Free Republic

Forget the long-running bipartisan concern about creating an educated, highly skilled workforce. What the U.S. economy desperately needs is more high-school dropouts — so desperately that we should import them hand over fist. Such is the logic of the contention by advocates of lax immigration that the flow of illegal labor from south of the border is a boon to our economy. But it doesn't make intuitive sense that importing the poor of Latin America would benefit us. If low-skill workers were key to economic growth, Mexico would be an economic powerhouse, and impoverished Americans would be slipping south over...

The institutional vanity and intellectual slovenliness of America's campus-based intelligentsia have made academia more peripheral to civic life than at any time since the 19th century. On Monday, its place at the periphery was underscored as the Supreme Court unanimously gave short shrift to some law professors who insisted that their First Amendment rights to free speech and association were violated by the law requiring that military recruiters be allowed to speak to the professors' students if the professors' schools receive federal money. Many schools that disapprove of the congressionally mandated "don't ask, don't tell" policy (which prevents openly gay...

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BAGHDAD I FLEW over the streets of this city on Sunday. The calm made a striking contrast to the media hysteria. No mosques burned. No demonstrations seethed. The closest thing I saw to violence was a children's soccer game played in a suburb. Baghdad isn't Candyland, of course. We skimmed the city at 300 feet — combat altitude — with the Blackhawk's guns up. But it sure wasn't civil war. For now, at least, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his blood-cult terrorists haven't succeeded in pitting Sunni against Shia. Our effort to help Iraqis build a rule-of-law democracy may yet fail....

Bruce Elliott brings to the WBAL Radio microphone the experience he has gained from more than 35 years in broadcasting. Whether it's national politics, or family issues, Bruce entertains and informs his audience, and he encourages listeners to actively participate in the show. Bruce says, "I view myself as a conservative who welcomes opposing viewpoints. However, over the past decade, there has been a change in the rhetoric employed by the left, and that has made a genuine exchange of perspectives and ideas across political lines much more difficult. It’s not easy to talk with someone who instinctively resorts...

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS IN IRAQ CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT IMMENSE — there's no better word for it. The scale of our military's effort to support our troops in Iraq is a great American success story. And it's ignored. Not only by critics, but even by those who keep faith with our struggle. Media attention centers on front-line troops. And they deserve every bit of credit they get. But the tip of the spear has a long shaft behind it. The infantryman leading a patrol couldn't do it without tens of thousands of other troops working far from the cameras and headlines....

Four ghouls ran a multimillion-dollar body-parts ring, hoisting corpses into a secret, surgically pristine operating room where they removed bones, tendons and heart valves, authorities revealed yesterday. Once their gruesome task was done, the body snatchers replaced the bones with plastic piping, callously tossed their gloves and aprons into the desecrated corpses and sewed them up, authorities said. Over almost four years, the men allegedly harvested parts from 1,077 bodies, but only once obtained the OK from relatives. In all the other cases, they forged the consent forms, prosecutors said. The purloined parts were sold to tissue-transplant companies for use...

FOOLISH FORCE VS. DUMB DIPLOMACY HAVING resumed uranium enrichment, has the Islamic Republic crossed the Rubicon? The question is dividing commentators and decision makers both inside and outside Iran. Some, like former Vice President Al Gore, believe that the Islamic Republic is a threat to world peace and must be checked, by force if necessary. Others — like Gore's former boss, ex-President Bill Clinton — are convinced that the best way to deal with Iran is to negotiate. Yet both may be missing the point. If military action means a few brief airstrikes or missile attacks, it is certain to...

WASHINGTON — A heartfelt message from an Iraqi mayor praising U.S. troops as "avenging angels" for liberating his city from al Qaeda terrorists has provided a needed morale booster to the U.S. war effort.

When is a hate-crime not a hate-crime? Answer: when the powers-that-be say it isn’t. One problem with hate-crime laws is that they’re more the result of bad ideology than good criminology, and nothing illustrates this point better than the current spate of church burnings in Alabama. As you may know, a series of Alabama churches have been burned in rapid succession over the past week. Yet, while I had encountered much reportage on this story prior to writing this piece, I had yet to hear any government official or media figure hazard the guess that these acts could constitute a...

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) -- Thousands of protesters rampaged through two cities Tuesday, storming into a diplomatic district and torching Western businesses and a provincial assembly in Pakistan's worst violence against the Prophet Muhammad drawings, officials said. At least two people were killed and 11 injured. Security forces fired into the air as they struggled to contain the unrest in the eastern city of Lahore, where protesters burned down four buildings housing a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the office of a Norwegian cell phone company, Telenor. U.S. and British embassy staffers were confined to their compounds until police...

THE joke in Republican circles now is that if John Kerry didn't exist, Karl Rove would have to invent him. Republicans loved 2004 loser Kerry's flop of a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito because it had Democrats tearing each other's eyes out — over a fight they couldn't win. Not only did Kerry lose, he lost big time — just 25 Democrats were willing to join him as the party split apart over Alito, just as it has ripped apart over the Iraq war. The vote was 72-25 against filibuster, so Team Kerry lost 3-1. Worse yet, plenty...

At a time when we're bombarded with so much doom-and-gloom nonsense from those who'd like to abandon the world to terrorists, it's a shame we don't hear more about the men and women who stay in uniform, who do our nation's toughest work and receive so little credit from the know-it-alls safe at home.

SADLY, it's time again for the world to weep and wail and gnash its teeth over the Neediest Cases — those unfortunates chosen by The New York Times during the holiday season for your concern. So please do what you can about the plight of Li'l Pinchy. This poor little rich boy, who prefers to be called Arthur Sulzberger Jr., is not having a merry Fitzmas. It's only been a few months since the woman he chose as this generation's martyr to journalism, Judith Miller, was run out of Pinchy's own newspaper after Pinchy's editor suggested Judy was fooling around...

The position of Democrats seems to be that it is easier to hunt down and kill terrorists than it is to make a living flipping burgers. Democrats are telling us we should withdraw from Iraq, so that the Iraqis will have an incentive to stand up and fight for themselves. When it comes to the War on Poverty, however, Democrats want the federal government to continue assisting the needy indefinitely. Which is easier, learning how to fight terrorists in Iraq or finding a way to make a living in the United States? Our steady stream of immigrants would indicate the...

WASHINGTON — Iraqis are surprisingly optimistic about their lives and future despite violence and terrorism — most say they feel safe and a growing majority supports democracy, an intriguing ABC News poll found. Most Iraqis also want U.S. forces to stay until security is better, the poll found — even though they don't like being occupied. Some 71 percent of Iraqis say their own lives are going well now and they're also very bullish on Thursday's election — an impressive 76 percent say they expect that vote to pick a stable Iraqi government.

OGUNQUIT, Maine --Voters in this seaside town on Tuesday became the latest community to ban so-called "formula" restaurants. Supporters of the chain restaurant ban put the measure on the ballot because they didn't want their town to turn into just another congested strip of Dunkin' Donuts, Subways, Applebee's and Burger Kings. The measure, which was approved 506-207, prohibits formula restaurants, defined as establishments with the same name, employee uniforms, color schemes, architectural design, signage, or similar standardized features as another restaurant regardless of location or ownership.

WITHIN minutes of her nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, White House Counsel Harriet Miers was the subject of a blogs warm of disappointed conservatives who immediately launched an effort to force her to withdrawal her own nomination. NationalReview.com's group blogs "The Corner" and "Bench Memos," the blog ConfirmThem.com and the posters at FreeRepublic.com kept up a steady stream of criticism, much of it serious and thoughtful, some of it thuggish and false.

Homeland Security Department boss Michael Chertoff told Congress yesterday that there will be a zero-tolerance policy for illegal immigrants in the United States. "Return every single illegal entrant," Chertoff said in prepared testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chertoff vowed to end the "catch and release" policy that has allowed tens of thousands of illegal aliens to disappear within the United States. The Homeland Security secretary said that the nearly 900,000 Mexicans who are caught entering the United States every year are returned immediately to Mexico, "but other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers."

FORMER FBI Director Louis Freeh writes movingly of his disappointment that Presi dent Bill Clinton did little or nothing to in tervene with the Saudi monarchy to let his agents question the accused perpetrators of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. But he is at a loss to understand the president's conduct. In an earlier terror attack, the Saudis had cut off the heads of the suspected terrorists before the FBI could question them. To avoid a repeat, Freeh went to the president and emphasized the importance of intervening with the Saudis to allow questioning. The Saudis, of course, didn't want...