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WASHINGTON - Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications. Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege. "It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White...

President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has divided the conservative movement. Initially, most conservatives, but not quite all, expressed disappointment with the nomination. Since then, paths have diverged. Some conservatives, having gone on record as wishing that Bush had chosen someone else, have now migrated back into the fold, pronounced Miers a qualified candidate, and defended her nomination as the president's prerogative. Other conservatives have continued to ratchet up their attacks on Miers. Nearly every day produces yet another instance of Miers's alleged incompetence, inexperience, or suspected liberal sympathies. Some of the criticisms of Miers are...

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 54 percent of Americans think President Bush values party loyalty and personal friendship over competence. The poll was prompted, as if you didn’t know, by Bush’s habit of appointing friends and retainers to major jobs in his administration. Some of these seem qualified enough: Condi Rice, Alberto Gonzales. Others seem more questionable, none more so than Michael Brown and Harriet Miers. In one sense this is nothing new for Bush. From the start, his administration was marked by a web of family connections, and certain members of the press were quick to cry...

Illegal Patronage Probe Snares Ky. Gov. By MARK R. CHELLGREN, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago For the past few months, Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher has been doing just about everything he can to fend off a criminal investigation into alleged political hiring-and-firing by his administration. But the investigation has steamed on, and appears to be getting closer to Fletcher himself. Eleven current or former members of his administration have been indicted so far in the probe by Kentucky's attorney general. And while there has been little or no evidence to publicly connect the governor to any wrongdoing, his efforts...

President Bush has divided conservatives with his choice of a “stealth” nominee for the Supreme Court who has no experience grappling with constitutional issues. But the conservative claim that we have insufficient guarantees that Harriet Miers is sufficiently conservative also reflects a conservative version of the kind of misunderstanding of the judiciary that liberals so frequently make. A plausible argument could be made that the greatest challenge in contemporary American politics is the restoration of judicial integrity. The only means for doing so is to appoint judges to the federal courts who are committed to applying the law as intended...

Two on Daley staff accused of doling out patronage jobs Feds say drunk, 'goofballs' hired; scandal moves closer to mayor July 20, 2005 CHICAGO (AP) -- One was a drunk. Some were laughed at as "goofballs." One was declared the best-qualified candidate for a job on the city payroll -- even though he was dead. All of them were recommended for city jobs or hired because they were politically connected and helped to get out the vote on Election Day, according to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald. "That's the world we want to end," Fitzgerald said Monday in announcing charges...

Tom Foley is the emergency management coordinator for Atlantic City, a place that would make a juicy target for terrorists on a busy day when up to 260,000 people cram into town for some fun at the casinos. He is also a deeply frustrated man these days. Because he can't get his fair share of money from Trenton to buy the equipment he needs. His problem: The legislators who represent his city are all Republicans. And the pot of money has been controlled by Democrats. "This is a nightmare," Foley says. "Until they realize that Atlantic City needs this equipment,...

FRANKFORT - Attorney general's investigators, armed with search warrants, confiscated boxes of documents from the Capitol offices of two key aides to Gov. Ernie Fletcher yesterday as part of a widening investigation of Transportation Cabinet hiring practices. The team of investigators targeted Richard Murgatroyd, Fletcher's deputy chief of staff who last year served as second in command of the Transportation Cabinet, and Dave Disponett, the governor's unpaid political adviser and treasurer of the state Republican Party.

Top judge says Liberal appointees are clean NATIONAL POST Thursday, April 28, 2005 Brian Daly, Canadian Press MONTREAL -- A top Quebec judge has dismissed claims by a former federal Liberal executive that party-friendly lawyers were rewarded with judicial postings for their work during the 2000 election campaign. "We're fully independent,'' Michel Robert, chief justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal, told The Canadian Press. "We stop all political activities. We have a system where all appointees are scrutinized by an independent committee of seven people.'' Robert, a former president of the Liberal Party of Canada, said there's nothing...

After watching a Coca Cola advertisement this evening, I've decided to purchase goods or services only from advertisers using "Merry Christmas" in their commercials and advertisements. If they don't have the right Christmas spirit, I can't use their products. "Merry Christmas" Coca Cola - buy Please add your good guys to the list.

...But for the Republicans this is unadulterated good news. It vindicates "Jorge" Bush's hunch that aggressively pursuing the Hispanic vote would pay off. His familiarity with Mexican-Americans in Texas formed in him an instinct.... The Hispanic entry into Republican ranks comes, for many, at an earlier phase in their American journey than for other immigrant groups. Just think of the Irish, Italians and Jews, who generations after arrival on these shores can still reflexively pull the Democratic lever. Their vestigial loyalty is the result of what has been the Democratic Party's strategy for over a century. The bargain back in...

Big jobs: No experience needed Sunday, October 10, 2004 It's no surprise that Sean Murray-Nolan's job title - "executive director of the office of the governor of New Jersey" - seemed rather exalted for a 27-year-old.He made it up.And if you ask Murray-Nolan's colleagues what his $78,000-a-year job actually entailed, you are met with silence. Then chuckling."Well, he may have had that title but it didn't mean squat,'' said one former senior aide to Governor McGreevey.Two former high-ranking McGreevey aides say Murray-Nolan was one of several governor's office employees who were told to fabricate high-sounding - and meaningless - job...

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News The H.H. Richardson complex will be transformed under a measure passed by the State Legislature. ALBANY - The historic but crumbling H.H. Richardson complex in Buffalo will be rehabilitated into a facility for educational and cultural activities under a state budget plan legislators agreed to Tuesday. The $100 million renovation also would include about $20 million for a new home for the Burchfield-Penney Art Center on the grounds of the Richardson complex at Buffalo Psychiatric Center near Buffalo State College, lawmakers said. The funding is part of a massive, five-year borrowing plan for public colleges across...

<p>TRENTON -- A dental company, founded by a gubernatorial fund-raiser who has received a federal document request in a pay-to-play probe in Philadelphia, is pushing for a state-funded dental plan for New Jersey seniors that would be worth hundreds of thousands in state contracts.</p>

BY BY TIM NOVAK AND STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporters With no more than a handshake, Mayor Daley's administration spends nearly $40 million a year hiring hundreds of trucks -- primarily dump trucks -- that often do little or no work, a Sun-Times investigation has found. The city has a list of about 165 favorite truck companies to send to city work sites. Some owners have political clout, some are mob figures or their relatives. SUN-TIMES While the Sun-Times watched this hired truck in West Humboldt Park, it went to McDonald's and Jewel, and eventually hauled a small load. Many do...

A panel of the Metropolitan Transit Authority board wants to know why the agency employs so few Hispanics, but its search for answers has been slowed by the difficulty of wading through reams of employment records. Board member Janie Reyes, who chairs the committee looking into hiring practices, said Monday the agency did not computerize these records until October. Despite incomplete records, the committee will hold its first meeting today to begin its review of Metro's hiring practices. "I'm asking for the last year of applicants," she said. "The problem is the time it takes manually to pull them out."...

Metro employee reportedly remained on bus, made calls Witnesses to an accident in which a Metro bus struck and killed a man in downtown Houston last month told police the bus driver never checked on the victim after the incident, but remained on the bus making telephone calls and filling out paperwork. One witness, Mary Acker of Houston, told police that the bus driver -- Alroyce Sheppard -- stepped out of the bus after the accident, looked at the injured man, then got back on the bus and began making telephone calls. Lisa Egan of Houston, one of the witnesses...

<p>The New Jersey Legislature has become a personal money machine for many lawmakers who parlay their public service into private gain, a Gannett New Jersey newspapers investigation found.</p> <p>Gov. McGreevey delivers his annual budget message early this year to a joint session of the Legislature in the General Assembly chamber in Trenton.</p>

Brady warns Democrats: The issue is party jobs By Thomas Fitzgerald Inquirer Staff Writer Forget the wage tax, the downward spiral of the city economy, and improving schools. Republicans want your job. Philadelphia Democratic chairman Bob Brady included that warning in a pointed memo addressed recently to about 2,500 members of the party's city committee, urging them to work harder to reelect Mayor Street. Giving up control of City Hall to the GOP, which in recent months took over the city Parking Authority and the Convention Center, would "jeopardize" patronage jobs that Democratic loyalists hold across the city, Brady wrote....

Wanted: Someone to work flexible hours, relaxed dress code, excellent pay, state job. Governor's stepdaughter preferred. On April 16, 2002, Bambi Todd, the stepdaughter of Gov. Paul Patton, was appointed, despite a hiring freeze, to be "responsible for public information, strategic planning, training, and assisting the executive with the day-to-day operations" at the Kentucky Racing Commission. The commission said the post was "essential or of a critical nature to the ongoing operation of the program," when it established it three weeks earlier. But Todd didn't work the weekend after the Kentucky Derby, when the eyes of the world focused on...