TV News LIES

A Texas judge selected a second grand jury Monday in an investigation into whether Gov. Rick Perry abused his power by vetoing funding for public corruption prosecutors, and this time the Republican has retained a high-profile defense attorney to represent him.

At issue is Perry's veto of $7.5 million for the state Public Integrity Unit after the prosecutor whose office oversees it refused to resign following a drunken driving arrest. A political watchdog group filed a complaint alleging Perry tried to coerce Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg to leave office.

When the Obama administration announced plans to halt the domestic sale of most elephant ivory, the National Rifle Association urged its members to mobilize against the ban.

While the NRA said it agreed with the goal of ending endangered elephant poaching, it warned that something far more important was at stake: “This is another attempt by this anti-gun administration to ban firearms,” the organization asserted in an alert.

When it comes to defending gun rights, no issue is seemingly too obscure for the NRA — not even the ivory trade. Amid the high-profile epic battles, including the recent clashes following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, there have been smaller, under-the-radar ones, too — often appearing to touch only tangentially on actual guns.

The 2011 anti-Branstad pins marks at least the third time state officials have attempted to ban AFSCME pins. The state previously demanded employees remove a pin that read "When will this s--- end? Election day," which the union acknowledged pushed the boundaries and did not challenge.

But an arbitrator ruled in the union's favor in 1998 when the state banned University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics employees' pins that read "When will the shift end?"

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, nominated to run "Obamacare," would bring a wealth of expertise in economics and government management to one of Washington's toughest jobs, even though she has little direct experience in the health care industry.

In selecting Burwell to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Obama chose a veteran technocrat who members of both parties say is up to the challenge of running a $1 trillion bureaucracy that rivals the Pentagon in complexity. If confirmed, she'll inherit a beleaguered agency seeking desperately to turn the page on a tumultuous chapter characterized by the shambolic rollout of Obama's health care law and HealthCare.gov.

After a difficult five years shepherding President Obama's signature health care law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has tendered her resignation, according to two senior administration officials.

Obama accepted the resignation this week and intends to announce that he will nominate Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Sebelius.