Free Republic

Republicans have been racing to decry Idaho senator Larry Craig as “disgusting,” “disgraceful” — the words chosen respectively by Mitt Romney and John McCain. In the competition to appear utterly pitiless, Romney pulled ahead fast. The Massachusetts Adonis himself seems perfect in every way, inhumanly so — except for precisely this same vaguely inhuman quality that, I predict, will prove to be the Achilles heel of Romney’s candidacy. Though Craig had served as one of Romney’s chief cheerleaders in the Senate and co-chairman of his Idaho campaign, the candidate dropped him without giving the slightest hint of compassion or concern...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration issued proposed rules Friday to trim Medicaid payments to schools. Medicaid is the federal-state health insurance program for poor people. Schools are currently billing Medicaid for administrative and overhead costs that aren't related to delivering health services to poor people, said Dennis Smith, director for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations. He said examples have included costs associated with school construction projects and transporting poor students to school. "They are essentially administrative costs of the education system and should not be billed to the Medicaid program," Smith said. He said schools would still get...

Father of NBA star missing in river Poor conditions forced authorities to call off an underwater search of the Delaware for Floyd Nelson. DAVID SWANSON / Inquirer Staff Photographer Rescue workers scan the Delaware for signs of Floyd Nelson, who was reported missing on Thursday. "You can't see your hand in front of your face," said one official of the murky waters. »  After a gray day spent groping in fast, murky waters, police and fire crews called off their search of the Delaware River yesterday afternoon for Floyd "Pete" Nelson, father of former St. Joseph's University basketball star Jameer...

Obama,Clinton, Edwards Skip Rogue Primary States WASHINGTON (AP) — Front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton could find herself alone among Democratic presidential candidates campaigning in Florida and Michigan. Barack Obama and John Edwards on Saturday joined three other Democrats who say they will skip states that break party rules by holding early primaries. Their decision is a major boost to the primacy of four early voting states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and a welcome development to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton aides said Friday they were reviewing the pledge. Spokesman Mo Elleithee said the New York senator...

Iraq to free 6,000 Sunni insurgents from jail By Colin Freeman in Baghdad, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:58am BST 02/09/2007 Up to 6,000 suspected Sunni insurgents are to be freed from Iraqi jails in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the country's government from collapsing under the strain of sectarian in-fighting. Iraq’s prison population is 85pc Sunni and a release scheme is seen as an attempt at reconciliation with Sunni parties The release scheme, which could put some hardened combatants back on to the streets, is part of a high-stakes gamble by Iraq's Shia-led government to win back the confidence of...

Computer engineer Jonathan Morey says, "I have never voted for a Republican, ever." Nathan Hansen, a lawyer, says, "I've been a Republican all my life." Yet a political meeting in St. Paul, Minn., brought the 31-year-old friends together for the first time -- in support of presidential candidate Ron Paul. Officially, Mr. Paul is a Republican, elected to Congress 10 times and now running for the party's presidential nomination. But the party label hardly describes the obstetrician from south of Houston. And it certainly doesn't explain his appeal to a growing, if still small, number of voters across the political...

ARLINGTON -- Country music fans across the nation can get a taste of country music Arlington-style beginning Monday. Johnnie High's Country Music Revue will be airing Mondays and Tuesdays on RFD TV, a 24-hour cable and satellite network that caters to the needs and interests of rural America. In addition to music, the station carries shows about crops, livestock and rural lifestyles. The revue, based in a former cinema at Center and Division streets in downtown Arlington, specializes in nurturing the careers of young country singers. It counts LeAnn Rimes among its prodigies. But Johnnie High said the TV show...

...Salomon and other institutions would take the mortgages sold by banks and stitch together bonds backed by the payments of many mortgagees, which they sold to investors...Once the mortgage originator became, in effect, a supplier to Wall Street, new, often unregulated nonbanking companies jumped into the game of brokering and also issuing mortgages. Over time, this weakened lending standards. As Robert Rodriguez, declared in a speech in June, “The distancing of the borrower from the lender has contributed to the development of lax underwriting standards...” Meanwhile, Wall Street, sensing the appetite of investors, devised exotic ways of repackaging mortgages. Investors...

old that Porsche? The Wall Street bonus picture is bleaker, by Street standards at least. While the summer may have started with the long-term bonus outlook for Wall Street seemingly strong, it's ending with bankers and traders expecting lower bonuses, or even layoffs. It's still early to be getting a firm read, but given the subprime crisis, credit crunch and market unrest, the early talk is of lower payouts for the first time in five years, especially in fields related to fixed income, hedge funds and alternative investments. (Many people in Wall Street jobs get most of their compensation through...

September 2, 2007 In Book, Bush Peeks Ahead to His Legacy By JIM RUTENBERG WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 — When President Bush is asked what he plans to do when he leaves office, he often replies curtly: “I don’t have that much time to think beyond my presidency” or “I’m going to sprint to the finish.” But in an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, he daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own. First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’...

Even before September 11, 2001, Oklahoma City residents knew the horror of terrorism. Nearly everyone remembers April 19, 1995, when explosives brought the Alfred P. Murrah building down. Since then, Oklahoma City residents have become a profoundly patriotic community. That's why when Kenneth Cofer claimed America got what it deserved from the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 attacks, Vietnam veteran Larry Buchanan defended his country and beliefs. Cops say this was just the beginning in a series of confrontations that would eventually end in murder. -snip- On September 13, 2002, Cofer and Buchanan ran into one another for the third...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - What was supposed to be a tuneup turned into a stunner: Appalachian State 34, No. 5 Michigan 32. Julian Rauch's 24-yard field goal with 26 seconds left put the Mountaineers ahead of the Wolverines and Corey Lynch's blocked field goal in the final seconds sealed one of college football's biggest upsets. The two-time defending champions from former Division I-AA were ahead of the nation's winningest program 28-14 late in the second quarter, then their storybook afternoon seemed to unravel late in the fourth quarter. Mike Hart's 54-yard run put the Wolverines ahead—for the first time...

I just watched this on ABC. California (Berkely) was playing the University of Tennessee (at Cal). The conversation happened around 5:50 local time. Brent Musberger, Kirk Herbstreit, and the sideline reporter named Lisa were discussing a bunch of Berkely students who were living in trees outside the stadium. Lisa: "Well Brent as you were mentioning, about those folks up in the trees, the reason that they're so upset is that, the University of California, has proposed a $125 million dollar project. They want to build a training facility for the athletes here at the University of California, and they want...

The Birth of al Qaedastan In the year 2016, the world may find itself gloomily marking September 6 as the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. The Emirate received de facto recognition when the Taliban used the name on the ceasefire agreement they signed with Pakistan on that day in 2006. If things go terribly wrong in the coming decade, they could come to rule a mountainous fragment of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Emirate would be a nightmare state: Osama bin Laden as sultan, Ayman al Zawahiri as vizier, and Mullah Omar the spiritual...

Taxpayers spared hit from Michael Vick's dogfighting misdeeds BY CHRISTIAN REDDAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERSaturday, September 1st 2007, 7:41 PM John Goodwin, the deputy manager for animal cruelty issues for The Humane Society of the United States, says that another negative fallout from dogfighting cases is that "the taxpayer gets hit" with the costs of housing and caring for the animals."That's one more cost of the (Michael) Vick case and these cases," says Goodwin. "These animal-control centers are municipal buildings funded by the government, so the taxpayer gets hit as a result."In the case of Vick, the disgraced Atlanta Falcons...

Investors played a big role in pumping up home prices during the housing boom. Now, they account for an outsize proportion of loan defaults, mortgage bankers and builders say. A survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association found that mortgages on properties that aren't occupied by the owner -- mostly investment homes -- account for between 21% and 32% of the defaults on prime-quality home loans in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, states where overdue payments are mounting fast. Defaults were high on both prime and subprime loans, those made to borrowers with shaky credit histories. The four states were among...

Magnitude 7.5 - SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS <!-- .map{ padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; width:120px; float:left; display:block; height:175px; text-align:center; } <p> .map a { text-decoration:none; } --> 2007 September 02 01:05:20 UTC Details Maps Where can I find...? Earthquake Details Magnitude 7.5 Date-Time Sunday, September 02, 2007 at 01:05:20 UTCSunday, September 02, 2007 at 12:05:20 PM at epicenter Location 11.828°S, 165.637°E Depth 33 km (20.5 miles) set by location program Region SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS Distances 432 km (268 miles) ESE (111°) from Kira Kira, Solomon Islands 443 km (275 miles) NNW (338°) from Santo (Luganville), Vanuatu 675 km (419 miles) ESE...

Paris, 1Sept. (IPS) By 1988, there was nothing left of the relatively free atmosphere people acquired for a short period after the Iranian revolution of 1979. The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI)’s brutal machine of repression had already uprooted a great number of other thinkers. Thousands of activists and sympathisers of the opposition groups had been already arrested, tortured, forced to repent or summarily executed, and their political rallies and media were banned. The peak of atrocity was however a death-fatwa in summer of 1988 issued by Grand Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the founder of the IRI. The fatwa was initially...

Greenpeace's co-founder -- now a consultant to the forestry industry -- took a swipe at Leonardo DiCaprio's new eco-documentary, "The 11th Hour," calling it a "climate-changing rant" that misleads the public about the dangers of deforestation. DiCaprio had no comment on the piece. "He again calls for more discussion and urges people to see 'The 11th Hour,'" his publicist Ken Sunshine said. "The 11th Hour" is a critically lauded film, narrated and co-written by DiCaprio and co-directed by Nadia and Leslie Petersen Conners. It examines how industrialization has decimated the Earth's eco-systems. But in his op-ed titled "An Inconvenient Fact"...

Will President Bush bomb Iran? By Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 12:17am BST 02/09/2007Page 1 of 3 In a nondescript room, two blocks from the American Capitol building, a group of Bush administration staffers is gathered to consider the gravest threat their government has faced this century: the testing of a nuclear weapon by Iran. President Bush dramatically stepped up his war of words with the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The United States, no longer prepared to tolerate the risk that Iranian nuclear weapons will be used against Israel, or passed to terrorists, has already launched a bombing campaign...