Free Republic

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter said on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with an early recurrence of Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system. Specter, R-Pa., was originally diagnosed with the disease in 2005. At that time, he was treated with six months of chemotherapy. The disease went into remission, which lasted three years. Specter's recurrence was diagnosed based on a routine follow-up scan, which showed small lymph nodes in his chest and abdomen. A follow-up biopsy of one of the chest lymph nodes tested positive for recurrence. A bone marrow biopsy came back negative. Now, Specter will receive...

Former Sen. Mike Gravel is leaving the Democratic Party – and his quixotic bid for its presidential nomination – for the Libertarian Party. “It is a party that combines a commitment to freedom and peace that can't be found in the two major parties that control the government and politics of America," Gravel said in a statement released late Tuesday by America’s largest third party. "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average...

Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri is calling on Muslims to strike Israeli and American interests to avenge Israel's recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to a new audiotape. In the 4-minute tape, posted on a Web site Monday, al-Zawahri accuses Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of helping Israel in its offensive by sealing off the border between Egypt and Gaza. He calls on Muslims to "strike the interests of the Jews, the Americans, and all of those who participated in the attack on the Muslims," and says attacks should not be limited to areas in Israel or the Palestinian territories....

The Lebanese newspaper A-Safir reported Saturday that the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah has deployed 50,000 "activists" along the southern border with Israel and declared a state of high alert in southern Lebanon. According to the report, the organization has also evacuated all buildings in the area designated for social or political purposes in recent days, in preparation for a confrontation with Israel in the wake of the assassination of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyah. Mughniyah, the organization's deputy secretary general, was killed in a blast in an upscale Damascus neighborhood late Tuesday. On Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel...

***Page Exclusive: Some Clinton Senior Staff Working Without Pay*** SOURCE: THEY HAVE “VOLUNTARILY CHOSEN TO WORK WITHOUT PAY THIS MONTH” AS PART OF CLINTON CASH CRUNCH AGAINST OBAMA MOOLA FACTORY.

Iran is planning on submerging the tomb of King Cyrus (Coresh), the Persian King known for authorizing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple. According to a report by Omedia, an Iranian organization is demanding that the International Criminal Court take action against those responsible. The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic heritage; Cyrus was thought to be a Zoroastrian and was one of the first rulers to enforce a policy of religious tolerance on his huge kingdom. Journalist...

For the past few months most libertarians have been pleased to see Ron Paul achieving unexpected success with his presidential campaign’s message of ending the Iraq war, abolishing the federal income tax, establishing sound money, and restoring the Constitution. Sure, some of us didn’t like his talk about closing the borders and his conspiratorial view of a North-South highway. But the main themes of his campaign, the ones that generated the multi-million-dollar online fundraising spectaculars and the youthful “Ron Paul Revolution,” were classic libertarian issues. It was particularly gratifying to see a presidential candidate tie the antiwar position to a...

Israeli media reports on Friday revealed that slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto intended to establish official relations with the Jewish state if elected and was seeking Mossad protection in the interim. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert grieved over Bhutto's assassination following an election rally on Thursday, and said that upon her return to Pakistan in October after years of exile Bhutto conveyed to him via a mutual acquaintance that she wanted close ties between Israel and Pakistan. The Hebrew daily newspaper Ma'ariv further revealed that Bhutto had asked Israel's Mossad spy agency, along with...

A comment made by Barack Obama about drinking tea has the Clinton campaign in a tizzy, making a tempest in a teapot. We just can’t avoid the cliches, sorry. At a stop on Friday in Coralville, Mr. Obama took a subtle dig at Hillary Rodham Clinton, hinting that his diverse background and extensive global travel deepens his level of experience more than being eight years of being the first lady. Here we go again. “It’s that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassador’s house I had tea with, but understanding...

<p>Did Hillary Clinton kill Benazir Bhutto? Not quite, though Barack Obama's right hand man thinks she may have had something to do with it.</p> <p>"She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq," David Axelrod said, speaking of Hillary "which we would submit, is one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today.</p>

U.S. officials suspect a Taliban leader may be behind the plot to assassinate former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a senior official said Friday. The official identified Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud as a leading suspect, saying there's "good information that leads us to believe he is the guy responsible." Earlier Friday, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said it had "intelligence intercepts" indicating Mehsud was behind the opposition leader's death the day before in Rawalpindi. "As you all know, Benazir Bhutto had been on the hit list of terrorists ever since she had come to Pakistan," said the Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig....

Ah, Christmas in Bethlehem. Manger Square is ablaze with colorful lights. The weather is usually a bit chilly. Aggressive merchants bombard passersby with “special sales” on all kinds of cedar wood statues and religious carvings. And like clockwork, the mainstream media descend upon this city every year to ignore rampant Muslim intimidation of Christians and instead blast Israel - often with completely inaccurate information - for ruining Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion. Take a widely circulated piece by McClatchy Newspapers writers Dion Nissenbaum and Cliff Churgin. The piece,...

Is Mike Huckabee a fascist? That's the insinuation from Ron Paul, one of Huckabee's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. And it's a cheap shot. One needn't agree with, or even like, Huckabee to know that throwing around the f-word "fascism" is a low blow. This story is important, because it speaks to the larger question of whether Christians can fully participate in politics without being slurred. Here's the context: Huckabee ran a TV spot in which the former Arkansas governor wishes Americans a "Merry Christmas." And in the background, there's a windowpane, or some shelving, that looks a bit...

Jewish worshippers Tuesday were stunned to find Arabs had desecrated the graves of the Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father). Joshua served as the Jewish Nation's Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE - 1300 BCE). Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Arab vandals had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered...

A high-voltage power line fell over Tuesday during the Gaza funeral for two terrorists killed by the IDF Monday. The line was severed by shooting in the air. One person was killed and eight injured by the live wires.

'WAR is the health of the state," proclaimed Randolph Bourne, one of the comparatively few progressive intellectuals not to be seduced by the siren call of World War I. Bourne himself was but a momentary courier of the warning torch meant to illuminate the threat that standing armies, militarism, and foreign intervention supposedly present to liberty. "Brutus"--the author of the leading essays against ratification of the Constitution (the Anti-Federalist, as it were)--warned repeatedly that a permanent military and the strong central government necessary to sustain it were inimical to liberty at home. Thomas Jefferson famously shared similar anxieties. One irony...

After a near-miss at one western Negev kibbutz over the weekend, Kibbutz Zikim was less fortunate Sunday when a rocket landed directly under the window of a kibbutz residence, causing extensive damage and hurting a three-year-old boy. Rom Gertal was playing on the floor of his living room with his mother sitting a few meters away when the Kassam rocket launched from the northern Gaza Strip slammed into the side of the small kibbutz home. Sivan Katzir said she immediately ran over to her son and picked him up. Within minutes, kibbutz residents and emergency teams flocked to the house,...

President Bush extended a delay on moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem for another six months. "I hereby determine that it is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States to suspend for a period of six months" the embassy move mandated in a 1995 law, Bush said Wednesday in a memorandum to Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state. "My administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem." Bush and his predecessor, President Clinton, have routinely exercised their prerogative to delay the move, citing the difficulties such an action would impose...

Guess which presidential candidate expects to benefit if Republican candidate Ron Paul loses the GOP primary and resists running on the Libertarian Party ticket instead? Close, but no cigar. It’s Cynthia McKinney. The former Georgia congresswoman and ex-Democrat is running for president on the Green Party ticket and believes she can woo some of Paul’s supporters should he fizzle out early, according to this report at Reason.com, a Libertarian website. McKinney, who moved to California shortly after she lost her congressional seat for the second time in 2006, has been making campaign stops, mainly on college campuses, in New York,...

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) is being excluded from this week’s Iowa presidential debate because he has not rented office space in the Hawkeye State, his campaign said Wednesday. The Des Moines Register informed the campaign that Kucinich is not invited because the newspaper determined “that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa,” the campaign said. Kucinich, who is running his second consecutive presidential campaign but is doing poorly in national polls, has received strong support in online surveys from liberal groups such as Democracy...