Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Judicial election campaigns in Minnesota and around the country will feel a lot more like other political contests, under a ruling Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Minnesota case.</p> <p>The 5-4 decision struck down a Minnesota rule limiting what judicial candidates may tell voters.</p>

This article in the Seattle P-I (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/68715_tv02.shtml) says that TNT spent millions on this new series about a 24-hour news network and then decided to shelve it before any episodes ever aired. I wonder if it hit a little too close to home for the folks at AOL Time Warner who don’t want everyone to know what really goes on behind-the-scenes at CNN. There must be some totally embarrassing moments or maybe it exposes just how liberal CNN’s newsrooms are. I can’t wait to see. Has anyone heard why AOL Time Warner was afraid to air it? Thanks, Stanley

<p>It's official: Former Vice President Al Gore and wife Tipper have a $2.3 million home in Belle Meade, records filed with the Metro Register of Deeds show.</p> <p>The home, at 312 Lynwood Blvd., is a white frame home in a colonial style that sits on 2.09 acres filled with magnolia trees. The deed was signed on June 17. The home had been owned by the Bear Family Trust and sold in 1999 for $1.15 million, according to Metro property records.</p>

Palladium and the "Fritz Chip" You all should know about Senator Fritz Hollings, and his tireless attempts to make PCs incapable of copying music files or running "unauthorized content". The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance" or TCPA, is a hardware and software based system for preventing computers from doing many of the things they are now capable of. Microsoft, AMD, Intel and many other companies say they are now working very hard to integrate TCPA features into hardware and software, including future versions of Windows. At the heart of TCPA is a new chip added to motherboards, which have been affectionately...

June 26, 2002 Arafat Calls for Democratic Elections in the United States;World Reaction is Mixed by Rahul Mahajan Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief Executive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine. "Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to...

I thought we could have a little fun making pledges that liberals would want. Here are two that I came up with: I pledge allegiance, to the rainbow flag, of the People's Socialist Republic, and to the hypocrisy, for which it stands, one commune, under Democrats, with abortions, and prescription drugs, for all.

Clayton teen's case could overturn fornication law By BILL RANKIN Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer June 28, 2002 The 16-year-old Fayette County girl placed a stool in front of her bedroom door to keep anyone from barging in on her and her boyfriend. They knew they were being naughty. They never imagined they were breaking the law. They were caught in the act last September when the girl's mother burst into the room. The girl had already had troubles with the law. She was old enough under Georgia law to have consensual sex, but her probation officer, after learning of the...

All five conservative justices vote in favor of a free-speech claimant. All four liberals vote in favor of the government. A seemingly surprising lineup, especially when the issue isn't a traditional left-right question such as campaign finance or religious speech. But this 5-4 split in Thursday's judicial-campaign case (Republican Party v. White) tells us much about how far conservatives and liberals have moved since the 1960s and 1970s. In this case, and in other debates, conservatives have become populist libertarians, who trust the people and free speech — and liberals have become supporters of elite management, who trust the...

Family of 'baby bomber' says photograph was 'just a joke' By Ha'aretz Service and agencies The picture of a Palestinian baby dressed as a suicide bomber found in Hebron.(Photo: IDF) The family of Palestinian baby photographed wearing a mock suicide bomber's uniform - replete with sticks of 'explosives' and the traditional martyr's red headband -told Sky News on Friday that the costume was nothing more than a 'joke.' The Israel Defense Force published the photograph Thursday, saying that it had been removed from an album found in the house of a suspected terrorist in Hebron. The house was later destroyed....

House resolution on Pledge: 416 Yes 3 No 11 Present For anyone who's interested, the 3 No votes were: Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat Mike Honda, California Democrat Pete Stark, California Democrat The 11 Present votes were: Gary L. Ackerman NY Democrat Nydia M. Velazquez NY Democrat Jerrold Nadler NY Democrat Earl Blumenauer Oregon Democrat Michael E. Capuano Mass. Democrat Barney Frank Mass. Democrat Luis V. Gutierrez Illinois Democrat Alcee L. Hastings Florida Democrat Jim McDermott Washington Democrat James L. Oberstar Minnesota Democrat Melvin Watt North Carolina Democrat Please take a minute to let these so-called representatives of the people...

Vatican is getting tough on smokers, banning staff from smoking in offices from Monday onwards. Smoking is already banned in public places. The ruling applies to everyone from cardinals to cleaners, and comes on top of an existing ban on smoking in public places. Effectively, smoking will now be banned indoors throughout the world's smallest state. The tiny Vatican police force has the power to impose a 30-euro ($30) fine on any offender. 'Prohibetur Uti Fumo' Pope John Paul II, a non-smoker, approved the new measure on 4 June. Pope John XXIII smoked cigars The law stipulates that "No Smoking"...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Friday blocked a judge from opening immigration hearings for foreign terrorism suspects, granting the Bush administration's emergency request for a stay. The administration argued that national security would be threatened if reporters and others were allowed to attend the hearings. The high court, without comment, put on hold a judge's ruling that it is unconstitutional to impose a blanket policy closing all detention or deportation hearings that the government calls special-interest cases. The intervention was the first by the court in a dispute arising from the government's response to the terror attacks. It...

<p>The first fallout from the state's budget impasse could land on 1.4 million Californians who rely on welfare checks to survive, including thousands of foster children.</p> <p>A top official in Gov. Gray Davis' administration warned Thursday that if no spending plan is in place by Monday, the state will withhold funds from some of the Bay Area's neediest families, and Santa Clara and other counties will have to struggle to pick up the costs.</p>

Aid groups dismiss rich countries' package for AfricaJune 29 2002 Leaders of the world's richest nations have announced their long-awaited action plan for Africa, promising a new dawn for the continent, but aid activists said the promises amounted to peanuts. Leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States - which make up the Group of Eight wealthy nations - issued the Africa Action Plan to drive the continent's development after meeting four African leaders in a Canadian Rockies resort. However, aid organisations pointed out that the countries spent the same amount every day on subsidies...

Rockefeller vs. the United States by Russell Madden When collectivists and statists want to convince the history-and-economics challenged that "unfettered capitalism" is a horrifying practice that must be restrained, regulated, and harnessed by the State for the "good of the common man," they relish trotting out that quintessential boogeyman, J. D. Rockefeller. One of the founders of Standard Oil, Rockefeller became the richest person in America. Evoking the image of this "Robber Baron" is designed to trump any and all objections to "state-business partnerships." Allowing such "exploiters" to roam the land unchecked would be akin to permitting a ravenous wolf...

Amtrak's threat to shut down because of a "surprise" cash shortfall was a totally unnecessary event. If ever the government had a false crisis, this was it. We easily could have known more back in February about Amtrak's financial hemorrhaging.But we didn't because Sen. Joe Biden (D, Del.) helped kill a report that would have exposed the genuine threat of an impending Amtrak bankruptcy.Some background: A five-year-old law required the Amtrak Reform Council to send a "restructuring plan" to Congress once it found that the railroad can't survive without big subsidies. The council did so on February 7. The...

JOSEPH PERKINS THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE Pledge ruling shows why we need conservative judges June 28, 2002 My, how quickly Democrats on Capitol Hill rushed to condemn the federal appeals court panel that ruled this week that the Pledge of Allegiance, because of the phrase "under God," is unconstitutional. "I see no reason," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat, "to change the time-tested, venerable pledge that is such a central part of our country's life and our nation's heritage." "I think we need to send a loud and clear message," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the...

CNN's Connie Chung is getting some early feedback from critics about her new show -- and much of it isn't pretty. "How many times can one TV show make you cringe?" wrote Chicago Tribune television critic Steve Johnson. He described her first show as "rudderless" and "borderline embarrassing" and described Chung's interview with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart as "uncomfortably sloppy."The Wall Street Journal's Tunku Varadarajan predicted that Chung's rival at Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly, "is readying his broiler to burn this turkey to a cinder."Varadarajan, who apparently was not at all a fan of the show, put his vocabulary...

Now that Jesse "The Body" Ventura has announced that he will not seek a second term as Minnesota’s governor, it is time that we looked at what his administration has wrought. Jesse Ventura has been a boil on the body politic. Some of us initially welcomed Ventura’s flamboyant entry into politics. We thought that this political newcomer wouldn’t automatically embrace the political dogma of antiquated tax and spend policies. Jesse boldly proclaimed he wouldn’t raise taxes and he talked like a man who would tighten the purse strings of government. For a man claiming to be an outsider in the...

Kitchener, Ont. -- A man who had unprotected sex with four women while knowing he was infected with HIV was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison. Edgard Monge, 37, was found responsible for infecting two of the women, plus a baby born to one of them.Mr. Justice Steve Glithero said he had to impose a sentence that would denounce the crime and deter others. "He knowingly and repeatedly risked the very lives of four women and a child by his callous actions," the judge said. He called Mr. Monge's excuses "pathetic." Mr. Monge said he didn't have time to...