Free Republic

On Sunday May 4, 2003, the nine Democratic candidates for President sat down in South Carolina for their second primary debate. In the end, no clear frontrunner emerged. The party’s future course remains murky. In the March 2001 issue of The American Enterprise, Jerry Brown, Nat Hentoff, Chris Matthews, Dick Morris, and others discussed the long-term effects of the 2000 election, the parties’ strengths and weaknesses, and what Al Sharpton needs to do to be a viable candidate: Whither the Democratic Party? Have eight years of Clintonism and prosperity made it the party of Middle America? Or, in the wake...

Man Bites Off Sister's Finger, Swallows It Posted: 8:24 a.m. EDT May 12, 2003 TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. -- A New Jersey man is jailed in Tampa, Fla., after getting into an argument with his sister at a club, then allegedly biting her finger off and swallowing it. Omar Lozano of West New York faces charges of aggravated battery and obstructing an officer in the alleged attack. Authorities said that Lozano was at a Temple Terrace club with his sister Isabel Gonzalez when they got into an argument early Sunday morning. During the argument, Gonzalez put her right hand over...

Fla. Man Gets 8 Years For Kicking Police Dog Posted: 8:35 a.m. EDT May 11, 2003 BRADENTON, Fla. -- A man with a 20-year criminal history will spend another eight years in prison for kicking a police dog. A jury convicted Henry Sailes, 35, of Bradenton of the felony crime of injuring a police dog in February along with a charge of obstructing an officer. Sailes was wanted on a series of warrants in May 2002 when he ran from police and a Belgian Malinnois named Jake, who caught him. The dog, a breed of shepherd, was not seriously...

<p>New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is about to wrap up a deal that would force former Qwest chairman Philip Anschutz to cough up about $5 million in profits he got from lucrative IPOs, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Spitzer may also go after other telecom industry CEOs on more serious "spinning" charges that would carry stiffer penalties, said sources close to the deal.</p>

Ebola scare flushes out guerrillas Rory Carroll in Kitgum, Uganda Monday May 12, 2003 The Guardian One of Africa's most feared rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army, has abandoned its bases in southern Sudan and crossed into Uganda in an apparent attempt to escape a suspected outbreak of the deadly disease Ebola. Several hundred of the Ugandan guerrillas were spotted yesterday moving south towards the Ugandan town of Kitgum in an unusually large deployment. It is feared that they may carry the virus. Biologists from the World Health Organisation are expected to arrive in the border region tomorrow to establish...

<p>The relationship between WorldCom and Salomon Smith Barney may have been deeper than Jack Grubman's friendship with Bernie Ebbers - and that has attracted the interest of former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.</p> <p>Thornburgh, heading a court-ordered investigation into the accounting scandal at WorldCom - which has since rebranded as MCI - has been looking into how Salomon Smith Barney handled the stock option accounts of WorldCom employees, The Post has learned.</p>

Terrorist cell that murdered Zion David yesterday sit in Arafat's Ramallah OfficeBy Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Agencies Ha'aretz 12 May 2003 http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/292166.html [IMRA: Israel Radio reported this morning that security sources say the terror cell that enjoys refuge in Arafat's Ramallah office is responsible for a series of attacks. They left from Arafat's office and returned after the attack. It is noteworthy that Zion David was hit by a shot to the head - possibly an indication of the good training the terrorists received in the past. Part of the new program is for the CIA to...

THE MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says his party is mobilising its structures for the "final push" in the struggle for the removal of Zanu PF and the establishment of democratic governance in the country. At a separate rally in Harare, other MDC leaders called on the residents to brace for a mass demonstration against Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, to force him to quash his decision to suspend Harare Executive Mayor, Elias Mudzuri. Addressing an estimated 20,000 people who thronged the White City Stadium in Bulawayo, Tsvangirai said the party would soon announce...

The election of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as "Palestinian prime minister" raises a number of questions, one of them posed by the Palestinian's Authority Marwan Barghouti, now standing trial for the murder of dozens of civilians: "If Abu Mazen is prime minister, how is it that I am a terrorist?" Who is the real Abu Mazen? He is author of the PLO's phased plan for the destruction of Israel. He is also a Holocaust denier. In his book The Secret Relationship between Zionism and Nazism he claims that the Zionist movement had an interest in inflating the number of Holocaust...

The Palestinians must get used to the idea that they cannot stake a claim to Palestine and Israel at the same time, while pretending they are for a two-state solution. US Secretary of State Colin Powell's message here can be summarized in two words: Get started. The destination of the road map for Palestinians is clear a state. But why should we get started when the destination for Israel is deliberately left murky? This is the imbalance that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to address when he stated that Israel will not move forward to create a provisional Palestinian state...

<p>DEMOCRATIC gubernatorial candidate Ben Chandler already has lived up to his heritage in important ways. His grandfather, the late A.B. "Happy" Chandler, was a lightning rod for controversy. As auditor and attorney general, the grandson also has roiled the political waters. He's put pressure on the likes of Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Greene and a long list of other local officials who resigned or went to jail, including the Wilkinson crowd that, under pressure, gave up leadership of the Kentucky Lottery.</p>

A WORKMAN whose only tool is a hammer, is counter-productive; he sees every task as requiring some hammering. He cannot make even a simple table because it is practically impossible to hammer a table into existence. One has to have other requisite tools for measuring, cutting, planning and chiselling for a table to be made. President Robert Mugabe compares well to a workman whose tool kit contains only one tool. All problems that continue to afflict the country have not been attended to because in his entire workshop, there is only one tool - violence. Yet despite its continued use...

<p>One of the more popular arguments against President Bush's tax proposal is that taxes were cut in 2001 and yet the economy is still sluggish, so why pass another one? "Two years ago Americans tried the approach advanced by the Administration and it simply hasn't worked," Tom Daschle said the other day. What we have here is some revisionist economic history.</p>

<p>One candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary -- state Rep. Steve Nunn of Glasgow -- holds genuine promise of breaking that fruitless cycle. We endorse his candidacy.</p> <p>In the Democratic-dominated House, Mr. Nunn has worked effectively across party lines while tackling some of the state's toughest issues.</p>

Dave McNeely Thursday, May 8, 2003 Rick Perry may be wishing John Sharp had won the lieutenant governor's race last year instead of David Dewhurst. Then, Perry could blast Democrat Sharp for what the Texas Senate is doing. That's harder to do to a fellow Republican, as Perry is finding since Dewhurst hammered out a school finance bill. If it were Sharp, it would be open season. It's ironic, because Perry did everything he could to undermine the candidacy of Sharp, a one-time buddy at Texas A&M University. Perry beat former Comptroller Sharp for lieutenant governor in 1998, with huge...

Middle East Debate: Should Washington Actively Promote an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Settlement?Council on Foreign Relations May 2, 2003 Panelists: Martin Indyk, Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings InstitutionDaniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum Presider: Charlie Rose, Executive Producer and Host, Charlie Rose ShowStreaming video: http://cfr.org/publication.php?id=5906Charlie Rose [CR]: I hope you had a nice lunch, and we're indeed pleased to have you here to talk about the cutting edge of where the news is, as well as one of the more profound issues that we have all been dealing with, and that the Council has been focusing on in...

<p>BATON ROUGE - When people remember Russell Long, they remember the twinkle in his eye, his sense of humor - and his respectful use of power to benefit Louisiana.</p> <p>Long, 84, died at his adopted home of Washington, D.C., Friday night, the last of a family dynasty that was one of Louisiana's most powerful for more than 50 years, from the time his father, the legendary Huey "Kingfish" Long became governor in 1928 until Russell Long opted not to run for governor of Louisiana in 1987.</p>

<p>The Democratic Party's willingness to shill for America's trial lawyers is legendary. But the smelly little secret on Capitol Hill is that the trial lawyers would not wield the unchallenged power they do without a handful of Republican fellow travelers.</p>

<p>The Johnsons thought their fight to become a family had ended, but the battles keep coming.</p> <p>Allie "Bo" Johnson and his wife, Lenora, were convicted of shooting the man who molested their 13-year-old daughter in 1998.</p> <p>Lenora Johnson was given supervised probation and worked for nearly three years to have her husband freed from prison. Allie Johnson finally walked out of prison April 10 and back into his family's life.</p>

PARIS (Reuters) - France is ready to discuss a U.S. proposal to end U.N. sanctions on Iraq, but needs guarantees on various issues including oil production, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview published on Monday. The United Nations Security Council started on Friday to discuss the resolution, introduced by the United States and co-sponsored by Britain and Spain. "This text is a starting point," Villepin told the daily Le Monde. "We are approaching this stage in an open and constructive spirit. We will make suggestions aimed at reaching a rapid conclusion." France was the most vocal critic...