links for 2009-09-02

Susan Atkins, a terminally ill Charles Manson follower who admitted stabbing actress Sharon Tate 40 years ago, has slept on a gurney for much of a parole hearing that began around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The hearing in Chowchilla is still under way for Atkins, who is asking for her freedom before she dies.

She had been expected to die of brain cancer more than a year ago, but the 61-year-old woman continues to cling to life.

She was denied compassionate release in July 2008, shortly after she was diagnosed and given only months to live.

Wednesday's hearing is her regular parole hearing as a life prisoner. She was convicted of the seven Tate-LaBianca murders.

It appears there are two versions of the preparatory materials for the president's address to schoolchildren floating around, one with language urging teachers to have students write letters to themselves about how they can help the president, and a second changing that to letters to themselves about achieving their short- and long-term education goals.
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Outrageous

According to Governor John Baldacci and Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, proponents of a people’s veto of LD 1020, the same-sex marriage law, have gathered the requisite number of signatures. The question will appear on the November ballot. Full Baldacci statement after the jump.

I fully support this legislation, and believe it guarantees that all Maine citizens are treated equally under our State’s civil marriage laws. But I also have a Constitutional obligation to set the date for the election once the Secretary of State has certified that enough signatures have been submitted. I am confident that Maine voters will make the right decision on this important issue when they cast their ballots in the fall.

California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) topped a crowded field Tuesday in the special primary in the 10th Congressional district, and he will be the prohibitive favorite to replace former Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D) in the November general election.

With 100 percent of the precincts reporting in the East Bay district, Garamendi, far and away the best-known candidate in the race, took 26 percent of the vote, and he will face off against attorney David Harmer (R), who got 21 percent.

A national union coalition has poured $1 million into a newly formed arm of the United Farm Workers to oppose a potential, multibillion-dollar water bond package on California's statewide ballot.

The donation came from a group called Change to Win, a national labor coalition that includes the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the farm workers union and others. The transaction was reported Tuesday in financial disclosure reports at the secretary of state's office.

The surprise donation reflects a schism within the Latino community over the proposals now before the Legislature to overhaul California's water system.

The other day President Obama issued a special message to the Muslim world for the annual Ramadan holiday. Tonight, before leaving Wednesday for the rest of his stay-cation at Camp David, the president hosts a White House banquet to celebrate the same holiday.

Invited guests include three Cabinet secretaries, numerous diplomats, five members of Congress including the first Muslim, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and the chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission.

Here is the list of invited guests, as provided by the White House:

Cabinet: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Conservatives are resuming their historically dominant position atop the New York Times and Amazon.com bestsellers lists after a short hiatus that coincided, not coincidentally, with George W. Bush's tenure in the White House.

While the mainstream media raved about a new era of leftist intellectual supremacy during the liberal ascendance on the bestsellers lists, the return of conservative books to the tops of those lists seems to be going unnoticed.

President Barack Obama, increasingly impatient with Senate negotiations over health care, is weighing a plan to offer more details of his goals for overhauling the nation's health system, the White House said Tuesday.

The president is considering a speech in the next week or so in which he would be "more prescriptive" about what he feels Congress must include in a bill, top adviser David Axelrod said in an interview. The speech might occur before the Sept. 15 deadline that was given to Senate negotiators to seek a bipartisan bill, said Axelrod, who suggested that two key Republicans have not bargained in good faith.

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

“We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”