Free Republic

NEW YORK - If the United Nations in its impressive complex overlooking the East River epitomizes the trend toward an unaccountable global bureaucracy, on the other side of Manhattan Island this week an organization is meeting that is the very opposite of the U.N. It is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group of conservative-leaning state legislators devoted to the Jeffersonian concept of limited government and federalism. The difference of outlook between the delegates at the U.N. conference on small arms last month and the state legislators gathered at the Marriot Marquis hotel this week could not be more ...

WASHINGTON — Six months after taking office, President Bush will begin a month-long vacation Saturday that is significantly longer than the average American's annual getaway. If Bush returns as scheduled on Labor Day, he'll tie the modern record for presidential absence from the White House, held by Richard Nixon at 30 days. Ronald Reagan took trips as long as 28 days.White House officials point out that the president is never off the clock. They refer to the 30 days at his Texas ranch — now it's called the Western White House — as a working vacation. He'll receive daily national ...

Health care costs are rising. Most of the waste in the health care system has been wrung out by the oversight managed care provides. People are living longer and requiring more health care, politicians have been handing out benefits like lollipops, without bothering to worry about who will pay, and the new technology and drugs are more expensive. To make that point, we have to go no further than Page 1 of Thursday's Wall Street Journal, which focused on a patient's 34-day stay in the hospital that cost $5.2 million. Thus, the respite managed care has provided may be ...

HE HAGUE, Aug. 2 — A former Bosnian Serb general was found guilty of genocide today for his role in the systematic execution of more than 7,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Today's verdict by the international war crimes tribunal was the court's first conviction on a charge of genocide in the wars that broke up Yugoslavia. The massacres in the fields of Srebrenica have become known as the greatest atrocity in Europe since World War II. The former general, Radislav Krstic, 53, was sentenced to 46 years in prison. ...

IEQUES, P.R., Aug. 2 — A fresh round of Navy exercises involving about 23,000 sailors, marines and soldiers began today despite pleas from politicians and residents to stop using the island of Vieques as a target. Even before the bombing, seven protesters broke into Navy grounds and headed for the bombing range in an effort to interrupt the exercises. The Navy said there would be ship- to-shore shelling, air-to-ground bombing and beach assaults the biggest maneuvers since a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs on the range in 1999. His death sparked islandwide protests. The maneuvers began with ...

Seven months after going into hiding when he failed to steal the presidential election, Al Gore is returning to the public eye. A sadder and reportedly porkier Gore will begin Aug. 13 by sponsoring a Nashville "training session" for Democrats who will be dispersed to New York, New Jersey and Virginia to prepare for Novemeber elections. No word on whether these Dems will be trained in bribing vagrants with cigarettes, abetting illegal aliens in violating voting laws and other such tactics used in the 2000 elections. In autumn, Gore will revive his political action committee, USA Today reported today - ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Results of a math test given periodically to students across the country show that fourth graders and eighth graders made modest, steady gains while the scores of 12th graders declined slightly. The test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the nation's report card, showed at all tested grade levels a growing gap between the numbers of black and white students who were proficient in math. The same held true between Latinos and whites. As lawmakers and the White House redraw federal standards for raising student achievement, the new scores offer a snapshot of ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Rarely can a single member of Congress, especially a rather obscure backbencher, swing so many votes when he switches position on an issue that he changes the outcome of legislation. But that is precisely what Representative Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia, did today on the patients' rights bill. Mr. Norwood, a dentist until he was elected to Congress in 1994 and the dominant voice on patients' rights in the House of Representatives for the last six years, broke with the bipartisan group of senators and representatives who favor a bill giving Americans a free hand ...

"There is a red residue trail. It has nothing to do with a missile. I'm not going to get into it." -- Jim Kallstrom, March 7, 1997, to reporter David Hendrix of the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "One thing I can say categorically is that there is no such thing as a red residue trail in that airplane." -- Dr. Bernard Loeb, NTSB, March 11, 1997, under oath before the House Aviation Subcommittee. Now, one of three cases applies. 1. James Kallstrom is lying. 2. Bernard Loeb is lying. 3. Somewhere between March 7, 1997 and March 11, 1997, the red residue ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — House and Senate Democrats proposed today to overhaul American immigration policy, raising the stakes in a political struggle with President Bush for the hearts, minds and votes of the nation's newest citizens and their influential advocates. The Democratic plan calls for raising visa ceilings to reunite immigrant families, allowing most immigrants living here unlawfully to earn permanent legal status, and enhancing temporary worker programs with greater legal protections. Many details must still be worked out. With Congress about to leave for its monthlong recess, Democratic lawmakers and their aides scrambled all week to draft a ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — The House approved the overall patients' rights bill, 226 to 203, tonight, with five Democrats crossing party lines. Earlier the House passed an amendment, 218 to 213, to allow limited lawsuits against H.M.O.'s, a measure favored by President Bush. A "yes" vote is a vote in favor. Voting "yes" on the amendment were 3 Democrats, 214 Republicans and 1 independent. Voting "no" were 206 Democrats, 6 Republicans and 1 independent. The following lawmakers crossed party lines: DEMOCRATS YES ON OVERALL BILL Cramer, Ala.; Peterson, Minn.; Lucas, Ky.; Traficant, Ohio; Smith, Wash. DEMOCRATS YES ON AMENDMENT ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Senate Republicans boycotted the year's first vote on an election overhaul today, laying bare the intense partisan divisions that threaten to kill any change in the nation's electoral system. Lacking their Republican colleagues, the 10 Democrats on the Senate Rules Committee unanimously passed and sent to the Senate floor a measure that would set three voting criteria that all states would have to meet by 2004 and would pay for meeting those requirements. Dozens of bills have been introduced in Congress to revamp the nation's election system. But today's bill was the first to be ...

ormer Vice President Al Gore is easing back into American politics, starting by training Democratic operatives for elections this fall in New Jersey, New York and Virginia and then founding a political action committee to help Congressional candidates in the 2002 elections. Mr. Gore has been vacationing in Europe for several weeks and has changed his image again: he has grown a beard. But associates said his new look had nothing to do with politics and was unlikely to be seen in the United States. Mr. Gore has promised to campaign in New Jersey for James E. McGreevey, the ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — The Pentagon announced plans today for closing a significant portion of the nation's 398 domestic military bases, initiating what is certain to be a contentious debate on Capitol Hill. Pentagon officials said that legislation to be sent to Congress on Friday would create an independent commission that would recommend in 2003 a list of bases to shuttered by 2009. The plan, intended to save the military billions of dollars, is likely to face stiff opposition in Congress, where many lawmakers view military installations as the economic anchors of their districts. Even before today's announcement, Republican ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Villagers and police armed with nets and gloves hunted for thousands of missing mink on Wednesday after the animals escaped from a fur farm in central Spain, officials said. The mink fled after unknown attackers knocked down 80 yards of fence and opened cages in the early hours of Tuesday, a civil guard spokesman said. ``About two thirds of the animals on the farm escaped, 13,000 or so,'' he said. ``This was not just an act of vandalism. An investigation is open.'' The farm is in the town of La Puebla de Valverde, population 500, in the ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — The Senate Commerce Committee voted today along party lines to reject President Bush's choice to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, handing him his first nomination loss. By a vote of 12 to 11, Democrats rebuffed the nomination of Mary Sheila Gall, saying her record as a member of the commission showed an alarming disregard for children's safety and warning that her elevation to chairwoman would benefit manufacturers, not consumers. They expressed particular concern about her reluctance to push for federal oversight of faulty baby walkers, baby bathtubs and bunk beds. Thousands of children were ...

The U.S. Senate's leading Democrat on foreign policy warned China on Thursday that without an "iron clad" commitment on non-proliferation every other aspect of the relationship with Washington was being damaged. In an interview with Reuters, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware previewed his message as he heads out on Saturday for his first overseas trip -- to Taiwan, China and South Korea -- as new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He expressed confidence the United States would rapidly provide aid to North Korea if it abandoned its missile program but would "annihilate" the country if it fired one ...

— As the White House weighed in on the case for the first time, the highest-ranking official to slam Rep. Gary Condit's handling of the search for missing intern Chandra Levy dialed back her criticism — though not by much. After telling USA Today she could never forgive Condit for lying to her about Levy, California's senior senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, corrected herself. "If I gave that impression, I apologize because of course I can forgive," Feinstein said in a prepared statement released late today. What set her off was Condit's denial, when confronted earlier in the search for ...

Police Seek Fugitive Family After Reported Kidnapping Girls Taken From State Worker At Gunpoint GRANTS PASS, Ore., 9:46 p.m. PDT August 2, 2001 -- Oregon State Police are searching for three girls, allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint by their parents. .RelatedBox .Header {width: 120px; border : none; color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 13px; font-size: 10px; text-align: center; background: #003366; background-color: #003366;} .RelatedBox .Links {font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; margin: 3px;} .RelatedBox .Links li {font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px; font-family: Verdana;} Police: Parents Are Armed, Dangerous Brian and Ruth Christine lost custody of their daughters, ages 3, 4 and 6, ...

By Anne Hull Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, April 30, 2001; Page A01 JEFFERSON, Iowa -- The small town where Randy Weaver now lives is as wide and open as Ruby Ridge was steep and hidden. The Union Pacific whistles past the cornfields hourly. It is not unusual to find Weaver in Iowa because he was born and raised here, the son of a grain salesman. People forget that part. What they remember is the 11-day standoff with federal agents in 1992 that left Weaver's wife and 14-year-old son dead on an Idaho mountainside in the debacle that came ...