Free Republic

Some would go farther and say that the memorandum from Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB that was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR, outlining a secret proposal made by Senator Ted Kennedy to the Soviets to help them "understand Reagan" in return for their help in making him president, constitutes treason. It's not a word to throw around lightly and the reason I refrain from using it is because I am unsure Kennedy's actions meet the definition. Kennedy was not in direct contact with Andropov, using his good friend John Tunney, former...

The Bible says we cannot know the time of the Lord's return (Matthew 25:13). But the Scriptures make it equally clear that we can know the season of the Lord's return (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6):"You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night... But you brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night or darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be...

Medical experts confirm that a procedure known as gastric bypass surgery can lead to dramatic improvements to weight and overall health. . . . . In the case of government obesity, the bypass would entail the detachment of the fiscal alimentary tract from the endless entrails of superfluous federal agencies, where trillions of taxpayer funds are currently absorbed and excreted in wasteful government programs. Instead, a new incision would be made just below the gullet of the IRS and revenue would be routed exclusively to essential functions -- those that provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and...

The sponsor of a resolution to have Arkansas adopt a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment for equal rights for women says she's struggling to find enough votes in the face of strong opposition. Senate Joint Resolution 12 would have Arkansas ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. ....

(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the discovery of royal seal impressions from the times of the First and Second Temples. The finds were made at a site in the southern Jerusalem hills. The seal impressions are believed to date back to the time of King Hezekiah, who ruled over Judea in the late eighth century BCE. Four “LMLK”-type seals were found, as were seals from high-ranking administrators Ahimelech ben Amadyahu and Yehokhil ben Shahar. One seal impression combined the LMLK-type seal and the seal of Yehokhil, an occurrence that archaeologists confirmed is highly unusual. A later inscription, estimated...

Whether or not Sarah Palin wins, for American women, politics will never be the same again, says Anne Applebaum. .....The interest in her (Palin) and her life story is no fluke, either. Following the failure of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Palin is suddenly, and flamboyantly, the most prominent female politician in the country. At age 44, she is also the most prominent representative of her generation of women – a generation which already looks set to be different, in important ways, from its predecessors. Unlike Hillary and her contemporaries, the women of Palin’s generation are not feminists, but rather post-feminist. Born...

Median era ring discovered in Iran Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:56:15 A Faravahar, a symbol of Zoroastrianism A unique ring belonging to the Median era adorned with a carved Farvahar, a symbol of Zoroastrianism, has been found in western Iran. Archeological excavations in Iran's western province of Lorestan resulted in the discovery of a ring which dates back to the Bronze Age and is decorated with a symbol of Zoroastrianism. The figure in the Farvahar is wearing Mede attire and a hat. The long-bearded man is facing the left as he emerges from the Sun. Wide open wings are seen...

Very damaging video on Mitt Romney, in his own words....

On a recent radio diatribe, Limbaugh gives mouth to the core brutality and idiocy of women-hating in certain circles of far-right America. Limbaugh blasts feminists while grousing and lamenting how hard it is for him to find a good, old-fashioned gal anymore to cook and clean and genuflect for him. Limbaugh says that feminism and the ERA are supported only by what he calls "ugly women and lesbians," whom he accuses of not being able to make it on their own. This comes from the same guy who once compared the looks of a 12-year-old girl named Chelsea Clinton to...

Muriel Zaginailoff still remembers standing outside Memorial Middle School in Beverly on Election Day in 1976 holding a sign urging voters to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. “We were so electrified with the opportunity,” said Zaginailoff, who was president of the Beverly League of Women Voters at the time. A lot has changed since Zaginailoff stood outside on that chilly November morning. Women now make up nearly 60 percent of college graduates and have risen to positions of national leadership in business and government. Zaginailoff, then a homemaker and mother of two, was part of that trend. She entered the...

The Return Of The Women's Equality Amendment By Ashley Herzog April 10, 2007 I didn't plan on writing another column about feminism, but I keep discovering more examples of pernicious ideas the so-called "women's rights activists" are pushing on society. Last week, the Democrat-controlled Congress reintroduced the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which gained popular support in the 1970s but died when Americans found out what it actually entailed. Thirty years later, feminists in Congress seem to think we've forgotten. The language of the ERA, now renamed the Women's Equality Amendment, is deceptively simple: "equality of rights under the law...

NEARLY 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, feminists and their political supporters, who now control Congress, are back at it. Last month, the constitutional measure, now dubbed the Women's Equality Amendment, was reintroduced in the Senate and House, and its prospects, according to one advocate, "are better now than they have been in a very, very long time." But ERA Retro is doomed. -- SNIP -- In 1971, the women's liberation movement burst on the scene and became the darling of the media. Its leaders demanded a gender-neutral society in which men and women would be...

Some issues ought to stay comfortably and securely buried, but the Equal Rights Amendment just keeps rearing its ugly head. It is the tired, but dangerous amendment that refuses to die. This week a bill to restart the ratification process of the ERA was introduced into the House by New York Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney and 194 co-sponsors. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers said he will hold hearings on it and lawmakers backing it say they will bring it to a vote. "We're going to win it now. We've got the votes, Rep. Maloney told a group of cheering...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Equal rights for women is a concept Americans would easily support. But, a constitutional amendment Congressional Democrats have reintroduced to enshrine it is nothing more than a phony attempt to promote abortion, pro-life groups say.Leading abortion advocates, including Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California as well as Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jarrold Nadler of New York, are joining with the Feminist Majority Foundation to reintroduce the Equal Rights Amendment today.The ERA passed Congress in 1972 but lapsed in 1982 when it fell three states short of ratification. The lawmakers will reintroduce the...

Video Footage of HJR1002 ERA before the committee. ERA would give liberals more power to sue for their agenda. Here's the link were you can research: Arkansas Assembly These are youtube videos that are about 10 minutes long. Video1 Video2 Video3 Video4 Video5 Video6 Video7(the vote!)

Instead of lobbying for special rights in the face of growing opposition, the Left is promoting legislation that would quietly usher in their agenda through the backdoor at the state level.Arkansas is facing a powerful challenge by anti-family groups lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which, until recently, was a largely irrelevant piece of feminist propaganda dating back to the early 1970s. Now, state Rep. Lindsley Smith (D) is dusting off the amendment in a campaign to "protect women," when in fact, the U.S. Constitution already does so. Smith is pushing her state to ratify the ERA, which seeks...

Document gives U.N. committee authority to dictate family policy. Senate Democrats may be on the verge of resurrecting a treaty that could be used to require U.S. compliance with liberal policies, such as a right to abortion and legalization of prostitution.  The treaty -- the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women  (CEDAW)  -- was signed by President Carter in 1980, but was never ratified by the U.S. Senate and has been in limbo ever since.  More than 180 countries have ratified the treaty, which established a United Nations committee to monitor participation in CEDAW ....

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — When they called her name, she could not move. Sgt. Leana Nishimura intended to walk up proudly, shake the dignitaries' hands and accept their honors for her service in Iraq — a special coin, a lapel pin, a glass-encased U.S. flag. But her son clung to her leg. He cried and held tight...T.J. was 9, her oldest child, and although eight months had passed since she had returned from the war zone, he was still upset by anything that reminded him of her deployment... The faraway move to live with his grandmother. The months that...

He was one of the NBA's all-time great players. He has been one of its most successful GMs. Legend has it that his silhouette is even used as the league logo. So when Jerry West faces an uncertain future, it's news. West, 68, is in the final year of his contract as Grizzlies president of basketball operations. The man who brought him to Memphis five-and-a-half years ago, Michael Heisley, is in the process of selling the team. So far there is no guarantee the new owners will keep West around to run the show. Speculation around the NBA is that...

Albany LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES into the opening ceremony of the National Organization for Women's 40th Anniversary Con ference here, New York state NOW president Marcia Pappas announces that we are present at a "herstoric event." They really do talk like that. NOW, of course, is the nation's largest feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it reached the apex of its visibility and influence in the late 1970s and early '80s, when it went all out for the Equal Rights Amendment--and lost to Phyllis Schlafly's conservative legions. Today, weakened and marginalized, it staggers on, attempting to recapture the old fire. But...

Australia accused of returning to convict ship era By Nick Squires in Cairns (Filed: 04/08/2006) Australia plans to use an armed prison ship to hold illegal fishermen and "boat people" in a move that critics say smacks of the country's convict origins. Under the plan, naval and customs patrol boats will no longer have to return to port to deposit asylum seekers and poachers detained at sea. "The vessel will have the capability to remain at sea for extended periods and operate independently in waters around Australia," said Chris Ellison, the customs minister. Terry O'Gorman, the president of the Australian...

Scientists have identified a new species of ancient aquatic reptile that swam the seas when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. Dubbed Umoonasaurus, the creature lived in waters off the coast of what is now Australia 115 million years ago, when the continent was located much closer to Antarctica than it is now. Plesiosaurs were large marine reptiles that had stocky, barrel-shaped bodies, short tails and paddle-like limbs. Some had long, slender necks, while others had short, squat ones. What made Umoonasaurus stand out from other plesiosaurs were a series of high, thin crests on its head and numerous fused vertebrae...

The Republican Party of Florida is looking for one hundred ideas for a Legislative agenda. Do you believe that ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution should be one of them? This Amendment has had its ratification period extended by Congress many times in the last few decades, yet Florida and a handful of other states now block the ratification for the entire nation. The time is now, the call to action cannot be made any louder. What harm could this little amendment do? How about making unconstitutional every law that acknowledges a distinction between men and women, from...

SACRAMENTO - After decades of wealthy and wealthier candidates running for governor, voters may this year glimpse the future of California politics: Mega-millionaires -- perhaps only mega-millionaires -- cracking open their checkbooks for a chance to run the Golden State. California has had its share of the rich running for office, but never quite like this year's governor's race, in which all three major candidates have amassed personal fortunes. Combined, movie star Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- believed to be the richest governor in the nation -- former eBay executive turned Controller Steve Westly and former real estate developer turned state...

Evolution persisted in agricultural era Bruce Bower Natural selection continued to sculpt humanity's genetic identity after the Stone Age gave way to farming around 11,000 years ago, according to a new DNA analysis. A team led by Jonathan K. Pritchard of the University of Chicago identified survival-enhancing gene variants that began spreading through human populations between roughly 10,800 and 6,600 years ago. The scientists scanned the genomes of 89 East Asians, 60 Europeans, and 60 Africans to find DNA stretches recently affected by natural selection. Their technique exploits the tendency of DNA regions containing advantageous genes to spread quickly through...

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (March 8, 2006) -- During the early 1960’s, when Marines needed transportation to or from combat zones, they didn’t call in MV-22’s. For the Marines on the frontlines in Vietnam, their savior was the UH-34D, ancestor of the CH-46E and the MV-22. At the stand-up ceremony for Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron-263, the first operational MV-22 Osprey squadron, Marines from the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron-361 Veterans Association displayed a piece of the squadron’s past, a static display of a fully restored, operational UH-34D. The UH-34D was flown by HMM-361 along with other Marine squadrons...

Will we in the future look back upon a George W. Bush era or merely a George W. Bush presidency? This is a question that is almost never asked of a single-term president. The most significant one-term president may have been the often-forgotten, often-misunderstood James K. Polk. In four years he signed a treaty with Great Britain over the Oregon territory, prosecuted the controversial Mexican War, brought down tariff rates, appointed two associate justices to the Supreme Court, and presided over the incorporation of Texas, Iowa and Wisconsin into the Union. And yet no one has ever spoken of the...

ATHENS (AFP) - Greek archaeologists excavating an ancient Macedonian city in the foothills of Mount Olympus have uncovered a 2,600-metre defensive wall whose design was "inspired by the glories of Alexander the Great," the site supervisor said Thursday. Built into the wall were dozens of fragments from statues honouring ancient Greek gods, including Zeus, Hephaestus and possibly Dionysus, archaeologist Dimitrios Pantermalis told a conference in the northern port city of Salonika, according to the Athens News Agency. Early work on the fortification is believed to have begun under Cassander, the fourth-century BC king of Macedon who succeeded Alexander the Great....

February 08, 2006, 7:54 a.m. Phyllis Schlafly Was Right Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, February 8, 2006The woman has earned a few “I Told You So�s. Most of America's girls typically don't get to celebrate Phyllis Schlafly during "Women's History Month," but they should. Mrs. Schlafly not only had the right idea when she fought the Equal Rights Amendment during the 70s, but predictions she made back then are still accurate today. Schlafly, of course, was head of the National Committee to Stop ERA. And stop it she did — the U.S. Constitution was not amended. She argued that...

In 1972 Marylanders voted to adopt the state's Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which provides that "equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied because of sex." Notably, the voters said "sex," not "sexual orientation." That distinction -- between gender and orientation -- was lost in Baltimore City Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock's 20-page opinion invalidating Maryland's law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman [front page, Jan. 21]. The ERA debates of the 1970s focused on ending legal distinctions between men and women, not on legal distinctions between heterosexuals and homosexuals....

The National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association has announced the appointment of Dave Ehrig as chairman of the Longhunter Committee and the NMLRA Longhunter Muzzleloading Big Game Records Program. Since 1988, the NMLRA Longhunter Committee and staff have maintained a trophy measuring, scoring, and record-keeping program for North American big game animals taken with muzzleloading firearms. The fourth edition of The Longhunter Muzzleloading Big Game Record Book, which includes all qualifying animals taken since the program’s inception, was recently released. Mr. Ehrig is well known among muzzleloading enthusiasts and others in the black powder shooting industry. Known as "Pennsylvania’s Mr. Black...

WHO was the most consequential woman in American politics during the 20th century? Betty Friedan? Sorry, but most of today's young women probably think "Feminine Mystique" is a perfume. Geraldine Ferraro? Nice try. Hillary Clinton? She'll ultimately be judged for her 21st-century accomplishments, or lack thereof. A good case might be made for Eleanor Roosevelt, though FDR's wife is perhaps more iconic than significant.Then there's Phyllis Schlafly, the leading lady of American conservatism. As a renowned anti-feminist during feminism's heyday in the 1970s, she was said to be out of touch with her times. But it turns out that she...

The Breasts Not Bombs members had been warned to keep their shirts on at the Capitol demonstration against governor's initiatives. By Evan Halper, Times Staff Writer SACRAMENTO — Police arrested two members of an organization called Breasts Not Bombs after they removed their tops during a protest on the steps of the state Capitol on Monday afternoon. The women, who were protesting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot measures for today's special election, took off their shirts despite warnings from the California Highway Patrol last week that doing so would lead to their arrests — and possibly their inclusion on the state's...

The Army is abandoning mixed-sex training units because too many female recruits are getting injured trying to keep up with their male counterparts. From next April, women will be placed in their own platoons and although the training regime will remain the same, it will be conducted at a pace 'sustainable and commensurate with their physical profile'. Army chiefs hope the changes will greatly reduce drop-out rates among women after research showed female recruits are up to nine times more likely than men to be discharged through a training-related injury. Dr James Bilzon, the Army Training and Recruitment Agency's senior...

11/3/05 Khajeh mountain, biggest unbaked mud architecture of Parthian era Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan prov, Nov 2, IRNA-Khajeh Mountain Complex, the biggest model of unbaked mud architecture remaining in Sistan area, is one of the most remarkable relics of the Parthian, Sassanid and Islamic eras. It is the only natural height left behind in Sistan area, where a palace, fire temple, pilgrimage center called Khajeh Mehdi and graveyard reminiscent of the past are still in good condition. The trapezoid-shaped basalt lava, situated 609 meters from the sea level, with a diameter ranging from two to 2.5 kilometers stands 17 kms to the...

ST. LOUIS -- Few living Americans have done as much to shape the nation's direction as Phyllis Schlafly, who is arguably the most important woman in American political history. She is the suburban housewife turned best-selling author who heralded conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater's 1964 Republican presidential campaign as "A Choice, Not an Echo," followed up by becoming an authority on nuclear-missile defense and then, in a stunning upset, led the forces that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). When asked about her greatest accomplishments, however, Mrs. Schlafly takes care to mention perhaps the most important lesson of her long career...

It's time to ban long kitchen knives because they serve no good purpose except as weapons, write doctors in the British Medical Journal. The doctors, as part of their research into ways to reduce violence, say they consulted with leading chefs who said long knives were not needed for cooking.

"If there was an arrest, he's probably pretty (angry)," said Heidi Leinonen of Caring Unlimited, a Sanford-based domestic-violence prevention agency.

Equality has a wonderful "ring" to it, but when politicians, whose political life hinges on reelection, begin to tell us what/who is equal and what/who is not, it portends disaster. One dictionary defines "Equal" as: . "of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another; . identical in mathematical value or logical denotation." The question is, "are men and women equal?" . The anatomical answer is, "no;" . The psychological answer is, "no;" . The common sense answer is, "no;" and . One writer even suggests that men are from Mars and women from Venus-hardly equal, although the "Venusian"...

Mention the Vietnam War, and most Americans will likely recoil. The War of the 1960’s and 1970’s killed over 58,000 Americans, but most of those people have gone forgotten. Hundreds of thousands of Americans served in that War, but thousands more protested that war. I believe those protests marked a change in America. Suddenly, America was no longer the “United States;” instead, America soon became a largely appeasement-minded culture, with the exception of several leaders. Soldiers from the Vietnam War have every right to feel left out. Very few of these courageous men were able to enjoy respect for their...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sol M. Linowitz, a diplomat, lawyer and businessman who played key roles in Middle East peace negotiations and the Panama Canal treaty during the Carter administration, died Friday. He was 91. The one-time chairman of Xerox Corp. died at his home in Washington, said the Academy for Educational Development, the nonprofit group where he had served as honorary board chairman since 1990. Linowitz was ambassador to the Organization of American States during the Johnson administration and in 1977 helped negotiate the historic transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama. He also represented President Carter in Middle East...

Sometime in the 1960s there arose a new homegrown distrust of the United States, followed by an erosion of faith in the values of the West. Perhaps the culprit was the fiasco in Vietnam or the rise of a trendy multiculturalism that followed from it. Our schools often insisted that all cultures were to be roughly the same. History devolved more into melodrama than tragedy. America was no longer exceptional -- and thus in no position to criticize a Cuba as undemocratic or condemn the Iranian mullahs as murderously theocratic. The enormous wealth and leisure that followed from global capitalism...

court has just held that the California opposite-sex-only marriage requirement is unconstitutional; and part of its argument -- though only part -- was that it violated the ban on sex discrimination in the state constitution, since the opposite-sex-only rule necessarily discriminated based on sex. (Eve can marry Adam, but Steve can't; the only difference between the two is that Eve is a woman, the opposite sex from Adam's, and Steve is a man.) This leads me to repeat a point that I raised when one of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges made a similar argument in 2003. Consider these...

Parthian era subterranean village discovered near Maragheh Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN (MNA) -- Iranian archaeologists have discovered a Parthian era village under the earth near the Mehr Temple of the northwestern city of Maragheh, the director of the Maragheh Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department said on Wednesday. “Since the Mehr Temple is one of the little known sites of Iran, our team planned to carry out some excavations around it to ascertain some details about the temple. The excavations resulted in the discovery of an underground village which archaeologists believe dates back to the Parthian era,” Nasser Zavvari added....

State GOP historically diverse By Sen. Charles Ford Leading Democrats and their pundits attempt to divide Oklahomans by painting a picture of elitism, exclusiveness and white male dominance among Republicans while promoting themselves as the party that embraces women and minorities. The notion that Republicans are anti-woman and anti-minority could not be further from the truth. The Republican Party in Oklahoma has a diverse membership and a long history of encouraging women and minorities to participate in the electoral process. Republicans have led the way to change and made the most remarkable inroads at a time when women and minorities...

Testimony of Ex-Gays for Ohio's Defense of Marriage Act Posted by Carlos Lopez Tuesday, February 24, 2004 Ohio recently passed a strong Defense of Marriage Act that rejects same-sex marriages and civil unions in that state. Among those testifying effectively on behalf of the act were Greg and Cheryl Quinlan, former homosexuals now married and working to guide others out of homosexuality. Greg's testimony is reprinted from the online bulletin distributed free to subscribers by the organization, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays. ~~o~~ Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Finance and Financial Institutions Committee, thank you for...

Discovery of Jesus-era shroud to be aired at UNC-Charlotte By EMERY P. DALESIO, , Associated Press Writer A discovery that started when North Carolina college students happened on a violated tomb below Jerusalem's Mount Zion has shed light on the burial of a possible contemporary of Jesus, an archaeologist said Sunday. The group of student volunteers led by professor James Tabor from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte three years ago discovered a recently robbed tomb that yielded the shroud-wrapped skeletal remains of an affluent member of the old city. "It was only just by chance that this discovery...

Jewish Yad Avshalom revealed as a Christian shrine from Byzantine era By Amiram Barkat The historic Yad Avshalom monument in Jerusalem's Kidron Valley, revered for centuries as a Jewish shrine, was also a Christian holy place in the fourth century, new evidence has revealed. A fourth-century inscription on one of the walls near the monument, recently uncovered by chance, marks the site as the burial place of the Temple priest Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist who baptized Jesus. Scholars believe the monument was built in the first century, making it possible that figures holy to Christians could be...

Senate President disses Schlafly in hearing Thursday, May 29, 2003 By The Leader-Springfield Bureau Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) told Phyllis Schlafly that he regretted the current ERA debate "resurrected" her. Jones was in the House from 1973-83 when the ERA was hotly debated annually. State Rep Randy Hultgren, CWA National President Sandy Rios, House Minority Leader Tom Cross, Phyllis Schlafly and State Rep. Bob Biggins met together earlier this spring to discuss the ERA in the Illinois House. Hultgren and Biggins opposed the amendment, Cross voted to support the ERA. SPRINGFIELD -- "My only regret about bringing up this...