Free Republic

I ALWAYS thought we Republicans stood for smaller government, low taxes and balanced budgets. Maybe our new slogan should be: “Giving you a bigger government, slowly.” Thirty-two years ago, I served with a governor who reminded us that “low taxes were the result of low spending.” Mel Thomson would not be happy today with the many Washington Republicans who make Bill Clinton’s balanced budgets put us to shame. In 1990 when I left Congress, we had put in place a Newt Gingrich reform for the budget called a “paygo” requirement. It said that any new legislation that called for an...

Her parents wondered why she was always so cold. Their daughter insisted on wearing a sweatshirt, even on the sunniest of afternoons. It was strange. Probably another one of those teen fashion things, they figured. That would explain why she pulled the sleeves down over her hand and stuck her thumb through a loop she'd cut in the cuff. Just another offbeat style trend. But the girl, whose identity was withheld by her counselor for obvious reasons, was a textbook example of a bloody epidemic among American teenage girls. When these girls are identified, often by concerned friends, their parents...

Even his most ardent opponents are wont to acknowledge Justice Antonin Scalia's intellectual brilliance. If you’ve never watched his devastating fire handily blasting the drunken jurisprudence of postmodernism, you owe yourself a read some evening. It’s an irreverence that arouses the highest form of wrath: that of a left that has been not only defied, but mocked. His specialty is dismembering an opponent with his own weapon. He does it calmly and with a deftness that immobilizes any liberal mind that has been dealt such a terrifying dose of simplicity. Our $164,000 a year is buying us a lot. Contrary...

Let me preface by saying that this thread is aimed at discussing kids who are dealing with socially driven syndromes or disorders. In a thread in the very near future, we will discuss family members with special physical needs: Down's syndrome, autism, Alzheimer's, et al. There is a lot of ground to cover on this subject and it is difficult to know where to begin. All of us have heard, I am sure, that Americans (particularly children) are more obese today than we have been in the past. Are our children becoming food addicts or couch addicts? How do we...

Have you heard of "cutting"? If you're a parent, you'd better read up. "Cutting" refers to self-mutilation – using knives, razor blades or even safety pins to deliberately harm one's own body – and it's spreading to a school near you. Actresses Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci did it. So did Courtney Love and the late Princess Diana. On the Internet, there are scores of websites (with titles such as "Blood Red," "Razor Blade Kisses" and "The Cutting World") featuring "famous self-injurers," photos of teenagers' self-inflicted wounds and descriptions of their techniques. The destructive practice has been depicted in films...

When The Dallas Morning News pruned its stock tables, sports results and television listings this year, a consequence of sluggish advertising revenue and sharply rising paper costs, few readers felt aggrieved enough to complain. But when the paper later staged a "Survivor"-style contest to cut a dozen of its 53 comic-strip offerings to save a precious half-page of space in the weekday paper, more than 40,000 readers voted their passions. They lobbied successfully for comic comfort food like "Peanuts" and "For Better or For Worse," though other chestnuts like "Mary Worth" and "Steve Roper and Mike Nomad" faced a grimmer...

<p>California's Legislature has a problem. Its members are preparing to gut vital programs in other parts of government. At the same time, the cost of its own operations continues to rise, modestly but steadily.</p> <p>The Senate and Assembly combined budgets of $205 million this year increased by $7.5 million over last year, about 4 percent. Lawmakers propose to increase legislative allocations by another $10 million next year.</p>

Landowners in the Santa Cruz Mountains and other forested areas of California who want to cut timber on their property will have to submit new information to the state showing the impacts of other nearby logging projects under a bill signed Sunday by Gov. Gray Davis. The bill, by Assemblyman Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, was championed by environmental groups and opposed by some in the timber industry. Under it, the State Board of Forestry will require by Jan. 1, 2005, anyone submitting a timber harvest plan to the state to include maps showing ``the location and boundaries of past, present,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is weighing reducing U.S. loan guarantees to Israel because of a fence it is building in the West Bank, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. Israel is constructing what it calls a security fence -- in parts a concrete wall and in others metal fencing -- to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians describe it as a new "Berlin Wall" that grabs territory they want to be part of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. U.S. officials said they have to consider trimming the loan guarantees because of a U.S. law...

Man Admits Cutting Dogs' Tails Off; Says He Needed To Be Entertained Dog Tails Found In Freezer Posted: 6:24 p.m. EDT May 29, 2003Updated: 7:06 a.m. EDT May 30, 2003 A 36-year-old Central Florida man admitted Thursday that he chopped the tails off five of his landlord's six dogs and then stored their tails in a freezer because he needed to be entertained, according to Local 6 News. Nelson Rodriguez was arrested after sheriff's deputies found his landlord's missing Akita-mixed dogs mutilated inside the Rodriguez's Pine Castle home. Rodriguez told Local 6 News Thursday that he cut the dog's tails...

<p>The governor of Massachusetts recently rocked that state's higher education community with a brash cost-cutting proposal: dismantle the University of Massachusetts system's Office of the President and save millions each year.</p> <p>That radical plan demonstrates just how far some leaders are willing to go to combat the debilitating budget deficits inundating nearly every level of government across the country.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO - The Assembly moved slowly Tuesday to deal with a new package of budget cuts as the controller warned that lack of quick action on California's gaping deficit could force more state borrowing this summer.</p> <p>Assembly Democrats agreed to hold a committee hearing next week on a package of about $8.6 billion in budget cuts and funding shifts approved Monday by the Senate, but Speaker Herb Wesson said there was no guarantee the full Assembly would take up the legislation next week.</p>

FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- American Airlines Tuesday asked its union leaders and workers to agree to $1.8 billion in cost cuts from wages, benefits and work rule changes in the face of continuing losses at the world's largest airline. AMR, American's parent company, lost $3.5 billion last year and $1.8 billion in 2001. Union leaders received letters from AMR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Don Carty and President Gerard Arpey requesting the cost-cutting moves. Details were released after a meeting of the two sides Tuesday. American executives have said the company needs an estimated $4 billion in...