Free Republic

BOSTON - More than 80 years ago, the Hook brothers started trucking their catch of lobsters from Maine and Canada to Boston's fish piers, selling them directly to the city's top restaurants. Ever since, four generations of Hooks have kept their seafood wholesale business in a squat wooden building with a corrugated steel roof, resisting multiple offers from developers as luxury hotels, gleaming office towers and the Big Dig highway project dwarfed and surrounded them. On Friday, a seven-alarm fire gutted their landmark waterfront location, causing $5 million in damage that included the loss of 60,000 pounds of lobster, but...

Televangelist Pat Robertson is considering buying The Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper he has criticized for its coverage of his activities. Norfolk-based Landmark Communications Inc. announced last week that it was evaluating whether to sell its assets, including The Weather Channel and the Pilot, its flagship newspaper. Robertson said in a statement to the paper Thursday that he is considering a potential bid. He said owning the newspaper would help provide internships for journalism students at Regent University, a school he founded in Virginia Beach. Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has said the newspaper has characterized him unfairly.

Kaine shuns special session to repeal 'abuser fees' July 14, 2007 By Seth McLaughlin The first paragraph Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has no plans to call a special General Assembly session to consider repealing new fees against bad drivers, despite public outrage, a potential lawsuit and a lawmaker's demand that he do so. The last paragraphThe governor's office estimated the new law would affect only about 2 percent of Virginians.

UNITED NATIONS - American architect Michael Adlerstein was appointed Monday to oversee the $1.9 billion renovation of the landmark United Nations headquarters building overlooking New York's East River. Adlerstein will be executive director of a long-delayed project to modernize the 39-story glass-and-steel building, which has not had a major overhaul in its 55-year existence and now violates safety and fire codes. A native New Yorker, Adlerstein is vice president and architect of the New York Botanical Garden, America's oldest and most respected center for horticulture and botanical research. In the 1980s, he was project director for the ambitious restoration of...

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind makes moan, Earth stands hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow has fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, Then I to my computer go. Then I do my computer go, to Free Republic land, Electronically to take my stand, There to post thread on thread, thead on thread, Until some folks might wish me dead. O let us raise a cup of cheer in honor of this place Even though as days go by and we ne'er meet face to face, O Let me say to one and all, one and all,...

The land where Jesus once walked soon will recognize "gay marriage." In a landmark 6-1 decision, Israel's Supreme Court Nov. 21 ordered the government to begin recognizing "gay marriages" from other countries, such as Canada. Although the decision doesn't give homosexual couples the ability to "marry" within Israel's borders, it nonetheless puts Israel....

37,000 Acres of Irvine Ranch Land Receives Prestigious ‘National Natural Landmark’ Designation from U.S. Department of Interior • ‘The Irvine Ranch National Natural Landmark’ joins Mount Shasta, Anza Borrego, Hawaii’s Diamond Head and other beloved national landmarks • Honor recognizes designated land as “a nationally significant natural area” • First site in California to receive NNL designation since 1987 • Land is “a shining example of our nation’s natural treasures,” says National Park Service Director Fran Mainella • Governor Schwarzenegger notes, “Today’s event celebrates another area of our state that can be enjoyed for generations.” NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Standing on...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The House Judiciary Committee today approved two landmark bills fighting the War on Terror. The first, H.R. 6054, the "Military Commissions Act," establishes terrorist tribunals and was approved without amendment by a 20-to-19 margin. All 17 Democrats today voted against this legislation, which overwhelmingly passed the House Armed Services Committee last week by a 52-to-8 margin. The second bill, H.R. 5825, the "Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act," updates and reforms the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to fight the modern terrorist threat and provides increased congressional and FISA Court oversight of surveillance operations. After adopting...

For the first time the office, in addition to imposing fines, is seeking to seize the landlords' properties, using a statute in the state code normally applied to antitrust cases. Authorities allege that the landlords sought to circumvent local renter-protection laws by locking tenants out of their buildings, failing to make timely repairs, making false and misleading representations that the building was being condemned and turning off utilities. At the low-rent Huntington Hotel downtown, electricity and water were turned off for extended periods, according to court documents, and tenants were threatened with violence or the removal of their property unless...

BOSTON - Gov. Mitt Romney on Wednesday signed into law a landmark bill designed to guarantee virtually all Massachusetts residents have health insurance. However, the governor vetoed a key portion of the bill — a $295-per-worker assessment on businesses that do not provide health insurance. Some critics have called that provision a tax on businesses. The bill, intended to extend coverage to Massachusetts' estimated 550,000 uninsured, is being touted as a national model, thrusting the state to the forefront of the national debate about how to provide near-universal health care coverage without creating a single government-controlled system. It's also a...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Votes were being counted after Iraq's legislative election saw a strong turnout with minimal violence, bringing hope for a nation wracked by sectarian conflict, with the prospect also of tempting minority Sunnis back to the political process. Electoral officials briefly extended Thursday's voting owing to the turnout, which preliminary estimates put at between 60 and 80 percent, surpassing an October referendum, with Sunni Arabs casting ballots in record numbers. "Turnout was very strong in all regions, even in Fallujah," a Sunni city in the rebel Al-Anbar province, senior electoral official Hussein Hindawi said. The huge task of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Eric Christensen October 27, 2005 703-554-6100 703-554-6119 (fax) eric@landmarklegal.org www.landmarklegal.org (LEESBURG, VA)…Landmark Legal Foundation won a significant victory recently when it forced the California Teachers Union (CTA) to offer full refunds to nonunion, fee paying teachers for a special $60 per teacher assessment that the union is using to fund a $50 million campaign to defeat ballot initiatives in the November 5 special election. Landmark filed a complaint on September 14 with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) documenting how the union’s special assessment would be used to retire a $50 million debt amassed for...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's landmark constitution was adopted by a majority of voters during the country's Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to muster enough support to defeat it, election officials said Tuesday. Results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq showed that Sunni Arabs, who had sharply opposed the draft document, failed to produce the two-thirds "no" vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces to defeat it. Nationwide, 78.59 percent voted for the charter while 21.41 percent voted against, the commission said. The charter required a simple majority nationwide with...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghans chose a legislature for the first time in decades Sunday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques. --- snip ---- With nearly three-quarters of the populace illiterate, voting was slow as people spent as much as 10 minutes wading through ballots up to seven pages long to find pictures of candidates or symbols that represent them. Each voter dipped a finger in indelible purple ink to prevent repeat voting.

Steven Van Zandt, Tommy Ramone, Debbie Harry, Ted Leo, Jesse Malin, and more band together to save the beleaguered NY landmark. Debbie Harry performs Blondie classics at CBGB, hopefully not for the last time. / Photo by Lane Brown If the graffiti-splattered, poster-covered walls of CBGB could talk, aside from asking for a good scrubbing, they might wax nostalgic about an era when they watched the Ramones grow up and fantasized as Debbie Harry sauntered across the stage. With those legendary walls facing possible demolition in a month, the venue's owner kicked off a month-long campaign on Monday to save...

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land. Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.On Monday...

It stood by the river for thousands of years, shaped by wind, water, heat and cold, and was admired by countless visitors easing past in canoes, boats and inner tubes. It became part of a town's identity and a bond across generations. But the Devil's Chair, an ancient natural rock formation on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River near Taylors Falls, is largely gone -- a heap of broken stone scattered about what was the chair's base.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Eric Christensen 703-554-6100 (Leesburg, VA) Landmark Legal Foundation today demanded that Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy stop his personal assault on the federal judiciary, especially the United States Supreme Court. Landmark president Mark R. Levin said, “I am deeply concerned that Kennedy and some of his colleagues have helped create a dangerous environment of disrespect and hostility for the federal judiciary. Starting with the vicious attack on Judge Robert Bork’s character in 1987, and continuing with several of President Bush’s nominees, Kennedy, working with People for the American Way and other groups, has sought to tear down the...

April 6, 2005 Senator Edward Kennedy United States Senate Washington, D.C. Dear Senator Kennedy: I am deeply concerned that your comments, and those of certain of your colleagues, have helped create an environment of disrespect and hostility for the federal judiciary. For example, several years ago, you made a floor speech personally attacking President Ronald Reagan’s nominee to the United States Supreme Court, federal appellate judge Robert Bork. Among other things, you said: Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break...

I have a brother who has some real personal problems from his past that has gotten involved with an organization called Landmark Forum. This has been going on for over a year, maybe two and has never been and issue with anyone in the family - until recently. He called us late one night and said that he wnated to throw a birthday party for "Bette" which, for our family, means that he is talking about our mom. Part of his problems had to do with a very painful split from our family, so this wasn't too much of a...