Free Republic

Of all the factors contributing to California’s fiscal woes, one of the most fundamental and pervasive is the collapse of the constitutional process by which the state budget is developed in the first place. Ever since the Magna Carta, it has been a settled principle of governance that the authority that requests funds should not be the same one that approves them. This is the heart of our separation of powers, and the most important single mechanism to check the excesses and abuses that occur whenever mere mortals are spending other people’s money. Following this principle, California’s constitution sets forth...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran, responding to comments by senior U.S. officials, says Washington would be making a major strategic mistake if it attacked the Islamic state. U.S. President George W. Bush last week said military action had not been ruled out to deal with Iran's nuclear programme and Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran topped the list of world trouble spots and warned Israel could decide to bomb its nuclear facilities. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said: "We think the chance (of a U.S. military attack) is very low unless someone wants to make a major strategic mistake."...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

Argentine warship hits Brazil ship From correspondents in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil December 1, 2004 AN Argentine warship inadvertently fired on a Brazilian frigate during joint naval exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, injuring five people, officials said. Four Brazilian sailors and an Argentine officer were hurt during live-fire training late on Monday night off the coast of Brazil near Cabo Frio, 125km north-east of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Navy said. The accident happened when an Argentine warship fired a shot from one its canons, hitting the Brazilian frigate Rademaker. The five men were taken to a naval hospital in...

One more thing about the arrogant Rather and the ongoing spin that "it was all just an innocent mistake". This two-man SeeBS "investigation" of Documentgate or Memogate is most likely going to try to inform America that it was merely a "mistake", an "oversight", Rather and Mapes "didn't do their homework". I don't believe it for a second (they were working on the story for years). All the talking heads and old time-reporters (Bernard Kalb, etc.) have been dragged out and have telling us for weeks what a great, dedicated, truly involved hands-on editor Rather was, and that he never...

Turkish workers a mistake, claims Schmidt By Hannah Cleaver in Berlin (Filed: 25/11/2004) Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor, has inflamed the country's debate on immigration by saying that multiculturalism can only work under authoritarian regimes, and that bringing millions of Turkish guest workers to Germany was a mistake. "The concept of multiculturalism is difficult to make fit with a democratic society," he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. He added that it had been a mistake that during "the early 1960s we brought guest workers from foreign cultures into the country". Mr Schmidt, 85, who was the Social Democratic chancellor...

Now that President Bush has won re-election and the Republican Party controls everything in the country up to and including photosynthesis, some disgruntled Democrats are wondering if life might be better north of the border. So the working title for today's essay will be: Moving to Canada: Big Mistake or Bad Idea? The first thing I learned in my research is that Canada, as a country or colony or appendage or whatever the heck it is, is not exactly jumping up and down with glee at the prospect of 56 million glum Kerry supporters shuffling morosely across its border. (The...

Israel Radio reported Thursday that an IDF tank mistakenly fired on and killed three Egyptian soldiers near the Israeli-Egyptian border. The tank crew apparently believed the three to be terrorists and then opened fire, the radio said in an initial report. The incident is under investigation at the "most senior levels," both governmental and military, the radio said. Prior to the reported incident, the army, citing a surge in deadly operational mishaps, had scheduled a two-hour break in all training later on Thursday to discuss ways to prevent accidents and reduce negligence in soldiers' performance.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A woman who fumbled a few phrases of Mexico's national anthem while singing the song before a soccer game in Guadalajara has been fined $40 for the blunder.

KERRY speaks to run after BENLADEN. Is that all?Is this not hijacking?

The Myth of the Mistake-Free WarHas the Digital Revolution Led to Expectations of a Perfect World? Of course, we won. But D-Day, one of the most carefully planned military actions in history, was a mess, falling apart (as Ray appreciated more than anybody) almost from the moment it began. Even the rehearsal for Normandy was a debacle, drowning hundreds of men meaninglessly. Oct. 28, 2004 -- I knew a man, a friend of my father, who was the gentlest of souls. He spoke softly, usually about inconsequentialities, carried his wife's purse at the store, and spent the afternoons of his...

VAN BUREN, Mo. - Officials in one Missouri county are reprinting absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 general election after discovering that President Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) were left off. The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight. "We are rectifying it," she said. "There was no intent to leave them off." Fewer than 500 of the erroneous ballots were sent out, and some have already been returned. Replacement ballots will be sent to everyone who requested an absentee...

The Boston Fog Report An ongoing examination of John Kerry’s “nuances and shades of gray in both foreign and domestic policy.” (Editorial, “A Primary Endorsement,” The New York Times, 2/26/04)for·a·gainst adverb. 1. To be both for and against something at the same time: e.g. “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” (Glen Johnson, “Kerry Blasts Bush On Protecting Troops,” The Boston Globe, 3/17/04) "John Kerry's troubling record of contradiction and vacillation spiraled into incoherence last night when he said the President 'made a mistake' in invading Iraq but denied our troops in Iraq...

Key points UK troops seized by Iranians Naval patrol vessels impounded Potential serious diplomatic incident brewing Key quote "The Ministry of Defence can confirm that eight Royal navy personnel from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq have been detained by the Iranian authorities while delivering a boat from Umm Qasr to Basrah." - MOD spokesman Story in full - BRITISH and Iranian diplomats were last night locked in intense negotiations after the Tehran government’s forces seized three Royal Navy vessels and eight crew members on the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway marking Iraq’s south eastern border. The...

The IDF apologized on Thursday for the death of Dr. Yasser Ahmed Laimun, a lecturer at al-Quds University in Jenin, who was shot dead last week during an IDF operation to arrest Hamas fugitives in Talluza, near Jenin. Details of the probe that was launched following his death were presented to OC Central Commander Mag.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky and Judea and Samaria Divisional Commander Brig.-Gen. Gadi Eizencott. According to details released for publication, Laimun got caught in crossfire during a gun-battle that erupted between armed Palestinians and IDF soldiers. At the time, IDF officials estimated that Laimun was one of the...

The Soviet Union's 10-year invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged on the eve of the 15th anniversary of Soviet withdrawal. "The fact that we moved our troops into Afghanistan was a political mistake, which had to do with the Soviet Union's ideological approach to international policy in those years," Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as saying on Saturday. "An attempt to force an extraneous social model on a country that has deep traditions of its own is always doomed to failure," Gorbachev said. The Soviet Union launched its invasion of Afghanistan with a night-time...

Sharon failure to exile Arafat 'was historic mistake' By Toby Harnden in Tel Aviv (Filed: 11/02/2004) Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, made a "historic mistake" in failing to exile Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, a leading cabinet member said yesterday. The comments by Shaul Mofaz, Israel's defence minister, will help burnish his credentials as a future prime minister when Mr Sharon is politically vulnerable and under attack from the Right. On the eve of his first official visit to Britain in his present post, Mr Mofaz, former head of the Israel Defence Forces, insisted that Mr Arafat must go....

Iraqi Communists take to the streets of Baghdad tocelebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein. Effort isafoot to finance them with U.S. tax dollars. With the Soviet Union gone, who is to take up the communist cause in Iraq? If some in the U.S. relief effort have their way, it will be the American taxpayer. As U.S. officials continue to map out a strategy to help Iraqis build a democratic system, some are urging that the Iraqi Communist Party be made a beneficiary of U.S. aid and assistance programs. Some American operatives in the political reconstruction process even claim to see...

Wrong body handed over for cremation AUSTIN (AP) — Travis County officials are investigating how the medical examiner's office accidentally released the wrong body to a funeral home, which cremated the remains. "We are very sorry this happened," Dr. Roberto Bayardo, the chief medical examiner, said in Wednesday's editions of the Austin American-Statesman. "We have to find out how this mistake occurred. I had thought we were foolproof." The mix-up occurred last week when funeral home officials went to pick up the body of Paul Williams, 38, of Cedar Park, who had been hit by a train. They were mistakenly...

What if, by some miracle, everyone 'fessed up to mistakes made about the surprisingly easy overthrow of Saddam and its unexpectedly bloody aftermath, and mistakes now being made in building democracy? (1) In London, the amalgam of isolationists, pacifists and anti-Blair leftists — once certain they would spoil a state visit by branding the U.S. president a monster militarist — would generously admit that they had been a noisy minority, and that their discourtesy triggered a reaffirmation by most Britons of the ties between two freedom-speaking nations that lead the world in defeating tyrants. (2) Gen. Wesley Clark would have...

An Israeli pilot who mistakenly attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War said they were lucky he had no bombs – otherwise he would have sunk her. "There was a mistake. Mistakes happen. As far as I know, the mistake was of the USS Liberty being there in the first place," said Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yiftah Spector. After 36 years Spector, who this week was dismissed by the IAF for signing the pilots' refusal letter protesting the policy of targeted killings, agreed to speak to a reporter for the first time on his role in...

DENVER - The name of Kobe Bryant's accuser was mistakenly posted on a state court Web site on Tuesday as part of a legal filing in the case. The subpoena showing the 19-year-old Eagle woman's name and address was left up for about an hour. Court staffers then removed the filing from the site and reposted it with the personal information blacked out. State courts spokeswoman Karen Salaz said it was unclear how the error was made, but said court staffers are responsible for blacking out such information in public filings. The alleged victim's identity has been previously disclosed on...

Transport Mix-Up Happens Following After-School Program WELLESLEY, Mass. -- School officials in Wellesley are promising an investigation after a white after-school program teacher mistakenly put a black kindergarten student from Wellesley on a bus and sent him to Boston with other minority students who participate in a voluntary desegregation busing program. Newscenter 5's Jack Harper reported that the parents of the boy who was mistakenly sent to Boston's Dorchester neighborhood is not very happy about it. The program said they expect the boy to return to the program. The real hero in this story is the woman on the other...

Total Disbelief’ Penis Removal Just Latest In Series of Surgical Mistakes, But Patients Can Protect Themselves Aug. 11— After 67-year-old Hurshell Ralls went into surgery for bladder cancer, he came out of surgery missing more than he ever expected. His penis and testicles were gone "My wife had to hold my hand in the bed there. And she said 'Honey it's over. They got all the cancer.' And she waited a few minutes and then said 'But they had to remove your penis.' And I was one mad dude, you know," Ralls said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. Ralls, a...

U.S. Errs in Policy Toward Russia Dr. Alexandr Nemets Friday, May 30, 2003 Russian Military Maneuvers The following information is based on articles in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and other Moscow papers May 23-25. In the early morning of May 14, six Russian strategic bombers, namely two TU-160Cs and four TU-95MCs belonging to the 37th Strategic Aviation Army, left the Engels airbase near Saratov city and reached the Indian Ocean five hours later. There the TU-95 fired two strategic cruise missiles X-55 (3,000-km range, usually with a nuclear warhead), which "precisely hit ground targets." The Tu-160 bombers flew further and, at a...

PHOENIX -- State lawmakers are moving to give members of boards and commissions the same protections they have against unfair outside pressure. Sen. Dean Martin, R-Phoenix, is introducing legislation today to make it a crime for anyone to improperly seek to influence the vote of any board member by contacting that person's regular employer. Violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor, facing six months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Martin admits his legislation is in direct response to the actions of Mario Diaz, a top aide to Gov. Janet Napolitano.Diaz, seeking to get the state Board on Geographic...

<p>How could Saddam Hussein have been so fatally wrong? How could he have so misjudged President Bush? How could the late Iraqi dictator, with access to informed judgments by his allies like French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, not have realized that President Bush would go to war?</p>

U.S. and British leaders have started to lose their tempers because of the tough Iraqi resistance against their invasion of the Arab country and this might prompt them to destroy Baghdad, according to Egypt's former defence minister. Marshal Abdul Halim Abu Ghazala said overconfidence was the coalition's biggest mistake in the invasion of Iraq and expected Iraq's elite Republican Guard forces to fight to death in their defence of Baghdad against the advancing allied troops. Writing in Arabic newspapers yesterday, Abu Ghazala said the U.S. had made a serious mistake when it thought it would easily crush Iraq as it...

Correct me if I'm wrong... It seems to me that the US offensive against Suddam's Iraq was going well, but now there has been trouble. Why don't they (i.e. Iraqis) quit while they have their heads! Captured and tortured US prisoners, fake surrenders, wounded and killed compatriots, tired soldiers dealing with a crazed enemy... how and where do they relieve their aggression? By my judgement, there's trouble on the horizon. I just do not think it is a good idea to piss off America's finest!

Top Turkish general fears Kurds will be new U.S. ally vs. Iraq SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMTuesday, March 4, 2003 ANKARA — Turkey's military has quietly warned the government that the Kurds south of Turkey in northern Iraq will emerge as the primary U.S. ally unless Ankara and Washington cooperate in the expected war against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok briefed Prime Minister Abdullah Gul on the military's assessment of the expected war against Iraq. The briefing came in wake of parliament's rejection of the government request for U.S. troops in Turkey...

French troops were called in to secure the airport The newly appointed prime minister of Ivory Coast has been forced to delay his return to the country because of unrest at the country's main airport. Seydou Diarra was obliged to remain in Senegal where West African leaders have been discussing the deal reached in Paris. Crowds of demonstrators opposed to a peace deal stormed the terminal building and runway in Abidjan on Friday. One French soldier was seriously hurt as forces intervened to contain stone-throwing crowds heckling some 300 French citizens waiting to leave the country. France - the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government gave 48 classified documents to accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui by mistake in what the judge in his case called a grave security breach, according to court records released on Thursday. The classified documents, which were FBI summaries of interviews, then had to be retrieved during several days of searches of Moussaoui's jail cell in Alexandria, Virginia, where he is being held in solitary confinement awaiting trial. The classified documents were given to Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States for the hijacked plane attacks on the World Trade Center and...

Federalism - the allocation and balancing of power between state and federal government - has emerged as a central concern of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Slowly, but steadily, the Rehnquist Court has been cutting back federal powers, and protecting state's rights. Many have wondered what the Court is doing. Why are the Court's five conservatives - the Chief Justice himself, along with Associate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas - creating this new jurisprudence of federalism? The answer is simple: they are seeking to fill a void in our constitutional structure,...

<p>Check out the curious caption under the photo of Robert Downey Jr. as it relates to his drug charges being dismissed.</p>