Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- A day after Arizona Sen. John McCain forged an unusual bipartisan alliance with the White House on cutting $1.75 billion in increased spending for the F-22 jet fighter, congressional Democratic leaders pressured lawmakers to drop the matter to clear the way for a hate crimes provision in the defense spending measure. The move, backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sparked heated debate on the Senate floor as McCain unsuccessfully sought to remove the hate crimes amendment, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, from the broader defense spending measure on the grounds that the...

> Male Magellan penguins Harry and Pepper have been together since 2003. The pair nested together and even incubated an egg laid by another penguin in 2008, but their relationship hit the rocks earlier this year when a female penguin, Linda, befriended Harry after her long-time companion died. This did not go over well with Pepper, who became violent. The three penguins were separated for some time following the fight. >

Backed by 104 Massachusetts legislators -- bill is "major goal" of MA homosexual lobby this year. On Tuesday, July 14, there will be a public hearing at the Massachusetts State House on the most extensive, oppressive, and far-reaching "transgender rights and hate crimes" bill ever seriously considered in America. This bill forces the acceptance of "transgenderism", cross-dressing, and other various "gender expressions" throughout virtually every part of society, under the threat of fines and jail time for even disagreeing in public.

Al Gore on Tuesday compared the battle against climate change with the struggle against the Nazis. The former vice president said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change. He also accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid difficult decisions. Speaking at Britain's Oxford University at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by the Times of London, Gore said, "Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to...

What did the Christians cherish from the pagan traditions, and what did they change? How Christians elevated culture What did the Christians cherish from the pagan traditions, and what did they change? They raised the status of women. It's dogma in our public schools today that women in ancient times were oppressed, because women had no voting rights, women had not the same opportunities as men, and so forth. You will be mocked if you deny that this spells oppression. If you're a college professor and you deny it, get ready for the stake. But the charges are anachronistic and...

Sometimes you just have to laugh out loud at those who consider themselves to be "conscious, enlightened, and progressive". HawaiiReporter: "The University of Hawaii has confirmed that from January 2008 to May 2009, the editor, Kris DeRego, made up the names of 21 sources in his articles and quoted eight people identified as students who were not enrolled at the time the articles were published." Akamai readers will remember that the Honolulu Advertiser endorsed DeRego for Board of Education in 2006. After semi-naked pictures emerged of Mr DeRego with airbrushed wings emerged on the internet, he was defeated by John...

Do you believe in God? Really? And you're willing to admit it in public? Oops. Sorry, for a moment I slipped back into the arrogant Atheism of my youth. Before my parents had children, they decided to raise their kids in a secular home. We had gifts at Christmas time and chocolate covered matzoh during Passover, but there was no religion and certainly no God. When I was in grade school, God was just a kind of nondescript character who popped up in Little House on the Prairie books from time to time. He seemed like a decent enough fellow,...

On 9 November, a 38-year old Belgian named Muriel, blew herself to pieces in Baghdad near a group of Iraqi policemen, killing five other people. The woman had converted to Islam after marrying a Belgian of Moroccon origin. Her husband was shot down by American troops. The American authorities informed the Belgian authorities of the woman’s identity a few weeks ago, but Brussels kept it secret. Yesterday evening the Franco-Luxemburgian network RTL announced the news. Last night, the Belgian police arrested 14 people. Nine of them are Belgians, mostly of foreign origin, three are Moroccans and two are Tunisians. They...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Eric Holder says recent violent attacks show the need for a tougher hate crimes law. Holder, speaking Tuesday at a luncheon for civil rights lawyers, noted the recent killings of an abortion doctor in Kansas, a soldier in Little Rock, and a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. He called the attacks brazen acts committed in once-unthinkable places, and said it is past time for Congress to strengthen hate crimes laws to prosecute violence based on gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm! Highlights on the agenda: ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House. The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on...

CUMBERLAND, Md. — A dispute has erupted in Cumberland over the distribution of a brochure that purports to explain the history of the Confederate battle flag in Allegany County public schools.

British street preacher Andy Robertson says all he wants from his community in eastern England is the freedom to disagree. Police have threatened to arrest the U.K. preacher for allegedly making homophobic statements. Once a month Andy Robertson makes his way to this street corner in Gainsborough, England. He says he's been doing it for ten years as part of the Open Air Mission, a Christian organization that first began street preaching in England 146 years ago.

Two transgender advocates will be part of an on-air apology Thursday by a Sacramento radio team who have upset lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates. Transgender advocates Kim Pearson and Autumn Sandeen will appear on KRXQ's "Rob, Arnie & Dawn" show Thursday morning to "further educate the hosts," according to a press release from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The trio's morning show is off the air because of their remarks but will return at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. "KRXQ appears to be taking this matter very seriously following widespread response from community members and advertisers," said Rashad...

Conservative San Francisco-based talk show host Michael Savage has made good on his promise to sue British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for defamation -- though British officials are defending her decision to ban him from the United Kingdom. "As the home secretary has already said, he was excluded for engaging in unacceptable behaviour by making comments that might provoke others to serious criminal acts and foster hatred that might lead to inter-community violence,'' a British official Sunday told the Daily Mail. Savage sued Smith because the "name and shame" list of 16 individuals compiled by the home secretary put him...

A Texas woman put up an American flag for Memorial Day, and was told to remove it because it was offensive to a coworker. The kicker is the offended employee is not from the United States. I know ... shocker.

Officials of a South Florida branch of the NAACP say the organization could stage protests during NASCAR races in an effort to have the Confederate flag banned from events. The Miami-Dade branch's leaders said they would first ask for help from NASCAR officials in banning the flag, but are prepared to begin contacting sponsors. Also under consideration are a boycott and a march during the season-ending race weekend at Homestead-Miami Motor Speedway, according to the South Florida Times. The Times article, quoting NAACP officials, said correspondence was being prepared to Brian France, NASCAR's chairman and CEO. France has spoken out...

Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic. We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been...

Sympathetic media commentators are rushing to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's defense against Republican men, accusing them of sexism toward Washington's most powerful woman. The liberal-leaning Media Matters compiled a video of male conservative pundits making fun of the speaker's rumored use of Botox. Rush Limbaugh took it a step further, saying the best way to limit unwanted pregnancy would be to post Mrs. Pelosi's image in cheap motel rooms. "How do these people handle a strong-willed woman like Pelosi?" MSNBC's Ed Schultz lectured in his Monday show. "Well, they revert to calling her offensive names like 'hag'; they make demeaning...

Born and raised in Mozambique and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Serodio, 45, has filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey medical school, claiming he was harassed and ultimately suspended for identifying himself during a class cultural exercise as a "white African-American."

FIVE MUSLIMS ARE CONVICTED OF A PLOT TO BLOW UP THE SEARS TOWER The headline from the Associated Press reads "5 Miami men convicted of Sears Tower attack plot". Read the story here ... then click back. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090512/ap_on_re_us/us_terrorism_investigation There ... did you notice anything. Though at the end of the story you'll see some references to al Qaeda .. nowhere in the story are these men identified as Muslims; and yes .. they were all Muslims. Another story identified them as "members of an apparent militaristic religious sect", but not Muslims. Radical Muslims can rant all week long about their...

This is a followup to the "Muslim set for Trial for Setting up Oregon Jihad Camp" story.

There is a brooding sense within top social conservative circles that they have become the revolving scapegoat of the Republican Party. Many of the longtime leaders of the Christian right, from Richard Land to Tony Perkins to Gary Bauer, expressed resentment in extended interviews with a singular theme: that the most loyal GOP bloc has been so quickly thrown under many critics' bus.

Dear friends, family, loved ones, conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, my brother in law, Sam, and my cousin Joe: I am sorry and you were right. These are not easy words for anyone to utter, much less a leftist from Berkeley, or a recovering leftist, that is. Even though I've been in recovery for 14 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, leftists are always right in your face, in an I-hate-you-if-you-disagree sort of way. Hence, this letter of amends to all the people I've lectured, scolded, ranted and raved at, and otherwise annoyed during my 30 plus years of "progressive" politics. My...

Knowledge is inextricably linked to language. The less accurate words are, the less accurate the knowledge they impart; conversely, the more precise the language, the more precise the knowledge. In the war on terror, to acquire accurate knowledge — which is pivotal to victory — we need to begin with accurate language. Would the free world have understood the Nazi threat if, instead of calling them what they called themselves, “Nazis,” it had opted to simply call them “extremists” — a word wholly overlooking the racist, expansionary, and supremacist elements that are part and parcel of the word “Nazi”? Unfortunately,...

While channel-surfing recently, I stopped for a moment on a show featuring two lesbian roommates. As I watched them, I began pondering the question of the growing impact of homosexuals and radical feminists on our culture. None of these thoughts are original to me and all have been written about and discussed ad nauseam. This little rant is really an exercise in catharsis. At the individual level, I have personally known a few homosexuals and, in general, have found them to be quiet, respectful and intelligent. There are exceptions – such as the moron homo cited below -- but I...

Fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken is to launch a halal-only menu in eight of its London stores in a move which could be extended to other areas of the UK. The menu, which will form part of a trial, will see the stores selling chicken products which have been fully approved by the Halal Food Authority for the first time. KFC has 720 stores across the UK, and bosses said the move was designed to ensure the company was catering to a broader range of customers, following a growing demand for halal products. It is the latest fast food...

Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called "hate crimes law" that passed in the House on April 29? The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in a 249-175 vote (17 Republicans joined with 231 Democrats). These Democrats should have been tested on their knowledge of the First Amendment, equal protection of the laws (14th Amendment), and the prohibition of double jeopardy (no American can be prosecuted twice for the same crime or offense). If they had been, they would have known that this proposal, now headed for a Senate vote, violates all these constitutional provisions....

Pepsico's board of directors has heard from a traditional values group about their support of the homosexual agenda -- and its alienation of the company's consumer base. At the Pepsico board meeting in Dallas on Wednesday, Greg Quinlan of PFOX -- Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays -- offered a resolution to the board calling for full disclosure and accountability on contributions to charitable organizations. He tells OneNewsNow why he called on shareholders to support Resolution No. 6. "Pepsico is giving a million dollars to the homosexual agenda, supporting groups like HRC, the Human Rights Campaign...the ninth-largest of all...

In what is arguably his most significant gift to friend and former South African President Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton is lending his name to the effort to establish a global Mandela Day around his July 18 birthday. The campaign and Clinton's involvement will be announced today by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the humanitarian group named after his prison number: 46664. Bubba, referring to the name friends give Mandela, says: "More than any human being, Madiba has been the great inspiration for the life I lead and the work I do, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS. In return for...

It used to be said that self-preservation is the first law of nature. But much of what has been happening in recent times in the United States, and in Western civilization in general, suggests that survival is taking a back seat to the shibboleths of political correctness. We have already turned loose dozens of captured terrorists, who have resumed their terrorism. Why? Because they have been given "rights" that exist neither in our laws nor under international law. These are not criminals in our society, entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the United States. They are not prisoners...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new national poll suggests that President Obama is personally more popular than his policies. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, released Monday, also indicates that 63 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his duties as president. One in three questioned in the poll disapprove. The survey, released two days before Obama marks 100 days in the White House, indicates that three in four Americans feel Obama has the personal qualities a president should have. But when asked whether Obama agrees with the respondent on the issues, that number drops to 57 percent. "Americans have...

Valerik Kashkin, a clown in the Moscow State Circus, was performing in Liverpool's Sefton Park last Saturday when he fell from a three metre high slack wire, injuring his foot. Although he continued to perform for the rest of the show, when he went to hospital later that evening, he was told he had broken the metatarsal bone in his left foot. When he returned to the circus he was told by management he could no longer wear the size-18 shoes because they compromised his health and safety. Mr Kashkin features in the circus' reworking of the Rasputin tale, The...

Do 'American Idol' voters discriminate against minorities, gays? by Troy Reimink | The Grand Rapids Press Thursday April 23, 2009, 11:36 AM AP Photo Lil Rounds performs on "American Idol" on Tuesday night. She was voted off the competition Wednesday."American Idol" is many things. Off the top of my head, I can think of about two dozen adjectives, both positive and negative (well, mainly negative) to describe the program. Bigoted, though? We run a live blog of each "American Idol" show and there was some interesting commentary last night upon the elimination of Lil Rounds (African-American) and Anoop Desai (Indian-American)....

Blood Moon Readers may recall Aesop's fable of the snake persuading a buffalo to give him a ride across the river if the snake promised not to bite. Once across, the snake of course bites the bison and responds with, "Well, you knew what I was when you gave me the ride." And so, we continue to embrace the culture of Islam, ever-so hopeful that a cult which has nurtured and nourished the last eleven thousand terrorist plots killing thousands of men, women, and children, will not pick us to be next. Under the banner of tolerance we have failed...

A dissident faction of gay conservatives is launching a rival group to the traditional voice of gay Republicans: the Log Cabin Republicans. GOPROUD, the new 527 group, will launch next week, according to a media advisory. The contact given for the group is Christopher Barron, a former Log Cabin political director who broke with the group. "Essentially, there's no voice for gay Republicans or gay conservatives in particular in D.C. right now. Log Cabin has been completely and totally absent here in D.C. for months and months," Barron said. "It has simply moved way too far to the left and...

President Obama had a grand time in Europe. He wowed the press, met the queen, gave some wonderful news conferences and got virtually none of the major policy concessions he wanted. But he did do a lot of talking, for what that's worth. And for Obama, that's worth a lot. During the campaign, then-Sen. Obama made it clear that he thought words meant a great deal. "Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama proclaimed. " 'I have a dream' — just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' — just words? 'We have...

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A network correspondent presuming to school a pundit in PC-speak . . . It happened on today’s Morning Joe. Discussing Pres. Obama’s announced plans to address the immigration issue, Andrea Mitchell claimed that “there didn’t seem to be as much anger about immigration.” Retorted Pat Buchanan: “just you wait and see!” When Buchanan went on to make the point that there is very high unemployment among black and Hispanic American citizens, and that “illegal aliens” are taking their jobs, Mitchell jumped in to reprimand him: View video here.

Oakland — Honoring the memory of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, about 30 students and other activists marched down International Boulevard today demanding rights for immigrant students. "The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to our nation's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south," read a statement from By Any Means Necessary, the organization that held the march. The Federal DREAM Act, which would give those students access to financial aid, was reintroduced last week, as was...

FOX25, myfoxboston - A youth soccer coach is off the job after sending home a shocking letter to his team of 6 and 7-year-old girls. The letter didn't go over so well with parents and the Scituate soccer board and the coach has since resigned. This is Michael Kinahan's letter:

Using 'Miss' and 'Mrs' has been banned by leaders of the European Union because they are not considered politically correct. Brussels bureaucrats have decided the words are sexist and issued new guidelines in its bid to create 'gender-neutral' language. The booklet warns European politicians they must avoid referring to a woman's marital status. This also means Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein and Senora and Senorita are banned. 'Political correctness gone mad': The European Parliament has banned MEPs from using 'Miss' and 'Mrs' because it claims they are sexist Instead of using the standard titles, it is asking MEPs to...

Freedom is out of fashion at Ground Zero. Once hailed as a beacon of rebirth in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Freedom Tower has been stripped of its patriotic name -- which has been swapped out for the more marketable "One World Trade Center," Port Authority officials conceded yesterday. More than seven years after the terror attacks and amid an effort to market the tower to international tenants, sentiment gave way to practicality. "As we market the building we will ensure that the building is presented in the best possible way," said PA Chairman Anthony Coscia. "One World Trade...

March 24, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Will Obama Kill Science? (Cont.)Science vs. political correctness. By John Derbyshire Back in October of last year, I wrote a column titled “Will Obama Kill Science?� arguing that an Obama administration, stuffed as it surely would be with postmodern leftists, would do what they could to kill off some key branches of the human sciences, for fear of what they might turn up. I concluded with: We are about to find out whether our traditional devotion to free speech and free enquiry can survive real, incontrovertible results from the human sciences; and in particular,...

This past Wednesday evening, March 11, renowned conservative author and columnist Don Feder came to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, sponsored by the UMass Republican Club, to give a speech on "Hate Crimes -- Fighting Bias With Fascism" - the myth of hate crimes and the liberals who propagate the laws targeting them. It promised to be an illuminating event. But the college homosexual activists decided that he shouldn't be allowed to speak. They boldly announced that they intended to disrupt the event, and campus police responded requiring the UMass Republican Club to pay $600.00 to hire 5 policemen to...

To millions of Americans fascinated by comic-book superheroes, Bill Jemas of Princeton is an industry legend who helped breathe life into Marvel Enterprises by pushing the wildly successful “Ultimate Spider-Man” series that rejuvenated the company. These days, however, Jemas, a high-energy 51-year-old whose controversial four years as Marvel’s president remain fodder for comic-book blogs, finds himself engrossed in a task far removed from dialogue balloons. Each morning before sunrise, for the last three years, the Rutgers and Harvard Law School graduate has labored over the Bible, specifically the Book of Genesis in Hebrew, the language in which it was first...

Strange times we live in when it takes a ballot initiative to confirm the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Stranger still when endorsing that definition through the democratic process brings threats and reprisals. In November, the San Francisco Chronicle published the names and home addresses of everyone who donated money in support of California's Proposition 8 marriage initiative. All available information, plus the amount donated, was broadcast. My name is on that list. Emails started coming. Heavy with epithets and ad hominems, most in the you-disgust-me vein. Several accused me, personally, of denying...

PC Javid Iqbal: 'My beard is an important part of my identity' A Muslim police officer claims he was forced out of his job by colleagues who made fun of his beard and called him a 'f***ing Paki'. PC Javid Iqbal, 38, said white officers openly discussed in front of him how they were ' better' than their ethnic-minority colleagues. The married father of two also claims officers pulled faces at each other if told they had to go out on patrol with him and forced him to walk home from a job instead of picking him up. Mr...

For the past year, there’s been a concerted push within the U.S. government to ban frank talk about the nature of the Islamist enemy. It began with the Department of Homeland Security, then moved to the National Counter Terrorism Center and the departments of State and Defense. Already in May 2008, I heard an excellent analysis of the enemy by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas Mahnken in which he bizarrely never once mentioned Islam or jihad. I’ve been wondering how this change in vocabulary actually occurs: is it a spontaneous mood shift, a group decision, or a directive from...

For CCSU student John Wahlberg, a class presentation on campus violence turned into a confrontation with the campus police due to a complaint by the professor. On October 3, 2008, Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media”. Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred in 2007. Shortly after his professor, Paula Anderson, filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against her student. During the presentation Wahlberg...

A Miami juvenile court judge apologized for telling a runaway foster child she could end up a 'dead crack whore' if she didn't straighten up. A Miami child-welfare judge drew the ire of his boss in the judiciary and local children's advocates when he told a 15-year-old runaway foster child she would end up a ''toothless, dead crack whore'' if she didn't mend her ways. Exasperated that the girl was refusing to return to a home where she said her caregiver hit and cursed at her, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Spencer Eig lectured the sobbing teen about making bad choices during...

So here I was - taking my daughter to school this morning (She is a high school sophomore) and she was telling me of a discussion she and the other kids were having about Black History Month. One kid suggested that - to be fair - there should be a White History Month. He was quickly chastised; "Whites don't deserve a special history month due to the racial prejudices they've committed over the years". My daughter related some of the "Rosa Parks" types of incidents as evidence of why there should be no White History Month. It was early. I...