Free Republic

LA CROSSE, Wis (Reuters) - A day after Wisconsin held the largest round of recall elections in U.S. history, analysts parsing the bruising, expensive and inconclusive battles have a gloomy prediction for the rest of the country. Get used to it, the 2012 national election will be nasty. Politics, said Mordecai Lee, a governmental affairs professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, is now "a battle of inches, it is a battle that never ends, it is a battle to the death." Wisconsin's recalls, and the fight earlier this year over the union rights of public-sector workers that triggered them, have...

In the shadow of the fallen Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia, N.H., on a lonely stretch of mountain road, two men lay dead. A spasm of violence that took only a few minutes to play out leaves a community divided and searching for answers. Casey Sherman’s “Bad Blood: Freedom and Death in the White Mountains” (University Press of New England), just published, is an exhaustive account of the longstanding feud between Franconia police officer Bruce McKay, 48, and Liko Kenney, 24, the two dead men. In May 2007, Kenney shot and killed McKay after a harrowing chase that...

New Hampshire authorities said yesterday that they will not press charges against a former Marine who stepped into a deadly shooting and killed a 24-year-old high school dropout who had moments earlier fatally shot a police officer. The former Marine, Gregory W. Floyd, 49, was driving with his son along Route 116 in Franconia on Friday night when he saw Liko Kenney, 24, shoot Franconia Police Corporal Bruce McKay, 48, four times in the torso. After Kenney drove his Toyota Celica over McKay as the officer lay on the ground, Floyd grabbed the officer's service weapon and shot and killed...

Results Mary Fallin 30 (current Lt. Governor) Mick Cornett 25 (mayor of Oklahoma City) Denise Bode 24 (one of Oklahoma's three Corporation Commissioners) Kevin Calvey 9 (State Representative from OKC) Fred Morgan 6 (State Representative from OKC) Johnny Roy 2 (doctor from Edmond)

SESTRIERE, Italy – Unbent, unbowed and ultimately unsuccessful, Bode Miller said in an interview yesterday he is skiing away from these Olympics on his own terms — content without any medals and impressed by the local nightlife. “I just did it my way. I’m not a martyr, and I’m not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here,” Miller said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press soon after he skidded off the slalom course in his fifth and final race, completing an 0-for-the-Olympics.

American skiing ace Bode Miller says he can understand while some athletes turn to drugs in their quest for fame. Miller, who on Tuesday was disqualified from the Winter Olympics' alpine skiing combined event after a slalom slip-up, believes the pressure to succeed forces some competitors to cheat. "Sport was born clean and would remain so if it was about just competing for the fun of it, but the media and the public corrupt it because of the pressure they create," the outspoken Miller told the Gazzetta dello Sport. "Any athlete who isn't doing well is left in the corner,...

NEW YORK - Bode Miller knows he puts his life at risk when he skis drunk, but the outspoken Olympic favorite admits he may try the dangerous activity again. "Talk about a hard challenge right there. ... If you ever tried to ski when you're wasted, it's not easy," Miller told "60 Minutes" for a segment that will air Sunday. "Try and ski a slalom when ... you hit a gate less than every one second, so it's risky. You're putting your life at risk. ... It's like driving drunk, only there are no rules about it in ski racing."...