Free Republic

After a tumultuous term that ended in June, the U.S. Supreme Court returns Monday to officially open a second potentially stormy term. It may be hard to beat last term's sustained and dramatic turn to the right, which included most prominently the overturning of a half century of precedents that had guaranteed women the right to terminate most pregnancies. But the court may well rock the boat again, despite the fact that it finds its approval ratings plummeting to historic lows. So much so that Chief Justice John Roberts sought to defend the court's legitimacy while speaking to a conference...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In 2005, some people wanted the word "brainstorming" replaced by "thought shower" so as not to offend people with brain disorders, and they also wanted "deferred success" to replace "failure" so as not to embarrass those who don't succeed. Both phrases appear on a tongue-in-cheek list released on Thursday of the year's most politically correct words and phrases issued by Global Language Monitor, a nonprofit group that monitors language use. The phrase that topped this year's list was "misguided criminals," one of several terms the British Broadcasting Corporation used so as not to use the word...

WASHINGTON - George W. Bush embarked on his second term as president Thursday, telling a world anxious about war and terrorism that the United States would not shrink from new confrontations in pursuit of "the great objective of ending tyranny." Four minutes before noon, Bush placed his left hand on a family Bible and recited 39 tradition-hallowed words that every president since George Washington has uttered. With 150,000 American troops deployed in Iraq (news - web sites) at a cost of $1 billion a week and more than 1,360 killed, Bush also beseeched Americans for patience. "Our country has accepted...