First Amendment be damned . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.

Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.” Read more »

By Robert Montgomery
ESPNOutdoors.com

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning. Read more »

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Joe Schoffstall

Country music superstar Randy Travis. (Photo courtesy of Randy Travis.com)

(CNSNews.com) – Country music superstars Randy Travis and Collin Raye are headlining a concert April 11 in Indianapolis to commemorate the 5-year anniversary of Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s court-ordered death by dehydration and starvation.

The concert is sponsored by the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. Read more »

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan during the Inauguration Day parade, January 20, 1981. (Wikimedia Commons photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Perhaps the most telling thing about the year-long celebration planned to mark President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday is that it will not be funded by the American taxpayer. The 40th president would have turned 100 on Feb. 6, 2011.
 
Most of the events staged in the past to celebrate the bicentennial or centennial of a U.S. president or first lady were paid for with money appropriated by Congress. But the proclamation signed by President Barack Obama last year to set up a commission for the Reagan centennial does not require federal funding. Read more »

by Karey Wutkowski | Reuters

March 9,2010

WASHINGTON – Members of the Senate Banking Committee drafting financial reform have “about reached a balance” on the controversial consumer watchdog proposal, Republican Senator Bob Corker said on Tuesday, indicating a bipartisan deal could be reached soon.

Read more »

Mar. 8, 2010 (AFP) – Internet giant Google is testing a new television programming search service with Dish Network Corp., The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The newspaper, citing “people familiar with the matter,” said the service runs on TV set-top boxes using Google’s Android operating system. Read more »

by Laura Meckler | The Wall St. Journal

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Read more »

By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor|CNSNews.com

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

(CNSNews.com) – As the Obama administration scrambles to contain the diplomatic fallout with Turkey over the “Armenian genocide” resolution in the U.S. Congress, Turkey’s tilt towards Iran continues largely unnoticed. Read more »

A stormy week ahead!

by Mark Swaim, Lead Meteorologist | The Weather Channel

Read more »

by Mark Thomas | IRN/USA News

Children in Great Britain could have their names added to ‘hate registers’ if they are accused of using everyday playground insults. Read more »

By Cliff Kincaid

The left says he was a right-winger; the conservatives say that he was a leftist. What is abundantly clear, from reading his Internet commentaries, is that Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell was a psychotic pothead. He hated a government that he believed was standing in the way of his desire to use, grow and glorify marijuana. He virtually worshipped the drug. “I’m a cannabis enthusiast,” he proclaimed Read more »

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Monday, March 08, 2010

Most of us remember the stellar advertising campaign A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste designed at giving underprivileged elementary children a bite at the educational apple. This week Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) decided to use this concept to become an advocate for middle school and high school students as well. Lieberman and five colleagues weighed in on D.C. politics, filing an amendment to a tax extenders bill to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The D.C. OSP was created in 2004 under the Bush administration. These $7,500 scholarships made it possible for students to attend a private school. The students that used these scholarships felt a greater degree of safety as well as made major academic strides. Read more »

Thomas Sowell

Some years ago, one of my favorite doctors retired. On my last visit to his office, he took some time to explain to me why he was retiring early and in good health.

Being a doctor was becoming more of a hassle as the years went by, he said, and also less fulfilling. It was becoming more of a hassle because of the increasing paperwork, and it was less fulfilling because of the way patients came to him. Read more »