Free Republic

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed on Monday that protests inside the country were the work of Israel and the United States. At least 92 people have been killed in protests over the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. Amini was pronounced dead on September 16 after she was detained for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijabs and modest clothes. Her death sparked Iran's biggest wave of popular unrest in almost three years. Khamenei spoke about the protests this week for the first time since they began, telling an audience...

FULL TITLE: Woman lashes out at female morality police after they try to force her to wear a hijab on Iranian subway - and tells them: 'I wear whatever I like!' This is the remarkable moment a defiant woman fights back against Iran's stringent Morality Police after they confronted her about her clothes. The unnamed woman was caught on camera taking a stand against a gang of agents at the Darzaveh Zowlat metro station in Tehran, Iran. In the footage she can be seen booting one of three hijab-wearing policewomen after they took issue with her western clothing. 'I will...

Islamic Cleric Hisham el-Ashri, founder of Egypt's newly launched Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice ... the Salafist morality enforcers will carry canes to beat violaters. According to Bikya News they will be provided with electric tasers at some point in the future. Following his recent return from the U.S. el-Ashri gave a television interview during which he declared: "It is the dream of my life to wage war against Israel." He also stated: "There is no such thing as a Christian religion."

John Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security, called Jerusalem “Al-Quds,” praised Saudi Arabian religious tolerance, and is encouraging of Hizbullah. Speaking to an apparently Muslim audience at New York University in February, at a forum co-hosted by the White House and the Islamic Center at New York University." Brennan first told a story in Arabic, evoking laughter and concluding with, “Don’t tell the folks who don’t speak Arabic what I said.” He then said that his favorite city in the Middle East is “Al Quds, Jerusalem.”

As the mercury climbed over 100 on Labor Day, I called Southwest Airlines with a not entirely hypothetical question: Could a young woman board a flight to Tucson today wearing a bikini top? Angelique, the agent who took my call, assured me that a young woman could. “We don't have a problem with it if she's covered up in all the right spots,” she said. “We don't have a dress code.” Tell that to Kyla Ebbert, who was escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight two months ago for wearing an outfit far less revealing than a bikini top. Ebbert, a...

Matt interviewed Kyla Ebbert, a 23-year-old college student who works as a waitress at Hooters. Two months ago, she boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from San Diego to Tucson. Before the flight took off, she was escorted into the jetway by a customer service representative, who asked her to change clothes. She didn't have any other clothes with her -- she had no luggage -- so the customer service rep told her to go home and change, then get a later flight. She said she had an appointment that she couldn't change, so after getting a lecture on appropriate attire,...

A second young woman has come forward to claim that Southwest Airlines Co. employees made her cover up on a recent flight. Setara Qassim told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles that a flight attendant confronted her during the trip from Tucson, Ariz., to Burbank, Calif., and asked if she had a sweater to go over her green halter-style dress. Qassim, 21, said she was forced to wrap a blanket around herself for the rest of the flight. She complained that if Southwest wants passengers to dress a certain way, it should publish a dress code. Last week, 23-year-old Kyla Ebbert said...

THE ISSUE: Caroline Giuliani's support for Sen. Barack Obama **** Giuliani will not fit the mold of the ideal conservative candidate. We need another candidate, not to just announce conservative values, but to live them. NAME REDACTED Brookville **** In 1956, Adlai Stevenson's ex-wife wrote to Chicago newspapers detailing why she was voting for President Eisenhower. Brooklyn

U.S. Senator David Vitter's actions and his own campaign words are coming back to haunt the Louisiana Republican after his phone number was linked to a Washington, D.C., escort service. Michael McHale is the chairman of the Calcasieu Parish Democratic Party. McHale says, "I think the hypocrisy is really considerable. Here's a fellow who ran as a family values republican. This flies in the face of any family values I know of." But for John Hoffpauir, chairman of the Calcasieu Parish Republican Party, Vitter's admission of a past indiscretion is old news. Hoffpauir says, "This is not something David has...

Tehran, 18 May (AKI) - by Ahmad Rafat - Police commanders in Tehran are hailing the first results of a moralization campaign which kicked off on 27 April - citing the thousands of women admonished on the streets for not covering all their hair under the veil, the hundreds who will have to stand trial for failing to respect the new, strict Islamic dress code, all those who will have to pay hefty fines for listening to western music or for walking a dog, banned in public places in Iran as considered impure by Islam. Thousands of satellite dishes have...

AN Iranian convicted of making videos showing his sexual relations with married women has been given 100 lashes in public. The man was arrested after several complaints about "his illegitimate relations with married women and filming the scene", ...The punishment for adulterers under Iran's Islamic sharia law is flogging and death by stoning. But the judiciary says it has not carried out stoning sentences since 2002. Rapists are also sentenced to death. Iranian authorities were prompted to take tougher measures on offenders making sex videos after a homemade film allegedly showing a television star was widely distributed on the internet...

Sex and the Stupid Republicans By DOUGLAS OLSON "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." — Gov. Edwin Edwards (D-La.) For the third time in two years, a Republican candidate has dropped out of a pending election because of a "sex scandal" that involves no sex at all! Not only has Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) quit in panic and fled to the relative safety of an alcohol-rehab program, but the GOP seems determined to sacrifice Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and its own chances of retaining...

Hollywood is all abuzz about “Little Miss Sunshine,” a deftly presented piece of porn pretending to be a “heart-warming Oscar contender.” The bubbly adjectives simply swirl about this recent release: “brilliant, deftly drawn, heartwarming, raucous, superb, human, engrossing, fun, ingenious, brilliantly hysterical, warm, moving, endearing,” and more. The truth is far less sunny. “Little Miss Sunshine” is a $10 million kiddie porn movie that displays just how rotten Hollywood has become and just how far its powerbrokers have moved from America. That it was the hit of the Sundance Festival was pre-ordained. It’s hard to know where to begin in...

Men caught boozing by their wives in an Indian village now face being slapped across the face by their wives' slippers. A committee of women at Japalli, in Andhra Pradesh, introduced the punishment in a bid to 'curb the menace of liquor', reports the Press Trust of India. Any married man discovered drinking will be hauled up before village elders and slapped five times with his wife's leather slipper in front of local residents. They will also be fined the equivalent of £64. The fines will be handed over to the offenders' wives to spend as they see fit. The...

WASHINGTON -- A Democratic lawmaker is planning to propose a new 25 percent federal tax on Internet pornography and new requirements for adult Web sites to help prevent children from looking at them. The bill, expected to be introduced next week by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., would impose the excise tax on transactions with for-profit adult Web sites, which typically sell monthly subscriptions to Internet users to look at pornographic photographs or videos.

The failure of footballer of George Best to refrain from drinking alcohol despite a life-saving liver transplant just 12 months ago has prompted questions about the merits of offering transplant surgery to alcoholics. Some say it is a waste of a precious and scarce resource, but others say there is no reason why people suffering from such a debilitating disease should be discriminated against. The George Best case may give the impression that people suffering from alcoholism take their place in the transplant queue like any other person with severe liver disease. In fact, this is not the case....