Free Republic

Plain and simple. Jerry Brown is ineligible to run for Governor. CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 5 EXECUTIVE SEC. 2. The Governor shall be elected every fourth year at the same time and places as members of the Assembly and hold office from the Monday after January 1 following the election until a successor qualifies. The Governor shall be an elector who has been a citizen of the United States and a resident of this State for 5 years immediately preceding the Governor's election. The Governor may not hold other public office. No Governor may serve more than 2 terms. (my emphasis)...

Bloomberg.com, one of the top five most-trafficked financial sites on the Web, is regarded as a premier site for news and financial information. Spurred by a recent boom in sales in the region, Bloomberg is expanding its Dubai office into a regional hub, a move that will as much as quadruple its local staff over the next year. Max Linnington, the company’s newly appointed regional head of Middle East and South Asia, announced the expansion today in advance of a panel discussion with economists and dignitaries in front of the Dubai International Financial Centre’s iconic The Gate building, where Bloomberg...

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U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google STORY HIGHLIGHTS Google says hackers from China got into its Gmail systemBruce Schneier says hackers exploited feature put into system at behest of U.S. governmentWhen governments get access to private communications, they invite abuse, he saysGovernment surveillance and control of Internet is flourishing, he says : Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." Read more of his writing at www.schneier.com. -- Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such...

HONOLULU (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama's top asset in pushing his agenda will not be his Cabinet secretaries or aides, but rather his online network. Obama's political e-mail list tops 13 million names, a digital force that the incoming White House can tap to push for his legislation, tamp down critics or bolster popular support. It's also a way for Obama to reach into every state, every city, and every neighborhood. A study released Tuesday found that a quarter of Obama voters said they would continue to work online to support the new administration. The nonpartisan Pew Internet and...

News reports on terrorism to be censored in Russia - 12/02/2004 11:59 Journalists will have to stick to certain regulations in their reports about terrorist acts  The Russian government may equate street meetings to terrorist acts. A paragraph about it is included in the draft law \u2320About the counteraction to terrorism,\u25a0 which was submitted to the State Duma the day before yesterday. The draft law was developed by the Russian Federal Security Bureau.   The new law introduces a new term in the Russian legislation \u221a \u2320the terrorist danger regime.\u25a0 The term means that authorities will be empowered with restricting the pedestrian...

[An extensive set of articles referred to lay out a definitive explanation on the source of the anthrax mailings.] Link to story: http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com "Dad," he whispered. His Dad could barely hear him. "'I've been arrested, I'm being taken, I don't know where or why." Moazzam Begg was in the trunk of a car being taken away from his apartment in Islamabad. He had been picked up by Pakistan and US agents. The Britoner had come to Pakistan with his wife and children after the US strikes began in Afghanistan.  It was February 2002. Months later, he would confess to being...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centers, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring" to cut costs, such as Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O , International Business...

The no-shows on a Paris-to-Los Angeles flight that are now being sought by U.S. authorities may have escaped the dragnet due to French authorities quickly announcing that the cancellation of Christmas flights to Los Angeles were ordered for security reasons. According to a report in the Washington Times, the premature announcement resulted in "a chorus of groans" from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House. An unnamed U.S. source is cited as saying that Washington believed that the longer publicity could have been avoided, "the greater the chance to catch anybody else who was suspected of being...

Even outraged leaders within its ranks say that the Democratic Party has been playing with treason in an attempt to destroy the nation´s wartime Republican president. "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - that's what President Abraham Lincoln said during the War Between the States. While none have suggested such extreme measures in the midst of the war on terrorism, Lincoln's approach illustrates the deadly seriousness of political responsibility in wartime and draws a fine line between legitimate political dissent and aiding...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 -- The Homeland Security Department has decided to stop a program that required thousands of Arab and Muslim men to register with immigration authorities after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said on Friday. Hoping to hunt down terrorists, immigration officials fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed 85,000 Muslim and Arab noncitizens from November 2002 to May 2003 under the program. The effort, the largest to register immigrants in decades, required annual reporting. Men from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria began going to immigration offices for a second round of registrations this month.Officials have acknowledged that most...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several Latin American countries plan to follow Mexico's example by issuing consular identification cards to illegal immigrants in the United States, despite FBI warnings that the cards pose a security threat, officials said on Thursday. Mexico has issued around two million of the cards, known as the "matricula consular" to its nationals, whether they are in the United States legally or illegally, in the past two years. Guatemala began offering a similar card last year. Ecuador recently started issuing cards to its nationals. Honduras expects to begin a program soon while Nicaragua, El Salvador and Brazil...

<p>Do you want to see the recall election campaign drag out for six more months? Are you eager to spend the next half-year of your life watching Gray and Cruz and Arnold and Tom and Arianna relentlessly pander, prevaricate, posture and pontificate?</p>

Deutsche Bank says NY is liable for more than $500M worth of property damage due to negligence. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank is seeking to hold New York state liable for more than $500 million due to property damage done to its building following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The bank sued the state late Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, accusing it of negligence for failing to take steps to protect and clean the building after the attacks. Among charges are that the state failed to seal the building leaving it exposed to hazardous materials...

Sanctuary State Illegal Immigrants: California's new driver's license law defies federal efforts to control the borders. The feds should act, but will politics trump security? We used to think that nullification, the doctrine that states had a right to disobey federal laws, died around the time of the Civil War. But its spirit is very much alive in California, where Gov. Gray Davis has just signed a bill allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses without proof of legal residency. This law is not being promoted by proponents as an act of outright defiance. But its effect is to...

REP. TOM TANCREDO ASKS FOR YOUR HELP California Governor Gray Davis plans to sign legislation Friday to provide illegal aliens with driver's licenses. In response, House Immigration Reform Caucus Chairman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) plans to introduce legislation Tuesday, Sept. 9, to strip federal highway money from states that either already have or plan to adopt similar legislation. Today Rep. Tancredo contacted FAIR and asked for help from FAIR and our members, activists, and supporters in an effort to push this legislation through Congress. Here's What You Can Do Contact your representative and strongly advise him/her to sign on as...

According to the U.S. agency charged with protecting America, Al Quaeda terrorists may be planning an attack from under water. The Department of Homeland Security has issued a bulletin warning that terrorists may attack American ships or ports using scuba divers. The "Swimmer Attack Indicators and Protective Measures" bulletin was issued on August 22, 2003. The bulletin advised "the maritime industry and owners and operators of maritime facilities of a number of incidents of suspicious activity and possible surveillance of maritime facilities around the U.S. over the past few months." The bulletin, issued to ship owners, port managers and...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq  — Members of three Islamic groups stepped forward on Saturday to claim responsibility for a number of recent guerrilla attacks that have left several U.S. soldiers dead and scores of others injured in Baghdad.</p> <p>The five men, all with their faces covered and wearing red scarves, made their boasts on a videotape aired by Arab television station Al-Arabiya (search). They urged fellow group members to follow suit and attack all foreign soldiers stationed in the region as a means of showing the world that they are against the occupation of Iraq.</p>

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton has challenged her husband's confession that he turned down an offer from Sudan to extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S., a decision that some say ranks as the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. "That's not my understanding of the facts," Sen. Clinton told NewsMax.com's Carl Limbacher, who confronted Hillary with her husband's remarks on "The Mike Siegel Show." Sen. Clinton's comments are published for the first time in the new book "Hillary's Scheme." "As I understand the facts," a defensive sounding Hillary continued, "there was never a full and thorough offer." Sen....

<p>The investigation of Liu Jinbao, former head of the Bank of China's Hong Kong branch, in connection with irregular loans might seem like just another corruption case in the wearying string that winds through China's economy.</p> <p>Look again. The abrupt removal of Liu on May 28 and his apparent detention in Beijing have highlighted problems that are qualitatively different from what has happened before. Indeed, the sordid affair calls into question the success of China's strategy of floating key companies on international stock exchanges. And it shows the weakness of Hong Kong's claims to be the international financial window for China.</p>