Teacher's Union Told Money Went Missing

I always say, give credit where credit is due. This is an EXCELLENT article published in today's Daily Times. The investigative reporting on this is what newspapers ought to do on a regular basis. My hat is tipped to them on this one. Great work!

OCEAN CITY -- In a routine tax filing to the IRS last spring, the Worcester County Teachers Association made a startling disclosure: Its leaders believed more than $100,000 in funds had gone missing.

Now, local authorities -- who say they never heard about the reported loss -- are investigating.

The WCTA's tax-exempt status was revoked by the Internal Revenue Service in October for failure to file a Form 990 for three consecutive years, according to the Guidestar website, which makes available public tax filings from nonprofit organizations.

Before that, in March, the union had told the IRS its finances were in crisis. According to a WCTA tax filing dated March 13 of last year, the union documented $111,589 in what it called "misappropriated funds" and noted the amount was pending an audit by a bonding company.

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Cain: Why I Stand With Newt

Newt Gingrich has the best chance of winning the White House for the Republican Party in November because his economic plan to create jobs will work and Mitt Romney's won't, former candidate Herman Cain said.

"The biggest domestic challenge we have is stimulating this economy. I don't happen to think Gov. Romney's 59-point plan is going to do it," Cain explained during an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, just minutes after formally endorsing the former House speaker.

Cain said he made his final decision to back Gingrich on Saturday morning, the same day he made his announcement. He said he has no doubt that Gingrich, rather than his most serious rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, is the man who can defeat President Barack Obama in November and win back the White House for the GOP.

“The distinction between Newt Gingrich’s ideas and President Obama’s are the widest,” he said minutes after making his endorsement in West Palm Beach, Fla. “When you look at Gov. Romney, too many of his phrases and too many of the things he talks about are more moderate in the middle.

“That’s too close. The American people need to see a wide, clear distinction between the two.”

Cain announced his decision during a surprise appearance at the Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner, just three days before the vital Florida primary. He said the two Georgians had had extensive conversations at least once a week recently.

“I presented to him a couple of weeks ago the idea that I aligned with all of his ideas, but I didn’t think that his ideas for economic growth and jobs were strong enough,” said Cain, who dropped out of the presidential race in December.

“I said you need to be bolder, and I said I offer you 9-9-9, so he said he would think about it.

“We had a conversation as late as this morning when he said he could embrace the idea. That isn’t to say that he is going to be the cheerleader for it — that’s my job — but he did say he would embrace the idea.”

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Boehner Confident Congress Will Pass Payroll Tax Cut

House Speaker John Boehner said he thinks Republicans and Democrats in Congress will agree to a payroll tax-cut extension.

“We are in a formal conference with the Senate, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to resolve this fairly quickly,” the Ohio Republican said on ABC’s “This Week” program.

A short-term extension of the payroll tax cut expires Feb. 29. The two parties disagree on how to pay for the plan and whether all the costs must be offset. Unless Congress acts, the 2 percentage point payroll tax break for employees will lapse, as will emergency unemployment benefits.

Boehner told ABC that a provision approving the Keystone XL pipeline will be attached to legislation that would expand oil and gas drilling if the pipeline isn’t approved first.

Last month, Republicans succeeded in adding language to the short-term payroll tax-cut extension agreement requiring Obama to decide on the pipeline within 60 days.

Obama rejected the permit on Jan. 18, saying the deadline didn’t leave enough time to consider alternatives to the original pipeline route, which went through the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region in Nebraska.

The lawmakers now are backing a bill that would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the permit within 30 days, so long as it meets safety requirements.

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Maryland Taxpayers Being Asked to Bailout Schoolteachers Pension Fund

As the Maryland Legislature enters its 3rd week -the O'Malley administration has proposed dramatic tax increases that will bring down the average Maryland household.

The list of tax increases and shifts are virtually endless - and it is the most that I have ever witnessed during my entire time of covering these legislative events. No doubt that even one of the following tax shifts will dramatically diminish the living standard for the average Maryland household - much less multiples of O'Malleys suggested tax increases.

For example - Maryland's schoolteachers & state workers pension fund was 100% funded as late as the year 2000. Yet - 9 years later the pension fund's valuation fell to as low as 59.7% and was cited in Fitch's bonding rating report as being severely underfunded. Then - the 2010 legislature mandated the formation of a special commission - Public Employees & Retirees Benefits Sustainability Commission - whereby they met in the fall of 2010 and stated that the State's pension fund was approximately $35 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities and specifically noted that the State's current benefit structure was unsustainable.

Bottom line - the Commissions latest suggestion is simply to 'kick the can down the road' and pass off these increasing cost onto the Counties. For Wicomico taxpayers that represents absorbing 3.8 million dollars that we do not have. Governor O'Malley refers to the accounting method as a 'shift' in pension cost - I call it a 'taxpayers bailout'.

Instead of simply bailing out the state pension entity - I suggest that we first - follow the money trail - and see what specifically did the State invest these monies in. What led up to this significant deterioration of assets. Inquiring Maryland taxpayers minds deserve to know before simply 'shucking' out our wallets for yet another government funded bailout.

Twitter's New Censorship Plan Rouses Global Furor

NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics - in a barrage of tweets - proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"

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Wicomico County Board Of Ed.

Was wondering if you could possibly look into the fact that the county schools aren't properly disciplining children to keep stats low. I know of one teacher at a Salisbury Elementary school who was bitten by a child, that broke the skin and left a mark and nothing was done to the child at all. Teachers are struggling because the kids know they won't face any real discipline no matter how bad they act up. We really need to expose this to help the teachers out who by the way have not received a raise in 3 years now, have received HUGE budget cuts in materials and staffing, along with dealing with parents who see them as daycare providers and not mentors for their children. This practice needs to stop, and kids must be disciplined if anything to keep the good teachers we have from leaving teaching all together. This is a travesty, and shouldn't come as a surprise when you look at the other antics going on at the board lately.

Thanks for all you do in keeping us locals in the know. Keep up the great work.

A concerned citizen of Salisbury.

The Three Biggest Lies The Government Is Telling You

Government lies are legion.

So many are its lies, that narrowing them down to three of the most important is a demanding task. But our current crisis has been chiefly enabled by monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the global military empire. So I have chosen to focus on lies about each: the Federal Reserve, the orchestrator of monetary policy; the U.S. budget, the accounting of government fiscal policy; and a few of the Empire’s war lies. I am sharing just a smattering of this astonishing record of duplicity in these areas, for life is short, or at least far too short to recount all of the state’s lies about each.

Lie #1: The Federal Reserve Is a Bank

Practically everything the government says about banking is a lie. Central banks are not banks. The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, is not a bank.

A bank is a company in the free economy that competes with other banks offering willing customers a safe place to make deposits and earn an interest rate return, while also competing to offer loans from those deposits to willing borrowers.

Central banks are government-created bureaucracies that do nothing of the sort.

The Federal Reserve is typical of central banks. It is not a free market institution in which people willingly make deposits. Instead, it wields monopoly power over actual banks. In place of managing deposits and loans of its own, it creates money out of nothing by a variety of means including debt monetization, in which it buys government debt by simply creating a credit in the account of a commercial bank with nothing more than a booking entry. This is an act made possible only by the state’s grant of a legal monopoly empowering the central bank to do what, if done by a private bank, would be a crime called counterfeiting.

Central banks thus have the ability to unilaterally boom and bust their economies at will. And they have done so throughout their history, either to the benefit of the commercial bank cartels, in response to political pressure, or because of outright economic ineptitude .

Writing at Lew Rockwell.com about the myth that the Federal Reserve is a "bank," and independent, finance professor Michael Rozeff describes a central bank as a government’s "fiat money bureau." "It is held up by the force of government law and power. It is imposed on the public."

The representation of them as actual banks produces confusion in which central banks are said to earn "profits." For example, a January, 2012 Federal Reserve press release reporting its "earnings," announced $76.9 billion in 2011 net income. This was described in the New York Times and the Financial Times as the Fed’s "profits," just as though it were the annual report of any commercial bank’s profits.

Yet in what sense does the Fed show a "profit" or have "earnings"? It is as inappropriate as describing the collections of the Internal Revenue Service as "profits."

Where are these Federal Reserve "profits" derived? They are the result of printing new dollars to buy assets; that is, they are the result of diluting the purchasing power of every dollar you or anyone else has. It is not any different than a dairy watering down 100 gallons of milk to sell 110 gallons. It is fraud. But it is a fraud legalized by act of Congress.

But the Federal Reserve is not alone. Another non-bank is the World Bank which loans money to governments and government enterprises. The World Bank has been a useful place to pasture failed U.S. government warmongers like the disastrous Vietnam War Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara and Iraq war co-author Paul Wolfowitz. Both were named World Bank presidents even as their deadly wars raged on.

The World Bank gets almost all of its money by way of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD),( also not a bank), which gets its money from taxes, the largest share coming from the American people. The IBRD also sells World Bank bonds, but they too are guaranteed by taxpayers.

American tax dollars go to other multi-national organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

None of which are banks.

Lie #2: War Lies

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Debt Ceiling 101, Santelli Sounds Off

In an effort to reach the angry mob, CNBC's Rick Santelli goes all Sesame Street on the numbers behind the US Debt Ceiling Rise. Focusing for two minutes on what this practically means for every man, woman, child, and politician, the shouting Chicagoan points out that when the US breaches this new limit then the world's entire population will be on the hook for $2,346 each (and $52,409 per US person).

GO HERE to view video.

Rep. Andy Harris, M.D. Concerned About Veterans Administration Claims Backlog

This week, Rep. Andy Harris (MD-01) participated in the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance hearing on the proposed overhaul of the VA Compensation System to question administration officials on their claims processing backlog. Harris was invited to the hearing by Subcommittee Chairman Jon Runyan (NJ-03).

“As a physician and veteran I want to work with Veterans Administration officials to bring their disability determination process up-to-date and help to reduce the backlog of cases before it grows even larger,” said Rep. Andy Harris. “We have an obligation to make every effort to help our veterans obtain the highest quality health care within a reasonable timeframe.”

Preppers view - Get Healthy!

According to statistics, most Americans are overweight and unhealthy. As preppers, we focus a great deal on taking the necessary steps to have alternative food sources, heat sources, self-defense, etc. but there is something else to consider. All the firewood in the world won't matter if you can't carry it into the house. All the vegetables in the garden won't do you a bit of good if you don't have the energy or the ability to pick it from the plant and be on your feet long enough to can it. Too many of us aren't.

Being substantially overweight, smoking, and being sedentary are all things that can negatively affect how well you prepare and deal with disasters. About a year ago this became clear to me as I was doing some lite yard work taking advantage of a free weekend. I had carried a small amount of brush to the back of my property that was too small to justify pulling the 4 wheeler out of the shop. After about 5 minutes I realized that the years and a less than adequately active lifestyle had taken a toll on me. It forced me to look in the proverbial mirror and assess my own physical fitness. I asked myself how lack of physical conditioning would affect my ability to survive a disaster. After stepping back I realized that the most important tool for assuring that I would survive ANY disaster was.....me. It was time to get to work.

I quit smoking many years ago and I felt much better but I had put on a few pounds as a result. But as I got older I also had been focusing more on work and less on keeping myself healthy. Especially in this economy where it takes longer hours to make less money. I went from 235 lbs. to 265 lbs. Since I am over 6' tall and it was gradual and the only thing I noticed was an increase in clothes sizes. I mean....I didn't have the dunlap disease or anything but now I was noticing it taking a toll on my endurance. I immediately cut the portions of food I eat in half. It sounds drastic but it isn't. It's much better to eat more and smaller portions of something healthy than it is to have 5 slices of pizza. I implemented an exercise routine that included free weights and resistance training 3 days a week. Within the first month I noticed things "shifting" which gave me the drive to continue. It made me realize that it really didn't take much to make a difference. A little effort goes a long way. I started walking a mile...then a mile and a half. And walking doesn't cost anything. Eventually I noticed big changes. I dropped a pant size and my energy and endurance went up drastically. I was very happy with the results and I got a great feeling of satisfaction. I knew that my prepper plan was much closer to being complete.

Increasing your metabolism burns calories and physical activity increases your metabolism. It also increases your endurance. An increased endurance could make the difference between living and dying. Most criminals that may try to take your food during a disaster won't be endurance trained. They may be strong - especially if they have been in jail since we pay for their weights so that they can work out while they serve their time, but most don't tain for endurance. Give yourself an edge. Your health and endurance is as important as a defensive weapon, a generator, or a wood stove. But most importantly...your health is your responsibility. And for the naysayers.....whats the worst that could happen? You would be healthier and would likely live longer with a better quality of life. Seems like a win/win to me. How about you?

Soros: Obama, Romney 'Not Much Difference'

Billionaire financier George Soros thinks that, if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, there will be "little difference" between him and Barack Obama in the White House.

Soros offered the reassuring news to liberals across Europe during an interview this week in Davos, Switzerland.

As policymakers from Hong Kong to Canada pressed Greece and its creditors to strike a deal to cut the nation’s debt, Soros pressed in on GOP presidential candidate Romney:

"Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in," Soros told Reuters in a videotaped interview.

"If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them."

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh described Soros' move this way: "He's endorsing Romney."

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Romney's Bain Controlled Company Linked To Medicare Fraud Says PAC Ad

Debating in Tampa, Florida this month, Mitt Romney strongly denied that his investment company Bain Capital did “any work with the government like Medicaid and Medicare.”

However, under Romney’s “supervision,” Bain purchased and ran the Damon Corporation, which pled guilty to Federal conspiracy charges -- as a result of tens of millions of dollars in systemic Medicare fraud, alleges an ad now being run by a PAC sympathetic to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

When the dust settled after a consuming federal investigation, Damon was fined over $119-million, which was, at the time, the largest criminal healthcare fine in Massachusetts history, touts the ad.

As featured in the ad, Romney’s participation was characterized in 1996 by Corporate Crime Reporter: “As manager and board member of Damon Corp, Mitt Romney sits at the center of one of the top 15 corporate crimes of the 1990’s.”

“During the time that Bain held its ownership of the company, Mitt Romney personally sat on the board of directors,” notes Forbes. “And during that same period, Damon Corp. was busy submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims to Medicare to the tune of millions of dollars charged for unnecessary blood tests.”

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Washington State Marijuana Legalization Headed For Ballot

(Reuters) – Supporters of legalizing marijuana for recreational use have submitted enough signatures to put the matter to voters in Washington state in a bold move that, if successful, could put Olympia on a collision course with the federal government.

The group New Approach Washington submitted nearly 278,000 valid signatures for the measure, more than required to put it on the November ballot, David Ammons, a spokesman for the Washington Secretary of State’s office, said in a statement.

The move comes as federal prosecutors have sought to crank up pressure on several mostly western states, including Washington, that have legalized medical marijuana even as cannibis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law.

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BREAKING NEWS: Novak Djokovic Wins Australian Open

Serbia's Novak Djokovic defeats Spain's Rafael Nadal in longest Grand Slam final in Open era history.


Source Fox News

Gingrich: ‘You Cannot Debate Somebody Who Is Dishonest’

Newt Gingrich said today that Mitt Romney was the reason for his poor performance in the most recent Republican presidential debate — but not the former Massachusetts governor’s rhetorical skills or command of the issues. “You cannot debate somebody who is dishonest. You just can’t,” he said. “The people say I’m a good debater. I can’t debate somebody who won’t tell the truth.”

Gingrich said he admittedly backed down at Thursday’s debate. He went back and watched the last two debates and was not happy with either one of them.

 “A couple scenes you can go back and replay, I’m staring in amazement. I know what he’s saying is untrue. And I also know that in that particular audience it would not have worked to take him head on,” Gingrich said.

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Police Use Tear Gas On Oakland Occupy Protesters

(AP)  

OAKLAND, Calif. - Police used tear gas and "flash" grenades to break up hundreds of Occupy protesters in Oakland, Calif., after officers say some demonstrators threw rocks and flares at them, tore down fences and ignored orders to leave.

Police say three officers were injured and 19 people were arrested.

Oakland police said in a release that the crowd started assembling downtown Saturday morning and then marched through the streets, disrupting traffic.

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74 Cats In A Camper: Owner May Face Charges

AUBURN, Wash. -- A man who had 74 cats and one dog crammed in his camper may faces charges of second-degree animal cruelty, authorities say.

Jerry Reynolds, who is originally from Oregon, has been living in his truck for the last five weeks while he visits his girlfriend at Auburn Regional Medical Center, NBC station KING 5 of Seattle reported.

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Tony Perkins: Star Wars ‘Surrenders To Gay Empire’

An evangelical leader is calling on his army of followers to take action against a software company for allowing same sex relationships to be represented in a new Star Wars video game.

 Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council — a hate group, according the the Southern Poverty Law Center — took to the radio to denounce Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.

 “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!” Perkinsannounced during his daily radio commentary. “In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side. The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships.”

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Va. Lawmaker Proposes Selling Marijuana In Liquor Stores

RICHMOND — Del. David L. Englin wants you to know that he’s no pothead.

The husband, father and Air Force veteran said he has never smoked marijuana — let alone inhaled — but he still wants to study the possibility of legalizing the drug in Virginia.

Englin (D-Alexandria) has introduced a billthis legislative session that would create a group to figure out how much money the state could reap if it legalized marijuana and sold it in more than 300 Virginia liquor stores.

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Texans Billed $800K For Rick Perry's Security

Texas taxpayers have been billed nearly $800,000 for security during part of Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign, according to news reports.

 The Austin American-Statesman and other news outlets reported Texans were billed that amount to pay for security for Perry to 48 out-of-state destinations from September through November.

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California Passes Sweeping Auto Emission Standards

SAN FRANCISCO –  Seeking to influence other states and Washington, California air regulators passed sweeping auto emission standards Friday that include a mandate to have 1.4 million electric and hybrid vehicles on state roads by 2025.

The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved the new rules that require that one in seven of the new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle.

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Dolphin, Seal Deaths Plague New England

BOSTON — Whether they got lost, sick or swam astray chasing food, 77 dolphins that beached on Cape Cod in recent weeks have died, the second time in three months New England has seen a mass of marine mammal deaths.

Now, scientists are trying to figure out why.

They're also researching whether there's any connection to a die-off this fall of 162 harbor seals, whose carcasses were found between northern Massachusetts and Maine.

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Rev. Wildmon: Palin Is Right, Newt Being 'Crucified'

One of the nation's most influential Christian and family leaders, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, says Sarah Palin is right, Newt Gingrich is being "crucified" by the Republican establishment and forces allied with Mitt Romney.

Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, has strongly endorsed Gingrich for president, and this week has been urging fellow believers to vote in Florida's primary for the former House Speaker.

Wildmon has spent decades on the front-lines of the battle to protect American families and says Gingrich is the best choice for Christian conservatives who want a president to stand against a rising tide of secularism and anti-Christian sentiment.

On Thursday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stated on the Fox Business channel: "Look at Newt Gingrich, what's going on with him via the establishment's attacks. They're trying to crucify this man and rewrite history and rewrite what it is that he has stood for all these years.”

In an interview with Newsmax Friday, Wildmon told Newsmax “That’s very tough language. But I think it’s probably pretty accurate.”

Wildmon said Gingrich is up against entrenched political forces who are “absolutely” trying to dictate who wins the GOP nomination.

“The mainstream media and the established Republicans would rather have anybody than Newt,” Wildmon said. “This is what really worries them. [Thursday] they went on a rampage, got five or six well known people, former colleagues of his, criticizing him. They’re going after him. That’s going to be his biggest obstacle to overcome.”

Asked why he didn’t endorse former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, as have several other Christian leaders, Wildmon replied: “You’re basically going to vote for the man you think can do the best job. I believe that Newt, of all the candidates, can do a better job of getting the country back to where it’s supposed to be.”

Wildmon has also stated that Gingrich passes two key criteria: he's the only candidate who can defeat both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Rev. Wildmon is aware that some have criticized Gingrich for his personal life and "baggage."

But Wildmon says he has met privately with Gingrich and believes he is a changed man and has accepted Christ as his savior.

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NBC Asks Romney To Remove News Material From Ad

NBC asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday to pull a campaign advertisement made up almost entirely of a 1997 "Nightly News" report on Newt Gingrich's ethics committee reprimand.

The "History Lesson" ad started running in Florida on the weekend, when it is harder for stations to switch ad traffic even if they want to. Broadcast days before Tuesday's primary, the ad shows former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw saying that some of Gingrich's House colleagues had raised questions about the then-speaker's "future effectiveness."

Under Brokaw's image is a line that reads — "Paid for by Romney for President, Approved by Mitt Romney."

The footage was used without permission and the extensive use of the broadcast "inaccurately suggests that NBC News and Mr. Brokaw have consented to the use of this material and agree with the political position espoused by the videos," NBC's vice president of media law, David N. Sternlicht, wrote Romney's campaign manager, Matt Rhoades.

"Aside from the obvious copyright issues, this use of the voice of Mr. Brokaw and the NBC News name exploits him and the journalistic credibility of NBC News," the letter said. The network asked for the campaign to stop running the ad immediately and revise any other videos or commercials to remove at NBC material.

"As a news organization, NBC News objects to any use of NBC News journalists and our copyrighted material that suggests to the public that we or our journalists are taking sides with any individual or organization involved in a political campaign or dispute, and we request that your organization respect that concern," the letter said.

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said the campaign isn't likely to stop running the ad.

"We just received the letter. We are reviewing it, but we believe it falls within fair use," he said. "We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30 seconds."

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Palin Accuses GOP Of 'Stalin-esque' Attack On Gingrich

Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) sharply criticized the Republican Party “establishment” for using what she called a “Stalin-esque rewriting of history” to tar Newt Gingrich as he fights for the GOP presidential nomination.

Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, posted a nearly 1,400-word statement on her Facebook page on Friday in which she accused Republican party elders of employing “tactics of the left” to derail the Gingrich campaign.


“The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent,” Palin wrote. “What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.”
Palin has all but endorsed the Gingrich candidacy, saying before last week’s South Carolina primary that she would have voted for him if she had the chance. In her Facebook essay, she argued as she did in South Carolina that the GOP primary should go on so that each candidate, and particularly front-runner Mitt Romney, could be vetted by the public.

She did not call out Gingrich’s critics by name, but two of the most prominent in the last week have been Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who tapped Palin as his running mate four years ago, and Bob Dole, the party’s presidential nominee in 1996. Palin defended Gingrich, saying that while he is an “imperfect vessel for Tea Party support,” he “fought in the trenches during the Reagan revolution.”

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Cain Endorses Gingrich For President

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination late on Saturday – at the same time accepting a position as the former House Speaker’s tax reform chairman.

The author of the now-famous 9-9-9 tax plan announced his endorsement in West Palm Beach, Florida, three days ahead of that state’s vital primary. The endorsement is a welcome boost for Gingrich, who has found himself having to defend himself against a vicious onslaught of attacks from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"It is time for conservatives and Republicans to refocus their attention on the ultimate mission of defeating President Obama," Cain said at the Palm Beach County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner. "I believe Speaker Gingrich is the bold leader we need to accomplish this mission."

Gingrich said he was “honored” to have Cain’s support and immediately announced that the former pizza mogul would co-chair his tax reform and economic growth advisory council.

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Today's Weather 01/29/12

Today

High
50°F

Precip
10%

Tonight

Overnight Low
31°F

Precip
10%

Weather Channel