ACORN OFFICIALS SCRAMBLE, FIRING WORKERS AND SHREDDING DOCUMENTS, AFTER EXPOSED AS PLAYERS BEHIND OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTSOfficials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group's involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.
NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.
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NAVY VETERAN COULD BE EVICTED FOR HANGING FLAGEdward Zivica, a 70-year-old who served in the Navy in the 1960s, faces a hard choice come Veterans Day next week: He can obey the rules and remain in his apartment complex, or he can follow his tradition of hanging the American flag outside his place.
The managers at his subsidized housing project here have given him notice he'll be evicted if he again violates the rules against putting anything on the exterior walls.
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83-YEAR-OLD MAN CHARGED AS MALE PROSTITUTE First, there was Fred Garvin, male prostitute. Now, there's an 83-year-old city council candidate from Centerville, Iowa, who has been charged with prostitution.
Ben Clifford Dawson, 83, of Centerville, was charged with prostitution and assault with the intent to commit sexual abuse after he allegedly offered to let a 33-year-old woman repay part of a $7,000 loan by allowing him to perform sex acts on her. That's not soliciting - it's prostitution, according to local authorities.
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DETROIT DRIVERS REFUSE TO WORK: 'THEY'RE SCARED FOR THEIR LIVES'People who catch the bus in Detroit may be waiting a while Friday morning. About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses.
WWJ's Scott Ryan spoke with Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, who said this was not an organized maneuver by the union. Gaffney said it's a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened Thursday afternoon.
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OBAMA, ROMNEY TIED NATIONALLY AND IN SWING STATESRegistered voters nationally and in 12 key swing states are evenly divided in their preferences for president in the 2012 election between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.
Romney is at least somewhat more competitive versus Obama than either Rick Perry or Herman Cain, in polling conducted before the recent allegations of sexual harassment against Cain surfaced.
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CAIN DID NOT SIGN SETTLEMENT, ACCUSER'S LAWYER SAYSThe settlement agreement between the National Restaurant Association and a woman who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment was reached in September 1999--and was not signed by Cain himself, according to Joel Bennett, a lawyer for the woman.
Bennett, who has a copy of the settlement agreement, said four people signed it: the woman, two lawyers representing the association and Bennett himself.
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OCCUPY WALL STREET: CALLS GROW FOR NEW YORK MAYOR TO ACT ON PROTEST CAMPThree weeks ago, Occupy Wall Street protesters were on the verge of being turfed out of the lower Manhattan private plaza that has been their ramshackle home since 17 September. But after a public backlash and some high-level political intervention, the property company that owns Zuccotti Park backed away from confrontation.
Now, the camp is looking more entrenched than ever. And with the prospect of the protest becoming a permanent fixture in the financial district, calls are growing once again for authorities to take decisive action to clear the park.
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JOSEPH FARAH: ELECTORAL COLLEGE UNDER ATTACK
By almost 2-to-1, 62 percent vs. 35 percent, Americans think the president of the United States should be elected on the basis of the national popular vote rather than by winning in the Electoral College.
Democrats continue to be more favorable than Republicans to what would be a major constitutional change.
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ALAN KEYES: WHEN 'CONSERVATIVES' BETRAY THE CONSTITUTION
"Come now! Let's think this through" (Isaiah 1:18). In the political sphere, Americans who identify themselves as conservatives can usually be counted upon to give respectful lip service to the U.S. Constitution and to the wisdom and right intention of the leaders who helped to persuade the country's founding generation to adopt it. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of praise, however, some of the "conservatives" most loudly trumpeting their great respect for the Constitution seem quite determined to prove their insincerity.
When debating issues of constitutional principle, rather than answering good reasoning with better reasoning, they deploy the tactics of verbal intimidation and personal attack. Once mainly the weapons of the communists and socialists, these are tactics conservatives understandably claimed to loathe.
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BLOOMBERG: OCCUPY WALL STREET'S SELF-POLICING IS 'DESPICABLE'Mayor Michael Bloomberg got even testier with the Occupy Wall Street protesters Thursday, calling efforts to self-police their Zuccotti Park home "despicable" in light of rape allegations there.
The mayor's comments came as more than a dozen protesters were arrested outside Goldman Sachs and in the park. Protesters who were cuffed in September rejected a deal from prosecutors that they found unacceptable.
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OBAMA ADVISER URGES 'MILITANCY' IN NATIONWIDE OCCUPY PROTESTSThree days before an Occupy Oakland protest turned violent, United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard, an adviser to President Obama, called for "more militancy" in Occupy movements across the U.S.
Gerard serves on the board of a number of groups funded by billionaire George Soros, including organizations that reportedly helped to craft Obama's "stimulus" and health-care laws.
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WOULD CAIN BE LEADING THE RACE IF HE WERE WHITE?Longtime readers of this column may get the feeling that they have seen this headline before.
Three and a half years ago, I wrote a column with a similar title after former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.), a supporter of presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, asserted that Barack Obama wouldn't be where he was in the Democratic race if he wasn't black.
Ferraro, who died in March but forever will be remembered as the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party, was vilified at the time for her comment and forced to step down from the Clinton campaign's finance committee.
In that 2008 column, I came to the obvious conclusion that the answer was "no," Obama would not have been a major factor in the Democratic race if he had been white. Whatever effect his race had on him growing up, Obama's presidential bid was helped, not hurt, by his skin color.
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GOOGLE TO INDEX FACEBOOK COMMENTS AS SEARCH RESULTSIf you're finding it tough to stay off of Facebook, you may soon find it even harder to keep your words off of Google.
The Internet's most popular - and powerful - search engine will soon expand its search index to include user comments on Facebook as part of Google's traditional search results.
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