Free Republic

Addressing the Portuguese parliament via video link, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called on Portugal to send "heavy weapons" and strengthen the sanctions on Russia. "I am grateful for the opportunity in this difficult time because you know how we are feeling, fighting for our independence, but also our survival," said Zelensky, referring to what Portugal experienced in history. Zelensky's 15-minute speech received a standing ovation in the parliament attended by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

<p>KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — For the first time, U.S. public schools are projected this fall to have more minority students than non-Hispanic Whites, a shift largely fueled by growth in the number of Hispanic children(some even here legally).</p> <p>The changing demographics of American education are apparent inside Jane Cornell’s summer school classroom, where giggling grade-schoolers mostly come from homes where Spanish is the primary language. The sign outside the classroom reads “Welcome” and “Bienvenidos” in polished handwriting.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s health care law is enmeshed in another big legal battle after two federal appeals courts issued contradictory rulings on a key financing issue within hours of each other Tuesday.</p> <p>A divided court panel in Washington called into question the subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people pay their premiums, saying financial aid can be paid only in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges.</p>

The U.S. Department of Labor is releasing $74 million in grants to be invested in reintegration services for ex-felons and juvenile offenders, the department announced June 19. The goal, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said in a statement, is to “help ex-offenders turn around their lives and get back on their feet.” He added that the money will fund the agency’s Face Forward and Training to Work programs, initiatives already underway in communities where ex-offenders need help in orienting themselves to post-incarceration life. The grants, he said, “will continue to build on this success by expanding services to even more...

Yes, it's That Time Of Year again. In my neverending quest for Awesome Christmas Music I turn to my fellow FReepers for suggestions. In exchange, here's a link to 25 Days of Free Christmas Music from Amazon.

The cousin of Emmett Till, the black 14-year-old tortured and lynched in 1955 in Mississippi, appeared on MSNBC Friday morning and compared the murder of his cousin to the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Trayvon was fatally shot during an altercation by former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, a Hispanic, who was found not guilty on all charges. “The comparison to me is similar; there are a lot of parallels between Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin,” Simeon Wright began. “Number one: Trayvon was killed by a white boy that got out of his truck armed to the teeth — chased him...

A group of 16 housing advocacy organizations want the Prince George’s County Foreclosure Task Force to find ways to stem an alarming rise in housing foreclosures recently. Maryland is third in the nation for homes in foreclosure actions, lead largely by a flurry of foreclosure activity in Baltimore City and Prince George’s and Charles counties, according to RealtyTrac, a website that tracks real estate listings and foreclosure filings. According to industry experts, one in every 647 homes in Maryland is in a stage of foreclosure proceedings and in Prince George’s it is one in every 540 homes. The county had...

“This growing inequality,” President Obama said during his recent Knox College speech, “is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.”A strong statement — but one not supported by data, suggests a blockbuster new study by economists Steven Kaplan (University of Chicago) and Joshua Rauh (Stanford University). They examine two possible explanations for the rise in top-end inequality in their paper “It’s the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent”:1. The Superstar Syndrome. Technology and globalization has enabled highly talented and educated individuals to manage or perform on a larger scale, “applying their talent to greater pools...

As President Obama and America move forward with full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, this nation continues to be embroiled in the fundamental struggle for human dignity that Dr. King addressed at the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago. Although the President did not stress this historic perspective during his seminal remarks on economic renewal at Knox College last week, he made it clear that the movement to assure affordable health care for every American is a moral, as well as economic, imperative. The President believes, as do I, that the harsh reality of too many Americans’ dying before their...

PHILADELPHIA--The stench of injustice has spilled over with the nauseating smell of institutional murder once again. Left unchanged, this injustice will linger until the next injustice, and the next case…until we finally get it: public policy, in the form of reparations, is the solution to all of our social ills and the injustices that frame our existence. It’s time to rethink our demands and actions. Reparations is a word to describe what can be done to help victims of chattel enslavement overcome the horrific generational damage that they suffered and the means to give them back their dignity and to...

Hi all -- Looking for suggestions to add to my Christmas Music playlist.

"This is Ludacris, and I'm giving away 20 free cars. ..." The famous rapper was pulling an Oprah in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. In the parking lot, the crowd was dancing. But the bass of Ludacris' latest single blasting from the dealership's loudspeakers was secondary inspiration for one Atlanta grandmother. "Lord Jesus. ... He brought this car to me, baby!" she shouted, arms raised. "This is God's work!"

"Katrina is about the sudden and complete loss of all that home means—safety, respite, privacy, comfort and security.” On a chilly autumn night, Jocquelyn Marshall opened the door to her new home, an apartment tucked in a maze of quiet streets lined with townhouses south of downtown New Orleans. She’d been here only two weeks since making it back from Houston, and the newly-built, two-bedroom apartment was sparkling but almost completely bare. She sat on a milk crate in the middle of the hardwood living room floor, while her 12-year-old son, Justin, watched television on the white carpet in his...

With dozens of protestors shouting nearby, Mayor Richard Daley gave an impassioned speech today to explain why he vetoed the big-box ordinance. Standing at the site of a proposed Target store on the Far South Side, Daley said no one protested when large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target opened in the suburbs. "Not one person objected to any type of store in the suburban area," Daley said. "No one said, 'Mayor, you're wrong. No one said the aldermen are wrong. No one said the community (was) wrong, or church leaders. Only in the West Side, only in the South...

Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum. Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group rallying cry into sophisticated, mainstream movement. Most recently, a pair of churches apologized for their part in the slave trade, and one is studying ways to repay black church members. The overall issue is hardly settled, even among black Americans: Some say that focusing on slavery shouldn't be a top priority or that it doesn't make sense to compensate...

The Sept. 27 editorial "Louisiana's Looters" displayed a profound ignorance of the regional and national miscalculation of this national disaster. It's not just that people's homes are underwater; that happens with every hurricane. It's not just that roofs have blown off; those are the usual visuals of a storm of this nature. It's that an entire region vital to our national energy supply, security and commerce has been devastated. South Louisiana is the anchor of America's Energy Coast, securing more than three-quarters of U.S. offshore oil and gas production -- a greater share of our nation's energy supply than even...

Even as they assessing damages from Hurricane Rita, state officials said Sunday they are asking the federal government for nearly $32 billion to repair and improve highways and bridges wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. The two storms knocked out electricity for more than million homes and businesses. Nearly 269,000 electric customers in south Louisiana were without power Sunday night. Power was restored to about 144,000 customers on Sunday, trimming the list of those without it to 268,671. Bill Doran, operations chief for the state Office of Emergency Preparedness, told reporters parish officials Sunday started the arduous process of putting a price...

Last week, the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to place yet another multi-billion bond measure on the ballot. This $3.8 billion proposal is, of course, on top of the $9.5 billion in bonds that have been approved since 1997, the most recent, less than 18 months ago. Of course these figures do not include interest on the bonds which nearly doubles the taxpayers' obligation. It will be very interesting to see if voters, once again, allow themselves to be fleeced. To put into perspective the magnitude of these multi-billion dollar bonds, all one has to do...