Free Republic

It is fashionable among those on the left to fantasize that they live in a police state, here in the US, and that they virtuously resist by "speaking truth to power". They imagine that they take great risks in doing so as they protest in front of the White House, and feel as if they touch greatness, modern kin of the great leftist revolutionary heroes of lore. It reminds me of something I read a while back, about Gunter Grass. He grew up in Nazi Germany, back in the day. It was written by Tom Wolfe:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said. From this story: WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama set his sights on November's general election Saturday as he campaigned in Oregon, where he hopes to declare victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.Obama has said Tuesday's primaries in Oregon and Kentucky could mark the end of his drawn-out battle with rival Hillary Clinton, and his campaign pressed home that message by...

Conservatives have long understood that socialism and fascism are two sides of the same coin. They are both reactionary movements attempting to roll back the modern era to a simpler, less corrupt age driven by something higher than money, money, money. Marx expressed this disdain in The Communist Manifesto: "The bourgeoisie... has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.'" The educated middle class read their Marx and understood what had to be done. They must lead the people back from moneymaking to the spirit of true community and soften the cruel...

Regarding Alfred Weichers' letter on Russell Steen's column equating Darwinian evolution to Nazism, Weichers should read the history of Nazism and Hitler before he makes such comments. Contrary to Weichers' claims and in full support of Steen's column, Nazi Germany under the tutelage of Adolph Hitler completely and totally supported the theory of Darwinian evolution as the basis for the superiority of the Aryan race. The Jews were looked down on as early stages of the evolution of the human race and not worthy of the esteemed progression of evolution of the Aryans. It was Hitler's desire to keep the...

A liberal on another forum posted information on 9/11 truth, implying those who don't believe in it are "dummies". Another liberal, who is one of the most unpleasant people I've had the misfortune to encounter, responded with the 14 Signs of Facism. I am unsure as to where he came across this article, but I'm assuming it has circulated the liberal blogosphere. Anyway, the following his his comment and his article. I'm just posting this out of sheer amazement at how whacked out the Democrat base has become. "oooh here is a nice time to introduce the 14 signs of...

ranian police have unveiled a list of "vices" -- including makeup, un-Islamic dress and decadent movies -- being targeted in an ongoing moral crackdown, a conservative newspaper reported on Monday. The list was published in the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper as part of a police drive launched in April which has seen the arrest of "thugs", raids on underground parties, seizures of satellite dishes, and street checks of improperly dressed individuals. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week urged police to keep up its crackdown on social vices, saying they must "fulfill their duties regardless of some opposition and propaganda."...

The tripartite division of the recent CNN series God's Warriors into Jewish, Christian and Islamic segments conveyed its underlying message: Religions produce murderous fanatics. That particular trope features in all the recent spate of books proclaiming, "I am an atheist, and if you had any brains, you would be too." That thesis, however, is badly flawed. First, religious fanatics prove no more about the inherent nature of religious belief than Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot prove about non-belief. And the implicit equation of Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious fanatics is absurd. In the first two categories, CNN's Christine Amanpour...

It is hard to believe that within the civilized world in the 21st century we would still need to talk about actions used by the Nazi party in Germany to enforce civic conformity to the Nazi ideal. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is taking place in Germany today, and home-schoolers are the targets. On Feb. 1 Melissa Busekros, a home-schooled 15-year-old from Bavaria, was forcibly removed from her home by a team of 15 SWAT officers. She was placed in the psychiatric wing of a Nuremberg clinic and her parents were not allowed to see her. She was deemed to...

Warsaw, Dec 11 (CTK) - Former Czech president Vaclav Havel called on people to boycott tourist trips to Cuba in a video recording presented at a conference held by Lech Walesa, former Polish president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Warsaw today. "I cannot go to Cuba to relax on the beach and keep my eyes shut, while dozens of political prisoners are behind bars there," said Havel, who spent a total of five years in Czech communist prisons as a regime opponent. In Warsaw, Havel also recalled a story from his dissident years when he was taken to...

Democrats completed an improbable double-barreled election sweep of Congress on Wednesday, taking control of the Senate with a victory in Virginia as they padded their day-old majority in the House. Jim Webb's victory over Sen. George Allen in Virginia assured Democrats of 51 seats when the Senate convenes in January. ...

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,529910,00.html Malmø, Sweden. The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help. Recently, an Albanian youth was stabbed...

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LISBON - A judge’s directive giving custody of a child to a father instead of his smoking ex-wife is consistent with court rulings that smoking may be used in making such decisions, an appeals court said. The 7th Ohio District Court of Appeals, in a ruling last week, upheld the decision by the Columbiana County Common Pleas Court in favor of Joel Pierce of nearby Leetonia over his ex-wife, Tammy Pierce of Sanford, Fla. “The Ohio Supreme Court has catalogued the risks of secondhand smoke to children and courts have used the fact that a parent smokes as a factor...

WASHINGTON - President Bush in recent days has recast the global war on terror into a "war against Islamic fascism." Fascism, in fact, seems to be the new buzz word for Republicans in an election season dominated by an unpopular war in Iraq. Bush used the term earlier this month in talking about the arrest of suspected terrorists in Britain, and spoke of "Islamic fascists" in a later speech in Green Bay, Wis. Spokesman Tony Snow has used variations on the phrase at White House press briefings. Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., in a tough re-election fight,...

by Mark Finkelstein August 1, 2006 - 07:00 When the Allies faced fascist foes in WWII, they called for unconditional surrender. Confronted today by the new face of facism, the Boston Globe calls for 'unconditional, immediate cease-fire.' In its editorial of this morning, the Globe would reward Hezbollah for its barbarous use of human shields. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the terror group 'has placed its rocket-launchers . . . unconscionably close to settled areas.' But since the result are the very civilian casualties that Hezbollah was looking to provoke, the Globe criticizes the Bush administration for its...

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/ A MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY.

House Bill 1046 started out as a joke to just about everyone but Bob Mathis. And now it’s his turn to laugh. The Hot Springs Democrat and reformed smoker spent much of this week in strong opposition to a bill to ban smoking in most workplaces. It was a Mathis amendment that came close to killing that bill, says Gov. Mike Huckabee, the primary supporter of the measure. So when Mathis filed a bill Wednesday evening to ban smoking in cars carrying young children who are restrained in car seats, a lot of people laughed. They didn’t take him or...

It is easy to damn the 1930s appeasers of Hitler, given what the Nazis ultimately did when unleashed. But history demands not merely recognizing the truth post facto, but also trying to reconstruct the rationale of something that now in hindsight seems inexplicable. Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish--or about fighting radical Islamism in general. First, Europe had nearly been destroyed during the Great War,...

Evidently, the "teachers" at this elite PRIVATE school (grades 5-12) found out Dinesh DeSousa was to speak and threatened a walk-out......so the school paid DeSousa his fee, as he was already IN SEATTLE for the engagement. Diversity for ME, but, NOT for THEE...

ROME - Urbano Lazzaro, a resistance fighter credited with arresting fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at the end of World War II, has died at age 81, officials said Wednesday. Lazzaro died Tuesday after being hospitalized in Vercelli, a town between Milan and Turin, officials at St. Andrea hospital said, refusing to be identified further because they were not authorized to give the information. Lazzaro, known to his comrades as "Partisan Bill," fought with a communist resistance group in northern Italy and is known as the man who captured Mussolini in the dying days of the war, Italy's National Partisan Association...

SHANGHAI, Dec. 9 - Residents of a fishing village near Hong Kong said Friday that as many as 20 people were killed by the paramilitary police this week, in an unusually violent clash that marked an escalation in the widespread social protests roiling the Chinese countryside. Villagers said as many as 50 other residents remained unaccounted for since the shootings on Tuesday. It was the largest known use of force by security personnel against citizens since the killings around Tiananmen Square in 1989. That death toll is still unknown, but is estimated to have been in the hundreds. The violence...

The University of California system is trying to force Christian schools to use the same textbooks that lower-scoring public-school students use. An association of Christian schools is fighting back

If you havn't already, check out the United American Committee: A non-partisan federation of concerned Americans, promoting awareness of threats which face America from within our very own borders, primarily focusing on Islamic extremism in America. A movement to promote citizen involvement in national security issues, and to awake Washington on the issue of Islamic extremism. A diverse group, all Americans, united, striving for a better tomorrow in America. A tomorrow where our children may be free, free from Islamic extremist threats at home. Be sure to JOIN THE UNITED AMERICAN COMMITTEE to be kept up to date.http://www.UnitedAmericanCommittee.org They are...

MOSCOW, July 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia strongly condemns last week’s meeting of Estonian SS veterans from Baltic republics, Finland, Sweden and Canada in Tartu, a Foreign Ministry source told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. Russia “has many times condemned such meetings, which periodically happen in Baltic republics,” he said. “The situation is even more intolerable as it occurs in a member country of the European Union that openly expresses its concern about the intensified neo-Nazi feelings and stands for punishing the use of Nazi symbols.” The UN Human Rights Committee “adopted a resolution in April with the reference to the UN Charter...

MADISON, Wis. -- Madison's smoking ban goes into effect July 1. The city council ruled Tuesday night there will be no exceptions for cigar bars. New ads tout the ban by saying, "clearly a change is in the air." City officials unveiled the new ad campaign this week at the Nitty Gritty bar and restaurant, where the owner is one of the smoking ban's former opponents, Marsh Shapiro. Shapiro said there's no sense fighting an ordinance that's already on the books, and he wants to help make the transition as smooth as possible. "There are a lot of people that...

Japan yesterday renewed a demand that China apologize and compensate for sometimes violent anti-Japanese protests as their foreign ministers tried to find a way through a series of bitter disputes. Two weeks after the two nations' leaders held a summit in Indonesia, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said he had a "frank" meeting with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing (—›”£�¯) on the neighbors' tense ties. "We had a frank exchange of views," Machimura said in brief comments to reporters after the one-hour, 35-minute meeting. "It was a meaningful meeting." Asked if he asked for an apology and compensation for protests...

A Sudanese Islamist newspaper editor has said charges against him for allegedly questioning the parentage of the Prophet Muhammad are a "joke". Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed told the BBC that he had merely written an essay to dispute such allegations by medieval historian al-Maqrizi. Angry crowds protested outside the court where he appeared this week, demanding that he be put to death. Those who renounce Islam can face the death penalty in Sudan. 'Political' Mr Ahmed told the BBC Arabic service that he was not afraid, despite the demonstrations. Freedom of the press stops when it comes to respect for...

HAVANA (Reuters) - The Cuban government justified on Monday two incidents of public harassment of its opponents, saying they were "mercenaries" on the U.S. payroll who deserved to be repudiated. On Saturday, dozens of people entered the home of a dissident doctor and beat him with sticks for putting up posters outside his house calling for the release of political prisoners. On Sunday, 200 women backers of President Fidel Castro intercepted a peaceful march by 30 wives of jailed dissidents in an attempt to intimidate them and shout them off the streets with chants of "Fidel, Fidel" and "down with...

SEOUL (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said European weapons technology should not be used by China to expand its military as she again warned against the lifting of an EU arms embargo to the communist country. At a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, Rice said the European Union "should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese military modernization draws on European technology..." -snip- Rice also said the United States would maintain its armed forces in the Asia-Pacific region to safeguard the current balance of military power. "The United States...

EJDM Europäische Vereinigung von Juristinnen und Juristen für Demokratie und Menschenrechte in der Welt e.V. EALDH European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights AEJDH Asociacion Europea de los Juristas por la Democracia y los Derechos Humanos en el Mundo AEJDH Association Européenne des Juristes pour la Démocratie et les Droits de l’Homme dans le Monde AEGDU Associazione Europea delle Giuriste e dei Giuristi per la Democrazia e i Diritti dell’Uomo nel Mondo Statement of EALDH Administrative Council On the Draft Constitution of the European Union The draft of the Convention for a Constitution for Europe does not...

"the war on freedom and democracy" an analysis of the effects on civil liberties and democratic culture in the EU by Tony Bunyan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "war on terrorism" has turned into an ongoing "war on freedom and democracy" which is now setting new norms - where accountability, scrutiny and human rights protections are luxuries to be curtailed or discarded in defence of "democracy". Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Has the world changed after 11 September 2001? The answer is surely yes, but not in the way that Bush (and his allies) mean. We have seen a "sea change" of great magnitude as we...

EU: Compulsory fingerprinting for all passports - EU to back demand by Italy, Germany, France, Greece, Spain, Malta, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia for mandatory fingerprinting - only Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia oppose move - UK and Germany want to have a third biometric - "iris scans" too in addition to facial scans and fingerprints - EU Data Protection Commissioners are: "fundamentally" opposed to the creation of an EU-wide database -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Council of Justice and Home Ministers (JHA Council) on Monday in Luxembourg (25 October) is expected to reverse the decision of the JHA Council on 8 June -...

In their own words, the founders of the Fourth Reich tell us what they think and plan. Scary stuff when you think of the resources these guys now have. Wait till the power is totally in their hands and all of Europe is under their heel, then you'll see an end to the short work week and a massive remiliterization. JB6 "The Federated Republic of Europe - the United States of Europe - that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups,...

The Bishop of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan called Israel a "terrorist state" and denied a request to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish nation. Earlier this month, a Rev. Boiz, who reportedly said he was a pastor from Pakistan's Presbyterian Church, led a demonstration in Karachi, Pakistan, demanding the church recognize Israel. But the church this week distanced itself from the protest. "We the Christians of Pakistan and especially the United Presbyterian Church of Pakistan categorically condemn this demand," said the Rev. T. Nasir, bishop of Pakistan's Presbyterian Church. "We believe that [the] present state of Israel is a...

Some Europeans are beginning to see the light. EUROPE -- THY NAME IS COWARDICE Matthias Döpfner, Chief Executive of German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in the daily WELT against the cowardice of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe -- your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too...

EU DICTATORSHIP As I recall the bravery and determination of the British people both the armed services and the civilians in WW2 I am amazed that they would accept EU laws that take away their sovereignty. They fought long and hard to retain their freedom from foreign denomination. (I was in Britain for some months during WW2) Churchill said - "We shall defend our island , whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;...

WE ALL KNOW what the Axis of Weasels has done. They have bent over backwards to arm, finance and provide diplomatic cover for America’s enemies in the War on Terror. The question is why have they done it? Make Comments View Comments Printable Article E-mail Article Many theories abound. Some say it’s about money – lucrative corporate contracts and euros-for-oil deals with Middle Eastern despots. Money surely plays a role. Yet the hatred many Europeans harbor toward America appears to transcend greed. Its roots lie deep in the fascist ideology which, in large measure, seems to drive the European Union....

Under the Radar Political correctness never died. Cathy Young These days, talking about political correctness in academia makes you sound like a quaint throwback to the 1990s. It seems utterly irrelevant to the post-9/11 era, a threat dwarfed by (depending on whom you listen to) either terrorism or losing our liberties to the war on terrorism. Eric Wasserman, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), says many people have a knee-jerk reaction to the very phrase political correctness, seeing it as an old story. But in fact, says Wasserman, the phenomenon is very much alive. On...

The United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania has decided to distribute funds held in escrow for the local Boy Scouts organization to two other greater Philadelphia organizations that benefit youth. The United Way took this action because the Cradle of Liberty Council has remained steadfast in support of the national Boy Scout policy regarding the appointment of homosexuals to leadership positions. Nonetheless, this latest action by the United Way disappointed local Scout leaders and has left them scrambling to make up the funding shortfall. Pat Coviello, executive vice president of the Cradle of Liberty Council, said he thought the United Way...

Stockholm (ENI). A Swedish court has sentenced a pastor belonging to the Pentecostal movement in Sweden, Ake Green, to a month in prison, under a law against incitement, after he was found guilty of having offended homosexuals in a sermon. Soren Andersson, the president of the Swedish federation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights (RFSL), said on hearing the sentence that religious freedom could never be used as a reason to offend people. "Therefore," he told journalists, "I cannot regard the sentence as an act of interference with freedom of religion." During a sermon in 2003, Green described homosexuality...

Daniel Pipes has been researching Islam for the past three and a half decades. He directs the Middle East Forum - a Philadelphia think tank. Among his twelve books, four focus on Islam. In 2003, President Bush appointed him to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Years before September 11, 2001, Pipes uttered warnings that militant Islam was a violent threat to American security. In 1998, he wrote in the European edition of the Wall Street Journal that militant Muslims were at war with America, not because of what America did, but because Islamists perceive themselves as being...

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=128&subid=174&contentid=1926 DLC | Key Document | August 1, 2000 The Hyde Park Declaration: A Statement of Principles and a Policy Agenda for the 21st Century Publisher's Note: Last May, at the invitation of the Democratic Leadership Council, elected officials from across the country met at Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, N.Y. Their goal was to begin drafting a statement of New Democrat principles and a broad national policy agenda for the next decade. This manifesto, The Hyde Park Declaration, is the result of their work. The Hyde Park Declaration has a historic antecedent. At their 1990 annual meeting,...

My phone started ringing almost as soon as the ad appeared in The News-Sentinel on Wednesday promoting today's story on gun permits in Allen County. Several gun permit holders called to protest our plan to post online the list of gun permit holders, which is a public record. They expressed concern that the list would provide burglars who want to steal guns with a road map to their homes. Or they said the information would make it easier for stalkers to find their victims, who may have obtained a gun for protection. Or they said posting the list would weaken...

Weblog My Talk at UC-Berkeley February 12, 2004 My Talk at UC-Berkeley. I spoke on February 10 at the University of California-Berkeley to a crowd of about 550; a sizeable number could not get in. As I had expected, this was the most out-of-control talk of the roughly one thousand I have given, with a core group of about 150 Islamists, Palestinian radicals, and far-leftists constantly disrupting me, mostly with insults that I would prefer to forget. The best and fullest account of the event is by Cinnamon Stillwell, "Fascism at UC Berkeley: Muslim Student Association Disrupts Daniel Pipes Lecture,"...

When is a threat not really a threat? The state Supreme Court yesterday overturned a felony conviction against a now-16-year-old South King County boy who, in March 2001, told an eighth-grade classmate: "I'm going to bring a gun to school tomorrow and shoot everyone and start with you ... maybe not you first." That night, the classmate told her parents, who called police. The boy, a student at the time at Mount Baker Middle School in Auburn, was charged with harassment, convicted in King County Superior Court and ordered to pay a $100 fine. The boy maintained it was a...

The conference on Saturday will be the first since the defection in November of one of the party's best known figures, Alessandra Mussolini. Ms Mussolini, granddaughter of Italy's former fascist dictator, left after Mr Fini called fascism an "absolute evil". The National Alliance is the second largest party in Italy's four-party coalition government. It was founded in 1995, following a split in what was then called the Italian Social Movement, itself built on the ashes of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Movement. As late as 1994, Mr Fini had described Mussolini as the "greatest statesman of the 20th century". Nevertheless, Mr Fini...

2004 arrived safely, whispering how successfully the Bush administration has waged our war on terror. Although those who hate us intended us harm, Providence, along with our government's vigilance and preemptive actions, prevented all holiday season attacks. The only shocking attack the New Year brought us was the Democratic organization, Move On's depraved plans to produce television advertising comparing President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. I thought it might be interesting to explore what Adolf Hitler himself might have thought of Move On's degenerate derangement. I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to...

Sen Charles Schumer accused the federal government of shortchanging New York farmers on certain price support programs, charging the maneuver has cost the Empire State more than $25,000,000 since president Bush has taken office. Schumer(D-NY)criticized the Department of Agriculture's handling of a program designed to keep the prices of milk used for cheese and butter(class III milk) at a certain minimum of $9.90 per hundred weight.New York's senior senator has teamed up with US Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, to promote a measure that would suspend salaries from the USDA employees who allow a farmer's price support to fall...

On April 18, 2002, Yang Jianli, a U.S.-based Chinese activist who openly calls for democracy in China, went to China for a short visit after 13 years in exile. A week later, after visiting some cities rocked by protests of unemployed workers, he disappeared. He was secretly arrested by the Chinese government and has been jailed incommunicado for more than a year. Recently the Chinese government announced that it is charging Yang with illegally entering China and espionage, charges which carry sentences ranging from ten years' imprisonment up to the death penalty. Yang's ordeal is, sadly, not an anomaly. In...

Ashcroft To Check Every American's Permanent Record Justice Dept. Chief To Scrutinize Millions Of Files For Proto-Terrorist Behavior U.S. - In the latest development in the war against terror, Attorney General John Ashcroft will begin checking the permanent record of each and every American citizen, looking for indicators that might help identify potential terrorists, the Justice Department announced yesterday. "As you all know, your permanent record contains everything noteworthy you have ever done," Ashcroft said. "From the time you pulled Suzie Hampton's hair in the third grade, to the time you got caught stealing Post-It notes from the company...