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Congress Passes Paul Amendment to Reject UN Taxes The Sierra Times Washington, DC -- The US House of Representatives today unanimously passed legislation introduced by Congressman Ron Paul that ensures no Americans will be forced to pay taxes to the United Nations. Under Paul’s amendment to a State Department funding bill, no US taxpayer dollars may be used to develop, implement, or impose any tax on American citizens to raise revenue for the UN. “The UN continues to build the foundation for global government, and a worldwide tax is the key to their entire agenda,” Paul stated. “This is not...

BRUSSELS, June 18 - Something shattered in Europe last night. The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all. The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders as they face rising popular opposition to the project called Europe....

My husband and I have 3 children. We are planning to spend family time together tomorrow--a picnic in the park. Even though he will be thrilled to simply BE with us, my children and I want to give their father a token of our appreciation for the love and support he gave us throughout the year. I'm looking for ideas--what gift would YOU like for Father's Day? My husband would love a custom painted chromed-up Harley but I'm looking for something in the $50-200 range. What do Dad's pine for these days? What cool item would you like but would...

Paul Volcker says he and his U.N. Oil-for-Food gumshoes are "urgently investigating" new evidence that Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew a lot more than he's let on about the lucrative contract awarded to a company, Cotecna, that had retained his son Kojo. We can understand Volcker's sense of urgency — because if a newly uncovered memo is accurate, it completely undercuts the most important finding of his Independent Inquiry Committee report three months ago. The Volcker group said that no evidence linked Annan to the UN's multimillion-dollar deal with Cotecna. But the memo, first disclosed by The NY Times, looks to...

<p>Key Senate Republicans are considering gradually raising the Social Security retirement age as high as 69 over several years as they struggle to jump-start legislation that President Bush has placed atop his second-term agenda, officials said Tuesday.</p> <p>Raising the retirement age is unpopular, according to some surveys.</p>

For Immediate Release: June 14th, 2005 LEADING MEMBER OF the U.S.CONGRESS TO LEAD PROTEST AT EMBASSY OF BURMA PHOTO OPPORTUNITY, WASHINGTON, DC JUNE 17TH AT 10:00 AM   For More Information, Contact: Lynne Weil, (202) 225-6735 Office of Congressman Tom Lantos Jeremy Woodrum (202) 246-7924 US Campaign for Burma Tom Lantos, Top Democrat on International Relations Committee, To Deliver 6,000 Birthday Cards Demanding Release of World's Only Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Aung San Suu Kyi  (Washington, DC)  Tom Lantos (D-CA), the ranking member on the House International Relations Committee, will lead a protest in front of the Embassy...

This week Congress will vote on a bill to expand the power of the United Nations beyond the dreams of even the most ardent left-wing, one-world globalists. But this time the UN power grabbers aren’t European liberals; they are American neo-conservatives, who plan to use the UN to implement their own brand of world government. The “United Nations Reform Act of 2005” masquerades as a bill that will cut US dues to the United Nations by 50% if that organization does not complete a list of 39 reforms. On the surface any measure that threatens to cut funding to the...

A new Gallup Poll finds most Americans favoring a partial or complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, and for the first time, a majority say they would be upset with the president if he decided to send more troops. This comes at a time when basic support for the war is as low as it has been since the war began. The poll probed Americans' reasons for believing the war was or was not worth fighting. Those who favor the war generally cite the Bush administration's various stated motivations for going to war, such as freeing the Iraqi people...

New York - TIME has obtained the first documented look inside the highly classified realm of military interrogations since the Gitmo Camp at Guantanamo Bay opened. The document is a secret 84-page interrogation log that details the interrogation of 'Detainee 063' at Guantanamo Bay. It is a remarkable look into the range of techniques and methods used for the interrogation of Mohammed al Qahtani, who is widely believed to be the so-called 20th hijacker, a compatriof Osama bin Laden and a man who had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks....

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com A debate going nowhereBy Victor Davis HansonPublished June 11, 2005 Citizens calling themselves the Minutemen patrol the border in an effort to stop illegal aliens from entering the U.S. Mexican President Vicente Fox says Mexican migrant workers in the U.S. "are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do."     Meanwhile, many Republicans think President George W. Bush's guest-worker program either mocks the law or is unworkable. In California, a frustrated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blurts out, "Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and the United States."     Illegal immigration is again in the headlines,...

Less than two years after finally paying its full dues to the United Nations, the US is again threatening to withhold payments from the world body unless the UN undertakes the important reforms sought by Washington. A US congressional committee on Wednesday voted narrowly to approve legislation that would withhold half of its annual $500m contribution unless the UN streamlined its bureaucracy, barred countries that violated human rights from UN human rights bodies and created an independent oversight board and ethics office. Henry Hyde, Republican chairman of the House international relations committee, said the bill was the only way to...

Korean cars gave Detroit fits in the late '90s by undercutting domestic small cars on price and outdoing them on quality -- then moving up into other segments. Autos from China could provide more lower-cost competition for the Big Three at a time when GM and Ford Motor Co. (F ) are already reeling. That could cost them, along with Chrysler (DCX ), more market share and prod them to move more of their own production offshore. How fast can the Chinese gear up? The way things are going, it won't take 20 years to match Toyota Motor Corp. (TM...

The tradeoff of sacrificing open government to attract private investment in toll roads is beginning to sink in for some local elected leaders. And it's not a comfortable feeling, said City Council members who met Thursday. State officials have promised to let local leaders have input on a recent proposal by Spain-based Cintra and locally owned Zachry American Infrastructure to take over planned toll roads in San Antonio. But to protect trade secrets, state law prohibits public discussion of details. "It's absolutely out of the question," said Councilman Chip Haass, who says private sector dollars to solve traffic problems is...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the conclusion of the two-part story of a Canadian man's escape from the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The story so far: Hamilton, Ont.-born Ron DiFrancesco, 41, was working on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower when it was struck at 9:03 a.m. by al-Qaida terrorists who had turned a commercial airliner into a suicide bomb. He began down stairwell A with some co-workers from Euro Brokers, then after encountering heavy smoke, he ascended to the 91st floor in search of a safe place from which...

One has to marvel at how fully and conspicuously situational is the media's affection for whistleblowing. To blow the whistle on a Republican makes one a hero. Witness the legendary "Deep Throat" or Richard Clarke or the Enron whistleblowers. To blow the whistle on a Democrat – particularly, a Clinton – makes one a pariah. Witness the treatment of Linda Tripp or Kathleen Willey or Paula Jones or the Arkansas State Troopers or the pathologists who pointed out the inconvenient hole in Ron Brown's head and paid for it with their careers. Witness, too, the treatment of two lesser-known whistleblowers...

German parties would boost U.S. ties Big News Network Saturday 4th June, 2005 (UPI) Germany's Christian Democrats and their Free Democratic partners say they would boost U.S. relations and downgrade Russian ties, should they win election. We have great interest in close relations with Russia, but they have to be balanced and should in no way be directed against the Atlantic partnership, said Wolfgang Schaeuble, deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union. We would change this nonsense and re-establish the balance in German-Russian relations. Guido Westerwelle, chairman of the Free Democratic Party, the conservative Christian Democrats junior partner, said Chancellor...

DENVER - 9News has learned that 43 states have joined together in a coalition to collect sales tax on all Internet purchases. You already pay sales tax when you go online to buy from an established business like Eddie Bauer or Wal-Mart. But a lot of small Internet businesses and individual transactions float under the radar.

Balkans Shaken by the 'No's' Vesna Peric Zimonjic BELGRADE, Jun 1 (IPS) - Leaders in the Balkans have tried to play down the significance of the French and Dutch 'no' to the draft European Union (EU) constitution, but their fears have shown through. The countries are either queuing for EU membership or aspiring to it. The rejection of a common constitution that binds the EU could weaken the bloc they seek to join. Statements by presidents or prime ministers sounded much the same, from the former Yugoslav countries to Romania and Bulgaria. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told reporters in...

WASHINGTON -- Mark Felt, finally revealed as the "Deep Throat" who divulged the Watergate scandal, is wearing the hero's laurel 32 years later. But that designation comes across as peculiar to those of us who lived through the turbulent times. Felt deserves praise for breaking the rules as FBI associate director, providing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post the guidance to determine whether they were on the correct path in uncovering the machinations of President Nixon. However, Felt was considered by reformers at the FBI to be part of the problem rather than the solution. He was...

The more Europe changes, the more it remains the same, the more’s the pity. Now the French have rejected the proposed European constitution and encyclopedia (it was almost 500 pages long) by a decisive 55 to 45 percent of the vote. The outcome should not have surprised: Its 448 articles would make even Arkansas’ overworked constitution with its mere 83 amendments seem coherent. Didn’t anybody tell these masterminds in Brussels that a constitution should be a broad outline — not something that reads like a tariff schedule or a railroad timetable? Apparently not. It’s a rule of democratic politics, and...