Free Republic

Underlying the hurry to disown the senator, of course, is the party’s brutal agenda of trumpeting the gay-marriage issue. To the extent Senator Craig, a stalwart in the family values caucus, might morph into a blatant hypocrite before the voters’ eyes, he reflects on the party’s record in demonizing homosexuality. The rush to cast him out betrays the party’s intolerance, which is on display for the public in all of its ugliness. But it also betrays their political uneasiness as the next election approaches.

BEIJING (AP) -- China's top legislature has adopted a measure allowing the government to seize private homes on state-owned land, as long as owners are compensated and properly resettled, state media reported Thursday. Government seizure of private property has been a controversial issue as China prepares to host the Beijing Olympics next year. Some activists has accused Beijing of forcing more than 1 million people from their homes to make way for new sports venues.

Who is Adel Abdul Mehdi? A 'Shiite Moderate' or another Iran's Puppet? Regarding the man after Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, Bobby Ghosh of Time Magazine wrote on Aug. 22, 2007 : "The Shi'ite coalition's most likely candidate is Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a French-trained economist and political chameleon. Having been, at various points in his career, a communist, a Ba'athist and a secular liberal democrat, he has switched directions so many times it's hard to know which way he's going. These days, Abdul-Mahdi represents the Shi'ite-fundamentalist Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), which, like Maliki's Dawa Party, is beholden to Tehran. Twice in...

A court decision that opens the doors of Culbertson Elementary School in Pennsylvania to books about witches – but rejects the Bible as being too "proselytizing" – is being challenged. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund has submitted amicus briefs in a lawsuit filed when a kindergarten student, under an assignment in which parents were invited to read their child's favorite book, was denied permission to have his mother read a Bible story. A decision in U.S. District Court that sided with the school's decision to ban the Bible reading, while allowing teachers to suggest reading books about "witches and Halloween,"...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has found microscopic worms in wooden packaging from the United States and uncovered substandard U.S. vitamin pills and fish oil for children, Chinese media said on Friday in the latest volley of cross-border accusations. China has highlighted several quality concerns with U.S. products in apparent response to recent complaints in Washington about the safety of Chinese exports ranging from toys to toothpaste. The pine wood worms, or nematodes, were found in 13 sets of packaging in the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, the China Daily said.

Why America needs a national right-to-work law editorials and opinion By DEROY MURDOCK Scripps Howard News Service Thursday, August 30, 2007 Americans will skip work Monday to celebrate what really should be called Leisure Day. But this Labor Day, an estimated 7.2 million privately employed Americans (and even more public-sector workers) could relax more thoroughly if they were not compelled to join labor unions and/or pay union dues as job requirements. That's why the time is now for the National Right to Work Act. Rep. Joe Wilson and Sen. Jim DeMint, both South Carolina Republicans, have sponsored legislation to restore...

The White House believes it has made significant progress over the past month in swaying public and political opinion toward supporting a continued U.S. military effort in Iraq, one of President Bush's closest advisers said in an interview. "The end of the August feels a lot better than the beginning of August when it comes to where we are relative to perceptions of our Iraq policy and what is working," said Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president. Congress returns Tuesday from a monthlong recess that did not go according to plan for Democratic leaders and the antiwar movement, who were...

Flying Lying Imams' conspiracy theories The Garbage "holiness", Muslim Mullahs' despicable industry of "conspiracy theories" on the Islamic attack of September 11, 2001 This is the story of 'flying Imams', no, not that one in which they've managed to put fears into ordinary passengers with "holy-Islamic" Pro bloodthirsty Bin-Laden statements, that the "moderate" terrorists organizations' front goup: CAIR tried to "defend" afterwards. This is about [though the same type of] imams that are in the line of how to commit the crime upon crime, after the Islamic murdering innocent people on 9/11/2001, how to add yet another Islamic crime,...

New Film Investigates Crushing of Dissent from Darwinian Orthodoxy By Hilary White August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "If you have questioned Darwinism, that's it, your career is over.""I was viewed as an intellectual terrorist." "I have been told to shut up."The quotes come from interviews with research scientists featured in a new film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," starring the New York writer and intellectual Ben Stein. The film, set for release in February 2008, documents the crushing of any investigation or questioning of materialist Darwinism that is the orthodox position of most of the scientific establishment. In the trailer for...

Global Warming Might Spur Earthquakes and Volcanoes Andrea Thompson LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Thu Aug 30, 5:40 PM ET Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides are some of the additional catastrophes that climate change and its rising sea levels and melting glaciers could bring, a geologist says. The impact of human-induced global warming on Earth's ice and oceans is already noticeable: Greenland's glaciers are melting at an increasing rate, and sea level rose by a little more than half a foot (0.17 meters) globally in the 20th century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With these trends in...

Appeals Court Asked To Hold State Responsible for Illegally Strip Searching Children MILWAUKEE, WI, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today Liberty Counsel filed a brief at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving a state worker who made two elementary children undress without parental consent. The case is Michael C. v. Gresbach. The eight-year-old boy, his nine-year-old sister and their parents are represented by Stephen Crampton, Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel, and Wisconsin attorney Michael D. Dean. The case involves Dana Gresbach, a social worker from the Bureau of Milwaukee Child...

The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

We need to know, among other things, precisely how many nuclear weapons the North has manufactured, how and where it manufactured them, how many it now has, and how much reprocessed plutonium remains available for weaponization. If any devices, fissile material or nuclear manufacturing equipment have left North Korea, we need to learn the specifics. We need to understand the full extent of its uranium enrichment program, and if weapons-grade enriched uranium was produced, where it is and how much there is of it. We also need to know specifically if North Korea possesses any enriched uranium metal or any...

US President George W. Bush has apologised to the people of Sydney for the widespread inconvenience the APEC summit security lockdown will cause. Speaking to Sky News, Mr Bush said he was not aware of how the city would be affected, but he was sorry if he was putting people out. "I have a lot on my mind," he said, adding that it was the first he had heard of the planned security crackdown that will see much of the northern part of the city fenced off as well as expanded police powers to search people and seize banned items....

The nation’s largest Hispanic rights group is warning it may cancel its 2009 convention here because of a controversial Kansas City park board member. The head of the National Council of La Raza said Thursday that the organization is already looking at several other cities because of the appointment of Frances Semler.

JEFFERSON CITY | The Missouri Highway Patrol’s new policy of checking the immigration status of people who are arrested has resulted in the patrol’s first catch, officials said Thursday. Jose Guadalupe Delacruz, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested Tuesday by Camden County sheriff’s officials in connection with an alleged assault, the patrol said. The sheriff’s office then contacted the Highway Patrol. Troopers checked the man’s identity against a federal database and found he was not in the country lawfully, officials said.

Want a $2,400 Tata? How About a $2,400 Car? Tuesday August 21, 2007 10:22 AM CDT - By: Michael Kwan Did you know that the nation of India can do more than handle your outsourced call center needs? In fact, an Indian car maker -- Tata Motors -- has effectively created the least expensive, commercially-available car in the world. The plastic car will cost just 100,000 rupees, which works out to a mere $2,400 of the American stuff. Tata Motors is saying that the yet unnamed vehicle will be about the same size as a Volkswagen Rabbit and the...

Agents from Poland's new elite anti-corruption agency yesterday arrested a former minister of the interior who had been accusing Jaroslaw Kaczynski's government of spying on opposition politicians and reporters. The arrest of Janusz Kaczmarek, who had been fired as minister of the interior on August 8, deepened Poland's political crisis, with opposition parties accusing the government of abusing its powers just days before a parliamentary vote on whether to hold early elections. Agents also arrested Konrad Kornatowski, the former national police chief, and Jaromir Netzel, chief executive of PZU, the govern-ment-owned insurance company, who prosecutors say are involved in an...

Money has brought both trappings and trouble for Norman Hsu. Major contributions to the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other candidates have made the apparel executive an insider in elite political circles. He shows up in cozy pictures with politicians, at lavish fundraising events, and on the boards of prestigious organizations. But Hsu's history includes more unsavory episodes and associations. In 1990, he allegedly was kidnapped by Chinese gang members in San Francisco as part of an apparent effort to collect a debt. A year and a half later, he pleaded no contest to a charge of fleecing...

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