AP-Federal auditors have concluded the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 2004 campaign owes the government nearly $500,000 for illegal donations and other financial improprieties. Sharpton has been feuding with the Federal Election Commission for years over his accounting in his failed run for president, for which he received $100,000 in so-called government matching funds that authorities later […]

Any buyers?
HP-In a somewhat predictable move, Joe The Plumber, aka Samuel Wurzelbacher, has signed a book deal. Joe told Fox News that he was “broke,” but still took time in considering his publishing house because he wanted to spread the wealth around.
“Everyone came at me to write a book. They had dollar signs in […]

HUH???
YAHOO-Thomas Beatie, who was born a woman but lives as a man in Oregon after surgery and hormone treatment, is expecting a second child, Beatie has told Barbara Walters in an interview set to air on television on Friday.
Beatie, 34, who is legally a man but kept female reproductive organs when he had a sex-change […]

Incrementalism is costly, do it right the first time!
By Jack E. Lohman
As bailouts go, here’s an idea that will help all citizens and all US industries at the same time, not just AIG and banking and not just GM and Ford: Implement a “Medicare-for-all” system that transfers health care costs from all businesses to the […]

Has science gone too far?
MO-Scientists have created clones of a mouse that had been dead and frozen for 16 years.
It is the first time they have been able to clone a frozen animal.
The Japanese researchers say their work will benefit mankind - and could be used to bring back extinct animals such as […]

Bad father award!
ND-After initially suggesting that Isiah Thomas is “lying,” the chief for the Harrison police department yesterday went even further in rebuking the former Knicks coach’s story that the medical issue that brought authorities to his Westchester home early Friday morning had to do with his teenage daughter.
“My cops … know the difference between […]

This is funny

Will they do time?
FOX- Federal prosecutors investigating the collapse of Lehman Brothers have subpoenaed several executives associated with the company, including former CEO Richard Fuld, according to a person briefed on the inquiry.
An attorney for Lehman Brothers Holdings, Harvey Miller, told a bankruptcy court judge Thursday that at least 12 people have received grand jury […]

Why should we pay for healthcare for inmates on death row?
USA-(AP) — Death row inmates at the federal prison in Terre Haute are routinely denied access to medical, dental and mental health care, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday in a letter to a governmental official.
A year-long investigation by the ACLU’s National Prison Project […]

What does this say?
YAHOO-Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable
The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of […]

Is this for real?
NPR-The first inmate to die by lethal injection in Ohio in more than a year argued to the end that his obesity would make it difficult for prison staff to find suitable veins in his arms to deliver the deadly chemicals.
During preparations for his execution Tuesday, Richard Cooey shouted for one of […]

Was this pay back?
AP-The jurors in O.J. Simpson’s armed robbery and kidnapping trial claimed a mixture of opinions about his acquittal on murder charges more than a decade ago, but all told attorneys they could set aside their feelings.
According to jury questionnaires released Saturday, five of the 12 jurors wrote that they disagreed with the […]

Hey Paul what is up down under?
Embedded video from CNN Video

Did the time match the crime?
FOX- former teacher who fled to Mexico with a 13-year-old student with whom she was having a sexual relationship was sentenced Monday to six years in federal prison.
Kelsey Peterson, 26, had pleaded guilty in July to a charge of transporting a minor across state lines to have sex and avoided […]

Good or bad idea?
USATODAY-Between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, three fathers walked into two hospitals in Omaha and abandoned their children. One left nine siblings, ages 1 to 17.
The men, unless proven to have abused the kids, won’t face prosecution under a new Nebraska law that is unique in the nation. The […]