Free Republic

Clinton Critic Is Key to Deal to End Tie-Up on Judgeships By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON -- President Clinton has finally agreed to an unusual bargain that obliges him to nominate as a Federal judge a Utah Republican who is vigorously opposed by several environmental groups, Congressional and Administration officials said this week. In exchange, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will remove his months-long blockade of the President's judicial nominees, smoothing the way for at least 10 of those choices to be confirmed. A move that could smooth the way for a ...

Full metal racket: Separating the guns from the nuts IMPRESSIONS, and confessions, of a first-time visitor to one of those gargantuan gun shows on a Saturday morning in Little Rock, Ark.: The crowd is predominantly but not exclusively white and male. Probably not unlike the crowd at any given day on the links at, say, Country Club of Little Rock or Pleasant Valley. If skin color and sex were the only criteria, these two groups would have a lot in common. The parking lot is full. And it's a big, big parking lot. They hold these shows at the Expo ...

BELFAST -- After five days of intense bickering between Protestant and Catholic politicians, Britain and Ireland revealed the latest peace plan for Northern Ireland. But it's not a binding deal and there wasn't much optimism in Ulster last night that it would soon form the basis for one. The talks, which involved moderates and hardliners in both the Protestant and Catholic camps, ended when Britain's Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern announced that if the bitter enemies can be persuaded, a coalition cabinet with new powers devolved from Britain will be formed on July 15, with the disarmament of ...

White supremacist Matt Hale said Friday he will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to hear his appeal for a law license because his free speech is being curtailed. Rejected twice by the state high court's Committee on Character and Fitness, Hale said he is being unfairly punished for his beliefs. "They say this is not a free speech issue, but this is very much about my views," Hale said after the latest ruling, which held that Hale's views would keep him from following rules on professional conduct. The rules bar discrimination against litigants, jurors, witnesses or others for reasons of ...

Webster Hubbell's plea to an additional cover-up charge in the Whitewater case shows how exhausted everyone involved in uncovering the rot in the White House is. The special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, is frank; he wants to wind up his 5-year investigation. The independent counsel statute has expired without a real push by anybody in Congress to extend it. The Hubbell story runs on inside pages, as does the announcement that shady fund-raiser Johhny Huang will plead guilty to raising $7,500 for the Democrats illegally in return for a recommendation from the Justice Department for a fine and probation. Those who ...

CAMPAIGN FINANCING Presidents and members of Congress are supposed to have but one constituency, those who actually cast a vote to elect or select them for office. This is their voting constituency. Without the formality of a Constitutional Amendment, Campaign Financing has added a constituency. Every one of them, Representatives, Senators and Presidents have gained an additional one -- their Cash Constituency - the contributors to their campaigns. As the disillusionment and mistrust of the people toward government have grown, holders of elective office have managed to gain and keep their positions with fewer and fewer of their Voting ...

Any material contained herein, or material you receive from IMADWIPAP, may be excerpted, copied or reproduced and distributed without restriction or limitation. If The Constitution of the United States Were an Automobile, It Would Be In Bad Need Of A Tune-up And A Few Minor Repairs by Sterling H. Saunders for IMADWIPAP 2975 Elizabeth Lane Snellville, GA 30078 (770) 978-1913 FOREWORD Comparing the U.S. Constitution to an automobile and its engine may seem a strange metaphor, but the two concepts have more in common than one might think. Both the Constitution and a motorized vehicle are complex assemblies with multiple ...

Washington - Is there really a chance that Patrick J. Buchanan, born and bred a Republican, could run as an independent presidential candidate in 2000 and thereby elect Democrat Al Gore? Yes, the seed has been sown in the soil of Buchanan's discontent with the GOP. Such a deviation still is unlikely. Buchanan is now pondering what he calls his "conundrum": The better he does in Republican primaries, the stronger would be an independent bid. But the longer he stays in the GOP chase, the more problems accumulate to block a third-party candidacy. Speculation the last two weeks has led ...

State Department denies retaliating against employee .7/2/99 WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department says it reassigned an employee from its United Nations mission because of an unsatisfactory job performance, denying it retaliated against her for calling attention to alleged U.N. waste and mismanagement. The department's position in the case of Linda Shenwick, a former budget and administrative officer at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, was outlined in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press Friday. Grassley, R-Iowa, has defended Shenwick, contending the State Department decided to transfer her because ...

UNITED NATIONS - Five years after world governments agreed to a program to curb population growth, the U.N. General Assembly has approved proposals providing for greater access to abortions and sex education. The Vatican and a few other conservative countries objected to the proposals adopted late Friday. Women's groups, however, praised the agreement, calling it a giant advance beyond the plan adopted at the 1994 U.N. population conference in Cairo because it compels governments to take action to increase and improve access to reproductive health care. The Cairo conference adopted an ambitious 20-year program to slow the growth of ...

RUDY KEEPING HIS COOL WITH HILLARY - SO FAR By DAVID SEIFMAN The combative mayor is used to taking on any and all comers, but aides say Giuliani won't be drawn into serious battle with First Lady Hillary Clinton at this stage of their still-undeclared campaign for the U.S. Senate. Why? Because that's precisely what Clinton strategists want, Team Giuliani says. "There's a concerted effort by those around the First Lady to create an environment where the whole campaign will revolve around personality politics," charged Adam Goodman, Giuliani's 1997 media adviser. "They're trying to bait the mayor into that kind ...

The war against Yugoslavia is over. Now comes the battle inside the Pentagon. With budget shares and weapon programs at stake, the Air Force and the Army are squaring off over the lessons to be drawn from the Kosovo conflict. Did it presage a lasting change in how U.S. forces will fight? Or was it an air power anomaly? The Air Force, energized by the success of its stealthy warplanes and precision weapons, hopes to translate its performance into more money for radar-evading fighter jets, precision-guided bombs and reconnaissance drones. The Army, which fumbled the deployment of Apache helicopters to ...

A secretive meeting to revive broken-down talks failed Saturday, and South Korean and North Korean negotiators headed home accusing each other of creating the impasse. North Korea requested the low-profile meeting between the two sides' top negotiators only hours after South Korea declared Friday that it was pulling out of the Beijing talks due to North Korean intransigence. But the 90-minute session Saturday morning inside a suite at the swanky China World Hotel played out as inconclusively as the three prior rounds in the drawn-out negotiations. South Korean Vice Unification Minister Yang Young-Shik and North Korea's Pak Yong Su ...

Undocumented Mexican cattle head north into U.S. in search of greener pastures ASSOCIATED PRESS July 2, 1999 DEMING, N.M. -- As things dry up in Mexico, more Mexican cattle head north in search of greener pastures. Farmer Kirk Zachek said Mexican ranchers either deliberately lead cattle across the border or the cattle cross the nonexistent fence line in search of food and water. U.S. ranchers fear Mexican cattle will spread disease to their own livestock. They also complain about damage from the strays. Lawmakers have promised a fence for two years, along with someone to patrol and maintain it, ...

We all look at Global Warming as strictly an Al Gore stunt brought about initially at the Kyoto Treaty and signed into a 38-nation emission reduction terror at Rio de Janeiro a few months ago. Greenhouse gases involve 136 countries. A recent turn-about by George W now supporting Global Warming was disclosed this year. When asked why he changed his mind, "W" said because of scientific proof it exists. Hundreds of scientists across the world have said it is "lousy science" and there is overwhelming evidence that it being used as horrendous controls on the population of the world. Here ...

FORMER U.S. OFFICIAL CHOSEN TO HEAD WORLD POLICE A former U.S. law enforcement official on Friday was chosen as the lead candidate to head Interpol, the global law enforcement organization. Ron Noble, former Treasury undersecretary for enforcement, was named during an executive session at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. Noble, 42, best known as the chief investigator of the failed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, is the only person the United States has ever nominated to head Interpol in the 75-year history of the organization. Attorney General Janet Reno personally ...

"THAT RAGGED OLD FLAG" (Author Unknown) I walked through a county courthouse square. On a park bench an old man was sitting there. I said, "Your old Court House is kinda run down." He said, "No, it will do for our little town." I said, "Your old flag Pole is leaning a little bit. And that's a ragged old Flag you've got hanging on it." He said, "Have a seat," and I sat down "Is the first time that you've been to our little town?" "Well," he said, "I don't like to brag, But we're kinda proud of that ragged ...

Crude oil prices have soared in recent months, but millions of American drivers this Fourth of July weekend will pay only moderately higher gasoline prices -- thanks to excess supplies, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday. The national price for gasoline at the pump averaged $1.11 a gallon this week, about six cents higher than one year ago, according to figures compiled by the DOE's Energy Information Administration. "In fact, the national average gasoline price is lower than the average levels seen over the Fourth of July weekend throughout the 1995-through-1997 period," the DOE said. While the price for ...

MOSCOW (AP) — The appearance of Russian bombers over the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in years coincides with new efforts by Moscow to stop its once enormous military from disintegrating. With the post-Cold War honeymoon giving way to growing disagreement with the West, Russia is trying to boost its armed forces after years of neglect. The government, alarmed about the state of the military, has promised to boost spending on security to 28.5 percent of the budget — $6.7 billion — compared to a proposed U.S. defense budget of $280 billion. Originally, the government had called for spending ...

We yell for the Government to balance the budget, then take the last dime we have to make the down payment on a car that will take 5 years to pay off. We demand speed laws that will stop fast driving, then won't buy a car if it can't go over 100 miles an hour. We know the line-up of every baseball team in the American and National Leagues but mumble through half the words in the "Star Spangled Banner." We'll spend half a day looking for vitamin pills to make us live longer, then drive 90 miles an hour ...