Free Republic

EAST FLAT ROCK -- Barbara Anders has lived in Henderson County since 1977. Until Friday, she had never seen anything like what happened near her Gail Avenue residence shortly after 10 p.m. About 150 feet away from her mobile home, two Henderson County Sheriff's deputies fatally shot 33-year-old Saul Perez. "They shot him against that fence near a trailer," Anders said as she gestured to the wood plank fence where Perez, a packing house worker, died. Sheriff's officials say he was shot after he refused to drop a collapsible baton he had wrestled away from 29-year-old Deputy Josh Howard following...

John FogleTo illustrate the absurdity of recent Democratic attacks, I have prepared a response in kind. This is the level to which political discourse would sink, if Republicans were as malicious as Democrats. Guilty until proved innocent: Democrats and their supporters in the press have insisted that President Bush must "prove his innocence" regarding the ridiculous AWOL charge during his National Guard service. Of course, the fact that he was honorably discharged proves conclusively that he was not absent without leave (a felony). He may have been absent, but if so, the absences were excused, otherwise he would not have...

Tired of being a punching bag for Sen. John Kerry and the rest of the Democratic Party, President Bush hit back Monday night (Feb. 23). In an address to Republican governors in Washington, Bush displayed quiet confidence in stark contrast to the anger and invective heaped on him. Instead of attacking leading Democratic presidential contender Kerry by name, the president referred with humorous jibes to "a Massachusetts senator."The initial strategy - which could change if it doesn't work in raising Bush's sagging poll numbers and lowering Kerry's - is to portray Kerry as a political opportunist, changing his mind when...

Tuesday President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in the strongest possible terms. Meanwhile, in California, a majority of San Franciscans support gay marriage. And so, despite the fact that a few short years ago, a majority of Californians voted to define marriage in state law as the union of a man and a woman, the mayor of San Francisco decided he was above the law and ordered clerks to issue putative marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Americans have a tradition of civil disobedience, in which ordinary citizens risk jail in order to affirm a...

Dear Chancellor (James) Moeser:In the summer of 2003, I wrote an article concerning an important First Amendment controversy at UNC Chapel Hill. You responded to readers who wrote your office suggesting that I had misrepresented the nature and extent of the particular controversy. I then wrote another article, which called into question the veracity of your form email. I also asked you some very direct questions that you have not yet answered. I am now writing to ask you a few more questions about an email you and several other administrators received in February of 2003. The text of that...

For years, the first president of the United States has been almost lost in the murky abomination we've dubbed Presidents' Day, which seems to celebrate no president in particular. It was a very Nineties thing - to celebrate everything and therefore nothing. Widening the lens of history, we lost definition and hailed the result as . . . Diversity!To point out the singular in history, it was understood without actually being said, would be impolite, incorrect, insufficiently respectful of the great, collective blur. ("I am pleased to join all Americans in observing Presidents' Day. Today we salute the leadership and...

Another big story has come out of Iraq with little media fanfare -- and this is one with colossal implications.Recently, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, toured a new women's center in Karbala. (The center occupies a former Ba'athist Party headquarters -- nice touch.) There, citing a 2003 United Nations report that pegged the poverty and non-productivity of the Arab-Muslim world to the repression of half its workforce -- women -- under Islamic sharia law, Bremer touted the equal rights and full participation of women in the new Iraq. This topic was apt, particularly since the U.S.-backed...

It is now thirty years since the end of the Vietnam War, but the 2004 Presidential campaign is fighting it all over again. That long after the Civil War, the bloody shirt had been put away, and politicians were arguing about other things, such as free silver. In 1896, the Democrats actually nominated a presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, who had been only four years old at the time of Appomattox, and whose activities during the war were not (as far as can be determined) subjected to the scrutiny of the other side's opposition researchers. Learning the lesson of Vietnam...

The mysterious deaths of three elderly women last year, combined with the recent slayings of two other elderly residents, have raised fears among Shelby's senior citizens. Mike Drake, who owns the Carolina Pawn shop, said he was visited Wednesday by a quartet of older women who wanted to buy handguns in the $40 to $50 range. But a handgun selling for that price tends to be heavy and hard to fire, Drake said. "I feel like I'm doing them an injustice selling them this pistol knowing they can't pull the trigger on it," Drake said, After Drake recommended models selling...

BURLINGTON, N.C. (AP) - A man has been charged with impersonating an officer to kidnap and sexually assault a 16-year-old girl, police said. Ismael Rodriguez Cruz, 25, of Burlington, was charged Sunday with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape, two counts of second-degree sex offense, impersonating a police officer, false imprisonment and resisting arrest, according to warrants.Police said a girl told officers she kidnapped late Saturday in an apartment complex parking lot. The girl told police that a man posing as a police officer told her to get in his car or she would be arrested. The man drove the girl to...

Glenn and John were both born in South Carolina, to parents of modest income, Glenn in 1934 and John in 1953. Glenn's dad worked in the depression era WPA (Works Progress Administration) while John's dad worked in a textile mill. Both have an extraordinary ability to persuade a small group of people to do things that are not in their best interest, and both exploited that ability to accumulate enormous personal wealth. The exploitation of their talents came in different flavors, however. Glenn W. Turner went on to create and run pyramid marketing companies (Koscot Interplanetary, Dare to be Great,...

Dr. David Kay, the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq (until his relief arrived last week), summarized his findings in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, saying that Iraq did not have "large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction." In other words, Saddam had not likely produced significant quantities of chemical or biological weapons since 2001. That notwithstanding, we do know Iraq had significant stockpiles of chemical WMD (like Saddam used on Kurdish men, women and children in 1988) and biological WMD (weaponized anthrax) as confirmed in 1998. Further, he refused to provide documentation of...

It was standing room only in the cramped waiting room of the Department of Motor Vehicles office off Asheville Highway Friday morning. Just after the office opened at 8 a.m., state workers had to close one of their five customer waiting lines to accommodate the people wanting to renew or obtain a North Carolina driver's license. More than 225 people came through the DMV doors Friday, but countless others were turned away because there was no way they could be helped before 5 p.m., officials at the DMV said. Not all applicants had licenses about to expire. Instead, the majority...

It would be difficult to find a more committed supporter of President Bush than Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Pence, who is in his second term, is a self-described "Christian-conservative-Republican, in that order." He is the essence of the Bush base, which is why his Jan. 22 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering in Washington ought to cause concern at the White House. After testifying to his pro-Bush (and pro-Reagan) credentials, Pence suggested that the "ship of conservative governance has gone off course."Pence's indictment included this line: "... many who call themselves conservatives see government increasingly as the...

What a difference a day makes. Jerry Vernon, 48, of Asheville, is one of the 480 workers facing unemployment in the near future following the decision to close the Steelcase plant in Fletcher. Tuesday afternoon the parking lot at Steelcase in the Cane Creek Industrial Park was covered in snow and only a few cars were there. Wednesday most of the snow and ice had melted and workers at the office furniture production plant were back on the job, but many were reeling from the announcement that by this time next year all 480 workers at the factory will be...

LAGOS, 25 Jan 2004 (IRIN) - When a student-led Islamic sect launched an armed uprising last month with the aim of setting up a Taliban-style Muslim state in northern Nigeria, the authorities were swift to quell the insurrection. However, political analysts and security officials fear the emergence of the Al Sunna Wal Jamma (Followers of the Prophet) group may be an indication that extremist Islamic groups have found enough foothold in Nigeria to make Africa's most populous country a theatre for worse sectarian violence than it has seen in recent years and acts of terrorism. "What I find striking is...

My e-mailbag was brimming with responses to last week's column about Jacques Chirac's proposed ban on Islamic headscarves -- along with jumbo crucifixes and all yarmulkes -- in France's public schools. "Good grief," one correspondent declared, concluding a negative critique, "it's just a scarf!"Good grief, it's anything but. And I say that not so much to reprise last week's arguments, but rather to consider intervening developments -- such as the reaction of Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh to a newspaper photograph of a leading Saudi Arabian businesswoman without her headscarf."This," said the grand mufti, Saudi Arabia's leading religious...

<p>'LONG, hard slog" might soon describe Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Despite reports of progress coming out of Kabul, there are signs of serious trouble ahead.</p> <p>First, the good news: The Afghans, under President Hamid Karzai, have agreed on a constitution, laying the groundwork for democracy and building civil society. National elections are set for June. The economy is booming in the capital, Kabul. Major roads linking the country's north and south have been completed, promising progress for the nation's economy and security.</p>

BERLIN - Federal investigators in Germany have linked backers of a proposed mosque in Berlin to Islamic radicals with links to terrorist organizations in the Mideast, officials confirmed Friday. The enormous mosque, which would accommodate 5,000 worshippers, has financial backing from Ibrahim el-Zayat, head of the Moslem Brotherhood in Germany, according to documents leaked to Berlin news media. "El Zayat bought two adjoining parcels of land in the German capital for EUR 370,000 in March 2002 on behalf of a company called the European Trust," said city administrator Heinz Buschkowsky in confirming the reports. Buschkowsky said city building authorities have...