Free Republic

As the fountainhead of global Islamic terrorism, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has long had a public-relations problem. For years the Brotherhood has struggled to veil its reputation as a violent and reactionary religious movement without moderating the substance of its politics, which continue to include support for terror attacks and the institution of hard-line Sharia law. At the University of California at Irvine (UCI), the Brotherhood has now found an audience receptive to its efforts.

ORANGE – UCI Medical Center could lose Medicare funding after investigators found that anesthesiologists falsified surgical records, filling them out before patients were ever put under on the operating table. Inspectors found serious deficiencies that "substantially limit the hospital's capacity to render adequate care to patients," according to the certified letter and report sent Aug. 15 to the hospital's administrator. The Register obtained a copy of the public record from Medicare officials after UCI failed to respond to a Sept. 12 request for the report and accompanying information. UCI officials sent the Register an e-mail today – after learning of...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis. Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha. The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement. Chessani was the highest-ranking officer implicated in the case.

PAU, France -- For just a moment Tuesday, David Millar, a former world champion, one of the most respected riders in the peloton not only for his skill pedaling a bike but his candor off it, was reduced to being a fan. A devastated, disillusioned, stricken fan by the side of the road. Millar, like everyone else gathered in the big ballroom serving as the Tour de France headquarters on the second rest day of the race, had been broadsided moments before by the news that Alexandre Vinokourov had tested positive for a banned blood transfusion Saturday, the day he...

UCI College Republicans say school administrators gave preference to a Muslim Student Union event over theirs. Three members of UC Irvine's College Republicans have filed a complaint with the campus administration, saying that officials unfairly moved their group two weeks ago to make room for a Muslim Student Union event. In a statement filed May 22, students Reut Cohen, Brock Hill and Julian Babbitt said administrators told their club to move its booth on Ring Road during the Muslim Student Union's "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected" event on May 17. The College Republicans, they said, had booked the spot by the administration...

The University of California, Irvine, is investigating whether an FBI agent bumped a Muslim student with his car near the site of an anti-Israel protest. Yasser Ahmed, 21, said he noticed he was being followed by a car with blackened windows as he drove a 24-foot moving van on campus Monday night to pick up an exhibit sponsored by the Muslim Student Union. The exhibit was a mock wall set up on campus to represent a barrier Israel has built in Palestine. Ahmed said he got out of the truck, stood in front of the car and asked the driver...

Last night at the University of California Irvine, the Muslim Students Union staged a threatening, thuggish disruption of a talk by Daniel Pipes. UC Irvine is a hotbed of Muslim radicalism, as we’ve documented many times at LGF, but you may not have understood how bad it is until you see this. (Watch out for a burst of white noise near the middle.)

After two trying months marked by doping allegations, an assault on his reputation and his father-in-law's suicide, Floyd Landis doesn't wish for a stirring comeback so much as the simpler things in life. At this point, he will settle for a good night's sleep, free of pain. To help reach that goal, Landis had hip-replacement surgery last week. With his rehab under way, the 30-year-old American who won this year's Tour de France won't rule out a return to competitive cycling. "Things have been up and down for me," Landis said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'll...

Planned Exhibit of Cartoons Protested The caricatures of Muhammad will be displayed at a UCI student forum. Muslims object, and university officials are wary. By Daniel Yi, Times Staff Writer February 25 2006 Plans by a Republican student group at UC Irvine to showcase the controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that led to violent protests around the world are drawing condemnation from Muslim groups and university officials. The caricatures will be part of a panel discussion sponsored by the campus College Republicans scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in UCI's Crystal Cove Auditorium.

Irvine, Calif. (AP) -- A student panel discussion on Islamic extremism that included the "unveiling" of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including one of him wearing a bomb-laden turban, repeatedly descended into name-calling chaos Tuesday night. The panel, which included one Muslim speaker, was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers from the audience who challenged assertions by panelist Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America. Outside, hundreds of Muslims and their supporters noisily protested the event amid a heavy prolice presence. At one point, University of California, Irvine, police removed two men, one...

Muhammad Cartoons Rile Calif. College Wednesday, March 1, 2006 7:54 AM EST The Associated Press By GILLIAN FLACCUS IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — A student panel discussion that included a display of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons descended into chaos, with one speaker calling Islam an "evil religion" and audience members nearly coming to blows. Organizers of Tuesday night's forum at the University of California, Irvine said they showed the cartoons as part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism. But several hundred protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, argued the event was the equivalent of hate speech disguised as...

Irvine Three cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad drew about 300 peaceful protesters to UC Irvine on Tuesday night outside a forum that at times sparked free-wheeling shouting matches and audience ejections by police. The free public forum, co-sponsored by a Republican student group at UCI and a self-described conservative student group in Burbank, featured the unveiling of images that for weeks have sparked rioting and deaths in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. The images originally were published by a Danish newspaper.

ORANGE, Calif. - Over the last two years, more than 30 people died awaiting liver transplants at UCI Medical Center here as the hospital turned down scores of organs that might have saved them, according to a federal report. Following that report, the federal government yesterday rescinded its approval for the liver transplant program. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a letter to UCI chief executive Ralph Cygan, said that, effective immediately, it would stop paying for liver transplants for Medicare recipients on UCI's waiting list. While the agency's action does not close the program, it will...

The phrase, “Level Playing Field,” was coined in the 1980s, according to The Phrase Finder, to mean fair competition with no advantage to either side. Today, I hear this phrase used more often in politics—from both the Left and the Right. Somehow, I think this phrase has become contaminated, depending on one’s viewpoint or naiveté. Coming from the Right, this probably means “idealism.” Coming, though, from the Left, I suspect that it means that they want welfare from the USA, or they prefer to blame the USA for its capitalism and imperialism and look to either Socialism or Communism as...