Free Republic

Boston - No taxation without representation? Residents in Boston, New York, and other cities are reviving America's famous battle cry for political revolution. In the midst of a stormy national debate on immigration, they're challenging the idea of excluding noncitizens on a front that's less noticed but equally contentious. They want immigrants to vote. While that idea may seem outrageous to many, it's less radical than it sounds to its supporters. They want to limit such voting to local races and referendums and, in most areas, to legal immigrants. Supporters argue that noncitizens are long-term residents who care about the...

Miss USA gives Mexicans lesson in graciousness By Herald wire services Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Miss USA Rachel Smith gets up after falling during the Miss Universe pageant. (AP photo) MEXICO CITY - When Miss USA took the stage, there was nary a caballero in the crowd. The Mexican audience booed and hooted Rachel Smith repeatedly during the weekend’s Miss Universe competition. The music was too loud to tell how they reacted when the gringa took a tumble on stage. Smith was encountering what other Americans have before her. Mexican rudeness toward all things American. In 2004 and 2005, Mexican...

PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- The Navy is disappointed with EarthJustice’s decision to pursue litigation against critical training activities in Hawaiian waters, the deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said. “These fleet training activities are essential to the Navy’s ability to ensure our nation’s armed forces are fully combat ready and adequately trained according to established, time-tested standards,” said Rear Adm. John M. Bird. The suit, filed May 16 by EarthJustice on behalf of five non-government organizations, asks the court to prohibit naval sonar exercises near Hawaii, saying that sonar can have a negative impact on marine mammals. But such...

At the annual Cairo antiwar conference in Egypt, the hot panel discussion this year was “Bridge-Building Between the Left and Islam.” John Rees, a British Trotskyite, observed: “Where else can you sit down in a single evening and listen to senior people from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, people from the revolutionary left and the antiwar movement from around the globe?” Gosh, it sounds great. I’m just sorry I missed the rollicking game of Pictionary between the Castroites and the jihadis afterwards. Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, recently reported in the New York Sun...

For most Americans, the Iraq war is both distant and never ending. For Private Matthew Zeimer, it was neither. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, Zeimer had his first taste of combat as he scrambled to the roof of the 3rd Infantry Division's Combat Outpost Grant in central Ramadi. Under cover of darkness, Sunni insurgents were attacking his new post from nearby buildings. Amid the smoke, noise and confusion, a blast suddenly ripped through the 3-ft. concrete wall shielding Zeimer and a fellow soldier, killing them both. Zeimer had been in Iraq for a week. He had been at his...

Critics of Yale’s decision to admit former Taliban diplomat Rahmatullah Hashemi have suggested that the ensuing controversy was partially to blame for the decrease in applications to Yale this year... Applications to Yale for the class of 2011 decreased 9.7 percent ... While Yale administrators blamed the decline on last year’s record-low acceptance rate and natural year-to-year fluctuations, critics of the University have argued that high school students may have been disillusioned by Hashemi’s enrollment. Hashemi took classes at Yale through the Nondegree Students Program from the summer of 2005 through the end of the 2006 academic year, gaining national...

SAN FRANCISCO - Their hair, once a symbol of youthful rebellion, is mostly gray. Bodies that writhed with wild abandon when a guru invited them to "Turn on ... tune in ... drop out" now sport stiff knees and age spots. "How many of you are on acid right now?" rock critic Joel Selvin asked an audience of former hippies who turned out this past week to mark the 40th anniversary of the Human Be-in, the counterculture event that unofficially launched the Summer of Love. "How many of you are on antacid right now?" In many ways, the '60s as...

An American woman has been refused treatment by a doctor in Blekinge in southern Sweden because of her nationality. The woman's husband has now reported the incident to the Medical Responsibility Board. Valery Johansson, who lives in a small town just outside Nashville, Tennessee, was in Sweden to celebrate Christmas with her husband's family. On Christmas Day, worried that she may have contracted strep throat, she sought medical help. Her husband and niece made an appointment for her at a clinic in the town of Karlshamn. "We went up there and the nurses were really nice. They did some swab...

Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do. Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview late Friday that he is planning a trip to the Middle East that will include Israel and Syria. The senator said he and other Republicans are concerned that the administration's policies in the Middle East are not working and that other GOP members may follow in his footsteps. "I've talked to...

Last update - 21:44 12/12/2006 Report: Russia to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran next March By The Associated Press MOSCOW - Russia in March will start delivering nuclear fuel for the plant it is building in Iran, the head of a state company in charge of the project said Monday, according to Russian news reports. Atomstroexport's head Sergei Shmatko said during a trip to Tehran that he and Iranian officials had discussed financial problems related to the completion of the nuclear plant in Iran's southern port of Bushehr, the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported. Shmatko said...

Violence erupted at a Michigan law school Thursday when protestors tried to block a speech by Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. Police were called after protestors pulled a fire alarm prior to the speech on immigration policies. There were at least three violent incidents with protestors targeting student backers of the event, Tancredo, R-Littleton, said today. "One was spit on, one was kicked, and one was punched," Tancredo said in an e-mail. "Tires were also slashed."

Syracuse radio station WFBL reports that Lauren Maggi, 35, of Thurber Street was charged with harassment for spitting in a soldier's face at Hancock Airport. The incident happened over the Thanksgiving holiday. Maggi approached a soldier from the 10th Mountain Division, who apparently was not in uniform, and asked if he was a soldier. When he said yes, Maggi allegedly spit in his face. WFBL's news service is supplied by television station WTVH, which has nothing posted yet about the incident on its website. Syracuse.com carries this blurb: • Woman accused of spitting on soldier A Syracuse woman was charged...

An Islamic civil rights group wants a columnist removed from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council for criticizing Rep.-elect Keith Ellison's decision to use the Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in next month. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday that comments by Dennis Prager, a columnist and conservative talk radio host, displayed an intolerance toward Islam that makes him inappropriate to serve on the council, which oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. President Bush appointed Prager in August to fill the remainder of a five-year term, which expires in January 2011. In his column last week, Prager wrote: "Insofar...

As she sees it now, she spent her 20s working too hard, never saying no to anything and succumbing to "the bad side of American psychology". "I love the English way, which is not as capitalistic as it is in America. People don't talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner parties. I like living here because I don't tap into the bad side of American psychology..."

Gwyneth Paltrow is "deeply upset" over stories claiming she made anti-American remarks, and tells PEOPLE exclusively that she never said anything against her native country. "First of all I feel so lucky to be American. When you look at the rest of the world, we're so lucky, and that's something my dad always instilled in me," Paltrow tells PEOPLE. "I feel so proud to be American." . . . "I felt so upset to be completely misconstrued and I never, ever would have said that," says the 34-year-old Oscar winner. "I definitely did not say that I think the British...

Ségolène Royal, the French presidential candidate, was embroiled in a damaging row on a visit to the Middle East yesterday after appearing to condone a Hezbollah MP who denounced US “insanity” and compared Israel to the Nazis.Ms Royal, the first woman with a realistic chance of winning the French presidency, was struggling to extricate herself from the controversy sparked by a meeting in Beirut with MPs, including Ali Ammar of Hezbollah. In a 20-minute tirade Mr Ammar attacked “unlimited American insanity” for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. He then said that Israeli “Nazism” was no better than Hitler’s Third...

Hypocrisy, thy name is Europe. Criticizing the United States is perfectly acceptable — in fact, Americans have raised political self-criticism to the level of an institutional art form. For goodness sake, the dictator of Venezuela — which won its independence from a European colonial power — went before the United Nations to commend a book by an American academic condemning Yankee imperialist domination. If you're going to condemn the United States for all its failings, then, please, offer some meaningful alternative, some heightened vision, afforded by your long acquaintance with war, bigotry and its victims, along with your censure. The...

MEXICO CITY — In the wake of bombings, civil unrest and potential for further mayhem, the U.S. government is advising Americans to be careful anywhere in this country. Officials cautioned late Wednesday that while U.S. citizens aren't specifically being targeted, they should be aware of their surroundings, especially when near large political gatherings. "This is not a broad brush or anything that says do not go to Mexico; we are saying to be careful in Mexico due to the potential for violence," said a U.S. Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The State Department issued a formal advisory that...

THE MOONBATS WILL BE MORE EMBOLDEN WITH THEIR PROTEST NOW THAT THE RATS HAVE CONTROL OF AT LEAST ONE HOUSE AS OF THIS THREAD POSTING.NOW MORE THAN EVER, WE MUST BE VIGILANT IN OUR SUPPORT OF OUR TROOPS.COLD WEATHER FREEPER iMacMan IS BACK!! After spending the Summer of 'O6 on the waters of the Mid-Atlantic Coast, iMacMan is back. His great trade mark pics of passing drivers waving is also back. Apparently over the summer, K-Mart has had the chance to replenish iMacMan's arrows. We out numbered the moonbats (even with the ex-freeper protesting with them) 10 to 9. Those...