Free Republic

William Consuegra was recently selected to National Association of Industrial and Office Properties NAIOP Leadership Discovery Program, one of 20 young professionals from around the country chosen to this program. He was also recently nominated by Governor Bill Richardson to the New Mexico Commission on Public Broadcasting. He is currently a third year law student at the University of New Mexico School of Law and an intern with the Land Development Office at Forest City Mesa del Sol. He is also a nominee for the Term Member Program with the Council on Foreign Relations (nominated by Governor Bill Richardson and...

This evening, in honor of the publication of My Grandfather's Son, the Heritage Foundation hosted a dinner for Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia, along with a group of conservative journalists and "new media" types. I have been at social gatherings where Justice Thomas was present but had never actually met him before. Those who know him have told me how warm and gracious he is, and these qualities certainly were evident tonight. Justice Thomas began his after-dinner remarks by saying he wishes the new media had been around at the time of his confirmation hearings because it "gets beyond...

Giuliani: Gun control helped lower crime 5 minutes ago Rudy Giuliani addressed a potentially troublesome issue with conservative voters, saying his policies as mayor to get handguns off the street helped reduce crime in New York. "I used gun control as mayor," he said at a news conference Saturday during a swing through California. But "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms." He said what he did as mayor would have no effect on hunting. Addressing another potential trouble spot with conservatives, Giuliani spoke in favor of a border fence, saying, "You have to have...

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP ADDRESS TO THE QUADRANT MAGAZINE 50TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER, FOUR SEASONS HOTEL, SYDNEY Thank you very much Paddy McGuinness, Chief Justice, Justices, Your Eminence, Your Grace, my Parliamentary colleagues and ladies and gentlemen. I’m finally succumbing to Peter Garrett’s advice and its great to embrace an evening of culture and poetry and all of that after overdosing on my Philistine sporting pursuits over the weekend in almost the four corners of the Earth, from one side of the country to the other. But it really is an enormous pleasure for Janette...

...Winfrey, 52, who is reportedly worth more than $1 billion, said she doesn't feel guilty about her wealth. "I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips," she said. "I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me. She said, 'Don't you just feel guilty? Don't you just feel terrible?' I said, 'No, I don't. I do not know how me being destitute is going to help them.' Then I said when we got home, 'I'm going home to sleep on my Pratesi sheets right now and I'll feel good about it.' "

Movie-maker OLIVER STONE has blasted media groups who "slander" celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders. The Vietnam veteran, who is a fierce opponent of the US leadership, is appalled every time a celebrity is rudely mocked for making his or her thoughts about PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH and the war in Iraq public, and he urges journalists to be more supportive. The NATURAL BORN KILLERS director says, "We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal. "I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as...

Billionaires are going ballistic. Ronald Lauder has joined trigger-happy tycoons Donald Trump and Seagrams scion Edgar Bronfman Sr. as the richest men in the city packing heat, according to the NYPD's gun-permit list. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, and multimillionaire Marvel Comics CEO Isaac Perlmutter are the newest gun-club members licensed to carry a weapon - topping a list that already included "Mean Streets" actors Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, "Scarface" producer Martin Bregman and shock jocks Don Imus and Howard Stern. Other gun-toting notables - who have a license to carry as opposed to a permit to keep their...

LIMA, Peru - Carlos Santana quoted his old friend Jimi Hendrix in an anti-war message here Monday and said his philosophy is the antithesis of President George W. Bush's. "I have wisdom. I feel love. I live in the present and I try to present a dimension that brings harmony and healing," the 58-year-old rock icon said. "My concept is the opposite of George W. Bush." Santana, speaking to Peruvian journalists ahead of a Tuesday concert, said young people's opposition to the war in Iraq is reaching the dimensions of the anti-Vietnam war sentiment in the 1970s. "There is more...

Way back when I was a cub reporter, I got hold of a book about the "art" of interviewing. It was a thin book — no use spending thousands of words to tell a reporter, cub or old Grizzly, to bone up on a subject and let natural curiosity take its course. That thin book came to mind on reading a three-part series in The New York Times about an imam named Reda Shata, who presides over the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, N.Y. As far as the art of interviewing goes, the reporter got it exactly backward:...

The Oscars may be over, but parents still need to teach their kids to laugh at Tinseltown's left-wing celebrities, says best-selling children's author Katharine DeBrecht. Her highly anticipated new book lampoons stars Streisand, Madonna, and Cruise, and was given out in Oscar gift bags. It is available in stores today.LOS ANGELES, March 7 /PRNewswire/ -- With Academy Awards being handed out to movies about racist cops, gay cowboys, and communist sympathizers, Hollywood has declared an outright war on traditional values. But instead of getting angry at the movie business, parents should teach their kids to laugh at it, this according...

Another state you should never visit passes an appalling abortion ban, because they hate youAttention all funky sexy single intelligent women of South Dakota (assuming there are any left): It is time. Pack it up. Strip the bed, box up the cat, load the U-Haul, call your hip friends over in Minneapolis, move out West, or East, or anywhere with a mind-set not stuck like a bloody nail in the moral coffin of 1845. Let this be your clarion call. Get the hell out, right now. Here is why: You state hates you. Your state, apparently run be pallid sexless...

Ted Koppel kicked off his neo-pundit career by delivering a stern global warming speech in New York while outside a merciless snowstorm bore down on the Eastern Seaboard in a brutal blast of freezing -- Oh, wait -- that was Al Gore, wasn’t it? I tend to get all these neo-pundits mixed up. Mr. Koppel’s post-Nightline era more correctly began with a January 29 Op-Ed in the New York Times which is actually quite similar to Mr. Gore’s address both in fervent presentation and excruciatingly bad timing. Which may explain my confusion. Ted, likely grateful to now be immersed in...

This from the WCCC web site on Adj. Professor J. Daley For immediate release: November 22, 2005 Statement from Dr. William Austin President Warren County Community College I firmly believe that the most precious freedom all Americans share is the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. I am committed to working unceasingly to see that it is preserved for all WCCC students, faculty and staff. At the same time, there are existing state laws — as well as College policies and procedures — that must be followed to ensure that all members of our College are free and encouraged...

Neil Armstrong has proven to be an enigmatic hero. He is certainly one of the most famous astronauts, having achieved one of the great firsts in spaceflight. He reached that pinnacle through hard work, dedication, focus, endurance, a little luck, and no small amount of sheer talent. But he never really wanted the limelight, and he never really embraced The Cause. The Cause, of course, is space exploration, and it is no secret that most ardent supporters of space exploration, particularly human exploration, share many traits with religion. Their beliefs are based far more on faith than they are on...

Tonight on NBCs evening news, after the gleeful reporting of the 2,000th combat death in Iraq, giving only passing mention to the fact that 79% of the voters in Iraq approved of the Iraqi Constitution and Bill of Rights, describing later that the people are still "divided", NBC went on to their continuing biased coverage of Plame-gate, There was either a deliberate lie, or a blatant example of lazy ineptness on behalf of the script David Gregory was reading. The comment was to the effect of "…regarding the phone conversations of Karl Rove, and whether or not he "outed" Valerie...

Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, in an appearance Friday on CNN's "Larry King Live," said Americans are too dumb to vote for the right candidates. "We're an ignorant nation right now," Mr. Cronkite said. "We're not really capable, I do not think the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time ....in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course." ...... "I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger."

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists still wants Diana Griego Erwin as a speaker next month, despite her Wednesday resignation from The Sacramento Bee over allegations that the paper could not verify the existence of some people mentioned in her columns. Erwin, who has denied fabricating sources, told the NSNC today that she's still coming to its June 23-26 conference in Grapevine, Texas. She is scheduled to speak the morning of June 24. "She's one of the best columnists in America -- and she has a real story to tell now," said Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist/conference host Dave Lieber, who...

ST. LOUIS - (KRT) - Bill Moyers denounced on Sunday the right wing and top officials at the White House, saying they are trying to silence their critics by controlling the news media. He also took aim at reporters who become little more than willing government "stenographers." And he said the public increasingly is content with just enough news to confirm its own biases. Moyers spoke in St. Louis at a conference on media reform. His reports have appeared on the Public Broadcasting System since the 1970s. He was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson and is a former newspaper...

Rick Rodriguez: Griego Erwin resigns amid internal inquiry into her columns By Rick Rodriguez -- Bee Executive Editor Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005 Diana Griego Erwin, whose column has appeared in this space three days a week, resigned Wednesday amid an internal inquiry into whether some people mentioned in several recent columns actually existed. During our inquiry we found we could not authenticate the existence of several people even though they were identified by name, age and sometimes by the neighborhoods in which they were reported to have lived. We used extensive online database searches as well...

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on. What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their...