Article here.

'HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Maryland jurors have convicted a 16-year-old girl of soliciting the murder of her father who was stabbed to death outside the family's Hagerstown home on Halloween.

The Washington County Circuit Court deliberated about 90 minutes Wednesday before finding Danielle Black guilty of solicitation of first-degree murder.

She faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced.

The 20-year-old man charged in the death of 47-year-old Billie Lee Black is not the same friend she spoke to on a school bus about killing her father.

The girl contends she only wanted her father roughed up, not killed. She told police she had asked some friends to "take care of" him to end beatings she claimed she suffered. Police haven't been able to verify her claims of abuse.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Behind Washington's feverish debate over the $787 billion stimulus package is a question of why one gender is getting left behind--and it's not women.

No modern economic crisis has more disproportionately impacted men than today's Great Recession. Despite women constituting no more than a quarter of job losses, they are expected to receive more than 40 percent of the stimulus spending--and possibly significantly more
...
Men amount to a slim majority of the workforce but about 75 percent of all job losses, since the recession began in December 2007. Before the recession, there was no significant gender gap in the unemployment rate. Since then, men's unemployment rate has more than doubled.
...
Some respected media outlets have been quick to blame manhood for the bad guys who brought us to the brink. We are told an innately, and flawed, male quality has led us astray. This recession purportedly signifies more than economic decline, but the decline of American masculinity itself.

Article here. Is there any doubt this country values the health of women more so then that of a male? Excerpt:

'ST. LOUIS - A lot of amendments have been attached to the health care reform bills being finalized this month in Washington, and several of those amendments have concerned people on all sides watching closely. One in particular, known as the Women's Health Amendment, would increase access to primary preventive care and would support clinics that are often the only source of health care for low-income women, such as Planned Parenthood. The amendment does not include coverage for abortions, but critics claim that it would.

Paula Gianino with Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region says misinformation threatens to derail health care reform and to hurt women.

"We believe that health care reform must strengthen and protect women's health care. Certainly it must not weaken it. And we believe that women's health care has to be a priority."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Microsoft has made its second million-dollar grant to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) to support the advancement of women in IT.

Founded in 2004, NCWIT is a coalition of over 170 corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to expand women's participation in IT. Members include Apple, AT&T, the Bank of America, Carnegie Mellon, Google, HP, Intel, MIT, Motorola, Pfizer, Princeton, Qualcomm, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, Wal-Mart, and others.
...
NCWIT cites a number of statistics (PDF) to support its assertion that women are underrepresented in IT:

•Although 57 per cent of US undergraduate degrees went to women 2008, only 18 per cent of computer and information sciences degrees were earned by women.

•Only 24 per cent of IT positions in the US are held by women.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Let's talk. If you're not someone like Sessions, Hatch, Graham etc. this is NOT directed to you.

I can imagine that it's really an adjustment for you to see so many changes taking place in our nation. We have our first non-white President and we are on the cusp of having only our third woman and first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.

Article here

'A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up.

After all, these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them, as Sotomayor has done. They’ve had codes, handshakes and clubs to do that
...
President Obama wants Sotomayor, naturally, to bring a fresh perspective to the court. It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men. And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage.”
...
And then there’s the Supreme Court, of course, which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents — including Bush Sr. — ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W.'

Video report here.

Apparently the accused rapist asked the boy's mother for her blessing to continue the 'relationship'.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Not torn up enough to make it her subject, alas. Yet Moore claims she was "startled" at the paucity of writing to come out of the tragedy. She notes to Laidlaw that a 1985 Royal Commission report revealed: "A lot of safety practises were ignored. The men weren't trained properly. There weren't enough survival suits. They didn't have a safe exit plan."

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (AP) - A woman accused of killing her four daughters told police in an interview that the girls were possessed by demons and that she got rid of most of the family's possessions to contain the evil spirits.

A District of Columbia Superior Court judge spent a second day Tuesday reviewing a recording of a police interrogation of Banita Jacks. The decomposing bodies of Jacks' daughters—ages 5 to 17—were discovered in January 2008 when U.S. marshals came to evict her from her southeast Washington home.

Judge Frederick Weisberg was to decide whether to admit the interview as evidence in her trial. Jacks' attorneys want it excluded. They say police were trying to get a confession from her before they had evidence that she was responsible.

Weisberg will decide the case without a jury at Jacks' request.

Jacks' lawyers have urged Jacks to use an insanity defense, but she has refused. Weisberg has found her competent to stand trial.

Article here. Excerpt:

'I go to dinner with a bunch of Hollywood Republicans every month or so and I’ll tell you one thing, the women are easy on the eyes, none more conservative or good looking than my Beloved. Republican women are happy, they don’t mope around like victims or screech about how terrible men are for being men. The men at these get-togethers are happier and generally sport less hair product. Married men are polled to have more sex and more satisfying sex than singles so Republican men have another great quality over their unmarried Democrat counterparts.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'PHILADELPHIA -- H. Beatty Chadwick, imprisoned in Delaware County for the last 14 years, was in the jail library yesterday giving legal advice to female inmates when a prison official walked up and gave him the news.
...
Minutes earlier a Delaware County Common Pleas judge issued an order granting Mr. Chadwick's petition for freedom, thus ending his incarceration for contempt of court -- a U.S. record for the charge.
...
In 1995 -- the year "Apollo 13" was a box-office hit, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder and 169 people were killed in the bombing of an Oklahoma federal building -- Mr. Chadwick was a corporate lawyer who grew up in Bryn Mawr and became embroiled in a nasty divorce. In April that year, he was arrested by two sheriff's deputies at his dentist's downtown Philadelphia office and landed in jail.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'VANCOUVER, Wash. — Former Vancouver police officer Clyde Ray Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually molesting his son and daughter. Now, the children say it never happened.

Matthew Spencer and Kathryn Tetz, who live in Sacramento, Calif., each took the stand Friday in Clark County Superior Court to clear their father's name, The Columbian newspaper reported.

Matthew, now 33, was 9 years old at the time. He told a judge he made the allegation after months of insistent questioning by now-retired Clark County sheriff's detective Sharon Krause just so she would leave him alone.
...
Spencer's sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Gary Locke in 2004 after questions arose about his conviction. Among other problems, prosecutors withheld medical exams that showed no evidence of abuse, even though Krause claimed the abuse was repeated and violent.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats praised Sonia Sotomayor as a judicial pioneer, but Republicans questioned her impartiality and President Barack Obama's views as well Monday at confirmation hearings for the nation's first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court.

Even so, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Sotomayor, "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed."

"And I don't think you will" have a meltdown, he added quickly.

Graham spoke after Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised Sotomayor in remarks that opened confirmation proceedings in a packed Senate hearing room. "She's been a judge for all Americans. She'll be a justice for all Americans," he said.'

Like a replay of the McNair case only with an accent. Story here.

'RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)—Brazilian police investigating the death of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti are working on the assumption his wife strangled him with her purse strap.

But police spokeswoman Milena Saraiva says Monday nothing is being ruled out in the investigation, including the possibility another person may have been involved. Gatti was found dead early Saturday in a seaside tourist resort.

Saraiva says police in the northeastern state of Pernambuco are focusing on Gatti’s 23-year-old Brazilian wife, Amanda Rodrigues. She is in custody and has been accused by police of killing Gatti. Rodrigues has yet to be charged and has denied any involvement in the death.'

So a room-bandit busted into their room, bashed his head in and then strangled him with his wife's purse, then forcibly drugged her so she would forget the last 10 hours.

Yeah, that's it.

Congress spends approx. 1 billion taxpayer dollars each year with the stated intent of eliminating domestic violence, the largest portion of that amount being the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). They are poised to increase funding even further next year when they vote on a 5 year reauthorization of VAWA. One would think that this much money should have greatly reduced domestic violence by now. But VAWA spending has had little or no effect on reducing domestic violence.¹

Since the passage of VAWA is a virtual slam-dunk, those who benefit financially from this law are emboldened to demand more and more with each reauthorization. So legislation that's only tangentially related to domestic violence – legislation that could never pass on its own merits – finds it way into VAWA.