Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the second time in five weeks, the Supreme Court today let a state continue subsidizing children who attend some private schools while denying the same tuition help for those who go to religious schools. The court, without comment, rejected an appeal in which parents of religious-school pupils argued that Vermont violates their freedom of religion by denying them the same financial help given to parents whose children attend private, nonreligious schools. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that state tuition payments for children attending religious schools would violate the constitutionally required separation of church and state. The ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An expert on biological ethics with the Southern Baptist Convention has declared that proposed federal guidelines on human embryo research ``represent government-funded, biotech cannibalism.'' The guidelines would allow public funding of research on primitive stem cells taken from human embryos so long as the actual harvesting, which kills the embryos, is privately funded. Ben Mitchell, spokesman for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant body, said: ``Derivation of stem cells cannot be separated from the use of those cells. The decision to kill embryos taints whatever use the ...

Clinton falls in line over 'gay' soldiers ISSUE 1662Monday 13 December 1999 Clinton falls in line over 'gay' soldiersBy Toby Harnden in Washington Homo Base: Gay and Lesbian Military Community The Advocate Empire State Pride Agenda PRESIDENT CLINTON has fallen into line with his wife, Hillary, after she commented during her Senate election campaign that his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the military had failed. Rather than defend the compromise hammered out in the early months of his presidency, he agreed with her. The policy was "out of whack", he said. "I'm quite sympathetic with what ...

Dec. 13 — If Hillary Clinton’s Senate bid doesn’t pan out, there’s one career she shouldn’t consider: newspaper columnist. THE FIRST LADY began penning a newspaper column four years ago called “Talking It Over.” When it was first distributed by Creators Syndicate, it was picked up by 150 newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, San Francisco Examiner, Kansas City Star, Buffalo News, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Detroit News, Boston Globe, Dayton Daily News and Charleston Gazette. “Talking It Over” was to have been in the mold of the one written by Hillary’s role model, Eleanor Roosevelt, whose widely followed column ...

WASHINGTON -- At the beginning of the century, President Theodore Roosevelt not only drove home the importance of the Panama Canal to America's becoming a great power, he also felt so strongly about it that he drove a steam shovel that helped dig the engineering marvel of his age. Now, as the century ends, another president, Bill Clinton, is having trouble finding a United States official to give it away, a problem that more than anything reflects how the canal has receded in importance -- militarily, economically and, above all, politically. Even as the administration describes the moment of ...

The supreme art of war, Chinese general Sun-tzu argued 2,500 years ago, is to subdue without fighting. With those words in mind, Beijing has embarked on a two-track offensive. On the one hand, it is doling out the charm to its Asian neighbors. On the other, it is taking new initiatives to build up its arsenal, of particular importance in its quest to unify Taiwan with the mainland. That China wants to boost its military might in order to bolster its diplomatic clout is no surprise. What is startling is the furious pace at which the country has been ...

Peacekeepers fled, some families say, and Rep. Cynthia McKinney wants to know why and what can be done to avert future genocide. On the morning of April 7, 1994, Hutu soldiers burst into the home of Rwanda's minister of labor and killed him. They herded his wife and children onto his bed and shot them, too. The killings of Landoald Ndasingwa and his family happened while they were under the protection of U.N. peacekeeping guards, and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) believes they could have been prevented had the United Nations heeded warnings of the impending assassination. Rather than defend Ndasingwa ...

Here's one crisis Attorney General Janet Reno will be able to walk away from unscathed. Justice Department officials are busy planning a "topoff" exercise–for top officials–that's to be the broadest effort yet to test how the feds react to a major terrorist act on U.S. soil. The exercise will be sprung unexpectedly between April and June. The drill, sought by Congress, will simulate a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack–or some combination–and will involve thousands of local, state, and federal officials. It's her first stint in such an expansive war game, although it's unclear if "General Reno"–the AG's title according ...

If President Clinton decides to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system, it "would include" a site in Alaska, the Secretary of Defense recently said in a letter to a senator. "As you know, a deployment readiness review scheduled for next summer is expected to lead to a decision on deployment of an initial NMD architecture that would include an initial NMD interceptor site in Alaska," William Cohen told Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad. Up until now, the Pentagon has not stated so definitively that Alaska would host the first set of interceptor missiles designed to defend the U.S. from ...

BOGOTA (Reuters) - At least 40 marines were feared dead and 40 wounded after 600 Marxist rebels, firing rockets and homemade missiles, overran a navy base Sunday on Colombia's Pacific coast close to the sensitive border with Panama, naval sources said. The fighting around the costal town of Jurado in the northwestern province of Choco came just two days before a formal ceremony in Panama to mark the U.S. handover of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government. It was one of the heaviest single clashes in more than a year and marked the latest surge in a long-running war ...

Insight December 27, 1999 Pg. 40 Should Congress Be Concerned About China And The Panama Canal? Chinese companies will subvert U.S. interests and could help narco-terrorists. By Dana Rohrabacher The acquisition of the primary ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Panama Canal has enabled Communist China rapidly to expand its economic, political and intelligence presence in Latin America and the Caribbean region. This expanding presence on the key strategic choke point of the Americas by a company beholden to a power hostile to the United States poses a serious national-security threat to Americans. At the height of ...

This is Number 11 in a 12-part series concerning the Ten Commandments (and you thought there were only ten, didn’t you?) Actually the two extra parts are the introduction, already posted, and a sort of epilogue, if you will, all written by Joy Davidman, the wife of C.S. Lewis and an accomplished writer herself. This is her philosophical treatment of the Ten Commandments, wherein she presents them as a prescription for living a joyful and free life. And while she didn’t say so, her treatment of commandments six through ten provide a clear rationale and source, if you will, for ...

While waiting in line to buy Christmas decorations this weekend, I heard an interesting and entertaining bit of music on the store's speaker system. Sound clips from memorable moments of the century were played over an instrumental version of "Auld Lang Syne" (sp?). The clips proceeded in chronological order past FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, and so forth. As the song sped through the 70's and 80's, I began to wonder what snippet of Billy's words might be included for the 90's. As hoped, just after Austin ...

But Initiative Is Murky on New Relationship With U.S. in NATO PARIS - Hammered out in marathon negotiations that ended Monday at 6 A.M., the European Union's blueprint for its own military force marks a turning point in post-Cold War politics in the West because it could potentially free the EU of its dependence on U.S. troops in future Kosovo-style crises, European and U.S. officials said Thursday. The text is expected to be approved by EU leaders at their summit meeting this weekend in Helsinki. While European nations insist that they still count on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and ...

Yahoo - Could the Gas Pump 'Y2K Bug' Leave You Running on Empty?Home - Yahoo! - HelpClick Here![ Business | US Market | By Industry | IPO | AP | S&P | International | PRNews | BizWire | CCN ]Related QuotesPZL9 1/16+1/16delayed 20 mins - disclaimerMonday December 13, 9:06 am Eastern TimeCompany Press ReleaseSOURCE: Pennzoil-Quaker State CompanyCould the Gas Pump 'Y2K Bug' Leave You Running on Empty?Pennzoil Says a Pre-Holiday Fill-Up, Plus Stocking Your Trunk with Rescue(R) Emergency Fuel Additive are Prescribed HOUSTON, Dec. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Millions of people are taking steps to avoid problems at home and in ...

Submarine spying Chinese intelligence agents are continuing to spy on the United States, both here and abroad. According to a recent Pentagon intelligence report, China has obtained secret U.S. military manuals on submarine acoustic capabilities — the noise made by the stealthy underwater vessels. The submarine secrets are among the most closely held because they can give the Chinese, with a new attack submarine on the drawing board, the data needed to hunt down and kill U.S. submarines in wartime, we are told. China is in the process of building a new generation of attack submarine, along with a new ...

Western civilization? I'll drink to that 12/12/99 By Paul Mulshine As this special holiday season approaches in which we celebrate 2,000 years of Western civilization, I think it is important for all of us to pause for a moment and reflect upon a crucial element in the foundation of our culture. That's right, beer. That is the theory of an Ivy League professor by the name of Sol Katz. And a fine theory it is. Katz, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, has done some deep thinking about what caused primitive man to settle down and build ...

Violence in the schools made national headlines again last month. This time, however, it was the punishment, not the crime, that drew a swarm of media attention. The controversy swirled around the Decatur, Ill., school board's decision to expel seven students for their roles in sparking a brawl at a high-school football game in September. Guided by the school district's "zero tolerance" policy against violence, the board had kicked the students out of school for two years. What elevated Decatur's discipline policy to the national stage was the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson's charge that racism was behind the board's ...

Warning Follows China's Strong Support for Chechyna Action Newsweek International reported November 22, 1999: "Last April the U.S. State Department said 500,000 ethnic Albanians were missing and feared dead in Kosovo. A month later Defense Secretary William Cohen told a television interviewer that 'about 100,000 military-aged men' were missing. 'They may have been murdered,' he said. After the 78-day air war on Yugoslavia ended in June, NATO produced a much lower estimate of the number of Albanians killed by the Serbs: just 10,000. Now it appears that, despite some genuinely gruesome atrocities committed by the Serbs, even that figure may ...

FREEPER CALL TO ACTION! Will you please help expose the Clinton-China connection??? Please contact CSpan and ask them to have Bill Triplett and Edward Timperlake on Washington Journal to discuss their new book, Red Dragon Rising!!! C-SPAN Contact Information: From http://www.cspan.org/contact/ Viewer Services: Questions about Program Air Times and Video Tapes, as well as comments about C-SPAN programming. The Washington Journal 400 North Capitol Street N.W. Suite 650 Washington, D.C. 20001 Front Desk (202) 737-3220 Washington Journal: Democrats (202) 624-1111 Washington Journal: Republicans (202) 624-1115 Washington Journal: Others (202) 737-6734 Washington Journal: FAX (202) 393-3346 Viewer Services: (202) 626-7963   ...