Free Republic

Future Bleak for Bill to Keep Health Records Confidential By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON -- Legislation to protect the privacy of medical records is dying under pressure from insurance companies, health care businesses, law-enforcement officials and others lobbying Congress to preserve their access to sensitive information on patients. As envisioned, the bill was supposed to establish comprehensive federal standards for the confidentiality of medical records. The goal of a uniform medical privacy standard was originally shared by consumer advocates and the health care industry, which now operates under rules that vary from state to state. But some consumer and privacy advocates ...

G.O.P. Retreating From Hard Stand Against Abortion By RICHARD L. BERKE WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party has undergone a fundamental repositioning, and softening, of its stand on abortion, recognizing that a more tolerant position on probably the most divisive issue in American politics is crucial to its hopes of reclaiming the White House. Several major presidential candidates are barely mentioning abortion on the stump, if at all. Some members of Congress are concentrating on other issues, like taxes and education. Even some leaders of the anti-abortion movement have moderated their positions, all in the name of political pragmatism. Historically, Republicans ...

Monday, June 21, 1999 Edition Texas gun law a campaign issue AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Almost as soon as it was signed into law, a state measure blocking Texas cities from suing gun and ammunition makers and dealers has become an issue between presidential hopefuls. Elsewhere around the nation, nearly two dozen cities and counties - including Miami, Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit - have sued gun makers in efforts to recover damages for crimes involving firearms. Gun manufacturers say they should not be held responsible for accidents or criminal acts. The leading GOP candidate for president, Texas Gov. George ...

THE mainland's air combat strength and military ties with Russia have been boosted with Moscow's decision to sell 72 of its front-line Sukhoi-30 jet fighter-bombers to Beijing.Following years of negotiations, Russian President Boris Yeltsin has given the green light to sell three squadrons of the state-of-art combat aircraft to the mainland, Russian diplomats said.Moscow and Beijing had agreed in principle to negotiations on the sale during Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to Russia early this year, Moscow-based diplomats said.Until recently, both countries had only agreed on 72 twin-finned and twin-engined jets following the US-led Nato air strikes against Yugoslavia, which ...

June 20 update -- On Friday, by a lop-sided vote of 280-147, the House killed a bill containing mandatory background checks on private sales at gun shows, requiring trigger locks to be sold with all new and used handguns, banning imports of over-10-round magazines, prohibiting gun ownership for life for violent juveniles, and prohibiting possession of "assault weapons" and high-cap magazines by all under 18, President Clinton and the press have been screaming that it was a great victory for the NRA. It would have been except that it was Clinton and all but 10 Democrats, aided by 82 ...

China calls for end to ``superstition'' By Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING, June 21 (Reuters) - China's atheist Communist Party, apparently alarmed by a quasi-religious sect's peaceful siege of the country's leadership compound in April, said on Monday that ``superstition'' must be stamped out. ``Advocate science. Do away with superstition,'' screamed the headline of a front-page commentary in the Communist Party newspaper. ``We should be highly vigilant against superstition for it may confuse our thinking, undermine our fighting will, shake our beliefs and destroy our cohesiveness,'' the People's Daily said. ``In order to win in the present atmosphere of fierce international ...

Outrage at 'suggestive' Tarzan IAN MARKHAM-SMITH in Los Angeles Toy company Mattel has been forced to change a new model based on Tarzan, the latest Disney cartoon film hero, after complaints that the doll's movements are sexually suggestive. When switched on, the 31cm Tarzan doll moves his right arm from below his loin cloth up to his chest as he gives out a familiar jungle yell. However, the spring-loaded arm can be pumped up and down rapidly if the activating button is depressed repeatedly - making it appear the doll is performing a sex act. The discovery has caused outrage ...

If you read the New York Times you could easily get the idea the NATO won a great victory in Kosovo. The entire establishment is busy congratulating itself and Bill Clinton for facing up to Slobodan Milosevic and making the Balkans into a showplace of multicultural harmony. There are times, and this is one, when one wonders whether our governing elite can really be as juvenile and stupid as it appears. The war for Kosovo was lost before it started. Milosevic proved that he could defy the combined power of the entire Western World for the better part of ...

The principals of school reform With all the hoopla over vouchers last week, you may have missed one small step toward school reform taken in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia School Board approved bonuses for principals. And the principals objected. Principals in Philly public schools, who make about $80,000 a year, recently got a 4 percent pay increase. The bonuses, which would range from an additional 1.5 percent to 3 percent, would be handed out by the district based on performance. There's the rub. The principals' union says the plan allows management too much discretion to be "subjective." Union president Michael Axelrod ...

Nuclear Weapons Program Debated By JIM ABRAMS .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department's bureaucracy has failed to take several steps key to reducing the threat of espionage and should cede control of the country's nuclear weapons program to a new agency, the head of a presidential panel on nuclear weapons security said Sunday. But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, reiterating the administration's position, said he wouldn't give up authority over weapons production. ``What I don't want is a new agency that is autonomous, that does not report to me,'' he said on ``Fox News Sunday.'' ``The attitude ...

Polygraphs start for 5,000 at U.S. Energy - report WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - In the wake of allegations of spying by China, the federal government has begun polygraphing an estimated 5,000 nuclear weapons scientists and other sensitive employees at the Department of Energy, the Washington Post reported Monday. The newspaper said it was the first time the wholesale use of lie-detector tests had been extended beyond the CIA and the National Security Agency. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told the Post in an interview that he had ordered the testing in response to allegations that Chinese spies stole nuclear secrets from national ...

Good News! There's no explaining the number 1, I don't know anyone who has read what Tom Brokaw has to say about anything. Maybe the subject is so compelling in this era of Bill Clinton, I don't know. But according to the NYTimes, people are very interested in spies, lies, and Jesse Ventura. 1 THE GREATEST GENERATION, by Tom Brokaw. (Random House, $24.95.) The lives of men and women who came of age during the Depression and World War II. 2 EVERY MAN A TIGER, by Tom Clancy with Chuck Horner. (Putnam, $27.95.) The novelist and a retired Air Force ...

Korean Waters Spark Accusations .c The Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea says South Korean warships have been intruding into its territorial waters since last week's bloody naval clash and is threatening to retaliate. The North Korean accusations and warning came on the eve of talks between the two Koreas in Beijing on Monday, the first government contact between the two rival Korean states in 14 months. ``The enemies must know that there is a limit to our patience,'' the North's navy said in a statement Sunday night. ``They must stop acting rashly, mindful that every movement ...

Serb electricity plants could be repaired -Chirac COLOGNE, June 20 (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac said on Sunday that the reconstruction of electricity plants in Serbia could be considered as humanitarian aid, but not the repair of bridges in the country. ``Do electricity plants count as humanitarian aid? Maybe not all. But they do provide heating for homes in winter so we should discuss what is humanitarian aid and what is not,'' Chirac said in an interview with CNN. During the interview, recorded at the end of the G8 summit in Cologne, the French President said that on the other ...

Gore fires blanks on gun control bill BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Vice President Al Gore, lobbying hard for gun control, struck out when he telephoned a veteran Democrat: Rep. Norman Sisisky of Virginia, second-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Responding to the vice president, Sisisky said he supported the gun control plan endorsed by the National Rifle Association and opposed by the White House because he did not want to repeat the Democratic carnage of 1994 caused by the assault-rifle ban. In the opinion of Sisisky and other Democratic moderates, the gun issue gave Republicans control of ...

Bush-Gore Race Is Armageddon For Trial Lawyers By Morton M. Kondracke The 2000 presidential election could be Armageddon on the tort reform issue, with the nation's trial lawyers spending vast sums to defeat their nemesis, Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R). Bush pushed a sweeping legal-reform package through the Texas legislature in his first term as governor. He tried to raise taxes on law firms. Bush also fought the award of $3.3 billion to the lawyers who negotiated Texas' $17 billion settlement with tobacco companies. And he makes it clear that tort reform is a major item on his presidential ...

"Simple Man" (To be sung to Charlie Daniels Band's "Simple Man") I ain't nuthin' but a simple man...Left calls me a redneck, reckon that I am... But there's things goin' on make me mad down to the core! I gotta work like a dog...I'm enslaved to DeeCee... Where crooked politicians sell our Nukes to Chinese, And I'm madder than Hell and I ain't gonna take it no more! Reagan told our kids to, "Just Say No!" But then Ol' Slick Willie jokes, "Let's have another toke!" Tells us 'bout his briefs, then laughs while his intern goes down. Well, if ...

The Cox Report1 establishes the nexus among Chinese espionage, trade with China, and illegal Chinese campaign donations. They are all cut from the same cloth, and the Cox Report stitches the pieces back together. That Communist China engaged in massive espionage to acquire U.S. military secrets, which can some day be used to threaten us and our allies, comes as no surprise. What is sensational about the Cox Report is the scope of China's success, and that it was achieved with the assistance of lax security, commercial transactions that concealed the transfer of military technology, and illegal campaign contributions to ...

Conservative Principles:        Worth Fighting For       Investor's Business Daily By Dan Quayle For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Elections should not be popularity contests, but battles about the ideas and the principles that govern our future. Unfortunately, in pursuit of what the media elite defines as “electability,” my party is now on its way to neglecting this truth. The Republican Party must regain the courage of its conservative convictions. We can no longer act like a vanquished army simply waiting for the next order to retreat. I believe achieving this transformation requires that we reject the ...

Too many commentators are missing the point about the national security significance of the Cox Report and its revelation of China's theft of U.S. nuclear secrets. It is time to face the truth: This president and this administration are singularly culpable for orchestrating a politically inspired coverup to advance policies they knew were causing harm to U.S. national security.Let's not be distracted by the self-serving Clinton spin: everybody does it; that it all happened during previous administrations; that there is equal blame to go around on all sides, that Bill Clinton acted quickly and properly when he found out. All ...