Free Republic

U.S. Army's finest find themselves paying price for failure of NATO policy in Kosovo> Cpl. Joseph Cooper is a paratrooper, one of the Army’s best soldiers, trained to jump from airplanes and fight the toughest fights. But on a recent sunny Saturday in Mogita, Yugoslavia, the Sacramento paratrooper had a different sort of mission in the sector of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. Forces: Tactical day care. Each school day, soldiers such as Cooper show up at the local grade school to guard kids from potential attacks, a legacy of the ethnic hatred that continues to plague this war-torn region. ...

December 12, 1999 1:28am Y2K Paranoia or Greenspan's Irrational Exuberance? Reuters By Pierre Belec NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock market just keeps on climbing and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been making a massive amount money available in the financial system. Is it irrational exuberance or Y2K paranoia? Or Both? Greenspan has permitted the biggest expansion of money supply in the Fed's history in the weeks leading up to the end of the year, when the so-called Y2K computer bug could disrupt financial systems. The Fed's move has been explosive on Wall Street because a free flowing money ...

The Coming Global Super Storm A New Book by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber Chapter 1: Present Danger Nineteen ninety-nine was the most violent year in the modern history of weather. So was 1998. So was 1997. And 1996. Anybody who glances at a weather report from time to time can see that something extraordinary is happening. But exactly what that is remains a matter of controversy. For twenty years, we have been bombarded with warnings that global warming is a real and present danger. Equally, there have been claims that it's all nonsense. On March 15, 1999, scientists at ...

Untitled Document Late post. Better late than never (maybe). People are trying to take this dilemma by the horns and they're getting gored. Neither side is supportable. Let's start with recent events. The story our friendly street rebels tell us goes like this: 1.We were peacefully being a pain in the ass to anyone who was trying to go about their business in downtown Seattle. 2. Some mean policemen roughed some of us up. 3. So we to get back at the policemen we intimidated people at McDonalds, and we broke the windows of local businesses. That's like Johnny ...

I went to the National Tree Lighting and was among the great unwashed who did not have a pass to the seating area and had to line up behind the fence. I couldn't see the stage or the monitor, which were pointed to those seated folks, and the audio speakers also were directed to the privileged politicians and their families and friends who had passes to the seating area. The highlight was when the tree was lighted. The downside was after the ceremony ended when the mounted police would not allow anyone to leave the area until President Clinton got ...

The "Watch Your Vehicle Program" was just advertised on WMAL. I was listening to Mark Levin, and heard the commercial. Basically, the program is voluntary. You register your car, and if the police see the car on the road from 1:00AM to 5:00AM the police can pull over the vehicle and checked to see if the "proper" person is driving. The program was supposedly designed to prevent car theft. Anyone who signs on is at risk of being stopped, having given their permission in advance, if they are out during those witching hours. Is this just another covert attempt to ...

This is the THIRD THREAD to your official commentary page on this sixth nationally broadcasted Republican debate/forum. * FIRST THREAD HERE ** SECOND THREAD HERE C-SPAN will rebroadcast the debate 12/14/99 at 5:30am (I'm assuming E.S.T.) C-SPAN will likely show the debate at a later date as their schedule is incomplete at this moment. CNBC will supposedly rebroadcast the debate TBA. Your local NPR radio station may also rerun an audio feed. Check local listings for broadcasts in your area. MODERATORS: Tom Brokaw (NBC News) John Bachman (anchorman, WHO-TV, NBC affiliate in Des Moines) DEBATE-RELATED COVERAGE: MSNBC.com video feed ...

THIRD DRAFT COPY of our proposed text for our "About Free Republic Institute" page. About Free Republic Institute Who are we? Free Republic Institute is a gathering of independent, patriotic citizens who are dedicated to the cause of preserving individual 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, ...

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Texas Gov. George W. Bush displayed a new assertiveness at Monday's Republican debate and vowed that if elected president he would do a better job of enforcing existing gun laws and jailing violators. ``That is the kind of president I'm going to be,'' said Bush, sharing the stage with five Republican rivals who together debated matters ranging from gun control to health care. Bush, whose performances in two debates earlier this month were seen as lackluster, even by some of his own backers, seemed more forceful and willing to engage his foes Monday night. When ...

Vice President Gore said yesterday that President Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military should be abandoned and vowed to "eliminate this unacceptable form of discrimination" if elected president. Gore's comments represent a change from the position he expressed as recently as this weekend. On Friday, Gore said "don't ask, don't tell" has not worked in practice but stopped short of calling for its elimination. Yesterday, in his sharpest public break with the administration he has served for seven years, Gore said that "gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve their country without discrimination" ...

Y2K role: Stay off the phone By Mike Rutledge, Post staff reporter Everybody is a deputy in the battle against Y2K glitches, Chuck Schlegel, Hamilton County's Y2K compliance coordinator, told the county commissioners this morning. Your assignment at midnight: Do nothing to ''help the cause.'' Do not dial the phone to see if it's working. Don't even pick it up to see if there's a d ial tone. Try to stay off the Internet at midnight, because that also uses the phone system. And especially don't dial 911 to ensure it's working, he said. Schlegel promised 911 will be working ...

New Manufacturing Plant Fails FDA Inspection; Inoculation Expansion Delayed The Pentagon's controversial effort to inoculate U.S. troops against anthrax bacteria suffered another setback yesterday with the disclosure that a new facility built to produce the vaccine had failed its first safety inspection. As a result, Pentagon officials said, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decided to halt the planned expansion of vaccinations next year. Until deficiencies at the manufacturing plant are resolved, the officials said, military authorities will draw on stockpiled doses produced at a predecessor facility and administer shots only to the several hundred thousand troops who rotate periodically through ...

Go ahead boys, light them up! If George W. Bush is elected, the White House will no longer be a no-smoking zone, the Texas governor told National Review in an exclusive interview Friday. Hillary Clinton famously banned smoking in the White House, even at state dinners, ruffling international feathers among diplomats and other foreign guests not accustomed to the ways of the American nanny state. Bush is ready to liberate the White House from the P.C. police: "If a guest of mine were to come and smoke? No, that wouldn't bother me." Asked if it would be a problem at ...

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian lawmakers today put off voting on the START II nuclear arms treaty, once again dashing prospects that it might be ratified any time soon. Leaders in parliament's lower house, the State Duma, said last week that they planned to debate START II during a special session today, which was also expected to include ratification of a union treaty with Belarus. The move raised the possibility that the Communists and their hard-line allies who dominate parliament might drop their resistance to the treaty. Russia and the United States both signed the agreement in 1993, and the U.S. ...

A key to public affairs success is putting a human face on government operations, journalists and federal officials said Wednesday. Speaking at a seminar in Bethesda, Md., sponsored by the Federal Communicators Network, journalists urged federal public affairs officers to let more employees in their agencies speak to the media. Juan Williams, a reporter with the Washington Post, said NASA's handling of the Mars Polar Lander failure offers a good example of how an agency dealt with a public relations problem effectively. NASA let reporters talk to the lander's project managers, who shared their frustration and exhaustion as the mission ...

Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, said new talks with Syria over the disputed Golan Heights will be based on the principle of trading land for peace, the strongest hint yet that he planned substantial territorial concessions to secure a treaty. He faces strong opposition to any withdrawal from 17,000 Israeli settlers living in the territory. The Israeli leader will meet Farouq al-Shara, the Syrian foreign minister, on Wednesday for the highest level talks in 50 years of conflict between the two countries. This is the first time an Israeli prime minister has led the talks. Related Article

What saddens me most is how stupid they think we are. Politicians. They take us all for idiots. Hillary is the latest example. Last week she got up and said her husband’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was wrong. It was the first policy initiative of his presidency. He set out to fix the military. Forever, homosexuality had been against the military law – a giant pile of rules called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And forever, people had been ignoring it. Interesting footnote: The UCMJ also outlaws oral sex, Mr. President. Rules against gays in the military were ...

Telephone System Crash in Walnut Bottom, Pa. News ticker coming across the television saying more than 250 Sprint customers without phones, use cellular only for emergencies.....Claiming Hardware glitch at source of problem...............12-18 hour down time expected....nothing follows... Food for thought.

Monday December 13 6:03 PM ET U.S. Railroads Plan Y2K Pause As a Precaution By Tim Dobbyn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major freight railroads and the Amtrak passenger service said on Monday they will temporarily halt operations just before midnight this New Year's Eve as a precaution against Year 2000 computer problems. Although millions of dollars have been spent on avoiding the computer glitch, the railroads and many city subway systems are reliant on outside supplies of electricity and telecommunications and have decided to take no chances. ``We are going to take a short pause to take everything down and bring ...

In an interview last Tuesday with Wolf Blitzer, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain of Arizona was asked this question: "Senator, could you pick a vice-presidential running mate who was a supporter of a woman's right to have an abortion, a Governor Pataki, a Governor Wilson, a Governor Whitman, a Rudy Giuliani? Could you pick one of those, or any Republican who supports abortion rights, to be your running mate?" Any moral conservative who wants to make thoughtful decisions about the Republican presidential race that is now beginning might want to begin by looking closely at McCain's reply: "I ...