Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's top lieutenants demanded yesterday that Rep. Charles Rangel quickly settle the swirling ethics charges against him rather than face a trial tomorrow that could embarrass Democratic candidates across the country -- but the disgraced pol isn't going without a fight. "I think it's best that he settle," Rep. George Miller, an influential California Democrat who helped engineer Pelosi's rise to power, told The Post. "Because I just said so, that's why. That's my feeling," he added. Amid mounting pressure on Rangel, Miller's blunt statement is the most direct message from any member...

The Duchess of York has held secret talks with Princess Diana's lawyers about renegotiating her 'paltry' divorce settlement with Prince Andrew. Sarah Ferguson consulted Anthony Julius at Mishcon de Reya, who famously negotiated a £17million pay off for Princess Diana when she divorced Prince Charles. The figure is in stark contrast to the £15,000 a year which the duchess receives from Prince Andrew after their marriage ended after ten years in 1996.

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc's lawyers are in talks with representatives of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle the fraud charges brought against it by the regulator, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. Goldman's co-general counsel Gregory Palm, along with other lawyers and SEC officials participated in the preliminary discussion, the paper said, adding that the talks did not include any terms, such as the amount of fine or agreements Goldman could make with the agency. On Tuesday, Fox Business Network reported that Goldman may enter talks with the SEC to get...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration has reached a deal with black farmers....</p>

Most lawyers are like the opportunistic infections that attack the weakened immune system of heroin addicts. You can scrape off the scabs that encrust the skin, but if you don’t treat the underlying addiction, they’ll just grow back. Or more plainly, lawyers are the symptoms and not the disease. That there are so many is an indication of deeper trouble, signs of a fundamental imbalance with the body politic. In many “tort” lawsuits of the slip-’n-fall kind, at least three things have gone wrong: 1. A greedy plaintiff, with no notion of personal responsibility, decides that “somebody” has to pay...

sraeli officials reacted angrily Thursday night to a British decision to advise retailers and importers to distinguish on labels whether imported produce from the West Bank is being made in the settlements or by Palestinians. According to a statement released by the British Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, "Importers, retailers, NGOs and consumers have asked the Government for clarity over the precise origin of products from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The label 'West Bank' does not allow consumers to distinguish between goods originating from Palestinian producers and goods originating from illegal Israelisettlements."

Today Bibi Netanyahu played a brilliant move, in Yiddish its called Hey put tuchas offen tisch, literally, Hey put your "arse" on the table (put up or shut up). He offered a ten month freeze in settlement building in exchange for restarting the peace plans. I doubt very strongly the freeze will every happen. The truth is the real reason there is no peace is the Palestinians don't want peace. No other country in the world has made concessions the way Israel has. Since 1977, we they given up areas of land three times the size of the State of...

US fury as Israel defies settlement freeze call An ultra-Orthodox Jew prays at sundown at the 'outpost' settlement of Givat Sefer, near Modi'in Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem Israeli plans to authorise the construction of hundreds of houses in the occupied West Bank sparked furious protests from American and Palestinian officials yesterday. In a nod to US requests to suspend all building work at Jewish settlements, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, is offering a freeze on construction at a later date — a peace gambit that did little to mollify those involved in the negotiations leading to a new Middle East...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu departed Monday afternoon for a four-day visit to Europe. He will meet with Special U.S. Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell on Wednesday in London to determine Israel's future construction policy in Judea and Samaria. While in London, he is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. From there he will fly to Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. On Sunday night, the Prime Minister assessed that talks with the Palestinian Authority will resume by the end of next month. During Netanyahu’s absence, Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom will stand in...

A settlement has been reached between Caltrans and the San Diego Minutemen that gives the anti-illegal-immigration activists what they were hoping for: the right to keep their Adopt-A-Highway sign on northbound Interstate 5, a cash payment, and litter cleanup on an additional stretch of the freeway. The settlement was reached Monday, according to federal court records. In ending the lawsuit the group filed last year, the state conceded that the San Diego Minutemen sign near the Border Patrol's San Clemente checkpoint will remain for the duration of a five-year permit, and that the group may continue to clean the highway...

ISRAEL and the United States have reached a deal allowing the Jewish state to build about 2500 housing units already under construction in West Bank settlements. But the United States dismissed the report in Maariv as "inaccurate". US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said "the bottom line" for President Barack Obama's administration has not changed, "that all parties in the region have to honour their obligations". He was referring to obligations laid out in the 2003 internationally-agreed roadmap for Palestinian-Israeli peace that calls for an Israeli settlement freeze.

According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha'Aretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that President Obama is only picking a fight with Israel over the settlements in an attempt to win over the Arab world. Netanyahu's opinion is that, the Obama feels that an open and Nasty controversy with Israel would serve the Obama administration's main objective of improving U.S. relations with the Arab world. For the past two weeks Obama has bee overly hard on the Jewish State, ignoring previous agreements pushing for the end to settlements, even to the point of Making up evidence to prove his point. I am not...

Open Space Authority to Return Assessment Funds San Jose, CA, May 29, 2009 – Property owners who have property within the jurisdiction of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority will soon be able to claim refunds of an assessment charged by the Authority on their real estate tax bills between 2002 and 2008. In 2001, the Authority approved a $20 annual assessment on single-family homes located within the Authority’s territory to help purchase and maintain open space and parkland. Higher amounts were charged for multi-family and commercial properties. The Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and...

A barrier threatening to delay or stop construction of the $420 million fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel between Orinda and Oakland was cleared Friday when Caltrans settled a lawsuit with Oakland and Berkeley neighborhood groups worried about noise and traffic from the project. Now the Highway 24 project to ease traffic congestion needs one more thing to begin: a state budget settlement to free up voter-approved state bond money for the extra bore. "This settlement is great news for drivers. We badly need this project to help us with this traffic bottleneck," said Amy Worth, an Orinda city councilwoman...

In a locally-notorious case of Second Amendment rights violation, the City of Norfolk, Virginia, has thrown in the towel and agreed to pay a settlement of $15,000 to activist Chet Szymecki of Yorktown.

FRANKFURT, Germany – Siemens AG — rocked by a series of corruption cases that has cost the company both prestige and money — agreed Monday to pay more than $1 billion in fines in Germany and the U.S. as it moved a step forward in closing a dark chapter in its history. Munich-based Siemens agreed to pay more than $800 million in fines to settle long-standing corruption charges in the United States and another 395 million euros ($533.6 million) to European authorities. The announcements of the amounts of both fines came Monday. Siemens, which makes products ranging from wind turbines...

My syndicated column today expands on yesterday’s eHarmony post (link). As I note, eHarmony will be forking over $5,000 to the gay plaintiff and $50,000 to New Jersey’s Civil Rights office. Here’s the entire settlement the company agreed to, via onlinedatingmagazine. There’s more on the class-action lawsuit against eHarmony proceeding in California here. And Jacob Sullum weighs in. *** The eHarmony shakedown by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2008 Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating website worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable “right” to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark...

NEW YORK (Legal Newsline)- Pfizer Inc. has settled with 34 state attorneys general over complaints that the pharmaceutical company illegally marketed its Bextra and Celebrex medications. Pfizer has agreed to pay a $60 million settlement to resolve the enforcement action against it and its subsidiary, Pharmacia, Inc. Celebrex and Bextra are Cox-2 inhibitors, were illegally marketed to treat acute surgical pain, while the medications were only approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat common pain and inflammation.

Prehistoric settlement found in Qatar 6/23/2008 2:25:18 DOHA • A prehistoric settlement in what is now Qatar may confirm alternative theories on how early humans emigrated from the African continent, a report in a Danish newspaper said. Danish archaeologists have uncovered a settlement they believe may be over 700,000 years old, making it the oldest organised human community ever found, reported Berlingske Tidende newspaper. Eight dwellings in the desert region of Qatar indicate that an early human species crossed what is now the Red Sea to leave their origins in Africa, according to the scientists. There is still uncertainty within...

Unique Dutch settlement discovered from Bronze Age May 23, 2008, 8:52 GMT Amsterdam - Archaeologists have found a settlement dating back to the Bronze Age just north of Eindhoven, a city in the southern Netherlands, Dutch archaeologist Nico Arts told Dutch media Friday. The discovery was made during preparations for the building of a highway junction at Ekkersrijt, north of Eindhoven. The settlement may be the largest ever discovered in the Netherlands, and is definitely the largest settlement ever found in the southern Netherlands. Bronze Age settlements (1500-850 BC) have also been discovered in the province of Drenthe in the...