Free Republic

NEW YORK - The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on Thursday that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States. The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience. Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public...

With the financial industry, auto makers and more getting assistance from the federal government to stay afloat during the recession, the adult industry decided it would try to get something as well. Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis and “Hustler” magazine publisher Larry Flynt have said they will petition Congress for financial aid along the lines of what the Big Three auto makers are getting. Francis said that he and Flynt are asking for $5 billion, and that they have sent letters to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress and their local Congressman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) with the proposal.

New online program can replace trip to a field office WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration, envisioning the near-future prospect of 10,000 baby boomers applying for benefits every day, has put together a new online service that will allow people to get their benefits without ever traveling to a Social Security field office. The agency, in introducing the program Tuesday, said most people will be able to apply for their retirement or disability benefits in 15 minutes or less.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Making his annual year-end report, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday renewed his call for an increase in judicial pay. "Our country wisely preserves and maintains its national symbols. As citizens, we should strive with no less determination and vigor to preserve and maintain what our flag signifies and our anthem celebrates," Roberts wrote. "The Judiciary depends on such people, who have made American courts the envy of the world and the model for new democracies. As I have previously pointed out, however, widespread esteem is no reason for complacency." "I suspect many...

Banned conservative speakers, stolen votes, assaults on religious liberty, gay English classes, and forbidden Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations Political correctness ran amuck in our nation’s school system this past year, and Young America’s Foundation has once again compiled our “best of the worst” academic abuses for 2008. From “free speech zones” to transgendered speakers at military academies, the following list may make you both laugh and cry in the same breath. That probably isn’t too surprising, however, since we are talking about academia after all… 1. The free speech “zone.” A student at Yuba College in California was sent an...

When Robert Dynes departed as president of the University of California, we hoped his pattern of outlandish compensation for his staff and others would depart with him. It didn't. It merely took another form, which became public in April when UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison retired with a lump-sum package of $2.1 million and was immediately rehired as UC Berkeley police chief with higher pay than she had earned before her retirement. At the least, Harrison's rehiring broke the UC regents' rules, which limit retirees to one year of work and no more than 19 hours a week. It...

Abortion opponents are pressing state and local governments to stop sending taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, arguing that the nonprofit group has plenty of cash and shouldn't be granted scarce public funds at a time of economic crisis.

AUSTIN — The verdict from Texas scientists is nearly unanimous: 98 percent favor the unadulterated teaching of evolution in public school classrooms, according to a report released Monday as the State Board of Education prepares to weigh in on the controversy. A vast majority of the scientists say students would be harmed if the state requires the teaching of the "weaknesses" of evolution, according to the survey conducted for the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, an organization that works on issues involving religious freedom, civil liberties and public education.

An LGF reader contacted Columbia University (and a lot of other potential sources, including the LA Times) with a polite request that they help release the tape of Rashid Khalidi with Barack Obama (the video the Los Angeles Times has ... unbelievably ... decided to suppress during a hotly contested election): From: [redacted] To: [redacted] Sent: Mon Oct 27 18:28:41 2008 Subject: Please release Khalidi’s 2003 tapeDear Madam or Sir,It has come to my attention that the LA Times in in possession of a tape recording a 2003 farewell party for Rashid Khalidi. In an article, the LA Times said:“The...

DENVER -- More than 3,200 supporters -- including former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill -- have signed a petition protesting what they call the "demonization of Professor William Ayers." Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama's ties to Ayers have been questioned during the presidential campaign by critics who call the professor a "domestic terrorist." Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, conducted a robo-phone call campaign in Colorado and several other states, calling into question Obama's connection with Ayers. The phone call campaign against Ayers began at the same time McCain told voters he wasn't concerned with "some washed up terrorist," during...

Lessons in diversity Melanie Pang has participated in educational events and political theater as a leader in a University of Houston campus group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Next spring, she'll move that interest into the academic arena. Pang plans to be among the first students enrolled when the university begins offering a minor concentration in GLBT studies, the only college in Texas to do so. "We thought it was necessary to recognize the scholarly importance of GLBT people and their contributions," said Guillermo De Los Reyes, assistant professor of Latin American studies and director of the new...

Washington, DC -- A new exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery celebrates women's contributions to America but honors a handful of abortion advocates. The exhibit touts Margaret Sanger, the founder of the nation's largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, and others. Read the full story and take action at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat4423.html

Hundreds of educators have endorsed a letter opposing the "demonization" of Williams Ayers – the domestic terrorist who helped launch Barack Obama's poliltical career, and whose relationship with the Democratic presidential candidate continues to be major controversy – arguing that frequent reports of his involvement in domestic bombings are "designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue." "We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack," reads the letter, available for endorsement at www.supportbillayers.org. "The...

Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today. "Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night," Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs. AIG documents obtained by Waxman's investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000...

Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists. ... In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers...

It may be political poison for U.S. government officials to talk to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the taboo does not extend to NPR. NPR’s Steve Inskeep interviewed the controversial leader this afternoon in New York and pulled no punches. Ahmadinejad is in the United States to address the United Nation’s General Assembly, which is meeting this week. In an often heated conversation, according to the transcript, Inskeep confronts Ahmadinejad on Israel, “wiping countries off the map and chopping off hands” — and the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Ahmadinejad, for his part, denies that Iran has provoked the United States,...

? Metro State College is investigating a professor who asked students to write an essay critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. One student said the instructor singled out Republican students in the class and allowed others to ridicule them. "I was shocked, I was holy cow, this is just an open door for him to discuss politics with us," said Jana Barber, a student in the class. Barber shared the first class assignment with CBS4. Instructor Andrew Hallam asked students to write an essay to contradict what he called the 'fairy tale image of Palin' presented at...

As most observers predicted at the time, records from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where Barack Obama served as President of the Board and terrorist William Ayers as head of the action arm of the organization were almost certainly scrubbed; the result of a tip from the University of Illinois to the Obama campaign: The President of the University of Illinois, B. Joseph White, and the University Counsel of the University of Illinois, Thomas Bearrows, contacted Kenneth C. Rolling, the former Executive Director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and a professional colleague of Barack Obama for many years, prior to...

Deleted site causes stir for Muslim organization Provost Nikias takes down posted documents calling on Muslims to kill Jews. Provost C. L. Max Nikias has approved the deletion of part of a Muslim student group website that hosted religious documents urging Muslims to kill Jewish people. The material was removed from a collection of scriptures known as hadiths, historical sayings of the Prophet Muhammad not included in the Quran. The hadith in question, along with thousands of others, are hosted in their entirety on a USC server as part of the now defunct Muslim Student Association's website. Nikias first heard...

BANGOR, Maine — Folk singers Larry and Leslie Latour, along with Judd Esty-Kendall, will open a “Join Hands to End the War. Build the Peace. Rebuild the Economy” rally at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, at Paul Bunyan Park on Main Street. [snip] Among the featured speakers will be Mary Trotochaud who with her husband, Rick McDowell, moved to Baghdad in 2003 to work with emerging Iraqi civil society organizations and coordinate relief and development projects for the American Friends Service Committee. Other speakers include labor activist Katrina Bisheimer; Iranian-American history student Hosain Aghamoosa; social worker Doug Crate; Veterans for...

An e-mail smear targeting the seventeen year-old daughter of GOP vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin is burning up South Carolina inboxes - and may have originated from a South Carolina public school e-mail account. According to a copy of the e-mail (entitled “Sarah Palin’s Drunken Daughter”) obtained exclusively by FITSNews, five pictures alleged to portray Palin’s underage daughter possessing alcoholic beverages (and one allegedly portraying her holding a gun) were attached to the following message: “(P)ics of Sarah Palin’s knocked up daughter Bristol kicking it. Yeah boozing it up is pretty standard for a seventeen year-old, especially in Alaska where it...

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has pleaded guilty to felony charges in Wayne County Circuit Court. He will be forced to resign immediately.

The left blogosphere is outraged! Amy Goodman, whose "Democracy now!" website/radio/TV empire inhabits the far reaches of left wing activism, got herself arrested in St. Paul, and the arrest (which you can see on YouTube is being denounced as some for of violent atrocity. Watch the brief video for yourself and see:

The Obama campaign has gone on the offensive against a multi-million dollar ad campaign by the American Issues Project, a conservative group tying the Democratic candidate to Bill Ayers, a one-time leader of the Weather Underground. This new ad from the Obama campaign asks why John McCain is "talking about the '60s" -- a direct message that he's ignoring current problems and a subtext that he's stuck in the past. And because this is a campaign finance issue, there's also action on the legal front. Obama's lawyer Robert Bauer has done what lawyers do -- dispatch letters, both to the...

THE DISGUSTING ['APPEASEMENT'] SONG BY NPRAugust 11, 2008 What is it about the bad guys that provoke "compassion" from NPR type of journalists? Regarding the case against Bin Laden's driver: Salim Hamdan, though only having a short time to serve under the current verdict, he still might be held indefinitely according the Bush's administration as an 'enemy combatant', John Mcchesni of NPR 'lamented' that the jury will be very disappointed if that happens. Juror Questions U.S. Pursuit Of Salim Hamdan : NPR's John McChesney has this exclusive interview ... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93483533 Rhetorical question, Does Mr. Michesni think that these type of...

Weigh your attitudes and beliefs about homosexuals on the "Homophobia Scale" and see how you rank.

New PBS program says Bible isn't true, stories made up Your tax dollars helped fund "The Bible's Buried Secrets" The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), probably the most liberal network in America, will present a program this fall that says the Old Testament is a bunch of made-up stories that never happened. "The Bible's Buried Secrets" says the Bible is not true. It is scheduled to air on November 18. Archaeologist William Dever said: "...It's (The Bible's Buried Secrets) designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. …it will give intelligent people who want to read the Bible...

Planned Parenthood took me "Down There" and exposed it all. The self-evident wrong-headedness of their thinking, that is. A new campaign waged by the abortion provider is as crass as its name suggests. But it is more than that. It is an expose -- in that most pithy and au courant of forms, the Web video -- of why we get nowhere in America when we talk about sex education. The "Take Care Down There" campaign consists of Web videos of young people talking about threesomes and sexually transmitted diseases, because that's all kids could ever chat about, right? An...

Majority Democrats in the California Assembly have rejected two amendments that would have allowed schools to fire any employee discovered to be part of an extremist terror network and require users of school facilities to affirm they are not terrorists. A report from Karen England at the Capital Resource Institute said the amendments were submitted by assemblymen Martin Garrick and Chuck DeVore to a plan that also would allow members of the Communist Party to teach in public schools. "I am appalled that Democrat lawmakers will not agree to these commonsense amendments," said England, executive director of CRFI. "My son...

An internal Justice Department investigation released Monday has concluded that senior officials broke the law by hiring immigration and other officials based on partisan considerations. The report — issued by the inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility — culminates an investigation that lasted more than a year, stemming from the firing of seven U.S. attorneys in one day in 2006. The report focuses on some of the senior officials in the circle of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Specifically, the report names senior counselor and White House liaison Monica Goodling and Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Both...

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) pauses during a ceremony in Janusz Korczak Square at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, July 23, 2008. Obama began a visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday pledging staunch support for Israel and saying that if elected, he would work to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. REUTERS/Jim Young (JERUSALEM) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks. An internal police investigation found that Daytona Lt. Major Garvin received free coffee for about two years from a city Starbucks coffee store. However, when recently denied free coffee from new management, Garvin allegedly told managers that he could change the police department's response time if they refuse to give him complimentary drinks. Garvin is accused of saying, "If something happens, either we can respond really fast or we...

Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, who is African-American, says he's torn between voting for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama in the November presidential election. "Many conservatives who happen to be black see it as a dilemma because they're wondering what they're going to tell their children and grandchildren 20 years from now when they had a chance in American history, which is rare and has never happened before, to pull the lever [for a black presidential candidate]," Williams tells host Michele Norris. "It creates quite a dilemma because there's not something wrong with Sen. John McCain; he's very impressive."...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The flap over an ad promoting South Carolina as “So Gay� will cost the state tourism dollars, according to an industry expert. Gay and lesbian travelers will likely be turned off by the political posturing surrounding the ads, which were pulled by the state tourism agency and led one employee to resign. “We experience discrimination every day, so we certainly don't want to when we travel,� said Wesley Combs of the Washington-based communication firm Witeck-Combs, which specializes in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travel. Combs noted that national media attention about the ad, including jokes on Conan...

Observe that the Lutherans cite government as “an important catalyst in God’s work.” In fact, their agenda implies that government is virtually God’s only instrument. The Lutherans want government to abolish poverty, prohibit war, cleanse the environment, engineer egalitarian justice globally, and seemingly usher in The Millennium through additional regulation and taxation. If government can achieve so much, who needs God, much less the church?

Officials of the declining 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have revealed what God’s priorities are in the U.S. presidential campaign. And remarkably, the divine priorities was very akin to the Democratic Party’s priorities, if not further to the left. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, with three other ELCA officials generously wrote both presidential candidates a public letter with the divine guidance. Although famed Protestant Reformer Martin Luther championed the Bible as God’s exclusive revelation, modern ELCA activists have located more useful counsel in the secular welfare state and environmental agenda. “The Scriptures are clear about God's concern for...

HARRISBURG -- Grand jurors here and in Pittsburgh cataloged what they described as a culture of corruption that allowed former state Rep. Michael Veon, current Rep. Sean Ramaley and 10 current and former Democratic staffers to divert millions of dollars in state resources, including more than $1 million in illegal pay bonuses. The jurors said Mr. Veon and the staff members conspired to arrange hefty year-end pay bonuses to House employees who worked on political campaigns over a three-year period, while Mr. Ramaley is accused of working full-time on his 2004 House campaign in Beaver County while drawing a taxpayer...

RALEIGH, N.C. — L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half mast Monday as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley. When a superior ordered the lab to follow the order, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees...

Amber Tracy spent the past academic year studying Arabic. But with a full-time job and other classes, she wasn't progressing as quickly as she had wanted. On June 23, she began an intensive Arabic program at Cal State San Bernardino, learning Arabic all day and practicing it in residence halls well into the night. "I think I've learned more in the last week than I did all last semester," Tracy said after finishing a lunch of Arab-style chicken, rice and salad with her tutors and other students. "Being able to focus on Arabic and not think about anything else is...

Conservative and pro-family groups spoke of an outrage Friday after a coalition of Republican and Democratic lawmakers joined to create the House’s first Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus. Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin – the only openly gay members of Congress – were key backers of the new caucus and were successful in gathering bipartisan support for the new initiative. Altogether, 52 House representatives signed on as members of the new caucus, including two Republicans. House members and supporters of the new measure were optimistic of their future plans and what they said was...

While liberal journalists have moved on from the Christopher Dodd-Countrywide Financial scandal, questions linger about the sweetheart loans he got in 2003 from Angelo Mozilo. At the time, Mr. Mozilo was chairman and CEO of Countrywide, which would become a leading player in the subprime-mortgage crisis and would benefit greatly if Congress passes Sen. Dodd's lending-industry bailout bill. Does anyone believe Sen. Dodd when he says he and his wife did not "anticipate any special treatment" from Countrywide and were unaware they got it? A senator get treated royally everywhere he goes. He gets his jollies from the rump kissing...

"Subcommittee chairwoman Maxine Waters Monday participates in a congressional panel for an up-close look at the foreclosure crisis in Ohio, June 16, 2008, in Cleveland."

Karl Hindle has been working tirelessly for five years and spent more than four hundred thousand dollars investigating his daughter’s illegal abduction to the U.S. What he has uncovered is deplorable. The paper trail shows the United States government is in the business of illegal baby snatching and harboring criminals.Emily would not have suffered the loss of her father for the last five years, or the vision in her right eye, if it weren’t for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA.) And people like Barbara Grieg of the U.S. State Department who see it as an excuse for misandry...

An Ohio county public library has closed its meeting rooms to the public rather than allow them to be used by a Christian group. George and Cathy Vandergriff wanted to host a Crown Financial Ministries "Financial Freedom" workshop in a public meeting room at the Clermont County, Ohio, public library. Tim Chandler, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says the couple was told that, because the class would be quoting from the Bible, they could not hold it at the library. "The Supreme Court said, more than 25 years ago, that once you've opened up meeting space, you...

(WARNING: This story contains graphic descriptions of artwork that is offensive.)(CNSNews.com) - Federal taxpayers are subsidizing a college in New York whose art school is currently displaying works that include a drawing of a man with a crucifix coming out of his rectum, a drawing of a man with a rosary coming out of his rectum, and rosaries decorated with penises. Over the last eight years, at least $4.6 million in federal tax dollars have been provided to the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, which is displaying the controversial artworks. Some of the money has come...

News crew attacked during report at TiZA charter school The state Education Department on Monday directed a Minnesota charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school. Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students. "The Minnesota Department of Education goes to great lengths to make clear to charter schools and their sponsors that, while schools should appropriately accomodate students' religious beliefs, they must be...

The state Education Department on Monday directed a Minnesota charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school. Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students. Charter schools in Minnesota are publicly funded and must be nonsectarian. The allegations first surfaced in an article by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten. The Education Department subsequently began a review of the suburban Inver Grove Heights school and...

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded more than $126.6 million to the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) and the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP) for the Department’s fifth and sixth large-scale carbon sequestration projects. These industry partnerships, which are part of DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, will conduct large volume tests in California and Ohio to demonstrate the ability of a geologic formation to safely, permanently, and economically store more than one million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Subject to annual appropriations from Congress, this project including the partnership’s cost share is estimated to cost...

U.S. Muslims face growing movement to limit their public lives By Andrea Elliott April 28, 2008 Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country's elite colleges. They would be ready, in Almontaser's words, to become "ambassadors of peace and hope." Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in...