Free Republic

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2006 – Coalition forces engaged several insurgents near an abandoned train station in southeastern Ramadi, Iraq, May 16 in response to repeated hostile activity. It was the seventh day since May 7 that coalition forces engaged insurgents in the area. Troops observed several insurgents moving a weapon from the train station to a vehicle nearby. Coalition forces engaged the insurgents with artillery, killing several insurgents and destroying the weapon. Troops saw one of the insurgents leave the area with the vehicle. Later in the day, troops observed several more insurgents with weapons taking positions on a rooftop...

Dean: Comprehensive and Compassionate Immigration Reform Needed March 29, 2006 Next week, Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist is likely to introduce a harmful immigration bill on to the Senate floor that will criminalize good Samaritans, including church members and clergy, and does not provide a larger, comprehensive framework for reform or a path to citizenship. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement on President Bush and the Republican Congress's failure to lead on the issue of immigration: "President Bush and his Republican Congress's failure to offer comprehensive solutions on immigration reform and their attempt to use the...

SAN FRANCISCO - Nearly two years after NASA's twin rovers parachuted to Mars, a Jekyll-and-Hyde picture is emerging about the planet's past and whether it could have supported life. Both Spirit and Opportunity uncovered geologic evidence of a wet past, a sign that ancient Mars may have been hospitable to life. But new findings reveal the Red Planet was also once such a hostile place that the environment may have prevented life from developing. "For much of its history, it was a very forbidding place," said mission principal investigator Steven Squyres of Cornell University. Scientists stressed that the rovers were...

TIJUANA – A Catholic priest was found handcuffed and dead in his car yesterday morning with six bullet wounds in his head and neck, Mexican police said. Police found eight spent cartridges from a .38-caliber firearm near his body. The Rev. Luis Velázquez Romero's Ford Thunderbird was parked at the Plaza Fiesta center, an establishment of nightclubs, restaurants and other entertainment venues near the border, Mexican police said. "This was a situation in which there was a struggle that resulted in him being (restrained) with handcuffs," said Francisco Castro Trenti, who coordinates homicide investigations in the Tijuana region for the...

Shearman & Sterling sees things differently. Last month, the law firm filed a trespass and breach of contract action in San Francisco Superior Court involving an e-mail sent to a staff manager’s Shearman.com account. The communication forwarded a post about the manager from Craigslist.org, an online community billboard. The writing, since removed, was posted on the site’s "rants and raves" section. Filed as a "Jane Doe" action, the lawsuit alleges the sender is a current or recent Shearman employee who was under contract to use the firm’s computers only for legitimate business purposes. "The e-mail was hateful and racist, and...

Some 30 youths are being held in prison until later this week, following yesterday's seven-minute blocking of the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv. Coincidentally, 40 taxi drivers were arrested today for blocking traffic in a work dispute - but police said they would be released if the strike is ended. Among the most controversial arrests was that of 17-year-old Y.M. of Kibbutz Shaalvim - whom the police held for five hours without informing his family. Ariel, of the Honenu organization, which provides aid to citizens under or facing political arrest, first learned of the story from the boy's friends yesterday...

America may soon lose its most trusted ally in the world. Britain is on the verge of surrendering to the European Union. It is an historic moment that should be showing up in blaring headlines --- but it is slipping in so quietly that only a few people have talked about it: Margaret Thatcher, George Will, Mark Steyn, Peter Hitchens. There are books with about it with titles like The Rape of the Constitution, The Abolition of Britain, and America Alone. Those warnings should be taken seriously, but Washington seems to live in blissful ignorance. In a matter of months...

Swin Cash sounded pretty miffed when a predominantly Greek crowd jeered the U.S. men in their upset loss Sunday to Puerto Rico. She and her teammates were in the crowd, and they heard more than a few of the invectives aimed at the Americans...It seems it is acceptable for any nation's fans to chant or sing for their team or individual at any event without being interrupted, save those of the United States. The moment a chant of "U-S-A!" breaks out, as it does in most venues where Americans compete, it is drowned out by whistles. That is the European...

<p>ONE OF President Bush's worst nominations for a lifetime judicial appointment -- and there is plenty of competition in this category -- is about to come up for a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.</p> <p>As with a number of Bush's nominees, William G. Myers III has a long record of ideological extremism that raises questions about his suitability for the federal judiciary. What distinguishes Myers from the others is that the controversy is not focused on his views on abortion or civil rights.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES -- On movie screens around the world, Arnold Schwar-zenegger's characters have been beaten, shot, blown up, squashed -- even impregnated.</p> <p>Analysts say none of that has prepared the 55-year-old movie star for the pummeling he will take in the media if he runs for governor on the Oct. 7 recall ballot.</p>

Stop the Immigration Fiasco It is empirically evident that the United States government will not take any action to preserve the rights of its citizens from illegal immigration. It is also apparent that the effects of this illegal immigration are destructive to the well being of the nature citizens. These effects include: an undesirable irrevocable alteration of the culture, an erosion of the benefits from social institutions built and paid for by the legal citizenry, increased hostile activity against the property and persons of legal citizens, and the importation of health hazards of potential epidemic proportions, among many other significant...

How did executives obtain such drastically increased compensation over the last 10 years? Why did boards allow it? The answer lies in regulatory and court decisions that have impeded hostile takeovers over the last 12 years. These decisions took away one layer -- a most important one -- from the checks and balances controlling boards' and CEOs' behaviour. The elimination of this layer and its unintended consequences were, in themselves, unintended effects of events in previous years, especially some taking place between 1982 and 1992. Following the Williams Act passed by U.S. Congress in 1968, American states passed so-called "first...

COMMUNITY CHARACTER ACT THIS is a blatant land grab and control attempt by the Democrats in both the House and Senate to make it easier for federal, state, and local governments to grab off private property to use for their own purposes. If this bill, which is now wending its way yet again through the congress under a cloak of silence, passes, Eminent Domain land use will become a fly's eyelash because there will be NO restrictions on the federal, state, or local governments to prove beyond a doubt that taking anyone's personal propety is a necessity for their...