Free Republic

Jabbar Magruder is an active duty Army National Guard sergeant who served 11 months in Iraq. He was hoping that stateside Americans would get a glimpse of what the war was like when several dramas featuring the Iraq conflict either in the foreground or the background hit theaters this fall. Snip.But to some Iraq veterans, like Magruder, who have tried to raise awareness about the war's perils, the apathy represents a larger disconnect many Americans feel toward the war. Implicit in the Redford, Streep and Tom Cruise film "Lions for Lambs" is a challenge to filmgoers to become impassioned about...

WASHINGTON – As small towns across the United States enact tough ordinances to fight illegal immigration, the American Civil Liberties Union is leading a charge to fight the measures in court.The national civil rights group has joined Hispanic organizations in suing several towns, saying that the laws are unconstitutional and conflict with state and federal immigration and housing statutes. Most of the ordinances target landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that hire them."These ordinances promote and encourage discrimination ... (and) heighten suspicion about anyone who looks or sounds foreign," said Vic Walczak, legal director of the ACLU in Pennsylvania,...

Al Franken "The Truth (with jokes)" Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. In the Day Chapel Free and Open to the Public Comic and author Al Franken will discuss his new book, "The Truth (with jokes)" . This program is co-sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book and A Cappella Books.

Incidents similar to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are occurring every day in the United States and around the world, but few people are doing anything about it. This was the overarching message presented by leading feminist Catharine MacKinnon during a provocative lecture yesterday that underscored the parallels between the ongoing war on terror and what she sees as a war on women. “A kind of war is being fought, but there is no name for this war in which men are the aggressors and women the victims,” she said. MacKinnon, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School,...

At the first annual Paul Wellstone Memorial Dinner, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is honored. Moore speaks about Bush administration policy and various labor and economic issues. Sen. Wellstone (D-WI), one of the more liberal and progressive members of the Senate, died in a plane crash in October of 2002. TODAY [11-23-05] , C-SPAN, 8PM ET

Sacramento -- A bevy of Nobel laureates and celebrities have written a letter urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence of Stanley Tookie Williams, himself a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Williams, 51, the co-founder of the Crips gang convicted of four 1979 murders, is scheduled to be executed at San Quentin State Prison on Dec. 13. The letter praises Williams' work as an anti-gang crusader, including writing children's books. "Each year at the holiday season voices the world over cry out for peace," states the letter to the governor. "This year, one of them, a voice of great...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch animal lovers are mourning a sparrow shot dead after it fluttered into an exhibition hall and knocked over thousands of dominoes set up in preparation for a world record attempt. The sparrow will be commemorated in a live Dutch television broadcast of the domino-toppling Friday after a wave of national outrage at the shooting. "We know we are responsible for a lot of emotion in the country and we realize we couldn't go on without properly marking this," said Jeroen van Waardenberg, a spokesman for reality TV company Endemol, the firm behind "Big Brother." An exterminator...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hollywood director Rob Reiner warned the California Hospital Association Friday to withdraw or rewrite a ballot proposal it's pushing for 2006. "If the initiative remains in its current form, I will have no other option but to actively and aggressively oppose it," Reiner said in a letter to C. Duane Dauner, the association's president.Reiner championed a 1998 ballot proposal slapping a 50-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes to fund health and education programs for children up to 5 years old, now known as First 5 California. In his letter, Reiner argued the hospital proposal, which calls for a...

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.We might also add, it was the same information that you were hearing from the same sources the President had. We might also add that the British Intelligence, French Intelligence, Russian Intelligence, Italian Intelligence, and Israeli Intelligence all believed exactly the same...

'Woman of Mass Destruction' jibe turns into catfight By Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 13/11/2005) It has erupted into one of the great catfights of American journalism: Judith Miller, the veteran reporter who went to jail because she refused to reveal a source's name, and Maureen Dowd, her equally outspoken long-term colleague on the New York Times. The pencil-thin Miller, who quit the newspaper last week after being criticised by her editors, has launched a fightback after being denounced by Dowd. Veteran reporter Judith Miller: 'My conscience is clear' In an article entitled "Woman of Mass Destruction", the flame-haired columnist...

Iowa Reaction To Daschle's Appearance Former Senator Tom Daschle hasn't ruled out a run for the White House in 2008, and this weekend he gave a key speech in an important state. Daschle was the featured speaker at an event for Iowa democrats, the state whose caucuses kick off the presidential campaign. Former Senator Tom Daschle told Iowa democrats the Bush presidency is effectively over, and it's time for his party to take back the country. If Daschle decides to run for president himself, he'll make many more trips to Iowa, and democrats there say so far he's been well...

Al Franken says he loves to perform for U.S. troops overseas. "I love and honor our troops," he insists. Maybe he does while on the USO tours and amid the avalanche of goodwill publicity those tours generate for him when he returns. But consider this parody, called "Sorry," included on Franken's CD "The O'Franken Factor": Sorry 'bout the prisoners Sorry they got raped Sorry they got tortured Sorry it got taped ... Believe me when I say their apology is sincere I'm awfully sorry for that broomstick up their rear ... That's just one of the revelations of a new...

While American soldiers successfully combat terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, a widespread insurgency continues in France's emanating from Islamic migrant areas. The violence and destruction spread across the country yesterday with more than 900 cars torched in one night. Observers, experts in security and police operations, wonder if the French are capable of putting down this insurrection. French police initiated a helicopter response and claim they arrested close to 200 Muslim rioters. Police commanders and their superiors say they intend to step up action against rioters responsible for 10 nights of violence. The destruction has spread to the...

Tony Award-winning actor Denis O'Hare is considering emigration after his boyfriend was detained as a terror suspect by police at a Virginia airport. The Take Me Out star was returning from his sister's wedding with Hugo Redwood, when their one-way tickets prompted an extra security check. Redwood's ill-advised jest that they were terror suspects led to his temporary arrest, as well as charges of disorderly conduct. But Redwood believes the allegations are ridiculous and unlawful. He says, "The incident report, if you read it, is laughable. It's clearly perjured to cover their asses. The second guard said he heard me...

A hearing is set over CHP warning that nudity at a Capitol rally will lead to arrests. Mendocino County women who have been baring their breasts at various venues to protest the war in Iraq are in Sacramento federal court seeking an order prohibiting the California Highway Patrol from arresting them during a planned noon demonstration Monday at the Capitol. The women's group, Breasts Not Bombs, is suing CHP Commissioner Mike Brown and two of his officers over a warning that if the women demonstrate while topless, they will be arrested and charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct.

Hot off the digital camera, pictures of the action today at Union Square. A communist front organization, The World Can't Wait, sponsored and organized today's protest. The theme was RESIST OR DIE: DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME. There were a few of us there counter-protesting as well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesofperfection/sets/1279186/ Also here are pictures from the Support our Troops and their Mission weekend in DC in September.

Today's the official launch date for my new book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild: I had fun with this one (wait 'til you see the back cover) and think you'll enjoy it--or, if you're on the other side of the aisle, you'll enjoy hating it. (Brian Maloney and Instapundit have more on the flame wars. Thanks, gentlemen.) The fabulous Roman Genn did the front-cover illustration. Left-wing lunatics provided the endorsement blurbs on the back cover. My intrepid researchers, Lisa de Pasquale and Floyd Resnick of New York Close Protection Services, dug up many of the photos featured inside the book's...

A Zimbabwean minister has said that many of those given land since 2000 know little about farming and this has led to shortages....In a secretly filmed report for the BBC villagers said they had been eating one meal of porridge a day since May. A woman said her two children had died after eating poisionous roots because they were so hungry....

Rome bans goldfish bowls From: Reuters From correspondents in Rome October 26, 2005 ROME has banned goldfish bowls, which animal rights activists said are cruel, and has made regular dog walking mandatory, the city council said. Under a new by-law, round fish bowls were banned along with fish and other creatures being given away for fairground prizes. The moves came after a national law was passed to allow jail sentences for people who abandon cats or dogs. "It's good to do whatever we can for our animals who in exchange for a little love fill our existence with their attention,"...

October 25, 2005, 8:27 a.m. Moore Hypocrites Than True Believers? Exposing the Do As I Say (Not As I Do) Left. Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez The mother of Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer is lucky that her son is an hypocrite. Her son is a leading proponent of excising the undesirable — the imperfect via abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. The disabled would fall under there, also, sometimes, the elderly. Peter Singer's mother has Alzheimer's. Peter Schweizer reports in his new book Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy that "far from embracing his own...

While dangerous and morally reprehensible, one can at least admire the convoluted logic of the Left and the brashness with which it is waved under the noses of disbelieving Americans. But has anyone considered that many on the Left are just…not very bright?

NEW YORK Al Gore says television is damaging American democracy. The former vice president was the keynote speaker at a conference on citizen journalism, He said the high cost of entry into television means that the only ideas that get debated are those that can pass muster with the corporations wealthy enough to broadcast. As he put it, "There is no meritocracy of ideas on T-V." Gore is co-founder of a television company that seeks in part to put television production into the hands of individuals. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,...

After initially putting the first chapter of fired CBS producer Mary Mapes's book, Truth and Duty, on its web site, Amazon.com has apparently pulled the plug on the enterprise. Visitors to the online book retailer can no longer read the excerpt as it no longer shows up in listings for the print or audio versions of the book.Was the excerpt yanked because of the several objectively incorrect assertions it contained, and the subsequent blog firestorm their exposition caused? Only Amazon or Mapes's publisher, St. Martin’s Press knows for sure.

Mandela wins BBC's 'global election' Former South African President Nelson Mandela has topped a BBC poll to find the person most people would like to lead a fantasy world government. More than 15,000 people worldwide took part in the interactive Power Play game, in which players were invited to choose a team of 11 to run the world from a list of around 100 of the most powerful leaders, thinkers and other high-profile people on the planet. The second choice was former US President Bill Clinton. The winning 11 were exclusively male, with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi...

'COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF' SUTHERLAND: BUSH WILL DESTROY OUR LIVES Choking back tears, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF star Donald Sutherland warned this week: President Bush "will destroy our lives!" The star of the new ABC drama, which follows the first woman President of the United States, lashed out at the real White House during a dramatic sit down interview with the BBC. Sutherland ripped Bush and his administration for the war and Hurricane Katrina fallout. "They were inept. The were inadequate to the task, and they lied," Sutherland charged. "And they were insulting, and they were vindictive. And they were heartless. They did not care. They...

After the levees broke in New Orleans, the city appeared to descend into chaos before our eyes. Americans sat in front of their TVs, watching Katrina's flooding and hearing tales of horror. On Sept. 2, ABC's "Good Morning America" described New Orleans "as the city spirals out of control." Charles Gibson continued: "There appears to be anarchy. Reports of rapes, riots, fires, bodies in the street." That was how much of the media depicted New Orleans – a city lost to anarchy. Only it wasn't true. There is no doubt that Katrina was an incredible tragedy, but it was nowhere...

Anti War Nostalgiaby Chris Shugart Sep  28, 2005 Ever since the mainstream media’s canonization of Cindy Sheehan as the patron saint of anti-war activism, leftists have been in a state of rapture over the attention they’ve been getting. To hear them tell it, we’re witnessing a renaissance of left wing idealism not seen since the halcyon days of Viet Nam, Berkeley and Abbie Hoffman. If only they could see themselves as others seem them.  The rest of us saw hordes of angry malcontents, a lot of incoherent screaming, meaningless slogans, and hostile rants aimed at some mythical imperialist power elite....

Noam Chomsky is often hailed as America's premier dissident intellectual, a fearless purveyor of truth fighting against media propaganda, murderous U.S. foreign policy, and the crimes of profit-hungry transnational corporations. He enjoys a slavish cult-like following from millions leftist students, journalists, and activists worldwide who fawn over his dense books as if they were scripture. To them, Chomsky is the supreme deity, a priestly master whose logic cannot be questioned. However as one begins to examine the interviews and writings of Chomsky, a different picture emerges. His books, so vociferously lauded in leftist circles, appear to be calculated disinformation designed...

Al Franken and Randi Rhodes are getting the boot from Philadelphia airwaves, as WHAT-AM (1340) is pulling off programming from Air America, the liberal talk-radio network. Friday will be the last day, and a new WHAT lineup will begin Monday, said general manager Kernie Anderson, adding that "things were not working out" with Air America after about a year. WHAT aired Air America's programming from noon to 7 p.m. weekdays, sandwiched between the rest of its lineup. The juxtaposition of liberal talk and WHAT's African America-targeted talk programming seemed an odd fit from the start. Ratings were abysmal.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita packed a wallop — not just with weather that ravaged a region, but also in lessons of hysteria and the power of fear. Now that winds have calmed and the hot air of punditry has found new objects of bloviation, we learn that much of what we thought we knew was wrong. That sentence has a familiar, and unwelcome, ring to it. We know what comes next:

Click photo below to watch the debate: On Hardball [Only if You’re a Republican] tonight Chris Matthews discussed “no bid” contracts with Rep. Pete King (R) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D). When questioned about Chertoff and the President taking Katrina seriously, King doesn’t take any crap from Chris: KING: As far as President Bush, it’s wrong for you to say he wasn’t caring, he certainly was caring. What he was not equipped for was to explain for the incompetency of the local officials or to explain the hysteria… to anticipate the hysteria of people like you in the media...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issued a stern warning Saturday about the continuing U.S. role in Iraq, saying "there are no good options at this point and the worst days may be ahead of us." Albright, secretary of state under President Clinton, said the March 2003 invasion of Iraq has led to a series of misfortunes that should have been anticipated. "Instead of winning friends for America, it has poisoned our relations with many countries in the Mideast and the Muslim world," Albright told a conference on the role of citizens in shaping the...

TORONTO - Actress Shirley MacLaine denounced US leaders while promoting her latest film, calling it an antidote for the angst and confusion felt by some of her compatriots. "In a country where we're all having trouble and struggling with what is the truth and who we are and why everybody is lying to us, I liked the idea of making a really honest picture," the Academy Award-winning actress said at the Toronto International Film Festival. In Her Shoes" by director Curtis Hanson ("8 Mile" and "L.A. Confidential") stars Cameron Diaz ("There's Something About Mary" and "Charlie's Angels") and Toni Collette...

Former Vice President Al Gore urged Americans on Friday to hold the Bush administration accountable for failing to adequately prepare for and respond to Hurricane Katrina. "When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable," Gore told environmentalists at the Sierra Club's national convention.

A pre-school in Maryland has lost at least one customer after a student's father working on the school's newsletter was told he must change a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting in the publication to "Happy Parent's Day." David Becker of Kensington, Md., had a 3-year-old son at the Kensington Forest Glen Children's Center, which is overseen by the umbrella organization Montgomery Child Care Association. "My wife and I have always been very involved with the school and with the teachers," Becker told WND. The trouble began when Becker, while typing the newsletter, changed a hand-written greeting from "Happy Parent's Day!" to...

[Mel Gilles, who has worked for many years as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse, draws some parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to the election.-- Mathew Gross] Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing...

If you can't find an AM station in your area, listen online to Hugh Hewitt as he is about evsicerate move on dot org for their Nazi ads. This should be fun. KRLA.

Soros calls for 'regime change' in US Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has called for an end to the Bush administration ahead of next year's presidential elections. Mr Soros - whose Foundations Network has given $1bn around the world to various causes to help tackle poverty and disease - told BBC Radio 4's United Nations Or Not? programme that the US would only stop pursuing "extremist" policies if there was a change at the White House. "It is only possible if you have a regime change in the United States - in other words if President Bush is voted out of...