Free Republic

Two kinds of people reacted to news of Ted Kennedy’s death last week. The first — not all liberals, either — spoke of Kennedy’s hard work in the United States Senate, his dream of universal healthcare, his commitment to working people, civil rights and equality. This “most imperfect man,” wrote analyst William Bradley, was also a powerful advocate for progressive principles. Barack Obama predictably (though accurately) observed that “for America, he was a defender of a dream.” In another variation on the visionary theme, Joe Biden said of his old friend, “He was never small.” The other kind of reaction...

Disputing the forecast made by the United Nations body studying global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned in early May that the glaciers in the world's highest mountain range could vanish within three decades, V.K. Raina, a leading glaciologist and former Additional Director-General of Geological Survey of India (GSI), claimed recently that the issue of glacial retreat is being sensationalized by a few individuals. Raina, who has been associated with the research and data collection in over 25 glaciers in India and abroad, debunked the theory that the Gangotri glacier is retreating alarmingly. He maintains that...

Jaycee Lee Dugard: Inside the secret world where she was kept captive for 18 years For 18 years, this was the chilling secret world where Jaycee Lee Dugard was held captive and gave birth to two daughters - fathered by her abductor. Philip Sherwell 29 Aug 2009 Chilling message hung on a tree Photo: NICK STERN / [Pic in URL] But the ramshackle sheds and tents dotted around the compound behind the home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido in the middle of a working-class Californian district are now yielding their squalid secrets. Extraordinary pictures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph allow...

The son of a notorious CIA double-agent jailed in 1997 for spying for Russia has also pleaded guilty to espionage charges, the US Department of Justice said. Nathaniel Nicholson, 25, appeared Thursday before District Judge Anna Brown and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering, a statement said. Harold Nicholson, 58, the highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of spying, was jailed in 1997 and is serving a 23-year prison sentence. He must also answer the latest conspiracy charges but has pleaded not guilty. The younger Nicholson faces more...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A survey of statements from various pro-abortion, embryonic stem-cell research (ESCr), and homosexualist groups responding to the death of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy shows a unified salute to a man they say fully engaged his considerable political prowess to benefit their causes.  One homosexualist publication revealed this week that the Massachusetts 2007 true marriage referendum would have succeeded had Kennedy not secretly lobbied individual senators to change their vote.Sen. Kennedy succumbed to a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday night at the age of 77.  An article in the Thursday edition of Bay Windows, New...

ASHBURN, Va. -- Washington Redskins fullback Mike Sellers apologized Saturday for throwing the American flag to the ground during lineup introductions before an exhibition game against the New England Patriots. "I meant no disrespect," he said. The Redskins last year began a routine in which the last person introduced before a game runs out of the tunnel hoisting the American flag. Sellers carried the flag to midfield, then flung it down near the 50-yard line before joining his teammates in a midfield huddle. Linebacker Robert Henson removed the flag from the turf.

Stephen F. Hayward posted a long article a couple days ago on NRO entitled, "The Reagan Revolution and Its Discontents." It's a good and thoughtful piece, and I commend it to your attention for a number of reasons. Hayward wrote it, by his own statement, to clear away some of the fogginess of nostalgia from the conservative memory of President Reagan and his accomplishments, and also to remind us, almost thirty years on, of the political reality the Great Communicator faced in his day; the piece succeeds quite nicely in both aims, in my judgment. I was particularly interested, though,...

Earlier this month, we used DirigoChoice in Maine as an example of the disaster a public-plan health-care reform can generate. Cato Institute looks a little farther down the coast to Massachusetts, where the state began its own health-care reform complete with individual mandates and a government plan. Cato calls it an “almost perfect” mirror of ObamaCare, complete with promises of reducing cost and extending care — that failed in both respects: Massachusetts reduced its uninsured population by two-thirds — yet the cost would be considered staggering, had state officials not done such a good job of hiding it. Finally, Massachusetts...

All good things must come to an end, and such is the case with the bartending career of Angelo Cammarata. At 95 years young, he's the world's oldest bartender, but he plans to finally throw in the bar towel some time in the next couple of weeks. As an interesting AP story points out, Cammarata served his first drink - a bottle of Fort Pitt beer - at his father's grocery store just moments after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. He's been slinging the sauce ever since and only rarely indulges in alcohol himself, one of those secrets to a...

DENVER — The seminarians' wallets are empty, except for driver's licenses and insurance cards. To buy cigarettes or clothes or anything else, they must ask their superiors for money — an exercise in obedience and a reminder that material things aren't important.They have virtually no time alone, on or off campus, and are required to travel in pairs, "two by two," like Jesus' disciples. They live in a world without cell phones or personal computers, and their evenings end promptly at 10.No Roman Catholic seminary is a resort. But few men who study for the priesthood endure the sort of...

IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape. Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women...

Yale has run up the white flag to terrorism. ... American universities have no problem questioning the most cherished Western values and American cultural norms. At times, the ivory tower seems to relish flouting propriety, self-righteously proclaiming that the mission of higher education is to push the boundaries of convention and defending their acts in the name of academic freedom. We are certain that if a book raised the ire of conservatives, Christians, gun owners or other politically incorrect members of society, Yale would double down on whatever made the work controversial. However, for whatever reason, whether financial motives or...

(snip) “The people of Illinois deserve a senator who will restore honest government, strengthen our national security, fight for veterans and bring fiscal discipline to Washington,” McCain, an Arizona senator, said in a statement. “Mark Kirk has my strongest endorsement.”(snip)

Lou Holtz discusses the AP Top 25 poll and then defends his choice of Notre Dame for the BCS title game

Hamas summer camp for children in elementary school in Northern Gaza. In the Poster: “A victory for Gaza, glory of Jerusalem: Youth to overcome the highest peaks to only recognize Islam as the only religion”. Labor Day signals the end of summer. Camp days are over and its time for school. This is not only true in the United States but it is also happening in Gaza. Of course the children in the United States made lanyards, and pottery ,swam, played baseball, or maybe even even sat around a fire telling in their camps. In Gaza, kids who go to...

Michelle Malkin's book "Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies" has been at #1 on The New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list for the past 4 weeks, but The New York Times has still not written a review of it. First week at #1Second week at #1Third week at #1 Fourth week at #1

Former schoolteacher Evelyn Miller doesn't plan to retire from the anti-illegal immigration movement any time soon. She's too busy organizing petitions, blasting e-mails, faxes and letters, and threatening politicians who are up for re-election. The 76-year-old member of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform says she is driven by her belief that those in the country illegally are taking jobs and taxpayer services from Americans. "We're soldiers in the foxhole," Miller said from her dining room in Irvine, which doubles as a home office

MORRISTOWN TEA PARTY Labor Day 9/7 On the Green 11:00 - 2:00 Guest speakers include: Bob Grant, noted radio talkshow hostSteve Malzberg, WOR 710 AM talkshow hostCharles Payne, FOX Business News contributorTom Adkins, CommonConservatives.comAnd more... Make History With Us!April 15 - 2,000 Attended July 4 - 4,000 Attended September 7 - ???? Their goal is CONTROL. Our's is LIBERTY

Preface: Did alleged abductor of Jaycee Dugard, Philip Garrido, receive Section 8 rental assistance payments? Did actions of the Race Equity Project block the City of Antioch and Contra Costa County from inspecting the Garrido home? Read below. Excerpted from Race Equity Project homepage http://lsnc.net/equity/2008/09/27/targeted-enforcement-of-section-8-participants-in-antioch/ Targeted Enforcement of Section 8 Participants in Antioch September 27, 2008 (posted by ElektroMoose) Author: The Race Equity Project, Legal Services of Northern California Several trends collided in the town of Antioch to cause a “perfect storm” threatening the civil rights of African-American participants in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. Antioch, a city...

Why this baby boom will make us all go bust 29th August 2009 Soaring immigration - and a migrant baby boom - has sent Britain's population rocketing over the 61 million mark. We are now the second most densely populated country in the world, something that will be all too apparent on the roads and trains this bank holiday weekend. Sadly, though, it is not the indigenous middle-class, hard-working, tax-paying population that's exploding. High birth rates: An increase in young, single mothers, as well as immigrant parents, are making the Britain's population to soar According to statistics, our latest baby...