US News - News April 30, 2011

Calif. May Let Locals Opt Out Of Immigration Checks (KNX-AM Los Angeles)
California lawmakers are the latest to weigh joining efforts in other states to gain control over a controversial national program that automatically checks the immigration status of arrestees.

Political perils abound in online rumor hothouse (Kansas City Star)
How quaint: Candidate Bill Clinton's big weapon against political attacks in 1992 was an impressive new technology called the blast fax.Fast forward two decades, and a president juggling three conflicts abroad and a budget crisis feels compelled to stand at the White House podium to swat at already-discredited questions about his place of birth.The ...

Volunteers aid storm survivors (Deseret News)
Church groups, students and other volunteers worked aggressively Saturday to bring food, water and other necessities to communities ravaged by the second-deadliest day of tornadoes in history.

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Tax, spending divisions laid bare in public forums (The State)
Peter Cass could stand it no longer as he listened to the Republican congressman defend a plan to cut taxes and Medicare simultaneously.

Obama keeps up push to end gas, oil tax breaks (The Brainerd Daily Dispatch)
President Barack Obama says oil companies are profiting from rising pump prices and he wants Congress to end $4 billion in annual tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

Zombie Attack: GOP Congressmen Sees Walking Dead Protest About Medicare, Medicaid Cuts (huliq)
IN 2009, Rep. Alan Grayson famously said the Republican Health Plan would be for Americans to not get sick, and if they do get sick, die quickly, a sentiment echoed by zombies protesting outside 8th District Republican Congressman Daniel Webster's office on Thursday.

Donald Trump's Lunacy Reveals Core Truth About the Republicans | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet (alte)
Sarah Palin told cheering rallies that her message to the world was: "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way!" – but that wasn't enough. So the party found Michele Bachmann, who said darkly it was an "interesting coincidence" that swine flu only breaks out under Democratic presidents, claims the message of The Lion King is "I'm better at what I do because I'm gay", and argues "there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." Enter stage (far) right Donald Trump, the bewigged billionaire who has filled America with phallic symbols and plastered his name across more surfaces than the average Central Asian dictator. CNN's polling suggests he is the most popular candidate among Republican voters. It's not hard to see why. Trump is every trend in Republican politics over the past 35 years taken to its logical conclusion. He is the Republican id, finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and all reality. The first trend is towards naked imperialism. On Libya, he says: "I would go in and take the oil... I would take the oil and stop this baby stuff." The second trend is towards dog-whistle prejudice – pitched just high enough for frightened white Republicans to hear it. The Republican primary voters heard the message right: the black guy is foreign. He's not one of us. Trump answered these charges by saying: "I've always had a great relationship with the blacks." The third trend is towards raw worship of wealth as an end in itself – and exempting them from all social responsibility. Trump is wealthy because his father left him a large business, and since then companies with his name on them have crashed into bankruptcy four times.

Quiet for a while, Palin's voice is back (Kansas City Star)
Sarah Palin has had a sliding spring.Her support among Republicans has shrunk. She's kept an uncharacteristically low profile.

Activist sues Sarah Palin for $100K over traffic (KIMA)
An activist is suing Sarah Palin for at least $100,000, claiming she undertook a campaign to "punish, embarrass, discredit and silence" him while she was Alaska's governor.

Obama pledges help for illegal immigrant grads (Courier News)
Stepping up his demand to change the nation's immigration laws, President Barack Obama promised graduates at a vast, multicultural community college in Miami on Friday that he'll keep working to help students not legally in the U.S. to become American citizens.

Potential GOP hopeful Huntsman returning to US (Deseret Morning News)
U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is returning to the United States this weekend amid speculation that he could be mounting a Republican campaign for the White House.

GOP presidential hopefuls make case in NH (Athens Banner-Herald)
With Republican activists saying they finally feel the 2012 presidential contest is under way, five potential GOP candidates used one stage in New Hampshire Friday to chastise President Barack Obama and call for lower taxes and less regulation.

US lawmakers press Sony for info on data breach (WWSB)
U.S. lawmakers are pressing Sony Corp. for more information about the loss of personal data in a security breach that affected 77 million accounts on its PlayStation Network.

Ill. Mayor Prepares Residents To Evacuate Flood (Click2Houston)
An Illinois mayor urged some residents on Friday to make plans to evacuate the town as the flood-engorged Mississippi River reached record levels.

White House, SF Chronicle In Conflict Over Reportera s Video (CBS 5)
When a San Francisco Chronicle reporter put down her pen and picked up a video camera, the White House said she broke the rules.