Free Republic

The ethics investigation into House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel still is not done — despite promises from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Rangel is being investigated in at least four areas — including his failure to report income taxes on a Caribbean villa and the use of rent-controlled apartments in New York. Pelosi said in November, "The report will be completed by the end of this session... which concludes January 3, 2009." The Hill newspaper reports the investigation will be further delayed because the ethics committee is currently without a chairman. the House voted Tuesday to eliminate term limits...

Wolves killed 11 sheep and injured five more Thursday south of Two Dot, USDA Wildlife Services officials confirmed Friday. "It's quite gruesome," said Tonya Martin, the sheep rancher whose stock was raided. A wolf killed five sheep and injured another five last March on the Martin ranch on Big Elk Creek. Efforts to capture the wolf were unsuccessful. The Martins told officials that four wolves were seen in the area. An adjacent landowner also reported that their cattle had been run through a fence Thursday... Wolves in Montana are federally protected...

Rep. Charles Rangel's taxpayer-provided Cadillac DeVille is pulling double duty as his political campaign vehicle... The dual use of the luxurious wheels for official and political purposes may run afoul of House rules and add to the Harlem congressman's mounting ethical woes. Rangel's Member's Representational Allowance covers the cost of the 2004 model, which he leases for $777.54 a month. House rules forbid using any allowance funds for political purposes. Rangel for Congress spent $4,107 at Potamkin Cadillac on repairs in 2008. Last year, Rangel's National Leadership Fund footed the bill for $2,355 at the same shop. The principals and...

Three months after Rep. Charlie Rangel admitted he improperly converted a rent-stabilized apartment into his political campaign office - and promised to give it up - the embattled pol still has not moved out. For the past decade, Rangel's political operation has been headquartered in a $682-a-month, one-bedroom apartment at Lenox Terrace - the same Harlem building where he has three other rent-stabilized apartments for personal use. And even with the furor over his sweet rental deals continuing, Rangel doesn't plan to move his operations to a $4,000-a-month renovated brownstone at 193 Lenox Ave. until mid-October... "He was disingenuous at...

In an apparent quid pro quo last year, Rangel killed a tax bill that would punish U.S. companies for relocating to lower-tax countries after a CEO pledged $1 million for the future "Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service" at the City College of New York. Previously, Rangel had supported the bill. With this latest addition to Rangel's growing parade of questionable dealings and laughable excuses—his failure to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from his luxury Caribbean beach villa; his gaming of D.C. housing tax credits; his remarkable procurement of four rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; his fundraising appeals...

A steady stream of revelations about erroneous financial records and questionable ethics dating back to July has put the spotlight once again on New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel, prompting observers to wonder aloud whether it's time for Rangel to step down from his committee chairmanship. The Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee has been at the center of a seemingly endless swirl of questions about his activities. He came under fire this week after The New York Times reported that Rangel worked to protect a tax shelter for Nabors Industries, an oil company whose chief...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took stewardship of the House two years ago with a pledge to "drain the swamp" and clean up ethical abuses in Congress. Now an investigation of one of her party's best-known members is putting her in an uncomfortable spot. Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York is the subject of an investigation by a House ethics panel over his ownership of several rent-controlled apartments in New York, his failure to pay taxes on an offshore rental property, and his use of office letterhead to solicit donations for a public-policy school that would bear his name. Last month,...

The 110th U.S. Congress has formally adjourned for the year without a conclusion to an ethics probe of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, contrary to a November prediction by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi... Rangel, D-N.Y., is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee in at least four areas, including his reported failure to properly report income taxes on a Caribbean villa in the Dominican Republic; use of four, rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; questions about an off-shore firm asking Rangel for special tax exemptions; and whether Rangel improperly used House stationary to solicit donations for a school of...

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson did the right thing last week when he withdrew as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary because of an ongoing federal investigation. Prominent members of the Democratic majority in Congress who operate under similar clouds should pay heed. Rep. Rangel is a perfect storm of embarrassment for his party. He has been charged with occupying several rent-controlled New York apartments when he was only entitled to one, taking tax breaks for residences in both Washington, D.C., and New York when he was only entitled to one, failing to report rental income from a vacation...

The IRS's top man came to Harlem - and shared a stage with an accused tax cheat, Rep. Charles Rangel. Commissioner Douglas Shulman ... Asked about appearing with a pol who's being probed for failing to pay taxes, Shulman said, "He's one of the leaders in this country on tax policy issues. I work closely with him every day, and I'm honored to be on this stage with him."

If Tom Daschle's failure to pay taxes was enough to keep him out of the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Nancy Killefer's failure to pay taxes was enough to keep her out of the job of chief performance officer, why is Charlie Rangel's failure to pay taxes on thousands of dollars of annual rental income, for about 20 years in a row, not expected to amount to anything? He's boasting that the House Ethics Committee is going to give him a pass. If so, it'll be a whitewash,

A state lawmaker said Friday he wants to reclaim Utah's lands and resources from the federal government so the public can use them for recreation and energy development. Rep. Michael Noel, R-Kanab, said he's declaring another Sagebrush Rebellion. The original Sagebrush Rebellion took place in the 1970s and 1980s, when a coalition of mining and grazing interests pressured federal policy makers to cede greater control of federal lands to state and local authorities. Noel said that Utah can "take care of itself," and that the federal government shouldn't be allowed to regulate what the state can do with its own...

Wolves in Idaho have killed 325 cattle, sheep and dogs so far in 2008, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says. "You can't just keep stuffing wolves on top of each other,"

How the decline of hunting is changing the natural order of predator and preyTHE TWO WOLVES emerged like specters from the tree line and crossed a field of snow. From that moment, and even after everything that followed, no one disputed their penetrating beauty. Silver on white. Two men watched them approach. The men—a pilot named Todd Svarckopf and an aviation worker named Chris Van Galder—worked at Points North Landing, an outpost that serves local mining camps in Saskatchewan province, about 750 miles north of the U.S. border. On this particular day in November 2005 a low cloud ceiling prevented...

The father of an Ontario man killed in a wolf attack in northern Saskatchewan says it's a relief to finally have the truth come out. A coroner's jury in Prince Albert ruled Thursday that wolves killed Kenton Carnegie in November 2005. The 22-year-old University of Waterloo engineering student had been on a work-term ... An expert, who prepared a report for the coroner's office, said it was more likely a bear killed Carnegie. But in the end, the jury dismissed that notion, declaring it a wolf attack. "Kenton was an honest man," he said. "His life was honest, we didn't...

'They were not afraid of us,' woman says. Neither the three women nor their dogs heard the pack of wolves creeping up behind them as they jogged on Artillery Road in the frigid morning air. One minute it was peaceful. Then she glanced back and saw the pack of about eight wolves spanning the road, only a few feet behind. A melee ensued, accompanied by screaming, snarling, blood and pepper spray. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through."... The increasingly emboldened Elmendorf wolf pack is blamed for killing one dog and wounding another in Eagle River this...

The American public has more confidence in the military than in any other institution, according to a Gallup poll ... Seventy-four percent of those surveyed in Gallup's 2005 confidence poll said they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the military - more than in a full range of other government, religious, economic, medical, business and news organizations. This year's 74 percent confidence level exceeded that of all 15 institutions included in the 2005 survey. Police ranked second, with 63 percent of responders expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in them. Organized...

IT IS possibly the longest-running murder mystery of them all. What, or even who, killed humankind's nearest relatives, the Neanderthals who once roamed Europe before dying out almost 30,000 years ago? Suspects have ranged from the climate to humans themselves, and the mystery has deeply divided experts. Now 30 scientists have come together to publish the most definitive answer yet to this enigma. They say Neanderthals simply did not have the technological know-how to survive the increasingly harsh winters. And intriguingly, rather than being Neanderthal killers, the original human settlers of Europe almost suffered the same fate. Ice cores recovered...

“We’re not a protest organization, we’re a policing organization,” Paul Watson...of his Sea Shepherd... A pirate organization is more like it. Sporting the skull and crossbones, his black or battleship-gray ships sail menacingly through the waves. They are painted with the names of the boats Watson has rammed and sunk. The ships are fitted with...a concrete-filled bow made for ramming, and an attachment dubbed the “can opener” that can tear open a boat’s hull. In his book Earth Warrior, David Morris writes that Watson wears a long bowie knife at his side and carries AK-47s on board. He blasts Richard...

Hawaii residents paid more state taxes in 2004 than residents of any other state in the country... Hawaii residents paid an average of $3,050 per person in 2004, while Texans paid the least — an average of $1,368. Every state but one collected more taxes per person in 2004 than it did a decade earlier... State taxpayer burdens increased by an average of 41 percent from 1994 to 2004. Only Alaska saw the amount it collects per person decline. Even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation, the individual tax burdens increased in 43 states. Rising education and Medicaid costs...