Free Republic

Chicago friends of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Sen. Barack Obama say both men are simply sad following a controversy and eventual falling out that came to sad head Tuesday. ... CBS 2 Chief correspondent Jay Ervine reports Obama felt betrayed and Wright felt sand-bagged. Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church said he has been speaking to both men as the events of the past 24 hours unfolded. He counseled Obama Tuesday morning...

... Obama says he reads the Bible, though not as regularly as he'd like, now that he's on the campaign trail. But he does find time to pray. "The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass." Friends and advisors, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in the Auburn-Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass, he says.

No one ever accused Patrick J. Buchanan of lacking conviction or of consulting a focus group before saying what he thinks. In his new book, "Day of Reckoning," the former presidential candidate, columnist and TV pundit confronts readers with many irrefutable facts that if left unaddressed, he believes, will lead to America's destruction. That may sound extreme, even apocalyptic, until one considers his assertions: "The Army is breaking and is too small to meet America's global commitments; the dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments"; and perhaps most controversial of all - "the greatest...

Let us make war on the phrase "violence doesn't solve anything." It is a lie, and anyone who utters it cannot be taken morally seriously. Take, for example, the American use of violence against the Taliban. Thanks to it, Afghani women may get an education, attend public events without a male escort and otherwise ascend above their prior status as captive animals. Thanks to American violence in Afghanistan, Islamic terror has started to decline in prestige among many Muslims who had previously romanticized it. Though many Muslims still glorify Muslims who blow themselves up in order to murder Jews and...

Dear Maceman, This past Friday, the White House accused Senator Kennedy -- and, by extension, you -- of "leveling baseless and false attacks that send the wrong signal to our troops and our enemy during a time of war." It's the usual spin -- invoking the name of America's bravest to dodge pointed criticism -- but it's rare for this Administration to specifically target a Senator. The White House is coming after us because we're right -- and they know it. And the pressure on them will only increase as we continue to tell the truth to hundreds of thousands...

At 14, I worked in my friend's dad's thrift shop. I made less than minimum wage for cleaning bathrooms and taking inventory. The work wasn't glamorous, but I learned to save. My dream was to build a weather station. I devoured meteorology books, and weather equipment catalogs. My grandma gave me a barometer that measured pressure in millibars, and a hygrometer for humidity readings. I saved for an indoor-outdoor thermometer and an anemometer, a device to measure wind speed. I finally saved enough for a hand-held anemometer, a plastic tube with a Styrofoam ball inside. The faster the wind, the...

It's Now Official: Individuals and Cultural Diversity Determine Right or Wrong by William R. Darcy Sometimes the signposts of massive cultural change are not always evident. Being sympathetic to the plight of individuals and being tolerant of the opinions of others has always been a strength of America. And in a nation of immigrants it has always been easier (but not easy) to curb the natural human tendency to be suspicious and downright hostile to those of another clan or country. But since the 1960s, and with increasing force in the 1990s, those tendencies have been transformed into a view...