Michael J. Fox on the phrase his wife can't stand
The actor talks about his low-key 25th anniversary and the two words that irk his spouse, Tracy. 'She doesn't want to hear that' »
Friday, January 31, 2014
That Is The Party That......
MSNBC apologizes for Cheerios tweet that offended Republicans
January 30, 2014 5:58 PM
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus leaves the stage after addressing the Faith and …
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said on Thursday he accepted an apology from the president of MSNBC over a tweet from the network that said "the rightwing" might disapprove of a Cheerios television ad featuring a biracial family.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin issued a statement saying the staffer responsible for the Wednesday night tweet had been fired.
"The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable," Griffin said. "We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it ... I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended."
Priebus had banned RNC staffers from appearing on MSNBC, urged other Republicans to follow suit and demanded an apology because of the Twitter posting.
The cable news network's tweet said: "Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family." The tweet was sent to promote an MSNBC story on the breakfast cereal commercial, which will be broadcast during Sunday's Super Bowl.
The ad stars Grace Colbert, 6, as the daughter of a fictional biracial couple. Last year, she was in a similar Cheerios commercial, which triggered racist comments when it was posted on YouTube, Google Inc's video-sharing site.
An RNC statement said Priebus and Griffin spoke by phone on Thursday and that the party would continue to monitor the network, which is seen as having a liberal bent.
"We don't expect their liberal bias to change but we will call them out when political commentary devolves into personal and belittling attacks," the statement said.
In a letter to Griffin, Priebus had said the Cheerios tweet showed that MSNBC "is poisoned by this pattern of behavior."
"Sadly, such petty and demeaning attacks have become a pattern at your network," Priebus said. "With increasing frequency many of your hosts have personally denigrated Americans - especially conservative and Republican Americans - without even attempting further meaningful political dialogue."
Earlier this month, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry apologized on the air for a segment that joked about the adopted black grandson of Mitt Romney, the Republicans' unsuccessful 2012 presidential candidate.
The segment featured a photo of Romney and his wife with their grandchildren and members of a panel were asked to suggest captions.
Actress Pia Glenn sang that "one of these things is not like the others," while comedian Dean Obeidallah joked that the photo "really sums up the diversity of the Republican Party." Romney later accepted Harris-Perry's apology.
In December, correspondent Martin Bashir apologized and resigned from MSNBC because of graphic on-air comments he made about former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In November, actor Alec Baldwin was suspended from his MSNBC show after he used a homophobic term in a confrontation with a photographer on a New York street. Baldwin's show was later canceled.
MSNBC is owned by Comcast Corp.
(Reporting and writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Peter Cooney, G Crosse and Mohammad Zargham)
Didn't Blanche Do This On "The Golden Girls"
Drunk man mistakes police officer for stripper, gets arrested
No matter who he thought the officer was, Peterlee, England resident Paul Harbord’s actions late last year are pretty reprehensible. The Telegraph reports that the 27-year-old rigger was drinking with friends at a local bar. It seems they had had too much to drink, because a female police officer, “walked in to investigate their ‘rowdy’ behavior.” This led up to Mr. Harbord’s big mistake.
The Sunderland Echo reports that Mr. Harbord and his friends were dressed up and were expecting “entertainment.” Harbord thought the female police officer was an exotic dancer. Prosecutor Vicky Wilson said that, “Harbord shouted, ‘Look, here is one of the strippers’ as he flicked a bar towel in the officer’s face.’” There’s a lot of poor behavior here (like, let’s say, treating any person like this). While acting like a cad can’t always get one in trouble with the law, this time it did. Harbord was arrested and would later plead guilty to obstructing a police officer.
Mr. Harbord’s attorney, Jaxon Taylor said, “He honestly didn’t believe it was a police officer until he was taken to Peterlee police station. He was quite embarrassed by the whole situation. It was an honest and genuine mistake.” According to the Echo, Harbord was given a six-month conditional discharge, and had to pay £100 ($165) in fines.
More info: Telegraph, Sunderland Echo
Oh, Just Any Argument
President Shouldn't Be Blowing Pot Smoke
For the president to engage in such discourse about marijuana is distressing.
Jan. 30, 2014 4:26 p.m. ET
Regarding your editorial "The President Inhales" (Jan. 22): For the president to engage in such discourse about marijuana is distressing. He shows the same lack of critical thinking as do most people who claim that it is not more dangerous than alcohol. Absent from his statement is the fact that marijuana is often only one drug of many in the user's pharmacy. The president's words will certainly give permission to multitudes of people already abusing or dependent on the drug.
As a board-certified physician in addiction medicine and a recovering addict, I see the damage that marijuana causes patients every day. Comments such as Mr. Obama's make the process of helping people recover all the more difficult.
Skip Sviokla, M.D. ABAM
Oh, Just Let Them !!!
As Senate campaigns begin, some Democrats flee Obama
By John Whitesides14 hours ago
By John Whitesides
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Spooked by President Barack Obama's low approval ratings, some of his fellow Democrats in tough November election races have begun their campaigns by distancing themselves from the White House and asserting their independence from Obama's policies.
In what amounts to a survival-first strategy among embattled Democrats crucial to the party's effort to keep control of the Senate, some candidates in conservative states Obama lost in 2012 are aggressively criticizing his healthcare, energy and regulatory policies.
The group includes three incumbent senators, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska, as well as Natalie Tennant, who is seeking to replace retiring Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.
Other Democratic senators facing tough battles for re-election have not been as critical of Obama, but have signaled they might not do much campaigning with him.
Democratic Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina recently passed on a chance to appear publicly with Obama, saying she had another commitment. Begich and another Democrat up for re-election, Mark Udall of Colorado, have expressed skepticism about the idea of campaigning with the president.
Each of the Democratic senators is facing persistent criticism from Republicans who cast them as rubber stamps for parts of Obama's agenda that are particularly unpopular in their states.
The growing distance between these Democrats and Obama's White House was evident this week in Washington, where their responses to the president's State of the Union address ranged from muted to chilly.
Begich said after the speech that, if Obama came to Alaska, he would be "not really interested in campaigning" with him, but would "drag him around" to show him how the administration's policies have hurt the state by limiting oil and gas development and the issuance of logging permits.
"I don't need him campaigning for me. I need him to change some of his policies," Begich told CNN.
Democratic senators are not the only candidates in their party keeping some distance from Obama. In Wisconsin, a state the president won in the 2012 election, Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke skipped an appearance by Obama in Waukesha on Thursday. She said she had a previously scheduled commitment.
Deciding how to handle a president in their party whose approval ratings are down is a common quandary for candidates in midterm elections. Many Republicans stayed away from then-President George W. Bush in 2006, when his slumping approval ratings and the unpopularity of the Iraq war helped fuel a Democratic blitz that gave the party control of both houses of Congress and most state governorships.
This year, the problem for Democrats is reflected in Obama's sagging approval ratings after a year in which his healthcare overhaul got off to a rocky start, and critics have cast his policies as causing a decline in American influence around the world.
Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls on Thursday indicated that 38 percent of Americans nationwide had a favorable view of the job Obama is doing, while nearly 53 percent disapproved. A year ago, 52 percent viewed Obama favorably and 43 percent did not.
DEMOCRATS WORRIED
Obama's low ratings have contributed to Democrats' worries that regaining a majority in the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives could be out of reach, and losing control of the Senate is a possibility.
In the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans need to win a net six seats in the November 4 elections to reclaim a majority, Democrats must defend seats in seven states where Republican Mitt Romney beat Obama in 2012. Obama's ratings are particularly low in those states: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
Republicans have launched ads in several states reminding voters of the ties between Obama and local Democrats, especially Senate Democrats who supported the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 healthcare law also known as Obamacare. The law aims to help millions of uninsured Americans get health coverage and provides a range of consumer protections. Republicans say it will raise costs and limit healthcare choices.
"It's going to be very difficult for a lot of these Democrats because they will own Obama's agenda, no matter how hard they try not to," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
"Obama will be a drag on them because he reminds voters of how far the party has shifted to the left."
HAVE TO BE ON THE OFFENSIVE
Obama and his aides have largely sidestepped questions about the efforts of fellow Democrats to distance themselves from the president, who will talk with senators at a Democratic retreat next week.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said this week he expected the party's Senate candidates to welcome Obama into their states to campaign. Democratic strategists, meanwhile, are casting the November elections as contests between candidates, not a referendum on the president.
"What those candidates have to decide, especially in those tough states, is how they are going to talk about these big issues like Obamacare," said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis. "They have to be on the offensive."
Senator Landrieu, who is likely to face a difficult re-election battle against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, recently introduced legislation to allow people to keep their health insurance policies even if those policies did not meet Obamacare's new requirements for coverage. In her first campaign ad, she criticized Obama for breaking his promise that all Americans who liked their health plan could keep it.
"This is a promise that you made. This is a promise that you should keep," Landrieu, who voted for Obamacare, says in the ad.
Pryor, who faces a challenge from Republican Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas and is perhaps the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election, seemed to echo Republicans' criticism of Obama after the president's speech before Congress on Tuesday.
Pryor highlighted his opposition to Obama's push for gun control and additional farm regulations. Pryor also was critical of delays by Obama's administration in deciding the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would help bring oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Pryor supports the pipeline.
"I've always said that I'll work with the president when I think he's right, but oppose him when I think he's wrong," Pryor said in a statement. "I'll continue to oppose his agenda when it's bad for Arkansas and our country."
West Virginia Democrat Tennant, who has an uphill battle against Republican Shelly Moore Capito to keep a Democrat in Rockefeller's seat, has been criticizing the administration's regulation of the coal industry, saying it was eliminating jobs in her state.
"If the president wants to promote opportunity, he needs to rethink his energy policies. The president is wrong on coal and I will fight him or anyone else who wants to take our coal jobs," Tennant added.
(Editing by David Lindsey and Andre Grenon)
Work Of The Devil
Registered nurse, 65, accused of attempted murder 'for injecting FECES into husband's IV after his heart surgery'
- Rosemary Vogel charged with first-degree attempted murder for allegedly trying to kill her 66-year-old husband
- Nurses at Chandler Regional Medical Center in Arizona caught Vogel manipulating IV line and then trying to dispose of its contents
- Medical tests of 'brown substance' found in IV line and on syringe needle confirmed it was fecal matter
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Bizarre plot: Rosemary Vogel, 65, of Sun Lakes, Arizona, has been charged with first-degree attempted murder for allegedly injecting fecal matter into her hospitalized husband's IV line
An Arizona woman has been charged with attempted murder after police say she injected fecal matter into her hospitalized husband’s IV line.
Rosemary Vogel, of Sun Lakes, was arrested Thursday after a nurse caught the 65-year-old handling her husband’s IV line, which was found to contain a brown substance, police said.
A hospital lab test identified the matter in the IV line as feces, and a trace amount of the same brown substance also was found in the needle of an otherwise empty syringe found in Vogel’s purse, according to police.
When it was searched in the hospital, Vogel’s pocketbook contained a total of three syringes, including two with a clear liquid, police said.
Records showed that Mrs Vogel is a registered nurse who formerly worked at the hospital, Chandler Regional Medical Center.
Investigators plan to conduct forensic tests on all the materials involved over the next week or two, police Sgt. Joe Favazzo said.
However, the hospital had to test the brown substance in the IV line immediately for treatment purposes.
‘The lab came back with fecal matter,’ he said.
The incident occurred after the 66-year-old man had undergone a heart procedure. He’s expected to survive that, as well as the alleged attempt on his life.
+3
Caught in the act: Nurses at Chandler Regional Medical Center, where Vogel used to work, found the woman manipulating her husband's IV
Police have yet to determine the motive behind the attack. Mrs Vogel declined to be interviewed by police and asked for an attorney.
According to a police report, Mrs Vogel was sitting with her husband in a Chandler Regional Medical Center recovery room at around 1.30pm Thursday following a procedure on his heart.
A pair of nurses walked into the room and noticed the wife in the act of handling her husband's IV line, which caused an alarm to go off.
Herself a registered nurse, Rosemary Vogel told her former colleagues that the IV line needed to be flushed.
That is when another hospital staffer discovered a brown substance in the medical equipment and removed the line from the patient’s arm, noting that the Iv smelled like feces, the station WFSB reported.
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Contaminated: A hospital staffer observed that the 66-year-old patient's IV line contained a brown substance and smelled of feces
The nurse went for help, and upon her return she found the 65-yar-old wife trying to empty the contaminated IV bag into the trash, only to have one of the hospital personnel snatch it out of her hands, according to the report.
The suspect initially had faced a charge of aggravated assault, which was later upgraded to first-degree attempted murder.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549852/Registered-nurse-65-accused-attempted-murder-injecting-FECES-husbands-IV-heart-surgery.html#ixzz2s1huTiFD
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