Free Republic

Two victories hardly make a presidency, but House votes on energy and patients' rights this week have given President Bush a significant boost at a time he needed it most. Through personal diplomacy and presidential muscle, Bush sealed a deal on regulating health maintenance organizations that spared him from an embarrassing defeat on a popular piece of legislation. In winning approval of a version of his energy proposal, he blunted charges that he cannot control members of his own party in the House.

Tea-Party TimeTar-Heel style. By Andrew Cline, managing editor of Carolina Journal & Carolina Journal Weekly ReportAugust 3, 2001 9:10 a.m.   Printer-Friendly E-mail a Friend Coming on the heels of a talk-radio-organized taxpayer rally in Tennessee at which rocks were thrown and things broken, taxpayers in Tennessee's parent state of North Carolina held their own protest this week during which they tossed teabags at legislators and gained the upper hand on Democratic lawmakers who are pushing for a dramatic tax hike. "They just keep raising taxes," said one protester. "I already pay enough in taxes." About 1,000 North Carolina ...

Financial disclosure reports last month filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that despite raising a record $18 million during the first half of the year, House Democrats are saddled with a multimillion debt that has barely shrunk since the election. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) still owes its creditors $4.1 million, the most of the four major congressional fundraising committees. The bulk loans must be paid for with federally restricted funds, known as hard money, that could otherwise be spent directly on House candidates. Such funds are crucial to the party’s ability to purchase television advertising and ...

DAYTON, Ohio -- The weak will never inherit the Earth, but they just might blow it up on the way out. As hundreds of thousands of Americans find themselves downsized, right-sized, laid off and plain old fired during this latest economic meltdown, some of them are getting even. "I have been loyal to the company in good times and bad times for over 30 years," read an anonymous note to the president of a New Jersey-based chemical company. "I was expecting a member of top management to come down from his ivory tower to face us with the layoff announcement, ...

THE VISIBLE HAND A Deaf Ear--II Hillary just doesn't care about battered women and their kids. BY RICHARD MINITER Friday, August 3, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT Does Hillary Clinton care about her constituents--the kind who are not famous or powerful or rich enough to write fund-raising checks? Lora Warkentin, who runs a shelter for battered women and children in Buffalo, N.Y., is too polite to ask. But the question is at the heart of her story. In my column last week, I wrote about the plight of Ms. Warkentin's Cornerstone Manor shelter, which runs a one-room schoolhouse, complete with a ...

Bypassing U.S. VotersRejected by the American electorate, antigun groups find themselves at home at the U.N.Mr. Kopel is research director at the Independence Institute.August 3, 2001 9:10 a.m.   Printer-Friendly E-mail a Friend Kopel Archive Editor’s note: This is the third installment in an NRO series on the United Nations Conference on Small Arms (the previous installment: #2). Rejected by the electorate last November, American gun prohibition found the United Nations Conference on Small Arms to be the friendliest of venues. Appalled by the Bush administration's insistence that the U.N. conference not become a springboard for the destruction of ...

By Wayne Hallet waynehallet@yahoo.com We have recently seen the results of environmental activism wreak havoc on the livelihoods of farmers in Klamath Falls, Oregon. They have been left without water for their crops and livestock in the midst of a drought to protect a supposedly endangered species of sucker-fish. As if this were not enough insanity, the latest catastrophe blamed on the "Endangered Species Act" was the death of four firefighters in Washington state earlier this week. They were burned alive because of delays in getting permission for firefighting helicopters to use the water from nearby streams and rivers that ...

  You might have made a case for the 22nd back in the late 1940s. But that was before TV -- a time when a President could hide his paralysis in the beginning and his failing health toward the end. Does anyone think that kind of coverup would work in the days of cable television? Thanks to 24/7 TV, we have our Presidents on camera continually. -- Chris Matthews, Clinton Makes the Case: End 2-Term Limit on Prez Because the Framers did not anticipate the demagogic efficiency of the electronic bully pulpit, they ruled out the possibility of an ...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A newspaper in the southeastern province of Jiangxi has sacked a senior reporter whose article on organ harvesting in China riled Beijing, a human rights group said on Thursday. The Hong Kong-based Information Center on Human Rights and Democracy said Yao Xiaohong, news director at the Jiangxi Metropolitan Consumer News, was fired for writing about a local court's alleged plot to sell the kidneys of an executed prisoner. An editor at the paper, based in the city of Nanchang, told Reuters Yao left the newspaper a month ago because one of his stories had ``violated editorial rules.'' ...

SARAJEVO, Aug 3 (AFP) - Three high-ranking Bosnian Muslim officers indicted for war crimes by the UN tribunal will be transferred to The Hague in the next few days, the justice minister of the Muslim-Croat federation said Friday. "They are currently in detention ahead of extradition ... We hope that they will be transferred to The Hague in the coming days," Zvonko Mijan said at a press conference here, without specifying an exact date. He said the three, the two retired generals Mehmed Alagic and Enver Hadzihasanovic and Brigadeer Amir Kubura, would have a three-day appeal period. Bosnian Prime Minister ...

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.... Bacchic (BAK-ik) adjective Bacchus Bacchanalian; adjective or noun Bacchanalia; plural – adjective or noun 1. Of or relating to Bacchus (Dionysus). 2. Drunken and carousing; bacchanalian. 3. a Roman festival of Bacchus celebrated with ...

GO ON, GET OUT!BY: Alan CarubaRemember how the court ordered the federal government to shut off water to the 1,400 farmers in the Klamath Falls valley of Oregon? Well, since the entire West has been hit with a drought this year and water is in such demand for suckerfish and other endangered equatic creatures, not to mention the other native animals, it's time to tell the citizens of Phoenix, Arizona to get the hell out! You people have some nerve building an entire city in a damned desert! And that goes for you people in Tucson, Prescott, and Kingman. Get ...

MOSCOW, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Russia is considering a significant cut in the number of peacekeepers serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of the NATO-led Stabilization Force, a senior Russian official was quoted saying Thursday. Gen. Nikolai Staskov told the Interfax news agency that Russia intended to trip its participation in SFOR from 1,150 to 600 soldiers. He declined to say when the cutback would be made. "The situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina has stabilized. Such a number (of peacekeepers) is sufficient and matches the situation," he said. In a separate report by the same agency, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said he ...

In 1996 Jennifer Pipp, a Denver woman, was raped. A few weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. Then a junior at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, Pipp's next few weeks were "very difficult," she said. Overwhelmed by grief and anger, she prayed for a miscarriage. "I know now why people get abortions," she said. "However, it wasn't an option for me because it was an unfortunate thing that happened, but it wasn't the baby's fault. If you're pro-life, either you take a stance or you don't." Her own mother became pregnant with her before marriage, said Pipp, "and ...

A step closer:Energy prices could drop, thanks to Sununu THANKS TO a first-class balancing act by Rep. John E. Sununu, Americans are one step closer to lower energy prices. A compromise offered by Sununu narrowly passed the United States House of Representatives Wednesday night, which in turn persuaded a majority of congressmen to support President George W. Bush’s energy policy. If the Senate passes this policy too, we can stop depending so much on foreign oil and start using the plentiful reserves found in our own country. Bush has suggested tapping into a small portion of the Arctic National ...

PB&J for G.W.B. His father hated broccoli, but President Bush just can't resist a plain old peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Upon the President's arrival for his first official lunch with the Senate Republican Conference on Tuesday, GOP Senators were surprised to see the kiddie dietary staple waiting at the table Bush shared with Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.) and Dick Lugar (Ind.), among others. Bush, who had obviously been well briefed on the rituals of the weekly policy confab, promptly pulled $5 out of his pocket to cover his meal. That's the custom Senators follow so that it doesn't look ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia might share defense plans with the United States and buy American missile technology if a new strategic framework is worked out in talks that open in Washington next week, President Bush's national security adviser says. Even membership in NATO is not ruled out, Condoleezza Rice said in an Associated Press interview as she outlined the Bush administration's concept for converting a relationship rooted in Cold War hostility to one based on friendly cooperation. "I am hopeful there can be a new day with Russia," Rice said. "We are talking about a bigger issue than what we ...

WASHINGTON (AP)- American troops would participate in a NATO force that collects weapons from ethnic Albanian fighters in Macedonia if there is a settlement of their conflict with the Macedonian government, the Bush administration said Thursday. ``We have a plan that will be implemented once there is final agreement among the parties on a political settlement,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Arms collection from ethnic Albanian extremists, who have been fighting government forces of the Balkan country, is likely to be part of any accord. ``We'll come in and do what we need to do,'' he said. The United ...

Friday, August 03, 2001Residents challenge SB2 supermajority ruleBy ALBERT McKEON, Telegraph Staffmckeona@telegraph-nh.com CONCORD – The voter discrimination argument used in last year’s presidential election and the state Supreme Court’s ruling in Claremont II have formed the legal underpinning of a case that could affect state ballot law voting.Five New Hampshire residents, including Lee Slocum of Amherst, asked a U.S. District Court judge Thursday to overturn the state law that allows official ballot law, or Senate Bill 2, towns to pass bond items under a supermajority vote of 60 percent.The residents have sued five school districts, including Souhegan Cooperative, that use ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A teen-ager sentenced last year to a sex-offender treatment program for raping an 11-year-old girl at a baseball stadium has been set free, angering prosecutors who want a stronger punishment. The released teen-ager and another 17-year-old were convicted of rape in August 2000. The girl, from Freeport, N.Y., was in Philadelphia visiting her aunt when she went to use a restroom after a Phillies game but became separated from the aunt. The boys, who worked at a Veterans Stadium concession stand, offered to help, and instead took the girl to a trash enclosure and raped her. A ...