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"Hate Crime" charges against four Christian men, facing a total of 47 years in prison, were dropped after the judge viewed the tape of the incident. Four Christian men were charged with “hate crime” felony when in fact they were peacefully protesting a homosexual street event on October 10, 2004 in Philadelphia. Concerned Women for America (CWA) urged the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to intervene. The four adult defendants, who face a total of 47 years in prison if convicted of the three felonies and five misdemeanors, pled not guilty. “The District Attorney’s office went berserk, saddling them with...

Saskatchewan has become the seventh Canadian jurisdiction to allow same-sex marriages. Madam Justice Donna Wilson of the Court of Queen's Bench ruled Friday that the traditional definition of marriage, as it currently exists, discriminates against gay and lesbian couples. Five couples who were denied marriage licences because they were not of the opposite sex filed a statement of claim seeking a declaratory judgment that the common-law definition of marriage be changed. The group wanted the definition changed to read "two people to the exclusion of others," rather than "two people of the opposite sex." "The judge found that it is...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

I'm beginning to worry that the Republicans might be behind this smear-job on Kerry. So does a reader: "Well, this may be it. As a life-long Republican, I have defended my party and its leaders through thick and thin over the years, but I don't know if I can do it any longer. I voted for Reagan in 1984 (my first Presidential election), despite my misgivings about the rising influence of the Religious Right and my displeasure at the ludicrous budget deficits, because of his moral clarity on the issue of Communism. I voted for Bush Sr. in '88 and...

The very, very busy Andrew Sullivan (über blogger, gay Time Tory, etc.) is in a funk about President Bush. He thinks the president "is in the Rove-Cheney cocoon right now," which is keeping Bush from recognizing the obvious: His coalition is falling apart. According to Sullivan's analysis, the president's de facto amnesty proposal has misfired, costing more Anglo votes than it nets in Latino support; the drunken Democrat routine on spending has aroused "[deep] concern" among independents (e.g., Perot voters); and Iraq could still go pear shaped. More Debatable: "prescription drugs pandering hasn't swayed any seniors"; religious conservatives may convince...

What a relief to hear the president forthrightly defend his decision to bar Germany, France and Russia from competing on Iraq reconstruction contracts. There is a difference between being magnanimous and being a patsy. Germany, France and Russia are completely free to donate money and troops to help Iraq's transition away from a dictatorship they defended and bankrolled. (They have, of course, delivered nothing.) But, after doing everything they could to undermine the U.S. at the U.N. and elsewhere in order to protect their own favored dictator, they have absolutely no claim on the tax-payers of the United States. The...

I've been reading the transcripts so far in this election but watched last night's debate in full. What a truly depressing spectacle. The sheer torrent of tired cliches, dead metaphors, and hoary old stem-winders was enough to numb what's left of my cold-riddled sinuses. The sheer lack of talent on the stage was what struck me. Only four candidates seemed the faintest bit credible: Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman. Edwards revealed why he hasn't caught on - not just the accent, but the exhausted and obviously phony Shrum-like rhetoric about "special interests" and lobbyists. I kept thinking to myself: the...

Aiming for 2008 British anti-war liberals, lefties, and conservatives have just won a new enemy. This gung-ho member of the neocon cabal, this imperialistic threat to world peace, this destroyer of multilateral alliances actually believes that president Bush is too soft for the Iraq war. The president is too swift to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis, according to this critique. He needs to pour in more troops, display more resolve, demand more from allies, and take more time to get the job done right. Who is this foe of the anti-war left? Drum roll, please. It's Hillary Clinton. You won't...

There's a growing anti-Bush meme, pioneered in part by Maureen Dowd and The New York Times, that holds that president Bush is a heartless chicken-hawk who wages war recklessly and cares not a whit for the welfare of the soldiers under his command. The evidence? That he hasn't attended any military funerals related to the Iraq war. This particular indictment works rhetorically because it manages to sum up a criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq policy while adding the extra ingredient of damning Bush personally. (Indeed, one blogger has documented the meme's increased popularity on antiwar websites.) But it also...

Bush, Ambushed Maybe this whole State visit idea was the brain-child of Michael Moore's book agent. The cover-image of Moore's latest book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" features a photo-shop image of a statue of president Bush being toppled just as Saddam's was laid low earlier this year in Baghdad. And next week exactly such a re-enactment is promised by the anti-war forces set to protest president George W. Bush's visit to Britain in Trafalgar Square. Call it a product tie-in. Or maybe it's a secret plot by the State Department to subject George W. Bush to such public relations horror...

America, Divided I was searching around for a metaphor for what life is actually like as a politically interested person in the U.S. right now, and I'm not sure I've come up with anything that accurately conveys it. The term "polarization" seems a little too anti-septic. "Bi-polar" suggests serial ups and downs, whereas America's divisions are deep and simultaneous. The "red-blue" split - between blue coastal elites and red Middle America - has become an almost meaningless cliche; and it misses the fact that there are plenty of blue-style voters in red America and vice-versa. Evoking the deep divides of...

We've been waiting for this speech. Critics of the war in Iraq and a huge change in American foreign policy in the Middle East will no doubt play up the negatives. They will argue that the president is changing the subject from the difficult occuation of Iraq, the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But the case for war both in Afghanistan and Iraq has always been a complex and varied one, despite the attempts of the cynics to reduce it to one issue (and then blame the administration for simplisme). The fundamental lesson of 9/11 seems to...

His New Electoral Odds When even George Stephanopoulos concedes it, you know a new pro-Bush conventional wisdom has been born. Speaking at Northwestern University in Chicago last week, the former Clinton flunky opined the following about the political future of the U.S: "It looks like we are coming out of the recession. Wages are starting to go up. Productivity is starting to go up. Generally if you look at polls across the country people respect President Bush even when people don't agree with his policies. He has an amazingly strong hold on the Republican party. He's not going to have...

[ Editor's Note: In what follows, TNR Senior Editor Andrew Sullivan deconstructs Andy Rooney's commentary from Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes." ] Andy Rooney's latest "60 Minutes" commentary attacks George W. Bush by way of a mea culpa Rooney has graciously volunteered to write: Rooney: Years ago, I was asked to write a speech for President Nixon. I didn't do that, but I wish President Bush would ask me to write a speech for him now. Nice little subliminal connection right there--Bush and Nixon. Not exactly subtle, of course, but this is Andy Rooney. Rooney: Here's what I'd write if...

Here's a scenario that will likely frighten the White House. Two words: Dean-Clark. It is, of course, way too early to start talk about potential tickets for 2004. But it is not too early to recognize a couple of obvious facts about the Democratic race. Howard Dean is both the easy front-runner, the only man to have galvanized the base, the only candidate to have raised really serious money, and to have provided a simple, clear message: get rid of Bush and move to the center, while coopting the left. At the same time, it's also pretty clear that he's...

If you think that David Kay's report on Iraqi WMDs can be adequately summarized by idiotic headlines such as: "No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq," then you need to read this report. If you believe the following "news analysis" by David Sanger in today's New York Times summarizes the findings of David Kay, then you need to read this report. Sanger's piece is, in fact, political propaganda disguised as analysis, designed to obscure and distort the evidence that you can read with your own eyes. His opening paragraph culminates in a simple, knowing, well-crafted lie: The preliminary report delivered on...

Reading this essay by Wesley Clark, I have to say I'm not reassured that he has what it takes to wage a war on terror. If he had been president, the war in Afghanistan would probably not have taken place, let alone the war against Saddam. His first instinct after the deadliest act of war against the American heartland in history was to help the United Nations set up an International Criminal Tribunal on International Terrorism. I'm not even making that up. Maybe Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia could head up the committee. If I were to imagine a parody...

There was something wonderfully strained about how various media organisations dealt last week with the news of the deaths of Qusay and Uday Hussein. From the BBC to Reuters, there was palpable — if sternly repressed — dismay. One of the first headlines that the Ba’athist Broadcasting Corporation put out on the news was: “US celebrates ‘good’ Iraq news”. The quotation marks around “good” did not refer to any quote or source in the text. They were pure editorialising on behalf of the BBC, whose campaign to undermine the liberation of Iraq is now in full swing. It was not...

Few would dispute that she’s a babe. Lanky, skinny, with long blonde hair tumbling down to her breasts, Ann Coulter has been photographed in a shiny black latex dress. She’s whip-sharp in public debates, has done a fair amount of homework and has made a lot of the right enemies. If much of modern American conservatism has made headway because of its media savvy, compelling personalities and shameless provocation, then Coulter deserves some pride of place in its vanguard. But that, of course, is also the problem. In the ever-competitive marketplace of political ideas — in a world of blogs...

It would be hard to find a more appalling example of racial animus than in Maureen Dowd's column this morning. For some reason I guess I do understand, Clarence Thomas isn't just opposed by many on the Left; he is hated. He is hated because he is, in Dowd's extraordinary formulation, guilty of "a great historical ingratitude." The good negroes, in Dowd's liberal-racist world, are those grateful to their massas in the liberal hierarchy: they are grateful to Howell and Gerald and Arthur; and they know their place. For them to express the psychological torment of being advanced for racist...