A coloring book aimed at teaching children about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 has generated controversy for its depiction of Muslims and interpretation of the events.

“It’s disgusting,” said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who has lead the charge against what he sees as an irresponsible and dangerous book. Read More

WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to rally Christian conservative leaders in Texas this weekend to discuss strategies for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The event will be hosted by Dr. James Leininger, a millionaire Christian right figure who was once the biggest political donor in Texas and an early and crucial benefactor to Perry’s political career.

Leininger is not widely known outside of Texas, but inside the state he is seen as a pioneer of political donations to conservative politicians and causes. The conservative activist made his millions selling hospital beds, and since the 1980s he has pushed a mix of religious right fervor and pro-business activism, which is now reflected in the politics of all major Texas Republican figures, particularly Perry. Since 1989, Leininger, who is worth more than $300 million, and his wife have donated at least $6.9 million to political parties, political action committees and state and federal candidates, according to data obtained by TransparencyData.com, a site run by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to increase government transparency. He has also created a host of nonprofits, most prominently the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), to advance his conservative political agenda.

“James Leininger has been the sugar daddy of the far right in Texas,” said Kathy Miller, the president of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit supporting religious freedom and individual liberties in Texas. “He is probably one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party of Texas’ move to far-right extremism.”

Leininger has been particularly helpful to Perry over the years. In 1998, Perry was in a close contest for Texas lieutenant governor with Democrat John Sharp. In the waning weeks of the campaign, Perry and Sharp were neck-and-neck, and Perry was running low on funds. Leininger stepped forward with a $1.1 million loan to the campaign, enabling Perry to increase advertising when many voters were just beginning paying attention. Perry won that race by a hair. Since then, Leininger has donated more than $250,000 to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns. A request put into Leininger’s office for comment was not returned by Saturday morning.

A report released on Wednesday by Texans for Public Justice documented the many ties between Perry and Leininger. Of particular note, Perry and Leininger have participated together in a number of financial transactions, including investments by Perry in one of Leininger’s companies.

Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, told The Huffington Post, “What puts the relationship between Perry and Leininger apart is these personal financial deals.”

According to the report, Perry made a quick $4,500 from a stock purchase and sale in Leininger’s Kinetic Concepts, Inc., the hospital bed manufacturer that made Leininger a millionaire. Perry’s stock purchase came after meeting with Leininger and immediately before an investment group started buying up Kinetic Concepts shares, driving up the price of the stock. In total, Perry would wind up making $38,000 off of Kinetic stock investments.

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People who do not believe President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 have stepped up their requests for proof of his birth this month, in the hopes that the new gubernatorial administration will offer more information.

The state Department of Health says it has received 27 requests for information about Obama’s birth certificate this month, compared with 16 in November. There were 16 requests alone in the first half of this week, although most came from a single person.

Since 2008, “birthers,” who believe Obama was born in Kenya and thus ineligible to be president, have been requesting information from the state about his birth. The requests continued despite Obama’s camp releasing a copy of his certificate of live birth and reports of Obama’s birth announcements published in 1961 in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser.

Three weeks into his term, newly elected Gov. Neil Abercrombie told The New York Times that with regard to the birthers, he is “going to take care of that.”

Read More @ The Honolulu Star Advertiser

A Virginia judge’s ruling earlier this month that a key provision of President Barack Obama’s health care law is unconstitutional was hailed as a major breakthrough for all segments of the Republican Party save, perhaps, one.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.), whose own successful dalliance with health care reform in Massachusetts is cited as an intellectual model for Obamacare, stands to gain little from this specific policy topic being at the center of political discourse.

At least that’s how the conventional wisdom goes. And in the wake of Judge Henry E. Hudson’s decision, there was, as expected, another wave of debate over Romney’s own role in championing the individual mandate for insurance coverage — the provision that was ruled unconstitutional.

Whether this pattern persists through the 2012 elections (should Romney run) depends on the whims of legal processes and the vindictiveness of the rest of the Republican presidential field. Romney, after all, was not the first conservative to champion an individual mandate. The Heritage Foundation did so as well. But the former governor tends to get the preponderance of attention when the conversation turns in that direction.

As the scrutiny mounts, Romney has begun to fine-tune his pitch for why his own plan made for sound policy, but Obama’s amounted to an “unconstitutional power grab by Washington,” as aide Eric Fehrnstrom put it.

For starters, team Romney has begun arguing that the better indication of his policy preference would be the 2008 campaign’s white paper, not the Massachusetts model. The former, as Fehrnstrom noted in a pre-Christmas exchange with the Huffington Post, is a reflection of what Romney would do nationally — a “federalist approach to health care reform.” It doesn’t have an individual mandate but, rather, encourages states to deregulate their insurance markets.

“Mitt said repeatedly in the 2008 campaign that his plan was not designed for the nation as a whole,” said Fehrnstrom. “He said states may want to copy parts of it, and perhaps improve on its features, but he was very explicit in saying the federal government should not impose a one-size-fits-all plan on the entire nation.”

Nearly 100 banks previously rescued by the federal government are again poised to fail, despite billions of dollars of support from the American Treasury.

The number of banks on the brink of collapse rose from 86 to 98 during the summer months, according to analysis of federal data from the Wall Street Journal. The banks in question have received $4.2 billion dollars in aid through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Most of the troubled institutions are relatively small.

The latest sign of distress in the financial system suggests the bailout may have simply been a stopgap solution for a sector still contending with the aftershocks of the greatest banking crisis in 80 years.

The continued weakness of some banks now threatens to impede a tentative economic recovery, say experts. With many banks still troubled, lending remains tight, depriving businesses of capital to expand and hire. With expansion and hiring rare, the economy remains weak, depriving the banks of healthy customers–in short, a feedback loop of trouble.

The Wall Street Journal defined “troubled banks” as those with less than 6 percent of their primary assets both reliable and liquid.

Through TARP, the government has purchased hundreds of billions of troubled assets from banks in danger. Though the program was purportedly meant to benefit healthy institutions with a good chance of survival, these latest failures suggest that many banks were in tenuous shape to begin with. Seven TARP recipients have already failed, at a loss of $2.7 billion.

But some analysts pointed to the fact that most of the failing institutions are relatively small in dismissing concerns.

From the Huffington Post

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle began their second day in India at The Holy Name High School in Mumbai. Michelle donned a black-and-white sheath, a pink cardigan and black kitten heels — let’s call them her dancing shoes, because, yes, there was more dancing involved today. Read More

WASHINGTON — Signaling how difficult it will be for the Republican Party to live up to its campaign promises of cutting spending while preserving the Bush tax cuts and not cutting benefits for seniors, Tea Party favorites Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) struggled on Sunday to actually name any specific cuts they plan on making. Read More

Sarah Palin’s Alaska, premiering on TLC on Nov. 14, adds “TV host” to Palin’s crowded résumé.
Palin also is a wife, a mother of five and a grandmother, of course, and her new series integrates her home life with Alaska’s great outdoors.
Judging from the first of eight episodes, Sarah Palin’s Alaska keeps politics out of the picture. Sure, the show is effective in selling the Palin brand. But along the way, Palin throws herself into selling the grandeur of Alaska.
The much-anticipated documentary series, shot last summer, is based at Palin’s lakeside home in Wasilla. There, cupcakes are baked and kids do their chores (or hear about it from Palin). Then Palin sets off, with family members in tow, on a jaunt such as salmon fishing on Big River Lake, where, almost within reach at the shoreline, a family of bears keeps them amused.
“Girls, when you cast, don’t aim toward the bear,” Palin cautions daughter Piper and niece McKinley in their boat.
Later in the program, Palin demonstrates mettle (and alarm) as she goes rock-climbing with her husband, Todd, at Denali National Park

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is facing fire from Republicans in his home state for making critical comments about the Tea Party movement. If you think that’s big..check this out. Read More