Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators from coastal states will try to block development of liquefied natural gas terminals, like one proposed for Long Beach, Calif., by increasing state authority over the permitting process, lawmakers said Thursday. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, both D-Mass., said it will be a tough fight, but they are gathering support for an amendment to the energy bill, which the Senate will begin debating next week. Their amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would require LNG developers to get state approval before they file an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It would...

Mugabe's bulldozers push people back to land By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 06/06/2005) President Robert Mugabe's onslaught against Zimbabwe's cities has escalated to claim new targets, with white-owned factories and family homes being demolished in a campaign that has left 200,000 people homeless. Across the country, Mr Mugabe is destroying large areas of heaving townships and prosperous industrial areas alike. Virtually all the areas demolished voted for the opposition MDC Party in the last elections The aim of this brutal campaign is, says the official media, to depopulate urban areas and force people back to the "rural home". Chris...

POLS PUSH FOR MINT BAN By LINDSAY POWERS Sun May 22, 4:17 AM ET Political momentum is building for safer candy. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told The Post she is raising the issue with the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission early this week. She called the deaths, just two days apart, of Jocelys Santiago, 5, and Ashley Morrison, 4, "completely preventable." City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, who chairs the Health Committee, is introducing legislation this week to ban large, round candy. She also wants a council hearing on the subject before schools let out for summer....

PARIS - U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman called for more international efforts to develop coal as an alternative energy source as ministers met Tuesday to address concerns over the future of the world's energy supplies. Bodman, attending his first major international meeting since he took office in February, also sought to deflect criticism that the United States is not doing enough to improve its own energy efficiency and reduce both consumption and greenhouse emissions. Speaking on the second day of an International Energy Agency meeting of energy ministers in Paris, Bodman said the energy watchdog should be "more proactive" in...

SAN FRANCISCO - When Earth Day dawned in 1970, optimistic environmentalists predicted emerging technologies would help reduce the nation's reliance on coal, oil, insecticides and other pollutants. But 35 years later, a big part of the problem appears to be technology itself. Tons of computers, monitors, televisions and other electronic gizmos that contain hazardous chemicals, or "e-waste," may be poisoning people and ground water. Activists say the nation's biggest environmental problem may be the smallest devices, and this week they're launching campaigns to increase awareness about recycling cell phones, music players, handheld gaming consoles and other electronics. Frequently, smaller portable...

LANSING -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her Democratic colleagues in the state Senate want to ban stores from letting youths under 17 buy or rent violent and sexually explicit video games, some of which the governor called "sickening." During a Friday news conference at the Capitol, the governor and Democratic Detroit Sen. Hansen Clarke showed clips from a game called "The Guy Game" published by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. The game rewards players who correctly answer trivia questions with video footage of topless women, said Don Hazaert, who works for the Senate Democrats. It is rated "M" for mature audiences,...

Jonathan Dean, 12, yanks on the action slide to load the 20-gauge shotgun, then sights down the length of the barrel. "Pull," he calls softly. The 5-2, 104-pound boy barely flinches as the shotgun recoils against his right shoulder. He’s found his mark: The 4-inch clay disc shatters in the darkening sky of the East Valley. Jonathan is smaller and has less experience than many of the 118 boys and girls who attend statesponsored shotgun training at the Red Mountain Trap and Skeet club just north of Mesa. But he’s already thrilled with the experience, and looking forward to a...

Nation of Islam leader Rev. Louis Farrakhan is encouraging women and gay men to participate in the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March.

WASHINGTON - A Senate showdown over an Alaska wildlife refuge is expected within weeks as Republicans plan to use a budget measure to overcome strong opposition to allowing oil drilling in the protected area. It will be first big environmental issue facing the new Congress. Republican leaders indicated Tuesday that they plan to press the issue of drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (news - web sites) as part of a so-called budget reconciliation process, which cannot be subject to a Democratic filibuster — a tactic that has blocked the refuge's development in the past. Given the wider GOP...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Four leading GOP House members and senators announced a joint effort Thursday to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to toughen up habitat and scientific provisions. Environmentalists immediately criticized the plan as the latest attempt to gut the landmark law. The lawmakers said it was the first time members of the House and Senate had banded together at the beginning of a congressional session to amend the 1973 act. Previous attempts to change the law have failed, but they said this time they hoped to produce a single Endangered Species Act reauthorization bill that could be introduced in...

A Justice Department lawyer may have been laying the groundwork for the Iraq invasion long before it was discussed publicly by the White House. Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s...

SACRAMENTO – The solar panels gleam like black fish scales on the roof of Mark Louvier's Santa Ana factory. They save him $2,500 a month as they pour electricity into the machines below that grind out doors and fixtures for tract homes. They also cost $1.2 million to install, way beyond Louvier's budget without the government subsidies and tax breaks he got that brought the bill down to less than $600,000. "Without the credits, I wouldn't have anything to do with it," said Louvier, president of Trimco Finish. It's businessmen like Louvier and homeowners throughout California that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...

LITITZ, Pa. - President Bush (news - web sites) summoned support from Democrats whose "dreams and goals are not found in the far left wing" of their own party on Wednesday in a late-campaign appeal for crossover votes. Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said that when it comes to Iraq (news - web sites), the man in the White House "doesn't get it, and he can't fix it." Bush has made a habit of "dodging and bobbing and weaving" when it comes to tons of missing explosives outside Baghdad, added the four-term Massachusetts senator, and Vice President Dick...

Forget Florida. And Ohio. And Pennsylvania. The next President of the United States may well be elected in Michigan. In 2000, Al Gore carried the Wolverine State by more than 200,000 votes. This year's conventional wisdom has conceded it to John Kerry. Two weeks ago, Democratic operatives began telling reporters that Michigan was in the bag. They were wrong. Last Thursday, a poll in the Detroit News put President Bush ahead in Michigan by 4 points. A Knight-Ridder survey showed the race is a virtual tie. This came as a shock to the Kerry camp, which has concentrated its efforts...

PHOENIX (AP) - Activists who say illegal immigrants are draining Arizona's coffers by fraudulently obtaining government services are pushing a ballot measure that could throw state workers in jail for turning a blind eye to such practices. The measure in Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border, is the latest across the nation aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants. Opponents of the measure say it promotes racial profiling, and insist it would do nothing to stop fraud. Supporters maintain Arizona spends hundreds of millions annually to provide food stamps, welfare and other social services to illegal...

Motor City Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is right to be distancing himself from a City Council proposal to create a racially exclusive business district in Detroit to help black entrepreneurs. Not only would the plan, dubbed African Town, heighten racial tensions unnecessarily. It could also exacerbate the very problem it aims to solve. The insidious premise of this economic development plan, which was approved last week in a 7-to-2 vote overriding Mr. Kilpatrick's earlier veto, is that immigrants from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East are "stealing" jobs and resources from native blacks. But for the presence of these foreigners,...

WASHINGTON - Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson joined the campaign of Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday as a poll showed support for the presidential candidate slipping among black Americans, a critical Democratic constituency. The Pew Research Center said Tuesday its latest poll showed 73 percent of blacks supporting Kerry compared to 12 percent supporting President Bush. In 2000, Al Gore won 90 percent of the black vote. Democratic groups have aired campaign ads criticizing Republican efforts to woo black voters. The Kerry campaign said Jackson, who will serve as a senior adviser, will travel to battleground states to energize Democratic...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Thirteen government agents pile into unmarked sport utility vehicles and dark sedans in the basement garage of downtown's federal building. Their assignment: Crash the homes of 16 illegal immigrants and deport them. It is an increasingly common scene across the nation. The federal government wants to catch the nearly half-million immigrants who either have ducked deportation orders or are targets for removal because they were convicted of a crime. The size and complexity of the mission is staggering. Even as the government pours millions into enforcement, each year the number of new fugitives far exceeds the...

Got called this morning by America Coming Together. Said they wanted to do a poll. I live in Warren County, Ohio. (Fast growing conservative county NE of Cincinnati) First Question: Have you or do you know anyone who has lost their job due to economic conditions? I thought this was an incredibly imprecise question for a poll. I asked her in what timeframe. She said there was no timeframe. So I commented that of course the answer would be yes. Second Question: What are the two biggest issues that will influence your vote in the upcoming presidential election? My answer...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican-backed bills that would clear away environmental constraints for building new U.S. oil refineries and drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge were expected to win approval in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday. But both measures were largely symbolic with virtually no chance of approval this year by the U.S. Senate, according to lobbyists and congressional aides. Faced with voter concern about record-high gasoline prices in recent weeks, House Republicans also sought to blame Senate Democrats for blocking a broad energy bill that would be the first major overhaul of U.S. energy policy in a decade....