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MEXICO CITY (AP) - Environmentalists filed a challenge with the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation on Tuesday against a U.S. liquefied natural gas import terminal planned off Mexico's Pacific coast, within sight of San Diego. Greenpeace Mexico and six other U.S. and Mexican organizations accused Mexico of failing to fully evaluate the possible impact of the plant near Baja California's Coronado Island on an endangered seabird known as Xantus' murrelet. "The Commission for Environmental Cooperation should consider this complaint, because this is a species of bird that migrates and involves all three (NAFTA) countries," Arturo Moreno of Greenpeace Mexico told...

Mr. Chris Matthews Host, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews 400 North Capitol Street, Suite 850 Washington, DC 20001 Dear Chris, We understand that you will be airing tonight on Hardball, the famous segment from the Republican National Convention in which former Senator Zell Miller challenged you to a duel. It was a dramatic moment in television and we’re so pleased that you have been able to use the segment as a promo to boost the show’s ratings for the last 9 months. We are even more pleased that you will be playing it again tonight as it will be a...

AUGUSTA - The already charged political atmosphere at the State House got kicked up a notch Tuesday after a cadre of Republican lawmakers challenged a key funding provision of the Democrats' majority state budget with a proposed people's veto referendum. Last month, minority Republicans in the House and Senate were unable to prevent passage of a two-year state budget bill that included a provision allowing Maine to borrow up to $450 million to fund ongoing government expenses without voter approval. Over GOP objections, Democrats pushed the budget through with a majority vote and then adjourned the regular session of the...

WENATCHEE, Wash. - The legal challenge to the governor's election will go to trial May 23, a judge decided Tuesday. Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges said the trial shouldn't take more than two weeks. Whatever he decides, the case will ultimately be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Republicans are challenging the election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, who won by just 129 votes in a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots. Republican Dino Rossi won the first two counts. It could take months to settle the election challenge. Republicans are optimistic the Supreme Court will render a...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A conservative legal foundation filed twin federal lawsuits Wednesday challenging federal protections for 42 species, 15 of which live only in shallow seasonal pools across much of California and in far southern Oregon. The Pacific Legal Foundation says the critical habitat designations that together cover 1.5 million acres in 42 counties drive up housing costs and taxes and harm private property rights without doing much to save species. The suits, filed simultaneously in Fresno and Sacramento federal courts on behalf of building and agriculture associations, also challenge critical habitat designations for 27 other species, 21 of which...

Thirty-seven Oregonians died by doctor-assisted suicide last year, a slight decrease from 42 the year before, according to a new state report. During the seven-year history of Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, assisted-suicide has accounted for 208 deaths -- roughly one in 1,000 deaths in the state. In 2004, 40 doctors wrote a total of 60 prescriptions for lethal doses of barbiturates. The prescription total fell from 68 the year before -- the first decrease in prescriptions since doctor-assisted suicide became legal in Oregon. The numbers released March 10 by the Oregon Department of Human Services, are unremarkable in light...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Republicans have released 1,135 names of alleged felons who they say illegally cast ballots in the governor's race that Democrat Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes. The list turned over to Democratic Party lawyers on Thursday contained the names and addresses of the alleged felons, along with 45 people who Republicans say died before the Nov. 2 election but who were listed as having voted. "It's one more significant piece of evidence that this past election was not only deeply flawed but that we don't know who won," said Mary Lane, a spokeswoman for Republican opponent...

Elections without choice are Democracy how, exactly?In 1812, Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts, redrew the legislative districts in his state to favor his party in the upcoming election. Looking at the sinuous and contorted shape of one district, which projected protuberances into dispersed pockets of voters across half the state, one observer noted that it looked rather like a salamander. "No," another commentator replied, "it looks more like a Gerry-mander." Thus, one of America's oldest and most-questionable political practices was born and named, surprisingly in Massachusetts. Gerrymandering is a political trick that parties in power use to stay in...

Bellevue, WA – An internal e-mail adds to the evidence that the King County elections department knew about No Signature On File (NSOF) ballots well before it claimed to have discovered its “mistake.” King County rejected more than 700 ballots because it didn’t have signatures on file to match the signatures on the ballots. On Nov. 3, 2004, an e-mail sent to King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens included a list of NSOF voters. A copy of the e-mail is attached. But in December, when news of the NSOF ballots became public, King County Elections Director Dean Logan, Huennekens’ boss,...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- An effort to recall Secretary of State Sam Reed will not move forward, after a Thurston County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that allegations Reed mishandled the contested governor's race did not meet the legal threshold to put a recall before state voters. Martin Ringhofer, a Boeing Co. employee, and Seattle resident Linda Jordan argued that mistakes made by Reed led to Democrat Christine Gregoire ultimately winning a third count and the election by 129 votes. But Judge Chris Wickham ruled that each of the nine charges brought by Ringhofer and Jordan were either legally or factually...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A divided federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a judge's dismissal of a Second Amendment challenge to a Washington, D.C. handgun ban. The challenge was brought by a group of District of Columbia residents who wanted to possess pistols, or possess other weapons they keep disassembled or with trigger-locks. The appeals panel said, "Most of the plaintiffs allege they live in high-crime neighborhoods and would like to possess weapons loaded in their homes for protection ... " The Second Amendment says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of...

It's official ... almost. Warrenton mayor George Fitch confirmed on Monday that he will formally enter the Republican Party gubernatorial-nomination race this week. Fitch has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning in Norfolk to announce his candidacy for the party nod.

WASHINGTON - The standard responses from members of Congress during the president's State of the Union address usually follow a graduated scale of support: from stone silence to polite applause to standing ovation and, finally, the occasional enthusiastic, ``hurrah!'' But as President Bush laid out his case --snip-- he managed to earn a rare response from Democrats that did not bode well for his plans. They hissed. Their reaction came when Bush asserted that Social Security is ``headed toward bankruptcy'' -- a point that most Democrats and some analysts dispute. ``When you start out by stating a premise that's factually...

Senate and Assembly Democrats announced plans this week for a coordinated statewide campaign to take on parts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget, which leaders charged borrows ideas from "right-wing think tanks" and hurts middle-class families. Democratic leaders said they will present an alternate plan to the governor's $111.7 billion budget proposal, including his plans to freeze spending for schools, highways and the poor. They said they will seek to seal off tax loopholes and to win more federal money for the state instead of calling for raising taxes, but would not categorically rule out a tax hike. They also reacted...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Groups representing attorneys and injured workers filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging state regulations they said would result in big cuts in benefits for employees who suffer disabling injuries on the job. "The ratings fail to replace workers' pre-injury earnings," said Mark Hayes, president of Voters Injured at Work, a new group that hopes to organize thousands of injured workers into a political force. "If these drastic reductions take effect, more Californians will lose their cars, their homes and their good credit ... (and) end up on welfare." Susan Gard, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Workers...

We exhort young people, born into this society of audio-visually conditioned robots, to rise up against the reign of untruth. Leave television to its willing slaves; read the masters of your religious and national culture, read your mystics, your thinkers, your poets. Seek after truth, obey it as you would a sovereign, don’t let yourself be closed in by worldly or ecclesiastical conformity. To bind oneself unconditionally to an ideology or a religion, beyond what is just and unjust, is a properly satanic aberration. Totalitarian states that alternate between lies and violence (lies to cover up the violence, and violence...

Barbara BoxerCalifornia Sen. Barbara Boxer boo-hoo's a loony challenge to George W. Bush's election.     This is an email-able, copyright-ready graphic you can use in emails, on blogs, in flyers, on posters... anything that's noncommercial.

I was lurking at DU. They're all over. Let's get to work. QUICKVOTE Should Congress look into the validity of the presidential election results in Ohio

CAPITOL BUZZ [KJL] RE: Election certification--I'm hearing Barbara Boxer will support challenge and the Senate will likely vote down the challenge by voice.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Republicans, considering whether to challenge Democrat Christine Gregoire's razor-thin victory for governor, yesterday demanded a list of the 900,000 who cast ballots in vote-rich, problem-plagued King County. [snip] "We're mostly posing questions," Vance said. "King County is where we saw the votes changing. King County is the one county that was allowed to take ballots that were declared dead in November and bring them back to life in December." He stopped short of committing to a challenge of the election results.