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Incompetence, malfeasance, negligence — such are the words the panel headed by former New Hampshire senator Warren Rudman used to describe the security breakdown at the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories. The report of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, "Science at its Best, Security at its Worst," detailed the failures that allowed Communist China to acquire almost all of this nation's nuclear weapons secrets. And the fact is that the security problems at the nation's nuclear labs have not been fixed, the smug assurances of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson notwithstanding. A gross disregard for security at the Department of ...

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Ethnic tensions are straining the U.N. peace plan for Kosovo, with Serb houses burning in one Kosovo city and Serbs barring ethnic Albanians from crossing a bridge in another. The foreign ministers of Italy, Britain, Germany and France are visiting Kosovo today to meet with U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and NATO's Kosovo commander, Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson. Smoke from burning houses in the divided city of Pec rose up into the mountains Tuesday. Ethnic Albanians watched one Serb house burn and claimed the Serbs had set the fire themselves. The residents couldn't be ...

Do you ever read wire stories about protesters who yell at the rapist pig and his wife? No, I didn't think so, but here's a story about some spoiled union democrats dogging a Republican governor... ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - State employees following Gov. George Pataki to protest his administration's handling of labor negotiations are with the Republican in Detroit today and vow to pursue him wherever he goes. It's one day after hundreds of raucous state employee union members screamed demands as Pataki helped break ground on a new office building, one that the union supports. Members of the state's ...

The city's unpaid-fine list of those caught littering public property with illegally posted signs is littered with familiar names: Weld, Harshbarger, Kerry, and a host of City Council candidates. Over five years, city documents show, political candidates of all stripes racked up 83 percent of fines that remain unpaid for illegally posting signs on public poles and buildings - despite the annual reminder letters sent to council candidates, who are named in most of the unpaid offenses. If the city ever collected the fines from political candidates alone, it could recoup about $15,140, according to records. But that won't happen, ...

History turns on small things. If King George III had been Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth II probably would be leader of the free world instead of Clinton. Had there been gun control in the American colonies, there would have been no Lexington and Concord. Americans who wanted greater freedom would have remained merely disgruntled subjects of the British crown and Americans today would be sending pounds to the Inland Revenue Service in the amount decreed by Parliament. Didn't happen. The colonists had arms and used them - quite effectively. When the founding fathers wrote the basic law that would ...

In his race to succeed one of the most scandal-scarred presidents in history, the question dogs the front-running candidacy of George W. Bush. Will his terse, preemptive confession of youthful indiscretions head off a media invasion of his past? Or are he and the nation headed for a campaign marked by salacious scandal mongering? At this point, the mainstream media - stung by the public rebuke of their Monica Lewinsky obsession - appear to have little appetite for a frenzied Bush character hunt. (Last month, The Wall Street Journal took the extraordinary step of publishing a story that raised ...

Investigative Report THE PANAMA CANAL IN TRANSITION: THREATS TO U.S. SECURITY and CHINA's GROWING ROLE IN LATIN AMERICA XXXXXXXXXXXX SECTION BLACKED OUT XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Introduction: The Panama Canal, one of the world's key strategic waterways, is scheduled to be turned over to the Panamanian government on December 31, 1999. The Canal remains vital to American trade and defense capabilities. The Canal remains the vital sea link in the Western Hemisphere between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and an economic and logistical bridgehead between North America and South America. Currently, some 15 to 20 percent of total U.S. exports/imports pass through the ...

Bridge News, New York via NewsEdge Corporation : Jun. 18--By Thomas L. Greaney, law professor ST. LOUIS--Health care reform did not die with the defeat of the Clinton health plan in 1994. Over the past several years, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures have been sifting through a mountain of proposed legislation, most of it designed to deal with problems associated with managed health care. While some of these reforms would provide reasonable consumer protections, many have the unmistakable air of pork-barrel politics. Often proposals labeled as "managed care reform" turn out to be special interest group legislation designed to ...

Moses et al. Liz Perraud of Columbia, Md., had the pleasure of chaperoning her son's fifth-grade field trip to the nation's capital. "The highlight of our trip was the Supreme Court building," she says. "I was particularly interested in it because my grandfather, David Lynn, served as the architect of the Capitol, appointed by President Calvin Coolidge, when [the Supreme Court] was built in the 1930s." As part of the tour, Mrs. Perraud says the class was allowed to sit in the courtroom for a tour-guide lecture. "It was fascinating and we were invited to ask questions," she says. "The ...

Whatever happened to the "Republican Revolution?" Here we are, in the middle of our fifth consecutive year of having a majority in Congress, yet our elected leaders therein seem to have lost their, um, "nerve." It's time we FReepers gave our elected officials a clear message, that we want them to USE the powers we granted them in the last election. They need a clear, demonstrable reminder, one that they will not mistake. Here's what I did: I have the fortune of having gotten to personally know my Congressman last election. I wanted to make sure he knew I ...

Students to mass at Tiananmen againCAPTION: A homeless man pushes a cart decorated with a poster of Mao Zedong. The man was stopped by police at Tiananmen Square and told to move on. Picture: APSTORY: TIANANMEN Square will be open exclusively to more than 100,000 teenage students at the end of next month as part of a rehearsal for a grand celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.It will be the biggest gathering involving students since Beijing authorities' crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in the square 10 years ago.Middle school students, mostly from the city's ...

President Clinton came to Philadelphia for a fundraiser October 2, 1998. Because he was to visit several places in the same general area both his supporters and detractors were spread throughout a several block radius for most of the event. The assault on Don and Teri Adams occurred just minutes after arriving in front of city hall where they encountered 150 Teamsters. Click here for the rest of the story ***********

On Monday June 21, 1999 while on his way to visit NATO and American forces in the Yugoslovian theater of operations President Clinton publicly demonstrated his utter contempt for our military forces. The FOX News Channel aired footage of the President descending the portable exit ramp from Air Force One. As is the custom and honor accorded the Commander-in-Chief, two servicemen were stationed at the base of the ramp. These men, being trained professionals, saluted their Commander-in-Chief as he neared the bottom of the ramp. What happened next should serve as a clear reminder that this president, William Clinton, ...

This is your personal invitation to join fellow Freepers driving vehicles headed to Washington DC for the Joint FreeRepublic.com/Judicial Watch Treason is the Reason Rally and Dinner on July 24, 1999. I will be leaving West Texas the morning of July 18th headed toward DC on I20. I will stop for the night in Texarkana. If you live anywhere close to the interstate, join me even if only for a few miles. Put posters and Flags on your cars and trucks(hey, it is Texas after all), dress in red, white, and blue. Show America we care about the Treason committed ...

Wednesday, June 23, 1999 Li 'pleased' with Sino-Russian ties Updated at 4.15pm China is happy with the constant improvement in Sino-Russian ties, China's second ranking leader said on Tuesday. ''China is pleased to see Sino-Russian exchange and cooperation in politics, economy, culture and other areas have been growing constantly,'' the China Daily quoted parliament chief Li Peng as saying. ''The two countries have forged an equal and mutually trusting partnership of strategic cooperation geared towards the 21st century,'' he told Oleg Korolyov, vice-chairman of Russia's Federation Council, in Beijing. Mr Korolyov is heading a Russian delegation to a symposium ...

WHAT GETS into congressmen after they've been in Washington a while?    Washingtonitis, of course.    Its first symptom is a little harmless display of ego on occasion, maybe in the Congressional Record. We should have known the congressman from the First District was coming down with this malady as soon as he started puffing family and friends in the Record. No great harm done. Nobody reads that stuff anyway, except maybe the folks who frame it, and lots of them may have wised up by now. The printing costs are probably minimal; it's not as if Marion Berry were ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are threatening to bring the Senate to a standstill, demanding a debate over new rights for patients in HMOs. ''When you reach an impasse you have only one option: to turn up the pressure,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said Tuesday. The immediate victim was the agriculture spending bill, which is on hold while the Senate sorts through the dispute. The Senate voted 53-47 Tuesday mostly along party lines to table a Democratic amendment that would have attached the entire HMO bill to the spending measure. But Democrats said they will keep changing their ...

Clinton says NATO is ready to fight repression in Europe, Africa SKOPJE, June 22 (AFP) - Praising NATO for its campaign in Kosovo, US President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the alliance could intervene elsewhere in Europe or in Africa to fight repression. "In Africa or central Europe, we will not allow, only because of differences in ethnic background or religion or racism, people to be attacked. We will stop that," Clinton told US troops gathered at the Skopje airport. "We can do it now. We can do it tomorrow, if it is necessary, somewhere else," he said. Clinton earlier ...

In a most revealing remark, an adviser to the Ice Queen, when asked about the first criminal couple's vacation plans, said the following:"For them to go to FLY-INFESTED Adirondacks Park would be a mistake..."Every New York voter should see it for what it really is: the real feelings these people have for New York State.....they only want to use NY for themselves, like they have done with everything and evryone they have ever come in contact withThese people deserve each otherGet out of office and go back to Arkansas....NO ONE WANTS EITHER OF YOU....OR Gore

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 are 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 on the House tax-writing panel. The 60-second spots began airing Monday ...