Free Republic

LAS VEGAS -The hosts of the 46th annual Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon said Sunday that Jerry Lewis retired from the organization and its yearly fundraiser — the charity's first comments about the beloved icon's departure since an announcement last month. Lewis publicist Candi Cazau declined comment to The Associated Press when told of the statements that opened the telethon on Sunday. Co-host Nigel Lythgoe said during his opening comments on the telethon that he didn't realize Lewis, 85, was thinking about retirement during the show last year, when the comedian offered Lythgoe his seat as Lewis took a break and...

Cleveland, OH - The Cleveland Municipal School District, scratching for every penny, could use the nearly $5 million paid to employees who have retired since last summer. Records show that 269 employees cashed in that amount of accumulated vacation and sick leave since the fiscal year started July 1. Topping the list are two administrators who each collected about $83,000, one after working in the system for four years. Nearly 70 percent of the employees picked up at least $10,000 in what the district calls severance; more than 40 percent received $20,000 or more.

Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced that she will retire after her current term expires. In a letter released Thursday, Hutchison said she will not run for re-election in 2012. Hutchison has said she might retire and then changed her mind several times in the last few years. In 2010, she challenged Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary for governor, but lost. Hutchison has been in the Senate since 1993.

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founder of Southern California's Crystal Cathedral megachurch and host of the "Hour of Power" televangelism broadcast, announced Sunday he will retire after 55 years in the pulpit and his daughter will take over. The 83-year-old Schuller told his congregation that Sheila Schuller Coleman will become sole lead pastor, after sharing that role with her father for the past year. Coleman previously served as principal of a private Christian school run by the cathedral and head of the Orange County church's family ministries division.

State Sen. Pat Pariseau began her long political career on a lark. Her husband "was the one interested in politics — especially Barry Goldwater" in the 1970s, she said, and he attended a Republican caucus with some high school buddies. Over breakfast the next morning, Ken Pariseau had a surprise. "He said to me, 'You're a delegate,' " she recalled last week from her St. Paul office. "I said: 'What on earth are you talking about? What am I going to do? ' " Despite her misgivings, she went to that year's Republican convention. "He thought I might enjoy it,"...

After just one term in Congress, Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., has reportedly decided against running for reelection. Massa is slated to hold a conference call with reporters to talk about the decision later Wednesday afternoon, but early reports suggest it could be health related. In the 1990's, while serving as special assistant to Gen. Wes Clark, then supreme allied commander of NATO, Massa was diagnosed with terminal cancer; after treatment, however, the cancer was reportedly in remission. However, the New York Daily News has unnamed "sources close to the congressman" talking about a possible ethics investigation.

Washington – "I do not love Congress." Call it the shot heard round the Capitol. With a $13 million war chest and a lead in the polls, Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana appeared on track to reelection – until he decided that he'd had enough of what the Senate had become. "I am not motivated by strident partisanship or ideology," he said at a Feb. 15 press conference. ... To date, 12 senators have announced retirements - the second-highest number of Senate retirees in 75 years. The high-water mark was 13 departures in 1996. As in years past, some...

It is my understanding that the tax laws governing campaign funds require that if a person holding office does not use up all of the money held in the campaign fund when that person ceases to hold that office must transmit all the remaining money in the campaign fund to at least one non-profit organization. Which means that if the office-holder sets up a new non-profit before quitting office, the remaining campaign funds can be channeled to the person's new non-profit tax-free (they were also tax-free to begin with). When Bob Dole left the Senate, I think he had a...

If a U.S. Supreme Court justice steps down in the coming months, the Bush administration may have an easier time filling the seat with a conservative nominee than is generally expected, some political analysts argue. The first full term in which Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and Associate Justice Samuel Alito have served together is drawing to a close, and the country is again bracing for the possibility of another justice retiring from the bench. Retirement speculation focuses on Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both liberals. Stevens is 87 years old; and although Ginsburg is 13 years...

Okay, this is my first vanity post, so let's just have some fun with it.... Where are you going to move when you retire, and why, is what this post is all about, I'm retiring in less than a year, and my husband and I are moving to the Ozarks and build a house on a lake.

List of Characteristics Important to Black Americans Cited Today's announcement of a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court provides President George W. Bush with an important duty that has the potential to affect judicial decision-making for generations to come. Members of the black leadership network Project 21 are calling upon the President to ensure that all nominees under consideration will preserve and protect the U.S Constitution. Peter Kirsanow, a Project 21 member and commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said: "I'm confident that the President will nominate someone with integrity and wisdom who understands that the proper role...

Others with close White House connections say a short list is well into development. "There's a normal process that the White House has definitely been pursuing for at least six months where they are soliciting views and recommendations," said Samuel B. Casey, executive director of the Christian Legal Society (CLS). "We have submitted our views." Said one top Republican official with close ties to the White House: "The same four or five or six names keep coming up. I'm sure they have a short list already." Top administration and White House officials -- including Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Solicitor...

The departures of Jim Jeffords (I-VT) and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) will result in competitive US Senate elections in 2006 in two states where Republicans are not historically strong, though the special circumstances that apply to those seats make them within reach of the GOP. The former will have special meaning for Republicans since its occupant unilaterally handed control of the US Senate to the opposing party from 2001 to 2003. Because the Republicans enjoyed a historic victory in the 2002 midterms, the actions of the Benedict Arnold from the home of Ethan Allen had limited implications, aside from giving the...

Brokaw, Rather, Jennings and other old lions know a new age is coming, and so they're muttering a bit as they leave the stage. Who can blame them? The world in which they acquired wealth and celebrity has crumbled with startling speed. A new order has arisen. Journalism, no longer a redoubt of the illuminati, has become a vessel of grubby democracy. Anybody — literally, anybody — can play these days. They can insert their views in a weblog. They can call talk radio. Eccentric plutocrats, such as George Soros, get to spend bundles on advertisements in any and all...

In south Texas, along the windswept Gulf Coast where multitudes of hurricanes have made landfall over the centuries, there are three history-filled, ahead-of-their-time counties: Galveston, Brazoria, and Matagorda. Until the early 1980s government entities, such as cities and counties, had the right of opting out of Social Security and establishing their own retirement system. This option had been provided when the Social Security Act was passed in the thirties. Galveston County in 1979 looked into this idea when then - County Attorney Bill Decker contacted Don Kebodeaux, highly successful Houston businessman, and asked him if he could devise a plan...

To: ChronWatch Writers From: Marv Essary, associate editor I will turn 79 next month, and have been diagnosed with a new case of diabetes. So after 2 1/2 years I have notifed Jim Sparkman, the owner of ChronWatch, that I am ready to retire. My last day is Wednesday,December 1. I have greatly enjoyed being a pajama-clad blogger and site editor for an e-zine which has become a successful part of the New Media. But I need to retire and spend more time with my family and attend to some other aspects of my personal life. I have especially enjoyed...

SACRAMENTO - With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's promotion of his environmental secretary, a retiring state senator from Santa Cruz is trying to line up support to assume that key Cabinet-level post. An aide to Sen. Bruce McPherson, a moderate Republican known for his support of open-space and coastal protection, has contacted environmental leaders, quietly gauging their backing now that Schwarzenegger has named California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Terry Tamminen his new Cabinet secretary. Tamminen is slated to leave the California EPA on Dec. 1. Because of term limits, McPherson must depart the state Senate the following week. McPherson said no one...

Excerpts: Sen. Fritz Hollings, the 82-year-old South Carolina Democrat, is sitting on his office sofa, telling stories in his inimitable style, which is funny and caustic. Suddenly, his eyes close and his chin drops to his chest. He looks like a man who's about to drool on his impeccable blue-and-white pinstripe shirt....So, after 38 years in the Senate, Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings is heading home to Charleston with his wife, Peatsy.... Reporters: "They just look for a smart-ass remark. They already got their stories written, and they're just looking for filler to show they did a little bit of work."...

A standing-room-only crowd watched, teary-eyed but smiling, as a Florida Army National Guardsman was ceremoniously retired from military service at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here Feb. 21. Soldiers, civilians and children filled the conference room for the occasion. Staff Sgt. Dustin Tuller sat at attention in a wheelchair, his Class A uniform trousers neatly folded beneath his left hip and right thigh, as his battalion commander read the official orders retiring him from the Army. The 28-year-old college student, father of four and infantryman, had both legs amputated after being wounded in an attack in Iraq in December. Army...