Free Republic

From Real Time with Bill Maher last night: DAN SENOR: For three decades we’ve been told by the foreign policy establishment that people in the Arab world don’t want the right to vote, they don’t want to live in a free society— HELEN THOMAS: They’ve never been told that. SENOR:—and, and we’ve been consistently told that, just like we were told about the Russians, just like we were told about the Chinese and the fact is, when we’ve given the Afghanis the vote— THOMAS: They don’t want to be invaded; they don’t want to be killed. [applause] SENOR: Ok. But...

NEW ORLEANS — Even with new floodwaters lapping at the high-water marks set by Katrina less than a month ago, Mayor Ray Nagin pushed a plan to bring people back to storm-ravaged New Orleans soon is possible. Federal officials said Saturday it will take two to three weeks to pump out floodwaters created by Hurricane Rita. The water poured in through levees that were patched after Hurricane Katrina.

The Swiss government is hosting two days of talks in Geneva in an effort to agree on a new emblem for the International red Cross.At the moment, the only two emblems recognised under the Geneva Conventions are the red cross and the red crescent.Some countries are reluctant to use either symbol and want a new emblem which has no religious connotations.

A driver for the Rev. Al Sharpton led Ellis County Sheriff's deputies on a nine-mile chase at speeds up to 110 mph before state troopers stopped the car, authorities said. The driver was rushing Sharpton to the airport after his visit anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Sunday at her camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford. The car carrying Sharpton and two other passengers was clocked doing 110 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 35 in Ellis County in North Texas, said Lt. Danny Williams. The car ignored deputies' attempts to stop it and continued speeding and weaving...

Democrats in Congress are in a battle for the very soul of our nation with Republicans whose arrogance and abuse of power have made a mockery of Congress. As House Democratic Leader, I should know. We must ask ourselves, do we want to adopt corruption, indifference to suffering, and contempt for democracy as American values? Will we allow the progress America has made over the past five decades under Democratic leadership to be erased in a few short years by an extreme right-wing Congress run amuck? The Republicans in the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House are awash in...

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann insisted on Monday night that the case of Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush administration combined with the CBS panel finding no political bias behind CBS's hit job on President Bush, discredits the idea of any liberal media bias. Olbermann also portrayed CBS as a victim compared to the perpetrators at FNC since CBS News "played within the journalistic rules" while "you're not going to see Fox News appointing an independent investigation into its own journalistic ethics or lack thereof" for running the Swift Boat ads which were "full of distortions." At the top of the...

The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth. If only it were true, we might have a more humane, open-minded, and ultimately effective public debate on the issues facing the country. We may actually embrace the principles of liberalism, instead of using it as a tool to divide the nation. Everything good that has happened in this country is founded on the ideology of liberalism. Liberals in the past were liberators who fought for a woman's right to vote, and fought to end segregation in the United States and then to end apartheid in South Africa. Thanks...

TACOMA, Wash. -- A man posing as a police detective has called at least 14 women in Tacoma, asking them to disrobe in front of their windows, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported. Police said the man apparently calls from a cell phone, claims to be a detective and says he needs help with an investigation. "He talks them into or at least attempts to (talk them into) disrobing in front of a window in front of the house," said Mark Fulghum of the Tacoma Police Department. Some of the women have complied with the man's request, police said. Police said...

As Democrats resign themselves to four more years with George Bush in the White House, one beleaguered newspaper is discovering the consequences of taking on the President in his own backyard.The Lone Star Iconoclast, in Crawford, Texas, where Mr Bush has a ranch, usually covers high school football games and local court cases. But a week ago, in an editorial misjudgment of staggering proportions, the newspaper - circulation 920 - decided to endorse John Kerry in the race for the White House. Readers, wrote the paper's editor, Leon Smith, "should not rate the candidate by his home town or even...

Our criminals in our bush-league government did 9-11. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pentagonconspiracy/message/9 Our criminals in our government did 9-11. The Pentagon evidence presented here proves it. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pentagonconspiracy/message/9 I. Security camera shows the wrong plane, the wrong explosion and the discrepant trail of an air-to-ground missile. Note the tail fin of the attacking jet, visible only in the first picture, sticking up behind the yellow parking-pass machine in the foreground. Observe also the white missile smoke trailing behind. Compare this with these two pictures of an F-16 jet fighter firing an air-to-ground missile, above right and below. The sequence of five pictures indicate by...