রবিবার, ৩০ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

On the web payday financial loans : Instant ... - palestinianmen.com

Posted by admin - September 29th, 2012

Report by Nathaniel Welch

Because that time the specific monetary system has exploded multifaceted eventually, adult males and girls skilled that will depend progressively a lot more with banking businesses with consider to funds supervision. The true dilemma is banking institutions aren?t unprejudiced and also simple moderators as an alternative will be firm companies and also a untouched stress within the way individuals overcome earnings. Simply because of this, whilst banking establishments advocate men and women today should stay away from instant payday loans on the web, you ought to, neglect the product. By natural means, anytime instant payday loans on the web finish up being held responsible to get what goes on if you actually close to bring for a banking accounts or possibly your own plastic card both equally offered by way of for that reason named simple bankers. On-line quickly payday developments are usually provided by means of on the net payday money advance financial institutions to opportunity seekers for just a fairly minimal tenure with seven to be in a position to 21 several years previous nights.The standard expenditures for your short term payday advance will be $ 10 for you to $ thirty each and every $ a hundred inside of the lending item time time period. Generally, these types of lending items are probable to be acquired to deal with a powerful impetuous, vital price of which takes place in the central belonging to the thirty days if the pay proceeds to a small time apart ought to the mortgage loan bank loan is definitely paid out again rapidly, that premiums are typically chiseled in addition fastened. Think, when any individual generates any appear at and also presently there is just not just as considerably as required make the most the distinct stages for you to clear the notion, the lending company can put in power the delayed cost which in change is about $ 30 that will $ 40 generally. All around prepare, in that instantaneous, implementing for $ 250 through the instant payday loans on the internet is absolutely even so reasonably priced. Inside related way, quite a few finance institutions desire continuing provider charges with consider to a all around pen that is definitely not always repaid inside of a positioned time frame normally five times and nights.The actual fees usually are all over once more hugely extreme along with you will frequently be locate by yourself paying a whole lot more than $ 80 in get to $ 90 inside economic institution about pen expenses. That previous quantity will do to pay for $ 500 instant payday loans online, that is normally the uppermost level of confine throughout many says. Proper now seem at this in the function that credit score cards is necessary to spend for the check and it is acknowledged, however the moment card surpasses that restriction and it is around used, the genuine cost state of affairs might at the exact same time possibly be really harmful. Normally, credit history cards previous due cost will be as soon as far more all around $ 30 to be in a position to $ 40 dollars.The stop result of the about control value about a cost card is typically a good deal a lot more seeing that bridging your cards confine can undoubtedly enhance the specific curiosity to the total sum previous because of. Considering that we undoubtedly have witnessed here instant payday loans online will not be seeing that very poor while they are likely to be marketed as nicely as offered a likelihood perhaps upward recent marketplace whilst recognized as sincere finance establishments make an work to fleece that buyers producing use of their huge previous because of expenses, more than restrict prices, check out dishonoured charges really should of any default at a customer. For this reason, operate with instant payday loans online adequately you will not pick a instant payday loans on-line all around at any fee overpriced.

Originally posted 2012-04-17 22:57:26.

Source: http://www.palestinianmen.com/2012/09/29/on-the-web-payday-financial-loans-instant-payday-loans-online-generally-are-a-lot-less-costly-as-compared-with-various-expenses-billed-basically-bankers/46

salton sea arizona immigration law aubrey huff the killers julianne hough brandy calvin johnson

Federal government denies Kim Rivera's request to remain in Canada

| September 20, 2012


Artist: John Bonnar

Title: Day of Action in support of Kim Rivera

Album: John Bonnar Audio Blog

Year: 2012

Length: 23:14 minutes (21.27 MB)

Format: 44.1kHz, 128Kbps

Show Notes:

Listen to speeches from the Day of Action in support of Kim Rivera followed by an interview with U.S. war resister Chuck Wiley.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Rabbleca-JohnBonnarAudioBlog/~3/PDKV5W1y9kI/federal-government-denies-kim-riveras-request-remain-c

craig smith craig smith eat to live eat to live ron paul money bomb ron paul money bomb bon vivant

শনিবার, ২৯ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

TS issue: burned edges on ripped boards - Family Woodworking

Hi gang,
Click image for larger version

Name:	burned edges.jpg
Views:	35
Size:	120.2 KB
ID:	70647
look 'closely' at the edges on the maple in that stack and you can see that I have an alignment issue on my TS.

I'm trying to figure out Where the problem is though...

when I start a cut, it goes fairly smooth until about 20" into the cut, at which point i need to Both slow down and increase the pressure I'm pushing with... to the point of popping a breaker if I push too hard/fast. taking it slowly, I can get through, but with burnt edges. I've switched blades, both of mine are either 'in dire need of sharpening....' or something is out of whack.

Click image for larger version

Name:	stopping point.jpg
Views:	36
Size:	80.8 KB
ID:	70648

I've checked and as near as I can tell the blade is parallel with the fence, and with the miter slots.

Click image for larger version

Name:	teeth on fence.jpg
Views:	31
Size:	67.5 KB
ID:	70650Click image for larger version

Name:	teeth on fence r.jpg
Views:	38
Size:	53.7 KB
ID:	70651

now this is the 'best' evidence I've got that the blade and fence are parallel.. I don't have a gauge, so I've used a square, marking a tooth and measuring distance fore and aft to the miter slot and the fence.

HOwever in mid cut, I'm getting a gap:
Click image for larger version

Name:	big gap.jpg
Views:	36
Size:	76.9 KB
ID:	70652

Click image for larger version

Name:	reference flat.jpg
Views:	28
Size:	64.6 KB
ID:	70653

and yes, the board itself is straight as near as I can tell.

what am I missing in the equation?

Source: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?28523-TS-issue-burned-edges-on-ripped-boards

tupac shakur sledge hammer tax day freebies madison bumgarner wnba draft tax day april 17

Judge halts execution of man who killed alleged abuser

By MaryClaire Dale, NBCPhiladelphia.com

A Philadelphia judge halted next week's scheduled execution of a teenage killer after finding the trial prosecutor suppressed evidence the victim was molesting boys, ?sanitized? witness statements before giving them to the defense and lied about a secret deal she'd struck with the accomplice.

The judge also tossed out Terrance ?Terry? Williams' death sentence, granting him a new sentencing hearing.

Williams has been on death row for 28 years and was set to be executed Wednesday. He would have been the first person executed in Pennsylvania in 50 years who had not given up his appeals.

Williams, now 46, could still face the death chamber if prosecutors successfully appeal Friday's ruling. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who planned an afternoon news conference, has called the defendant a ?brutal two-time murderer.?


?

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina accused trial prosecutor Andrea Gelman Foulkes of ?gamesmanship? in order to win the 1986 death-penalty case.

?She did at times play games and take unfair measures to win,? Sarmina said Friday, reading aloud her lengthy ruling. ?She wanted to win.?

Williams was not in court, but his aunt, daughter and other supporters broke into applause.

The judge deemed Foulkes' testimony last week about her work in the case not credible. Foulkes, through a spokeswoman at the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia, where she now works, declined immediate comment.

Given new evidence unearthed only this past week from police homicide files and Foulkes' own notes, Sarmina said the jury might not have voted for the death penalty if they knew more about victim Amos Norwood.

Foulkes herself testified last week that she suspected there was a sexual link between the 56-year-old Norwood and 18-year-old Williams, but neither she nor police pursued it much. Statements from Norwood's wife and pastor about prior fondling complaints and odd interactions with teenage boys never reached the defense lawyer or jurors.

Related:?Penn. board rejects clemency in murder case, execution still planned
Related:?Widow asks Pennsylvania governor not to execute husband's killer

AP

Terrance Williams is shown in this undated Pennsylvania Department of Corrections' photo.

Williams now says he had been abused since he was 13 by Norwood, a chemist and church deacon who spent long hours working with underprivileged boys through a church theater program.

Williams, a star high school quarterback from a troubled family, was secretly having sex with older men in exchange for money, clothes and gifts. He had killed 50-year-old Herb Hamilton five months earlier, when he was 17, in a gruesome, clearly sexual slaying. Foulkes herself had prosecuted Williams in that case, which detailed the sex motive and resulted in a third-degree murder conviction.

Three new affidavits this year from Norwood accomplice Marc Draper, a childhood friend, led to what the judge called the ?extraordinary? late-stage evidence hearing this past week.

Draper had refused to talk to Williams' appellate lawyers for years. But angry over the raw deal he feels he made with Foulkes, and made aware of Williams' execution date, he opened up this year and recanted his trial testimony. He said he'd told Foulkes and detectives about Williams' sexual relationship with Norwood. They didn't want to hear it, he said.

Sarmina ordered prosecutors to bring the original police files to court. Interview notes made by Foulkes and by police corroborated his story.

Draper said he'd been promised a chance for parole after 10 or 15 years if he testified that he and Williams fatally beat Norwood during a robbery.

Instead, he got a life sentence ? which in Pennsylvania, means life without parole. Draper said he didn't understand that. Foulkes stated at trial that she had no side deals with Draper, her star witness. Yet she later wrote a letter for Draper ? sent to his father, a policeman ? promising to tell the parole board about his cooperation if Draper was ever up for parole. Unbeknownst to Draper, that could only happen if his sentence was changed on appeal.

Federal courts had previously found the work of Williams' now-disbarred trial lawyer ?unconstitutionally deficient,? although they refused to throw out the death sentence.

Federal public defenders from a death-penalty unit have represented Williams since 1996. They say the errors found in his case are far too common.

?That we were talking about executing somebody who meets his lawyer a day before trial is an indictment of the system. The fact we're talking about this new evidence a week before execution is a bigger indictment of the system,? public defender Victor Abreu said Friday.

Williams had been scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. He would have become the first Pennsylvania inmate executed since 1962 who had not given up his appeals.

?He's hanging in there. It's not an easy situation. His execution is five days away,? said Shawn Nolan, another public defender.

Williams also has a clemency petition pending with the state Board of Pardons, which reopened his case Thursday but did not issue a ruling. The board could be asked to revisit the petition if prosecutors successfully appeal Sarmina's ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Nolan also released the following statement regarding the judge's decision:?

?

On behalf of Terry Williams, we are extremely pleased that Judge Sarmina, after carefully considering all of the evidence in this case, has vacated the death sentence based on misconduct by the prosecution.? Her decision was right and well-reasoned.? As prosecutor for more than 10 years and a judge who likely presided over more than a hundred homicide trials, Judge Sarmina certainly understands how the prosecution misled the jury in this case. The Philadelphia District Attorney should stop their appeals and stop fighting to have Terry executed.

The District Attorney?s very own files were replete with evidence from as early as 1984 of predatory, exploitive and abusive acts by Herbert Hamilton and Amos Norwood against Terry Williams and other teenage boys.? It is legally and ethically unconscionable that Seth Williams and his Assistants have been advocating for the execution of Terry Williams after hiding critical evidence from jurors and continuing to hide it for 28 years.

Judge Sarmina found that the trial prosecutor engaged in misconduct. She found that the prosecutor 'played games and took unfair measures to win.' She also noted that the prosecutor violated her ethical duty for failing to turn over evidence in the files in the possession of the Commonwealth.

If the DA appeals, we are confident that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will not overturn Judge Sarmina?s well-reasoned decision, and do not believe that the Court will tolerate the prosecutor?s actions in this case, especially when life or death are at issue.

We are also hopeful that Governor Tom Corbett and the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons will now grant clemency in light of Judge Sarmina?s decision and the significance of the evidence that prosecutors kept from the Board during their life or death deliberations.? A majority of the Board, including Attorney General Linda Kelly, previously voted in favor of clemency.? Surely, after considering the new evidence, they will not allow this execution to go forward.

?

More content from NBCNews.com:

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on?Twitter?and?Facebook

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14139608-pennsylvania-judge-halts-execution-of-terrance-williams?lite

zerg rush david wilson playstation all stars battle royale kim zolciak kim zolciak travis pastrana quinton coples

The money drives them to run

New Delhi, Sep 28

Some take to sport simply for sheer pleasure of playing and some others strive to excel in a competitive world. The Suresh Kumar is seen as a star runner by the fans, but the defending champion of the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon in the elite category for Indian men says he runs only for the money.

"I run only for money," said Suresh, who is essentially a 1500-5000 metres runner.

The 21-year-old Varanasi athlete, who finished 11th in the 1500 metres in the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games, is running in his only second half marathon Sunday.

"Actually, in track and field events your first-place finish will fetch you only Rs.10,000-15,000 as prize money while prize purse for the Delhi Half Marathon is Rs.200,000 so obviously we prefer to run in these events," Suresh told IANS.

Suresh's views were also echoed by Soji Mathew, who won the Mumbai Half Marathon in January, clocking 1:05.29. However, Mathew's best ever performance in Delhi has only been third in 2009.

"The prize money in Mumbai is Rs.100,000. Though the publicity is more in Mumbai the prize money here is better," said the 31-year-old from Alappuzha, Kerala.

Why don't they run a full marathon as the prize on offer is much more?

"We are not suited to that form of racing. We need to train much more for a full marathon. We know the prize money is more but it also takes a toll on the body. To recover from a 42km race we need at least a month while six days of rest is enough for a half Marathon," said Mathew.

The elite Indian athletes also have an added incentive as they can get a bonus of Rs.100,000 if they set a course record.

Source: http://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a330839.html

heart transplant the international preppers geraldo obama trayvon martin pietrus cheney

শুক্রবার, ২৮ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Southeast Asian scientists look to reinvent the flush toilet

The 200-year-old flush toilet requires a substantial amount of infrastructure, which is expensive to build and run. Innovative toilets could be a source of energy while dramatically improving sanitation.

By Thin Lei Win,?AlertNet / September 27, 2012

Indonesians use public toilets in a slum area of the capital, Jakarta. The Asian Institute for Technology has received a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to design toilets that could produce electricity or gas and improve sanitation, reducing illnesses and deaths.

Beawiharta Beawiharta/Reuters/File

Enlarge

Scientists in Bangkok are about to start work on a new flush toilet especially designed for the urban poor in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Skip to next paragraph

Recent posts

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Their aim is to create a toilet that will process wastewater in family homes and convert it into gas or electricity, saving families money and protecting them from deadly diseases caused by poor sanitation.

The Bangkok-based Asian Institute for Technology (AIT)?is receiving a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the project, part of an estimated $380 million effort by the foundation to tackle sanitation problems in Asia and Africa.?

RELATED: Top 10 nations lacking toilets

?The [flush] technology that we?ve been using so far is 200 years old already ? It hasn?t really been improved at all [since],? Thammarat Koottatep, an environmental engineer and associate professor at AIT, said at the AIT project?s launch Sept. 24.?

The current flush toilet requires a substantial amount of sewage infrastructure, which is expensive to build and run. The technology for re-using and recycling the byproducts of animal waste is already available and used in industry but has not yet been applied to toilets, Thammarat said.?

Severe diarrhea caused by poor sanitation kills 1.5 million children worldwide each year, according to the Gates Foundation.??

According to the East Meets West Foundation, a US nongovernmental organization and another recipient of Gates Foundation?s sanitation funds, 50 percent of households in Vietnam and around 80 percent of households in Cambodia do not have sanitation facilities.?

Almost 99 percent of people in Thailand have access to toilets, said Thammarat, yet the issue is not just about access but also of efficient disposal of waste afterward.?

?Safe sanitation means you should be able to reduce the contaminants or the pollutants after flushing the toilet,? and Thailand has not reached that stage, he said.?

Thailand produces 20 million cubic meters (5.3 billion gallons) - the equivalent of 8,000 Olympic swimming pools - of domestic wastewater per day, according to AIT. But only 1.6 million cubic meters are collected in sewer networks and sent to treatment plants, many of which do not function.?

Less than 10 percent of the 60,000 tons of fecal sludge collected per day is treated correctly.

?We have a problem of contamination, very highly polluted rivers and canals,? leading to foul-smelling waterways especially in the dry season, said Thammarat.?

The key to providing extensive and safe sanitation coverage in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam is to focus on decentralized systems, he said, often called septic or onsite systems, that focus at the household level.?

Here, wastewater is treated close to the source, typically on the property of individual homes or businesses and saves owners the cost of connecting to a sewage system and eliminates the environmental burden of transporting large quantities of wastewater to a treatment plant.?

In August, East Meets West received $10.9 million from the Gates Foundation, also to improve sanitation and hygiene practices, but this time among the rural poor in Vietnam and Cambodia.?

Open defecation and the unsafe disposal of human waste in these two countries result in an estimated 17,000 deaths annually, 90 percent of which occur in children under age five, East Meets West said.

East Meets West?s program includes access to credible sources of financing for families to install latrines and hand-washing devices in their homes and conditional cash transfers to communes that achieve at least a 30 percent increase in sanitation coverage.?

?The system we have [the flush toilet] only reaches one-third of the world?s population,? Doulaye Kon?, a water and sanitation expert and senior program officer with the Gates Foundation said Sept. 24.?

?It?s very expensive to buy this type of toilet, link it to kilometers and kilometers of sewer line, and build the kind of infrastructure that is needed to process it,? he added.

Yet he believes the problems can be fixed and he?s hoping to have more partners in Asia who will work with the organization on re-inventing the flush toilet.

? This article originally appeared at AlertNet, a humanitarian news site operated by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

? Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/MhhRs0H1qNc/Southeast-Asian-scientists-look-to-reinvent-the-flush-toilet

wilt chamberlain joe arpaio cat in the hat green eggs and ham wiz khalifa and amber rose oh the places you ll go blunt amendment

Want some taste with that ice cream?

NEW YORK (AP) ? Nonfat cheese that tastes like plastic. Low-calorie soda that leaves a bitter aftertaste. Sugar-free brownies that crumble like Styrofoam.

Dieters have learned an important lesson: When you take the fat and calories out of your favorite treats, you sometimes have to say goodbye to the taste too.

But snack brands like Dreyer's/Edy's ice cream, Hershey's chocolate and Lay's potato chips are trying to solve this age-old dieter's dilemma by rolling out so-mid-calorie goodies that have more fat and calories than the snacks of earlier diet crazes but less than the original versions. They're following the lead of soda companies like Pepsi and Dr Pepper that introduced mid-calorie drinks last year.

It's hard to isolate sales of mid-calorie snacks since they also usually have reduced fat, or other healthy attributes like reduced sodium. But sales of all foods and drinks in which the amount of things like fat, sugar, salt, carbohydrates have been actively reduced during production have risen 16 percent to $51.72 billion since 2006, according to research firm Euromonitor International.

The mid-calorie trend is hitting at a time when companies that make sugary and salty treats are being blamed for the country's expanding waistlines. The problem is that the same things that make snacks taste good ? sugar, salt, calories ? also make them fattening. And many Americans don't want to sacrifice taste at snack time. Shaving a few calories enables companies to market their cakes, cookies and chips as healthier without the bad taste stigma associated with some low-fat products.

It's just the kind of marketing that might attract Monica Olivas. She says she wants to lead a healthy lifestyle, including curbing her fat and caloric intake as much as possible, but most low-fat foods just don't appeal to her.

"Sometimes companies go too far and take out all the fat ? and all the flavor," says Olivas, a 29-year-old recruiter from Pico Rivera, Calif.

A NEW 'LIGHT'

The mid-calorie trend is a toned-down version of the "light" craze that started in the 1990s. Back then, "low fat" or "no fat" was all the rage. But the products often fizzled.

For instance, McDonald's rolled out the McLean Deluxe, a low-fat burger, in 1991. But the burger, which was in part made with seaweed, had dismal sales. It disappeared from restaurants within five years.

Similarly, Lay's in 1998 introduced Wow fat-free potato chips that use fat substitute Olestra. But the ick factor trumped healthiness when the Food and Drug Administration said the chips had to come with a warning that Olestra may cause abdominal cramping, loose stools, and that it inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients.

The FDA dropped the requirement for the label in 2004 after studying the matter. The chips were renamed "Light," but sales have not recovered.

"Originally, a lot of the diet stuff just wasn't good," says Richard George, chair of the department of food marketing at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. "People would say you could throw away contents and eat the box. But they've gotten better."

The new era of diet food started in the last decade. In 2007, companies began offering 100-calorie packs of popular snacks like Oreos cookies and Twinkies cakes. That's when brands started putting their focus on reducing calories ? without any flavor change.

Turns out, there's some science behind all this calorie slashing. Nutritionists say it's not necessary to cut out all the "junk" foods in your cupboard or to take all the fat or calories out of them.

Reducing a nominal number of calories in your diet each day ? even from that morning coffee run or afternoon visit to the vending machine for chips ? is an effective way to battle obesity, says David Levitsky, professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University.

He says "if you typically have a 200-calorie cookie and you have a 160-calorie cookie instead" it won't make you hungrier at the next meal. And since obesity can be caused by as few as 20 excess calories a day, Levitsky says cutting a few at each meal makes a big difference.

But in order for that to work you have to eat the snacks in moderation. It becomes a problem when people overestimate how much more they can eat of nonfat ice cream or low-calorie chips, says Kelly Brownell, a nutritionist at Yale University.

"If consumption of ice cream and potato chips does not increase and people eat somewhat better versions, the outcome will be good," Brownell says.

TASTE IS KEY

First, companies have to convince dieters that their mid-calorie snacks are not only healthy, but tasty too.

Flavor is a key when Betty Kranzdorf, 55, considers eating foods with lower calories. She says she avoids reduced-calorie English muffins ("horrible texture and taste") but she'll pick up reduced-fat Pringles chips because she can't tell the difference between those and the originals.

"I won't buy 'low cal' just because it's 'low-cal,'" says Kranzdorf, a paralegal from New

York. "If the food I'm eating isn't satisfying, then I'll just go eat something that is more to my liking later ? which defeats the whole purpose."

With that in mind, Hershey's in June introduced Simple Pleasures, chocolate with 30 percent less fat. A serving size of six pieces equals 180 calories and 8 grams of fat ? that's 30 calories and 5 grams of fat less than the original Hershey's chocolate bar. The company is hoping the deficit is enough to lure chocolate lovers who want to eat healthier.

Hershey's developed the product after consumer research revealed that the No. 1 barrier for people to buy chocolate is the "perceived negative health benefits," says spokeswoman Anna Lingeris.

"We're hearing more and more that customers want healthier options as a balanced lifestyle becomes a more prevalent way of living," Lingeris says.

Similarly, Lay's in July rolled out two new flavors of its Kettle Cooked potato chips with 40 percent less fat. The brand, which fries chips in small batches so as to use less oil than the continuous frying process for regular chips, introduced "Smokehouse BBQ" and "Cooked Sun-Dried Tomato and Parmesan."

The company says it was able to lower the calories and fat without sacrificing taste: Regular Kettle Cooked chips have 160 calories and 9 grams of fat, while the reduced-fat versions have 130 calories and 6 grams of fat.

"The strategy behind mid-calorie offerings is finding the happy space between zero fat and regular products," says Tony Matta, vice president of marketing for Frito Lay, which makes Lay's chip brands.

But sometimes finding the right balance isn't enough ? marketing can be key. Dreyer's/Edy's (it's called Dreyer's on the West Coast and Edy's on the East) learned that the hard way.

The company in May rolled out an ad campaign that emphasizes that Slow Churned ice cream is half the fat and one third of the calories of regular ice cream ? but the company avoids using the word "light."

Why? Because when Dreyer's/Edy's began selling Slow Churned ice cream in 2004, the company labeled the product "light." But ice cream buyers didn't take to the word, and the company stopped advertising the brand using it. In fact, the company eventually stopped advertising the product altogether after 2007, although it still sold it in stores.

"'Light' used to be a word that consumers had a lot of negative perception ... because of the taste experience," Eiseman says. "For ice cream, taste is king, first and foremost ... they'd rather have great taste and half the fat, rather than OK taste and no fat."

The new packaging and ad campaign for the product, which has about 120 calories and 4.5 grams of fat compared with 150 calories and 8 grams of fat in regular Dreyer's mint chocolate chip, has the tagline "1/2 the Fat, 1/3 Fewer Calories than Regular Ice cream." (The company acknowledges that 4.5 grams of fat is not quite "half" of 8 grams of fat, but Dreyer's/Edy's brand manager Jen Eiseman says the marketing campaign took a the liberty of rounding in order to focus on the healthier aspects of the slow-churn ice cream.

"There's been a shift culturally from extreme dieting ... and giving up food altogether," Eiseman says. "Now it's not about giving things up, but finding healthier ways of having it all."

Source: http://www.myndytv.com/dpps/entertainment/dining/want-some-taste-with-that-ice-cream-nd12-jgr_4653285

Garrett Reid shawn johnson Tony Sly Lauren Perdue tagged weather radar Heptathlon

Movie Review: ?The Master? Commands Attention | njtoday.net ...

3 & ? popcorns

By Michael S. Goldberger, film critic

The Master, a charismatic, intellectual pontificator ingeniously portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is full of it. Full of the previous life dogma he?s selling, full of hope for lost souls in search of meaning, and full of himself. He says he?s an M.D. and a Ph.D. Among the things he?s got us wondering is whether or not he believes the stuff he spouts.

Equally intriguing, and about as difficult to comprehend is the drifter, Joaquin Phoenix?s Freddie Quell, who, when he traipses into The Master?s den, completes the compelling yin and yang of director Paul Thomas Anderson?s precarious quinella. Shades of Lenny in Steinbeck?s ?Of Mice and Men,? he?s a loose cannon looking for his George.

But I?m here to tell you not to take any of this provocative, rather epic parable to heart?at least not too terribly. I felt badly for the lady in the 12th row, right, who, following the closing credits of the 2 & ? hour brainteaser, looked to her friend and said, ?Well, it?s beyond me.? Oh, Mamie (she looked like a Mamie), don?t sell yourself short.

This is the type of abstract meditation open to any and all interpretations, most of which will say much more about the viewer than the movie. The genre reached its influential peak in the 1960s when Stanley Kubrick?s ?2001: A Space Odyssey? (1968) brandished equal parts genius, chutzpah, grace and mischief. I?m still trying to figure out that one.

Thus the suggestion is not to let the inherent inscrutability get in the way of your entertainment. While the auteur Anderson?s well-fashioned obscurity, intentional or not, is an important spice in the motion picture?s recipe, this isn?t, after all, a whodunit. Save your befuddlement for things like ?The Usual Suspects? (1995). This one?s for musing.

So polish the coffee table, bake a blueberry pie, and plan to invite your favorite post-movie couple over for some heady, apr?s film discussion. ?The Master? certainly supplies the incentive. Beautifully filmed and boasting at least three nomination-worthy performances, the character-driven quandaries and conundrums are ripe with fascination.

The scary thought is, there are all sorts of characters like this in our everyday world, rubbing elbows with us, tangentially affecting our immediate atmosphere if not directly impacting our lives. Insofar as Freddie Quell, just out of the Navy and trying to find his bearings in the aftermath of war, it?s very lucky if we don?t run into him in real life.

But here, safe in our seats, we?re drawn in by the danger he represents. Suffering posttraumatic stress, an alcoholic, and unable to keep a job, thanks to Mr. Phoenix?s intensely alluring portrayal we wonder what constitutes such a damaged human. Were the signs there before WWII? No matter, we can?t help but feel sorry for the tortured soul.

At the other end of the film?s mental tug-o-war, drawing little sympathy but just as much of our wariness, is the equally anguished title character, simply known to the authorities as Lancaster Dodd. Uh, there?s the little matter of an $11,000 debt. Hoffman paints a devilishly complex portrait, asking us to decide if he is in earnest or a mere charlatan.

Dodd?s movement, faith-based only in that you must have total faith in The Master, calls itself The Cause. But hark, dear reader, don?t let the action in the center ring divert your eyes from the gambit?s anterooms, where Amy Adams?s Peggy Dodd weaves her web. Subtle with the acumen of a Bismarck, she is the Madame Defarge of hubby?s domain.

Ooh, she?s a little chilling, and makes you wonder who?s in charge. That?s just one of the many question marks that comprises the scenario. There is no storyline per se, but rather, a continually nerve-jangling panoply of beguiling conjectures, query #1 being whether or not Freddie will succumb to The Master, kill him, kill himself, or gosh knows what else.

But wait, there?s more. Sewn into this period piece that takes place in the late 1940s and early ?50?s is a poetic, sociological survey of the times, with its insight intrinsically focused on war, peace and the ambiguity that is our humanness. Mr. Anderson (?There Will be Blood??2007) has the rare ability to accomplish this without seeming pedantic.

Oh, and then there?s that other thing: the desperate need by most folks to believe in some explanation of our being, no matter how outlandish the system. It?s far more preferable than the oblivious alternative. This is smart, bold cinema, though not without a bit of the emperor?s new clothes tossed in just to remind us not to take ?The Master? on face value.
?
?The Master,? rated R, is a Weinstein Company release directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. Running time: 137 minutes

Source: http://njtoday.net/2012/09/27/movie-review-the-master-commands-attention/

randy moss hunger games premiere the bachelor good morning america red meat bachelor ben jon hamm kim kardashian

74 Ways to Make a Healthier Pizza | Greatist

74 Ways to Make a Healthier Pizza

Photo by Jordan Shakeshaft

These days, Dominos just doesn?t cut it. We created this epic list of all the healthiest pizza fixin?s, so you can build exactly what you ? and your body ? wants. We guarantee you?ll create something that?ll cut out unwanted calories and top any pizza parlor in town!

And don?t stop before you get to the bottom: We?re hiding five super-special Greatist favorite pizza recipes down there.

But first, some pizza-prepping tips:

  • Keep the oven HOT. Like, at least 450 degrees, hot ? 500 is even better. That way you get the crispy crust without the soggy middle.
  • Don?t overload on the toppings. That?s a thin little base you got there ? treat it well. Add only a thin layer of each goodie and keep heavy items to a minimum.
  • Bake or toast the crust before adding the good stuff. Nothing?s worse than a soggy middle! Make sure it can support the toppings before loading them on.
  • Be careful with moist toppings and cheeses. If the tomatoes are juicy when they get layered on, they?ll transfer that moisture to the crust. Keep these toppings to a minimum, and try to remove any excess liquid.
  • Try cooking it on the grill! This method adds a great smoky flavor and delicious grill marks.
  • Buy premade crust (if you want!). No need to go gourmet chef on us. In fact, many small pizza parlors will sell their handmade dough fresh for you to bake at home. Give it a try.
cauliflower pizza_inpost

Photo by Aylin Erman

It All Starts with Crust

Whole-wheat flour. Forgo the traditional white-flour crust and make your own whole-wheat dough for some extra protein and fiber and a yummy, nutty flavor.

Thin sandwich bread. Take your favorite deli flat and swap the cold-cults for your sauce and toppings of choice. (Just give the bread a little toast before topping to avoid any sogginess.)

Tortillas. Rice and beans aren?t the only ingredients that can top a tortilla. Make your own whole-wheat tortilla for a perfect thin-crust alternative.

Pita bread. Pita pockets are the perfect size for a personal pizza, and the whole-wheat variety adds an extra nutritional kick.?

English muffins. With all the nooks and crannies, an English muffin pizza crust can do no wrong. They toast up perfectly in the oven and are great for making mini-pizzas for a light lunch. (Or as a late night snack!)

Matzo. Think of this as the ultimate thin-crust pizza. Super simple, super crispy, and super delicious.

Cauliflower. For a lighter option, forgo the extra carbs and turn cauliflower into a healthful, delicious pizza crust. Talk about sneaking in some veggies!

Zucchini. Similar to cauliflower, zucchini is easy to make into a lean, green, pizza crust machine. ?

Summer squash. Enjoy yellow more than green? Than swap out zucchini for summer squash for another veggie-filled crust.

Portobello. These shrooms are a perfect bed for any pizza sauce and toppings, no carbs required.

Quinoa. This super-seed isn?t only great on top of salads or in soups. Cook up your own quinoa crust for a nutty, protein-packed alternative to classic pizza dough.

Leftover rice. Yep, another use for that leftover rice from dinner last night. Add just a little flax seed meal and Italian seasoning, and you?ve got an easy, inventive crust.

Pesto Pizza

Photo by Caitlin Covington

And Then There?s the Sauce:

Tomato. Clearly, the classic. Make your own pizza sauce to avoid store-bought versions that can be packed with sugar. We guarantee it?ll taste loads better, too!

Sliced tomatoes. Go minimalist and slice up some tomatoes as your pizza sauce. Less fuss and just as much flavor.

Garlic coconut cream. For a healthified white pizza, try this roasted garlic coconut sauce ? simply garlic cloves, coconut milk, and a pinch of salt. This adds a touch of sweetness to a classically savory dish.

Salsa. Kick the tomato base up a notch and use salsa as the spread! This?ll add a spicy kick to the pizza pie, and is a great start to the perfect Mexican pizza.

Pesto. Go green with a basil pesto sauce on top of the crust. Made with nuts and fresh basil, this sneaky sauce adds some healthy greens and omega-3?s to bump up nutritional value.

Pumpkin. They?re not just for carving! Pumpkin puree is a creative addition to traditional pizza sauce to add some sweetness and fun fall flavor.

Garlic paste. Going super simple? Make your own garlic paste (with only some quick chopping!) and spread evenly over the crust. Warning: Garlic breath will follow (but it?s so worth it).

Mushroom tapenade. Think outside the box! Try whipping up a mushroom tapenade as the base to a perfect rich, savory pizza. A nice thin layer will leave plenty of room for other toppings and cheese.

Olive tapenade. Not a huge fan of mushrooms? Go classic with an olive tapenade for a similar, salty spread on any pizza crust. (This works especially well with Mediterranean-inspired toppings like fresh tomato, feta, and oregano.)

Hummus. For a Middle-Eastern flare on this favorite Italian dish, swap the sauce for creamy hummus. The chickpeas will add extra fiber and protein and satisfy any taste bud. Try topping this creative sauce with freshly shredded veggies!

Carrot puree. Stay with us here: Pureed carrots create a sweet sauce-like spread that?s sure to impress anyone digging in.

Refried bean dip. Transform a can of beans into a tasty spread for any pizza crust. Go with traditional re-friend beans or mash up plain old black beans ? the possibilities are endless. This is another great base for Mexican pizza.

Onion and garlic jam. This recipe caught our eye and we couldn?t resist. This unique, sweet and savory jam could be the pizza ?sauce? you?ve always been looking for! Plus, it?s clearly super chic. We suggest topping with a few dollops of goat cheese and some fresh arugula.

White bean spread. Take this spin on traditional hummus for something super smooth and packed with antioxidants. Add some sliced tomatoes and Parmesan cheese for the perfect late-night snack.

BBQ sauce. To create your own barbeque-based pizza without the extra sugar, start with a homemade sauce. It?ll add a spicy tang any pizza lover will enjoy.

Peanut sauce. To really switch things up, whip up a healthy peanut sauce. Try topping with some grilled chicken, cilantro, and bean sprouts for an Asian-inspired pizza dish.

Ricotta cheese with honey and cinnamon. This one goes great on sweet or savory pizza. Simply spread over the crust and top with whatever you like.

Dark chocolate spread (or Nutella). Okay, this one?s purely for a decadent dessert pizza. But even healthy eaters need some sweets once in a while!

Fig and Onion Flatbread Pizza

Photo by Aylin Erman

Don?t Forget the Toppings!

Protein

Chicken Sausage. Swap classic pork sausage for something a bit leaner (but still full of flavor). Many brands come pre-cooked so you can just slice and stick ?em on top before sliding into that burning hot oven.

Tofu. Not only for stir-fries and salads, tofu can top any pizza for some added protein. Try this Thai tofu pizza guaranteed to please any pizza party guest!

Grilled Chicken. For a ton of protein without the fat, grilled chicken is the way to go. Pair with BBQ sauce for a healthy barbeque chicken pizza.

Beans. Sorry, rice ? beans are headed to the pizza dough without you! Throw black beans on a variety of pizzas (like this BBQ black bean option) for extra protein, fiber, and flavor.?

Eggs. Scramble them, poach them, or cook ?em over-easy. Whatever you decide, an egg on a pizza is never a bad idea.

Lox. Take it off the bagel and put it on the pizza! This is a great brunch idea that goes well with eggs and herbs.

Nuts. Feelin? fancy? Sprinkle walnuts (or any nut!) for some extra crunch.

Turkey pepperoni. Choose turkey pepperoni for a leaner option that still tastes great. (Just look out for preservative and sodium-packed brands.)?

Veggies

Chard. This leafy green is an awesome source of calcium and potassium, and goes great between some crust and cheese. Try this Swiss chard pizza with pesto and dough of your choice! (Our choice is whole wheat.)

Kale. This super salad green doesn?t only go with a side of vinaigrette. Throw it on any pizza for an extra dose of calcium and antioxidants. Our favorite? This kale and sweet potato pizza.

Arugula. Sprinkle a ready-to-eat pizza with this salad green for a slice of pizza and salad all in one bite. (And hey, it may help you have better sex too?!)

Spinach. Spinach on top of pizza? Popeye would be proud. This bakes perfectly in the oven and goes great with feta cheese.

Broccoli. Vitamin C, folate, and fiber are just a few of the broccoli?s benefits. So top your pie with this cruciferous veggie for crunch, flavor, and health!

Asparagus. Do not fear the spear ? asparagus is a great green topping filled with vitamin K, folate, and antioxidants. (Yup, pizza just got real healthy.)

Zucchini. If zucchini crust isn?t your thing, maybe some roasted zucchini on top will do.?Shred and sprinkle all over the crust before baking to perfection.

Butternut squash. For a touch of sweetness with dinner, add some butternut squash to the topping list. It?ll guarantee to fill you up the right way (hello fiber!).

Eggplant. Swap the eggplant parm for sliced eggplant on a pizza. Add some low-fat mozzarella cheese and sliced tomatoes and you?re good to go.

Onions. Whether caramelized, baked, or saut?ed, onions add a sweet and savory bite to any pizza slice.

Sun-dried tomatoes. For something with a little more bite, try sun-dried tomatoes. Use the jarred versions (which are packed with oil) in moderation, or make your own instead.

Olives. For a Mediterranean-style pizza, just add olives! (Or go all-out and add eggplant, spinach, tomato, and feta too.)

Capers. To guarantee a salty bite every time, toss some capers on top. (Pssst: This goes great with smoked-salmon.)

Mushrooms. Looks like this veggie can be used for the perfect crust, sauce, or topping. We recommend using a variety of shrooms for a different (and tasty!) bite each time.

Artichokes. These pointy prickly guys are the perfect topping to any pizza ? whether you use the fresh or canned versions. Pair it with spinach and a healthified crust options, and you have yourself a meal.

Beets. That slice just got healthier. Roast some sweet beets for a unique dinner dish. This veggie goes great with a little goat cheese and arugula.

Peppers. This popular pizza topping can get even more exciting! Color up your slice and use the green, red, yellow, and orange varieties for a pizza that?s all shades of the rainbow.

Sweet potatoes. No meat is needed when there?s roasted sweet potatoes on the pie. If this doesn?t become the next comfort food, we don?t know what will.?

Polenta. Polenta on pizza? Why not? Grill up some thick slices of polenta (made from ground cornmeal) and throw it on the dough. It goes great with a hearty tomato sauce!?

Fruit

Grilled peaches. This naturally sweet treat doesn?t have to be eaten alone. Grilled peaches make a great pizza topping, especially when paired with caramelized onions and fresh basil. Or, throw on a crust with a sweeter sauce for a fruit-filled dessert pizza.

Figs. They?re not only for Newtons. Take fresh figs with a handful of arugula and a thin layer of ricotta cheese for a pie that?s as classy as it is delicious.

Pears. Thinly sliced pears take any pizza pie to the next level. Top with goat or gorgonzola cheese and crushed pistachios, and get ready to sign yourself up for the next Iron Chef battle.

Apples. This is a different kind of apple pie. Slice up apples for an added crunch and sweetness. Pair with arugula and goat cheese for a real savory crowd pleaser, or layer on top of a chocolate sauced pizza for an inventive dessert.

Pineapple. Now we can head to the Caribbean in the kitchen! Pineapples are a fun addition to any pizza, and go great with grilled chicken and BBQ sauce. We dare you to not go back for seconds (or thirds?).

Avocado. Our favorite superfood had to make an appearance, and for good reason! Avocado is a key ingredient to yummy breakfast pizza (and the perfect start to any morning).

Blueberries. Stay with us: This tiny, antioxidant-filled berry goes perfectly on a pizza! With a little ricotta cheese and fresh herbs, this is a light and delicious dish for anytime of the day. Or go dessert mode with a chocolate or sweetened ricotta base and some other berry friends, too!

Strawberries. No surprise here. Strawberries can add a touch of sweetness to a basil, balsamic, arugula, and mozzarella pizza for dinner, or pair perfectly with blueberries for a dessert pizza, too!

Grapes. A sprinkling of grapes throughout a pie can promise a sweet and juicy mouthful. No fast food joint can top that! (Try pairing with gorgonzola for a seriously chic wine and cheese-themed pizza!)

Cheese

Fresh mozzarella. Skip the gobs of shredded stuff and add some fresh mozzarella instead. One ounce (about the size of 4 dice, or about 1 thick slice) clocks in only 70 calories, so tear it up go top off your perfect pie.

Goat. This tangy cheese comes from goats? milk (surprise!) and has less fat and more protein than other cheeses. Sounds like a winner to us.

Cottage. For something a little more unique, cottage cheese is a great (low-fat) option for all the cheese-lovers among us.

Gorganzola. Though rich cheeses like gorganzola and other blues are made from full-fat dairy, their pungent flavors allow you to use way less and get the same flavor and texture. Plus, they?re perfect to pair with fruit toppings.

Ricotta. This cheese works as both a sauce and cheese topping. It?s creamy, low in fat, and damn delicious.

Parmesan. Shredded parm is another healthier cheese option, since a little bit can go a long way. Sprinkle some on top of a cooked pie for the perfect ending to your creation!

Feta. Choose the low-fat version and you?ll get a bold, tangy taste. Feta goes especially well on Greek pizza.

Tofu. If cheese isn?t your cup of tea, try this tofu ?cheese? recipe for all the bold flavors of cheese with none of the dairy!

Healthy Pita Pizza

Photo by Jordan Shakeshaft

Not feeling super creative? Try one of these five Greatist-approved favorite combos today:

BAG Pizza: That?s beet, arugula, and goat cheese, my friends. Start with a whole-wheat crust, spread on a thin layer of goat cheese (yes, as the sauce, not the topping!). Layer on some roasted beets and drizzle with oil. Bake until crispy, and top with a handful of fresh arugula before serving. Drizzle with some high-quality balsamic vinegar for extra umph.

Fall Harvest Pie: Take a tortilla and toast until slightly crisp. Remove from oven and top with pumpkin puree, chicken sausage, sweet potato, and kale. Say hello to all of fall?s best!

Green Goddess: Start with a zucchini crust. Add pesto. Top with anything and everything green: broccoli, spinach, asparagus, and artichokes? and anything else you can imagine. Dollop with some pieces of fresh mozzarella, and bake until crisp.

Fruit Salad Pie: On a whole-wheat crust, spread a thin layer of ricotta cheese. Bake until the cheese starts to brown. Top with sliced figs, grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. Add a drizzle of honey for some extra sweetness.

Twisted Sausage and Pepper: On a whole-wheat pita, spread a few tablespoons of fresh tomato sauce. Top with saut?ed onions, multi-colored peppers, and sliced chicken sausage. Top that with some mozzarella cheese and a sprinkling of fresh herbs.

Have a go-to pizza combo? Crazy toppings we didn?t think of? Let us know in the comments below, or tweet the author?@lschwech.

Source: http://greatist.com/health/make-healthier-pizza/

fbi most wanted list stuttering james van der beek dyngus day indonesia quake stephen strasburg shabazz

বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Police to search driveway for remains of missing union boss Hoffa: report

{ttle}

{cptn}","template_name":"ss_thmb_play_ttle","i18n":{"end_of_gallery_header":"End of Gallery","end_of_gallery_next":"View Again"},"metadata":{"pagination":"{firstVisible} - {lastVisible} of {numItems}","ult":{"spaceid":"84397933","sec":""}}},{"id": "hcm-carousel-1007757685", "dataManager": C.dmgr, "mediator": C.mdtr, "group_name":"hcm-carousel-1007757685", "track_item_selected":1,"tracking":{ "spaceid" : "84397933", "events" : { "click" : { "any" : { "yui-carousel-prev" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"prev","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } }, "yui-carousel-next" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"next","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // no more pages, don't beacon again // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } } } } } } })); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings = '"projectId": "10001256862979", "documentName": "", "documentGroup": "", "ywaColo" : "vscale3", "spaceId" : "84397933" ,"customFields" : { "12" : "classic", "13" : "story" }'; Y.Media.YWA.init(Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {(function() { try{ if (Math.floor(Math.random()*10) == 1) { var loc = window.location, decoded = decodeURI(loc.pathname), encoded = encodeURI(decoded), uri = loc.protocol + "//" + loc.host + encoded + ((loc.search.length > 0) ? loc.search + '&' : '?') + "_cacheable=1", xmlhttp; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); else xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); xmlhttp.open("GET",uri,true); xmlhttp.send(); } }catch(e){} })(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {if(document.onclick===YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.newClick){document.onclick=YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.oldClick;} }); }); });

বুধবার, ২৬ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

?????? ??????? - va loans online - We are leading provider of ...

How will you receive bank loan or perhaps advance loan?


Rating Score :

A?proval : 94 %.

Get Cash in : 60 Minute.

Benefits : No faxing , No credit check , Really fast ... and more !

According to your condition of home, job standing as well as income, it is possible to be eligible for a that loan as high as $1500, and some loan companies may lend no more than $500. You will have a opportunity to discover how much you be entitled to before agreeing to any kind of mortgage loan agreement.

There is certainly an important legal distinction from a present and also a bank loan. A really generous relative or even pal could give you $5000 regarding vehicle repairs, for instance. If there's no expectation associated with repayment, the cash may very well be a present. The actual giver couldn't sue with regard to repayment later inside a civil match. However, if the borrowed funds supplier designates the money just like a bank loan as well as the customer will pay back even a dollar, the money can be viewed as a legitimate loan as well as the loan provider could demand payment whenever. Small claims courts invest much of period determining whether the financial transaction which include cash would be a gift as well as loan. Because of this papers is essential when designing personal lending options in order to pals or even relatives.

The requirements for getting a loan are quite obvious. If you're employed, having a month-to-month earnings regarding $800 or even more, and also have a bank account, you satisfy the basic qualifications. A number of loan providers inside our network might have extra requirements.

Cash financial products are unprotected financial products eliminated upon the following salary. Since they're short-term financial products, they can be little; various from $100 to $1500 as well as payment arrives in the next pay day. They may be very useful for overcoming a quick financial emergency, nevertheless shouldn't be viewed as the long-term fiscal solution.

fast loans online

Most home loan programs are usually addressed by finance institutions or another professional loan providers. They might make use of a variety of conditions to determine in case your potential consumer is actually skilled for a financial loan. Earlier credit rating is virtually always deemed, together with existing earnings and assets. The objective of the borrowed funds can be an issue-a established expense possibility could have more appeal when compared with a good misdirected concept for any new cafe. One particular essential point may be the revenue to credit card debt ratio in the client. May the client have the ability to pay for the loan back again with interest? Professional loan providers basically 'sell' cash, so customers must be aware just how much financing really 'costs' in relation to a real income.

Related topics:

My Fast Cash Payday Loan Apply for payday loans in one hour! Select your state 33319 FL

Payday Loans Chicago Heights Payday Loans Payday Loans Online. Your state or zip select e.g. 62625 IL

Fast Cash And Pawn Loans Personal Payday cash advance lenders. Your state or zip select e.g. 81252 CO

Source: http://vikcheroky.livejournal.com/17181.html

black and tan dwight howard trade ncaa bracket 2012 2012 ncaa bracket john carlson greg smith catamount

Thousands of Burmese to greet Suu Kyi in Ind. city

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) ? Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's devoted followers are expected to turn out by the thousands Tuesday to hear her speak in an Indiana city where one of the largest Burmese communities in the United States has taken root.

The visit by the 67-year-old Nobel laureate, who spent 15 years under house arrest for opposing military rule, marks the zenith of a two-decade influx of Burmese refugees that has brought a new global awareness to Fort Wayne, Ind., a city of 256,000 about two hours north of Indianapolis.

Organizers say security will be tight for Suu Kyi's speech at Memorial Coliseum. At least 7,000 people from as far away as Toronto and Minneapolis have indicated they'll attend the speech, which Suu Kyi will deliver in Burmese with English translations on video. The visit is part of a 17-day trip to the U.S. during which she has met with President Barack Obama and received the Congressional Gold Medal.

Since 1991, when a single Burmese refugee resettled in this city 8,000 miles from southeast Asia, thousands more have followed, many of them relocating under a federal program after years in refugee camps in Thailand. They join other political refugees from a host of countries who have made the city a second home since the fall of Saigon in 1975, thanks largely to the help of Catholic Charities.

The 2010 census found 3,800 Burmese in Allen County, but Fred Gilbert, a retired welfare worker who now runs a website designed to help immigrants adjust to American life, says the number may be actually be a few thousand higher because some Burmese identify themselves by ethnic origin rather than nationality.

Signs welcoming Suu Kyi have been showing up throughout the city. Local students gathered recently to make flags depicting the fighting peacock that appears on the flag of the democracy movement in the country also known as Burma.

"She is the hope for the people," said Thiha Ba Kyi, a former dentist who earned an MBA after coming to the U.S. in 1994 and now works for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and helps the Burmese opposition in exile. "She can bring democracy again in Burma."

For many of the city's Burmese residents, Suu Kyi's visit will be the first tangible connection with the homeland some hope to return to one day. From this unlikely base , Suu Kyi's followers speak out about what's happening in their homeland through Voice of America broadcasts and YouTube videos, lobby Congress for continued economic sanctions and raise money for the opposition in Myanmar.

"They cannot talk in there, so we talk for them here," said Ba Kyi, 57, who hosts a weekly Burmese-language talk show on local television. "We are very staunch and very outspoken. ... I believe that's why Suu Kyi come here."

Many Burmese refugees, like Ba Kyi, left behind careers when they fled their homeland and have had to learn new skills to get a job. U Tun Oo was elected to parliament in the 1990 election won by Suu Kyi's party that was nullified by the military regime and served as finance minister for the elected government in exile.

"I'm finance minister in the jungle," he said with a laugh. "Jungle minister."

Now Tun Oo, who was a construction engineer in Asia, works in a Fort Wayne factory. When he's not working, he heads the local branch of Suu Kyi's party.

"We see people who were university professors and members of parliament who are very accomplished who are doing all kinds of work," said Tom Lewandowski, president of the AFL-CIO's area labor council. "They'll do what it takes to get by."

Refugees qualify for federal government assistance, but Meghan Menchhofer, a staffer at the Burmese Advocacy Center, said that while many newcomers rely on food stamps, only a handful accept cash welfare. The center, which is funded by federal grants and private donations, helps refugees find jobs and homes and navigate issues from laws and customs to getting a driver's license.

"It was different. Vastly different. I knew very little English," said May Ayar Oo, 26, who came to the U.S. at age 16. She graduated in the top five in her high school class and now works as an engineer while attending graduate school.

Patrick Proctor, a member of the board of directors at the Burmese Advocacy Center, said some people in Fort Wayne harbor a negative stereotype of the Burmese who live there. About two years ago, some of that prejudice came to light when a worker at a coin-operated laundry posted a sign barring Burmese "for sanitary reasons," apparently a reference to some people's habit of spitting out the residue from chewing betel nuts.

But many of the city's Burmese seem to have found their way. Burmese-run businesses have popped up across the city, and both the valedictorian and salutatorian at a local high school this year were Burmese.

Former Buddhist monk Nai Sike, 48, and his wife operate a Burmese grocery, one of several in town.

Sike said he would like to stay in the United States because of his business, but he might go back to visit Myanmar. Like the other Indiana Burmese, he is excited about Suu Kyi's visit.

"It's good she's coming here, because of democracy," he said through a translator.

Those attending Tuesday's speech will be eager to hear Suu Kyi's views on sanctions toward Myanmar. Since her release in 2010, she has joined hands with members of the former ruling junta that detained her to push ahead with political reform. She is under pressure from Myanmar President Thien Sein's government to urge the U.S. to remove the restrictions.

Ba Kyi wants to be a part of the change Suu Kyi is expected to bring. He said he wants to teach his people, who have no experience of freedom, what democracy is about.

"I would like to move back," he said. "Hopefully, they'll need educated people who have experience in a democratic country."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-burmese-greet-suu-kyi-ind-city-070629222.html

Marvin Hamlisch Megan Rossee NASA grenada grenada Sikh andy reid

Calories Aren't Just Calories - When More Calories is Better - Shape ...

Women seem to be almost innately programmed to check the calorie content of every food?after all, we've always heard that weight loss (or maintenance) is all about calories in versus calories out. But to look and feel your best, there are certain times when it's better to opt for a higher-cal food.

"Low calories may or may not make you thin,? says Theresa Albert, a registered nutritionist and author of Ace Your Health, 52 Ways to Stack Your Deck. ?Overall, it is the quality of the calorie that counts rather than the calorie itself when it comes to fighting off disease and maintaining health.? And it could help you drop a few pounds, too. "While it hasn't been studied, the theory is that if your body doesn't get the nutrients it needs, it holds onto to whatever it gets, making it harder to lose weight." Plus, if the extra calories are from fat, protein, or fiber, they'll keep you satisfied?and away from the candy bowl.

Whether your goal is better health or slimmer thighs, make the following food swaps for more nutritious, satisfying snacks and meals.

Source: http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/when-more-better

new apple tv sun flare love hewitt new ipad solar flare joseph kony 2012 arian foster

মঙ্গলবার, ২৫ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১২

Welcome to the New Age of Money in American Politics

You may be?one of those people who believe there is too much money in politics. (Polling suggests there are many such people??a vast majority of Americans, in fact.) You may believe that the larger the financial contribution, the greater the chance it will corrupt your representative in Congress, or even your president. You may believe that there are too many political advertisements on television, too many groups with blandly patriotic names trying to change your mind about energy or Medicare or national defense. You may even believe that the nation?s founders would be repelled by the idea of corporations and billionaires pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns. It is reasonable?it is quite respectable?to believe these things.

But if you are one of these people, what you believe is turning out not to matter very much.

What Jim Bopp Jr. believes is turning out to matter a whole lot more, and he believes the exact opposite. He believes in more money, bigger donations, more corporations and billion?aires and outside groups making more noise, openly or anonymously. He believes, in fact, that there can be no such thing as an ?outside? group in American democracy??he believes that?s the whole point of the republic.

Latest Politics Posts:
Loading feed...

It wasn?t so long ago that just about everyone who paid attention to how we pay for politics, whether liberal or conservative, thought Jim Bopp was nuts. They certainly thought so back when he first came storming out of the right-to-life movement in the 1980s, a no-name lawyer with a street-?corner practice in Indiana swinging the First Amendment like a hatchet, striking at the Federal Election Commission, then at state government after state government?150 cases and counting?and taking his cause to the Supreme Court itself. Where others saw reasonable limits on politicking, he saw shocking suppression of freedom of speech, whether the stage was as big as a presidential campaign or as small as a student-council race at the University of California (Irvine). (He once won a case for a student candidate who?d exceeded the university?s spending limits by shelling out too much at Kinko?s.)

At the highest court in the land, standing in that deep well, with his wife and three daughters watching him, Bopp has gone four for six so far, knocking down laws and regulations that restrained money from entering politics. That record doesn?t count?Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the campaign finance case he brought to the U.S. Supreme Court but didn?t get to argue in the end. That?s OK, he?ll tell you?the majority largely endorsed his vision, striking down laws that blocked corporations and unions from spending as much as they wanted to elect or defeat candidates, and paving the way for a new type of political-action committee??the super?PAC. Everyone else just didn?t see what was coming as clearly as he did: The super?PAC would be the overpowering new weapon for Jim Bopp?s revolution.

So given that, so far, your views have turned out not to matter much, and Jim Bopp?s have turned out to matter a great deal, it may be instructive, if you?re wondering where our politics is headed, to listen to him for a change, instead of to the mainstream media and the ?reformers??he expels the word with considerable asperity.

?We are absolutely at the tipping point,? he told me recently, with unmistakable delight, over what he believes to be the best sushi not only in his hometown of Terre Haute, Ind., but in the nation. ?We?re in the second election cycle with super?PACs, and now they?re going to equal candidate spending. Two years from now, they?ll exceed candidate spending by 50?percent. Once the Demo?crats realize there ain?t any going back on this, then their contributors will start realizing the only thing they can do is participate. Two years after that, it?ll be three times candidate spending.?

And Jim Bopp believes that by then?though probably before then?the incumbents, driven as they always are by a desperate desire to cling to their offices, will resort to doing what he?s wanted them to do all along. To have any chance of competing with the super?PACs, they will abolish, or at least drastically raise, all contribution limits, to whichever candidate, from whatever source. And then the money will really start to pour in.

Indeed, the day before we had lunch, Illinois?which, like other states, regulates nonfederal elections?passed a new law saying that if a super?PAC spends more than $250,000 in a statewide race (not much money, as these things go), the contribution limits in that race will be eliminated.?We?re in the endgame,? Bopp told me with a smile of satisfaction. ?It?s already begun.?

Video: James Bennet discusses the absurdity of campaign finance with Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and the man behind Stephen Colbert's super PAC.


Campaign finance is?a deeply boring subject, so eye-glazing that one might almost suspect a conspiracy to make it that way, considering its centrality to how the country is governed. The ways we pay for politics are defined by a series of interlocking mazes?of congressional statutes and federal regulations, court cases and state laws. But those mazes are built on top of some of the most basic ideas about the nature of the republic, about the right of free speech, the sources of power and corruption, and the relationships of citizens to the state and to one another. That foundation is shifting now, to a degree not seen since Watergate, and perhaps not in more than a century, with effects that even the most-experienced politicians are just coming to appreciate. In the wake of?Citizens United?(though not only because of?Citizens United), the combination of permissive judges, paralyzed regulators, and a deadlocked Congress has emboldened political operatives?quite sensibly?to raise and spend money in ways they wouldn?t have dared before. Not since the Gilded Age has our politics been opened so wide to corporate money and donations from secret sources.

As Bopp argues, this new era has barely begun, and already, in this election season, we are experiencing a step change. In 2010, the first election year for super?PACs, a total of 84 of these groups spent $65?million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. As of Aug.?23 of this year, 797?super PACs had raised more than five times as much?upwards of $349?million. Fully 60?percent of that money came from just 100?donors.

We are quickly becoming accustomed to this new magnitude of giving. Individuals, unlike corporations and unions, have always been free to spend as much as they want on politics, as long as they are acting independently of a formal campaign or political party. But aside from the occasional foray by a billion?aire, like George Soros, they just never did so to the extent they are now?maybe because the new infra?structure, including super?PACs, did not exist, or maybe because it just didn?t seem like a smart or respectable thing to do. Yet when Newt Gingrich closed out his campaign, he thanked one couple??the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife?for ?single-handedly? keeping him competitive with Mitt Romney?s super?PAC, as if this was a noble rather than humiliating distinction for a presidential aspirant with a theoretically national network of support. For their part, the Adelsons turned around and gave $10?million to a super?PAC supporting the candidate they had been attacking, Mitt Romney. Just days after Rep. Paul Ryan joined the ticket as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, in August, he flew to Las Vegas to meet with Adelson and other top donors behind closed doors at Adelson?s Venetian casino. (Adelson?s politicking was widely seen as evidence of his concern for the fate of Israel, though it is also true that his company is the subject of two potentially devastating Justice Department investigations.)

Super?PACs are thriving, but they already seem almost old-fashioned. Yes, you can, if you want, create a shell corporation and funnel millions to a super?PAC without identifying yourself (it?s been done). But why not put your unlimited contributions into a fund that doesn?t have to identify you? In the post?Citizens United?gold rush, political operatives are stretching an old IRS loophole, creating nonprofit ?social welfare? groups, called 501(c)(4)s, that can raise and spend money on campaigning without disclosing their sources. In August, an investigation by ProPublica found that two such groups had put more money into the presidential campaign than all the super?PACs combined?though the super?PACs themselves had spent more than the political parties. ?I enjoy anonymity,? Foster Friess, the Wyoming investor, told NBC?News in August, in explaining his shift from super?PACs to more-secretive vehicles.

In 1974, Congress established a public financing system for presidential elections, providing equal amounts for the major-party nominees, as long as they agreed not to raise money from private donors for their own campaign (though they could, and did, raise private money for a political party). Barack Obama, in 2008, was the first presidential candidate to reject this public funding. This year, both candidates opted out, and they have been putting a great deal of time into asking for money. In July, they both held more private events for donors than public events for potential voters. By late July, Obama had held a total of 194?fundraisers in his third and fourth years in office?more than his four predecessors in the same period combined, according to a study by the political scientist Brendan J.?Doherty, of the United States Naval Academy. In the same period, Ronald Reagan held three fundraisers.

In 2000, spending on all federal races totaled about $3.1?billion. By 2008, it had risen 70?percent, to $5.3?billion. This year, it?s expected to be substantially more?though, given the amount of undisclosed spending, the sum may never be known.

?It?s a good thing,? Bopp told me. ?We need more spending on elections. Most people don?t even know who their congress?man is. Don?t even know their name or their party.? There are many reasons for this ignorance, he continued, but ?part of it is a lack of relevant, pertinent information. The more money that is spent, the more individualized messages will be able to be funded. The more individualized messages, the more voters will feel that the message is pertinent to them, and the more they?ll learn.

"In the parallel political world?a world in which more money, more anonymity, and more spending by non?candidates are bad things, dangerous to democracy??the most plausible candidate to be Bopp?s foil is the lawyer Trevor Potter. Potter is also a midwesterner (from neighboring Illinois) and a Republican; like Bopp, Potter got his earliest political experience volunteering for Barry Goldwater. But his own love of constitutional law, study of the Founders, and adventures in Republican politics sent him down a very different intellectual path. Potter was one of the leading lawyers behind the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as McCain-Feingold, the most significant campaign finance law in 30 years. To a large extent, it is Potter?s work that Bopp has been systematically gutting. ?Jim has always been in the position of making arguments that other people thought were wild-eyed, went too far,? Potter told me, a little ruefully. ?And he?s proved them wrong.?

The two lawyers? views about money and politics are precisely inverse: An outrage to one man is a reform to the other; a cesspool of corruption to one is a font of democracy to his antagonist; what to one is a clear-as-day rationale is to the other a deep, twisting rabbit hole. Bopp is the campaign finance lawyer to right-wing causes and candidates; Potter is the campaign finance lawyer to that right-winger-in-a-fun-house-mirror, Stephen Colbert, who has done a series of segments in which he has set up and deployed his own secretive campaign funds. Both lawyers are such effective advocates for their respective views that traveling between Boppworld and Potterworld can be a dizzying experience. You can find yourself wondering sometimes which man is the crusader for truth, justice, and the American way, and which is the bizarro version.

Given that such basic ideas about the sources of American democracy are in flux?that two such considered men can take such diametrically opposed views of them?you can also find yourself wondering: Does this mean that our democracy is vibrant, or that it is doomed?

They say in?politics?that where you stand depends on where you sit, and that may have something to do with how Bopp and Potter reached their respective conclusions. Bopp came to campaign finance via one of those ?outside? groups, to borrow his air quotes: He was the general counsel for National Right to Life back in 1980, when the group got crosswise with the Federal Election Commission after it distributed voter guides describing where candidates stood on abortion and other social issues. The guides, which went out just before the election, were seen as important to the victories of Reagan and 12 new Republican senators. ?So then the FEC immediately thought they ought to be outlawed,? Bopp told me grumpily. He sued to protect the guides, and won. Bopp is a Republican stalwart (he sees the Democratic Party as socialist), and he has done yeoman?s work for the party?among other accomplishments, he developed the legal rationale by which the Supreme Court decided?Bush v.?Gore. Bopp worked for Romney in 2008 and backs him this time. But his roots are outside the GOP establishment.

Bopp?s law office remains defiantly planted at the corner of Sixth Street and Wabash Avenue, in downtown Terre Haute, American flags hanging in its windows. When he showed me around the dusty, drought-hammered streets this summer, he waved at the emptied storefronts across Wabash, and the space still tenuously held by Rogers Jewelers (?The Diamond Store of Terre Haute?), which was in the midst of a moving sale. During his first campaign, in 1964, he recalled, the Republican Party occupied one such storefront, and two spontaneous citizens groups formed in two other storefronts to also campaign for Goldwater, outside the formal party. That would never happen today, he told me. ?Why is that?? he went on. ?The laws. You gotta get a lawyer, you gotta get an accountant??well, forget about it.? His voice was rising in frustration, or maybe with a passion to be understood. ?See?? he asked me. ?We?ve really lost something! We?ve lost involvement.?

Potter came to campaign finance five years after Bopp, via a presidential campaign. He was a fledgling Washington lawyer when Vice President George H.W. Bush assigned his firm the task of setting up the exploratory committee for his 1988 run. Potter ended up as the campaign?s deputy general counsel. During the primaries, he was stunned by how one of Bush?s opponents, Pat Robertson, evaded the rules governing disclosure and spending, using his corporate plane and his Christian Broadcasting Network to campaign. Even though his guy won, Potter remained troubled. ?For me,? he said in one of several conversations over the past few months at his present D.C. firm, Caplin & Drysdale, ?the takeaway was that the system wasn?t working. Bush was playing by the rules, Robertson wasn?t, and Robert?son got away with it.? Where Bopp encountered a system that seemed devised to shut some groups out, Potter found one that seemed meant to treat candidates equally, but instead was being abused by some for unfair advantage. Bopp began suing the FEC, battering away from the outside; Potter surprised the Bush White House by saying he would like to become a commissioner at the FEC. He wanted to fix it.

The Federal Election Commission, whose very name seems calculated to induce indifference, was created by Congress to enforce the post-Watergate campaign finance laws. Its six commissioners, who serve six-year terms, are supposed to work together without partisanship. But three commissioners come from each party, and they need a majority for any decision; they deadlock over anything that might disadvantage one side or the other. The commission is, as a result, both an emblem and a cause of our great governmental dysfunction. After the?Citizens United?decision, the commissioners took almost two years to agree to issue a request for public comment on whether they should change campaign regulations that the Supreme Court had invalidated.

During his time on the commission, Potter managed to raise its pulse a bit, persuading his fellow commissioners, for example, to enact rules limiting politicians? personal use of campaign funds. But when several influential members of Congress complained about the new rules, Potter realized he would make no more headway with his colleagues. ?They felt I had gotten them to do something that endangered their reappointment,? he told me. ?After that, I couldn?t get any more reforms.?

With his FEC term ending, Potter took a sabbatical of sorts in the fall of 1995, to teach at Oxford and research other electoral systems in hopes of finding a better financing model. This proved a more fruitless undertaking than trying to fix the FEC. ?Every system I looked at, I said, ?We can?t do that,??? Potter recalled. It is, for example, a shopworn lament of right-thinking people that the United States doesn?t have a compressed campaign cycle like the British, who confine their campaigning to about a month. The reason the United States can?t have such limits, or those of any of the other systems Potter looked at, is that it has something all those nations lack: a broad constitutional right to free speech. (Some campaign-finance lawyers enjoy mimicking Jim Bopp?s habit, in his many court arguments, of passionately quoting ?Congress shall make no law?? abridging the freedom of speech? before wondering what, exactly, could be more clear than?that?)

Potter, who is not given to despair, decided to attack the problem from a new angle. He returned to Washington and the practice of law, and then went to see Sen. John McCain, who was at work with his Democratic colleague Russ Feingold on a campaign finance law. They were hoping to rein in the practice (perfected, if that is the word, by the Clinton campaign in 1996) of raising vast amounts of so-called soft money. This money, like the funds raised by super?pacs today, could come in unlimited amounts. But the parties had to disclose the sources of their money, and in theory, they had to spend the donations to advance issues rather than to promote or attack candidates. In practice, the parties skirted the legal requirement that they not ?expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate? by not telling viewers how to vote but instead urging them to call a particular candidate and tell him, in effect, what a scumbag he was for being wrong about some matter.

Potter had a message for the two senators: He didn?t think their bill, as then written, would pass muster with the Supreme Court. Potter remembers Feingold reacting angrily, but McCain calming him down by saying, ?I am not spending seven years of my life to pass something that is going to be declared unconstitutional. We need to get this right.?

And so Potter spent several years (interrupted by a period as McCain?s general counsel for his 2000 presidential bid) as a part-time volunteer working to recast the bill. McCain-?Feingold had two goals: to ban soft money, and to regulate the sorts of political advertisements that attacked candidates while masquerading as being about issues. Its upshot was to ban corporations and unions from paying for candidate-specific ads in the middle of a campaign. To protect the law before the Supreme Court, Potter advised the senators to set its foundation in?Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 case in which the Court had ruled that limits to politicking by corporations did not violate the First Amendment. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, signed into law by George W.?Bush, was a historic achievement of campaign-?finance reform?and in retrospect, maybe its high-water mark.

It took Jim Bopp and his allies eight years and three trips to the Supreme Court to knock down McCain-Feingold?s obstacles to corporate and union money. But Bopp finally got what he wanted: in?Citizens United, in 2010, the Court not only invalidated the McCain-Feingold restrictions, it tore out the foundation Potter had relied upon, overturning its own precedent by declaring that?Austin?had been wrongly decided. McCain-Feingold may have made history, but?Citizens United?went back and rewrote it.

When I first spoke with Potter about?Citizens United, last November, he was still trying to understand how the majority could have come to what he saw as such a wrongheaded decision. Part of his explanation then was that, since Sandra Day O?Connor had retired, there was no sitting justice who had ever run for office. None of the justices really understood the risks of corruption created by endless fundraising and well-financed independent campaigns seeking specific legislation, and so they failed to defer to Congress, which knew the dangers firsthand.

But Bopp argues that the issue is not that the Court doesn?t understand how politics works; it?s that the Court understands politics all too well, and precisely for that reason should not defer to Congress on campaign matters. To Bopp, any attempts by sitting politicians to restrict money in politics are inherently suspect. ?There is nothing they are more interested in, more attached to, than their own election,? he told me. ?Only some of them have wives they?re more attached to than their own election.?

Slender, silver-haired, and genial, Bopp usually comes across as what he might have been?the third in a generational line of doctors in Terre Haute. But when he encounters an argument he really doesn?t like, Marcus Welby vanishes and a far harder customer takes his place. Bopp?s brow contracts and his husky, slightly whistling voice tends to climb and acquire a raspy edge. This Bopp came into focus as he warmed to his argument about how the overriding self-?interest of incumbents undermines the pious claims of reformers.

?OK, this is where the reformers have a real problem,? he said, picking up speed. ?On the one hand, they say, ?We need really low contribution limits, because we know all these politicians are so inherently corrupt that the smallest contribution could create undue influence.? At the same time, when they pass campaign-finance laws, they?re sacrificing their self-interest.? His whole face seemed to clench: ?Bullshit!? How could anyone think that politicians who might be bought off by a single contribution would turn around and write laws to give challengers a fair shot at unseating them? ?That?s a ridiculous position,? Bopp concluded, his voice and expression calm again, if icily dismissive.

While candidates care obsessively about their own elections, a political party has broader interests. It wants to secure a majority, so it often backs challengers to the other party?s incumbents, rather than just protecting its existing office?holders. For Bopp, McCain-Feingold was part of the incumbent-?protection racket, an attempt to ?kneecap political parties? by depriving them of soft money, shutting them out of campaigning just like the insiders once tried to shut out the right-to-life movement.

This summer, the Court summarily reversed a case that would have given it the chance to revisit?Citizens United?by examining the corrupting effects, in the real world, of so-called independent expenditures. That?s when Potter abandoned his hope that the Court was simply being naive and concluded that its majority was living in Boppworld. ?It is clear,? he told me, ?that Justice Scalia and others think that anything Congress does in this area is self-serving incumbent protection.? Yet Potter, who is waging his fight for reform through a nonprofit he created, the Campaign Legal Center, thinks Jim Bopp and his allies are overplaying their hand. While the Court?s conservative majority may have blocked efforts to restrict contributions, it has also signaled that it believes the other branches of government have the authority to act against the fastest-growing source of political money?the mysterious groups that refuse to identify their donors.

There is nothing?inherently evil about money in politics. In a world where Coca-Cola spends $3?billion a year promoting soft drinks, is it really unconscionable that we might spend $6?billion (and counting) every four years promoting (and, yes, attacking) candidates for federal office? And, as Bill Clinton once said?during a fundraiser, while fending off a fundraising scandal?you can?t take the politics out of politics: Seeking money is like seeking votes, and if politicians learn something from the experience, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It was at a prospecting event for political money among Los Angeles elites last year that Joe Biden met the children of a gay couple and had his epiphany that gay marriage was not evil. Whatever you think of gay marriage, that encounter at least prompted the White House to end its ducking and weaving on a big question and take a stand.

Yet if political money is not wicked in principle, it has often proved troublesome in practice, with the trouble growing in proportion to the cost of campaigning and the need for more money?and also in proportion to public cynicism about politics. Once professional politicians began displacing wealthy gentlemen in elected office, in the mid-1800s, they quickly discovered a handy way to pay for the campaigns they couldn?t afford themselves: demanding money from people in return for government jobs. This did not necessarily produce a high standard of government worker, but politicians didn?t revise their approach until a campaign supporter of James Garfield?s, denied a government post, shot the president dead. The result was the creation of the civil service through the 1883 Pendleton Act, which cut off patronage as a source of political money and had the un?intended consequence of driving politicians toward another source: big corporations.

The booming new concerns of the Industrial Revolution?oil, steel, rail, finance?began pouring money into campaigns, in pursuit of specific policies, particularly protectionist tariffs. Journalists would joke about ?the senator from Standard Oil,? and Mark Twain observed in?The Gilded Age?that Congress was for sale, noting that when it came to buying representatives, ?the high moral ones cost more, because they give tone to a measure.? In 1896, Mark Hanna, Karl Rove?s idol as a political operative, used the specter of the populist Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan, to garner contributions from banks equal to 0.25?percent of their capital bases?sort of an informal tax on behalf of his candidate, William McKinley. Hanna spent Bryan into the ground.

Over the ensuing years, journalistic and legislative investigations into corruption eventually ensnared a Republican president and prompted him to demand the first thorough?going campaign finance laws. Teddy Roosevelt told Congress in 1904 that there was ?no enemy of free government more dangerous and none so insidious? as corruption, and in 1905 he came back at Congress again, insisting, ?All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.? A Senate report on the resulting legislation, known as the Tillman Act of 1907, noted, ?The evils of the use of [corporate] money in connection with political elections are so generally recognized that the committee deems it unnecessary to make any argument in favor of the general purpose of this measure.?

Latest Politics Posts:
Loading feed...

Down through the decades, the rising political power of other groups, like unions, prompted new restrictions. The biggest reset of the fundraising rules came after Watergate, which is remembered largely for the break-in and cover-up but was also a whopping campaign-finance scandal. Donors gave money to Richard Nixon?s reelection campaign in exchange for ambassadorships; the Associated Milk Producers promised $2?million to the campaign, and the president hiked up the federal subsidy for milk. In all, 31 executives from companies like ITT and American Airlines were charged with giving money for government benefits, and Congress in 1974 enacted a new, extremely rigid campaign finance regime: it set up the FEC and public financing for presidential campaigns, and it restricted not just campaign contributions but campaign spending. Two years later, in the landmark case?Buckley v.?Valeo, the Supreme Court struck down the spending limits, saying they undermined free speech. But the Court said that Congress could restrict contributions, to avoid ?the actuality and appearance of corruption.?

Corruption, of course, can occur across a wide spectrum, and it can appear to occur across an even wider one. Since Watergate, there have been a handful of egregious instances, like the Indian-casinos scandal of the last decade, in which the lobbyist Jack Abramoff supplied campaign money, along with bribes in the form of skybox seats and a golfing trip to Scotland, in exchange for legislative support for his clients.

But such clear cases are at the extreme. Corruption?or its appearance?tends to take more-amorphous forms, like the spectacle of five senators pressuring bank regulators on behalf of a big contributor (the Keating Five scandal, which, in an echo of Roosevelt?s campaign for reform, turned one of those senators, John McCain, into a crusader for tighter rules?a challenge to Bopp?s notion that incumbent self-?interest, rather than something more hard-earned and principled, drives reform). Or like the spectacle of President Clinton insisting that he did not rent the Lincoln Bedroom to Democratic Party donors and that, in his last hours in office, he did not pardon the financier Marc Rich in exchange for money for the Democrats. This is all fairly tawdry, but is it corrupt?

As a member of the White House press corps, I once joined in the contest as Bill Clinton spent 51 minutes, one hand casually tucked in a pants pocket, parrying questions about his fundraising. ?I can tell you this: I don?t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution,? he told us at one point. It was an artful dodge?a deft flick of the adverbial cape over the charging bull?and, I suspect, it was the simple truth. The question, of course, is how much of the unspoken ?partly? we can, as a democracy, successfully abide alongside that ?solely.?

?This is a very sophisticated system,? says Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy?21, who has been fighting for tighter controls on political money since the Watergate days. ?That?s the beauty of the system for these guys. This is a legalized-bribery kind of system where no one has to say anything. I don?t have to say what I want?you know what I want.?

Hardest of all to discern, he said, is what action?doesn?t?happen as a result of campaign donations. What subsidies are left in place? What bill inconvenient to some interest languishes and then dies a quiet death? This is an old Washington game. In the run-up to the vote on the Tillman Act itself,?The Washington Post?editorialized that ?boodle is become an indispensable factor in our elections? and wondered if Congress would find a way to avoid passing the politically popular campaign-finance bill. ?No man in Congress dare say a word in opposition to it; no man in Congress dare vote against it,? the paper declared. ?The only way to beat it is to lose it in the shuffle.??The?Post?added: ?Is it already lost in the shuffle??

Such political games take a toll on the citizenry. In its?Citizens United?decision, the majority wrote, ?The appearance of influence or access?? will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.? But polling suggests otherwise. Indeed, voters have good cause to wonder which branch of government is taking their views of politics into account.?Citizens United?itself appears not to have helped matters. Early this year, a study by the Pew Research Center found that a strong majority of people?of whatever political persuasion?who had heard about the Court?s decision felt that it was having a ?negative effect? on the 2012 campaign.

Jim Bopp doesn?t worry much about that public attitude. He sees it as a reflection of healthy skepticism of politics in general. As for the distortions and contortions of how politicians gather money and then perform in office, he sees those as a function of a crazy system that, by restricting money in the financing of candidates? campaigns, sends it off into other sorts of less politically accountable groups. ?This is not the best system,? he told me. ?The best system is the most accountable and transparent system.? The way to achieve it, he argues, is to lift contribution limits. On some days, he says, he wakes up feeling a bit cynical, and he thinks to himself that maybe there should be a $100,000 limit on contributions to members of Congress. ?I do think you can buy a congressman or two for $100,000,? he said. But that?s only on some bad days. ?Other times, I wake up not as pessimistic and cynical, and I say: ?No limits.???

It?s a seductive idea. Maybe all the money flowing into super?PACs would instead flow directly to the campaigns. But on reflection, it?s not clear why this is an either/?or proposition. Super?PACs have proved useful to candidates not just as vehicles to raise unlimited contributions, but as allies that create particularly nasty ads that the beneficiary can distance himself from. It is also hard to imagine why the donors who are now choosing not to reveal themselves would suddenly want to step into the light of day.

The growing river of anonymous money is a result of the brokenness of our political system; no branch of government made an affirmative decision to let this money in. If it chose, the IRS could demand that the politicking social-?welfare nonprofits, as well as business associations like the Chamber of Commerce, disclose their secret donors. In July, Senate Republicans fili?bustered a bill, the Disclose Act, that aimed to compel groups to name the big contributors behind political advertising. In?Citizens United, eight justices favored disclosure (Clarence Thomas was the exception). No less a conservative light than Antonin Scalia, in a 2009 case, declared:

"Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which?? campaigns anonymously and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave."

Bopp had an answer ready when I asked him about the Scalia quotation: ?I?m for political courage. I?m not for government-?fostered harassment.? He didn?t mention it, but corporations are particularly vulnerable to a backlash when they publicly play at politics. In fact, corporations?except for the odd shell company?do not appear so far to be giving much to super?PACs, which must name their contributors. But money from anonymous sources is pouring into the politically active social-?welfare nonprofits and trade associations. Last year, as Aetna?s president publicly supported President Obama?s health care reform bill, the company gave $3.3?million to a nonprofit attacking lawmakers who backed it?a fact that became known only because the company mistakenly revealed the donation to insurance regulators. Aetna also accidentally disclosed that it gave more than $4.4?million to the Chamber of Commerce.

Bopp doesn?t argue that the government should never demand disclosure. His point is more nuanced. He sees some cost?some loss of free speech, some constraint on a citizen?s freedom of political action?whenever the government steps into the picture. That cost simply isn?t justified, he says, when it comes out of the hide of groups pushing specific positions, which is what the mysterious nonprofits, like the old soft-?money organizations, are supposed to do. ?That?s the currency of democracy?talking about issues,? he told me over our sushi lunch.

I advanced the argument that voters should know the interests of anyone advocating a political position, because otherwise they might be deceived. But Bopp thinks that it?s up to the listeners to choose whether to pay attention to anonymous speech, and that the government, or the reformers, have no business deciding what anyone ought to know. ?Now, you?re saying that, well, the reformers decided that the listener, even though they?re prepared to listen to anonymous speech,?should?want to know, because otherwise they might be misled,? he said, the rasp returning to his voice. ?Well, who are the goddamn reformers to say this?! Who are?they?to decide this for Joe Blow out here??

But isn?t the distinction between groups advocating candidates and those advocating positions fairly blurry? The second group is also seeking to affect the election, isn?t it? ?They?re influencing the vote?? he replied. ?So what? So are you.? But at least I was putting my name on any story I might write.

?Oh man, there?s all sorts of things you don?t disclose about yourself that people might find relevant when you write a political piece,? Bopp replied. ?Don?t you think the government ought to try to figure out what that is, and make you do that??

Right. About me. Well, it so happens that my brother, Michael, is a senator from Colorado. In the inaugural cycle for super?pacs, in 2010, Michael was the top target, and conservative super?pacs outspent liberal ones in his race that year nearly 3-to-1. More ?outside? money, including more money from undisclosed sources, was spent on his race than on any other race in the country?upwards of $30?million. I had the peculiar experience of sitting with him, in his home in Denver, late at night, late in the campaign, watching commercial after commercial during the 11?o?clock news attacking him. His image was distorted, the voice-overs were ominous, and all in all, the ads made him seem like a devil. In between the ads attacking my brother, I saw ads doing the same thing to his opponent and to candidates in other races (one particularly preposterous advertisement attacked a congressman for supporting ?Viagra for rapists?). To me, all this advertising seemed less like the currency of democracy than like a grotesquely stupid exercise to enrich political consultants and local television stations, and to drive voters away from polls.

So in writing this story, am I acting as part of the incumbent-?protection racket? It seems like a fair question?but one that might get asked only if my name is on the story; once the reader has that information, the rest is just a Google search away, with no government intervention necessary.

Fictional political comedies?like?this summer?s The?Campaign?are seldom funny; the targets of their too-gentle satire are usually well ahead in the race to the bottom. This is the genius of Comedy Central?s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: they have updated Michael Kinsley?s maxim (often applied to campaign finance) that the real scandal is what?s legal, by demonstrating that the real joke is what?s real. For more than a year now, Trevor Potter has served as Colbert?s lawyer while the comedian first weighed a presidential bid and then turned to meddling in others? campaigns. Even after Potter started the gig, it took him a while to fully appreciate the joke: When lawyers for Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, raised concerns about whether, as a corporation, it might run afoul of certain campaign finance rules if Colbert promoted his?PAC?on the air, Potter, like a good Washington lawyer, told Colbert over the phone that he could deal behind the scenes with Viacom?s election lawyer. ?Don?t do that,? Colbert told him. The whole point, he explained, was to work through the legal questions on television.

The result has been a Peabody Award?winning series of segments chronicling Colbert?s efforts to negotiate the new landscape of political money. In one segment, a despondent Colbert made a show of shredding the paperwork for his?PAC?after Viacom objected that it could get in trouble for making a contribution in the form of airtime to a political-action committee. Potter?hands clasped across his stomach, handkerchief peeking from the breast pocket of his dark suit, slight smile subverting his heroic attempt to keep a straight face?explained to Colbert that he could put Viacom?s fears to rest simply by turning his conventional?PAC?into a super?pac.

?What?s a super?PAC?,? Colbert, instantly alert, shot back. ?Is that, like, a?PAC?that got bitten by a radioactive lobbyist? What?what?s a super?PAC??

Potter explained how?Citizens United?had opened the door to a new kind of political-action committee that could raise limit?less contributions from corporations and unions, as long as it spent the money independently of any campaign. All Colbert needed to do was attach a new cover letter to his miraculously reconstituted?PACforms, explaining his intention to raise ?individual, corporate, and labor funds in unlimited amounts,? words Colbert read aloud with an almost pornographic relish.

?Oooh, I like the sound of that,? he said. ?Unlimited?s got a certain poetry about it.? He dispatched Jay the Intern via pony to deliver the forms to Washington.

Elements of the Supreme Court?s theory in?Citizens United?seem to have little connection to politics as it is actually practiced. The majority reasoned that ?by definition,? all of this new money could not be corrupting, since ?an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.? How could a politician be influenced by donors when he has no idea what they?re up to? In reality, of course, close allies and recent aides of the candidates run the super?PACs. Romney has described a donor to one of his supportive super?PACs as having given ?to me,? and Rick Santorum referred to a group that backed him as ?my super?PAC.? Karl Rove, who cofounded the super?PAC?American Crossroads and a non?disclosing 501(c)(4), Crossroads?GPS, famously joined in Romney?s Park City donor retreat in June. But even if campaigns and ?outside? operatives don?t coordinate their plans in back rooms, they keep each other informed by telegraphing their forthcoming moves through the press.

This confusion about ?independence? is not entirely the Court?s fault. The Federal Election Commission could enforce more independence. It hasn?t. After a state Democratic Party stretched the known limits for coordinating with a campaign last year, American Crossroads, Rove?s super?PAC, wrote the FEC seeking assurances that it could do the same thing on a grander scale without running afoul of the rules on ?coordinated communication.? Here?s what American Crossroads had in mind as sufficiently uncoordinated: ?These advertisements would be fully coordinated with incumbent Members of Congress facing reelection insofar as each Member would be consulted on the advertisement script and would then appear in the advertisement.? The commission deadlocked and never responded?which in the trade is taken, reasonably enough, as permission to proceed.

The segment in which Colbert created his super?pac?also underscored a profound legal?maybe even philosophical?shift wrought by?Citizens United. In wiping out McCain-?Feingold?s ban on contributions from corporations and unions to ?independent expenditures,? the majority opinion, by Anthony Kennedy, resoundingly endorsed the idea that for purposes of politics, corporations are the same as people, with the same protection under the First Amendment. ?The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,? the majority thundered, before quoting from a partial dissent by Antonin Scalia in an earlier case brought by Bopp: ?The Government has ?muffle[d] the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.? "

Over the decades, the Court has been less consistent on free-speech rights for corporations than the majority made it sound; conservative justices have been on both sides of the question. Indeed, the Court in?Citizens United?glided past some big questions, including, for example, whether a globe-spanning company, such as an oil company, has the same right as an American company to spend unlimited sums on American elections (as Justice John Paul Stevens acidly observed in his dissent: ?The majority never uses a multi?national business corporation in its hypotheticals?).

There is plenty of precedent for regulating certain types of speech by corporations: They aren?t allowed to lie to manip?ulate their stock prices, for example. The Court has drawn a distinction, however, between commercial and political speech. For the latter, the First Amendment protection is now all but absolute. But can a corporation engage in political speech that is?not?commercial? If its purpose for existing is to maximize shareholder value, shouldn?t all its political action be aimed at that objective?

Jim Bopp finds the question a bit silly. As a political matter, opening the door wide to corporate money has merely erased Democratic advantages in union ground support and media sympathy, in his view. And as a matter of law and common sense, he sees corporations as people, not reducible to a single interest. ?They?re not a robot or an automaton,? he told me. ?They?re real people making real decisions about what their group does.? The rights of the people who work for them transfer to the corporations, and the corporations, like the people who make them up, have interests beyond producing fat quarterly dividends. ?I mean, these same corporations are giving to the NAACP,? he said. ?Does anybody bitch about that? You know? That money isn?t going to share?holders.? Companies, he said, ?just have a broader mandate than apparently the reformers want to give them in the political sphere. It is not only maximizing profits. It is advancing the economic interest of the corporation, in many different ways.?

To Potter, the focus even on a broader economic interest sets a corporation apart from a citizen. ?I?m not an anti?corporate guy,? he hastened to tell me. But citizens have a very different approach to politics. ?All of those indi?viduals have lots of calculations and lots of different interests at stake,? he said. ?You look at something, and the range of your decisions is: Is this decision affected by my religion? By my moral values? By whether they?re going to raise or lower my taxes?whether I?m going to have more take-home pay? By whether the schooling is going to be better for my grandchildren? By whether I think war is morally wrong? By whether I think we should be safeguarding our future in the Far East? All these sorts of questions are at play when an individual makes a political decision of who to support.? But, he added, ?that?s not what a corporation does. It?s not what it?s supposed to do. It is supposed to figure out how to get more out of the government, how to get a policy that benefits it at the expense of its competitors.?

The majority in?Citizens United?implicitly endorsed a narrow, corporate approach to politics. In its hymn to the new era of disclosure, the majority noted: ?Shareholders can determine whether their corporation?s political speech advances the corporation?s interest in making profits.? That is, shareholders can punish a company if it makes the mistake of politicking in ways that don?t bring it profit. It is hard not to read that as: For a corporation, political speech?is?commercial speech?and that this Court?s majority regards that as a good thing. (After all, corporations are the voices that ?best represent the most significant segments of the economy.?) If that?s so, why can Congress ban direct corporate contributions to federal candidates, as it has since 1907? Jim Bopp has cases in the works to challenge the constitutionality of that restriction.

History?s pendulum is?now swinging back toward the days when political finances were only lightly regulated, when the system was more open to the cacophonous participation that Jim Bopp loves, and more vulnerable to the corruption and capture that Trevor Potter fears. Reformers who have been around a long time are betting that an old political cycle will repeat itself?that a permissive era will produce a scandal that will produce new rules. ?Look to history,? says Fred Wertheimer of Democracy?21. ?It?ll come from the American people. It?ll come from scandals. The history for me is the saving grace here, being old enough to have lived through this before.?

Maybe so. Maybe a big campaign finance scandal will break the congressional logjam blocking the Disclose Act. And, short of achieving a new majority on the Supreme Court, there are levers that a reform-minded administration might pull. The FEC could write regulations ensuring true separation between the candidates? campaigns and super?pacs. (Obama may have pledged to change our politics, but he has shied away from seeking to replace the five FEC commissioners whose terms have expired, leaving the deadlocked incumbents in place.) Maybe, in the wake of a scandal, the IRS might move to tighten restrictions on the risible social-welfare nonprofits and the politicking trade associations. A scandal would surely put some political weight behind the innovative notions for public financing bubbling up from various cities and states. And having reversed itself once, the Supreme Court might do so again, though Bopp, from hard experience, calls that a ?slender reed.? ?Well,?Roe v. Wade?hasn?t been overturned, despite how many Republican presidents?? he said at one point, with some bitter?ness.

Yet the revolution in the ways we pay for politics has come about not just because of?Citizens United?and related cases. The legal changes have really just validated, and encouraged, a broader societal shift. As commercial speech has come to penetrate almost every aspect of our lives, it seems only natural that incessant fundraising and once-staggering contributions would become the wallpaper of politics. Earlier this year, CBS announced that the network?s profits would rise by $180?million in 2012 thanks to the boom in political advertising. ?Super?PACs may be bad for America,? said Les Moonves, the company?s CEO, ?but they?re good for CBS.? The advertising-?research firm Borrell Associates has estimated that, from the local level on up, politicians and operatives will spend $9.8?billion on advertising this year. If money is speech, why shouldn?t political speech be both a source and form of commerce?

For these reasons, among others, there is joy in Bopp?world. And the prospect of an end to all contribution limits is even more cause for hope. ?The reason politicians spend so much time raising money,? Bopp explained to me, is ?low contribution limits.? Fewer, bigger donations would allow politicians to spend more time with voters. And voters are the ones who would ultimately control politicians? destinies, punishing the corrupt and rewarding the virtuous. I don?t doubt that Bopp believes this. His is an optimistic vision, fundamentally, about Americans and their politics. I hope, if we keep on our present course, that he turns out to be right.

But if we do keep living by the rules of Boppworld, there?s an alternative scenario, one that doesn?t involve either a second Watergate or renewed democratic vitality. America is a far different country today than it was during Watergate. There are many more billionaires, many more people for whom a potentially game-changing political contribution is merely a rounding error. When the Watergate scandal crested in 1974, the wealthiest 1?percent of Americans controlled about 9?percent of all income; in 2010, even after the crash, they held about a fifth of it. If you were part of the top 0.1?percent of the population in 1974, you made, on average, barely $1?million; in 2010, you made more than four times that.

During the same decades?and not coincidentally??American business has grown far more sophisticated at playing politics, in reaction to the expansion of the government?s regulatory role under Johnson and then Nixon. In 1971, the future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer, wrote a memo to the Chamber of Commerce that reflected a dawning realization: ?Business must learn the lesson,? he warned, ?that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that, when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination.? Over the subsequent years, the lobbying industry boomed, organized labor declined as an economic and political force, and business groups became adept at assiduously cultivating friends on both sides of the aisle.

It used to be that incumbents could gauge roughly how much money they would need to raise for an approaching race. Now, under the threat of vast, wholly unpredictable sums coming from unknowable sources, they can never feel confident that they have raised enough. That means everyone will need to raise more money all the time. If the new wave of money proves decisive up and down the ticket this fall, politicians of both parties may become even less likely to push policies unpopular with established interests. This need not mean that illegitimate interests would be heard. It need not mean that the kind of quid pro quo deal-making that led to the Watergate scandal would ensue. The result could be less dramatic and less obvious than either of those: Even as a politicized press keeps exaggerating small differences, the political debate would continue to narrow. Over time, the great political contest of ideas?the one Jim Bopp and Trevor Potter both celebrate?would become even less of a contest.

Our politics has more than one kind of incumbent. There are the officeholders, and there are the people and corporations that have already made it in America, that want to protect and enlarge the advantages they get from the government. It seems quite plausible that all of their interests are now coming into alignment.


James Bennet is the editor in chief of?The Atlantic.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/welcome-age-money-american-politics-095543266--politics.html

seattle weather skier sarah burke gingrich wife cheryl burke sarah burke mega upload santorum wins iowa