Free Republic

Jimmy Carter's No Real Humanitarian by Gordon Smith When former President Jimmy Carter speaks to the graduates of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on May 3, the listeners might bear in mind that Carter's reputation for principled concern for the downtrodden is open to question. Carter has done some benevolent things after 1981, as ex-President. He's built homes for the poor, spoken eloquently on behalf of human rights, helped the Haitian dictator Cedras resign, and presided over the negotiations ending the Yugoslav War. While all of this is good, Carter presided over some serious war crimes in the Third World....

Dolores Lebrón Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican independence activist who spent 25 years in prison for participating in a gun attack on the U.S. Congress a half-century ago, died Sunday. She was 89. Lebrón, better known as Lolita, died at 11:05 a.m. in a San Juan hospital of complications from respiratory disease, said Francisco Torres, president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico. She had been hospitalized repeatedly in recent months for cardio-respiratory ailments. Her widower, Dr. Sergio Irizarry, called her a mystic and a poet, who “wanted to make life a flower.” Irizarry, who had been married to her for...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's a penny-sized bullet hole in the desk used by Republicans when they speak on the floor of the House, a memento of the worst terrorist attack ever on Congress. On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the visitors' gallery above the chamber. They sprayed some 30 shots around the hall and wounded five lawmakers, one seriously. Amazingly, no one was killed even though some 240 members were on the floor at the time of the shooting, which happened 50 years ago Monday. Bullets...