Free Republic

IRATE INMATE CHARGES BENCH IN EMBASSY-BOMB TRIAL By AL GUART Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden's personal secretary erupted in a rage in Manhattan federal court yesterday - jumping a divider and charging at the startled judge. About an hour into a hearing on whether defense lawyers in the case should undergo background checks, Wadih el Hage jumped out of the jury box and ran across the front of the courtroom as one of four other defendants shouted, "God is Great," in Arabic. The bearded and wiry accused terrorist - facing trial over the bombing of two U.S. Embassies in ...

Someone once mentioned my DEATH OF A NATION report should be made into a television special and I've been thinking... Do any FReepers out there have access to production equipment like videotape editing machines and what not? If anyone does, please let me know. I would like to get together with you and turn this puppy into a primetime TV special. There are public access cable channels all over the country looking for quality programming to air and we should give it to them. They will air it, too. That is what they exist for. Federal law mandates all local ...

I watched part of the 3 hour hearings today and Sen. Inhofe rocked! Hey, almost all of them did because they weren't taking Richardson's BS! I was upset it wouldn't be repeated but it will this AM. Also the big deal...Freepers get ready for Washington Journal Call In this am... NOTE: CSpan II 05:16am to 08:28am ET 02:16am to 05:28am PT Senate Committee Security at Department of Energy Laboratories Cmte.: Energy and Natural Resources Cmte.: Select Intelligence Cmte.: Governmental Affairs Cmte.: Armed Services Dirksen Senate Office Building ID : 125241 Length : 3 hr 11 min Event date : 06/23/99 ...

2 DEM BIGS WANT NUKES YANKED OUT OF ENERGY By BRIAN BLOMQUIST WASHINGTON - The drive to shake up and refashion the Energy Department, a favorite hunting ground for Chinese spies, picked up steam yesterday and now appears inevitable. Two influential Democrats, Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, endorsed a plan to strip the nuclear-weapons program from the rest of the Energy Department. "We need to change the law and reorganize the agency," Kerrey said. Lieberman said he was convinced that "fundamental change is critically needed at the labs" after reading the findings of an ...

Kargil Special GILMAN CALLS FOR BIPARTISAN SUPPORT TO COMPEL PAK TO WITHDRAW The Indian Express Wednesday, June 23, 1999 WASHINGTON: Two influential senators in the U.S. congress have squarely blamed Pakistan for the infiltration into Kargil and called for bipartisan support for "the actions taken by the state department aimed at compelling Pakistan to immediately withdraw its troops from India." "The responsibility for the unnecessary deaths and casualties as well as displacement of thousands of innocent civilians resulting from the recent fighting (in Kargil) falls squarely on the infiltrators and their patrons in the Pakistani military," republican Bejamin Gilman ...

1740 GMT, 990622 – Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that Russian relations with NATO were "inflicted a heavy damage" by the Yugoslav conflict, and that NATO bombing "ran against the spirit and the letter of the Russia-NATO Founding Act." Ivanov said that the Russian government had worked to improve NATO’s negative image in the eyes of the Russian people and that the future of the Founding Act was being "seriously considered." 1643 GMT, 990622  – President Clinton urged Kosovar refugees in Macedonian camps not to rush into Kosovo before their safety was assured. Clinton urged the refugees to wait ...

By now I assume most of you have heard that Pat Buchanaan may seek the Reform party nomination, which has begun to shake things up abit. I was hollering a while back that the "primary" was our election, if we didn't get a "changer of ideas" in place the country is lost. Well, it's nearly for sure this "changer" isn't going to be coming through the Republican party. Anyone that revolutionary will not be allowed on the platform with the "real" candidates I'm going to keep my eyes on this Reform party, if the right people come into play then ...

Suit Filed Over Fla. School Vouchers By JACKIE HALLIFAX .c The Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Opponents of Florida's statewide school voucher program filed a lawsuit Tuesday, saying it is unconstitutional and will destroy public education while breaking down the wall between church and state. The law creating the vouchers, signed a day earlier by Gov. Jeb Bush, allows parents to send their children to private or parochial schools at taxpayer expense. It is the only statewide voucher program in the country. Students in failing schools can choose to go to private school with the tax dollars that would ...

Fordice Resigns Quayle Campaign By GINA HOLLAND .c The Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Gov. Kirk Fordice announced Tuesday he was resigning as a national co-chairman of the Dan Quayle presidential campaign amid a love triangle that has shaken his office. Fordice, 65, said he hoped his wife Pat Fordice would give him a speedy divorce so he can marry a woman he's known 50 years, Ann G. Creson of Memphis, Tenn. The governor rebuffed questions on whether his affair is at odds with the family values campaigns that got him elected in 1991 and re-elected in 1995, a ...

Church Recommends Allowing Gays .c The Associated Press FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - After more than eight hours of heated debate, a Presbyterian church committee voted Tuesday night to recommend allowing the ordination of gays and lesbians as ministers. In a 24-14 vote, the Church Orders and Ministry committee recommended striking a clause from the church's constitution that forbids the ordination of ``self-affirming, practicing homosexuals'' to the ministry. The issue now goes to the full 560-member assembly later this week during the denomination's annual meeting. Approval would require a simple majority. If the measure passes, it goes before the ordained ...

End of 'Marriage Tax Penalty' Sought By JENNIFER LOVEN .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - With House and Senate Republicans set to release tax-cut legislation next month, there was a renewed push Tuesday to provide relief for millions of couples who pay more taxes just because they're married. The Washington-based Family Research Council is sponsoring a two-week radio ad campaign in 17 congressional districts, including that of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., urging listeners to call their representative and tell them to ``stop the marriage tax.'' Most of the targeted members - 14 Republicans and three Democrats - serve ...

My Wife Lied to Evade Me, Not Customs, Governor Says By RICK BRAGG MIAMI -- The First Lady of Florida was worried about how her husband would react to the fact that she had spent $19,000 on clothes and jewelry during a shopping spree in Paris, and that is why she told United States Customs Service agents that she had spent only $500, Gov. Jeb Bush says. "I can assure you, it was a difficult weekend at our house," Bush said this week, adding that his wife, Columba, was suffering "a deep feeling of remorse" over her decision to undervalue ...

Senate Kills Effort to Impose Tight Limits on Steel Imports By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Tuesday blocked the passage of a bill that would have sharply restricted imports of foreign steel to the United States, a blow to unions and steelmakers and a victory for President Clinton, who had warned that the legislation would revive protectionism. After some furious last-minute vote-switching, supporters of placing tight quotas on imported steel -- both Democrats and Republicans from steelmaking states that have been hit by Asian imports -- attracted 42 votes of the 60 votes required to end debate ...

Sen. Hatch Says He Will Seek G.O.P. Presidential Nomination By ADAM CLYMER WASHINGTON -- Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah conservative who came to Washington to battle Democratic liberals but has moved toward the center on health and children's issues, said Tuesday that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination. In a series of Senate hallway interviews, Hatch praised Texas Gov. George W. Bush, acknowledging that the governor was the favorite for the nomination. But the senator said that he would be the party's best hope of defeating Vice President Al Gore if Bush faltered. Hatch conceded that much of the ...

Attorney General Janet Reno lied to the world Press and American public...A career U.S. Intelligence Officer tells it all. Click here Read it now on the all new Strategic Intelligence Review.

Milosevic Takes Measures to Restrict Demonstrations By STEVEN ERLANGER BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The Yugoslav Parliament is expected to meet on Thursday to lift the state of wartime emergency, but it will also retain certain restrictions, passing them into law, to deal with expected demonstrations by opposition parties, Yugoslav officials said Tuesday. Under emergency decrees issued on March 24, the first day of the NATO bombings, government censorship was imposed on all media, men of military age were forbidden to leave the country, demonstrations were banned without prior permission and the police were given sweeping powers of search and arrest to ...

WASHINGTON - With government money and attention focused on thwarting biological and chemical weapons targeted at humans, officials are now just barely awakening to an equally insidious and catastrophic threat: agroterror, or biowarfare targeting a nation's animals or crops. At the moment, the United States is highly vulnerable to such an attack and has no means to detect it or immediately thwart it, according to biowarfare and law enforcement experts. Bioterrorism aimed at humans would look "economically pale" against an attack on the agricultural sector, said veterinary pathologist Corrie Brown, an agroterror expert at the University of Georgia. "A terrorist ...

Bill Offers States Leeway on Education Aid By FRANK BRUNI WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders in Congress unveiled an education bill Tuesday that builds significantly on their previous efforts to give state and local governments ever broader discretion over the spending of federal money. Under the proposal, a state could opt out of the current federal financing system, which allocates money for specific, targeted purposes, and instead use most of that federal aid as it wishes, provided that the state first enters into a five-year contract with the Department of Education that holds the state to certain performance goals. If the ...

Washington G.O.P. Turns Out With Glee to Greet Bush By ALISON MITCHELL WASHINGTON -- Gov. George W. Bush was warmly embraced by Washington's Republican establishment today as he swept from a Capitol sit-down with senators to a meeting with about 100 members of the House majority and finally to a glittering fund-raiser attended by a veritable who's who of Republican power brokers. Eager for Presidential coattails in 2000, Congressional Republicans were virtually swooning over the Texan who has quickly become his party's presumed front-runner and unquestioned fund-raising leader. "You just look in his eyes," said Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee, ...

Gov. George W. Bush often tells political audiences that the world remains a dangerous place in the post-Cold War era. But it can also be treacherous on the campaign trail, and the press is about to remind Bush just how treacherous it can be! "The Texas governor had a little trouble with the new world order Tuesday confusing Slovakia, a spinoff from the former Czechoslovakia, with Slovenia, a breakaway from the former Yugoslavia," the KNIGHT RIDDER wire is set to report in Wednesday AM cycles. "Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes acknowledged that her boss is still getting up to speed ...