Armed man arrested at airport as Obama departs

His name is McVey.

Asheville Regional Airport police arrested a 23-year-old Ohio man who was carrying a handgun and listening to police radio scanners near the runway around the time President Barack Obama’s flight was leaving Asheville, according to investigators.

While searching his Pontiac Grand Prix, investigators heard police department radio traffic “indicating he was monitoring our frequency when he arrived,” according to the summary.

Officers also found a siren box under his steering wheel, several pieces of paper with agency frequencies written on them and a sticky note in the cup holder with rifle scope formulas on them.

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American-born truck driver handcuffed in Arizona for driving without his birth certificate

What's really disturbing is that the feds claimed that this is standard procedure.

A Valley man says he was pulled over Wednesday morning and questioned when he arrived at a weigh station for his commercial vehicle along Val Vista and the 202 freeway.

Abdon was told he did not have enough paperwork on him when he pulled into a weigh station to have his commercial truck checked. He provided his commercial driver’s license and a social security number but ended up handcuffed.

Both were born in the United States and say they are now both infuriated that keeping important documents safely at home is no longer an option.

Jackie says, “It doesn't feel like it's a good way of life, to live with fear, even though we are okay, we are legal…still have to carry documents around.”

A representative at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned 3TV’s calls after researching the incident and she said this was standard operating procedure.

The agents needed to verify Abdon was in the country legally and it is not uncommon to ask for someone's birth certificate.

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Iran strikes secret nuclear mining deal with Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime

Bad news on so many levels:

The agreement was sealed last month during a visit to Tehran by a close aide to Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president who last weekend celebrated 30 years in power, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

In return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb.

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Growing concerns about Iceland's other volcano

The Telegraph:

The usually pristine white wilderness was dotted with dirty smudges of crusty ash deposited in recent days. And several miles below the 2,000 ft thick ice field, the magna chambers of a volcano that has some 10 times the power of Eyjafjallajökull are long "overdue" an eruption after an unprecedented 92 years of inactivity.

Fuelling those concerns concerns, Katla, named after a vindictive troll from Viking folklore, has also exploded in the wake of previous eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull. When it last unleashed its fury and ferocity in 1918, glacial floods swept down from the mountain and ash clouds turned day to pitch dark - but the commercial aviation business had of course not been born then.

Sitting atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the fault line where two tectonic plates and are violently tearing themselves apart, Iceland is a smouldering and unpredictable physical presence in the chilly North Atlantic just 500 miles off the Scottish coast.

And in a frank interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the country's president, Olafur Grimsson, a plain-speaking left-wing academic, cited new research by Icelandic volcanologists to warn the country's neighbours to expect more intensified volcanic activity for decades to come.

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Ban the burqa?

From Taylor Marsh:

Should Pres. Sarkozy bow to religious pressure so that France changes to accommodate one religion and their customs when it confronts and would change the historic rejection of religious symbols of this country?

For outsiders who love this country, the spirit of France seems antithetical to the burqa and niqab.

Some argue banning the burqa and niqab impinges on women’s freedom and they should be able to choose to wear it or not. But let’s remember that conservative religions, from Muslims to Southern Baptists to the Catholic church, are inherently misogynistic, separating women out because they are seen as less worthy, denying them priestly powers, which basically relegates women to second among men, even in God’s eyes. This is not 21st century thinking that should be supported in the larger public arena. Every religious group has customs that should be respected among those of that faith, but the public is under no obligation to embrace these customs, let alone acquiesce to them or even respect them if they discriminate through gender, or if the religious tenets will bring a chill across a country’s public landscape.

I’m not French (some French, on my mother’s side), but I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to this stunningly liberated nation, which I’ve grown to love deeply, beginning many years ago when I first witnessed French art. Few things would be more jolting than to see it change on the wings of any conservative religion. As one person living in France reminded me, the French fought off religious conservatives (mostly Catholics) before in her history, so this is just the latest battle. They should keep fighting; for the burqa, niqab and the chador are ostentatious religious symbols that have no place on the French landscape.

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NYT: 'Republicans are within reach of capturing the 40 additional seats needed to win control'

The New York Times takes a look at the upcoming midterm elections. It's not looking good for Democrats. And, it's not just the first-termers who are in trouble. Some of the Democratic institutions in the House have tough races:

Mr. Obey, who leads the powerful Appropriations Committee, is one of three House Democratic chairmen who have drawn serious opposition. Representatives John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, who oversees the Budget Committee, and Ike Skelton of Missouri, who runs the Armed Services Committee, have been warned by party leaders to step up the intensity of their campaigns to help preserve the Democratic majority.

These established House Democrats find themselves in the same endangered straits as some of their newer colleagues, particularly those who were swept into office in 2008 by Mr. Obama as he scored victories in traditionally Republican states like Indiana and Virginia.

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he would consider anything short of taking back the House a failure. Republicans say they have not recruited strong candidates in all districts, but both parties agree that Republicans are within reach of capturing the 40 additional seats needed to win control. Republicans also are likely to eat into the Democratic majority in the Senate, though their prospects of taking control remain slim.

If the GOPers take control of the House, we can say goodbye to anything on the progressive agenda. But, when Democrats get scared, they don't act boldly. They cower. Instead of motivating the base over the next few months, it's likely that Democrats on the Hill won't do anything to rile up right-wingers. But, those right-wingers are already motivated. Democrats need to motivate their base. The specter of Speaker John Boehner is one motivating factor, but we'll need more.

This is why we need to pass the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell "this year," as promised by the President in the State of the Union. If Republicans take control, it won't happen. Same for ENDA. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

There's one main topic on the shows today: Wall Street reform. The Senate will vote tomorrow to end the GOP filibuster of the reform legislation. There are several GOP Senators on the shows today, including Mitch McConnell who is leading the filibuster. He's on FOX, of course. Senators Richard Shelby (AL) and Bob Corker (TN) have also played key roles in the reform debate. We'll hear a lot of talk from the Republicans about the need for "bipartisanship." Anyone with common sense knows that is just GOP code for killing or weakening the legislation.

We'll also hear from some of the Democrats leading the push for reform, including Senator Chris Dodd. For some reason, the White House is sending out Larry Summers, who helped weaken the regulatory framework that led to the economic crisis back when he served in the Clinton administration.

So, there will be a lot of chatter about Wall Street reform today, but the real action is tomorrow in the Senate. Right now, it looks like the GOPers are going to vote as a bloc for their Wall Street benefactors to block it.

Here's the lineup. Read the rest of this post...