Palin snowmobile team sponsored by "Dictator" Hugo Chavez's state-owned Venezuelan oil company

As a vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin called Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez a dictator and called for energy independence so America could be less reliant on someone like him. She said that Chavez wanted to use energy as a weapon against us.

Palin's anti-Venezuela views apparently don’t extend to her husband, whose snowmobile racing team was sponsored by a division of Citgo, the retail arm of Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company.

Todd Palin's Iron Dog snowmobile team competed this year under a sponsorship from Mystik Lubricants, a subsidiary of Citgo.

A spokesman for Citgo confirmed that Mystik Lubricants is a Citgo brand, and not a separate company. A Palin adviser would not answer any sponsorship questions. The Palin team dropped out of this year's race early after suffering injuries and mechanical problems.

After the race ended, Sarah Palin went on to appear in a video spot for the Iditarod sled-dog race standing in front of a snowmobile bearing the Mystik logo.

Chavez has also been a critic of Palin's, dismissing her in 2008 as "a beauty queen that they've pulled out to be a figurehead."

Questions about Todd Palin's Iron Dog sponsor were first raised last week on Alaska blogs.

Watch Sarah in video spot with Chavez’s Venezuelan-state oil company sponsored snowmobile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgSdCXg3Qlc&feature=player_embedded#

More than 80% of Republicans vote against law intended to prevent child abuse in schools

The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed the Keeping All Students Safe Act over the objections of a vast majority of Republicans, which sets minimum national standards for practices such as the use seclusion rooms or forced restraint of unruly students.

The proposed federal law intended to prevent child abuse in schools has been praised by children's protection advocates, and slammed by House Republicans as an unnecessary expansion of federal government power.

 The bill’s stated purposes include the following:

Prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools;

Ensure the safety of all students and school personnel in schools and promote a positive school culture and climate; 

Protect students from physical or mental abuse; aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety; and any physical restraint or seclusion imposed solely for purposes of discipline or convenience;

Ensure that physical restraint and seclusion are imposed in school only when a student’s behavior poses an imminent danger of physical injury to the student, school personnel, or others….

The bill would ban the use of mechanical restraints such as tying children to furniture, and would allow seclusion and physical restraint to be used only when there is imminent danger of injury and only when imposed by trained staff.

The democratic bill was put forth in reaction to a government report last year that found hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the practices. It was opposed by more than 80% of Republicans, who said the bill amounted to an intrusion on states' rights and the ability of local school districts to determine their own policies.

145 Republicans voted against the bill last week, which will have to get the Senate's and the president's approval to become law.

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa said that the bill would lead to a federal takeover of the education system.

A report from the Government Accountability Office, released last year, found hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades. The GAO report noted that children with disabilities are especially vulnerable to abuse.

Former Gov. Romney struggles to explain on Fox News why his health plan is different than Obama's

In his appearance on Fox News Sunday Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney insisted that the health care reform plan he implemented in Massachusetts is in no way similar to the one President Obama is advocating for. The governor’s reasoning is because Romney's plan was state-based and the president’s proposal is a federal plan.

His way of thinking was a bit of a stretch. Romney defended the universal health care system he put into place as governor as the ultimate conservative plan, the ultimate pro-life effort, and one that is working well. But the Massachusetts Republican was troubled that Obama would think of employing a similar reform on the federal level.

Romney, a likely 2012 presidential candidate, refused to admit that his plan was akin to Obama's, in spite of host Chris Wallace pointing out that both plans shared many key measures; like an individual and employer mandate, subsidies for those who would have trouble buying insurance, and minimum standards for coverage.

A couple of differences that Romney did point to were that his plan had no mechanisms to keep insurance premiums in check, and that the president's plan proposes some minor cuts to Medicare and some ancillary taxes designed to provide sufficient funds to keep per capita spending down; something that the Massachusetts plan failed to do. This might be why Massachusetts currently has some of the highest health insurance premiums in the nation.

Romney interview on Fox part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cahvl8V317g

Romney interview on Fox part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqB1NTOEOuo