Free Republic

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- In the wake of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., Jewish groups are looking to build alliances and back legislation to strengthen gun control laws. Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his group is assembling a coalition that would be ready to act once the right legislation comes along. “The point now is to create the atmosphere in which there is a demand for action, using our voices, organizing the parents in our pews,” Saperstein told JTA in an interview. “When the parents across America start crying out...

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's government abused its authority by barring paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson and her 31-month-old son from leaving the country to spend the holidays in New York City with her family, her lawyer charged Saturday. "Administratively, you can't block a court order," Anibal Apari said after Berenson told The Associated Press that she and her son Salvador were prevented from boarding a flight Friday night despite being granted permission in court.

Stanley Ann Dunham, better known as President Barack Obama's mother, passed away in 1995 before seeing her son become the most powerful man in the world. In this weekend's New York Times Magazine, Dunham gets a long profile adapted from Janny Scott's forthcoming book, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother. The article paints a portrait of a complex woman who traveled to Indonesia with her second husband, battled the customs while raising her son and new daughter, and eventually returned to Hawaii. As Scott writes, "To describe Dunham as a white woman from Kansas turns out...

In October 1969, hundreds of young people wielding lead pipes and clad in football helmets marched through an upscale Chicago shopping district, pummeling parked cars and smashing shop windows. Thus began the “Days of Rage,” the first demonstration of the Weathermen, later known as the Weather Underground. Outraged by the Vietnam War and racism in America, this group of former student radicals waged a low-level war against the United States government through much of the 1970s, bombing the Capitol building, breaking Timothy Leary out of prison and finally evading the FBI by going into hiding. In THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, former...

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 22 July 2003 BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations? Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include: * Fear and aggression * Dogmatism and intolerance of...