Free Republic

George Deukmejian, a perennially popular two-term Republican governor of California who built his career on fighting crime, hardening the state's criminal-justice stance and shoring up its leaky finances, died Tuesday. He was 89. Deukmejian, who was elected governor in 1982 and 1986, died at his home in Long Beach, according to a statement from his family. During his many years of public service, including 16 years as a state legislator and four as state attorney general, Deukmejian sponsored the successful "use a gun, go to prison" bill, oversaw development of a workfare program for welfare recipients and negotiated with the...

Today, we remember and honor the memory of those who suffered during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.  Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.  I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many. As we reflect on this dark chapter of human history, we also recognize the resilience of the Armenian people.  Many built new lives in the United...

Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) publicly apologized for not properly acknowledging the Armenian Genocide during her tenure under the administration of U.S. resident Barack Obama. Almost every Armenian-American family was touched in some way by the genocide. Ongoing Turkish denial makes the genocide an open wound… I am very sorry that, during our time in office, we in the Obama administration did not recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Power said in a series of tweets. .... Power has faced much criticism for her silence on Obama’s failure to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and had refused to publicly...

Washington fears an offensive could destabilise Iraq's most peaceful area and potentially the wider region, but Erdogan has been under mounting pressure to act after Wednesday's vote on the highly sensitive issue of the killings in 1915 of Armenians. The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution branding the killings genocide -- a charge Turkey hotly denies. The resolution was proposed by a politician with many Armenian-Americans in his district. The United States relies heavily on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in Iraq... The Turkish government cautioned that relations with its NATO ally would be...

Actor Dean Cain joined hundreds of Armenian Americans marching in the streets of Hollywood on Sunday to mark the 90th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the Ottoman Empire. Wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with the words "We've Had Enough," and hoisting signs saying "Truth always prevails," the crowd marched down Hollywood Boulevard in Little Armenia while leaders released doves into the sky. Many expressed their desire to have the killings recognized by Turkey and the rest of the world as a genocide. "People were talking about losing two-thirds of their family, or their entire extended family,"...

LOS ANGELES – A delegation from Southern California joined scores of other Armenian-Americans in Washington, D.C. to demand official U.S. recognition of a genocide they say was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. The representatives joined a gathering of about 350 Armenian-Americans for the Armenian National Assembly's two-day conference, where they also urged increased foreign assistance for their homeland and better trade relations with the United States. Southern California is home to about 400,000 Armenian-Americans, the largest such community in the nation. Assembly members were buoyed Monday by a State Department announcement that the Bush administration supports permanent normal trade relations...

[AD-IMG] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 6, 2004 Turks Breach Wall of Silence on Armenians By BELINDA COOPER INNEAPOLIS — Taner Akcam doesn't seem like either a hero or a traitor, though he's been called both. A slight, soft-spoken man who chooses his words with care, Mr. Akcam, a Turkish sociologist and historian currently teaching at the University of Minnesota, writes about events that happened nearly a century ago in an empire that no longer exists: the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. But in a world where history and identity are closely intertwined, where the past...