Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Park Police say they have arrested 91 protesters in front of the White House, including some in wheelchairs who chained themselves to a fence. The protesters are calling on the president to support legislation that would give people with disabilities in need of long-term care alternatives to nursing homes. Sgt. David Schlosser says a large group gathered on a sidewalk outside the White House on Monday without a protest permit required for groups of more than 25 demonstrators. He says some protesters are in wheelchairs and have chained themselves to a fence. Police may use a...

We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons: 1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wasn't the first to discover the book he gave to President Obama last week in an attempt to ease diplomatic tensions — college students in the U.S. have been turning its pages for years. The 317-page "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" has been identified on the syllabi of at least 20 U.S. colleges and universities since 2003, and it's been taught for decades on American campuses. The virulently anti-American book tells how for 500 years Europe and then the U.S. exploited Latin America, leaving it impoverished and governed...

During his first 100 days as president of the United States, Barack Obama revealed how different he is from all the white men who preceded him in the Oval Office, and the differences run deeper — in substance and style — than the color of his skin. Barack Hussein Obama is the nation’s first hip president. This, of course, is subject to debate. But watch him walk. Listen to him talk. See the body language, the expressions, the clothes. He’s got attitude, rhythm, a sense of humor, contemporary tastes. This much is clear: Whether dealing with the Wall Street mess,...

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit. Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. "Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the...

VIENNA (AP) - The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said Friday. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations. He had previously absolved CIA officers from prosecution. Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote...

question on those days where the chance of rain is less than 100 percent. But only half the population understands what a precipitation forecast means well enough to make a fully informed answer, a new study finds. If, for example, a forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain, many people think it means that it will rain over 20 percent of the area covered by the forecast. Others think it will rain for 20 percent of the time, said Susan Joslyn, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Washington who conducted the study. The reality: "When a forecast...

My daughter said she was watching the View today and Whoppi called Obama "Osama" and the audience laughed hysterically. Whoppi really isn't very bright. And my daughter only watches to make fun of the idiots on there. She also said Barbara Walters spelled "virginity" "verginity". Brilliant women. Makes me proud! LOL

President Barack Obama may be delivering a commencement address at Arizona State University this Spring - one of three campuses where the president will send off the graduating classes of 2009 - but he won't be coming home with any degree. While "it's common for universities to confer honorary degrees on commencement speakers,'' Dawn Teo writes from Tempe for the Huffington Post, "Arizona State says it has specific rules for recognizing academic achievement and Obama's 'body of work is yet to come.'' She cites ASU Media Relations Director Sharon Keeler as saying that Arizona's honorary degrees are given "for an...

Tiny and dying but still-powerful stars called pulsars spin like crazy and light up their surroundings, often with ghostly glows. So it is with PSR B1509-58, which long ago collapsed into a sphere just 12 miles in diameter after running out of fuel. And what a strange scene this one has created. In a new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, high-energy X-rays emanating from the nebula around PSR B1509-58 have been colored blue to reveal a structure resembling a hand reaching for some eternal red cosmic light. The star now spins around at the dizzying pace of seven times...

The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel-efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multibillion-dollar bailout. Unfortunately for the automakers, hybrids are a tough sell these days. Americans have cut back on buying vehicles of all types as the economy continues its slide. But the slowdown has been particularly brutal for hybrids, which use electricity and gasoline as power sources. They were the industry's darling just last summer, but sales have collapsed as consumers refuse to pay a premium for a fuel-efficient vehicle...

Dogs do the darndest things.They poop, they hump and they sniff in all the wrong places. And now you can see them do all of the above every time you cross the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 80 in Berkeley, Calif., thanks to the largesse of the taxpayers. Artist Scott Donahue of Emeryville, Calif., was paid $196,000 by Berkeley's public arts program to create two large statues, which feature small, artistic medallions that show dogs doing what dogs do best. "Various things," Donahue said. "Biting each other, chasing each other…. One dog is defecating, two dogs are fornicating."

Democrats in Congress have declared war on prayer, say conservative groups who object to a provision in the stimulus bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week. The provision bans money designated for school renovation from being spent on facilities that allow "religious worship." It has ignited a fury among critics who say it violates the First Amendment and is an attempt to prevent religious practice in schools. According to the bill, which the Democratic-controlled House passed despite unanimous Republican opposition, funds are prohibited from being used for the "modernization, renovation, or repair" of facilities that allow...

There's a new front in the conflict between Jew and Muslim: Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports buses. Fifty of the county's 290-bus fleet have been chugging around area streets for the past several weeks with a message that might seem more oblique than inflammatory. Black letters on a white backdrop proclaim, "ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad." The $60,000 ad was paid for by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We owe it to our fellow Americans to let them know that Islam stands for peace," said Altaf Ali, director of CAIR's South...

GAINESVILLE - A blond girl heads from a playground into a women's restroom. A scruffy man, lurking outside, darts in behind her. ``Your City Commission Made This Legal,'' the words on the TV screen read. And it's true, sort of. The dark ad came from opponents of a gender identity provision added last year to the city's anti-discrimination ordinance, which now allows the city's roughly 100 transgender residents to use whichever restroom they're most comfortable using. Foes want to repeal the new protection with a March 24 ballot measure that has divided Gainesville, a generally gay-friendly university city surrounded by...

The happy story of the first baby of the year turned into a stunning and tragic one Thursday when the young mother suddenly died. Baby girl is Henderson County's first born of 2009 Nicole Buckner died Thursday morning at Mission Hospitals, one week after she was featured in the Times-News for delivering the first baby born in the county on New Year’s Day. She was 24. Blood clots began forming in Nicole’s body late Wednesday night, said Buford Buckner, her husband. “It appeared and then spread, she was getting bad circulation, then it systematically shut down her body,” Buford said....

Hardline student groups in Iran have asked the government for authorization to send suicide brigades to Israel, in response to that country's strikes on Hamas strongholds in the Gaza strip. The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not yet responded to the calls, but said of Israel Wednesday that "this hated regime is on the slope of a crash and with the grace of God soon will fall and nothing can save it." Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls. The groups' activities appear to be mainly for propaganda...

IRVINE, Calif. – Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door. They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair. But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid. Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home....

As we saw during primary season, our president-elect is not free of his own brand of hubris and arrogance, and sometimes it comes before a fall: “You’re likable enough, Hillary” was the prelude to his defeat in New Hampshire. He has hit this same note again by assigning the invocation at his inauguration to the Rev. Rick Warren, the Orange County, Calif., megachurch preacher who has likened committed gay relationships to incest, polygamy and “an older guy marrying a child.” Bestowing this honor on Warren was a conscious — and glib — decision by Obama to spend political capital. It...

Barack Obama’s stepmother broke her silence on her life with the Senator’s father, on a day the US President-elect and his wife, Michelle, were treated to a visit of the White House. Grace Keziah Obama, 67, who now lives in Bracknell, UK, but is currently visiting with the rest of the family in Kogelo, says her late husband, also known as Barack Obama, was a loving man with a taste of the good things in life. He also spoke his mind and liked the truth. Speaking to The Standard at her house in Kogelo, Keziah narrated how she met Obama...