Free Republic

Finally, some people are taking necessary action. Let the word go out - if you are threatening the authorities, innocent victims or people trying to help with evacuation and rescue efforts, this is what will happen to you. Much has already been said about the dismal response of local, state and federal authorities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the terrible suffering that tens of thousands of people are enduring as a result. I don't intend to add to that thread. Instead, what has struck me about this disaster is that it has demonstrated what Second Amendment defenders have...

In the practice of Zen Buddhism, a koan is a statement that is intentionally insoluble to the rational mind, a tool by which to master life’s seemingly paradoxical events. Yet the Japanese Zen masters have nothing on us red-blooded Americans, who for over a century have become unconsciously adept at sustaining such conflicts, easily accepting contradictory interpretations of Constitutional Law, between the original scope of the Bill of Rights and that since the Fourteenth Amendment. As Madison elaborated in Federalist 45, the Constitution for the United States of America was sold as a list of strictly limited powers; leaving the...

A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The Making More Kelo on the SCOTUS horizon?... [James S. Burling] 8/15/05 After a term marked by the Supreme Court’s utter contempt for property rights, those of us who happen to think there is something special about allowing old widows to keep their homes were not prepared for an even more bitter defeat. Yet, that is what President Bush handed us with the nomination of John Roberts. The battle over property rights is not a conservative versus liberal thing. It’s more a struggle between those who believe in the power of the state to...

RICHMOND - Three rural Republican lawmakers took Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine to task for his record on gun rights Friday, seeking to capitalize on an issue that they believe favors GOP nominee Jerry Kilgore. Kaine, the lieutenant governor, has said repeatedly that he respects the rights of law-abiding gun-owners and has no plans to limit them. But Dels.Bill Carrico of Grayson County, Robert Hurt of Chatham and Chris Saxman of Staunton said Kaine's record as Richmond's mayor from 1998 to 2001 undercuts his campaign pledge. Their criticism underscores the Kilgore campaign's emphasis on gun issues, which Gov. Mark Warner,...

WASHINGTON (July 6) - A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked an undercover CIA operative's name. ''There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify,'' U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said of the showdown in a case that has seen both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney interviewed by investigators. Miller stood up, hugged her lawyer and was escorted from the courtroom. Earlier, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in an about-face, told Hogan...