Free Republic

The White House on Thursday resisted asking angry pro-abortion protesters not to descend on the homes of Supreme Court Justices after a draft judicial decision on Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press. “I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki replied when asked if the president condoned the actions of protesters sharing information on the home addresses of originalist Supreme Court justices.

Even after the bandanna-wearing, rock-throwing, fire-starting fringe demonstrators took over a downtown Oakland building and blocked off a street late Wednesday, Mayor Jean Quan did not want police to intervene. Instead, Quan asked that police hold off on any confrontation until daylight - or, barring that, send in negotiators to try to work out a peaceful resolution. "She didn't want to incite the anarchists any more than they already were," said one source who was in the city's emergency operations center when Quan stunned the assembled staffers with her comments. Finally, interim Police Chief Howard Jordan, with the backing of...

Remember when food was tasty and being a kid was fun? In my own hazy, rose-colored memories of lunchtime at school, we used to eat ice-cream pizza with french-fried sprinkles. Learning was a pleasure. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing to eliminate the “white potato”—defined as any variety but the sweet potato—from federally subsidized school breakfasts and to limit them sharply at lunch… With the USDA set to release final rules in coming months, and put them into effect in the 2012-2013 school year, the National Potato Council in Washington, D.C., is urging the “entire potato industry” to mobilize....

Just how transparent is the work of unelected staff members of the Air Resources Board as they prepare to micromanage California's private economy with as-yet unwritten regulations to curb global warming? Already, the state Air Resources Board is being challenged about how it has spent $57 million of tax money advanced by the Legislature to implement 2006's Global Warming Solutions Act, which ambitiously – and we feel unnecessarily – aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The ARB contends every dime is fully accounted for in a 141-page summary of 50,000 documents that show where the money has been spent to...

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resisted pressure Sunday to launch a broad military operation against Gaza rocket squads, a day after an 8-year-old boy lost his leg in a rocket attack on a much-targeted Israeli town. The ongoing rocket barrages and Israeli military attacks threaten to scuttle U.S.-backed efforts to prod Israel and the Palestinians toward a final peace agreement by the end of the year. Israel has warned it would not implement any peace deal if the violence continues. Yet, senior military and government officials oppose a broad Gaza invasion, for fear dozens of soldiers and Palestinian...

Israel resists revenge attack against Hamas By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem (Filed: 19/04/2006) Israel has held back from authorising military strikes against the Hamas-led Palestinian government, despite holding it responsible for Monday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Defence officials are believed to have drawn up a list of Hamas targets that could be attacked, although Ehud Olmert, Israel's interim prime minister, is staying his hand. Ismail Haniyeh has blamed Israel for the bombing in Tel Aviv Military strikes on Hamas would end the ceasefire agreed 15 months ago after negotiations brokered by Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian leader, to end...

Afghan court resists Karzai's overture to spare Christian's life By Tom Coghlan in Kabul (Filed: 26/03/2006) The ultra-Conservative supreme court of Afghanistan is threatening to resist President Hamid Karzai's attempts to spare a man who faces execution for converting to Christianity. In a move that could scupper Mr Karzai's efforts to resolve the crisis, the judge handling the case said he would brook neither presidential interference nor objections from Kabul's Western backers. Abdul Rahman: Converted "We [the judiciary] have nothing to do with diplomatic issues," Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada told the Sunday Telegraph. "We will do our job independently." The judge's...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president lashed out Wednesday at the United States and vowed to resist the pressure of "bully countries" as European nations circulated a draft resolution urging that Tehran be brought before the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities. In a speech to thousands of supporters hours after President Bush's State of the Union address, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a "hollow superpower" that is "tainted with the blood of nations" and said Tehran would continue its nuclear program. "Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized,"...

Black Death mutant gene resists Aids, say scientists Jan 4 2005 By Alan Weston, Daily Post IT HAS been described as the 'world's greatest serial killer'. The Black Death was a catastrophe which wiped out nearly half the European population, with 20m people dying between 1348 and 1350. But new research being carried out by a team from Liverpool University has shown that the disease may have produced an unexpected side-effect - resistance to the deadly HIV/Aids virus. Professor Christopher Duncan and Dr Susan Scott have already caused shockwaves among historians with their claim that the Black Death was caused...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush refused to take sides Wednesday in the recall election of California Gov. Gray Davis and said the decision is for Californians to make.</p> <p>"I view it as an interested political observer would view it. We don't have recalls in Texas, thankfully," Bush, the former Texas governor, said at a White House Rose Garden news conference.</p>