Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - A series of e-mails and telephone calls related to two high-profile environmental decisions in California has prompted criticism that business interests may be gaining too much influence over the U.S. Interior Department. According to court records, Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald tried to change scientific recommendations related to protecting wetland species and endangered fish. In the first instance, the correspondence was between MacDonald, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managers and the California Farm Bureau Federation in April. A month later, the federation used the information to back a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., seeking to overturn the...

07.12.04 | The Government is clearly on a full frontal attack against the media. Only today we heard: -The Minister of Information said that the Cabinet “evaluated” the promotion of destabilization by the media, citing his former employer RCTV and local newspaper El Nacional as promoters of destabilization who are “minimizing” the case making it look like the Government is violating human rights. Well, asked Antonio Lopez, or his parents what they think about this. Or the Guevara brothers. Or the last person who made a phone call to Antonio Lopez. It appears the right to silence people for political...

During halftime of the Dallas vs. Seattle game tonight on ABC's Monday Night Football there was an interview of Tiger Woods to promote his upcoming Target World Challenge golf tournament also broadcast on ABC this coming weekend.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 5 -- When Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell certifies the state's final presidential election results, declaring President Bush the winner by about 119,000 votes, critics say they intend to present two challenges. Lawyers representing voters upset about problems at the polls plan to contest the results with the Ohio Supreme Court, citing documented cases of long lines, a shortage of machines and a pattern of problems in predominantly black neighborhoods. In addition, third-party candidates, bolstered by a favorable federal court ruling, plan to file requests for a recount in each of Ohio's 88 counties. About...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An open records measure approved by voters this month will get an early test in a reporter's lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections. Stephen James, who writes for the alternative weekly Sacramento News and Review newspaper, sued under Proposition 59 after the department denied his request for data about parolees. The suit was filed last month in Alameda County Superior Court by attorney James Chadwick, who helped draft Proposition 59. A hearing is set for Dec. 15. The suit alleges the department violated the California Public Records Act, which was strengthened when 83 percent of voters...

Groups checking election results in Ohio are asking county elections boards for all kinds of documents -- everything from provisional ballot totals to voter signature poll books. Elections officials say such requests from political and advocacy groups, media outlets and other organizations are straining their staffs and budgets as they try to finish the official ballot count for the presidential election. Ross County elections director Nancy Bell says she's never experienced anything like this in her 19 years at the elections board. Bev Harris is founder of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based nonprofit consumer protection organization. She says her group...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A National Guard soldier lost his bid to avoid being sent to Iraq, but his challenge of a military program that involuntarily extends his enlistment in the service will continue in court. U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell Jr. ruled Friday that there was no need for an injunction stopping the soldier's transfer to Iraq later this month because his California National Guard enlistment does not expire until May. Damrell said the legal matter will be decided on its merits before then. If the unnamed soldier prevails, he can be sent home in the spring by court order....

Editor's note: Readers may be interested in two related stories: "Invested in Terrorism" and "BBC: U.S. Damned if it does and damned if it doesn't". -ALJ Douglas Farah uncovered the story of al-Qaeda's involvement in West Africa's diamond smuggling while reporting on Africa for the Washington Post, which he described in Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (New York: Broadway, 2004). Mr. Farah, now a consultant, freelance writer on terror finance and national security matters, and a senior fellow at the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, addressed the Middle East Forum in New York City on...

I would like to ask if there is anyone out there who may be able to identify a trusted, i.e. "documented," source of information as to just how many of the so-called "provisional ballots" have been cast by "challenged voters" in Ohio. I just watched one of the reporters at MSNBC estimate the total at over 200,000 by extrapolating the total number of challenges in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) to the rest of the state. Does anyone know where we will be able to find hard information on this? Please post the resources if you have them.

Frank J. Gaffney is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. He earned his AM in international studies from John's Hopkins University. A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, Mr. Gaffney's articles have appeared in Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Newsday, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He is a contributing editor to National Review Online. Mr. Gaffney addressed the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia on September 22, 2004. The threat of terror is the most direct challenge to the stability of...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) fended off another challenge to his authority Wednesday when Palestinian lawmakers backed away from sweeping reform demands, instead approving a watered down set of recommendations. A wave of chaos plaguing the Palestinian territories, meanwhile, took another victim when gunmen in Gaza seriously wounded a senior intelligence official. The two developments are an outgrowth of years of Arafat's one-man control, which international donors and Palestinian reformers have criticized as corrupt and inefficient, pitting rival security forces against each other. Israel's intention to withdraw from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites)...

Gay Republicans challenge Frist over vote 40 minutes ago Christopher Curtis, PlanetOut Network SUMMARY: The leader of the nation's largest gay Republican group sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, challenging his reasons for scheduling a Federal Marriage Amendment vote. On Wednesday the leader of the nation's largest gay Republican group sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., asking why the U.S. Senate is considering the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) instead of more pressing issues. The Senate vote on the FMA, which proposes to amend the Constitution to forbid same-sex couples from marrying, is scheduled...

Activists Challenge Democrats' Plan to Restrict Protests at Convention NewsMax.com Wires Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 BOSTON – Attorneys are challenging a preliminary security plan for this summer's Democratic National Convention that would limit protesters to a small patch of land virtually out of sight of the convention hall. The plan would restrict protests to a triangle-shaped site near FleetCenter, which attorneys fear could be obscured from view by buses and television satellite trucks, making demonstrations useless. "What's the point to just have a rally when you don't have an audience for whom the rally is organized?" said Urszula Masny-Latos, executive...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's key campaign promise to roll back a tripling of the state's car tax was challenged directly to the California Supreme Court on Wednesday by a coalition of college students and social activists whose members and clients will bear the brunt of his budget cuts. Opponents of the governor's November tax cut, which saves motorists $4 billion a year in annual registration renewal fees, want a majority of the seven high court justices to overturn the pledge, which has deepened the state's deficit, and along with it, the need for cuts to services. The petition...

West Virginia Libertarians received an early Christmas present when a federal judge in Clarksburg struck down a confusing state law that made it more difficult to convince voters to sign ballot-access petitions. On December 23, U.S. District Court Judge Irene Keeley ordered the secretary of state's office to stop enforcing a law that made it illegal for state residents who sign a third-party candidate's petition to vote in the state's next primary election. In 1999, the state legislature had dropped the legal penalties for signing such a petition and then voting in a primary -- but kept the language that...

Former vice president Al Gore (news - web sites) may be supporting Howard Dean (news - web sites), but retired army general Wesley Clark (news - web sites) has support in his quest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination from ... Madonna (news - web sites). The Material Girl on Tuesday publicly threw her support behind the retired four-star general, one of nine Democrats seeking to replace George W. Bush in the November 2004 election. "I endorse him because I think he's a great guy," the pop superstar said on CNN Tuesday. "I think he's a natural born leader." Madonna...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 24 September, 2003, 11:09 GMT 12:09 UKMadonna book sells 8,000 copies This was Madonna's first attempt at children's fiction Madonna's children's book The English Roses has sold just over 8,000 copies in its first week in the UK. The book, launched amid a blaze of publicity, made it to number 17 in the national book chart, according to data company Nielsen Bookscan. It was the second bestselling children's book of the week, behind JK Rowling's fifth Harry Potter book. This week the top-selling book in the UK, David Beckham's autobiography My Side, sold 103,508 copies. Madonna's book,...

<p>The middle-aged serial slurper came to Midtown yesterday clad in an early Halloween costume - dowdy tweed suit and bushy hair - to role-play the part of an actual mom.</p> <p>We've seen this gal tied up, beaten down, with cones protruding from her bosom, and naked so frequently, it is to yawn. But Madonna's new, prissy act, unveiled on Fifth Avenue, was downright weird.</p>

Poor Madonna (news - web sites). In her new career as a writer of children's books, lightning has not struck twice. Her first effort, The English Roses, had skeptical critics baying with praise at how effectively she examines the subtle but cruel ways girls exclude those they envy or pity. The book has been translated into 37 languages, and it has been on the USA TODAY Best-Selling Books list since Sept. 22. Its highest rank was No. 7. In the second of Madonna's expected five books, Mr. Peabody's Apples, illustrated by Loren Long, the pop star and mother turns her...

LONDON: "Material Girl" Madonna is said to be gearing up for a fistfight with Warner Bros Records over differences about where her Maverick Records is heading. According to PeopleNews , a reason for the impending parting of the ways may be attributed to a rumour that Time Warner is lining up to sell off the Warner Music Group. Tension seems to be brewing, as renegotiations between the two warring parties is virtually non-existent, sources close to the disgruntled Warner executives, say. Others are even predicting "a nuclear lawsuit," with the big guns of parent company Time Warner lining up for...