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COMPLAINTS ABOUT racism still dominate media discussion of the disparity between black and white success. Comedian Chris Rock tells white audiences, "None of ya would change places with me! And I'm rich! That's how good it is to be white!" I assumed that the success of Barack Obama, as well as thousands of other black Americans and dark-skinned immigrants -- many of whom thrive despite language problems -- demonstrates that America today is largely a colorblind meritocracy. But a white campus lecturer, Tim Wise, gets tremendous applause from students by saying things like, "[W]hite supremacy and privilege continue to skew...

Thank heavens for Peggy Noonan who so often manages, so elegantly, to articulate the meandering germs running through my brain but remaining unexpressed due to my lack of skill.In appreciating William F. Buckley today she writes: …When Jackie Onassis died, a friend of mine who knew her called me and said, with such woe, “Oh, we are losing her kind.” He meant the elegant, the cultivated, the refined. I thought of this with Bill’s passing, that we are losing his kind–people who were deeply, broadly educated in great universities when they taught deeply and broadly, who held deep views of...

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege. The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals. Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted...

Survey focuses on what white people think about being white MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (9/6/2006) -- What whites think about their own race is the focus of a first-of-its-kind national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology. From a telephone survey of more than 2,000 households nationwide, results show that there is more recognition among white people of their own racial identity and the social privileges that come with it than was previously thought. The assumption behind prior scholarship and diversity training initiatives was that whites overlooked their own race. "It's sort of like having an accent," said...

Motorists would be banned from using handheld cell phones - a problem blamed for thousands of vehicle crashes and fatalities - under a bill expected to be approved by the Legislature next week. Modeled after a New York City law, Senate Bill 1613 would fine drivers using handheld cell phones $20 for the first offense and $50 for subsequent offenses beginning Jan. 1, 2008. It would not apply to drivers using hands-free models and would exempt motorists using handheld cell phones in emergencies. And the legislation would remain in effect only until July 1, 2011, unless renewed. "Cell phones are...

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush issued an executive order Tuesday suspending Miami City Commissioner Johnny Winton from office pending the outcome of criminal charges stemming from an altercation Winton had with police at Miami International Airport last month. Police say an intoxicated Winton struck police at MIA after his flight was canceled May 15. He banged his head against a wall at one point, chipped one officer's tooth and kicked another officer in the groin, officials say. Winton has entered not-guilty pleas to two felony counts of battery on a police officer and a misdemeanor count of disorderly intoxication. The felony...

Investigation Continues as Congressman Enters Mayo Clinic May 5, 2006 — Capitol Police have taken disciplinary action against a watch commander for the handling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's car accident, acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin said. Lou Cannon of of the Fraternal Order of Police for the District of Columbia said there are questions about whether Rep. Patrick Kennedy received special treatment. (ABC News) McGaffin said the incident was improperly delayed due to "poor judgment" on the part of police managers and that a field sobriety test should have been administered to Kennedy after his car hit a barrier...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Patrick Kennedy wrecked his car in an early morning accident on Capitol Hill Thursday, and police say supervisors stopped them from giving him a sobriety test. Two police union officials, who were not at the scene, complained that the Rhode Island congressman and son of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., looked like he'd been drinking after crashing into a barrier near the Capitol building at 2:45 a.m. "The driver exited the vehicle and he was observed to be staggering," Officer Greg Baird, the acting head of the Capitol police union, wrote in a letter to his boss, according...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

/begin my translation   N. Korea Ordered 300 Volkswagen Cars, Including a Luxury Sedan   by Kim Jong-ho Recently, N. Korea purchased about 300 passenger cars from Volkswagen, including top-class luxury model Phaeton, and mid-size model Passat in Europe. A source from Volkswagen Korea said on (Jan.) 28th, "We heard from an executive from the headquarter who visited here recently that N. Koreans came to Volkswagen headquarter in Germany, and placed orders for 300 Passats, mid-size car, and 5 Phaetons, a top-class luxury sedan." N. Koreans first placed orders for 300 Passats (engine displacement: 1,800~2,000 cc(cubic centimeter)), airlifted one Phaeton with 6-cylinder engine(engine displacement 6,000cc) to Pyongyang, and...

What part of ‘no answer’ is it that the Liberals don’t understand? The Supreme Court’s ruling on the proposed same-sex marriage legislation was supposed to be their magic bullet against opponents of the bill but the Justices surprised everyone and declined to pull the trigger. The court only reaffirmed the position that it has stated in the past, that government can redefine marriage if it wants to, while refusing to say that government must redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. You would never know that listening to Justice Minister Irwin Cotler though. Having failed to get the Supreme Court to...

The battle over same-sex marriage is partly about setting the standard used to determine a couple’s fitness to marry. Just the fact that there is such a thing as a fitness test shows that a legally recognized marriage is a privilege, not a right. There is no such thing as a fitness test to quality for a human right. If you attempt to create a fitness test for speech you have censorship, create a fitness test for the right to live and you have eugenics. With privileges, the opposite is true: a standard must exist and if you don’t meet...

As the character played by John Huston, said in Chinatown, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” Beware, so do terrorists! The world just witnessed the burial of one reconstructed murderer in Ramallah, and if we are not careful, we might reconstruct another. It is high time to put Bin Laden in perspective. Islam is not his prime motivation. Perhaps too much ink has been spilled trying to expose Osama bin Laden to a Western audience. As many writers have thoughtfully argued, we have created the myth of Bin Laden through all our media...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Stretching around the northeastern boundary of Boston Harbor sits a small, picturesque town with seven miles of beach, shady fruit trees, and quaint cottages. The town is part of a peninsula that, in 1632, the founding governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, annexed from local tribes. Since 1846, it has continuously borne the family name--Winthrop, Massachusetts. The town is but one of many signs of the storied role the Winthrops have played in New England and American history. Seven generations after Governor Winthrop formed his Puritan colony, Robert Charles Winthrop became Speaker of the United States House of...

Two Universes - “Tyranny,” and “Freedom.” “Why did the Founders not treat freemen, slaves, women, Indians and non-Christians as equal to Christians?” I hope the following [fantasized] answer is reasonable enough to answer the question, or at least suggest one. ============================== Some believe parallel and overlapping universes exist in the same space. Sometimes they are separate while in other times they mingle, overlap or bump. We live in our three-dimensional universe, while others creatures live in universes with more or less than three dimensions. Because all we know are our three dimensions, imagining what a six dimensional universe looks like,...

The Bush Administration reverses itself. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will break precedent and testify publicly under oath before the 911 Commission. And if any of you saw the hatchet job Ted Koppel did tonight on Bush (using references to Paul O'Neill as further "proof" of Bush's fixation on Iraq/Saddam), I can only say... BRING IT ON, Condi!!!

May 11, 2:41 PM (ET) LOS ANGELES (AP) - The federal government should guarantee parents protection against testifying against their own children, former White House intern and reality TV host Monica Lewinsky says. In an opinion piece published in Sunday's Los Angeles Times, Lewinsky said it seemed appropriate on Mother's Day to urge Congress to establish a parent-child privilege. "We have a husband-wife privilege, a doctor-patient privilege, an attorney-client privilege and even a privilege between priest and penitent," she wrote. "Isn't the parent-child relationship every bit as important, if not more so?" Lewinsky had a sexual relationship with President Clinton...

=============================== NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100 Washington DC 20037 World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org =============================== For release: February 6, 2003 =============================== For additional information: George Getz, Press Secretary Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222 E-Mail: pressreleases@hq.LP.org =============================== Justice Department's actions in Martha Stewart case reveal double standard, Libertarians say WASHINGTON, DC ? Reports that federal investigators may file criminal charges against celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart raise a troubling question, Libertarians say: Why aren't Dick Cheney and Terry McAuliffe facing criminal charges as well? After all, both the vice president and the head of the Democratic National...