Free Republic

Fiery back and forth at Florida town hall

On Sunday I was honored to be a speaker at the rally against building the mosque at ground zero put on by the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero. As the rally concluded, thousands of the participants marched the one block from the rally site to the actual site of Ground Zero. I noticed a man in black shirt with a phone camera aggressively questioning and haranguing a gentleman with the sign, “No Sharia Here.” He was very aggressive, disrespectful and condescending; apparently, he did not like the man’s answers about Shariah and pushed the point: “Why do you feel threatened?...

Located in the very heart of modern-day Germany, in the province of Hesse, is a small humble town of only 15,000 inhabitants. In the middle of that town stands an imposing old cathedral built in the 12th-14th centuries of reddish stone. Situated in front of that cathedral is the statue of a man in a monk’s garb on a stump of a freshly felled oak, with a huge Saxon ax in his hand. The humble town is Fritzlar, called Gaesmere in ancient times. It is known in Germany as the birthplace of two beginnings: Here began the Christianization of Germany,...

I am a black tea party patriot faced with a serious problem concerning my 83-year-old father. Dad is an extraordinary man whose life epitomizes the greatness of America. In the '50s, married with a wife and three kids and employed as a laborer, Dad was among the first blacks to break the color barrier into the Baltimore Fire Dept. The white firefighters treated Dad like scum and boldly displayed their displeasure with having an "n" in their firehouse. Dad was the young associate pastor of a storefront church. He treated his "haters" with love and strove to be the best...

n February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States. And last month, at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, a Chinese flag officer launched a three-minute rant that stunned the 65 or so American officials in the audience. Everything that is right with U.S. relations with China is due to China, said Rear Admiral Guan Youfei. Everything that is wrong is Washington’s fault. According to Guan, the United States sees...

Statements out of Washington and other Western capitals suggest a shift from engagement to confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme. "What we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole," President Barack Obama told journalists earlier this week. The president sounded not unlike his predecessor George W Bush, who worked for years to contain Iran, a sign that Mr Obama's policy to engage with the Islamic Republic has failed. The question now is...

A traffic stop in Lake Wales for tinted windows turned into an angry confrontation between police, deputies, state troopers and as many as 100 bystanders. Two officers and one of the two people arrested were treated for minor injuries. Police are looking for three others in the incident, which started around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, the Lake Wales Police Department said.

An aerial image of the suspected nuclear facility in Qom Barack Obama raises spectre of nuclear conflict as Allies find site near Iran holy city Catherine Philp in New York and Francis Elliott in Pittsburgh Britain, France and the United States set the stage for a dramatic confrontation with Iran when they revealed the existence of a secret nuclear site inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom as evidence of Tehran’s efforts to deceive the international community. The coup de théâtre came at the opening of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh after three days of intense diplomacy...

'After I read the story, we’ll have an even gooder conversation, the 44-year veteran Congressman said..........'

The Obama administration is ACTUALLY encouraging pro healthcare reform activists to confront the grass roots anti Healthcare Reform Protesters. He, and his high powered surrogates are actually directing leftist mobs (hmmm Union Thugs??) to get into the faces of American people exercising their constitutional right to protest.I can see another Lexington and Concord event happening very soon; even by the end of August.This debate is degenerating into something very ugly and the phony "UNITER" appears to be looking for a fight.Well Mr.B Hussein Obama, read my name and READ MY LIPS!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Thursday that criminal defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports on illegal drugs and other evidence used at trial. The court on Thursday ruled 5-4 for a defendant who was convicted of cocaine trafficking, partly because of crime lab analysis. Luis Melendez-Diaz challenged lab analysis that confirmed cocaine was in plastic bags found in the car he was riding in. Rather than accept the report, Melendez-Diaz said he should be allowed to question the lab analyst about testing methods, how the evidence was preserved and other...

Reverberations as Door Slams on Hope of Change By BILL KELLER TEHRAN — It is impossible to know for sure how much the ostensible re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad represents the preference of an essentially conservative Iranian public and how much, as opposition voters passionately believe, it is the imposed verdict of a fundamentally authoritarian regime. But for those who dreamed of a gentler Iran, Saturday was a day of smoldering anger, crushed hopes and punctured illusions, from the streets of Tehran to the policy centers of Western capitals. Iranians who hoped for a bit more freedom, a better managed economy...

GEN. Colin Powell is wrong to say that the Republican Party must move to the center: Now is not the time to try for triangulation. This is a time for the party to stand firm on its principles until this nation again comes around to the GOP's way of thinking. This process will be driven by the consequences of President Obama's program. The challenge brought by Obama is no longer just theoretical: He means to pass the ultimate leftist agenda and has the votes to do so. As a result, our nation will be unrecognizable well before the 2010 elections....

Alon Pinkas is a member of our Israel Factor panel, and just a week or so ago was answering the question: Can Obama and Bibi get along? But Pinkas is also the man behind the US-Israel Institute at the Rabin Center, and today he has published a new public opinion poll asking a set of questions somewhat-similar to the ones we asked our panel. It is interesting to compare: a clear majority of the Israeli public expects a confrontation between the next Israeli government and the Obama administration on the issue of settlements (and don't say I didn't warn you):

GENEVA - The United States said on Saturday after inconclusive international talks with Iran's nuclear envoy that Tehran must choose between cooperation or confrontation and give up sensitive nuclear work. "We hope the Iranian people understand that their leaders need to make a choice between cooperation, which would bring benefits to all, and confrontation, which can only lead to further isolation," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement after the talks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a murder victim's prior statements cannot be used against her killer because it would violate a defendant's constitutional right to confront witnesses who testify against him. The high court's 6-3 ruling was a victory for Dwayne Giles, who had been convicted by a jury in Los Angeles for the 2002 shooting death of his former girlfriend, Brenda Avie. He was sentenced to at least 50 years in prison. The court majority said the constitutional right to confront a witness applied even if the defendant was responsible for the witness...

Amidst the political classification in the region and talk of the moderate and extremist states, other states seem to have been overlooked – and they are the states that deserve to be called the 'fearful Arab' states. Clearly, they have come to the forefront of the events in Lebanon once again and those who attended the exceptional summit in Cairo are aware of that. The fearful Arab states are making it difficult for the moderate states in the region to carry out their tasks, and they also send wrong messages to all parties. Such states are the ones affirming, without...

In 2006, former premier Lucien Bouchard and several business leaders blamed the not-in-my-backyard syndrome - NIMBY - for much of the Montreal metropolitan area's "immobilisme." The criticism followed the cancellation of two projects that had stirred public protests - a casino near Pointe St. Charles and the Suroît power plant. Despite the scolding, citizens remain unrepentant and as pesky as ever. Protests against noisy aircraft over the West Island, for example, are giving headaches to airport officials trying to accommodate increasing numbers of flights. Protests on the North Shore are also causing problems for the expansion of a smelly regional...

Bill Clinton Unloads on Press By Anne E. Kornblut Former president Bill Clinton lashed out in response to criticism on Wednesday from a prominent Democrat in South Carolina, accusing the Obama campaign of running a political smear campaign against him through the media. "You live for this," Clinton snapped at CNN reporter Jessica Yellin when she asked him to comment on statements by Dick Harpootlian, the former South Carolina Democratic party chairman, who said recent distortions by the Clintons are "reprehensible." Harpootlian, who backed the Clintons in the 1990s and now supports Sen. Barack Obama, had compared Clinton's distortions to...

HUMINT: In the Long War we are all in; a new religion is emerging. I call it Non-Confrontationalism. The disciples of Non-Confrontationalism preach abstinence. Not premarital or extramarital “sexual” abstinence, but “conflictual” abstinence. The best thing to do, so they say, is nothing. They seek segregation, appeasement and flawed compromises to solve fundamental disagreements – because they believe the West cannot afford a decisive victory in the Long War. Non-confrontationalists pervade politics and war. It’s always been that way, but never before did they have so many converts. As their movement grows stronger, the United States is made weaker. Ironically,...