by Newt Gingrich The editorial writers at the New York Times thought they were getting the White House’s back when they defended cuts to Medicare Advantage last week. In fact, they were validating the blatant dishonesty of administration and congressional officials pushing for the cuts. In their editorial last Sunday, the Times writers revealed in stunning fashion the lies that have been used to convince increasingly skeptical seniors that their Medicare Advantage benefits won’t be sacrificed to pay for government-run health care.

In one breath, the Times claimed the effect of Medicare Advantage cuts will be “modest”:

“Although Republican rhetoric has triggered fears that Medicare Advantage enrollees might lose their coverage entirely if private plans drop out of the system, the real effect of the bill would likely be modest on average.”

Then, literally on the next line, the Times contradicts itself, and stumbles inadvertently on to the truth:

“The value of an enrollee’s added benefits would shrink by more than half from current levels but would not disappear; they would still be worth about $500 a year in 2019 (emphasis added).”…

IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee childcare, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

Saying They Should Be Given A Choice, Employees Rally In Albany, Around State, Chant “No Forced Shots!”

STONYBROOK, NY; CBS: Protesters Hold Signs That Read: “The State Doesn’t Own My Body’”

They’re upset over an ultimatum from the health department. Workers are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — To prevent inflation from taking off, the Federal Reserve will need to start boosting interest rates quickly and aggressively once the economy is back on firmer footing, Fed officials warned Tuesday.

“I expect that when it comes time to tighten monetary policy, my colleagues and I will move with an alacrity that, if needed, will be equal in speed and intensity” to when the Fed was slashing rates to battle the recession and the financial crisis, said Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Although Fisher has a reputation for being one of the Fed’s toughest inflation fighters, it marked the second such warning by a central bank official in recent days. Fed member Kevin Warsh on Friday said the central bank will need to move swiftly when the time comes to raise rates.

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.

NEW YORK – AP: Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was sentenced Tuesday to more than 24 years in prison by a judge who accused him of funding his fraud by manipulating the political process in a way that “strikes at the very core of our democracy.”

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero sentenced the 58-year-old Hsu, who raised money for Hillary Rodham Clinton and others, to 20 years in prison for his guilty plea to fraud charges and another four years and four months in prison for his conviction at trial for breaking campaign finance laws.

WASHINGTON — A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla, like Fisker, is a California startup focusing on high-end hybrids, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

Fisker’s Karma hybrid sports car, above, will initially cost about $89,000.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

“Just because this is a Republic, it does not mean that we the people have given congress and the administration Carte Blanche ignore our wishes, damage our country, perhaps irretrievably, and to pass laws that are damaging to the people.”

POLITICO: Americans who fail to pay the penalty for not buying insurance would face legal action from the Internal Revenue Service, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The remarks Thursday from the committee’s chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, seems to further weaken President Barack Obama’s contention last week that the individual mandate penalty, which could go as high as $1,900, is not a tax increase.

Under questioning from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Barthold said the IRS would “take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings.”

Ensign pursued the line of questioning because he said a lot of Americans don’t believe the Constitution allows the government to mandate the purchase of insurance.

“We could be subjecting those very people who conscientiously, because they believe in the U.S. Constitution, we could be subjecting them to fines or the interpretation of a judge, all the way up to imprisonment,” Ensign said. “That seems to me to be a problem.”

Ensign’s argument, however, wasn’t persuasive to the committee — which rejected an amendment from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to eliminate the individual mandate.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats to preserve the mandate.

BOSTON GLOBE: WASHINGTON - A large military spending bill moving through Congress contains a little-noticed outlay for Boston that has nothing to do with national defense: $20 million for an educational institute honoring late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The earmark, tucked into the defense bill at the request of Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, requires US taxpayers to help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate realize its goal of building a repository for Kennedy’s papers and an accompanying civic learning center on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus in Dorchester, next to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

CBC NEWS: Preliminary research suggests the seasonal flu shot may put people at greater risk for getting swine flu, CBC News has learned.

“This is some evidence that has been floated. It hasn’t been validated yet, it’s very preliminary,” cautioned Dr. Don Low, microbiologist-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

“This is obviously important data to help guide policy decisions. How can we best protect people against influenza?”

Four Canadian studies involved about 2,000 people, health officials told CBC News. Researchers found people who had received the seasonal flu vaccine in the past were more likely to get sick with the H1N1 virus.

Researchers know that, theoretically, when people are exposed to bacteria or a virus, it can stimulate the immune system to create antibodies that facilitate the entry of another strain of the virus or disease.

FOX NEWS: President Obama’s “safe schools czar” is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.

Conservatives are up in arms about the appointment of Kevin Jennings, Obama’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, saying he is too radical for the job.

Jennings was appointed to the position largely because of his longtime record of working to end bullying and discrimination in schools.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.

“It was sad and it was frustrating,” said Klaus, one of the world’s most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.

“It’s a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem,” he said. “It’s simply not dignified.”…

“The train can’t be stopped and I consider that a huge mistake,” Klaus said.

PITTSBURGH: AP: The protesters banged on drums and chanted “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop.” (Boy, does Obama have a rude awakening for him)

CBS NEWS: When House leadership brings a final health care bill to the full House floor, it may be more liberal than moderate House Democrats expected, according to reports. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is planning to include in the bill a tax on wealthy Americans, as well as a more robust government-run health insurance plan (or “public option”), abandoning the compromises leaders in a key committee worked out with the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, according to Roll Call.

“That’s not a lie. That’s not even deception. That’s just an insult to our intelligence.”

Dr. Charles Krauthammer in response to Obama’s assertion that he would solve the insoluble cost problem of Obamacare by the elimination of “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud from Medicare”.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Senator Max Baucus to a statement that new numbers had come through on his health bill from the Congressional Budget office.

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word ‘fed” was scrawled on the dead man’s chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.

The investigation into alleged bomb plot targeting New York has expanded to include nearly all of the FBI’s 57 field offices in the country and some overseas. Investigators told CBS News that agents are aggressively following a steady stream of leads in the case and have essentially constructed a family tree with 24-year-old Najibullah Zazi at the center, at least 12 of his known “disciples” in a ring around him and other associates branching out from there.

BREITBART: Hong Kong: Former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said the US government was wasting taxpayers’ money and could aggravate poverty, said delegates at her first speech outside North America on Wednesday.

Her performance, which was closed to the media, divided opinion.

Some of those who attended praised her forthright views on government social and economic intervention and others walked out early in disgust.

“She was brilliant,” said a European delegate, on condition of anonymity.

“She said America was spending a lot of money and it was a temporary solution. Normal people are having to pay more and more but things don’t get better. The rich will leave the country and the poor will get poorer.”

Two US delegates left early, with one saying “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer”. He declined to be identified.

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: NEW YORK While the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday takes up the issue of a federal shield law, another congressional committee in the House will be focused on the impact of the newspaper industry’s financial problems. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chair of the House Joint Economic Committee (JEC), will convene a hearing “to examine contraction in the newspaper industry, the economic impact of the changing media landscape, as well as the future of the industry at large,” according to an announcement. The hearing, titled “The Future of Newspapers: The Impact on the Economy and Democracy,” will take place Thursday, at 10:00 am in the Cannon House Office Building.

TEHRAN, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Iran has built a new generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium and is testing them, the official news agency IRNA quoted its nuclear energy agency chief as saying on Tuesday.

“Iranian scientists have made a new generation of centrifuges that are currently undergoing necessary tests,” Ali Akbar Salehi told a Tehran news conference as reported by IRNA.

“Chains of 10 centrifuges are now under test,” he said, and the number in each chain “will be gradually increased.”

BREITBART: Iran’s regime is “weaker than people think” and now is the time for world leaders to press it hard on its suspect nuclear activities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday.

“I’d like to believe that the international community understands that Iran has to be pressed strongly, there are ways of pressing this regime right now because it’s weak,” Netanyahu told CNN.

“It’s weaker than people think. It doesn’t enjoy the support of its own people,” he said, adding that the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons “threatens world peace in a way that very few events could possibly threaten it.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The chickens have come home to roost for Los Angeles city dwellers who keep roosters.

The City Council on Tuesday passed an ordinance that—with few exceptions—allows only one rooster per property. It was spurred by complaints over noise, hygiene, and concerns over illegal cockfighting.

Janice Hahn, who authored the bill, says it will give residents of her district some peace and quiet.

CBS NEWS: To hear world leaders and others addressing the United Nations Summit on Climate Change, the threat could not be more real and the need more urgent to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. But in stark contrast to the earnest statements is the carbon footprint associated with their gathering.

It happens every autumn: midtown Manhattan becomes the motorcade capital of the world. Each foreign leader in town has a convoy of vehicles. Some of them, like President Obama’s motorcade, are 20-to-30 vehicles in length. It’s so long - it seems that when the front of it reaches the U.N., the back end is still back at his hotel. Exacerbating the annual exercise in diplomatic gridlock are police actions, blocking intersections and closing streets for security to facilitate motorcade movements. It renders countless other vehicles immobile while waiting for motorcades to pass, their engines idling but still blowing exhaust into the midtown air Does it undermine the goal of the climate change summit and cause the pledges of environmental concern to ring hollow? Asked about it, White House climate change negotiator Todd Sterns had a suggestion. “I think the U.N. should make a pledge to electric vehicle motorcades within five years,” he said. Right. As soon as all U.N. diplomats pay their parking tickets.

LONDON TIMES: Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after India’s first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface.

Data from Chandrayaan-1 also suggests that water is still being formed on the Moon. Scientists said the breakthrough — to be announced by NASA at a press conference today — would change the face of lunar exploration.

The discovery is a significant boost for India in its space race against China. Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission’s project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, said: “It’s very satisfying.”

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Central Command, Army General David Petraeus, said on Wednesday that both he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen had endorsed an assessment by the top commander in Afghanistan that says more troops would be needed. “Obviously I endorsed, the chairman endorsed… Gen. (Stanley) McChrystal’s assessment and description,” Petraeus said at a counterinsurgency conference in Washington.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will have issued $7 trillion in bonds by the time the current fiscal year ends next week, but it expects the debt deluge to stabilize by mid 2010, a Treasury official said on Wednesday…

However, this expansion may take place in an environment where investors consider leaving the safe-haven Treasury market for riskier assets, and debt issuance is likely to level off mid next year, said Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Karthik Ramanathan.

“In fiscal year 2009, which ends next week, Treasury will have issued $7 trillion in gross issuance — that’s in a 12-month period,” Ramanathan told a financial markets conference in New York.

“This issuance was necessary to meet nearly $1.7 trillion in net marketable borrowing needs, nearly $1 trillion more than what we raised last year,” he added.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice.

WASHINGTON — Congress’ chief budget officer is contradicting President Barack Obama’s oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn’t see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul.

The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators Tuesday that seniors in Medicare’s managed care plans would see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.

The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years.

Elmendorf said the changes would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries.

Critics say the plans are overpaid, while supporters say they work well.

Obama says cuts to Medicare providers won’t reduce seniors’ benefits.

WASHINGTON TIMES: A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Wednesday announced an effort that would force Democratic leaders to give members of Congress — and the public — 72 hours to review legislation before a bill is brought to the floor for a vote.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Brian Baird, Oregon Democrat, and Republican Reps. John Culberson of Texas and Greg Walden of Oregon, would require House leaders to post all non-emergency legislation online, in its final form, three days before a vote.

…”Obama succeeded in picking a fight not just with George Stephanopoulos on when is a tax a tax but also with Merriam-Webster. The $750-a-person tax for not having health insurance is a tax. And its imposition will break Obama’s pledge never to raise taxes on people making less then $250,000 a year. Again. He broke it with his cigarette tax, and the principal Democratic House health-care bill has four new taxes on all Americans.”

Karl Rove regarding Obama’s super Sunday

WASHINGTON POST…The Defenestration of Prague occurred in 1618 when two royal officials were summarily thrown out of some rather high windows and landed, as luck would have it and history recorded it, on a pile of manure. The Defenestration of New York happened just the other day when Barack Obama tossed New York Gov. David Paterson out of a window, landing him not on a pile of manure but on the front page of the New York Times. In its political consequences, this is a distinction without difference…

…Yet, Obama slapped it down. Some will be tempted to credit such hardball tactics to Chicago and its bare-knuckle politics. That, though, is not the case. Obama — as opposed to Rahm Emanuel — is not from Chicago. He is from the Land of Ambition. That is a storied realm where all the posted signs warn, “Don’t Get Between Me and What I Want.” Obama wants a second term, and neither racial fellowship nor bonhomie nor a touching consideration for the bruised feelings of others will, in the end, make a difference. Paterson had to go.

The Defenestration of New York tells you nothing you did not know about Paterson. But it does tell you something about Obama and a toughness lurking behind that blazing smile. Call the purging of Paterson post-racial politics or just plain politics, but in either case the lesson is clear: When you become a problem for Obama, don’t get too close to a window.

WASHINGTON POST: Seeking to lock down votes before Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus began reworking his health-care overhaul to ease the financial burden on middle-class Americans who would be required for the first time to have health insurance. ($750 per person fine (tax) for those who can’t afford it.)

Baucus (Mont.) came under fire last week from fellow Democrats and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), the only Republican still at the negotiating table, for a mandate that people buy health coverage, at a price they may not be able to afford.

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A man is accused of throwing a pot of boiling noodles on his girlfriend at a Mandan apartment.

Mandan police say the 30-year-old suspect was arrested Sunday. He’s facing a felony aggravated assault charge.

Police say the 43-year-old woman suffered burns and blisters on her back from the hot noodles, and marks on her neck where the suspect allegedly tried to bite her.

UNITED NATIONS – In a blunt challenge to his nation’s critics, President Barack Obama on Wednesday exhorted world leaders who once accused the United States of acting alone to now join with him in solving global crises rather than wait for America to do it on its own.

CHICAGO – Young Americans showed their collective power when they helped vote President Obama into office. Inspired by his message of “change,” they knocked on doors, spread flyers, voted for him by a 2-1 margin, and partied like rock-the-vote stars when he won.

Since the election, though, that fervor has died down — noticeably. And while young people remain the president’s most loyal supporters in opinion polls, a lot of people are wondering why that age group isn’t doing more to build upon their newfound reputation as political influencers.

“It’s one thing to get excited about a presidential candidate. It’s another thing to become a responsible citizen,” says Jennifer Donahue, political director for the New Hampshire Institute Of Politics. She and other political analysts thinks they have yet to prove themselves.

Professors and students themselves also are noticing the quiet on college campuses, which were hotbeds for “Obamamania” during the campaign.

“They’re supportive, but in a bystander kind of way,” says Laura Katz Olson, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

“I think it’s important to realize that I was actually black before the election.”

President Barack Obama speaking on comments that opposition to his health care program was race based.

WASHINGTON — During his first eight months in office, President Obama has sat down for three times as many television interviews as his most recent two predecessors combined.

And with [Sunday’s] run of the Sunday-morning news show circuit and [last night’s] airing of “Late Night with David Letterman,” Obama continues to blaze through the media hotter than any political figure in modern history.

“He’s turning the presidency into an infomercial,” warned former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer. “It’s not just damaging to the White House. It will also ultimately hurt President Obama’s image as a fresh, non-Washington leader.”

JERUSALEM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Israel has not given up the option of a military response to Tehran’s nuclear programme, senior officials said on Monday, after Russia’s president said his Israeli counterpart assured him it would not attack Iran.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was asked by Reuters if that comment by Israeli President Shimon Peres, as reported on Sunday by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, was a guarantee there would be no Israeli strike on Iran.

Ayalon replied: “It is certainly not a guarantee.

“I don’t think that, with all due respect, the Russian president is authorised to speak for Israel and certainly we have not taken any option off the table.”

BREITBART: Former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is expected to speak about US foreign policy and China in her first keynote speech outside North America, Hong Kong organisers said on Monday.

Palin, mocked during last year’s presidential campaign for her lack of experience in foreign affairs and for her verbal gaffes, is due to address hundreds of financial big-hitters at the CLSA Investors’ Forum on Wednesday.

“We have asked her to address US foreign policy, to discuss her views on governance, healthcare, and of course, China,” Jonathan Slone, chief executive officer of the Asia-focused brokerage, said in an interview with AFP.

THE GUARDIAN: Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country’s arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

Those options include:

• Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.

• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.

• Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”

BREITBART: US President Barack Obama denied that “paranoid” objections from Russia influenced his decision to abandon plans by the former Bush administration to site a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

“Russia had always been paranoid about this, but George Bush was right, this wasn’t a threat to them,” Obama said in an interview on CBS show “Face the Nation” days before he is set to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the United Nations.

“This program will not be a threat to them. So my task here was not to negotiate with the Russians,” Obama said, responding to claims by some domestic critics that his move amounted to appeasement of confrontational Russian policies.

“The Russians don’t make determinations about what our defense posture is. We have made a decision about what will be best to protect the American people as well as our troops in Europe and our allies,” Obama said.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Russia’s top general said on Monday that plans to deploy missiles in an enclave next to Poland had not been shelved, despite a decision by the United States to rethink plans for missile defense in Europe.

But a former Russian diplomatic negotiator indicated he thought the deployments in Kaliningrad region, bordering Poland, unlikely to go ahead. Alternative U.S. proposals for sea-based defenses appeared less likely to raise Kremlin objections.

AUTOWEEK: Early next decade, BMW of North America plans to sell an electric “megacity car” as a sub-brand of BMW, similar to the brand’s M high-performance cars. But further details are skimpy.

BMW already is preparing for that launch. Its yearlong trial with the Mini E electric car has opened the auto marketer’s eyes to the maze of regulations facing plug-in electric cars.

“We are learning a heck of a lot just about the sheer infrastructure,” says Jim O’Donnell, CEO of BMW of North America. “When we bring out another electric car, we will be in a great position because we know all the wrinkles.”

BMW has 450 Mini E electric cars running in a yearlong trial in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles.

There should be more cars on the roads. But after more than six months of addressing regulatory hurdles, Mini has yet to get approval to install more than 30 additional fast-charge boxes in New Jersey. With a 240-volt box, the Mini E can be recharged in three hours rather than the 21 hours needed using 110-volt power.

WASHINGTON POST: The four drafty buildings had been fixtures of the Energy Department complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for more than half a century. They burned energy like 1950s sedans.

The buildings seemed like perfect candidates for a federal conservation retrofit program that relies on private contractors that receive a percentage of the money they save. A deal was struck in 2001. The contractors reworked lighting and heating systems, among other things, and began collecting payments.

The project was counted among the department’s “green” successes — until auditors discovered that the buildings had been torn down several years ago, and the government had paid $850,000 for energy savings at facilities that no longer existed.

The audit findings show the potential for waste and abuse at a time when the department is poised to launch billions of dollars more in stimulus spending on an unprecedented welter of green projects across the country.

The explosion in green spending is occurring despite well-documented weaknesses at the core of the strategy: A chronic lack of government officials assigned and properly trained to oversee the financially and technically complex projects.

The problems are not exclusive to Oak Ridge. The auditors, from the department’s inspector general’s office, also determined that $565,000 had been paid over six years under the same arrangement to a contractor in Texas for a high-efficiency laundry that was no longer in use. The department also paid out $3.4 million on another project without checking whether the conservation measures worked — and $160,000 for measurements that were never taken.

WASHINGTON POST: The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

Americans who slap $1 pricetags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.

The “Resale Round-up,” launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, enforces new limits on lead in children’s products and makes it illegal to sell any items that don’t meet those limits or have been recalled for any other reason.

The strict standards were set in the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act after a series of high-profile recalls of Chinese-made toys.

The standards were originally interpreted to apply only to new products, but now the CPSC says they apply to used items as well. Here is that ol’ interpretation issue again.

“But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!”

The Jerusalem Post: After Paris warned that new sanctions against Teheran remained an option despite the likelihood of negotiations with Iran, French President Nicolas Sarkozy maintained that the Islamic republic was still working on a nuclear weapons program.

“It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear [weapons] program,” Sarkozy told lawmakers from his UMP party on Tuesday, according to Press TV.

“We cannot let Iran acquire nuclear” weapons because it would also be a threat to Israel, he added.

Days after the Census Bureau announced it would cut ties with the organizing group ACORN, and barely 24 hours after the Senate voted to withdraw funding from the lightning-rod activist group, the White House expressed support for measures to hold the group accountable for “unacceptable” behavior.

Characterizing the Census Bureau’s decision as a move based on a lack of confidence in ACORN’s ability to perform its expected duties, Gibbs said he was not sure whether the president would ask Democrats to pull back from any campaign-year collaboration with the group.

NEW YORK POST: WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.

“I don’t even know what they passed,” Pelosi told The Post yesterday. “What did they do? They defunded it?”

The issue now goes to a House-Senate conference committee for a spending bill. Its fate is up to Democratic leaders, particularly Pelosi, since the House passed no such provision.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: FBI agents with bomb-sniffing dogs Wednesday raided the Colorado apartment of an Afghan national linked to Al Qaeda and a plot to attack the New York City subway system.

Simultaneously, authorities swarmed over a nearby home believed to belong to a relative of Najibullah Zazi, hauling out boxes of evidence. ..

Earlier Queens raids turned up nine knapsacks and cell phones, raising concerns about bombers detonating simultaneous blasts as they did in the 2004 attack that killed 191 commuters in Spain.

WASHINGTON - No sooner than the Senate Finance Committee’s chairman released his long-awaited health care bill today than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it’s not good enough for Nevada.

Reid is concerned about the cash-poor state’s inability to boost Medicaid spending as would be required under the bill…

“I spoke to the Chair of the Finance Committee and he assured me that this bill will be improved for Nevada,” Reid said.

FORBES: Reuters: Argentina’s lower house debated Wednesday President Cristina Fernandez’s broadcast reform bill, which is expected to pass despite criticism from opposition parties that it will increase state control over the media

But critics say her main motive is to crush the powerful Grupo Clarin conglomerate, and opposition politicians also question elements of the reform such as the way the state will be able to assign frequencies in small cities and towns.

Fernandez and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, have been locked in a bitter dispute with Grupo Clarin since its news outlets criticized their handling of a farming crisis last year.

Fernandez’s bill comes against a backdrop of leftist leaders in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela strengthening state media outlets and warring with traditional newspapers and broadcasters that have given their administrations deeply negative coverage.

In Venezuela, Socialist President Hugo Chavez has shut down radio stations and denied renewal of broadcast licenses

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The Canadian government sent body bags to some remote Indian reserves as it prepared for the winter flu season, sending a jarring message at odds with its promise that it’s ready for the H1N1 flu.

The body bags went to some reserves in Manitoba, the western province in which some remote Indian communities were hard-hit by the flu in the spring, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said on Wednesday…

“This says to me they’ve given up,” the newspaper quoted Chief David Harper of Northern Manitoba’s Garden Hill reserve, which received some of the body bags, as saying.

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — The dollar may extend its decline after sliding to the weakest level versus the euro in almost a year as an increase in America’s industrial output encouraged investors to shift funds to higher-yielding assets.

BREITBART: China’s increasingly advanced weaponry could undermine US military power in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

Echoing US intelligence guidelines released on Tuesday that warned of Beijing’s military modernization, Gates said US naval carriers and air bases in the Pacific faced new threats from China.

“In fact, when considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the US symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options,” Gates said in a speech to the Air Force Association.

“Investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, and ballistic missiles could threaten America’s primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific — in particular our forward air bases and carrier strike groups,” Gates said in National Harbor, Maryland.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing criticism for her handling of federal stimulus money, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she would not start any new border construction projects while the department reviewed how projects were selected.

Napolitano has faced questions since The Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money for renovations. Under a process that is secretive and susceptible to political influence, officials planned to spend millions at tiny checkpoints, passing over busier and higher-priority projects.

The criticism peaked Wednesday when a senior Senate Democrat, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, said that, despite Napolitano’s assurances, he felt Homeland Security was treating the economic stimulus plan like a “bottomless pit” of taxpayer money. It was unusually pointed criticism from a member of the president’s own party about how the administration is handling economic recovery spending.

“There’s no common sense at all to a requirement that says you’ve got to put up a $15 million facility for a small port of entry that’s host to about five vehicles an hour,” Dorgan, whose state stood to receive $128 million for checkpoint improvements, said in a telephone interview.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday abandoned plans for a large missile defense shield in eastern Europe, promising instead a stronger, swifter defense system to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.

In a brief announcement, Obama said he was dropping a plan to base interceptor missiles in Poland and build a radar system in the Czech Republic — a move that could ease tensions with Russia but fan regional fears of resurgent Kremlin influence.

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said he’ll hold off deciding whether to add more U.S. troops to the war in Afghanistan, as Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that he lacks a clear plan and measures of progress.

BREITBART: A 60-year-old US grandmother, blind for nearly a decade, has recovered her sight after surgeons implanted a tooth in her eye as a base to hold a tiny plastic lens, her doctors said Wednesday.

Sharron “Kay” Thornton, from the southern US state of Mississippi, lost her sight in 2000 when she came down with a case of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare disease that scarred her cornea, according to the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

For patients whose bodies reject a transplanted or artificial cornea, this procedure “implants the patient’s tooth in the eye to anchor a prosthetic lens and restore vision,” said Thornton’s surgeon Victor Perez.

CBS NEWS: The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent. A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

“Life’s tough……it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”

– John Wayne

“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”

– Barack Obama

In an interview Monday with NBC’s Brian Williams, former President Jimmy Carter said he has been extremely bothered by the heightened climate of racial and other hate speech since the election of President Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Taken off guard, Democrats at work on health care legislation are grappling with President Barack Obama’s nationally televised insistence on immediate access to insurance for those with pre-existing medical conditions, as well as richer Medicare prescription drug benefits than originally envisioned. (In 2012, of course)