Free Republic

INDEPENDENT, BT NOT HELPLESS By FRED THOMPSON THE Independent Counsel Act expires June 30. First passed in 1978, the act was designed to deal with the inherent conflict of interest that an attorney general has in investigating or prosecuting high-ranking government officials. In an attempt to select someone outside the system, Congress set up a statutory framework of definitions, qualifications, and distinctions designed to require an attorney general to call for an independent counsel when appropriate and to establish his independence. However, we have to come to realize that we can not practically or legally force the attorney general ...

The audience was celebratory, but the speaker was somber. Addressing 2,400 graduating seniors at the University of New Hampshire, the presidential candidate spoke darkly of things such as murder, evil, and sin. "In my faith tradition, I am drawn to the story of the first murder," the speaker said, comparing the Columbine High School killers to Cain, whose pent-up rage against not being accepted led him to kill his brother. Quoting from Genesis, the candidate reminded the audience of God's response to Cain: "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Friday June 25 12:03 AM ET CIA Analyst Knew NATO Had Wrong Target In Belgrade CIA Analyst Knew NATO Had Wrong Target In Belgrade Reuters Photo Full CoverageChina - US Relations By Tabassum ZakariaWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three days before NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, an intelligence officer told CIA colleagues and a military officer in Europe that the alliance had picked the wrong target but his concerns never reached senior levels, U.S. officials said Thursday.They said the mid-level intelligence analyst noticed imagery of the building proposed for a NATO strike did not appear ...

(AP) — Daniel Young's parents were appalled when the high school senior shaved his head just before yearbook pictures were taken. When a portrait company told the Youngs it could use computer imaging to restore the boy's hair, they jumped at the chance. "He did not like it one bit,'' says his mother, Toni. "We didn't mind because we were paying for it, after all.'' Digital photo retouching is making it easy for students and their parents to take care of bad hair days, remove braces — even change clothes. Retouching photos is hardly a new practice. Airbrushing to correct ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Thursday, June 24, 1999 Published at 19:25 GMT 20:25 UK Pakistan urges US rethink on Kashmir Pakistan urges US rethink on KashmirPakistan has urged the American government to "broaden their view" on the fighting in Kashmir after a repeated call from a top-level US delegation for Pakistan to disengage in the region of conflict. A Pakistani foreign office spokesman made the comment after the US delegation had been discussing the situation with Pakistan's military leadership in Islamabad. The American delegation is led by Commander-in-Chief of US Central Command Anthony Zinni and Deputy Assistant Secretary ...

Text of Article: Gay youths challenge Gore to support homosexual community LOS ANGELES, June 24 (AFP) - Tattooed on both arms and wearing sandals, Javier Garcia, 20, asked Vice President Al Gore during his visit to a gay community center here what he plans to do for homosexuals if elected president. "I believe you will be president," Garcia said as he sat in an overstuffed chair, elbows on his knees and face-to-face with Gore. Sitting on a sofa, Gore acknowledged his comment by knocking on a wooden coffee table for luck. "What can you say to make us believe ...

I would like to submit for your consideration a plan to create a new revolution in America, to actually teach the children of this once-great nation about their heritage, and the rights they still have, by supplying every school child with his or her own personal copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. This seems like a daunting task, at first glance. But let's break it down to individuals, taking responsibility for individual children or small groups of children. I have found a source of well-written, inexpensive editions of these documents. ...

THEY pose as heroes who fought for the Kosovo Liberation Army but many of the gunmen appearing in Pristina are simply gangsters wanting to profit from the millions to be spent on reconstruction. British officers fear some of these gangs will try to take over businesses abandoned by Serbs and muscle in on ambitious schemes to rebuild Kosovo. The concern is that the new civil police force being set up, with volunteers from Britain and other countries, will not be as well armed as the local mafia of ethnic Albanians that is already making its sinister presence felt. These gangs ...

Lyrics Copyright 1999, Doug from Upland. Not for commercial use without permission of the author. (no intro - sing right away) The D.A. in Philly…is really a dilly His problems have just begun In Philly's a crooked D.A….who will soon experience a B.A. In his face He's been on his knees for Teamsters All those really rotten felon Teamsters What disgrace He's presented a case for prosecuting And although it's airtight, he'll say…"No way" So to all we will give this warning That an angry boisterous public scorning…won't take long A recall, a recall, prepare for a recall And ...

Whereas four European Ministers for the Foreign Affairs went Wednesday June 23 to Pristina, in Kosovo, for a first mission of assessment needs, a group of independent Serb economists launched, in Belgrade, a call to the international community so that Yugoslavia is not excluded from the projects of stabilization and development of Balkans prepared by the Westerners. The STAFFS and the chancelleries, in the United States and in Europe, start, also, to take stock of the war and to learn the strategic lessons from the conflict. WITH the KOSOVO, in the village of Velika Kruca, which paid a heavy tribute ...

The Clinton administration quietly awarded a homosexual bar with a coveted place on the National Register of Historic Places in an emotional ceremony this week at a party in New York. On Monday, the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village bar that was ground zero in a series of riots in June 1969, was honored with a National Register plaque by John Berry, an assistant secretary for the Department of the Interior. In a speech, he likened the riots to the Boston Tea Party, the Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Gettysburg. "The last week of June and the ...

Man vs. Machine: How the Serbs Outwitted NATO PHOENIX, June 24 - Slobodan Milosevic did what proven traitors are expected to do - he surrendered Kosovo to NATO. But the Yugoslav military leaders showed that in a battle between man and machine, even NATO's multi-billion dollar high tech war machine was no match for human wit and creativity. As early as March 25, we told you that the Yugoslav Army surprised NATO by not turning on its radar systems, as the bombers had assumed (see "Playing Possum?", Day 2, Update 2, Item 1, Mar. 25). By doing so, the Serbs ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Winning the "Lottery" ---------- Bros, Well, I'm finally back in England after being TDY since the end of January, at least for two weeks anyway. Got sent direct to Cervia AB, Italy, from Operation Northern Watch in Trukey after being at the Incirlik AB for over 7 weeks ("Luv the 'Lik" no 'mo ! ). My house and yard is a total mess! There doesn't seem to be an end in sight in the Kosovo situation, but the war is over for me for a while. Some of you probably already heard through the grapevine about what happened ...

SECAF, CSAF thank members for supporting Stop Loss http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/pubaffairs/STOPLOSS/slends.htm By F. Whit Peters Acting Secretary of the Air Force, and Gen. Michael E. Ryan Air Force Chief of Staff On May 25, we announced that Stop Loss authority would be effective June in order to preserve combat capability needed to support Operation Allied Force. At the time we announced Stop Loss, we didn't know the potential scope of the operation, nor the length of engagement. With the end of hostilities, withdrawal of Yugoslavian troops, and the redeployment of our forces home, it is appropriate to phase out Stop Loss. We ...

The New Peaceniks   The New Peaceniks by Scott McConnell New York Press 6/22/99 This year I missed the most portentous of Manhattan events, the Puerto Rican Day parade. But after years of reflection, the parade’s meaning has become clear: with its historical roots winding back directly to the Spanish American War, it is the nearest thing Americans have to an Empire Appreciation Day. A hundred and one years later the empire has reached all the way into the Balkans, and Puerto Rican Day found me in San Francisco at a conference of the Center of Libertarian Studies, trying ...

#477, Friday, June 25, 1999 MOSCOW - The U.S. Defense Department confirmed reports that Russian mercenaries fought in Kosovo alongside Serbian forces, and said that an international war crimes investigation would examine reports that they were involved in atrocities against Albanian civilians. "We certainly know that Russians participated, Russian volunteers, mercenaries, we believe, did participate with paramilitary and other Serbian forces," said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, when asked to comment Tuesday on a report in the U.S. newspaper Newsday that dozens of Russian volunteers had taken part in the killing of hundreds of ethnic Albanians and the destruction of ...

Attorney General Reno had one of her top aides call the chief of the Berkeley police concerning the department's handling of protests against Pacifica radio. According to KPFA in Berkeley, Reno reportedly instructed the aide -- head of the Justice Department's program to add cops to police forces -- "to inquire into why the Berkeley police didn't more aggressively pursue arrests against protestors ...." Reno's directive may have come at the instigation of Pacifica board chair Mary Frances Berry, who was appointed by President Clinton to chair the US Commission on Civil Rights. If so, it raises the question of ...

Seven weeks after NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Congress and the American people have yet to receive a full explanation of the mistaken attack. The absence of information only compounds the original error and fuels speculation that the bombing was deliberate. The White House should insist that the various agencies involved, including the Pentagon, which has just announced its own review, pull together everything they know and make a public presentation as soon as possible. Lethal mistakes are sometimes made in combat, and this appears to be such a case. But a detailed reconstruction of the targeting ...

Sorry, I typed in the full article, but "lost" it, but I thought it was important enough to give it ASAP, I can't type it in again. Gotta go..CLICK HERE!!!!!

PORTRAITS OF THE WAR PARTY: MORRIS DEES AND THE SPLC In the vanguard of this rhetorical shift is the veteran witch-hunter and professional character assassin Morris Dees, whose Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has become the premier rightist-baiting outfit in the country. Dees has constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory in which virtually all of the groups and individuals to the right of William F. Buckley, Jr., are part of some vast interconnected network of cells, a "leaderless resistance" allegedly invented by Louis Beam, an obscure right-wing "theoretician" who Dees and his "researchers" imagine to be a kind of far ...