The $200 million myth

I laughed soo hard at this last night.

Hurricane Tomas begins to lash a devastated Haiti

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Already devastated this year by a killer earthquake and a deadly cholera outbreak, Haiti began to feel the brute force Friday of Hurricane Tomas, which could dump up to 15 inches of rain and trigger flash floods and mudslides.

The hurricane's punishing rain and wind were already being felt as the center of the storm churned offshore.

As of 11 a.m. ET, the storm's center was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, and about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

In the westernmost tip of Haiti that juts into the Caribbean Sea and is closest to the hurricane, there were reports from the town of Jeremie of destroyed houses, downed trees and flooded rivers, said Marie-Eve Bertrand, communications manager for CARE in the nation.

Tomas also was being felt in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital.

"It's been raining heavily all night," said Leonard Doyle, the spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.

"The rain is a huge problem where we are," Doyle told CNN on Friday morning. "There's every danger that you could have flash flooding. Every danger."

Relief worker Roseann Dennery of Samaritan's Purse was near Cabaret, about 20 miles north of Port-au-Prince, on Friday morning touring camps that hold some of the 1 million people left homeless by January's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which killed 250,000 people.

Gallery: Tomas bears down on Haiti

"It's almost eerie," she said. "It's rainy, it's dark and there's really not a lot of movement."

The few people moving from tent to tent were wrapped in sheets and cloth to provide some protection against the constant rain, she said. The ground is soaked and some low-lying areas have minor flooding.

Some people are riding the storm out in open-air community centers with supposedly sturdy roofs, she said. But many are just huddling in their tents, waiting for the wind and rain to pass. Most don't have anywhere else to go.

"A lot of them do not have families or relatives," she said.

She said her agency, an international Christian relief organization, has evacuated 30 staff members from Leogane out of fear of mud slides there.

Michael Dockrey, the director in Haiti for the International Medical Corps, also expressed his deep concern early Friday.

"Particularly," he told CNN, "with mudslides that can cut off whole communities. We have prepositioned medical supplies, tents, tarps and staff in areas that we know will be isolated."

Aid workers already were struggling to keep up with the cholera outbreak, which has killed nearly 450 people and hospitalized about 7,000. The bacterial disease causes diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to deadly dehydration within hours.

"It's obviously stretched us all real thin," Dockrey said. "We could certainly use more help ... as can all the other responders."

The hurricane will only make matters worse.

"Even if Tomas only brushes Haiti, it may exacerbate the epidemic, facilitating the spread of the disease into and throughout metropolitan Port-au-Prince, where a third of the population remains homeless and in camps," the International Organization for Migration said.

Some Haitians scurried Friday morning through the rain-pelted streets of Port-au-Prince, looking for somewhere to seek shelter, reported CNN en Espanol's Diulka Perez. They have been told to go to churches or the homes of friends and family, but there are significantly fewer churches or homes still standing after January's massive earthquake.

There is also no public transportation available to take people anywhere, Perez reported.

The problem is compounded, she said, because there's no central source of information. Haitians are having to rely on word of mouth to obtain information.

Nor are Haitians eager to leave their tent shelters because the government cannot guarantee they will have some place to return to after the storm passes.

Tomas became a Category 1 hurricane as it approached Haiti early Friday, forecasters said.

The eye of the storm passed near western Haiti Friday morning and was expected to move near or over eastern Cuba later in the day. It is forecast to be near or over the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands Friday night or early Saturday.

The biggest threats are mudslides and flash flooding, said CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf. Port-au-Prince is bounded on three sides by hills and rain runoff could cause flooding, Wolf said. The low-lying port city also borders the Caribbean Sea.

Tomas was moving north-northeast at 12 mph (19 kph), and the storm could pick up speed Friday, forecasters said. Winds from the storm remained at 85 mph (135 kph), the Hurricane Center said.

Rain associated with the storm started falling on Haiti Thursday afternoon as aid agencies scrambled to move as many people as possible into storm shelters.

Deb Ingersoll of the American Refugee Committee said her organization was helping disseminate information and encourage people to leave, but added, "to be honest, I'm not sure many of them will."

"They're very entrenched here," and many worry about losing their possessions.

"They're looking at us like we're crazy for telling them they should leave," Ingersoll said. "They don't seem to think this is an event. ... Aid workers are far more worried than they are."

Ingersoll said group members were dismantling tents in the center of camp to prevent them from becoming projectiles in the wind and encouraging residents to find family or friends who still have homes in which they can stay.

Tomas is forecast to dump 5 to 10 inches of rain on Haiti, with isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches in some areas. In addition, a storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 8 feet above normal tide levels in the warning area in areas of onshore winds, accompanied by "large and destructive waves," the hurricane center said.

Many structures that would usually be used for storm shelters -- schools and hospitals -- are no longer standing. And many of Haiti's homeless have no options.

Tomas was previously a Category 2 hurricane and then weakened to a tropical depression before re-intensifying. Forecasters predict it will weaken again Saturday.

By: the CNN Wire Staff
Via: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/05/tropical.weather/index.html?hpt=T1

Prop 19 (Legalization Of Marijuna) fails on ballot in California

The controversial proposition in California failed to gain enough votes for legalization. Even if it did pass it is still against Federal law. With lots of support from the entertainment industry, prop 19 will likely make it to the ballot again in the future.

GOP soars in House, state races; Democrats expected to keep Senate

Washington (CNN) -- Voters' anger over a stubborn jobless rate and anxiety over troubled economy helped propel Republicans to a sweeping takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives and a stronger presence in state offices, projections indicate.

By: the CNN Wire Staff
via: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/03/election.main/index.html?hpt=T1

Voters decide pivotal congressional, gubernatorial races

Washington (CNN) -- The most expensive midterm elections in history finally began Tuesday, as voters started casting ballots to decide who goes to Congress and governors' offices.

With all predictions, the election is considered a referendum on both the Democratic-controlled Congress and President Barack Obama's first two years in office.

Polls indicate a dissatisfied electorate could clean house -- literally -- by tossing out the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and possibly doing the same in the Senate.

Losses by the governing party are common in the first mid-term election it faces, but the shift Tuesday could rival or match historic levels dating back decades.

Unemployment -- at a rate of 9.6 percent amid a slow recovery from economic recession -- has been the dominant issue, with Republicans accusing Obama and the Democrats of pushing through expensive policies that have expanded government without solving the problem.

For the election basics you need to know, check out our Election Center.



Obama has led Democrats in defending his record, saying steps such as the economic stimulus bill and auto industry bailout were necessary to prevent a depression, while health care reform and Wall Street reform will lay the foundation for sustainable future growth.

Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine told CNN Tuesday that party candidates will still pose a challenge to Republicans.

"While I think we've got the headwind we're running against, we're not throwing in the towel," Kaine told CNN's "American Morning."

"However the numbers are, the margins will be closer," Kaine said.

But Rand Paul, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky, voiced the sentiments of many in the grassroots anti-establishment movement.

"What I'm going to work to try to change is the whole government," he told CNN. "I think government's broken from top to bottom." He insisted that the government needed to balance its budget, loosen regulations on business and cut waste in the defense budget. "We have a significant recession, probably the worst recession since the Great Depression," he said on "American Morning." He blamed Obama's health care reform and banking regulation. "And my fear is it's not just President Obama's policies, ObamaCare and the new banking regulations. I don't care who proposed them but I think they're a disaster for our economy," he said.

As voting day approached, voter anger appeared to tune out the Democratic arguments.

Conservative groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funded attack ads that skewered increased spending under Obama and the health care reform bill he championed, while labor unions and traditional Democratic donors warned a GOP victory would bring back Republican deregulation and policies that caused the recession.

On the day before Election Day, phone service went out at Democratic and Republican field offices in New Hampshire, officials from both parties said.

A spike in campaign robocalls may be the culprit, according to Comcast, one of the telephone services in the area.

"Comcast -- and we believe, other local phone carriers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts -- are experiencing severe call volumes on the evening before the election due to auto dialing activity that is generating a massive number of inbound political phone calls to our network," company spokesman Marc Goodman said Monday.

The long and bitter campaign season will cost more than $3.5 billion -- the most expensive non-presidential vote ever, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.



With around 100 of the 435 House seats at stake considered "in play," or competitive, the anti-Democratic mood is predicted to result in big Republican gains.

On the Senate side, where 37 of the 100 seats are being contested, the majority will be decided by key races in Nevada, Washington, and a few other states where Democratic incumbents face strong challenges.

Republicans need to win an additional 39 seats to claim the House majority, and 10 more Senate seats to overtake Democrats there.

A national poll released Monday showed the number of Americans who say things are going badly in the country -- 75 percent -- is higher than it has been on the eve of any midterm election since the question was first asked in the mid-1970s.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicates that the economy remains, by far, the top issue on the minds of Americans. The economy ranked higher in the poll than all other major issues combined, including terrorism, health care, illegal immigrants and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In addition, the rise of the conservative Tea Party movement has added a new element to the election cycle, roiling Republican races by boosting little-known and inexperienced candidates to victory over mainstream figures in primaries across the country.

Tuesday's vote will show how many of the so-called Tea Party candidates can win in a general election, but no matter the final tally, the result is expected to shift the Republican agenda to the right.

That means little chance of compromise or bipartisan approaches on major issues, observers warn.

Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist who worked for the last Republican House speaker, Dennis Hastert, put it bluntly: "It's been a hostile atmosphere, but it will be hostile on nitroglycerin."

Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner is expected to be the new House speaker if the GOP wins control of the chamber. He already has signaled little appetite to negotiate with the White House or congressional Democrats, saying last week that "this is not a time for compromise."

Boehner and other conservatives say the top priorities must be spending cuts to try to balance the budget and job creation to spur the economy. However, they also advocate extending Bush-era tax cuts for everyone at a cost of $4 trillion over the next decade.

In the Senate, legislative gridlock is likely if Republicans strengthen their current minority of 41 seats. Obama and Democrats accuse Senate Republicans of using obstruction tactics as a political tool, showing the distrust and animosity that already exists.

Democrats are also wary of a recent comment by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who told the National Journal, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

The first test of a new relationship will come in mid-November when Congress convenes a post-election lame-duck session to try to clear unfinished legislation before the newly elected Congress convenes in January. Among other issues, lawmakers must decide whether and how to extend Bush-era tax cuts.

Voters on Tuesday also will decide governors' races in 37 of the 50 states, with the outcome potentially having an influence on redistricting based on the results of the 2010 census.

Every 10 years, the states redraw House district lines to reflect population shifts. Some states gain more House seats due to population growth, while others lose seats due to declines.

In most cases, state legislatures draw the lines, and governors have the power to approve or veto the maps. Governors also can influence whether any loss or gain of seats in their state involves districts represented by Republicans or Democrats.

The list of states that will gain or lose seats is released in December. However, Election Data Services issued estimates based on preliminary census figures that indicated Texas will gain four seats, Florida will gain two, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will each gain one. The estimates also indicate Ohio and New York will lose two seats, and Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will each lose one.