Free Republic

Minutes before a congressional hearing on FBI oversight was about to begin, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he himself was ordering a comprehensive review of the federal law enforcement agency. While it is admirable for the Attorney General to express concern, and reassuring to hear that he agrees that something must be done, it seems wholly inappropriate that he would assign a high level Justice Department group the task of investigating its own colleagues. Ashcroft has called his new investigative body "The Strategic Management Council." The council will likely be populated with Justice Department insiders and chaired by ...

WASHINGTON, June 19 — The Agriculture Department is advertising for a "gay and lesbian program specialist" who would help improve working conditions for the agency's gay employees. Gay advocates said today that they believed it was the first time an administration had sought to hire someone to handle gay and lesbian issues in the federal workplace. "It's a big deal," said E. Julian Potter, who was President Bill Clinton's liaison to the gay and lesbian community. "It takes an enormous amount of time to affect this kind of change within an administration." Mimicking employee relations programs now common in ...

In our brave new world society, the image of "father" is definitely not what it used to be. More than one third of our nation's children now live in a home without their biological male parent present. Artificial insemination and adoption have actually become trends in Hollywood for many female celebrities. Unfortunately, father figures for their prospective infants have not. We learn through the tabloids that many celebrities need to have a baby in their lives to satisfy a sort of primal craving. In a world where "having it all" has become a rite of passage, how could we ...

Once again, it looks as though the U.S. Supreme Court is going to be thrust into the squalid media spotlight. No, there's not another election matter to adjudicate or social issue to reconstruct. But public scrutiny, and attendant anxiety, will be every bit as great as in previous high profile cases, if not more so. Unless Timothy McVeigh changes course again, his attorneys will appeal U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch's ruling, which denied a delay in McVeigh's execution. The appeal will be filed in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Which ever way the appellate court comes down, ...

It is now official. Timothy McVeigh authorized his attorneys, Robert Nigh and Richard Burr, to seek a stay of execution. But a strange thing is happening. In both tone and commentary, media mouthpieces are handling this bout of news in a very peculiar manner. It seems that some information providers are in the midst of a 180-degree turn in regard to the issue of the death penalty. Just compare the news coverage of execution-related cases in Texas during the Bush/Gore presidential campaign with the current saga. Gary Graham was put to death in Texas during the height of the ...

The avalanche of propaganda, which has swept through the print and broadcast media recently, has frozen out accuracy along with the truth. It seems that talking points highlighting the flaws of the Bush administration's energy plan were prepared before the president had even had the opportunity to reveal its content. No one is claiming that the Bush plan is beyond all criticism. Any sweeping, long-term bipartisan plan is going to contain things that please some and anger others. Nevertheless, it remains a genuine plan put forth with sincere intentions. Disciples of the inordinate left have chosen to take a ...

Every FReeper in the LA area please turn out to support Dr. James L. Hirsen, "America's Advocate," Monday, May 21, 2001 at 5 pm when he appears (for the SECOND TIME) on ABC's "Politically Incorrect," with Loretta Sanchez and Elaine Boozler. Call 323-575-4321 for tickets!

The sweep has just gone global. Patrons of The Million Mom March have formed a pact with internationalists at the UN to accomplish what, up until the present, has seemed impossible at the domestic level. Rip the heart out of the Second Amendment. Plans for the global initiative were unveiled at a recent news conference at UN headquarters. In classic use of “herd mentality” propaganda, the endeavor was christened The Billion Mom March. It will not consist merely of a single protest march, like its forerunner, but instead will be an ongoing cyber-march via e-mail, aimed specifically at world ...

Like the picture of Dorian Gray, the UN Commission on Human Rights has further disfigured its portrait of dishonor. The United States of America has recently been removed from membership on the commission for the first time in fifty-three years, and in our place, the international body has instead chosen to expand its roster of malefactors. The sheer lunacy of this mock panel should be evident to all. Under a mantle of protection of individual rights, the UN Commission on Human Rights maintains a membership list that includes nations such as China, Cuba, Libya, Syria and the Sudan, nations ...

During his final days in office, Bill Clinton riddled the governmental landscape with a record number of executive orders, proclamations and other official instruments containing his imperial signature. Clinton’s actions were suspect at the time, and it was thought by some that the activities in which he engaged may not have been done for the noble sentiments that his staff claimed. Was the administration laying the groundwork for sabotage of the new president? Ralph Nader implied that it was in his recent characterization of Bill Clinton laying a "trap” for George W. Bush. If the volley of orders and regulations ...

Will AIDS ever be cured? The latest research on the resourceful AIDS virus that causes the disease suggests a disheartening answer: Probably not. Just a few years ago, even some of the most sober-minded researchers wondered if the end of AIDS might be near. Perhaps the pills that miraculously changed HIV from a death sentence to a chronic infection would go the final step, they thought, eventually curing the infection by purging every trace of the virus from the human body. Such talk quickly faded. The new drug cocktails, amazing as they were, could not get rid of the ...

HILLARY CLINTON has turned down an invitation to join President Bush for a lunch to celebrate his first 100 days at the White House. The New York Senator said that she was too busy to make her first return to her former home for the lunch party on Monday, leading a stampede of Democrats to busy themselves with other engagements. Mr Bush has invited all members of the House of Representatives and Senate to join him for the lunch, which is being billed as a way of showing bipartisanship. The Democratic leadership has already begun to use the landmark ...

KING Juan Carlos has provoked anger in Spain by declaring that no one has ever been forced to speak the Spanish language. The comment touched a raw nerve with groups such as the Basques and Catalans, whose languages were ferociously repressed under the Franco regime, and indigenous Latin Americans, whose languages and culture were destroyed by Spanish conquistadors. The King was awarding Spain's most prestigious literary accolade, the Cervantes Prize, when he said: "Our language was never one of imposition, but one of encounter; no one was ever obliged to speak in Castilian: it was the diverse people who, of ...

Learn Chinese in 5 minutes! (read them out loud) 1) That's not right - Sum Ting Wong 2) Are you harboring a fugitive?- Hu Yu Hai Ding 3) See me ASAP- Kum Hia Nao 4) Stupid Man - Dum Gai 5) Small Horse - Tai Ni Po Ni 6) Did you go to the beach? - Wai Yu So Tan 7) I bumped into a coffee table - Ai Bang Mai Ni 8) I think you need a face lift - Chin Tu Fat 9) It's very dark in here - Wao So Dim 10) I thought you were on ...

Be careful what you wish for. You just may get it. For years now, a segment of society has been searching for a way to alter the male psyche in hopes of eliminating, or at least mollifying, traditionally masculine behavior. Egalitarians of all stripes banded together in long-term pursuit of a goal. Institutions from across the cultural spectrum were enlisted to bolster the effort. The ultimate objective - to reshape the very essence and notion of what it means to be a man. Expressions of what a man is and what a man does in society can be seen ...

The anti-"racial profiling" juggernaut must be stopped, before it obliterates the crime-fighting gains of the last decade, especially in inner cities. The anti-profiling crusade thrives on an ignorance of policing and a willful blindness to the demographics of crime. Yet politicians are swarming on board. In February, President George W. Bush joined the rush, declaring portentously: "Racial profiling is wrong, and we will end it in America." Too bad no one asked President Bush: "What exactly do you mean by 'racial profiling,' and what evidence do you have that it exists?" For the anti-profiling crusaders have created a headlong ...

During the prior century, Marshall McLuhan came up with a theory that mass media would specifically alter the way in which individuals experienced the world. McLuhan believed that the means of deliverance itself (i.e., sound, print, film, etc.) used to transmit the message would fundamentally influence the texture of cultural strands and how they would be woven into the fabric of collective perception. One wonders just what Marshall McLuhan would have to say about the latest generation of reality TV shows? He of course speculated that the impact of the television medium upon our cultural consciousness would be great. But ...

When an individual communicates an apology to another, he or she merely affects the human relationship. But when a nation, as part of international diplomacy, requests forgiveness, it acknowledges wrongdoing and sets off a series of ripples that fan out unhesitatingly into the future. The far-reaching effect is induced because the international public policy of a nation carries with it a powerful force called precedent. So when a surveillance plane belonging to the strongest nation in the world was bumped, forced out of the sky and seized by a weaker nation, and 24 crew members were taken captive, the ...

PRESIDENT BUSH, expressing growing frustration over the delay in returning the American spy plane crew, warned Beijing yesterday that "every day that goes by" could further harm relations. While acknowledging that "diplomacy takes time", he said a speedy resolution had to be found. "There is a point, the longer this goes, at which our relations with China become damaged." Diplomats in Beijing had earlier reported a mood of gloom among their American counterparts in the Chinese capital. "Things sound pretty grim, not particularly hopeful," said one. "There's a lot of pathetic protocol going on. Meetings are being prefaced by great ...

AMERICA and China moved closer towards an agreement last night on the release of the 24 crew of a United States Navy spy plane which landed on a Chinese base after colliding with a fighter. Diplomatic negotiations continued while American representatives in Haikou held their second meeting, the first in private, with the crew. But China warned America that its investigation of Sunday's collision between the EP-3 and a Chinese F-8 fighter "has not been completed", ending hopes of an immediate release. In public, China unleashed its loudest propaganda barrage yet, with state media quoting the "hatred" felt towards America ...