Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani finds himself under siege by Gotham's limousine class because he wants the homeless to get 1) indoors and 2) gainfully employed. This has generated an outcry because it could lead society's dispossessed toward lives of independence and dignity -- which would make them unavailable for celebrity pity. The mayor got moving after a homeless man named Parris Drake pounded a woman named Nicole Barrett over the head with a brick, nearly killing her. The two had never met; the victim just happened to stroll in the path of someone else's dementia. Giuliani ...

From the comments made to the first REALITY CHECK made by L.N. Smithee, it seems some didn't read part of the post, or that they are unaware of how how the EC (Electoral College) voters are chosen, who they are, and how they function. It seems some additional information may help people understand why the EC is virtually an impossible hurdle for third party candidates. The NARA electoral college page is a good starting point for information. L.N. Smithee's posted excerpts contained these key phrases: The slates of electors are generally chosen by the political parties. State laws vary on ...

Washington (AP) -- A ``mild case of the flu'' has prompted President Clinton to cancel a fund-raising trip to Houston planned for Monday, a White House spokesman said Sunday evening. Clinton ``has been struggling with it for a few days and it's finally getting to him,'' added spokesman Mike Hammer. He said the president expects to be better in time for important Middle East peace talks Wednesday in Washington. Clinton had planned to depart the White House at mid-morning Monday and speak at a luncheon honoring Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, at a private home in Houston. He also ...

Washington (AP) - A "mild case of the flu" has prompted President Clinton to cancel a fund-raising trip to Houston planned for Monday, a White House spokesman said Sunday evening. Clinton "has been struggling with it for a few days and it's finally getting to him," added spokesman Mike Hammer. He said the president expects to be better in time for important Middle East peace talks Wednesday in Washington. Clinton had planned to depart the White House at mid-morning Monday and speak at a luncheon honoring Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, at a private home in Houston. He also ...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I, for one, have had enough of these neutered eunichs running around the country, asking me to vote for them, and to support their campaigns. I suppose we should expect this sort of feel-good hyperbole from the liberals, but lately I've heard more of this blather from so-called conservatives. Does any of this sound familiar? "I'm doing it for the children" ~ Grow up already! Stop hiding behind the kids. America's children have grown soft and weak behind politicians and parents who do everything for the children. Children (and some politicians) ...

F I R S T - D R A F T - C O P Y

TRIAL lawyers, anti-gun activists, mayors and the Clinton administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development have a "simple solution" to the complex problem of gun violence: sue gunmakers for the public costs of criminal, negligent and self-destructive gun misuses. In the words of H.L. Mencken: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." The lawsuits threaten democracy because they would replace the will of the majority as expressed through the legislature with the determinations of an unelected judiciary. In our democratic republic, Congress, and Congress alone, is constitutionally empowered to regulate interstate commerce. ...

It was a tricky question. Brit Hume, one of the journalists asking questions at the presidential debate in New Hampshire, asked Gov. George W. Bush what he reads to keep informed. It was an indirect way of gauging whether the Texas governor knew what in the world is going on. After all, he had flunked a mini-quiz on foreign affairs that was popped to him by a Boston TV reporter. Sensing a veiled insult, Mr. Bush bristled. He answered that he reads The Dallas Morning News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Austin American-Statesman. He added, ...

What did Bill Clinton think he was doing in Seattle? He invites leaders from all over the world to a new round of talks on lowering trade barriers. They find themselves besieged by anti-trade demonstrators: environmentalists, protectionists, anarchists and lunatics. The president-host then shows up and makes the demonstrators' case! Startling his own negotiators (and pleasing Big Labor), Mr. Clinton goes way beyond the official U.S. position about tacking environmental and labor standards onto tariff talks. He publicly declares he favors imposing sanctions on countries that violate such standards. That astonishing expansion - and subversion - of what were supposed ...

Date: Sunday, December 12, 1999 7:09 PM Subject: Fw: The Rebirth of Freedom The Rebirth of Freedom We, the sensible citizens of these United States of America, in an attempt to restore harmony, justice, morality, religion and brotherhood; avoid riots, protect our nation’s safety, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try once more to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, disillusioned, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that this nation of citizens are confused by the original ...

NRTW: Union Threatens To Get Seattle-Area Health Care Workers Fired For Refusing to Pay for Union Politics Union Threatens To Get Seattle-Area Health Care Workers Fired For Refusing to Pay for Union Politics Federal injunction sought to save workers’ jobs FOR RELEASE: December 8, 1999 Seattle, Wash. (December 8) - National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys today filed federal labor charges against the Seattle-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU), District 1199NW, to enjoin its officials from delivering on their illegal threat to get Community Mental Health Services workers fired. The union officials illegally ordered Tonya Lockman (of ...

We were quite disappointed to read Rep. Martin Frost's unfounded attack on the good work we have done this Congress ("Republicans obstructed Congress," Viewpoints, Nov. 29). Does Mr. Frost really believe that stopping the raid on Social Security, paying down $130 billion in debt and modernizing 60-year-old banking laws are insignificant accomplishments? For 30 years, Congress has spent Social Security dollars on other government programs. Those are dollars that Americans sent to Washington for their retirement security, and Washington turned around and poured them into all sorts of social welfare programs. Washington's big spenders squandered the public's trust. And without ...

Concern deepens about Mr Yeltsin President Boris Yeltsin's outburst about Russian nuclear power during his visit to Beijing last week was unnecessary, uncalled-for and unhelpful. It remains unclear just what point the Russian leader was trying to make. He was clearly irritated by several days of criticism from just about the whole world over his Chechnya policy. But that just adds to the concern over Mr Yeltsin's thoughtless and disturbing remark. Reminded that "my friend Bill" Clinton of the United States was among the critics, Mr Yeltsin bristled. Mr Clinton might be forgetting that "Russia is a great power that ...

Americans believe Bill Clinton sets the lowest moral standard of all modern presidents, including Richard Nixon. Americans also feel "disgusted" by the impeachment process and believe future generations will have less respect for the country. WASHINGTON, D.C. – According to the new poll, 56 percent believe Clinton is the least moral president, compared with 14 percent who hold similar beliefs about Nixon. A poll taken in 1988 shows that at that time, Nixon was considered by 48 percent of Americans to be the president who has set the lowest moral standard. Other findings of the U.S. News poll: 41 percent ...

It says something about George W. Bush that when his fellow Republican governors asked him - after only one term in any political office - to run for president, he didn't say, "Why me?" That is evidence of either a stunning self-confidence or an equally stunning naivete. With time, it is becoming clear that it is both. Mr. Bush has the impregnable confidence of someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know. I am not suggesting the man is a dope. Clearly, he isn't. As he incessantly says, he has been the governor of Texas, and he was re-elected in ...

I asked him how he felt now about the boy he'd been, the soldier of Arafat who had risked so much in that cold, angry December of 1987. "I remember how I felt then, that maybe by stones we could change everything." He gazed across at the bulldozed forests of Jebel Abu Gneem. "Now, I feel like I took five years of my life and threw it in the air."  As we left the university, he gazed back longingly. After the next day's graduation ceremony, he would have no further business there and probably wouldn't be admitted. The library that ...

War child Geraldine Brooks was a foreign correspondent working in Israel. Raed was a 15-year-old boy from the West Bank. They met after a lump of concrete that he'd thrown at her passing car shattered the windscreen. The encounter marked an unlikely beginning to an even more unlikely friendship - and would ultimately force Brooks to reappraise her own, and the world's, attitude to the Palestinian cause.  Saturday December 11, 1999 The first time I saw him, he was a flash of red in my rear-view mirror. I was driving alone through the West Bank in a hard, icy rain ...

F I R S T - D R A F T - C O P Y About Free Republic Institute Who are we? Free Republic is a grassroots gathering of independent, patriotic citizens who are dedicated to the cause of preserving human liberty and unalienable rights as proclaimed by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Our objective is to preserve, protect and defend ...

Ronald D. Rotunda is a professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law. December 12, 1999 A little over a month ago, a three-judge panel in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that a public school was correct in prohibiting a 1st grader from reading a story derived from the Bible. This case will soon be in the news again, because it will be reargued before the full court. A rehearing is unusual, and it portends a reversal of the original opinion. When we look at the facts, we can see why the full federal ...

BURBANK, California (CNN) -- Disney has agreed to remove a sombrero-wearing character in the "Toy Story 2" video game because it offended some Hispanics. The decision was announced Thursday after a demonstration outside the Santa Monica headquarters of Activision, which produced the game with Disney based on characters from the animated film. The character does not appear in the movie. One level of the game features a villain with a mustache, bullet bandolier and a sombrero, which Hispanic activists are calling a Mexican stereotype. Players must shoot the character to advance to the next level of the game, says ...