Free Republic

WASHINGTON (July 30, 2001 09:14 p.m. EDT ) - Donations to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's political action committee skyrocketed following the Democratic takeover of the Senate.Dedicated Americans for the Senate and House, or DASHPAC, raised $729,862.72 between May 31 and July 9 at a rate of more than $145,000 a week. By comparison, the South Dakota Democrat's PAC took in just $65,000 over the four weeks leading up to the power shift brought on by Vermont Sen. James Jeffords' defection from the Republican Party.A wide range of trade groups, lobbyists and individuals gave to the PAC, including actress Jane ...

The former officer of the Soviet Military Intelligence service, Viktor Suvorov alias Vladimir Resunvo, who fled to Great Britain in 1978, supported the thesis that Stalin's long term foreign policy-plan aimed to unleash a war between the major capitalist powers in order to overrun war-tired Europe. Based on circumstantial evidence Suvo-rov also proved that the Red Army concentrated its striking power in 1941 at its western borders not for the purpose of defence but to attack. ... Suvorov's thesis are widely supported in Russia today. ... In the nineties of last century Red Army deployment plans of 1940/41 were found ...

Watching Bill Clinton wade into the adoring masses at his Harlem office-warming festivities raises a question. Since he can no longer be president, would he like to be king? Americans supposedly broke away from royalty a couple of centuries ago, but many are glad to enthrone a celebrity who has a touch of glamour and charisma. And Clinton showed he had plenty of each as he pounded on the lectern and electrified the Harlem crowd. Sounding like a candidate on the hustings, he boasted of accomplishments and promised that the best was still to come. What was the point of ...

          How Do Flies Smell?               by Laura Durnford of our Science Unit,   24 July 2001 ..."Terrible!" would be the joke answer, but a Dutch team of researchers has spent the past few years taking this question very seriously. They've discovered what odours houseflies can perceive and what they prefer - all in an effort to improve fly traps. The housefly is a pest. It has made itself at home everywhere that humans live, work, prepare their food and keep their livestock. It dabbles its six feet in its dinner - whether it's meat, milk or manure - ...

A congressman questioned four times about his relationship with a missing constituent "is not the central figure" in the investigation of Chandra Levy's disappearance and is unlikely to be called to take a lie detector test, a top Washington police official says. Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., already has submitted to a lie detector test administered by a privately hired expert, and his attorneys said the machine found no indication he had lied. Police previously said they might want to administer their own test. "I don't think that's going to happen," Terrance Gainer, Washington's deputy police chief, told CNN Monday. "We ...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (July 31, 2001 12:11 a.m. EDT ) - Green Party officials on Monday announced plans for a renewed push to make their association of state parties into a federally recognized national party.Officials from the Green Party, which ran Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in November, said they have satisfied all the requirements for national party status and will file the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 10. FEC attorneys will then make a recommendation to the six commissioners, who have 60 days to issue an opinion.The designation - which the Greens sought unsuccessfully in 1996 ...

My title---Bush gone in 4 Analysis: Wrong, gentlemen, wrong By MARTIN HUTCHINSON, UPI Business & Economics Editor WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- "If this is the bust, the boom was sure as hell worth it. You agree with that, right?" said Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan at a hearing Wednesday. "Certainly," said Greenspan. Wrong, gentlemen, wrong. This is only the very beginning of the bust, and by the end of it, nobody will think the boom was worth it. Second quarter Gross Domestic Product, announced Friday, was up an anemic 0.7 percent. This, by itself is ...

Mild weather means that California is escaping blackouts, but it also means that the state is amassing power-trading losses that are adding to the cost of an energy mess now in its 15th month. Internal documents show that so far in July, California has resold the equivalent of 8% of the power it bought under short-term and long-term contracts that were designed to reduce the state's reliance on the volatile and costly spot market. The problem is, the state has had a surfeit of power, and it has been selling the juice into the market at a fraction of the ...

Calif Gov Spokesman Says He Bought Calpine Stock In June LOS ANGELES (Dow Jones)--A spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis purchased shares of Calpine Corp on June 20, 2001, he said Monday, but declined to say how many shares he purchased. This is the first time an official in Davis' office has admitted to purchasing shares in energy companies since the state took on the job of buying power in January in lieu of the utilities. As reported, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating Davis administration officials for more than a month to see if they purchased stock ...

Los Angeles, July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power ``has done real well'' selling electricity to California, David Freeman, an adviser to Governor Gray Davis, said in June at an energy conference. Freeman should know. Until April, he was general manager of the municipal utility, which has been accused of over-charging the state for electricity. ``We're making some money,'' Freeman said in a December interview, discussing the power sales. Initially praised for helping prevent statewide blackouts during shortages, municipal utilities have been criticized for gouging the state. Municipal utilities overcharged the state $857 million ...

By Roland S. Martin  BlackAmericaWeb.com WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Adam's Mark hotel chain filed suit Monday to seek an injunction against the NAACP to prevent the organization from launching a national economic boycott on Aug. 11. St. Louis-based HBE Corp., the parent company of Adam's Mark, filed the request yesterday in Baltimore for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the NAACP from organizing what it terms is an "unjustifiable" nationwide boycott. "Defendants (the NAACP) have instituted the boycott based on demonstrably incorrect facts and for an improper motive - to coerce HBE into settling private litigation ...

July 31 declared National Orgasm Day A major British sex store chain, Ann Summers, has declared July 31 to be National Orgasm Day, saying it was time for women to stake their claim to a full and satisfying sex life. The slogan "Make it not fake it" is being used to promote the special day, which is being staged because of a recent survey that showed 80 percent of women faked their climax during intercourse. The web site for the store offers items running from the typical fare to lip-smacking chocolate body paint. ---------------------------------- Previously posted here and here ...

Bill Clinton is having a coming-out party this week. After months spent out of the spotlight, the former president can't stand it any longer. So he's throwing himself a big shindig in Harlem to formally open his post-presidential offices, inviting former Cabinet members and staff, as well as other New York dignitaries. He wants attention, and you can bet he'll get it. Not that he didn't get plenty of notice just after he left office, what with all the stories about presidential pardons for tax cheats and drug dealers. But this time, he wants to do it up right -- ...

Did you know the terms, "right" and "left" in politics originated in the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789? What's more, such terms are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape, according to this site, which offers up a "free political compass" to determine one's leaning. Answer a set of questions and the service categorizes political leanings on the four points of a compass: left, right, authoritarian or libertarian. This compass was developed by a political journalist with a university counseling background, asssisted by a professor of social history, the site indicates. Have more in common with ...

Rep. Martin Frost, the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, had a major problem. Unions, which contribute significantly the coffers of the DCCC, were demanding to be heard on the issue of President George W. Bush's energy program. By and large they favor it. Frost ended up providing them with a forum to speak to the Democratic Caucus. But he then brought in leading environmentalists to present the opposition to the Bush energy program.As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on the Bush program, it will be interesting to see which group has the greatest influence on the ...

(CNSNews.com) - A National Commission on Election Reform, headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, is expected to recommend that federal elections be held on Veterans' Day -- a federal holiday - so more voters have more time to cast their ballots. Veterans' Day is the second Monday of November, while federal elections currently take place on the first Tuesday of November. The change is part of a report that will be made public Tuesday at a White House ceremony. A report in the Washington Post said the commission also recommends uniform statewide standards for counting ballots; ...

(CNSNews.com) - A California group is working to elevate the social status of pets and to grant them legal rights of their own. "In Defense of Animals" (IDA), also aims to change the language of local laws to read "guardian" in place of "owner" when references are made to people with pets. "This simple wording change is an effort to elevate the status of animals beyond that of mere property to that of living, breathing sentient individuals with needs and rights of their own," IDA's website explains. Boulder, Colo. was the first city to include the term "guardian" in its ...

IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis Website: www.imra.org.il _____________________________________     MEMRI: Egyptian Intellectual: Arabs Must Use Demographic Factor Against Israel Special Dispatch - Egypt July 31, 2001 No. 248 An Egyptian Intellectual: Arabs Must Use the Demographic Factor Against Israel In the London based daily Al-Hayat (1), Dr. Wahid Abd Al-Magid, the editor of Al-Ahram's "Arab Strategic Report" yearbook, wrote: The way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict is through changing the demographic balance within Israel's pre-1967 'Green Line' assuming  that Israel will have to resort to racist policies.  Dr. Abd Al-Magid's plan is based, primarily, on Israel's ...

The operation to retrieve the Kursk sub is going on in the Barents sea. The situation resembles the events of last August when a lot of things were known but it turned there was nothing known at all. The weather got worse last weekend but the storm settled down soon after so the divers are working according to the original schedule now. They are working around the 5th, 7th and 8th compartments of the submarine. The divers continue clearing the space between the inner and outer hulls and cut holes in the area of the 5th compartment. The divers ...

THAT President George W. Bush is out of popular issues to advocate is evident to even a casual observer of national politics. If ever a man needed a nice, popular but still controversial issue, it's George W. Bush. So, here's my two cents worth of advice: Advocate drug testing in high schools, if parents consent and if the results are not used for criminal prosecutions, but treatment and counseling. We do diagnostic tests for poor performance in English, math, social studies, science and so forth. Why not do diagnostic tests for drug use? The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of July ...