Free Republic

"In the first place God made idiots," observed Mark Twain. "This was for practice. Then he made school boards." The San Francisco Board of Education's 4-2 vote last week to abolish the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, which has been active in the city's high schools for 90 years, tends to support his view. Why is JROTC being done away with? It isn't for lack of interest. More than 1,600 San Francisco students currently take part in its voluntary activities. "Kids love this program as if it's family," notes the San Francisco Chronicle. It is "a program that students...

September 22, 2006 Chavez stirs Cape political waters By DAVID SCHOETZ STAFF WRITER Of the 435 members of Congress, the Cape's representative is known for having one of the closest relationships with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - for better or worse. As critics took turns yesterday ripping Chavez for calling President George W. Bush ''the devil'' on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a self-described friend of the outspoken leftist South American leader, joined the chorus. ''It was entirely unacceptable,'' Delahunt said. ''This would have been an opportunity to begin to repair the relationship...

We can -- and perhaps should -- have a discussion about the value or even the morality of rendition. However, we should be clear about something right off the bat, so we are not using incorrect terminology or assertions. Terrorists, stateless actors, pirates, etc. are not covered by the Geneva Convention. It's important that we all get that right, so we are not starting out with false assertions. That said, those in our custody are being afforded **most** (albeit not all) of the considerations that would be given someone who is covered thereby. And as far as I am concerned,...

The left talks a good game about rights and freedoms and all that, but the truth is, the more power people on the left get, the more totalitarian they become. In America, they are strongest in the universities, and sure enough, it's within many universities that you find speech codes; denials of tenure and funding based on political alignment or positions; the suppression of certain kinds of ideological expression; open attacks on conservatives and Jews; and the tacit encouragement or official endorsement of left-wing (and sometimes violent, Jihadist, anti-Semitic, or simply vile) ideological and artistic expressions. And in America, we're...

Caracas, Sep 7 (EFE).- Manuel Rosales, the main challenger to President Hugo Chavez in December's election, said Thursday that he if he is killed, the responsibility will lie with the incumbent head of state. "I blame Chavez for whatever may happen to me, because he has given the order for them to ambush me; and if they assassinate me, if something happens to me, the people know it's at Chavez's command," Rosales told reporters during a rally in Caracas. "The people will take to the streets and bring down this government if they try to prevent me from becoming president...

Hundreds of people gathered at both ends of Meridian Hill Park in Northwest Washington for a peace rally sponsored by the D.C Antiwar Network. But there were interlopers: Thirteen members of ProtestWarror, supporting the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq. When the Bush supporters arrived, about 20 black-clad, self-described anarchists emerged from the crowd, shouting profanity and epithets and demanding that they leave the peace rally. When the Bush supporters refused to leave, the anarchists tore the sign out of the Bush supporters' hands and stomped on them. When ProtestWarrior leader Gil Kobrin objected, several male anarchists knocked him...

A.M. Mora y Leon of The American Thinker is among a group of bloggers who appear to be targeted by the Castroite Chavez regime running the government of Venezuela. So warns the blog Burton Terrace: Venezuelan opposition bloggers, independently financed and edited, are coming under attack in the Venezuelan government run media. Specifically targeted are "Aleksander Boyd in London, Gustavo Coronel in Washington D.C., Daniel Duquenal in Yaracuy, Miguel Octavio in Caracas and A. M. Mora y Leon in the United States of America." The author of a recent article in the government run media service threatens to report these...