Free Republic

Increasingly, it seems that the American flag is joining toy guns and dodgeball on the banned-from-school list. And the latest story on this front involves The Butterfield Elementary in Orange, Massachusetts, where a teacher told an eleven-year-old boy that he may not hang his depiction of Old Glory because it might "offend" another student. The boy, Frankie Girard, had drawn the picture in art class but then found that his teacher didn't share his patriotism. Says his father, John, "He was denied hanging the flag up. And he asked if he could just even hang it on his desk, and...

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., of Wilson reportedly was one of six members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — questioned over the alleged misuse of travel funds, according to The Wall Street Journal. A congressional investigation centers on the members’ spending of leftover per-diem pay, the newspaper reported. Butterfield has acknowledged keeping some of the travel money, according to the newspaper. A call seeking comment from Butterfield was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon. [...] An earlier WSJ story indicated some lawmakers have pocketed excess travel money from foreign trips as a way of making more money, Sinsheimer said. Figures...

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) has no plans to give up the $3,000 in donations he took from embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) even though he sits on the jury considering evidence that the former Ways and Means Committee chairman broke ethics rules. Butterfield is one of a bipartisan group of eight members on the ethics committee who will weigh the allegations against Rangel.

The eight members of the House Ethics Committee sit in judgment on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), but it is hard to see how at least two of them can be impartial when they have received campaign funds from Rangel’s National Leadership PAC. According to Federal Election Commission records, Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY), in photo, received two contributions of $5,000 each during the 2004 election cycle, on 12/15/03 and 1/20/04.  Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) received contributions of $1,000 and $2,000 during the 2004 cycle, on 6/29/04 and  7/13/04 respectively. A third member of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Peter Welch...

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield is holding a town hall meeting Tuesday evening in Rocky Mount for some of the same reasons dozens of other Democratic lawmakers have opted against holding public forums during the congressional recess. “Never before has there been this sort of cry for people’s opinions to be heard,” Butterfield press secretary Ken Willis said. “And the congressman just feels like there is so much disinformation out there, he wants to address the voters directly.” Attempting to deflate what Democrats are calling “generated outrage” over plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system, most North Carolina members of...

U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, D-N.C. was in Williamston, NC last week. The Martin County Chamber of Commerce had invited the congressman to lead a round table forum on how the Democrats’ proposed health care bill would impact small business owners and their employees. The event was scheduled to last two hours. I was among the standing room only audience. Upon registering, attendees were asked to write down questions we’d like the congressman to try and answer. We soon learned only questions Butterfield’s staff approved, had any chance of being addressed. -snip- In his opening remarks, Butterfield admitted that his...

The chairman of a House ethics probe into a Caribbean conference attended by members of the Congressional Black Caucus is himself a CBC member who attended the same event in 2005. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), the former judge chosen to chair the ethics probe, has vowed to lead a fair investigation into trips taken by CBC members to St. Maarten in 2008 and Antigua and Barbuda in 2007. But the ethics watchdogs that have called for an investigation into whether corporations paid for the trips, which would violate House ethics rules, question whether a CBC member should be leading the...

BENSON — The Pony Express will ride again during Butterfield Stage Days on Oct. 13, and the U.S. Postal Service will issue a special postmark to commemorate the event. At noon, special Pony Express riders will be sworn in by Postmaster Lesley Tower in a ceremony in Lions Park. They will carry the mail from Benson to the Dragoon post office, arriving in Dragoon around 3:30 p.m. The Benson post office will offer a special postmark commemorating the 22nd Annual Pony Express Ride. The postmark, which features a Butterfield Overland Stagecoach design, will be available from 9 a.m. to noon...

HARRISBURG, PA.-PRNewswire/ Each Memorial Day, ceremonies across the country echo with the sound of a plaintive bugle call, played to honor those who died in America's wars. The call is "Taps" and it dates back to the American Civil War. "There are some heart-warming myths about 'Taps,'" warns George Hicks, the executive director of the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Museum, which opened in 2001, has 65,000 square feet of exhibit space that tells the story of the entire conflict, without sectional bias. The Museum's exhibit about Civil War music includes six battered and tarnished bugles that...

"The continuing increase in the prison population, despite a drop or leveling off in the crime rate in the past few years, is a result of laws passed in the 1990's that led to more prison sentences and longer terms..."

Message Delivered at Sam Davis's Press Conferences on Friday July 16, 2004 Ladies and Gentlemen of the press and voters of the 1st Congressional District. Two years ago I ran for this seat in Congress as an idealist. I believed then, that my fellow candidates and I would have a healthy debate about ideas followed by free and fair elections. It greatly disturbed me to hear of the numerous allegations of voter fraud and irregularities throughout the District tied to a political machine then, but I was naïve and believed instead that such collusion and corruption was only the stuff...

A large number of police chiefs and other law enforcement officials have joined gun control advocates in a campaign to defeat a Senate bill that would grant gun makers and dealers almost total immunity from lawsuits. The bill, which is strongly supported by the National Rifle Association, is scheduled for a Senate vote in early March but could come up for a vote even sooner. As many as 59 senators have signed on as sponsors, only one vote shy of the number needed to defeat any attempt at a filibuster. A similar bill passed easily in the House last fall....

The Gray Lady of American newspapers is red with embarrassment caused by reporter Jayson Blair, who admitted that many of his stories involved invention or plagiarism. Some New York Times reporters have expressed concern that the exposure of so many bogus stories over such a long period of time from such a respected newspaper could cause readers of American newspapers to doubt the credibility of what they read. On gun-control issues, those doubts are well-merited; the Times's credibility when it comes to guns is about equal to that of the National Enquirer's reporting on celebrity romances: Some of it...