Free Republic

CHICAGO — With the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system soon to be removed from Chicago’s streets, so-called “reform” activists are turning their attention to another tool police find useful: traffic stops. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in May that her office is developing a policy not to prosecute gun, theft, and drug charges stemming from certain traffic stops. Foxx said her staff would refuse to file charges in most cases if evidence was found during a traffic stop for missing license plates, expired registrations, and other minor infractions. She called the anticipated change “a public safety enhancement effort.” “Armed...

An "Islamist" is a Muslim who seeks to impose Islamic (Sharia) law worldwide, including in America. There are Muslims in America who do not want that to happen, yet few of them seek actively to prevent it. I refer here to those who do try, not as "moderate Muslims" -- an essentially badly used and hence meaningless term -- but as "Muslim reformers." On August 15th, Donald Trump delivered an address, generally well-received in conservative circles, on the dangers of Islamist immigration and how he intends to guard against those who intend to have Sharia law imposed and/or to engage...

Pope Francis released his long-awaited letter on marriage and families Friday, and despite predictions of radical changes in Church teaching, Francis hewed to the line of his predecessors regarding traditional Catholic doctrine on marriage and family life.

Coiffed, groomed and impeccably suited, Mithal al-Alusi cuts an imposing figure at this trendy hotel. In the empty bar lounge, he makes himself at home to a breakfast of fresh fruit, strong coffee and a constant flow of cigarettes. The leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation is in town to promote his vision for a new Iraq and accept an accolade from an unlikely sponsor – the American Jewish Committee – who honored him with a Moral Courage award at their annual dinner last week. His act of courage was an attempt to break Iraq's long-standing taboo...

At the end of Glenn Beck's show on Fox News on May 26, 2010, he told us to find and read "Philip Dru: Administrator". This is a link to that story, so we can compare it with what Obama, ( read Barack Obama: Administrator. A History of Today. ) will do next. The book was written by Col. Edward Mandell House "Blueprint for Tyranny". Though Philip Dru: Administrator is written in the form of a novel to make it more acceptable to the general public, it is a blueprint for the radical socialist revolution that occurred in the United States...

Following the heaviest unrest in Teheran for years sparked by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential election victory, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main election challenger who had earlier rejected the results as fraudulent, was put under house arrest, his campaign leaders told the LA Times correspondent in Teheran on Sunday. Some reports said Mousavi had been detained en route to see Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In addition, Iranian police arrested at least 10 leaders of two reformist groups who backed Mousavi, a party member claimed. "At least 10 members of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organisation were arrested...

From the beginning of the world there have been two elements-the good and the bad-combating each other. " There must be scandals," says our Lord; St. Michael and Lucifer combat each other in heaven; Cain and Abel in the family of Adam; Isaac and Ismael in the family of Abraham; Jacob and Esau in the family of Isaac; Joseph and his brethren in the family of Jacob; Solomon and Absalom in the family of David; St. Peter and Judas in the company of Our Lord Jesus Christ; the Apostles and the Roman emperors in the Church of Christ; St. Francis...

DNCReform formally endorses John McCain for President of the United States and Sarah Palin for Vice President of the United States. Many of you are aware we (DNCRefom) chose not to jump on the John McCain bandwagon while genuine efforts were being made to see the actual Democratic Primary WINNER, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gain the nomination in Denver. Our efforts along with everyone else's were valiant but went ignored. We feel that the best presidential candidate to represent American is John McCain. We feel he will bring a much needed fiscal conservatism to Washington along with genuine change and reform...

The 11th commandment of politics is that elected officials shall not take sides in their party primaries. Then again, Missouri Republicans are burdened with so many sins, what's one more? For an insight as to why the GOP is down and out in Washington, take a look at Jefferson City. That's where Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer, is running in an Aug. 5 primary for the Missouri governorship. And it's where her reform campaign against earmarks and self-dealing is threatening the entrenched status quo, causing her own party to rise against her.

IRAN'S NEW PURGE - Slapping the 'Moderates' January 26, 2008 -- OPPONENTS of taking a tough line on Iran have always claimed that imposing sanctions (not to mention threatening military action) would strengthen the Islamic Republic's most radical elements. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looks to have bought that argument. Last week, she agreed to water down the new sanctions that her advisers had devised against the Islamic Republic. -excerpt- Events inside Iran, however, provide a different picture. The Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, a 12-man committee of mullahs and their legal advisers, this week rejected applications from...

UNALLOYED good news is rare, so rejoice: The fore most achievement of the political speech regulators - a k a campaign finance "reformers" - is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008. In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush declined public funding - and its accompanying restrictions on raising and spending money - for the primaries, as did Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. In 2004, candidates accepting taxpayer funding were restricted to spending $45 million before the conventions. Bush and Kerry raised $269.6 million and $234.6 million respectively...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2006 -- Civilized nations working together can defeat terrorism and help people of the Middle East build democratic societies, President Bush said yesterday in his weekly radio address to the nation. “All civilized nations, especially those in the Muslim world, are bound together in this struggle between moderation and extremism,” Bush said. “By working together, we will roll back this grave threat to our way of life, we will help the people of the Middle East claim their freedom, and we will leave a safer and more hopeful world for our children and grandchildren.” Earlier this...

James Jesus Angleton explains it all. "Oh, come on! You expect me to believe that?" I was recently back at the ouija board with my old friend, the late James Jesus Angleton, once upon a time the head of CIA Counterintelligence. I had wanted to talk to him about the latest warnings from the interminable 9/11 Commission, a.k.a. The Monologue That Will Not Die, that we hadn't done enough with homeland security. I knew his view of the commission was much like mine — namely that these guys need a day job. Or maybe a Caribbean cruise. Or maybe a...

With bone-cracking brutality, the waves of baton-wielding police seemed to confirm what the already demoralised Iranian reform movement had been dreading: the dawn of a new era of political repression. Several hundred pro-reformists had gathered outside Tehran University to demand the release of a jailed dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, who is in the fifth week of a hunger strike, when they were confronted by massed ranks of officers. In the melee, large numbers of demonstrators, including several women, were hurt. Among the injured were a former reformist MP, Mousavi Khoeini, who had a broken rib after being hit with an...

'There are no Muslim terrorists. There are terrorists," Father Paul Hawkins of St Pancras parish church told his congregation on Sunday. "The people who carried out these attacks are victims of a false religion, be it false Christianity or false Islam." Oh, dear. "Britain can take it" (as they said in the Blitz): that's never been in doubt. The question is whether Britain can still dish it out. When events such as last Thursday's occur, two things happen, usually within hours if not minutes: first, spokespersons for Islamic lobby groups issue warnings about an imminent backlash against Muslims. In fairness...

Consider reformers, orders Ayatollah By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent (Filed: 24/05/2005) Hardliners in Iran suffered a rare public rebuke from the country's supreme spiritual leader yesterday, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei helped two reformist candidates running in the presidential election next month. Mostafa Moin State radio said Ayatollah Khamenei issued an official decree for the Guardian Council, an unelected body vetting all those standing for public office, to rethink its disqualification of reformists from the poll on June 17. International concern over Iran's nuclear programme gives this poll significance beyond the Middle East. The Ayatollah did not give his backing...

The Church celebrates Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October, commemorating a significant event in the history of the Reformed tradition. It was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg... Reformation Sunday

Real FreedomState backs Iranian “reformers” — who don’t exist. Recently, the State Department has posted a 15-page document on its website under the title of "Voices Struggling to be Heard." This document has been presented as a "fact sheet," but much of it is more fiction than fact. Although it's a positive step on the part of the State Department to publish such a report in the first place, what is disappointing is that this publication is geared more towards promoting the so-called reformists in Iran than exposing human-rights violations by the Islamic regime. State Department: "Today the courageous voices...

<p>SACRAMENTO – Tax reformers challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday to eliminate corporate loopholes in Prop. 13 that they say have cost the state billions since 1978.</p> <p>"There is a hole at the heart of our tax system crying out for reform," said Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Association, a nonprofit backed by labor and teachers. "There was never any promise to large corporations that they wouldn't be reassessed under Prop. 13, and there's no reason for not doing it."</p>

Kf Switches Obsessions Plus, how is Kerry like a Weeble? By Mickey Kaus Posted Monday, March 22, 2004, at 1:17 AM PT It's win-win for the opponents of welfare reform. If welfare rolls had gone up during the last three years, they would have said, "See, the caseload drop that reformers have bragged about was all due to the economy." But, contrary to their predictions, rolls haven't gone up despite the recession and slow economy. No problem! They instead complain that the failure of the caseload to rise shows that welfare isn't helping those in need. [S]hawn Fremstad, a policy...