Free Republic

US President George W Bush faces a showdown with Congress after it passed a new version of a bill on child health insurance he has already vetoed. The Democrat-controlled upper-house Senate passed the bill by 64-30 votes after it was approved by the House of Representatives last week. But the bill failed to muster enough votes in the lower house to override a new presidential veto. Mr Bush rejects the plan because it seeks to raise tobacco taxes. He has argued the legislation takes the programme beyond its original purpose of insuring children from low-income families. The White House has...

On the morning of March 2, 1998, a loser named Patrick Kennedy brutally raped his wife’s eight-year-old daughter.Afterward, Kennedy called 911 and told the dispatcher that two black boys had raped the girl in the yard. Likely under threat by the rapist, she confirmed Kennedy’s story. The child’s injuries were extensive. According to the opinion, the victim’s “predominate injury was vaginal with profuse bleeding. Her entire perineum was torn and her rectum protruded into her vagina.” Dr. Scott Benton, who testified at the trial, said the girl’s injuries “were the most serious he had seen, within his four years of...