Free Republic

Five-month-old twins in Virginia; a one-year-old in Tennessee; a three-year-old in Indiana; a nine-month-old in Texas; a three-year-old in Ontario; a nine-month-old in Tennessee. All dead, left behind in a blistering hot car within the past few weeks. I sorely doubt any of them were left intentionally, and there might be no more hotly debated topic than intent regarding these tragedies. A six-year-old saved from a hot car in Hamilton, Ontario by passersby had been left in the car on purpose. A medal to those who meddle. Thank you. But how do you solve a problem nobody thinks they have?...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The state is investigating a doctor accused of telling a patient she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men and advising another to shoot herself following brain surgery. "Let's face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you?" the state Board of Medicine says Dr. Terry Bennett told the overweight patient in June 2004. "Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy," it quoted him as saying, based on the woman's complaint. The board said it...

SAN FRANCISCO - Among the many land mines that dot the California political terrain, few are as treacherous or unpredictable as the matter of illegal immigration. The subject blew up in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's face last week, at a speech before the Newspaper Association of America. Responding to a question, the Republican governor suggested officials should ''close the border in California, all across Mexico and the United States'' to stem the flow of undocumented migrants. Critics pounced, and Schwarzenegger apologized the next day. He blamed faulty English for the gaffe, and said he was for ''securing the borders'' instead. ''We...

SACRAMENTO -- Assembly Democratic leaders thought they were doing Assemblywoman Nicole Parra a favor when they installed her as chairwoman of the Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee. It's no secret that she was given the job to give her a chance to win points with one of the more conservative voting blocs in her tight re-election battle this year. It didn't work out that way. When politically active veterans got together in Clovis on Monday night and listened to both candidates, they endorsed her Republican opponent, Dean Gardner. The fact is, Parra probably never had a reasonable chance to win the...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO -- California's case against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, potentially worth billions of dollars in wholesale rate refunds from energy companies, found a receptive audience Thursday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.</p> <p>The three-judge panel, drawn from Arizona, Montana and Hawaii, had more questions than answers during oral arguments, and it gave no indication when it would rule.</p>

<p>Secretaries of state, the ones who oversee elections, not foreign affairs, labored in blissful obscurity before Florida's Katherine Harris.</p> <p>At the end of the 2000 presidential election, as Harris' rulings on ballots and deadlines improved the chances of fellow Republican George W. Bush, America learned the political importance of decisions on election law -- and how much partisan suspicion a secretary of state can engender.</p>