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NEW JERSEY MAN GETS JAIL TIME IN CONNECTION WITH ILLEGAL MONEY TRANSFER SCHEME THAT MOVED $100 MILLION TO PAKISTAN -- Fourth of six defendants sentenced in the ICE / IRS investigation -- NEWARK, N.J. - A key player in a scheme to illegally transfer more than $100 million to Pakistan through a New Jersey money transmittal business has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Umer Darr, a Pakistani native and naturalized U.S. citizen of Bayonne, N.J, was sentenced earlier...

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif., Sept. 13, 2005 – For more than 140 years, the Armed Services YMCA continues to increase quality of life for service members and their families by offering support to communities and families. For director Anita Neu-Fultz and her staff at the Combat Center ASYMCA, that goal is paramount and unwavering as they volunteer to help others year-round. "Many people do not even know the Armed Service YMCA even exists," said Neu-Fultz. "They hear YMCA, and they think of sports programs and hotels and gyms and pools. But not many realize what we actually do here. We are...

The clinic serves as a battalion aid station and also provides lab, dental, x-ray and trauma services. TAJI, Iraq, Aug. 3, 2005 — "You never know what is going to roll up to the door," said U.S. Army Capt. Jacqueline L. Graul, brigade nurse for 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. Graul is part of the staff at "Cobra" Clinic, run by C Company, 125th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, which provides for the medical needs of soldiers at Camp Taji. "You don't get a second chance with a real casualty. All your training is on the line."...

Hot issues may shape '06 campaign By Dan Haley Denver Post Editorial Board Two very divisive issues - gay marriage and immigration - could be headed for Colorado's ballot in 2006. Not only will they stir up a lot of noise, they'll also help define the races for governor and Colorado's legislature. Republicans, with an eye on polling, think the issues will break in their favor. Voters in 11 states in 2004 decisively (often overwhelmingly) approved ballot measures banning gay marriage, and many pundits credit the initiatives with luring more conservative-minded voters to the polls to cast votes for President...

FLOYD, Va. (AP) - They came to Floyd to get back to the land, to be alone, to find community, or to make music. They fit in here because they didn't quite fit in anywhere else. Here the counterculture met the mountain culture and something unique was born. The two lifestyles had something in common, lack of money. The locals wanted it but didn't have it. The newcomers with the tie-dyed shirts didn't care much about the dollar - some despised it - but, like everyone else, they had to pay the bills. So together they took something ancient and...

Modernizes the sales and use tax. As reported by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on June 20, 2005, with amendments. An Act modernizing the sales and use tax, amending and supplementing P.L.1966, c.30 and amending P.L.1980, c.105.

US chastity ring funding attacked The silver ring is a constant reminder of the abstinence promise The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the US government over its funding of a nationwide sexual abstinence programme.The ACLU says the Silver Ring Thing programme violates the principle that the state budget cannot be used to promote religion. The programme, which targets teenagers, is an offshoot of a Christian ministry. Since 2003, it has received more than $1m from the Department of Health and Human Services. Symbolic ringThe funding is part of a government initiative to expand abstinence-only sex...

BOISE, Idaho - Sun Valley is used to hosting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, but a planned Sept. 11 visit by the Dalai Lama could draw 100,000 for one event - and that has law enforcement and tourism officials scrambling. Details such as visitor housing and security loom large. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists will visit the famous mountain resort community on the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that rocked America. Walt Femling, the sheriff of rural Blaine County, met visit organizers Wednesday, accompanied by officials including his disaster services coordinator. He said he...

Terry Ratzmann was laid to rest quietly Friday, at a private service emphasizing forgiveness and attended by a few dozen fellow church members, including some survivors of his shooting rampage. About half of the 75 people who attended were from the local Living Church of God congregation that Ratzmann sprayed with bullets just six days earlier before taking his own life. The rest in attendance Friday were Ratzmann family members, including his mother and two sisters, said Thomas Geiger, a member and spokesman for the local congregation. ... Despite the havoc the 44-year-old Ratzmann wreaked on his congregation, Geiger said,...

Investigators probing the massacre of seven people during a church service outside Milwaukee focused on the gunman's apparent anger with the church and brought in experts to break into his encrypted computer files, authorities said Tuesday. "All we know is he was very upset with the church, either with church generally or a portion of the church or a sermon," said Waukesha (Wis.) County District Atty. Paul Bucher. "We've ruled out everything else." Terry Ratzmann, 44, of New Berlin, Wis., shot and killed himself after the weekend rampage at a Living Church of God service at the Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield...

Americans Lose $68 Billion to Illegals Using a new approach, Columbia University economists David Weinstein and Donald Davis estimate the net economic losses from immigration to Americans. Unlike earlier studies, this new model does not treat the movement of immigrant labor into the country simply as a result of abundant resources and demand for labor, assumptions more appropriate to the 19th century. Rather, the model takes into account globalization, the technological superiority of the American economy, and the resulting high standard of living. Among the report’s findings: In 2002, the net loss to U.S. natives from immigration was $68 billion....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Growth in the huge U.S. services sector rose in December, although employment declined slightly, according to a survey published on Wednesday. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index rose to 63.1 in December from 61.3 in November, above Wall Street median estimates of 61.0. A number above 50 indicates growth in the sector, which accounts for about 80 percent of the U.S. economy. The ISM survey's employment index eased slightly to 54.9 in December from 55.0, while the measure of new orders rose to 60.3 from 59.9. The prices paid index rose to 71.4 from 71.0.

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!

If asked why they pay taxes, most citizens would not respond: "To provide tax-financed employment." Instead, they might say: "To purchase necessary services that only government can provide." And they might assume government has a responsibility to provide those services as efficiently and effectively as possible. A reasonable belief, but consider what some in state government perceive as a potential "problem" with measures that would make government spending more accountable. While working to craft the state's 2005-07 budget, Washington's Vulnerable Children and Adults budget team is exploring "more effectively investing human service dollars by focusing on investments in evidence-based practices."...

MOSCOW, Sept. 14 -- President Vladimir Putin's move to enhance his power in response to a wave of terrorism does not take on the real problem: the corrupt and unreformed security services that produced Putin in the first place, according to many politicians and analysts.

*Stephen Baskerville holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and teaches political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. As the battle over same-sex marriage heats up, we may wish to consider other ways to defend and strengthen marriage as an institution.  Any comprehensive strategy for restoring marriage must address its nemesis: divorce.  Of all the threats to marriage and the family today, divorce is clearly the most direct.  Yet it is also the least understood and most neglected.Confronting divorce can strengthen the campaign for marriage by restoring a more constructive and proactive balance to issues where traditional...

U.S. plans better immigration services WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will unveil an aggressive strategy Thursday to eliminate a staggering backlog of immigration applications over the next two years. The plan is designed to ease the process for millions of immigrants seeking to become legal residents and U.S. citizens. Eduardo Aguirre, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency charged with serving newcomers to the United States, said he will modernize computer systems, shift personnel to district offices with high numbers of cases, and create a culture of customer service to reduce the pile of 3.7 million backlogged applications....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. I was all set to declare "Hats off" to The New York Times weekly "Escapes" section. Usually focused on its vital journalistic mission of providing lifestyle advice to the affluent, the "Escapes" staff nonetheless seemed to have come across the ideal solution to the nation's ongoing trade and living standards crisis. Forget all about both that neanderthal protectionism and that complicated retraining stuff, "Escapes" seemed to be telling us. Instead, casualties of current globalization policies can be re-employed entertaining the rich. At least that's been the strategy of little Quechee, Vermont...

After eschewing the idea for several years, the Street administration now is considering opening an assistance center for immigrants - in City Hall. The opening would round out an unpublicized project by the city's managing director during the last year to make city services more accessible to non-English speakers, as required by federal law. Managing Director Philip R. Goldsmith, in an interview last week, said he had begun looking for private grants to support the office and already "scoped out" space in the building. "We're still doing the hard work of making sure that when people come in, we're able...

<p>So, Oregon voters killed a major tax increase last week?</p> <p>What else is new?</p> <p>They turned down sales taxes nine out of nine chances since that idea first made the ballot in 1933.</p> <p>They rejected higher income taxes 15 times out of 17 since 1912 and haven’t approved one since 1930, when a proposal squeaked through that also lowered property taxes.</p>