to others in politics based on what's good for the people," Quinn said.

Quinn was faced with this new crisis even as his rival, Dan Hynes, announced he was conceding the Democratic primary nomination for governor. Oh, and he was blubbering all about it. So that pretty much ends his career too. It's one thing to cry when your kid is caught having a teenage party [Mayor Daley] -- it's a whole other thing to cry when you lose an election.

Anyhow, back to our Lt. Gov contest. This just got interesting.

ClimateFaith™ Debunked

What I love about this "Duck and Cover" hysteria is that there has been rational debate from the beginning.