Free Republic

irtually nothing in the world of Sept. 11 relief efforts has come without complications. Charities are being criticized for failing to distribute cash fast enough. Family members are locked in tense struggles over inheritances.But few concepts may be more confusing or daunting than the federal government's task of compensating the hundreds of families of foreign nationals who were killed or injured in the World Trade Center disaster.When Congress approved the multibillion-dollar Victim Compensation Fund in the weeks after the terror attack, the legislation provided that noncitizens, even illegal immigrants, would be entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Stunning politicians on both the left and right, a federal appeals court declared for the first time Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the words "under God" inserted by Congress in 1954. The ruling, if allowed to stand, would mean schoolchildren could no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court. Critics of the decision were flabbergasted and warned that it calls into question the use of "In God We Trust" on the nation's currency, the public singing of patriotic songs...

PLEASE SIGN BOTH OF THESE PETITIONS !!! I am #850 on this Petition...I am #320 on this Petition...Passing it on...

In the wake of the extraordinary speech George Bush gave in the Rose Garden Monday afternoon, here are several modest predictions: --Yasser Arafat will be gone as the leader of the Palestinian Authority within a year--probably within six months. And he will be gone in the best possible manner: not made a heroic ``martyr" by an Israeli bomb or bullet, nor sent into yet another forced exile to wreak more destruction as a heroic leader-in-exile. No, this time the tired, old, failed, disgraced little tyrant without a country will leave as the loser he is; he will be forced...

The pill does not raise the risk of breast cancer, not even among women who started taking it early or have close relatives with the disease, a new study found. Previous research had reached conflicting conclusions, though two of the most recent studies had found a higher risk for some women. And since nearly 80 percent of U.S. women born since 1945 have used oral contraceptives, even a small increase was reason for concern. In this new study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of...

Something about the decision to declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional really got under my skin. But the media response to the majority opinion of a California appellate court bothered me even more. And it wasn't the "liberal" media's handling of the issue. They took pains to outline the across-the-board response, from President Bush's "ridiculous" to Tom Daschle's "nuts" to the "consitutional scholars" who believe the Ninth Circuit Court has a point. The conservative pundits are the ones who got to me. Not once, tonight, did any of the "conservative" talking heads accuse the father of the second grader who...

Please keep adding 6/27/02 Elizabeth Smart dated updates to this thread... Remember to keep checking back to this thread today for today'sdeveloping news on the Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping. Some people may consider today to actually be day 23, but I count 1 day for each 24 hours that have passed since Elizabeth was kidnapped. Elizabeth was taken from her home at about 1:30am on the morning of June 5th, 2002. Brigette's Ping List - (How To Join & How It Works)If you would like on my Elizabeth Smart Ping List, Please send me a "Private Reply" with your request... Please...

I propose a coordinate FREEP in Washington,DC, State Capitals, County Seats, Cities, Towns, and Villages across the USA.We could do it this coming weekend or on the 4th of July.We did it during the last Presidential election. Can we do less now?The very fabric of America is being torn asunder. We can not let this assault on our heritage go unanswered.Its time to saddle up and hit the streets.

Chen tells armed forces to be alert to Chinese threatBy Brian HsuSTAFF REPORTERPresident Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday asked the military not to be confused by the false impression of peace in the Taiwan Strait that China has created during recent years. "The military should not slack off in its preparations for combat," Chen said as he delivered an address at a promotion ceremony for military officials raised in rank to one-star or two-star generals. "The false impression of peace in the Taiwan Strait that China has created is growing in its influence upon the people in Taiwan. People have become...

On May 28, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit celebrated his 77th birthday, as well as the second anniversary of the formation of the three-party coalition government after the April 1999 general elections. In a long speech devoted to outlining the achievements of the government, Ecevit stressed that his Democratic Left Party (DLP) was working in full harmony with the National Action Party (NAP) and the Motherland Party (MP). Listening to Ecevit, one might have been forgiven for overlooking the reality that the country he leads is still reeling from the effects of two major financial crises his coalition stumbled into during...

ASHINGTON, June 26 — Lawmakers, saying they were outraged and flabbergasted by the federal court decision that deemed unconstitutional a reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance, today quickly professed their own unwavering allegiance to the version approved by Congress 48 years ago.With what was lightning speed for their chamber, senators voted 99 to 0 just hours after the ruling to express their strong disagreement with the decision and to authorize their counsel to intervene in the case. The majority leader, Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, branded the decision "just nuts" and asked all senators to be...

My very special Father In-law needs your prayers! He was diagnosed with lung cancer last october and has gone through radition, chemotherapy and is now on an experimental drug.He has been fighting hard to beat this but today he found out it has spread to his liver. He is the most Special man, he is a very kind,gentle,loving and giving person and is very deserving of your prayers. Thanks

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It is summer reading time, and I have a perfect book for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to bring to Martha's Vineyard, that posh New York resort where she and husband Bill always find a nice captain of industry to loan them a cottage with servants and golf clubs. The book is a modern French masterpiece, "L' Effroyable Imposture," by France's next Jean-Paul Sartre, M. Thierry Meyssan, a sleepy-eyed moderate leftist, whose title, translated into English, reads, "The Horrifying Fraud." It is not a book about the Clintons. Rather, it is a book about a topic Hillary...

Israel cannot spare any effort to foil, prevent or delay the attainment of weapons of mass destruction by countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lybia, the head of Israel's Mossad said Wednesday. Speaking to a meeting of NATO's North Atlantic Council in Brussels, Mossad director, Ephraim Halevy, warned that radical Islamic terrorism as a whole, and suicide attacks in particular, pose a "formidable threat" to NATO member states whose "Muslim communities are rapidly developing and increasing in numbers and influence." Halevy took the opportunity to harshly criticize Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who he says signs "an agreement with a...

KAGOSHIMA, June 27, Kyodo - The Japan Coast Guard on Thursday morning began an operation to salvage an unidentified ship which sank in the East China Sea after a shoot-out with coast guard vessels last December. The coast guard at around 8 a.m. began lowering two submersible vessels -- one manned and one unmanned -- into the water at the place where the sunken vessel lies on the seabed about 390 kilometers west-northwest of Amami-Oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The unmanned submersible will survey the wreckage, which is lying at a depth of about 90 meters, to...

Throughout history a constant barometer for judging the level of hate and exclusion vs. the level of freedom and democracy in any society has been anti-Semitism -- how a country treats its Jewish citizens. Jews have been persecuted and delegitimized throughout history because of their perceived differences. Any society that can understand and accept Jews is typically more democratic, more open and accepting of "the other." This predictor has held true throughout the ages. Click here for the entire column.

Three years after the air crash death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren Bessette, the National Enquirer is coming out this weekend with a 26 page section devoted to the tragedy.The supermarket tab says it's had an investigative team working full time since the the fateful day of July 16.One claim they make is that the crash wasn't John's fault-that is was caused by Carolyn using her cell phone during the trip and and perhaps blocking out vital flight control functions. You can assume this investigation was taken seriously at the tab, because American...

PROFILE COMMENT CARD Use this form to submit your comments about one of the judges whose capsule biography appears in the Appellate Counsellor Profiles section. Before you submit your comments, you may wish to review my Privacy Policy. Please enter your name as you would like it to appear on the profile page (enter "Anonymous" if you do not want your name to appear) First name [PUT YOUR NAME HERE] Last name [PUT NAME HERE] Choose the name of the judge for whom you would like to submit a comment. Submit additional forms to comment on more than one judge....

The New York Times reports that Senator Hillary Clinton is nearing completion of her memoirs. Well, not actually Mrs. Clinton. A small village of personal aides and professional hacks pitched in to research and write the $8 million book. No doubt Mrs. Clinton's team will chronicle her "passionate" commitment to education reform, her "leadership" on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and her "selfless" crusade to help the underprivileged gain access to college. Among the many missing chapters in this self-appointed education guru's memoirs will be one on her role in tacitly endorsing the outrageous plundering of...

Wednesday evening Dear Friends, For those of you who haven’t already heard, a federal appeals court issued a ruling earlier today that may well prove to be detrimental to the freedoms that we all hold so dear. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA, declared that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because the words “under God” violate the separation of church and state. In his decision, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote “A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation ‘under...