Free Republic

Black sergeant was 'loyal Klansman' By Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News About 25 years ago, Ron Stallworth was asked to lead the Ku Klux Klan chapter in Colorado Springs. Ron Stallworth carries his KKK membership card as a memento. Brian Nicholson, Deseret Morning News Problem was, the outgoing Klan leader didn't know that Stallworth is black. "He asked me to take over the lead because I was a good, loyal Klansman," said Stallworth, who had been in constant phone contact with the Klan leader while leading a yearlong Colorado Springs police investigation into the Klan. Stallworth later moved to Utah,...

KPMG to pay $456 mln in tax shelter case By Arindam Nag and Christine Kearney 2 hours, 39 minutes ago Accounting firm KPMG LLP (KPMG.UL) on Monday agreed to pay $456 million to settle a federal probe of its sales of fraudulent tax shelters, avoiding a criminal indictment that might have crippled the firm. While KPMG, the smallest of the major U.S. accounting houses, itself escaped an indictment of the kind that destroyed Arthur Andersen when it was convicted of destroying documents, eight former partners, including its former deputy chairman, and a KPMG lawyer, were indicted for selling the tax...

By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer February 03, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - The personal retirement plan sketched out in President Bush's State of the Union Address has been universally derided by Democrats as an unworkable privatization of the retirement program. "As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers, and the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts," Bush said during the address Wednesday night. "Here is how the idea works: Right now, a set portion of the money you earn is taken out...

New York Times Twists Good News into Bad by Bruce Bartlett Posted Aug 31, 2004 I know many New York Times reporters and have always found them to be very good at their jobs, interested only in getting the story and getting it right. One that I don't know is Timothy Egan, who confirms most conservatives' perception of the Times as little more than a conduit for Democratic Party press releases. On Aug. 28, Egan published an article in the Times titled, "Economic Squeeze Plaguing Middle-Class Families." I know that reporters don't write the headlines, but in this case it...

Lawsuit Claims Abuse by Nuns at School for Deaf Tuesday, May 11, 2004 BOSTON — Nine former students of the Boston School for the Deaf (search) filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging they were raped and beaten by nuns at the now-defunct school. The plaintiffs accused at least 13 nuns in the lawsuit, along with a priest and a male athletic instructor at the school and a former top official in the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese (search), according to their attorney, Mitchell Garabedian. The alleged victims, three women and six men, were between the ages of 7 and 16 when, they...

The old saying about men and women being from different planets isn't always a joke: You may really be married to someone from outer space! "As many as 5 million aliens are living in the United States after taking on human form," says Dr. James Kune, a physicist and former government UFO expert. "They're evenly split between male and female, and most of them are married though childless. "My research has determined that the average person has a 50-50 chance of being married to one." Dr. Kune says he has researched human-alien marriages for the past 10 years and uncovered...

Tuesday, January 13, 2004 ELECTION 2004 Poll: Bush beats Dean in California President pulls over 50% of vote in hypothetical contest Posted: January 13, 2004 5:00 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com President Bush, who soundly lost California and its 54 electoral votes to Al Gore in 2000, would win a hypothetical matchup with Democrat Howard Dean in the Golden State, a new poll reveals. The survey, conducted by Probolsky Research, finds Bush winning a majority of votes, or 50.9 percent. Dean garnered 35.4 percent, while 3.7 percent of respondents would choose a candidate other than Bush or Dean. Ten percent...

Clyburn edge may not do it for Gephardt Endorsement could take back seat to Gore’s support of Dean, other factors By LEE BANDY Staff Writer U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn’s coveted, long-awaited endorsement will give some traction to Dick Gephardt’s quest for the White House, political experts and black officials say, but it might have lost some of its luster. Some say Wednesday’s show of support from South Carolina’s most prominent black politician was overshadowed by former Vice President Al Gore’s backing of national front-runner Howard Dean earlier in the week. And then there’s the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has visited...

December 6, 2003 It appears to me that Lewis Carroll has been asked to write the work rules for school-union activities in New York. So bizarre are recent revelations that it seems as if Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole landed her in the New York City school system. City Council Education Committee Chairwoman, Eva Moskowitz, has been conducting hearings on school work rules, a subject that has been taboo for decades. What she has discovered is nothing less than scandalous. It assuredly strains credulity. One frustrated principal insisting on anonymity said, “My custodian told me they [he and his...

The division in the party over Dean is less about ideology than about power. Three years after Bill Clinton left office, he and Hillary still control what remains of a Democratic establishment. Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was installed by Clinton. --snip-- Dean, by contrast, has come to represent the party's anti-establishment forces. While the other candidates, especially former self-styled front-runner John Kerry, started the campaign by wooing party leaders, Dean built a grassroots army first--in part by bashing D.C. Democrats and their disastrous 2002 election strategy--and is only now leveraging his fund-raising power to...

3 Democrats Take Novel Approach in Early Races By Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 23, 2003; Page A01 Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) have staked their presidential candidacies on an unusual second-chance strategy, betting their futures against the record of history and the dynamics that have governed nomination contests for more than two decades. The decision by the three Democrats to say they will look for their first victories on Feb. 3 -- two weeks after the Iowa caucuses and a week after...

The brewing war over broadband By Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com Story last modified October 13, 2003, 12:00 PM PDT A legal decision striking down a key definition of cable broadband as an information service could signal tougher regulation for the high-speed Internet access industry. Last week's decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco takes direct aim at the Federal Communications Commission, which has long shielded the cable industry from government regulation. News.context What's new: If not overturned, a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would subject cable broadband to more...

Student cuts off penis and tongue after drinking hallucinogenic tea A student cut off his own penis and his tongue after drinking an infusion of the latest drugs craze to sweep Germany. The 18-year-old, only named as Andreas W, from Halle in Germany drank a tea made with the hallucinogenic angels' trumpet plants. His mother said: "Andreas was behaving normally the whole day until he left the house and disappeared into the garden for a couple of minutes." When he returned to the house he was wearing a towel wrapped around him and was bleeding heavily from his mouth and...

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, enjoys a nice view of the Capitol dome from his office window. He is less satisfied with what he sees of America's common culture. Cole, who taught Renaissance art for many years before undertaking a stint in government, thinks the United States is in danger of losing its national identity through a loss of historical memory. If the words Yorktown, bleeding Kansas, reconstruction, Ellis Island, Marbury vs. Madison, "Remember...

A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed. A guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ"? The man replied, "130". So the robot proceeded to make conversation about physics, astronomy, investments, insurance, and so on. The man listened intently and thought, "This is really cool". Another guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man responded, "100." So the robot started talking about the football, baseball and so on. The man thought to himself, "Wow, this is really cool". A third guy came in to...

Mourners recount ways Thurmond served S.C. More than 1,000 go to State House visitation DAN HUNTLEY Staff Writer COLUMBIA - They came after church, after lunch, and after work; they wore suits, military uniforms, church dresses, flip-flops and wingtips. They were united by one thing under the hot Columbia sun: They wanted to pay their respects on Sunday afternoon to "The Senator," Strom Thurmond. At 6 p.m., with more than two hours to go, more than 1,000 people had made their way through a line that wrapped around the front of the State House. They shaded themselves with umbrellas and...

Consider the following scene. A lobbyist comes into a congressional office and gives an envelope filled with $100,000 in cash to a member of Congress. The member expresses shock and throws the envelope back at the lobbyist as a "crude attempt at bribery." Embarrassed, the lobbyist returns a few minutes later with two first-class tickets and expenses to Europe worth $100,000. The member thanks the lobbyist for helping the public better understand his industry and accepts the travel package on behalf of himself and his wife. In the bizarre world of Washington ethics, the distinction by the member is the...

Posted on Sun, Apr. 13, 2003 AT THE MASTERS Protests? Absurdity par for course Activist Martha Burk sinks credibility of cause with KKK likeness, inflatable pig TOMMY TOMLINSON AUGUSTA, Ga. - Here's how bad it was at the Masters protests Saturday: The Elvis impersonator was the sanest guy on the grounds. Be proud, home folks -- he's a Charlotte boy. His name is Mack Gaddy, and he wore shades, a jet-black wig and a white jumpsuit with a sequined eagle on back. He dressed up hoping somebody would give him a badge to get on the course. But after a...

When is a war a "good war"? When the status quo is worse. A number of Arab government officials warn that an attack on Iraq would destabilize the region, as though maintaining the current form of stability and the existing regimes there were desirable. If there is any positive side to a U.S.-imposed regime change in Iraq, it is that this could be the catalyst for a wholesale change of leadership throughout the Arab world. I am an Arab of Palestinian and Libyan descent, and I firmly believe that the Middle East needs relief from the self-serving, unrepresentative governments that...

This is LONDON 28/01/03 - News and city section Spell of trouble for Dobby By Laura Smith, Evening Standard Dobby, the computer-animated elf in the new Harry Potter film, could be at the centre of a court battle over his resemblance to Russian president Vladimir Putin. A Russian law firm is reportedly drawing up legal action against the special effects people who dreamt up Dobby, arguing that the ugly but caring elf has been modelled on Mr Putin. The Kremlin and Warner Bros, producer of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, have declined to comment but the controversy has...