Free Republic

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...