Free Republic

Big Redistricting Tests Face Both Parties In Michigan, Texas By Stuart Rothenberg You've likely heard talk about the importance of California in the redistricting following the 2000 Census, and the possibility that the Democrats could gain more than half a dozen seats (some say even eight or 10 seats) from redrawn Congressional districts that put the GOP at a severe disadvantage. While California is the biggest single redistricting prize, two other states -- Michigan and Texas -- could also be major battlegrounds in the redistricting wars. Democrats already represent 28 of California's 52 districts, and the state is projected to ...

Despite Polls, Nation's Civic Health Is Better By Morton M. Kondracke So just what is the state of the country's civic health on its 223rd birthday? Basically, despite recent down-ticks in the public's mood, it's actually getting better. That's the finding reported last month by the bipartisan National Commission on Civic Renewal, using a broad range of indicators including political participation, charitable giving, family stability and, especially, crime. The conclusion -- based, admittedly, on statistics that run only through 1997 -- is at variance with recent polls indicating that increasing numbers of people think that the country is on the ...

The media is shoving it's hatered for hate down our throats. Everyday, you read, or hear about how awful hate is. The hardcore, wacko leftists have tried to pass Hate Crime Legislation to further punish people who commit crimes for having an unapproved emotion while breaking the law. Yet, has someone banned the emotion of hate? Where is it written that you cannot hate some thing, or some one? The emotion of hate may well apply to a number of situations. What if someone broke into your home and stole your goods? What if someone raped your child, or ...

Clinton takes his dream of hope to the hill-billies By Hugo Gurdon in Washington PRESIDENT CLINTON began a four-day "poverty" tour across America yesterday to draw attention to places left behind in the country's record-breaking economic boom. He said he wanted to "shine the light of opportunity" where unemployment is as much as 17 times the national level of 4.3 per cent, and health care is as bad as in the Third World. The President hopes to use the tour to trigger private investment in poor areas which he says are a £50 billion untapped market for American companies. He ...

N. Korea Building Missile Base Near China-Paper 12.47 a.m. ET (448 GMT) July 7, 1999 SEOUL — North Korea is building an underground missile base near its northern border with China, making the site difficult for U.S. and South Korean forces to attack, a local newspaper said Wednesday. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted an unidentified government official as saying North Korea was building the underground missile site in Youngjeo-dong in North Korea's Yanggang province at the central part of its border with China. "South Korea-U.S. forces are anxious to come up with countermeasures since an attack at a time ...

Major drug trafficking suspect found dead in Mexico Major drug trafficking suspect found dead in Mexico 10.53 p.m. ET (254 GMT) July 6, 1999 By John Rice, Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — A major drug trafficking suspect has been found slain near the U.S. border, one in a series of killings that police believe are linked, officials said Tuesday. The body of Angel Salvador Gomez Herrera was discovered Friday in brush near Matamoros, just south of Brownsville, Texas, according to Julio Cesar Saucedo, spokesman for the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office. Some Mexican news reports over the past ...

'This was his Independence Day' Smith had history of discipline problems with University and continued to have trouble at Indiana University by Mike Gunderson and Julie Westfall Daily Illini reporterr Daily Illini file photo Elizabeth Sahr burns a picture of her ex-boyfriend Benjamin Smith, the gunman who went on a two-state shooting spree this weekend, during a vigil on Oct. 14, 1998. Sahr was participating in a vigil against violence and spoke about her experiences with the abusive Smith. She dated Smith while he was a University student. “This was his Independence Day,” she said on Sunday evening about ...

July 7, 1999 Clinton, in Poverty Tour, Focuses on Profits By JOHN M. BRODER EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- Nothing motivates business like the prospect of profits. That is the fundamental message underlying President Clinton's tour of the nation's impoverished precincts this week. Government tax credits and loan guarantees are fine as far as they go, Clinton says at each stop, but corporations are not going to invest in the Kentucky highlands, the Mississippi Delta or poor East St. Louis without hope of a decent return. Clinton drew attention to the opening of a new Walgreens drug store here in ...

Robber repelled in bun fight at baker's By Sue Clough, Courts Correspondent A WELL-aimed Cornish pasty and a barrage of buns and bread rolls foiled a robber's attempt to steal the day's takings from a bakery shop. Alan Parsons, 35, armed with a knife, snatched the money as staff at the east London shop were counting the day's takings. But as he fled, assistants Patricia Beaton and Edith Loughlin rose to the occasion. "Various items were thrown, including Cornish pasties and baking trays," Brendan Kelly, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey. Mrs Beaton said after the hearing: "There was just the ...

July 7, 1999 On Eve of Four-Day Tour, Hillary Clinton Makes It Official By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN Hillary Rodham Clinton filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission to form an exploratory committee for a Senate race in New York next year, taking a formal step toward becoming the only wife of a sitting president to actively seek elective office. Under federal election rules, the formation of the committee allows Clinton to raise money for travel, advertising and other expenses in her effort to succeed Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat and New York's senior Senator, who is retiring next year after ...

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy." --Christopher Dawson The Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. This document, originally authored by Thomas Jefferson, signified the birth of our nation, and perhaps Jefferson's immortality. John Adams' last words were, "Thomas -- Jefferson -- still -- surv..." Little did he know that Jefferson died that very same day... July 4, 1826 -- fifty years to the day after the advent of our independence ...

THE CONTENDERS / RUNNING TOWARD 2000 McCain Runs as Outsider Inside the Capitol By ALISON MITCHELL WASHINGTON -- Sometime this month John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, plans to do just the kind of thing that drives fellow Republicans crazy. At a moment when others in the Senate have dropped their guard, he will try to force his campaign finance bill to the floor for the debate his party's leaders do not want. Whenever he strikes, he is sure to get publicity, as the maverick once again tilting at the establishment. And that in turn will amplify the theme ...

FRENCH children are to benefit from welfare payments until the age of 22 under a plan to help parents to meet the financial burden of the stay-at-home generation. Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister, will today announce a Fr2 billion (£200 million) extension to allowances granted to middle-income families until their children are 20. The move is designed to head off a crisis in the middle classes. With three-quarters of French 20-year-olds now living at home, and only a handful of them earning a salary, the "load is heavy and the situation is worrying", said Hubert Brin, president of the National ...

A coalition of big money data vendors is pushing database protection bills through the US Congress that could fundamentally disrupt the basic functions of the Internet and radically alter how information can be shared. There are two competing bills that would protect data compilers by prohibiting the duplication of their databases. Critics fear the more restrictive of the two, Collections of Information Antipiracy Act (HR354), would make criminals of companies that collect and aggregate data -- companies like Yahoo and Amazon.com. "The beauty of the Internet is that for the first time you have this huge engine for finding and ...

Tuesday, July 6, 1999 Yugoslav City Battling Toxic Enemies Balkans: NATO strikes on chemical sites have left environmental nightmare. By MARK FINEMAN, Times Staff Writer PANCEVO, Yugoslavia--They call it "The Night of the Witches," those horrible hours that began at precisely 1 a.m. April 18, when NATO bombs and missiles rained in force on this Serbian city. Within seconds, they demolished a refinery, a fertilizer plant and an American-built petrochemical complex that released a toxic cloud so dense and potentially lethal that its effects can be felt here even today--and will be, perhaps, for decades. The sun never shone here ...

Ex-Army chiefs seek answers on Nato bombing BY ANDREW PIERCE TWO former Chiefs of the Defence Staff and two senior British commanders involved in the Bosnia conflict are supporting calls for an independent inquiry into the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia. Field Marshal Lord Bramall, Chief of Staff 1982-85, and Lord Craig of Radley, Chief of Staff 1988-91, have backed the Conservative Party in seeking a review of the effectiveness of the military operation. Colonel Bob Stewart, Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment in Bosnia 1991-93, and Lieutenant-General Sir Roderick Cordy-Simpson, the United Nations Chief of Staff in Bosnia ...

Sometimes an outside view adds a little something that we might miss. Here's a piece that made some good points and analysis.... The ancient Romans said if you want peace, prepare for war. Somehow this is also the downside of the better-known saying that history always repeats itself. Why? Because it is not that history repeats itself at all, it's just that people tend to repeat their mistakes. The great mistake America is repeating is to forget that wise Roman saying. Under Clinton America has been preparing for defeat. Peace comes through strength. In a pacific world the need for ...

BONN, July 6 (Itar-Tass) - 1,000 Russian peacemakers will be stationed in the German sector in Kosovo, Assistant to the NATOSecretary-General Klaus-Peter Klaiber told Radio Berlin- Brandenburg on Tuesday. The 3,600 Russian troopers to join the KFOR in the near future will be stationed in the German, American and French sectors. In the words of Klaiber, the Moscow negotiations of NATO and Russia settled complicated problems, including the subordination of the Russian contingent. They agreed on the unified command of the peacemaking operation, and Moscow basically accepted such an approach, he said. Now Russia wants to have such a decision-making ...

The Thing About Handguns Wednesday, July 7, 1999; Page A18 THE SELF-proclaimed champions of the Second Amendment (as interpreted by them) say that if people didn't kill with handguns, they'd do it with something else -- and indeed they do, just about every day. People stab, stomp, beat, strangle and even run over one another with depressing frequency. But a knife, fist, rope or shod foot doesn't generally miss its target and kill a woman in her living room, or a grandmother shepherding children to safety. Nor does it extend a killer's power, allowing him to strike down his victim ...

The globalists are resource rich, and this site is a good demonstration of the nationalists are up against. I couldn't believe how bold these folks are about comparing people who love the USA to Freemen, Tim McVeigh, etc. If you are even slightly concerned the US may be losing it sovereignty, check out this link.Link here to a sorry site, including such eye-opening revelations as these: "Why would patriotic Americans feel justified in carrying out a terrorist attack against the US government, such as the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City? What would lead self-proclaimed "Patriots" to organize ...