WASHINGTO POST: (Mary Ann Akers) UPDATE: It was less of a Smack down and more of a 5th-grade style playground fight. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann did not deliver the goods he sought on his right-wing adversary, Glenn Beck. (4TH grade, Mary Ann, 4th grade; get it right) But he did make clear that in his view, Beck’s attack on President Obama’s green jobs czar, Van Jones, was all about “latent racism.”

“We’re going to continue to explore each and every avenue that I can think of that will lead to job creation and economic growth,” he said while standing with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and four construction workers wearing hard hats.

WASHINGTON —Maneuvering to boost prospects for sweeping health care legislation, Senate Democrats hope first to win quick approval for a bill that grants doctors a $247 billion increase in Medicare fees over a decade but raises federal deficits in the process, officials said Wednesday.

A 60-vote Senate majority will be required to pass the measure, potentially placing Republican senators in a quandary.

HARRY REID, Senate Majority Leader

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter, according to a report issued Thursday.

“They were the worst three months of all time,” said Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.

WASHINGTON TIMES: President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department — a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.

The president issued a little-noticed “presidential determination” Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

THE HILL: First he was for it. Then he was against it. Now Rep. Mike Ross is back on board with a government-run healthcare plan. Sort of.

Ross (D-Ark.), who had emerged as a leader among centrist Blue Dog Democrats opposing the public health insurance option, has suggested something his colleagues consider even more drastic – opening Medicare to those under 65 without insurance.

He made the suggestion in meetings with House Democratic leaders and brought the idea to the closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting Thursday. “I — speaking only on behalf of myself — suggested one possible idea could be that instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare could be offered as a choice,” Ross said in a statement to The Hill.

Medicare would then compete with private insurers across the age spectrum. It would be open to those who don’t have insurance through their employers, the same people who would be covered by the public option already under discussion.

Still, Ross has been seen as a skeptic or opponent of the public option since he led a group of seven centrist Blue Dogs who blocked consideration of the health bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, in part because of their dislike of a public option.

THE HILL: A key House committee on Thursday passed legislation reining in the multitrillion-dollar market for financial derivatives.

The House Financial Services Committee passed the bill on a 43-26 vote, with only one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.), siding with all Democrats.

NEW YORK POST: A Connecticut college has warned students interning for late-night, skirt-chasing TV funnyman David Letterman to stay at arm’s length from the host.

A rep from Quinnipiac University told the celebrity Web site TMZ that “due to recent circumstances we will have a discussion with those in charge of placing our interns at the David Letterman show in the future.”

In the statement, the school added, “We will diligently oversee this internship program to ensure that our interns are out of harm’s way.”

NBC L.A. Mia Henry wants to teach Barack Obama how to use iPhoto. She wants to show the president how to take pictures and create podcasts, just like she does as a member of the Barack Obama Digital Media Team, a group of students from Crenshaw High School who are determined to get invited to the White House.

“I’d also tell him of my dreams to go to college, so I can work with autistic children as a child psychologist,” Henry said.

Using Barack Obama as inspiration, teacher Daphne Bradford has created projects Crenshaw and Dorsey high schools — schools in poverty-ridden sections of Los Angeles — to engage students to learn technological and cooking skills.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, U.K.— … Who can Big Media brand a racist without checking the facts? Who has to prove he did not say something racist, rather than the accuser proving he did?

A pat on the back for anyone who guessed the answer: Rush Limbaugh.

“I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

It’s also been spread around that he said this, about the death of the man who assassinated Martin Luther King:

“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honour? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

The irony is, of course, that the people reporting this as fact are the same types who are always denouncing bloggers and the internet as forces of evil intent on destroying proper journalism – proper journalism being the kind that involves checking facts. In the case of Rush Limbaugh, however, it seems to be enough that the intention (i.e. to show the talk radio host is a racist) is considered pure.

Even those who have been primary movers in spreading these malicious falsehoods – which would lead to payouts of hundreds of thousands in British libel courts if lawsuits were ever filed there – are brazenly unapologetic.

“You know, it says something pathetic about the left that Rush Limbaugh has been on the air 3 hours a day, 49 weeks a year, for over 20 years and they have to resort to made up quotes to hurt him and his business endeavors.”

“What is even more pathetic is that the NFL has shown greater tolerance for murderers, drug dealers, rapists, and dog killers than a talk show host.”

Erick Erickson

THE WASHINGTON TIMES: Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.

Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat…

Money for the Kennedy Institute was inserted by Mr. Inouye and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, and Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, sought the funding for the World War II museum.

Whitney Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said the earmark was “a worthy investment.”

WASHINGTON POST: Justice Department leaders are pressing ahead with reforms to prevent lapses by prosecutors in sharing evidence in criminal cases, a series of changes spurred by failures that led the federal government to take a highly unusual step earlier this year and abandon the conviction of former senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

The reforms come as new allegations emerge that cast doubt on the credibility of the key witness in the Alaska political corruption scandals, including the botched prosecution of Stevens.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer outlined in an interview and at a judges’ meeting in Seattle this week the fresh safeguards, such as new training programs for federal prosecutors on their evidence-sharing obligations and the hiring of an official at headquarters to review the process.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co said it has given up its plan to sell The Boston Globe and related businesses after drastic cuts it imposed on the daily newspaper earlier this year improved its financial position.

The announcement caps a painful odyssey for the 137-year-old Boston Globe that began earlier this year when the Times threatened to close the paper if it could not get its unions to agree to deep cost cuts.

Selling the Globe would have been a dismal exit from Boston for the Times. The company spent $1.1 billion to buy the Globe in 1993, at the time the most money ever paid for a single U.S. newspaper. The offers it reportedly received for the Globe this month were less than 10 percent of what it paid.

(AP) The vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur says tests of its swine flu vaccine suggest that children under 10 may need two doses to be fully protected. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Wednesday’s news is not surprising. This age group needs two doses of regular seasonal vaccine for full immunity to develop. Federal officials have been hoping that one shot or squirt of nasal spray would do, so they can stretch the available supply of a vaccine much in demand.

Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) - For the third time in about a year, a moose was on the loose in Fargo! The latest happened this morning near 45th Street and Interstate 94.

Fargo Police started getting calls just before 6 o’clock from people who spotted the young bull moose wandering around. It finally cornered itself in the courtyard of the Mainstay Suites.

That’s where an area vet was able to tranquilize the animal. They then waited for the drugs to take affect and loaded up the animal in a trailer.

THE INDEPENDENT: Amidst the economic wreckage, after 7 million job losses and approaching 2 million home foreclosures in the US alone, with businesses and consumers around the world still struggling to get finance after the long credit crunch, Wall Street is finally on trial. A little piece of Wall Street, at least.

In the first major case against bankers at the heart of the financial meltdown, a jury of 12 mainly working-class New Yorkers will decide the fate of the two Bear Stearns managers whose hedge funds imploded in 2007, signaling the start of the crisis. Ralph Cioffi, 53, and Matt Tannin, 48, pocketed millions of dollars in pay during the boom years, but the events of 2007 left their investors nursing losses of $1.6bn (£1bn) and ruined forever the reputation of Bear Stearns, one of the oldest investment banks on Wall Street.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A woman being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she’d won the lottery and would pay for everyone’s purchases, police said, but she ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was a hoax.

Angry customers threw merchandise around and looted, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police said.

WORLD NET DAILY: TEL AVIV – President Obama’s newly confirmed regulatory czar defended the possibility of removing organs from terminally ill patients without their permission.

Cass Sunstein also has strongly pushed for the removal of organs from deceased individuals who did not explicitly consent to becoming organ donors.

buildings to house “non-criminal, non-violent” illegal immigrants as they await court hearings and deportation to their native countries.

By Frances Robles | The Miami Herald

MIAMI HERALD: Cuba’s workplace cafeterias are closing, President Raúl Castro keeps saying the well-off shouldn’t get the same subsidies as the poor, and now there are rumblings that one of the stalwart vestiges of the revolution — the ration booklet — has outlived its usefulness.

As the Cuban government struggles through a deep recession, its leaders have begun picking away at socialism in order to save it. But experts say the latest buzz by the Cuban government is simply another desperate fix to stem the slide of a failed economy that buckled long ago.

Even one of Havana’s leading economists recently said Cuba’s economy needed to be turned upside down — “feet up.” So taxi drivers got private licenses, farmers now have their own plots of land and government workers have to pack their own lunches.

Since he took office early last year, Raúl Castro has been saying that the country’s severely battered economy needs fixing. In a widely quoted August speech, Castro said Cuba was spending more than it made. (Sound familiar, folks?)

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she would not run for president again, and brushed off suggestions that she is being marginalized in the Obama White House.

“It’s astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming,” Clemente said. “It seems self-serving on their part.”

I have commented before on the absolute inability of the Obama administration to take criticism. He gets mad and he gets even! Come to think of it, more behavior representative of a 4th grader.

The normal font indicates hard news articles. The font in black italics indicates my paraphrasing hard news articles or my general writing, such as in the observations. The font in red italics is the (sometimes snarky) opinion of the author. The font in red bold italics is mad or making a point!

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Insurance companies aren’t playing nice any more. Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate, and threatens President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. “Distorted and flawed,” said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. “Fundamentally dishonest,” said AARP’s senior policy strategist, John Rother. “A hatchet job,” said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

But the health insurance industry’s top lobbyist in Washington stood her ground. In a call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, pointedly refused to rule out attack ads on TV featuring the study, though she said she believed the industry’s concerns could be amicably addressed.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea test-launched five short-range missiles Monday, reports said, in what analysts said was an attempt to improve its bargaining position ahead of possible talks with the United States.

North Korea has recently reached out to the U.S. and South Korea following months of tension over its nuclear and missile tests earlier this year. Leader Kim Jong IL told visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week that his government might return to stalled six-nation negotiations on its nuclear program depending on the outcome of direct talks it seeks with the United States.

THE TELEGRAPH, U.K.–America is not going to bleed its wealth importing fuel. Russia’s grip on Europe’s gas will weaken. Improvident Britain may avoid paralysing blackouts by mid-decade after all.

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

The US Energy Department expects shale to meet half of US gas demand within 20 years, if not earlier. Projects are cranking up in eastern France and Poland. Exploration is under way in Australia, India and China.

Roger Lee Nance, of 1117 Shew Ridge Mission Road, was charged with possession of non-tax paid liquor, possession of non-tax-paid liquor for the purpose of selling, and possession of equipment and ingredients intended for the use in the manufacture of an alcoholic beverage.

“This is one of the biggest seizures of white liquor I’ve seen come out of the mountains in my career,” ALE Director John Ledford said in statement.

The arrest follows a two-month investigation by ALE agents, assisted by the state Highway Patrol. In addition to the liquor, large amounts of sugar and other items were seized during a search of Nance’s property, authorities said.

THE TIMES: U.K. - …The Nobel Peace Prize is a notoriously difficult award to predict, but yesterday’s decision was clearly a political choice, with three of the past six peace awards going to Bush adversaries.

In 2002, the prize went to Jimmy Carter as an explicit rejection of the Bush presidency in the build-up to the Iraq war. In 2005 Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN atomic agency chief who had clashed with Washington over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was honoured. In 2007 Al Gore received the prize for his warnings on climate change, denounced by President Bush as a liberal myth.

The award is also an example of what Nobel scholars call the growing aspirational trend of Nobel committees over the past three decades, by which awards are given not for what has been achieved but in support of the cause being fought for.

BREITBART: China’s dissidents are voicing unease about President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, saying that the award could have been effective in promoting human rights in their country.

Some in China’s democracy movement are outraged at what they see as a weak stance on rights by Obama, who the same week as Friday’s announcement avoided a meeting with Tibet’s exiled Dalai Lama that would have upset Beijing.

Chinese activists had been tipped as Nobel contenders on this year of anniversaries, when China marked 60 years of communist rule, 50 years since the Dalai

Lama’s flight and 20 years since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square democracy uprising.

Potential laureates included Hu Jia, locked up since December 2007 after exposing government abuses and the plight of China’s AIDS sufferers, and Wei Jingsheng, a onetime electrician who spent 18 years in prison after brazenly challenging former leader Deng Xiaoping to bring democracy.

Huang Ciping, an engineer turned activist who is executive director of Wei’s Washington-based foundation, said that China “has come to such a turning point that the prize might have helped.”

“The Nobel Peace Prize committee has the full right to decide to give coal to those who suffer and struggle or to present flowers to the powerful,” she said.

But she said of the decision: “It is both a pity for the Chinese people and a danger to world peace.”

CNBC: (Larry Kudlow) We know that gold is soaring.

And we know the dollar is slumping. But, did you know that year-to-date, while the S&P 500 is up 18 percent—a great showing no doubt—gold is up even more.

The precious metal is up 21 percent. In other words, measured in true, gold-backed purchasing power, stocks have really done nothing this year. Zip. It is most disappointing.

I try to be optimistic about better earnings, a stock market rally and economic recovery. And I’m sticking to my guns. But what we’re seeing right now is pretty darn close to what we witnessed in the 1970s—the rise in gold and inflation really cuts into the stock market.

ISRAEL NEWS: Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, sent a letter of protest to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonin which he wrote that “there is no explanation for Israel’s continuing threats against Tehran”.

He was referring to an interview given by former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh to the Sunday Times in which he said that if Iran were not further sanctioned by this Christmas Israel would attack the country.

Sneh told the paper that if Israel were forced to attack the Islamic Republic on its own it would do so, remarks the Iranian ambassador deemed “irresponsible”.

LONDON TIMES: Fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack on the nuclear industry in Europe were renewed yesterday after French secret agents arrested a physicist working at an atomic research centre.

The 32-year-old man, who was detained with his brother, 25, is suspected of providing a list of terrorist targets to North African Islamic radicals. He worked for the

European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources.

Agents were said to have intercepted messages in which the physicist, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, had suggested targets in France.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Read the bill! It was a rallying cry at angry health care town halls this summer and has evolved into something of a political movement. Many Americans are demanding that lawmakers actually read the comprehensive legislation they’ve written — or at least make it publicly available — before voting on it.

It might sound like a no-brainer. President Barack Obama has made transparency a watchword of his administration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged upon taking office to “create the most open and honest government in history.”

The Internet makes it all possible.

So what’s the problem?

Well, have you ever tried reading a bill?

The bill goes on to say, “The terms ‘premium plan’ and ‘premium-plus plan’ have the meanings given such terms in section 203(c).”

Like those examples, the legislation is peppered with cross references to other laws or statutes that are never explained, defying understanding by anyone without a law degree or years of legislative experience. Most lawmakers have never read the bills; that’s what staff members are for.

“The minutiae of legal drafting is not necessarily related to understanding the concepts in the bill,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who certainly has had his hand in writing laws in nearly 20 years in the House.

“You could literally get lost in the forest for the trees” trying to read it, he said.

The impenetrability of legislative language is not in itself an argument against posting bills online and letting voters try to figure them out. That happened over the summer with the House’s 1,017-page health care bill, with mixed results. Some sections of the

bill were taken out of context or misunderstood, often to feed critics’ political agendas. At the same time, there was a full airing of concerns that the legislation raised.

Despite the hubbub, the House bill is not even close to the final product that Obama might ultimately sign into law. And that’s another part of the problem.

POLITICO: Like most Americans, members of the House are expected to report promptly — no excuses — when summoned by their bosses for the start of another workweek. One difference: For lawmakers, starting time doesn’t come until about 6:30 Tuesday evening.

After taking control of the House in 2006 — and again when President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) boasted that lawmakers would work four or five days a week to bring change to America.

But midway through Obama’s first year in office, Hoyer’s House has settled into a more leisurely routine. Members usually arrive for the first vote of the week as the sun sets on Tuesdays, and they’re usually headed back home before it goes down again on Thursdays.

Since the House returned for its fall session on Sept. 8, it has stuck around to vote on a Friday just once: to approve a 5.8 percent increase in Congress’s own budget.

A Democratic leadership aide vehemently defended the schedule, saying members shouldn’t be kept in Washington for four or five days when work can be completed in fewer.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - African bishops attending a Vatican meeting are speaking about the election of Barack Obama in divine terms—putting them very much at odds with many of their U.S. counterparts.

Archbishop Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana said Wednesday that there was “a divine plan behind” Obama’s election.

“It’s like the biblical story repeating itself,” he told reporters, citing the Old Testament figure Joseph, who after being sold into slavery in Egypt ends up becoming a top official.

“We believe God has his own plans. God directs history,” he said of the U.S. election. “We pray that it (Obama’s presidency) brings blessings for Africa and the whole world.”

He acknowledged that Obama has earned the wrath of many conservative American bishops because of his support for abortion rights. Earlier this year, dozens of U.S. bishops denounced the leading U.S. Catholic university, Notre Dame, for giving Obama an honorary degree.

“We can’t get our votes in the legislative body because members of Congress are being responsive to the concerns raised by their constituents.”

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama

” If you’re going to peddle a bum steer, you better keep it under wraps. “The first thing they want is, no one should know what’s in this bill.”

“This is their strategic mistake: When Speaker Pelosi allowed the committees to report that bill before the August recess, they gave America a chance to read the bill. This is why it blew up in their faces.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s heavy-handed. It is coercive. If you read the bill, it is frightening…

“The country’s really concerned. They consider this a big, unnecessary government takeover, an aggressive government takeover.”

“Most Democrats in the House “want government-run healthcare. They think having a public insurance option is a compromise from their most desired position, which is just have the government run it all. “

Dick Armey, former Speaker of the House

THE HILL: Democrats thwarted a Republican attempt to dethrone Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) from the top post of the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday afternoon. (His committee writes the tax law)

GLENN: All right. So I got a briefing this morning about a guy, about a guy about a guy. Robert McChesney. He is from the University of Illinois. And also John Bellamy Foster. They are two of the three co founders of Free Press. The guy who has been looking into this is Seton Motley of the Media Research Center and contributor at NewsBusters.org. Seton, why should I care about, why should I care about who Robert McChesney is? MOTLEY: Well, Robert McChesney is an avowed Marxist. So when he found an organization predicated on tenets regarding Marxism and then they start having large influence and holding great sway in the development of policy for the Obama administration, I believe one should care about what McChesney has to say… …MOTLEY: No, McChesney has a very distorted view of the first amendment. He views the media marketplace in the same way that Mark Lloyd, the chief diversity officer GLENN: Of the FCC? MOTLEY: At the FCC views the media marketplace, meaning he doesn’t like any private ownership of media. His quote with regard to the First Amendment is a little disturbing. “To the extent commercial activities are given First Amendment protection, it makes the rule of capital increasingly off in the political debate and government regulation. In my view progressives need to stake out a Democratic,… remember how remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles. MOTLEY: Yes. There’s our guy. GLENN: He is having meetings at the FCC or where is he having meetings? MOTLEY: Well, Vince Scott is his policy director, and he had three disclosed meetings developing Internet policy with the FCC. GLENN: Okay. MOTLEY: But it goes beyond just that because FCC chairman Julius Genachowski named former Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard as his press secretary. GLENN: For who? MOTLEY: For Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the FCC. The Free Press spokeswoman was Jen Howard and she is now Genachowski’s press secretary. GLENN: … Let me just go through some of these quotes. On media reform he argued that, quote: Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part, I’m quoting, of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself. MOTLEY: Yes. Once again, once again we found another radical leftist that has its tentacles in the Obama administration. GLENN: He is also a strong defender of Venezuelan, Hugo Chavez? MOTLEY: Right. And he, too, like Mark Lloyd admires the way Chavez has handled the media in his country and actually wants thought that the last lone free TV station should actually be tried for treason. GLENN: Okay. Let me tie this in now to a couple of stories that we do know about, that we’ve talked about on the program here just yesterday. America, if you were Lloyd used Democratic to describe Chavez’s revolution interpretation of the First Amendment and do direct battle with the Orwellian implications of the ACLU’s commercialized First Amendment. So when you are to the left of the ACLU, how far from the path have you strayed? GLENN: Well, but you also have on your own board at the Free Press you have oh, that’s weird. Van Jones. Remember Van Jones from earlier news letters? Another avowed communist. MOTLEY: Van Jones is on the board of the Free Press. GLENN: Okay. And what a surprise. He is at the University of Illinois. MOTLEY: Yes. GLENN: That is so weird. All right. MOTLEY: It’s a series of coincidences. GLENN: Okay. Here’s, in December 2008 in an op ed he said on the U.S. economic crisis, he was quoted as saying, quote: There is no real answer but to listening yesterday, you heard me tell you that there was this new how do we save

WASHINGTON POST: The U.S. dollar continued its six-month slide Tuesday amid a growing international chorus (United Nations) that wants the dollar replaced — or at least supplemented — as the world’s reserve currency, a move that would end the greenback’s six decades of global dominance.

NEW YORK: AP: Congressional tax experts said Tuesday that Senate health care legislation would impose $29 Billion more in taxes on health care industries than originally thought. The Joint Committee on Taxation say drug companies, medical device manufacturers and insurers would pay $121 Billion over 10 years as a result of taxes in the Senate Finance Committee bill.

MIAMI (AP) - Lured by easier money and shorter prison sentences, Mafia figures and other violent criminals are increasingly moving into Medicare fraud and spilling blood over what once a white-collar crime.

Around the nation, federal investigators have been threatened, an informant’s body was found riddled with bullets, and a woman was discovered dead in a pharmacy under investigation, her throat slit with a piece of broken toilet seat.

For criminals, Medicare schemes offer a greater payoff and carry much shorter prison sentences than offenses such as drug trafficking or robbery.

“We’ve seen more people that used to be involved in (dealing) drugs are switching over to health care fraud because it’s not as dangerous,” Miami FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.

NEWSDAY: Rep. Steve Israel (D: NY) gamely tried to explain the proposed health care reform Monday night, but was often shouted down during his town hall-style meeting at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood.

Israel (D-Huntington) at one point pleaded with those in the crowd yelling at him to “stop calling me a liar and listen.” Judging by the ever-increasing decibel level, he did not win over many converts.

Shouts of — “Stop printing money,” “We don’t care what you think,” and “You’re a moron” — permeated the 90-minute session, which drew far more than the 450 people who filled Van Nostrand Theatre. Scores more were not allowed inside after a Suffolk fire marshal closed the doors.

People opposing the proposed health care reform outnumbered those in favor, though both sides strove to outshout each other during the question-and-answer period.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - Police said an Ohio elementary school student bit a teacher on the arm and had to be pried off by a school official. Dayton police said the child was brought to the assistant principal’s office at Patterson-Kennedy Elementary School Monday by teacher Stephen Green. The boy began throwing things in the office and had to be restrained by Green.

Assistant Principal Jack Johnson told police that Green was bitten on the forearm while clutching the child. Johnson said he had to pry the boy’s mouth open so he’d let go.

Green, 54, went to a hospital to be treated for the bite.

BREITBART: The next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief warned Tuesday as experts called for action to stamp out cyber attacks.

“The next world war could happen in cyberspace and that would be a catastrophe. We have to make sure that all countries understand that in that war, there is no such thing as a superpower,” Hamadoun Toure said.

“Loss of vital networks would quickly cripple any nation, and none is immune to cyber attack,” added the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union during the ITU’s Telecom World 2009 fair in Geneva.

Toure said countries have become “critically dependent” on technology for commerce, finance, health care, emergency services and food distribution.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: …Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., are circulating a petition among House lawmakers that would force a vote on the 72-hour rule.

Nearly every Republican has signed on, but the Democratic leadership is unwilling to cede control over when bills are brought to the floor for votes and are discouraging their rank and file from signing the petition. Senate Democrats voted down a similar measure last week for the health care bill….

USA Today: Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he will continue his controversial “crime suppression operations” despite a Department of Homeland Security decision to strip him of authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants based solely on their immigration status, the East Valley Tribune reports.

“It’s all politics,” says Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County.

Arpaio will still have the power to check the immigration status of people booked by his officers, but not the authority to conduct street patrols looking for illegal immigrants.