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In an odd turn of events, it looks like the federal judge who ruled that corporations could give directly to candidates might want to revoke his ruling. It appears that he was unaware of a Supreme Court ruling on the same issue: James C. Cacheris of the Eastern District of Virginia indicated in an order issued Tuesday that he’s considering whether his ruling ignored Supreme Court rulings in 2003 ( FEC v. Beaumont ) and 1997 ( Agostini v. Felton ) which upheld the ban on corporate donations. Cacheris requested that both federal prosecutors and lawyers representing two businessmen who allegedly reimbursed their employees’ donations to Hilary Clinton file briefings on his decision by 5 p.m. Wednesday. He wants the briefings to be less than 10-pages in length and has scheduled a court hearing for Friday morning. The judge based his 52-page ruling last week on the Supreme Court’s more recent decision in the Citizens United case. “For better or worse, Citizens United held that there is no distinction between an individual and a corporation with respect to political speech,” Cacheris had written. “Thus, if an individual can make direct contributions within [campaign finance] limits, a corporation cannot be banned from doing the same thing.”But his decision appears to have ignored a 2003 Supreme Court opinion , written by Justice David Souter, which held that “applying the prohibition to nonprofit advocacy corporations is consistent with the First Amendment.” Wrote Souter: “not only has the original ban on direct corporate contributions endured, but so have the original rationales for the law. In barring corporate earnings from conversion into political “war chests,” the ban was and is intended to “preven[t] corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

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Mitt Romney Blasts Obama: ‘One Of The Most Ineffective Presidents,’ He’s ‘Failed’ (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is calling Barack Obama “one of the most ineffective presidents” he’s ever seen, and says he can beat him next year. Romney tells NBC in an interview that while Obama wasn’t responsible for the recession he inherited, “he made things worse. He’s failed.” Romney also says he thinks Obama lacks “a cogent assessment” of world affairs. The Republican charges, in his words, “The Arab spring came, one of the greatest opportunities we’ve seen in decades, and we’ve been flatfooted.” Romney, who plans to formally get into the GOP race later this week, says he doesn’t think his Mormon faith will be an obstacle to winning the GOP presidential nod, saying “we’re not electing a pastor in chief, we’re electing a commander in chief.” WATCH:

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OTA Gingerbread 2.3 update now available for Droid X

Android 2.3 hit the web for Droid X owners earlier this week , but that update previously required a tethered, manual install. As of today, the update is available over the air, so cable-free purists can finally start cooking with Gingerbread on their Droid X handsets. We first saw 2.3 popping up on the device in March , but if you opted out of rooting your handset for an early look at the new OS, you can now get your feet wet with speedy navigation, a customizable dock, and an overhauled camera app. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] OTA Gingerbread 2.3 update now available for Droid X originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Patrick Dempsey Is Leaving Greys Anatomy

redmudnessa says: @annaliese_ah just saw this: http://icydk.com/2011/05/31/ patrick-dempsey-is-leaving-greys-anatomy /

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kredcarroll says: Wow, #coachella 2012 expanded to two weekends: http://bit.ly/mmVeCy (via @mxdwn )

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Star Wars Tv Show

Luke Cage Film and Star Wars TV Show News New Batman Villain & Star Wars TV News – IGN Weekly ‘Wood: 05-26-11 Star Wars R2D2 Mindstorms Lego Robot marco91300 says: RT @dudeman718 : George Lucas already has 50 hours of his Star Wars TV show . http://avc.lu/moCSmp via @TheAVClub #starwars #lucas

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Centuries from now historians will speculate about the ruins of a once-great city that line up perfectly for a semi-annual celestial occurrence. But for now, New Yorkers merely stand, agog for once, awestruck by “Manhattan-henge.” It’s the twice-annual happening when skyscrapers are lined up just right to reveal the setting…

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Andy Murray v  Juan Ignacio Chela – live!

• Refresh this page for all the latest action • Ping your emails to barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk • Check the French Open website • Follow Barry on Twitter First set: *Murray 4-5 Chela: After playing the losing shot of that last game, Murray looked down at his injured ankle, then looked at his “people” in the crowd, mutttered something and shrugged his shoulders. He doesn’t look to happy. He gives Chela tow set points, the first of which he wastes by sending a backhand from deep narrowly wide with half the court gaping. Murray saves the second, sprinting forward and sliding to hit an unlikely winner after Chela had tried to bamboozle him with a sweet drop shot. Murray then wins advantage before squandering it with another poor shot into the net. He wins the next two points to save a service game he looked certain to lose a couple of minutes ago. “Murray injured?” writes Gary Naylor. “Hmm … some players have excuses when they lose and some have reasons. Murray is probably one who has reasons, more often than not. The record book doesn’t differentiate between excuses and reasons though does it?” No, that would be the dictionary, I suppose. First set: Murray 3-5 Chela*: Chela goes 40-0, the second winner coming when a Murray return pitches up short, allowing the Argentinian to send the ball fizzing past the Scot into the corner. The pair exchange winners, making the score 40-15, then trade baseline shots. Chela drops one in the net to make it 40-30, but wins the next long, long baseline battle when Murray sends a loose shot into the net. He’s playing a lot of bad shots from the right-hand side of the court, which is obviously where Chela is trying to keep him penned. First set: *Murray 3-4 Chela: Murray returns to his seat under the umbrella having finally held his serve without first at the third time of asking. “When I was watching him play the other day, Murray appeared to be drinking ouzo (or possibly pastis, given he’s in France),” writes Louise Wright. “I reckon if you’re playing tennis on a dodgy ankle ouzo’ll numb the pain at least as effectively as pills. Is he still on that stuff or has he gone with orangey drink for this one?” First set: Murray 2-4 Chela* The ball travels back and forth across the net a few times and Murray shows guts and concentration to secure his first break and get back in the set. It’s the first game in the match in which he’s played well. First set: *Murray 1-4 Chela: Murray goes 15-40 down on his own serve, before pulling back two points to make it all square on deuce. He gives advantage to Chela with a wayward forehand down his right-hand side, and the Argentinian wins the game with a sublime passing shot with Murray standing helpless at the net. First set: Murray 1-3 Chela*: Chela is playing some solid tennis here. He goes 30-0 up, allows Murray to pull a point back to make it 30-15, but dodges a bullet when Murray hits another sloppy shot, slicing the ball wide and showing his first signs of frustration by administering a dose of corporal punishment to his own racket. Chela wins the next point to go 3-1 up. First set: *Murray 1-2 Chela The length of some of the rallies in these early games would suggest I might be here for a very long time. Despite his injured left ankle, Murray’s movement doesn’t seem particularly impaired and he’s moving about quite freely. On 30-30 in his second service game, he double-faults to give Chela his first break point, which he then saves, before sending a backhand from very deep to concede another break-point. Chela takes advantage of another sloppy Murray drop-shot to send the ball skimming down the line to give his opponent no chance. First set: Murray 1-1 Chela*: Chela holds his serve comfortably to level proceedings in a game I didn’t really see because I was trying to drum up a bit of support for this rolling report on Twitter. The Argentinian won to 15, charging to the net on the final point to smash a woeful attempted drop-shot by Murray. First set: *Murray 1-0 Chela: The BBC cut to the match which is already in progress. Andy Murray won the toss and elected to serve and is 40-30 up. He hits a forehand into the net to allow Chela even things up at deuce, but then wins the next two points to hold his first service game. Not long now: And already we have an email pointing out my shortcomings as a tennis commentator: “”Oopsie,” writes Lindsay Waero. “Andy didn’t play a gruelling five-setter yesterday. He played one set.” Gah! It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these – be gentle. Preamble: With an injured ankle that’s forced him on to a diet of pain-killing and anti-inflammatory pills so large we’re likely to hear him rattling as he walks on to court, No4 seed Andy Murray takes on unseeded Argentinian Juan Ignacio Cela in the quarter-final of the French Open this afternoon. Murray sustained his injury in his fourth round victory over Michael Berrer from Germany and has since hobbled his way to a heroic cvictory against Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, in which he came from two sets down to secure his quarter-final berth. His opponent today is an experienced journeyman has made the last eight in French Open for just the second time and has never progressed further than the last eight in one of the sport’s majors. His win-loss ratio this year is a fairly ordinary 17-12, but this is his best showing in a grand slam event since 2004, when he made the last eight of the US Open. Murray and Chela have met seven times previously, with the Scot having prevailed six times. But Chela is bound to fancy his chances of this afternoon, considering his opponent played a gruelling five-setter yesterday on an dodgy ankle. Interestingly, the bookies have priced up Chela at 5-1 to win this match, which may well be worth a speculative punt. French Open Tennis Andy Murray Barry Glendenning guardian.co.uk

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I know the House Republicans bastardized the debt ceiling vote yesterday to set up some sort of a trap for the Democratic Party and usually I would have posted about it quickly, but watching it go down, it just left me numb to the whole scam. It was such a blatant hoax that Bruce Josten of the Chamber of Commerce even was quoted saying as much. Republicans had hoped their legislation would embarrass Democrats while demonstrating their willingness to force the United States into default on its fiscal obligations, but because the legislation included a partisan attack blaming President Obama for the debt accrued under President Bush and because Republicans privately assured their corporate backers that the vote was a charade, nobody is taking the vote seriously. For example : And for all the talk of economic crisis should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling by August, the financial markets are likely to yawn at this vote — if only because Republican leaders have privately assured Wall Street executives that this is a show intended to make the point to Mr. Obama that an increase cannot pass absent his agreement to rein in domestic programs. “Wall Street is in on the joke,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The debt ceiling isn’t something to play with, but I’m glad Republicans are having a good hoax day. Hey, should we dock their salaries for this bullshit? If you or I spent all day playing practical jokes at work, I doubt we’d get paid for it. Digby makes a great point about the fact that Republicans were willing to weaken market confidence over their political ploy after they live and breath at the feet of the free market alter. . I don’t know what kind of sick nihilism makes a scenario like that remotely possible, but again, I don’t believe it. We are talking about Big Money here and there are a lot of things that aren’t working right in this country right now, but the greed mechanism isn’t one of them. I don’t believe “the markets” are going along with that plan. And I don’t think even the Republicans are going to take that kind of risk going into an election year. But if these people are actually planning a financial panic in order to destroy the safety net, can someone explain to me just how it is they can possibly be considered anything but criminals? This isn’t a joke. Panics have a way of getting out of hand — it’s not like you can wave a magic wand and it stops. At the very least can we at least admit that every single sentence they’ve ever uttered about the desperate need for market “confidence” and “uncertainty” was unadulterated rubbish? (If this happens keep an eye on the short sellers because somebody’s going to make money on it and you have to assume the people who caused it are among them …) I don’t trust Joe Biden’s group at this point until they prove to me otherwise, but looking on it today, it’s pretty depressing to see the House used like a pinata since House Republicans passed Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget, and now they have seniors, a usually reliable vote for them, freaking the f*&k out. This proves they’ll do anything, anything at all to besmirch their own jobs.

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NPR Wholeheartedly Endorses Women Freezing Eggs; Fails to Disclose Risks

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Jennifer Ludden all but acted as an proponent of egg donation and freezing to preserve women's fertility, but failed to acknowledge the dangers associated with the donation process, ranging from negative psychological effects to kidney failure and death. Ludden barely touched on other risks to the procedures, such as using them to permit women over 50 become pregnant. The correspondent began her report by hyping the emotion behind the problem the donation and freezing procedures aim to fix: the declining fertility of women 40 years of age and older: LUDDEN: Two dozen women, all of a certain age, sit in folding chairs in a Manhattan office building. They balance cell phones and glasses of wine. DOCTOR ALAN COPPERMAN: Hi, nice to meet you all, thank you for coming out tonight- LUDDEN: Alan Copperman is with Reproductive Medicine Associates. He's headlining this seminar on how to take control of your fertility. He wastes no time laying out this harsh reality: by the time a woman hits her 40's, 90 percent of her eggs are abnormal. The chances of a typical 40-year-old getting pregnant in any given month: 10 percent- unless, she gets pregnant with her younger eggs, eggs she's frozen years before . He explains the procedure, introduces someone who's gone through it, and takes a flurry of questions- questions I'm not allowed to record because- it's clear from the many who don't want to speak with me- this is an emotional and private decision . The session wraps up in about an hour. (audio clip of audience applause) Women crowd a counter to set up appointments with Copperman's clinic, which offers egg freezing. Sally Montgomery is among the youngest here, and most upbeat. Her mom had trouble conceiving, so she wants to be pro-active. But- SALLY MONTGOMERY: I'm 31, your typical New Yorker. I'm single- like, I'm bouncing around, and I'd like the opportunity to have a family. And so, I just figured, why not? I mean, I don't think it's a guarantee, but it's a nice insurance policy, and I think it takes some of the pressure off. LUDDEN: Others, though, slip out quietly. One 40-year-old says she wishes she'd learned about egg freezing earlier . Ludden then summarized what the donation side of the burgeoning industry entailed and played up the benefits: LUDDEN: The whole process- a week of hormones, the procedure to collect the eggs- runs 12 to 14 thousand dollars, and since it takes 10 to 20 eggs for a reasonable shot at success, some may need to do this several times , plus there's annual storage fees. Then, when you're ready to use your eggs, you'll need in-vitro fertilization, another pricey procedure. All told, costs can easily exceed 40 grand….This is not lost on Dr. Copperman. In his office, high above busy Madison Avenue, he says he hopes the procedure becomes easier and cheaper. Still, he says freezing eggs offers many women the biggest game changer since the birth control pill 50 years ago . COPPERMAN: Women began to have reproductive choices. They got to decide when not to get pregnant. This technology has the potential to help women decide when they can get pregnant . LUDDEN: …Over the years, egg freezing has been offered mainly to cancer patients facing radiation, but success rates were pretty dismal. Of late though, the technology has exploded, thanks to scientific leaps, including a flash-freeze method called vitrification. In Copperman's lab, you can hear the sizzle as a tiny tube is plunged into liquid nitrogen….. With this better survival rate, more and more clinics are offering what they call fertility preservation, and the early adopters are starting to come back and use their eggs . (audio clip of infant making noises) ROBYN ROSS: Yeah, that's right! LUDDEN: In a New York high-rise, eight-month-old Camden bounces in her baby saucer. She's here thanks to eggs her mom froze several years ago. What the NPR correspondent completely omitted is something even the New York Times recognized in a May 15, 2007 report: the down sides, to say the least, of the egg donation process. Reporter Roni Caryn Rabin noted that ” egg extraction is time consuming, and it is not comfortable. For some women, it can be painful .” She then listed the many detrimental side effects: The drugs may cause bloating, weight gain, moodiness and irritability , and there is a risk of a rare condition called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome that can cause life-threatening complications, blood clots and kidney failure .

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