Free Republic

Tipper Gore, an amateur genealogical researcher, discovered that her husband's great-great uncle, Gunther Gore, a fellow lacking in character, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Tennessee in 1889. The only known photograph of Gunther shows him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture is this inscription: "Gunther Gore; horse thief, sent to Tennessee Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Tennessee Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889." After letting Al Gore and his staff of professional image consultants peruse the findings, they decided to crop Gunther's picture, scan it ...

MY 6-YEAR-OLD, the oldest of my three kids, really stumped me the other day. He'd heard some political coverage on the news, and asked "Mom, what's abortion? What's pro-choice?" He really seemed to want some answers. Wow, was I caught off-guard. Not because I didn't know the meanings of the terms, of course, but because for the first time I realized something that transcended any political argument: I couldn't bear to explain such things to my child. Here is a sweet, loving, innocent little boy who is growing up believing that mothers and fathers are trustworthy because they are full ...

Like Limericks? Don't like Gore the Bore, Bill & Hill or the liberal left? Well, then you'll love our cutting conservative limericks! Get your fill of Right Wing Limericks, 3 times a week, courtesy of Al Bienstock. Think he can't find a rhyme for Lieberman...just you wait! Here's a sample: As a poet, I can't ask for more Than to have as a subject--Al Gore Because a name like his Rhymes with just what he is-- The consummate political bore. Rhyming Lieberman's tougher, we know, So in limericks I'll just call him Joe. He was picked because he's Got no ...

Unlike most spiritual leaders and moral teachers, Jesus of Nazareth offered no formula for worldly happiness and social order. Just the opposite: he told his disciples to take up their crosses (an image he used well before the Crucifixion) and to expect suffering. He warned them that the world would hate them as it hated him: it was their destiny as Christians. After the conversion of the Roman world under the Emperor Constantine, a Christian civilization arose and the age of martyrdom seemed to be over. Most Western Christians still think of that period as a thing of the past, ...

“Never I go back!” With these four words of broken English, in 1980, a twelve-year-old visitor to the United States named Walter Polovchak defiantly announced his refusal to return with his parents back to their home in the Soviet Union. Polovchak’s case dragged through the court system for five and a half years until Walter’s 18th birthday, when was finally permitted to apply for asylum on his own behalf. Today, an administration that stonewalls, delays and obstructs every inquiry into its own corruption and misconduct, did everything in its power to ensure that Elian’s case was decided before it was ...

The Associated Press Wednesday, June 7, 2000; 3:18 p.m. EDT EUGENE, Ore. –– A man who threatened to blow up President Clinton and placed phony pipe bombs near the Eugene Airport before a presidential visit has been sentenced to 13 years in prison. Jeffrey Loring Pickering, 51, pleaded guilty to making bomb threats by telephone, lying to investigators and placing two fake bombs in a roadside culvert. The president's June 13, 1998, trip was not disrupted. He was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Papagni said Pickering threatened the president to impress some teen-agers. ...

The following is a copy of the text from a letter written by Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, regarding the Smith and Wesson quid pro quo -- compliance with Clinton's gun mandates in order to win federal and state law enforcement purchase contracts. Dear General Spitzer: I have received your letter inviting me to join in your effort to encourage various state and local governments to award law enforcement gun contracts only to gun manufacturers agreeing to a "Code of Conduct" which dictates various business practices, safety features, marketing strategies, etc., for both gun ...

A great deal has been made about the complexity of the case of Elian Gonzalez. Indeed, there is a convergence of many factors which have been woven together in the endless analyses and legal actions which his case have inspired. For many, the case turns on a decision concerning the intrinsic superiority of a democratic system of government over a communist-inspired dictatorship, or vice versa, depending on where you live and how you think. In either case, Elian becomes the latest in a series of incidents which will continue as long as the present relationship between the two nations is ...

1. Your spellchecker recognizes the names "Elian" and "Marisleysis". 2. When you hit the Self Search button, the server pulls up nothing but articles and replies about Elian. You have hundreds of articles bookmarked, all about Elian. 3. You have a photo of Elian saved as wallpaper on your computer . . . AT WORK. 4. You immediately recognize the name John Huang2, but can't remember who the original John Huang was or what he did exactly. 5.You have no idea when you last posted on a topic other than Elian or what your post was about. 6.You've stopped reading ...

THEY MAY PLAY the lamb, hiding behind their fiction novels, "New Yorker" magazines and cultural events calendars. But they are the wolves, the aggressors, the war-makers. Their latest battle is to send Elian Gonzales back to his father, Fidel Castro. They are the peaceniks, the pro-refugee, pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-capital punishment humanitarians. At first blush, the well-meaners’ position on the Gonzales issue seems riddled with inconsistencies, with inversions of their own principles. Whence, for example, this newfound respect for parental rights? And wherefore this uncharacteristic zeal for deporting refugees? But it is no more baffling than their support, nay, demand, for ...

The case of young Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez is front and center. The Federalist has argued repeatedly that there are no "parental rights" under Communist dictators. This week, our assertion was confirmed by a Cuban government spokesman, Luis Fernandez, who announced, "He [Elian] is a possession of the Cuban government. No other entity can remove this." The Cuban Constitution, of course, gives the government paramount powers as to dictating how children will be raised. The Federalist's editorial position has been that this matter should be remanded to the Florida state courts for a decision. This case is, indeed, a violation ...

INSULTING. NERVY. GRATUITOUS. Provocative. Cruel. Bullying. Those are a few of the adjectives that might apply to the U.S. Justice Department's latest letter to Elian Gonzalez's family in Miami. The threat in the letter is more than implied: If the family doesn't agree -- now, in writing, signature on the dotted line -- to hand over the kid within three days after their last court appeal is denied, the Justice Department "would have no choice but to move forward with the termination of Elian's parole as of Thursday at 9 a.m." Jawohl! You can almost hear the lawyers' heels click. ...

. . . I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid. Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all ...

The Republicans now face a terrible choice. Option A: They can dump George W. Bush, who has demonstrated that he is unable to win a majority of votes except among the party's most conservative members--which is to say, he cannot win the general election against Al Gore. Tossing the loser overboard with nary a backward glance (call it uncompassionate conservatism), the Republicans can place their faith in John McCain, a candidate who has demonstrated an extraordinary appeal to voters across most of the spectrum, which is to say, a candidate who can beat Gore like the cheap, tinny gong that ...

(Slightly edited) WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- President Clinton, at a prayer breakfast with political and religious leaders, today decried religious and ethnic intolerance around the world and said with a straight face that Washington politicians are guilty of ``dishonest demonization'' in the heat of political battle. The president and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined several thousand people at the wrist and ankles as well as the Washington Hilton for the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of members of Congress, Cabinet members, clergy and lay people. It is a blasphemous mockery of a ritual dating back to 1952 when ...

There's good news and bad news for George W. Bush. On second thought, maybe there's just bad news. Despite happy talk from GOP spinmeisters, Tuesday's implosion in New Hampshire was a calamity for Republicans. Mr. Bush didn't merely lose: he was gutted. However many primaries he goes on to win, this defeat will resonate from now till November (and perhaps beyond), if only because it frames the story the press will tell throughout this election year. Rival John McCain, savoring a shades-of-Jesse-Ventura landslide (he was buoyed by self-described 'independents' and first time voters) now moves forward along his own weird ...

This column is for serious conservatives only. No cheap off-color Clinton jokes today. We're going deep. You may want to put on your thinking cap for this one. As you presumably know, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." But since the New Deal, this clause has been pretty much boiled down to one phrase: "general welfare." It is now generally assumed that Congress may pass any law it deems in the "general welfare" of the United States. Strict constructionists ...

CRITICS FLAYED AND SKEWERED DUTCH, THE EDMUND Morris biography of Ronald Reagan. I rather liked it. You could do much worse in your hunt for a good holiday book. Unlike standard biographies, this one reads like a prose version of a superbly rendered documentary, in the style of Ken Burns. Many have carped about Morris' brave but odd literary technique: The writer "fictionalized" himself as an American-born citizen and contemporary of Reagan's. (He's actually Kenyan-born and 59 years old.) The idea was to put a "camera" on Reagan, then follow him as he grew up in rural Illinois, reached manhood ...

CINCINNATI ---- No bloodshed, no gunfire, no screams. Yet when Matt Hale, a Butler County deputy sheriff, was on patrol in Liberty Township, just north of here, and saw the little boy crouched on the ground in 90-degree sun, he sensed something was wrong. So the deputy stopped his car and approached the boy--Aaron Faughn, 9. He asked the boy if he was OK, and when the boy looked up the deputy didn't need to hear any words to know the answer. The child was distraught. Here is what had happened: Aaron wanted to earn some money to buy some ...

Government inundated with phony degrees Picking up falsified honors is easier, more profitable than ever William Tiller was hired by the city of Encinitas, just north of San Diego, in 1996, fresh out of the Marine Corps, to coordinate preparations for Y2K at a salary of $97,000 a year. Tiller certainly looked well qualified for the position; he boasted not only a bachelor's and master's degree, but also two doctorate degrees. There was just one problem, city officials later learned. Tiller's resume turned out to be a complete fabrication. Though Tiller has used different resumes, each has proven to be ...