Businesses Sue New York City Over Big Soda Ban

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A coalition of trade groups and businesses sued New York City on Friday, challenging Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new regulation banning the sale of large-sized sugary soft drinks in restaurants, movie theaters and other businesses.

The lawsuit, filed in New York state supreme court in Manhattan by the American Beverage Association and a number of other plaintiffs, claims the mayoral-appointed board of health overstepped its authority when it unanimously passed the law last month. The power to approve such legislation lies solely with the city council, the lawsuit contends.

The ban, the first of its kind in the United States, outlaws sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces nearly everywhere they are sold, except in grocery and convenience stores. It is the latest step in Bloomberg’s longstanding quest to combat obesity and its deleterious health effects, following other controversial measures such as requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. Under Criminal Investigation by FBI

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Federal prosecutors and FBI agents in Washington have launched a new criminal investigation of Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. involving alleged financial improprieties, including possible misuse of funds monitored by Congress, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.

The probe prompted lawyers for Jackson — who has been on a leave of absence from Congress since June for medical treatment — to meet with federal prosecutors this week in an attempt to persuade them not to bring charges against the congressman, sources said.

The sources said it was unclear whether Jackson, who has not been seen in his office for months, would be charged before the November election — a subject that was discussed between Jackson’s lawyers and the prosecutors this week. Jackson’s lawyers urged the prosecutors not to file charges before the election — but prosecutors refused to make any commitments, the sources familiar with the meeting said.

Either way, the new investigation could ratchet up pressure for Jackson to step aside. Despite his illness — which his office has said involves his treatment for bipolar disorder — Jackson is running for re-election, seeking a 10th term. His lawyers did not return email and phone call request for comment.

Frank Watkins, Jackson’s congressional spokesman, says he has not reached out Jackson and has not spoken to him about the investigation, and that the first he heard of the investigation was when he was contacted by the Chicago Sun Times, which first reported the story. He said he believes Jackson is still in DC.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ron Paul Refuses to Endorse Romney

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Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul pointedly refused to endorse his party’s presidential contender, Mitt Romney, arguing that neither he nor President Barack Obama would make necessary cuts to public spending that would avert a fiscal catastrophe.

“No,” the iconoclastic Libertarian bluntly told CNBC’s “Futures Now,” when asked about whether he was prepared to endorse Romney. He accused both the former Massachusetts governor and the president of being captive to similar interests.

“Both within the establishment where they need the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort to make sure that you take all the risk in the world,” Paul said. He linked the Fed — his favorite foil — and the Washington political establishment together as part of a “one party system” that refuses to make necessary but difficult choices to cut spending. (Read more: Ron Paul Vows to Continue Campaign Against Status Quo.)

“I’ve been in this business a long time and believe me there is essentially no difference from one administration to another no matter what the platforms,” said Paul, a former hopeful for the GOP nomination. “The foreign policy stays the same, the monetary policy stays the same, there’s no proposal for any real cuts and both parties support it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Scratching Its Collective Head Over Joe Biden’s Smile (+video)

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By Mackenzie Weinger. While members of the media disagreed over who won the vice presidential debate — or whether it was a draw — there was one subject they couldn’t stop talking about: Vice President Joe Biden’s constant amusement.

Fox News’s Brit Hume predicted that voters will pick a debate winner based on whether they liked Biden’s smirking and laughing or thought it was disrespectful to GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s remarks.

“What you saw while Paul Ryan was talking, was smirking, laughing, smiling, mugging by the vice president,” Hume said. “And my sense about it was that it was so compelling that people probably couldn’t take their eyes off of it. And so it’ll come down to whether people thought that was attractive or not. Myself, I didn’t. I thought it was unattractive, I thought it was rude and I have a feeling it will come across to an awful lot of people as rude. It looked like a cranky old man to some extent, debating a polite young man.”

NBC News’s David Gregory said supporters of Biden might be pleased with the performance, but it may have alienated other viewers.

“The smile, the laugh, I think a lot of people may view that and think that he was a little too hot, too aggressive, maybe condescending,” the “Meet the Press” host said. “I think supporters of the president and Joe Biden will say, hey this was refreshing. He was feisty, he was aggressive, he was seeking in some ways to belittle Ryan as a challenger here in the arena and that was something we didn’t see out of the president.” Read more from this story HERE.

TSA Misses Hatchet, Grenade, Knives & Body Bags on Passenger Bound for US

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Yongda Huang Harris arrived at LAX wearing a bulletproof vest and flame-resistant pants, having checked in a suitcase full of weapons.

The 28-year-old was on a stopover on a trip from Japan en route to Boston, and had an array of suspicious items in his luggage.

They included a smoke grenade, knives, body bags, a hatchet, a collapsible baton, a biohazard suit, a gas mask, billy clubs, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs.

The alarm was raised when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers noticed he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his trench coat, along with flame-retardant pants and knee pads.

But no such red flags had been waved when Harris boarded in Japan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Liberal Blog Goes After Obama’s Mysterious Muslim Mega-Donor

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There are only a few dozen Americans who have given at least $1 million to super PACs this election cycle, and Kareem Ahmed is one of them. If you manage to talk to him, he’ll tell you a lot. He’ll tell you all about a class of pharmaceuticals, called compound drugs, which he is in the business of promoting, and which have been the subject of a contentious debate in California, where he lives and works. He’ll tell you to read ProPublica’s reporting about Big Pharma. He’ll tell you House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is his best friend. He’ll tell you about his dream to someday take the proceeds of his business and build the largest non-profit children’s hospital in the world in Southern California’s Inland Empire. He’ll tell you how he fixed Democratic political strategist Paul Begala’s leg. He’ll tell you how much he loves President Barack Obama, whom he has met on a number of occasions.

He told me several times that he thought I’d been hired by Republicans, insurance companies, or his competition to destroy him.

“I really want to educate you, Eric, I really do,” Ahmed said in an interview over the phone in late August. “Because, you know what, because I’m prepared. My law firms are ready to go, and I’ve got PR firms retained already. They’re waiting for your article.”

Why?

“Because the message I got from you, Eric, was, you have been hired by either the Republicans or by the competition, or somebody, just out to destroy me, without even knowing the facts,” he said. “So what would you do if you were in my shoes? So I’ve got the White House on notice. I’ve got everybody on notice. That all right, I can’t wait until this thing comes out, and we’re going to go after your publication, you, and whatever, and if there’s anything that’s defamatory, that’s not factual, oh yeah, I’m ready. We’re waiting. My employees are watching. My law firms are watching. I mean, they are watching you. Like, every move.”

Read more from this story HERE.

World’s Richest Man Gets Richer Supplying Obamaphones to Poor

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A Mexican telecom mogul who holds the title of world’s richest man, and one of President Obama’s top donors are both getting even richer from the U.S. government program that supplies so-called “Obamaphones” to the poor.

Carlos Slim, who has an estimated net worth of $70 billion, owns a controlling stake in TracFone, which makes $10 per phone for each device it provides to poor Americans. The company, whose president and CEO is Frederick “F.J.” Pollak, also makes money from extra minutes and data plans it sells to subscribers who get phones and service through the government’s Lifeline program. The program, which began in the mid-1980s, has exploded in the past four years after being expanded from supplying landlines to the poor to providing cellular phones.

The phones came into the national spotlight after a viral video surfaced on YouTube in which a Cleveland, Ohio, woman praised the president, saying he needed to be re-elected because he gives out free phones.

“Everybody in Cleveland, every minority, got an Obama phone. Keep Obama as president. He gave us a phone. He gonna do more,” the woman said in the video.

Slim’s Movil America owns TracFone and recently snapped up service provider Simple Mobile for $100 million. TracFones and Simple Mobile service are huge players in the Lifeline program through the company’s “SafeLink Wireless” brand. TracFone had 3.8 million subscribers through the federal program as of late 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Vice Presidential Debate: Someone Was Missing

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Hold it, I’m confused. I watched all of the vice presidential debate last night, and someone did not show up. Vice President Joe Biden was there—how could one miss him, with all the grinning, grunting, interrupting, and sneering. But where was the Ayn Rand-worshiping, rape-redefining, fanatically exercising zealot who wants to throw grandmothers off of cliffs and whose budget plan is, according to the president, “thinly veiled Social Darwinism” that is “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility”? That Paul Ryan was nowhere to be found.

What America saw instead was a young and likable and knowledgeable conservative worried about the current trajectory of fiscal, monetary, foreign, and social policy. Where Biden harrumphed, Ryan calmly litigated President Obama’s failed record. Twice in eight days, the caricatures against which President Barack Obama and Biden are purporting to run have been exposed as grotesque exaggerations. The liberal attempt to frighten America with the illusory specter of an extremist Republican ticket dissolved on first contact with, well, the actual ticket. The reality principle asserted itself once again. We have an open race.

Perceptions matter. Why did 67 million people watch the first debate? One reason may have been that Americans, open to an alternative to the incumbent, wanted to know who the Republican nominee actually was. They only had vague knowledge of Mitt Romney going into the Denver bout—and their impression was not favorable.

What they knew was largely limited to the messages of $217 million in negative advertising from Obama and his allies: Romney was rich, secretive, out of touch, paying little in taxes, hiding his tax returns, stashing money in the Cayman Islands, singing out of tune, shipping jobs overseas with little thought of the lives he affected, dismissing out of hand 47 percent of the country, in favor of raising middle-class taxes and health-care costs for seniors, and waging a “war on women” with Todd Akin to “turn back the clock” on women’s rights.

The stories told about Romney in the media were no more flattering. Casual consumers of the news would have learned that the former governor of Massachusetts once bullied a child at his prep school; had catered to the most extreme wing of his party in pursuit of the GOP nomination; had insulted the highly sensitive and excitable Brits on the eve of the London Olympics; was gaffe-prone; had jumped the gun in his response to the attacks in Benghazi and Cairo; was either micro-managing or had little control over his campaign; was changing strategy on the fly; and was such a hopeless loser that the election basically was over. Obama had it in the bag. How could he not? Romney was trash—wealthy, radical, belligerent refuse.

Read more from this story HERE.

Florida Adopts Racist Educational Standards Even Though Race Classifications are “Nonsense”

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Florida sets education standards based on race, ethnicity

By Caroline May. New education standards approved this week in Florida set goals for public school student performance based on race and ethnicity — with lower benchmarks for African-American, Native American, and Hispanic students, and higher ones for white and Asian-American students.

“We need a strong plan to support our dynamic education system,” State Board Chairman Gary Chartrand said in a statement announcing the approval of the state’s strategic plan for public schools and state colleges through 2018, which includes the new race-based benchmarks.

“I am confident that these strategies and goals will put Florida on a path toward raising student achievement, improving educator quality, and expanding school choice,” he added.

According to the plan, Pre-K through grade 12 students will be assessed with their racial subgroups in mind “to reduce the achievement gap.”

By 2018, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanic students, 82 percent of Native American students and 74 percent of African-American students are expected to be at-or-above grade level reading standards. Read more from this story HERE.

Race: the Single Most Overrated Scientific Myth

By Gregory Oatis. Look, isn’t it time we dispensed with all the “race” nonsense, once and for all?

The fact is, categorizing humanity by “race” as has been happening for all these centuries is simply not a scientifically valid proposition. There is just one race of people on this planet, the human race.

Skin color defines a person about as much as hair color, eye color, or the length of the second toe on the right foot.

It’s a scientific fact that skin color cannot be discerned through DNA testing. If you doubt me, check it out.

And skin color is not even useful as a predictor of chromosomal similarity.

For example, if you pick 50 Americans at random and analyze their DNA, the two most similar sets are as likely to be those of a Ukrainian-American and an African-American as they are two African-Americans. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Classmate Tells PBS that Young Barry Called Himself an Indonesian prince & Kenyan royalty

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In a June 2012 PBS interview on Frontline that is just now hitting the blogosphere, Kristen Caldwell, a U.S. citizen who attended school with Obama in Indonesia, claims that young Obama called himself “alternatively … an Indonesian prince or Kenyan royalty”:

Frontline: So what do we know about Obama and his background? He wasn’t rich. Would he have needed help? How did he fit into this —

Caldwell: My understanding is that Barry — and that’s what we called him, so I’m not meaning to be disrespectful, but I’m going likely to refer to him as Barry for the most part. My understanding is that Barry was on a scholarship. And a lot of times if you’re on scholarship you had to do some work at the school. You worked in the snack bar.

My father told me — and I didn’t know it at the time — that Barry did some work at the tennis courts. We all did work at the tennis courts, those of us who hung out there. So it wasn’t unusual when the tennis pro would ask me, “Go and walk courts 1 and 2,” and that sort of thing, because he would ask any of us to do that. So I wasn’t aware of that.

When I first met Barry, when he showed up I think it was the summer before fifth grade, he was hanging out at the tennis courts. And at the time that was the very Wimbledon-like, where everyone had to wear white clothes and white tennis shoes. Very careful about the soles of the shoes because you didn’t want to scuff up the courts, mark them up.

So yeah, I can picture him as this slightly — “chubby” is too strong, but rounded, short little guy, Barry Obama. And he told us that his father was an Indonesian king and that he was a prince, and after he finished school he was going to go back, and he would be a ruler in Indonesia. And I absolutely believed him.

I understand that he told his fifth-grade class that he was Kenyan royalty, but I never heard that story until years later. My sister and I remember very clearly that he was an Indonesian prince and that he would be going back there. So there was some reference to where he had come from, and the understanding was his family was there.

Read more from the interview HERE.