Free Republic

Has anyone thought of using a Guillotine for execution in this country....it is certainly humane, and if done in public, would create a wonderful deterent to crime. It worked for France until 1939, and it is painless....

Dec 9, 1999 - 11:56 AM Yeltsin Wins Chinese Support on Chechnya By Charles Hutzler Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - Having won Chinese support for Russia's military campaign in Chechnya, Russian President Boris Yeltsin lashed out today at President Clinton, reminding Washington that Moscow still has a nuclear arsenal. At a meeting with Li Peng, China's legislative chairman and the communist government's most hard-line leader, Yeltsin told reporters he wanted to send a message to Clinton, who this week criticized Russia for causing civilian casualties in Chechnya. "It seems Mr. Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that ...

Never has a nonincumbent had such a firm lock on his party's presidential nomination so early. Republican favorite George W. Bush has seemed ill-informed on foreign policy, inarticulate on the economy, and shifty on his youthful libertinism, but he has never for a moment seemed like a loser. He has chased Republicans out of the race one by one. Kasich, Alexander, Quayle, Elizabeth Dole... each of them threw up his or her hands at the impossibility of competing with Bush in fundraising. In our time, money and organization allow lackluster candidates like Walter Mondale and Bob Dole to coast to ...

Racists, or just elitists?: Media and GOP bigwigs tire of 'loser' candidates Maybe it is a mistake, but it's a telling one. Alan Keyes' name was omitted by Republican bigwigs in Washington in a survey sent out to party donors and prospective delegates to the 2000 GOP Presidential convention in Philadelphia. Keyes has repeatedly accused the media of racism for failing to cover his candidacy; by the same (albeit flawed) standard he ought to turn the spotlight on his own party. Seriously, how could national GOPers be so careless as to not list Keyes along with George W. Bush, John ...

Recently, a number of policy analysts and scholars have raised the specter of a growing gap between the U.S. military and the society it is sworn to protect. Concern about this alleged gap has evolved into a regular part of the ongoing debate over the status of U.S. civil-military relations in the post-Cold War era. The essence of this claim is that the U.S. military has become increasingly alienated from American society and that the officer corps, once apolitical, is growing both more conservative and politically active than ever before. A major scholarly study seems to confirm this view. ...

To Stop School Shootings, Let's Give America's Children their Childhood Back Another school shooting. This time the shooting occurred uncomfortably close to my family. Fort Gibson Middle School, in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, where a quiet, 13 year old honor student fired 15 shots at students, wounding five, is only about six miles away from where a son, daughter-in-law and seven of my grandchildren live. As I was watching the Fox news of the event, I saw a Muskogee County Ambulance at the school which was taking wounded students to the Muskogee Regional Medical Center where my son, a Desert Storm ...

INSURANCE BY THE MILE? A novel plan lets drivers pay only for miles driven. Progressive Corp., Mayfield Village, Ohio, lets drivers in a pilot program pay for insurance based on when, where and how much they drive. Normally, prices are based on risk posed by a driver's age, record, marital status and other criteria. But Progressive maintains those factors are less important than things like how much a car is used and where it is driven. "A mile driven at eight in the morning is safer than a mile driven at midnight," says Bob McMillan, a marketing executive. Since August ...

The leader of the gun industry's main trade group voiced striking receptivity to the Clinton administration's desire to forge a settlement of municipal litigation against firearms makers and distributors. But some individual gun-company executives, as well as the National Rifle Association, condemned the White House for threatening to file a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of 3,200 public-housing authorities. During a broad-ranging news conference Wednesday in Washington, President Clinton reiterated his decision to use the threat of a massive federal suit to pressure the gun industry to accept marketing and manufacturing restrictions demanded by 28 cities and counties that ...

NASHUA, N.H. - A defiant George W. Bush yesterday hit back at critics who have panned his early campaign performance, vowing to erase doubts about his intellect and fitness to be president. ``Let me say this to you: I've been underestimated,'' Bush said in a Herald interview, referring to his first race for governor in 1994. ``And I would just ask you to go ask old Ann Richards what it's like to underestimate George W.'' Bush defeated Richards, the nationally-known Democratic incumbent, after a tough race where she derided him as a ``jerk'' and ``shrub'' trading on his family ...

By the end of the evening, even the most outrageous stories seemed dulled by repetition: beatings in jail, business owners tear-gassed outside their stores, innocent bystanders arrested, peaceful protesters silenced. Seattle City Council President Sue Donaldson convened last night's unprecedented eight-hour public hearing to give people a chance to tell city officials what happened on the streets and in the jails during last week's World Trade Organization meeting. But the marathon of testimony by some 120 people will provide a powerful backdrop of anger and frustration as a task force of three council members launches what could be one of ...

'NOW WE all know that we're not supposed to comment on a female politician's looks, much less dwell on them...But we must make an exception for Mrs. Clinton. If she was never quite the ugly duckling of nastiest jibes, she is certainly a swan today. Her hair is dramatically swept back, and she is trim and radiant. Her face is as smooth as an expensive dinner plate ... One thing's sure: Mrs. Clinton seems physically prepared for a new life ..." So writes Jay Nordlinger in Bill Buckley's National Review, on Hillary as a "super Dem." I HAVE known many ...

WASHINGTON –– Although a civil jury has concluded there was a conspiracy to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a 1½-year-old Justice Department investigation is not likely to produce any criminal charges, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said today. Declining to release specific findings of the probe by the department's civil rights division, Holder told reporters: "I would not expect that there would be any criminal prosecution out of our report." Holder said the report on the new field investigation ordered by Attorney General Janet Reno in August 1998 is almost complete and could be released within weeks. Because ...

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Race matters continue to bubble up all over. Even Bill Clinton -- our 'first black president,' according to the preposterous Toni Morrison -- was forced to fend off an impertinent question about race yesterday, during an otherwise serene encounter with Beltway reporters. EMAIL: DEB WEISS An intense young woman challenged him to account for the paradox that despite his noisy, public commitment to 'diversity,' his 26 closest advisers have all been white -- and all but one of them male, to boot. "I think that, you know," said Mr. Clinton, sulking and fuming like a great big cranky boy, ...

Normal 1 0 1999-12-09T17:02:00Z 1 82 472 self 3 1 579 9.2720 Normal 0 0 0     12/12/1985     06:45    LOCATION: Near Gander, Newfoundland, Canada    CARRIER: Arrow Airways     FLIGHT: MF1285R    AIRCRAFT: Douglas DC-8 Super 63PF    REGISTRY: N950JW   S/N: 46058    ABOARD: 256    FATAL: 256    GROUND:     DETAILS: The aircraft stalled and crashed during takeoff.  Possible    icing of the wings.  There is controversy surrounding this crash. The    possibility exists that the crash was caused by the detonation of an    explosive device in a cargo compartment which led to an in-flight     fire and loss of control of the aircraft.   

WTO Protesters vs. the Poor By Barun S. Mitra, a founder of the Liberty Institute, a New Delhi think tank. SEATTLE--The protesters and politicians who made a shambles of last week's World Trade Organization meeting--including President Clinton, who "sympathized" with the protesters' misguided concerns--did a terrible disservice to the world's poor. Their narrow interests and pressure tactics sabotaged an important summit that could have substantially opened international trade and contributed to economic reforms in many developing countries. I observed the talks and was shocked not only by the riotous atmosphere, but by the protesters' misconceptions about trade, the WTO ...

When Hillary Rodham Clinton is mildly irritated, she'll vent with a tight grimace and an exasperated "Jeez, Louise!" But when the First Lady is really ticked, there's no mistaking the danger."The body language changes," says one survivor. "There's a hardening of the face. Her voice gets colder. "And when she gets real quiet and then goes 'um-hmm, um-hmm, um-hmm' in rapid order, you'd better start looking for your seat belt." Like many politicians, Clinton has a healthy temper. But aides report it hasn't surfaced much in the months since she decided to run for a New York seat in the ...

MIDI - IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN (short musical intro) Hey you bad guys…evil, rotten bad guys…the good doctor’s giving a prescription You should worry, worry, worry, ‘cause…you won’t know who’s an easy target And good citizens are fighting back Dr. Curtiss has a warning…the criminals he’s scorning He’s gonna cause them pain He is holding a raffle…anti-gun nuts he will baffle The new gun laws are insane He’ll have bad guys feeling sickly…so get your tickets quickly You too can join the game If they’re breaking into your house…no longer will you be a mouse Just take ...

By Susan Jones CNS Morning Editor 09 December, 1999 (CNSNews.com) - A clothing retailer that caters to kids publishes a quarterly catalog that comes wrapped in cellophane, along with a warning label that says no one under 18 may purchase it. The catalogue, which sells for about $6 at retail outlets, has aroused the wrath of Illinois Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood, and she's urging holiday shoppers to boycott the Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) clothing company that distributes it. Wood said the catalogue is full of scantily-clad models and racy interviews, and she said it peddles soft-core porn to kids. ...

The Human Rights Commission, one of the nation's largest homosexual advocacy groups, is calling on members to complain to the newly-formed Exxon-Mobil Corporation after it announced it would not grant the unmarried domestic partnership benefits. "Exxon-Mobil's new policy may make them the first major U.S. employer ever to roll back a non-discrimination policy and the second to end domestic partnership benefits," said a release from HRC, which also urges "stockholder action." "HRC asks members to inform the Exxon-Mobil Corporation that their decision to treat gay and lesbian workers unfairly and unequally is not acceptable, bad business and a prime ...