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...