Free Republic

DALLAS (Reuters) - A batch of old documents linked to the slaying of President John F. Kennedy has reportedly been unearthed, including a highly suspect transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer Jack Ruby, the Dallas Morning News said on Sunday. The newspaper said the Dallas County district attorney's office, which uncovered the documents, would display its discovery at a news conference on Monday morning. The Morning News said the items found in an old safe in a Dallas courthouse included personal letters from former District Attorney Henry Wade, the prosecutor in the Ruby trial....

On the eve of the New York Philharmonic's departure on an Asian tour that will include a visit to Pyongyang, its music director, Lorin Maazel, suggested that Americans are not in a position to criticize the North Korean regime, because America's own record on human rights is flawed. "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks, should they?" Mr. Maazel told the Associated Press. "Is our standing as a country — the United States — is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated? Have we set an example that should...

Jesus 'Tomb' Controversy Reopened Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008 By TIM MCGIRK/JERUSALEMThe Talpiot tomb. Discovery / EPA When the Discovery Channel aired a TV documentary last year raising the possibility that archeologists had found the family tomb of Jesus Christ in the hills behind Jerusalem, it caused a huge backlash among Christians. The claim, after all, challenged one of the cornerstones of Christian faith — that Jesus, after his crucifixion, rose bodily to heaven in his physical form. The Lost Tomb of Jesus, made by Hollywood director James Cameron and Canadian investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici, was shown only once on Discovery....

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Instead of highlighting New Mexico's picturesque desert landscapes, art galleries or centuries-old culture, a new tourism campaign features drooling, grotesque office workers from outer space chatting about their personal lives. The 30-second TV spots — which lead in roundabout fashion to the tag line that New Mexico may be "the best place in the Universe" — are provocative, funny and bold. But to increasingly vocal critics, the state-financed ad campaign is a possible threat to the well-being of the state's $5.1 billion tourism industry. In other words, while the ads may yield a chuckle or two, the...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday the Senate should apologize for slavery and segregation, calling them “dark chapters in our history.” McCain said he would support a planned resolution by fellow Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, who is also seeking the presidency, to apologize for racist laws, some of which ended more than a century ago. “They were federal policies,” Brownback told the Boston Globe on Monday. “They were wrong. The only way for us to move forward . . . is at the end of the day acknowledging those, taking ownership for it, and asking for forgiveness.” McCain agreed...

Gender Bias by: Nirmala Punnusami, October 10, 2007 Long after former Harvard University president Larry Summers tracked the subject, a debate continues in academia over whether women avoid the sciences out of choice or necessity. According to the authors of the 2006 report of the National Academy of Sciences, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” there is an exclusion of many talented women from the scientific fields of physics, engineering, computer and mathematics. It also states that this is a direct “threat to our nation’s competitiveness.” This report concludes that women are...

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – In a highly controversial vote that may divide the denomination, the Free Methodist Church of North America voted today to install Dr. Jack Harvey, an openly obese man, as the bishop of the western conference of the church. Harvey is the first admitted obese person to have been installed as a bishop in the FM Church. The vote, which came after several hours of intense debate at the annual Free Methodist General Conference, fell in Harvey's favor by a margin of 421-385.

This opinion piece by David K. DeWolf ran in the Boston Globe, yesterday. IT'S THE QUESTION that won't go away. Twice during the Republican presidential debates and once at a forum for Democratic candidates, candidates were asked about evolution. For example, in the California debate all the candidates were asked to respond to the question of whether they believed in evolution. In the New Hampshire debate, follow-up questions were asked of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback. At the Sojourners Forum debate, John Edwards was asked, "Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in...

Picture a large and very important federal agency. It happens to conduct highly specialized work that requires close and attentive management. One of its basic assignments, for example, is to collect intelligence. Toward that end, it relies on twelve major stations from which it gathers data. The information thus assembled has to be reliable, meaning that those who collect it, and those who organize the collection process, must be both trustworthy and highly trained. And once the intelligence is gathered, it has to be analyzed. This process, too, requires a high degree of organization, and the men and women who...

MSNBC HOST DEFENDS COMMENTS BY LYING, REFUSING TO APOLOGIZE, TAKING CHEAP SHOTS AT BLOGGERS By now, TPS readers are well aware that Joe Scarborough had an Imus moment on his MSNBC show this week when he wondered out loud whether Fred Thompson’s pretty young wife “worked the pole” as he giggled lecherously over his sexual double entendre. So we weren’t exactly shocked when, on today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough “spun” seven full minutes of air time trying to explain away his crude remark. In doing so he not only lied, he misquoted himself. But what really shocked us was that he...

It was no great surprise that Umaru Yar'Adua was declared the winner of Nigeria's presidential election. He is the governing party candidate. The electoral commission said he won by a landslide - leaving the opposition leader, Muhammadu Buhari, with just 18% of the vote. But the election is mired in controversy. Polling stations opened late or not at all, there was a shortage of ballots, and then in many places there was violence and vote-rigging. Turnout was low. The government and the electoral commission say it was a success, but there has been a barrage of criticism. The opposition says...

The coach of the women's basketball team is speaking now.

Anti-war group in McLennan County loses it’s corporate status Updated: Mar 28, 2007 7:03pm A nationally known anti-war group in Mclennan County has lost its corporate status with the state, and a former member is calling for an investigation. Officials in the Texas State Comptroller's office said the Crawford Peace House hasn't handed in required paperwork in nearly a year. The Crawford Peace House is no longer an organization in the eyes of the state, and why that's happened is coming into question by former members. Their questions began in the summer of 2005, when the nearly bankrupt Crawford Peace...

SAN DIEGO -- It's an odd twist that ousted San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam is the focal point of a growing controversy over the way the Bush administration fired her and seven of her colleagues. The low-key litigator who made her name prosecuting health care fraud got the job in 2002 because she was seen as a safe choice following a protracted search for a top federal prosecutor in the nation's eighth-largest city. Democrats investigating the firings have questioned whether Lam's dismissal was linked to her office's corruption prosecution of now-jailed former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. That investigation...

The California Republican Party is embroiled in controversy over its refusal to allow the fastest growing voter group – independents – to vote in presidential primary elections, even though Democrats do. The dispute pits Republicans who believe the party must preserve partisan purity at all costs against those who contend the party is undermining its long-range viability by stiffing nearly 20 percent of the state's voters when membership in both major political parties in California is at an all-time low. “At the end of the day, this really is an issue of who it is that should be choosing a...

STATEMENT BY THE IBMA BOARD OF DIRECTORS In recent weeks, the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) has been embroiled in a controversy concerning its annual Awards Show and the resignation of Board of Directors Chairperson/President David Crow after the US Navy's bluegrass band, Country Current, performed on the Show a medley of US military service branch anthems the group had previously agreed to omit at the request of the Board's Executive Committee. Following these events, the Committee conducted interviews with relevant parties in order to better understand how and why these events occurred, and to consider the issues raised by...

It seems like the "09/11 was an inside job" crowd is getting more vocal by the moment. Tonite we even had a post (that was quckly pulled) about the specific "facts" that support the hairbrained notion that the US Government was involved in orchestrating the events of 09/11/2001. I'm sure this whole thing has been addressed by freepers before...is there a link or a place where we can go to find the facts to sucessfully challenge such claims that the steel only melted because of a chemical substance...or that the peformance of the plane on it's approach was impossible, and...

Roh Under Fire Over Wartime Command Withdrawal Korea Could Take Back Wartime Troop Control in Five Years: MinisterPillar of Korea-U.S. Military Alliance 'for the Scrapheap' Look Around Before Dismantling the Pillar of Our Security U.S. 'Wants Shot of Wartime Command Sooner' Korea, U.S. in War of Nerves Over Troop ControlU.S. Flags More Troop Cuts in Korea Staking National Security on Semantics Roh Says Korea Could Handle Wartime Control 'Now'Roh Turns Deaf Ear to 16 Former Defense Chiefs Sixteen former defense ministers and nine retired generals on Thursday expressed dismay at President Roh Moo-hyun’s remarks in an interview Wednesday that...

What do the federal interstate highway system, the Golden Gate Bridge and Dallas-Fort Worth Airport have in common? All are indispensable projects involved in safely transporting millions of families and tons of products every year. All three were also bitterly attacked and criticized during their planning and construction phases. Americans have a love-hate relationship with roads, rail and air infrastructure. We demand safe, reliable transportation and depend upon it for quality of life, jobs and commerce. But nearly every major transportation improvement generates early controversy. Today, our state transportation system is at a crossroads. Texas is the leading exporting state...

For three months, news has spread about Rep. Jerry Lewis and the controversy linked to a federal inquiry into his ties to lobbyists and contractors. During that time, the prominent Redlands Republican has barely uttered a word about the investigation publicly. His staff issued a handful of news releases, and Lewis, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, gave a few brief telephone interviews. A staff member said in June that Lewis was too busy to discuss the federal investigation because of his congressional duties. But the staffer said Lewis' schedule would relax some after July 4th, and Lewis would...