Free Republic

Hitting Bottom: It's official—George Bush has crossed the Mendoza line. On Friday, Gallup announced that the president's approval has reached a new low of 40 percent, while his disapproval has soared to a new high of 56 percent.

Leading cleric rails at injustice of 'Muslim bashing' By Nick Britten (Filed: 28/07/2005) The most senior Islamic cleric in Birmingham claimed yesterday that Muslims were being unjustly blamed in the war on terrorism and that the eight suspects in the two bombing attacks on London "could have been innocent passengers". Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city's central mosque, called Tony Blair a "liar" and "unreliable witness" and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators. He said that Muslims "all over the world have never heard of an organisation called al-Qa'eda".Mr Naseem, who was...

Senator Robert Byrd's previous occupation as a butcher never seems to come up when the press describes his history. It seems that mundane occupational histories of politicians matter only when they are Republicans. This is a method employed by the liberal media to demean Republicans, implicitly characterizing them as being made of "lesser stuff" and to disparage their intellectual abilities. For example, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's career as a wrestling coach is routinely brought up, since jocks are probably a lesser caste in the Washington D.C. pecking order. That his well-honed talent for inspiring his troops and creating...

NEW YORK - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the Bush administration's record on unemployment, women's rights and the environment, saying it is "intent upon consolidating and abusing power." "We are living in a time when the other side doesn't want us to see the facts. Facts are inconvenient — facts about global warming, facts about mercury in the air, facts about people staying unemployed longer," said Clinton, considered a Democratic contender for the presidency in 2008. The former first lady spoke Monday at a New York Women for Hillary breakfast, which raised $250,000 for her 2006 Senate re-election campaign. She...

"We don't know if that's going to affect (relations) with the Russian Orthodox church. The future will show," Interfax new agency quoted Patriarch Alexy II as saying. Metropolitan Kirill, a senior official in the Russian Orthodox church, attended the meeting with Benedict on Alexy's behalf. Alexy ruled out the possibility of inviting Benedict to Russia in the near future, calling on the new pope to address the proselytizing of Orthodox followers by Catholic missionaries that he alleges went on during John Paul's reign. These accusations led Alexy to block John Paul from visiting Russia in 2004, ending the late pontiff's...

NEW YORK -- Former President Bill Clinton says it's ''sad'' that a Republican political consultant who married his male partner is raising funds to defeat Sen. Hillary Clinton. Clinton said Monday there might be ''some sort of self-loathing'' for Arthur Finkelstein, the longtime GOP operative who helped Gov. George Pataki unseat Democrat Mario Cuomo in 1994. Finkelstein told the New York Times last week that he had married his partner of 40 years in Massachusetts, saying he believes ''visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available...

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Cardinal Bernard Law The Vatican has granted a prominent role in the Pope's funeral rituals to a U.S. cardinal who was forced to resign amid accusations that he protected sexually-abusive priests. Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, will celebrate Mass on one of the nine days of mourning for Pope John Paul II. Some American Catholics feel this privilege represents the Vatican's lack of recognition of the abuse scandal that rocked the U.S. Catholic Church. Cardinal Law resigned from his Boston post in 2002, when it became known that his archdiocese simply transferred priests who had been accused...

Catholic University hosts sacrilegious display against the Blessed Mother, offending students, faculty and Catholics nationwide Something extremely alarming and shameful occurred at the University of Dayton, where Our Blessed Mother was depicted in an exhibit amid pictures of prostitutes and pornography.1 The sacrilegious display, "Heartlands," by Derek A. Cracco, an assistant professor of art at the University of Alabama, was on public display in the Rike Center Gallery of the University of Dayton from February 22 to March 11. Ranking among the ten largest Catholic universities in the country, the University of Dayton, founded by the Society of Mary in...

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- A public school teacher is suing his district and principal for barring him from using the Declaration of Independence and other historical documents in class because they contain references to God and Christianity.Steven Williams, who teaches fifth grade at an elementary school near San Francisco, filed the federal lawsuit last week, arguing a First Amendment right to teach U.S. history, which includes religious, and specifically Christian, references. He said the school's principal prevented him from using handouts from documents including the Declaration of Independence, "The Rights of the Colonists" by Samuel Adams and President Bush's 2004 Day...

Newly minted independent MP Carolyn Parrish began her career as a teacher. And between her numerous juvenile attacks on Americans and George W. Bush, she did manage to teach Canadians a few things about how the country is run. And it’s not good. Hidden away in her obnoxious rants towards Americans (and yes, Carolyn, "Americans" despite your weak after-the-fact efforts to limit your attacks to Bush and the U.S. government), Parrish has exposed Prime Minister Paul Martin for what he is--undoubtedly the weakest man (or woman) to ever hold the office of Prime Minister of Canada. Martin, much like John...

Canada Prime Minister Paul Martin is afraid of anti-American, backbencher, Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish. Martin’s fraidy cat mode is propelled by the minority position his scandal-plagued government was left in by last June’s federal election. Prime Minister Martin cannot, as requested in emails of protest, fire the Mississauga-Erindale four-time re-elected MP, no matter how vociferous her continuing anti-American outbursts. That’s because the ouster of even one Liberal from his caucus would mean the literal downfall fall of the Liberal government, which would be forced to return to the voting booth just months after re-election. . . . . To read...

When Bush bashing goes too far

NEW YORK TIMES AND VOICES OF DESPAIR LINE-UP AGAINST BUSH AND “FAITH-BASED” PRESIDENCY Cover Story Says Bush’s Faith Makes Him “Just Like” Al Qaeda Washington, DC – The cover story of the New York Times Sunday Magazine was headlined “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” and it surveyed a long list of mostly liberal or disgruntled Republicans concerning the President’s religious beliefs. “This is a vicious, last-minute attack on the President and all faith-filled citizens,” said Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. “America was founded by people of faith and, if you believe George...

Liberals Hijacking America is a Must Read Eye-Opener - Political Satire Tears Down the Mask of Our Left-Wing Un-Democratic Zealots and Their "No-Rules and Everything-Goes" Society – Analyzes the Hypocrisy of the Left - The book is a razor-sharp satirical analysis of America’s worst nightmare vision: Liberals taking over our lives, our destiny. Good bye, American Dream. Good bye, American Way of Life. Good bye, our Freedom! A "must-read" for everybody concerned about our political future. The book is available immediately at PierreKandorfer.com, BookSurge.com (toll-free at 1-866-308-6235), and Amazon.com as well as bookstores. Price: $17.99. Pierre Kandorfer tears down the...

The man CBS News touted as the "unimpeachable source" of explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turns out to be a former Guard officer who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings." Over the past three years, retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett has given dozens of newspaper and television interviews accusing the president and his aides of destroying documents and stealing elections. In e-mail messages to an Internet chat group for Texas Democrats, he has also said that the "Bush team" sent "goons" to intimidate him at his ranch in Baird, Texas. "They can go...

In Sunday's Observer, Robert McCrum observed: "Today, by some margin, George W Bush is the most despised figure in America." Really? The paper sent McCrum to America to interview nine novelists about the election. That's the first mistake right there: shipping a guy 3,000 miles to take the pulse of the nation by interviewing a bunch of guys who already agree with him. One of the reasons why the Bush-despisers will be waking up stunned on the morning of November 3 is because they spend way too much time talking to each other and sustaining each other's delusions. "These guys...

Got this in an email French Poem Eleven thousand American soldiers lay beneath the dirt and stone, all buried on a distant land so far away from home. For just a strip of dismal beach they paid a hero's price, to save a foreign nation they all made the sacrifice. And now the shores of Normandy are lined with blocks of white: Americans who didn't turn from someone else's plight. Eleven thousand reasons for the French to take our side, but in the moment of our need, they chose to run and hide. Chirac said every war means loss, perhaps...

The Problem With Bashing The Rich August 2, 2004 The clear implication of the Democrats' message is that the rest of us would somehow be better off if the rich were worse off ... they've already received their wish. Why are they still complaining? (National Review Online) This column from National Review Online was written by Bruce Bartlett. A key theme of the Kerry- Edwards campaign is "us-versus-them," where "us" includes the poor and middle class and "them" indicates the greedy rich. Edwards famously characterized this dichotomy as "two Americas" during his run for the Democratic nomination. The clear implication...

Americans currently flocking to see Michael Moore's movie "Farenheit 9/11" might be surprised to learn how little respect the Democratic Party's leading propaganda-meister has for them. ''They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet," Moore told Britain's Mirror newspaper recently, referring to his fellow citizens as a whole. And that's not all Moore had to say about his brother Yanks across the pond. ''We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.'' Turns out, when the Democratic Party's all-but-official filmmaker is speaking at home, he has nice...