Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - The day after Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an initiative drive to remake public pensions, a prominent ally of President George Bush attacked the plan and pleaded with the GOP governor to pursue an alternative. Forcing new public employees to move to a 401(k)-style pension system -- in which they would invest their own money and assume the risk of playing the stock market -- would hurt the University of California's ability to attract top talent, said Gerald Parsky, chairman of UC's Board of Regents. The proposal is one of three ``reforms'' that Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he wants to take...

A union representing some of University of California's lowest-paid workers will rally in San Francisco next week to protest what it says are $2.4 million in bonuses recently handed out to medical center administrators. Workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 called the bonuses "outrageous" when other employees haven't received raises for two years and student fees are going up. A UC statement said the bonuses are in keeping with an incentive plan in place since 1992. Executives receive base salary plus an incentive award based on performance. "The incentive compensation is a...

U.N. Criticizes Iraq Occupation Oil Sales By WARREN HOGE Published: December 15, 2004 UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 14 - An audit board set up by the Security Council to monitor oil sales in Iraq reported Tuesday that during the 15 months that the United States-led occupation authority ran the country there was widespread mismanagement, including financial irregularities, a failure to curb smuggling and overdependence on no-bid contracts. The watchdog panel, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, cited three main concerns over oil sales under the Coalition Provisional Authority: the absence of metering to keep track...

SANTA FE, N.M. - Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (news - web sites) has sharpened his criticism of President Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) over the past week, but his style has remained the same. He couches his criticism with charm. The North Carolina senator with the Southern drawl and populist message is no pit bull on the campaign trail, the role that vice presidential candidates sometimes take as they do the dirty work for the No. 1 on the ticket. Rather, Edwards draws distinctions between John Kerry (news -...

Gore Criticizes Bush's Faith - Liberal Intolerance by Sharon Hughes September 11, 2004 I remember years ago seeing Al Gore on television promoting his book, Earth in the Balance - Ecology and the Human Spirit, and Tipper talking about her concern of the effects rock and roll music was having on teenagers. Back then, before he was Vice President, they talked about themselves as being born again Southern Baptist Christians. However, after reading Al Gore's comments in this week's New Yorker magazine about George W. Bush's faith, it appears things have changed. As reported by David Remnick in the New...

Washington — As a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, I may not agree with many positions taken by speakers this week at the Republican National Convention. Even so, I believe our broadcast media owe us more coverage of an event that remains an important component of the presidential campaign. Yet tonight, if people around the country tune in to the commercial broadcast TV networks, most will not see any live convention coverage. That's not right.

PENSACOLA, Fla. - President Bush (news - web sites) criticized Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites) on Tuesday for saying he would still have voted to authorize the war in Iraq (news - web sites) even if he had known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found. "Almost 220 days after switching positions to declare himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance," saying he "now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq," Bush told several thousand cheering supporters in the Florida Panhandle, a heavily military area. "After months of...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), making a northbound pilgrimage to the Democratic National Convention, said Monday he hasn't seen the United States such a target of world animosity since the Vietnam War era. On the opening day of the convention that will make him the party's presidential nominee, Kerry underscored its theme that America can be both stronger at home and respected abroad. He criticized President Bush (news - web sites) as having an almost exclusively military response to Sept. 11. "Never in 35 years have I seen the United States as much the...

FULTON, Mo. - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said Monday that John Kerry (news - web sites) "has given us ample grounds to doubt" his judgment on national security even as the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) chairman urged the White House to stop such attacks. "Call off the Republican attack dogs," DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters in Washington. Half a country away, Cheney told a friendly crowd at Westminster College that Kerry wavered in views to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as well as the strength of the Persian...

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) by criticizing President Bush (news - web sites) for failed policies "with no end in sight" as Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) defended the administration. "Today we know that the mission is not finished, hostilities have not ended, and our men and women in uniform fight on almost alone with the target squarely on their backs," Kerry said at George Washington University. "Every day they face danger and death from suicide...

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Monday criticized President Bush's record on homeland security, saying his Republican rival is "big on bluster and short on action" in protecting the nation. Speaking to the International Association of Firefighters, a 263,000-member union that has endorsed his candidacy, the four-term Massachusetts senator argued that Bush talks tough on terrorism but has failed to back it up with the financial resources firefighters and other first responders need. "I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror, I believe he's done too little," Kerry said. "I think...

Bush Criticizes Japan, China on Currency By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - China and Japan should stop intervening in the currency markets to give themselves an unfair trade advantage, President Bush said Tuesday, the eve of a nine-day trip through Asia. "Markets ought to be determining respective currencies," Bush said in an interview with Asian journalists. The president's trip, which begins Wednesday, takes him to Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia. He will meet with the leaders of China, Mexico and South Korea in Bangkok on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which runs...

Dean walks the line on firearms By Sam Hemingway Free Press Staff Writer Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean has a ready answer for voters who think his opposition to the Iraq war and support for homosexual rights make him an ultra-liberal. "I've been endorsed by the National Rifle Association," Dean tells audiences at almost every stop, referring to NRA's support of him when he was Vermont's governor for 11 years. That statement is true, but an examination of Dean's record on gun issues in Vermont suggests his relationship with the NRA in his home state has been more platonic than...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The nation's oldest Hispanic civil rights group called on Arnold Schwarzenegger to step down from the advisory board of U.S. English, a group that seeks to make English the official language of the United States. AP Photo The League of United Latin American Citizens said the Austrian-born actor's position brings into question his commitment to Hispanics. "It just seems like all the issues that we support he doesn't," Gabriela Lemus, the league's director of policy and legislation, said Thursday. The league said it is not taking a position on whether Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites)...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - Accusing Republicans of blocking a budget solution, Gov. Gray Davis said Wednesday that lawmakers should drop all other business and put off plans for summer recess until a spending plan is adopted.</p> <p>Davis, who has stepped up his criticism of the GOP in the last week, made his strongest comments to date even as he prepared to meet with party leaders on the budget crisis behind closed doors later today.</p>

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Three of the Democrats' nine presidential contenders drew the wrath of the president of the NAACP on Monday for skipping the group's candidate forum, reflecting a growing sentiment among blacks that their loyalty to the Democratic Party is being taken for granted. The six Democratic presidential hopefuls shared the stage with four empty chairs, each labeled with the name of a White House candidate who didn't make it. They were President Bush (news - web sites) and Democrats Joe Lieberman (news - web sites), Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) and Dennis Kucinich. While Bush's absence...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- A judge in Portsmouth Wednesday acquitted a Maine man of drug charges, calling a police search that led to the arrest an outrageous violation of constitutional rights. Portsmouth District Court Judge Sharon DeVries refused to allow certain evidence to be used and cleared 20-year-old Joshua Eastman, of South Portland, Maine, of marijuana possession. He was arrested after police responded to a noise complaint at an apartment in January, stood outside the door for about a half hour and heard what they said sounded like juveniles talking about drugs and alcohol. After no one answered their knocks, officers...

<p>JERUSALEM - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was kept from a U.S.-sponsored Mideast summit in Jordan, criticized the gathering and said Thursday that the Palestinians emerged without achievements.</p> <p>Arafat said Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas failed to win real commitments from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at Wednesday's summit in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba.</p>

<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) - California Highway Patrol officers did not know a stolen pickup truck was loaded with more than 20 people when they decided to stop it with spike strips, the department said Monday.</p> <p>Speeding west on a San Diego County interstate Sunday, the driver swerved around a spike strip, slammed into the center divide and rolled the 1998 Chevrolet pickup onto its side, tossing his passengers onto the pavement.</p>