Free Republic

Over the weekend, the smoke that shrouds USF professor Sami Al-Arian thickened. Unidentified Israeli intelligence officials said in the Tampa Tribune that he was among the founders of the board that governs the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian denied it. For years here, I've defended Al-Arian's right to speak and act. But I have to admit that these allegations have shaken my faith in him. Speaking up for a political cause he believes in is one thing. Being one of the guiding lights of a terrorist group is entirely another. The Israelis making the charges did not want to be identified....

Be one of the first to see the results of the most recent Battleground Poll with analysis from pollsters Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake! Come see how President Bush fares against the Democrats in Congress and how the two parties measure up against one another. The results from this national study of N=1,000 registered 'likely' voters will be posted FREE to the public at The Tarrance Group on Tuesday June 25th, 10AM EDT. Just click on the Battleground 2002 logo on the home page or the logo above.

<p>HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- President Jiang Zemin will be dispensing what pundits call 'steady-the-heartbeat' pills when he comes to Hong Kong on Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of city's reversion to Chinese rule.</p> <p>In what could be his last official visit to the Special Administrative Region (SAR), Jiang, 75, will try to reassure its people that the motherland will do whatever it takes to boost the sagging local economy.</p>

Newspaper: Israel ties Tampa university professor to Jihad Tuesday, June 25, 2002 Associated Press TAMPA - A professor who has been under investigation for providing financial support to terrorists is a founding member of the governing council of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Tampa Tribune is reporting. In a story in Sunday's edition, the newspaper cited unnamed current and former Israeli intelligence officials interviewed in Tel Aviv who said Sami Al-Arian as a founding member of the Majlis Shura. The panel functions like a Jihad board of directors and appears to have been formed in the early 1990s, about...

Peace finally has a chance. On Monday, President Bush announced a bold initiative for Israeli/Palestinian reconciliation, setting forth conditions that should have been set long ago. In so doing, he implicitly rejected the framework established by the 1993 Oslo Accords, and emphasized one point in particular — Yasser Arafat has got to go.Arafat had a good thing going. Oslo rewarded his decades-long career of terrorism by handing him political power. The 1998 Wye River Accords gave him an additional $400 million in U.S. aid. The 2000 Camp David plan would have given him a state, had he not chosen...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Thirty-six people, including eight Department of Motor Vehicles employees, have been indicted on charges of trafficking in fake driver's licenses and other forms of state-issued identification. Authorities said Monday that those indicted were part of four independent networks that helped create and sell fake documents to customers who could not otherwise obtain them legally. Buyers then used the fake documents to lease cars or obtain jobs. "Identity theft goes to the heart of security," said Peter C. Harvey, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. However, there is no evidence that any of those indicted in...

New poll results due out at 10am today. Check www.tarrance.com and select "Battleground". Hoping for good news.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 25 (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat on Tuesday brushed off U.S. President George W. Bush's call for a new Palestinian leadership, saying it was up to Palestinians to decide the matter in elections. The Palestinian president was speaking after Bush made clear in a speech on Monday he had written off Arafat as part of any peace settlement, saying Palestinians must pick leaders "not compromised by terror" to achieve a state alongside Israel. Asked for a response to Bush's call for a new leadership, Arafat told reporters: "This is what my people will decide. They are the...

President Bush's speech outlined well enough the general parameters of peace — Israeli security, a new democratic government in Palestine without Mr. Arafat, return of most of the West Bank et al. Whether such promised autonomy will ensure a cessation of suicide murdering in the here and now is another matter — so is the advice to seek help from the "Arab states" in helping the Palestinian people find a "constitutional framework" and "a working democracy," as well as "multi-party local elections" — inasmuch as not a single Arab state would itself allow such things within its own borders....

A Few of FR's Finest...........Every Day FR is a Treasure Trove of talented, compassionate, patriotic, wonderful people who gather every day to discuss the latest news and issues;  salute and support our military and our leaders;  tell a few jokes;  learn a new word;  write poetry;  pray for those in need;  and congratulate those who are deserving. Thank you, Jim Robinson, for giving us the vehicle in which we can express ourselves. Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.  I can remember lurking when there were only a few regulars...

TAIPEI, June 24 — Ju Gau-jeng was a presumptuous and pugnacious politician but a top vote-getter and darling of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party when it was the fledgling opposition in the late 1980s. Today, the 48-year-old Ju is reviled by the now ruling DPP, which leans towards the island's independence from China, because of his willingness to echo Beijing's ''one country, two systems'' formula for peaceful reunification. ''East Germans envy Hong Kong residents, who had 'one country, two systems' which eased the (economic) pains of reunification,'' Ju said. On July 1, Hong Kong will mark the fifth anniversary of the...

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2002 (LSN.ca) - The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted Friday to affirm the "unrestricted right" to abortion prior to the child being able to survive on his/her own outside the womb. After viability, the assembly says, late term abortion is still acceptable but pastoral and medical counsel is advised and it is suggested only in cases of rape, incest, fetal suffering, and to preserve the health and life of the mother. Judy L. Woods, moderator of the denomination's advisory committee on litigation said "We affirmed the fundamental right to (abortion) prior to viability. But...

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin defended his new pro-West foreign policy as the best guarantor of Russia's economic growth and denied claims it had caused a rift within the country's political and military establishment. In a wide-ranging press conference, Mr. Putin said his top priority was to stimulate growth, boost foreign trade and "lift the country out of poverty" -- a task he said could be accomplished only by making Russia a more trustworthy partner in the eyes of the West. "Russia must change from a country that was an adversary or an enemy for the vast majority of...

Gay Kentucky Dads Expecting Quadruplets Surrogate Mother A Customer Of Couple Posted: 10:29 a.m. EDT June 24, 2002 LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Two gay men in Kentucky are getting ready to be dads -- four times over. A surrogate mother is due to give birth to their quadruplets in August. Michael Meehan is the biological father of the quadruplets, who were conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The mother is a customer at a hair salon owned by Meehan and his partner, Thomas Dysarz. Meehan told the Lexington News-Leader that the most important thing is to raise their children to be good people....

Cows rampage in Norway In a bizarre series of incidents, two farmers in different parts of the country were hospitalized after being attacked by cows. Elsewhere, four men narrowly missed having their car crushed by a crash-landing cow. This kind of entertainment - cow pushing, from the Norwegian Idiot Association's annual meeting - is no longer funny PHOTO: ARVE HENRIKSEN Friday saw the first attack in the odd cow crime wave. Stian Skoglund, 23, was bashed and trampled by a furious cud-chewer. Stian was helping his girlfriend with her summer job on a farm in Belta in Åsnes when the...

Daughter Chained Spread-Eagle On Bed Woman Reportedly Was Dating Married Man Posted: 3:03 p.m. EDT June 24, 2002 FULLERTON, Calif. -- The parents of a 21-year-old California woman allegedly chained their daughter spread-eagle on her bed so she wouldn't go out with her married boyfriend. David Mata and his wife Guadalupe were arrested at their apartment Sunday night. They have been booked for investigation of false imprisonment, assault and battery, and making criminal threats. Bail is set at $25,000. Lt. Danny Becerra said the couple told police they used the 30-pound chains and two large gate locks to pin...

WASHINGTON — In the war against al-Qaeda, the hard part is only beginning. The planned pullout of British and Canadian forces from Afghanistan this summer signals an end to the military phase of the war on Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Pentagon officials and terrorism experts say. It is now up to intelligence operatives, law enforcement officials and covert commando units to scour for al-Qaeda cells that have dispersed around the globe. "Afghanistan was a threat to this country. The Taliban government and the al-Qaeda ... were using it for terrorist training," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week....

Bethesda, Maryland -- Lockheed Martin Corp. said Italy plans to invest $1.02 billion in the development of the company's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter over the next decade, making it the second-largest foreign backer of the fighter jet. The U.K. has agreed to invest $2 billion in the jet, the most expensive warplane program in history. Denmark has committed $125 million and Canada will invest $150 million. Turkey is expected to join the program next month, Lockheed said in a statement, joining Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Lockheed, the largest defense contractor, beat Boeing Co. for the 10-year, $18.9 billion...

Saddam Hussein is a known evil. That's one reason President George W. Bush is so determined to topple him.U.N. weapons inspectors spent more than seven years exposing the full dimensions of Saddam's weapons ambitions. Such insights don't exist for Bush's other "axis of evil" states, Iran and North Korea.What was learned was sobering. Saddam has been mounting an industrial-strength quest for weapons of mass destruction for decades. He's believed to have some of them ready to go today - mostly chemical weapons and possibly bio-bombs.Still, after years poking around in his palaces, offices, biowar labs, testing sites, weapons dumps...

<p>When San Francisco police said they couldn't spare an officer to arrest a man suspected of stealing Tom Van Lokeren's credit cards and checks, the 47-year-old North Beach tax accountant took matters into his own hands.</p> <p>Van Lokeren bought a large fishing net at Fisherman's Wharf, some pepper spray and a stun gun at a military surplus store and then lured the suspect into a trap on a busy downtown street.</p>