Free Republic

This is my first attempt at a post so everyone be nice:) Earlier this week I was interviewed for a segment on the CBS Early Show. It will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 16th) at about 7:40am Eastern time. They invited me to do it because of my deal, coupon, frugal living blog, www.mylitter.com. I teach classes and help people learn how to coupon and save money in all areas of their lives. Kelly Wallace, the reporter, asked some questions about the economy and I tried to mention FreeRepublic! It will be interesting to see how it was edited, what...

Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce Wednesday that three major hospital associations have agreed to provide as much as $160 billion in savings to pay for a health care overhaul, according to sources close to the negotiations. The timing of the announcement is aimed at sustaining momentum for health reform as Democratic congressional leaders embark on a critical five-week period in which they hope to pass bills out of the Senate and House by the August recess.

Iran offered to stop attacking troops in Iraq if the West dropped opposition to its nuclear programme, a top British official said in comments to be broadcast on Saturday. Sir John Sawers, Britain's current ambassador to the United Nations, told the BBC that Iranian officials had privately admitted their role in roadside bomb attacks on British and US troops. But the proposed deal, floated in teatime meetings at London hotels, was rejected by the British government.

Former President Bill Clinton's globe-trotting business deals and fundraising for his foundation sometimes put his activities abroad at odds with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and could cause complications if President-elect Barack Obama picks her to be secretary of state. During her own White House campaign, the New York senator criticized China for its crackdown on protesters in Tibet and urged President George W. Bush to skip the Olympics in Beijing. Her campaign was embarrassed by reports that her husband's foundation had raised money from a Chinese Internet company that posted an online government "Most Wanted" notice seeking information on Tibetan...

Researchers from three universities worked on the project and have said Obama has produced vague proposals compared to other candidates. U.S. and Canadian researchers say voters respond to Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama's abstract notions of hope, change and judgment. Hakkyun Kim of Concordia University, Akshay Rao of the University of Minnesota and Angela Lee of Northwestern University said that while Obama was providing abstract messages, rivals Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and other candidates presented detailed, concrete proposals on many topics, which did not resonate as well. The researchers said Obama's reliance on lofty rhetoric succeeded thus far, because...

The Recording Industry Association of America suffered a legal setback this week in a music piracy case where a judge ruled that the sole act of making a music file available in a "shared folder" does not violate copyright laws. In Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA made the legal assertion that a "sound recording" that is ripped to a computer and stored in any kind of a shared folder is unauthorized. This was an interesting statement because a shared folder can be a very broad category that wasn't entirely made clear by the RIAA.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it is in talks with US firms on securing nuclear power plant contracts, as a report said it was set to clinch the 13.7-billion-dollar deals. "It is true that our subsidiary Westinghouse is holding negotiations with the aim to get final contracts but no decision has been made at the moment," Toshiba said in a statement. The comment followed a report by the Nikkei economic daily that the group was set to win deals worth a combined 1.4 trillion yen (13.7 billion dollars) to build four nuclear power plants in the United...

BAGHDAD - Iraq's cabinet has given the green light to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output, a ministry official said Wednesday. The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields to add 500,000 barrels per day to the country's 2.4 million barrels per day output. Last December, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. submitted technical and financial proposals for the five fields and received counterproposals from the Iraqi side. In January, representatives from the companies and...

This year there's no need to wait anymore. You can go holiday shopping as soon as you finish your Thanksgiving turkey. You'll get the same discounts Popular chain stores throughout the nation are joining in on the trend to stay open for turkey day sale-a-thons. "Kmart's opening at 7 a.m. [today]. That's pretty aggressive," said Christine Augustin, a retail analyst at Bear Stearns. "There's a lot of midnight madness where the mall's opening at midnight and having bands and entertainment," she added. CompUSA is open tonight from 9 to midnight. It's enticing shoppers with sweet deals and serving free pumpkin...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the...

President Bush yesterday said his top priorities for working together with Democrats in Congress will be raising the minimum wage, renewing the No Child Left Behind education act, boosting energy alternatives to oil and completing an overhaul of the immigration system that includes a guest-worker program. On immigration, he called for a bill to be put on his desk soon, once again setting a timetable on an issue that has stymied Congress for the last two years. And in a morning press conference the president pledged to support a $2.10 minimum wage increase over two years, the first time he...

After trailing all summer in the governor's contest, Democratic contender Phil Angelides described himself this week as a championship boxer eyeing a comeback in the closing rounds. But while Angelides tried to muster enthusiasm for his fight against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic legislators huddled in the governor's corner to strike a global warming deal that gave the Republican his most significant election-year accomplishment. The timing seemed particularly bad for Angelides. As he focused this week on linking the governor with President Bush, the greenhouse gas reduction plan was widely portrayed as a Schwarzenegger snub of the Bush administration on an...

SACRAMENTO - Although it's an election year, Democrats in the Legislature are getting along with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger like never before. This week, the two sides made deals to raise the state's minimum wage and create a prescription drug discount program. The governor also is pursuing a deal on a Democratic proposal to reduce the greenhouse gases associated with global warming. The issues help Schwarzenegger appeal to the moderate voters who dominate the state, while denying his Democratic rival, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, avenues of attack. Democratic legislators, in turn, are trying to get what they can from Schwarzenegger...

SACRAMENTO – The stark disparity in wealth and political power that Indian gambling has brought to California reservations has taken two tribes on decidedly different journeys in recent weeks. The Agua Caliente band of Palm Springs already has 2,000 slot machines in two casinos that generate more than $250 million a year for the 400-member tribe. The Quechan band, whose remote reservation straddles the California-Arizona border in Imperial County, has fewer than 800 slots in two small casinos that produced $71 million last year for the 3,600-member tribe. Both tribes negotiated new gambling agreements that would permit expansions – a...

Enhanced pension deals are county's albatross... The county has the distinction of carrying more retirees (6,050) than active employees (4,631) on county health insurance. Add in 3,100 spouses and dependents of retirees, and the county is insuring more than 9,000 individuals on the retiree side. The county now pays out more in health care for retirees than for active employees. In addition to her monthly check, she was promised, and cherishes, free health insurance for the rest of her life. It is the sum of such promises to Schumann and 6,000-plus other retirees that is a major stumbling block as...

Jefferson might claim deals private 'Official acts' issue could play key role in case Saturday, January 21, 2006 By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's public response to the federal government's investigation of his business dealings suggests his legal defense could be that his actions were distinct and separate from his congressional responsibilities and therefore not subject to federal bribery statutes, legal experts say. The New Orleans Democrat last week said he had never requested or accepted anything to "perform a service for which I have been elected." He said he is disappointed and perplexed by...

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 13, 2006 – An extra hearing yesterday in the case of a Canadian teen accused of murdering a U.S. Army medic in Afghanistan dealt with acceptable levels of pre-trial publicity. Presiding Officer Marine Col. Robert S. Chester, an experienced military judge, ruled that public comments made by the prosecution did not damage the defense's case. Muneer Ahmad, civilian defense attorney for Omar Ahmed Khadr, requested Jan. 11 that Chester prevent chief prosecutor Air Force Col. Morris Davis from making inflammatory comments in the media. In particular, Ahmad, a law professor at American University, objected...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the 2005-06 budget yesterday amid an orgy of self-congratulation among California's leaders, who were proud to miss the constitutional deadline of June 15 by a few weeks instead of the usual few months. Unfortunately, while the relatively quick agreement on the budget is welcome, the $117.5 billion spending plan is anything but. If the stakes weren't so high, the Sacramento types' celebration of their new comity would seem like, well, comedy. Consider the points raised by Sen. Tom McClintock, as ever the skunk at the Capitol picnic: The 2004-05 budget had a gap of only $2...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton teamed up at a May 11 press conference with one goal in mind -- to get Congress to pass, and the president to sign, a health information technology bill. Gringrich told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly that the bill's sponsors (Reps. Patrick Kennedy, a R.I. Democrat, and Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican) said if he and Sen. Clinton appeared together at the press conference, they'd get a lot more publicity for the bill they both support. As for the suggestion that Sen. Clinton is using Gingrich to show that...

Germans on the dole are being offered a 20 per cent discount at brothels. Germans on the dole are being offered a 20 per cent discount at brothels. People looking for the discount sex just need to show their unemployment benefit card to qualify for the reductions. Brothel manager Silvia Rau who runs the Villa Bijou bar in Dresden said that the previous average number of 150 guests per week has sunk to 80 in recent months. She hopes that the new policy will bring back the customers and also provide them with some comfort in "difficult times". According to...

Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations was on MSNBC assuring the public that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has a good record of supporting the U.S. Feinstein, a former Clinton administration official, said the only exceptions have been a few comments critical of U.S. policy in Iraq. But he indicated that now that the White House has endorsed Annan and he has announced that he wants to send U.N. personnel back into Iraq to help with the elections, the U.S.-U.N. relationship is back on track. In fact, however, Annan’s anti-American record is a long one. .... Made a deal...

In a vote that was scarcely noticed at the time but today is drawing scrutiny from federal investigators, the City Council quietly approved extraordinary retirement benefits for three politically powerful individuals – the presidents of the police union, the firefighters union and the white-collar workers union. All three are current or former city employees and vested in the municipal pension system. Under this highly irregular arrangement, the union chiefs were allowed to add their union salaries to their city salaries in calculating their retirement benefits, thus substantially boosting their taxpayer-financed pensions. This unique perk, extended exclusively to the three incumbent...

NEW YORK - Suitcases full of cash, secret bank accounts, covert operatives, corrupt politicians on the take. A report detailing alleged illicit U.N. oil-for-food deals with the former Iraq (news - web sites) government paints a portrait of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) as an international gangster — not a nuclear terrorist. The financial schemes propped up Saddam's regime for more than a decade and involved cloak-and-dagger efforts to hide the alleged graft by dealing in front companies, untraceable accounts, cash sales and smuggling, the report by the top U.S. arms inspector said. The report, delivered Wednesday by Charles...

The law of unintended consequences has produced a stampede of Indian casinos across California. And the collateral damage caused by this profitable business is causing many proponents of Indian gaming to have second thoughts. When Gov. Gray Davis urged voter approval of a ballot proposition on Indian gaming four years ago, he spoke of a "modest expansion." The explosion of casinos since then has been incredible. And the revised compacts between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and five more tribes – including San Diego County's tiny Ewiiaapaayp band, with its seven members – promises to raise the gaming stakes even higher. Should...

DISCOUNTS on Broadway shows, hotel rooms and restaurants seem a sure-fire way to attract people to New York City during the Republican National Convention.But the warm welcome is being extended not only to party delegates, but also to the thousands of protesters expected to arrive in the city at the end of the month. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is offering the perks to those demonstrators who behave themselves during the convention. "There is no reason we shouldn’t welcome them in the same way we are welcoming the delegates and the press," Mr Bloomberg said. "The right...

The Saudi government agreed to pay off the debts and give monthly salaries to the family of one of its most-wanted al Qaeda terrorists as part of an astonishing sweetheart deal to get him to surrender. According to recent accounts in the Saudi media, the royal family went to great lengths to "secure the tranquility" of Othman al-Omari, considered the most significant of the six al Qaeda operatives to turn themselves in under the Saudi's controversial amnesty program. The press reports, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, said the al Qaeda thug was feted at a reception at...

France has been accused of agreeing to a crackdown on exiled opponents of Iran in return for lucrative commercial contracts. Lawyers for France's human rights league, speaking on the anniversary of a huge police raid on the National Council of Resistance of Iran near Paris, pointed out "troubling coincidences" in the timing of the operation and a series of deals with Teheran. In March last year, the regime signed a large contract with the French telecommunications group Alcatel for a telephone network. In April last year Teheran offered the petrol giant TotalFina a £660 million gas fields contract. At the...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Traffic at the nation's airports is rebounding, but the Transportation Department's inspector general cautioned Thursday that the improvement hasn't come without problems.</p> <p>In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ken Mead warned of an increase in flight delays, serious runway incursions and air traffic controller errors.</p>

Gov. John Baldacci - D   AUGUSTA - The Baldacci administration's plan to privatize the state's wholesale liquor business will cost taxpayers about $100 million in lost revenue over the next 10 years, officials confirmed Sunday.Under the deal announced Friday, Martignetti Co. of Norwood, Mass., will pay the state an estimated maximum of $165 million for the exclusive right to wholesale liquor in Maine for the next decade. The state currently earns a net profit of $26 million a year and stood to have made $260 million over the next 10 years. That does not include projected savings from shutting...

Kurds go it alone with international oil dealsLocal authorities ignore US administration and seek to lure major companies with generous contracts Andrew Buncombe in Washington Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq are offering hugely lucrative oil deals to European and American companies without consulting either the US administration in Baghdad or any other Iraqi groups. The move threatens to raise new problems over the future ownership of Iraq's vast oil reserves. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the Sulaymaniyah region as part of the regional government of Kurdish Iraq, has in recent weeks started seeking investment from international companies...

Years ago I was in a bar in La-La Land and was hitting on a Stewardess. Anyway, I didn't get what you think BUT I did get something much more important. That Stewardess worked for Delta Airlines and she told me that on weekdays mornings a Delta Flight that ended up in L.A. had to make a short hop over to San Diego to begin it's daily flight from there. As a result, they only charged $9 ROUND-TRIP for the flight. I had to find out if the Stewardess was on the level or was just kidding me so that...

MOSCOW -- Viktor Frantsuzov might as well have been in Al Capone's Chicago: Arriving home after midnight in his chauffeured car, the professor and university administrator was cut down by a hail of bullets. The ambush execution early this year -- which the wounded driver survived -- remains unsolved. But few doubt that it was tied to the respected scholar's work as head of money-making activities at the Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technologies. Somehow, it is believed, he must have angered gangsters in the corrupt world of Russian business. In an era of post-Soviet cutbacks that have slashed...

U.S. military hashes out terms of en masse Iraqi surrendersCAMP COMMANDO, Kuwait, March 18 —  Edging toward war, the U.S. military is trying to negotiate “capitulation agreements” with Iraqi commanders under which enemy troops would turn over most of their weapons and return to their barracks rather than be taken as prisoners of war, U.S. officers said today. Under the agreements, Iraqi officers would be allowed to keep their sidearms and remain in charge of their units as long as they kept a promise to stay out of the battle. U.S. forces would then be free to march toward Baghdad...

<p>Scaling back on luxury wouldn't save much, but some say more modest automobiles would send a symbolic message.</p> <p>On the same week they were sworn in, a week dampened by the gloom that comes with a historic budget deficit, a dozen freshman state lawmakers requested official-use vehicles worth more than $30,000.</p>

CBS Chief White House Correspondant John Roberts reports that now President Bush's Mideast envoys are working around Arafat, reaching out to Palestinians who support reforms that would take power away from the Palestinian leader.The White House was careful to say that the presdient was not out to depose Arafat.But President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that settlement in the Mideast is crucial to his war on terror, and offcials tell CBS News that Arafat isn't willing to make peace, the president needs to have a fallback plan.

The Elder Bush Helps the Son in Courting Saudi Support; Gulf Respect Still Stands By Sonya Ross Associated Press Writer Published: Apr 26, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - As he works to repair U.S.-Saudi relations, President Bush has called in some low-key but high-level help: his father.Former President Bush linked up in Texas on Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who had just finished two days of meetings with the younger Bush and his aides. Abdullah and the former president spent 90 minutes together on a train from Houston to College Station, where Bush gave Abdullah a private tour of his...