Free Republic

Note: This is satire designed to show the ludicrous nature of the media coverage on the Ft. Hood issue. It is not designed to trivialize a terrible event but to make people understand better what happened and how the event is being dangerously distorted.] By Barry Rubin When John Wilkes Booth opened fire on President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in April 1865, the media was puzzled. “True, the actor was outspoken in his Confederate sympathies and viewed himself as a Southerner,” said someone who knew him, “but that was no reason he might want Lincoln to be dead.” The...

Thursday's shootings at Fort Hood army base in Texas — which have left at least 11 people dead and 31 others wounded — were of course the "horrific outburst of violence" that President Obama bemoaned and condemned Thursday. But, because a soldier identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable outbreak of Islamophobia. News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers at a base that is a prime point of departure for troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan as...

Survivors of the Fort Hood massacre described today how Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly gunned down unarmed soldiers, and then shot them again as they lay wounded on the floor. Investigators believe more than 100 shots were fired from Hasan's gun in a matter of minutes. He was described as calm and methodical in his attack, pausing only to reload. Soldier Keara Bono survived the onslaught although she was wounded slightly in the back and grazed in the head. Bono told "Good Morning America" today that she initially thought the scene of Hasan standing up, praising Allah and starting to...

"Overseas, you are ready for it. But here, you can't even defend yourself," said Jerry Richard, a Fort Hood solider who was nearby when Major Nidal Hasan went on his shooting rampage. What do the Pentagon bureaucrats have to say about that? If soliders on this base had been allowed to carry the weapons they use overseas, the service weapons they train with, Hasan would have been able to shoot perhaps one or two people, not 41. (As of this writing, 13 are dead, 28 wounded.) "It's a tragedy to lose soldiers overseas and even more horrifying when they come...

Shame on Bollywood By: Vinay | Friday , 6 Nov '09 15:16:38 PM Reply | Forward Bollywood keeps making movies (New York, Kurbaan...)which show only one side of Muslim terrorism (the resulting discrimination). But they never show Muslims running planes into buildings or killing civilians in hotels chanting Allah's name. Allegiance By: Tanmay | Friday , 6 Nov '09 14:53:32 PM Reply | Forward With the story of Muslims not going to sing the national song and now this Muslim guy killing his own colleauges, one has to wonder where is Muslims's allegiance. It seems Islam comes first. If you...

"4th Inf. Div. Reaches Out to Local Islamic Community Members During Mosque Visit" (May 2009) Sgt. Philip Klein 4th Inf. Div. PAO KILLEEN, Texas – Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commanding general of the 4th InfantryDivision, helped open the lines of communication when he visited a mosque at the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen community center, which is located in Killeen, May 7. The visit marks the Ironhorse Division’s inaugural effort to reach out to the sizeable Muslim community that resides in the greater central Texas region – Killeen, Temple and Austin– to foster dialogue, interaction and understanding between the...

Are you unwittingly offending people in your office? Do you say things that cause others to wince or lose interest in having a collaborative relationship with you? You may be in need of good diversity training. DiversityInc put together a list of signs to show where you might be making cultural missteps. 1. Race/Ethnicity How do you interact with people from different races and ethnicities in the office? Have you ever found yourself complimenting a Black person on her ability to articulate well? Did you tell a Latino coworker that you were surprised he didn't have an accent? Do you...

Does HIV mean certain death? In the quarter century since the world was introduced to the idea that a new sexually transmitted virus was the cause of Aids, HIV has been generally regarded as one of the biggest killers of our time. HIV/Aids has not been the mass disease in Britain that people were led to believe in the 1980s, but the death toll from immune deficiency diseases ascribed to HIV in Africa has been staggering. The scale of death there is an ongoing tragedy that tests the moral resolve of the rich world. How much do we care? Enough...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad will die by lethal injection when he is executed next month, Virginia officials said Tuesday. Muhammad declined to choose between lethal injection and electrocution, so under state law the method defaults to lethal injection, Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. Muhammad is scheduled to be executed Nov. 10 for the October 2002 slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station during a string of shootings.

Can anyone at ESPN keep a job? The network suspended Bob Griese today for a racist remark he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya. While he was calling Saturday's Minnesota-Ohio State game, Griese made a crack about Montoya saying he was "out having a taco." Montoya is Colombian. ESPN is yanking Griese off the air for one week, and a rep for the network says Griese "understands the comment was inappropriate." Yesterday ESPN fired baseball analyst Steve Phillips after news broke of his sex scandal with a production assistant.

Halloween trends are telling. Just ask Robert Thompson, a pop-culture expert and the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. Here's an interesting trend: Halloween has fast become the second-most-decorated holiday. Jack-o-lanterns and goblins and lighted trees are all over the place now. Halloween spending has risen to nearly $5 billion annually -- not bad for a non-gift-giving, non-government-sanctioned holiday. And more adults than ever are dressing up. "The post-World War II years were the golden age of Halloween for kids," says Thompson, "a trend that continued into the 1980s. But in the...

SNIPPET: "A hate crimes bill sent to President Obama for his signature raises a red flag for Christians." SNIPPET: "Barber explains that Liberty Counsel intends to challenge the constitutionality of the hate crimes legislation."

Do counter-terrorism measures targeting bombers who dress as women offend the rights of transexuals? This is one of the pressing questions addressed in a new United Nations report on "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism."

Afghanistan: The president's decision to withhold more troops over the country's less-than-pristine election is nothing but stalling. For our soldiers, desperate for reinforcements, it's a slap in the face. No doubt, a legitimate government, complete with free and fair elections, would be good for Afghanistan. Its Aug. 20 vote was loaded with trouble because the Taliban sliced off purple-inked fingers to discourage voting and because a United Nations electoral watchdog found widespread voter fraud. Yes, correct the problems. But holding U.S. troop reinforcements hostage isn't the way to do it. Elections aren't why we have troops in that country. They're...

The Fox News Channel and conservative and right-leaning libertarian talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Lou Dobbs are being targeted for federal investigations by a coalition of religious groups for so-called anti-immigrant hate speech.The So We Might See Coalition is sponsoring what they call a media fast, asking participants to abstain from violence on television and radio from October 19th through the 26th.The coalition is leading a petition drive asking the Federal Communications Commission initiate an investigation in to "hate speech in the media."The coalition is also calling for the 1993 report entitled, The Role of...

High School 1959 vs 2009... -Scenario 1: Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck’s gun rack. 1959 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2009 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers. -Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 1959 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and...

DALLAS — For just $39.99, you can now dress up as an "illegal alien" for Halloween. Target is selling the costume made up of an orange jumpsuit with the words "illegal alien" written across the chest. The costume even comes with a mask of a space invader with big eyes, and a green card. It's not a funny matter to some leaders with LULAC, one of the largest Latino civil rights organizations in the country. Immediate National LULAC President Hector Flores says the costume is racist in nature. Flores adds, "The costume, while clearly depicting a supposed visitor from space,...

Media Bias: Not long after pro football welcomed a convicted felon back on the playing field, Rush Limbaugh is dropped for his opinions from a group seeking to buy an NFL franchise. Won't someone throw a flag? When even Keith Olbermann says back off, you know the politically correct critics of the conservative icon and megaradio talk host's proposed part ownership of the St. Louis Rams are guilty of piling on. The prospect of the leading conservative voice in America participating in the purchase of a football team sent the liberal elites into cardiac arrest and into a frenzied campaign...

Cultural observer Joseph Epstein pinpoints the transition from adulthood to adolescence as American culture's default "moral condition" in the decade following the 1951 publication of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In his 2004 essay, The Perpetual Adolescent, Epstein notes: "Salinger's novel exalts the purity of youth and locates the enemy... in those who committed the sin of growing older, [Holden Caulfield's] parents, his brother ... and just about everyone who has passed beyond adolescence and had the rather poor taste to remain alive." Adolescence as the new adulthood is a widespread but thankfully not a universal phenomenon....

Each generation must renew the sense of discovery that is at the core of what it means to be American. We are all on a voyage to a new world, but there is no guarantee it will be a better one. Preserving the vision of America as the shining city on a hill requires the same boldness as Columbus, and the same willingness to take action. In these days when schools teach that our national heroes are villains, when a president gains international recognition for apologizing for the country, when climate change fanatics tell us we must halt our journey...

'Hate' Crimes: The House has voted to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation. Aside from violating the Constitution's equal-protection clause, just what does this have to do with national defense? The House voted 281 to 146 Thursday to make it a crime to attack homosexuals and others. The measure was attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense bill. We think the amendment itself is a crime against common sense and the law. Saying "it's a very exciting day for us here in the Capitol," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the passage of the...

Can the scientist who denied the cause of AIDS be trusted to cure cancer? --snip-- ...In the past three decades, Duesberg has been described as a genius, a martyr, and a genocidal lunatic—often by the same person, usually amid the fierce debates and international headlines that come with major scientific breakthroughs. In 1971, at the age of 33, he became the first scientist to identify a cancer-causing gene—a biological holy grail that secured his place among an elite group of the country's top researchers. Tenure at Berkeley and a coveted spot in the National Academy of Sciences followed. So did...

Klingenschmitt said, "Please call 202-456-1111 today, and tell White House comment line operators: 'Mr. President, please keep your promise and veto the F-35 second engine in the Pentagon Budget, 2010 Defense Authorization Act.'" "Several months ago, President Obama promised to veto the Pentagon budget if it contained funding for the F-22 or a second engine for the F-35. The Senate killed the F-22, but after receiving nearly 22,000 faxes from us in the last 48 hours, the House ignored Obama's veto threat and voted Thursday to fully fund a second engine for F-35s. The House also sadly attached the pro-homosexual...

Soldier suspended from school Posted: Oct 8, 2009 05:26 PM A NEWS10 EXCLUSIVE By MARK O'BRIEN LANSINGBURGH -- High school senior Matthew Whalen is the kind of student any parent would want. He's an Eagle Scout, on the honor roll, taking Advanced Placement classes, and never been in trouble with the law. He's received commendations from the City of Troy and the Boy Scouts of America for saving a woman's life, and this past summer, he completed Army basic training. All of it was accomplished before the age of 17. "I'm just trying to do what I can while I...

A Christian activist says it's vital for believers to push back against those promoting the homosexual agenda. Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, an Illinois-based group dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda. He says many people -- even in conservative, evangelical Christian circles -- do not know about the true agenda of homosexual groups such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Peter LaBarbera"They're undermining the Word of God by trying to say that the Bible does not teach that homosexual behavior is sinful," he says. "On the other side, they're pushing policies that promote gay...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that she is pursuing plans to remove some captured illegal aliens from “prison-like or jail-like circumstances” and put them in converted hotels and nursing homes. “To better manage detention operations, ICE will develop a risk assessment and custody classification, which will enable detainees to be placed in an appropriate facility,” DHS said in a statement. “ICE will pursue detention strategies based on assessed risk and reduce costs by exploring the use of converted hotels, nursing homes and other residential facilities.” Napolitano explained her department’s thinking at a press conference at...

I have been a faculty member at a major State University for 40 years. Several years after my arrival, I voted for George McGovern. Eight years later, I voted for Ronald Reagan. In those eight years, my family and I experienced several traumas that caused me to reevaluate -- and ultimately, drastically alter -- the political, cultural and economic axioms that had governed my life. Within months of buying my first home in an excellent neighborhood, within walking distance to the University and, most importantly, located in a district with an outstanding local public elementary school, my five year old...

"Gay" sex is morally good and is as "wonderful" as heterosexual relations, according to Chai Feldblum, President Obama's nominee to become commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "Gay sex is morally good," she said. "Now you may think that might be a little crazy to go out there and say gay sex is good. But think a second. Society definitely believes that heterosexual sex is good. Right. Heterosexual sex within a certain framework – marriage – I mean, you can't get more dewy-eyed and romantic in this society about how wonderful that is."

Yale Self-Censors New Book Examining Extreme Muslim Reaction to Danish Cartoons of Prophet Muhammad Thursday, October 01, 2009 By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor (CNSNews.com) – Four years after a Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons depicting Muhammad, and set off violent protests by Muslims, Yale University Press has touched off protests of its own by censoring the offending cartoons out of a scholarly book it has just released on the protests. “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen, examines in detail what happened during those protests – violent incidents staged by Muslim extremists. But Yale...

My son who is 10 years old is going to the Montgomery County school system in Maryland this year to give him some wider experience after having all of his previous education in either Israeli or Jewish community schools. It certainly is an experience! In some ways, it seems like a parody of multiculturalism. My children are tough, well-informed and have strong characters, largely informed by an Israeli world view. But they also have a very American persona, though one that may be becoming increasingly rare among upper middle class elite counterparts. Here are some highlights of fourth-grade life in...

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...

SNIPPET: "So how could the major media fail to hold ACORN to account all these years? I have my pet theory. Political correctness has been slowly rotting the establishment media to its core, to the point where few professional journalists would dare launch a serious investigation into the exalted Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now. Why? Simple: according to the tenets of political correctness, the racial makeup of the communities being “organized” automatically confers the presumption of moral superiority upon ACORN. So all those nasty rumors about ACORN must be no more than lies spread by racist propagandists. To...

American Indians look to high court Associated Press WASHINGTON -- A group of American Indians who find the Washington Redskins' name offensive wants the Supreme Court to take up the matter. The group late Monday asked the justices to review a lower court decision that favored the NFL team on a legal technicality. The seven Native Americans have been working through the court system since 1992 to have the Redskins trademarks declared invalid. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel ruled in their favor in 1999, but they've since suffered a series of defeats from judges who ruled that the...

WASHINGTON -- A group of American Indians who find the Washington Redskins' name offensive wants the Supreme Court to take up the matter. The group late Monday asked the justices to review a lower court decision that favored the NFL team on a legal technicality.

Joe Biden has given an excellent example of the famous aphorism that "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth." Appearing on Good Morning America today to talk up Pres. Obama's health care speech to Congress, the veep praised his boss for debunking various supposedly false assertions, including "how we're going to insure illegal aliens." Biden was just about to move on when, realizing his crime against political correctness, he revised his remark: "undocumented aliens," quoth the VP. View video here.

A dagger is pointed at the heart of America. Its point is the deliberate misuse of the English language for the purpose of influencing how Americans speak and think. If the dagger is driven home, reason itself will be the principal victim. Reason is the human faculty concerned with forming good conclusions and making sound judgments.[1] It is the power of intelligent thought, and it takes us step by step on a journey to knowledge. We use words to take that journey because, as the English philosopher Francis Bacon once observed, words are the "footsteps of reason." But, as Bacon...

As a member of the American Psychological Association for 36 years, I am filled with indignation at the recent statement of the APA that deems it “inappropriate” for therapists to treat homosexual clients. Such therapy is called reparative therapy and has as its goal the establishment of a heterosexual orientation in place of a homosexual one. This statement of the APA has been issued despite the fact that there are a number of outstanding members of that organization, including two past presidents, who have strongly supported reparative treatment.Issued in August, “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” advises treatments that “increase...

A Muslim community leader who claimed he had been kidnapped at knifepoint after a BNP hate campaign has been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Noor Ramjanally, 36, of Valley Hill, alleged in August that he was abducted by two men, bundled into a car boot, driven to Epping Forest in Essex and told to stop his religious work. The BNP had been accused of whipping up racial tensions in the area after it issued an inflammatory leaflet about Mr Ramjanally's Islamic community group, the first in Loughton. His alleged ordeal became a cause célèbre among the...

What do Harvard president Larry Summers, Taliban John Walker, Delta Airlines officials and the editors of the New York Times have in common with Yanomamo tribeswomen in the Amazon jungle? To answer this question is to understand the root cause of liberal "white guilt." Lakes of ink have been splashed on newspaper, magazine and journal pages ruminating and anguishing over the bottomless guilt that pervades the liberal soul.

Maybe it's because her dad served in the U.S. Marines ... or because her high school mascot is a fierce-looking eagle ... or because she plans to enlist in the Army next summer after graduation to defend her country ... whatever the reason, when Heather Lawrence saw a fellow student refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and recite it with the class, the 16-year-old Junior ROTC member saw a teachable moment and took it. And for that, she's been suspended five days. Lawrence's troubles with administrators at Springstead High School in Spring Hill, Fla., began last Wednesday when...

Here’s a question for you: Why is Rodney King famous and Kenneth Gladney unknown? Here’s a better question: If Kenneth Gladney — a black American who was beaten when he went to protest ObamaCare — had been there instead to support President Obama and had been beaten up and called a nigger …Well, does anyone doubt he would have been as famous as Rodney King? Why is Kenneth Gladney ignored? And why did a black patriot who showed up in opposition to ObamaCare with an AR-15 have his face and hands edited out of the video that MSNBC used to...

You don't break a young bronco just by beating it. You break it by making it feel helpless -- confining it in a small corral, isolating it from the herd, running it around and around on a short rope, feeding it only when it follows commands, making friends with it, whipping it as needed, and making sure that it knows who's boss every second of the day. In the end the colt knows there's just no way out. That's the real motivation behind "Universal Healthcare"  Obama is trying to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their...

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

The L.A.Times' Dan Neil is confused. He thinks that the so-called progressive movement is right on all the issues, but he just cannot understand why they can't win the public debate. Neil laments that they have all the "English majors" on their side but cannot win "any war of words." Just what is going on here, he wants to know? He's so frustrated that he took to his keyboard to ask these questions in a Pittsburgh Gazette article from August 9. In his piece, Neil wonders, for instance, why the "progressives" are so inept at debate and cannot convince the...

It's official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" or in a "global war." President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism. The only terminology that Mr. Brennan...

This country’s Founding Fathers were racist, sexist white men whose opinions don’t matter in today’s world -- unless they can be used to bolster liberal talking points. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers by Brion McClanahan smashes those misguided notions by re-examining the men who helped forge this country’s government without falling back on postmodern spin. Founding Fathers is a painstaking look at how the country began, where the Founders stood on key issues like freedom of religion, as well as how they came to their political philosophies. It also details the spirited debates behind some of the...

After denying for 4 years that the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 will contain 44 inscribed memorial panels (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists) the Memorial Project has announced a new design that appears to collapse three of the panels into one: Artist's depiction of the slightly altered design for the Sacred Ground Plaza. [If you are a newcomer, the Plaza sits in the position of the star on architect Paul Murdoch's giant Islamic crescent and star flag. They call the giant crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle--what symbolically...

Google has finally given its reason for blocking the MassResistance blog, but it took a call from Fox News in New York to get it. And it seems to be more political - and frightening - than anything else. Since 2005 the MassResistance blog has been hosted on Google's blogspot blogging site with few problems. As we reported in a recent posting, for the last several weeks Google has been blocking the MassResistance blog with a warning screen alleging "objectionable content", (see above) and requiring readers to click through to get in. The block was put on almost immediately after...

British leaders must stay up at night thinking of new ways that they can cater to Islam. Just the other day I posted that Muslims in the UK might get their own police division. Now non-Muslim female officers in two UK counties will be forced to wear headscarves upon entering a Mosque. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Lithuania MPs ban gay ‘promotion’ AFP/Vilnius Lithuanian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly yesterday to overturn a presidential veto of a child-protection law that bans what supporters say is the promotion of homosexuality. The law, due to come into force in March 2010, bars the “public dissemination” of information favourable to homosexuality, claiming it could harm the mental health and physical, intellectual and moral development of youngsters. The legislation - which also covers bisexuality, polygamy, images of heterosexual intercourse, death and severe injury, the paranormal, foul language and bad eating habits - does not specifically define public dissemination nor set down the punishment...