Free Republic

KANSAS CITY, MO. - The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Missouri's appeal to allow the state to enforce it's law restricting protests near funerals. The law targeted a Topeka Baptist church that protests military funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church filed a lawsuit against the state after it passed two laws creating a no protest buffer zone around funerals and processions. Westboro Baptist Church out of Topeka protests the funerals saying soldiers deaths are God's punishment because of U.S. policy toward homosexuals.

IN the weeks leading up to Honduras’s coup, President Manuel Zelaya, an ally of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, knew what he was doing. In pushing the limits of democracy by trying to force a constitutional change that would permit his re-election, he set a trap for the military. The military fell for it, turning an unpopular president who was nearing the end of his term into an international cause célèbre. Although the coup has popular support in Honduras, it has also allowed Mr. Chávez, who is leading the international response, to claim the moral high ground. The coup leaders, who...

PRESIDENT Obama has blamed our economic woes on the "bursting of a debt-based bubble" and a culture of "easy money." Funny: The Build America Bonds program, an obscure part of this year's vast "stimulus" package, sure seems to be encouraging reckless and irresponsible borrowing. Maybe the administration thinks reckless borrowing makes sense if it's being done by local governments? "Build America" securities work like normal municipal bonds: Localities issue them to raise cash for projects or to pay down other debt -- except that the federal government covers 35 percent of the interest costs. Subsidized borrowing? Needless to say, state...

THE Honduras mess is going to heat up, not cool down. Will President Obama keep rooting for the side that rallies to the cry "Yanqui go home"? Obama threw his lot in with deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who's seen throughout the region as a stooge of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Indeed, Chavez has already threatened military action to return Zelaya to power. Zelaya now plans to return to Honduras tomorrow, even though the nation's military, acting in accord with its Congress and courts, just forced him out of the country on Sunday. "Who is going to protect me? We...

WATCHDOGS are an en dangered species in the Obama Age. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. The veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes. Question the timing? Hell, yes. On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington law firm Willkie, Farr and Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower-advocate Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). It concluded that the...

It took Barack Obama 10 days to speak out clearly against the savage beatings and killings meted out by the Iranian regime on the streets of Tehran. It was just a matter of hours however before the Obama administration was loudly voicing its condemnation of the bloodless removal from power of populist dictator Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. President Obama joined the odious likes of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Orgtega and Fidel Castro in calling for Zelaya to be reinstated. Chavez, it should be noted, immediately threatened to invade Honduras, which was met by silence from the White House. Zelaya is no...

With 15,000 to 20,000 people in attendance, the Atlanta Tea Party on April 15 was a resounding success. Hoping to match or surpass the success of their peaceful and well-organized Tea Party in April, organizers of the July 4 Atlanta Tea Party had planned for a family-friendly Independence Day event that would accommodate a very large crowd of Tea Party Patriots. The Atlanta Tea Party would have included musical entertainment, face painting, jumbotron televisions, food vendors and speeches from talk show hosts and grassroots activists. The celebration would have brought thousands of potential shoppers into an economically depressed area and...

President Obama squirmed and weaseled his words with the Iranian Mullahs and their puppet-tyrant, Ahmadinejad, not wanting to be seen as meddling in a tyrannical theocracy, known throughout the world as beneath-contempt oppressors of every human right under the sun. No, no, no, it just wouldn't do to publicly lend support to all those moderate, freedom-loving throngs of Iranians taking to the streets, risking life and limb for more liberty. Not until the Iranians killed demonstrators on camera, the pictures went round the world, and criticism of himself mounted at home, did this President put his hands on his hips...

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As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Slowly, methodically, consistently, the reliable Rasmussen Poll has been tracking the most vital numbers of the Obama Presidency. General, soft numbers like "Do you approve of the way the president is handlings his job?" really mean nothing. In times of crisis, most people will answer "yes." This is particularly true when a young articulate president who is splattered over every single magazine in every grocery checkout line with happy photos with his wife and kids, and when every tough question -- both of them -- in his press conferences is simply ignored. It is not the soft, fluffy feelings about...

Inouye reported ownership of Central Pacific shares worth $350,000 to $700,000, some held by his wife, at the end of 2007 [5]. The shares represented at least two-thirds of Inouye's total reported assets. Inouye has requested a delay in filing his annual financial disclosure for 2008, which was due this spring, and he declined to provide the current value of his investment. Since the end of 2007, the bank's stock has lost 79 percent of its value. Central Pacific was founded in 1954 by a group of World War II veterans including Inouye who were emerging leaders in Hawaii's Japanese...

Oh me, oh my, Obama's approval ratings have fallen from the sky. In other news, the hard-line withdraw of troops is resulting in increased violence in Iraq. And... oh yeah! Cap & Tax and Obamacare still suck. Here are your daily news diggs! http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/ Video Diggs will come, as always, late tonight.

Pakistan begins domestic final assembly of JF-17 By Siva Govindasamy Pakistan has begun the final assembly of the first Chengdu Aircraft/Pakistan Aeronautical Complex JF-17 fighter to be produced in the country, and aims to have the first flight by end-2009. Islamabad collaborated with China in the design and development, and received its first two JF-17s in March 2007. It has since taken delivery of around a dozen JF-17s, which China has designated as the FC-1, says the Pakistani air force. While PAC had work-share in the earlier examples and tried some limited assembly at its facilities in Kamra, Chengdu Aircraft...

(LEAD) N. Korean rocket capable of hitting half the U.S.: American scientists By Sam Kim SEOUL, July 1 (Yonhap) -- The long-range rocket North Korea launched in April could be converted into a ballistic missile that can theoretically hit half the United States with a substantial payload, two U.S. physicists have concluded from their joint study. North Korea launched on April 5 what it claims was a rocket designed to carry a satellite into orbit. The U.S. and its allies say nothing entered orbit, calling the "Unha-2" rocket a disguised form of a ballistic missile capable of flying over 6,700...

I'm combining a look at America's new regime under Oba-Hussein-Khomeini and that of Mullah Khamenei to let you decide if we are on the same road as the Mullahs, but a few steps behind. The killing has not started in America but counter-action for foreseen riots and opposition in our streets has started. Some 80,000 soldiers are being trained in Georgia to respond and handle martial law needs. And ACORN agents are carefully doing GPS suveys of all homes so that these or other outside forces, unfamilliar with your neighborhood, can kick down your front door at will, you "domestic...

Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1. It is believed that the accident bureau will report that faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are...

Rev. Al Sharpton was aggressively dancing with a woman at the Apollo, celebrating the life of Michael Jackson.

This past Saturday, an entire apartment building in Shanghai collapsed. To be fair, the building was under construction and thus unoccupied, but it's still a minor miracle that there was only one fatality. Sounds like there was a problem with some nearby flood prevention walls at the Dianpu River, but there's no hard evidence as to why this huge building simply fell over. Anyway, here are some sweet pictures of the architectural carnage. [Cellar.org via Twitter] Read More: Architecture, Building falls over, Shanghai, Apartment, China, Dianpu river, fail, buildings, collapse

Note: The following text is a quote: General Counsel Looking Into ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ Gates Says By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service ABOARD A MILIARY AIRCRAFT, June 30, 2009 – A day after President Barack Obama reaffirmed his pledge to overturn the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today he has Defense Department lawyers exploring ways to make it more flexible until the law is changed. The law prohibits officials from inquiring into a servicemember’s sexual orientation in the absence of statements or acts that indicate the servicemember is homosexual, but allows...