Free Republic

August 4, 2001 Senate Democrats relent on farm bill By Dave Boyer THE WASHINGTON TIMES      Senate Democrats, faced with a veto threat, abandoned their demands for extra farm spending yesterday and approved a less-costly bill to give President Bush his third big victory of the week in Congress. Top Stories • Bush cautions against stalling agenda • Here's looking at you, speeders • Falsely accused pair win judgment • Traits of home schooled are similar • Israel disputes U.N. abduction account • Girls' answer to baseball cards?      "The other side won," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat. "We admit that."      The Senate unanimously ...

August 4, 2001 Prisoner rights and wrongs Dick Boland      There has been a lot happening in our prisons lately. New Jersey is going to change the way prisoners in solitary confinement are treated. Living in solitary has been too easy, and as a result, prisoners commit additional infractions so they may remain confined. Solitary confinement includes cable television, credit for work without working and food delivered right to the door. If this is the kind of treatment the bad actors get, you have to wonder what the rest of the prison is like.      Inmates will no longer be able ...

Prisoner rights and wrongs The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Prisoner rights and wrongs Dick Boland Published 8/4/01      There has been a lot happening in our prisons lately. New Jersey is going to change the way prisoners in solitary confinement are treated. Living in solitary has been too easy, and as a result, prisoners commit additional infractions so they may remain confined. Solitary confinement includes cable television, credit for work without working and food delivered right to the door. If this is the kind of treatment the bad actors get, you have to wonder what the rest of the prison is ...

August 4, 2001 When the chips are off Jacob Sullum      In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Clinton urged Congress "to pass the requirement for a V-chip in TV sets, so that parents can screen out programs they believe are inappropriate for their children." He said the technology would enable parents "to assume more personal responsibility for their children's upbringing."      This was an odd way to characterize the V-chip, which actually represented an abdication of parental responsibility. Instead of monitoring what their kids watch and deciding for themselves what's appropriate, parents would rely on ratings assigned by ...

August 4, 2001 President Bush delivering on a promise Jim Martin      President George W. Bush's new framework to improve Medicare is a step in the right direction for America's seniors.      During the 2000 presidential campaign then-Gov. Bush spent a lot of time talking about the need to reform Medicare to provide 21st-century health care to America's seniors.      Now, just six months into his presidency, President Bush has delivered on his promise. Two weeks ago, he outlined his commitment to strengthen and improve the ailing Medicare program. The president's principles for modernizing Medicare seek to expand prescription drug coverage to ...

August 4, 2001 Bush cautions against stalling agenda By Joseph Curl THE WASHINGTON TIMES      President Bush, who capped his first six months in office with a slew of late-session legislative wins in Congress, yesterday told lawmakers that Americans will not stand for partisan gridlock on his agenda. Top Stories • Senate Democrats relent on farm bill • Here's looking at you, speeders • Falsely accused pair win judgment • Traits of home schooled are similar • Israel disputes U.N. abduction account • Girls' answer to baseball cards?      Mr. Bush, surrounded by his entire Cabinet for a Rose Garden event, said Congress must act quickly on ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - In California this summer, energy prices have stabilized, the lights have stayed on and Gov. Gray Davis keeps raising millions of dollars for his re-election bid. But the heat's still on for the leader of the nation's most populous state. Instead of rolling blackouts, Davis has been hit with revelations that his energy consultants owned stock in the same companies with which they negotiated taxpayer-backed power contracts. "We are moving from an energy crisis into a political crisis," said Doug Heller, consumer advocate with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. Last week, Davis fired five ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush aimed to leave town with a clean bill of health, beginning his summer vacation Saturday with a six-hour detour to Bethesda Naval Hospital and his first presidential physical exam. The president expected nothing but high marks, spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday, noting that the 55-year-old Bush is an avid runner who crowed this week that he couldn't wait to get out jogging in the nearly 100-degree heat at his dusty, central Texas ranch. ''The president feels in excellent physical health. As you know, he is an athlete,'' Fleischer told reporters. At his last medical ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the day he sent Congress a proposal asking for authority to close and consolidate military bases, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sounded almost resigned to rejection. He was asked at a Pentagon news conference Friday whether he was confident Congress would go along. ``No, I'm not,'' Rumsfeld replied. ``No one could be. It is a very difficult thing to do.'' He noted that, on Capitol Hill, merely suggesting base closures in lawmakers' states and congressional districts is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. ``It is not something that anyone with any ...

Bill Clinton told a crowd of about 1,100 Thursday that his presidential library in Little Rock will become home base for the global mission he has planned for his post-presidency. From promoting racial and religious reconciliation to expanding economic opportunity, "The heartbeat will be here," Clinton said inside the jampacked Aerospace Education Center in Little Rock. "I hope when it's all said and done, we not only have a beautiful building, but I hope we have a mission." Though a New Yorker now, Clinton chose Arkansas as the place for his first major address on his ideas for the ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of low-income Americans who get health insurance through Medicaid could see their benefits trimmed under a plan President Bush is offering states. He hopes they will use the savings to cover some of those with no insurance at all. The plan would give states new power to shape the package of benefits offered to some 12 million people who states have added to their Medicaid programs. It would not affect the poorest Americans, who are automatically eligible for Medicaid coverage and whose benefits would remain unchanged. Bush planned to outline his plans in his weekly ...

"What is going on?" asks Mr Joe Schmoe? "Why has there been a sudden rush by the US, Canada, and Mexico to do away with borders, change out currency, and welcome many millions of latin americans into the USA?" Simple Answer: "NAFTA". Real Answer: "Globalism, or the unification of all countries under one flag. Death to soverenigty, Hello to a global system of government that has many NGO (non-governmental orgs.) doing work behind the scenes to advance the cause....Globalism/One Worldism is corrupt to its core. If you have doubt, read the last three paragraphs of the document below. -- Friday ...

Lima (dpa) - Peru's new foreign minister will lead a special team to devise legal and diplomatic strategies to get former president Alberto Fujimori's repatriated from Japan, Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said Friday. On Thursday, a Peruvian judge declared Fujimori a "prisoner in absentia" and issued an international arrest warrant for him. Fujimori fled to Japan in November last year after a corruption scandal connected to bribes allegedly paid to legislators by his spy chief, the notorious Vladimiro Montesinos, rocked Peru. The arrest warrant is based on Fujimori's resignation from the presidency, since he stepped down while in ...

(CNSNews.com) - When college professor Lori Yaklin discovered that her business ethics students were unable to do the fundamental research, writing and issue evaluation required in her class, she started investigating the Michigan's K through 12 education. What she found surprised and disappointed her."The overall problem is that academic achievement is dismal," said Yaklin. For example, "You have over 60 percent of the poor children in our country can't read in the fourth grade," she said."The students [in the business ethics class] told me that their idea of being 'ethical' was not judging others and recycling," she said. "On the ...

In my commentaries this week, I've discussed the transcendent importance to the economy and the markets of the potential for restructuring Social Security, to include individually managed private accounts. I've talked about some of the myths about Social Security, and I've shown how private accounts have worked for public retirement systems in other countries. Today I'm going to take on the most dangerous myth of all -- the one that keeps us from reforming our broken Social Security system the way Chile did two decades ago. I'm talking about the myth of "transition costs" -- the myth that it is ...

(CNSNews.com) - News that the Secretary of the Interior will ask for a review of the biological opinion that banned irrigation water for Klamath Basin farmers was greeted with joy and caution in the Basin."Farmers want real science. We want it!" said Merrill farmer James L. Moore, who is also the acting executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. "We're applauding any review as long as it's open and unbiased."The Associated Press has reported that the National Academy of Sciences could vote at its September meeting to undertake the review. Then, scientists would be chosen and they could have ...

orth Carolina's governor plans to sign legislation that bars the execution of the mentally retarded, his office said late yesterday afternoon, making the state the fifth to enact such legislation this year. A person is considered mentally retarded under the new North Carolina measure if his I.Q. is below 70 and he has significant difficulty in performing basic functions of life, including communicating, taking care of himself, living at home or working. The State Senate passed the measure on Tuesday, 47 to 1. A spokesman for Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Democrat, declined to comment beyond saying that the ...

Oath: Sacred Guardian ofHonest Testimony and Faithful Service From which we learn that some of those Solons who profane life, liberty, and property while enjoying the rare privileges of the United States -- the World's most exclusive club -- now are seeking to destroy one of the most essential guarantees of honesty and integrity: the sacred oath. Depending on the version of Greek mythology, Oath is either the name of the River or the name of the goddess who tends the River that is often elsewhere known as Styx. The connection between that river and Western Civilization is found in ...

ARNER, N.C., Aug. 1 — The roofer climbed down from the scaffolding around the new strip mall, pulled out his wallet, and fondled the little plastic card inside as if it were enchanted. Though he does not speak English, he was delighted to point to the words on the card: "State of North Carolina Driver License," and underneath, his name, Alejandro. "I used to have a Mexican license, which the police didn't like," he said through an interpreter, declining to give his last name because he is in this country illegally. "But here in North Carolina they said I ...

ACKSONVILLE, Fla., Aug. 1 — Compared with many alternatives, a coal-fired power plant being built here will be anything but clean. It will emit several times as much smog-causing pollution and heat- trapping gas as the the same utility's new plant, fired by natural gas, a few miles away. But it is the coal-fired plant, not the gas-burning plant, that is being subsidized by the federal government, under a 15-year-old program that has spent $1.8 billion to promote so-called clean-coal technology in 38 projects. That aid would triple under the energy bill passed by the House of Representatives, to ...