Free Republic

Burchett has become increasingly outspoken about UFOs in recent months. Appearing on Newsmax on Saturday, Burchett said military intelligence “is like congressional ethics [and that] it just doesn’t exist.” “I do 100% [believe the U.S government is covering up] since 1947 Roswell, [Mexico]… the military said we’ve recovered a saucer and then the next day they dropped this poor officer out and claim he holds up a piece of a hot air balloon and says, ‘No in fact it was a hot air balloon,’ which apparently was a top secret program at the time and they’ve never would have disclosed...

(OSV News) -- After traveling the United States for 10 months during 1831-32, French diplomat and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville declared in his classic work "Democracy in America" that "there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America." But almost 200 years later, a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) titled "Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval" casts a shadow of doubt on the fervor of Americans, only 16% of whom reported to PRRI that religion is...

Anyone who voted for more witnesses must vote for acquittal. A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If you need more evidence than the case has not been proven and you would have to vote for acquittal. Also, if you voted for more witnesses to make your decision - you are saying the house did not do their job.

I used to think like most evangelicals when it came to family planning. I strongly opposed abortion, but embraced contraception and thought Catholic objections to birth control were on par with praying to Mary. Abortion, I reasoned, takes an innocent life and is clearly wrong. But contraception merely prevents conception. What could be wrong with that? Sadly, I had never considered arguments on the other side. When I did, I found they aren’t flimsy or far-fetched. They’re solid and Scriptural. And they aren’t just Catholic either. Every Protestant Reformer opposed contraception. In fact, before 1930, every church — Protestant and...

Syrian and Lebanese Arabs have scrapped plans to march on Israel’s borders Sunday as “Naksa Day” begins to fizzle out. Actions by Lebanon and Israel to declare areas near the northern border to be closed military zones, along with an American warning that the planned march might be a “provocation,” contributed to the decision to cancel the planned assault. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has stated its intentions, but without support from foreign Arabs, a demonstration for several million foreign Arabs to immigrate to Israel might be seen as a public relations bommerang. A cornerstone of the Saudi Arabia 2002 Initiative,...

http://www.bookdepot.com/default.asp?Nsl=3442&Ix=54&R=9780743240864B&Rt=2168

When I extolled the virtues of our federal system of government in a previous column ("Sovereignty, from sea to sea," Times op-ed, Sept. 21), I left out an unfortunate and pernicious side effect of having a government of multiple jurisdictions — taxes. Multiple layers of government, while encouraging balance of power and competing regulatory ideas, also mean multiple layers of taxation. In Seattle, this means the federal government, state government, King County and the city of Seattle all take their pick at one's paycheck, business, house, car and, of course, purchases of goods, including gasoline. The complexity and opaqueness of...

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic. He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection. "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?" Bush asked at a news conference. "It's one thing...