Free Republic

Adrienne Ferguson had retribution on her mind as she made her way along West Jefferson Boulevard clutching a stack of papers. She wasn't reacting to a perceived injustice done to her. She was taking action for a stranger who claims to have a beef with the C&H Auto Center, a small automobile body shop down the street. Ferguson and a partner operate Alibis & Paybacks, a Los Angeles firm that describes itself as "the ultimate revenge" service, offering paybacks both large and small. For a fee, for instance, the pair will publicly denounce and embarrass someone or some business, peppering...

THE Obama administration's determination to hold witch-hunt "investigations" of CIA interrogators who did their patriotic best to keep us safe endangers us all. Castrate the CIA, and Americans will die. But the Obama White House wants vengeance against those who don't fit its ideology. Your family's safety comes a distant second. And let's get real: Attorney General Eric Holder (whose top career achievement was finessing the presidential pardon of a criminal Clinton donor) is not acting independently. Anyone who believes that Holder didn't pre-brief the president and get the nod prior to announcing his determination to crucify high-achieving CIA agents...

President Barack Obama plans to fire the inspector general who investigates AmeriCorps and other national service programs amid a controversy between the IG and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star. The IG, Gerald Walpin, was criticized by the U.S. attorney in Sacramento for the way he handled an investigation of Johnson and his nonprofit group, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants from the Corporation for National Community Service. The corporation runs the AmeriCorps program. On Thursday, Obama said in a letter to Congress that he had lost confidence...

Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett was asked today on the "Brian and the Judge" radio show about the network being snubbed during Obama's third prime-time presser. (h/t Johnny Dollar). "That was retribution for the Fox network, broadcast network, running with its regularly scheduled programming instead of taking the White House press conference," Garrett said.

Our President is working a list of nations he feels we’ve offended and he’s apologizing. Ultimately, that behavior will bite him back. Significant apologies drag sea anchors called consequences. You accidently bump into someone in an elevator and say “I’m sorry.” No consequences, unless they’re psycho. You accidently run over your neighbor’s cat and say “I’m sorry.” There may or may not be consequences, depending on your relationship with your neighbor. You drive drunk and cause an accident injuring others. “I’m sorry” doesn’t ease the consequences. As President Obama apologizes across the globe, eventually some recipients of his apologies will...

"INCENDIARY" abortion law reforms last year that made Victoria "the baby-killing state" are responsible for the devastating bushfires, controversial Christian leader Danny Nalliah said yesterday. "God's protection has been taken off the state, and Satan is having a go at the nation," Mr Nalliah, senior pastor of Catch the Fire Ministries, told The Age. Mr Nalliah's Australia Day prayer rallies have been supported by former prime minister John Howard and former treasurer Peter Costello. Mr Costello delivered a televised address to Mr Nalliah's Australia Day prayer meeting last month. Mr Costello yesterday rejected Mr Nalliah's abortion explanation for the fires...

As someone who has spent nearly three frustrating years actively advocating the impeachment of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their many crimes and abuses of power, I have to admit that not only did it not happen, but that the likelihood of their being indicted and brought to trial now that they have left office is exceedingly slim. While both men are clearly guilty of war crimes, and have in fact admitted to willful violation of international law and the US Criminal Code relating to torture and treatment of captives, and while Bush has admitted to...

<p>Israel moved closer to invading Gaza, saying Thursday it had wrapped up preparations for a broad offensive after Palestinian militants fired about 100 rockets and mortar shells across the border in two days.</p> <p>Israel's foreign minister brushed off a call for restraint from Egypt's president, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a direct appeal to Gaza's people to pressure their leaders to stop the barrages. But the attacks showed no signs of ending. By nightfall, three rockets and 15 mortar shells had exploded in Israel.</p>

Witness: GIs were not at shooting scene Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham and Sgt. Charles Quigley, who have been charged with conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, were not at the scene when four detainees were allegedly killed by three other U.S. soldiers, a witness testified Wednesday. The two soldiers also tried to assist in the investigation, it was revealed. Cunningham and Quigley — two of four soldiers charged in the case so far — were about half a football field away from the scene when other soldiers shot either four or five Iraqi detainees on the outskirts of Hamdani Village, near...

(IsraelNN.com) Members of the North African branch of the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda announced Monday that they are holding two Austrian tourists hostage "in retribution" for what they claim is Western support for Israeli counter-terrorism operations. Al-Qaeda threatened more such kidnappings. AQIM will issue their demands for release of the two Austrians soon, Abu Muhammad said. In an audio tape aired by the Gulf-based Al-Jazeera satellite network, a man who claimed to represent Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa (AQIM), Salah Abu Mohammad, identified the two Austrians and said they were in good condition. The alleged hostages, a man and a...

Oprah Winfrey begged for forgiveness with tears in her eyes as she spoke to parents of students at her all-girls school in South Africa on Sunday.

Since it now seems very imminent, I decided that it was an appropriate time to start this up. Links to information and pictures (if we get them) can be posted here.

A little old lady is walking down the street, dragging two plastic garbage bags with her, one in each hand. There's a hole in one of the bags, and every once in a while a $20 bill is dropping out of it onto the pavement. Noticing this, a policeman stops her...."Ma'am, there are $20 bills falling out of that bag..." "Damn!" says the little old lady....."I'd better go back and see if I can still find some. Thanks for the warning!" "Well, now, not so fast," says the cop. "How did you get all that money? Did you steal it?"...

Examples aren’t hard to come by. Shiites seek revenge on Sunnis for the revenge they sought on Shiites; Irish Catholics retaliate against the Protestants who retaliated against them; and since 1948, it’s hard to think of any partisan in the Middle East who has done anything but play defense. In each of these instances, people on one side claim that they are merely responding to provocation and dismiss the other side’s identical claim as disingenuous spin. But research suggests that these claims reflect genuinely different perceptions of the same bloody conversation...

Conservative activist Grover Norquist says a Senate report connecting him with convicted felon Jack Abramoff is a personal attack from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that could hurt the senator’s recent efforts to woo the right for a presidential bid. Norquist says a Senate Indian Affairs Committee report last month outlining his efforts to funnel money from Abramoff’s tribal clients to former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed is riddled with half-truths and falsely implicates his nonprofit group, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), in wrongdoing. The activist says McCain, chairman of the committee, issued the report in retaliation for Norquist’s efforts to...

With the most powerful storm in recorded history weakening but every bit as devastating as its predecessors, saint, sinner and blogger alike are again wondering if God really does use nature in retribution for sin. Bill Moyers, late of PBS and CBS television and the day's keynote speaker, cited the incredible devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and linked it with the Genesis flood. He noted that millions of conservatives believe the biblical teaching that God brought the deluge to punish human sin and also accept "God-ordered genocide" elsewhere in the Old Testament. Others also used the Katrina moment to level...

Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago. As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator. Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper.

GOSHEN -- Four SUR 13 gang members and one of their friends wanted some respect Saturday night. An associate had been attacked a few days before by a member of a rival gang, and the SUR 13s wanted to get even. So when they saw members of the Vatos Locos at the fairgrounds, they decided to go get a gun. When they got back to the fairgrounds, the victim of the earlier attack was in another car. He pointed out a car carrying four VLs. The SUR 13s chased that car, and one of them opened fire, pumping several shots...

BOSTON - The New York man who sparked fears of a powerful new strain of HIV had drug-fueled, unprotected sex with more than 100 men in the months before his diagnosis, a top researcher said yesterday. Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan will unveil today a case study of the unidentified man, who his team believes may harbor a mutant strain of the deadly virus. Skeptical AIDS researchers from around the world believe the case is isolated and not the beginning of a new epidemic. In a preview of the study, Ho said the...

Australia must continue to shun a US-led holy war against AIDS, writes Bill Bowtell. The detection in New York City of a new strain of HIV virus that is highly resistant to anti-retroviral drugs is deeply worrying. If the existence of an HIV supervirus is confirmed by tests now being performed by the HIV authority Dr David Ho and others, then there will be genuine grounds for concern about whether existing HIV containment strategies are working, or need to be radically overhauled to meet the potential threat of a new strain of the virus. These questions are important and must...

Last week's announcement by federal and New York City health authorities of the discovery of a superstrain of HIV that is unimaginably aggressive and impossible to treat has help smash clichés about homosexuals and fidelity while undermining the foundation of arguments for mandatory HIV testing for all Americans. A 40-something homosexual is believed to have contracted the superstrain in October, but was not diagnosed until December. In between, he had unprotected sex with hundreds of men, which means a geometric progression of the supervirus through the homosexual community may be under way. What has health officials horrified is the man...

Lycos Europe's "Make love not spam" campaign has killed access to some of the Web sites of its target alleged spammers, Netcraft has found. According to the Internet traffic monitoring company, Lycos Europe has successfully taken two Web sites hosted in China offline. The sites are bokwhdok.com and printmediaprofits.biz, according to a posting on Netcraft's Web site, dated this week. "A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack launched by users of Lycos Europe's MakeLoveNotSpam.com screensaver has succeeded in crippling several spammer sites, but some of the targeted sites remain available," the posting said.Lycos Europe was unavailable for comment on the matter, but...

"Yossef Bodansky, the former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and a man I respect immensely for his intelligence insights, says the United States faces an "inevitable" al-Qaida attack with weapons of mass destruction. "What would be the U.S. response to such an attack? "Now is the time to think about the unthinkable. "Contingency plans need to be made. And those plans, at least some of them, need to be known to the whole world to serve as a deterrent against such an attack. …" "… * The Islamist world and its allies need to know there...

Capital Punishment: A Personal Statement Prison Fellowship By Charles W. Colson Chuck Colson's spiritual pilgrimage reaches yet another point of significant change As we Christians grow and cultivate the disciplines of reading and study, we sometimes alter our views. Sometimes these views even change dramatically. No one knows this better than I, having been dramatically converted to Christ and, subsequently, having my entire worldview turned upside-down. There was a time, for example, when I thought John Locke's understanding of social contract was the ultimate theory of government. I now see that government draws its authority less from the consent of...

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BESLAN, Russia (AP) - A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists after more than 340 people - nearly half of them children - were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school. Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption. "We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string...

The Catechism and Capital Punishment Mario Derksen There is so much to say about both the 1992 version [of the New Catechism] and the 1997 version that I don't know where to start. Let me, therefore, walk you through the whole thing, beginning with the 1992 version, from the very start, and interject my comments: "2266 Preserving the common good of society required rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with...

From a Marine officer on the Iraqi warfront with Jihadistan... (This is an open letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, "Islamic Response," and the rest of the so-called al-Qa'ida "insurgents" in Iraq and elsewhere. We don't have an e-mail address for these swine -- though we are closing in on their snail-mail address, but we are forwarding this letter to Federalist Patriots around the world in the hope you good people will forward it to as many other Patriots as possible to rally prayer and support for our fellow Marine, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. Should these al-Qa'ida pigs spill his blood,...

Beheadings fuel backlash against Muslims By WAYNE PARRY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Aref Assaf, foreground right center, president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's New Jersey chapter speaks at a gathering of Arab-Americans, in Paterson, N.J., Saturday, June 19, 2004, to speak out about the killing of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia. The group came together to condemn the militants who killed Johnson. (AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer) EAGLESWOOD TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- The recent beheadings of two American businessmen in the Middle East have added fuel to the angry backlash against Arab-Americans and Muslims that began after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The murders...

Porn-surfing bank supremo Michael Soden was caught with his browser down last week by the very same staff he outsourced to HP at the start of his reign at the Bank of Ireland. Soden hit the headlines last year in Ireland when staff took industrial action in protest of the department's shift to Hewlett Packard. Staff were unhappy about the prospect of becoming HP employees, as they had enjoyed considerable perks at the Bank of Ireland: favourable mortgage and loan deals for instance. Now it seems that he has been forced to resign thanks to the very department which he...

BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Filming in California's multi-billion-dollar porn industry has been frozen after a popular actor tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS. Porn actor Darren James tested positive for HIV this week in screening conducted routinely on the industry's 1,200 regular actors. Industry advocates immediately called for a 60-day moratorium on filming so that others could be tested. The Los Angeles-based industry normally completes three to four adult films a day. It must now wait to see if the deadly virus has spread to 14 actresses who had onscreen sex with James, or to the 35...

The shame of the father ... tribal sheiks forced Salem Kerbul, above, to kill his son Sabah, whom they accused of collaborating with the Americans. Photo: Jason South The thousands of Iraqis working for the US administration have been declared collaborators. When they're caught by the resistance, the punishment is unthinkable. Paul McGeough reports. Sabah Kerbul's executioners were his father and his brother. Most were in their beds when he was killed. But all members of the 27-year-old's extended family, living in adjoining properties on this remote bend in the Tigris, 120 kilometres north of Baghdad, knew the hideous...

Villagers Force Execution of Suspected U.S. Informant by Father and Brother THULUYA, Iraq -- Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived. His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves. His father raised his rifle and aimed it at his oldest son. "Sabah didn't try to escape," said Abdullah Ali, a village resident....

<p>A firefighter battles a wildfire near Sisters in July 2002. Dry conditions have Oregon and other western states bracing for another potentially dangerous wildfire season.</p> <p>Fire conditions are not as bad as they were in 2002, but a five-year drought in the West fuels danger.</p>

Following America's LeadBy Steven PlautFrontPageMagazine.com | April 18, 2003 You may have noticed that on April 16, a group of disgruntled Iraqi civilians decided to throw rocks at U.S. troops in Iraq.  The GIs mowed them down and killed 10 of them.  For rock throwing.  I mention this because of course the position of the U.S. State Department has long been that when Palestinians throw rocks at Jews it is mere symbolic protest, not violence and certainly not terrorism.  Heck, even Edward Said joined the fun and threw rocks at the Jews. Now I think this event is just the...

{snip) March 31, 2003 OFFICIAL: France Issues Order to Boycott NewsMax With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff For the story behind the story... Sunday, March 30, 2003 11:45 p.m. EST French Government Officially Boycotting NewsMax It's official: The government of France is boycotting NewsMax.com. This past week, NewsMax Pundit Charles Smith called the French Embassy in Washington and spoke with Deputy Press Counsel Agnes Vondermuhal. Ms. Vondermuhal bluntly stated that the embassy had passed details of NewsMax's "Boycott France" campaign, including our recent ad in the New York Times, on to officials in Paris. Apparently, the Chirac government was angered,...

Since the awful news came out about the POW's being murdered and tortured by Iraqi forces, we've had quite a few immoderate voices on this forum, and I'm sure in quite a few other venues as well, calling for the most severe retribution against the Iraqis. I too am for severe retribution - after the war. On the threads that followed these revelations, there were a few posters sensible enough to urge that we stay the course on this, only to be utterly drowned out by cries of "MOAB BAGHDAD" or some such. This is not going to help our...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli soldiers killed a top Hamas fugitive in a roadside ambush Monday, and in a separate operation, raided a stronghold of the militant Islamic group, shooting dead two Palestinians and blowing up the house of a suspected bombmaker. The two Israeli strikes came in response to a deadly Hamas attack on an Israeli tank over the weekend. Israel said it will intensify its hunt for Hamas militants, who have carried out many of the bombings and other attacks against Israeli targets in the past 29 months of fighting. The Hamas fugitive, Riyad Abu Zeid,...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli tanks entered Gaza City early Monday and headed for a neighborhood where leaders of the violent Islamic militant group Hamas live, witnesses said. A Palestinian policeman was killed and four civilians, including a doctor, were wounded by Israeli gunfire, hospital officials said. It was the first time Israeli forces moved on the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City. The incursion came after Saturday's blast in northern Gaza, in which four Israeli soldiers died when their tank set off a huge bomb. Hamas claimed responsibility. Early Monday, witnesses said about 35 tanks, accompanied...

CAIRO In the Middle East, where the hand of God is never believed too far off the tiller of daily events, one explanation for the shuttle disaster quickly gained widespread currency Sunday: divine retribution. Your average café denizen, not to mention the odd newspaper columnist, looked no farther than the Israeli colonel on board and reports that the shuttle apparently first began crumbling over Palestine, Texas, to conclude that God was sending the U.S. a message that its entire Mideast policy is misguided. "It was definitely a divine retribution against America for its ongoing preparation for war against Iraq," said...

Man Wants Punishment for Dog Shooting By JOHN GEROME Associated Press Writer NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)--A traffic stop following erroneous reports of a robbery ended in heartbreak when the family dog bounded out of the car, his tail wagging, and was shot to death by police. Now, the dog's owner wants the police officers punished, and the officer who pulled the trigger says he's been getting death threats. ``I don't ever want to see this happen to anybody else. That's why we can't let this go away,'' said James Smoak, who owned the 1 1/2-year-old pit bull-boxer mix named Patton. Cookeville...

Official: CIA Killed Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by an unmanned CIA (news - web sites) drone hit a car believed to be carrying suspected al Qaeda members in Yemen Sunday and killed several occupants, a U.S. official said Monday. Mon Nov 4, 5:18 PM ET A Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is seen with a Hellfire-C laser guided missile under one wing in this file photo from a February 21, 2001 test flight at Nellis Airforce Base in Nevada. A missile fired by an unmanned CIA (news - web sites) drone hit a car...

I believe America weeps, because it has been made to deny natural character traits of citizenship, duty, and retribution, while sensing betrayal, defeat, and denial orchestrated by the hand-in glove government-media complex in their duel failure to clarify and attack America's enemies. No Pound Of Flesh We are all consciously aware that there has been no satisfaction, no pound of flesh taken, for the brutal and horrific sneak attack on our Citizens.We are a country gripped not in a righteous offensive mode, but rather a defensive mode, which will ultimately cripple our economic growth. Customs agents are incapable of detecting...

The anniversary is provoking many articles, thoughts, events. IF YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN, what do you think is the best way to memorialize last year's atrocity?