Two weeks ago, Ms. Quinn was facing her first major public embarrassment: the disclosure that she had not known, or had been less than forthright, about the strange way the Council handled its discretionary funds. Now she is facing what may be a more serious threat to her political future: the growing rebellion of council members who have criticized her attempts to limit damage from the revelations as amounting to a surrender of power to the mayor.
With little notice or briefing to council members, Ms. Quinn held a news conference last Friday to unveil a plan to allocate discretionary grants through a competitive process overseen by the mayor’s Office of Contracts, severely curtailing the Council’s latitude.
Some have called her dishonest. Some have called for her to resign. William C. Thompson Jr., the city comptroller and a potential rival in a race for the mayor’s office, has said he would police the Council’s spending. And Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said he wanted the administration to oversee all but the smallest Council appropriations.
The madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was recently convicted on federal charges stemming from operating a prostitution service in the Washington, D.C. area with a number of high-profile clients. She was scheduled to be sentenced July 24.
Palfrey told ABC News last year she would never return to prison, after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges. "I sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years."
Palfrey's 76-year-old mother, Blanche, found her daughter's body in a shed to the side of her home, according to police. Palfrey had hung herself with nylon rope from a beam in the shed's ceiling, the police said.
ABC reporter Jake Tapper on Wednesday night undermined Hillary Clinton's campaign trail tale blaming the Bush administration for allowing a Valparaiso, Indiana manufacturer of magnets for smart-bombs to move to China, costing 200 jobs and giving the technology to the communist regime. Tapper, however, pointed out that the sale occurred in 1995 and was approved by....the Clinton administration. “Senator Clinton decries how the company Magnequench moved from Indiana to China in 2003,” Tapper reported, “but there's one key part of the story Senator Clinton tends to leave out: Her husband's role.” He elaborated:Over and over again, Clinton blames President Bush for dropping the ball on a national security issue -- including in a new TV ad....What Clinton does not say is that her husband could have stopped it because the Chinese bought Magnequench in 1995 when he was President. And his administration approved the deal despite national security concerns...As for “one of Senator Clinton's main arguments” -- that “the Chinese now know our secrets” -- Tapper relayed how “former Magnequench Vice President Andrew Albers says that's false. By the 2003 move, he says, the Chinese already knew everything” so no secrets or intellectual property were transferred to China.
ABC News' Nitya Venkataraman Reports: In a Tuesday appearance on Good Morning America, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., suggested that controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright is angry with parishioner Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and may be deliberately trying to hurt his presidential bid.
Saying that Wright "went out of his way to weaken Obama" during Monday's address at the National Press Club, Gingrich told Barbara Walters "I think Reverend Wright has a greater interest in his self-importance."
Gingrich described Obama former pastor as "hard-line anti-American", and said "if Rev. Wright continues to talk that the burden that Sen. Obama carries becomes bigger and bigger. "
Gingrich described Obama's challenges as "two-fold", citing "left-wing relationships" calling the Illinois senator "disingenuous" about them.
Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said."It is very surprising, shocking that she wasn't allowed medical intervention," Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad said. "Her death could have been prevented."
Madeline Neumann died March 23 -- Easter Sunday -- at her family's rural Weston home. Her parents were told the body would be taken to Madison for an autopsy the next day.
"They responded, 'You won't need to do that. She will be alive by then,"' the medical examiner wrote in a report.
An autopsy determined that Madeline died from undiagnosed diabetic ketoacidosis, which left her with too little insulin in her body. Court records said she likely had some symptoms of the disease for months.Liberals have already attacked the Neumanns for their supposed Christian zealotry, but this isn't about faith, it's about an un-Godly cult engaging in abuse and negligence towards kids and that's why the charge makes perfect sense.
Former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said he would turn down an offer to run for vice president on John McCain’s ticket.
“That’s not in the cards,” the former senator said during on interview on Fox’s “Hannity and Colmes” on Thursday.
“That’s not what I want. And I don’t think that call [from McCain] would ever happen. I think John needs somebody else.”
Thompson also said: “The presidency is the only job in town that’s worth going through what you got to go through to get it, including the vice presidency…
Probably not enough vacation time in that VP job for Fred either.
Posts
All Comments
