Free Republic

"Like all the people in this tent and all the people on the stage, I have a strong preference for trouble-making.” So said a prominent participant at Code Pink and NOW “Women for Peace” Day at their encampment deceptively named “Camp Democracy” on the National Mall last week. The day included music, movies, speeches, panels and an appearance by leftist Howard Zinn. I’ve sat in on a number of leftist conferences and this one seemed rather normal at first sight. There was a mock cemetery, using the deaths of our service members as political leverage against President Bush and the...

A JORDANIAN court today jailed two newspaper editors for "attacking religious sentiment" by reprinting cartoons deemed offensive to Prophet Mohammad, their lawyer said. Jihad Momani, former editor of the weekly Shihane tabloid, and Hisham al-Khalidi, editor-in-chief of the tabloid Al-Mehwar, "were each sentenced to two months in prison", lawyer Mohammed Kteishat said. Mr Kteishat said he would appeal the verdict. The defendants have been on bail since their arrest in February for printing the drawings, first published in September by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons were subsequently re-published by numerous mainly European papers, triggering the fury of Muslims around the...

A liberal activist group's $1.3 million ad campaign criticizing four Republican House members for voting in support of "energy and big oil companies" was rejected Monday by NBC stations in Columbus, Ohio and Hartford, Conn. The ads paid for by Move-on.org contend that the four GOP lawmakers — Reps. Chris Chocola in Indiana's 2nd district, Thelma Drake in Virginia's 2nd district, Nancy Johnson in Connecticut's 5th district and Deborah Pryce in Ohio's 15th district — are taking money from oil and energy companies and then supporting laws that reward those companies. Even though two stations rejected them, the ads are...

POLICE have clashed with protesters at the front gates of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music ahead of a speech there by US Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice. Anti-war activists were rallying against US involvement in Iraq as Dr Rice prepared to deliver a speech at the conservatorium. About 50 protesters gathered outside the building in Macquarie St and were met by police on foot, on horseback, and with dogs. Police used the horses to push the protesters back, as a police helicopter hovered over the scene. Police made no early arrests but had to go to the rescue of The...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A mock war-crimes trial of President Bush at a Parsippany high school continued Friday, despite criticism from people across the nation who heard about the classroom exercise from a prominent Web site and talk-radio programs. James Dwyer, Parsippany-Troy Hills School District interim superintendent, said the mock hearing in the 12th-grade politics and government class would continue, but a verdict by a five-teacher "international court of justice" panel would not be rendered as originally planned. After a two-hour meeting with the school board president, the high school principal and a curriculum superintendent, Mr. Dwyer said Friday that...

SOME University of Queensland students aim to put a dampener on moves to set fire to an Australian flag. The university's Liberal Club president Julian Simmonds says he has several buckets of free water available today to anyone who objects to "the madness". Youth Socialist group Resistance has been selling $5 flag-burning kits in the Great Court of the university's St Lucia campus. "We have seen them around, they have been selling them but no-one has lit up any flags yet," Mr Simmonds said. "We are just trying to show people this isn't the way to go. "So, if someone...

ANTI-WAR protester Cindy Sheehan said today she would temporarily be leaving her camp site near President George W. Bush's ranch because her mother had suffered a stroke. "We just had a terrible call," Mrs Sheehan told reporters. "My mom had a stroke." Mrs Sheehan, whose vigil has drawn attention to her demands for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, said she plans to fly to Los Angeles to assess the situation and hoped to return in the next 24 hours. Mrs Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in combat in Iraq. She said supporters, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, would...