Free Republic

WASHINGTON, DC — That scrumptious meal you had for Thanksgiving — and the festive feast you're probably planning for Christmas — may get hit with a "fat tax" if certain public health fanatics get their way, the Libertarian Party warned today. "Hide the ham, guard the gravy, and hold on to your hamburger: The calorie cops are coming after us," said Steve Dasbach, the party's national director. "If we don't stop them, the grease Gestapo will do to fatty foods what they've already done to cigarettes." In recent months, the "fat tax" — a new federal tax that would be ...

JERUSALEM (AP) - The dream harbored by Syria since its defeat in the 1967 Mideast war - recovering the strategic Golan Heights along its border with Israel - will move a step closer to reality next week in Washington. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa will face off with an Israeli government that says it is willing to take risks for peace. And Syria has the Clinton administration in its corner, dutifully reciting the land-for-peace mantra that paid off for Egypt 20 years ago with recovery of all of the Sinai in a landmark accord with Israel. The price Israeli ...

Yeltsin warns Clinton not to pressure Russia MOSCOW, Dec 9 (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin, visiting China, warned the United States on Thursday against trying to put pressure on nuclear-armed Russia over its military campaign in Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported from Beijing. ``(U.S. President Bill) Clinton allowed himself to pressurise Russia yesterday,'' Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying in reference to Clinton's tough remarks on Chechnya. ``He must have forgotten for a moment what Russia is. It has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons.'' Other Russian news agencies carried similar reports, saying Yeltsin deliberately stopped to make his ...

Russia Takes Over Key Chechen Town By YURI BAGROV The Associated Press ACHKHOI-MARTAN, Russia (AP) - The Russian military claimed today to control the key Chechen town of Urus-Martan after weeks of fierce fighting, but said its forces were still bombarding rebel fighters in the town. Russian forces also pummeled targets in the capital, Grozny, and to the southeast, in Shali and Serzhen Yurt, the Russian military command said. A Russian victory in Urus-Martan, 12 miles southwest of Grozny, would close off a key approach to the capital and further hamper rebel supply lines. However, Russian forces have claimed to ...

Chinese workers in mass protest over pay-HK group HONG KONG, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Retired steel-workers in western China clashed with police on Thursday when they were about to launch a protest against pension cuts, a Hong Kong human rights group said. Four workers were injured in the scuffle and six others were taken away by the police in the city of Chongqing, the Information Centre of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said in a statement. About 500 retired workers, preparing for a demonstration against their pension cut, clashed with 100 policemen, the centre said. The injuries and ...

COURT PUTS HOMELESS PLAN ON HOLD UNTIL JAN. 14 By DAREH GREGORIAN, MAGGIE HABERMAN, ANDY GELLER and VINCE MORRIS In a major setback for Mayor Giuliani, two judges delayed the start of his controversial jobs-for-beds policy for the homeless until after the holidays. At a rare joint hearing yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justices Elliot Wilk and Helen Freedman granted a Legal Aid Society request for a restraining order, halting the plan until Jan. 14. The policy, which was to have become effective next Monday, denies shelter to able-bodied adults who refuse to work. In addition, the city may seek foster ...

RUDY'S 'STAR' WARS By PAULA DONEMAN and MAGGIE HABERMAN The broadcast brawl on the homeless boiled over yesterday as Rosie O'Donnell joined forces with actor Tim Robbins - and Mayor Giuliani blasted the "highly ideological Hollywood" friends of the Clintons. O'Donnell's show turned into a sequel of her slam on Giuliani's policies when Robbins - plugging his new movie, "Cradle Will Rock" - blasted the mayor's crackdown on the homeless. Robbins also jabbed at Giuliani's recent war with the Brooklyn Museum over an exhibit featuring a dung-dappled Virgin Mary painting. O'Donnell insisted she's not hammering Giuliani because she's pals with ...

DONNA DASHES IN BUT DUCKS HILL AT SHINDIG By ROBERT HARDT Jr. Donna Hanover used a big curtain and a heavy schedule yesterday to duck a meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton as the two first ladies shared the dais at a women's breakfast in Manhattan. Both Clinton and Hanover spoke at the New York Women's Agenda annual "Star Breakfast" in the Hilton Hotel. But while Mrs. Clinton -- the likely Senate opponent of Hanover's husband Mayor Giuliani -- stayed for the entire event, Hanover made a cameo appearance. The two-tiered dais on the grand ballroom's stage included assigned seats for ...

CLINTON FEELS PAIN OF CUBAN RAFT BOY'S DAD By DOUGLAS MONTERO, MALCOLM BALFOUR, MARILYN RAUBER, MARIA ALVAREZ and WILLIAM NEUMAN President Clinton voiced sympathy yesterday for the father of 6-year-old refugee Elian Gonzalez -- but said "politics and threats" should have no role in deciding if the boy stays in the United States or returns to Cuba. "I think all fathers would be sympathetic" with the plight of Cuban dad Juan Gonzalez, Clinton said in his first comments on the case that has raised tensions between the United States and Cuba. "The question is, and I think the most important ...

AN AD FROM RosiePAC A New York Post Editorial Tuesday, Rosie O'Donnell unloaded on Mayor Giuliani on her talk show: "He's out of control, this guy. ... He thinks he, like, runs the world. ... He's running for Senate, you know. This is the way to get to those voters. Sure, just -- you know -- arrest all the homeless people." Warming to her subject, Rosie threatened to go out and get herself arrested -- then flashed the mayor's office phone and fax numbers on screen and demanded to know: "Rudy, what are you thinking?" Now, Rosie (she should forgive ...

SHE'LL PAY IN RATINGS FOR HER PREACHING By ADAM BUCKMAN ROSIE O'DONNELL, the comedian, once seemed poised to overtake Oprah Winfrey as the queen of daytime TV. Today, Rosie, the political pontificator, may wind up sinking her own TV show. There's simply no denying it: Rosie O'Donnell has turned her show into a platform for editorializing on hot political issues, be it gun control (as in her set-to with Tom Selleck earlier this year) or the homeless, complaining on the air this week about Mayor Giuliani's policies. And yet, Rosie's spokeswoman did just that yesterday -- denied all the politics, ...

Washington Bulletin: National Review's Internet Update for 1 By Ramesh Ponnuru and John J. Miller FORBES'S STEALTH CAMPAIGN? On Tuesday's "Crossfire," Robert Novak asked Steve Forbes about NR's report that the likely reason he had dropped out of the Louisiana caucus was because he was afraid he would lose to Gary Bauer. Forbes repeated the campaign's line that he dropped out because George W. Bush and John McCain would not be participating. But now it's not clear he's dropped out at all. The contest on January 15 picks three delegates to the Republican convention from each of seven congressional districts. ...

THE STRANGE DEATH OF THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT By GEORGE F. WILL THE Seattle protester wore a Gap sweatshirt that undoubtedly was made somewhere across the globe, under imperfect labor laws. He was perhaps one of the "anarchists" demanding comprehensive governmental regulation of international trade. When his denunciation of globalization took the form of looting a Radio Shack store, he liberated (as was said by his sort in the Sixties) a satellite dish. Analyzing Seattle's end-of-the-century version of the storming of the Winter Palace, The Washington Post's correspondent wrote that proponents of free trade can no longer just tell people that ...

NATO’s war against Serbia was aimed at stopping "genocide in the heart of Europe." We know this because President Clinton said so. In his speeches last spring explaining why the U.S. and its European allies had started bombing the remains of Yugoslavia, Clinton repeatedly referred to the Holocaust. He also likened Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic to Adolf Hitler. In case you had trouble accepting the word of a notorious liar, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright backed Clinton up. "President Milosevic has unleashed a rampage of ethnic cleansing and genocide directed at the expulsion or total submission of the Kosovo ...

WASHINGTON -- Following the meltdown of the Seattle trade talks, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a blunt warning Wednesday to members of Congress: Any opposition to admitting China into the World Trade Organization will come at a heavy political price. This spring -- just months before the November congressional and presidential elections -- Congress will vote on whether to grant China permanent normal trading status to clear the way for its long-sought admission to the WTO. The debate is shaping up as a huge brawl between business and environmental and labor groups that will put ...

To show you how deeply Marxian reversed logic has penetrated our society, let's look at a recent article by a certain "Latino" gentleman. This Latino gentleman, if we can honor him with that title, states that with the aging of the white population in California, he doubts whether the Latinos - who he says are taking back the state - will want to continue carrying the older Whites on their backs. Of course, by "Latinos" we know he means activist Marxist Hispanics and the illegals they are exploiting for their socialist goals. The majority of Hispanics, naturally, the loyal Hispanic ...

Inside Politics: Buchanan conundrum; McCain denies sellout; Smith to run again; King of the race baiters, amd more! Greg Pierce Buchanan conundrum Pat Buchanan’s decision to run for president as a Reform Party candidate has raised doubts as to whether he will receive the hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds he was entitled to as a Republican contender, the Associated Press reports. The issue is before the Federal Election Commission, which is expected to reach a decision this month, in time to tell the Treasury Department how much money to distribute after the first of the year to ...

Clinton hits Gore rivals’ plans: Will cope in Hillary’s absence By Andrew Cain THE WASHINGTON TIMES President Clinton, who has pledged to stay out of next year’s presidential campaign, got in digs yesterday at Vice President Al Gore’s rivals in both parties. Mr. Clinton also sounded wistful about first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s impending move to New York and the end of his weekly lunches with Mr. Gore. “I’m not going to get in the middle of the Gore-Bradley campaign,” Mr. Clinton told reporters during a news conference at the State Department. But Mr. Clinton leveled criticism at both Democrat ...

Bush campaign halts major fund raising: Already has collected $63.2 million By Ralph Z. Hallow THE WASHINGTON TIMES Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush has virtually suspended fund raising, in part because of criticism from other candidates of his own party for his record-setting pace. The Texas governor has already raised $63.2 million, and is expected to end the year having collected about $68 million — more than twice the previous pre-primary record of $32 million. “He has tapped all the lobbyists and special interests he can,” Bill Dal Col, campaign manager for Bush rival Steve Forbes, said yesterday. “There ...

Friday LINCOLN - Presidential candidate Alan Keyes will critcize the University of Nebraska Medical Center's fetal-tissue research at a Friday appearance in Omaha. "When he found out what was going on here, the event changed from more of a political rally to a rally for life," Keyes spokesman Jeff Taylor said Tuesday. Keyes will call on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents to halt the research, which involves brain tissue from aborted fetuses. The Regents meet 8:30 a.m. Saturday at Varner Hall, 3835 Holdrege St. in Lincoln. The Keyes event begins at 3:30 p.m. Friday with music by Project ...