Free Republic

Independents' Day Ready for a little political mischief on a holiday weekend? Let us consider what could upset the seemingly preordained Bush and Gore nominations. An unremarked time bomb called the Reform Party is on the ballot in all 50 states. Based on its vote total in 1996, its Presidential candidate will receive $12.6 million in Federal funds in 2000. If Ross Perot runs again, his vote will again dwindle; if the party chooses an ex-Senator like David Boren or Sam Nunn, it will draw equally from both major parties and have little impact. But what if the Reform Party, ...

HERE'S A money-saving way for all you good people out there who work hard, play by the rules, and dutifully file your income taxes every year. You deserve a break, so today we're going to tell you how to save wads of money: Just go right ahead and do just what you're doing, like the good, law-abiding, tax-filing citizens you are. Just don't pay the money. That's right. File all the returns (it's against the law not to) but never get around to sending in the check. That's what Webb Hubbell did. The former distinguished everything regularly filed his returns, ...

Ahead of the Field on a Borrowed Horse By MARIO CUOMO Public opinion polls indicate that George W. Bush is currently the overwhelming choice of voters over all other contenders in both parties, even though most people admit they don't know enough about him to make an intelligent choice. His dominance among Republicans makes sense: the party is adrift, without either a strong agenda or a leader, and his name and electoral success in conservative Texas make him instantly attractive. But his lead over Vice President Al Gore is more puzzling. After all, the Clinton years have so far produced ...

News of the Day....

Maddy and Bill went up the (Capitol) Hill http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- BILL CLINTON was running out of time. His presidency would expire in less than two years, and his most memorable legacy would be perverting the country. He’d need to do better than that. He’d need to find a war. His only experience with such a thing was protesting it, but now he required one, one with results. He thought hard. Eventually his thoughts led him to the Balkans. Madeleine Albright also was running out of time. This administration was her only chance. Never again would she be in a ...

Barry v. Saint Hillary in NY Primary! http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- EVER SINCE I declared my candidacy for president of the United States, concerned citizens have been asking me: "Dave, why don't you also run for U.S. Senator from New York?'' This is tempting. I live in Florida, but apparently New York has very lax residency requirements, such that anybody who has ever changed planes at LaGuardia Airport can run for senator. Exhibit A, of course, is first lady Hillary "Rod'' M. Clinton, who recently developed an intense lifelong commitment to New York, which she demonstrated by putting on a Yankees ...

CONGRESS is considering the possibility of inviting Britain to join the North American Free Trade Area as an alternative to the European Union. Senator Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican and one-time presidential hopeful, has taken steps to have the United States International Trade Commission study the impact British membership would have on America. He supports widening Nafta to include Britain, and his spokesman said: "Since he became chairman of the banking committee six months ago he's gained more power and influence in the Senate, and it gives him the opportunity to turn this hobby horse into a real pony." ...

WASHINGTON -- Edward Teller has a secret. Many of them, in fact -- and he knows how to keep them. But the 91-year-old physicist sometimes called the "Father of the H-bomb" knows politics equally well. And sometimes, as in the current congressional lambasting of his beloved Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he thinks it stinks. "Trying to find out about spies should be handled very, very quietly, and that is the exact opposite of what has happened," Teller said in an interview, adding, "I would hope the Congress in Washington would be one-tenth as careful about not spreading secrets as ...

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole hoped to draw attention today to the atrocities committed by Serbian troops in Kosovo, with a visit to the site of a mass grave. Dole said Sunday that NATO officials told him they had discovered at least 100 mass graves in the province, each with at least 12 bodies in it. Dole, who was visiting Kosovo as part of his work with the International Commission on Missing Persons, said the commission has asked Belgrade for an accounting of ethnic Albanians imprisoned by Serbia outside Kosovo. In Prizren on Sunday, Kosovo Albanians ...

THE REFORMIST WAR ON DEMOCRACY We don't make a habit of responding to other newspapers' editorials, but The New York Times' commentary on Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush's fund-raising success can only be described as irrational - and inadvertently reveals the hidden agenda behind many of the calls for campaign-finance reform. Bush has raised an unprecedented $35 million - in spite of the law that limits contributions to $1,000 each. As a result, Bush may decide to forsake federal matching funds and run his campaign without spending a dime of taxpayer money. The Times says it would be a ...

WASHINGTON -- A high-stakes showdown on Capitol Hill over the privacy of individual medical records threatens to topple California's patient confidentiality rules, which are among the strictest in the nation. At the very least, the conflict could draw California into months, if not years, of negotiations with the federal government and would likely provoke numerous court battles, privacy experts say. Just last week, the House approved a medical anti-privacy measure quietly tucked into a massive financial services bill. According to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the measure would allow broad disclosures of private medical information without a patient's permission. At ...

A Big Capital Gain Robert Rubin, the most widely celebrated secretary of the Treasury ever, left office last Friday insistent that cutting the capital gains tax rate is a venture in futility. But as Rubin returned to New York, a mainstream economic analysis showed he is all wrong. The study by Standard & Poor's DRI service confounds the Clinton administration bias that survives Rubin's departure. It found that the bipartisan 1997 Hatch-Lieberman cut in the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent lowered capital costs for new investment, promoted start-up businesses and entrepreneurism, helped elevate stock prices and ...

A Big Capital Gain Robert Rubin, the most widely celebrated secretary of the Treasury ever, left office last Friday insistent that cutting the capital gains tax rate is a venture in futility. But as Rubin returned to New York, a mainstream economic analysis showed he is all wrong. The study by Standard & Poor's DRI service confounds the Clinton administration bias that survives Rubin's departure. It found that the bipartisan 1997 Hatch-Lieberman cut in the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent lowered capital costs for new investment, promoted start-up businesses and entrepreneurism, helped elevate stock prices and ...

A Big Capital Gain Robert Rubin, the most widely celebrated secretary of the Treasury ever, left office last Friday insistent that cutting the capital gains tax rate is a venture in futility. But as Rubin returned to New York, a mainstream economic analysis showed he is all wrong. The study by Standard & Poor's DRI service confounds the Clinton administration bias that survives Rubin's departure. It found that the bipartisan 1997 Hatch-Lieberman cut in the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent lowered capital costs for new investment, promoted start-up businesses and entrepreneurism, helped elevate stock prices and ...

A Big Capital Gain Robert Rubin, the most widely celebrated secretary of the Treasury ever, left office last Friday insistent that cutting the capital gains tax rate is a venture in futility. But as Rubin returned to New York, a mainstream economic analysis showed he is all wrong. The study by Standard & Poor's DRI service confounds the Clinton administration bias that survives Rubin's departure. It found that the bipartisan 1997 Hatch-Lieberman cut in the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent lowered capital costs for new investment, promoted start-up businesses and entrepreneurism, helped elevate stock prices and ...

A Big Capital Gain Robert Rubin, the most widely celebrated secretary of the Treasury ever, left office last Friday insistent that cutting the capital gains tax rate is a venture in futility. But as Rubin returned to New York, a mainstream economic analysis showed he is all wrong. The study by Standard & Poor's DRI service confounds the Clinton administration bias that survives Rubin's departure. It found that the bipartisan 1997 Hatch-Lieberman cut in the capital gains rate from 28 percent to 20 percent lowered capital costs for new investment, promoted start-up businesses and entrepreneurism, helped elevate stock prices and ...

LibertyCrackpot Alert The Conspiracy Bugaboo By John McCormack Paranoia strikes deep. There's a lot to like in the militia movement. The militiamen distrust the federal government. They're willing to resist federal assaults on individual rights. They're hostile to the income tax, the Federal Reserve System, and the regulatory state. They enthusiastically exercise the right to keep and bear arms. Yet the militia movement usually alienates freedom-minded Americans. Some of this stems from the movement's crude rhetoric, frequently ignorant public statements, and more-than-slightly-ridiculous paramilitary exercises. But the problem is more serious than that. It's the militias' propensity for conspiracy theories. The ...

More than 200 senior school teachers accepted the early retirement packet offered by the Calgary Board of Education. They're leaving the profession to which they had once dedicated their hearts and minds in high resolve. Board chairman Teresa Woo-Paw said they are sorry to lose them. Listening to a dozen or more teachers over the past three or four years, I gathered a different impression. Accepting my promise not to reveal their identities, they variously said that they were bitter, disappointed, fed-up or disgusted. Some said many teachers "aren't comfortable with the system." It isn't the pay, although everyone ...

As California marks the final Independence Day of the 20th century -- and prepares to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its statehood -- it finds itself still preoccupied with the era's single most emotionally wrenching issue: immigration. California is what it is because of succeeding waves of immigrants, but the cultural changes they bring often unsettle those already in place and have generated an endlessly running debate over immigration and its effects. The debate is not confined to California, of course, but the state is -- by far -- the most attractive state to immigrants, legal and otherwise. About ...

Vice president's daughter has Fourth of July baby WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Al Gore's first grandchild was born on the Fourth of July. The Gores' daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, 25, and her husband, Drew Schiff, 33, had been expecting the baby in late June. But with the instincts of a politician, Wyatt Gore Schiff delayed his inaugural appearance until Sunday - Independence Day. The vice president's office in Washington announced that he was born at 10:05 a.m. in New York City, weighing in at 6 pounds, 3 ounces and measuring 20 inches long. The vice president and wife Tipper ...