Free Republic

Women who believe abortion should be outlawed or severely restricted are in the majority, according to a two-year survey by a pro-choice group. The study found that 34 percent of women thought abortion should be limited to extreme cases, such as rape, incest or life-threatening complications, and another 17 percent would make abortion illegal altogether. Only 30 percent of the women surveyed agreed abortion should be generally available. In addition, the survey found that protecting abortion has dropped in priority. When asked to choose priorities from among a list of 12 key issues, only 41 percent of women in the...

<p>Washington -- Religious conservatives pledge an all-out drive to enshrine a ban on same-sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution, calling it the last line of defense against an inevitable court-led destruction of a fundamental social institution.</p> <p>Their Federal Marriage Amendment, after dying with no action in the last Congress, has been reintroduced, this time with 75 House co-sponsors. Senate hearings are scheduled for September, and the proposed amendment has the blessing of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.</p>

<p>As Republicans attempt to oust Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, their effort is fueled by the charge that he and the Democratic-controlled Legislature spent a surge of tax revenue late last decade too freely and for too long.</p> <p>Lawmakers are haggling over a state budget that is 13 days overdue, and recall backers point to irresponsible spending as a key reason for California's staggering shortfall and their conviction that Davis should be tossed out of office.</p>

<p>A group created by organized labor to derail a recall against Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday showed a willingness to play hardball politics when it attempted to indirectly link a Republican congressman financing the recall campaign to Nazi sympathizers.</p> <p>At a news conference, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall ran a 10-minute videotape shot by Democratic operatives during now-U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa's failed run for the U.S. Senate in 1998. The video showed an Issa campaign table set up at the entrance to a Southern California gun show; elsewhere on the grounds, the video showed one or more exhibits displaying a flag with a swastika.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - Opponents of the Republican-led campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis reported Tuesday collecting $344,000 in donations, including $50,000 from Univision president and chief executive A. Jerrold Perenchio.</p> <p>Perenchio is one of California's top political donors and spreads his wealth among Democrats and Republicans. He gave nearly $5 million to candidates and causes in 2001-2002, including more than $1 million to the Republican Party and its candidates for governor and at least $500,000 to Davis.</p>

THE US was attacked a little more than 1½ years ago. This assault was the product of two decades of US weakness in the face of terror and three decades of US fecklessness in the Middle East. From the barely-responded-to bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 to the host of subsequent, little-noticed or quickly forgotten attacks in the later '80s and in the '90s, the US came to be seen as a "weak horse". That characterisation was Osama bin Laden's, and he made it with reason. Similarly, from the oil embargo of 1973 through to the destruction...

<p>GOVERNORS always are presumed to want to be president, but the longing must be especially strong for Gray Davis right now.</p> <p>In the last five years, California has gone from the largest budget surplus in its history to the largest shortfall, a decline trumpeted by Republicans as proof of the governor's fiscal incompetence.</p>

GM crop mishaps unite friends and foes 17:10 18 November 02 NewScientist.com news service Friends and foes of the use of genetic engineering in US agriculture have united in criticising two accidents in which a food crop was contaminated by a crop from the previous year designed to yield pharmaceutical products. The US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announced last week that they had found such genetically modified corn growing in two soybean plots in the states of Iowa and Nebraska. The GM corn had germinated from seeds left from 2001 plantings by the Texas-based company...