Free Republic

Lobbyist Vicki Iseman is caught up in a scandal involving Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Both John McCain and Vicki Iseman deny they ever had a romantic relationship. From the NY Times: "Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended himself and took no personal responsibility Wednesday for the military's bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld, in his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since President Bush replaced him with Robert Gates late last year, reiterated previous testimony to investigators that he didn't have early knowledge that Tillman was cut down by fellow Rangers, not by enemy militia, as was initially claimed. He told a House committee hearing that he'd always impressed upon Pentagon underlings the importance of telling the truth. "Early in my...

BURLINGAME — A legal team that includes Burlingame attorney Joe Cotchett is moving ahead with a civil suit on behalf of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, following a setback in federal court. The Wilsons have filed an appeal of a decision last week by U.S. District Judge John Bates, who dismissed their suit against four Bush Administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The Wilsons are seeking unspecified monetary damages for the defendants' alleged roles in leaking Plame's identity to punish Wilson,...

MARIETTA - City officials on Wednesday loosened a ban on war veterans handing out thousands of miniature American flags during next week's Fourth of July parade. Officials announced yesterday afternoon that the city will allow veterans and others to pass out 3-by-5 inch U.S. flags, but only before and after the parade, not during the 1.5-mile route as they walk next to their "Let Freedom Ring" float.

U.S. taxpayers should not pay to air terrorist tirades. Yet, that is exactly what happened at Alhurra, an Arabic-language television network for the Middle East that is completely funded by U.S. tax dollars. Alhurra exists to counter the anti-American biases that pervade the Arab world’s news media. However, the station’s recent broadcasts have instead provided platforms for terrorists to spew hate directed at the United States and Israel. U.S. taxpayers should not pay ... U.S. taxpayers should not pay to air terrorist tirades. Yet, that is exactly what happened at Alhurra, an Arabic-language television network for the Middle East that...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released a new report as part of its continuing investigation into prewar intelligence. In the report, the committee's vice chairman, Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, has included a set of "additional views" in which he provides new evidence contradicting some of the public testimony Valerie Plame Wilson gave before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in March. In that testimony, Mrs. Wilson flatly denied playing a role in choosing her husband, Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. "I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him," she testified.

Major provisions of the bipartisan immigration compromise: --- CURRENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS -They could come forward immediately and receive probationary legal status. -Bill creates a new four-year, renewable "Z" nonimmigrant visa for those present within the U.S. before Jan. 1, 2007.

Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and two other Bush administration officials belittled Valerie Plame's lawsuit Thursday over the disclosure of her CIA identity. At a nearly-three-hour court hearing, Cheney's lawyer said Plame was making "fanciful claims" in what amounted to "a fishing expedition." Plame says her constitutional rights were violated by Cheney and his now-convicted former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, as well as White House political adviser Rove and former State Department official Richard Armitage. Her suit is "principally based on a desire for publicity and book deals," said Michael Waldman, who represents Armitage

Observers of the Christopher Hitchens phenomenon have been expecting a book about religion from him around now. But this impressive and enjoyable attack on everything so many people hold dear is not the book we were expecting. First in London 30 or more years ago, then in New York and for the last couple of decades in Washington, Hitchens has established himself as a character. This character draws on such familiar sources as the novels of P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene; the leftist politics of the 1960s (British variant); and — of course — the person of...

"...Just last week a spokesman for CBS News revealed that an episode of "Katie Couric's Notebook," a one-minute video commentary distributed daily to CBS affiliates and posted on the CBS website, "was based on" a column by Jeffrey Zaslow that had appeared in the Wall Street Journal. "Was based on" is a euphemism used by TV people meaning "was stolen from." According to the spokesman, Katie "was horrified" to discover that the words that had come out of her mouth and had been published under her name were in fact the work of someone else. No, wait--that can't be right....

If Don Imus goes, we are worrying — at least, the Washington Post is, but it’s not alone—will there be “No One to Talk To?” What the Post piece actually described is what a humiliating experience it is for a luminary to lower himself to go on Imus’s radio show—to sell books, or a policy. Said respected person will get down in shockjockville lite—even now, chancing the taint of racist—because it is understood that Imus sells books and the guest will reach people. So they’ll go on and be yelled at by the I-Man, put up with being asked if...

House Democrats hope to raise between $650,000 and $1 million for each of the party's most endangered Democrats in hopes of keeping the party in control of Congress. The tactics are hardly new. Republicans aggressively used their committee chairmen -- and the promise of access to them -- to raise money from interest groups and lobbyists during the party's 12 years of congressional control. They tracked donations closely and pressed lobbying firms to hire GOP lobbyists through the "K Street Project," promising "intimate" issue briefings with the chairmen in return for big donations. And the GOP is hardly sitting on...

It's usually thought of as the kinder, gentler arm of immigration, but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services helps nab an average of five criminals a day, including the occasional murder suspect -- a point that agency Director Emilio Gonzalez underscores when he discusses the USCIS role in the Homeland Security Department. A little more than a year ago, Mr. Gonzalez took over the agency in charge of granting citizenship, green cards signifying a legal permanent immigrant and visas for work or study. In that year, he has started a pilot program to test a new naturalized citizenship exam, finished off...

Women will be paid to donate their eggs for scientific research in a landmark decision that will prompt a fierce backlash from leading figures in the medical world. The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the government regulator of this highly sensitive area, is expected to approve the policy when it meets on Wednesday. At present, clinics are not allowed to accept eggs donated for scientific research unless they are a byproduct of either IVF treatment or sterilisation. Campaigners for change say that this has led to a chronic shortage of eggs for scientific use.

Instead, the defense was allowed to read into the record an affidavit from the FBI agent who first interviewed Russert. The agent's account of his conversation with Russert contradicted Russert's two days of testimony. Talking to the agent, Russert could not rule out the possibility that he had an exchange with Libby about Wilson's wife (In court, Russert testified firmly that he hadn't.) The agent also reported that "Russert acknowledged that he speaks to many people," and that it was "difficult to reconstruct conversations several months later." You are not crazy to think that what you've just read sounds like...

Defense Exhibit 1972, a tape-recorded interview from the "Imus in the Morning" radio show, is another of those revealing moments in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "So . . . what happened?" radio host Don Imus asks NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell about her confusing reporting on an undercover CIA officer. "Were you drunk?" "I obviously screwed up," Mitchell responds in the exchange, which Libby's defense hopes to play for the jury in coming days. "I guess I was drunk," she jokes. Just when you thought it was impossible for more harm to come to the national...

A congressional source who read the letter signed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Wilkie said it essentially limits her to the commuter plane used by former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, which requires refueling to travel from Washington to Mrs. Pelosi's San Francisco district. A second source, in the Bush administration, confirmed the contents of the letter.

(notice how "lameduck" is in the url) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ridiculed as the "do-nothing" 109th U.S. Congress, the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on Monday begin a brief session to wrap up whatever work they can, install a new defense secretary and approve money to prevent a shutdown of government services. The Republican-led Congress will meet only for about another week before drawing to a close -- as lawmakers prepare for the new 110th Congress set to convene on January 4 under Democratic control. Having been blown out in the November 7 elections, Republican lawmakers are getting ready to...

DeVito's words were bleeped out after he apparently used some bad language when joking about President Bush, whom he had imitated as a monkey and one of the Three Stooges. He later sat on O'Donnell's lap, and she kissed him on the cheek.

From the riotous coverage of this election, starting months ago and ending with the November 7 crescendo, one might conclude that momentous events are afoot: To the Barricades! Out with the Old, in with the New! Actually we have just endured a typical midterm election, when a president halfway through his second term suffers losses on Capitol Hill. On average that has meant 31 House seats lost and six Senate seats poof. Now, once the lawyers have conjured with the corpus delicti in all the close elections, we shall see that this is about what happened. Do not let the...