Syria's military has begun stockpiling chemical weapons and equipping its soldiers with gas masks near the city of Homs, opposition sources reported on Thursday.
Opposition activists said they had received reports that the Syrian army had transferred a significant quantity of grenades and mortars containing chemical agents to a school building in Homs.
The opposition also reported that gas masks were being distributed to soldiers at roadblocks.
Homs has become the focal point of violent confrontations between insurgents and the country's military in recent days, and opposition figures are concerned that the moves could signal the regime's intention to use chemical weapons against its citizens.
News agencies reported over 130 killed in Syria on Thursday, as Bashar Assad's government intensified its crackdown on an expanding uprising against his regime.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi might have briefly run afoul of congressional ethics rules at a Capitol press conference on Thursday when she made a statement that could be construed as a solicitation for campaign contributions.read more here...
The Democratic leader was holding a briefing to promote a campaign finance disclosure bill when she said she was “asking people to contribute to us, if they want to elect more reformers to Congress.”
House ethics rules prohibit members of Congress from soliciting campaign donations in House office buildings, including the Capitol Visitor Center, where Pelosi was speaking. A section of the U.S. criminal code also prohibits fund-raising in federal buildings.
The former Speaker was asked about President Obama’s decision to encourage donations to a super-PAC supporting his reelection and whether super-PACs supporting both the president and House Democrats should voluntarily disclose donations.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference had just started this morning when CNN angered some prominent players by comparing it to a cauldron of bacteria.
Just before noon, an on-air reporter and anchor called CPAC a “conservative petri dish,” an image disgusting to some, and scientifically appropriate to others.
Reporter Peter Hamby, talking about the conference and its reaction to Mitt Romney, said, “It will be interesting to see in this kind of conservative petri dish how Mitt Romney is received and how his challengers re received too.”
That prompted anchor Suzanne Malveaux to say, “I love that, conservative petri dish. That’s a great way to describe it.”
Fox News host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is getting a three-hour afternoon radio show from Cumulus Media Networks, Brian Stelter at the New York Times reports.
Stelter writes that the new show is something of an attack on talk-radio stalwart Rush Limbaugh, whose program airs at the same time in many markets. Huckabee, who hosts his eponymous Fox News show on the weekend, will add his radio show from noon-3PM Monday-Friday. His deal with FNC is not expected to change… for now.
Mr. Huckabee will normally host the radio show from Florida, where he lives, but it will travel with him as he gives speeches and tapes his weekend Fox show. He said he would remain affiliated with Fox News for “as long as they keep renewing my contract,” which is up for renewal this year.
President Obama runs slightly ahead of Mitt Romney and dead even with Rick Santorum in Rasmussen Reports’ first Election 2012 look at the key battleground state of Ohio.
A new telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds Obama earning 45% support to Romney’s 41%. Ten percent (10%) like some other candidate in the race, and four percent (4%) remain undecided
Following a revealing interview with former JFK mistress Mimi Alford on Wednesday's NBC Rock Center, left-wing MSNBC host Chris Matthews, along with liberal historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Reeves, were invited on the broadcast to give a sycophantic defense of the womanizing president.
Touting his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," Matthews proclaimed: "The greatest heroes are often the most flawed." The Hardball host went on to gush over how Kennedy "colorized American politics....made it a technicolor movie, he made it exciting." In his characteristic fashion, Matthews concluded: "And so with it all, the total picture still arouses the country."
The Morning Joe team continued its ongoing discussion on the White House’s controversial — and, now, changing — birth control mandate, with host Joe Scarborough urging people not to turn an issue about government interference in religion into a discussion on contraception
It's been 34 years -- and several nuclear accidents later -- but a divided federal panel on Thursday licensed a utility to build nuclear reactors in the U.S. for the first time since 1978.read the rest here...
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, opposed licensing the two reactors at this time even though he had earlier praised their design.
"There is still more work" to be done to ensure that lessons learned from Japan's Fukushima disaster last year are engrained in the reactor design, he told his colleagues. "I cannot support this licensing as if Fukushima never happened."
"There is no amnesia," responded Commissioner Kristine Svinick, speaking for the majority and noting that the industry has been directed to adopt those lessons.
The licensing covers two reactors estimated to cost $14 billion that the Southern Company is building at its existing Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia.
Mitt Romney picked up two endorsements today, one in a Super Tuesday state, the other in a state where he hopes to be still competing once its primary rolls around
The other endorsement is from former US Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, which doesn't vote until April 22. McCain hopes to have the nomination wrapped up by then.
Santorum, however, appealed to Republicans voting on Super Tuesday.SANTORUM 2/1/2008: "In a few short days, Republicans from across this country will decide more than their party's nominee. They will decide the very future of our party and the conservative coalition that Ronald Reagan built. Conservatives can no longer afford to stand on the sidelines in this election, and Governor Romney is the candidate who will stand up for the conservative principles that we hold dear," Santorum said in a statement. "Governor Romney has a deep understanding of the important issues confronting our country today, and he is the clear conservative candidate that can go into the general election with a united Republican party."
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