Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Leading Republicans and Democrats are calling for a new wave of volunteerism aimed directly at some of the most pressing problems facing the nation, from the high school dropout rate to energy efficiency to the rising number of unemployed. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced the Serve America Act on Friday, a new sweeping bill eight months in the making that would try to attract 175,000 new volunteers in the next five years. The bill has the backing of both major presidential candidates. Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both co-sponsors. They...

Isn't that nice? The city of Manhattan Beach is renaming an oceanfront park, Bruces' Beach, after Charles A. and Willa Bruce, an African-American couple who had purchased the land in 1912 and developed it into a beachfront resort in the 1920s. The Bruces were driven off their land in the mid-1920s, according to a Los Angeles Times article last week, after city officials became uncomfortable with the idea of numerous black people sunbathing and dining at Bruces' Lodge. At the urging of the local community, the officials discovered a compelling public interest in creating a public park on that very...

The Fairfax County police officer who shot an unarmed man to death in January will not be charged with a crime, the county's chief prosecutor announced this afternoon. From the start, Fairfax police declared that the killing of Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., 37, was an accident and that the SWAT officer who fired had done so unintentionally. Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said that when a person fires a gun without malice and unintentionally kills someone, "they do not commit a crime." "I feel for the family of the victim in this case," Horan said. "You have to....

Out in the undulating green farmland of Westmoreland County, Route 819 and Forbes Trail Road form a lonely crossroads in Hempfield. This rural junction is watched over by a few faded barns, and is easily missed in a blink through the windshields of speeding motorists. But if developers have their way, this piece of great wide open space soon will be the seed of a new community, the main street of a 700-acre "traditional neighborhood development" called Northpointe. The intersecting streets would be lined with up to one million square feet of retail stores, galleries, office space and restaurants topped...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Was it Divine Providence or dumb luck? The details of U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman's plans to fund worker rights improvements in Central America came my way just when the National Labor Committee's latest reports on the Central American labor situation arrived. Whatever the explanation, the NLC studies powerfully reenforce what every thinking person – and especially Congressional Democrats seeking pretexts to vote for the Central America Free Trade Agreement should already know: Third world workers' lives won't be bettered significantly, and U.S. trade policy initiatives like CAFTA can't become win-wins...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an office within the U.S. Department of Transportation, just finished its annual campaign to get us to wear our seatbelts under a program called "Click It or Ticket." States receive federal subsidies to ticket drivers if they or their passengers are not buckled up.

One in 10 European Union citizens knows little or nothing about the new EU constitution, a study suggests. But half of the 25,000 polled by the EU said they would vote in favour of the treaty, which faces referenda in many of the union's 25 member states. The UK was the only country where more of those questioned were against the constitution than in favour. More than one in three people remain undecided, with indecision highest in states planning to hold a referendum. The EU-wide poll, conducted in October last year, found that only 11% felt they knew the content...

Legislation ties 2006 pay increase to that of state employees in 2005 By TOM HUMPHREY, tomhumphrey3@aol.com May 21, 2004 NASHVILLE - In rapid-fire votes, the House and Senate on Thursday approved a bill to raise legislator salaries and expense allowances while leaving other issues - including a $24 billion state budget - to await action today. The increase in basic legislator salary, which has stood at $16,500 per year since 1985, will not take effect until 2006 under the bill. Legislators elected that year will then receive whatever percentage pay raise is given to state employees in 2005. The best...

Are We Serfs? By Robert L. Formaini Published 03/23/2004 This year is the 60th anniversary of the publication of one of the 20th century's most influential books, Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (hereafter, TRTS). Milton Friedman, speaking at a recent conference held at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said that at the time that Hayek wrote his book, most political policy rhetoric was pro-socialist, not only in England where Hayek then lived, but in America as well. Yet actual policy was very free market oriented. Today, Friedman noted, the rhetoric is more often pro-free market even though the policy...

NEW ORLEANS- A federal appeals court has opened the door for police officers in three states to search homes and buildings for evidence without a warrant - a ruling that two dissenting judges called "the road to hell." Acting on a Baton Rouge case, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that police do not need an arrest or search warrant to conduct a swift sweep of private property to ensure their safety. Any evidence discovered during that search is admissable in court as long as the search is a "cursory inspection," and if police entered the site for...

A decade of corruption trials has chastened the French elite. But few heads have rolled and little has changed. What are the roots of French corruption? Tim King The business of uncovering corruption is not for the faint-hearted. In France, Eva Joly, the country's best known magistrate, lived under 24-hour police protection for six years: six years spent in the knowledge that someone out there was being paid to track her and, given the opportunity, kill her. Joly didn't investigate Colombian drug barons or mafia networks - her work took place in a country which is one of the world's...

<p>Annie was an ethnic Chinese born in Malaysia who had legally emigrated to the U.S. decades ago. She entered my law office with her mother, who clutched a well-worn copy of a Chinese language book called What You Need to Know About Life in America that is eventually encountered by most immigration lawyers.</p>

We Are Consuming All of Our Seed Corn The economy is in trouble and there is a great debate going on in Washington on how to fix it. The major philosophical debate is how government can fix an ailing economy. Lost in this argument is the fact that the current mess was caused by government. And now we are asking the very institution that gave us the bubble and altered spending and investment habits in this country to fix the mess it created. A central tenet in American economic thinking is intervention, redistribution and consumption. This doctrine was borne out...