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Obama to Palin: 'Don't Mock the Constitution' By Peter Slevin FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. -- Sen. Barack Obama delivered an impassioned defense of the Constitution and the rights of terrorism suspects tonight, striking back at one of the biggest applause lines in Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech to the GOP convention. It was in St. Paul last week that Palin drew raucous cheers when she delivered this put-down of Obama: "Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights." Obama had a few problems with that.

God's blessings on America would be good. I'd ask for prosperity, generosity, intelligence, opportunity, and peace. Apparently some people think of other divine blessings. Like the Bronze Age Hebrews, they pray for God's blessing in war. From McCain's Website, we learn his position on Iraq: "I know the pain war causes. I understand the frustration caused by our mistakes in this war. And I regret sincerely the additional sacrifices imposed on the brave Americans who defend us. But I also know the toll a lost war takes on an army and on our country's security." McCain says that Obama's policies...

AUGUST 12--Imprisoned Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is upset that his former Montana cabin is on display at a Washington, D.C. museum, contending that the FBI's decision to allow its "public exhibition" runs counter to his victims's desire to limit further publicity about the deadly terror spree. Kaczynski, housed in the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado, learned of the cabin's display via a June 19 ad in the Washington Post, according to a handwritten letter he recently sent to a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel. A copy of the letter can be found below. Referring to "publicity created by the...

With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition. "Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,” a senior campaign adviser said. “Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants from such a process, how he wants it to move forward, and the establishment and execution of his timeline is proceeding apace.” Last month, the...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - O.J. Simpson says an ambitious Nevada prosecutor is pressing a kidnapping and armed robbery case against him that he says even the alleged victims don't want to pursue. "If I was anybody else, I wouldn't be going to court," Simpson told a reporter for Fargo, N.D., radio station KFGO who interviewed him late Tuesday at a Fargo cigar bar. Simpson was vacationing in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. "How many trials have you ever heard of where both of the victims say they don't want this guy to go to jail, they don't want to...

A former president has come under attack by Tehran’s leading conservative newspaper for comments that appeared to suggest that Iran was supporting insurgents in other countries. On Monday, the newspaper, Kayhan, accused Mohammad Khatami, the former president, of making remarks that were against Iran’s national interests. Mr. Khatami said in a speech on Friday that when the founder of the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, talked about “exporting the revolution,” he meant making Iran a role model for other countries, not supporting sabotage operations in other countries. End of News Item

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton warned today it was time to "blow the whistle" on China, accusing it of unfair trade practices. She stood close to a parade of closed shops and pawnbrokers in North Carolina as she vowed to turn the US economy around, despite fears of recession, and promised action to reverse a tide of industrial jobs moving abroad. "We do have to get tough on China, it is long past time for us to blow the whistle," the New York senator said, in the latest of a string of campaign assaults on Beijing. "This country manipulates its...

Brothers file claim in S.F. zoo tiger attack March 29, 2008 The San Jose brothers who survived a Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo are taking legal action against the city, arguing that they are owed an unspecified amount of money because of the zoo's negligence. ********** In claims made public Friday, Los Angeles attorneys Mark Geragos and Shepard Kopp say that Kulbir Dhaliwal, 24, underwent surgery on both knees because of wounds he suffered in the attack. The claim also contends he was deprived of the use of his BMW M3, the car the three victims...

CUBA has demanded the US return Guantanamo Bay to the island nation and denounced the "war on terror" prison, where six detainees could face the death penalty. Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque claimed today that suspects held in the US naval base in the southeastern tip of Cuba have been subjected to torture and face unfair legal treatment. Cuba rejects "the violation of human rights, unjust incarceration of prisoners held there without charges, and their appearance in courts without guarantees and in which they are convicted in advance,'' he told reporters. He did not directly refer to the case...

Former President Bill Clinton is expressing frustration with the backlash in the black community over his claim in New Hampshire that the press has coddled Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill). “This is what happens any time anyone tries to question a statement or a position of Senator Obama,” Clinton says in an interview now airing on Sirius satellite radio. “The response is, ‘You’re attacking me personally,’ and that relieves him of the obligation to address the substance.” Obama has not said he took the remarks personally, but they rankled some of his supporters. As part of a damage-control effort, Clinton spoke...

Republican Ron Paul is out with a new TV ad, set to run in New Hampshire through Tuesday's primary, stressing his military credentials. Patriotic music booms. Soldiers salute. The announcer begins: "A proud military veteran who served our nation. Ron Paul salutes and supports our troops who protect and defend our freedom." A flag waves. The announcer continues, "But who do the troops support? Ron Paul. The record shows they're standing up for him." The ad concludes: "Ron Paul is their choice for commander-in-chief." His campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said Paul "has long been a praised as staunch advocate for...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama's admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate. Obama's campaign said the Clinton people were getting desperate. Clinton's campaign tried to distance itself from the remarks. Bill Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Clinton's front-runner campaign, raised the issue during an interview with The Washington Post, posted on washingtonpost.com. Shaheen, an attorney and veteran organizer, said much of Obama's background is unknown and could be a problem in November 2008 if he is the...

Bill Clinton: Wife's record not covered By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals. During a campaign stop on behalf of his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president said he can't understand why so much of the media coverage of the campaign ignores her experience — and, without naming him, the relative lack of experience of her closest Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. "One percent of the press coverage was...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 11/29/2007 Pelosi: Bush and His Republican Allies Are Preventing Extra Funds from Reaching Our Troops Washington, D.C. — Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today in response to President Bush’s remarks this afternoon at the Pentagon: “Earlier this month, Congress approved nearly a half trillion dollars for the Department of Defense. Just two weeks ago, House Democrats passed $50 billion in additional funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have provided every penny that is currently necessary to fund Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around...

Paul: My policy benefits Israel Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul says his foreign policy would benefit Israel. Mainstream Jewish groups have shunned Paul, a U.S. congressman from Texas upsetting his party's presidential field. His lonely anti-war candidacy, once thought of as a long shot, is now competitive with front-runners in fund raising.Paul has long opposed defense and other assistance to Israel, a policy consistent with his opposition to all foreign aid. He also has said the pro-Israel lobby is too influential in Washington, another statement that is consistent with his disdain for foreign policy lobbying. In a statement released Wednesday...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who made his fortune as a trial lawyer, says attorneys should have to show their medical malpractice cases have merit before filing them. He also said attorneys with a history of frivolous suits should be barred from filing new cases. Edwards' proposal is similar to "certificates of merit" laws that have been adopted in several states in recent years. Those laws usually require that an independent doctor assert the validity of a malpractice case before it is filed. Speaking Monday at a health care forum hosted by Families USA and the Kaiser Foundation, Edwards also...

Washington, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement today after Republicans blocked the Webb-Hagel Amendment to enhance military readiness: “In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the President than protecting our troops.  They have shown they will allow President Bush’s flawed war strategy to continue to strain our military rather than allow the availability of troops to dictate our operations.  And they believe it is in our national security interest to push our brave troops and their families beyond their breaking point.“Democrats disagree.  We care deeply about rebuilding our...

Most people would include compassion on the short list of human virtues. At one point, I would have been one of those people. But, no longer is that the case. Like so many other things, it has taken on a far different meaning in recent times. In the past, compassion was extended to the elderly, the abused, the innocent and the infirm. But during the last few decades, it has become an entitlement demanded by members of various voting blocs. In short order, it has been transformed into political currency doled out by political hacks trolling for votes. But as...

Democrats to conduct nationwide survey of administration of elections as part of an ongoing commitment to protecting the rights of every American WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the 42nd anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act approaches, the Democratic National Committee today announced its unprecedented 50-state election protection effort to prepare for the 2008 election. When signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson said that the "right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies." But nearly 42...

... "It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years," the e-mail said. "During that time we will continue as full-time students, and then, when I graduate, we won't need outside support any longer." Haggard left the 10,000-member New Life Church late last year and resigned as head of the after a former male escort accused Haggard of paying him for sex. Mike Ware, an overseer for New Life Church, told The Gazette of Colorado Springs on Friday...

The other night, as the Senate's Republicans were blocking the state budget, GOP Sen. Tom McClintock alluded to the driver's license pledge, sending an implicit but unmistakable message that a big impediment to a deal was mistrust of the governor's promises to cut enough spending to bring the budget into rough balance. Rightly or wrongly, Republicans believe that he'll sell them down the river in his eagerness to deal with Democrats. That mistrust, when coupled with Schwarzenegger's cavalier treatment of GOP politicians last year, made all but one of the senators impervious to his pleas.

White House reacts to Clintons' comments By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 41 minutes ago The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticizing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled hearings on Bush's commutation of Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence. "Well, fine, knock himself out," Snow said of Conyers. "I mean, perfectly happy....

Former US vice president Al Gore on Friday criticized the "trivialities and nonsense" of celebrity gossip in the media and called on people to focus instead on issues like Iraq and climate change. Gore, who is promoting his new book "The Assault on Reason," made the comments at a book signing in New York, where he was treated to a rock star reception by more than 1,300 cheering and screaming fans. "What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about...

Early coverage of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, has focused on the fact that the book is largely an assault on the Bush administration. But they have glossed over the most significant and alarming theme that Al Gore has taken up: his alleged defense of "reason" includes a justification for government controls over political speech. Judging from the excerpts of Gore's book published in TIME, his not-so-subtle theme is that reason is being "assaulted" by a free and unfettered debate in the media--and particularly by the fact that Gore has to contend with opposition from the right-leaning...

Pelosi's Office Calls GOP Demand for Action on Iraq Bill 'Political Stunt' Monday , April 09, 2007 WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office charged Monday that Republicans had engaged in a "cheap political stunt" when they sent her a letter accusing Democrats of stalling on passage of the critical war funding bill. The spat is over the current bill Congress is considering to pay for ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also includes money for Gulf Coast recovery and farming initiatives. Both the House and Senate have passed versions of the bill — the House version is $124...

Russia?s globally recognized military hardware shamefully pirated in Western countries 22.03.2007 The Russian government is concerned with the problem of pirated Russian arms made in other countries, including the new East European members of the WTO and EU. It turns out that this matter is of a concern not only for analysts and observers. For the first time this problem was publicly mentioned on the highest political level. At the meeting of the Committee on Export Control held recently in Moscow Russian First Vice-Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov put it flatly that western countries, forbidding the sales of the Russian arms...

Dear xxx, During the campaign and since then, we have talked to Americans from coast to coast about the environment and the critical challenge we all face in protecting the earth for future generations. From those conversations the idea emerged that we should write a book, This Moment on Earth, which we hope will help spark a new conversation about ways that everyday Americans from all walks of life can have an impact on the environment around them. The stories have inspired and moved us. Our hope is that they lead all of us to question the way things are,...

N.Korea says South's Web ban violates freedom Fri Jan 26, 10:40 AM ET North Korea said on Friday the South Korean government was violating the public's basic right to information by blocking access to Web sites sympathetic to the North. South Korea has denied access to more than 30 Web sites that it has designated "pro-North Korea" since 2004, including the North's official KCNA news agency's Web service and sites operated outside. "This is a fascist action against democracy and human rights as it infringes upon the South Koreans' freedom of speech and deprives them of even their right to...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Ned Lamont's campaign says Sen. Joe Lieberman has failed to account for $387,000 in petty cash his campaign spent days before the state's August Democratic primary. "Whenever this much cash is floating around it certainly raises suspicions of possible vote buying and other potentially illegal activities that the Lieberman campaign must answer," said Liz Dupont-Diehl, a Lamont spokeswoman. "It is crucial for the public to know what they were doing with this slush fund." The Lieberman camp denied any wrongdoing. Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun said Sunday the cash was paid to field coordinators who then distributed money...

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton says he had plans in the early 1990s to attack and destroy North Korea's nuclear facilities after the secretive communist state was found to be producing weapons-grade plutonium. At the time, he said, North Korea had plans to produce between six and eight nuclear weapons per year.

Relishing the prospects of a triumph, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday promised to restore integrity and civility to the House if voters put her party in control this fall. "We'll turn the most closed and corrupt Congress into the most open and honest Congress," Pelosi, D-Calif., told The Associated Press in an interview. She spoke five weeks before the midterm elections as the House ethics committee opened an investigation into an unfolding sex scandal that led to Rep. Mark Foley's resignation and calls for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to step down. "The only way you can make the...

Democratic Sen. John Kerry ridiculed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for trying to clarify his comment on bringing "people who call themselves Taliban" into the Afghanistan government. "They're not clarifying. He did another Terri Schiavo diagnosis from a one-hour tape," Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential nominee, said Wednesday of the Tennessee Republican. On Monday, Frist said the war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and that he favored bringing "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government. The remarks drew immediate criticism from Democrats. They argued Frist was waving the white flag of surrender to the Taliban, who...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 03, 2006 CONTACT: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider 202-226-7616 Pelosi Statement on Senator Frist’s Comments on the Taliban in Afghanistan Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on Senate Majority Leader Bill First’s comments that the Taliban should be included in the government in Afghanistan: “We went to war in Afghanistan five years ago to crush the Taliban for the role it played in the 9/11 attacks. Senator Frist now suggests that the best way forward in Afghanistan is to coddle the Taliban by welcoming Taliban members into a coalition government, as...

Democrats accused Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of waving a white flag of surrender for saying the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and favoring bringing "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government. Frist, who was traveling in Afghanistan, said Monday that Taliban fighters were too numerous and too popular to be defeated. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," he said. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful." The comments from the Tennessee Republican, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, come as President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have...

CARACAS, Venezuela Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday to be more careful with his words, saying he found the pontiff's recent remarks regarding Islam and holy war "worrisome." "I think the Vatican should clarify the position much better because I believe many doubts still linger among our Muslim brothers of the world," Chavez said. "We see the pope's words with worry." "Those who have so much weight with the word (shouldn't be) saying something that could be misinterpreted and throw more fuel on the fire," Chavez told Venezuelan state-run television from the United Nations, where he...

Mexico City, Sep 18 (EFE).- Mexico said Monday that a recent U.S. complaint about surging violence along countries' shared border "was not well-considered" and it had taken great effort to convince Washington that security in the region is a shared responsibility. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez thus presented the government's reaction to a statement issued last Thursday by U.S. Ambassador Antonio Garza, who said that growing crime in Mexico was affecting bilateral relations and complained about corruptikon in some of the Mexican security forces. Derbez told radio program "Enfoque" that "on occasion, statements come out (from U.S. officials) that...

Top Democratic congressional leaders are complaining to network and cable television news executives that the networks are giving the party short shrift in national security stories. "Until now, there has been a complete absence of balance in the news coverage of national security issues," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in letters sent yesterday to top news executives at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News Channel and CNN.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday night used his Countdown show to deliver a vitriolic personal attack on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “a reality check of Donald Rumsfeld's incendiary speech, a special comment on his attack on your right to disagree.” Olbermann concluded his program with a six-minute diatribe against Rumsfeld: “The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.” Olbermann equated the Bush administration with “the English government of Neville Chamberlain” which "knew that its staunchest critics needed to...

WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton got in the current president's face Tuesday, slamming the Bush administration for linking the London bomb plot and the war on terror to the war in Iraq. "The Republicans should be very careful in trying to play politics with this London airport thing, because they're going to have a hard time with the facts," Clinton said in an interview. "I don't think the foiling of that London bomb plot has any bearing on our Iraq policy," he said. Clinton's broadside, delivered on ABC's "Good Morning America," came as President Bush spent his second day...

MOSCOW - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that his oil-rich nation will sign major arms deals in Moscow to acquire Russian fighter jets and produce Kalashnikov assault rifles, and he slammed U.S. criticism of the weapons sales. Chavez said contracts to buy Su-30 jets and set up Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition plants in Venezuela would be signed Thursday in Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported. "I want to thank President Putin for his firmness in cooperating with increasing Venezuela's defense and security," Chavez said at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport. "We have thwarted the goal of the empire of the United...

Access to universities improves as federal reform stalls Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO - When he started high school, Matias Bernal's English was so limited he stumbled over the words for numbers and colors. Four years later, he was on the wait list at Princeton. But Bernal is an illegal immigrant from Mexico City. Without access to financial aid, grants and most scholarships, he had to push aside the Ivy League brochures and prepare to attend California State University-Fresno, where he can live with family and pay tuition with money from jobs he's not supposed to have. ''I was crushed,'' he...

The Hizbullah and Hamas provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in their attacks on democracies. By hiding behind their own civilians the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians. This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option, and the terrorists with a win-win option. There is one variable that could change this dynamic and present democracies with a...

MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that the Israeli offensive on Lebanon had gone "far beyond" the anti-terrorist operation Israel says it is conducting against the Hizbollah militia. "The unprecedented scale of victims and destruction bear witness to the fact that the actions that were announced to (free captured Israeli servicemen) have gone far beyond the bounds of an anti-terrorist operation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Israeli warplanes and artillery have been pounding Lebanon for more than a week. Israel says it is retaliating for the capture of two of its soldiers in a...

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide, and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq. Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named her in a column on...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on Wednesday that the world was "sleepwalking" toward nuclear proliferation and must urgently revive efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Addressing the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, he said that without moves to halt proliferation, more and more states were likely to seek nuclear weapons which could also fall into non-state hands. "The international community seems almost to be sleepwalking down that latter path -- not by conscious choice, but rather through miscalculation, sterile debate and paralysis," Annan said. He was speaking against a backdrop of international tension over North Korea's nuclear program...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and son of liberal icon Bobby Kennedy, wrote the article, available, along with supporting research, at rollingstone.com. Kennedy spoke to PRWeek about the story.PRWeek: How did you come to write this piece?Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: I had not paid much attention to this issue. And then a number of books came out, and I read them because I [wanted to use them] to interview people on my radio show. And then I read the [Rep. John] Conyers report, [a 2005 Congressional inquiry into the election], and started talking with people in Ohio. And...

Albright: Iraq invasion encouraged others By ALEX NICHOLSON, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying Monday it had encouraged Iran and North Korea to push ahead with their nuclear programs. Albright, who served under President Clinton, said "the message out of Iraq is the wrong one." "The message out of Iraq is that if you don't have nuclear weapons, you get invaded. If you do have nuclear weapons, you don't get invaded," she said after an investors' conference in Moscow. Albright visited North Korea in October 2000, becoming...

Anti-war activists at a liberal gathering booed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday for opposing a set date for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq. Facing down the jeers, Clinton said Democrats need to have "a difficult conversation" about the war. Another potential presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, spoke to the group later in the day and offered an emphatically anti-war appeal. Kerry, who was widely criticized as the party's standard-bearer in 2004 for being too cautious in his criticism of the war, said Tuesday that politicians "cannot have it both ways." In remarks that could have been aimed at Clinton,...

London Muslims plan protest against police anti-terror raid Press Trust of India London, June 7, 2006 Anger at police treatment of British Muslims is growing in east London where people plan to hold a protest this weekend, with some even urging the community to stop cooperating with the authorities. Members of the area's large South Asian population feel they are being unjustly targeted by the police in the fight against terrorism. They cite a massive raid on a house in Forest Gate last Friday in which two British Muslim brothers were arrested, one of whom was shot. Both men remain...

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of...