Libya - 15,000 portable anti-aircraft weapons are missing; black market

Today's Washington Examiner reports that the new Libyan government has accounted for approximately 5,000 of the more than 20,000 MANPADs that went missing in the aftermath of recent war. MANPADS are portable, shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles. The article suggests, quite reasonably I think, that Islamic terrorists will seek to put the MANPADS to use in shooting down commercial airliners and military planes around the world.  

George Clooney bail amount

George Clooney just bailed out of jail after being arrested for crossing a police line this morning in Washington D.C.
His bond -- about as cheap as it gets -- $100.  

Charges to be filed for Afghan shootings within a week, legal expert says

he lawyer for a U.S. Army sergeant suspected in the horrific nighttime slaughter of 16 Afghan villagers was flying to Kansas on Sunday to meet with his client as formal charges against the 10-year veteran loomed within days.

John Henry Browne of Seattle said he plans to meet Monday with Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.'s military prison.

Charges against Bales, 38, are expected to be filed within a week and if the case goes to court the trial will be held in the United States, said a legal expert with the U.S. military familiar with the investigation. 

Texas Sues Obama Administration in Abortion Dispute

SAN ANTONIO - The Texas attorney general on Friday sued the Obama administration to challenge its decision to shut down a women's health program over a dispute centered on the state's withholding of funds to clinics that provide abortions. 

Cindy Mann, the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Thursday the federal government had no choice but to discontinue the program because Texas' denial of funds for abortion restricts the freedom of choice of health providers and is not permitted under federal law. 

With the decision, Texas became the first state to have its Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Program canceled by the federal government. The program provides basic medical services, including breast and cervical cancer screening, and birth control, for 130,000 of the state's poorest women. 

The filing of the lawsuit comes as both Republican officials in Texas and the Obama administration have expressed regret that poor women in the state who depend on the health services could be hurt by the escalating political fight. 

"This is about life and the rule of law, which Texas respects and the Obama administration does not," Texas Governor Rick Perry, a former Republican presidential candidate, said in a statement on Friday.  

Obamacare's Gross Costs Double to $1.76 Trillion, CBO Projects

The gross costs of the national healthcare law rammed through Congress by [Alleged] President Barack Obama will reach an estimated $1.76 trillion over 10 years – nearly twice the amount originally projected.

The figure, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed on Wednesday, is bound to cause embarrassment to the administration as it comes just as debate on “Obamacare” is starting to heat up again, two weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Immediately the revelation stirred controversy among opponents of the bill.

“Both fiscally and for the sake of our health care system, Americans cannot afford the president’s healthcare law,” said Georgia Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

“The longer the president’s healthcare law remains on the books, the greater the threat it poses to our nation’s healthcare and our fiscal well-being,” said Price, an orthopedic surgeon.

“The CBO’s revised cost estimate indicates that this massive government intrusion into America’s health care system will be far more costly than was originally claimed. The law’s true cost to American taxpayers is part of a series of promises [Alleged] President Obama and Democrats in Congress made that will be broken,: he said.

Healthcare expert Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York State, told Newsmax that the original cost projections of the plan were “a shell game” and that the new report “inches closer to the truth” about the cost of the reforms.