Free Republic

Terri Schiavo's death is expected to have major political ramifications as pro-lifers declare war on the judiciary and galvanize for the coming fight over Supreme Court vacancies. "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. "We will look into that." The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Rescue, lamented, "The courts of this land have become the tool, in the hands of the devil, by which the culture of death has found access." Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh bluntly blamed the...

In legal papers filed with the state Supreme Court, environmentalists have accused California energy regulators of violating state law by approving an expansion of the El Segundo power plant without requiring operators to study the potential harm to marine life. Santa Monica Baykeeper and Heal the Bay alleged in the filing last week that the California Energy Commission went against state recommendations to study the effects of large water pipes that suck in and destroy trillions of marine organisms every year. El Segundo plant operators plan to increase the amount of Santa Monica Bay seawater pulled in by 25%, for...

Settled jurisprudence was fairly settled against prior restraints on free speech, except for "shouting fire in a crowded theater" immediate causes of grave harm. Then, along came the McCain-Feingold electoral reforms. McCain-Feingold's supposedly greater interest of restricting the role of big money in campaigns allowed legal and donor restrictions on campaigning. The media is exempt from restrictions. Critics of McCain-Feingold called it an incumbent protection act to reduce the resources of challengers. Realists said McCain-Feingold would result in contributions flowing some way anyway. Opponents of McCain-Feingold warned it restricted free speech, and this could increase. If free speech is surrendered...

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan plan to rein in spending by independent groups that exerted a profound influence on the 2004 presidential election - such as the liberal group MoveOn.org and the conservative Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - got a friendly hearing in the Senate on Tuesday. Sen. Trent Lott, the Republican chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said he wants to move quickly to put limits in place by next year's midterm elections. But critics warned that if Congress caps the amount of money individuals can give to so-called 527s, known for the section of the tax code that...

by Pete Vere, JCL Other Articles by Pete Vere, JCL Sifting the Wheat from the Tares: 20 Signs of Trouble in a New Religious Group 03/01/05 Since the closing of the Second Vatican Council, a number of new groups have arisen within the Church. Whereas many new groups start off on the right foot and maintain solid footing, others fall by the wayside. This may be due to poor doctrine or questionable practices. In This Article...Red Flags and Warning SignsFr. Morrisey’s 15 Warning SignsFive Additional Warning Signs from the International Cultic Studies Association Red Flags and Warning Signs As a canon...

WASHINGTON - A year ago, an activist group from the Seattle area gave Howard Dean (news - web sites) a thin, golden statue of a backbone. The Oscar-like award honored the former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont governor for standing up against the Iraq (news - web sites) war and other Bush administration policies. Now, as Dean settles into his new role as head of the Democratic Party, that golden spine has come to represent, for many liberal Democrats, Dean's potential to develop a tougher, take-no-prisoners attitude among the party faithful. "There's no gut-check required for Dean. Dean just needs...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Governments and rebel groups found to be forcing children into combat or sexual slavery should be punished if they fail to stem the abuses, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said on Wednesday. The U.N. Security Council should hit the responsible individuals with targeted measures such as travel limits, arms embargoes, a cutoff of military aid or restrictions on their finances, Annan said in a new report on child soldiers. Certain abuses should be given priority attention, including killing or maiming children, recruiting or using them as soldiers, attacking schools or hospitals, rape and...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's cotton and rice farmers, who receive more than $500 million a year in federal farm subsidies, are preparing for a fight over President Bush's proposed subsidy cuts. The president proposed a $587 million budget cut in farm subsidies nationwide. That would most affect the state's farmers of cotton and rice, which have a combined acreage of about 1.2 million acres throughout California. Bush proposed a 5 percent reduction in support payments, a new $250,000 ceiling on payments to individual farmers and an end to loopholes that allow some farmers to claim multiple owners of their farm...

If the Oklahoma City bombers refused to participate in a U.S. election, would the final results be considered “illegitimate?” What if the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, the Communist Party USA, or the Southern Indiana Regional Militia refused to vote in American elections? Would it matter and, really, who gives a damn? The Left-Wing, e.g. the New York Times, has been trying to hold the Iraqi elections to this type of ridiculous standard regarding Sunni participation. Granted: Sunnis make up 32-37% of Iraq’s population. While their representation is important, the majority of terrorist attacks aimed at destabilizing Iraq have...

WASHINGTON - Several faith-based groups oppose a Republican-sponsored immigration and border security bill that could move quickly through the House with a spending package for the wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites). The groups say the bill sponsored by House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) Chairman James Sensenbrenner proposes asylum law changes that would hurt refugees fleeing religious persecution and should be debated in full committee hearings. But Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, says the changes will prevent would-be terrorists from slipping into the country by abusing the asylum system. The changes are...

GOP groups press Dems on memo By Alexander Bolton Conservative activists pushing for the confirmation of President Bush’s judicial nominees are attempting to refocus attention on the memo controversy that consumed the Senate Judiciary Committee for much of last year. The latest tactic is an effort to defend the actions of Manuel Miranda, a senior GOP aide who exposed the content of internal Democratic Judicial Committee memos, by bringing to light an analogous incident involving a senior Democratic aide on the House International Relations Committee in the mid-1990s. Even though the Senate’s investigation of the memo controversy ended last year,...

MOSCOW - A group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called Monday for a sweeping investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism. In a letter dated Jan. 13, about 20 members of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, asked Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov to investigate their claims and to launch proceedings "on the prohibition in our country of all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as extremist." The letter, faxed in part to The Associated Press by the office of lawmaker Alexander Krutov, said,...

New Western Whitehouse + this bonus picture

SACRAMENTO - Education spending would rise by $2.9 billion under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spending plan for the 2005-06 fiscal year, which covers a growing student population and a cost-of-living adjustment, but little more. Education spending is the largest share of the state's general fund, with Schwarzenegger proposing a $36.5 billion budget next year - an increase of $2.4 billion in state money over last year's budget. The increase works out to a $362 per pupil increase in state funds, for a total of $10,084 per student, including all state and federal sources. But while the budget calls for more money,...

Leftist “militants” ushered in the new year in Colombia in true form: Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) murdered 17 peasants, including 6 women and 4 children, who were gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve. When I say “true form,” I mean FARC was practicing the art that the extreme left has mastered, perhaps invented: terrorism. On this New Year’s Eve, the FARC was proving it believes the “end justifies the means,” as it is the grotesque, disfigured child of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and, yes, even Hitler -- remember, he was a National Socialist (Nazi). FARC is...

Muqtedar Khan of the Brookings Institution has announced, in a recent article in the Daily Times of Lahore, the coming into existence on Dec. 13, 2004, of yet another organization of American Muslims claiming to be moderates. It does not lack for ambitions: “Now with the constitution of the American Muslim Group for Policy Planning, Moderate Muslims in America have a name and an address.” Unfortunately, in its initial form, the AMGPP does not at all appear to be moderate. Rather, it resembles the Progressive Muslim Union (which opened its virtual doors a month earlier, and which I have analyzed...

WASHINGTON - Despite President Bush (news - web sites)'s clear margin of victory in the 2004 presidential race, voting and civil rights advocates say the election did not go as smoothly as Americans might think. Reports of long lines at some polling places, voting machine errors, absentee ballots that never arrived and problems with provisional ballots dominated a daylong conference Tuesday, and experts said more changes are needed to eliminate obstacles to voting. "We learned on Election Day that our voting methods remain troubled and that many Americans continue to experience difficulty navigating a system that falls far short of our...

The founding fathers knew this day would come, when “we the people” would become so focused on our own individual desires, that we would no longer act in the interest of our nations needs. They talked about America’s most fatal threat coming from within, in the form of self-servitude. They spoke of America’s eventual fall from the weight of decisions made by “me the people” without regard for “we the people”. They knew that America’s long term future would depend on “the people’s” ability to resist the urge to vote ourselves money from the treasury, once we figured out that...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking information from the FBI on why bureau task forces set up to combat terrorism also looked into anti-war, animal rights and environmental groups. Dozens of organizations have been subjected to scrutiny, according to the ACLU, which was filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI on Thursday to try to find out why. "We think it's clear that the public is interested in the possible return of FBI spying on political and religious groups," said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal counsel. The FBI denies singling out individuals or groups...