Free Republic

The imam behind the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero surfaced yesterday far from the controversy -- in Bahrain, where he's on a taxpayer-funded trip to the Middle East to spread good will. Appearing in public for the first time in weeks, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, speaking at a mosque near Bahrain's capital of Manama, said he wants to "Americanize" Islam -- but dodged questions about the uproar over his planned mosque and community center. This is Rauf's fourth US-sponsored trip to the region

Oct 13,2008 The Nation -- The elections in Iran are nearly a year away, but it's encouraging to see the emerging possibility of a new bid for the presidency by former President Mohammad Khatami. Last week, he hinted that he's considering running against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nutball whose support lies mainly in the paramilitary Basij force and elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Can Khatami ju-jitsu the all-powerful Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei and his election-rigging Guardian Council? Can Khatami loom so large that even Khamenei might choose to support him over Ahmadinejad? Might Khamenei decide to back Khatami as...

A Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction showed up for work on Wednesday as he routinely does — entering the city jail in Lower Manhattan to minister to some of the roughly 900 male inmates there. But when the chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, flung his shoulder bag onto an X-ray machine at the entrance of the Manhattan Detention Complex, at 125 White Street, officers were alerted to the presence of metal. They found a pair of scissors and three metal blades, the kind used in box cutters, in the bag’s outer flap, the authorities said. Imam Abu-Shahid was...

POLITICAL power is rarely ceded without good reason. So eyebrows were raised last week when the US Department of Commerce decided to relax its grip on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for the naming system that ensures that when you type a web address, your browser knows where to go. In future, governments and other international organisations will be able to nominate staff to sit on one of ICANN's three newly created steering committees, something the DoC had resisted for years. "What it really means," says ICANN's chief executive Rod Beckstrom, "is that...

As the state’s shortage of primary care doctors grows, people are waiting longer for medical care, according to a new survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society. “The shortage is getting more severe,” said Dr. Mario Motta, the medical society’s president. The state’s health care dilemma can serve as a valuable lesson for a nation whose residents are locked in a frenzied debate about health care reform, he added.

KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq — When a Navy hospital corpsman becomes “green,” he is placed on the front lines with the trust of the Marine Corps infantryman. He runs through the trenches, engaging the enemy, all while putting his own life on the line providing medical care for the wounded. After four tours in two separate conflicts, Chief Petty Officer Truman A. Gartman, chief petty officer of the Battalion Aid Station, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, has been a part of that trust for 14 years and counting. “What I love most about being with the Marines...

SNOHOMISH — The patch under the bridge is closed in by brambles. Rodent tracks crisscross in the dirt. It may be dry, but still it's not fit for human habitation. Unless you're a sex offender, that is.The underside of the 88th Street bridge, near this river town's greenhouses and horse farms, is where state government last week assigned a released rapist to sleep. David J. Torrence, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 1995, had completed his latest prison term (for failing to register as a sex offender.) He had no place to go. So officials gave him a sleeping bag...

On This Day In History November 8, 1887 Doc Holliday dies of tuberculosis On this day, Doc Holliday--gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis. Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed...

Haiti's 'Baby Doc' seeks forgiveness By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:38am BST 26/09/2007 Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the exiled former dictator of Haiti, has asked his countrymen to forgive "wrongs" committed by his regime. His plea is being seen as a bid to soften opposition to him returning there. In a radio speech recorded in Paris and broadcast across the impoverished Caribbean country, Duvalier urged supporters to rally around his small National Unity Party. It was his first public address in years. Duvalier, 56, took over as ruler of Haiti from his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier,...

Danny Botkin's love affair with the DeLorean got off to an unpromising start. It was the early '80s and a teen-age Botkin was tagging along while his father shopped for a new car. A Ford dealer had a rear-engined, gull-winged DeLorean on display, and the flash of stainless steel automotive skin caught Danny's eye. "I was smitten," Botkin, now 40, recalls. "I said, 'Hey Dad, let's get this.' "He got a Bronco instead." Botkin had to grow up and buy his dream car himself. He drives a restored DeLorean modeled after the one that served as a time machine in...

/15/2007 - NEW YORK (AFPN) -- Little else is audible above the sounds of construction and traffic. Although it's been nearly six years, a constant flow of onlookers still gather on the breezeway above to view the site of one of the most tragic events in American history -- 9/11. Passersby pause at the "Ten House" long enough to admire the bronze wall sculpture that memorializes the firefighters lost on that day. Others, on their daily commutes, steal a glance at the bright, red fire trucks parked just inside the open garage of the firehouse that faces the fenced perimeter...

Readers of the AIM Report are accustomed to learning of huge distortions or omissions by the media. This time, the under-reported story deals with the possible end of America, as we know it. Major players are secretive and are trying to keep the media out of the loop. But that does not let the mainstream media off the hook. There is enough stonewalling, secrecy and there are plenty of telltale signs, so that any assignment editor whose curiosity is not aroused is probably in the wrong business. But in terms of the national media, only Lou Dobbs of CNN has...

This is Part II of a three-part series. Read Part I, North American Union: Deconstructing the U.S. By 2010, the integration of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. will be almost complete. Congress and the media will not know what happened. Americans will be as clueless as ever; thanks to the complicity of the brain-dead media, the triumph of a bloodless bureaucratic elitist coup will become a reality, or close to it. Jerome Corsi writes in Human Events: "Without announcing his intentions to do so, President Bush has decided to support the creation of a North American Union through a process...

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2006 – Most military members end their careers by the time they are half his age, but one Army doctor says he would rather come out of retirement to help the troops than watch from the sidelines. Col. William Bernhard, an Army surgeon, stands in front of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on Forward Operating Base Lima, Iraq, Oct. 15, 2005. Bernhard, 75, is about to deploy to Kabul, Afghanistan, reportedly as the oldest deployed member of America's armed forces. Courtesy photo   Tomorrow, retired Army Reserve Col. William Bernhard, a 75-year-old surgeon, will start a journey...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Feb. 17, 2006) -- Critical medical operations to save the life of a wounded comrade are extremely stressful in the rear, where there is proper medical equipment. Conducting them in the back of a humvee while it speeds through a hail of shrapnel and small arms fire, however, is a true test of one’s proficiency and courage. Petty Officer 1st Class Nathan McDonell faced and overcame that challenge a year ago in Iraq and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for it during a ceremony at Camp Margarita Feb. 17. “I accept this recognition...

AL TAMAL, Iraq (Jan. 14, 2006) -- Seaman Bryan W. Stocks, a 20-year-old Kenai, Alaska, native and platoon hospital corpsman for 3rd Platoon, Company A, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, had a tough choice to make when he was considering enlisting into the Navy: nuclear physics or medicine. One involves high mathematics and accounting for the behavior of atoms; the other, calculating medicinal dosages and accounting for the behavior of human beings. Two equally demanding and difficult jobs suitable for only the most trustworthy and intelligent of enlistees. Ultimately, though, the decision came down to a question of what Stocks...

The head of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has endorsed a call for McDonalds to improve working conditions and raise the pay of its tomato pickers. In a letter released on Wednesday, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the two-million-member denomination, challenged the fast food chain giant to “put an end to human rights violations” by bringing an “adequate solution to the grievous conditions and sub-poverty wages of farmworkers.” "Farmworkers are explicitly excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, which denies them the right to organize, the right to negotiate with their employers, and the right to appeal grievances to...

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Marlon Rendon Combat Doc Supports Marines in Ar Ramadi By Sgt. Ryan S. Scranton 2nd Marine Division CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, Iraq, Nov. 9, 2005 — Marlon D. Rendon immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when he was 17 years old to live with his father and start a new life in Queens, N.Y. The 24-year-old petty officer third class is now serving as a corpsman with the 2nd Marine Division in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, providing for the medical needs of Marines here. Joining Marines on their daily patrols through the...

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, RAMADI, Iraq (Nov. 3, 2005) -- Marlon D. Rendon immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when he was 17 years old to live with his father and start a new life in Queens, NY. The 24-year-old petty officer third class is now serving as a corpsman with the 2nd Marine Division in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, providing for the medical needs of Marines here. Joining Marines on their daily patrols through the streets of Ramadi is a far cry from his strolls as a teenager down Corona Avenue in Queens. “I never thought I would...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Oct. 13, 2005) -- When Seaman Hipolito V. Avitia, 21, from Albuquerque, N.M., deployed to Iraq for the second time at the beginning of this year, he thought it would be exactly the same as he left it in 2004. But now, after his deployment in the Al Anbar province has gone by, the 2000 graduate of Rio Grande High School has seen not only a different part of Iraq, but a difference in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a corpsman, or field doctor, for Company F, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, who were south...