Free Republic

An Illinois woman is charged with a hate crime for berating a Muslim woman about the Fort Hood shooting and then pulling at her headscarf. The charge could lead to three years in prison: justice or prosecutorial overkill? In the days after the Ft. Hood shooting, mosques around the country bolstered their security in anticipation of a backlash from Americans angry about a Muslim man alleged to have killed American soldiers on their own turf. Since then, only one alleged hate crime against Muslims has been directly tied to the Fort Hood rampage. Two days after the rampage by an...

<p>A New Jersey appeals court has concluded that Americans have no Second Amendment right to buy a handgun.</p> <p>In a case decided last week, the superior court upheld a state law saying that nobody may possess "any handgun" without obtaining law enforcement approval and permission in advance.</p>

Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi step into a political quagmire during her press conference on the Bush Administration's torture tactics? Yes. Will President Obama's agenda lose momentum now that this "who said what and when" drama will suck oxygen out of the presidents tailwind? Almost certainly. Will there now be some type of independent commission established to investigate the treatment of war prisoners during the Bush/Cheney reign? Count on it. Who will suffer the greatest political damage from all this? Without question the Republican Party.

The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people. Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight. Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation. Nicolosi's views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said: In other words, that...

John McCain's top pollster, Bill McInturff, said this evening that attacking Barack Obama over his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have helped McCain's campaign and could have destroyed his presidency, had he been elected. Some Republicans were angry during the campaign that McCain had -- reportedly for reasons of principle, and out of concern that he'd be viewed as racist -- refused to air ads with Wright's inflammatory sermons, and believed they were fair game and a silver bullet against Obama. An outside group did air one such ad in the closing days of the race. "I said...

A new conservative movement that takes libertarian ideas seriously could use the inertia created by the nation's new progressivism to slingshot itself into the future on a platform of reduced government, lower taxes, and limited interventionism, while also respecting climate change (adjusting the tax code to encourage green reform without any expense to taxpayers) and reforming the immigration system (opening the borders as the market demands labor without sacrificing security). The Republican Party has a chance to transform itself into something it has never been: a party of small government based on classical liberal principles. It doesn't have to be...

Here in Chicago, a group of us just got back from doing visibility for McCain here in Boystown on a break from monitoring the polling stations in our neighborhoods. So far, we have not seen any instances of Obama followers intimidating voters or committing any sort of fraud — but are keeping our eyes open. We are all veterans of the Iowa, Texas, and other caucuses, so we know how bad Obama’s followers can be. The weirdest thing about today is that we honestly see less Obama tee shirts, stickers, and buttons out that we saw Kerry stuff in 2004....

Firearms We recognize that the right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ continued Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation, but we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact and enforce common-sense laws and improvements, like closing the gun show loophole, improving our background check system and reinstating the assault weapons ban, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Acting...

DEMOCRAT Hillary Clinton has been forced to admit her dramatic account of coming under life-threatening sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia was inaccurate. Senator Clinton's spokesman Howard Wolfson admitted the former first lady may have "misspoke" when she recounted the story on the campaign trail, as she tried to talk up her national security experience. Senator Clinton had last week told of coming under sniper fire when she arrived at Bosnia's Tuzla airbase in March 1996. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead...

The Case for McCain By Lawrence Kudlow Saturday, February 9, 2008 Some things in life are quite simple. Here’s one of them: Sen. John McCain is going to be our next president. How do I know? For starters, McCain will have a unified Republican party -- conservatives and all -- working hard for him. He’s also going to win over the Reagan Democrats, the Bush Democrats, and the Perot independents. These folks demand a strong military, want government off their backs, and are sick and tired of growing federal deficits and out-of-control spending. McCain’s their man. If you recall, it...

To explain the startling success of Senator John McCain in the fight for the GOP presidential nomination, talk radio hosts and columnists who loathe the Arizona Senator cite an alleged split on the conservative side between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. According to this reasoning (explicitly advanced by Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt and many others) if only Huckabee withdrew as a candidate, Mitt Romney could unite conservative cadres and pull out an upset victory on Super-Duper Tuesday. Of course, Huckabee won’t leave the race (in at least six of Tuesday’s state contests he’s running well ahead of Romney) and the...

The latest Realclearpolitics.com average of national polls shows Senator McCain towering over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 19 points -- 43 percent to 24 percent, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 18 percent and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 6. Still, given the rules of delegate allocation, Mr. Romney could rack up a decent number of delegates for the Republican convention in September, especially in states that award delegates by congressional district, such as California. Romney could also do well in some of the smaller states, most of which are holding caucuses, a format that has benefited...

As a lifelong conservative, I wish McCain evinced a greater understanding that limited government is indispensable to individual liberty. Yet there is no candidate in either party who so thoroughly embodies the conservatism of American honor and tradition as McCain, nor any with greater moral authority to invoke it. For all his transgressions and backsliding, McCain radiates integrity and steadfastness, and if his heterodox stands have at times been infuriating, they also attest to his resolve. Time and again he has taken an unpopular stand and stuck with it, putting his career on the line when it would have been...

Republican hard-liners have a potent hatred for their front-runner. But soon he may be sitting prettier -- with a win by Hillary Clinton. When Republican Rob Haney goes door to door to stump for candidates, he asks them to rate John McCain on a scale from 1 to 10. "The people who don't know much about politics rate him a 9 or 10," says Haney, who is a state party chairman in Arizona's 11th Legislative District. "The people who know what's going on rate him a 1 or a 2, or ask, 'Can I rate him a minus?'" Haney, a...

Mr. McCain stepped up his attempts to court the Republican right, scoring a number of high-profile endorsements this week. Yesterday, he received the support of billionaire Steve Forbes as well as former Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Mr. Olson, who served as assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, represented President Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore. The picture was a bit mixed earlier in the week when Mr. McCain got near-simultaneous endorsements from moderates California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York Mayor and rival Rudy Giuliani, causing some consternation among party conservatives. Some prominent pundits, including...

Just a few months ago, the 2008 presidential contest seemed predetermined. The New York lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were far ahead in their respective party polls. And in the one-on-one match-up, Sen. Clinton was all but declared the foreordained winner a year in advance. But not now. After Barack Obama's unexpected surge in Iowa, Bill and Hillary Clinton resorted to chewing him up through their trademark politics of personal destruction. Thanks to Clinton Inc., we now hear almost daily that Obama is inspirational but inexperienced, that he had admitted to drug use, that his middle name is Hussein,...

Let’s face it: the majority of those who supported Fred Thompson did so because they sincerely believed that he was the only reliable conservative in the race. Few questioned his commitment to conservative principles. Not even his opponents, who picked on his speaking style and campaign schedule rather than his policy proposals, questioned his principles. Upon Thompson’s withdrawal, Mitt Romney released the following statement: “Throughout this campaign, Fred Thompson brought a laudable focus to the challenges confronting our country and the solutions necessary to meet them. He stood for strong conservative ideas and believed strongly in the need to keep...

The Arizona senator is 13 points ahead of his closest rival in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday: Thirty-nine percent of likely California Republican primary voters back McCain, while 26 percent support former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. For McCain, that's a 19-point jump in the polls since the last CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey conducted in the state two weeks ago.

Even with their candidate out of the race, Fred Thompson’s supporters can make a big impact in Florida. They should do so by supporting Rudy Giuliani. More than any other candidate, Rudy matches Thompson’s conservative credentials in the three most important areas: he offers a conservative economic policy, an explicit promise to nominate only “strict constructionist” judges, and a strong dedication to national security. On the economy, social issues, and defense, a Giuliani presidency will take the nation in a clearly conservative direction—and he can actually beat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in November. With a win—or a strong showing—in...

Apparently dissatisfied with their presidential choices, Republicans are asking, "Why don't we have another Ronald Reagan?" But if we think seriously about what made Ronald Reagan a great leader and a great president, we may find that there's a reasonable facsimile hiding in plain sight. John McCain, although he has failed to toe the line of conservative orthodoxy, has many of the characteristics that the American people admired in Ronald Reagan, including the key elements that made him a successful president. In fact, given his electability, McCain offers a rare chance for conservatives to recapture the essence of the Reagan...

It took Nixon to go to China. It took Bill Clinton, a Democrat, to get control of the federal deficit. (Sorry, conservatives, but it’s true.) And it might take Rudy Giuliani to appoint solid Supreme Court Justices.With Fred Thompson out of the race, judicial conservatives are looking for a candidate. John McCain? Three words: Gang of 14. Mike Huckabee? He’ll never be President. Mitt Romney? Ehhhh . . . he might be OK — but I think he comes across to voters as too slick and unprincipled. And there may be a reason for that.But there’s no reason, in my...

Poll taken January 9 - 10. McCain 34 Huckabee 21 Giuliani 18 Romney 14 Thompson 6 Paul 5

"The administration's most profound strategic mistake was not finishing the job in Afghanistan — which everyone agreed was the central front in the War on Terror — and rushing to war in Iraq, which was not. Today, Afghanistan is on the brink of collapse and Iraq on the verge of chaos. In addition, five years after 9/11, each member of the so-called 'Axis of Evil' is more dangerous; terrorist attacks around the world have nearly quadrupled; the administration's simplistic equation of democracy with elections has helped empower extremist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; and Katrina and the 9/11 Commission have...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2292911 Video at link above shows a women holding up a sign protesting the police when one of the police shoots her with a rubber bullet in the back of the leg.She then turns around and gets shot in the forehead(wich can and does kill people) then the video cuts to the police gathering around after the protests and laughing about shooting her and talking about giving out trophys for it

NEW YORK Gary Hershorn, a photo editor for Reuters, explained today why the news agency withdrew two altered photos, and then hundreds of others by the same photographer, earlier this week – and also described Reuter’s policy on Photoshopping images. Hershorn, whose title is news pictures editor for North America, said he did not believe the freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj—now dismissed by the agency—made his changes for political effect. "I believe he was trying to take a picture and make it better rather than trying to take a picture and make a statement," Hershorn told National Public Radio in an...

Al Gore, where have you been all my life? Oh, I don't mean the alpha-male wanna-be, that scripted, stiff, uninspired candidate for president in 2000. I mean the self-effacing movie star with man-of-steel conviction from An Inconvenient Truth, who is trying to shake this country by the shoulders over the dire consequences of global warming. From the ashes of his overhandled "be everything to everybody" campaign rose the real Al Gore, a confident, wonkish, accessible intellect who has a supremely important question for inhabitants of Earth : How long can you tread water? This is the man, with his charts...

July 23, 2006 -- GAZA CITY - Senior Palestinian officials said terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip agreed to stop firing missiles at Israel at midnight last night, if Israel launches no new raids into Gaza. But two main terror groups denied that any agreement had been reached. The Palestinian officials said the unilateral cease-fire was aimed at ending an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that began June 28, three days after kidnappers raided an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and capturing 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

Washington, D.C. –Senator Edward M. Kennedy released the following statement on President Bush’s veto of life-saving stem cell legislation passed by the Senate with a vote of 63-37: “With his swift veto today, the President may think he has put the issue of stem cell research behind him. He may think it is closed and forgotten. But, Mr. President, it is not over for the child with diabetes who struggles with endless injections of insulin. It is not over for those who must watch helplessly as a parent or spouse succumbs to the tremors of Parkinson's Disease. It is not...

April 13, 2004 Banning Guns Equals Saving Lives Lauren Flynn Two months ago this week a senseless tragedy hit the streets of Detroit. Matthew Bowens and Jennifer Fettig, two Detroit police officers, were gunned down and killed during a routine traffic stop. Amendment II of the Constitution states a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. There is a clear public support for enacting stronger gun control legislation to reduce the chance of accidental or deliberate gun violence. Six in ten Americans...