Free Republic

WASHINGTON — If Ron Paul's supporters got together for a family portrait, it would be one of those pictures in which no one seems to resemble anyone else. "You have old-school Republicans, the conservatives who backed Barry Goldwater (in 1964). You have the antiwar crowd who are principled non-interventionists," said Jim Forsythe, a former Air Force major who's organized meet-and-greet sessions in New Hampshire for the Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate. You also have businessmen tired of government regulation, college students who like his views on holistic medicine and middle-aged folks who don't see Social Security helping them in...

NORTH Korea today claimed the US and South Korea were planning a nuclear war against the communist state, accusing them of devising a war plan and stocking up on the latest weapons. "The madcap nuclear war moves against the DPRK (North Korea) are extremely reckless proactive acts that make the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula all the more difficult to resolve and drive the situation to its worst," the Korea National Peace Committee said in a statement carried on the North's KCNA news agency. The statement also said the North's own nuclear test was part of preparations to defend...

A Kansas church group that planned to demonstrate at the funerals of five Amish girls killed in an attack on their one-room schoolhouse has dropped the picket plans, a reversal that came hours after Pennsylvania's governor offered the Amish police protection. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church issued a statement today saying a representative will appear on a nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Mike Gallagher instead of picketing the funerals. Gallagher's website indicated the group was offered an hour of airtime tomorrow in exchange for dropping the planned demonstration. In preparation for the demonstration, Governor Ed Rendell said...

In what might be the prelude to a High Court petition, the Association for Civil Rights on Monday demanded that Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz instruct the government not to strip three Hamas parliamentarians from east Jerusalem of their Israeli residency status. The cabinet decided to take the step following last Thursday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv which killed nine people and wounded dozens. "The decision of the ministers is unworthy, illegal and unconstitutional, and it is your job to make that clear to them and to refrain from giving legal backing to their decision," ACRI attorney Oded Feller wrote Mazuz. He...

VENEZUELAN military officers have started classes in unconventional warfare to repel an invasion left-wing President Hugo Chavez warns Washington is planning. Snipers draped in foliage and civilian reservists armed with knives, catapults and handguns crawled out of a hidden tunnel in a mock demonstration as an instructor lectured officers on resistance tactics. Captains joined lieutenants straining behind a cordon to see another soldier camouflaged inside tree perch as he fired a bow and peppered a uniformed dummy target with arrows. "If no one comes, then that's fine, we can continue as the free and sovereign country we are, but we...

A major rift has emerged at the American Civil Liberties Union under the leadership of Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, whom critics charge is more interested in fund-raising than in civil liberties. Among several issues that have angered board members, Romero has committed to name a new ACLU office building in Washington, D.C., after Peter B. Lewis, an insurance magnate and major contributor, without consulting the board. "I don't think it's appropriate for us to name anything after anyone other than a founder or leader of the organization," Marjorie Esman, a lawyer who represents the board's Louisiana affiliate, said in...

LONDON - Mark McGowan went into the tiny backroom kitchen of a south London gallery three weeks ago and flipped on the cold water. He didn't turn it off, and doesn't plan to for an entire year. "The Running Tap," as it's called, is McGowan's effort to protest against wasted water in London by blatantly letting it go down the drain. "When you've got the tap on at home, you don't think about it. That's why this is art, because it makes people consider it," the environmentalist said. The gushing faucet is an expensive exhibition that could waste about 3.9...

Remote viewing is nothing new in Tibetan monasteries. For thousands of years remote viewing in the middle of other spiritual activities have dominated Tibetan culture. What some Indian tourists came to learn from a few Tibetan monasteries under the current Chinese rule is extremely alarming and fascinating. According to these tourists remote viewers are seeing world powers in the course of self-destruction. They also see that the world will not be destroyed. Between now and 2012 the world super powers will continue to engage in regional wars. Terrorism and covert war will be the main problem. In world politics something...

WASHINGTON—The dream has become a nightmare. Not only did George Bush win, but he captured the presidency by a margin of what now looks like 4 million votes. That's a clear mandate and a big green light for the right wing to push ahead with an ideological program. Barring an almost mathematically impossible outcome in Ohio, there will be no suprise win by John Kerry, no swooping in by a centrist Democrat to vanquish the specter of a modern American theocracy. Bush will have no meaningful opposition, with a fully Republican Congress at his disposal. Even Tom Daschle, the Senate...

The Associated Press (AP) will be the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night. However, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP will receive that information. They refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country. But, circumstantial evidence suggests that is exactly what will happen. And what can be downloaded can also be uploaded. Computer experts say that signals can travel both to and from computerized voting machines through...

I am watching Hannity give this sKerry apologist say that stopping the war is something to be proud of. Yet, nothing is mentioned about the true results of our defeat. Correct me if I am wrong but didn't millions die in Nam and Cambodia because of our premature withdrawal?

<p>As the alien-worshiping Raelian sect prepared yesterday to assemble proof that a woman has given birth to the first-ever cloned human baby, some research scientists raised questions about the impartiality and skills of the Boston-based freelance journalist handpicked to verify the claim.</p>