Free Republic

As two justices sound alarms, Supreme Court may be ready to set new limits on capital punishment By Anne Gearan, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 05:37 WASHINGTON (AP) Almost every week a death row inmate somewhere in America asks the nation's highest court for a reprieve. Almost every week the Supreme Court says no, and another execution goes forward. Now, as the two female justices publicly express qualms about the death penalty, the high court seems prepared this fall for the most extensive reconsideration of the issue in a quarter-century. The court is far from a head-on confrontation over whether the death ...

SKOPJE -- Armed men, believed to be ethnic Albanian guerrillas, forced Macedonians on Tuesday to flee their village of Blace, which lies near to the flashpoint northwestern town of Tetovo, the government's crisis body said in a statement. "During the day, men in uniform were seen, in the area surrounding Blace, near Tetovo, forcing Macedonians to leave the village" of some 400 people, the body said. It gave no further information, but implicated the ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (NLA), who launched an insurgency in Macedonia in February in a fight for minority rights, were behind the ...

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Gore to help candidates in key races this year, associates say By Will Lester, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 06:40 WASHINGTON (AP) Al Gore has accepted an invitation to campaign for Democrat Jim McGreevey in his race to become New Jersey governor. And he plans to help train and finance young party activists to work in several elections this year, associates say. The former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee has kept a low profile since losing the closest presidential election in more than a century. But friends indicate he is preparing to gradually step back into public view ...

Not long ago, during the White Nights, I took a walk from the gates of the Kremlin, past the underground shopping mall on Manezh Square, and up Tverskaya Street, the ground zero of Russian neo-capitalism. There was a time when it was no simple matter to get, say, a bowl of borscht on this street. Now it's entirely possible to order (as one strolls at random) a macchiato at Coffee Bean, a calzone at Sbarro, a Cadillac sedan, a ten-thousand-dollar ball gown, VCRs, DVDs, and, should you still desire it, a bowl of borscht. Every year brings a new ...

Our daily post of "word for the day" in order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the "word of the day" in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review thread link will be posted for your edification. ;-) Practice makes perfect.....post on.... importune (im-pawr-TOON, im-pawr-TYOON, im-PAWR-chuhn) tr.verb; intr.verb; adjective; adverbimportunateimportunely 1. To beset with insistent or repeated requests; entreat pressingly.2. Archaic. To ask for urgently or repeatedly. 3. To annoy; vex.4. To plead or urge ...

Mary Sheila Gall, a Republican who has been on the Consumer Product Safety Commission since 1991, has been nominated by George W. Bush to head the Commission, which regulates approximately 15,000 types of products. Unfortunately for her, the Democrats, excuses in hand, are prepared to eat the single mother of two adopted children for lunch. Their primary concern, voiced by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, was whether she was, ".going to skew the balance toward saying consumers are at fault rather than looking at product shortcomings." Given that Gall has served on the Commission for the past ten years and ...

In the new book Stalin´s Secret Pogrom; The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, historian and Northeast Regional Director of Amnesty International Joshua Rubenstein, along with Russian historian Vladimir P. Naumov, recounts the 1952 trial of fifteen Soviet Jews associated with Stalin´s "Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee." Of the fifteen, fourteen were executed including writers Solomon Michoels and Yitzhak Feffer. The author views this event through the prism of Stalin´s anti-Semitism and paranoia and the anti-Semitism of an emerging Russian nationalism. While this analysis may be technically true, it entirely misses the central point regarding the cause of what the author ...

Do you approved of drilling for oil in Alaska?

Here is a political scenario that will jolt you out of the summer doldrums: Next year, when the U.S. Senate Republican caucus meets, it unhorses Trent Lott as majority/minority leader (whichever is applicable at that time) and replaces him, probably with Tennessee's Bill Frist, now chairman of the Senate GOP Campaign Committee. In Washington circles, Lott's ouster as GOP leader seems almost a given. Thereupon Trent Lott would revert to merely being junior senator from Mississippi. For Trent Lott, after being in the heady stratosphere for the past six years, being junior anything would be unpalatable. Especially junior to Thad ...

heard on the abc radio news - London, Heathrow airport now testing eyeball scan to look up passport number to 'save time'

Poll: Do you support drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge?

Gephardt Statement on GOP Junkyard U.S.Newswire, 8/2/2001 11:54 To: National Desk Contact: Erik Smith or Kori Bernards, 202-225-0100, both of the Office of Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a statement by House Democratic Leader Richard A Gephardt on GOP Junkyard: ''We're here today in the GOP Junkyard, a place where good ideas come to rot and decompose. Every time I am home in St. Louis people ask me, 'Where is the prescription drug plan? You all campaigned on it, you all said you were going to bring it up?' They ask ...

A Dangerous Idea A scary proposal from Christopher Edley Jr. By Abigail Thernstrom, a commissioner on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission & a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Thernstrom and her husband, Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, are the coauthors of America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible. August 2, 2001 8:55 a.m. In the op-ed page of the Washington Post Thursday, Christopher Edley Jr. summarizes his dissent to the just-released report of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform. He differs from the majority in believing that certain election reforms should be federally mandated — that they should ...

Poll: Janet Reno Would Win Democratic Primary, but Wouldn't Beat Jeb Bush The Associated Press Published: Aug 2, 2001 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Janet Reno would easily win a Democratic gubernatorial primary, but would lose to Republican Gov. Jeb Bush if the general election were held now, a new poll shows. Bush would get 54 percent of the vote compared to 39 percent for the former attorney general, according to the poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. Reno said she won't make a decision to run for another month, but the poll showed she would win a six-way Democratic ...

Senate committee considers electoral changes bill; GOP, Democrats spar By Janelle Carter, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 11:25 WASHINGTON (AP) Senate Democrats won committee approval Thursday of an electoral overhaul bill that would give states more than $3 billion to adopt uniform standards for voting. Republican members boycotted in protest. The final debate by the Rules and Administration Committee sparked fierce partisanship. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, senior Republican on the panel, had asked his eight GOP colleagues to boycott the vote. The unanimous vote by the 10 Democrats on the committee sends the measure, which McConnell opposes, to the Senate floor. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An appeals court refused on Thursday to reconsider its decision that Microsoft illegally mingled its Windows operating system and Internet browser, handing the software giant a setback in its four-year antitrust battle with the government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied Microsoft's request in a brief order, clearing the way for the case to be sent back to a lower court to decide Microsoft's penalty for being an illegal monopoly. "Nothing in the court's opinion is intended to preclude the District Court's consideration of remedy issues," the appellate judges said. In ...

Wednesday August 01 03:03 AM EDT GENEROUS GIVERS: Survey finds gays donate more to charities GENEROUS GIVERS: Survey finds gays donate more to charities By Elinor J. Brecher , Ebrecher@herald.ComNo one has to convince Miami lawyer Jerry Chasen to donate a ``sizable'' portion of his income to gay causes. But once in a while, something happens that reminds him why he needs to keep giving.Last week, a tip from one of the gay-rights groups he supports led law enforcement agents to seize thousands of suspect petitions that conservative Christian groups planned to use to repeal changes to Miami-Dade County's human-rights ...

Citizens Who Take a Stand on www.workingforchange.com Could Win Hybrid Gas-Electric Car Working Assets, a telecommunications company that promotes activism for progressive causes, will launch the first-ever Global Warming Sweepstakes on July 9 to protest the Bush administration's policies on energy and the environment. Visitors to www.ActForChange.com will gain a chance to win one of more than 500 prizes when they e-mail the Bush administration, its corporate allies and the U.S. Senate, demanding that the decision-makers take steps to preserve our environment. The grand prizewinner of the sweepstakes will win a Honda Insight®, a hybrid gasoline-electric car. Other prizes include ...

Lott may prefer 'Governor' to 'Junior Senator' JACKSON By BILL MINOR Here is a political scenario that will jolt you out of the summer doldrums: Next year, when the U.S. Senate Republican caucus meets, it unhorses Trent Lott as majority/minority leader (whichever is applicable at that time) and replaces him, probably with Tennessee's Bill Frist, now chairman of the Senate GOP Campaign Committee. In Washington circles, Lott's ouster as GOP leader seems almost a given. Thereupon Trent Lott would revert to merely being junior senator from Mississippi. For Trent Lott, after being in the heady stratosphere for the past six ...

Man Accused of Tipping Mobsters About Raids, Based on Info Leaked From Prosecutor's Office By Larry Neumeister Associated Press Writer Published: Aug 2, 2001 NEW YORK (AP) - A reputed mobster was accused of tipping off members of an organized crime family that they were about to be arrested, getting the names from a typist in the prosecutor's office. Frederico Giovanelli, 71, was charged Wednesday with conspiracy to obstruct justice. A federal indictment accused him of interfering with a grand jury investigation into various members and associates of the Decavalcante crime family. The investigation led to indictments in November 1999, ...