What Happens in Vegas Is Being Blamed on President Obama
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Not Staying in Vegas
Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn is again lashing out at President Obama for discouraging companies that received bailout money from traveling to Sin City. The Las Vegas Sun reports Wynn said during a conference call Thursday: "Right now we are more afraid of Washington than we are of the economy The president has his own office and his own group of people... and they don't listen to anyone."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Wynn says the president's February warning has caused companies to pull out of lucrative conventions, which has hurt the city's economy: "Our senior senator is the Senate majority leader. You think that we'd have a leg up on this... we have a government that has decided anybody who creates jobs must be bad; that the job creators must have a target on their back."
It's Not in the Mail
The Government Accountability Office has added the Postal Service to its list of high-risk federal agencies because it will lose billions of dollars in the coming years. The report says the service needs a serious transformation and estimates it will lose $7 billion dollars this year and another $7 billion next year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The service has been struggling with a sharp decline in volume because of the recession and the popularity of e-mail. Postal executives have suggested ending Saturday delivery, closing branches and changing the way the service pays retiree health benefits.
But the GAO says more drastic measures are needed. The report calls on the Postal Service and Congress to work together to develop a restructuring plan.
Independent Woman
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Obama's aunt says she does not need her nephew to stand up for her as a character witness at her immigration hearing next February. Zeituni Onyango, who is living in this country illegally, told the Boston Herald Thursday: "Why should he? My problem is my problem. I carry my own cross."
Onyango recently moved into a south Boston public housing complex. She was ordered to leave the country in 2004 after her political asylum request was turned down. But a spokesman for her lawyers, Mike Rogers, says they are now "very optimistic about the outcome."
In the meantime, Onyango says she is enjoying the city she considers her second home: "Beggars can't be choosers... (south Boston) is one of the most beautiful places I've ever lived in. People are very kind, and I'm enjoying the beaches."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Law of the Land
And the president's science and technology adviser once endorsed giving trees legal standing in court. Cybercast News reports White House Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren made the comment in a book, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” which he co-wrote in 1977.
he cited an essay written by USC law professor Christopher Stonelaw called "Should Trees Have Standing?" adding that the change "would have a most salubrious effect on the quality of the environment."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He said the essay pointed out: "The obvious advantages of giving natural objects standing — just as inanimate objects as corporations, trusts, and ships are now held to have legal rights and duties."
No word yet from the White House on whether Mr. Holdren still believes trees should have legal standing in the court room.
— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.