Barack Obama Would Have Fired Mark Penn Too

From Foxnews.com

Barack Obama got personal Friday, saying Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist Mark Penn, who was demoted earlier this week, deserved what he got.

In Indianapolis, reporters asked Obama about Penn, who left his campaign post Sunday after being harshly criticized for meeting with Colombian officials to discuss advocating a free-trade deal that Clinton vehemently opposes. Penn is the CEO of a public relations firm that represents Colombia on this issue.

“I think it was surprising to me that a high-ranking, if not the highest-ranking, member of Senator Clinton’s team would be engaged in business activities and lobbying that was directly contrary to the position Senator Clinton had taken,” Obama said Friday.

“Let me put it this way: I’m not surprised that Senator Clinton found herself in an uncomfortable position as a consequence. And I know that if staff of mine were putting me in that kind of position, I would get rid of them.”

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Fire Destroyed Hillary Clinton’s Indiana Campaign Office

From the AP

Fire destroyed a campaign office of presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in western Indiana early Friday.

Two people were inside when the fire broke out but escaped without injuries, said Terre Haute Fire Department spokesman John Gardner.

Gardner said nothing so far had indicated the fire was arson.

“But we’re doing a full investigation on it like any other commercial structure fire,” he said.

Clinton’s campaign had no immediate comment.

A volunteer firefighter driving past the building in a commercial district along U.S. 41 south of the city’s downtown spotted flames on the roof shortly after midnight and warned those inside, Gardner said.

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Cesar Laurean Captured And Arrested In Mexico

From the AP

A Marine wanted in the brutal slaying of a pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape was arrested Thursday night in Mexico after a three-month international manhunt, authorities said.

FBI agents and Mexican authorities arrested Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean around 7 p.m. EDT. He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, whose burned remains were found in January in the backyard of his home near Camp Lejeune.

“You know my name. You know who I am,” Laurean told The Associated Press while being held at the Michoacan state Attorney General’s Office in Morelia, the state capital.

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4.3 Billion Barrels Of Oil In North Dakota And Montana

From the AP

The government estimates up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.

The U.S. Geological Survey calls it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

An assessment by USGS in 1999 found the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge had 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, said Brenda Pierce, a geologist for the agency

The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface.

Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.

Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey’s assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be a little on the high side.

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Frontier Airlines Files For Bankrupcy

From the AP

Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but unlike other airlines filing for bankruptcy in recent weeks, it plans to keep running while it reorganizes.

The low-fare carrier said its filing Friday came after an unexpected attempt by its principal credit card processor to start withholding significant proceeds from the sale of Frontier tickets, which threatened to hurt Frontier’s liquidity.

The Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York prevents the credit card processor from increasing its “holdback,” Frontier CEO Sean Menke said.

“By filing for Chapter 11, we will now have the time and legal protection necessary to obtain additional financing and enhance our liquidity. Fortunately, we believe that we currently have adequate cash on hand to meet our operating needs while we take steps to further strengthen our company,” Menke said in a statement.

Frontier, whose major hub is in Denver, has been affected as other airlines have by rising fuel costs and the credit crisis in financial markets.

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Sex Offender Ordered By Judge To Post Signs On House And Car

From the AP

Under a judge’s order, a man who has admitted molesting a boy has posted signs around his house and a decal on his car proclaiming that he is a sex offender.

The hand-painted signs reading “A Sex Offender Lives Here” are posted on all four sides of Leroy Schad’s white house in this central Kansas town of only about 150 people. His vehicle has a large decal with bold yellow lettering reading “Sex Offender In This Car.”

Schad, 72, was originally charged with four counts of taking indecent liberties with a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy in 2005. He was allowed to plead guilty in March 2007 to a lesser charge of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child, and the original charges were dismissed.

District Judge Ron Svaty sentenced him to five years of probation and house arrest, and ordered him to post the signs during his punishment.

Schad is appealing the sign requirement. He could have faced about three years behind bars.

“I know that I deserve something for that, but I don’t think I deserve what I got,” he said.

 

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JPMorgan Increases Its Bid For Bear Stearns

From Ken Sweet, FOXbusiness

JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 47.02, +1.05, +2.28%) increased its bid for troubled investment bank Bear Stearns (BSC: 12.56, +6.60, +110.73%) by fivefold on Monday, a week and a day after JPMorgan said $2 a share was its final offer.

According to the terms of the new deal, JPMorgan will buy Bear Stearns for $10 a share.

Also, JPMorgan will purchase 95 million newly-issued shares, representing 39.5% of Bear Stearns stock, in the next couple weeks in order to bypass shareholder approval. The share purchase is expected to be completed around April 8.

Under Delaware state law, where both banks are incorporated, JPMorgan can purchase up to 39.5% of Bear without shareholder approval. This provides JPMorgan the leverage it needs to take over Bear Stearns without having to get a significant shareholder approval.

“We believe the amended terms are fair to all sides and reflect the value and risks of the Bear Stearns franchise,” said JPMorgan Chief Executive Jaime Dimon in a release. He also said the deal will “bring more certainty for our respective shareholders, clients and the marketplace. We look forward to a prompt closing and being able to operate as one company.”

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David Patterson: NY First Black Governor

From the AP

Less than two years after he reluctantly ran for lieutenant governor, David Paterson is suddenly being called on to become only the third black governor since Reconstruction, and the first in New York.

Attention turned to Paterson immediately after word surfaced Monday that Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been linked to a high-priced prostitution ring.

Spitzer announced Wednesday he would resign effective Monday, putting Patterson less than a week away from the governor’s office. He will complete Spitzer’s term, which ends Dec. 31, 2010.

Paterson, a 53-year-old Democrat from Harlem who is mostly blind, is well respected by Republicans and Democrats.

Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch recently called Paterson “very capable, not withstanding his near sightlessness. It’s never impeded his public actions or his personal actions, and he’s really overcome it in an extraordinary way.”

Paterson, who does not use a cane or a guide dog, can make out shapes and even people up close. He lost most of his sight as an infant when an infection damaged his optic nerve. He still talks of his fragile self-esteem in childhood and recalls not being invited to parties because “people thought I would fall and hurt myself.”

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Eliot Spitzer May Have Spent Tens of Thousands of Dollars to a High Priced Prostitution Service

From Foxnews.com

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer faced a crescendo of calls for him to step down Tuesday as sources told the Associated Press that Spitzer had paid tens of thousands of dollars as a repeat customer of a high-priced prostitution service.

The Associated Press, quoting unnamed law enforcement officials, said Spitzer’s running tab for the trysts could have been as high as $80,000.

Earlier Tuesday, the New York Post reported that Spitzer has been soliciting prostitutes at least since 2002, according to unnamed sources.

Spitzer is considering resigning, but there are no plans for such an announcement Tuesday, a spokesman in the governor’s office told FOX News. The spokesman also said Spitzer had not yet come to a decision on whether or not to resign.

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Barack Obama Rejects He Would Be a Vice Presidential Running Mate

From CNN.com

Sen. Barack Obama Monday flatly rejected suggestions he would be a vice presidential running mate for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and her husband, former President Clinton, have suggested a joint Clinton-Obama ticket — with Obama in the second slot.

President Clinton Saturday suggested a Clinton-Obama ticket would be “unstoppable.”

“He would win the urban areas and the upscale voters. She would win the rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president,” he said while campaigning in Pass Christian, Mississippi. “If you put those two things together, you’d have an almost unstoppable force.” Watch Bill Clinton tout a ‘dream ticket’ »

Obama forcefully shot that idea down.

“Sen. Clinton is fighting hard. She’s tenacious. I respect her for that. She is working hard to win the nomination. But I want everybody to be absolutely clear. I’m not running for vice president. I’m running for president of the United States of America,” Obama told supporters during a rally in Columbus, Mississippi.

 

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Who is Eliot Spitzer?

From CNN.com

Federal prosecutors have unsealed an affidavit that details a rendezvous in a Washington hotel room last month between a prostitute and a client who a source tells CNN was New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The affidavit does not mention Spitzer by name, but a source with knowledge of the case said the subject identified as Client 9 is the governor.

Spitzer, who has not been charged, went before reporters Monday to confess to an undisclosed personal indiscretion, saying he had acted “in a way that violates my obligations to my family, that violates my or any sense of right and wrong.”

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Seattle Street of Dreams Fires May be Linked to ELF-Earth Liberation Front

From the AP

Fires gutted three multimillion-dollar model homes in a Seattle suburb on Monday, and authorities found a sign purportedly left by eco-terrorists that mocks claims that the homes were environmentally friendly.

“Built Green? Nope black!” said the spray-painted sign that bore the initials of the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front.

Crews removed explosive devices found in the homes, said Fire Chief Rick Eastman of Snohomish County District 7. The FBI was investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, said FBI spokesman Rich Kolko in Washington, D.C.

 

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