Free Republic

MAPLE VALLEY — Three plainclothes King County sheriff’s detectives were shot this evening as they raided a suspected meth lab at a house in a heavily wooded area near Highway 18 and 208th Avenue Southeast. The detectives’ injuries are not expected to be life-threatening. Two detectives, both from the North Kenmore precinct, were airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. One was shot in the stomach, the other shot four times in the legs. The third detective, from the Maple Valley precinct, was shot in the foot and taken to Valley General Hospital in Renton. The identities of the officers...

<p>China's air force test-fired a new air-to-air missile for the first time last week in a move that has altered the military balance across the Taiwan Strait, defense officials say.</p> <p>The missile was identified by U.S. intelligence agencies last week as the Russian-made AA-12 Adder during a test-firing by two Chinese Su-30 fighters, said officials familiar with reports of the testing.</p>

<p>Two liberal advocacy groups and the American Bar Association have been accused in court memos of colluding to write ethical rules regulating judicial travel that would have derailed one of President Bush's appeals court nominees.</p> <p>The advocacy groups are leading the opposition to the nomination of District Judge D. Brooks Smith to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia for taking privately funded judicial training trips.</p>

<p>RED HOUSE, Va. — Militant American Muslims operating out of rural communes in California and other Western states have targeted this rural Virginia community for an influx of members who have ties to Middle Eastern terrorists.</p> <p>Law-enforcement authorities said the Muslims — mostly converts — are expected to join with radical Muslims living on 45 acres in this small Charlotte County community, 25 acres near Meherrin in neighboring Prince Edward County and on other parcels of land owned by the group's members and supporters.</p>

Please keep adding 07/01/02 Elizabeth Smart dated updates to this thread... Remember to keep checking back to this thread today for today's developing news on the Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping. Some people may consider today to actually be day 27, 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......

With Fires in Burning in nearly every state around us I knew it was a matter of time before one started near us. Tonight our number was up. When I woke up at 9:30 to come into work I saw the telltale sign of a large smoke plume in the mountains to the east of us between Springville and Provo. It looks like it has been burning about 2 hours now and has burned a swath about 1-2 miles wide from the bottom foot-hills near the valley floor at about 4500 ft elevation all the way to the tops mountains...

Letter from Palestine? http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | JUNE 2005, JERUSALEM I'm writing to you from Jerusalem, where I recently interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Effie Eitam . Eitam entered the Israeli government as minister-without-portfolio in the government of Ariel Sharon in 2002 and as a member of the National Religious Party. After the Palestinian intifada intensified during the fall of 2002, Sharon called new elections. Likud won a plurality and formed a coalition with the other right-wing parties in Knesset. Sharon made Eitam minister of defense. In the winter of 2003, the largest terrorist attack in Israeli history took place in Haifa, with...

Former second lady Tipper Gore was so shaken by her husband's failure to win the White House two years ago that she sought psychiatric counseling to reassure herself she wasn't mentally ill. On Friday Mrs. Gore told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that the Supreme Court's decision to stop the 2000 election's Florida recount left her in "a state of shock." "It took me a while to work my way out of that," she explained. "I couldn't believe that the voting would be stopped." Her husband's defeat, coupled with the October 2001 death of her mother, Margaret Ann Aitcheson, sent...

US "Pledge" ruling exposes political scoundrels By Bill Vann 28 June 2002 The ruling by a three-judge federal appeals court panel in San Francisco that compelling the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to “one nation under God” in public schools is unconstitutional has afforded yet another opportunity for America’s politicians to make fools of themselves. The decision did no more than reaffirm the essential right to freedom from government “establishment of religion” and the principle of separation of church and state enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. “The statement that the United States is a nation...

<p>Math teacher Jim Bloodsworth, a retired Air Force master sergeant, was forced to seek a restraining order against a student because, after the student assaulted a classmate, punched a hole in a window and threatened to kill the teacher, the school failed to do anything.</p>

My column first appeared in The Boston Herald on June 25, 1983. Nearly 20 years and more than 2,100 opinion pieces later, it's been great fun, but now it's time for a change. My years at the Herald have been among the happiest and most productive of life. As the Chinese would say, I've been cursed to write in interesting times. I covered five presidential elections, interviewed a sitting president, and filed from El Salvador during the civil war, Belgrade two weeks after the bombing ended, Israel from the first Intifada through the current crisis and in the aftermath...

The new Department of Homeland Security may seem benign at the moment, but it can become an instrument of terror and tyranny in the hands of future leaders. This new department would worry about policing the homefront, kind of like Nazi or Soviet Secret Police. It may seem nice right now because we're all imaging Bush as the head of this Department. Can you imagine what XXXClinton would have done with all this homeland power? Nowadays you see Bush detaining people without questioning and without charge, including one American citizen. It's not horrible when Bush does it becuase we know...

Frontline ... Black Hawk pilots Tara, left, and Khirsten US girl fliers have won the respect of Britain’s super-tough Marines in Afghanistan. The girls, all in their 20s, have been ferrying Our Boys into dangerous frontline positions in their Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. And they have amazed the men with their cool, professional skill. The four — dubbed the Black Hawk Babes by the Brits — have come under intense enemy fire during arduous missions. And they have achieved incredible feats like hovering over narrow mountain ridges with just two wheels on the ground as troops disembark. Speaking...

Sickly Turkey gives way to despair With the economy in tatters and their veteran leader dying, the Turks' fate seems to lie either with Islamists or the far right Turkey's political and economic elite is so fearful of what the future might hold that it is praying that the dying 77-year-old Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, can somehow hold on. He has been away from his office for almost two months, with spinal problems, stomach problems and a neurological disease that leaves him looking shaken and confused. Pale and frail, Ecevit faced MPs from his left-of-centre party three days ago. He...

<p>Faith helped build democracy here. Can it do the same in the Muslim world?</p> <p>A few days before July 4, 1787, Benjamin Franklin rose in the Constitutional Convention and, with a few words, likely saved the republic. The war with the British was won, but the monumental task of creating a workable federal government was floundering. The delegates were at an impasse and would likely disband.</p>

Remaining CEOs Make a Break for It Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican Border El Paso, Texas---Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense. "They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double- booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my daughters." Calling themselves the CEOnistas,...

June 29, 2002, 11:52PM Donations can't save energy companies from scrutiny By JULIE MASON Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- It took Enron Corp. millions of dollars spread over dozens of lawmakers, lobbyists and political parties to reach an apex of influence in the nation's capital. Other Houston-based energy companies took note, and it wasn't long before El Paso Corp., Reliant Energy and Dynegy also were pouring millions into federal campaigns and lobbying, where money and access and influence all run in the same pipeline. But now, after spending millions toward achieving Enron-like levels of prestige in Washington,...

<p>In searching the political clouds for the origins of last week's thunderclap from President Bush--his call for the overthrow of Yasser Arafat--the meteorologists of the press corps have focused on the predictable rift between "hardliners" and "pragmatists." A more accurate description would be to say this represents the triumph of--for want of a better term--Wilsonians over realpolitikers, a development of considerable longterm consequence.</p>

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose country today takes the rotating presidency of the European Union from Spain, said yesterday he agrees with the US call that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat needs to be replaced. Rasmussen, in an interview with a Danish newspaper, said that since Arafat either can't or won't put an end to suicide bombings, there is a need for a Palestinian leadership that will. Rasmussen's comments were welcomed in Jerusalem, with diplomatic officials saying they hope it heralds the beginning of a presidency sympathetic to Israel. One diplomatic official said there has been a significant...

Just announced. Erlich picked Michael Steele as running mate. Yeee haaa!!!!! Personally I'd vote for Steele over Erlich any day.