Free Republic

**SNIP** The electability problem. Though he has surged in polling among Democrats in early nominating states, Sanders still faces the same basic question as he did when he first got in the race: Is the country ready to elect a self-described socialist as president? The Vermont senator has acknowledged that he needs to explain what the terms means — and doesn’t mean — to people just getting to know him. On Tuesday night, that will include millions of television viewers. “Does anyone here think I’m a strong adherent of the North Korean form of government? That I want all of...

Egypt allowed at least one Israeli and 11 American warships to pass through the Suez Canal as an Iranian flotilla approaches Gaza. Egypt closed the canal to protect the ships with thousands of soldiers, according to the British-based Arabic language newspaper Al Quds al-Arabi. One day prior to the report on Saturday, Voice of Israel government radio reported that the Egyptian government denied an Israeli request not to allow the Iranian flotilla to use the Suez Canal to reach Gaza, in violation of the Israeli sea embargo on the Hamas-controlled area. International agreements require Egypt to keep the Suez open...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius confronted insurance executives at their annual conference Wednesday — challenging them to divert millions in anti-reform advertising dollars toward cutting premiums and reciting a litany of insurance horror stories, to a decidedly chilly response. The head of the insurance lobby made clear later that she’s heard enough industry-bashing out of the White House.

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2006 – President Bush honored military children June 23 as he kicked off the 2006 "T-Ball on the South Lawn" series at the White House with two teams of military Little Leaguers. President Bush and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace share a light moment with "Dugout," mascot for the Little League of America, during the June 23 "T-Ball on the South Lawn" series at the White House. Photo by Cdr. Jane Campbell, USN  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Five- and 6-year-olds from McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., and Naval Submarine Base New London in...

HOUSTON - Yet another clash of Enron trial titans is on the horizon, but it may be less explosive than the first. While jurors deliberate the outcome of the fraud and conspiracy trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, Lay is on trial again without a jury on charges stemming from his personal banking. The 64-year-old former chairman spent six days on the witness stand during the conspiracy trial, often combative and contentious with federal prosecutor John Hueston, who secured the indictment against Lay nearly two years ago. Lay is expected to square off...

European face-off for early farmers Bruce Bower A new analysis of modern and ancient human skulls supports the idea that early farmers in the Middle East spread into Europe between 11,000 and 6,500 years ago, intermarried with people there, and passed on their agricultural way of life to the native Europeans. C. Loring Brace of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his colleagues compared 24 measurements for each of 1,282 skulls from current and prehistoric populations in Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. The sample included 201 skulls from early farmers and 219 skulls from Bronze Age...

In the next few weeks, five men and seven women will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic to interview for the chance to have a radical operation that's never been tried anywhere in the world. They will smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, open their mouths. Dr. Maria Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what they hope to gain and what they most fear. Then she will ask, "Are you afraid that you will look like another person?" Because whoever she chooses will endure the ultimate identity crisis. Siemionow wants to attempt a face transplant....

A group opposed to illegal immigration will mark Mexican Independence Day today by posting volunteers along the California-Mexico border to report illegal crossers. Meanwhile, migrant-rights advocates plan to respond with street demonstrations in Calexico. The action is on the border -- from the ocean east to Calexico -- but leaders on both sides of this increasingly angry issue are from the Inland area. Friends of the Border Patrol, organized by Andy Ramirez, 37, of Chino, begins its monitoring today with an estimated 130 volunteers, he said. They expect to continue the political momentum started by the original Minuteman Project in...

Moral authority is about to have a showdown in Crawford, Texas, where the parents of soldiers in Iraq will square off in the heat-shimmering periphery of President George W. Bush's averted gaze. Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother who has gained international attention by posting herself outside the Bush ranch and demanding a (second) meeting with the president in the wake of her son's death, is about to have company of a different sort. Not the supporters she's grown accustomed to -- television crews, anti-war demonstrators, Democratic consultants and America's political left -- but a small cavalry of opponents who feel...

WASHINGTON - It would be the battle of the dynasties: Kennedy versus Chafee. The son of a Democratic icon against the son of a revered Republican senator and governor in the nation's smallest state. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) is considering a run against Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record) for the only congressional seat held by a Republican in heavily Democratic Rhode Island. The mere prospect of such a matchup next year has set tongues in motion. "It would be a great race. The two are very evenly matched," said Brown University professor Darrell West, who...

Fears of violence grow as face-off intensifies By Julius Strauss in Kiev and David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 25/11/2004) Ukrainian authorities defied growing pressure from the West and the demands of tens of thousands of anti-government protesters yesterday by declaring Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russia candidate, the winner of bitterly-disputed weekend elections. The announcement deepened the country's political crisis and raised fresh fears of violent clashes. Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader, had earlier accused the authorities of carrying out a coup d'etat. Mr Yushchenko said a coup had been accomplished by "rigging the elections'' and that thousands of violations of election...

ST. LOUIS - In a testy debate rematch Friday, Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) derided President Bush (news - web sites) as the first leader to preside over job losses in 72 years and said he had transformed huge budget surpluses into massive deficits with wartime tax cuts for the rich. Bush said Kerry would raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for $2.2 trillion in new spending programs. "That's just reality," Bush insisted. "The president's trying to scare everybody here," Kerry responded. The two candidates quarreled aggressively over the war in Iraq (news - web sites), jobs,...

The possibility of seriously disfigured patients in the UK having a face transplant could be as little as 18 months away, according to a leading plastic surgeon. Peter Butler of the Royal Free Hospital in London said that new techniques and improved anti-rejection drugs have made it possible to graft a face on to another person. It is believed that a team of clinicians is being created at the Royal Free In the future, patients will be to have the donated "face" of a dead person, complete with arteries and muscles, grafted on to their own. The complicated and lengthy...