Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official
The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday. "If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.

What! Federal Reserve Pick Labor Leader as Head of NY Fed
The Federal Reserve chose a labor leader to succeed a former Goldman Sachs executive as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of New York's private-sector board of directors. Denis Hughes, president of the New York state branch of the AFL-CIO, had been serving as acting chairman of the New York Fed board since May, when Stephen Friedman stepped down from the position.

Obama CIA Chief Panetta Threatens to Quit
A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com. Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

Stimulus money sent to 4,000 cons
One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide. A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased. It’s all part of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - and what is becoming an accounting nightmare for red-faced feds.

Myths and Facts about Obamacare
Obamacare Will Lead to a Government Takeover of The Health Care System: Whether it’s a “public option”, individual mandate, employer mandate, the expansion and federalization of Medicaid, or the creation of a new health czar, the provisions in the health bills being pushed by the Obama administration call for more government regulation and intrusion in the American health care system. The nonpartisan, independent Lewin Group found that an estimated 56 percent of Americans would lose their current insurance under the House bill.

Liberal Congressman Demand ID of Citizen
Liberal Congressman demands identification from constituent in order to ask a question. The person was a resident of his district! Maybe now the Congressman will be willing to support Voter ID Laws!

Government Run Healthcare: 1,200 veterans wrongly told they got fatal disease
At least 1,200 veterans across the country have been mistakenly told by the Veterans Administration that they suffer from a fatal neurological disease. One of the leaders of a Gulf War veterans group says panicked veterans from Alabama, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming have contacted the group about the error. Denise Nichols, the vice president of the National Gulf War Resource Center, says the VA is blaming a coding error for the mistake. Is this the Government run health care you want?

Glenn Beck Interviews Rush Limbaugh
"What they're trying to do here to communications is simply stifle dissenting voices. They're trying to wipe out any opposition," Limbaugh explained. "The things he's talking about doing to shut down radio are simply un-American. ... It is a dangerous time. It's the most dangerous time in my life for freedom and liberty in this country." Limbaugh maintained every action thus far by Obama has been designed to intentionally hurt, rather than help the nation.

Government Run Healthcare: UK Doctors Remove Appendix NOT!
After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home. But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance. That’s the system I want alright!

President’s Council Predicts 90,000 Swine Flu Deaths this year
Swine flu may infect half the U.S. population this year, hospitalize 1.8 million patients and lead to as many as 90,000 deaths, more than twice the number killed in a typical seasonal flu, White House advisers said.

The Wexford Group International Awarded Prime Anti-Terrorism Contract
The Wexford Group International, a wholly owned company of CACI International Inc (NYSE: CACI), announced today that the company has been awarded a five-year prime contract to continue its support for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). This is one of five awards for this indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, which has a ceiling value of approximately $494 million. The contract expands the company's existing business with JIEDDO and enhances CACI's position as one of the premier counter-IED companies in the world. The award strengthens CACI's functional core competency in integrated security and intelligence solutions and leverages Wexford as a centerpiece of that core competency. JIEDDO leads the Department of Defense efforts in countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs), via a three-pronged strategy for defeating IEDs: attack the network, defeat the device, and train the force. JIEDDO integrates DoD's efforts with all Combatant Commands, the Armed Services, the Intelligence Community, interagency organizations, and public, private and international partners.

August Tied for Deadliest Month in Afghanistan
NATO says a U.S. service member has been killed in a militant attack involving a roadside bomb and gunfire. The death brings to 44 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan this month, tying August with July for the deadliest month of the eight-year war. NATO says the American died in southern Afghanistan on Thursday when the troop's patrol responded to the gunfire attack. With four days left in the month, August is likely to become the deadliest of the war. More than 60,000 U.S. troops are now in the country _ a record number _ to combat rising insurgent violence.

Utah Governor: No Special Rights for Gay People
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert says discriminating against gay people shouldn't be illegal. Herbert told reporters Thursday, in his most definitive comments yet on gay rights, that he doesn't believe sexual orientation should be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are. However, Herbert says people should treat each other with respect.

Liberals want to change Senator Selection Process (Again) in Mass
Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., says a bill allowing him to appoint an interim successor for the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy will probably pass the legislature quickly. The idea for that process was floated by Kennedy himself shortly before his death, and Patrick has voiced his support for it. The bill would allow Patrick to choose a Senator who would serve until a special election could be held in four to five months. Kennedy’s term was set to end in 2012. Ironically enough, the idea would reverse a law created by Democratic legislators during the 2004 presidential campaign. The Democrats were worried that then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, would appoint someone from his own party to succeed Democratic Sen. John Kerry if he won the presidency. Incredible!

Did Obama's grandmother say he was born in Kenya?
Although no other evidence has surfaced placing Barack Obama's mother in Kenya at the time of the president's birth, a taped telephone conversation in which his Kenyan step-grandmother purportedly claims he was born in the coastal city of Mombasa has become an Internet hit since its submission as evidence in a lawsuit challenging the president's eligibility.

President “needs break from his vacation”,br> After a mid-August trip to America's national parks and a weeklong vacation on Martha's Vineyard, President Obama plans to take a little more time away from the office next week. Obama will head to Camp David on Wednesday, Sept. 2, and stay through the weekend, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters in a Thursday briefing, “that it may have been "wishful thinking" to suggest Obama's current trip out of Washington would coincide with a news-free week, Burton quipped that the president needs a "break from his vacation.”

Mickey Rourke thanks God and Catholic faith for 'second chance'
Famed Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke, who was at the Sarajevo Film Festival last week, told a Bosnian newspaper that he thanks God and his Catholic faith for giving him a “second chance” in life to overcome his addictions, which almost led him to commit suicide.

Global Warming Update
New Hampshire is having new record low temperatures in August. Some below the freezing mark!

TKF In Tranisition
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United We Stand – Freedom Fest 2009
Let’s send a unified message to Washington. Enough is enough! Stand up with us on September 5th. Here are the details: Where – Theis Park at 47th & Oak St in Kansas City, MO near Nelson Atkins Art Museum When – September 5, 2009 from 10AM to 2PM.

Sometimes boisterous crowd shows up for McCaskill town hall in Jefferson City
A sometimes rowdy crowd greeted Senator Claire McCaskill as she hosted another in a series of health care town halls throughout the state during the August congressional recess. Wednesday evening's forum took place in a Jefferson City middle school, with a crowd of about 400 jammed into the school's cafeteria. Perhaps a hundred or more were not able to enter the building because of fire code restrictions.

Kansas prisons chief: Budget cuts may shorten sentences
Kansas' top corrections official said Monday that additional budget cuts for the prison system would make its lockups less safe and force the state to consider lighter sentences for its criminals. Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz said if his department were required to trim its spending again — after four previous rounds of state budget adjustments — it would have to consider cutting services for crime victims, reducing its supervision of parolees and closing a 554-bed minimum-security prison in Winfield. He told the House Appropriations Committee that the department already is holding 40 jobs at its prisons open. "It increases the probability that something bad is going to happen," he said.

Police seize meth lab near Wichita school
Police today gave new information about what they described as an active methamphetamine lab seized this weekend at a home near an elementary school. Police arrested seven people, ages 21 to 58, according to a police report.

Former Prosecutor accused of trying to get meth delivered to him in jail
Former Assistant Cherokee County Attorney Jeffrey Pittman has been charged with trying to have methamphetamine delivered to him in jail. Assistant Kansas Attorney General Steven Wilhoft filed the charges this week against Pittman, who is an inmate in the Labette County Jail in Oswego.

Pharmaceutical industry funding will help fight meth labs in Missouri, Kansas
In Kansas and Missouri, new laws say a methamphetamine cook shouldn’t be able to get enough of his key ingredient to make a good-size batch. Except that neither state can afford to fund the laws, which are intended to link pharmacy records and prevent multiple purchases of cold medicine. As a result, a meth cook can go from one store to another, buying the legal maximum of cold medicine — a source of the key meth ingredient — at each store until he has all he needs. That should change with the pharmaceutical industry’s offer to fund a linked database in Kansas and Missouri. It is a move designed to better combat meth labs, and also could fend off attempts to legislate cold medicine into a prescription drug.

Former JOCO DA in jail
Scott Hattrup, a Johnson County attorney and unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Kansas statehouse and for Johnson County District Attorney, is in the Johnson County jail on civil contempt charges for failing to comply with a divorce decree from April 2008. In addition, The disciplinary administrator is trying to get immediate temporary suspension of Hattrup's law license on the docket for the Kansas Supreme Court on September 21.

Corruption in Jackson County, Missouri
Some Jackson County employees have received pay increases in recent months, despite the county’s growing multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Two employees in the county clerk’s office received increases of 15 percent or more, including the wife of county Legislator Henry Rizzo. County Clerk Mary Jo Spino defended those pay increases, saying the employees had performed well and had taken on new responsibilities. Spino added she had money in her budget to reward Christina Serrone and Silvia Rizzo due to savings in other expenditures, including educational benefits. The pay increase, Spino said, had nothing to do with Rizzo’s relationship to Henry Rizzo, chairman of the Jackson County Legislature’s budget committee.

"The things he's (President Obama) talking about doing to shut down radio are simply un-American. ... It is a dangerous time. It's the most dangerous time in my life for freedom and liberty in this country." -- Rush Limbaugh

1 Thess 2:9-13

9 For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: working night and day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you, we preached among you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and without blame, we have been to you that have believed: 11 As you know in what manner, entreating and comforting you, (as a father doth his children,) 12 We testified to every one of you, that you would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. 13 Therefore, we also give thanks to God without ceasing: because, that when you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God, who worketh in you that have believed.

The sex industry threatening lawsuits is the first strategy in their playbook and almost always successfully intimidates small towns along interstate highways. Now the Kansas "top cop,” Attorney General Steve Six, has flinched at the threatening roar of the Lion's Den interstate porn chain.

Six ran from defending the highway sex business signage law. Six did not do his homework. Six didn’t even show up prepared to give the expected vigorous or token defense. Six turned from what many see as the greatest social issue of our day. Six turned from what many see as the greatest social issue of our day.

This case can and will someday be won with the right argument — that argument being the constitutional basis for zoning restrictions on sexually oriented businesses for proven negative effects, including increased crime, increased sexually transmitted diseases, property devaluation, increased drug trafficking, general blight, etc. Tobacco and liquor are constitutionally restrained in advertising for their related negative effects. What about pornography? It is time that pornography and its negative effects on society are examined in the crucible of the courtroom and measured in the scales of justice. Perhaps, like tobacco, a class-action lawsuit against pornographers from the many violated children and broken families.

Why did Six give a wink, a nod and a pass to sexually oriented businesses? Why did the federal court records reflect three times during the evidentiary hearing that the attorney general's office didn’t present any evidence as to why this law was enacted? The 1,500 pages of evidence were provided to the Kansas legislators. I know because I provided it myself during the committee hearing. The entire Kansas Legislature voted for restricting sexually oriented business signage based on “negative secondary effects,” with only six members in opposition.

Why did Six contract out the case to a Lawrence, Kan., attorney outside the attorney general's office at an additional cost of $22,499.70 to Kansas taxpayers? What did Kansas get for their money besides, "I give up"? That same Lawrence attorney told one Kansas legislator that he had only talked to the Dickinson County sheriff and asked if the presence of the Lion’s Den (on the interstate) increased sexual crime in his county. Not a fair question and certainly not much research. Might as well have asked the sheriff if internet porn had caused an increase in sex crimes in Dickinson County. This “giving up” by Six’s stand-in seems to boil down to one sheriff's subjective opinion? The “thin blue line” led by the Kansas "top cop" retreated from its first duty of public safety. Not a good day for Kansas families. Not a proud day for law enforcement.

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Phil Cosby is the executive director of the Kansas City office for the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.