Free Republic

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents. "There was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me," said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill. "It just boggles the mind how people could be against this amendment." The Ensign amendment was defeated on a 50-49 vote. "We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants...

During his days as a Navy pilot, Randy "Duke" Cunningham headed a squadron whose members poked fun at each other by writing humorous entries in a journal dubbed the "hit log." Officers who served with Randy "Duke" Cunningham said the qualities that made him a good pilot – cockiness, a sense of entitlement – led to his undoing in Washington. Cunningham would make entries in the book from time to time, singling out his subordinates for good-natured ribbing. But his writing was so riddled with misspellings and tortured punctuation that a junior officer took to diagramming the sentences, describing Cunningham's...

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refuted claims by the opposition in Kazakhstan that Washington's primary concern is oil. Rice, visiting the oil-rich central Asian country on Thursday, made the comments in response to a question from CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel, who noted that members of the Kazakh opposition said Rice's "soft words have no impact." "I think if we were interested only in oil and the war on terrorism, we would not be speaking in the way that we are about democracy here, or in Saudi Arabia, or throughout the Middle East,"...

Several times a day, a chain-link gate rolls open and dozens of illegal immigrants stroll out of the U.S. Border Patrol station here. Each holds a piece of paper that Spanish-speakers call a "permiso" — permission, courtesy of the U.S. government, to roam anywhere. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, more than 118,000 undocumented migrants who were caught after sneaking over the nation's borders have walked out of custody with a permiso in hand. They were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, Yemen — among 35 countries of "special interest" These are the so-called OTM, or...

– Prosecutors obtained what they said was the largest anti-gang injunction in county history Friday in an attempt to curtail the criminal activities of 89 documented members of the Vista Home Boys street gang. Superior Court Judge Timothy Casserly granted the preliminary injunction, saying there was ample evidence that gang members are causing residents of Vista irreparable harm and that the injunction would not infringe on the gang members' constitutional rights. The order will prohibit certain activities within three designated safety zones. They are: Brengle Terrace Park. Most of the downtown redevelopment area and the Townside area, which includes Vista...

Moving to America after fleeing a volatile situation in Russia with his family in the early 90s, an 8th Communication Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD), Marine has found his place amongst America’s finest fighting force. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Lance Cpl. Peter Kapitonov, 20, a heavy equipment mechanic, moved to New York City with his mother and father at the age of eight to start a new life and to avoid serving in Afghanistan with the Russian army, according to Kapitonov. According to Kapitonov, Russian citizens are required to do a mandatory two-year service in the army, and...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.(June 30, 2005) -- Even after discovering and processing mounds of enemy weapons caches during their recent deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom last fall, many Marines with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment had never pulled the trigger on an AK-47. These Marines got the chance to gauge the effectiveness of the enemy's weapon of choice during a live-fire exercise with the AK-47 assault rifle here June 23. "Learning a new weapons system is just like learning a new language. The more you practice it, the better off you will be in battle when...

WATCHING THE conversation between Vietnam's prime minister and President Bush last week, I couldn't help remembering my late father, Pham Van Hoa. But shouldn't we host officers of the Iraqi Army first? It wouldn't be the first time Vietnamese military personnel arrived on these shores. In 1957 my father had landed in Texas for flight training with the US Air Force. He was among the first groups of military officers to arrive from South Vietnam. After the French departed Indochina, the United States took over the advisory role to help the South Vietnamese combat a growing insurgency. Five allied officers...

Long before there was "New York Myke," the motorcycle dealer running for mayor of San Diego, there was "Uncle Mike," a scrappy Brooklyn kid fighting a different sort of battle on the other side of the world. It was winter 1966, and Michael Shifrel, who enlisted in the Air Force and trained as a paratrooper, was a radio operator working alongside Army units in Vietnam. His job was to communicate the needs of soldiers on the ground to bombers in the sky. That wasn't enough to keep him busy, though. So in his spare time, Shifrel volunteered for counterinsurgency work,...

Senators from both sides of the aisle competed on Monday to extol the humane treatment of detainees whom they said they saw on a weekend trip to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. All said they opposed closing the center. "I feel very good" about the detainees' treatment, Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said. That feeling was also expressed by another Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska. On Monday, Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, said he learned while visiting Guantánamo that some detainees "even have air-conditioning and semiprivate showers." Another Republican, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, said...

Poll on left side of page Which Virginia politician do you expect to see on a presidential ticket in 2008? George Allen Mark Warner Both

That figure is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who became mayor of Tehran less than two years ago. He won the presidency in a landslide, crushing the mullah-cum business tycoon Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the pillars of the regime since its inception in 1979. Ahmadinejad's victory means that Khamenehi, who has established himself as head of the most radical faction within the Khomeinist establishment, now controls all levers of power for the first time. He will now be able to put his own men in charge of all key government departments. Any idea of Western-style reforms to please the restive middle classes...

As the insults flew and the protest reached a boil, Joseph Turner couldn't help but smile. The 29-year-old head of the upstart Save Our State organization had come to Baldwin Park to pick a fight over illegal immigration. They got all of the fight they could handle. Hundreds of counter-protesters in the predominantly Latino city rose up to meet them, chanting "Go home, racists!" "I couldn't have scripted it better," said Turner, a former stock trader who runs the anti-illegal immigration group from his Ventura home. "My goal is to continually keep this issue in the forefront of the American...

– Los Angeles County's sheriff yesterday said the killing of a deputy during a gang investigation shows that gang violence in Southern California is out of control. "This is barbarism. This is ignorance. This is something that doesn't fit the human dignity," Sheriff Lee Baca said at a news conference. He also criticized "incompetent families that don't know what to do with their errant children." Baca called on state and local officials to provide more funding for anti-gang efforts, both by law enforcement and through social efforts such as providing better education and job opportunities to disadvantaged youthOrozco, who was...

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy interviewing a woman and a man outside a Hawaiian Gardens apartment was fatally shot Friday when a gunman burst out of the residence, put a handgun to the officer's face and fired, authorities said. Sheriff's deputies fanned out across Hawaiian Gardens late Friday in search of the gunman, who apparently surprised Deputy Jerry Ortiz, 35, as he spoke to the woman in the doorway of her apartment Deputies identified the suspect as Jose Luis Orozco, 27, a parolee wanted on suspicion of attempted murder in another case. "He should be considered armed and very dangerous,"...

Neighbors got their first inkling that something was going on at Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Del Mar-area home when they saw him packing. Next door neighbor Kent Greene asked: "Are you selling your house?" "Already sold," Cunningham answered. When neighbors later learned the $1,675,000 price, they were even more astonished. Quiet murmurings eventually became an uproar on quiet Mercado Drive, where people routinely meet for Friday night cocktails and take out one another's trash during vacations. Located just outside Del Mar, in the San Diego city limits, it's not the kind of place homeowners ever expected FBI agents to snoop...

SAN YSIDRO – A prescreened driver who passed a security background check was arrested with drugs in her car as she attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Customs officials said yesterday. A suspicious border inspector stopped 21-year-old Jhuliana Aramis Cohen of Tijuana in one of the SENTRI lanes at the San Ysidro crossing. Cohen was jailed Wednesday after a search turned up 202 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of her car, and she has pleaded not guilty in federal court. According to court documents, Cohen told investigators she knew there was marijuana in the car and had agreed...

RAMONA – A 21-year-old man suffered serious injuries to his hands Thursday when a homemade dry-ice bomb blew up as he held it, the Sheriff's Department reported. Sheriff's deputies said the device detonated about 6:30 p.m. in the parking lot of an auto parts store on Main Street, severely lacerating the victim's hands between the thumbs and forefingers. Investigators from the Sheriff's Bomb/Arson unit learned that the victim, an assistant manager in the store, was seen assembling the bomb inside the store and had carried it out to the parking lot. He was seen shaking the device with both hands...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday shielded the federal government from a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by dissident Westlands Water District farmers. In a unanimous ruling whose broader consequences may unfold slowly, the court ruled that sovereign immunity protects the United States from Orff and the other unhappy farmers in the district near Fresno. Essentially, it's up to the federal government to decide when it can be sued. "We conclude that, in enacting (irrigation law), Congress did not consent to (Orff's) suit," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote. Orff and about two dozen other Westlands farmers want the federal government to pay them...

AL TAQADDUM, Iraq(June 24, 2005) -- At 21 years of age Zuzana Drahosova left her native country of Slovakia for America. Focused on a better life, she had the U.S. Navy in mind. After paying for an extension on her visa, Drahosova had $80 to her name and began working three jobs trying to build up enough money to survive and eventually obtain a “green card” so she could enter the military service. “It was tough,” said Drahosova, who called Pensacola, Fla., home at the time. “The first year I lived in America I worked all the time. I never...