Free Republic

While hypocritical liberals still remain in control over most of the nation's public education, there are key signs that cracks are occurring in the once impenetrable wall surrounding the policies endemic to government-controlled schools. This, by the way, is a good thing and it's a trend that is long overdue. In California, Proposition 227 -- the initiative passed by voters a year ago designed to end the fallacious notion of "bilingual education" -- is languishing in court, challenged by liberal education protectors who see it as a challenge to their authority. However key school districts within the state -- most ...

TOKYO -- Less than a month after the United States gave Pyongyang a clean bill of health, North Korea is reportedly close to completion of an underground missile facility near the Chinese border, a Seoul newspaper reported Wednesday. North Korea also warned yesterday against trying to stop any missile launches. "We have already repeatedly declared that such things as missile development, production and test launch belong to our sovereignty and no one has the right to take issue with the rights of a sovereign state,'' said the Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo. The national daily Chosun Ibo ...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The wife of NATO's top commander in Europe borrowed her husband's official bulletproof Mercedes and parked it at a golf course, where it ended up being stolen, the alliance confirmed Thursday. The Belgian newspapers Le Soir and La Libre Belgique said unidentified thieves stole Gen. Wesley Clark's black Mercedes 600 Tuesday while his wife, Gertrude, was playing golf near Casteau, in southern Belgium, where NATO's military headquarters is located. Police found the car 24 hours later, a NATO official said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the ...

This just in: People are dumb New poll says 35 percent of Americans favor censorship July 7 — Surveys show that a majority of Americans are tired of reading stories that begin, “Surveys show a majority of Americans ... ” A majority of Americans believe the news media abuse the First Amendment, and 35 percent believe news media should not be able to publish a story without government approval. Are they nuts? POLLS, WE KNOW, can be made to say anything. Their results usually have a remarkable resemblance to the views of the organization that asked the questions. The ...

Michael Dell to head Bush technology panel Reuters Story - July 07, 1999 21:28 AUSTIN, July 7 (Reuters) - Texas Gov. George W. Bush, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Wednesday he had set up a panel of high-tech heavyweights to advise him on technology issues during his campaign. Michael Dell, founder and chief executive officer of Texas-based Dell Computer Corp. , will chair the committee, the Bush campaign organization said in a statement. Other members include John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems Inc., Tom Engibous, CEO of Texas Instruments Inc. and Robert Herbold, chief operating officer of ...

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, July 8 (UPI) - The leader of the opposition New Democracy (ND) party says the choice facing Serbia and Yugoslavia is simple - either Slobodan Milosevic and his deputies resign and a transitional government is brought in or unrest and an attempted military-police coup will follow. ND president Dusan Mihajlovic said in an interview published Thursday in the Belgrade newspaper Blic that if there is not a change in leadership followed by free and fair elections, there will be isolation, misery and poverty, internal unrest, secession of Montenegro, protectorates in Vojvodina and Raska (Sandzak) and attempted military- ...

Let's imagine for a moment that a two-term Republican Governor of one of the largest states is running for President. This Governor has not only signed a liberal abortion bill, he had also raised taxes. WOULD YOU SUPPORT THIS GOVERNOR FOR PRESIDENT? I will reveal this man's name later.

Appeals court rules biracial child will stay with adoptive parents Three-year-old Maya has lived with a white couple in Columbia ever since the girl of mixed race was 8 weeks old and her Kansas City birth mother picked them to be her adoptive parents. On Tuesday, a Missouri appeals court in Kansas City ruled that Maya will stay in the only home she has known. A Jackson County family commissioner last year had awarded custody of Maya to an African-American aunt on the East Coast. Maya's adoptive parents appealed, and her future became tangled in a web of legal issues ...

Are you sitting down? I hope so, because the following news item is going to make you go all wobbly at the knees: for the first time in recorded history, the recipient of a foreign aid handout has rejected the money and told Uncle Sam, in effect, to get lost: "We will not accept US aid for a change in Iraq," Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), told the London-based daily Al-Hayat. According to Akhbar.com [January 21, 1999], the Ayatollah, who resides with his fellow ayatollahs in Teheran, bit the ...

Schools superintendant Ruben Zacarias defended Los Angeles Unified's approach to Proposition 227 Wednesday, issuing a statement saying the law allows teachers to use some Spanish in class. Zacarias' statement is in response to a county Grand Jury report issued last week that criticized the school district for using Spanish far more often than teachers should in classes that are supposed to be conducted almost entirely in English. The grand jury recommended the school district immediately end its "Model B" program, which allows the use of Spanish as a safety net, and stick with its English-only "Model A" program. The report ...

The fact that racist-murderer Benjamin Nathaniel Smith was able to buy guns illegally is being used by gun-control enthusiasts as a rationale for more government regulation of firearms. Think about that logic, folks. Smith tried to buy guns legally and couldn't get through the background check because of a protective order against him from an ex-girlfriend. But he was not arrested for trying to buy guns illegally. He was simply turned away. His next step was to turn to the black market (which must have been a tough call for a white supremacist). He had no trouble buying what ...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. For many older US dams, environmental damage outweighs economic value and makes them ripe for removal. Though it was a whimper, and not a roar, when the Kennebec River hydroelectric dam came down last week in Augusta, Maine, scientists and environmentalists stood at attention. This was the first time in United States history that the federal government had deemed a dam's environmental damage greater than its economic benefit and refused to renew its license. The precedent may open the floodgates for more dam removals. With the dam-building era long past, ...

The W Express is some operation. A distinguished state governor called in last week, a public figure much esteemed at this end of the conservative production line, but not an old acquaintance, let alone a phone chum. He had two things on his mind, the first to pass along joyful news of a tax reduction in his state, the second to comment on the candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush, about which the caller was hugely enthusiastic. What does one hear when being spoken to about W? -- That he is a committed conservative who sensibly inflects the message ...

Ghostwriter on Clinton book loses his spirit Delays in project on race frustrated author By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff, 07/08/99 WASHINGTON - A ghostwritten draft of President Clinton's book on race relations has languished for months in his to-do box. And the chief writer, Christopher F. Edley Jr. a Harvard University professor, is moving on after recently quitting the project in frustration. Edley, one of Clinton's key advisers on matters of race and racism, sent the president a note yesterday telling him that he will cooperate if Clinton needs him to help finish the book, but he is ''going ahead ...

Maybe we have a real surplus of money to run the federal government, and maybe we don't. I put it that way because there is ample evidence that much of what this government tells us is calculated more for the purpose of advancing an agenda than keeping us well informed and knowledgeable. It doesn't seem unreasonable or even cynical to believe that a president who would lie to justify taking us to war in Yugoslavia would lie about a budget surplus to justify spending more money on his favorite social programs. However, to be fair, deception is one thing, ...

Thursday July 1, American Jewish Congress Letter to Minority Leader Gephardt: TEXT: You know that I have always had great admiration for your judgment and your intuitive sense of what is right and appropriate. I have,therefore, learned with considerable disappointment of the appointment of Salam al-Marayati to the National Commission on Terrorism. I commend the warm feeling and sympathetic understanding you have always demonstrated for the American Muslim community, just as you have done for the Jewish community. But to put it bluntly, with this decision the fox has been appointed to guard the hen house. As Director of the ...

Thanks to the Cox report's revelations, Americans now know that Communist China has moved almost overnight from a 1950s nuclear capability to the most modern, advanced technology in the American nuclear arsenal. It is the most devestating intelligence failure in American history. But while the details of the report have been widely discussed, one question remains unanswered: What are we going to do about it? China's apologists in Washington have quickly circled their wagons in an attempt to limit the impact of the Cox report's damning disclosures on the Clinton administration's "engagement" policy toward Beijing. Incredibly, some in the administration ...

WASHINGTON - Patrick J. Buchanan is back for his third White House run, and is poised to replay the skunk at the Republican presidential garden party. He's going against the GOP grain again, as he did in 1992 and 1996, proudly defending his protectionist beliefs, pounding the front-runner as wishy-washy, and proclaiming his solidarity with working men and women whom the economic boom has passed by. ''What about the forgotten Americans, those who this Goldilocks economy has left behind?'' Buchanan, 60, asked during a brief interview. ''For them, my message is resonating. I've always spoken for those folks, and ...

Snooping OK on Pager Numbers? WASHINGTON -- Police can easily "eavesdrop" on pagers if a bill approved by the US Senate becomes law. The bill says law enforcement officials can monitor all messages sent to targeted pagers without having to convince a judge that the information can be found only in that way. "Congress is trying to do an end run around the Constitution and gut the privacy of millions of pager owners," said David Banisar, author of The Electronic Privacy Papers. The measure is part of a sprawling juvenile crime bill, which passed the Senate overwhelmingly after the Littleton, ...

Economy: President warns that Republican tax-cut proposals would lead to a new federal deficit. RAPID CITY, S.D.--President Clinton, heading for impoverished neighborhoods in Southern California, says jump-starting economic activity in these communities and paying off the federal debt are key to maintaining prosperity for all Americans. By contrast, he charged in an interview with The Times, Republican tax cut proposals would create a new federal deficit. "It's almost like the parties have switched places on this," Clinton said. "I'm not sure a lot of [the Republicans] believe it is as important as I do to try to make the ...