Free Republic

Talker Rush Limbaugh is under fire for being falsely accused of saying that any U.S. soldier who comes out against the war is a “phony soldier.” He did not, of course, say such a thing. Rush was actually talking about a man named Jesse Macbeth who was touted by anti-war activists as a soldier who came out against the war, but it turned out later that Macbeth never served in the military at all. Still, despite that Rush is utterly innocent of these scurrilous charges, members of the Democrat Party and assorted extreme leftists like Media Matters, a far left...

It was described as the pocket compass used by Lawrence of Arabia during his First World War desert adventures when it was sold by Christie's for more than £250,000. But now the auction house is facing embarrassing claims from experts that it has been duped - and the successful bidder walked away with a £50 fake. The two-inch brass pocket compass, which fetched £254,000 when it was sold with a watch and cigarette case, was said to have helped Lawrence as he led the Arab revolt against Germany's ally Turkey. Christie's claimed the three items were given by Lawrence to...

LAWRENCE - The son of a veteran Lawrence police officer assisted in the arrest of former Boston city councilor and AIDS activist David Scondras, who is accused of using the Internet to solicit sex from a 15-year-old boy. Michael Fornesi, 20, said he got involved in a computer sex crime investigation early Monday morning by telling his friend - Lawrence police Sgt. Ryan Shafer - about an instant text message he received on his computer from a stranger seeking sex with a child. On advice from Shafer, Fornesi pretended to be a 15-year-old boy and answered the e-mail. The e-mail...

In the chapter "The Miracles",Lawrence Wright is discussing the roots of al Qaeda; specifically Ayaman al Zawahiri's ties to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, and detailing how Osama bin Laden's father was deeply involved in so many construction projects that he was revered throughout the Middle East, which led to Osama's personal wealth and ability to underwrite jihad. In writing of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and how Arabs were being attracted to jihad against the Communists Wright says... "Sheikh Abdullah (Azzam) called the small band of Arabs who gathered in Peshawar the "Brigade of The Strangers". The Arabs kept...

METHUEN - The Lawrence Marine who fired a shotgun into a crowd of noisy clubgoers in Lawrence last year wants to buy the shuttered Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Union Street. Daniel Cotnoir, a mortician, would turn the three-building campus - a church, school and convent - into a funeral home, he said. Cotnoir, 34, lives above his business, the Racicot Funeral Home at 256 Broadway in Lawrence. He wants to sell the building and leave Lawrence, calling the city unsafe. "Considering the fact that the Police Department cannot or will not protect my family, as soon as...

The Martyrdom of St. Laurence (Lawrence) Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (Basilica of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls) (Prior to his final victory, St. Lawrence was brought before Cornelius Secularis, prefect of Rome under the Emperor Valerian, who, according to Dom Prosper Guéranger in his Liturgical Year, "aimed at ruining the Christians by prohibiting their assemblies, putting their chief men to death, and confiscating their property." It was for this reason that St. Lawrence, the archdeacon for Pope St. Sixtus II, was summoned to the tribunal of Cornelius, who sought the riches of the Church of Rome. It...

The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004 . . . Attitudes in Britain were more positive than in the US, Germany and Spain (where the popularity of Muslims has plummeted to 29%), and about the same as in France. Less than a third of British non-Muslims said they viewed Muslims as violent, significantly fewer than non-Muslims in Spain (60%), Germany (52%), the US (45%) and France (41%) . . . only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French...

BRITISH Muslims are more radicalised than those in several other major western European nations, according to the authors of a new global poll. The Pew Global Attitudes Report found Muslims in Britain were more likely than their counterparts in France, Germany and Spain to feel there was a conflict between being devout and living in modern society. They were also the most likely of the groups in the three countries to say Arabs did not carry out the September 11 attacks. Their opinion of Westerners was lower and more of them described relations between Westerners and Muslims as bad. Almost...

Justice Scalia says Supreme Court should take back seat to voters ST. LOUIS - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday he doesn't want an overly broad job description. In fact, he wants the U.S. Supreme Court to stay out of the nation's most important decision making. Scalia said too much regulatory power has shifted to the judicial branch during his speech before hundreds of attorneys at a Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis luncheon. Over the last 50 years, the United States has put too much emphasis on letting bureaucratic experts make important policy decisions, Scalia said. Such decisions,...

WESTWOOD ONE LAUNCHES THE MONICA CROWLEY SHOW --New Program to Air Saturdays, Noon - 3 p.m. ET-- Beginning Saturday, April 1, 2006 New York, NY Monday, Mar 20, 2006 - Westwood One (NYSE: WON) is proud to announce the national launch of The Monica Crowley Show, the three-hour talk program hosted by author and news personality Monica Crowley. The show begins Saturday, April 1, 2006, and will air from noon to 3 p.m. ET. The Monica Crowley Show will debut on major market stations across the country including: WABC-AM New York, WTKK-FM Boston and WTNT-AM Washington DC. The show will...

I believe severe punishment is required in this case," the judge said at Allen and Pat's sentencing in November 1997. "I think they have to be separated. It's the only way to prevent them from having intercourse in the future." Allen and Pat were lovers, but a Wisconsin statute enacted in 1849 made their sexual relationship a felony. The law was sometimes used to nail predators who had molested children, but using it to prosecute consenting adults -- Allen was 45; Pat, 30 -- was virtually unheard of. That didn't deter Milwaukee County Judge David Hansher, however. Nor did the...

"I believe severe punishment is required in this case," the judge said at Allen and Pat's sentencing in November 1997. "I think they have to be separated. It's the only way to prevent them from having intercourse in the future." Allen and Pat were lovers, but a Wisconsin statute enacted in 1849 made their sexual relationship a felony. The law was sometimes used to nail predators who had molested children, but using it to prosecute consenting adults -- Allen was 45; Pat, 30 -- was virtually unheard of. That didn't deter Milwaukee County Judge David Hansher, however. Nor did the...

Contents IntroductionWhat is the PSM/ISM?ISM Rewriting History ACT NOW! - OPPOSE GOOGLE'S PLAN Automatically send emails opposing Google's planSign a petition Introduction According to Lee Kaplan, writing for FrontPageMagazine.com: The Internet giant Google will give news agency status to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), according to an anonymous source at Google. If true, the ISM—an affiliate of the anarchist/communist wing of the PLO—would be on par with professional news services such as CNN, Fox, and Associated Press. … The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement (PSM) are related and interconnected organizations that have one goal: the...

Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger (August 1, 1930-) was born in Milwaukee. Described as a career diplomat, Eagleburger joined the Foreign Service in 1957 and held a series of embassy, State Department, national security, and Defense Department posts before serving as Ambassador (1977-81) to Yugoslavia. He was a State Department Assistant Secretary (1981-82) and Undersecretary (1982-84) before serving as Deputy Secretary of State (1989-92) and Secretary of State (1992-93) under President George Herbert Walker Bush, becoming the first Foreign Service officer to hold the latter post.

The US military has turned to the wisdom of Lawrence of Arabia for guidance on how to win the war in Iraq and understand the mindset of its insurgents.In the latest list of books recommended to commanders, T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his first-person account of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks between 1917 and 1919, is number two out of 100. Extracts from the memoir and his essays have also been e-mailed directly to senior officers in the field. So highly does the Pentagon consider the relevance of his insights that it has officially adopted one...

President Bush has the bully pulpit, but Saddam Hussein has the hot novel. Bootleg copies of his latest work are selling briskly in the Middle East, and not just because of the free publicity he got when Jordan banned it this week. Say what you will about Saddam, he knows his audience. The critics have not been kind to the prose and the plot, but they miss Saddam's strength. He's a marketer. He is said to have finished the novel just as the war was beginning, when American leaders were fantasizing about their troops' being welcomed as liberators. But Saddam...

Declaring that some of the words used by Orianna Fallaci in her book about Islam were "without doubt offensive to Islam and to those who practice that religious faith," an Italian judge has ordered her to stand trial for anti-Islamic defamation. Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice has in effect accused all of America of anti-Islamic defamation, saying that a single mishandling by a single U.S. serviceman of a single copy of the Koran is a terrible offense that tarnishes the image of our country. Yet even as our Secretary of State condemns America for its bigotry, the Saudi government funds the massive...

Ann Coulter causes stir at KU Heckling, standing ovations interrupt right-wing commentator By Mike Belt, Journal-World Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter was greeted with a mixture of standing ovations and heckling after she took center stage Tuesday night at Kansas University's Lied Center. As soon as she stepped up to the microphone, Coulter fired off one zinger after another about liberalism while promising to answer questions from left-wing members in the audience who could "thrash their way to a coherent thought." "I've come to find I like liberals a lot more," Coulter said early in...

Housing issues key in city race Candidates differ widely on affordability, planning, development By Chad Lawhorn, Journal-World Sunday, March 13, 2005 It could be argued that Lawrence is living in the worst of two worlds when it comes to affordable housing. advertisement In the one world, Lawrence households earn an average $39,183 per year, which is about 5 percent less than the statewide average, according to the 2000 Census. But in the other world, Lawrence homes are among the highest priced in the state, with an average selling price of $180,526 in 2004, according to statistics from the Douglas County...

The Lawrence Journal-World (Kansas) has an account of a recent speaking engagement by DNC chairman Howard Dean. He spoke harmlessly enough at Lawrence's Liberty Hall, but he got a little more outrageous at a fundraiser held in the backyard of residents John and Nancy Hiebert. As he laid into conservatives with greater audacity than in his Liberty Hall speech, he concluded by saying, "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good." The quote stops short of directly calling Republicans evil, but the implication is very explicit. When Kansas Republican Party executive director Derrick Sontag was told...

Some may say it’s nothing to laugh about but I can’t help but find humor when the snobs of the academic elite find themselves mired in paradoxical hypocrisy. One can almost smell the heat from their cerebral wheels, the publicly funded oil burning away, as they try to come up with an explanation of why they are between such a rock and a hard place. It reminds me of the old Bill Cosby bit about the student who asked his Catholic teacher the hypothetical question, “Father, if God can do anything, can He Himself make a rock so big that...

None of these cases rest on solid legal ground. As Justice Douglas acknowledged in Griswold, the right to privacy is to be found not in the Constitution but in its "penumbras" and "emanations." At the same time, there is a strong political consensus against the government intruding into people's bedrooms. If Griswold and Lawrence disappeared from the books tomorrow, it's unlikely any state would rush to re-enact laws against contraceptives or consensual sodomy. Abortion and same-sex marriahort ge, by contrast, do spark strong opposition, but not on privacy grounds. Abortion opponents argue that life before birth is worthy of legal...

The grainy videotape from the Nov. 17 overnight shift shows firefighter Isidro ``Junior'' Cordero taking a bag out of his sock. He and dispatcher Judy Brito then snort its contents. The camera catches the two drinking beer, dancing and taking more cocaine. It also shows a steady parade of friends going in and out of the fire department's alarm center.

Here is the transcript of the October 1st program of The McLaughlin Group that exposes the left for what it truly represents: hatred of America, hatred of our troops, hatred of our president and a fundamental lack of patriotism that translates to weakness in the face of the new global terror threat. The left is dangerous. Lawrence O'Donnell let his guard down in a fit of anger and exposed himself for what he truly is. Please contact MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.com/modules/Newsweek/feedback/nwfeedback.asp?cp1=1 and The McLaughlin Group at comments@mclaughlin.com to express your concerns. Federal News Service October 4, 2004 Monday SECTION: PRESS CONFERENCE...

comments@mclaughlin.com Waiting for a transcript, but I heard Lawrence O'Donnell shout on today's TMG that he could care less that the troops are demoralized by Kerry's incessant cynicism about the Iraq war. Essentially he said they should keep their mouths shut and fight. I almost fell out of my chair. Did anybody else hear the exchange? Shocking! Please write to McLaughlin producers at comments@mclaughlin.com to let them know that O'Donnell crossed the line of decency and really does not deserve to have access to an otherwise prestigious panel. I'll post the transcript as soon as it is available. If anybody...

On MSNBC tonight, Lawrence O'Donnell, political commentator for MSNBC, sounds like he knows what he is talking about, yet, his arguments in defense of John Kerry, are so asinine and untrue, I could hardly believe my ears.

So much for Senator John Edwards 'Two Americas.' Over the weekend, Edwards, whose 'Two Americas' stump speech was said to have enticed the Kerry campaign to put North Carolina on the bottom of the ticket, apparently dumped the stumper and ripped off Democratic hottie Barack Obama's convention speech.At a rally in Lawrence, Kansas, Edwards told an audience, ' There is no red state, there is no blue state, there is only one United States of America and we are going to serve this entire country.' So what happened to 'Two Americas?''There is a segment of the campaign, and it is...

Our first story comes from a story in the Kansas City Star. "Energy was the feature topic at the outdoor forum Friday, but it was agriculture — particularly related to hog farming — that drew testy comments. Kerry and Edwards pledged to help small hog farmers as large commercial operations began overshadowing them. Teresa Heinz Kerry handed her husband a note, and he invited her to stand up to speak.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: All right, I told you earlier in this hour, my friends, that we're in the lighthearted Stack of Stuff, the humorous stories. Such we've got two such stories involving the Democratic presidential contender, Senator John Kerry and his running mate Senator John Edwards. And one of the stories involves Senator Kerry's wife, the lovely and gracious Teresa Heinz Kerry. See her dirty dancing at one of these campaign stops over the weekend? Whew. At any rate. Well, to each his own. Ladies and gentlemen, remember now the slogan of the Kerry campaign, "Help is on the way."...

Lessons from Lawrence of Arabia By Ryan Dilley BBC News Online Magazine Sales of a book by Lawrence of Arabia, the British officer who united desert tribes against the Turks during World War One, have risen sharply since the war in Iraq. Why? "War upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife." This grim assessment of quelling an armed insurrection must prey on the minds of at least two of the Westerners grappling with Iraq's upsurge in violence. It comes from the book which graces the otherwise sparse office of Rory Stewart, the British diplomat who...

Crime vs. privacy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AIDS: Health risk Ohio law rightly treats an HIV-positive person who solicits sex as a criminal, just as it does anyone else who commits assault with a deadly weapon. So in the case of Charles Woodgeard the public has a right to know his health status. When he was arrested, he lost a right to medical privacy that ought to be otherwise maintained. Woodgeard was arrested on Aug. 20 on a charge that he solicited an undercover police officer for sex. He is HIV positive. Woodgeard is now serving a one-year prison term for his crime,...

"Sexually Inclusive Christians" Celebrate Victories, Push for More Mark Tooley August 22, 2003 When arguing for church acceptance of homosexuality, most advocates talk about monogamy. But others are bolder. “I am a strong ally of those in healthy, polyamorous relationships,” declared Debra Kolodny. She argued that having multiple sexual partners can be “holy.” Kolodyn was leading a workshop at the WOW (Witness Our Welcome) 2003 convention, an ecumenical gathering for “sexually and gender inclusive Christians.” Hundreds of homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual people gathered under the “queer” banner in Philadelphia August 14-17 to urge religious acceptance of non-traditional sexual behaviors. According...

The leader of the nation's most well-known homosexual Republican organization says his group is consulted on nearly a weekly basis by the White House. "(O)ur access is unprecedented," Log Cabin Club executive director Patrick Guerriero told Metro Weekly, a Washington-area homosexual magazine. "I'm not sure there's been a week that I've been on the job where we haven't been called to the White House or asked to attend a meeting with the Republican leadership to discuss issues ranging from tax fairness to judicial nominations to global and domestic AIDS policy." The article was e-mailed yesterday between the leaders of many...

Personally, I'm relaxed about sodomy, which isn't the same as being relaxed during sodomy. But one does one's best to keep up with the times. I use the word ''sodomy,'' incidentally, mainly because I still can. I would wager that one of the consequences of the Supreme Court decision striking down sodomy laws will be that they've also struck down the word. I see New York is revising its statutes to eliminate such anachronistically pejorative terms, and in Georgia, where the DAs have made hip, busy cop-show acronyms out of their archaic legislation, I don't suppose ''SOLCAN''--as in ''Soliciting a...

The Consequences of Lawrence v. Texas Justice Scalia Is Right that Same Sex Marriage Bans Are At Risk, But Wrong That A Host of Other Laws Are Vulnerable By JOANNA GROSSMAN lawjlg@hofstra.edu ---- Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2003 Recently, and famously, in Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court invalidated Texas' anti-homosexual-sodomy law. It did so by invoking the constitutional right to privacy. But it also indicated that constitutional equal protection doctrines would have provided another reason to invalidate the statute, which targeted only same-sex sodomy. The decision extended long-overdue recognition of the rights of gays and lesbians. In doing so, it...

Sandra Day O'Connor was almost squished last weekend in Philadelphia. At an event celebrating our living Constitution or some such nonsense, a giant beam from the stage almost fell on her. It was a scary moment. For a brief blinking instant it appeared as if Sandra Day O'Connor was headed to meet her Maker. And, if that happened, the Constitution as we know it would have died. As Charles Krauthammer and others have noted, Sandy Baby (as John Riggins once dubbed her) is the Constitution of the United States of America. If she wants the text to mean free speech...

Our Rulers, The Supreme Court by William Murchison Posted Jul 7, 2003 The word, then, is no Supreme Court retirements expected this year. Pity. We could lose up to six justices -- say, the majority in the Lawrence vs. Texas sodomy case -- and feel indisposed for less than a week-long street dance, complete with door prizes and keg beer. On the other hand, we'd have to be careful. The retirements of Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, and -- oh, endless bliss! -- David Souter might give us the wrong idea. We...

Sodomy Ruling Part II: A Liberal Gold Mine by David Limbaugh Posted Jul 7, 2003 Our Rulers, The Supreme Court The Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (the sodomy case) is a veritable gold mine for liberals and the shifting values they hold dear. Not many conservatives I know have any desire to see the sodomy laws of any state enforced against homosexual behavior within the confines of one's private residence. But the Supreme Court's opinion had little to do with protecting that kind of privacy and much more to do with legitimizing homosexuality, moral relativism and the concept...

In a recent public appearance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the man proposed by many to become our next chief justice, uttered words that ought to send a chill down the back of every liberty-loving American. "The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia told an audience at John Carroll University on March 18. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." Scalia is a Harvard-trained lawyer with a keen intellect and an excellent command of the language. It seems fair to assume that he meant exactly what he said. He did not call into...

The Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (the sodomy case) is a veritable gold mine for liberals and the shifting values they hold dear. Not many conservatives I know have any desire to see the sodomy laws of any state enforced against homosexual behavior within the confines of one's private residence. But the Supreme Court's opinion had little to do with protecting that kind of privacy and much more to do with legitimizing homosexuality, moral relativism and the concept of the Constitution as an evolving document. And for good measure, the Court also took a gratuitous swipe at American...

Is Lawrence Worse Than Roe? CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter June 27, 2003 ********************************************** There has been a lot of lot of talk since yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, a dispute over Texas' law making sodomy illegal. The Supreme Court overturned that law by a vote of 6 to 3, saying that such laws "demean the lives of homosexual persons" and infringe upon their right to privacy. Let me tell you right now: Lawrence is a devastating decision, worse than most people think -- and for reasons that haven't fully dawned on them yet. I...

Scalia: What a massive disruption of the social order ... this ruling entails. *********************************************************** Read below one of the most brilliant defenses of traditional values, morality and conventions that have governed civilization for the past 5000 years. Judge Scalia is a national treasure: *********************************************************** Excerpted from his dissent in today's sodomy ruling: I begin with the Court ’s surprising readiness to recon- sider a decision rendered a mere 17 years ago in Bowers v. Hardwick .I do not myself believe in rigid adherence to stare decisis in constitutional cases;but I do believe that we should be consistent rather than...

I once worked in government. On my first day, I raised my right hand and swore to uphold the Constitution. I thought I knew what that meant. Recently we have gone to war in Afghanistan, Iraq and a few other places, at least in part to advance democracy and promote our kind of constitutionalism. A foreigner might then ask: What exactly is your Constitution? Now we know the answer. The Constitution is whatever Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says it is. On any given Monday.

As the Supreme Court ruling on Texas' sodomy law continues to generate controversy, Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute reveals a disturbing new element. The US Supreme Court used foreign precedents in formulating their decision. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy referred to a "Friend of the Court" brief submitted by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. "This Court should not decide in a vacuum whether criminalization of same-sex sodomy between consenting adults violates constitutional guarantees of privacy and equal protection. Other nations with similar histories, legal systems, and political cultures have...

Libertarian Judicial Activism Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down two opinions which have dismayed many conservatives. In Grutter, the majority refused to strike down the use of race in admission decisions at the University of Michigan, and in Lawrence, the majority declared that a Texas law forbidding sodomy was unconstitutional. Much of the conservative criticism has been aimed at Sandra Day O'Connor, who voted with the majority in both cases. In Lawrence, she suggested that the law in question was "a bare ... desire to harm a politically unpopular group"; laws of that nature the...

Please note that the following excerpts have been typed in manually. I apologize in advance for any typos and spelling errors. This material is not available online. The link goes to the book's page on Amazon From Chapter 1, Unpacking the Myth of Democracy In sharp contrast with the Athenian system, which (at least for the controlling class, called citizens) operated on the basis of the equal rights and public merit of all voters, the American founding was shot through with the influence of Christianity, for which the determining feature of humanity has never been innate goodness, but rather a...

Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Sex Ban WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy. The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex. The case is a major reexamination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state's ability to classify as a crime what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults. Thursday's ruling invalidated a...

FBI agents suspected lover as spy April 13, 2003 BY CURT ANDERSON WASHINGTON--Two former FBI counterintelligence agents suspected in 1991 that the woman with whom both were having an affair was passing sensitive information to the Chinese, but neither told a superior, according to government documents. Former agent James J. Smith and former FBI supervisor William Cleveland Jr. kept under wraps their knowledge that Katrina Leung, an FBI intelligence ''asset'' for two decades, had contacts with intelligence services of the Chinese government. Cleveland, who retired from the FBI in 1993, resigned from his counterintelligence position at the Lawrence Livermore National...

An important but little-noticed Federal lawsuit is scheduled to go to court in February. Nearly six years four agents of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Narcotics Investigation(BNI) filed a civil rights complaint in the US DIstrict Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The lawsuit alleged that "certain persons in the State Department and the CIA" had obstructed an investigation of the Dominican narcotics cartel, which controlledmuch of the trade in cocaine and heroin along the eastern seaboard. There is also evidence that the Dominican narcotics cartel may have indirectly financed the terrorist network that carried out the first World Trade...

Interesting book about the personalities and politics of the early Atomic Era.