Free Republic

To vote in this poll, point and click the 'source' link at the top. Registration required.

A group dedicated to bringing the Bible back into public schools is continuing its mission to convince local school districts to offer an elective course on the Bible to high-school students by approaching 12 more school districts this month. The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools has already seen its materials approved by 151 school districts in 32 states. Currently, over 60,000 public-school students nationwide have taken the course, which presents the Bible as history and literature, using the Bible as the textbook. Specifically, the course has five main objectives, as stated in the curriculum: To equip ...

WASHINGTON - Donations to the Clintons' legal defense fund have screeched to a halt now that Bill Clinton has left office and he and Hillary are raking in big bucks, according to a report obtained by The Post. Just 101 people gave Bill and Hillary $6,744 during the last three months - a far cry from the $260,000 that thousands of contributors gave in the three months prior to that. It's also way off the $750,000 that the Clintons raised during a six-month period last year or the more than $8.7 million that thousands of Americans have given the Clintons ...

WASHINGTON – As part of a reorganization of the Justice Department's criminal division, Attorney General John Ashcroft relieved a controversial figure in the campaign-finance investigation of his duties as head of the department's highly sensitive office charged with investigating public corruption. Lee Radek, roundly criticized for steering the so-called Chinagate probe away from the Clinton White House, was chief of the Public Integrity Section during both Clinton terms. A 30-year department bureaucrat, he was moved Friday to the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, where he will act as senior counsel. A permanent replacement for Radek was not named, ...

Another Bill O'Reilly, Mel Gibson, Joseph Farah and my husband. Hmmm, that could work. To produce a genetic twin of these guys in the process known as human cloning would actually be great. Other than that, human cloning should be banned. Just think of it. You could have "The Factor" live on two networks! While one Bill O'Reilly prods and pokes Alan Greenspan and the Fed, the other one could launch an all-out effort to bait Jesse Jackson into appearing on "The Factor" to answer those lingering questions about Jackson's apparently illegal fund-raising/tax-evasion activities. But the climax would come ...

Yesterday, as I was mulling over the arguments about stem-cell research on human embryos, I had the most bone-chilling "revelation" I have had in years: I realized that the real agenda in this debate is the defeat of the pro-life movement in America and around the world. If we lose this battle, we would not make abortion illegal in our lifetime, and perhaps not for generations to come. This is not hyperbole. You've undoubtedly heard that stem cell research might unlock a cure for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, leukemia, and many other diseases. From the onset, let me state that ...

Half-truths can be as deceptive as outright lies. The Democrats are using a half-truth in their propaganda campaign to block President Bush's effort to reform Social Security. Unless the other half is explained, the prospects for reform are bleak. The half-truth is that the so-called Social Security trust fund is flush with real assets. It is true that Social Security has assets beyond its current receipts. Those assets are government bonds. A bond is a debt instrument, guaranteeing its holder the right to be paid. Think of it as an account receivable, whose payment is guaranteed by the full ...

     Some view Jesus and the big guy that he anwsers to as tyrants, kings, or emperors, and not the usual all loving and omnipotent God and Son company. Also, people of this nature who see God in this light, also tend to see the known perp as the victem too. I'm talking about Satan, and I'm sure God doesn't want you to pity the guilty parties. I mean, we see lots of "victems of society" or of this and that when in fact it is the person who is at fault. Of course there are accidents and such, but that's ...

WASHINGTON - The usually cool Rep. Gary Condit yesterday blew his top for the first time - getting into a shoving match with a photographer staking him out in the case of intern Chandra Levy's disappearance. Reporters and photographers watching Condit's D.C. apartment were surprised when the embattled congressman suddenly emerged in the afternoon and strode swiftly down the steps toward a waiting staff car. Associated Press photographer Steven Boitano jumped up from a lawn chair and accidentally collided with Condit, witnesses said. After a brief confrontation, Condit jumped into the car while his driver, aide Mike Dayton, demanded the ...

Few readers in this century will remember the name of the dominant figure in British politics from the mid-1920s until his retirement in 1937. He is chiefly remembered now for his hostility to Churchill and for keeping Churchill out of power even as Churchill's warnings of Hitler's rising power kept coming true. Stanley Baldwin talked a good game on defense, but failed to accurately estimate the threat. "Baldwin had a great capacity for taking advice," reflected one biographer, "from Civil Servants, private secretaries, party officials, journalists and friends." Unfortunately, on the preeminent issue of any government – national security ...

Christian Coalition ordered to end retaliatory shift cuts The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Christian Coalition ordered to end retaliatory shift cuts George Archibald THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      A federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Christian Coalition to stop retaliating against four black employees who filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the organization in February.      In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said he rejected "out of hand" the coalition's claim that a 50 percent cut in the employees' hours over the past several months was unrelated to the lawsuit and not retaliatory, ruling ...

In 1950, the U.S. military was kind of like Gary Cooper in "High Noon": surrounded by bad guys, outgunned and not at all up for a shootout. The Soviet Union was making ugly noises all along the Iron Curtain; Yugoslavia's Tito was threatening to take Trieste; Red China scarfed up Tibet. Then North Korea slashed south with a powerful army, smashing everything that stood in its way. Our armed forces were at less than quarter strength of what they'd been just four years before, when we took out Hitler and Tojo. From Harry Truman down, leadership had bought into ...

This week, the United States House of Representatives Armed Services Committee is debating the Defense Authorization Bill. Competing sides are squaring off on the subject of women in combat. For those who see the military as just another career option, the issue is equal opportunity for women. This side wants to erase or blur the line between combat and support jobs which it sees as a barrier to career advancement. Feminists say, “It’s an issue of fairness.” The other side recognizes that the purpose of having a military is to win wars. Equal opportunity is incompatible with that goal. ...

Teens set back under workfare The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Teens set back under workfare Cheryl Wetzstein THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      When welfare rules were changed in 1996 to require parents to work or face penalties, researchers expected to see problems in the young children in these families.      Instead, the teen-age children of working welfare parents are showing signs of distress, including lower academic achievement and greater behavioral problems, according to a study released today.      Children of welfare parents are already a high risk group, and there was widespread concern that moving their mothers to work would be detrimental ...

Rebecca Hagelin's column on Monday, "Cloning Bill O'Reilly," contained some golden nuggets of truth about those who support scientific research for incurable diseases via human cloning, "stem cells," and other methods – methods which simply employ various degrees of destroying or mutating life as we know it. She wrote: This week, when the U.S. Congress is expected to consider "The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001" (H.R. 2505), the opponents of the legislation, and those who advocate embryonic stem cell research, won't be talking about cloning great men like Bill O'Reilly, Mel Gibson, Joseph Farah and my husband. Their ...

Pure and single The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Pure and single Rachel Hoskins Lioi THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      Chastity or at least some coyness about sexual availability -- is in vogue among a group of female pop artists who are bucking the age-old marketing mantra that "sex sells." "Sex is so intimate, and when you give yourself without a strong type of commitment, something's lacking," says Rebecca St. James, 23, an Australian-born pop vocalist for the Nashville-based ForeFront Records. "There's hurt."      Pop star Jessica Simpson, 21, has been especially open about her decision to delay sex until marriage. Her ...

I just returned from Planet of the Apes and it was another Hollwierd STINKER.

July 31, 2001 Rational ignorance Walter Williams      While people might be motivated by noneconomic factors, from a strictly economic point of view it simply doesn't pay individual voters to learn about and take action against the myriad assaults emanating from the political area. That's what my colleagues at George Mason University's Economics Department predict: Rational ignorance pays. Politicians know this and exploit it to the hilt.      To gain a fuller understanding, we must disabuse ourselves of our high school civics lessons, where we're led to believe that when people assume political office, or receive bureaucratic appointments, they're somehow a ...

Mileage fiat seen costing lives The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Mileage fiat seen costing lives Tom Ramstack THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      The chief executive of General Motors Corp. cautioned yesterday that a congressional move to increase the fuel efficiency of automobiles would make vehicles more expensive and less safe.     Automakers would be forced to sell smaller vehicles made of more costly, lightweight materials to meet higher fuel standards, which is not what consumers want, said G. Richard Wagoner Jr., General Motors' president and chief executive officer.     "We're certainly not, and I don't think Congress should be, in the business of mandating ...

Gay discrimination ballot challenged The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Gay discrimination ballot challenged Margie Hyslop THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      Supporters of Maryland's new law banning discrimination against homosexuals filed suit yesterday, challenging the petition and signature-gathering efforts that put the issue on the ballot in the 2002 general election.      The suit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, claims violations of statutory law, including a requirement to provide a summary of the legislation on the petition.      Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include individuals in most of Maryland's 23 counties and the city of Baltimore as well as two organizations that ...