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The children are all U.S. citizens and say their constitutional rights are being violated because they, too, will likely have to leave the country if their parents are forced to leave.

It's like being in prison. That's how some detainees describe the conditions at the Willacy Detention Center. Action 4 News has received various calls about the conditions inside the Willacy Detention Center where most 'Other-Than-Mexicans' are held before deportation. The detention center in Raymondville is part of a Secure Border Initiative according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They tell Action 4 News it was built to end the "Catch-and-Release" program. "As mandated by Congress, as we're getting them in custody we're removing them as quickly as possible" said Nina Pruneda a spokesperson for I.C.E.

Here's the tally so far - this vote sort of looks like the "attitude" that was being displayed here as we were heading for the loss of the House and Senate - third party and undecided, and stay home versus voting for a social R will result in a Democrat in the White House - trust me on this! Please don't let it happen. But, I'm beginning to believe that it will happen. ______ Looks like our true blue conservative did pretty well in our prior poll. Let's now see what happens if we nominate a social liberal who's okay...

Recalling the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick, which this year is being celebrated in Seoul, Benedict XVI exhorted health workers and relatives of sick people to offer “human support” and “spiritual accompaniment”, especially those who are terminally ill.  Vatican City (AsiaNews) – On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, now also the World Day of the Sick, the pope did not stop at talking about miracles and healing. Thanking health workers and relatives of sick people, he called for the “development of palliative care that offers holistic support”, giving “terminally ill...

Republican Reynolds Faces Strong Challenge in NY26 Rematch:In an election in New York's 26th Congressional District today, 9/28/06, Republican incumbent Tom Reynolds and Democratic challenger Jack Davis are in a fierce fight, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WGRZ-TV Buffalo. 40 days to the 11/7/06 election, Reynolds gets 45%. Davis gets 43%. Green Party candidate Christine Murphy gets 8%. This contest is a rematch of the 2004 election, when Reynolds, who was first elected to Congress in 1998, defeated Davis 56% to 44%. Reynolds gets 62% of Republican votes. Davis gets 64% of Democrat votes. 31% of Republicans,...

Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and SlanderBy Joel LeydenIsrael News Agency Jerusalem---- May 8.....It all started with a divorced father in Israel who wanted more hours with his child. A dad who is a children's and father's rights activist who has written about the subject, participated in demonstrations and met with public officials. So what does this have to do with Wikipedia?Wikipedia describes itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Thousands of Wikipedia users could describe the Website as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can abuse." A former editor at the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica recently likened the...

All my life, I believed in Republican values -- individual responsibility and limited government. Then it happened; I found myself with a small child, unemployed and disabled. I turned to my church, and after years of regular tithes, suddenly I just wasn't their problem. My Republican friends? I was now a pariah to them. My only relief was to turn to government assistance for housing, food, and other needs and I was able to survive with dignity. So chalk me up as one who no longer drinks the GOP koolaid.

Sierra Club Director Resigns to Protest Hunting Prize posted April 17, 2006 Sierra Club Director Paul Watson, one of the 15 National Directors of the Sierra Club, has resigned today from the National Board of the Sierra Club. He was elected to the Board of Directors in 2003 for a three year term. His term ends May 17th, 2006. Saying, “I won’t fade quietly into the night,” Watson tendered his resignation on April 17th, which is a month before his term expires to protest the use of Club resources to finance a sport hunting trip to encourage hunting. Watson was...

President Bush said Friday he was troubled by the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a company in Dubai to take over take over operations of six American ports, saying it sent a bad message to U.S. allies in the Middle East. Bush said the United States needs moderate allies in the Arab world, like the United Arab Emirates, to win the global war on terrorism. The president said he had been satisfied that security would be sound at the ports if the Dubai deal had taken effect. "Nevertheless, Congress was still very much opposed to...

On this day, Marvh 8th, 2006, George W. Bush was winged by his own political party. He is now a "lame duck" even though Dick Cheney was by his side with trusty shot gun.Mr. Bush was winged by members of his party who did not honor a 45 day period for Mr. Bush to jawbone the Dubai ports deal. Eager to get a favorable line in their campaign literature, his party pulled the trigger early and killed the deal and winged BushMr. Bush is survived by weak republicans who have now fully ceded the bully pulpit to the DIMs.A memorial...

Political strategist Paul Begala is urging Democrats to open their wallets on a monthly basis to help reelect New York Sen. Hillary Clinton - who already has a campaign warchest of $21 million. "I'm asking you to join Team Hillary as a monthly supporter - to help make sure we have the means to fight back, each and every month, right on through the coming election," Begala says, in an email distributed to Mrs. Clinton's supporters. The email links to a request that donors sign up for a monthly contribution of up to $250 to be automatically deducted from their...

EU Uneasy with Poland's Move to Right by Rachel Martin Weekend Edition Sunday, February 19, 2006 · Poland's new conservative government intends to clean up corruption and re-instill moral values in Polish society. The cultural shift is already causing waves in the European Union.Warsaw. Ruling Conservatives in Poland reached an agreement to form a coalition with Populist formation Samoobrona and ultra catholic extreme-rightist party League of Polish Families (LPF), French newspaper Le Figaro reads today. The agreement eliminates the risk of new parliamentary elections only four months after the last vote. Government of Conservative Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was in...

WASHINGTON - President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law. Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement -- a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House. In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject,...

S14240 December 21, 2005 Did you see that? Did you see how it devastated the land, and all the plant life is now dying because it was inundated in saltwater? The earthquake in my State did that. I saw one town disappear. I saw a third of my city, Anchorage, disappear. You have to have had that experience to understand how I felt when I went to New Orleans. You people didn’t believe it. Many of you said I did this for political reasons, just a crass thing, pick up some money and give it away for votes. I never...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A witness testified Wednesday at Saddam Hussein's trial that the deposed leader's regime killed and tortured people by administering electric shocks and ripping off their skin after pouring molten plastic on it. Later, during an extended outburst, Saddam claimed he had been beaten while in detention. Before that, Saddam had sat quietly in his defendant's chair, two weeks after he called the court "unjust" and boycotted a session. When the judge refused to let him take a break to pray, the former leader closed his eyes and appeared to pray from his seat.Saddam and seven co-defendants are...

Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement: "As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it. "The Republican Party’s latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from...

The federal government wrapped levees around greater New Orleans so that the rest of the country could share in our bounty. Americans wanted the oil and gas that flow freely off our shores .... the oysters and shrimp and flaky Gulf fish that live in abundance in our waters ...[the use of our ports ...coffee and steel. They wanted more than that, though. They wanted to share in our spirit. They wanted to sample the joyous beauty of our jazz and our food. And we were happy to oblige them. ... Great cities are made by their place and their...

Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005 10:54 a.m. EST Nancy Pelosi: Pro-Troop Vote 'a Disgrace' Anti-war House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is blasting last night's 403 to 3 House vote in support of U.S. troops and their mission in Iraq, calling it "a disgrace." Complaining that House Republicans had engaged in a "deception" by calling for a last minute vote on the Iraq war, the San Francisco Democrat said the pro-troop resolution was "a disservice to our country." Pelosi said that the "Republican majority has stooped to a new low" by forcing Democrats to go on the record against an immediate pullout....

PHILADELPHIA Nov 8, 2005 — Terrell Owens has apologized to Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, quarterback Donovan McNabb, the team's owner, the team's president and fans. He read the statement outside his house in Moorestown, N.J., a day after the team said he would not return this season. "I fight for what I think is right. In doing so, I alientated a lot of my fans and my teammates," he said. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said Owens was making a public apology in hopes of returning to the Eagles this year. Owens' brief but tumultuous time in Philadelphia ended Monday...

El Baradei subjected to an excavation with body in an American airport VIENNA - the American authorities subjected the Nobel Prize of peace 2005 and chief of the IAEA, the Mohamed El Baradei Egyptian, with an excavation with body whereas it was on the point of taking off of an airport of Boston (is of the United States), learned AFP Monday from diplomatic sources. The general manager of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and his wife were subjected Sunday to the Logan airport of Boston to a deepened control, apparently caused by their patronym, according to these sources. This...

This word does not appear in the Hebrew dictionary, but an old-new weapon from the sophisticated arsenal directed against the Palestinian people has again suddenly emerged. While not deadly, it is fiendish: the sonic boom. The world's best air force is amusing itself by creating fear in a helpless and terrified civilian population. Twenty-nine such booms were sounded during a period of four days in September, and this practice was repeated again recently, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, which jointly submitted a High Court petition on this matter. If there is such...

NEW DELHI - Will the goodwill that has been built between India and China in the recent past end up being sacrificed at the altar of improved India-US relations? In another indication that there may be trouble brewing between Beijing and New Delhi, the official Chinese media have made a frontal assault on the landmark India-US nuclear pact and cautioned of its "negative impact" on the global nuclear order. This is the first instance of a direct and open criticism of a crucial aspect of India-US relations that has been picked up by the official Chinese machinery/organs, which previously chose...

The left has gone to DefCon 4 on the news of Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. Here's a sampling of what's burning up the fax machines at major media organizations. MoveOn.org press release: Alito Fails Basic Test: Sides with Powerful Special Interests against Ordinary Americans; President Opts to Divide Nation in Time of Crisis for Administration; History of Decisions against Workers, Women, Minorities, People with DisabilitiesNARAL Pro-Choice America press release:"Instead of unifying the country, President Bush has chosen the path of confrontation," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro- Choice America. "Sandra Day O'Connor has been the Court's...

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The pink visitors' locker room at the University of Iowa's stadium is making some people see red. The locker room for visiting football teams at Iowa is pretty in pink. Several professors and students joined the call Tuesday for the athletic department to do away with the pink showers, carpeting and lockers, a decades-long Hawkeye football tradition. Critics say the use of pink demeans women, perpetuates offensive stereotypes about women and homosexuality, and puts the university in the uncomfortable position of tacitly supporting those messages. ''I want the locker room gone,'' law school professor Jill Gaulding...

Here's proof! The kitties are are loser souses just like your hero President. BTW, your boy really stunk in his speech last night. It was like, "oooooo I'm the modern FDR, JFK, and LBJ all rolled into one. I'll give you whatever you want if you'll forget how my incompetence let people die of thirst on a freeway overpass." What a loser

WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Trent Lott decides which GOP presidential candidate to support in 2008, it apparently will not be Sen. Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican who Lott says betrayed him at a low moment in his political career. Asked Sunday whether Frist, who succeeded Lott as Senate majority leader in 2002, has the character to be president, Lott paused before answering. ''I think I'd have to think about that,'' said Lott (R-Miss.). Lott said ''a lot of good people out there'' are thinking about whether to run and that ''I probably would lean toward some of the others, let...

WASHINGTON - Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott blames his fall from power in 2002 on a "personal betrayal" by an ambitious Sen. Bill Frist (news, bio, voting record), his successor, adding in a new book that President Bush, Colin Powell and other GOP associates played a role. ADVERTISEMENT Frist, R-Tenn., "didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell me personally that he was going to run," the Mississippi Republican wrote of a tumultuous period in which he lost his position as Senate leader after making racially tinged remarks.

NEW YORK -- Business in his modest grocery store in Brooklyn's Little Pakistan has gone down so much that Shafiq Ul Hassan has started stocking what he calls ''American foods" in a desperate attempt to attract different customers. Across from the baby goat meat and the pungent ingredients for curry powder, the immigrant shopkeeper has placed candy bars and loaves of white bread. ''You see how empty the store is. This would normally be packed with Pakistani people," Hassan said, sighing. ''A lot of people have left. Most have gone back home or another state. You just don't see people...

Report: Owens leaves Eagles campThere are reports this afternoon that wide receiver Terrell Owens exchanged words with Head Coach Andy Reid at a team meeting and was asked to leave.Owens then got his belongings and cleared out of Eagles training camp at Lehigh University, according to one television report.The Inquirer will update and confirm this information as soon as possible.

Danielle Crittenden: Conditions at Camp Crawford “Shocking and Inhumane” Inmates Complain Danielle Crittenden Thu Aug 4,11:17 AM ET WACO, TX (AP)—Prisoners of Camp Crawford complain of small cells, poor meals, constant surveillance, and disrespectful—even disdainful—treatment from Presidential staff. “Thirty-three days in this hell-hole feels like thirty-three years,” said a bitter long-time White House correspondent. “You’re away from your family. We’re all billeted into these crappy Waco motels—you know, the kind they hose down with antiseptic every day and you’ve got one lousy blanket which is made of recycled Coke bottles or something. There are huge fights for the cells with...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives' top Democrat accused Republicans on Thursday of possibly illegal action to encourage some Democrats to vote for a free-trade pact with Central America. [snip] Some Democrats were made offers that they said they didn't think "passed legal muster," Pelosi told reporters. She refused to provide any details of who was involved and what was offered that might have been illegal. She also said the deals were hard to prove because they weren't consummated. [snip] "Nancy Pelosi's wheels have come off the track. The sheer lunacy of her comments is an indication of just...

Relatives, Friends Mount Protest Over Killing of Brazilian in BritainBy Alan Clendenning Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 25, 2005 GONZAGA, Brazil (AP) - Weeping relatives and friends of a Brazilian shot and killed in London after being mistaken for a terrorist protested Monday in this small farming town, saying an apology by British Prime Minister Tony Blair didn't go far enough. Hundreds marched slowly along cobblestone streets, holding up banners denouncing British police as the real terrorists and demanding the arrest of the officers who fired the shots. Other placards were adorned with snapshots of Jean Charles de Menezes, urging...

What can we do about the hostile takeover of the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio by the right wing? That they have taken over is beyond dispute. Ken Tomlinson is chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and he has succeeded in placing former Republican National Committee co-chairwoman and fellow neocon Patricia Harrison into the position of president and CEO of CPB. While we were focused on draconian budget cuts proposed by a House committee, Tomlinson and Harrison were doing their inside magic. Literally millions of Americans sent e-mails to Congress demanding that the 25 percent cut in...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran accused the U.S. and Israel on Sunday of a smear campaign against its president-elect and warned Europe, which is in tricky nuclear negotiations with Tehran, not to join in the mudslinging. The ultraconservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a landslide presidential election victory, has been accused of taking American hostages in 1979 when radical students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Iranian exiles and an Austrian politician are alleging he was involved in the 1989 slaying of a Kurdish leader and two associates in Vienna. Iranian officials have denied both allegations. "The charges are so evidently false...

The right debate to have in the U.S. is about torture of war detainees, not an Illinois senator's stupid words One approach to manipulating public opinion is to seize on a particularly stupid remark an opponent makes and run it into the ground. It works especially well if your own side doesn't really have much of a case. So it was over the past week with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin's foolish comments about the treatment that prisoners of the United States received as war detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Durbin, a Democrat, made inept and...

Democrats are demanding that White House adviser Karl Rove immediately retract and apologize for comments that liberals responded to the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes by wanting to ``prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'' ``The one thing New York has had since Sept. 11 is unity,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. ``To inject politics into this and to defame a large number of people'' is outrageous, he said. ``It's not what New York and America is all about.'' Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, said in a speech Wednesday that ``liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks...

WASHINGTON - Under fire from Republicans and some fellow Democrats, Sen. Dick Durbin apologized Tuesday for comparing American interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Nazis and other historically infamous figures. “Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” the Illinois Democrat said. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.” His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks. “They’re the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them,” he said.

Paris – French wine exports sank again in the first quarter of 2005 confirming a downward spiral which has plunged the sector into crisis and brought thousands of wine-growers out onto the streets in protest. "Global over-production in 2004, which is put at between 10 to 20 million hectolitres, is pulling prices down and adding to the problems of French wines which are being asked to become simpler in taste to meet growing world consumption," said Louis-Regis Affre, an official from the French Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits (FEVS). Apart from champagnes and sparkling wines, exports of French...

I have signed up here several times and posted informative articles and given witty commentary only to return and sign on later and find nothing but a purple screen with the words "account banned or suspended." Just what the hell is that? What is the problem with you people? I'm not treated like that anywhere else on the internet! You've got some 'splainin to do. Learn some freakin manners, ok!

Six months ago, Free Republic was riding high, and I was proud to be a part of it. It was coming off having blown the cover off of Dan Rather’s use of forged memos against the President. The President was well on his way to winning re-election. It was a great time to be a Freeper. However, things have changed. It started with the justifiable removal of ALIPAC. I supported that move by Jim Robinson, but the ugliness directed towards Alberto Gonzales. He was accused of everything under the sun, and Senator Mel Martinez was viciously attacked for speaking Spanish...

SISTERS, Ore. - Olivia Wallulatum finds it hard to even look at the sign, a marker for the Squaw River. It reminds her of all the names she was called as a girl. And she wants something done about it. She wants the name changed. "I don't care what they change it to. I just want to see it go," said Wallulatum, 50, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. Nearly a thousand places across the country - rivers, buttes, meadows, mountains - are named "squaw," and most American Indians want them to be called something else....

If you, gentlemen, really want “to see US politics from another angle”, compare it with politics of present-day totalitarian regimes in Central Asia, for instance. And you’ll realize that there are practically no differences for our “democratic” state and e.g. authoritarian government in Turkmenistan. It’s common knowledge that Turkmen authorities abridge liberty of speech, freedom of the press, exercising control over mass and I-net. They bow down, imposing restrictions on freedom of association and assembly, in order to curtail political activity of non-governmental organizations, including groups of religious minorities. Nijazov does it with the aim of exercising control over latitude...

It seemed as if the campaign had never ended. There was John Kerry standing on a chair in a blue neighborhood of Atlanta, in the Democrat-friendly tavern Manuel's, speaking to 100 folks, many of them wearing Kerry-Edwards T shirts. The Massachusetts Senator insisted that he wasn't "one to lick wounds," but then he did: he noted that Bush had won with the smallest percentage margin ever for an incumbent and complained that the Republican team had six years to develop its electoral strategy while his had only eight months. And although he claimed that "my focus is not four years...

Many feel embittered and insecure in country where they always had an advantage DAMASCUS: Businessman Osama Mohammed is so insulted by the anti-Syrian curses Lebanese protesters are chanting and by reports of Syrians being murdered in Lebanon he has stopped going to Beirut to shop, dine and watch movies. "I'm boycotting everything Lebanese until my dignity is restored," said Mohammed. Hotel executive Imad Mansour has withdrawn his life's savings from a Lebanese bank because he has lost trust in Lebanon's economy - which has been a boost to Syria's economy for years - and worries he will have no access...

The shot heard around the Internet has been fired on FreeRepublic.com The owner Jim Robinson and his moderators have launched a sniper style purge against members that disagree with the President’s ‘guest worker’ amnesty or support more control of illegal immigration. Free Republic is an amazing tool for those looking for a good debate and news from around the country. The problem for the administration of the site is that their creation is allowing the participants to learn that the Bush immigration record and plans are shockingly out of line with the views of most conservatives. The management’s answer to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid, and expressed regret they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor. "This is a new Democratic party," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference called to release a letter telling Bush to muzzle his "political operatives." "...It says to the president, 'you will not intimidate us'," added Schumer, who likened the attacks on Reid to political knee-cappings. The letter itself was written in milder terms. "We urge you to keep your...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid hit back at the Republican Party on Monday for targeting him with an attack campaign reminiscent of one used to help oust Reid's predecessor, Tom Daschle. Standing in the Republican-led Senate, Reid called on President Bush personally to repudiate and pull "a hit piece" against him by the president's Republican National Committee. "What they want to do is just like (what) they did to Daschle," Reid said. Republicans last year effectively branded Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, as a "chief obstructionist" to Bush's agenda on Capitol Hill and got his longtime...

Press Release Source: Council on American-Islamic Relations Muslims Call For Pentagon Action Over General's Remarks Thursday February 3, 3:30 pm ET Commander of Marine Division in Iraq Says Shooting People is 'Fun' WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Pentagon to discipline a top general who earlier this week said it is "fun to shoot some people." At a public event in San Diego, Calif., Lt. Gen. James Mattis said: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot ... You go into Afghanistan, you...

Hey, Rush: Thanks for nothing MIKE HENDRICKS The very week that democracy comes to Iraq, we get a new poll showing that many high school students in this country are clueless about our own most basic freedoms. You've heard about this, right? Of 100,000 high schoolers surveyed by the Knight Foundation, one-third say they support restrictions on the press. Thirty-six percent think that everything you and I read in the newspaper should first get clearance from a government censor, and only 51 percent said newspapers ought to be able to publish freely. Seems the news media might have done better...

President Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda. Democrats are now, understandably, engaged in self-examination. But while it's O.K. to think things over, those who abhor the direction Mr. Bush is taking the country must maintain...