Free Republic

#1 In 1968 who assassinated Robert Kennedy? (a) Abbie Hoffman (b) Tiny Tim (c) Charles Manson (d) Muslim male extremist between the age of 17 and 40 #2 In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by: (a) Olga Korbett (b) Sitting Bull (c) Arnold Schwarzenegger (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40 #3 In 1979,the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by: (a) Lost Norwegians (b) Elvis (c) A tour bus full of 80-year-old women (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40 #4 During the...

When the partisan impasse over rules and procedures on the House ethics committee ends, the first member to face the panel won't be House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, but rather Democrat Jim McDermott of Washington. The Seattle-area congressman, one of the most vocal critics of Republicans, has been under investigation by the panel since last year over his role nearly nine years ago in the illegal taping and distribution of a phone conversation involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich.A federal court already has determined, for a civil lawsuit against Mr. McDermott, that the liberal lawmaker illegally distributed the tape, a judgment...

May 02, 2005, 9:44 a.m. Dominionist Domination The Left runs with a wild theory. What is the real agenda of the religious far Right? I’ll tell you what it is. These nuts want to take over the federal government and suppress other religions through genocide and mass murder, rather than through proselytizing. They want to reestablish slavery. They want to reduce women to near-slavery by making them property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands. They want to execute anyone found guilty of pre-martial, extramaritial, or homosexual sex. They want to bring back the death penalty for witchcraft....

Harper’s Magazine’s May cover stories about “The Christian Right’s War On America,” frightened me, although not the way Harper’s meant them to. I fear these stories could mark the beginning of a systematic campaign of hatred directed at traditional Christians. Whether this is what Harper’s intends, I cannot say. But regardless of the intention, the effect seems clear. The phrase “campaign of hatred” is a strong one, and I worry about amplifying an already dangerous dynamic of recrimination on both sides of the culture wars. I don’t doubt that conservatives, Christian and otherwise, are sometimes guilty of rhetorical excess. Yet...

Bipartisan bungling on borders Michelle Malkin April 27, 2005 Whip-cracking Hillary Clinton (call her Hillary Buchanan) wants a "border czar." In a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y., wrote this week: "National security and, in particular, security at our borders, must continue to be paramount." Catch no. 1: Sen. Clinton only wants a border czar for the border between the United States and Canada, despite the fact that the vast majority of illegal border-crossers come from the south. Catch no. 2: Though stipulating that national security must...

The largest local union of Border Patrol agents in the country has declared its support for the Minuteman Project in Arizona, while at the same time slamming both the American Civil Liberties Union and President Bush. According to its website, the U.S. Border Patrol Local 2544, which covers the Tucson sector of the agency, the volunteers involved in the border-monitoring Minuteman Project have been nothing but supportive. "We want to make it clear – because we've had a lot of questions about this – we have not had one single complaint from a rank-and-file agent in this sector about the...

A national sales tax By George Will March 31, 2005 WASHINGTON -- The power to tax involves, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, the power to destroy. So does the power of tax reform, which is one reason why Rep. John Linder, a Georgia Republican, has a 133-page bill to replace 55,000 pages of tax rules. His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system -- personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate...

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up' Tim Radford, science editor Wednesday March 30, 2005 The Guardian The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure. The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being...

The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure. The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or...

Court rules telecommuter must pay taxes By Michael Gormley, Associated Press Writer | March 29, 2005 ALBANY, N.Y.-- A telecommuter who lives out of state while working by computer for a New York employer must pay New York tax on his full income, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have wide implications in the growing practice. The Court of Appeals said that computer programmer Thomas Huckaby who lives in Nashville, Tenn., owed New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent working at his employer's New York offices. ......The issue...

ANTI-CHRISTIAN JIHAD Left-wing intellectuals will conduct a major academic conference at the City University of New York (CUNY) April 29-30 titled "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right." The event is co-sponsored by tax-supported CUNY and the New York Open Center. Skipp Porteous, a former Pentecostal minister, is scheduled to lecture on the "Christian Jihad." He has written online: "Have I rejected God? No. Man created God in his own image. I reject that image." Other lectures listed include, "Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration," "On the Psychology and Theocracy of George W. Bush: Reflections in a...

Ocean Haven, which claims to welcome diversity, "Respecting the interdependence & diversity of all life," makes the following exceptions: "FOR REASONS OF HEALTH & SAFETY, OCEAN HAVEN CANNOT ACCOMMODATE SMOKERS, PETS, FOLKS TRAVELING IN A HUMMER, OR FOLKS WHO VOTED FOR BUSH & HIS NATURE DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES."

Let's admit it. Hillary is scary. And not only because she is extremely smart, totally driven, and a formidable fundraiser. Hillary's most impressive and most worrisome quality is that she is a self-improver. That girl can learn and change constantly even if it means contradicting herself. "That's not flip-flopping," I bet she'd say, nodding her head, which she always does when she's agreeing, "it's evolving." And let's admit this, as well: Most guys are either too self-confident or too insecure to work so constantly and so hard on trying to improve and repackage themselves. Not our Hillary. Remember how she...

SITTING BULL-S*** February 9, 2005   If Ward Churchill loses his job teaching at the University of Colorado, he could end up giving Howard Dean a real run for his money to head the Democratic National Committee. Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record — just like John Kerry! (Someone should also check out Churchill's claim that he spent Christmas 1968 at Wounded Knee.) In 1983, Churchill met with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and later felt it necessary to announce that his group, the American Indian Movement, "has not requested arms from the Libyan government." In 1997,...

We've had a lot of new folks join up recently. Welcome aboard, this thread is a gentle reminder of some basic posting guidelines. (And for some of you old timers as well) Please read the follow, and ask any questions. We will all try to help you out. SEARCH If it's a breaking news topic, check breaking news first, it's probably already posted. To avoid duplicate posts, please search before posting. Use the published article title to prevent duplicates. The best method to search is to pick a key word or two from the title. If the article you are...

As a social conservative and deeply religious person, she would face no bar in winning the votes of the Christian right, so crucial to winning the Republican nomination. Unlike former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani (R) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — both of whom could probably win in November — she would be very attractive to the pro-life, anti-gun-control, anti-affirmative-action base of the GOP. America longs to put the period on the disgraceful chapter in our nation’s history that began when the first slave arrived at Jamestown, Va., more than 400 years ago. We also want to send a...

Human activities may have averted the next ice age. This conclusion from recent research is sure to make global warming alarmists cringe. Ongoing human activities during the past 8,000 years likely have served to prevent us from falling into an ice age, says William Ruddiman, former chairman of the University of Virginia environmental sciences department and his research team in Quaternary Research Reviews.. “Without any anthropogenic warming,” they write, “earth’s climate would no longer be in a full-interglacial state [warm period] but be well on its way toward the colder temperatures typical of glaciations.” Ruddiman’s team carefully studied carbon dioxide...

Dick Morris To stop Hillary, draft Condi As she tours the continent after her Senate confirmation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is like a rock star — her every movement, her every meeting covered by an adoring media. America’s first black female secretary of state is doing in public what she has always done in private — speaking frankly about America’s priorities and the realities of the post-Cold War world. As she jokes with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, loosening up his dogmatic anti-American policies, lectures Russia about freedom and warns Israel of tough decisions ahead, one thing is obvious: A...

The two hot-button issues that President Bush wants to tackle this year — Social Security and immigration — are about to collide. Two members of Congress will try to block an agreement that the Bush administration signed with Mexico that would allow Mexicans who have worked in the United States, including some illegal immigrants, to receive Social Security payments. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., Virginia Republican, will introduce a resolution today calling on the president not to submit the agreement to Congress. And Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, has prepared another resolution to block the deal, called a totalization agreement,...

When we understand that our liberties depend on the sophisticated scheme of institutional limitations the Framers of the Constitution imposed on the federal government, we will grasp the urgency of the message of Mark Levin's new book, "Men in Black." In "Men in Black," Levin takes us on an engrossing ride through history detailing how the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself a sort of tyrannical power that threatens our constitutional architecture and freedom. We often hear of the dangers of an unchecked judiciary. But few of us have the historical, legal and constitutional background that sets this menacing problem...