News Updates, 4/17

Georgetown covers Jesus' name during Obama visit
Says it was complying with White House request

Georgetown didn't cover Jesus during Bush visit
First Lady spoke on Catholic campus in same venue

Bomb damages Bolivian cardinal's home
Authorities say they have no suspects, no motive

Easter denied for some Catholics in Vietnam
Police forcibly blocked celebration of Mass in Son La

Vatican investigates U.S. women religious org
Nuns' leadership group faces 'doctrinal assessment'

Venezuelan bishops denounce break-in at their HQ
Episcopal offices ransacked, nothing of value stolen

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates 82nd birthday
Holds very informal 'family celebration' at summer retreat

Notre Dame president denies request for 'dialogue'
Denies student coalition's request regarding Obama

Obama's 'Notre Shame' PR disaster could cost him
Quickly eroding President's fragile support among Catholics

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Other News
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CA Unemployment Rate Hit Record 11.2% in March
California's unemployment rate rose to 11.2 percent in March from a revised 10.6 percent in the prior month and 6.4 percent a year earlier as job losses spread across most of the state's industry...

Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Janet Napolitano Over Homeland Security’s Rightwing Extremism Policy
The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed a federal lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The lawsuit claims that her Department’s “Rightwing Extremism Policy, ” as reflected in the recently publicized Intelligence Assessment, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, ” violates the civil liberties of combat veterans as well as American citizens by targeting them for disfavored treatment on account of the political beliefs....

Another Obama sham event - Alan Keyes
Taken together with steps to consolidate dictatorial control over the economy; to establish a KGB-style national security force; to establish a mechanism that could be used to disarm private citizens; to corrupt the census-taking process for political ends; to weaken the nation's defense capabilities; to erase our borders and encourage invasion and permanent settlement by large numbers of illegal immigrants with no commitment to constitutional self-government; this conscious gesture suggesting the political corruption of our military forces bespeaks a design for despotism that no one who cares for America's liberty can afford to ignore...

A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?
China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons. Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can...

Prof Bill Black stress test is a 2 trillion farce
"Tim Geithner has been a failure...."

Obama Auto Czar Subject of SEC Investigation
Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund...

Alaska Follows Montana
Firearms Exempt From Fed. Regulation Passes House

Queen Pelosi, Tea Parties contrived events backed by those who like tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
"...look like a grass roots operation but is really an Astroturf initiative..."

Perry suggested Texans might...get so fed up they would want to secede from the union...