Free Republic

Ex-D.C. Mayor Calls for Explanation and Probe Over Race Remarks Former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry said Monday that CBS News anchorman Dan Rather needs to explain what he meant when he said last month that his bosses "got the Buckwheats" and forced him to break his Chandra Levy news embargo. "The way Dan Rather used 'Buckwheat' didn't bother me personally, but he should explain what he meant if it wasn't a racial slur," Barry said on "Barry & Burkeman," the weekly television show he co-hosts with GOP attorney Jack Burkeman. "Whether you're to the left or to the right, ...

EDITORIAL • August 2, 2001 Whose money is it anyway?      A vehicle that gets good gas mileage is a good thing – to some people. Others value power or capability more than they do fuel efficiency. They are willing to sacrifice a little (even a lot) of mpgs in return for a larger, safer, more capable vehicle. There is nothing wrong with either view – it's a matter of personal priorities.       Yet there are those in Congress and elsewhere who are determined to foist their view of how vehicles should be designed on everyone else. Because they value ...

Levys renew implications of Condit The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Levys renew implications of Condit Frank J. Murray THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/2/01      Chandra Levy's parents have abandoned their promise to stop implicating Rep. Gary A. Condit in their daughter's disappearance, and have begun holding daily press conferences in a desperate effort to keep the story alive until she is found.      "They have to look at everyone who knows her, who's involved with her. He's certainly the main character for that," Robert Levy has said of Mr. Condit, California Democrat.      Mr. Condit, 53, told Washington detectives about his affair with ...

August 2, 2001 Back on stage with an ambitious script Linda Chavez      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 ...

August 2, 2001 Unwise ballot blunder remedy Michael Barnhart and Diane Katz      America's voting system is "deeply flawed" and in dire need of federal regulation, according to a team of research heavyweights from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology. But well-intentioned though the recommendations may be, even gifted scholars sometimes get it wrong.      Between 4 million and 6 million votes were "lost" in the 2000 election, the researchers concluded after six months of investigation. Registration "problems," broadly defined, reportedly kept between 1.5 million and 3 million citizens from casting a vote, while 1.5 million ...

Daschle will help extend dairy deal in Jeffords' favor The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Daschle will help extend dairy deal in Jeffords' favor Dave Boyer THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/2/01      Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who opposes dairy price supports, is backing a temporary extension of the program in the Northeast as a favor to Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont, whose defection from the GOP in June gave control of the Senate to Democrats.      A source close to Senate Democrats said Mr. Daschle told colleagues in a private luncheon Tuesday to muffle their criticism of the Northeast Dairy Compact ...

August 2, 2001 Rebates every summer? Stephen Moore      Republicans have struck political pay dirt with the tax rebate checks that are now being delivered to the mailboxes of American taxpayers.      For weeks now tax cut skeptics have been ridiculing these tax rebates as financially irrelevant to most families, but I've yet to meet anyone who isn't eagerly awaiting their $300 to $600 check from the IRS. At parties, on talk radio, and in casual telephone conversations, all anyone wants to talk about is how they're going to spend their windfall. CNN's Web site chat room is filled with wild ...

Top general is accused of sex bias The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Top general is accused of sex bias Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/2/01      A Pentagon investigation of the U.S. Southern Command is centering on charges from one officer that the commanding general, who has been under consideration for a top position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tolerated anti-women attitudes.      The officer's unsubstantiated written complaint, a copy of which was made available to The Washington Times, contends that Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace "knows of the behavior and tolerates it."      Her charges are contained in an "open ...

U.S. seeks flexible pact on ABM The Washington Times www.washtimes.com U.S. seeks flexible pact on ABM Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/2/01      The Bush administration wants a "loose" framework with Russia that would replace the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and permit the United States to build a national missile defense, White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.      "We believe we have a chance to get an arrangement with the Russians that would create a new strategic framework," Miss Rice said in a meeting with editors and reporters of The Washington Times.      "It is really our hope that ...

I am deeply disturbed, although not surprised, by the news that Japanese weeklies are harassing the young woman who claims to have been publicly raped in late June in Okinawa. Even Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka evidently blames her for having been out so late, drinking, in a bar frequented by American servicemen. Until quite recently such attitudes were also common in the United States when women asserted they had been raped. They were rudely questioned (and often physically demeaned) by the police, and their past sexual experiences were recounted when they were asked to testify in court. Under such circumstances, ...

Suspects called 'true-blooded skinheads' By Jim Donnelly and Mike Mathis BCT staff writers PEMBERTON TOWNSHIP - Two men described by authorities as neo-Nazi skinheads remained jailed today on $100,000 cash bail each on charges that they beat and terrorized a black couple while shouting racial slurs. Brian Nielson, 23, of Chicory Street in the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township and Henry Baird, 34, whose last known address was in Sidney, N.Y., are accused of smashing their way into the couple's apartment early Tuesday after threatening one of their neighbors with a handgun. Both were arrested at Nielson's house shortly ...

WASHINGTON - During his last interview with investigators, Rep. Gary Condit was unable to recall all of his activities on the day Chandra Levy disappeared, The Post has learned. Law-enforcement officials said the congressman's fourth grilling by police and the FBI on Thursday failed to clear up a few lingering questions about his whereabouts on May 1, the last day police have been able to track the 24-year-old Bureau of Prisons intern. The officials told The Post that, in the 90-minute session in Condit lawyer Abbe Lowell's office, the California Democrat was pressed for more details of his movements that ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will propose to Congress that an independent commission meet in 2003 to conduct one more round of military base closures and consolidations, officials said Wednesday. Since the last round of closures in 1995, Congress has refused repeated requests by the Pentagon to close additional bases, even though the military services say they are wasting money on surplus installations. The Pentagon said Pete Aldridge, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, would announce the proposal Thursday. The Pentagon did not provide any details in advance, but one official familiar with the proposal said Aldridge had informed Congress ...

CINCINNATI (AP) — The City Council voted Wednesday to put more police on the streets to stop a sharp increase in violent crime since the April riots that followed the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man. Since the riots, 89 people have been shot, the latest a 22-year-old Atlanta man killed in Tuesday in an apparent carjacking. "We have a real crisis in the city," said Councilman Pat DeWine, who proposed giving police an extra $250,000 to increase patrols. "We need to act swiftly and decisively." The council voted 8-1 to provide the extra money to cover more ...

WASHINGTON — If President Bush allows federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells, half the money might be diverted to the University of Wisconsin and a biotechnology company to pay royalties and licensing fees on patents, witnesses told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday.The Bush administration is considering whether taxpayers should pay for research on human embryonic stem cells. The cells, generally removed from surplus frozen embryos donated from fertility clinics, can transform into any tissue or organ in the human body. Supporters say the cells offer hope for curing diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes and cancer. Opponents ...

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling and to beat back efforts to significantly raise the fuel efficiency of sport-utility vehicles, as lawmakers moved toward approving the most sweeping energy legislation in a decade. An attempt to ban drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was defeated 223-206. The razor-thin vote to open the refuge marked a major victory for President Bush, who had launched a furious lobbying effort to win wavering lawmakers.Ever since the White House unveiled its energy strategy in May, proponents and opponents alike had predicted that environmentalists would ...

Was the incident last Monday outside the Washington, D.C. apartment building where California Democrat Rep. Gary Condit lives involving him and an AP freelance photographer a set-up to intimidate the media or to get the police to bar the media from camping out there ?I went to Condit's Adams-Morgan neighborhood in Northwest Washington tonight to get some background on the incident. What I heard makes me think it could very well have been a set-up.According to an eyewitness, Condit has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the media outside his building. Early on, he tried using the back door alley ...

WASHINGTON — Racial profiling by law enforcement is abhorrent, everyone testifying at a Senate hearing Wednesday agreed. But the hearing also showed that there is much disagreement over how to define racial profiling, how widespread a problem it is and what should be done about it.Democrats and Republicans, academics and policing experts, and officers and chiefs clashed over a bill sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and several other lawmakers. The bill would require state, local and federal law enforcement agencies to implement policies to stop police from targeting minorities in stops and searches.Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Detroit Mayor ...

JERUSALEM — Israel said Wednesday that it will continue targeting extremists despite international criticism of its "pre-emptive strikes" against Palestinian terrorism suspects. The decision came a day after an Israeli army helicopter fired missiles on the offices of the militant group Hamas in the West Bank city of Nablus. Eight people were killed in the attack, including two children. As many as 20,000 people attended the victims' funeral.

Below is an article from today in which Phil Gramm openly supported illegal aliens! He supports allowing Mexican trucks to invade the US and though they work for 1/5th the normal wages of US big truck drivers, Sen. Phil Gramm even wants them to come in and drive the our highways, but not have to abide by our safety rules-giving them a second advantage over US truck drivers who have to keep their rigs in good shape to avoid huge tickets from DPS, and DOT inspectors. Why doesn't Phil Gramm care about US jobs, and the fact that many many ...