Free Republic

October 12, 2006, 1:38 a.m. George Soros’s Two Left HandsThe partisan squeeze on judicial seminars. By Edward Whelan In August 2004, according to this article in the liberal New Yorker, “a clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy” and included five billionaires who “shared a common goal: to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.” The wealthiest of these “hard-core partisans” was George Soros, who had been a “leading crusader for campaign-finance reform.” Soros, through his...

Groups fund Durbin's trips to exotic places BY DORI MEINERT COPLEY NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON - In January 2004, Sen. Dick Durbin and his wife spent six days in Honolulu at the expense of the privately funded Aspen Institute think tank where he attended a conference on U.S.-China relations. Durbin and his wife, Loretta, traveled to Venice, Italy, where they spent 14 days in August of the same year for a conference on U.S.-Russia relations, also paid for by the Aspen Institute. The Illinois Democrat also visited South Africa on the tab of other private groups last year, according to his...

Speculation is mounting (except, of course, among the “professional” press), as to the identities of six of the eight individuals included in the Libby subpoena to The New York Times (see Clarice Feldman’s piece here). The Times deemed the identities of only two of the parties worthy of release, former CIA director George Tenet and former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer. The names of the other six remain elusive

In new ads, ski company says global warming could dry up snow during the next century... The Aspen Skiing Co. hopes potential customers are ready for a snow job. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a new advertising campaign for the 2006-07 season that centers around the message that snow — and skiing — will disappear around 2100 if humans don’t take drastic action to slow global warming. Three full-page ads, which show a melting snowflake imposed over Highland Bowl, will run in SKI and Outside magazines in the next few months. One ad portrays a “certificate of death” for snow....

Nowhere is the blurring of distinctions between industries more apparent than in the guest list of an exclusive, invitation-only summer retreat for corporate titans in Sun Valley, Idaho. Conceived in the early 1980s by banker Herbert Allen as a week-long mingling of Hollywood's elite, the 24th annual gathering kicks off this week with a group of executives unlikely to rub shoulders at other conferences.The informal event, which begins with presentations on Wednesday on topics ranging from healthcare to dependence on oil, was once dominated by media industry chatter. But this year's guest list suggests the topic du jour will likely...

ASPEN — Democrats should perform well in November if they focus on issues like climate change, former president Bill Clinton told an Aspen Ideas Festival audience Friday. “Historically, we should win,” Clinton said. “We might well win one or more houses.” In a wide-ranging, hour-long interview, Clinton discussed AIDS, Sudan, limits to executive power, climate change, Rwanda, oil, Iraq, Democratic Party strategies and GOP mastermind Karl Rove. The Republican strategy is weak, he said.

ASPEN, Colo. -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was briefly hospitalized Friday after he fell ill at a restaurant where he was dining with former President Bill Clinton and others.

Saying he was fine, former Secretary of State Colin Powell returned to a seminar Friday after being briefly hospitalized following a dinner with former President Clinton and others. Powell, 69, arrived on time for a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival and showed no signs that he had been sick the night before. "I'm fine. I look healthy, don't I?" he told the Aspen Daily News after the hour-long session. "I started hyperventilating a little and was feeling a little altitude sickness, I think. "I probably would have been OK but they said, 'Oh god, let's take a look...

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was sitting in an ambulance Thursday night after falling ill while having dinner with friends. Powell, 69, could be seen on Hopkins Avenue sitting up in an ambulance at 11 p.m. while his wife, Alma Vivian Johnson, and an aide looked on and two paramedics attended to his care. After sitting up for several moments, paramedics had him lie down inside the ambulance. The four-star general was having dinner at Campo de Fiori with a large entourage that included former President Bill Clinton and Aspen businessman Michael Goldberg. A source inside the...

ASPEN, Colorado (AP) -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was briefly hospitalized early Friday after he fell ill at a restaurant where he was dining with former President Clinton and others, police said. Aspen police Sgt. Bill Linn said the four-star general told him it appeared to be a combination of altitude sickness and something he ate. "He is conscious and in very good spirits," Linn said shortly before Powell was released from Aspen Valley Hospital at 1:45 a.m. Linn said Powell asked him to speak with reporters. Powell's Alexandria, Virginia-based secretary, Peggy Cifrino, did not immediately return a...

WESTWOOD ONE LAUNCHES THE MONICA CROWLEY SHOW --New Program to Air Saturdays, Noon - 3 p.m. ET-- Beginning Saturday, April 1, 2006 New York, NY Monday, Mar 20, 2006 - Westwood One (NYSE: WON) is proud to announce the national launch of The Monica Crowley Show, the three-hour talk program hosted by author and news personality Monica Crowley. The show begins Saturday, April 1, 2006, and will air from noon to 3 p.m. ET. The Monica Crowley Show will debut on major market stations across the country including: WABC-AM New York, WTKK-FM Boston and WTNT-AM Washington DC. The show will...

Coming soon to a congressional election near you -- something akin to the Republicans' Contract with America. As outlined by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in Aspen on Saturday, the preliminary points to cover in the agreement will include: * A raise in the federal minimum wage; * "Real" stem cell research; * A balanced federal budget; * Ethics legislation; * No selling of public lands "for corporate benefits." Dean said the United States must link jobs to energy independence by shifting part of its workforce to retrofitting homes and businesses, and creating manufacturing jobs in the solar and...

Aspen - The war on drugs has turned into a nasty war of words in a town once renowned for drug use. It seems the Aspen of legend - a place where cocaine was openly snorted in restaurant bars in the 1970s - has evolved and become divided when it comes to illegal substances. This is still an Aspen where federal drug agents can be heckled in a public meeting, but it is also an Aspen where longtime residents express worry about what kind of message a laissez- faire attitude about drugs sends to kids. The change was evident Tuesday...

A dramatic drug bust at two Aspen restaurants busy with the après ski crowd has created a rift between the two major law enforcement agencies at one of Colorado's premier ski resort towns. Fifty-three officers from a number of law enforcement agencies, some with guns drawn, stormed into two Aspen restaurants during the busy after-ski time last Friday. The raids happened shortly after 4 p.m. and netted about 2 ounces of cocaine, $3,000 in cash, nine arrests for drug involvement and 11 for immigration law violations. Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, an opponent of the "war on drugs" who believes...

ASPEN, Colo. -- For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections. The Bush-bashing occurred last weekend at the annual Aspen conference sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. Over 200 invited guests, mostly prestigious, arrived Thursday night (many by private aircraft) and stayed until Sunday morning for more than golf, hikes and gourmet...

He lived by the gun and he died by the gun. Now the late writer Hunter S Thompson, who shot himself in February, is to be blasted from a cannon from the back garden of his home in the hills of Aspen, Colorado. Thompson's ashes have been packed into firework casings and will be dispersed today from 34 different shells fired from a gun barrel mounted on top of a 150-foot high monument. Article continues The monument, in the form of a clenched fist made symmetrical by the addition of a second thumb, is modelled on Thompson's gonzo logo. "We...

<p>HERE'S one thing New Yorkers do not need — Colorado pin heads telling us what to think.</p> <p>Just last week, the Aspen Institute was an obscure, left-listing think tank boasting a high-fallutin' roster of billionaires, moguls and retired government types, who regularly gather in a circle in the Rocky Mountains to think Big Thoughts.</p>

       Hillary wasn't done giving us her mad moments in her Aspen Ideas Festival speech (and don't think Mad wouldn't have a field day with the concept of an Ideas Festival, either). Later in her remarks, she delivered this eye-popping economic analysis for the Colorado audience: "Ours will be the last generation to rely so exclusively on fossil fuels." She added that the "ups and downs of the global oil market cost the U.S. economy $7 trillion last year . . . almost enough to pay off our entire national debt." Seven trillion dollars? That would surprise most...

HILLARY CLINTON made headlines earlier this week when she compared President George W. Bush to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed, freckle-faced mascot whose signature statement is "What, me worry?" As political put-downs go, this hardly ranks as the most egregious, even in the modern era of politics. Fellow Democratic Senator Harry Reid called Bush both a liar and a loser earlier this year, and later only grudgingly offered to retract the latter. The American left, exemplified by MoveOn.org, has compared Bush to Adolf Hitler--unfavorably. Howard Dean has spent his entire term as Democratic party chairman issuing insults to...

HILLARY CLINTON made headlines earlier this week when she compared President George W. Bush to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed, freckle-faced mascot whose signature statement is "What, me worry?" As political put-downs go, this hardly ranks as the most egregious, even in the modern era of politics. Fellow Democratic Senator Harry Reid called Bush both a liar and a loser earlier this year, and later only grudgingly offered to retract the latter. The American left, exemplified by MoveOn.org, has compared Bush to Adolf Hitler--unfavorably. Howard Dean has spent his entire term as Democratic party chairman issuing insults to...