NATIONAL & WORLD NEWS - March 01, 2009

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Kansas Governor Accepts Offer as Health Secretary
President Obama asked Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas on Saturday to become his nominee for secretary of health and human services, tapping a red state ally to help him push through his plan to remake the nation's health care system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/us/politics/01cabinet.html?_r=1&hp

-A Line for General Motors
No wonder General Motors asked for more taxpayer money. Last week, Detroit's biggest carmaker reported it had lost $9.6 billion in the last three months of 2008. That is more than $100 million a day - and more than two-thirds of the money it has borrowed from the government since December.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01sun1.html?ref=opinion

-Super (Sub) Secretaries
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
It is way too soon to say what policy breakthroughs Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be known for at the State Department. But she has already left her mark bureaucratically. She has invented new diplomatic positions that say a great deal about the state of foreign policy in these messy times. I would call them "The Super Sub-Secretaries of State."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01friedman.html?ref=opinion

-Right Approach to State Aid
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California acted in the best interest of his state when he announced that he would accept the same federal stimulus aid for the unemployed that some of his fellow Republicans have threatened to reject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01sun3.html?ref=opinion

-Fear Itself
Something interesting happened last week when the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, went to Capitol Hill. She did not use the word "terrorism" in her prepared testimony.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01sun4.html?ref=opinion

-Paul Harvey, Talk-Radio Pioneer, Is Dead at 90
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose staccato style made him one of the nation's most familiar voices, died Saturday in Arizona, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/01harvey.html?hp

-Liberal Groups Are Flexing New Muscle in Lobby Wars
By JIM RUTENBERG
When Newt Gingrich's Congress was moving full-speed in its efforts to shrink the government more than a dozen years ago, Ralph G. Neas, an indefatigable champion of liberal causes, threw up his hands and declared that his side had been outmaneuvered. Liberals who had grown up pressing their case with marches and old-fashioned door-knocking campaigns, Mr. Neas said, were no match for conservatives with big business allies and a commanding understanding of the new talk-radio, cable-news battlefield, where former President Bill Clinton's signature health care plan lay bleeding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/us/politics/01lobby.html?hp


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Aasiya Zubair Hassan, Domestic Violence and Islam
The brutal and gruesome murder of Aasiya Zubair Hassan has prompted a great deal of soul searching in the Muslim community. National organizations, the local community, imams, Muslim social workers, activists and writers have all agonized over how the community did not do enough to protect Aasiya, despite evidence that her husband, the man charged with killing her, was known to be violent. They have called for imams to preach against domestic violence as against the standards of Islam, and for communities to stand in solidarity with Muslim women who complain of abuse, rather than counseling patience or questioning if there is anything they might have done to cause the abuse, or that they could change in order to avert future abuse.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/pamela_k_taylor/2009/02/aasiya_hassan_domestic_violenc.html

-Soldier to Report With Her Children
Associated Press
When Lisa Pagan reports for duty Sunday, four years after she was honorably discharged from the Army, she'll arrive with more than her old uniform. She's bringing her two kids, too. "I don't have a choice," she said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/28/AR2009022802304.html?hpid=sec-nation

-No paycheck pain for top officials in Crist budget
By Marc Caputo and Breanne Gilpatrick
As mass layoffs claim Floridians' jobs and health care, state lawmakers aren't planning to cut their free health insurance premiums or the salaries of more than 1,100 state workers who earn more than $100,000 a year. Gov. Charlie Crist's budget plan proposes to increase by $13.1 million the amount taxpayers pay to subsidize state worker insurance. About 26,111 top-level employees - including those in Crist's office, the entire Legislature and its staff - have their premiums completely paid by taxpayers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701471.html?hpid=sec-religion

-Reconciling Science, Religion
Vatican Sponsoring Conferences on Works of Darwin and Galileo
By Francis X. Rocca
Over the next several months, the Vatican will sponsor academic conferences dedicated to the work of biologist Charles Darwin and astronomer Galileo Galilei, two thinkers whose ideas have posed revolutionary challenges to religious belief.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022702730.html?hpid=sec-religion


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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/us

-The Democratic Party Could Face an Internal Civil War
By JOEL KOTKIN
'Gentry' and 'populist' factions square off on energy and the environment. This is the Democratic Party's moment, its power now greater than any time since the mid-1960s. But do not expect smooth sailing. The party is a fractious group divided by competing interests, factions and constituencies that could explode into a civil war, especially when it comes to energy and the environment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123578533109798571.html


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Fort Report
http://www.fortreport.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-On race, blacks are cowards too
By Bill Maxwell,
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is catching flak for saying during Black History Month that on matters of race, the United States is "essentially a nation of cowards" in too many ways. Holder, the first black to head the Justice Department, is absolutely right.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article979873.ece


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