Free Republic

In the political cartoon, the Latino vegetable picker has the stereotypical sombrero, checked shirt, bushy hair and black moustache. The heads of ugly "bigots" are popping out of the ground. (A sign in the field says "Bigots" so we know what they are.) The farm worker dripping with sweat is plucking the heads from the soil and depositing them into his bag. The caption reads "... and what grows in the fields illegal immigrants pick?" According to the image, there is justice in serial decapitation for these, uh, cabbage heads. The word "bigot" settles all arguments and implies the final...

Some myths simply won’t go away. Look no further than the fallacy that while liberals are open-minded and independent, conservatives are a monolithic group, marching in lockstep to a tune called by fundamentalist religious leaders. This incorrect assumption is about the only sort of stereotyping people are still allowed to indulge in. Nobody would dare say something such as, “All blacks support Democratic presidential candidates.” Saying that would make one a “racist,” even though one could make a convincing case for such a statement. After all, two years ago 88 percent of blacks voted for John Kerry -- down slightly...

Republican National Chairman Kenneth Mehlman went to Capitol Hill last Tuesday to warn the party's House and Senate campaign staffers of dire consequences unless Republicans break the current legislative deadlock. Mehlman stressed the necessity to pass a budget resolution and an immigration reform bill, dealing with two issues that seriously concern the Republican base. Word circulated around Capitol Hill that Mehlman warned 45 seats could be lost in the House on Nov. 7. He told me that he did not mention that figure and, in fact, believes Republicans would retain control of the House if elections were held today. High-level...

The Episcopal Diocese of California on Saturday avoided widening a rift over gays in the global Anglican Communion by electing a heterosexual man as its next bishop. More than 1,000 clergy and laypeople packed Grace Cathedral in San Francisco's tony Nob Hill neighborhood to elect the Rt. Rev. Mark Andrus as successor to longtime Bishop William Swing, who is retiring after 27 years. Two openly gay men and one lesbian were among the seven candidates on the ballot. No gay or lesbian cleric has been elected bishop since the consecration of Eugene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire...

Contraception use has declined strikingly over the last decade, particularly among poor women, making them more likely to get pregnant unintentionally and to have abortions, according to a report released yesterday by the Guttmacher Institute. The decline appears to have slowed the reduction in the national abortion rate that began in the mid-1980's. "This is turning back the clock on all the gains women have made in recent decades," Sharon L. Camp, the president of the institute, said. Among sexually active women who were not trying to get pregnant, the percentage of those not using contraception increased to 11 percent...

A Nassau County legislator filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming Google Inc. generates "billions of dollars from the pornography trade and illicit profiteers." The lawsuit by four-term legislator Jeffrey Toback (D-Oceanside) calls the Internet search engine the world's largest distributor of child pornography, claiming that child porn is part of the company's business model. Google "continues to put its economic gains ahead of the interests and well-being of America's children," the lawsuit, filed in Nassau State Supreme Court alleges. Google spokesman Steve Langdon said in a statement: "Child pornography is illegal, and Google prohibits it in our products. When we find...

After a sometimes emotional debate centering on discrimination and sexual orientation, a Senate committee approved a bill Wednesday that would require that the contributions of gays and lesbians be included in textbooks. Supporters argued that all students should be made aware of the role that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have made, but state curriculum has no such requirement. Opponents countered that discussion of sexual orientation should occur at home and not be mandated in schools. Not requiring that gays be included in instructional materials creates the "enforced invisibility that so many minority groups have gone through in terms...

Gov. Ed Rendell has gained ground on Republican challenger Lynn Swann, according to a poll released Thursday, three months after the same researcher found the football legend nipping at the governor's heels. The statewide poll also found Democrat Bob Casey's lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) had shrunk from double digits in February to 6 percentage points. Rendell led Swann 49 percent to 35 percent in the latest Keystone Poll, conducted by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. The telephone survey of 578 registered voters had an error...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer paid a hushed visit to Harvard Law School yesterday, calling Bush v. Gore the “most stressful” case during his 12-year tenure and delivering a short address on the high court’s operations. Breyer’s speech to Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree’s criminal law class was kept secret from everyone, including Ogletree’s students, until minutes before it began. After a warm greeting from the first-year students, Breyer, a Law School graduate, delivered a relaxed talk about life as a Supreme Court justice. When asked to choose the most important case of his tenure, Breyer...

The Senate approved a $109 billion spending bill today to pay for the Iraq war and Gulf Coast recovery, ignoring a veto threat from President Bush and setting the stage for bitter negotiatons with the House. The Senate's 78-to-20 approval of the bill at a level far in excess of the president's request put the Senate at odds with the House, where the Republican leadership has taken an increasingly hard line against add-ons in the measure. "The House will not take up an emergency supplemental spending bill for Katrina and the war in Iraq that spends $1 more than what...

Carville doesn’t speak for the Clintons, but he speaks to the Clintons. So spending some time with him can give you a sense of what’s going on within that brain trust as they plot to retake control of the Democratic Party and the White House. Even Carville’s promotional rat-a-tat about the movie he’s involved with -– a remake of “All the King’s Men” -– is revealing in a way. Here’s some of what he had to say, and my translation from the Cajun: 1) “The American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. They’ve seen the...

In the shadow of this week's huge pro-immigrant demonstrations, the opposition Minuteman Project launched a cross-country tour Wednesday to rally support for tighter border control. The volunteer group, which patrols the border and opposes illegal immigration, hopes to mobilize voters as the caravan heads for Capitol Hill and the offices of the politicians debating immigration reform. "Our power is not putting a million people on the street, our power is putting 10 million people at the voting box," said Stephen Eichler, the group's executive director. "Their voice is accompanied by a lot of bodies, but our voice is accompanied by...

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens issued the following statement, following the "We Are America Rally" in Denver. “I appreciate the fact that the groups who demonstrated here today did so in a peaceful and respectful manner. While the impact of today's events won't be known for sometime, it is obvious we must continue to have a national debate on the issue of immigration. Ultimately, the solution isn't here at the statehouse but in the halls of Congress. “I have made my position concerning immigration clear in recent months. First, for any immigration plan to work, we must secure our borders. Second,...

State Senate Democrats, angry that chamber President Tom Lee pulled a parliamentary move to resurrect a school-voucher proposal that had died a day earlier, responded with a maneuver of their own this morning: Insisting that each bill be read in its mind-numbing entirety, bringing the chamber to a near standstill. Assuming it lasts all day, the bill-reading decision could mean high-profile legislation might die without a vote when the 60-day lawmaking session ends Friday. Among the bills: insurance fixes, hurricane response and preparation, and a plan to give inmates access to DNA tests to prove their innocence. A monstrous time-killer...

Four of the nation's top arson experts have concluded that the state of Texas executed a man in 2004 based on scientifically invalid evidence, and on Tuesday they called for an official reinvestigation of the case. In their report, the experts, assembled by the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization responsible for scores of exonerations, concluded that the conviction and 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson-murders of his three daughters were based on interpretations by fire investigators that have been scientifically disproved. "The whole system has broken down," Barry Scheck, co-founder and director of the Innocence Project, said...

Republicans on Capitol Hill are deeply divided over how to respond to escalating gasoline prices, with some proposing new taxes on oil companies, some calling for investigations and others willing to ride out the storm on the forces of the free market. No Republican plan has gathered as much attention as the multipronged proposal made last week by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other Senate Republicans that would give increasingly frustrated drivers $100 rebates, use federal tax law to encourage development of refineries and hybrid vehicles and allow the president to tighten fuel-economy rules. "The really insulting part of...

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Monday that he was seriously exploring whether he has "a chance" of winning the presidency in 2008, as he visited politically important Iowa and huddled with state advisers, donors to President Bush and other prominent Republicans. While Mr. Giuliani was officially in Iowa to attend two Republican fund-raisers, his behavior and remarks came close to politicking for himself. He ruminated openly about running, disclosed he was not sure what he would do if his friend John McCain also ran, and argued that if Republicans are to be a majority party, they need to...

Tehama County's social service agency struck the right balance between free speech and religious neutrality when it prohibited an employment counselor from discussing religion with his clients, displaying a Bible in his cubicle or holding prayer meetings in a conference room, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the department respected employee Daniel Berry's rights by telling him he could hold prayer sessions in a lunchroom or outdoors but not in an official meeting room, and could discuss his religious beliefs privately but not with his public clients. Public employers...

In recent judicial confirmation battles, President Bush has repeatedly—and correctly—stressed fidelity to the Constitution as the key qualification for service as a judge. It is also the key qualification for service as the nation's chief executive. On January 20, 2005, for the second time, Mr. Bush took the presidential oath of office set out in the Constitution, swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." With five years of the Bush administration behind us, we have more than enough evidence to make an assessment about the president's commitment to our fundamental legal charter Unfortunately, far from...

A massive crowd swarmed over the state Capitol grounds this afternoon for a peaceful rally that shut down the heart of the city and underscored the depth and passion of the immigrant rights movement. Denver Police Division Chief Steve Cooper said that by 12:30 p.m. the rally at the Capitol numbered about 75,000 strong. Once the marchers reached the Capitol, the lawn directly to the west was immediately flooded. And still, they kept coming. If the crowd estimate holds, today's rally for immigration reform would easily eclipse the 50,000 people who took part in a similar demonstration March 25. The...