Free Republic

The current session of the Legislature wrapped up last week with an orgy of back-slapping and congratulation-swapping. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Don Perata joined Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in trumpeting an “extraordinarily productive” year in state government. Much of the media joined in this chorus of “Sacramento the Beautiful” in analysis pieces and editorials asserting times had changed on the state government front. Don't believe a word of it. On the most important issues, nothing has changed. A credible argument can be made that the governor and the Legislature did far better on the process front this year...

Liberal behaviour is, indeed, the best indictment of Liberal crime policy. If you think setting up new after-school programs and community centres is the way to stop Jamaican gun gangs, well, it doesn't seem to work with the Grits. Give career Liberals lavishly funded federal day-care centres to romp around in and exciting skills development programs to retrain them as productive members of Quebec advertising agencies and all kinds of other fun rewarding activities, and they still carry on looting and stealing and terrorizing the neighbourhood. In the end, the only way you can deal with it is to put...

The reason why Bush is in the mess he is in comes down to communication and passivity. Team Bush has a lousy, lousy communication staff. McLellan is laughable. He is no Lyn Nofziger or a Mike McCurry. Bush should have a teflon, tough as nails Press Sec or a teflon, smoothie with a surplus of witty retorts to lob back at the Dem Shills in the Press Room. Instead he has a guy who always looks like he has sh*t in his pants.. This is not good. Dan Bartlett is another mediocre dude-- looks too prissy. He ain't no Ed...

The Government was not given advance notice of the announcement about a possible terrorist threat to Australia, a spokesman for Prime Minister Helen Clark said last night. "We heard through news reports that John Howard had made the statement," the spokesman told NZPA. "At that point New Zealand officials contacted their Australian counterparts." Mr Howard said in his announcement in Canberra that Australia had received "specific information" which raised serious concerns about a potential terrorist threat. "I don't want to over-alarm people. I have said for a long time the possibility of an attack is there," he said. Miss Clark...

The real danger for Republicans now isn't ethics; it is that, like those 1994 Democrats, they seem to have grown more comfortable presiding over the government than changing it. No one typified this more than Mr. DeLay, who has always been more fiercely partisan than he is conservative. Among the GOP House leaders who took power in 1994, Dick Armey was the genuine idea man. Mr. DeLay provided the political muscle of fund-raising and vote-counting.

THE COMPLACENCY of CHRISTIANS is the scandal of Christianity. Time is short, and eternity is long. The end of all things is at hand. Man has proved himself morally unfit to manage the world in which he has been placed by the kindness of the Almighty. He has jockeyed himself to the edge of the crater and cannot go back, and in terrible fear he is holding his breath against the awful moment when he will be plunged into the inferno. In the meantime, a company of people exist on the earth who claim to have the answer to all...

Very Dangerous Conduct Among Republicans and Freepers. Complacency Kills. My friends, this is a dangerous time. Never before has there been an election that so threatens America. Simply put, if John Kerry wins, the United States will simply become an “equal citizen” of the world, along with every other country. John Kerry is much more of a citizen of the “World” than he is a US citizen. Yes, he was born here. However, his education was in the French cantons of Switzerland, at a time when the “Hate Everything American” was stronger there than it is even now. Today, we...

WELCOME TO SODOM AND GOMORRAH, U.S.A. by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher March 2, 2004 The homosexual lobby can say what they like, but the fact remains these so-called 'gay marriages' are neither legitimate nor lawful, despite what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom or New Paltz, New York Mayor Jason West may think. Newsom cites the equal protection under the laws clause of the California State Constitution as his justification for violating Proposition 22, the ballot initiative overwhelmingly passed by California voters in 2002 that specifically prohibits marriage between two persons of the same gender.I recently spoke with an attorney...

A preacher once went around New York City and asked the following question to the first person he met on the street. The question was," Do you know what is wrong with America?" The man's answer was"I don't know, and I don't care."

Our greatest responsibility is the active defence of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September the 11th, 2001 -- over two years without an attack on American soil -- and it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting -- and false. -- George W. Bush, State of the Union, Jan. 20, 2004 - - - The war on terrorism has been more successful than any of us dared imagine. Iraq is free. Afghanistan is freeish. Saddam is in jail. Osama bin Laden is in hiding. Two-thirds of al-Qaeda's known leadership...

Jan. 19 issue - Each morning, as republicans—bright-eyed after sleep made especially refreshing by dreams of defeating Howard Dean—shave or apply makeup, they should look into their mirrors and say to the images of complacency there: "Read my lips—Michael Dukakis got 45.6 percent of the vote."

AP: al-Qaida Had Plans for More Attacks By JOHN J. LUMPKIN The Associated Press Sunday, October 12, 2003; 3:48 PM WASHINGTON - Some of the al-Qaida operatives whose activities led to a U.S. security warning last month have been captured, while others remain at large, U.S. counterterrorism authorities say. "We have received a lot of good information from these detainees over the past several weeks and corroborated the fact there were active plans, ongoing, to conduct another attack in the United States," said William H. Parrish, a top intelligence official with the Homeland Security Department, during a recent interview with...

<p>Some of the al-Qaida operatives whose activities led to a U.S. security warning last month have been captured, while others remain at large, U.S. counterterrorism authorities say.</p> <p>"We have received a lot of good information from these detainees over the past several weeks and corroborated the fact there were active plans, ongoing, to conduct another attack in the United States," said William H. Parrish, a top intelligence official with the Homeland Security Department, during a recent interview with The Associated Press.</p>

Most of you have heard that the recently-converted Florida Moslem woman who wanted to have her driver's license photo taken while wearing a full burqa, including a total head covering, lost her case in court. A Florida judge said that a driver's license is for identification purposes, and if all you can see is someone's eyes in the photo, it is useless for that purpose.It's coming to America, folks. Here's a list of items related to a French university's language studies department. Moslems are taking over. Read the full article at WorldNetDaily. Headscarved students demanded a prayer room within the...

Oleg Kalugin, former chief of counterintelligence for the KGB, was once a major general who headed the KGB office in Washington. He was stripped of his rank and pension in 1990 after pushing for reforms in the KGB, and was subsequently convicted, in absentia, of high treason. He now heads Intercon International, a Washington-based international business consulting firm, teaches at the Centre for Counterintelligence in suburban Virginia, is a director of the International Spy Museum, and consults for the departments of Defense and Energy. Excerpts from a recent interview with Al Eisele follow: Q: What’s your assessment of President Bush?...

Throughout the antitrust trial Microsoft executives have seen it as vitally important that they avoid the legal threat turning Microsoft into IBM. Big Blue itself faced a major antitrust action in the 80s, and although it eventually emerged relatively intact (apparently), it did so with a large gaggle of lawyers attached to it for ever more, and with a deep paranoia/paralysis engendered by fear of antitrust. That of course is a matter of opinion, and although I personally do not believe it is entirely true, Microsoft and numbers of analysts believe that it is. IBM won the battle but lost...