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US crops left to rot as Mexicans leave the fields for better-paid jobs Low pay, harsh conditions and security checks force immigrant workers into other sectors Dan Glaister in Calexico Saturday February 4, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Standing in the early morning darkness just 50 metres inside the United States, Roberto Camacho is doing his best to ward off the cold. Dressed in a black bomber jacket with a baseball cap pulled low over his brow, he shuffles from foot to foot as he waits for a lift to work. After 15 years working in the fields of California for...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy this week ramped up the effort to curtail the influence of lobbyists by proposing a lifetime ban on members from serving as lobbyists after they leave Congress. Currently, members are banned from lobbying for one year. "I think part of the temptations are whatever your possible future life might be," Kennedy, R-Minn., said. "We need to be attracting folks to Congress with real-life experience, with real-life experience to go back to."

ATLANTA (AP) - An activist who opposes illegal immigration acknowledged he paid more than a dozen homeless people $10 each to hold signs during a rally earlier this week, but said they agreed with his message. D.A. King, who spoke at the rally, said Wednesday that he paid "14 willing American workers to let their voices be heard about illegal immigration." The people he hired are homeless and regularly congregate near the Capitol, King said. "Trust me, they are angry," King said. "When the day comes when I cannot pay an American for an hour's worth of work for making...

SACRAMENTO - California taxpayers have shelled out $91,000 -- $11,381 a month and counting -- for a San Quentin prison doctor who hasn't seen a patient in eight months. Dr. X, as he's known in federal court documents, has been linked to three inmate deaths since 2002. His story provides what medical experts see as a frightening illustration of the quality of health care received by inmates and the inability of prison health officers to quickly identify and address problems without wasting taxpayer money. The San Francisco physician was sidelined by prison officials, but not until Feb. 3 of this...

Terror 'is the price we paid for going to war' By Andrew Sparrow and Anton La Guardia (Filed: 18/07/2005) Tony Blair's support for the war in Iraq has "proved costly" in increasing the terrorist threat to Britain, a leading think-tank says today. Shoulder to shoulder: the UK's links to the US are problematic A report from the Royal Institute for International Affairs says that the invasion gave a lift to al-Qa'eda's recruitment and that as a result there were "particular difficulties for the UK". The findings are embarrassing for the Prime Minister because he has fought hard - and until...

SACRAMENTO — Two days before he was sworn into office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accepted a consulting job paying an estimated $8 million over five years to "further the business objectives" of a national publisher of health and bodybuilding magazines. The contract pays Schwarzenegger 1% of the magazines' advertising revenue, much of which comes from makers of nutritional supplements. Last year, the governor vetoed legislation that would have imposed government regulations on the supplement industry. According to records filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Schwarzenegger entered into the agreement with a subsidiary of American Media Inc. on Nov. 15,...

Pakistani politician got paid £1,000 a month in UK benefits By Daniel Foggo and Massoud Ansari (Filed: 12/06/2005) A prominent Pakistani politician has been receiving British state benefits to which he was not entitled while living in a palatial home in Karachi. As the governor of Sindh province in Pakistan, Dr Ishrat-Ul-Ebad Khan lives in a mansion in the state capital while being waited on by servants and chauffeured in Mercedes limousines. Dr Ishrat-Ul-Ebad Khan Yet, while enjoying the perks of his position, Dr Khan was for 10 months the recipient of money from the benefits system, including income support...

Clinton: ‘I paid a big price’The former president on his legacy, his health and his wife's future By Brian Williams Anchor & “Nightly News” Managing Editor NBC News Updated: 6:52 p.m. ET June 1, 2005 CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton is just back from a grueling 14-day, 12-nation, 16-stop tour. **SNIP** I asked the president a blunt question about his legacy and any regrets he may have that impeachment will always play a prominent role in how his presidency is remembered. Clinton: It probably would, because — but to be fair, you said you're being blunt with me....

Shia Iraqi hitmen admit they were paid to join Sunni insurgency By Akeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman (Filed: 24/04/2005) Iraqi Shias have admitted taking part in brutal attacks on members of their own religious community after being recruited as paid hitmen for the Sunni terrorist leader, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. The confessions to their involvement in murders, kidnappings and car bombings have shocked fellow Shias, who until now have maintained that most of the attacks against them have been carried out by Sunni insurgents intent on starting civil war. According to statements given to the Iraqi police, gangs...

The blood is in the water. The sharks are circling. Now it is time for the main course. Lower the tank and drop in the political corpse of Tom Delay. Democrats are whipping themselves into a frenzy — as are their allies in the press — over the impending political death of Tom DeLay. The Majority Leader is helping fan the flames by holding up rifles at NRA rallies while asking for more bullets. But if you are scoring this one at home sports fans, expect to see a flurry of revelations coming out about the Democratic leaders in the...

While you're watching the political commercials and listening to the politicians spin their web around unsuspecting and misinformed people...here's a "Reality" lesson in economics from David R. Kamerschen,Ph.D, Distinguished Professor of Economics, 536 Brooks Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA. http://www.uga.edu/ Top 1% earn 21% of all income; pay 37-1/2% of all taxes Top 5% earn 35% of all income; pay 56-1/2% of all taxes Top10% earn 46% of all income; pay 67% of all taxes Top 25% pay 84% of all taxes Top 50% pay 96-1/2% of all taxes Bottom 50% pay 3-1/2% of all taxes Just in case...

Doris Matsui had seen her stock investments plummet two years ago to a point where she decided she wanted to shift some of her money elsewhere. Matsui, who is running in a March 8 special election to replace her late husband in Congress, figured real estate was a better way to go. Matsui recalled Friday that she said as much back then to major Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, whom she has considered a friend for three decades. "Everybody when they get together at parties talks about their real estate, about how much more your house is worth than it was...

The head of San Diego's pension system acknowledged yesterday the agency has inadvertently sent pension checks to retirees after they died, and he is determining exactly how much money was paid. Administrator Larry Grissom said that since 1996 roughly 200 retirees were sent pension checks after they died. Staff members are still calculating how much is outstanding in about 63 of those cases. For the rest, Grissom said the calculations have been made, but it would take him several days to provide those figures. The amount paid after the death of a retiree ranges from $100 to $6,000, Grissom said....

A dialogue between two important members of the FARC (Colombian revolutionary Armed Forces), appears to be among the evidence submitted by the Colombian authorities to the Venezuelan Government according to Colombia’s Radio Caracol. Here is the translation of the only written report I have seen on the issue, which suggests that more than one hundred members of the FARC guerillas were in Caracas in early December for the II People’s Bolivarian Congress, financed and organized by the Chavez Government.. I had talked to two reporters who had mentioned this to me, but said they could not talk about it and...

"The Government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too." -Churchill The grotesque Granda case would seem to be the cause of our problem with Venezuela in the same way that the war of independence would have been due to the insolence with which the chapeton refused to lend the flower vase to the party to honor Antonio Villavicencio. ... From the Ministry of Interior and Justice we warned that the key to our relationship with Chavez could be found in the Sao Paulo Forum, and in the communist conspiracy that was being...

Despite new evidence that Venezuela has become a sort of ''Club Med'' for Latin America's violent groups, the Bush administration is unlikely to start its second term taking major steps to isolate leftist-populist President Hugo Chávez. But, eventually, it will probably do so. Judging from what incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate earlier this week and what I have heard in interviews with well-placed current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. strategy will be to wait until Chávez does something really obnoxious in the eyes of the world, which he probably will.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

According to ABC News, only 25% of voters believe every vote will be counted properly. That's good news, actually. It means that something approaching 75% of voters know that the Democrats are planning to cheat any way they can. Anyone else notice the unions have not run political ads this year? Unions got together and decided they could better use that ad money as "get out the vote" money. There is no telling how much money they will be spreading around, but I would guess it would total somewhere between one-hundred and a hundred-twenty million. That's how much they think...

Before the real news, there's a little interesting background news we should take care of. This comes from the "Be careful who you blame department," because everything is not always exactly as it looks. We've been hoodwinked. Yeah, you, me, all of us. It appears to me that there is a major scam afoot. It's kind of funny, in a sick sort of way; but it is a flimflam nonetheless. First, we know that Dan Rather and his cohorts at CBS have a major bias. Among other things, they "fixed" a certain "60 Minutes" program many years ago to pump...

WSSU students question Blair's paid appearance Former reporter, forced to resign from N.Y. Times, will speak, answer questions By Mary Giunca JOURNAL REPORTER Tuesday, September 14, 2004 Disgraced journalist Jayson Blair will speak at Winston-Salem State University on Wednesday, and some students are asking why the university is spending $3,000 to bring him there. Ebonee Russell, a senior and a reporter for The News Argus, the school's paper, said she wonders whether Blair deserves any attention from the university at all. "What kind of role model is he? What kind of example is he setting for the students here?" she...