Free Republic

Buffalo lays off teachers while Star Wars thrives "Dear Mr. Bush," one 10-year-old Buffalo student recently wrote to the president. "Our teacher is leaving because she got laid off because the U.S. doesn't have enough money to support her. So we are asking you - no, wait, begging you - to give us at least a couple hundred dollars or something like that." I was that child's sixth-grade teacher until December, when I was laid off - one of 195 Buffalo teachers to be let go. I didn't teach an extravagant elective or an optional after-school program. I taught a ...

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- THERE'S a rigged competition going on in politics that you won't see on television this week. It's the deceptive speed-spending race to fix our immigration enforcement woes. President Bush proposes boosting the Immigration and Naturalization Service's budget by 23 percent, to more than $6.3 billion. Prominent Democrats and Republicans support new appropriations on automated tracking systems, increased border patrols, tamper-proof documents and biometric technology. More spending equals less illegal immigration, right? Don't be fooled. While Washington creates the illusion of buying more and better homeland defense, public officials continue to sell out to ethnic special interests - namely, ...

Reporters covering the Pentagon are icons of ignorance The reason that so many Americans think this was illustrated by a question asked of Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld at a recent Pentagon press briefing by AP radio correspondent Thelma LeBrecht. She likened the absence of air conditioning for the al-Qaida prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval base to a form of torture: "In a few months it's going to be very very hot down there and there is going to be more complaints about them being held in open conditions like that," LeBrecht said. "The criticism being the open-ended nature, that they ...

Media (Gun)smoke and Mirrors By Larry Elder On Jan. 16, 2002, a law student at Virginia's Appalachian School of Law shot and killed the dean, a professor and another student, while wounding three others. Why have the media been so mum about how that shooting spree ended? continue…

The House took a vote on campaign "reform." The media won. After the victory, Bryant Gumbel smiled at House sponsor Marty Meehan and observed, "In a strange way do you have Enron to thank for not only guaranteeing you no presidential veto, but also nulling Republican opposition?" Don't thank Enron, Marty. Thank the “news” media, which used the Enron scandal to lobby shamelessly for campaign reform legislation even though there’s not a lick of evidence of any wrongdoing as a result of Enron’s political giving. On this issue, more than perhaps any other, the media have demonstrated a slant ...

Taliban John: The Bail Hearing By Henry Mark Holzer “Taliban John” Lindh’s recent bail hearing revealed a glimpse of the defense's current strategy, and the government's case against this man who betrayed his country.  continue…

The Academy, The War And The Historians By Ronald Radosh This week 60 academics and public policy officials signed an open letter in support of the War against Terrorism titled “What We’re Fighting For.”  The statement marks an important departure in the onslaught of anti-American and anti-war sentiment among the elites. continue…

Were all the crimes against humanity committed during World War II the work of Hitler's underlings? That was certainly the impression created by the fact that only Germans were brought to trial at Nüremburg. Alas! It is a false impression. We all now know that in the terrible struggle waged between the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht, the Russians displayed their fair share of insensate inhumanity. What is less widely recognized -- because the truth, until only recently, has been deliberately suppressed -- is that the Western democracies were responsible for the most senseless single act of mass murder ...

Action Alert Video Game Promotes Violence and Degradation Withdraw "Grand Theft Auto III" From the Market! Activists, we need you to speak out right away! One of the top selling video games right now is Grand Theft Auto III, an exercise in crime and violence. Although the game is rated for "mature" players only (17 and up), we know for a fact that younger kids are getting their hands on it. Made by Rockstar Games for Sony PlayStation 2, "GTA 3" takes the video game industry a step up technically and a big step down socially. Game experts and newspaper ...

Today could be an interesting day on Wall Street, and a sign of what investors are really thinking, and feeling...Markets were down early in the week, continuing a sell off since the first of the year. Basically flat the last two days, though there was a mini-burst of buying activity right before the close yesterday, in an attempt to get the DOW over the 10,000 level. They succeeded, but barely. Volume has been very slow, and today, we are heading into a three day weekend. So, are folks really comfortable holding stocks

Not many museums would turn down a $38 million gift, especially in these days of tight budgets and low revenues. But the Smithsonian Institution, the Washington landmark that operates 16 museums, did. Underlying the wrangling between the donor and the curators is a deeper battle over what history is and whether individuals have the power to shape it. Catherine B. Reynolds offered the Smithsonian $38 million for an exhibit to be titled "The Spirit of America." Designed particularly for children, the exhibit would include a "Hall of Achievers," featuring displays about 100 great Americans, from heroes of the past to ...

<p>A spaniel was having her ears blow-dried, a dalmatian was soaking his paws. Tiny terriers were being cuddled. Neatly coifed poodles, with perfect pom-pom tails, proudly pranced up and down the aisles. A monster bullmastiff seemed to scowl as a Great Dane strutted by.</p>

<p>Guards at a New York correctional facility found prisoner Jack Henry Abbott hanging from a bed sheet last Sunday, an apparent suicide. Americans over 30 are likely to have no trouble remembering that once famous name and the bleak satire, culminating in tragedy, forever associated with it.</p>

nvironmentalists may not like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to suspend the recycling of cans and bottles. But it could be their best chance to save their reputations and do some good for the environment. The recycling program was sold to New Yorkers nearly a decade ago with the promise that it would save money. It did not. If New York had instead shipped all those recyclables to out-of-state landfills, the city would have saved more than half a billion dollars, and that figure doesn't even include the biggest costs, which are the labor and storage space that citizens are ...

Dear [fill in the blank], According to Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 25-26, 1976, the stated purpose of all campaign finance reform legislation, like the Federal Election Campaign Act that it amends, is to reform the financing of campaigns for election to Federal office, thereby preventing the corruption and the appearance of corruption in government and equaliz[ing] the relative ability of all citizens to affect the outcomes of elections. I'm at a loss to see what authority has been granted to Congress by the Constitution to pass any such legislation. Is it not Article I, section 1 of the ...

<p>SHE'S been in the forefront of gun control legislation, but Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) seems to have nothing against shooting innocent pheasants. Lowey has mailed out invitations to a March 11 shoot at a Maryland estate. It's bring your own shotgun and a check for $2,000 made out to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, of which Nita (who stepped aside to let Hillary Clinton run for the Senate) is chair. I hope the butchered birds realize their sacrifice is for such a noble cause, and that right after the day's outing, Lowey and Co. will go back to attacking the NRA.</p>

WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE news anchor? Is it the one with the cleft palate, lazy eye and the giant gray eyebrow with black roots stretching from ear to ear? Or is it the guy with the huge tower of orange hair and the face with the pockmarks and jagged scar? You know, the one who looks like he fed a marshmallow to a wolverine using only his lips? Oh wait, that’s right. In this reality we don’t have news anchors so hideous that they send small children scurrying. In this universe most of our television journalists span the spectrum from ...

<p>Forget the luge, the ski jump and the bobsled competition.</p> <p>The story from the Salt Lake City Olympics is the act of highway robbery that stole a gold medal in figure skating from Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.</p> <p>The deciding vote to give the gold medal to the Canadians' Russian competitors was cast by French judge Marie Reine La Gougne - apparently in cahoots with judges from the remnants of the old Soviet bloc.</p>

<p>February 15, 2002 -- IT'S fascinating. In conservative and Republican Washington circles this week, the only thing that really mattered was the only thing that has really mattered since Sept. 11. The war and its future weren't just the main topics of conversation at parties both large and small. They were the only topics of conversation.</p>

<p>A significant part of Michael Bloomberg's plan to close a nearly $5 billion hole in the budget is a near buck-fifty hike in the city's tax on cigarettes. Add in the state tax that Albany slapped on a few weeks ago, and smokers can expect to pay up to $7 a pack.</p>