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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (154923)	6/22/2001 11:14:14 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

GOP establishment has the jitters in New Jersey Cal Thomas jewishworldreview.com -- THE accommodating, poll-driven, can't-we-all-get-along Republicans are getting nervous in New Jersey. That's because Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler might win Tuesday's primary for governor against the party establishment's choice, former Congressman Bob Franks, whose campaign has been mostly about attacking Schundler. Franks, a four-term ex-Congressman, is the choice of all but two of the party's county chairmen. He lost last year's Senate race to Democrat Jon Corzine by just 3 percentage points. When Schundler was elected mayor of the mostly Democrat, mostly union town of Jersey City in 1992, he brought to the job what the Washington Post's Lally Weymouth accurately described as "Ronald Reagan's essential gift: a handful of strongly held convictions,'' which included safe and clean streets, as many police officers as the crime rate requires, secure schools that teach the fundamentals, low taxes, school choice and work instead of welfare. Schundler turned Jersey City around and, in the process won two re-election bids, attracting Democratic and Independent voters. He also attracted new businesses, which had shunned Jersey City because of high taxes and high crime. Schundler, a former Democrat, has won three races for mayor in a city where only 6 percent of registered voters are Republicans. He thinks he can do for the state and his party what he has done for Jersey City. New Jersey has a history of corrupt politics, so when one mentions "convictions'' it's easy to think first of the kind that come in a courtroom. But Schundler has the other kind of convictions and he states them without apology. This is what strikes fear in the soft hearts of the GOP establishment, because if Schundler can win the primary and general election without compromising his strong religious and conservative political principles, the establishment will be challenged to find some principles of its own. Schundler is not just pro-life. He acts on his Christian beliefs and seeks to persuade others that those beliefs are objectively true. Three years ago, he held a prayer vigil outside a Jersey City sewage treatment plant where a newborn baby had been found dead amid the refuse. He spoke of life as a sacred gift and blamed an immoral and throwaway culture for creating the conditions that would lead a mother to drop her newborn into a sewer and teenagers to shoot-up their schools. In a telephone interview, Schundler said Tuesday's primary will be a referendum on conservatism vs. liberalism. "A lot of people think you have to be a liberal to win in the Northeast,'' he said, "but there's a big gulf between some of our leaders and where the rank and file are. If I win, it may keep some of the Northeast (congressional) Republicans on the reservation instead of having them, like Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT) flirt with Democratic policy positions.'' If Schundler wins the primary, he'll not only face the likely Democratic candidate, James McGreevey, but the powerful teachers union. That doesn't worry Schundler, who unapologetically favors school choice. His proposal has a twist he believes will survive a court challenge. Instead of direct grants by government to private schools, Schundler's plan would provide a substantial tax credit for people who donate to charities that already offer scholarships to poor children. If someone gave $1,000 to such a charity, says Schundler, they would receive under his plan a combined tax deduction of $850 from their federal and state governments. The charity would choose which family receives the scholarship and the parents would choose the school. Schundler believes there are sufficient "degrees of separation'' to survive any church-state separation court challenge because the charitable scholarship programs already enjoy government's blessing. The latest Quinnipiac University poll (conducted June 14-18) shows Schundler surging past Franks. This respected poll indicates an incredible turnaround from a significant Schundler deficit, showing the mayor now leading by a 54-39 percent margin among likely GOP primary voters. When Schundler won the mayor's race in Jersey City nine years ago, The Wall Street Journal called his victory "an earthquake.'' If he becomes governor of the Democratic-leaning New Jersey, the aftershocks will be felt in Washington. jewishworldreview.com

To: Srexley who wrote (154923)	6/22/2001 2:36:17 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

" missile technology to the Chinese..." Srex...I have followed the Chinese story fairly closely. My understanding is the Chinese were contracted to launch satellites,this started in the Bush Sr. administration. The satellites were delivered and handled only by American engineers, the Chinese were not allowed to inspect or work on them. Their function was to launch them at a cost much cheaper than we can. Loral got in trouble because they provided telemetry data which helped pinpoint the cause of a launch failure, I think, after an earlier launch had failed costing Loral an expensive bird. The links you and others are supplying make frequent reference of sales of missile technology but I have not found specifically what was sold. There was a hue and cry over the sales of upgraded computers to the PRC, but this was after a debate in Congress triggered by Silicon Valley to allow the sale of later generation PC's. The argument was that they could be purchased easily all over the world so why not allow our own to share the revenue. So I guess my question still is exactly what missile technology did we sell.....we did not sell the satellites, we sold later generation computers, and Loral helped them analyze a launch failure; other than that what else is there? The Cox report contains no specifics that I found.