Free Republic

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two high school students who say they are offended by the school's policy of allowing prayer at voluntary events and holding Christmas concerts at churches. The students, from Pace High School in Pace, Fla., are identified only as Minor I Doe and Minor II Doe in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court because they are both under 18. The complaint alleges disclosure of their names would put the students at risk of "social ostracism, economic injury, governmental retaliation … and potential physical harm." Benjamin Stevenson, staff...

Powerline's JohnHinderaker notes Obama's pratfall on the Russian rape of Georgia --comparing it to our invasion of Iraq-- is just the latest in a string of gaffes, and John didn't even know when he wrote it that Obama had also sung the praises of totalitarian engineering around Beijing. Here's what Obama said yesterday about China: Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics , Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a...

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

“Hobbit” Director: America Kills Children And Rapes Continents Posted by Dirty Harry on Saturday, August 16th, 2008 Rhetorical: Why do ungrateful, hypocritical multi-millionaires like Guillermo del Toro stay in a country they find so repugnant: “American theatres in the South rejected the first movie, refused to play it, because the word ‘hell’ was in the title,” he says. “Other theatres in the South changed the title on the marquee from Hellboy to Hello Boy, and Heck Boy.” He thought when he was pitching Hellboy II: The Golden Army that people would be less sensitive, but not so. “We actually went...

S. Korean riot police are firing orange-dyed water to anti-Bush left-wing protesters to tag them for later arrest. The colored water also contains tear gas agent. Bush is visiting S. Korea today.

Quarter of Russians blame U.S. for conflict - poll 13 Aug 2008 18:47:42 GMT Source: Reuters MOSCOW, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Russians blame the United States and Georgia for triggering the conflict in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, with just one percent pointing the finger at Moscow, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. When asked who was guilty for the conflict in South Ossetia, 54 percent of those polled blamed Georgia and another 22 percent blamed the United States, a survey carried out by Russia's largest pollsters VTsIOM showed. A further 12 percent said Russia, South Ossetia and Georgia...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution. Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking. Otero's ruling Friday, which focused on specific courses and texts, followed his decision in March that found no...

SAN FRANCISCO—The U.S. Navy agreed in a settlement approved Tuesday to limit where it operates certain sonar systems criticized by environmentalists as a threat to whales and other marine mammals. The settlement approved Tuesday by a federal judge in San Francisco restricts the Navy's use of low-frequency sonar to specific military training areas near Hawaii and in the western Pacific Ocean.

Obama proclaimed that he was coming to Berlin not as a politician, but as a "proud citizen of the United States" and - this is the telling part - as a "fellow citizen of the world." But there are no "citizens of the world" and citizenship requires a state. Already, Obama has made clear that his view of the Constitution is entirely open and says he agrees "with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution that is not a static but a living document." That's one reason Breyer is the leading advocate of invoking foreign laws - even foreign polls -...

//www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=970/I wonder if Barack Obama or his campaign has given permission to use his image at Stylin Online which sells t-shirts that mock America and the Presidency

George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver. Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success. Last week Yemen-born...

ANN ARBOR, MI — Today, July 31st at 10:00AM EST, a New Jersey Federal Court heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to a public school district’s policy totally banning Christmas music, including simple instrumentals without words, during year-end celebrations in its schools. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan filed the federal lawsuit on the grounds that the school district’s ban on religious music conveys a government-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center,...

Anthony J. Russo, a Rand researcher in the late 1960s who encouraged Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers and stood trial with him in the Vietnam War-era case that triggered debates over freedom of the press and hastened the fall of a president, has died. He was 71.

<p>BEREA, Ohio (AP) - A man who wore press credentials and took photographs from a platform interrupted Barack Obama's town-hall meeting Tuesday by shouting complaints that the Democratic presidential candidate had not called for the audience to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Obama invited the heckler to lead the audience in the pledge, and he did.</p>

Some of you may have been surprised that even after visiting Iraq Obama still talks about our accomplishments there in somewhat disparaging terms. As senator McCain aptly put it: “Senator Obama said that the strategy of the surge would not succeed. He said it was doomed to fail. He said there would be an increase in sectarian violence. He still, to this day, has said that the surge is not succeeding.” http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mccain-keeps-up-iraq-attack-on-obama/ A very critical linchpin in Obama’s political platform has been his unequivocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq -- pejoratively referred to by the left as “Bush ’s...

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers. And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness. On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair...

A friend of a friend produced this video, one of the best I’ve seen when it comes to documenting the anti-Americanism of the radical left. Complete with an upside down flag, spitting on an Iraq War veteran and calling him a rapist, it’s sure to make your blood boil. Good gosh, can we please rid our country of this kind of human garbage? You know, the Left would like to turn almost anything now into a hate crime. Do you think we could get the Dems in Congress to include US servicemen and women in their next piece of hate...

International answer in conjuntion with other left wing america hating marxist groups are holding a festival on July 26th to celebrate the Cuban revolution and the 55 years of totalitarian oppresion by the Communist government of fidel castro in Cuba. Below is an article discussing it. It can also be read at http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANSWERLA July 26 "Noche Cubana" Party & Fundraiser Celebrate 55 Years Of Cuba's Revolutionary Struggle A Night of Music, Food, Film, Dancing & Solidarity with Cuba July 26th is celebrated around the world as the beginning of the Cuban revolutionary struggle. On July 26 1953, over 130 young...

I don't know what to make of this so far. It's been on for 45 minutes. The show follows Force Recon Marines, so some of the stuff mentioned might be following what Recon Marines say and do.

San Francisco is a city that wants to do the right thing. The problem, as always, is when our politicians get carried away. Certainly, no one has any problem with standing up for someone's right to express themselves or control their own life. San Francisco has a long and proud record of backing those kinds of issues. Same-sex marriage? Absolutely. Universal health care? That, too. Banning the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps from local high schools - despite the fact that there has been no complaint about the program - because you disagree with the American military's policy on gay...

When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward. “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we...

What's wrong with Pennsylvania?Have they no shame? How do they keep voting for this antiwar, anti-military detestable gasbag?(Here's some advice to wcbstv-- Murtha is not a "strong defense advocate." He is a selfish man who has made it a habit of slandering the US troops at war!) Democrat John Murtha does it again...Murtha admits the surge is working but only because the terrorists "are worn out" and American troops aren't just beating down doors and killing innocents!Un-freaking-believable! Here's the video: A WilleyBCoyote Video.Here is what Murtha says: Murtha: I think they have 17 or so guidelines and they've solved...

You can almost hear the violins playing while reading U.K. Guardian writer Zachary Roth  bemoan the "swiftboat" labeling of Barack Obama by those wascally Republicans: Over the last few months, Barack Obama has been variously labelled an "elitist", a naïve softie and simply "out of the mainstream" in his lifestyle and associates. And lately, in what appears to be the centrepiece of the GOP's attacks, Republicans have focused on portraying Obama as arrogant and self-interested....The "arrogant" label could well damage Obama. That's partly because, as with Kerry's rep for flip-flopping, it might contain a kernel of truth. At the very least,...

You know, I was wondering when this was going to happen, when someone in the MSM would say Bush has ruined July Fourth? The Philadelphia Inquirer didn't disappoint by wallowing in the worst example of blame-America-above-all as well as the most extreme case of BDS that I've seen outside the kind of nutroot sites like Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground. A mainstream paper has now gone that extra mile to let us all know that America does not deserve a July Fourth celebration this year because of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA secret prisons, and, lest you imagine otherwise, the...

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 (IPS) - After a two-week fact-finding tour of U.S. prison and detention facilities, a UN human rights investigator has blasted the administration of President George W. Bush for a rash of shortcomings in the country's flawed justice system and continued violations of the rule of law. Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during a country-wide visit to the United States © UN / Devra BerkowitzPhilip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, addresses a press conference concerning his findings during...

SOURCES: BUSH ANGER AT COMING NEW YORK TIMES STORY DETAILING HUNT FOR BIN LADEN... The newspaper planning to expose internal debate surrounding 'highly classified Pentagon order'; Special Operations forces hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan... DEVELOPING.... Thats the Story from drudge, OMG if the Times is gonna report this... Good GOD.... This is Huge. ( yea and Series) This is NOT a good thing for national Security and I am just a housewife. Even I can see and call a Traitor, a Traitor, but the Editor and the signing off authority that Prints this, to bee seen by the...

San Francisco juvenile probation officials - citing the city's immigrant sanctuary status - are protecting Honduran youths caught dealing crack cocaine from possible federal deportation and have given some offenders a city-paid flight home with carte blanche to return. The city's practices recently prompted a federal criminal investigation into whether San Francisco has been systematically circumventing U.S. immigration law, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.City officials say they are trying to balance their obligations under federal and state law with local court orders and San Francisco's policies aimed at protecting the rights of the young immigrants, who they...

Colorado's new state law that was based on the apparent belief that free speech rights are not unalienable and they sometimes must be restricted is scaring residents who now fear expressing their opinions in public. WND has reported previously that the law, SB200, which was promoted as an "anti-discrimination" plan favoring alternative sexual lifestyles and gender perceptions, has made it a criminal offense to discriminate against someone based on those lifestyles or perceptions. The Christian publishing house Focus on the Family has called it a payback by the Democrat-controlled legislature and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter to homosexual activists such as...

MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory. Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics...

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND - Border congressmen and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are looking into ways of de-funding the Department of Homeland Security so it cannot continue constructing a border wall. Opponents of the border wall in Congress are not sure if they can succeed with this strategy but they have not given up hope of putting sufficient congressional hurdles in place so that the project is delayed until after the November presidential election. Border congressmen say that because Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived more than 30 laws and regulations in order to speed up construction of the border wall,...

In an astonishing stroke of irony, the New York Times has outed the name of the CIA operative who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, over the objections of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and a lawyer representing the operative. Agency officials and legal counsel told the Times that publishing the agent's name would "invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency." In an Editor's Note linked from the story on KSM's interrogation, the Times defended its decision by stating that "other government employees" had been "named publicly in...

It's official: Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central. The Obama campaign has just sent over the following statement from spokesman Bill Burton: "To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

I’m back and I have had enough of the Democrats (Communists), Obama, and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media. The high cost of oil, gasoline, and natural gas can be laid squarely in the lap of the Democratic Party (the Communists). They have repeatedly grilled the top CEOs of the largest oil companies in America attempting to blame them for setting the price of oil and gas. Threatening a windfall profits tax (someone explain what a windfall profit is) to taking over the industry. This is the usual tactic of guilty people to deflect attention away from them. They know nothing...

In Saudi Arabia, the government refused to allow the question to be asked at all. Pro-American feeling does not necessarily translate into pro-American action. People across Western Europe mourned the 9/11 attack. But a Gallup poll conducted the week after 9/11 found that only 29% of the French, 21% of Italians, 18% of the British, 17% of Germans and 12% of Spaniards supported military action against countries that harboured terrorists. Iraq is not the reason that NATO has trouble persuading European governments to send troops to fight in Afghanistan. Anti-American feeling is often an artefact of propaganda. Anti-Americanism becomes stronger...

Finally, Barack Obama saw the light and broke with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. It took him 20 years to realize that its leaders, its in-house publications, and even its guest preachers were anti-American. If elected president, he will not have so long a grace period to make his decisions. Another vulnerable point for Senator Obama is his changing policy toward Cuba. A few days ago he announced that, if elected president, he would promote a much friendlier policy toward that country. It was a rousing speech. Even Fidel Castro rose from his sickbed to praise this oration by...

Dmitry Medvedev delivered the most anti-American speech of his one-month presidency this weekend when he claimed that US selfishness had led the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Addressing a grandiose conference designed to show off Russia's financial resurgence, the new president said that America's "economic egoism" and Western protectionism had triggered a global economic slowdown. "The aggressive financial policies of the biggest economy in the world have led not only to corporate losses; most people on the planet have become poorer," he told delegates at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Western chief executives who came...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush. Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table." Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war. Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.

Of all the empires in history, the United States will go down as one of the most aggressive and least inspiring. After nearly 160 years of warfare and imperial conquest, US policy, and the war machine it marshalled, has left nothing in its tracks but death and destruction, with no lasting cultural value. Five years after the US invasion, Iraq lies in ruins. Divided, violent, depleted, unstable, rife with sectarian war, a hotbed of terrorism and with 20 per cent of its population killed, wounded, displaced or in asylum in neighbouring countries, Iraq bears no resemblance to its recent past....

UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- A Nicaraguan priest who has been a stern critic of the United States won election Wednesday as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly, beginning his post with a "sermon" that touched on love, politics and the Iraq war. The presidency of the 192-nation assembly rotates by region and lasts for a year. The assembly elected 75-year-old Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Roman Catholic priest who was born in Los Angeles. He succeeds Macedonian diplomat Srgjan Kerim. "They elected a priest. And I hope no one is offended if I say that love is what is...

There are people in this world who believe that America is a force for evil in the world. They are called Europeans. Then there are people who feel the same way, but who will help elect the next president of the United States. They’re called Obama supporters. Calm down, my Cambridge friends. I am not saying that Sen. Barack Obama hates America. But even his most ardent supporters must admit - when they aren’t fainting away at his campaign appearances - that there is a direct and disturbing correlation between hating America and loving Barack. In Europe, for example, they...

Sometime in the next few weeks, the U.N. General Assembly will elect a pugnacious, anti-American politician from Nicaragua as its 63rd president. Not since the final years of the Cold War 20 years ago has a vocal opponent of Washington held this leadership position. But after Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader, stole the election in Managua last year, Nicaragua turned on a dime from an alliance with Washington to a close friendship with Fidel and Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The selection is set, and U.N. bylaws require the vote to be taken no later than June 16....

I am about to commit the worst sacrilege a person can in America today. You can rob banks or start wars, but crossing this line will land you in social Siberia. Especially on Memorial Day, which purportedly commemorates the men and women who have died in military service to the United States. My great sin is declaring that patriotism belongs to the past, and “our troops” in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t “heroes,” but essentially, mercenaries. Commentators dare not question the motives, bravery, and unselfishness of the men and women who are the sharp edge of the spear of America’s foreign...

Memorial Day is a double whammy for me. You see, my son Casey was born on Memorial Day 29 years ago. When he was growing up, we would gather dozens of our friends and relatives to celebrate his birthday. Now a few of us gather at his grave in Vacaville to mourn his death and cry for the life that was stolen from him. . . .

Liberals - VS- Troops In Quotes . Liberals Vs. The Troops In Quotes In honor of Tom Harkin's latest moronic comments about John McCain not being a good candidate for President because he spent too much time in the military, I present to you, "Liberals Vs. The Troops In Quotes." Enjoy the Left-Wing version of "supporting the troops!" Quote:"...This NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work." -- Washington Post blogger, William Arkin Quote:"Through every Abu aib and Haditha,...

As ex-President Putin settles in to his new role as Prime Minister, he has every reason to congratulate himself. After all, he has not only written the script for his constitutional coup d'etat, but staged the play and given himself the starring role as well. Of course, he has given a walk-on role to Dmitry Medvedev, his personally anointed successor. But the transfer of power from Putin to his Little Sir Echo, Medvedev, and the show of military strength with those soldiers and clapped-out missiles in Red Square on Victory Day which followed it last week, made it clear who...

BLOOMER, Wis. - A new Marine who's graduating from Bloomer High School this month won't be able to wear his military uniform during the commencement ceremony.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- An anti-war Democratic congressman is demanding to know why there were uniformed Defense Department personnel watching House proceedings from a public gallery Thursday, who they were and what they were doing. "If they were here on official duty, this was an abhorrent misallocation of our military resources at a time of war," Northern California Rep. Pete Stark asserted Friday in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Stark, an 18-term incumbent known for his liberal positions and outbursts of temper, said he observed the contingent of 20 or so officers, apparently Army generals, in the gallery for...

Unless you live in a rural area, there is probably a mosque (or more than one) in your town, and most people -- including local law enforcement officials -- regard them with the complete indifference shown the local churches. It is the height of political incorrectness to even suggest that possibly, just possibly, it might be worth checking into the local mosque’s sources of funding, and what they’re teaching there. As a Las Vegas city councilor exclaimed when some people objected to a proposal to build a mosque right beyond the fence of the international airport, “What’s the big deal?...

I had planned on leaving this alone, but the Marine sitting in the chair next to me is highly offended and I don't blame him. http://www.kirklockhart.com/?p=60#comments

Hawaiian Sovereignty Activists Barricade Iolani Palace An Unknown Amount of State Workers Trapped Inside By Malia Zimmerman, 4/30/2008 9:19:10 AM HONOLULU, HAWAII - Hawaiian sovereignty activists calling themselves the "Hawaiian Kingdom Government" surrounded Iolani Palace this morning, refusing to let state employees either enter or exit the historical site, saying the palace and surrounding grounds are property of the "Hawaiian Kingdom." An unknown amount of state employees who work in the state archives division were trapped inside this morning, according to Russ Saito, head of the Department of Accounting and General Services, but since were allowed to leave, his office...