Free Republic

THE death of Osama bin Laden provoked scenes of jubilation in America. Coming in the middle of the spring, the reaction in the Middle East was mixed. We look at responses to his death in the Arab press. In al-Sharq al-Awsat, a pan-Arab newspaper, Hussein al-Shabakshy comments on the response of the general public and media to Mr bin Laden's death and the consequences for the uprisings in the Arab world: The reaction of the Arab public has been varied. Some refuse to believe he was just killed because—according to them—he was "already dead": how else could his prolonged silence...

Anti-war protesters arrested near White HouseBy ERIC TUCKER Associated Press Updated: Mar 19, 2011 6:46 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 100 anti-war protesters, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, were arrested outside the White House on Saturday in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history...

I don’t know whether the “Palestine Papers” published yesterday by Al Jazeera and the Guardian are real or, as Barry Rubin argues, a fake aimed at discrediting the Palestinian Authority’s current leadership. What is certainly false, however, is the claim, as Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland put it, that “Now we know. Israel had a peace partner.” If the papers are true, then, as Noah pointed out, they show the PA agreeing to let Israel keep most — though not all — of the huge Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, which are home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis. The Guardian...

Contributing to the impression of shifting sands in his official biography, two newspaper articles from 1990 – apparently based on interviews with Barack Obama – reported that the future president left Hawaii for Indonesia when he was 2 years old, not 6 years old, as he relates in his autobiography. On May 3, 1990, the Associated Press widely published a feature story on Obama highlighting him as the first African-American named as president of the Harvard Law review. "Obama moved to Southeast Asia at age 2 when his parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian," the Associated Press reported....

U.Va.: Cuccinelli’s demand for ex-professor’s papers ‘improper’By: David Sherfinski Examiner Staff Writer 10/21/10 12:30 PM EDT The University of Virginia has asked the Albemarle County Circuit Court to set aside a new petition from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli seeking documents related to climate-change research by former U.Va. professor Michael Mann. The court in August had denied a similar request from Cuccinelli, who claims Mann work on climate change constituted a fraud because it was based on dubious research. Cuccinelli, who disputes the theory that humans are causing global warming, rewrote his request to overcome the previous objections raised by the...

September 03, 2010 Your Dog's Papers (and your money), Please. Jason McNew Under Pennsylvania Law, animal control officers can carry firearms and have powers of arrest. Here in Adams County, PA (seat of Gettysburg and the battle fields), The Evening Sun reports that local dog law enforcement "will be knocking on doors across Adams County in the second canvass this year to make sure all dogs are vaccinated, licensed and safe". The article further explains: "The maximum fine per violation of the licensing and rabies requirements is $300, in addition to possible court costs." Using the Law of Averages, one...

WASHINGTON – The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee warned Monday that he would seek to slow Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's path to confirmation unless senators get full access to her files as a Clinton administration aide. "We're heading to what could be a train wreck," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said. "I don't believe that this committee can go forward with an adequate hearing" without all records from Kagan's tenure as a White House counsel and then domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, last week set hearings to...

ABC News' Ariane de Vogue reports: Officials at National Archives (in charge of Kagan papers at the Clinton Library) are very worried about the release of documents. In large part because of email -- the amount of paper is unprecedented: 160,000. The Roberts papers (which seemed like the mother of all dumps) was a mere 70,000.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior House Democrat said Tuesday that senators should fully question Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to make sure she supports abortion rights, in light of her previous backing for limiting late-term abortions. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York said she views as "troubling" a 1997 memo Kagan wrote urging then-President Bill Clinton to back all abortions of viable fetuses except when the physical health of the mother was at risk.

WASHINGTON – Republicans hunting for clues about what kind of justice Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan would be said Tuesday they want to see papers from her time serving in the Clinton administration. The focus on Clinton-era documents reflects the GOP's difficult task of turning up material that could power opposition to Kagan, the solicitor general who appears likely to be elevated to justice barring extraordinary developments during her confirmation process. "It is a confirmation, it's not a coronation," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee that will hold hearings on Kagan's nomination. "She's...

Democrats unveiled a 26-page proposal on immigration Thursday evening that closely follows a bipartisan draft hashed out by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this year. Here are the main points: * Enforce borders: The lawmakers plan to increase the number of border patrol officers and provide them with better equipment to detect fraud and smuggling. They also want to install ground sensors throughout the southern border to make it easier to detect illegal border crossing. * Free up jails: The proposal calls for the deportation of illegal immigrants currently detained in federal and local prisons. Going...

(IsraelNN.com) The London Daily Telegraph and the London Daily Mail have published findings on former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Middle East financial interests as disclosed by the official UK government committee which vets former ministers’ business interests. The Daily Mail described Blair as waging an “extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq”, referring to the just revealed fact that Mr. Blair serves as advisor to a South Korean firm, UI Energy, since August 2008, and has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Blair had convinced the...

Mormonism owes its continual rise much more to Brigham Young, the man who led the incipient movement across the Plains, than to Joseph Smith, who began it all with talk of angels and gold plates. At least that's how Utah researcher Richard Van Wagoner sees it after spending the past 15 years compiling every known Young sermon and discourse from 127 sources. Van Wagoner sought out original transcripts, rather than the LDS Church-sanctioned Journal of Discourses , in which Young's words were edited and polished. He also found speeches and statements recorded in other people's journals. "Brigham seems to me...

Many days, Jamal King stands at South Vermont Avenue and West 46th Street in South Los Angeles, his muscled arms covered with tattoos flaunting his membership in the Rolling 40s, a drug-running criminal gang. His former foster father often drives past slowly, wagging his finger. "I know people look at me and just see a gangbanger," King said. "It's not really who I am. It's just temporary." But King's hope for a better life is hobbled by more than poverty and his surroundings -- he lacks a birth certificate.

Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood. Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood. A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday. "I don't think she was familiar with his...

Exactly one week after the highly-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates stirred a national discussion on race relations, legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was detained by police officers in a "low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood" in Long Branch, New Jersey. Makes one wonder why it took so long for this to get reported, and if news outlets that were convinced Gates's arrest was racially motivated will see the delicious irony in a white rock star being questioned by police just because he was "wandering around the neighborhood." The Associated Press sure didn't (h/t Clarence Page): Rock legend Bob Dylan was...

Plowing through the 85 essays of the Federalist Papers, one can read how the Founding Fathers foresaw the problems of impeachment, corruption of government, regulatory excess, gun control, and all the other headline grabbing issues we read about today!

Remember how Barack Obama called Hillary Clinton one of the most secretive politicians in America? That apparently applies to both Hillary and her husband as a team. Archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library have decided to keep the records of Bill’s pardons locked away from prying eyes — such as those of Obama, John McCain, and the media: Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.That archivists’ decision, based on guidance provided by Bill...

NEW YORK - Defendants in lawsuits resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks must turn over materials from as far back as 1992, when it appears that Osama bin Laden called for a holy war against the United States, a federal judge said Friday. The ruling by U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels affects defendants in lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages from numerous banks, charities and individuals worldwide who are alleged to have supported al-Qaida before the 2001 terrorist attacks. Daniels said it was reasonable to require organizations such as the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief...

Congress Pressed on Founders' Papers More than 200 years after they were written, huge portions of the papers of America's founding fathers are still decades away from being published, prompting a distinguished group of scholars and federal officials to pressure Congress to speed the process along. Teams of experts have been laboring since Harry Truman was president in the late 1940s to compile and annotate the letters, correspondence and documents of George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. About $58 million has been spent in the past 30 years alone. Yet, according to a study by...