Free Republic

CHULA VISTA – Two former supermarket union members were sentenced yesterday for aiding in an attack last fall on a replacement worker who was hit in the face with a bat. The man who actually struck the worker has not been arrested. "The case is still open and is still under investigation," prosecutor Claudine Ruiz said after yesterday's hearing. Authorities have talked with the man they now believe struck the worker, but say they need more witnesses to come forward before they make an arrest, she said. Many of the pickets who saw the confrontation that led to the attack...

CARLSBAD – The walls came down slowly yesterday morning as former camp dweller Efren Martinez helped dismantle dozens of unauthorized shacks that migrant workers called home in a canyon north of Legoland. "I used to live here, too," Martinez, a day laborer, said while carrying rotting pieces of plywood up a hill. "You just pick up your belongings and go somewhere else, under another bush." About 20 acres owned by the city of Carlsbad, Carltas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. east of Interstate 5, south of Cannon Road and west of Faraday Avenue are being cleared of...

FILER -- Lyle Johnstone pays close attention to pending legislation that could alter his ability to home school his three sons. The bill he's interested in -- and dismayed about -- is Senate Bill 1233. He says it could open the door to the school system as well as law enforcement and the judiciary system forcing his kids back into public schools. "The last thing I want is for my children to wind up with a poor education, and that is why they are not in the public school," Johnstone said Thursday. The legislation in question would change the Juvenile...

<p>NEW YORK — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been called many things, a savvy politician, a devoted wife. But Men's Journal magazine is adding one more description to that list: Tough Guy.</p> <p>In its March issue, already on newsstands, the magazine publishes its annual list of "The 25 Toughest Guys in America" -- and Clinton weighs in at No. 25, just behind human crash test dummy Rusty Haight, who has been in 740 car wrecks.</p>

Californians have an interesting question to ponder following last week's elections: Why have Republicans taken total control in Washington at the very moment Democrats have total power in Sacramento? California, despite what others might think, is not just one more state. We have 12.1 percent of the U.S. population, 14 million more people than the next largest state, Texas. Our gross domestic product is, by some measures, ahead of that of France. A regional state – Connecticut, say, or Iowa or Louisiana – out of step with national trends is merely a curiosity, but California is no regional state. We...

Entrance exam FOR WHICH WE STAND It was President George W. Bush who said, "Ignorance of American history and civics weakens our sense of citizenship." Test your civics savvy in our series of quizzes. Could you pass the test given to would-be U.S. citizens? By Jane CliffordFAMILY EDITORNovember 9, 2002 This country has always been open to those who want to make America their home. In 2000, the latest year for which figures are available, 300,662 California residents became new citizens of this country. In all, that year 888,788 men, women and children pledged their allegiance to the flag...

WASHINGTON – House Republican leaders, facing fierce opposition from Democrats, yesterday decided not to risk a vote on legislation that would have provided tax relief to lower-income families to help them pay for education costs. Withdrawal of the administration-backed bill highlighted the deep divide over the wisdom of further tax cuts in a period of budget deficits and over how education dollars should be spent. Democrats said the GOP bill would shift money from public to private schools and that financing school construction should be a higher priority. The bill would have allowed couples with an income of $40,000 or...

<p>Sacramento -- In numbers that reflect party allegiance far more than individual political star power, California voters favor Democrats in most statewide races including lieutenant governor and attorney general, according to a Field Poll released today .</p> <p>But the poll is good news for some Republicans: State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), has a 12-point margin over Democratic Steve Westley in the race for controller, while the contest for secretary of state between outgoing Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, and former Republican lawmaker Keith Olberg is about even. And Democratic incumbents don't hold insurmountable leads, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll.</p>

LOS ANGELES – Gov. Gray Davis and his Republican opponent conducted a long-distance Labor Day debate yesterday with Davis warning union audiences that Bill Simon would turn back the clock on workers' rights. "My opponent, Mr. Simon, wants to take away many of the hard-earned rights you gained these last four years," Davis told a sweltering breakfast crowd outside a new labor center in Los Angeles. "My friends, we cannot let him do that." The first Democrat to occupy the governor's office after 16 years under Republican control, Davis said expanded workers' compensation benefits, guaranteed overtime after eight hours, the...

Here's an explanation for the anti-Iraq saber-rattling now building in Washington: The Bush administration, though it would dearly love to have Saddam Hussein out of power, has no intention of taking unilateral military action against him. The sword-rattling is designed to make Saddam's military leadership see him as too dangerous for their own good. Remember, this is no pre-1990 Iraqi army harboring thoughts of invincibility. The Iraqi military, including its crack (supposedly) Republican Guard, was routed in Desert Storm. The remnants, the generals know, exist only because the American-led allies allowed them to walk away. They know also that they...

One American construction worker dies every workday hour. For the past 40 years Labor Day has emphasized the celebration of a crucial change in the labor force – the addition of women. The first Labor Day after Sept. 11, though, reminds us that one aspect of the labor force has experienced no more change than the "Glass Ceiling." That might be called the "Glass Cellar." When I did the research for a book called "The Myth of Male Power," I discovered a Glass Cellar that holds far more men than the Glass Ceiling. The Glass Cellar consists of the hazardous...

A spate of government litigation against the nation's gun companies has been stifled in 30 states, which have passed laws granting the industry immunity from civil lawsuits. Those laws have been enacted since 1998, when New Orleans became the first of almost three dozen cities and counties to file suits against gun manufacturers and dealers, accusing them of being public nuisances and seeking huge damage awards in a campaign similar to that waged against the tobacco industry. The gun companies have won the aid of state legislatures to turn back the legal assault. Already, civil suits against the industry by...

<p>SACRAMENTO - Gov. Gray Davis plans to sign legislation allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a California driver's license, overturning a ban enacted nearly a decade ago.</p> <p>But first, the governor said he is insisting on amendments that will protect the public in the wake of terrorist attacks and limit the issuing of licenses to persons who have lived in California for a minimum period of time.</p>

FAIRFIELD -- A man who investigators say wounded a sheriff's deputy before killing himself Saturday had his guns taken away from him by police last month -- but one apparently slipped through the cracks. Ray Weaver, 60, of Wendell owned the .357 magnum revolver that was used in the shootings, said Gooding County Sheriff Shaun Gough. Weaver on July 29 was supposed to have turned every gun he owned over to officers in connection with a charge of violating a civil protection order, Wendell Police Chief Dave Fisher said. Weaver that day did hand over 11 guns -- including a...

<p>WASHINGTON — Hispanics who have traditionally pulled Democratic levers at the polling booth since the most recent wave of immigration in the last half century, are deciding that they no longer want to be viewed as one monolithic voting bloc, and warn Democrats that Republicans are increasingly speaking their language.</p>

Way back in 1994, terrorism expert Marvin Cetron warned of the possibility of an airborne attack on U.S. targets, in a report to the Pentagon. "We saw Osama bin Laden," Cetron told ABC News. "We spelled it out, and we said the United States was very vulnerable." If only the Pentagon had heeded Cetron's report. If only the Clinton administration had taken pre-emptive military action against bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Sept. 11 terror attacks – the worst in American history – would have been averted. Well, Saddam Hussein represents as much a threat to the United States today as...

CAIRO – It certainly isn't the cushy job of assistant treasurer of the student union that is keeping Aly Nabil in Cairo this summer where temperatures have soared to 115 degrees. But he would rather take the heat in Egypt than "face the music" in the United States where he had planned to study during a year abroad at UCLA or Penn State. "I applied in February, but I reconsidered real quick," he says, relaxing in an air-conditioned student lounge at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Even as increasing numbers of American students are applying to study in Egypt,...

SACRAMENTO – Democrats in the state Assembly put forth a budget plan Monday night – with no intention of ever voting for it – that included $3.7 billion in cuts and abandoned proposed tax increases that have held up the state spending plan for six weeks. It was the first time the state Assembly has publicly discussed the overdue budget since July 1. But the nighttime session called by Democrats was not meant to try to approve a budget that is already 36 days late. Instead, it was a staged exercise to "look at and shed the light of day...

WASHINGTON – It's the most ambitious environmental protection plan California has seen in almost a decade – one that would cover vast stretches of wilderness and give Sen. Barbara Boxer something to trumpet when she runs for re-election in two years. But a chorus of concern is growing that Boxer's Wild Heritage Wilderness Act would make it harder to fight fires in California's backcountry, which is already a virtual tinderbox. This week's Pines fire has destroyed more than 20,000 acres of mountain and canyon land near Julian and is a good example, say some of the bill's critics, of why...

I used to work for Dan Quayle. I counted Clarence Thomas a friend. And neither the former vice president nor the current Supreme Court justice was subject to a more vituperative attack – by Democrat Party apparatchiks, by liberal groups, by the not-so-impartial media – than Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state. Yet, while Quayle, while Thomas, became a little gun shy after suffering the slings and arrows of left-wing character assassination, Harris emerged remarkably unscathed by her tribulations. In fact, she has become a Republican superstar. The Grand Old Party's answer to Hillary Clinton. Harris was in San Diego...