Free Republic

To ramp up the Ick Factor on Weiner.. he is sponsoring a bill that protects children from men like himself. This guy is really a piece of work.

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG "The world we leave our children" SNIPPET: "And some took heart in what the First Lady assured them would be "a new day" at the EPA."

AUSTIN — The state's new $5 surcharge for strip club visitors will not violate the clubs' First Amendment free speech rights, state officials argued in a court brief filed in advance of a court hearing. The new fee, which was approved this year by the Texas Legislature, is set to take effect on Jan. 1. It's expected to raise about $44 million to be dispersed for sexual assault prevention programs and health care for the uninsured. A state district judge was scheduled today to consider a request made by a group of strip clubs to delay the fee. The Texas...

Context: last Friday, same day as when Gore and the IPCC received the Peace Nobel, the WashPost put out a "Fact Checker" article about the UK decision regarding the showing of AIT in schools. They got a lot of responses, in the blog and in the blogosphere. Because of this, the Fact Checker published a follow-up, and a response from "Team Gore". The links are below; I can't post them due to source restrictions, and to read them in entirety you probably have to register. I'm posting these for information only. There has been a lot of discussion about this,...

Politico's Jonathan Martin reports on Mitt Romney's newest campaign commercial, "Ocean."  The new ad comes amid many reports of how much money Romney and all the other campaigns are spending.  The breathlessness of the reporting doesn't allow the key questions to be asked: "What are the candidates getting for their dollars?" and "Is the campaign hitting its targets in contributions and expenditures?"  In Romney's case we know he's patiently built a small lead in Iowa and New Hampshire, and from "Ocean" we get evidence that he's implementing a new step in a carefully conceived plan and doing so with the sort of innovative appeal that...

June 22, 2007 Tax Cuts for Kids Click here to launch the Podcast Player One of the reasons I keep ringing the bell about the Bush tax cuts is that they’ve been so good for our country in so many ways. Letting them expire would amount to a tax hike of historic proportions -- a tax hike that would take a higher share of our total economy than any year but one since the end of World War II. Prosperity is a wonderful thing in many ways. When societies have strong economies, people voluntarily take care of all kinds of...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to cut off welfare assistance to children whose parents fail to meet work requirements could place thousands of East Bay children at risk of hunger and homelessness, critics warn. The penalty, known as "full family sanctions," has been imposed by many other states since welfare reform began 10 years ago. California's CalWorks program allows children to continue to receive a reduced level of aid even if their parents are sanctioned for failing to show up for job-search clubs or participating in other mandated work activities. "The program itself was founded on the premise that the children...

    RENO, Nev. (AP) -- The Bush administration will host a conference next week to discuss the recent rash of school violence across the country, the White House said yesterday.     Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the conference will bring together education and law-enforcement officials to talk about the nature of the problem and federal action that can help communities prevent violence and deal with its aftermath.     Three schools have been hit by deadly attacks in the past week, the latest attack coming yesterday in Pennsylvania's Amish country.     "The president is deeply saddened and troubled by the recent school violence and shootings...

Targeting a new frontier in the fight against smoking, California lawmakers may ban motorists from lighting up near young passengers. The measure would mark the first time that Californians would be prohibited from smoking legal tobacco products on private property not open to the public or employees. No state had passed such a vehicle smoking ban until this year, when Arkansas and Louisiana set a precedent by barring the practice when passengers are under 6 or 13, respectively. Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a West Hollywood Democrat who proposed California's ban, Assembly Bill 379, said some parents don't seem to know --...

Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoking, both because they are small and still growing and because they're often a "captive audience" for tobacco smoke. Now, researchers identify another problem: a greater risk for respiratory complications during outpatient surgical procedures. Dwight Jones, MD, of Children's Hospital Boston and Neil Bhattacharyya, MD, from Brigham and Women's Hospital followed 405 children, 168 of whom came from households with smokers. The children were having day surgical procedures at Children's, ranging from drainage of middle-ear fluid to circumcision to hernia repair. All had general anesthesia and received oxygen through a face...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study shows that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with behavior problems in children and pre-teens. While the study examined 5 to 11 year olds with asthma, the findings most likely could be extrapolated to include children without asthma who "act out" or experience depression and anxiety, according to Kimberly Yolton, Ph.D., a researcher at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and the study's main author The study will be presented at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time Sunday, April 30, at the annual...

Man also pleaded guilty to bribing a federal officer Boston, MA - An Allston businessman, has been convicted in federal court of knowingly harboring illegal aliens who were working in his cleaning business. Jose Neto, 39, of Allston, MA was also an illegal alien from Brazil. The conviction was jointly announced by United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, Matthew J. Etre, Acting Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in Boston, and Steven Mocsary, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement Office of Professional Responsibility for the Eastern Region. The conviction on...

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection. "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?" Bush asked at a news conference. "It's one thing...