Free Republic

LAWRENCE — Jorge Gomez sat at the bar at the Malaya Nightclub Saturday night and ran up a $118 bar tab while dressed as a woman. When he refused to pay the tab at the end of the night, club management called police about 1:15 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived, club security directed Officers Michael Mangan, Carmen Purpora and John Tully to the bar, where they met Gomez. He was dressed as a woman in jeans, a woman's sweater, high heels, earrings and makeup, police said. Club owner Juan Hidalgo told police he would forgive the bill if Gomez just...

Leaders of an effort to oust controversial Lawrence [MA] Mayor William Lantigua are worried that they may not have collected enough signatures for their recall election petition to be approved. The anti-Lantigua forces collected 5,600 signatures, turning the last ones just two minutes before the Aug. 8 deadline, apparently exceeding the minimum of 5,232. But city officials have told the group and the local media that hundreds of the signatures have not met certification criteria and been rejected. The city’s Board of Registrars will make an official statement at 5 p.m. today. “During our effort to collect the signatures, many...

LAWRENCE - A Lawrence man has been ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to slashing his grandmother’s throat and robbing her of $20. Rouluis Felix was arraigned Wednesday in Lawrence District Court and faces a number of charges including armed robbery and assault and battery on a person over age 60. Police said that the 22-year-old attacked his 66-year-old grandmother last week at her Lawrence apartment.

Last November, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell proudly declared himself a socialist on national television. On Wednesday, "The Last Word" host took this a huge step further saying the whole idea that Americans are rugged individualists is an illusion because they're all really socialists (video follows with transcript and commentary): (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America's wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people, with a healthy skepticism of too...

Soldier faces international scrutiny, death penalty Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011 By: Karen HenselLAWRENCEBURG, Ind. (WISH) - An Indiana soldier charged with murder is making international headlines. I-Team 8 investigated how the Indiana soldier is sitting within two of the more controversial aspects of the war in Afghanistan. It includes the controversy of the strained relationship between the U.S. and Afghan President Karzai and how the military treats soldiers with mental instability in the war zone. Indiana soldier Pfc. David Lawrence faces the death penalty for killing a top Taliban commander in a prison cell last October. The I-Team 8 investigation...

Where is video of Vicki Lawrence as Veda in movie spoof?

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very Liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what...

Soldier's trial has broader implications for military's treatment of mental health By Kevin Vaughan The Denver PostPosted: 12/05/2010 12:00:00 AM MST Updated: 12/05/2010 09:11:50 AM MST The questions raised in the case against Army Pfc. David Lawrence go far beyond whether he killed a shackled Taliban commander, or even whether he knew what he was doing when he pulled the trigger. They stretch to the military itself, and how commanders deal with service members who have mental-health problems during a time that the United States is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a time when military men and women...

Soldier's sanity debated in murder case Published: Dec. 1, 2010 at 3:58 PM FORT CARSON, Colo., Dec. 1 (UPI) -- A Colorado hearing for an Army private, accused of killing a prisoner in Afghanistan, heard conflicting reports on his mental state. Soldiers testified by telephone from Afghanistan Tuesday for Pfc. David Lawrence's preliminary hearing at Fort Carson, the Denver Post reported. Lawrence, 20, is charged with premeditated murder for allegedly killing Taliban commander Mullah Mohebullah in his cell Oct. 17, hours after his capture. The defense portrays a troubled young man who was put on antidepressants and sent back to...

A Fort Carson soldier will be court-martialed for the murder for an Afghan prisoner, despite claims by his defense attorney that he’s too mentally ill for trial. Pfc. David Lawrence’s case was referred to a general court martial Tuesday by Fort Carson commander Brig. Gen. James Doty. The 20-year-old soldier faces a maximum punishment of life in prison in the Oct. 17 shooting death of an alleged Taliban leader known by the pseudonym Mullah Mohebullah. “The date for the general court martial has not yet been determined,” Fort Carson said in a news release. During a December evidence hearing in...

PFC Lawrence is accused of premeditated murder for the alleged shooting of Mullah Muhibullah on Oct. 17 while guarding him in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Mullah Muhibullah was a senior Taliban commander and had been captured by U.S. forces the day before his death. Muhibullah's death was announced by an angry Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Oct. 19. Formal charges were filed against PFC Lawrence the same day, Oct. 19.

Patron saint of comics, chefs, paupers and comedians. That's my guy. From American Catholic.org The esteem in which the Church holds Lawrence is seen in the fact that today’s celebration ranks as a feast. We know very little about his life. He is one of those whose martyrdom made a deep and lasting impression on the early Church. Celebration of his feast day spread rapidly. He was a Roman deacon under Pope St. Sixtus II. Four days after this pope was put to death, Lawrence and four clerics suffered martyrdom, probably during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian. Legendary details...

LAWRENCE, Mass. – Driving around the snowy-to-slushy streets of this Massachusetts mill town on the Merrimack River, it’s clear that this community, nicknamed “Immigrant City,” has seen better days. Boarded-up buildings are visible around town. The large mills appear empty. Gang graffiti stains fences and abandoned houses. And with it’s sizable Hispanic population, largely Puerto Rican, there is also a fairly solid Democrat base here in Essex County. While there are a smattering of Martha Coakley for U.S. Senate signs around town, according to locals who follow politics, it’s not as many as one would normally expect in a major...

Larry was like a father to me. We spoke on the phone several times in May just before his death. Larry told me he was in the tent when Patton slapped that soldier and that he came over to Larry and Patton spoke to him. Larry said he wasn't sure if Patton was going to yell at him too and he was a bit afraid. I don't know the html to post a picture here so I'll just post links to 3 photos of Larry. God Bless Larry and all the other WWII Vets to die before him. http://www.rhyner.com/photos/lhb/larrybloedelbronzestar.jpg http://www.rhyner.com/photos/lhb/va_hospital.jpg...

He was arrested, subjected to humiliating interrogations, accused of spying for Israel, lived under the specter of a 13-year prison term and sold everything he owned to pay for his legal defense. But Lawrence Franklin, 63, a former senior officer in the U.S. Air Force, an intelligence expert, university professor and senior official in the U.S. administration, did not crack.

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...