Free Republic

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has obtained a document outlining details of what would become the "Reform Michigan Government Now" ballot initiative. The document, in the form of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, bears the blunt title: "GOVERNMENT REFORM PROPOSAL: Changing the rules of politics in Michigan to help Democrats." According to the UAW Region 1-C Web site where the document was originally found,* this presentation was given to local union officials at a leadership conference in late May or early June. UAW officials have not returned our calls, and both the presentation and a brief article that referred to...

In an attempt to report about the new findings from the Department of Education Monday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS went to Tarik ibn Zayad Academy in Inver Grove Heights. While on school grounds, our crew was confronted by school officials. Our photographer was injured while wrestling with the two men over the camera. Our photographer was examined by paramedics and suffered minor shoulder and back injuries. The state education department on Monday directed the charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school on Monday. Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a...

Congress: On the heels of a rules change that iced the Colombia free trade treaty, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scrapping the appropriations process in a new war funding bill. Something new and anti-democratic is afoot.Whatever is driving her, Pelosi seems to be moving Congress toward a one-woman dictatorship, showing little or no concern for holding actual votes or building consensus on key issues as she manipulates Congress. She's altering and contorting long-standing congressional rules to get her agenda through instead of trusting the voting process. This gives clout to special interests and makes her powerful as a political boss, but...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of...

Issue: Having been slapped down by the U. S. Supreme Court’s recent decision that the words “navigable waters” in the Clean Water Act limited federal agencies to regulation of navigable waters only. Democrats and liberal Republicans in Congress are striking back. They are attempting to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007 (HR2421 and S1870) that would amend the 1972 Clean Water Act and replace the words “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.” Further, it defines "waters of the United States" with such breathtaking scope that federal agencies would be required to regulate use of every square...

Changing light bulbs not enough: Gore From correspondents in Davos January 25, 2008 05:23am Article from: Reuters CLIMATE campaigner Al Gore overnight urged world policymakers to change laws "not just light bulbs" in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action. An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn on markets and fears of recession have dominated discussion. "If we get distracted by the aberrations that you see...

Venezuela's top food company has accused troops of illegally seizing more than 500 tonnes of food from its trucks as part of President Hugo Chavez's campaign to stem shortages. The leftist Chavez this week created a state food distributor and loosened some price controls, seeking to end months of shortages for staples like milk and eggs that have caused long lines and upset his supporters in the OPEC nation. The highly publicised campaign has also included government crackdowns on accused smuggling, with the military seizing 1,600 tonnes of food and sending 1,200 troops to the border with Colombia. Jose Anzola,...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin may be about to unveil a political bombshell: a full-scale union between Russia and its smaller Slavic neighbor Belarus. It's a plan that not only would expand Russia's territory and national prestige; it could also give Mr. Putin, required to step down when his second term ends in March, a new lease on power by producing a fresh Constitution.

Written in an age in which minutemen rose to dress and fight at a moment’s notice, the Second Amendment was no doubt motivated by a young nation’s concern for its own safety and stability. But now, when the United States is protected by the most powerful security forces on the globe, the Second Amendment is neither relevant nor useful. Rather, it has become an impediment to vital public policy, and it should be repealed and replaced with nuanced federal legislation. Despite the controversy surrounding the Second Amendment, arguments about its relevancy have not surfaced in the Supreme Court since 1939,...

What's wrong with American liberalism? What happened to the self-assured, optimistic, and practical Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy? Why has Joe Lieberman, their closest contemporary incarnation, been run out of the party? How did anti-Americanism infect schools, the media, and Hollywood? And whence comes the liberal rage that conservatives like Ann Coulter, Jeff Jacoby, Michelle Malkin, and the Media Research Center have extensively documented?In a tour de force, James Piereson of the Manhattan Institute offers an historical explanation both novel and convincing. His book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of...

<p>Put simply, Prop. 93 is a trick. It is intentionally designed to fool the people into thinking they are voting to reduce terms for state legislators when, in fact, it contains a special loophole to give 42 termed-out incumbent politicians more time in office. In fact, it will dramatically increase terms for 80 percent of California's legislators. Prop. 93 doubles the number of years a politician can serve in the Assembly from six to 12 years and increases Senate terms by 50 percent – from a total of eight years to 12 years.</p>

It is an impressive testament to the abiding affection and political influence of former President Ronald Reagan that the fate of a controversial treaty now before the U.S. Senate may ultimately turn on a single question: What would Reagan do? As we had the privilege of working closely with President Reagan in connection with the foreign policy, national security and domestic implications of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST), there is no question about how our 40th president felt about this accord. He so strongly...

Zeke lived with an FFA teacher because he had no other home. He worked for his room and board; he fed the pigs and chickens, and helped with the milking. The summer between the 8th and 9th grades, Jasper, the FFA teacher, took Zeke to a neighbor's ranch and let him pick out a day-old Hereford bull for his first FFA project. The deal was that Jasper would pay for the calf, and for the feed, and Zeke could repay Jasper when the calf grew to become the Grand Champion Steer at the state fair, and sold at the fair's...

<p>Sen. Hillary Clinton's most recent tack to the left has involved proposing a bill that would allow government to take over small, independent preschools. This super-nanny proposal is reminiscent of her ill-fated single-payer health plan, say Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater Institute; and Bruce Fuller, a University of California, Berkeley sociologist.</p>

Store says feds confiscating licenses for inadvertent trivia The government is using paperwork errors as small as the abbreviation of a city name to shut down some of the nation's longest-serving gun shops,"No good deed goes unpunished," Larry Pratt, of Gun Owners of America, told WND while confirming that as recently as 15 or 20 years ago, there were 250,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States. Today, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told WND, there are 108,381, and if more cases involving dealers such as Red's Trading Post of Twin Falls, Idaho, develop, that number...

Tony Blair has been accused of 'knifing' Gordon Brown by holding secret discussions about a job as the first ever President of the European Union. The Prime Minister was entertained in Paris by new French president Nicolas Sarkozy at an upmarket restaurant called Thiou, where they agreed a joint agenda on Europe. French political sources have confirmed that President Sarkozy is keen for Mr Blair to take on a full-time paid role as the 'face' of the EU after he quits Downing Street. But such an appointment would be a disaster for the Chancellor, who has long struggled to escape...

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR...

Hillary Clinton, Democratic Senator for New York and US presidential candidate made a speech at George Washington University yesterday where she unveiled her strategy for health care reform, focusing on a seven point plan to reduce healthcare costs. Speaking to an audience of health professionals and academics, Clinton made light of the previous time she "tangled with the issue", in 1993 as First Lady, saying that she had the "scars to show for it" but had learned a lot from the experience. Clinton said there were three parts to her approach on healthcare: lowering costs, improving quality and making sure...

Uh-oh. Don’t look now, but somebody who wants to be President forgot to take their medicine. It remains uncertain as to whether the failure to follow the prescription will be politically costly. But the Senator formerly known as Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to be caught in another little conflict, and this one could be a problem with, shall we say, “the faithful.” By “the faithful,” I mean the left-wing contingency within the Democratic Party that long ago abandoned any historic, western understanding of the relationship between the human person and the earth (an understanding that is so commonplace for most...

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week points out what happens when public officials depend upon the continued bad behavior of Americans to fund their projects. Under the headline: "Fuel-Efficient Cars Dent States' Road Budgets," reporter Robert Guy Matthews writes that drivers, answering the call to conserve energy, are driving cars which use less gas. Less gas used means less gas purchased. Less gas purchased means fewer tax dollars collected. Way fewer. According to Matthews: The Federal Highway Administration estimates that by 2009 the tax receipts that make up most of the federal highway trust fund will be...

Now that the pre-eminent constitutional scholar and sometime speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has determined that she is by fiat the commander in chief of our armed forces and secretary of state as well, it is time to consider the consequences of her actions by the same rules. If she commits "high crimes and misdemeanors" within those parameters indicated by the Constitution, would she be liable for removal from office by impeachment? As luck would have it, the impeachment process begins in her own House, and since she has proclaimed herself virtually the entire executive branch of government, it...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday blamed the Bush administration's fear of scandal for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, dismissals she said were virtually unprecedented. The New York senator dismissed any comparison between the midterm firing of the federal prosecutors last fall with the replacement of 93 U.S. attorneys when her husband, Bill Clinton, took office in 1993. "That's a traditional prerogative of an incoming president," Clinton said in an interview with The Associated Press. Once U.S. attorneys are confirmed, they should be given broad latitude to enforce the law as they see...

How do you fail to see one elephant walking downtown? When there are dozens of elephants walking with him. When do you fail to see a coup? When many are openly conducting it.A coup d'état is in progress in Venezuela at this very moment. Hugo Chávez leads it in his double role as president and presidential candidate in the upcoming elections. This open rebellion against the constitution and the laws of the republic started several days ago, when Rafael Ramírez, the Oil Minister cum president of the State oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), addressed employees of the company to...

By Ronald Kessler Contrary to what many pundits would have you believe, this election is not about side shows like the meaning of Macaca or Senator John Kerry’s assessment of American soldiers’ I.Q. Instead, voters face choices about the most fundamental issue: our national security and whether we can foil a devastating attack that could kill millions of Americans and wipe out our economy. In talking about the war on terror, the Democrats have focused on how to beef up port security and why Osama bin Laden wasn’t captured years ago at Tora Bora. But the key to stopping an...

The future of the net is the ambitious topic under discussion at the first global Internet Governance Forum, being held in Athens over the next five days. It has been set up by the UN to give governments, companies, organisations and individuals space for debate. Nitin Desai, chair of the organising body for IGF, has said the forum needed "dialogue in good faith". He warned that the biggest challenge in making the IGF successful was a "potential culture clash". In a column for the BBC News website, Mr Desai said: "The forum will give voice to the citizens of the...

September 18, 2006 Yes, I know he is, but in this case, that is the title of an email just received with his name affixed, from the DCCC. In the email, he calls all of the Republican “attacks” as “ridiculous.” Attacks? “I'm not too sure what these Republicans are trying to accomplish with all their attacks: • The Republican Leader in the House says, "I listen to my Democrats friends, and I wonder if they are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people. • Dick Cheney says on national television that anybody who questions him is...

Guv tries to guard the Guard Bill would give president direct call-up authority By Matthew D. LaPlante The Salt Lake Tribune More than a century before the United States became a nation, state governors began serving as commanders in chief of their militias. Time for a change? Someone seems to think so. Language in a defense spending bill - approved by a majority of the U.S. House, including Utah's three members - would allow the president to bypass state governors in calling up National Guard units in the event of a natural disaster or threat to homeland security. In an...

The problem for most Yorkers with the county commissioners' plan for a 725-acre park along the Susquehanna River in Lower Windsor Township is not the park concept itself. It's what the commissioners are willing to do to achieve their aims--take private property and public opposition be damned. The recent York Dispatch public opinion poll indicated that 73.1 percent of those surveyed disagree with the use of eminent domain to develop Lauxmont Farms into a county park--an that only 12.6 percent favor such action. Most York countians obviously are not taking issue with the proclaimed "vision' of the two commissioners behind...

President Evo Morales nationalized Bolivia's natural gas industry and oil Monday, ordering foreign energy companies to send their supplies to a state company for sales and industrialization. Speaking at the San Alberto gas and oil field in the south of the country, Morales warned that companies that reject the decree will have to leave Bolivia within six months. The main oil companies operating in Bolivia are Brazil's Petrobras, the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF, British companies British Gas and British Petroleum and Total of France. "The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control...

"Trust the president." That was the Bush administration's main defense of the president's bizarre choice of corporate lawyer Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court. But the administration also had a backup rationale: as D.C.'s Hill newspaper reported, in an October 3, 2005, conference call with conservative leaders, Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman stressed "the need to confirm a justice who will not interfere with the administration's management of the war on terrorism." It was a bit unsettling to hear that proposition stated so baldly, but no one who has followed the administration's drive to expand executive...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he may seek to lift constitutionally mandated presidential term limits if opposition parties boycott the upcoming December presidential elections. "I might sign a decree calling for a popular referendum -- do you agree that Chavez should run for a third term in 2013?" Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast. "It's not a firm decision, it's something I'm thinking about." Chavez was first elected in 1998 and again in 2000 after he led a move to rewrite the country's constitution. He is up for re-election in December, and has...

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says he may seek to lift a constitutional limit on successive presidential terms. During his weekly TV show on Sunday, he announced he was thinking of calling a referendum to allow him to run for another term in the 2012 elections. Mr Chavez, who faces re-election this year, said he did not fear competition. Mr Chavez was first elected in 1998 and then again in 2000 after the approval of a constitution under which he is barred from running in 2012. He insisted he would allow the Venezuelan people to vote on the issue. "If there...

A grab for power could crush Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to rebuild California's infrastructure even before voters can have their say in the June election. As legislative hearings begin in Sacramento on the details of the governor's $222 billion building scheme, controversy is brewing over who will decide how the megabond money is spent. Republican and Democrat lawmakers, as well as local government officials are alarmed by the plan to give state bureaucrats the most say over the spending of billions of dollars in transportation funds from the bond measure and other sources. As a result of a 1997 bipartisan...

   Hurricanes aren't the only things that spin faster with the addition of hot air.   Advocates of the global warming theory seem to spin faster, too - take their recent spin on this summer's hurricanes.   An August article in the San Francisco Chronicle warned, "As the United States experiences more... out-of-season hurricanes like this summer's, more Americans will recognize what the rest of the world has long accepted: Global warming is here, it will get worse..."1   This analysis has a critical flaw: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says the hurricane season runs from June 1 to November...

An eccentric shrink whose theories have come to shape modern psychotherapy is ensconced in an apartment atop the East 65th Street institute he founded while he battles a bitter coup. Albert Ellis, 92, whose work has been hailed by everyone from the Clintons to Mayor Bloomberg to Nicole Kidman, was booted Sept. 18 from the board of the nonprofit Albert Ellis Institute. He also was barred from the Friday-night "stand-up" psychotherapy sessions he has conducted before crowds of as many as 200 for more than 30 years. A lawyer for the board says Ellis' expenses are "preposterous" and putting the...

President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process. "It wouldn't be necessary to get a request from the governor or take other action," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. "This would be," he added, "more of an automatic trigger." Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of disease. "It may require change of law," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "It's very important for us as we look at the...

he Omega Letter Intelligence Digest Vol: 47 Issue: 26 - Friday, August 26, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UN Makes its Move Undaunted by a litany of failures, scandals that would make Bill Clinton blush, its utter ineffectiveness at containing global problems like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Sudanese genocide or even a definition for the word 'terror', the UN has decided this is the perfect time to make a grab at the reins of global power. While the Democrats in the Senate fought to block John Bolton from the US Ambassador's seat, the globalists on Turtle Bay were preparing a special summit to...

"My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it... People need somebody to watch over them... Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave." Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. News & World Report, November 26, 1990 In the eyes of many elected officials, America is no longer capable of self-government. Many Americans were stunned to learn that a small group of Congressmen have requested the United Nations to monitor our federal elections this November. Yet at the same time, other elected officials are working to ‘reinvent’ American government...

   http://www.news.com/Will the U.N. run the Internet? By Declan McCullagh Story last modified Mon Jul 11 04:00:00 PDT 2005 An international political spat is brewing over whether the United Nations will seize control of the heart of the Internet. U.N. bureaucrats and telecommunications ministers from many less-developed nations claim the U.S. government has undue influence over how things run online. Now they want to be the ones in charge. While the formal proposal from a U.N. working group will be released July 18, it's already clear what it will contain. A preliminary summary of governmental views claims there's a...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050715/tc_cmp/165702500 UN Panel: No Single Nation Should Control Internet Addresses Aoife White Thu Jul 14, 9:38 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate. The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops. In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information...

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1345&dept_id=432723&newsid=14823796&PAG=461&rfi=9 July 07, 2005 Last week, both the state Senate and House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, defeated a GOP measure that would have prohibited local governments from seizing owner-occupied residential property for private economic development. State Republicans may have to wait until next year to address the issue again, said one local legislator. "We'll try for another special session, but I don't think we can get it," said State Sen. George "Doc" Gunther, a Republican legislator for more than 30 years whose district encompasses Shelton and parts of Stratford and Seymour. "The Democrats can override us." Gunther was highly...

SACRAMENTO Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed a sweeping merger of the state's energy departments. In an effort to eliminate overlap and fragmentation of the state's energy system, Schwarzenegger has proposed consolidating four state agencies under a new Cabinet-level Secretary of Energy. The reorganization plan is intended to centralize decision-making and improve accountability. The Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state's power grid, is not included in the reorganization plan. Some industry analysts call the proposal a good idea that has been long overdue. But Democrats call the governor's ideas a grab for more control. The plan is expected to...

Major decisions have been made at the polls, including...the controversial Issue 2, which would permit smoking in Columbus bars and taverns. With 99 percent of districts reporting in, voters have apparently rejected Issue 2, the smoking ban exemption. Bar owners and employees had campaigned hard for the exemption that would have allowed businesses that make most of their money from alcohol, bars and taverns, to permit smoking. On Tuesday, about a hundred supporters fanned out at polling places to reach out to voters. Bar owner Kari Hansley says, "We want them to know our business has dropped. We're laying off...

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine forecasts that, most probably, the block, headed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, will take part in the parliamentary election-2006 separately from the party “People’s Union Our Ukraine”, headed by President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko. This forecast has been made at the press conference in UNIAN news agency today by Ihor Popov, chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. According to him, at present the rating of Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as that of her party “Batkivshchyna” (“Motherland”) is growing. I.Popov has noted that the amendments to the state budget-2005, adopted by the parliament...

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration could regulate tobacco products under legislation revived by a bipartisan group of lawmakers Thursday. The proposal renews a push for tobacco oversight that was blocked last year in the House. Under the bill, the FDA could regulate the sale, marketing and advertising of tobacco products, and could require companies to list all ingredients added to cigarettes and other forms of consumer tobacco. The legislation was brought back in the Senate by last year's sponsors, Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who reintroduced the bill on Thursday. The Senate approved it last year,...

NEW YORK - Major league baseball responded with outrage to congressional subpoenas for Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi and other top stars, vowing to fight them all the way to court. Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas also were summoned Wednesday to testify at the March 17 hearing of the House Government Reform Committee (news - web sites). Also called were players' association head Donald Fehr, baseball executive vice presidents Rob Manfred and Sandy Alderson and San Diego general manager Kevin Towers. The committee, which has no interest in hearing from Barry Bonds, also demanded a...

Key GOP senator says he would push for such legislationIndecency guidelines that over-the-air broadcasters must follow should be extended to cover cable and satellite broadcasters, congressional Republicans who are influential on telecommunications issues said yesterday.Most viewers do not differentiate between traditional TV and cable, so they do not know when they might be exposed to objectionable programming, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the head of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington."In this country, there has to be some standards of decency," said Stevens, who said he would push for such legislation. The...

Senator: Decency Rules Should Apply Pay TV, Radio WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push to apply broadcast decency standards to subscription television and radio services like cable and satellite. "Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters. "There has to be some standard of decency," he said. Stevens told reporters afterward that he would push legislation to apply the standards...