2 Injured When Man Opens Fire at SoCal School (NRA racks up another one!)

CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) — A gunman opened fire on a crowded school playground Friday, grazing two young children with bullets before construction workers tackled him, authorities said.

The suspect parked his car around noon, jumped a fence and opened fire as he walked across campus in the north San Diego suburb, said Carlsbad police Lt. Kelly Cain. The students, ages 6 and 7, were not seriously injured.
The suspect, a man in his 40s or 50s whose name was not released, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Cain said. He is believed to have acted alone.
"He is possibly a transient who lives in the area," Cain said. "He is not cooperating with the investigation. He probably has some mental health issues."
Scott Chandler was repairing a Jet Ski in his driveway when he heard two loud bangs and saw children running and screaming. He ran downhill in his flip-flops and saw several men struggling on the side of the road.
As he approached the crowd, he saw bullets fall out of the suspect's pocket.
"I just started yelling him, 'Why are you shooting kids?'" Chandler said. "His face was in the dirt, his teeth were in the dirt, and he just grunted."
Construction worker Carlos Partida told KGTV-TV that he ran to his truck after he saw the suspect leave the playground.
"I hit him with my truck," he said.
Terry Lynn told KNSD-TV he looked out his window to see a man park his vehicle, jump a fence and fire a .357 Magnum revolver toward a crowd of children.
"He was saying something about the president, he was ranting," Lynn said.
Lynn said he screamed, "No! No!" and rushed to the scene. By the time he arrived, construction workers had tackled the suspect. He helped restrain the man until police arrived.
"It was very chaotic," he told the television station.
Witnesses said the man appeared to be firing randomly and was holding something that looked like a gas tank. Cain said a propane tank was found near his car.
"I heard a gunshot and I ran to Room 23," said Kenny Speck, 6, who heard classmates crying. "Some kids went over the fence."
Speck's parents said it could have been so much worse.
"Who knows what could have happened?" said Tamera Wleklinski, his mother. "I am so grateful to the construction workers. They deserve lunch and free donuts for the rest of the year."
Norma Cevallas, who picked up her kindergarten son an hour earlier, was at home when she heard four shots.
"We ran into a room and stayed there," she said. "We didn't want to come out."
The school was placed on lockdown while parents waited for their children in a nearby park.
"It was total panic not knowing what was going on and if our children were OK," Robert Speck, 43, said after reuniting with his son.

Top Nevada GOP lawmaker endorses Reid

RENO, Nev. -- Veteran state Sen. Bill Raggio, one of Nevada's most influential Republicans over the last four decades, says he's reluctantly endorsing Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's re-election campaign.

Raggio issued a statement Thursday sharply criticizing GOP candidate Sharron Angle, branding her as a "totally ineffective" four-term state lawmaker.

Raggio also cited what he called Angle's inability and unwillingness to work with others even within her own party, and her extreme positions on Social Security and other issues.

Raggio also criticized Angle for badmouthing GOP leaders in a recent secretly taped conversation.
The Angle campaign did not immediately respond to Raggio's comments.

Raggio defeated Angle two years ago in a bitter GOP primary.

Media Matters: Damage control week at FOX NEWS(?) Channel

It's been a bumpy week for America's premier Republican cable news channel. Internal strife on various fronts required constant attention, but so did the assorted scandals that pricked up this week involving some of Fox News' very favorite Republican candidates, requiring the network to play some strenuous defense.

And, of course, whenever Fox News is in trouble, you can pretty well guarantee that Glenn Beck will be at the center of it. Beck was the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile last week which reported that his peculiar on-air behavior and relentless hucksterism have started to rankle his slightly less disreputable colleagues. Foremost among them is Fox News president Roger Ailes, who has apparently grown weary of the fact that Beck uses Fox's airwaves to promote his own, non-Fox ventures and line his own pockets. (You can understand why Ailes would be upset -- after all, Beck has reportedly cost the network millions of dollars in ad revenue.)

Meanwhile, Fox News' "journalists" have apparently decided to make Beck the scapegoat for the network's steadily eroding credibility. The Times reported that several of them "complained that Beck's antics are embarrassing Fox, that his inflammatory rhetoric makes it difficult for the network to present itself as a legitimate news outlet" -- a humorous complaint, given that Fox News' "journalists" are just as capable of legitimacy-killing antics.

But everyone knows that Beck was and is a troublemaker. Less well-known was Fox News' apparently longstanding problem with gender discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against the network for penalizing reporter Catherine Herridge because she once complained about gender and age discrimination at the network. This followed the 2006 lawsuit against a Fox VP who "used obscene terms to describe women and their body parts," and Bill O'Reilly's reported games of falafel phone tag. Regarding the Herridge affair, a Fox spokesperson responded in the network's typically measured fashion by blaming the whole thing on President Obama.



Then there's Karl Rove, whose presence at Fox News has never really screamed "ethical." He's one of the raft of former Bush officials who landed at Fox News as their administration slowly crumbled and limped out of office, and the network really wanted us to believe that he -- the most infamous Republican political operative since Lee Atwater -- was an independent election analyst. But then Rove formed American Crossroads, a sort of shadow RNC that works doggedly to elect Republicans and is funded almost exclusively by a handful of Texas billionaires, and any pretense of ethics or good journalistic practice was washed away.

And -- wouldn't you know it? -- Democratic politicians and independent campaign finance groups are calling for the IRS to audit American Crossroads, suspecting that the non-profit group might be misusing their tax-exempt status. In response to this development, Fox News called on Dana Perino, Rove's one-time Bush administration colleague and current Fox News colleague, to defend her buddy Karl and his pet political project, labeling the calls for investigation "politically motivated" and "political interference that is inappropriate, possibly unlawful."

Tending to your own house is difficult enough, but cleaning up your friends' messes at the same time is a real feat, and Fox gave it their best shot in a week full of Republican candidates struggling with controversy. First up was California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who was alleged to have knowingly employed an undocumented immigrant. Fox has both an ideological and financial stake in Whitman -- remember, News Corp. gave $1 million to the Republican Governors' Association -- so they went to bat for their candidate, reporting that she is the "victim of a last-minute smear campaign" and "dirty tricks." Fox News' Megyn Kelly dismissed the controversy by saying "there is no case here," and Sean Hannity went so far as to praise Whitman for her "complete and due diligence."

No sooner had they finished attempting to rehab Whitman's image than another GOPer was embroiled in something of a brouhaha, this time New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who threatened New York Post reporter Frederic Dicker during a heated confrontation. This was a real doozy, and not just because Fox rushed to Paladino's defense. To boost Paladino, they had to lob some intramural attacks at Dicker -- the Post is a fellow Murdoch-owned media outlet. Gretchen Carlson of Fox & Friends said that "it almost seemed like" Dicker "was working for" Paladino's opponent, Andrew Cuomo. David Asman wondered aloud if "Americans are going to be cheering the politicians taking on the journalist."

Meanwhile, Paladino sat down for interviews with three separate Fox News hosts to defend himself and try to defuse the issue. Hannity, one of the lucky interviewers, said of Paladino: "I love his confrontational style. He's refreshingly honest."
All this raises some interesting questions. Is there anything a Republican candidate can do that will cause Fox News to abandon them? Is there anything that Fox News can do that will impel the network to apologize or -- at the very least -- not lash out wildly at critics? Are there any standards at all? Any lines that can't be crossed?
The answer seems more and more to be "no," and that's as depressing as it is remarkable.
Shine on you crazy D'Souza
There's no real reason anyone should be talking about Dinesh D'Souza's latest book, The Roots of Obama's Rage. All things being equal, the book shouldn't even exist; one would like to think that no publisher worth their salt would consider for a moment publishing such a virulently nativist collection of lies.

But, of course, all things aren't equal. In fact, things have become pretty absurd, and as a consequence D'Souza's book is a hot topic of conversation. The reason that this ridiculous person was able to publish such a ridiculous book is that there's an entire ridiculous publishing house committed to cranking out right-wing garbage of this stripe. The reason that ridiculous book sells is because there's an entire ridiculous right-wing infrastructure of book clubs and magazines that buy copies in bulk and resell them at drastically reduced rates. The ridiculous author of this ridiculous book is able to communicate with broad swaths of America because there's an entire ridiculous cable network that will put him on TV without so much as a hint of criticism.
It's tempting to look at this and brush it off. After all, it's just another example of the right-wing subculture telling each other what they want to hear and reveling in epistemic closure's comforting, suffocating embrace.

But then D'Souza popped up in The Washington Post.

The Post cleared space on their op-ed page for a guy who argues, in all seriousness, that the first black president of the United States is on a quest to drain the country's economic and military power in order to fulfill the ambitions of the "anti-colonial" father he met only once as a young child. This was after Forbes had to publish corrections to the article D'Souza wrote for them and dispatch a post-publication fact-checker.

So why did they run it? Here's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt defending the move: "D'Souza's theory has sparked a great deal of commentary, from potential presidential candidates as well as from commentators on our own pages." The "potential presidential candidate" is Newt Gingrich, who loved D'Souza's theory; and the Post commentators are Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen, and Jonathan Capehart, all of whom called Gingrich a lunatic for promoting D'Souza. Hiatt's argument is essentially: "People are talking about it -- who cares if it's right?"
It's this sort of passive attitude towards factual accuracy that allows fringe hacks like D'Souza to break into the mainstream. The Post has an obligation to keep their readers informed, not to reprint the intellectually fraudulent trash Newt Gingrich finds interesting.
MEDIA MATTERS.ORG

Health Care Costs, Lost Productivity Ring in at $73 Billion a Year

Obesity in the Workplace Costs the U.S. Billions

Obese Americans have increased the cost of health care, according to recent studies, but the doctor's office isn't the only place where obesity ups expenses: The workplace is another. Research released Friday by Duke University found that the cost to employers of obesity among full-time employees was $73.1 billion a year.

Using survey data from the 2006 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the 2008 U.S. National Health and Wellness Survey, the Duke researchers estimated the extent to which obesity-related health problems affected absenteeism, work productivity and medical costs.

While previous estimates looked mainly at the direct health care costs of obesity, lead researcher Eric Finkelstein, deputy director for health services and systems research at Duke-National University of Singapore, and his colleagues found that "presenteeism," or the lost productivity incurred when employees try to work despite health problems, cost employers a whopping $12.1 billion per year, nearly twice as much as their medical costs.

"Much work has already shown the high costs of obesity in medical expenditures and absenteeism, but our findings are the first to measure the incremental costs of presenteeism for obese individuals separately by body mass index and gender among full time employees," Finkelstein said in a press release.
Presenteeism was also the biggest cost among employees of healthy weight, but researchers found that obese workers accounted for a disproportionately larger share of overall presenteeism, absenteeism and medical expenses.
What's more, severely obese individuals with a body mass index greater than 35 accounted for 61 percent of all obese employee costs, though they represent only 37 percent of the overall obese population.
Among those with a BMI higher than 40, which is roughly 100 pounds overweight, these costs worked out to $16,900 per capita for women and $15,500 for men in this weight class.
This study is "a compelling reaffirmation of what Dr. Finkelstein and others have told us before: If we don't deal with obesity effectively, there is probably little hope for us dealing with our economy effectively," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
And while these numbers are rough estimates of costs, "capturing data in any way we can is better than ignoring," he said. "While probably not perfectly accurate, this report certainly depicts a very accurate picture overall."

Cost of Obesity for Society, and for the Obese

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the yearly medical costs of obesity are estimated at $147 billion, a figure that has ballooned of late, growing by more than 80 percent over a five-year period, recent studies found.

Over time, the trend has been similar, experts note: The greater the obesity in an individual, the higher the medical costs on average, and now with Duke's new research, this trend appears to extend to workplace costs as well.
"As a society, the message is clear. As important as education is to our future, so is our health. If we are not a nation of educated people, we will not lead the world in emerging high-tech areas. If our children are not fit and healthy, they will not be able to perform at their optimum level," said Dr. Mitchell Roslin, a bariatric surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
" No child left behind has to mean more than just reading and arithmetic, and cannot separate health, fitness and emotional maturation," he said.

While encouraging employees to maintain a healthy weight should be the ultimate goal, diet experts note that any change in the right direction is likely to improve health outcomes for employees and hence productivity, and lower medical costs for employers.
"Some weight loss is likely to be associated with some health improvement; more & with more health improvement. It's a continuous scale of weight and health and dollars," Katz said.
The researchers write that these quantifications should spur increased awareness of economic drawbacks of an overweight and ailing America, but Roslin noted that these types of statistics could also contribute to discrimination against obese employees.

"One sad result is that the study provides ammunition for the discrimination that people with severe obesity deal with," he said. "Yale once published a study that showed that people would rather hire a convicted felon, than a person with severe obesity. Now, let us add the present study and think about the impact it could have on hiring practices. If you add science to discrimination, it will be very difficult for people with morbid obesity to find a job."

Billions in lost productivity should be a wake-up call to employers to help their employees get fit and stay in good health, Roslin said, not a justification for ridding the workplace of obese workers.

© 2010 ABC News

A New Study Looks at the 4 Ways Americans View God

A Look at the 4 Ways Americans View God

When children are asked to draw God, they come up with a variety of images -- a man on a throne, a smiley face, a shining sun or maybe a cross-legged Buddha type.
It turns out their parents visualize the same things too.
According to a new book called "America's Four Gods" by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, the way Americans view of God falls into four categories.
Froese and Bader, both professors at Baylor University, used polling data from a 2008 survey to break down how Americans believe in God.
The survey showed that about 28 percent of Americans believe in an "authoritative God.
"Someone who has an authoritative God believes in a God that is very judgmental and very engaged in the world at the same time," said Bader, adding that they also tend to be evangelical and male.
For 22 percent of Americans, mostly evangelical women, they characterize the almighty as a "benevolent God" who is thoroughly involved in their lives but is loving, not stern.
"It's definitely a personal relationship, like a friendship, like a companionship," said Alesia Upton, when asked by ABC News in Chicago. "Just in case somebody's not there for you, he's always there."

Others believe in a "critical God" who is removed from daily events but will render judgment in the afterlife.
"We find a strong tendency for African-Americans, for people who are at lower levels of income and education to believe in the 'critical God,'" said Bader.

The fourth and final way that those surveyed view God is a "distant God" who set the universe in motion, but then disengaged.
"These tend to be higher educated, more 'spiritual' people," said Froese.

Froese and Bader argued that such questions are not merely academic. They claimed that the way a person views God profoundly impacts one's morals, behavior and politics.
For example, President George W. Bush's talk of evil is more likely to resonate in believers in an engaged, judgmental God.
"My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it.," Bush said in an interview with CNN shortly after Sept. 11. "We will rid the world of the evildoers"
They also are more likely to view natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina as God's punishment.
Believers in a distant God are apt to be less suspicious of science and more likely to agree with Benjamin Franklin's assertion that a "supremely perfect" God doesn't care one bit "for such an inconsiderable nothing as man."
"A person's conception of God is central to how they perceive their world and behave in it," said Froese.

These questions about how we conceive of God unlock our most basic values and, often, tap into our childlike imagination about who or what created the universe.

Condoms Blocking Toilets at Commonwealth Games?

President of Games Says Latest Fiasco "Is a Very Positive Story that Athletes Are Being Responsible"

• 

• (CBS/ AP)  Mike Fennell has had to endure lengthy grilling over poor attendance, food quality, the state of venues and transportation problems at these Commonwealth Games.
  
  On Thursday, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation had a question of a different sort. And he handled it with aplomb.
  
  Asked whether he could respond to newspaper reports that used condoms were blocking toilets at the athletes village, Fennell said: "I think that is a very positive story that athletes are being responsible."
  
  He said that the issue had been controversial in the past "but promoting safe sex is a very responsible thing to do."
  
  The stopped-up toilet fiasco is just the latest setback for trouble-plagued organizers in New Delhi.
  
  British media reported Thursday that 20 percent of the England team's swimmers - about eight to 10 competitors - had been struck down with a stomach virus. The Australian team confirmed at least six of its swimmers had been sick, including Andrew Lauterstein, who had to withdraw from the 50-meter butterfly.
  
  Organizers rejected speculation that the water quality at the aquatics complex was to blame.
  
  Craig Hunter, the head of England's delegation, issued a statement saying he had received assurances from the games' organizing committee that water was safe. The England team said only 8 percent of its 541-member delegation had experienced any kind of stomach virus in the previous 28 days, which was lower than expected. That's 43 people from one team in a month.
  
  Whether it was the water or just a case of "Delhi Belly," which isn't uncommon for visitors to India, it was yet another problem to plague an event that has been seen construction delays, pre-games complaints about filthy conditions in the athletes' village, allegations of corruption and concerns about security and outbreaks of mosquito-borne dengue fever.
  
  In another development, police confirmed Thursday that three Ugandan officials were injured by a malfunctioning security barrier at the games' village, and a senior official from that country raised allegations of discrimination by Indian officials.
  
  Late Thursday, a scoreboard crashed to the ground when a chain support snapped at the rugby venue, where competition does not begin until next week.
  
  The games, which run until Oct. 14, have also been plagued this week by sparse attendance at many events. Organizing committee chief Suresh Kalmadi said 125,000 tickets had been sold Wednesday for future events, allaying concerns about the empty seats at some of the venues.

Federal judge upholds health care law

A federal judge in Michigan has upheld as Constitutional a provision in the health care reform bill requiring uninsured individuals to purchase insurance.
U.S. District Court Judge George Steeh ruled Thursday that the so-called individual mandate — a requirement President Barack Obama opposed during the presidential campaign but later embraced as part of sweeping changes — falls squarely within Congress’s ability under the Constitution to regulate interstate commerce.
“The decision whether to purchase insurance or to attempt to pay for health care out of pocket is plainly economic,” Steeh wrote in a 20-page opinion. “These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers and the insured population, who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance.”
Steeh’s ruling represents a major legal victory for the Justice Department since the decision rejects the central legal argument against the landmark health care reform bill Obama signed in March and a provision that has become a focus of popular anger on the right.

The decision stemmed from a lawsuit brought by a Christian legal group, the Thomas More Law Center, and four individuals who objected to a provision in the law that imposes a penalty on those who fail to buy or otherwise obtain health insurance. The judge rejected their arguments that Congress has no authority to regulate those who opt out of the medical insurance market.

“The health care market is unlike other markets. No one can guarantee his or her health or ensure that he or she will never participate in the health care market. Indeed, the opposite is nearly always true,” wrote Steeh, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton. “Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance.”
Opponents of the health law say Congress doesn’t have the authority to regulate the purchase of insurance — let alone the act of not purchasing insurance. Steeh agreed with the government’s contention that the clause covers “economic decisions” and not just “economic activity.”

The administration argued that if the Commerce Clause isn’t enough, the law is sound because it relies on Congress’ power to tax — an argument that ruffled Republicans who say that the “tax” would be a violation of President Barack Obama’s promise not to tax people earning less than $250,000 per year.

"This ruling marks the first time a court has considered the merits of any challenge to this law, and we welcome the court's decision upholding the health care reform statute as constitutional,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. “The court found that the minimum coverage provision of the statute was a reasonable means for Congress to take in reforming our health care system. The department will continue to vigorously defend this law in ongoing litigation."

However, the government’s legal position may not fare as well in two other major lawsuits pending in other federal courts challenging the individual mandate.
In August, a federal judge in Virginia refused to dismiss a lawsuit the state brought against the legislation that critics deride as Obamacare. That judge said the legal questions in the case were too close to dismiss at an early stage.
Another suit, brought by 20 states and a small-business group, is pending in Florida. No ruling has been issued yet, but after arguments last month, many observers said the judge seemed receptive to arguments that the health care reform law is unconstitutional.

A lawyer for the Thomas More Center, Rob Muise, said Steeh’s decision will be appealed. If an appeal goes forward immediately, it’s possible the Michigan case will be the first health reform challenge to reach an appellate court, in this instance the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

“This thing is set up quite nicely, actually, for an appeal,” Muise told POLITICO.
Muise said Steeh’s decision is wrong, in part, because it would open almost any decision of private individuals to federal control.
“The trouble, if you think about it, is if Congress has authority to regulate nonactivity then it has the ability to regulate anything,” Muise said. Congress can “tell you to exercise three times a week, to take certain vitamins, to refrain from eating certain foods because, at some point, costs are going to be incurred to the health care market. I find that very troubling when we have a federal government that’s supposed to be of limited, enumerated powers,” he said.

A separate part of the Michigan suit relating to abortion funding in the new health care scheme has yet to be ruled upon by Steeh. The plaintiffs are arguing that the mechanism the legislation uses to finance abortion coverage violates their rights to religious freedom.
Jennifer Haberkorn POLITICO

CORPORATE FINE PRINT CONTINUES TO SCREW USA CITZENS!

30 Companies, Other Groups Escape New Health Care Rule for Now

 

The federal government has granted 30 companies and organizations one-year waivers to exempt them from one of the newly-implemented health care reforms.


A set of consumer protections enacted in President Obama's health care overhaul kicked in last month, including a requirement for insurers to gradually phase out annual coverage limits. The waivers granted last month exempt the organizations in question from that requirement; they were approved for organizations offering limited-benefit plans, such as Jack in the Box and the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund (a New York-based union health care provider). The 30 entities granted waivers are listed here and listed below.


The waivers were granted after insurers threatened to raise premiums dramatically or drop the limited-benefit plans all together rather than pay for the additional coverage. The exemptions apply to insurance plans for nearly a million people. Limited-benefit plans are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees, and they often have low premiums and high deductibles. The Department of Health and Human Services opted to grant those entities waivers rather than allow consumers to lose coverage or see their premiums rise.

"The waivers are about insuring people and protecting the coverage they have until there are better options available to them in 2014," White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said today.


The bulk of the new health care reforms will go into effect in 2014. At that point, some large employers that drop coverage for their workers will be subject to a fee. Consumers will also have the option of using new state-based health care exchanges to access the individual health care market.


By 2014, insurers will be completely barred from limiting annual benefits. The new regulations are being phased in until then: companies without waivers will have to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, $1.25 million in coverage in 2012, and $2 million in 2013.


"HHS is to committed strengthening employer-based coverage for employees and retirees, while building a bridge to a new competitive marketplace in 2014," HHS spokesperson Jessica Santillo said.

The waiver granted to the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund will have the biggest impact in terms of numbers, applying to 351,000 enrollees of the Fund's supplemental insurance plan. McDonald's insurance carrier, BCS Insurance, received a waiver to cover 115,000 enrollees.


Gibbs said today that the White House does not perceive the need to grant the waivers as a flaw of the new health care reforms.

"This is about implementing a bill correctly," he said, to ensure that "as reform ramps up, we protect consumers and don't put them at the mercy of health insurance companies."

Below are the 30 entities that received waivers, along with the number of enrollees impacted:

1. Fowler Packing Co. (39)
2. Baptist Retirement (127)
3. BCS Insurance (115,000)
4. Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund (881)
5. Greater Metropolitan Hotel (1200)
6. UFT Welfare Fund (351,000)
7. Aegis (162)
8. Maritime Association (500)
9. Aetna  (209,423)
10. UABT (17,347)
11. Reliance Standard (varies)
12. QK/DRD (Denny's) (65)
13. Guy C. Lee Mfg. (312)
14. I.U.P.A.T (875)
15. HealthPort (608)
16. Jack in the Box (1,130)
17. Allflex  (34)
18. Transport Workers (107)
19. Tri-Pak (26)
20. Cryogenic (19)
21. Metro Paving Fund  (550)
22. Health Connector (3,544)
23. Health and Welfare Benefit System (41)
24. PS-ILA  (8)
25. PMPS-ILA (15)
26. Maverick County (1)
27. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. (326)
28. GS-ILA  (298)
29. Allied (127)
30. CIGNA (265,000)

FILE THIS and REFER NOV 8th?!

Plouffe: For GOP, anything short of sweep would be 'colossal failure'
 

Trying to reshape expectations for the midterm elections, David Plouffe said Thursday that the Republicans should be expected to make a full sweep of Congress - and key gubernatorial races - given the environmental advantages they have. Anything less, he said, should be seen as a disgrace.

"By their definition, success is winning back the House, winning back the Senate and winning every major governor's race," Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager, said. "When you've got winds this strong in your favor, that's the kind of election you need to have - or it should be considered a colossal failure."

Three weeks out, both parties are in a mad scramble to define what success would look like on Election Day. Although Republicans held a significant lead last month, it has appeared to narrow some, and whichever party winds up controlling Congress might do so by a narrow margin.

 Democrats would like to be considered winners if they merely hang on to the Senate, which some strategists in both parties expect them to do.

Plouffe, speaking to reporters at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, argued that Democrats are turning their trajectory around and are poised, 26 days out, to fare better Nov. 2 than it appeared they would last month.

But he said he expected Democrats to "show progress gradually," in contrast with Republicans who have "maxed out or close to it."

Plouffe, a key Democratic Party strategist, also embraced the tea party surge as a welcome development for the Democrats, calling it the "hijacking of the Republican Party."

French fashion police?

Officials rule France burqa ban legal

France's plan to ban the burqa and other Islamic face coverings in public places is legal, top constitutional authorities in France ruled Thursday, clearing the final hurdle before the ban becomes law.
In September the French senate approved the law – making France the first European country to nationally impose such a measure. The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament in July. It is scheduled to come into effect in the spring.
French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey earlier this year.
Some 82 percent of people polled approved of a ban, while 17 percent disapproved. That was the widest support the Washington-based think tank found in any of the five countries it surveyed.