links for 2009-09-19

Dinner with Sarah Palin for $63,500?

That's what the winner of an eBay auction is forking over to chow down with the former Alaska governor, her husband, Todd and five guests.

Seven people bid a total of 61 times, starting with an opening bid of $25,000. The winner bid 27 times before winning with the $63,500 bid.

The proceeds will go to "Ride 2 Recovery," a charity that provides wounded veterans with bicycles and organized rides to help in their mental and physical recovery.

"Todd and I are so happy to help such a worthy organization," Palin said September 10 on her Facebook page.

Calling soda the new tobacco, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will introduce legislation this fall that would charge a fee to retailers that sell sugary beverages.
Newsom would need voter approval to tax individual cans of soda and sugary juice, but only needs approval from the Board of Supervisors to levy a fee on retailers. His legislation would charge grocery stores like Safeway and big-box stores, but would not affect restaurants that serve sodas.

Newsom wouldn't say how much the stores would have to pay or how the city would spend the fees. When he first floated the idea in 2007, he said the money would go to his Shape Up San Francisco exercise program and for media campaigns to discourage soda drinking.

The Obama administration on Friday urged a U.S. court to dismiss a lawsuit by gay married couples from Massachusetts who say they were unlawfully denied federal marriage benefits.

President Barack Obama won strong support from gays during his presidential campaign and has pressed for repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

But the gay community has been angered by the Obama administration's defense of the law in court proceedings. Justice Department officials say they are obligated to defend federal statutes when they are challenged.

"The story of the spectacular rise and fall of John Edwards, with its sordid can't-look-away dimensions, is moving slowly but deliberately to its conclusion here in North Carolina," the New York Times reports.

While Edwards "remains largely secluded at his 100-acre estate," he is said to be "moving toward an abrupt reversal in his public posture; associates said in interviews that he is considering declaring that he is the father of Ms. Hunter's 19-month-old daughter, something that he once flatly asserted in a television interview was not possible."

However, friends of Mr. Edwards and his wife Elizabeth "say she has resisted the idea of her husband's claiming paternity" and "has yet to be brought around."

Also buried in the story is a revelation taken from Edwards aid Andrew Young's book proposal: "He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the

A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections.
The three-judge panel struck down regulations intended to blunt the power of such organizations, including the controversial Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org, which drew heavy criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars on aggressive advertisements during the 2004 presidential campaign.

The ruling, if it stands, could provide a boost to Republicans and their allies as they try to win back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. Outside conservative groups could become particularly important in countering the fundraising juggernaut of President Obama, who shattered past records by raising more than $750 million during his 2008 campaign.