Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Members of the inner circle of high-ranking House Republicans privately agree that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is an absolute lock for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and will not be easy to defeat in the general election. The same lawmakers believe the Republican race to oppose Clinton is wide open but regard Sen. George Allen of Virginia as having the edge over Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee. The consensus among them is that Allen is a better candidate than Frist and will the advantage over him in GOP primaries. The House members see little or...

DNA project to trace human steps By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter A project spanning five continents is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA. The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised. Samples gathered from indigenous people and the general public will be subjected to lab and computer analysis to extract the valuable genetic data. Team leader Dr Spencer Wells calls the plan "the Moon shot of anthropology". We see this as part of the commons of our species...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Vicente Fox called recent U.S. measures to stem illegal immigration a step back for bilateral relations on Friday and said Mexican migrants do jobs "that not even blacks want to do." In comments likely to raise the temperature of the immigration debate, Fox defended the role of undocumented Mexican workers in the United States to a group of Texas business people meeting in Mexico. "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States," he...

AURORA NY--A Wells College senior, who labels herself "the most high-profile conservative student" on campus, claims her political views got her suspended just three weeks before she was to graduate. Nicole Krogman of Newfield, co-chair of the Wells College Republicans, said she was suspended April 15 after the college's Community Court, a quasi-judicial body composed of students and faculty, found she did not complete a non-credit independent study tutorial on time. Krogman, who issued a press release about her situation Friday, contends the professor, American Studies Department Chair Linda Lohn, has an anti-conservative bias. Krogman said the suspension came the...

Via Paxety Pages, The Miami Herald reports on Hugo's version of Al-Jazeera for Latin America, His government is bankrolling a new television network, Telesur, that has plans to broadcast news, sports and educational programs across Latin America beginning this summer. Its organizers say it will not be a Venezuelan government mouthpiece, but Chávez is providing 70 percent of its funding, fueling concerns that the organizers of the network may not have a choice in the matter. Not that it comes as a surprise, considering how Fidel hosted Hugo and Sheik Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, vice-president of Qatar, in charge of...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland on Thursday repaid most of its communist-era debt to the United States, handing Washington $868 million, a government official said. Deputy Finance Minister Wieslaw Szczuka was quoted as telling the PAP news agency that the payment accounted for all of the money Poland owes the U.S. through the Paris Club of creditor nations - with the exception of $96 million, which has been transferred to an ecological fund. Szczuka added that Poland plans to pay Sweden the 202 million euros ($258 million) it owes on Friday. However, he said, Poland is awaiting an answer from...

Another automotive entrepreneur plans to import Chinese cars to the United States. The Geeley Solo is a small, well-equipped sedan that is expected to sell for $6,995. David Shelburg, whose background includes work for Toledo, Ohio-based Jeep, expects to begin selling cars and trucks made by Chinese automakers Geeley, Baoding Great Wall Automobile Holding Company Ltd. and Zhongxing Automobile Company Ltd., as early as December. The Geeley Solo is a small, well-equipped sedan that is expected to sell for $6,995.

Hospitals, doctors and ambulance services in Arizona and other border states can bill the federal government for emergency care they provide to illegal border entrants beginning today. An amendment to the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 authorized $1 billion in payments to hospitals and other providers in states along the Mexican and Canadian borders starting last Oct. 1. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., was the chief architect of the amendment, based on a study he commissioned four years ago to assess the impact of uninsured illegal entrants on border-state hospitals. Federal law requires them to provide emergency care to anyone who...

LONDON — The Seventh Framework Program (FP7), the European Union's next collaborative research plan scheduled to run from 2007 to 2013, is expected cost about $86 billion. It would create nearly 1 million jobs, according to an impact assessment by the European Commission. The report attempts to compare the impact of the proposed plan over the next 25 years with a baseline of moderate growth in European Union research funding and with a "do-nothing" approach. A key part of FP7 is the European Commission's proposal to double the level of spending to an average of 9.6 billion euros (about $12.3...

WASHINGTON, May 7 - After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate. Many of the monitoring tools - intended to detect guns, explosives, and nuclear and biological weapons - were bought during the blitz in security spending after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In its effort to create a virtual shield around America, the Department of Homeland Security now plans to spend billions...

I have been suffering fools for the last several years without much complaint (and at times slight amusement)but in the last 6 weeks or so the stupidity level around here has ratcheted up to the point of being unbearable. I am used to the arcane laws here that will not allow you to trim trees or paint your house without a special permit. I am used to the permits being refused because when you filled the darn thing out you used dashes rather than slashes to separate the numbers in the date. I am used to my vehicle inspection being...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Bloggers - those Internet-based writers without rules - are fighting back against criticism that their work is unreliable, libelous or just poorly done. More than 300 bloggers came to town Friday for a two-day conference that was heavy on teaching techniques used by journalists in what bloggers term "the mainstream media." One class taught students how to access and analyze government statistics. Conference organizer Bill Hobbs called blogging "citizen journalism." "If freedom of the press belongs to those who have the press, then blogging expands ownership of the press," Hobbs said. Right now, more than 8...

A top fund-raising official on Senator Clinton's campaign, David Rosen, plans to defend himself against federal felony charges by arguing that he was tricked by two "self-confessed 'con men'" involved in planning an August 2000 fund-raiser. Mr. Rosen, a Chicago political consultant, faces trial in Los Angeles next week on an indictment alleging that he caused the filing of false campaign finance reports that understated the cost of the star-studded gala by $500,000 or more. In a motion filed Tuesday, Mr. Rosen's lawyers disclosed that they plan to claim that their client was deceived by a businessman who was the...

American General Media's new Albuquerque FM talk station KAGM says it has offered to hire Jennifer Wilbanks the so called 'runaway bride' from Georgia who ended up in New Mexico where she told police she had been kidnapped.Doc Thompson, program director for the station, thinks that she would still be welcome in New Mexico despite the apparent ethnic slight in her made up kidnapping.Wilbanks reportedly told New Mexico Law enforcment officials that a couple had abducted her and the so called male kidnapper was Hispanic.In the 2000 US Census Bureau count, nearly half the state's population claimed Hispanic ancestory. The...

1st Session H. R. 891 To provide for the award of a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to Tiger Woods, in recognition of his service to the Nation in promoting excellence and good sportsmanship, and in breaking barriers with grace and dignity by showing that golf is a sport for all people. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES February 17, 2005 Mr. BACA (for himself, Mr. BUTTERFIELD, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Mr. WYNN, Mr. TOWNS, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA, Ms. CARSON, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. CLAY, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. MEEKS of New York, Mr. PAYNE, and Mr. OWENS)...

Rep. Joe Moreno killed overnight Houston lawmaker dies after car crash. More to come on this developing story.

The chili finger saga got even spicier this week: Anna Ayala's husband was arrested at the house the two shared in Las Vegas. San Jose police said the arrest Wednesday of James Plascencia on a $450,000 warrant was unrelated to the charges against his wife, which stem from the now-notorious fingertip she said she found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Plascencia, 43, was taken into custody on four felony counts of failure to pay child support and child abandonment, one count of identity theft and one count of fraudulent use of official documents in San Jose. "He was using...

TAOS— The wife of state Sen. Carlos Cisneros was arraigned here Wednesday, a day after she acknowledged attacking the senator with a hammer after finding him with another woman. Patsy Cisneros, 50, declined to make additional comment on the Monday night incident at a cabin outside Questa that led to her arrest. Magistrate Judge Erminio Martinez entered a not guilty plea for Mrs. Cisneros, who appeared in court without a lawyer. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, had no comment on the charges against his wife, but said Wednesday of the hammer incident: "I was assaulted; there was trespass and breaking and entering...

I'll get to First Lady Laura Bush's bawdy stand-up routine in a minute. But I want to highlight a related new book out about how young conservatives are shaking up the dominant liberal media culture. It's called "South Park Conservatives." My name is listed on the cover along with many other (mostly) right-leaning pundits, websites, and bloggers, but I must confess to having mixed feelings about the honor. The best-selling book's author, Brian C. Anderson of the Manhattan Institute, writes a fun, breezy survey documenting the rise of talk radio, FOX News, the Internet, conservative publishing, and college Republican activism....

After a decade of silence, Terry L. Nichols, who was convicted in the Oklahoma City bombings, has accused a third man of being an accomplice who provided some of the explosives used to kill 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 10 years ago. Nichols, in a letter written from his cell at the Supermax prison in Colorado, said Arkansas gun collector Roger Moore donated so-called binary explosives, made up of two components, to bomber Timothy J. McVeigh that were used in Oklahoma City, as well as additional bomb components that recently were found in Nichols' former home...