Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE -- Beneath the surface of Janet Reno's homespun, aw-shucks campaign for governor lies a well-organized, well-financed battalion of experienced fundraisers, pollsters and media consultants. For more than three months, Reno's well-heeled Miami friends have conducted polls, conducted focus groups and laid the groundwork for a campaign to challenge Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002. While Reno made headlines driving around the state in her red pickup truck and making coy statements about whether she would run, this small group of experts was putting together a campaign and waiting for Reno to say the word. On Tuesday, Reno issued a ...

Judge cites bias & vulgarity,orders new restaurant union trial A Manhattan judge has taken the unusual step of overturning a jury verdict after determining that racial and sexual hostility among jurors resulted in an illegal compromise verdict. Civil Court Judge Lucy Billings took the action in a case involving the owners of two prominent Chinatown restaurants and a group of activists seeking to unionize the restaurants' workers. The activists, Wing Shung Lam and his Chinese Staff and Workers Association, charged that the restaurant owners had defamed them in Chinatown newspapers during their unionizing attempts. The restaurants involved are Jing Fong ...

story A Model of a Tank with "Made in U.S.A." Printed on the... Fri, Sep 07 08:08 AM A model of a tank with "Made in U.S.A." printed on the front, is burned during a demonstration against Israel's controversial targeted killings of Palestinian leaders Friday Sept. 7, 2001, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Photo by Nasser Nasser (AP) Israeli Soldiers Investigate the Scene of a Drive-By... Thu, Sep 06 00:36 PM Israeli soldiers investigate the scene of a drive-by shooting where Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli soldier and seriously wounded a second on a road near Baka el-Gharbiya just inside Israel and a few miles ...

<p>September 8, 2001 -- If any further justification were needed for the United States and Israel's walkout last weekend from the United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, it came yesterday: The European Union agreed to a de facto "apology" for ancient slave trading.</p>

&nbsp; Who is behind Human Rights Watch? by Paul Treanor Reposted September 7, 2001 The backgrounds of the Board members at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Europe-Central Asia section, with an indication of HRW funding sources. HRW is founded on the idea that the values of the United States are universal, and that the US must impose them on the rest of the world. As the largest human-rights lobby, it is partly responsible for the increasingly expansionist US foreign policy. No US citizen, and no US organisation, has any right to impose US values on Europe. No concentration camps or ...

John Clayton At Large: City native casting about in Dixie for belly baby business By JOHN CLAYTON Union Leader Staff Jessica Sanders’ business is growing so fast it may get stretch marks. Belly up to the bar and I’ll tell you all about it. Gentlemen, brace yourselves. The only way to do this is to come right out and tell you that Jessica, a transplanted New Hampshire native, makes plaster casts of the bellies of pregnant mothers, providing a unique 3-D keepsake suitable for display in nurseries or perhaps — in the event you are expecting triplets — the ...

<p>The 8-year-old boy, accused of killing a baby of 4, faced seasoned police investigators.</p> <p>He did not cry.</p> <p>He did not apologize.</p> <p>He did not wail for his mommy.</p> <p>In fact, if the child understood something terrible had happened - a boy barely out of diapers was dead - he did not show it.</p>

<p>September 8, 2001 -- Eight- and 9-year-old Bronx brothers accused of bullying and fatally stabbing a 4-year-old neighbor are in the legal care of an uncle - and may never be punished in the horrifying tragedy, officials said yesterday.</p> <p>Cops charged the younger boy with criminally negligent homicide and his brother with second-degree assault - and accused them of bullying their little victim and his sister for a year.</p>

Scenario from Washington, DC (or is it from Hell?): A trash sucker fish is declared an endangered species. Coho salmon are reported endangered. Irrigation water is turned off to raise Klamath Lake level to save fish. 1200, m/l, farms become parched to uselessness. 1200, m/l, farming families become destitute. Farmers turn the water back on. BLM turns the water back off. Men with guns appear from Hell to guard the water gates. BLM agents with guns at the gates ignore our National Anthem -- raw, scurrilous, uncouth. Menacing, unmarked attack jets roar overhead in low altitude maneuvers. Big, parachute ...

<p>September 8, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - Rep. Gary Condit has decided not to seek re-election next year - but will resist calls from members of Congress and newspapers in his district to resign, sources said yesterday.</p> <p>Sources in Washington and Sacramento, Calif., told The Post last night that Condit reached the conclusion that his political career is over in the tumultuous days after his controversial TV appearances last month.</p>

Federal prosecutors say a plot to cover up the deadly police shooting of two unarmed purse-snatchers turned into a sinister habit for a circle of veteran Miami street officers. Two retired officers pleaded guilty to conspiracy this week and have given prosecutors a sordid glimpse of the law on Miami's mean streets. Based on their information, 11 others were arrested Friday on an indictment alleging coverups in four police shootings that left three men dead. Prosecutors say it began in November 1995 over lunch at a barbecue restaurant the day after the two purse-snatchers were shot as they fled. U.S. ...

DULLES, Va. (AP) - Colorado police investigating the 1996 death of JonBenet Ramsey are trying to learn the identity of an America Online subscriber who claimed in an Internet message that he witnessed the 6-year-old's slaying. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Boulder, Colo., police Detective Thomas Trujillo asked Loudoun County, Va., investigators to file a search warrant asking AOL for the user's name, e-mail files and buddy lists. Boulder city spokeswoman Jana Peterson confirmed the report in an interview with Denver's KUSA-TV, but said: "It is not, in our estimation, any more significant than any number of tips that ...

&nbsp; Everyday scenes depicting the devastating problem of the Klamath Irrigation District (KID) farmers at the Headgates where the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) cut off the farmers' water. &nbsp; From the peaceful, calm scene overlooking Upper Klamath Lake to the haughty suckers infesting its bottom ... ... to the inanimate locks o'er which brews much trouble. &nbsp; The lake extends miles to the north. Union Jack down, the flag signals distress. This says it all. People brought water in jugs all the way from Montana for support L to R: Klamath County District Attorney (DA) Ed Caleb, Klamath ...

Hey - help us get the numbers even higher on this poll for KNTV 11 whose viewership extends into the most furthest western portions of Condit's district! Vote YES Here Thanks so much! It is the shared birthday of the founders of the Impeach Condit Necktie Protest and as a birthday present we are asking fellow Freepers to keep bumping this so that we get over 1,000 votes on this KNTV poll! The Impeach Condit Necktie Protest ImpeachCondit.org

UN: tensions eased at Ghajar on Lebanon-Israel border By Reuters UNITED NATIONS - Stepped-up peacekeeping patrols have lowered tensions at a village straddling the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where Israeli troops feared attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon, a senior U.N. official said on Friday. Responding to an Israeli claim peacekeepers had abandoned a checkpoint at the village, Jean-Marie Guehenno, undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, said the situation at the village of Ghajar had been calmed by "assertive patrolling." Unspecified political initiatives and "close contact with the villagers and other local Lebanese" had also helped, he ...

<p>About two dozen Poolesville, Md. residents rallied in front of their town's high school last night before the football team's first game to defend their heritage and their "Indians."</p> <p>For residents of the town of 5,100, it was an opportunity to respond to the Montgomery County Board of Education's decision late last month to override Poolesville's community vote to retain the nickname "Indians."</p>

<p>More than 40 D.C. citizens could be jailed this weekend because they haven't shown up for jury duty since July and, to make matters worse, were absent from court yesterday to explain why to D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Rufus King III.</p>

<p>Virginia's attorney general told the U.S. Supreme Court that the state's minute of silence in public schools law doesn't require students to pray — only to be silent.</p> <p>Randolph A. Beales filed a brief with the court yesterday responding to the American Civil Liberties Union's request last week that the court temporarily halt enforcement of the law and grant a full review of the case.</p>

<p>BANGKOK -- A government crackdown on Bangkok's notorious night life has left tourists and local night owls accustomed to a nocturnal diet of beer, scantily clad women and the occasional illicit drug wondering where they can spend their post-midnight hours.</p>

<p>Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee met for about 90 minutes yesterday to begin hashing out differences on 13 annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2002.</p> <p>Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican who along with Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. requested the meeting sounded an optimistic note, saying there were only few substantial differences, and not a lot of money, separating them from final deals on most of the bills and agreement that the Social Security surplus was off-limits.</p>