Free Republic

Sorry for the vanity but I could not resist speaking to this irony: 1) NARAL's web site comes up with a "tell your senator to oppose this three-eyed, twenty-foot-high firebreathing tentacled dragon monster Roberts", calling him "anti-choice". Yet NARAL's page offers no "choice" to change the message one sends to the senator. Pro-choice, eh? 2) The two top words are "Choose Justice". Justice... From NARAL - executing the most innocent of us in the most brutal manner imagineable. Justice. That word coming from them, unbelievable.

SPRINGFIELD -- Average citizens could carry concealed weapons under two bills that won overwhelming approval in a House committee Tuesday, setting up a rare, full-blown House floor fight over the issue that advocates say will make people safer and critics contend will lead to more gun violence.The move further buttressed the National Rifle Association's strategy to not only blunt Mayor Richard Daley's push for gun-control laws but to take the fight to him with a frontal assault of its own."I'm heartsick," said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), a major advocate of gun control. The NRA is on a...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant who was set to be the star prosecution witness in a terror trial until he set himself ablaze outside the White House took the stand for the defense Thursday, saying he had sought $5 million for leading prosecutors to a Yemeni sheik he says gave Osama bin Laden money, arms and fighters. "I deserve that," Mohamed Alanssi said through an Arabic-English interpreter. "After I chase the terrorist and I bring him here to America I deserve even $10 million." Alanssi quickly laid out some of the government's most serious allegations against Sheik Mohammed...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in New Jersey: An Islamic Murder of Coptic Christians?.Anyone following the investigation into the mid-January slaughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., knows who the presumptive suspects are: Islamists furious at a Christian Egyptian immigrant who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity.The authorities, however, have blinded themselves to the extensive circumstantial evidence, insisting that "no facts at this point" substantiate a religious motive for the murders.Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this...

A Colombian mayor shot himself in the backside while he was on the toilet. Rafael Augusto Galan, Mayor of Ramiquiri, was out on his rounds when he was caught short. He asked to use the toilet of a local shop and disappeared into the back, reports Terra Noticias Populares. A witness said: "All we heard was the noise of a 9mm gun firing!" The mayor's handgun, which he was carrying in his back pocket, had gone off wounding him in the backside. Mayor Galan needed hospital treatment but has made a full recovery.

I’ve been challenged a few times on this blog to defend myself as a “libertarian”. Here’s a quick and incomplete statement of principles that I use to fit myself into that pigeonhole. As a “Jack Libertarian” I’m guessing that I’m in the minority of citizens of the state of Oregon, but I don’t really understand why. It’s probably the case that most people would rather let the experts (preachers, doctors, advertisers, talk show hosts, Ph.Ds, country music stars, gummint bureaucrats, etcetera) make their choices rather than listening to them and making our own choices. Small “L” libertarians are people that...

One day in 1994, Doug Burns was leaving an appointment at Mass General Hospital when he was set upon by a thug standing over 6 feet tall and weighing more than 300 pounds. The criminal first battered Burns and when Burns protested the assault the thug threw a weapon at Burns and then charged Burns. Burns then drew his licensed handgun and shouted at the attacker to stop and then yelled at everyone nearby to call 911. Many calls were then received by 911, telling of the attack and how the victim was holding the criminal at gunpoint. When the...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- A women's magazine has touched off a firestorm of criticism with an article attacking pregnancy resource centers. The December 2004 edition of SELF magazine carries a two-page article dubbed, "The New Pregnancy Scare: Clinics Run by Antichoice Supporters Are Drawing in More Unsuspecting Women Than Ever." The article accuses pregnancy centers of using coercive tactics with their clients. It's a claim pregnancy center operators have heard before -- and a media-driven myth they hope to dispel. "This article paints such an unfair picture of pregnancy centers," said Kurt Entsminger, president of Care Net, which represents...

More than a year after his death, Aaron Huth continues to haunt those who knew him. His profile on the behemoth six-degrees-of-separation Web site Friendster.com still lets people know that in May of 2003 he was listening to bands like the Birthday Party and the Postal Service and reading Nietzsche. His likes and interests were frozen for posterity on May 26, 2003, the last time he logged into the site. While Huth’s 12 listed Friendster friends haven’t heard from him since May 29, the day he passed away, each time they log on to the site they are simultaneously reminded...

SUMMARY: Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior. People intuitively recognize the importance of self-esteem to their psychological health, so it isn't particularly remarkable that most of us try to protect and enhance it in ourselves whenever possible. What is remarkable is that attention to self-esteem has become a communal concern, at least for Americans, who see a favorable opinion of oneself as the central psychological source from which all manner of positive outcomes spring. The corollary, that low...

HUDSON - A Catholic priest who used to serve at St. Patrick's Parish in Hudson, Wis. may be connected to the 2002 double murders of Dan O'Connel and James Ellison. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned that investigators questioned Father Ryan Erickson, 31, last week at his new Parish in Hurley, Wis. He was found dead Sunday outside that church of an apparent suicide. During the questioning, police took two of his guns, but returned them a couple of days later. Sources tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Fr. Erickson hanged himself outside the church. Those sources also say that he left a...

One useful fact all Americans should keep in mind is that they have no "right" to be protected by the police. American police are reactive, not proactive. They don't usually "prevent" crime. They catch lawbreakers after they have committed a crime. This was by design of the Founding Fathers. Because, as we see today with the anti-terrorism laws, in order to "prevent" crime, police would need all sorts of obnoxious powers that would trample all over our rights of life, liberty and property. Instead, Americans were intended to have the means of self defense. Put another way, the Constitution does...

Sheriff: No charge for wife in intruder-husband killing Protective order issued; wife's door forced open EMILY S. ACHENBAUM Staff Writer The Anson County Sheriff's Office will not press charges against a woman who killed her husband Wednesday after weeks of domestic violence against her. Joy Burgess had a protective order against estranged husband Brian Gathings. Gathings had been convicted of threatening Burgess before, and jailed several times for charges of violence against her. But as with other recent domestic violence killings, none of it was enough to keep her safe. When Gathings broke down his wife's back door with a...

SACRAMENTO -- Accused of mismanaging a federal voting-rights program, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley disputed the allegations on Monday and blamed some problems on the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials says Shelley, a San Francisco Democrat, has failed miserably in administering California's Help America Vote Act program. HAVA was passed by Congress in 2002 in the hope of preventing a repeat of Florida's 2000 presidential election debacle. In a letter to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Shelley disputed the charges, though he made no mention of the group or its specific allegations....

When hearing the many platitudes being used by the left these days, I frequently find myself thinking "hey, wait, WE should be saying that about YOU". One such phrase that frequently elicits this response is "Speaking Truth to Power". Now, in the wake of the CBS debacle, it has occurred to me that no event captures the intended meaning of this proverb better than the effect that the Internet Bloggers (take a bow, FR) have had on the power of the liberal media. Rivaling this, perhaps, is the effect that the Swift-Boat Vets had on the Kerry campaign. Anyway, getting...

As Democratic hopeful John Kerry whines about the Swift Boat Veterans questioning his Vietnam “war service,” more revelations have surfaced which challenge the legitimacy of his first Purple Heart. The Senator claims that that medal was received because of enemy fire he took, but his own personal diary contradicts that assertion. While the Senator’s supporters tried unsuccessfully to portray President Bush as being “AWOL” during the Vietnam War, they won’t address the fact that Kerry tried to defer his military service at that time for 12 months. And what would Kerry and his friends say about the fact that his...

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Want to get personal with your correspondence? Put your own face, or your new baby's face -- even shots from your crazy summer vacation -- on postage stamps.

click on purple heart to see my webpage of Kerry's Purple Heart Lie.It's simple, consise, you can send it's URL to email folks, or print it out and post it in public places...

June 20, 2004Bill’s Big But Book“It’s the timing, stupid!” Bill Clinton’s memoir debut is already mirroring his presidency, with a virtual roller coaster of bumpy ups and downs this week ... ·        CBS’s Dan Rather gushes he read the book and rates it “five stars out of five stars.” ·        The New York Times trashes it, calling it, “sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.”·        Bill Clinton declares, "The whole [impeachment] battle was a badge of honor. I...

Professional code for journalists: sense or nonsense? By Steven de Jong, chief editor Politiek-Actie.net - Because of factors like rivalry pressure and the high running speed of news, we tend to more and more forget about the journalistic norms and values. Important methods and values like hearing both sides of a story, objective reports and independent gathering of news are under pressure. When media copy each others reports too fast without taking the time to observe those values, media hypes with very harmful effects will develop. Harmful not only for those directly involved, but also for the journalist and the...