Free Republic

There currently are an estimated 6,000 mosques in Europe. Many of them are housed in makeshift structures such as small shops, basements, offices, garages and rented rooms. But as the Muslim population in Europe increases by more than one million people per year, Muslims across the continent are becoming increasingly more assertive in their demands to build high-profile mosques that clearly are meant to challenge the European status quo. Critics say the construction of mosques is part of a strategy for the Islamization of Europe. They point to comments by Muslim leaders like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who...

Yesterday I received an email from the Silicon Valley Tea Party inviting people to come to a rally... To all Bay Area Freepers and Tea partiers... Tomorrow (Sat 5/8) at 9:30 am at the corner of Monterey and 3rd in downtown Morgan Hill the Silicon Valley Tea Party will rally in support of the teens who were punished for wearing t-shirts with the American flag. Bring flags and/or T-shirts with american flags. Please come and lend your support.

Voters in the predominantly Democratic but socially conservative district long represented in Congress by the late Rep. John Murtha appear to embrace ideals of the so-called "tea party" movement that favors small government and limited spending, a new poll shows. An apparent statistical dead heat is shaping up in the special election race to succeed Murtha between his former district director, Mark Critz of Johnstown, and Republican businessman Tim Burns of Eighty Four in Washington County.

Since arriving in Canada I've been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn't yet given and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my "bucket list"). Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts. Welcome to Canada!

Pirates captured after attacking a Dutch vessel have gone on trial in the liberal Netherlands and at least two of them have declared their intention to stay on as residents. Geert-Jan Knoops, an international criminal law attorney and professor at the Royal University of Utrecht, has suggested that the Dutch trial might encourage pirates to surrender just in order to seek a better life in Western countries. "These trials may trigger other pirates to let themselves be arrested on purpose," he told the Volkskrant newspaper. "The Dutch Justice department must be cautious. I cannot imagine the five alleged pirates would...

.... The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white- collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of...

To find out more about why Alinsky is doing what he's doing, ... PLAYBOY sent Eric Norden to interview him. The job, Norden soon discovered, was far from easy: "The problem was that Alinsky's schedule is enough to drive a professional athlete to a rest home, and he seems to thrive on it. I accompanied him from the East Coast to the West and into Canada, snatching tape sessions on planes, in cars and at airport cocktail lounges between strategy sessions with his local organizers, which were more like military briefings than bull sessions. ... His first words were a...

What to do with the millions of illegals already here is one of the toughest aspects facing us today. We seem to be stuck between two or three alternatives, specifically, 1. "path to citizenship" pushed by Bush and the senate and seen by most as amnesty. It violates and insults our sense of fair play vis-a-vis those that are following legal means to come to this country. Also, because of the huge number of new votes at stake both parties are pandering. In fact, just the prospect of them eventually becoming citizens gives them political clout NOW, as though they...

Should we have printed that cartoon?