Free Republic

Balkans Task Force Catches Its Breath By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page A13 When Yugoslav authorities finally agreed to NATO's withdrawal terms last month after 78 days of allied airstrikes, Army Col. Greg Kaufmann and his team of Balkans experts at the Pentagon broke open a case of Samuel Adams beer. Not so much in celebration as relief. The war had kept Kaufmann's 11-member task force working late most nights and through weekends, monitoring developments in the Balkans and drafting policy options for the Pentagon's top civilian officials. With the end of hostilities, some ...

NATO, Russia Reach New Kosovo Accord Deal Defuses Peacekeeping Stalemate By Sharon Lafraniere Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page A09 MOSCOW, July 5—NATO and Russian negotiators agreed today on how to deploy Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo, defusing a diplomatic standoff that over the weekend prompted NATO to block the flight of Russian troops to the battered Serbian province. The accord, coming after 11 hours of talks here, opened the way for swift employment of a Russian Kosovo contingent of 3,600 troops within a NATO-led force that eventually will total more than 50,000. It also appears to mark ...

Archer's Last Stand: A Social Security Crusade By Eric Pianin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page A03 With his lip trembling and fighting back tears, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Tex.) recently made an extraordinary plea to his committee colleagues. Time was running out on his chairmanship--and on his political career--and he needed their help, he said, in attaining his crowning achievement: long-term reform of Social Security. "I think each one of us owes a responsibility to every generation in this country and to generations to come," Archer said. "I know we'll shoulder our ...

Moderate Republicans who regained control of the Kansas GOP in January are alleging that conservatives left the party in a mess. The party checking account was nearly empty. According to moderates, a trash can full of shredded documents was found at party headquarters in Topeka. In addition, computer files were missing, including the all-important donor list that serves as the party's financial backbone. The donor list, with information on thousands of contributors, wound up in the hands of a new conservative group called the Kansas Republican Assembly. Some moderates regard the Kansas Republican Assembly as a rival organization. "Once we ...

Building Up GOP Incumbents By Juliet Eilperin Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page A04 With their control of the House at stake next year, House Republicans are off to an impressive start in collecting campaign funds. Not only has their campaign committee shattered previous fund-raising totals, but some of their most vulnerable incumbents have managed to put together sizable kitties for what could prove difficult reelection campaigns. The disclosure of the exact totals for the first six months of 1999 is not required until July 15, but GOP officials say lawmakers participating in House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's "Retain Our Majority ...

  Tuesday, July 6, 1999   Barak's toughest mission   By Aluf Benn The mission that Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak has taken upon himself in connection with his upcoming trip to the United States will be just as difficult and complex as any of the military operations in which he was involved when he served in the Israel Defense Forces's elite Sayeret Matkal unit. Barak will have to navigate unfamiliar waters, dealing with the problematic legacy bequeathed him by his predecessor. The anger and frustration Benjamin Netanyahu managed to generate in Washington will ensure Barak a very warm welcome ...

When Arkansas troopers discovered $3 million in cash in trucker Roberto Zamarripa's cargo, they declared the "tainted" money property of the county. By the time county prosecutors got to court, they found another claimant: the federal government. As Congress weighs whether to make it harder to seize citizens' property, federal and local agencies fight in courtrooms throughout the country over the spoils of asset forfeiture. The disputes reveal this incentive: Cash-strapped law enforcement agencies seek not mere punishment, but money as well, from citizens with property that police think might be linked to crime. "Forfeiture laws have run amok," says ...

I can't stand Free Republic anymore. It is a vexation to the spirit. There is a lynch mob mentality here. I'm sorry I ever got involved with Free Repulic. Even *I* have been accused of being in a conspiracy. I was told I have and agenda, someone speculated that I am a man and a liberal democrat. I've been told to let it go. I've been asked if someone owns me. I'm out of here for good. I've got housework to do, I've got kids to babysit. This whole thing on Free Republic has turned out to be total bummer ...

GREENWICH, Conn. -- Five winters ago, Lowell Weicker moved out of the Connecticut governor's mansion, apparently ending a 30-year career as one of the nation's best-known political mavericks. At 6 feet 6 inches tall and with a voice to match, he had tormented the Republican Party from within as a U.S. senator, then led Connecticut as that uncommon American political animal, an independent. After leaving Hartford, he settled into life as the lord of Applejack Farm, a former orchard in this town of private drives and tradesmen's entrances, taking plenty of time away for tennis, bird-watching and scuba diving with ...

Lyrics Copyright 1999, Doug from Upland. Not for commercial use without permission of the author. Rodham says she will go see all the children in the cancer ward…Georgetown From her heart she will show all in the hospital how love is poured…Georgetown But then she sees the children and they all look very sickly And for the Ice Queen's photo-op the problem's very prickly Rodham…she knew what she had to do She started swearing and screaming, yelled "I'm warning you" She screamed "You had better do what I say Or there'll be lots of hell to pay Go and ...

I would like to know who all of you are - we may be in the minority here, but let's gather together. Sign in, please. Don't be shy now...let's talk. Anyone with an open mind is also welcome to add their name to our list...I am sick of being trashed day after day...how about you?

Bush To Forgo Pay When Out of Tex. By RENAE MERLE .c The Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - George W. Bush said Monday that he will forgo his gubernatorial salary - $316.01 a day - when he campaigns outside Texas for the Republican presidential nomination. When Bush is out of state for an entire day, Lt. Gov. Rick Perry is elevated under state law to acting governor and paid an additional $316.01 a day. ``Because the Lt. Governor is paid in my absence, I don't think it's appropriate for the taxpayers of Texas to pay my salary twice,'' said ...

The First Lady's Fighting Form By Michael Grunwald Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page A1 NEW YORK – They do not have names or faces, but Hillary Rodham Clinton knows Those People are out there, and she attacks Them almost every time she speaks in New York. In March, at a Democratic women's fund-raiser in Manhattan: "Many People believe they can turn the clock back, shut our borders, tell people how to live, point fingers at one another." In April, at a teachers union convention in Niagara Falls: "Some People are still arguing against the need for ...

CNS) - Conservative UN observers and a coalition of Catholic and Muslim nations have lambasted the final report of the International Conference on Population and Development five-year review, commonly known as ICPD+5. ICPD+5 is the review of the Programme of Action voted on at the Cairo Population Conference in 1994. The review took shape over a rancorous three day session that ended Thursday - a session that pitted a loose coalition of Third World nations and the Vatican fighting to limit UN funding for abortions and adolescent sex education around the world against representatives from developed countries. "This is a ...

Wasn't this posted before? Couldn't find it. Wanted everyone to know the good news. ========================================================= Hardball's superhost Chris Matthews never appears to have enough time to finish his thoughts during his one hour talkshow, HARDBALL. Solution? Give him more time. The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that sister network MSNBC is set to launch a new Matthews program in the upcoming months--a move that would guarantee Matthews 90 minutes of peacock, five peacock days a week. The move would lift Matthews to air time to match his rival Geraldo Rivara. MCNBC is set to blow up its current scheduyle according to ...

Can Clinton Find Happiness After 2000? By Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 6, 1999; Page C1 On Jan. 20, 2001, Bill Clinton will undergo a swift, irreversible transformation from being the most powerful man in the world to being ... this other thing, this whatchmacallit, this oddity: the Politician Formerly Known as President William Jefferson Clinton. He will become a 54-year-old former two-term president, far too young to be an emeritus statesman, but too lofty, too thoroughly dusted in the residue of power, to take a regular job. After you've been to the moon, you can't become ...

GLSEN - LIBRARY NEWS 9906 1.ARTICLE GLSEN EXPRESSES DISAPPOINTMENT OVER LOSS OF CALIFORNIA'S AB 222 GLSEN Media Release (6/6/99) For Immediate Release Jim Anderson, Communications Director Phone - (212) 727-0135 x136 Pager - (888) 869-6512 Politics and misinformation won out over needs of gay and lesbian students, says GLSEN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (4 June 1999) - The thirteen California chapters of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) today expressed their profound disappointment with the California State Assembly's failure to pass AB 222, The Dignity for Students Act. The bill would have amended state education code to prohibit discrimination ...

After serious consideration, America's major TV networks have taken a pass on making a movie on the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned... (No details yet. Guess Matt is typing it up as we speak.)

GOP Targets Poverty With Tax Breaks By WILLIAM C. MANN .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Dennis Hastert is asking President Clinton to support a Republican-led program of tax breaks and incentives to fight poverty in inner cities and poor rural areas. Elements of the program, the ``American Community Renewal Act,'' revives a plan that failed in the last Congress, passing the House but failing to clear the Senate. Hastert, R-Ill., asked for Clinton's endorsement in a letter Sunday as Clinton prepared to embark on a tour of poor areas to pitch his own ``New Market Initiative'' ...

Q: Are liberal citizen activists more effective than Conservatves? Yes: Liberals work more closely with lawmakers to advance their political agenda. By Jeffrey M. Berry . . . . Today's liberals seem a sad, disoriented lot. Their president has moved Democrats toward the middle, marginalizing whatever is left of the left. President Clinton's support of a conservative welfare-reform plan at the end of his first term is a watershed in the history of the Democratic Party. It is investors, and not union members or the poor, who have cheered this administration. . . . . Yet these are not bad ...