Free Republic

Last week congress passed the Military Commissions Act, granting the Bush administration powers to detain interrogate and prosecute alleged terrorists and their supporters. Congress had to walk a fine line in creating this legislation; information gathered from the detainees has been an important tool in preventing terrorist attacks in the United States. But we had to show the administration and the world that AMERICA DOES NOT TORTURE! One of the interrogation methods outlawed by this bill is something called waterboarding. What is not being reported in the papers is the fact that many other severe methods of “aggressive” questioning are...

British to adopt the tactics that beat Rommel By Oliver Poole in Amarah (Filed: 24/08/2006) The soldiers of the Queen's Royal Hussars will today board a fleet of stripped-down Land Rovers, festooned with weapons and equipment, bound for the depths of the Iraqi desert. Their mission is to adopt tactics pioneered by the Long Range Desert Group, the forerunners of the SAS, more than six decades ago in the campaign against Rommel in North Africa. They will leave Camp Abu Naji, the only permanent base in Maysan province near the local capital of Amarah, and head into the remote region...

NEW ORLEANS - The American Psychological Association took a stand against torture Thursday but kept an existing policy saying that it's ethical for psychologists to assist in military interrogations. Critics said the new policy, adopted at the group's convention, does not go far enough to keep its members from becoming embroiled in practices that could violate the principles of human rights. "The ultimate question is, should psychologists participate in national security interrogations, and the answer is no," said Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. "It's a question that other medical groups have addressed and the APA has...

Man to adopt 1,000 in revenge on Berlin By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 09/05/2006) A German man is exploiting a loophole in the law to become the legal father of 1,000 foreign children so they can claim German passports. Jürgen Hass, who lives in Paraguay, says it is a personal "act of revenge" against the state. He has so far adopted 300 children from seven countries and plans to adopt a further 700 by the end of the year. Under a law on children's rights dating from 1998, a man can become the legal father of a child as...

Jeremiah Clayton Jones discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant just three weeks before the baby was due, when an adoption-agency lawyer called and asked if he would consent to have his baby adopted. "I said absolutely not," said Mr. Jones, a 23-year-old Arizona man who met his ex-fiancée at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. "It was an awkward moment, hearing for the first time that I would be a father, and then right away being told, 'We want to take your kid away.' But I knew that if I was having a baby, I wanted that baby." Mr. Jones...

When a rock hits the calm surface of a pond, ripples form at the point of impact and travel outward in expanding circles. The story begins with a young man and his dream - a dream of overcoming his health problems and flying for the Air Force. The boy, Ryan Penne, 14, of Chico, Calif., stepped into dreamland last year at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., when he and his family were guests of Col. Darryl W. Burke - then the 9th Reconnaissance Wing's vice commander - for a comprehensive base tour as part of the Make-A-Wish program. Ryan suffers...

ANY SOLDIER As the Veterans Day weekend wraps up, a letter-to-the-editor published in today's Nevada Appeal tells about a wonderful program called "Any Soldier" in which all of us across the country can do something a little more substantive than slapping a "I Support Our Troops" bumper sticker on the backs of our cars. http:\\www.anysoldier.com is a Website with a huge database of troop names and units where one may read their messages and choose whomever you would like to adopt," Jessi Winchester notes. "The contact person for each unit has agreed to accept mail and packages for distribution to...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, May 17, 2005 — One of the easiest and most effective ways U.S. soldiers can win the hearts and minds of Afghans is through the children. Troops from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Combined Joint Task Force 76, got a chance to win the hearts and minds of young Afghans May 9 during a trip to an orphanage and an all-girl school. The troops, most of whom are based out of the Southern European Task Force on Caserma Ederle in Vicenza, Italy, visited the side-by-side installations in Charikar, a village near Bagram Airfield. While there they handed out...

Nick Silverio of Safe Haven for Newborns in Florida has asked that we spread the word of a disabled newborn in need of adoption. The child, born today, has no arms, only one leg, and is missing a good portion of his jaw - but his prognosis is good.  The baby was abandoned by his mother under the Florida Safe Haven law and, unless potential adoptive parents can be found quickly, the child will become a ward of the state (and, it is feared, the target of euthanasia).  The Florida Department of Children and Families will not become involved unless...

Our dearest uncles/aunties Praise the Lord I thank all your love. I thank all your prayers. I happy so much. I thought you remove my message. I did not think you pray for our pappa, our mummy, me, my younger sister Hepzy, my youngest brother Lesly. Also all tsunami victims in India. I praise God your prayers. I praise God your love. Tears come from my eyes see your love. Again and again I praise God. Again I thank you all. Our pappa came back from tsunami refugee camps. We were afraid. Because we not know when another tsunami come....

CHICAGO - Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday pushed for lawmakers to approve a wide range of gun control measures, moving from the court system to the Legislature his campaign to hold gun dealers responsible for the costs to society of handgun violence. Daley, who has been urging lawmakers to adopt most of the reforms for years with little success, wants them to approve two new proposals that would prevent gun dealers from knowingly selling firearms to criminals and that would allow victims of gun violence to sue dealers who knew the weapon had been sold illegally. "I believe it balances...

I have a chance to go the the 2005 SHOT show in Las Vegas, and I'm not missing it. My Buddy Dave is a cop. He's a sniper, among other things, for the Coral Springs (FL) Police Department's SWAT group. Dave has been working for about a year with some cool guys from a group called "Adopt-a-Sniper" http://adoptasniper.orgFrom the Adopt a Sniper website: "Snipersonline UA and Sniper's Paradise have several members and Sniper friends actively engaged in the battle against terrorism. Our friends are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the number of snipers deployed around...

LOOKING for a cause with a difference? Adopt a sniper. A Texas police SWAT officer is running a charity for frontline snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan, supplying everything from baby wipes to body armour. The brainchild of Port Arthur detective and police sniper Brian Sain, Adopt a Sniper (www.adoptasniper.org) has raised thousands of dollars in cash and gear to supplement the kit of sharp shooters in up to 75 US combat platoons. "Being aware that police snipers often face the same logistical problems as their military counterparts, I assumed correctly that they were doing without things they needed to get...

This request was made earlier, but it bears posting again. The soldiers and their families need our support. While listening to Lucianne Goldberg on the Laura Ingraham show, a caller requested help for the soldiers again. She specifically mentioned this site. During the call, she said that soldiers that are injured during duty number over 10,000. Also, she said that a number of the families who travel to medical facilities to be with their loved ones are forced to sleep in their cars as they cannot afford lodging anywhere else. Sounded like this site and the post was worth a...

Would you like to support our troops? Please consider "adopting" a soldier by writing them letters and sending them packages. You can do so at www.operationmilitarysupport.com. We adopted a 22-year-old Marine who is stationed near Fallujah. We have exchanged several letters with him and have sent a couple of packages so far. In his first letter to us, he wrote, "Thank you for taking the time to support the troops. It is a great encouragement to know people appreciate what we are fighting and dying for." In his latest letter, he said that he knows another Marine who is not...

Loving Hispanic woman is a state agency's ideal Thursday, May 13, 2004 "It means so much to them to have a home, to have some stability," says Margaret Quintana, surrounded by four of her five foster children. Margaret Quintana's most prized possessions include the mementos of a typically proud mother: pictures of smiling children, and letters, cards, and poems from them that describe the difference that her love made in their lives.They are not her biological children. They are the dozens of foster children, most of them Hispanic, whom Quintana has taken into her home during the last 16 years.Quintana...

Adopt-A-Soldier for the holidays Please fill in the form with the requested information and we will mail you your soldier's info so that you may write to him/her. This is being done for security reasons. We do not email soldier's addresses.    Thank you, Frankie Mayo Your Name _________________ Street Address ______________      City _______________________   State ______________________    Zip code ___________________   Phone _____________________   Email ______________________ Adopt-A-Soldier For The Holidays

The California Supreme Court is considering a request by a lesbian woman that could nullify thousands of adoptions by homosexual couples in the state. A pro-family group contends the parental-rights case exposes illegal policies of liberal judges, Gov. Gray Davis and his Department of Social Services. Gov. Gray Davis "Gray Davis made up his own law and pushed through gay adoptions behind the voters' backs," insisted Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, a nonprofit family issues group. The case centers on "second-parent adoption," in which a birth mother's unmarried partner adopts the mother's child, usually conceived by...

<p>FORT BENNING, Ga. - Pamela Bates worried about getting depressed after her husband shipped out to Kuwait for the possible war with Iraq.</p> <p>Her solution was a project that keeps her busy 16 hours a day and lifts the spirits of thousands of soldiers living in tent cities in the Kuwaiti desert.</p> <p>Her Adopt-A-Soldier Web site - Hugs to Kuwait - was first intended to serve only members of her husband's unit, the 1st Battalion of the 10th Artillery Regiment from Fort Benning.</p>

<p>State Rep. Randy Ball, R-Titusville, who was interviewed on ABC News' Primetime Thursday by host Diane Sawyer, supported the state's ban.</p> <p>"I feel very strongly that allowing homosexuals to adopt is a bad idea, primarily because of evidence which conclusively shows that the homosexual lifestyle is a very destructive one," Ball said.</p>