Free Republic

Charles Louis “Sonny Boy” Saunders lost his life when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the 18-year-old’s body has finally arrived at his hometown of Winnie, Texas, where he will be laid to rest 80 years to the day after he died serving his country. KTRK in Winnie Texas reported on Saunder’s amazing journey home: Last week, the body of Navy Seaman 2nd Class Charles L. Saunders arrived at Bush Intercontinental Airport. The Chambers County Sheriff’s Office then escorted the hero’s body to Winnie. The attack on USS Oklahoma resulted in the deaths of 429 crewmen,...

FINDING THE PATTERNS FINDING THE PATTERNS   Critics have faulted the role the news media has played in highlighting the president's inflammatory style, saying that what’s lost is a deeper focus on the country’s more pressing needs. NEW YORK—Over the past week, the news media covered a number of the country’s most pressing issues: ongoing threats from North Korea, the Senate’s efforts to dismantle Obamacare, the Trump administration’s late-Sunday-night announcement of its Travel Ban 3.0. President Trump’s offensive quip about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem last Friday at a campaign rally in Huntsville, Ala., however, was...

The power struggle at the Heritage Foundation could upend Republican politics and put millions of dollars at DC's most influential think tank on the line. By Mollie Hemingway There are two narratives being spun about the current turmoil at the Heritage Foundation. Last week, Politico reported that the non-profit conservative foundation’s board planned to permanently oust former Sen. Jim DeMint, who was appointed president of the organization in 2013.The narrative Politico offers, supported by quotes from a single anonymous board member, is that Heritage is in disarray as a result of DeMint’s decisions since taking over several years ago. DeMint...

(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump will find himself with an unlikely ally if he makes good on his promise to be an economic populist challenging corporate America, Bernie Sanders said Thursday. "If Mr. Trump has the guts to stand up to those corporations," said the former Democratic presidential candidate, "he will have an ally with me." The willingness on the part of Sanders, a longtime democratic socialist, to work with Trump on a series of economic issues underscores the unorthodox and strikingly populist message that Trump used during his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton. Sanders, speaking with reporters at a Christian Science...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allowed that supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have a “legitimate complaint” about the way the Democratic National Committee treated him during the primary race. Yet she pointed to the concessions made at this week's Philadelphia convention to assuage their concerns and the high stakes of this election to urge them to get behind Hillary Clinton. “In terms of how he has been treated at this point, they should have no complaint and many of them are declaring victory in that regard,” Pelosi said on MSNBC Monday night. DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz...

Rep. Barbara Lee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are rarely shy about taking stands on issues, except when it comes to the question “Bernie or Hillary?” Lee and Pelosi are the only two elected Bay Area Democrats who have not publicly endorsed either Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Even Pelosi’s daughter Christine Pelosi is backing Clinton, and appeared at the opening of Clinton’s new San Francisco field office Monday. Their rare reticence is rooted in the raw political calculus of not wanting to alienate the partisans on either side, which could result in...

Things could get tense in South Carolina (Newser)            Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won big in New Hampshire on Tuesday, putting their parties in uncharted territory, which the GOP establishment in particular could find tricky to navigate. Here's what analysts expect to see in the days leading up to the Nevada caucuses—which are on Feb. 20 for Democrats and Feb. 23 for Republicans—and the South Carolina primary, which happens on Feb. 20 for Republicans and Feb. 27 for Democrats. Race will become a big issue for the Democrats. Outside Iowa and New Hampshire, "the Democratic Party is 44% non-white," and Sanders has...

After Steve Chalke and Rob Bell joined the ‘Accepting Evangelicals’ Group in affirming faithful same-sex erotic relationships earlier this year a new group of ‘post-gay’ evangelical Christian leaders has emerged. Their testimonies are clear, powerful, hugely encouraging and most welcome at a time when many young evangelicals are genuinely confused about the issue. These are men in pastoral ministry who admit to feelings of same sex attraction but who also see the Bible’s prohibitions on same-sex relationships as non-negotiable. The core of this new group, recently interviewed by Christianity magazine, are Sam Alberry, a church leader in Maidenhead, Sean Doherty,...

Ahhhhh, here's that "transparency" on display once again: A well-known Democratic strategist in Virginia is blasting the White House for placing anonymous quotes in the Washington Post in a pre-emptive effort to blame Creigh Deeds for what might be a loss in the state's upcoming gubernatorial election. David "Mudcat" Saunders, who gained political fame helping Democrat Mark Warner reach out to rural voters during Warner's successful 2001 gubernatorial bid, told CNN Friday that trying to blame Deeds is "bulls**t" when Democrats around the country are "just tired of politics." ~~~ In a story published Friday, a senior administration official told...

ALBUQUERQUE - A notorious convicted murderer and rapist is out of lockup Sunday ... Mister Saunders was 13-years-old when he tortured, murdered and then raped his neighbor in 2002. Due to his age, he could not be tried as an adult. Saunders was locked up until he turned 21—which is the maximum sentence under the juvenile code.

American blunders fostered the situation, and now the United States will pay a high global price War became unavoidable in the Caucasus when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili sent the country's military to "liberate" the autonomous region of South Ossetia from its Moscow-backed local authorities. While Georgia and Russia bear principal responsibility for a conflict that both have been courting for years, the United States also shares the blame. And now America's interests will suffer, not only in Georgia and the former Soviet Union but around the world. South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and even Georgia itself may seem like small and distant...

One of two things will happen in the wake of Thursday's New York Times story that suggested John McCain may have had a "romantic relationship" nine years ago with a lobbyist who did business before the Senate Commerce Committee which he then chaired. (The story purported to be about McCain's ethics and dealings with D.C. lobbyists, in a failed attempt to gloss gossip with a patina of gravitas.) Either new information will come forward to corroborate this weak story - based solely on the speculation - as opposed to actual knowledge - of two sources (who refused to be named...

McCain... UNACCEPTABLE AT ANY LEVEL ... Including Hillary!!! On the 17th of January 2008, Rush Limbaugh covered the topic much better than I ever could, as you'll read below. How can I ever forget all the times McCain has stabed us conservatives in the back? 02/12/1999 Impeachment of President Clinton - Article I No Vote 02/12/1999 Impeachment of President Clinton - Article II No Vote 04/11/2007 Stem Cell Research Act of 2007 Yes Vote 04/11/2007 HOPE Stem Cell Research Act of 2007 Yes Vote 07/18/2006 Stem Cell Research Bill Yes Vote 12/21/2005 Removal of ANWR Provision from HR 2863 No...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A suspected member of the deadly November 17 terrorist group confessed Sunday to the murder of British military attache Brig. Stephen Saunders, state-run television said. Savas Xiros told investigators he fired the shots at Saunders after his accomplices' weapon jammed, state-run NET television reported. ``I shot Saunders ... I fired four times,'' Xiros said in 10 hours of testimony from his hospital bed, according to NET. Saunders was killed in June 2000. NET said Xiros confessed to involvement in nine killings and dozens of bomb and rocket attacks, and apologized to the families of his victims....

WHEN social conservatives argue that legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to legalized polygamy, same-sex marriage advocates either laugh or sneer. It's a scare tactic, they say. It'll never happen. Last year, however, as Canada legalized same-sex marriage, Prime Minister Paul Martin commissioned a $150,000 study to debunk the polygamy argument. Big mistake: The study confirmed the scare tactic by recommending that Canada repeal its anti-polygamy law. It also suggested that a legal challenge to Canada's anti-polygamy laws would succeed. "Why criminalize behavior?" asked Martha Bailey, one of the study's three law-professor authors. "We don't criminalize adultery." Confession time: I am...

IF ANYONE can show me that the National Security Agency, under order from President Bush or top aides, eavesdropped on Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy or some prominent partisan critic, I'll change my tune and see what this administration is doing as a threat to civil liberties. Until then, I can only see the attacks on an NSA surveillance program -- on Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the program that allowed officials to mine information from international phone calls and the Internet -- as ill-conceived, partisan and dangerous.

I clicked through MSNBC last night as saw Swift Boat Hero O'Neill being interviewed by Pat Buchanan. O'Neill usually provides some new insight into the filthy lies and distortions that Traitor John ("Viet Cong") Kerry spreads.With Pat was a blonde guy named Lawrence Sanders (Saunders?) who was labeled as some sort of MSNBC correspondant. He may have been drinking.As O'Neill presented his litany of irrefutable fact, overwhelming proof of Kerry's mendacity and the refusal of Kerry to respond to any of these facts, Sauders started screaming, at the top of his lungs, "Liar." He was raving! Of course, he had...

Font Size: A Media Meltdown? By Glenn Harlan Reynolds  Published   08/31/2004  Though it's looking less likely than it was a few weeks ago, John Kerry could still pull off a win in this presidential election. But there's already one clear loser: the so-called "mainstream media" of network television and major newspapers. Whoever winds up in the White House next year, the position of these traditional media outlets (or "legacy media" as some call them) continues to decline. That decline is partly technological in origin. Monopolistic or oligopolistic newspapers and broadcast outlets were the result of technology: economies of scale...

<p>IT'S FUNNY that, in a city that prides itself on its nonconformity, so many people make the exact same argument exactly the same way. To wit, after I write that Mayor Gavin Newsom was wrong to flout state law by authorizing same-sex marriages, a legion of readers write comparing gay and lesbian newlyweds with civil-rights legend Rosa Parks. To say that Newsom should have more respect for the law, they argue, is like saying Rosa Parks should not have engaged in her landmark act of "civil disobedience."</p>

ALVERTON, N.Y., Oct. 27 — After T.W.A. Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island in 1996, an old airplane hangar here became a sacred place. Investigators pulled mangled hunks of what had once been a Boeing 747 from the ocean, hauled them to the hangar and began piecing them back together in one of the largest reconstruction projects in aviation history. Over the years, people visited the wreckage and laid carnations on the seats where their daughters and husbands had died. Some called the site a tomb; others said it was a monument to their loss. Now,...