Free Republic

<p>June 26, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - A roommate of two Sept. 11 hijackers was arrested by the feds and questioned about his relationship with the terrorists, a Justice Department official said last night.</p> <p>Rasmi Al Shannaq of Jordan was arrested in Baltimore on a visa violation but grilled about his relationship with Nawaq Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour, who hijacked the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, the official said.</p>

State welfare workers too often withhold key information about benefits from clients and aren't doing enough to help those who don't speak English, a new study has found. The survey of 13 welfare offices in King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties found that policies the Department of Social and Health Services launched more than a year ago to improve services are not always followed by frontline workers. "It's critical for families in crisis that they get equal access," said Jon Gould, deputy director of the Children's Alliance, which released the 37-page report yesterday. "Caseworker discretion shouldn't govern whether a family...

SONOYTA, Sonora - Mexico has been sending more soldiers to the U.S. border to combat drug smuggling, and some are raising alarms on the other side by carrying their operations into U.S. territory. Even more worrisome, critics say, are recent shootings involving an American tourist, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and migrants. They fear the troops are overzealous and so poorly trained that they are a hazard to innocent people in both countries. Two of the shootings were on Mexico's side of the border, and the one in U.S. territory occurred in a remote area where the border isn't marked...

Israel's Waiting Game By: Avi DavisIn July 1949, Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, six months after the cessation of hostilities in Israel's War of Independence, wrote in his diary: "An armistice agreement is (now) sufficient for us. If we chase after peace the Arabs will demand a price: either territory or the return of refugees, or both. Its best to wait a few years." It is a symbol of Arab obduracy that ten years after renouncing that policy, the Israelis are back to where they started. No peace, no negotiation and little recognition. Some may cavil with the nuances...

<p>Comes now the latest shot in the battle over whether the media tilt to the left — a study from the Media Research Center, showing that the three major television news networks attach the label "conservative" far more often than they do "liberal" in their news reports.</p>

Has the war on terrorism become the modern equivalent of the Roman Circus, drawing the people's attention away from the failures of those who rule them? Corporate America is a shambles because deregulation, the mantra of our president and his party, has proved to be a license to steal. Yet to question our leaders' stewardship of the economy has been made to seem unpatriotic. Continues. =============================================== The New Tin-Foilersby JohnHuang2June 19, 2002 They're crawling all over C-Span's morning call-in shows. They scribble away feverishly at big city dailies, the New York Times and L.A. Times, among them. You'll find them...

The New York Times ran a piece on June 23rd related to the Flight 587 investigation titled "For Air Crash Detectives, Seeing Isn't Believing" making the case that in addition to offering little if any useful information, eyewitnesses offer such contradictory accounts, as to render them useless.   Since TWA Flight 800, it's long been known by those close to the NTSB, those who have read their TWA Flight 800 Final Report, and those who listened to the NTSB at Press Conferences after Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, that witness are viewed by the NTSB as "notoriously unreliable"....

JERUSALEM, June 25 (JTA) — President Bush’s Middle East speech arguably was the most unabashedly pro-Israel statement ever by an American president — yet it is getting mixed reviews in Israel. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is delighted by the fact that Bush did not lay down a firm deadline for Palestinian statehood, and that he made very clear what the Palestinians will have to do to before they can get their own state. But Foreign Minister Shimon Peres fears that in demanding that the Palestinians oust Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat — and replace him with leaders “not compromised by...

Inadequate Control of World's Radioactive Sources Related Coverage: WorldAtom pages on Radioactive Sources Vienna, 24 June 2002 -- The radioactive materials needed to build a "dirty bomb" can be found in almost any country in the world, and more than 100 countries may have inadequate control and monitoring programs necessary to prevent or even detect the theft of these materials, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says. The IAEA points out that while radioactive sources number in the millions, only a small percentage have enough strength to cause serious radiological harm. It is these powerful sources that need to be...

Pro Palestinian spokespeople play bait and switch to the charge of Jew-hatred as the motivating factor behind suicide bombings with sanctimonious stock lectures on Christian complicity in the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. They blame Israel for "occupation" without explaining why Muslims, where they maintain substantial populations, seem incapable of living peacefully in countries they don't control such as, besides Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and elsewhere. These premises are false on three counts. Nazism was not Christian but neo-Pagan, Moslem imperialism today echoes Nazi aggression, and Arabs share a historic complicity in the Nazi Holocaust. In fact, understanding Arab support...

HUNDREDS of people watched the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 near Kennedy International Airport in New York on Nov. 12, and in the course of 93 seconds they apparently saw hundreds of different things. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, which announced this month that it had gathered 349 eyewitness accounts through interviews or written statements, 52 percent said they saw a fire while the plane was in the air. The largest number (22 percent) said the fire was in the fuselage, but a majority cited other locations, including the left engine, the right engine, the left wing,...

President Bush set an ambush of his own for the terrorists in the Middle East. The administration noticed a connection between Bush's pre-announced speech schedule and fresh attacks against Israel. Every time the White House would announce President Bush was prepared to outline his "vision" for peace in the Middle East, Arafat's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade launched another strike against Israeli civilians. The White House tested the theory several times last week. Announcing a major Middle East policy speech in two days meant a major terror strike against Israel in one day. Bush grew more grave, snapping on one occasion...

In response to my recent column, "Why I'm not a liberal," a reader accuses me of being "intolerant." "I think you are intolerant of those whose politics differ with you," writes Scott Mitchell, a proud liberal. "Intolerance" is an epithet for liberals. For me, it's a compliment. I am intolerant. I'm intolerant of evil. That's a good thing. Tolerance of evil would be evil. I'm intolerant of Americans who don't want to live within the confines of our constitutional system. That's a good thing. Tolerance of unlawful behavior and the rule of men rather than the rule of law would...

<p>QALANDIYA CHECKPOINT, Israel — In 1967, Israel's army became a legend, routing three Arab armies massed on its borders. But those renowned warriors are gone now, peacefully retired from their military service.</p> <p>A new generation of Israeli soldiers mans a checkpoint outside the West Bank town of Ramallah, facing not Syrian tanks and Egyptian infantry, but Palestinians trying to get to work, or go home, or reach a hospital. Right now the deadliest enemy is the suicide bomber, indistinguishable from ordinary humanity until he or she self-destructs.</p>

Six Killed in Van Crash; 33 Illegal Immigrants Were on Board Tuesday, June 25, 2002 SAN DIEGO — A van carrying 27 illegal immigrants smashed head-on into two other vehicles as it went the wrong way on an interstate with its headlights off, apparently in an attempt by the driver to avoid an immigration checkpoint. Six people were killed and 31 injured. Loaded with immigrants from Mexico and Brazil, the Dodge van sideswiped two cars and then collided with a Ford Explorer about 15 miles north of the Mexican border Monday night, the California Highway patrol said. The Explorer flew...

The Supreme Court stepped over quite a few bodies (dead and alive) when it ruled that the "mentally retarded" must be exempt from the death penalty. First to be trodden were the victims of the petitioner in the case. Daryl Atkins had abducted serviceman Eric Nesbitt from an air base in Virginia, made him withdraw money from an ATM, and then drove him to a remote area, where, despite his pleas, Atkins shot his victim eight times. Atkins had "16 prior felony convictions for robbery, abduction, use of firearm and maiming." Next to be sidestepped by the High Court were...

At this time in our history, what could be more important than the survival of our country and the protection of its people? You would think that our elected officials would have these concerns uppermost in their minds. Think again. On June 20, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed by voice vote Sen. Orrin Hatch's, R-Utah, bill, S. 1291 – legislation to grant in-state tuition to illegal aliens. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has introduced H.R. 1452, inappropriately and disarmingly named the "Family Reunification Act" that contains among its many objectionable provisions a repeal of mandatory detention, and creation of a loophole...

<p>The Pentagon is rapidly moving ahead with deploying a new defense system in the next few years that can knock out enemy missiles, the general in charge of the program said yesterday.</p> <p>"Our goal is very simple: to defend against limited long-range threats and robustly against shorter-range threats," Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said in discussing the $48 billion development program.</p>

MANILA, Philippines –– The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks lived lavishly in the Philippines with his nephew, the 1993 World Trade Center plotter, partying, scuba-diving and renting a helicopter as they planned attacks against Americans, according to a former police official who investigated al-Qaida. U.S. counterterrorism officials have said that since Sept. 11, evidence has mounted that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was chief among Osama bin Laden lieutenants organizing the plot that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing more than 3,000 people. Abu Zubaydah – a senior...

The United States has faced the totalitarian threat three times in the past 60 years. It defeated fascism directly, crushing Hitler and Japanese imperialism with controlled fury, American productivity and the courage of millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. The United States wore down Soviet communism, refusing to relax its expensive and exhausting vigil, even when some of the battles of the Cold War went against the West. Now the third challenge in the form of Islamic extremism has risen up. Does the United States have the staying power to meet this latest manifestation of the evil impulse to...