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A Justice Department corruption investigation that helped drive John Doolittle from office has now been closed without charges being filed, the former Sacramento, Calif.-area congressman said Friday. "I'm thrilled," Doolittle said in an interview. "They've dragged this thing out for six and a half years." Doolittle's relief, though, is tinged with bitterness at how he believes the Justice Department has mistreated him. He says he accumulated $600,000 in attorneys fees, some of which he was able to pay with campaign funds. The lingering investigation hindered his ability to find work. In the beginning, he said, it proved "very devastating" to...

WASHINGTON – Beware of politicians quoting poll numbers. That was one lesson from the White House health policy conference Thursday as lawmakers in both parties cherry-picked survey results, ignored contrary findings and presented public opinion, which is highly nuanced on these questions, as a slam-dunk. Claims, counterclaims and statistics flew through the room in the daylong talkfest by President Barack Obama and lawmakers from both parties. Some didn't hold up to the facts. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada suggested his party hasn't been preparing to do an end-run around the normal legislative process to pass a health care...

4:14 p.m. Eastern By Jerome R. Corsi © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com In a complex set of transactions, Dubai is moving to acquire 19.9 percent of the Nasdaq in New York, placing the Arab government in an ownership position of the key U.S. stock exchange and raising concerns in Congress. As a result of the transaction, Dubai also will acquire 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange, one of the oldest and largest in the world. The transaction is being made through Borse Dubai, a holding company 100-percent owned by the government of the Emirate of Dubai and controlled by Mohammed bin...

Powerline Post by John Hinderaker (excerpts) "A couple of years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Rudy Giuliani would be a formidable Presidential candidate, but could never get the Republican nomination because of his liberal views on some social issues. I believe that we were among the first to question this assumption...At the Candidates' Forum, the Giuliani campaign has started a thread titled Social Conservatives Back Giuliani, which cites some of the recent poll data...UPDATE: Interesting--so far, the commenters on Giuliani's Forum site are pretty much unanimously OK with his position as laid out above. That could change as more...

Police officers are being forced to make "ludicrous" arrests in an attempt to hit Home Office targets, it has been claimed. Ridiculous examples include the case of a Cheshire man who was cautioned for being "found in possession of an egg with intent to throw". In Kent, a child was arrested for throwing a slice of cucumber from a tuna sandwich at another youngster, while a was boy arrested for throwing a cream bun on a school bus.

Egyptian forces say they are fighting the “Tora Bora Battle of Sinai” against a new al Qaeda mountain stronghold. Our military sources reveal the battle is raging on Jebel Magharah, 22km SW of El Arish and west of a former al Qaeda base on Jebel Hilal (alt. 654 meters). The fortified al Qaeda stronghold on Jebel Magharah is beating back an Egyptian assault on the mountain site. Signals passed among the troops describe the operation as the “Tora Bora of Sinai,” naming it after the fierce epic US-al Qaeda engagement in Afghanistan three years ago. Both sides have sustained casualties....

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican clinic where Coretta Scott King died has been closed, U.S. Embassy officials said Friday. Mexican officials were not immediately available to explain why the Santa Monica Health Institute in the Mexican beach resort of Rosarito, 16 miles south of San Diego, was shut. Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, said the U.S. consulate in Tijuana was helping patients find new facilities. King last week traveled to the beachside clinic. She was seeking treatment for advanced stage ovarian cancer and a stroke she suffered several months ago. The clinic specializes...

Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Senator Hillary Clinton (D.-NY) jointly hold the dubious distinction of being the only major public figures with less credibility than Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas, the recently elected successor to the late Yassir Arafat, alternately advocates peace and brotherhood with Israel, along with its total annihilation, depending on the particular audience he happens to be addressing. Likewise, both Dean and Clinton are on record as being not only the sworn enemies of conservatism, but also its truest of champions. Although they disagree on specific tactics in their respective quests for power,...

My hometown newspaper today included one of those letters to the editor re "Bush administration has no 'moral values' because it's killing 100,000 Iraqi civilians in an unncecessary war!" I'm working on a rebuttal letter and wonder whether anyone has run down the facts behind the claim of 100,000 civilian deaths because of U.S action. Does anyone know where this figure came from and whether or not it has been debunked (or authenticated)? My sense is that the figure is high for propaganda purposes.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Secretary of State Kevin Shelley may have accepted $100,000 in illegal contributions in his 2002 campaign, a newspaper reported Sunday. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a nonprofit group run by a Shelley political ally paid $108,000 from a state grant to two people and two companies who then made donations of nearly identical amounts to Shelley's 2002 campaign. The money came from a $500,000 grant to the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center, an organization founded by Shelley ally Julie Lee. Shelley himself helped win the grant for the center in 2000, when he was Assembly...

You ached for the president to say something like, "We made some mistakes and our intelligence was far from perfect. But we're there now, Saddam is gone, and we've got to get through the tough times. Experience has made us realistic enough to know we can't establish instant democracy. Democracy can't be established from the top, a people has to grow into it. But we can make sure Iraq in the foreseeable future is not the threat we thought it was, and give the Iraqi people a chance." Unfortunately, the notes of humility and realism that might have made President...

CHICAGO (Jan. 1) - Despite a sharp drop in homicides, Chicago has regained a title it didn't want: America's murder capital The city finished 2003 with 599 homicides, police said Thursday. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Still, the nation's third-largest city outpaced all others for the second time in three years. New York, with about three times the population, ended the year with 596 homicides. Los Angeles, which had the most murders in 2002 at 658, wound up 2003 with an estimated total just under...

Jennifer C. Braceras is an attorney and research fellow at Harvard Law School. Her column appears regularly in the Globe. When will the liberal media stop treating left-wing ideology as a proxy for intelligence? For months the press has questioned the intellect of Republican candidate George W. Bush, while describing Al Gore as "serious," "intellectual" - even "wonkish." The basis for the media's unfair attacks on Bush's intelligence is his 30-year-old Yale College transcript (purloined last fall and published by The New Yorker). Yet The Washington Post's subsequent revelation of Gore's unimpressive academic record has done little to alter the...