Free Republic

FOR the second time in 10 minutes yesterday, Lizzie Grubman and her potty posse took over the ladies' room. And wouldn't you know it. Nature called. So there I was, on the third floor of Suffolk County's Criminal Court building, poised outside the lair of the peroxided Mercedes maven, heretofore to be known as the Princess of Pee. But just as I was about to seek my own private audience with the public plumbing, I was stared down by a man who must be 7 feet tall. "Please wait 'til she's done," the bruiser requested. This brought a compelling new...

TERKEL:. . . We have a mindless boy right now with the most powerful job in the world. And that is perilous. We have an attorney general who is like the guy Arthur Miller described in “The Crucible” in Salem, Massachusetts, 300 years ago, who urges people to spy on other people, witchcraft, and all women are hanged. So we have this. So am I being subversive now? Because we were told, to criticize George Bush now, in view of 9/11, is un-American. I’m very un-American in that respect. Except that I’m really American. . . . Bush is my...

PRESIDENT Sam Nujoma told over 400 delegates at the Namibia Public Workers Union (Napwu) Congress on Friday to unite and support Zimbabwe. "Today it is Zimbabwe, tomorrow it is Namibia or any other country. We must unite and support Zimbabwe. We cannot allow imperialism to take over our continent again. We must defend ourselves," Nujoma told delegates gathered at the Namib High School. He said he had not heard any union member in Namibia protesting the recent action of the British government when they stopped a Zimbabwean deputy minister from passing through Britain on his way to a conference for...

The public relations executive plans to plead guilty Friday and serve her time at a special lockup for drunken drivers, sources familiar with the case told the Daily News. Grubman, 31, has agreed to spend a minimum of two months at the dormitory-style DWI Alternative Facility in Yaphank, L.I., the sources said. As part of the deal, she will have to perform community service after she's sprung from the minimum-security program. Grubman's lawyers met for 40 minutes Friday with the special prosecutor and the new judge, Michael Mullen, to hammer out the plea deal. Not final yet But sources cautioned...

<p>SELMA, Ala. — In 1965, civil rights leaders marched on this Southern town to protest discrimination against black voters.</p> <p>Thirty-seven years later, the "cradle of the voting rights movement" is being rocked by accusations from white voters who have been forced to testify before a legal panel of Democratic Party officials.</p>

FRANKFURT. The intention of the European Central Bank to intervene in favor of the euro, along with other leading central banks, was apparently known several hours before the actual price-supporting currency purchases were carried out last Friday, according to market sources in Frankfurt. Supposedly, there was a leak in one of the participating central banks not in the euro-zone. On hearing about the impending intervention, Citibank, one of the leading currency traders worldwide, began buying up euros in large volumes for a U.S. hedge fund company, according to the rumor. The price of the euro had risen slightly against the...

Bankrupt fiber optic network operator Flag Telecom has received subpoenas for documents as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe into Global Crossing Ltd. and Qwest Communications International Inc. , the company said in an SEC filing on Tuesday. The SEC also wants to interview Flag Telecom officers and employees in its investigation of Global Crossing though no subpoenas for testimony have been issued, according to the filing. "To date, Flag Telecom has cooperated fully with the SEC's request for such documents and it intends to continue to cooperate in the future," the filing said. Flag Telecom did not...

After rejecting three previous requests, a Moscow court Monday released the former president of Russia's largest petrochemical holding on bail of 20 million rubles ($630,000). The presiding judge also ruled earlier in the day to close hearings on the case to the public. The publicized trial of two former Sibur executives, president Yakov Goldovsky and vice president Yevgeny Koshchits, is one of the few remaining vestiges of the power struggle that took place earlier this year at Gazprom, which is the controlling owner of Sibur. Goldovsky has said his actions at the helm of Sibur were only construed as crimes...

In 1981, Billy McKinney made a difficult decision. It was a mayoral election year in the city of Atlanta, and the race was shaping up as a showdown between Andrew Young and Sidney Marcus, one of the city's best-known Jewish leaders. McKinney threw his support behind fellow state legislator Marcus, and became co-chairman of the Marcus campaign. Throughout his public career McKinney had always delighted in taking contrarian positions. In this case he was excoriated for choosing Marcus over Young. McKinney was one of the black Marcus supporters whom Maynard Jackson sneeringly referred to as "shuffling, grinning Negroes." Marcus lost...

In the upcoming weeks, political observers finally will start to focus on Florida's Democratic gubernatorial primary. The delay probably can be written off to the fact that most Americans assume former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is a lock to win her party's nomination. That would earn her the right to take on presidential brother and current Florida governor, Republican Jeb Bush. And if the economy keeps flirting with a second recession on the heels of the one supposedly just ended, even mighty Jeb could be vulnerable come November. But there's a hidden story in the Reno race -- she...

Global Crossing agreed to be acquired Friday by Asian companies Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies Telemedia in a bid to emerge from bankruptcy by early 2003. The plan, which was approved by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, calls for Global Crossing creditors to receive $300 million in cash, $200 million in senior notes and 38.5% of the reorganized company. Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Telemedia will invest a total of $250 million for a 61.5% majority interest in the new firm. The offer is two-thirds less than the $750 million that the investors had proposed in...

New figures compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine show corporate PACs have given over $66 million to federal candidates through 6/30/02. Republicans received 66% ($41,999,614) and Democrats 34% ($24,155,568). See Release for full details. Corporate PAC contributions to House candidates were split $29,345,109 (64%) to Republicans and $16,719,276 (36%) to Democrats.

(Miami) The chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party has equated a gay Republican running for the Florida state legislature to Adolph Hitler. Doug Head says gays who plan to vote for Patrick Howell are like "a Jew voting for Hitler". Howell is the first out gay Republican to run for state office in Florida. Democrats, Thursday, were attempting to distance themselves from Head's comments and the chairman was trying to mitigate the damage, claiming he saying he used the analogy with one gay black Democrat who was helping Howell circulate petitions. The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a non...

Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, the alleged Russian crime boss arrested on suspicion of trying to fix Olympics skating competitions, has no influence over Russian sports and could not have fixed the Olympic results, Russian officials said Thursday. However, a decade of local press reports paint a different picture. He is portrayed as a high-flying socialite who has hobnobbed with the likes of Marat Safin, Pavel Bure and even Marina Anissina, the figure skater named in the U.S. criminal complaint. Tokhtakhounov, who is better known in Russia by his nickname Taivanchik (Little Taiwanese), given to him for his Asiatic appearance, has also been...

Merrill Lynch is once again in a heap of trouble. But this time, the Wall Street monolith is feeling the heat from Congress, the SEC and the Justice Department. In May, Merrill paid $100 million in conflict-of-interest charges to New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer after it was found that research analysts at the firm had shilled for investment bankers. This time, it's the investment bankers who shilled for Enron. They provided loans for a sham transaction designed to avoid proper debt scoring and inflate profits. Now all hell is descending on the fine old firm of Merrill Lynch. It...

Alleged mobster held for fixing Olympic skating ^ Posted by xp38 On Jul 31 11:18 PM with 20 comments The Globe and Mail ^ | July 31 2002 | AP New York — An alleged Russian crime boss was arrested in Italy on U.S. charges he tried to fix the pairs and ice dancing figure skating competitions at the Salt Lake City Olympics, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Wednesday. Alimzan Tokhtakhounov was arrested at his resort in Forte dei Marmi in northern Italy. . . Google translation of "International Mail" article: The "exceptionally gifted one of diamond" and...

LEADING American diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman has offered to arrange a secret payment for Government if it entrenches the right of the De Beers cartel to buy all Namibia's diamonds. Tempelsman has written to President Sam Nujoma proposing that a secret loan of N$500 million or more be raised to cover Government's projected national Budget deficit, but the money will only be paid if Government drops plans to independently check the prices De Beers pays Namibia for diamond exports. If it goes ahead, the move will retard plans to open up the diamond market and will further delay the implementation...

Six years ago, the Anti-Defamation League issued a scathing report entitled “The Religious Right: The Assault on Pluralism and Tolerance in America.” But in a stunning reversal in May, it ran full-page ads in The New York Times and other publications, reprinting a strongly pro-Israel opinion piece by former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed. And last month, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, joined forces with Reed in “Stand for Israel,” designed to mobilize 100,000 evangelical churches to raise money and support for Israel, leading Reed to proclaim that the burgeoning Jewish-Christian coalition for Israel...

Five months after it opened, Budapest’s controversial “House of Terror” has emerged as one of the capital’s most popular destinations among both young and old, regularly drawing crowds that endure two-hour lines in sweltering heat. However, rather than achieving its aim of memorializing the victims of totalitarian terror — of both Hungarian wartime fascism and postwar communism — critics say the lavish museum symbolizes the charged, right-wing atmosphere that has swept Hungary. The museum’s prominent location at 60 Andrassy Street was chosen not because it sits among the elegant, fin-de-siecle mansions of Andrassy — known to some as “the Champs-Elysees...

This is an excerpt of the sermon by Catholic Cardinal Clemens von Galen, delivered on Sunday, August 3, 1941, in Münster Cathedral, in which he risked his life by openly condemning the Nazi euthanasia program. Code named "Aktion T4," the Nazi program to eliminate "life unworthy of life" began on Hitler's order in October of 1939. The program at first focused on newborns and very young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three that showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry. A...