Free Republic

Many of the senators voting against permanent repeal of the estate tax on June 12 cited "fiscal responsibility" as their reason for doing so. It was often said that permanent repeal would "cost" the federal government $740 billion -- money that is needed to pay future Social Security benefits and other critical government needs. Casual listeners to this debate no doubt thought that passage of this legislation would have led to an immediate loss of $740 billion in revenue. Given that the budget is now in deficit, the loss of so much revenue would indeed have been a valid...

fter a long and bitter debate, lawmakers in California today passed the nation's strongest legislation to regulate emissions of the main pollutant that can cause warming of the planet's climate, a step that would require automakers to sell cars that give off the least possible amount of heat-trapping gases.By the narrowest of margins, the State Assembly passed the California Climate Bill, which for the first time gives the agency that regulates air pollution in the state the power to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas that scientists say is building up in the atmosphere and causing a...

The court cases that get the most media attention are not necessarily the cases that will have the most impact on the society. Despite all the controversy surrounding the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision outlawing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance or the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of murderers with low test scores, the decision with the greatest potential for benefiting American society is the Supreme Court's decision declaring vouchers constitutional, even if most of these vouchers end up being used at religious schools. One of the main phony arguments against vouchers is now dead. Vouchers...

WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans Kosovo threatens to ignite fresh Balkan conflict By Tony Robson 1 July 2002 Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author The Kosovo Provisional Assembly has passed a declaration challenging the Border Delineation Agreement signed in February 2001 and establishing an internationally recognised border between Yugoslavia and the Republic of Macedonia. This agreement came after years of negotiations between the governments in Belgrade and Skopje. Ethnic Albanian paramilitaries, however, never recognised the February agreement and instigated a violent campaign against the Macedonian army...

Late last week, President Bush once again showed the stuff of which he is made. On the margins of his meeting with other G-8 leaders in Canada, Mr. Bush decided that the United States would exercise its Security Council veto to block UN peacekeeping mandates that failed to protect American forces from the predations of an unaccountable International Criminal Court (ICC). To the horror of the State Department, foreign diplomats and other ICC enthusiasts, the first such veto was cast on Sunday, blocking a six-month extension of the UN's peacekeeping operation in Bosnia. This step was made necessary since...

While the whole country debates a controversial court ruling declaring "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, a federal lawsuit filed in another California court last week seeks to stop a public school from having its seventh-graders pray to Allah. On behalf of parents and four children, the Thomas More Law Center filed suit against the Byron Union School District and various school officials to stop the use of the "Islam simulation" materials used in the Excelsior Elementary School in Byron, Calif. As WorldNetDaily reported in January, the public school students at Excelsior pretend to be Muslims, wear robes,...

<p>A bravura performance of Handel's "Messiah" is in order for the United States Supreme Court's tuition school voucher decision (at least outside the jurisdiction of the chronically zany U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals , author of the Pledge of Allegiance caper in Newdow vs. U.S. Congress (June 26, 2002)).</p>

<p>SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — Nine months after casting the lone vote against authorizing President Bush to use force against terrorists, Rep. Barbara Lee is drawing praise from peace activists and disdain from critics.</p> <p>In the March Democratic primary, she received 85 percent of the vote. Her Republican opponent trying to block her bid for a third term to represent the Oakland-Berkeley area says he is lagging in his attempt to raise money.</p>

DNC Campaign Training SCHEDULE Much is at stake for the Democratic party and for Americans in the 2002 elections. We must increase our razor-thin majority in the United States Senate. We need a gain of only 6 seats to make Dick Gephardt the Speaker of the House. With 36 gubernatorial elections on tap, we also have an opportunity to take back a majority of the nation’s governorships for the first time since 1994, as well as to effect many other statewide elections. We have targeted seven legislative chambers for pick up and must protect control of another six. All...

<p>U.S. intelligence agencies have identified an Israeli-made anti-radar weapon deployed with Chinese forces opposite Taiwan, The Washington Times has learned.</p> <p>Several "Harpy" drone weapons were spotted with Chinese military forces engaged in large-scale exercises in southern Fujian province opposite Taiwan, said defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.</p>

<p>CLEVELAND — President Bush yesterday strongly endorsed the Supreme Court decision allowing school vouchers, which he said was "just as historic" as the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that barred racial segregation in public schools.</p> <p>"The people of Cleveland and the state of Ohio decided that one of the approaches they wanted to take was to encourage a voucher system to be implemented," Mr. Bush told several thousand cheering Clevelanders at a sweltering rally.</p>

ASHINGTON, July 1 — Senate Democrats kept up pressure on President Bush today over how to respond to corporate wrongdoing, saying they would push to toughen criminal fraud laws used in prosecuting business executives and challenging the White House to join them in doing so.In a letter sent to Mr. Bush, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic majority leader, said he would try to add the criminal fraud provisions to legislation on accounting standards that the Senate plans to take up next week. Mr. Bush is already considering a variety of proposals — including tougher criminal sanctions...

<p>Federal prosecutors yesterday denied defense assertions that American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh was tortured, coerced or improperly questioned after his capture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.</p> <p>In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Bellows said the 22-year-old Californian, now listed as an "unlawful enemy combatant," was treated with "exceptional regard for his health, his safety and his security."</p>

Currency intervention costs 3.3 trillion yen Japanese monetary authorities have spent more than 3 trillion yen intervening in the currency market since late May, according to statistics compiled by the Finance Ministry. During the yen-weakening campaign, the exchange rate has gone from 125 yen.61-64 to the dollar on May 21, the day before the intervention began, to 119 yen.55-57 at 5 p.m. Monday. The most recent dollar-buying spree, carried out by the Bank of Japan on behalf of the ministry, came Friday. Two reports on the receipts and payments of Treasury funds, one released last month and the other on...

<p>Ted Turner may be baffled when it comes to foreign affairs, but CNN's Lou Dobbs of "Moneyline" has been conducting a worthy seminar on a topic of urgent, if neglected, interest — the identity of our enemy.</p> <p>As Mr. Dobbs has pointed out, the "war on terror" is not a war on "terror" at all. "Terror" isn't an enemy, it's a feeling. As Mr. Dobbs said, terror is "what the enemy wants to achieve." Describing our efforts in terms of an emotional abstraction not only obscures the face of our adversary, but also the nature of our mission.</p>

Microsoft to make users pay for mobile phone spam There's gold in that, there spamBy Tony Dennis, 01/07/2002 18:09:08 BST MICROSOFT HAS LAUNCHED a cellular-enabled 'Instant Messaging' service into Europe through MSN, its Web portal. The catch is that cost of the service will be bourne (via reverse billing) by the mobile users themselves. Given that both Microsoft's MSN Mail and Hotmail email services are badly afflicted by spam messages, this could prove extremely costly for participants. Especially since a since premium rate (reversed billed) message can cost as much as £1.50 [pounds] a time. Once spammers discover your mobile's...

<p>What is striking this Fourth of July week is something rather unstriking — the presence of large numbers of American flags all across the landscape. In years past, Independence Day was indeed the time for festooning the country with red, white and blue. But usually by the fifth at the latest, the bunting had come down and the flags restored to the cupboard drawers.</p>

<p>The Bush administration said yesterday that it will consider scuttling as many as a dozen U.N. peacekeeping missions in the coming months in a growing dispute over the new International Criminal Court.</p> <p>"Every time one of these [peacekeeping] resolutions comes up for renewal, we're going to face this question," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.</p>

<p>The defeat of a black House Democrat who opposed pro-Israel resolutions has sent shock waves through the party and raised concerns about a widening rift between blacks and Jews.</p> <p>"It's going to have other implications in other races," says Rep. Earl F. Hilliard, Alabama Democrat, whose opponent raised more than $300,000 from Jewish donors outside the state. "I just don't think that the black community is going to sit still and let it happen."</p>

he showdown between the United States and other members of the United Nations Security Council was the latest and strongest confirmation that the international solidarity forged after the terror attacks on Sept. 11 was probably superficial and temporary.The immediate issue at the United Nations was Washington's demand that American troops and all other United Nations peacekeeping forces be exempted from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which came into existence today under the shadow of intense hostility from the Bush administration.Unless either the United States or other Council members back down before midnight Wednesday, the United Nations police-training...