Free Republic

Published in Washington, D.C. 5am -- July 6, 1999 www.washtimes.com When country calls, try not to be at home Let's see if we've got this straight: One of the tests of a candidate for president is whether he can show that a lot of voters think he would make a good president. One of the tests of a candidate's character is whether he's there when duty, honor and country call. But if too many people like you, and elbow others out of the way in their eagerness to contribute to your victory, you're not qualified to lead. And if ...

President Bill Clinton has told Democratic party leaders privately he doesn’t believe Vice President Al Gore can win the Presidency in the 2000 elections, White House and Democratic sources tell Capitol Hill Blue. Clinton’s warning to the party signals a growing rift between the lame duck President and his VP, a split intensified by Gore’s attempts to distance himself from the scandal-ridden President. “In recent weeks, the President has grown convinced that the Vice President can’t handle the rough-and-tumble politics of a national Presidential run,” said one former White House aide. “He doesn’t think Gore can cut it.” Gore, in ...

BEIJING — Floods in China's Yangtze River valley have killed at least 240 people since late June and still threaten 60 million residents, the Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. Flooding has hit 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of farmland and destroyed 660,000 hectares of crops, the news agency quoted the Ministry of Civial Affairs as saying. The flood peak has passed down the Yangtze this week, posing risk of high waters to provinces along the way. The ministry said the central provinces of Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi had sustained the heaviest damage so far. Last year the Yangtze River ...

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- The math is daunting if you're an average motorist in South-Central Los Angeles who must drive to work, like nearly everyone else in California's car-dependent culture. Your annual income is probably $8,110 and your car insurance premium for minimum coverage costs $1,882 a year, according to the state Insurance Department. That's one reason 80 percent of the drivers in that urban neighborhood are uninsured -- despite a California law requiring motorists to carry insurance, the department says. The Assembly this week begins looking at a trio of Senate-passed bills that attempt to link continuation of that ...

"Not for commercial use, posted for the pupose of discussion only." 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 ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Elderly and disabled Americans who rack up unusually high bills for medicines would not be rescued by Medicare prescription drug coverage President Clinton has proposed. Many others already get better drug benefits as part of retirement packages. But Clinton's proposed drug coverage could help many who have moderate drug costs and no coverage now or who buy comparatively expensive individual insurance policies. ''How good a deal it is sort of varies, depending on what you have now,'' said Margaret Davis, assistant director of the Institute for Medicare Practice at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in ...

by: Phyllis Schlafly Court Bans Bizarre Curriculum in New York Schools June 30, 1999 Parents have won another remarkable victory over the psychological abuse of children that takes place in public school classrooms. It isn't the court decision that's so remarkable; it's the evidence of what was actually going on inside the schools. A federal district judge in White Plains, NY, ruled last month that the Bedford Central School District must stop requiring schoolchildren to create paper images of a Hindu god, to make toothpick and yarn "worry dolls" to ward off anxiety, and to take part in Earth Day ...

A federal commission will urge Attorney General Janet Reno to oppose expanded use of DNA tests on everyone who is arrested and charged with a crime, USA TODAY has learned. A draft proposal by the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence says that mass DNA testing would overtax the justice system. Also, mass testing should be postponed until the DNA of more than 1.4 million convicted criminals can be added to the national DNA database, the proposal says. The commission is expected to file a written recommendation this month against mass testing. Reno's opinion will set Justice ...

If you want to know the future of the West's commitment to rebuilding Kosovo, some early indications were probably found in a desperate appeal from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) last week. Despite the billions of dollars NATO and its 19 member countries were willing to spend on bombing Yugoslavia during the 78-day air campaign, the UN agency charged with resettling refugees now says it is on the verge of bankruptcy due to a lack of funds. "We are just not getting cash from donor governments necessary to make it a viable operation," UNHCR spokesman Dennis ...

WASHINGTON -- Can America be too powerful? That is the question the U.S. is facing in the wake of Kosovo. Americans aren't feeling victorious, either about Washington's ambivalent leadership of the war or its still-dangerous aftermath. But the display of American military might -- shattering Serbia from the air without suffering a single North Atlantic Treaty Organization casualty -- is changing the way the rest of the world looks at the U.S. In Moscow and Beijing, warnings of a new American hegemony have replaced earlier paeans to a strategic partnership. Wounded pride and big-power jockeying can be seen in everything ...

Society is in denial over women's innate capacity for aggression and violence Not since Karla Homolka was portrayed as a hapless, despondent, demoralized battered wife who -- because her husband made her do it -- helped confine, torture, rape and murder three young women, including her younger sister, has there been a clearer example of how sexist our society is. The woman this time is a 70-year-old Philadelphian, Marie Noe, who has admitted to killing eight of her children over a 19-year period ending in 1968. She smothered four of them and can't quite remember how the others died. Noe, ...

How fitting that Thomas Malthus was a man of the cloth. For the insight for which he remains best known--that human beings are fated to breed themselves to destruction--has over the centuries hardened into an established orthodoxy, complete with its own high priests and votaries. Just last week they gathered under the auspices of a special session of the United Nations General Assembly to consider how best to get the organization's member governments (especially Uncle Sam) to pony up the cash to keep the message of people reduction alive well into the next millennium. That's not how they put it, ...

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The first planeload of new Russian peacekeepers landed in Kosovo's capital today, a day after NATO brokered an agreement with Moscow on their deployment. Their presence is seen as a way to help ease the fears of Kosovo's minority Serbs, who have come under attack from vengeful Albanians. The Il-76 transport plane departed from the southern town of Ivanovo this morning. It was to be followed by three more planes today, Russia's Interfax news agency said. Some 200 peacekeepers, 20 vehicles and 20 tons of other cargo were to be ferried to Kosovo on the planes, ...

Administration Calls for Warning Labels on Eggs Reuters The New York Times; July 6, 1999, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final; Section F; Page 6; Column 1; Health & Fitness WASHINGTON, July 5 The Clinton Administration has proposed that warning labels be put on eggs to alert consumers to the possible serious illnesses, including salmonella poisoning, that eggs can cause. "Eggs are a good source of protein and can be a healthy and economical contribution to a well-balanced diet," Dr. Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said. "However, they need proper handling or they could potentially be ...

ABU DHABI, July 6 (Itar-Tass) - The United States is considering the possibility of deploying NATO troops in five Arab countries. The possibility of drawing Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Mauritania into the alliance's sphere of interests was discussing during President Hosni Mubarak's recent visit to the United States. The Jordanian newspaper "Al-Madj" reports that President Clinton asked Hosni Mubarak to discuss with his Arab colleagues the possibility of deploying large NATO contingents in five Arab countries to "strengthen strategic ties" with the nations of the Arab world. The newspaper notes that Washington had recently held consultations on this problem ...

CLINTON'S FOOT-IN-MOUTH DISEASE Did Bill Clinton really mean to throw a major monkey wrench into the Middle East peace process? Probably not - but that's exactly what he did with his off-the-cuff response to a reporter's question last week whether Palestinian refugees should be allowed to settle in Israel. Still, whether he meant to or not - and administration officials have been scrambling like mad to try to "clarify" his ill-advised remarks - Bill Clinton has emboldened the Palestinians, put a dangerous issue into diplomatic play and undermined incoming Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Clinton's miscue came when an Egyptian ...

THE STATE OF OUR DISUNION They just don't make marriages like they used to. So says a report issued by The National Marriage Project. It reveals that fewer people are getting hitched: From 1960 to 1996, the annual number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women dropped 43 percent. One reason for this, the authors suggest, may be that people are putting off marriage: The average age for marriage has risen considerably. And when people do marry, they're not thrilled with it. The share of people in first marriages who say the relationship is "very happy" was 37 percent in 1996, ...

THE DEMOCRATS GO INSANE By Dick Morris HAVE they replaced fluoride in the Washington, D.C., water supply with sterner stuff? Like LSD, for example? The Democratic Party seems to have gone collectively crazy in the past week or so. Consider the clinical evidence: *Just when his wife is straining credibility by running for Senate from New York and trying to make us believe she has loved us all along, her husband lets slip to his friends and staff that he is thinking of running for Senate too - from Arkansas. This is the triangulated marriage. She'll live in New York. ...

NEBRASKA'S KERREY BACKS BRADLEY By DEBORAH ORIN Bill Bradley yesterday won the support of Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, one of the Senate's most respected Democrats, in his challenge to Vice President Al Gore for the 2000 Democratic nod. "Bill has the vision to challenge America to greatness and the integrity to restore the nation's faith in our public institutions," said Kerrey, who has been sharply critical of President Clinton's Sexgate scandal. Kerrey is a close friend of Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who sources say will ultimately join him in backing Bradley. Moynihan is currently helping Hillary Rodham Clinton launch ...

PREZ FEELS PAIN OF POOR By DEBORAH ORIN President Clinton yesterday went to Appalachia to launch a four-day trip to bring the spotlight to pockets of poverty that have been left behind in what he called a "blessed time" for America. Because of the trip, Clinton won't be with wife Hillary tomorrow to kick off her New York Senate bid. "Even though this is a blessed time for America, not all Americans have been blessed by it," Clinton told a crowd in Hazard, Ky., where several people fainted in the heat. "I came to show America who you are ... ...