Free Republic

One of the things that was apparent as I researched the book on Lexington, Virginia and the Civil War, was the mistreatment of Lexington's citizens (Union and Confederate) by Union general David Hunter's army. As my memory was refreshed, I also recalled how a number of Civil War bloggers have downplayed this aspect of the war, even questioning the veracity of some of the claims of Southern civilians; while others took a "so what?" attitude and, in some cases, actually became cheerleaders in justifying such treatment for the "slave-holding rebels." They often sound more like advocates of revenge than they...

Ms. Magazine tweeted this on January 28… … linking to this post on its blog: She was 14 years old and going into the 9th grade. From the moment she learned she was pregnant, she contemplated what to do. Not comprehending how to even deliver a baby (let alone how to take care of a child for the rest of her life) prompted grave fears about her future. Being the eldest of an immigrant family of seven, she learned early to take on the role of her family’s translator and primary caretaker. She could not fathom how she would tell...

A Republican legislator in New Mexico is seeking to force pregnant rape victims to carry the pregnancy to term, claiming the fetus could be used as "evidence" at trial. Rep. Cathrynn Brown's bill would charge a rape victim who sought an abortion with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence," The Huffington Post reported Wednesday. "Tampering with evidence consists of destroying, changing, hiding, placing or fabricating any physical evidence with intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person or to throw suspicion of the commission of a crime upon another," House Bill 206 reads. ~snip~ "The bill...

Links to cold cases found when activist arrested for knocking man down!An attack by a Colorado man with close ties to the Democratic Party on an elderly petition gatherer for Personhood USA has led to the identification of a suspect in a series of unsolved sexual assault cases, officials have confirmed to WND. William Costello, a real estate broker with ties to some of the state’s top political figures in the Democratic Party, was charged after his DNA was tied to unsolved sexual assault cases from 2008, 2010 and 2011. The Denver Post reported Costello was driving the SUV of...

When your opening act is an accused rapist and molester of women, a man who lied to a grand jury and was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, a man who actually stood in the Rose Garden of the White House and lied as follows: But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time -- never. These allegations are false. And I...

Wall Street is today braced for its first major demonstration in a year, as hundreds of people are expected to take to the streets to mark the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A series of "sit-ins" are planned throughout New York's financial district from about 7:30am, according to the organisers' website. The New York Stock Exchange, the headquarters of bailed-out insurer AIG and the New York Federal Reserve are expected to be among the targets. Monday's action follows a series of largely peaceful marches over the weekend in New York, where more than 200 people descended on...

p>I won't run through the usual litany of misdeeds. If you don't already know them by heart, you'll commit them to memory eventually when you finally tire of liberals screeching at you for "hating women" while holding this guy up as a secular saint. (Chappaquiddick material is abundant online, but this post will get you up to speed on another legendary incident.) I've got to say, in all sincerity: I appreciate their brazenness in building a convention around the theme of a "war on women" while not only inviting Bill Clinton to be a headline speaker but having a video...

Earlier this week, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota joined Vice President Joe Biden for a campaign event in Minnesota. "Biden got plenty of support from Minnesota Democrats," PostBulletin.com reports. "Sen. Al Franken praised Obama for pushing the health care law, saying it will help more seniors get help paying for prescriptions and will ensure Medicare's solvency for an additional eight years." But before Franken was a senator he was a writer on the TV show Saturday Night Live. Then, he famously joked about raping CBS reporter Lesley Stahl. As New York magazine reported in 1995, from a writing session that...

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem and several chapters of the National Organization for Women (NOW) have condemned the Democratic National Committee for “discrimination against mothers with young children” during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. “Women are the key to a Democratic victory, and sometimes, children are the key to women,” Steinem said in a statement. “It’s both right and smart for the Democratic Convention to behave as if children exist.” The NOW chapters of Southern California — including Hollywood, Long Beach-South Bay, Pacific Shore and Palm Spring — voiced concern this week that the Democratic National Convention will not...

The first Muslim to deliver the daily prayer to the U.S. House of Representatives was black convert Siraj Wahaj in 1991. It was an artful prayer, though he would deliver a very different message elsewhere just one year later. His ideas of what he really wanted as regards our federal government were fairly clear, "If we were united and strong, we'd elect our own emir [leader] and give allegiance to him. . . . [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us." Later, in 1995, he was a character witness for Omar...

President Obama weighed in on the national storm surrounding by Rep. Todd Akin, calling his comments "offensive." "The views expressed were offensive. Rape is rape," Obama said in a surprise appearance at the White House briefing. "And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we're talking about doesn't make sense to the American people. And certainly doesn't make sense to me," Obama said.

Occupy Wall Street sues NYC over confiscated booksBy Joseph Ax | Reuters – 9 hrs ago NEW YORK (Reuters) - Occupy Wall Street filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against New York City, claiming authorities destroyed $47,000 worth of books, computers and other equipment confiscated from the protesters' encampment in lower Manhattan last fall. **SNIP** As part of the sweep, Occupy claims, police officers seized more than 3,000 books from the "People's Library." While some of the books were eventually returned, many were in unusable condition, while the rest were apparently destroyed, according to Occupy's lawyer, Norman Siegel.

MANCHESTER, U.K., August 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An anesthetist at a Marie Stopes abortion facility in Manchester has been accused of using the hands of unconscious women to perform sexual acts on himself as they underwent abortions. Dr. Narendra Sharma is again facing allegations of misconduct at a hearing before the General Medical Council (GMC). Two staff members at the abortion facility have alleged that they saw him move a woman’s hand under the operating table and then noticed that he had exposed his genitals. The Manchester Crown Court in April 2009 acquitted the anesthetist of charges that he abused...

Video: Govt Official Sends Sex Traffickers to Planned Parenthood Columbus, OH -- In a new video expose' uncovering fraud in the Medicaid system, a conservative activists shows an Ohio state official referring people claiming to sexually traffic a young woman to the Planned Parenthood abortion business. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/18/video-govt-official-sends-sex-traffickers-to-planned-parenthood/

Three Louisiana Abortion Centers Fail to Report Child Rape Three abortion centers in Louisiana, according to state documents, have failed to properly report instance of statutory rape to state officials, as required by state law. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/07/three-louisiana-abortion-centers-fail-to-report-child-rape/

CHICAGO, May 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The University of Chicago (UC) last month footed the bill for an exhibit of hundreds of extremely explicit sadomasochistic pornographic images and books to be displayed on campus grounds. The Chicago Sun-Times last Wednesday reported that an officially recognized student sadomasochist group received $3,200 from the University to host a three-day display of the “Carter-Johnson Leather Library,” making UC the first campus to welcome the lewd display. A member of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) attended the exhibit and reported on the extreme pornographic material on display, including a lesbian porn book describing...

As the 2012 budget battles began, Clare Coleman, CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, took to the pages of the Washington Post. In a piece called “Five Myths about Planned Parenthood,” she argued that defunding the organization was an ignoble goal for members of Congress looking to cut the bloated federal budget. She said she wanted to address “misperceptions” about the abortion-industry giant. She was joined in her goal on the front page of the Washington Post by reporter Sandhya Somashekhar, who painted a picture of Planned Parenthood that minimized the role abortion plays at the...

LifeSiteNews.com Life, Family and Culture News Planned Parenthood held statutory rape victim hostage: police report by Rebecca Millette Mon Feb 14 2:55 PM EST KENNEWICK, Washington, February 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A police investigation report reveals that staff at a Kennewick, WA Planned Parenthood abortion facility held a pregnant teen and victim of statutory rape hostage against the wishes of her father. The September 2008 report, recently obtained by pro-life blogger ‘Abortion in Washington,’ documents the police investigation of the case of a 14-year-old un-named teen at the hands of Planned Parenthood (PP) staff worker Andrea Smasne.  The girl, 22...

A former Silsbee, Texas, high school cheerleader did not have a First Amendment right to refuse to cheer for a basketball player she claimed had sexually assaulted her, a federal appeals court panel has ruled. The student — known in court papers as H.S. — attended a party after a Silsbee High School football game in October 2008, when she was 16. She alleged that several individuals sexually assaulted her, including then-football players Rakheem Bolton, Christian Rountree and an unidentified juvenile. In January 2009, a racially divided grand jury from Hardin County refused to indict the players, who did not...

Female Leftist Activists Routinely Raped By Palestinians Silenced By Activists, Israel National News: Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes. ...It is easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first...