Free Republic

The cost of sending first-class letters goes up three pennies Sunday to 37 cents and is predicted to swell to double that in a matter of years as the U.S. Postal Service grapples with the grimmest financial crisis of its 227-year history. The increase comes as prospects for legislative reform dimmed considerably when a House bill failed to make it out of committee last week. The postage hike is part of the Postal Service's efforts to stem the red ink flowing through the quasi-governmental agency that serves as the linchpin of a $900 billion mailing industry that employs nearly 9...

<p>Just getting a president to church — especially under wartime security conditions — can be a small military operation. Scores of policemen, dozens of White House personnel and support staff, a dozen Secret Service agents and members of the press make up the entourage.</p>

Internet surfers who are tired of unintentionally coming upon obscene websites or receiving unwanted e-mails from purveyors or pornography now have a "simple" way to fight back. Morality in Media Inc., a nonprofit organization that works to curb illegal porn traffic, launched a new website called ObscenityCrimes.org where Net users can file a report against possible obscenity-law violators. "It's illegal to distribute obscene material in any medium, including via the Internet," said Patrick McGrath, director of media relations for MIM. McGrath insists that the porn sites that distribute hard-core pornography over the Net are breaking federal law and should be...

With only 17 months on the job, it seems that the President is finally growing a pair - not just on one front, but two and both in the Middle East. The first front is where it pertains to the issue of Yasser Arafat. After banging his head repeatedly to the point of near-unconsciousness, the President has finally come to the conclusion that Arafat has got to go. He may not have used those exact words, but in making it clear that the Palestinian Authority must hold elections by the end of the year, it sent an unmistakable message that...

Governor builds contingency plan if budget fails deadline Sundquist says Tenn.crisis would be biggestsince the Civil War By Richard Locker and Paula Wade locker@gomemphis.com wade@gomemphis.com June 26, 2002 NASHVILLE - Sundquist Administration officials are scrambling to put together a plan to continue essential state services in the event that lawmakers can't pass new revenue or a budget balanced with cuts. ''If there is no budget, it will be the biggest crisis in Tennessee since the War Between the States,'' said Gov. Don Sundquist, who said he will brief legislative leaders on his contingency plans today. ''It's a tragedy that it...

An Islamist school in the Palestinian Authority territory of Gaza teaches children as young as 5 the techniques of urban guerrilla warfare, jihad against Jewish settlers and martyrdom missions to kill Zionists. A student at Islamic University aims his gun. The school – called Islamic University, or Mosque – is so proud of its programs for some 4,000 students that it boasts about them on a its public, Arabic-language website, jislamia.org – a site well-illustrated with photos of small children in full-dress battle uniforms. On the website's "news" page, an article, translated from Arabic, describes a graduation ceremony for elementary-level...

"I love the title. I love the book. I'm going to predict number one best-seller soon," Fox News Channel star Sean Hannity tonight told Ann Coulter, author of "Slander: Liberal Lies About The American Right." "You're the nicest person off the air," Hannity's liberal co-host, Alan Colmes, told the author. But in the book, "You say the craziest things," he complained. Colmes had a lot of trouble trying to back up his claim, though. He referred to Coulter's observation that leftists mock the appearance of women they don't like (such as Katherine Harris, Paula Jones, etc.), but conservatives rarely...

June 26, 2002 Gas Masks Being Stockpiled on Capitol HillBy THE NEW YORK TIMES ASHINGTON, June 25 — The Capitol Police are stockpiling up to 25,000 gas masks to protect tourists, lawmakers and their staffs in case of a terrorist attack, Congressional officials said tonight. The purchase of the masks, one official said, was not prompted by any new terrorist threat but is part of an "ongoing process" that began after the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent mailing of letters containing anthrax to several members of Congress. While there have long been gas masks available on the floor of...

<p>The Heritage Foundation announced its recommendations for ensuring an efficient and effective Department of Homeland Security at a panel discussion yesterday.</p> <p>Panelists called on Congress to make internal reforms, particularly in congressional structure, to cut down on redundancies within existing departments. But politically, the speakers said, such reforms would be difficult because they require changing the mind-sets of legislators.</p>

<p>Montana Sen. Max Baucus is emerging as the new darling of Hollywood's glitterati, and his Republican challenger says that shows the incumbent is out of touch with the state's conservative voters.</p> <p>Stars like Barbra Streisand, Michael Douglas and Rob Reiner have donated to the campaign of Mr. Baucus, a four-term Democrat up for re-election in Montana, a state where George W. Bush won 58 percent of the vote in 2000.</p>

June 26, 2002 Pro-Israel Voices of 2 Parties Praise Bush Mideast SpeechBy ALISON MITCHELL ASHINGTON, June 25 — Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, called President Bush's Middle East policy "brilliant." Representative Robert Wexler, a Democrat from a heavily Jewish district in Florida, termed it "very bold." Similar sentiments expressed across the political spectrum underscored that whatever the difficult and uncertain diplomacy ahead in the Middle East, Mr. Bush's call to replace Yasir Arafat has the practical effect of appealing widely to pro-Israel constituencies on the right and the left that had been shaken by the devastating wave...

WASHINGTON, Jun 26, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The Bush administration is planning to offer scholarships to Cuban students and professionals, hoping the skills they acquire will be useful if and when the island embarks on a democratic path. When the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba passed word of the plan recently, long lines formed outside the building, causing traffic problems. The Cuban Foreign Ministry held the mission responsible and lodged a diplomatic rebuke. President Bush mentioned the plan in a speech last month, indicating some scholarships would go to relatives of Cuban political prisoners. Adolfo Franco, a...

June 26, 2002 C.I.A. Instructs Agencies to Use More Commercial Satellite PhotosBy JAMES RISEN ASHINGTON, June 25 — The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, has ordered American intelligence agencies to expand their use of satellite photography provided by private companies, freeing the government's own satellites for more specialized and secretive work, intelligence officials say. Mr. Tenet has ordered that imagery from commercial satellites become the "primary source of data used for government mapping" for the military and other agencies, and that the government's satellites be used only for such tasks in "exceptional circumstances," according to a letter he...

June 26, 2002 Right Stuff for an Airline Loan: Political PullBy RICHARD W. STEVENSON ASHINGTON, June 25 — As it scrambled early this month to put together an application for $900 million in federal loan guarantees that it says are vital to its survival, US Airways encountered a more immediate problem: a provision in a Senate spending bill that would have cut the size of the loan guarantee program. So US Airways began a lobbying onslaught that drew on all the political leverage enjoyed by a major employer with operations in many states, a record as a generous campaign contributor...

<p>The House approved legislation yesterday to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling that allows computer simulations of children having sex.</p> <p>Bill sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, attacked the Supreme Court's ruling as having "a devastating effect on the prosecution of child pornographers, who are so often child molesters as well."</p>

June 26, 2002 House Panel Deplores Bermuda Tax StrategyBy DAVID CAY JOHNSTON ASHINGTON, June 25 — Republicans and Democrats at a House hearing today denounced as unpatriotic corporations that acquire a Bermuda address so they can stop paying taxes on profits earned in the United States, but made no progress toward an agreement on how to close the loophole. Instead, members of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on revenue measures, and other members of Congress who testified, fell into partisan wrangling about which party was really looking out for the best interests of American taxpayers in wartime. No...

June 26, 2002 Lawyers Argue Over Rights of Citizen Captured in WarBy KATHARINE Q. SEELYE ICHMOND, Va., June 25 — An appellate judge hearing one of the most closely watched cases pitting civil liberties against national security seemed favorable today toward the government argument that an American citizen can be held indefinitely without being charged with anything or represented by a lawyer. The case involves Yaser Esam Hamdi, 21, who was born in Louisiana, reared in Saudi Arabia and captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Mr. Hamdi was sent to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until officials discovered he had been born...

June 26, 2002 Suspect's Plea and Confusion in Terror TrialBy NEIL A. LEWIS LEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 — Zacarias Moussaoui, who is charged in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, told the federal judge conducting his trial today that she was using trickery to "prepare me for the gas chamber." The judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, striving to maintain her patience, told Mr. Moussaoui at one point that he was so unsophisticated in the law that he came close to inadvertently pleading guilty and ending his trial. The hourlong proceeding here in federal court put on vivid display the odd,...

<p>A "conceptual" Senate welfare bill, designed to find the middle ground in many contentious issues in welfare reform, has some Republican support, but is viewed as "significantly to the left" by others.</p> <p>Outlines of the measure, called the Work, Opportunity and Responsibility for Kids Act of 2002, circulated Monday. "It's not a bill with a number yet," a Senate aide said yesterday. "This is kind of a conceptual markup."</p>

June 26, 2002 Massachusetts Ballot Panel Allows Race by RepublicanBy PAM BELLUCK OSTON, June 25 — A state commission ruled today that Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for governor, is eligible to run, despite contentions by Democrats that he did not comply with Massachusetts residency requirements while living in Utah for the last three years. The Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission, composed of three Republicans, a Democrat and an independent, unanimously ruled that Mr. Romney had maintained his residency status in Massachusetts while serving as head of the Salt Lake City Olympic committee. James Roosevelt Jr., general counsel of the Massachusetts...