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Angelina Jolie Slams Storm Aid Efforts NEW YORK (AP) - Angelina Jolie says she is happy aid is getting to the hurricane-ravaged New Orleans area, but that "it is simply not going to be enough." The 30-year-old actress issued a statement late Friday that she was "shocked" at the images coming from New Orleans, a city she said is "very close to my heart." "It is wonderful to hear of the relief efforts that are finally coming into New Orleans and the rest of the region today, but as we all know, it is simply not going to be enough,"...

Jimmy Carter Blasts Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp Calls Iraq War 'Unnecessary and Unjust' By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD, AP BIRMINGHAM, England (July 31) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Saturday said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States. Speaking at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, central England, Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq and said it was "unnecessary and unjust." "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he...

Cheney Gets Good News From Doctors Vice President Passes Annual Heart Checkup WASHINGTON (July 8) - Vice President Dick Cheney got good news Friday during his annual heart checkup, with a pacemaker detecting no irregular heartbeat, his office said. Cheney has had four heart attacks, and a pacemaker was placed in his chest in June 2001. The checkup determined that the pacemaker, called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, was working fine and never had to be activated. The device is designed to activate automatically if needed to regulate the patient's heartbeat. Cheney underwent the routine exam at George Washington University Medical...

Michael Moore Film Fest Draws Competition By The Associated Press TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - A film festival being organized by left-wing director Michael Moore has some right-wing competition. A local activist and a conservative group from Texas said Wednesday they were putting together an alternative to the Traverse City Film Festival, which Moore and residents of this Lake Michigan community are organizing. "People are fed up and tired with the extreme left-wing radical fringe - America haters, family haters, Christian haters," said Genie Aldrich, a resident of nearby Suttons Bay and founder of the Traverse Bay Freedom Film Festival....

Senator John Kerry’s office has released a copy of his letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requesting an investigation of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures (and the Downing Street Memo) ===== June 22, 2005 The Honorable Pat Roberts, Chairman The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV, Vice Chairman United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence SH-211 Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller: We write concerning your committee's vital examination of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures. In particular, we urge you to accelerate to completion the work of the so-called "Phase II" effort to assess how policy makers used the intelligence...

Scalia Finds Reputation Under Scrutiny By NANCY BENAC, AP WASHINGTON (June 22) - When Antonin Scalia was nominated to the Supreme Court, his confirmation hearing was so dull that one Democrat cajoled: ''Let yourself go. It's pretty boring so far.'' Scalia resisted that invitation nearly 20 years ago, but he's been sound and fury ever since. Though widely regarded as a leading intellectual on the court and often described as a gentleman, Scalia also is the most provocative, and sometimes petulant, justice. He has mockingly read aloud the opinions of fellow justices. He's penned sneering dissents that excoriate colleagues for...

Eleanor Mondale Diagnosed With Cancer MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale, has been diagnosed with brain cancer, the Star Tribune reported Tuesday. Mondale spoke to the newspaper just hours before she began her first session of radiation and chemotherapy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Just a week ago, Mondale married local rock star Chan Poling. "It's bad but not that bad," she said from her farmhouse in Prior Lake. "I've got a really good chance to beat it." Mondale, 45, said her vision had bothered her in recent months but didn't believe...

Byrd Laments KKK Connection Senator Writes About 'Foolish Mistake' in Memoir By VICKI SMITH, AP MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (June 20) - Sen. Robert C. Byrd's new memoir reveals both his encyclopedic knowledge of political history and the unlikely inspiration that helped launch his own political career: a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. It was a Klan leader who motivated the young Byrd during his short-lived tenure in the racist organization - something he writes was ''an extraordinarily foolish mistake'' that has haunted him for 40 years. ''It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me, and has...

Redford Says He Linked Deep Throat to FBI Jun 17, 11:00 PM (ET) SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Robert Redford, who played Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in "All the President's Men," said he used to speculate on who Deep Throat was and had figured "it probably had to do with the FBI." Redford said the revelation that former Deputy FBI Director Mark Felt was Deep Throat, the Post's secret informant in the Watergate scandal, has him "waiting to see if anybody is going to connect where we were then and where we are now, because the same elements are...

JUDGE'S FETE CUTS OUT WIDOW WHEN Harlem political leaders held a memorial service for Judge Bruce Wright, they neglected to invite his widow, Liz Davidson Wright — "because she is white," her friend Lyle Stuart told PAGE SIX. The event — organized by Wright's son, State Assemblyman Keith Wright, a candidate for Manhattan borough president — was held June 4 at City College with such pillars of the community on the dais as Basil Patterson, Rep. Charles Rangel, former Mayor David Dinkins and Inner City Broadcasting powerbroker Percy Sutton. Stuart — who published Wright's last book, "Black Justice in a...

Rivera Signs Deal With Fox News Channel By DAVID BAUDER NEW YORK (AP) - Geraldo Rivera, who has been a war correspondent and host of his own weekend show on Fox News Channel, said Tuesday he had signed a four-year contract to stay at the network. Rivera gave few details, other than to say he "got a promotion." The network confirmed it had re-signed Rivera, naming him correspondent-at-large. Rivera will keep his Saturday evening show "At Large." Rivera had quit his CNBC legal affairs show and joined Fox News as a war correspondent shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist...

RUNAWAY DEAL AT NBC NEWS DID NBC News pay for an interview with "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks in a roundabout way, and has publisher Judith Regan turned into a booker for the Peacock Network? Regan — who runs ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp. — is widely credited with brokering the deal Wilbanks made with NBC. Wilbanks became a huge "get" when she ran away from her fiancé, John Mason, without a word and fled cross-country. She later falsely claimed to police she'd been kidnapped and is repaying her hometown of Gainesville, Ga., $13,000 —...

Madonna tells of sex shame By Clemmie Moodie, Daily Mail Throughout years of reinvention, she has steadfastly stuck to one mantra - sex sells. But now, after making a career as a controversial, no-holds-barred sex siren, Madonna has admitted that she pushed her explicit image too far. At 46, she has spoken out against her early, headline-grabbing years, claiming that they may have misled her legion of young fans. 'Sometimes I was being overtly sexual for the sake of showing off when I didn't need to be. I think I hurt myself,' the singer told the American magazine, Ladies' Home...

Tucker Carlson Starts Anew With MSNBC Show By DAVID BAUDER NEW YORK (AP) - With the real Tucker Carlson sitting beside him in a conference room, MSNBC chief Rick Kaplan grumbles at something the televised Tucker Carlson says on a taped run-through of the new prime-time talk show "The Situation." "You disagree?" Carlson asks his boss. "You're just wrong," Kaplan replies. They make an odd couple. On the right, the bowtied conservative. On the left, the friend of Bill Clinton now running his second cable news network. But they're longtime pals whose fates are now linked. Carlson's talk show, which...

To: Democrats in U.S. Congress Recently some Democrats in Congress have chastised Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, saying that he does not speak for the party. We the undersigned have a simple message we would like to convey to you: Howard Dean Speaks For Me And, we respectfully request that you refrain from public criticism of your fellow Democrats and that you begin to speak for us as well Sincerely, The Undersigned View Current Signatures

Letter to Pres Bush Concerning the "Downing Street Minutes" --------------------------------- The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Dear Mr. President: We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in...

http://entertainment.excite.com/celebgossip/pgsix/id/06_05_2005_1.html SHARON BUSH WANTS MORE $$ SHARON Bush is taking her ex-husband, Neil Bush, back to court for more money. Friends of Sharon say the former presidential sister-in-law got a "raw deal" in her divorce settlement with Neil last year because of a "local yokel Texas lawyer." Sharon has now hired the power duo of Chicago-based divorce lawyer Don Schiller and Texas biggie John Nichols. Sharon's pals say Schiller and Nichols are going after Neil Bush, President Bush's brother, because "he hid assets from Sharon in the divorce." In recently filed papers, they allege that Neil engaged in "constructive fraud"...

<p>When President Bush shakes 1,000 hands, Blake Gottesman is ready with the Purell. When Mr. Bush is in his daily intelligence briefing in the trailer on his ranch, Mr. Gottesman is on site to dog-sit Barney, the president's Scottish terrier. When a member of the White House senior staff wants a word with the boss, Mr. Gottesman is there to recommend yes or no.</p>

State Senator Under House Arrest in FBI's Sting Four Charged With Taking Payoffs, Threatening to Kill Witnesses By WOODY BAIRD, AP MEMPHIS, Tenn. (May 28) - A judge ordered that a state senator be placed under house arrest Friday over the objections of prosecutors, who played a video of the lawmaker watching an undercover agent count out $10,000 and an audiotape of him threatening a potential witness. The tapes were played at a bond hearing a day after Sen. John Ford was charged as part of a two-year FBI sting operation nicknamed "Tennessee Waltz." Ford is charged along with four...

Bush-as-Groucho Posters Spark Uproar Drama Students Created Image to Advertise Satirical Play LOS ANGELES (May 27) - Posters that depicted President Bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained. Theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message. Principal Kenny Lee ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills area last week on grounds that they promoted smoking and "endorsing one ideology over another." "That's our take...