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Excerpt - WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and major financial institutions are close to agreeing on a plan that would temporarily freeze interest rates on certain troubled subprime home loans, according to people familiar with the negotiations. An accord could reassure investors and strapped homeowners, both of whom are anxious as interest rates on more than two million adjustable mortgages are scheduled to jump over the next two years. It could also give a boost to the Bush administration, which is facing criticism for inaction amid the recent housing turmoil. The plan is being negotiated between regulators including the Treasury...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned Russians on Wednesday of the risk of a rebirth of Stalinism, saying their country was in danger of forgetting its tragic past. "We should remember those who suffered, because this a lesson for all of us," Gorbachev told a conference marking 70 years since the start of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Great Terror. "We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by the glass or bucket," Gorbachev added. "There are those saying Stalin's rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer utopia and (Leonid)...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign said Monday it will return $850,000 in donations raised by Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who is under federal investigation for violating election laws. Clinton, D-N.Y., previously had planned only to give to charity $23,000 she received from Hsu for her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac. The FBI is investigating whether Hsu paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates, a law enforcement official said Monday. --

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2007 – The U.S. troop surge in Iraq will pay off with time and patience, a top U.S. commander in Iraq said today. Speaking to the Pentagon press corps via teleconference from Camp Liberty, Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, said that over the next few weeks, the final combat troop commitment will be in place in and around Baghdad. Those troops will still need time in order to be effective, he said. Troop surges in conventional wars are felt immediately, Odierno said. But an increase in troops in a counterinsurgency campaign...

The former San Francisco City Hall employee who had an affair with Mayor Gavin Newsom benefited from unusual treatment before and after she left her job to be treated for substance abuse, but there is no evidence city officials broke any laws, a report released Wednesday by the city attorney's office found. Ruby Rippey-Tourk appears to be the only city employee ever granted catastrophic-illness pay for treatment of alcohol addiction, a decision approved by the head of the Public Health Department, the report, issued by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, showed. Rippey-Tourk also is the only city employee approved for the...

Nancy Pelosi beamed with pride yesterday. She announced her victory over Big Business to the world! "The Employee Free Choice Act puts democracy back in the workplace so the decision to join a union can be made by the workers the union would represent," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues. "This is the standard right that we routinely demand for workers around the world. We should accept no less a standard here in America." –Washington Post, 2 March 2007 Perhaps I’m just too much of a skeptic, but a bill to eliminate the Australian Secret Ballot, doesn’t put the...

JERUSALEM – Palestinian terror groups and security organizations in the Gaza Strip received $2 million from a United States source in exchange for the release of Fox News employees Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, who were kidnapped here last summer, a senior leader of one of the groups suspected of the abductions told WND. The terror leader, from the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, said his organization's share of the money was used to purchase weapons, which he said would be utilized "to hit the Zionists." He said he expects the payments for Centanni and Wiig's freedom will encourage Palestinian groups...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

Take a look at the photo of Congressperson Cynthia McKinney above. Obviously the source of that picture must be some vicious hate-filled right-wing website that dislikes the "progressive" policies of Ms Mckinney, right? Wrong. The source for that picture is none other than the Daily Kos. You read that correctly. This picture is part of an ad by McKinney's primary opponent, Hank Johnson, that is figured PROMINENTLY at the top of the list of Daily Kos advertisers. I should have had a hint of this latest Kos Blogola scandal yesterday when I did a search on the Daily Kos...

CARACAS, Venezuela The government of Venezuelan has donated 100-thousand dollars to a Santa Cruz-based non-profit organization dedicated to preventing violence among youths. Deputy Justice Minister Yuri Pimentel made the announcement during a meeting in Venezuela's capital with American singer and activist Harry Belafonte, who accepted the donation on behalf of the California Coalition of Barrios Unidos. The California Coalition of Barrios Unidos began as a community based peace movement in the violent streets of urban California in 1977.

Venezuela and Mexico are among the potential strategic partners for joint operations in the fields that used to be developed by oil corporation Oxy. The corporate agreement to drill oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon was made null and void, the Ecuadorian Government disclosed Tuesday. "There is the possibility of forming a strategic alliance with a state company, as set forth in the regulations," Ecuadorian Minister of Energy Iván Rodríguez said. Additionally, there is the possibility of "contracting directly a state company of a foreign country to reinforce technically Petroproducción. The subsidiary of state oil company Petroecuador will be responsible for...

The Mashpee Wampanoags, will be named a nationally recognized tribe — a designation they sought for 30 years so that they could benefit from federal aid programs. Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist embroiled in a Washington corruption scandal, and his firm championed the Indians' cause and pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in tribal money. And Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy), chairman of the influential House Resources Committee, landed a lucrative source of political donations: the small group of Native Americans whose ancestral lands are about as far from his Northern California district as one can get in the United States....

Latin America: Brazilians are rightly angry over allegations of illegal campaign donations from Fidel Castro. True or not, they coincide with an alarming weakness in foreign policy that benefits the Cuban dictator. Was there a connection? We wonder for two reasons. First, Castro in recent years has aggressively sought influence across Latin America on a scale not seen since the 1960s. Second, Brazil has been oddly passive in response. Fortified by the record-high oil earnings of his Venezuelan ally, Castro's had a free hand to whip up anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism in a bid to confront the West. Brazil is no...

Former state Rep. Loren Jennings, accused of using his office to financially benefit a firm in which he had a financial stake, was convicted Tuesday of two counts of mail fraud and one count of money laundering by a federal court jury in St. Paul. A federal court jury in St. Paul acquitted him of four other charges following a nine-day trial. No date has been set for his sentencing by U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle. Jennings, 54, of Harris, declined to comment as he left court after the verdicts Tuesday afternoon. But defense attorney Doug Kelley said Jennings will...

Posted on Fri, Jan. 28, 2005 Man who ran over girlfriend gets 180-day sentence By Wendy Ruderman INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A man who ran over and killed his girlfriend on a Gloucester County highway was sentenced to 180 days in jail today. A Superior Court jury in December acquitted Martin Phelps, 44, of murder in the death of Julie Johnson but convicted him of the lesser charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Judge John Tomasello said Phelps, of Gloucester Township, could opt to serve the 180 days, minus 83 days for time served, on weekends or on...

WorldNetDaily not for sale WASHINGTON – I have often wondered why everyone in this town thinks alike. Now I know. They are all paid by the same master. That's the conclusion I am beginning to draw following the latest disclosure that a prominent columnist-pundit has been on the take from the Bush administration. First it was Armstrong Williams confessing his journalistic sin of accepting a $240,000 payoff from the Bush Education Department for promoting the expansion of the federal government's unconstitutional grab for power over schools. Then came the disclosure that Maggie Gallagher took a mere $21,500 in payola to...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

U.S. conservatives gunning for the presidential payoff Jan. 15, 2005. 08:14 AM TIM HARPER PHOENIX, Ariz.—When U.S. President George W. Bush takes his oath of office next week in the midst of a $40-million, four-day orgy of Republican euphoria, he will be carrying the dreams of a newly emboldened conservative movement. The American right is ascendant. It is empowered. And it is impatient. Evangelicals and ``faith-based'' groups are looking to Bush to do nothing less than entrench a conservative philosophy, one they believe has long been trampled and one they expect will last a generation or more. Their fundamental beliefs...

Guerra says inflated revenue projections for federal prison have caused more budget cuts Two former Willacy County commissioners pleaded guilty Tuesday to accepting bribes for their votes on federal prison contracts, the Associated Press reports. Precinct 1 commissioner Israel Tamez, 58, of Raymondville, and Precinct 4 commissioner Jose Jimenez, 67, of Sebastian, waived indictment and admitted accepting more than $10,000 each from companies competing for work on the Willacy County Adult Correctional Center. The $14.5 million prison was built to house federal inmates. In 2000, Willacy County commissioners voted 5-0 to select Corplan Corrections, an Argyle consulting firm, and Hale...