Free Republic

A recount of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucus results has Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by 34 votes, with data from 8 precincts missing and never to be certified, GOP officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday. Despite Santorum's advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

A source close to the family of the Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset al Megrahi told Sky News Thursday his death is imminent and every day is "expected to be his last." Suffering from prostate cancer, the Libyan's health has rapidly deteriorated -- and his relatives said he has been in a coma and on life support for around a week. Al Megrahi -- who was convicted of killing 270 people by bombing a Pan Am jet in 1988 -- has been unable to walk for a number of weeks and is not expected to recover.

Embattled Metra Executive Director Phil Pagano, under investigation by his own agency for financial issues, threw himself in front of a Metra train this morning and was killed, sources said. It happened in an unincorporated area near Crystal Lake just after 8 a.m.

Let me guess in what country....

A federal judge in Houston this afternoon wiped away the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the Enron Corp. founder who died of heart disease in July, bowing to decades of legal precedent but frustrating government attempts to seize nearly $44 million from his estate. The ruling worried employees and investors who lost billions of dollars when the Houston energy trading company filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001. It also came weeks after Congress recessed for the November elections without acting on a last-ditch Justice Department proposal that would have changed the law to allow prosecutors to...

Keeping in line with the Associated Press' penchant for running interference for the Democratic Party, we have another fine example in today's story about the five year prison sentence handed down to Tennessee state senator Roscoe Dixon, a Democrat. Dixon, convicted of taking $9,500 in bribes, was sentenced as a result of an FBI investigation of Tennessee politicians called Operation Tennessee Waltz. Amazingly, the AP found no room in their story for party labels. Naturally, they also don't bother to emphasize the many OTHER Democrats that have been indicted in this scandal. Among others, the top indictments were as follows:...

Posted by Tim Graham on October 8, 2006 - 07:09. The TV networks have enough trouble noticing a single governor's race across the country. But for some reason, the attorney general's race in New York drew attention when Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro drew a federal investigation for wanting to have her cheating husband wire-tapped. (NBC's Today has aired five segments or mentions of Pirro in the last ten days.) Will NBC and others in national TV news report on her opponent, Andrew Cuomo, and his weird habit of investing campaign money in risky hedge funds run by supporters? The New York...

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said. "According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift. Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya. "The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed...

Cornyn: 700 miles of border fence won't happen Senator says plan isn't practical, doesn't have the necessary funds. By Eunice Moscoso WASHINGTON BUREAU Wednesday, October 04, 2006 WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and key liaison to the White House on immigration, said Tuesday that 700 miles of fencing approved by Congress for the United States' southern border will probably not be built because of a lack of money and other practical considerations. "It's one thing to authorize. It's another thing to actually appropriate the money and do it," he said.Cornyn predicted that some fencing would be built...

Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Russia found itself indirectly aiding Hezbollah during the summer's Lebanon war when data collected by Russian-manned listening posts in Syria was transferred to the terror group. According to Jane's Defence Weekly, an advanced listening post on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights fed real-time intelligence to Hezbollah throughout the conflict with Israel. Moscow has long maintained intelligence cooperation with Syria in a broad deal that gives it direct access to sensitive information and brings Russia large profits from defense and infrastructure contracts. Israel has not publicly complained over Russia's intelligence gathering activities, though Jerusalem did...

WASHINGTON, October 4 (Itar-Tass) – As for to day Russia “has no Iegal obstacles to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran,” Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Russian Rosatom nuclear agency told reporters on Tuesday. “We normally work in the framework of international law which is international agreements signed by Russia and resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Spassky said noting that today there are no such resolutions limiting nuclear fuel deliveries to Iran. However if the United States adopts a law limiting partnership relations with countries cooperating with Iran and if this law affects relations between the two countries in...

Dems Start To Use Foley In Ads Democratic House canddiates aren't wasting a moment. Check out this new ad from MN 06 Dem Patty WetterlingIt shocks the conscience. Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the internet to molest children. For over a year, they knowingly ignored the welfare of children to protect their own power. For 17 years, Patty Wetterling has fought for tougher penalties against those who harm children. That's why she's demanding a criminal investigation and the immediate expulsion of any congressman involved in this crime or coverup." Also: the...

Shortly after launching his campaign for governor, Jon Corzine forgave a $50,000 loan to a prominent black minister who later endorsed his candidacy. Corzine lent the money through his charitable foundation to the Rev. Reginald Jackson's church in spring 2004, to help fund Jackson's unsuccessful campaign for bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The debt was wiped off the books Jan. 1, 2005. That was a month after Corzine declared his candidacy for governor. It was also three weeks after Corzine forgave a $470,000 loan to a state-worker union leader whom he had dated. Jackson is the longtime executive...

Lee Hamilton (co-chair) of the 911 Commission is on the Board of Directors of Sandy Berger's company - Stonebridge International. I saw another freeper post this and thought it warranted its own vanity thread.

WASHINGTON - The U.S.-backed strategy to fight Afghanistan's massive drug trade has been unsuccessful in stemming opium cultivation, which is expected to hit record levels this year, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. "It's bad news and we need to improve it," said Thomas Schweich, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for international narcotics. "But we don't feel it's a hopeless situation, and we don't think the overall strategy is the wrong strategy." Schweich spoke to reporters as Western officials in Afghanistan were forecasting a possible 40 percent increase this year in land under opium poppy cultivation, despite hundreds of...

According to a new biography of Dan Rather, one longtime CBSer -- no, not Rather himself -- believes what most NewsBusters readers believe: that incoming CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric is in the tank for Hillary Clinton. In his review of Alan Weisman's Lone Star, Dave Shiflett of Bloomberg News writes that: [f]ormer [CBS] congressional correspondent Phil Jones tells Weisman that Couric is "a liberal Democrat who is so in love with Hillary Clinton'' that it could pose a problem if Clinton runs for president. We're left believing that Rather's critics will soon be pining for the good old...

Former Sen. Max Cleland, who has battled bouts of depression since losing an arm and both legs in Vietnam, is being treated for post- traumatic stress disorder. Cleland, who represented Georgia in the Senate from 1997 to 2003, said he believes the condition _ cases of which are increasing rapidly among Vietnam war veterans _ was in part triggered by the ongoing violence in Iraq. "I realize my symptoms are avoidance, not wanting to connect with anything dealing with the (Iraq) war, tremendous sadness over the casualties that are taken, a real identification with that. ... I've tried to disconnect...

By The Universe's Rome Correspondent Gerry O'Connell: Fidel Castro, Cuba's revolutionary leader, once asked two of Brazil’s most well-known liberation theologians to be with him when he died. The relationship between the Holy See and Communist Cuba has thawed in recent years and new reports in the Italian press suggested Castro had regained an interest in his Catholic faith. He attended a Catholic school and has been described in the past as being a religious child. Italian daily Corriere delle Sera reported that some years ago Castro had asked Frs Frei Betto and Leonardo Boff to be at his bedside...

WASHINGTON (AP) Mortgage giant Fannie Mae says it has been told by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington that no criminal charges will be filed against it for accounting irregularities.

Abbas forced to drop anti-Kassam plan Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 21, 2006 www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525918156&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was forced earlier this week to call off plans to deploy PA security personnel in the northern Gaza Strip when several armed groups, including militias from his own Fatah movement, threatened to attack these forces, PA officials here told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Abbas had planned to deploy several hundred PA policemen and security officers in an attempt to stop the armed organizations from firing rockets at Israel, the officials said, noting that the proposed move had won...

DALLAS — Republican Gov. Rick Perry's former liaison to the Legislature is working once again for the Spanish company that won the rights to develop the state's $7 billion Trans-Texas Corridor toll road project. Lobbyist Dan Shelley worked for the firm as a consultant just before he went to the governor's office, a connection first revealed in 2004. State officials denied any connection between that circumstance and the decision, three months later, to award Cintra-Zachry the huge highway contract. Now Shelley has left the governor's office, and he and his daughter have large contracts to lobby for the road builder,...

Nobel laureate's memoirs sell out after SS confession By Lee Glendinning and agencies The publishers have brought forward the release date and German bookshops are struggling to keep up supplies. Such is the demand for Gunter Grass's autobiography, which has stunned Germany with revelations that the Nobel-prize winning novelist once served in Hitler's Waffen SS as a teenager. Grass, 78 - regarded by many as Germany's moral arbiter - recounted the secret shame that has weighed upon him for decades following his involvement in the elite military force, in a pre-publication interview with a German newspaper last weekend. His admissions...

08/02/06 Oops! Absentee Ballots Went Out Too Late for Aug. 8 more... by Christine Stuart 02:53:17 pm, Categories: CT Elections 2006, 415 words The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz because 85 Town Clerks failed to send absentee ballots to the military and uniformed officers oversees in time for Aug. 8 primary. In order to see that the voting rights of the men and women serving the United States are not violated, the lawsuit that is being called an "agreement" between the state and federal government, seeks to keep the...

There was a time when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s position on the Iraq war seemed to place her in the same political peril afflicting Senator Joseph I. Lieberman. The senators, both Democrats, voted to authorize the military invasion and both refused to apologize for their votes as the occupation began to falter and opposition to the war swelled. Both were labeled as hawks within Democratic ranks. But while Mr. Lieberman, his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000, has wound up vulnerable to an antiwar challenger in his re-election race in Connecticut, Mrs. Clinton has suffered few, if any, serious consequences...

PHILADELPHIA --Several Vietnam War veterans who sued over a documentary about Sen. John Kerry's anti-war activities have dropped their libel suits, leaving just one lawsuit pending over the controversial 2004 film.

This remains a nation of laws," former Ambassador Joe Wilson said on Friday -- and it also remains a nation of lawsuits, as Wilson demonstrated at a press conference in Washington. Wilson invited reporters to hear why he and his wife Valerie Plame are suing Vice President Dick Cheney, presidential adviser Karl Rove, and former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Thursday, accuses Cheney, Rove and Libby of conspiring to "discredit, punish and seek revenge" against Wilson -- for his criticism of the Bush administration as it built its case for the war...

cause of death unknown

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June. As of today, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in the four border states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. President Bush's plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states — including the four border states — have signed commitments. Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Appearing before a religious conference earlier this week, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) told the audience that as a child attending Sunday school she would baby-sit the children of migrant workers so that their older siblings could join their parents at work. "I was fortunate that at an early age, through my church, I was given the opportunity to expand my horizons," Clinton told the 600 adults and teenagers attending the Sojourners "Covenant for a New America" conference. Politically, the story served two purposes for the New York Democrat. It allowed her to promote a developing...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq "slit the throats" of two U.S. soldiers whose bodies were found in Baghdad, according to a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday. "God Almighty has graced the leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir ... with the implementation of the sentence," said a statement from the al Qaeda-led Mujahideen Shura Council. It said the two had been killed by having their throats slit. The statement could not be authenticated. It was posted on one Web forum used by Islamists, but not on the main site used by Iraqi insurgent groups. The...

As reported last week, Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described rebuilding efforts in New Orleans as "pathetic." 'I expected the [hurricane] devastation. What I did not expect was the lack of activity,' said Rudolph Giuliani, who spoke Thursday at the Greater Dallas Chamber luncheon and was in town to raise money for GOP candidates. While the pace of recovery has been slow, that is expected to change very soon, THE DEAD PELICAN HAS learned. The recovery of New Orleans and hurricane ravaged areas is expected to increase dramatically in the coming year. But the timing has raised a few...

At $6.5 million per year, a Medicaid program that pays for prenatal care for immigrant women is costing the state more than five times what officials predicted two years ago. The unexpected higher cost stems from Medicaid officials underestimating the number of women who would qualify and failing to factor in the cost of prescription drugs and hospital stays after deliveries. "I can't imagine the department missing the target so far on cost," said state Rep. Jay Bradford, D-White Hall. "And I'll have to follow up with them on that as chairman" of the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee....

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Monday he was feeling good after nearly a month in drug rehabilitation and was looking forward to getting back to work. "I can tell you today, I feel confident about my health, positive about my future, and passionate about my work representing the people of Rhode Island," the Rhode Island Democrat said in a speech at Brown University on the future of mental health care and addiction treatment. It was his first public appearance since being released Friday from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The six-term congressman checked into the clinic...

Risk of asteroid smashing into Earth reduced 12:50 22 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kelly YoungThe asteroid's path through the solar system will bring it to close to Earth in 2029 (Image: JPL/NASA) The danger to Earth from an asteroid called Apophis, which once looked relatively likely to hit the Earth, appears to be waning. The odds of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036 have now been reduced from 1 in 5500 to 1 in 24,000, following new radar measurements taken by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. On 6 May 2006, with the asteroid 42 million kilometres away,...

TEHRAN, Iran - The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened. "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried...

Breaking - Jill Carrol released in Iraq - more to come

No Poison or Toxic Medicine Found in Milosevic's Body, War Crimes Tribunal SaysAn autopsy and tests on Slobodan Milosevic's blood found no evidence of poison or medicines in concentrations that could have killed him, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said Friday. Tribunal president Judge Fausto Pocar also said an outside investigation will be conducted on the running of the U.N. detention center where Milosevic was held during his four-year trial and where he died last Saturday. Milosevic was ruled to have died of a heart attack, but questions were raised about the cause of the fatal cardiac problem after it...

WASHINGTON - The government wasted millions of dollars in its award of post-Katrina Hurricane contracts for disaster relief, including at least $3 million for 4,000 beds that were never used, congressional auditors said Thursday. The Government Accountability Office's review of 13 major contracts - many of them awarded with limited or no competition after the Aug. 29 hurricane - offers the first preliminary overview of their soundness. Waste and mismanagement were widespread due to poor planning and miscommunication, according to the five-page briefing paper released Thursday. That led to money being paid for services, such as housing or ice, that...

President Bush plans to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, despite the troubled experience in Iraq. The long-delayed document, an articulation of U.S. strategic priorities that is required by law, lays out a robust view of America's power and an assertive view of its responsibility to bring change around the world. On topics including genocide, human trafficking and AIDS, the strategy describes itself as "idealistic about goals and realistic about means." The strategy expands on the original security framework developed by the...

Meehan leads US House with campaign funds Representative Martin T. Meehan has gained national exposure in recent years as a champion of efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics. Now, the Lowell Democrat is poised to achieve a new distinction: He is days away from becoming the only House member in the nation with a campaign war chest that tops $5 million, with an eye on a possible run for the Senate. some $2 million more than any of the other 434 House members, and $2.7 million more than any of the nine other representatives from Massachusetts.... With...

Although the drug czar says usage and supply are shriveling, a report says his stats are sketchy. MIAMI - It has never been easy measuring success in the drug war. It's an illegal trade after all, and no one on Wall Street is tracking its performance. But now comes a disturbing new congressional report that raises doubts about recent upbeat claims by the White House. The 52-page report released this month by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, questions the reliability of key U.S. government drug trafficking data. Official stats are so sketchy and unreliable as to...

KENNER, La. (AP) — Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee has opened a criminal investigation into a Kenner tax sale at which the mayor's father bought all but one property. "What hit me, you can't sell private property on a first-come, first-served basis," Lee said Thursday. "That defies explanation." Lee said his office conducts tax sales as auctions, with buyer's bidding against one another on percentages of property ownership. Mayor Phil Capitano defended the city's first-in-line method, saying that it's been in place for 20 years and that Kenner's computer system isn't set up to run auctions. "It's certainly interesting that...

To state Board of Fisheries chairman Art Nelson, Don Young's Way, the proposed Knik Arm crossing named after his father-in-law, is hardly a bridge to nowhere. For Nelson and his well-connected partners in Point Bluff LLC, Rep. Don Young's span is in fact a bridge to somewhere: their 60 acres of unobstructed view property on the Point MacKenzie side of Cook Inlet. The land sits directly across from Elmendorf Air Force Base, north of the Anchorage port and downtown. "It's beautiful property," Nelson said. If a road were built to the land today, it would require about a two-hour commute...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Gov. Bill Richardson found a surefire way to bypass traffic while heading to a bill-signing ceremony in Albuquerque last spring: Instead of driving the 60 miles south, he hopped aboard a speedy state police helicopter. The New Mexico governor has taken 40 trips on the sleek state-of-the-art chopper since December 2003, when the state bought it for $3.8 million to make search-and-rescue missions easier. There's nothing illegal about the governor's flights -- which take place, according to his administration, only if the aircraft is not needed by police. But some Republicans accused Richardson, who is...

A law passed to help Columbus schools unload land to a shopping mall developer is being used in Cincinnati to sell 15 schools. The law temporarily suspended state rules on the sale of public school properties until December 31st. It also includes an exemption from state requirements that normally give charter schools first crack at buying any surplus school building at an appraised market price. Republican State Senator Jeff Jacobson of the Dayton area helped get the law passed and calls the Cincinnati sale "disappointing." But spokeswoman Christine Wolff with the Cincinnati Public Schools says the conditions fit 15 surplus...

<p>The former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be the chairman of the supervisory board of the pipeline-syndicate NEGP Company, said the boss of the Russian corporate group GAZPROM Alexej Miller during a celebration for the start of construction of the new pipeline through the Balic Sea in Babajewo.</p>

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the entire City Council and a host of other local elected officials likely will remain in office beyond the four-year terms scheduled to end May 1, after Gov. Kathleen Blanco agreed Friday to postpone the city's Feb. 4 municipal elections. Fulfilling a pledge she made weeks ago, Blanco accepted a recommendation to delay the elections handed down earlier in the day by Secretary of State Al Ater, the first time a mayoral election has been deferred in the city's modern history. Ater did not recommend a make-up date but said logistical challenges presented by Hurricane...

Iran president had ‘religious vision’ during UN speech By Gareth Smyth and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Published: November 28 2005 A leading website in Iran has published a transcript and video recording of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad claiming to have felt “a light” while addressing world leaders at the United Nations in New York in September. Baztab.com – a website linked to Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards – said the recording was made in a meeting between the president and Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, one of Iran’s leading Shia Muslim clerics. According to the transcript, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said someone...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court decided Tuesday that it was unreasonable to require a historical accounting of money the government has been managing for Indian tribes, saying the bookkeeping chore would "take 200 years." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the government and the tribes in their effort to block a lower court order for a detailed tally of money owed the tribes going back to 1887. The accounting had been ordered by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing a class-action lawsuit in which thousands of Indians claim they were cheated...