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June 6th. 7-Disc set. YEAH!!! :)

For Steve Smith, former editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, innovation didn't stop the decline of his paper. Since becoming editor in 2002, Smith worked hard to modernize The Spokesman-Review. He streamed editorial meetings online and greatly expanded the online staff. The paper collaborated with an AM radio station and added a sound studio. And last December, Smith even cut the staff from 140 to 104. But when he was informed of another round of layoffs, including much of the online staff he'd recently hired, he refused, and last week he resigned. He’s been in the newspaper business for...

SPOKANE -- It was a day of reckoning for Spokane Mayor Jim West. The preliminary results of the historic mayor recall election as posted by the Spokane County Elections Office show "Yes" votes as 38,718 or 65% to 20,681 "No" votes. The "No" votes equaled 35% of the vote total. It has been a long road for all involved in the recall election. The scandal broke seven months ago when the Spokesman-Review published their investigative report on the mayor....

SPOKANE — Mayor Jim West was recalled from office Tuesday in a special election prompted by news accounts that he offered City Hall jobs and perks to young men he met in a gay Internet chat room.In the city's first all-mail election, 38,718, or 65 percent, voted "yes" for recall, while 20,681, or 35 percent, voted to retain West, 54, who became the city's first elected chief executive to be ousted before his term expired.Just more than half of the 110,000 ballots mailed to voters in the city were counted in the first batch of results released Tuesday night."I...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) A tally of mail-in votes shows Mayor James E. West has been recalled from office over allegations he used his office computer to woo young gay men over the Internet.

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Mayor Jim West faces recall Tuesday over a sex-tinged abuse-of-office charge that he offered a City Hall internship to an 18-year-old he met in a gay chat room. But the young man West offered a job - allegedly in anticipation of sex - never existed. The Gay.com profile West knew as "motobrock" was a ruse The Spokesman-Review used to track the mayor's online activities. West has acknowledged having relationships with young men but has denied doing anything illegal.

RITZVILLE, Wash. - A judge on Thursday granted a newspaper's request to make public gay-themed material from Spokane Mayor James E. West's City Hall laptop computer, but placed restrictions on the release of images from a gay-oriented Web site. Judge Richard Miller ordered the release of an index showing the dates and times West used the computer to access Gay.com and other Web sites. But the judge said the Web addresses of member profiles West viewed on the site's dating service would be obscured, and images on the mayor's hard drive would not be released, to protect the privacy of...

Spokane Mayor Jim West's city-owned computer contains 1,800 files, at least half of them photos, that he doesn't want the public to see, according to new court filings. "From what I've been told by a city attorney, the mayor's computer contains pornographic pictures and probably very sexually descriptive correspondence with people he met on chat lines with his City Hall computer," City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers told The Spokesman-Review for a Saturday report. West declined to comment Friday on his decision to challenge release of the files. The files apparently include photos of young men the mayor met on gay Web...

Spokane, Wash. (AP) -- Organizers of an effort to recall Mayor James E. West because of a sex scandal delivered more than 17,000 petition signatures to election officials Wednesday. If 12,567 are valid, the recall can go to a special vote-by-mail election ballot Nov. 29. The Spokane County auditor must wait five days before counting the signatures. The petitions were delivered by Shannon Sullivan, a political novice who led the campaign, and attorney Jerry Davis, who beat West's attorneys in a state Supreme Court fight to allow the effort to go forward.

SPOKANE -- It's been a year of staggering news for a region that likes to bill itself as a good place to raise a family. The Spokane area seems awash in pedophiles. Local residents were already reeling from months of revelations about pedophile Catholic priests when a judge ruled last week that individual parishes, parochial schools and other church property may be sold to pay off victims and their lawyers. This spring, the local newspaper reported that Mayor Jim West used the Internet to seek dates with young men and allegedly molested boys as a sheriff's deputy decades ago. West...

Spokane -- A personal computer and related records were seized in an FBI search of embattled Mayor James E. West's home as part of a federal investigation into public corruption allegations, The Spokesman-Review reported Friday on its Web page. West, who is fighting allegations that he used his office to offer City Hall jobs to young men he met in a gay online chat room, was present with an attorney when FBI agents searched his West Spokane home July 26, the newspaper reported. West and his attorneys could not be immediately reached for comment Friday afternoon. The warrant is based...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Lawyers for Mayor James E. West, accused of offering city jobs to men he met in a gay online chat room, are appealing a judge's ruling allowing a recall petition drive to proceed. West, former state Senate leader and opponent of gay rights, has denied any criminal or unethical conduct and has rejected calls to resign. "The citizens of Spokane deserve to know why I have decided to appeal," West wrote in a letter submitted to The Spokesman-Review newspaper. "Simply put, it is because the charges are false, and the ballot statement they would vote on was...

SPOKANE, Wash. -- People wrote vicious messages to Mayor James E. West after a newspaper outed him as a closeted homosexual with a fondness for young men, according to a first batch of e-mails released by the mayor's office on Tuesday. More than 2,000 pages of e-mails to and from West's office were released after news organizations made public records requests. Many more pages will be released in coming weeks after they are cleared by the city attorney. A scan of the e-mails released Tuesday showed that most were relatively routine, until The Spokesman-Review on May 5 began a series...

An embattled Mayor Jim West, facing Spokane media for the first time in the month-long sexual misconduct scandal at City Hall, vowed not to resign and to pay for his own legal defense – even borrowing money from his elderly father if necessary. "I can still continue to be an effective mayor … . I never violated my oath of office, and I never used my office in violation of the law or for any personal gain," West said. West singled out two powerful Democrats – former Washington Gov. Mike Lowry and ex-President Bill Clinton – for surviving sex scandals...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The Spokane City Council unanimously asked Mayor James E. West to resign over allegations he misused his office and molested two children - claims the mayor vowed to fight from his post. The seven-member council's vote Tuesday evening was advisory. West can only be ousted by a citywide recall vote. "The city of Spokane is consumed by this issue, both inside and outside of City Hall," council president Dennis Hession said in explaining his vote. Hours before the vote, West, 55, appeared on NBC's "Today" show in New York and denied any misuse of his office...

Spokane -- Embattled Mayor Jim West, accused of past sexual misconduct and using his office for personal gain, maintained his innocence in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday. "I haven't misused my office for personal gain. I haven't done anything illegal," he said. A series of Spokesman-Review articles beginning May 5 included accusations the 55-year-old West had molested two boys while he was a Spokane County sheriff's deputy in the mid-1970s and of more recently abusing the office of mayor to solicit sex from young men. West, a Republican former state Senate majority leader and gay rights opponent, has...

The private lives of two high-profile social conservatives, one from the Northwest and one from the Southeast, are in the news. James E. West, as mayor of Spokane and in his 20-year career in the Washington state Senate, has consistently battled gay marriage, benefits for homosexual couples, and other violations of traditional morality. When in the legislature, he advocated a bill that would outlaw all sex between teenagers. But The Spokesman-Review, a Spokane newspaper that has supported Mr. West politically, hired an investigator to pose as a 17-year-old boy whom Mr. West then solicited for sex on a gay porn...

Spokane -- New allegations of misconduct surfaced Tuesday against Mayor James West, who has rejected demands for his resignation amid allegations he offered city jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms. According to The Spokesman-Review, state Sen. Pam Roach said that when West served in the Legislature, he made an inappropriate sexual comment to her about her teenage son. The newspaper also said a man claimed that he was inappropriately touched during a pat-down search when West was a sheriff's deputy in the 1970s. Through his attorney, Bill Etter, West denied the published reports. "Mr. West denies...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Mayor Jim West yesterday apologized for using "poor judgment," but rejected a demand by local business leaders to resign amid charges that he offered city jobs to men he met in homosexual chat rooms. Mr. West, 55, apologized for using "poor judgment in my private life." He didn't elaborate, but has previously said he visited the Internet site Gay.com and had relations with adult men. It was his first press conference since returning from a brief leave of absence.

The Apostle Paul said, "Let us behave decently." And at one time not so very long ago, the majority of Americans believed that behaving decently was the right thing to do. Decency, respect, and civilization go hand in hand. But modern libertine man has spurned decency, because where decency is, libertinism, which goes hand in hand with disrespect and indecency, can not exist openly. Writing in "Judaisms Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism And Then Christianity Rejected Homosexuality," Dennis Prager said; '.....Human sexuality, especially male sexuality.....is utterly wild. Men have had sex with women.....men....little girls and young boys....a single partner...large groups....immediate family...