Free Republic

The traditionally patriotic folks at the USO claim, "Since before the United States entered World War II, the USO (United Service Organizations) has been a bridge between the American people and the U.S. military." Well, that was until the USO decided to open up a toll booth for one of last bastions of communism at the end of the bridge. According to a Dec. 3 announcement from the USO, "7-Eleven customers can support American troops and the United Service Organizations (USO) by purchasing a 'Support Our Troops' wristband. For each wristband sold, $1 will be donated to the USO to...

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is becoming increasingly popular these days as an effective and relatively inexpensive means of loss prevention amd inventory management for both retailers and the U.S. military. But a closer look at one RFID manufacturer's tags reveals a suspicious resemblance to the Nazi swastika and Iron Cross. Enter, the 'Matrics'...

(CNSNews.com) - Given President Bush's poor showing in the homosexual community, it was surprising to find a "W Ketchup" advertisement running on the home page of WashingtonBlade.com Friday morning. "You don't support Democrats," the ad copy said. "Why should your ketchup?" The "ad by Google" urged readers to "Choose W Ketchup." W Ketchup says a portion of every sale is donated to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, a nonprofit educational and charitable foundation founded in 1990 by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, who now serves as the organization's honorary chairman. The Fund provides scholarships for the children of active duty...

"Thanks to the overwhelming response my site has received, I have given our group of online protesters the name Citizens Against the Endless Crusade. In the last 6 hours alone, Citizens Against the Endless Crusade bombarded RNC web-servers with over 7 gigabytes in bandwidth requests resulting from their digital protest, the cyber sit-in. To participate, simply load this webpage and leave it running." The website is located on the Drew University Internet server...

The effort of trying not to appear racist can be mentally draining - even for people who are not consciously prejudiced, say scientists. A team from Dartmouth College in the US found white people performed less well on mental tasks after an interaction with a black person. They suggest the test subjects expended mental energy - often subconsciously - trying to control racial bias. The study, which also showed that it is possible to carry out brain scans to detect racist attitudes, is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The researchers used a computer test to assess racial bias in...

Appalled by worldwide news reports that a rural Florida bridge bore the offensive name of a character in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," a veteran South Florida legislator wants public agencies to check their maps for any racial slurs. State Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale, filed a bill after seeing a Reuters news report in a South Florida newspaper that said there are 144 places throughout the country with names that use the word "nigger" in some fashion. As an example, the British wire service cited "Nigger Jim Hammock Bridge" in Hendry County, on a two-lane road near Clewiston....

GAINESVILLE - Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney - a lightning rod of controversy while a member of the State House of Representatives and the U.S. Congress - will speak in Gainesville next Saturday, November 22. McKinney was defeated in a re-election bid a year ago in the midst of a storm of controversy over comments about the President, while demanding an investigation of the terrorist attacks. She will be the keynote speaker at a banquet at the Gainesville Civic Center marking the 53rd anniversary of the Newtown Florist Club. The florist club began in 1950 as a place where people...

Chrissy Gephardt takes a slightly different approach to politicking than her father, U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.). Boasting a master’s degree in social work and a close relationship with the gay community, Chrissy Gephardt says she has established a rapport with interest groups that her father — a contender for the presidency in 2004 — has cozied up to from afar. While Gephardt campaigns for issues such as more sustainable energy sources and universal pensions, his daughter tours the nation to draw students to his voter base. Now a fulltime employee of Gephardt for President Inc., she makes frequent visits...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - African Americans are more likely to have high blood pressure than whites, and racism may be partly to blame, new study findings suggest. U.S. researchers found that African Americans who said they believed they had encountered a lot of racism over the course of their lives showed higher daytime blood pressure levels than blacks who said they had less experience with racism. Furthermore, African Americans who said they often held back feelings of anger tended to show a smaller drop in blood pressure that normally occurs during nighttime. These findings show "that racism is a...

White House bars pro-choice doctors, he says Concord Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said yesterday that the White House has forbidden pro-choice American doctors from working in Iraq. "Do you know that the Bush administration screened doctors to go to Iraq, and anyone who was pro-choice was not allowed to be part of the team to go to Iraq?" Kerry said during a "meet the candidate" event in Concord. "They even let their politics and ideology get in the way of the most fundamental kinds of delivery of services." Kerry's remarks came during a 90-minute lunchtime chat with local supporters and...

The left is aware of the emerging conservative-libertarian schism while the right for the most part remains in denial.The truth is out of the bag: U.S. conservatives have conceded defeat in the battle for limited government and constitutionalism and have decided to change the subject. But the American right’s flagging commitment to containing the state’s ambitions comes at a price. It will be paid in lost liberty, smothered wealth creation and possibly irreversible changes in what it means to be a modern American conservative and what the project of conservatism can hope to accomplish. Libertarians have primarily identified themselves as...

Gary Coleman is in for a shock the next time he surfs the internet - his domain name is still being linked to an anti-abortion site. The Diff'rent Strokes star thought he'd legally shut down www.garycoleman.com after learning it was linked to an antiabortion site, but it's still running. He says, "I believe in women's rights period, end of story, there is no argument. "I was absolutely incensed. We shut that madness down and my name was no longer linked to an anti-abortion site." Coleman and his legal team are now investigating the ongoing use of his domain name.

Several Cambridge schools appear to be breaking a state law requiring that the Pledge of Allegiance be recited every morning in every classroom. Dozens of students - including kids attending Kennedy/Longfellow, King Open and Cambridge Rindge - told the Chronicle that the Pledge is rarely, if ever, recited in their classroom, even though Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn insists that all schools are in full compliance with the state law. "I've been assured by each and every principal that [the pledge] is being said," said Fowler-Finn, noting that "on an occasion or two, a teacher forgot or neglected to say the Pledge,"...

After a nine-year stint in Kinsey Hall, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center has moved to a new location next to Bruin Plaza. Established at UCLA in 1995, the LGBT Resource Center was chosen out of other student groups to be moved to a room in the newly-renovated Men's Gym, renamed the Student Activities Center. The grand opening of the center takes place today during National Coming Out Week, which commemorating LGBT rights. "This is a dream come true. For the first time, LGBT students are being treated with respect in terms of the amount of space being offered...

Wal-Mart recently stopped selling a trio of lad rags considered too racy for its shelves. While the world's largest retailer may think its decision to nix these men's magazines will make its millions of customers and employees less lusty, we bet all it has done is increase sexual frustration along its aisles. With all that pent-up passion, we had to wonder: Is anyone getting more than low prices at Sam Walton's 2,700-plus stores? "Who isn't doing whom is a better question," writes Danielle, a Wal-Mart employee from New York. "It's everyone from cleaners to store managers." T., a former employee...

For decades liberal municipalities have enacted “sanctuary” programs for “undocumented residents.” These programs seek to offer illegal immigrants a safe haven on our shores; to prevent health problems form escalating in the immigrant communities, provide government services, ensure that illegals are not afraid to call police when a crime occurs and to provide refuge to those fleeing oppressive conditions in their native countries. Often informal understandings between the local immigrant community and the municipalities, sanctuary policies have at times been codified to block civil servants from reporting illegal immigrants to federal immigration law enforcement authorities unless a major crime has...

Columbus, Ohio - Ohio Governor Bob Taft has been named the "Sexiest Man Alive" by the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest and most influential organization of gay Republicans. "Between that sexy overbite and the dull, dulcet monotone of his State-of-the-State Addresses there really wasn't anyone else under consideration," said Chauncey Dimmesdale III, chairman of the organization of light-in-the-loafer libertarians. "And the fact that Governor and Mrs. Taft are so opposed to drinking and drugs makes sodomy seem all the more transgressive. God, Bob Taft is one sexy buck-toothed Buckeye!!" In related news, this reporter has learned that Governor Taft...

I don't have a scintilla of doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. launched its war against Iraq. There also can be no doubt in anyone's mind about the treachery and torture that the evil dictator and his lock-step henchmen exercised on his real and imagined enemies in Iraq. But, I don't believe either the WMD or human rights abominations were THE reason we attacked Iraq. Let me quickly add that I don't believe it was for the oil either, or the artifacts or anything else natural or man-made that Iraq possesses. Plain and simple,...

(CNSNews.com) - A small business owner in southern Louisiana says the American Red Cross will be glad to accept any donations he sends - but it won't let his company use the American Red Cross name in raising that money. The company, Little Cajun Outpost, began selling two brands of "patriotic" Louisiana hot sauce earlier this month. One type of hot sauce is called "Saddam Insane" and the other called "Burn In Hell Osama." The labels mock Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Terry Forest, the owner of Little Cajun Outpost, said that all profits generated...

(CNSNews.com) - As part of Black History Month, the public library system in Norfolk, Va., is honoring African-Americans who fought and died on behalf of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Robert Harrison, director of the Horace Downing Branch library in Norfolk, said blacks are rarely portrayed as supporting the Confederacy because politically correct historians prefer to connect the South and the Confederate flag with the evils of slavery. But history tells another side of the story, he said. Harrison said the Horace Downing Library will spend one day, Feb. 25, re-creating Civil War encampments and re-enacting the roles that...