Free Republic

Manitoba had third largest group of subversives THE federal government had detailed lists of political activists and subversives it planned to arrest in the aftermath of a nuclear war or other national emergency, keeping such plans on the books until at least the early 1980s, according to new records obtained by an Ottawa historian. Anywhere from 700 to 2,500 people, including babies, would have been held in internment camps before being shipped off to more permanent detention facilities. Under the 1969 version of the plan, the majority of people were to be picked up in Ontario with the second-largest group...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that voters "know something is wrong" in Washington and urged Democrats to create change in the November elections. "I have never seen the American people so serious," said Clinton. "I think I know why. People know things are out of whack. The rhythm of our public life and our common life in America has been disturbed." The former president was the keynote speaker at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, the Iowa Democratic Party's biggest annual fundraising event. He drew more than 3,500 activists. There is speculation that Clinton's wife, New York...

VERNON -- Four animal rights activists involved in a confrontation with hunters at Wawayanda State Park during last year's bear hunt were found guilty Thursday of harassment. The most prominent, Angela Metler of Vernon, drew a 40-day jail term. Municipal Court Judge C. William Bowkley Jr. found that the 49-year-old Metler, Terry Fritzges, 57, of East Windsor, Janet Pizsar, 53, of Milburn, and Albert Kazemian, 49, also of Vernon, were determined to disrupt the state-sanctioned bear hunt when they entered the park on the morning of Dec. 7. Besides sentencing Metler to jail time, Bowkley handed her and the others...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Supporters and opponents of liberalized immigration laws bellowed at each other through bullhorns at a rally in Phoenix on Monday as pressure on the U.S. Congress to break a deadlock over a proposed immigration overhaul gathered pace nationwide. About a thousand supporters of a Senate bill offering millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship gathered outside the Capitol building in downtown Phoenix on Labor Day, chanting, "We are America" and waving U.S. flags. They were met by scores of angry opponents of the measure, toting placards urging authorities to "stop the criminal alien invasion" and "secure...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fueled by opposition to the Iraq war and anger at President Bush, liberal grass-roots and Internet activists on Wednesday claimed their most significant political victory -- the defeat of Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record). The three-term senator from Connecticut was repudiated on Tuesday by voters from his own party who chose Ned Lamont -- a relative unknown with a fierce anti-war message -- to represent Democrats in the November election. "The winner is people-powered politics," declared the Daily Kos Web site, a sentiment that echoed throughout the liberal blogosphere. Lamont, a millionaire businessman who...

Activists held after boarding US plane searching for weapons Richard Norton-Taylor and Will Woodward Tuesday August 8, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Twelve antiwar protesters were arrested by police yesterday after campaigners boarded a plane at Prestwick airport in Scotland to search for US weapons being transported to Israel. David Mackenzie, of the campaign group Trident Ploughshares, said its activists had boarded a US plane at the airport after gaining access to it by cutting through a perimeter fence. They found the military area and a US plane with its door open. However, they did not find any weapons. One protester...

Five antiwar activists, four of whom have been on a hunger strike for 25 days, were arrested yesterday... {snip} The arrests occurred after the five blocked the entrance and ignored police orders to move..... Three of the people arrested are members of CodePink, including its co-founder, Diane Wilson of Seadrift, Tex.

Temecula's Kristin Shaffer says she felt intimidated Saturday when she found herself being videotaped by a man inside a government vehicle as she took part in a rally in support of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of killing an Iraqi civilian. Christine Bruce says she wondered the same when the white sport utility vehicle stopped across the road from the approximately 100-strong group, and a man in a white shirt and tie emerged and trained his video camera on them. That man was from the base's Security Battalion and no intimidation was intended, base spokeswoman Capt. Carrie Batson...

RUSH: Pamela, New York City. Glad you called. Welcome to the EIB Network. CALLER: Hey, Rush. RUSH: Hey. CALLER: Maha Rushie, you rock, you rock my world. You rock the world, and I just want to say for the people, Rush's place in history has not been written yet. I just wanted you to know that. RUSH: Thank you. CALLER: You're a great man. RUSH: Appreciate that. Thank you very much. CALLER: But it's true. Listen, I just came from the Stand with Israel rally in New York City. And I wanted to say, first of all, there were tens...

BISBEE — A campaign by the Minutemen to build border fences on private land is facing growing criticism from other anti-illegal-immigration groups, as well from some of its original membership. The critics complain that the organization formally known as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has been raising large amounts of money for a costly Israeli-style barrier but has been building only inexpensive range fencing. And they direct their disapproval squarely at Minuteman founder and president, Chris Simcox. For his part, Simcox calls the criticism unfounded and petty, and insists his group will soon begin to construct the two-layered, Gaza Strip-model...

SAN BERNARDINO -- A group of Latino activists on Monday delivered a letter to the Mexican Consulate, urging the administration of President Vicente Fox to stop using federal funds for partisan political purposes. The National Alliance for Human Rights, a Riverside-based immigrant rights network, gave the letter to Mexican Consul Carlos Giralt Cabrales, who promised to forward it to his superiors in Mexico. The two-page letter accuses the federal government and the Fox administration of spending public money to support the candidacy of Felipe Calderon, who is hoping to succeed Fox in the July 2 presidential election. From his D...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Four Republicans considering running for president in 2008 courted activists Saturday and predicted GOP success in the November elections despite the party's sagging support in polls. "The theme is we are right on the issues, not just for Iowa but for the country," said New York Gov. George Pataki. "I understand what the experts are saying, but if we stick to Republican principles we will succeed." Also at the Iowa Republican convention, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) said, "The Democrats want this election to be a referendum election. But the best thing we...

On May 23, 2006, a grand jury at the U.S. District Court in Illinois handed down an indictment against Jeremy Alexander Hammond for hacking into the ProtestWarrior server. The indictment reads in part, "Between January and February 2005, defendant HAMMOND accessed ProtestWarrior.com's server without authority on multiple occasions in an effort to obtain information not otherwise available to him or the general public, specifically credit card numbers, home addresses, and other identifying information of the members and customers of ProtestWarrior.com." The specific violation is of Title 18, US Code, Sections 1030 (a)(2)(c) and 2. Per our understanding of the law,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush welcomed to the White House three human rights activists from China, including one whose Internet blog was blocked by Chinese authorities after it was nominated for two top international awards. The three — author Yu Jie, law professor and blogger Wang Yi and legal scholar Li Baiguang — are active in China's underground Protestant churches, which have been hit for months by a government crackdown in which many movement leaders have been arrested. Such underground Chinese churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, are known as house churches, a reference to their use of private homes for...

Even as Latinos in recent weeks have pushed for immigration reform on the streets and over the airwaves, another goal has emerged among a broader immigrant community: Translating street activism into political participation. Latino and Asian civic groups last week reignited voter-registration drives by calling upon the thousands who participated in protests to take their enthusiasm to the ballot box in November. But experts said that if history serves as any guide, short-term gains are likely to be few, while long-term gains will be significant. ‘‘If the next step and what we are seeing in the streets moves toward citizenship,...

Media Virtually Mute on Charlie Daniel's Baghdad Visit It amazes me. When this jerkoff "Flea" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers stands up and bashes President Bush, it seems to make it to a lot of the major news organizations such as the Associated Press and others. Neil Young, who I admire as a great musician and singer/songwriter, a guy who has given us rock and roll lovers so much great stuff, did indeed disappoint me with his latest anti-Bush tirade in his cd "Living with War" - and it also got a lot of internet-media attention. Again, Neil is a great artist, but...

I have disturbing news to bring to you. Right now, in the California State Legislature, a bill is being considered which would effectively silence any voice that dare oppose homosexuality. This bill will mandate that public school textbooks used by children be revised to include "gay history." But there's more. Not only would this bill revise textbooks to favor homosexuals, it would PROHIBIT teachers from saying anything that confronts or challenges homosexuality.This is nothing less than censorship of an Orwellian sort. We need your action now! Call your state senators and tell them to oppose SB 1437. http://www.crmail.org/public/lib.aspx?lid=3098 ++ FIND...

Those interested in Marx and Engels' remedy for exploitation and oppression are invited to attend lectures from International Socialist Organization and UT professor Dana Cloud and others...  Serious gag alert.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- NASCAR said it was "outrageous" that "Dateline NBC" targeted one of its racetracks last weekend for a possible segment on anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. NASCAR said NBC confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans' reactions. The NBC crew was "apparently on site in Martinsville, Va., walked around and no one bothered them," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday. "It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," Poston said....

A mother that gives violin lessons will face trial in the northwestern US state of Washington on charges she was an environmental terrorist, prosecutors said. Briana Waters, 30, of the famously liberal California city of Berkeley, has pleaded innocent in a Seattle federal court that she that fire bombed a horticulture center in 2001. A US district court judge allowed Waters to remain free pending the start of her trial in June, but ordered that she turn in her passport and have her whereabouts monitored electronically. Waters was the first person charged in connection with an attack that destroyed the...

Black Activists Support Judge's Ruling to Hold New Orleans Elections on TimeFri Mar 31, 5:26 PM ET To: National Desk Contact: David Almasi of Project 21, 202-543-4110 ext. 11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org WASHINGTON, March 31 /U.S. Newswire/ -- As the Reverend Jesse Jackson and others prepare to march in opposition to scheduled city government elections in New Orleans, members of the black leadership network Project 21 are supportive of a New Orleans- based federal judge's ruling clearing the way for voting to be held on and leading up to April 22. In his March 27 ruling, U.S. District Court judge Ivan...

Dedicated and activist Grannys protest Peta.

Democrats hold camp to train election activistsBy Lisa Vorderbrueggen CONTRA COSTA TIMES Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006 Jim Dean, brother of ex-presidential candidate and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, will deliver opening remarks today at a campaign activist training camp in Stockton, a site chosen because it's in one of a dozen congressional districts that Democrats hope to seize from Republicans this year. "Absolutely, we're in Stockton for a reason and that's Richard Pombo," said program director and East Bay Democracy for America volunteer Kathy Klein, referring to the seven-term incumbent Republican congressman. Nearly 200 people have signed up...

An American member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, Tom Fox, was found murdered in Iraq today. He was kidnapped by the Islamist-oriented group known as the Swords of Righteousness Brigades on November 26. Iraqi police reported that Fox had "gunshots to his head and chest and signs of torture on his body." This incident begs the question: Do the Islamist terrorists respect all the appeasement offered them by leftist peace activists like Tom Fox? The answer is a categorical "no," "non," "nein," "nyet," "nr." After all that has happened, the Left still ignores the threat of Islamism, appeasing militant Muslims...

A tiny fish native to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta deserves stronger protection under the Endangered Species Act, based on mounting evidence that preservation efforts have done nothing to stanch its rapid decline, environmentalists said Wednesday. The number of Delta smelt swimming today in the waters feeding San Francisco Bay has declined 2.6 percent from levels in 1993, when the federal government originally declared the species "threatened." "The population has completely collapsed since 2002," said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of three groups petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an emergency listing of the...

At least eight prominent Chinese human rights activists have vanished after they joined one of the first overt attempts to coordinate a nationwide protest against the authorities since the 1989 democracy demonstrations. Political security police are thought to have detained the campaigners, who disappeared soon after they joined a relay hunger strike that has reportedly attracted several dozen participants in 16 provinces. No official explanation has been given. The government's propaganda department has forbidden the domestic media from reporting anything to do with the campaign, which was launched by a Beijing lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, on February 4 to protest police...

No longer fighting his endorsement, Republican conservative activists will settle for airing their opposition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bond, budget and minimum-wage proposals and raise questions about his judicial appointments at the upcoming GOP state convention. The conservative California Republican Assembly had been pushing the party to drop its endorsement of Schwarzenegger over his appointment of longtime Democratic stalwart Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff. CRA President Mike Spence said his group still wants Kennedy to resign. But CRA board members voted over the weekend to "suspend" the move to pull the endorsement, in part because state Sen. Tom...

Time and again over the past decade, the political instincts of California's Republican Party leaders have been far off the mark. Their embrace of marginally attractive candidates to run against Barbara Boxer in the 1998 Senate race and Gray Davis in the 1998 and 2002 governor's races resulted in huge lost opportunities. The only reason we have a GOP governor now is because of the quirks of the recall system; in a normal election, Arnold Schwarzenegger probably would have been weeded out in the Republican primary by an establishment conservative following the script that lackluster Bill Simon used to wallop...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - To the beat of drums and trilling whistles, thousands of activists from around the world showed their opposition to globalization and the Iraq war at the opening Tuesday of the World Social Forum backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The six-day conference got under way in Caracas amid a light drizzle as activists paraded along wide avenues chanting "Socialism, yes! Imperialism, no!" About 80,000 people signed up to attend the forum, including tens of thousands from outside Venezuela, organizers said. Cindy Sheehan, an American peace activist whose son was killed in Iraq, addressed a sea of...

U.S. antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan will open the World Social Forum in Caracas on Tuesday together with other political and cultural leaders from diverse nations with a mass action, organizers for the event said Sunday. Sheehan, mother of a dead soldier in Iraq who achieved notoriety from heading various antiwar actions against the government of George W. Bush, will give a speech at a march that will kick off the World Social Forum en the Venezuelan capital, said dará Edgardo Lander, a member of the organizing committee of the event. In the action for which the activist will assist, "she...

US indicts 11 environmental, animal activists Fri Jan 20, 2006 03:05 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eleven environmental and animal rights activists have been indicted in a series of attacks in the U.S. West on targets that included the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, the Justice Department said on Friday. The defendants, based in Portland, Oregon, and acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, were named in a 65-count indictment that included charges of arson and destruction of an energy facility, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference. A Justice Department...

A coalition of organizations that defend the rights of undocumented immigrants will caravan from San Diego to Washington, D.C., next month in an effort to pressure members of Congress into voting down a controversial immigration bill, a spokesman for the group said Monday. Approved by the House of Representatives in late December, the bill focuses primarily on strengthening the nation's borders and cracking down on illegal immigration. It has been heavily criticized by some human rights organizations and some elected officials, however, for its failure to include a guest-worker program that would allow foreign laborers to stay in the United...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Some 40 gay rights activists protested outside St Peter's Square on Friday, a day after Pope Benedict condemned homosexual marriage. The group stayed out of the square, which is Vatican territory, but held up banners and placards criticising the Roman Catholic Church. One banner read "2000 years of discrimination" and said the Church should stay out of Italian affairs. Benedict, in an address to Italian politicians on Thursday, re-stated the Church opposition to gay marriages and to proposed laws that would formally recognise the rights of gay couples. The demonstration took place on the eighth anniversary...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the state to reveal whether it secretly gathered information on California activists and fed it to the federal government. Three California affiliates of the ACLU filed a request with state Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Wednesday asking whether officials provided information to the FBI about several environmental and anti-war activist groups, including Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The ACLU said it was looking for any evidence that state and local agents - who have less leeway to investigate organizations than...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced a leading student activist to five years in prison for various charges including acting against state security, the dissident student said. Prominent student leader Abdollah Momeni said one of the charges related to organising student protests in 2002-2003 against a death sentence issued against reformist academic Hashem Aghajari for blasphemy. The death sentence for Aghajari, who angered the religious establishment by saying that Muslims should not blindly follow the teachings of clerics, was later overturned and he was freed. Momeni said he would appeal his sentence and free pending his appeal...

HADARIM PRISON, Israel - Young Palestinian activists from the ruling Fatah Party rejected a call for unity Thursday, determined to push aside the corrupt old guard associated with Yasser Arafat and form their own party for January parliamentary elections. The decision, made after a meeting with their imprisoned leader, deepened a crisis for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and threatened to give a boost to Islamic Hamas militants. In another blow to Fatah, Hamas swept to victory in elections in the West Bank's largest city, Nablus, according to official results announced early Friday. Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms...

Protest Cuts Short Jerry Lewis Appearance (CBS) CHICAGO A noisy protest Wednesday night cut short a Chicago appearance by entertainment legend Jerry Lewis. Lewis was at the Chicago Library to promote his new book, "Dean and Me - A Love Story." The auditorium was packed when disability activists in wheelchairs began heckling Lewis. Lewis has held telethons to fund research to find cures for people with muscular dystrophy. But members of a group called Jerry's Orphans accused him of portraying the disabled as people to be pitied. Lewis yelled at them to get out and stormed off the stage. “When...

Must Read. The anti-war activists display in Veterans park moves vets to remove their treasonous white flags... they get arrested.

Terrorism and Security: Major Canadian Media Organizations Possibly a Haven for Single-Issue Activists Government policy analyst lodges request for investigation of lop-sided media coverage of two terrorism related cases. Poor journalism widespread while watchdog bodies ineffective or biased. (I-Newswire) - Literally millions of Canadians have read the newspapers or seen coverage of the cases of Muhammed Mahjoub, a suspected terrorist being held indefinitely on a secret service security certificate, and Maher Arar, also suspected of having terrorist connections. While Canadian media such as the CBC and the Canadian Press have provided ample opportunities for Maher Arar and Muhammed Mahjoub and...

Michael Moore owns Halliburton! New book debunks claims of celebrity activists -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: November 1, 2005 10:23 p.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Michael Moore "I don't own a single share of stock!" filmmaker Michael Moore proudly proclaimed. He's right. He doesn't own a single share. He owns tens of thousands of shares – including nearly 2,000 shares of Boeing, nearly 1,000 of Sonoco, more than 4,000 of Best Foods, more than 3,000 of Eli Lilly, more than 8,000 of Bank One and more than 2,000 of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11." If you want to...

Wal-Mart has made a documentary extolling its own virtues in an effort to counter a damning Robert Greenwald film. Greenwald's Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, was released Tuesday, and opens in cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 4. Poster for Robert Greenwald's movie, highly critical of Wal-Mart. Made on a shoestring budget of $1.8 million, it will get limited release in theatres, but in the current age of popular documentaries, Greenwald hopes it will become a cult hit like Michael Moore's critique of General Motors, Roger and Me. In The High Cost of Low Price...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's a long way to go for a silver lining, but poverty activists are hoping the deprivation exposed by Hurricane Katrina will prompt the U.S Congress to do what it hasn't done since 1997: Raise the minimum wage. Some 2 million people in the United States were paid the minimum wage of $5.15 or less in 2004. Working full time, such minimum wage earners make $10,700 a year, just above the threshold of $9,645 set by the federal government as its definition of poverty for individuals and barely half the $19,307 needed to keep a family of...

The Statistics on Homosexuality and its Effects Catholic Apologetics International http://www.catholicintl.com/news/news.htm Some statistics about the Homosexual lifestyle: * One study reports 70% of homosexuals admitting to having sex only one time with over 50% of their partners (3) * One study reports that the average homosexual has between 20 and 106 partners per year (6). The average heterosexual has 8 partners in a lifetime * Many homosexual sexual encounters occur while drunk, high on drugs, or in an orgy setting (7) * Many homosexuals don't pay heed to warnings of their lifestyles: "Knowledge of health guidelines was quite high, but...

A pair of gay activists are raising the stakes in the fight over same-sex marriage, vowing to post on the Internet the name and address of anyone who signs a petition to ban gay marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts. "I have the fight in me now, and if people I know, or that I support, or that I do business with are on that list, I might not support them or their philanthropies or their businesses," said Tom Lang, who launched knowthyneighbor.org with his spouse, Alex Westerhoff. Lang, 42, said he and Westerhoff, 36, are only providing via the...

Hurricane Produces Grief --- And Urban Legends We’ve all seen heartbreaking images of Hurricane Katrina – which,by the way, devastated coastal areas of Mississippi too – something the Media almost totally ignores.* To make matters worse , the “Urban Legend Machine” is operating at full capacity ; with every type of huckster you can imagine going online – or elbowing a path to the news cameras to spout off. These are just a few of the stories being told. 1. A “prominent” ( in his own mind ) activist proclaimed his opinion poor black people had been left to die...

WASHINGTON - Organizers are planning what they say will be the largest anti-war demonstration in the nation's capital since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice detailed their plans Thursday for the Sept. 24 protest. They plan to bus in people from across the country for a march past the White House. Other major protests are planned that day in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed last year in Iraq, is on a 25-state bus tour that will end at the...

I don't think I have to point out to anyone just how horrendous the situation down in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama is today. Hurricane Katrina has proved to be the worst natural disaster to strike the United States since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and the effects of this unprecedented catastrophe will surely be felt in this country for many months, and perhaps years to come.

Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation asks the question first asked by James Dobson four years ago: is the Republican Party addressing the issues of its conservative base in the policies it advances in Congress?" He notes: Thanks to the incredible expansion of federal entitlements, regulations and pork spending sanctioned by the GOP leadership in Congress since 2001, there is virtually no chance that Big Government is going to be shrunk even a little any time soon. And since there is no sign the folks running Congress are willing to change course, why shouldn’t conservatives dump the GOP? Incredibly, after...

""After all, I spent my life as an opinion researcher.........But public opinion is changing on this war. There's an enormous shift. And, as this goes on, people are getting killed and the United States is losing its reputation, and making enemies among our friends. And the idea that we have to kill more people to justify the lives of those who have already been killed doesn't strike me as logical anywhere outside the White House." ...Bush's poll numbers and support for his war plummeting, and peace groups taking courage from the combination. On Sept. 11, Women in Black will hold...

Though they don’t receive nearly the amount of coverage that Cindy Sheehan has enjoyed, America needs to recognize the sentiments of its Blue-Star and Gold Star Mothers. Blue-Star Mothers are those who have grown sons and daughters serving in the armed forces, and Gold-Star Mothers are those who had sons and daughters who have died while serving their county in the armed forces. The other day a Blue Star Mother took up the cause to speak out against the lies and distortions of Cindy Sheehan. Deborah Johns represents the patriotic Blue Star Mothers. Blue Star Mothers along with Gold Star...