Free Republic

FBI: No Credible Threat, but Be Vigilant Saturday March 11, 2006 3:01 AM By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI said Friday there is no specific, credible threat of a terror attack aimed at college basketball arenas or other sports stadiums, but acknowledged alerting law enforcement to a recent Internet posting discussing such attacks. The FBI and Homeland Security Department distributed an intelligence bulletin Friday to state and local law enforcement nationwide describing the online threat against sporting venues, said Special Agent Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman in Washington. ``We have absolutely no credible intelligence or...

According to a Dec. 25 report in the Boston Globe, the Democratic Party is joining forces with the activist group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to place initiatives on state ballots this fall to raise the minimum wage. The idea is to energize the poor to vote for Democratic candidates, as well as the initiative.ACORN's involvement in this campaign is amusing because a few years ago the group sued the state of California in order to be exempted from its minimum wage requirement, which was higher than the federal government's. In its appellate brief, ACORN acknowledged that...

December 30, 2005 - The argument over whether President Bush has the authority to direct the National Security Agency to listen in on the conversations of suspected terrorists on US soil is split primarily into two camps; those who believe we are engaged in a war for our very survival against radical Islam and those who believe – and always have – that terrorism operates under a set of rules that govern its actions and therefore should be treated as a law enforcement issue. This is just another example of why there should have been a formal declaration of war...

Congressman Peter King (R-NY), now Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has reintroduced his National Language Act (H.R. 4408) in the 109th Congress. Congressman King's bill is a strong (???), self-executing ( got that right! ) official English bill in its own right. Look at Section 163: Sec. 163. Preserving and enhancing the role of the official language `The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the official language of the United States of America. Unless specifically stated in applicable law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government...

CNN's Carol Lin and the French "African-Americans" The Paris riots have highlighted more than any other issue in recent years not only the bias, but the ignorance of the "old media." Internet readers have studied the situation in Europe for years. Numerous writers, from Mark Steyn to Ba'at Yeor to Debbie Schlussel, have long predicted the decline of Europe and the jihad that we have seen over the past few weeks. But the "old media" personalities still have no clue as to what is going on. And their reporting and commentary has taken on an almost comical quality as a...

BEIJING -- China on Thursday rejected a U.S. call to adopt democracy, telling Washington to respect its communist path and brushing off warnings of retaliation for its huge trade surplus with the United States. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters he had "taken note" of comments by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick that China's one-party system was unsustainable, but insisted the country was stable and that communism had brought substantial benefits to its 1.3 billion people. Zoellick on Wednesday made the Bush administration's most explicit call to date for a political transition in China, where the Communist...

On August 12, 2005 Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico issued Executive Order 2005-040 declaring a ‘state of emergency’ in four New Mexico counties along its border with Mexico. It is intended to free up funds totalling $1.5 million for a variety of actions he felt necessary. Specifically, Hidalgo, Luna, Grant and Dona Ana counties are in “an extreme state of disrepair” according to the governor. The state of emergency stems from the governor’s conclusion of “violence encountered by law enforcement, damage to property and livestock, increased evidence of drug smuggling and human smuggling, with an increase in the number...

In having to live with the language of liberals, which today is a nonstop barrage of half truths, twisted phrases, modified definitions, and PC doublespeak, Fellow FReepers could help build a definitive list and compendium of linguistic traps so anyone quickly can identify the offending language.You can add single words and "liberal definitions", or common phrases with their "secret liberal meanings" I don't believe there is any other place where this could be done with any depth or accuracy. Feel free to add as much as you like, and it could be turned into a Wiki eventually.Post away! (and you...

Ian Buruma, author and Luce professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, New York, will answer readers’ questions online about the roots of Islamic extremism and the motivations of homegrown terrorists. You can send questions in advance to ask@ft.com. He will answer the questions on Friday, July 22. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Some of the responses to the bomb attacks on London were predictable. Of course Tariq Ali, the journalist...

What They Say v. What They Mean"the freedoms this country was founded upon"..... abortion "a voice of reason and moderation"..... supports abortion "embodies the fundamental American values of freedom, equality and fairness"..... supports abortion "views are within the broad constitutional mainstream"..... supports abortion "a mainstream conservative"..... supports abortion "served the nation and the Constitution well"..... supports abortion "threatens to roll back the rights and freedoms of the American people"..... opposes abortion "the president should respect the Senate's advice and consent role"..... get ready for a filibuster over abortion "the American people will insist that we oppose that nominee, and we...

Every time the left finds one of its ideas discredited, it seeks to change the language or name. That is evident in the current attempt by world government advocates to derail the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. When socialism was widely discredited in this part of the world, it became "liberalism." This was Orwellian doublespeak since "liberalism" in the 19th Century meant freedom for the individual from oppressive regulation. Now that "liberalism," in its current incarnation has been rejected at the polls and elsewhere, we are told we must refer to the left as...

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

On the heels of new research showing Southern California children can suffer permanent lung damage from breathing pollution, the head of the region's smog-fighting agency vowed on Friday to "take off the gloves" to help speed up clean-air improvements. In his State of the Air report, William A. Burke said he would push critical air-pollution efforts, such as reducing emissions from railroads and ports and converting diesel-fueled school buses to cleaner-burning models. "The time for political correctness has passed," Burke said in his speech given in Diamond Bar. "The time has come to take off the gloves and tell the...

Voting by dead people isn't always a scam By Jonathan Martin and David Heath Seattle Times staff reporters Days after his wife of four decades died of liver cancer, Robert Holmgren came home to find her absentee ballot. He filled in Charlette Holmgren's intended votes for Dino Rossi and George W. Bush, forged her signature, and mailed her ballot along with his. "I know by the law it wasn't right, but it felt right in my heart," he said. "I wasn't trying to defraud anybody. I was just going with my wife's last wishes." In six of the state's largest...

Brock Chisolm, former Director of the (United Nations) World Health Organization, is quoted as saying, "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas." [GWB quote of the day, 7/7/1999]. Remove from the minds of men? Doesn't that sound like mental conditioning? How does that square with the Alexander Downer/Tim Fischer version of globalism as freer markets? It doesn't, does it? Some years ago another hero of the globalist-Left, B.F.Skinner, in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, mounted a concerted attack on what he...

Linguistics professor George Lakoff dissects the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 26 August 2004 BERKELEY – With the Democratic National Convention over and the Republican one beginning next week, it seemed a good time to check in with George Lakoff, the UC Berkeley professor of cognitive linguistics whose scrutiny of the language of politics has begun to bring him national recognition. The author of the seminal book "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," Lakoff's specialty is dissecting "framing," or the ways in which conservatives and liberals position issues to fit their...

The Vatican is pressing the United Nations to recognise "Christianophobia" as an evil equal to that of anti-Semitism or "Islamophobia". Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's foreign minister, said anti-Christian feeling had increased, exacerbated by the war on terrorism. He said Christianity was often mistakenly seen as being inextricably linked with Western political policy, and had suffered as a result in the backlash against the West......But Vatican officials said privately that they could not stand aside while Judaism and Islam got special attention at the UN. The organisation demands regular reports from member countries on issues officially recognised as international concerns

TARGET THE GRINCH:And the beat goes on... According to this morning's USA Today, Target Inc.  is sticking to its plan to kick the Salvation Army to the curb throughout this holiday season. For those of you late to this story, Target stores had long allowed the Salvation Army to be the only charity that raised funds outside their stores using their famous red kettles and the cheerful sound of Christmas Bells. This year the good will from the red bulls-eye came to an end.  According to the USA Today the impact will leave the Salvation Army short about 9 million dollars...

Two dozen San Francisco schoolkids sporting white turtlenecks and Santa hats got a very un-Christmaslike civics lesson the other day when they showed up at Union Square hoping to delight Christmas shoppers with holiday carols. "They just wanted to set up next to the Christmas tree and sing,'' said Donna Vargas, one of the parents who escorted the fifth- and sixth-graders from San Francisco Day School on Friday's outing. Instead, they got the boot. Seems they didn't have a city permit -- so after a brief run-in with the park's security, the kids were shooed away. "How can children not...

Denver's holiday traditions include a Christmas Parade and the lighting of the City and County Building in downtown Denver.Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently announced that the phrase "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the outside of the building will be changed to "HAPPY HOLIDAYS," in yet another politically correct attack on the institution of Christmas. And while they're at it, the city is stopping a church group from participating in the annual "Parade of Lights", and singing Christmas Carols.Parade organizers claim that Christmas Carols may be offensive to some people....a church group who wants to march in the Parade of Lights and sing...