Rush Limbaugh was arrested Friday on prescription drug charges, law enforcement officials said.

Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities on a warrant issued by the state attorney's office, said agency spokeswoman Teri Barbera.

The conservative radio commentator came into the jail at about 4 p.m. with his attorney Roy Black and was released an hour later on $3,000 bail, Barbera said.

The warrant was for fraud to conceal information to obtain prescription, Barbera said.

Charles Bass, NH-02
Steve Chabot, OH-01
Tom Davis, VA-11
Mark Foley, FL-16
Rodney Frelinghuysen, NJ-11
Gil Gutknecht, MN-01
Doc Hastings, WA-04
J.D. Hayworth, AZ-08
John Hostettler, IN-09
Walter Jones, NC-03
Sue Kelly, NY-19
Ray LaHood, IL-18
Tom Latham, IA-04
Steven LaTourette, OH-14
Sue Myrick, NC-09
Robert Ney, OH-18
Charlie Norwood, GA-09
George Radanovich, CA-19
John Shadegg, AZ-03
Mac Thornberry, TX-13
Todd Tiahrt, KS-04
Dave Weldon, FL-15
Jerry Weller, IL-11
Ed Whitfield, KY-01
Roger Wicker, MS-01
Sen. Mike DeWine, OH
Sen. Jon Kyl, AZ
Sen. Rick Santorum, PA
Sen. Olympia Snowe, ME
Sen. Craig Thomas, WY

"I’ll be fighting to ensure that no steps are taken toward drilling off of North Carolina’s coast. Offshore drilling not only would be harmful to our environment, it would be detrimental to an industry that is extremely important to North Carolina’s coastal economy – tourism."

Four North Carolina members of Congress are co-sponsoring legislation to allow natural gas exploration off the state's coast.

Reps. Virginia Foxx, Patrick McHenry, Sue Myrick and Charles Taylor, all Republicans, signed onto the bill seeking to lift the federal ban on offshore drilling.

"I think that it is not right for us to ignore natural resources that we have that could reduce energy prices," Foxx said.

President Bush today said he had tried to avoid war with Iraq "diplomatically to the max."

I had a dream, but it turned to dust.
What I thought was love, that must have been lust.
I was living in style when the walls fell in.
When I played my hand, I looked like a joker.
Turn around, fate must have woke her,
'Cause lady luck she was waiting outside the door...
--"Winning" by Santana (1981)

A dean's list student at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg has been asked to leave the university after he revealed that he is gay on his page on a popular website.

Jason Johnson, 20, of Lexington, a near straight-A's student, revealed his sexuality on his MySpace.com web page. Johnson said the Cumberlands administrator asked him to leave the school Thursday. He said officials told him they don't approve of his gay lifestyle.

Cumberlands president, Dr. James H. Taylor, said in a written statement, "At University of the Cumberlands, we hold students to a higher standard than does society he general...University of the Cumberlands isn't for everyone. We tell prospective students about our high standards before they come. There are places students with predispositions can go such as San Francisco and the left coast or to many of the state schools."

Brett Hall, a spokesman for Gov. Ernie Fletcher, said Wednesday the governor hasn't yet decided whether to use his line-item veto power to remove the funding for the pharmacy school from the state budget.

Hall said Fletcher is concerned that the proposed pharmacy school might not be able to win accreditation because of its policy against accepting gay and lesbian students. Hall said the governor also has sought a legal opinion from his general counsel about whether the state can give money for a building project to a religious institution.

• abridgement of citizens' right to change their government
• security force torture, beating, and other physical abuse of prisoners and detainees
• harsh and life-threatening prison conditions
• impunity
• arbitrary arrest, detention, and incommunicado detention
• harassment, detention, and deportation of foreign residents
• judicial corruption and lack of due process
• restrictions on the right of privacy
• severe restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press
• restrictions on the rights of assembly, association, and movement
• government corruption
• restrictions on human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
• violence and discrimination against women
• trafficking in persons
• discrimination against ethnic minorities and HIV/AID victims
• restrictions on labor rights
• forced labor
• child labor

I believe healthcare is a right to all Americans, I know you don't and we will get no place arguing about that. Here's the thing about entitlement that makes healthcare different than any other business in this nation. If you walk in to a car dealership and want a car but have no way to pay for it the car dealer is under no ethical obligation and has taken no oath that says he has to give you a car. When you walk into an ER with a gaping chest wound that you would like repaired but you have no way to pay for it the Doctor in that room took an Oath and is under ethical obligation to provide you with care that may help repair that chest wound. We have millions of people without means to pay clogging up our ER's and the costs are going up for everyone else as a result and whether you want to believe it or not, that is what leads to higher taxes and higher insurance premiums.

I hope we can both agree that our current system is broken. Mass. has developed a system that tries to deal with that. I said, I don't love the plan, but at least it's something. We are one of only 2 industrialized countries in the world that doesn't insure all of its citizens. We have the best healthcare technology in the world; we develop the most new treatments, the most cutting edge Diagnostics.We have the best hospitals and medical schools in the entire world...and yet, according to the CDC we rank 17th in the world in life expectancy and 28th in the world in infant mortality.

Maybe if instead of referring to infant mortality we called it unintentional abortion more Republicans would jump on board in reforming the current system.

Massachusetts is set to become the first state to set up a system of virtually compulsory health insurance in the only major industrial nation not to have universal care.

The northeastern state's Democratic-controlled legislature passed a law on Tuesday night setting out the system. The Republican governor, Mitt Romney, said he will sign the law with only minor modifications.

The legislation requires that all of the state's population of about 6.3 million people have medical insurance by July 1, 2007.

No new taxes are planned but employers with more than 10 staff -- who do not provide health insurance -- will have to make a contribution of about 295 dollars per worker. The plan will cost about 1.2 billion dollars over three years.

Massachusetts residents who are already covered will see their contributions fall slightly while the poor will receive improved coverage and public subsidies to help them pay.

Those who do not have insurance and refuse to subsribe to health insurance will face mounting tax penalties.

Under the plan, some 515,000 people in the state without health insurance will get it within three years. This represents about 95 percent of the uninsured.

When an Orlando mall security officer responded to a complaint about a man exposing himself to a girl in the food court, the suspect hurried out of the mall and ran through the parking lot.

The suspect was Frank Figueroa, then one of Florida's highest-ranking federal law enforcement officers and the former head of a national program formed to target child sex predators. Since his Oct. 25 arrest at The Mall at Millenia, Figueroa has been suspended from his post as the special agent in charge of the Tampa office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

Figueroa is charged with exposure of sexual organs and disorderly conduct, which carry a potential punishment of more than a year in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

So DeLay is out. But it's DeLay's House. DeLay's Republican DC machine. They built and fortified it with the money he brought in. The great majority of them voted for the "DeLay Rule" custom tailored for Majority Leader DeLay to avoid stepping down even after indictment. The current Republican membership of the House ethics committee was hand-picked to provide protection for DeLay and the old membership was purged. He's their guy. Their rule rests on his machine. They can run but they can't hide.