Free Republic

The new year may be five weeks off, but it's a safe bet we already know what one of the big stories of 2006 will be: a pending Legislative Analyst's Office report on the total amount that school districts and local and state governments owe for the pensions, health care and other benefits going to retired public employees. It's going to be a stunner – definitive proof that the city of San Diego is far from alone in having pension benefits that taxpayers can't afford. While San Diego's shortfall is conservatively estimated at $1.4 billion, a Los Angeles Daily News...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Two Sept. 11 hijackers "should have drawn some scrutiny from the FBI," when they lived openly in San Diego in 2000, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded in a report that chronicles the bureau's failures to connect the dots leading up to the attacks. The head of the San Diego FBI office took issue Thursday with the inspector general's report, saying it "greatly exaggerates" the possibility that local agents could have prevented the attacks. The 368-page review found that the FBI missed opportunities to learn about the al-Qaida operatives when they lived in the San Diego...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the highest-level official to call for investigations of Bay Bridge construction as Caltrans ordered a halt to a welding operation that is part of an FBI fraud probe that widened Thursday. Caltrans Director Will Kempton ordered Bay Bridge construction team KFM Joint Venture to cancel a concrete pour over four of the remaining footings where workers allege shoddy welds are being done. Kempton also called for a reinspection of all the welds that would have been buried by the pour, even as the state agency and KFM insist that the nearly 5,000 welds were done properly...

Scrutiny of EU rules is failing, says CBI By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 04/04/2005) Britain's early-warning system for scrutinising proposed European Union rules and regulations is badly flawed, failing to spot bad ideas early enough to head them off, according to the Confederation of British Industry. About half of all legislation imposing burdens on British business originates in Brussels but both politicians and Whitehall bureaucrats fail to devote enough time to monitoring it, a CBI pamphlet claims. Sir Digby Jones, the CBI's director general, pins equal blame on the "shocking ignorance" of many British voters about the EU, and...

SAN FRANCISCO — Last fall, a group of pioneering scientists, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs sold Californians on the ultimate startup, one with shoot-for-the-moon ambitions. The men and women pitched the state's residents on a new science that they said might one day lead to cures for humankind's worst diseases. "Save Lives with Stem Cells!" campaign posters urged. Today, however, a little more than three months after state voters approved a measure allocating $3 billion in public funds for stem cell and related research, organizers are struggling with more down-to-earth concerns. The initiative has been tainted by accusations that those who...

Well isn't that interesting: John Edwards is on his way out, so that makes Arlen Specter the trial lawyers' darling in the Senate. The liberal Specter is also in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. If that happens, we're betting that President Bush's plans for tort reform will be dead on arrival. The real problem, though, will be the Senate approval for Supreme Court Justices. Bush may get to pick three this term, as well as elevate Clarence Thomas to Chief Justice. As Justice Committee chairman, will Specter play ball and support Bush's picks? Many groups around...

Release of Clinton and Bush Presidential Papers under Scrutiny Former President Bill Clinton has said he wants to make 100,000 domestic-policy records available to researchers when his presidential library opens in Little Rock November 18, but the decision is actually up to President Bush. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 allows for public access to presidential records through the Freedom of Information Act beginning five years after the end of an administration; the sitting president must approve the release of any records to be opened earlier. “In the weeks after November 18, we’re going to make every effort to open...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry could face an investigation by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding secured loans he obtained for his campaign by using property he and his wife own as collateral. Judicial Watch, a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, filed a complaint with the FEC against John Kerry for President, Inc. earlier this month, for failing to report a campaign contribution that appears to be in excess of legal limits. Late last year, Kerry took out a thirty year mortgage of $6.4 million on a house on Boston's Beacon Hill...

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Dean-Backed Vermont Tax Credit Program Draws Scrutiny The Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt. Dec. 27 — Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean criticizes President Bush for giving unneeded tax breaks, but as Vermont governor, he supported a program critics say did much the same for corporations. The Vermont Economic Progress Council, which Dean signed into law in 1998 to provide tax credits to businesses promising to expand, has approved more than $80 million in such credits, according to a report by the state auditor. Companies had claimed about $25 million of those credits by the end of the 2001 tax...

SACRAMENTO — The son of a state senator billed water agencies and cities thousands of dollars last year for work that included writing speeches, organizing Senate hearings and arranging "photo opportunities" for his lawmaker mother. Tom Soto, president of the Santa Monica public relations firm PS Enterprises and son of state Sen. Nell Soto (D-Pomona), was hired by two San Bernardino County cities and two water districts in June 2002 after Sen. Soto established a task force to deal with groundwater contamination by the industrial solvent perchlorate. Since 1997, such contamination has forced the closure of 20 drinking water wells...

<p>Assembly Republican leader Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, says the state should work to stimulate the economy, not tax it more.</p> <p>Lenny Goldberg isn't happy about the state's gargantuan budget deficit, but there is one thing about California's depressed economy that makes the longtime tax-reform activist feel pretty good.</p>

<p>Law enforcement sources tell Fox News an investigation is underway into massive visa fraud at the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar, with implications that could yield much more information about the Sept. 11 operation.</p> <p>The State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security began late last year to investigate the sale of 71 U.S. visas by employees at the U.S. Embassy in Doha — called "Operation Eagle Strike."</p>