Free Republic

Someday I may better understand the mechanics of the millennial mind. Until then I will wonder how shows like “Ghost Whisperer” keep going and a series like “Swingtown” fails to catch on. A period piece on CBS, “Swingtown” nears the end of its summer run with a dwindling audience despite all the elements that seemed to point to its potential for popularity.

WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is scheduled to hold a news conference on Saturday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) after he addresses a meeting of House Democrats, congressional aides said on Friday. Bush will speak to House of Representatives Democrats holding an annual weekend retreat at about 10 a.m. (1500 GMT). Afterward, at about 11:40 a.m. (1640 GMT), Bush, along with Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders, will answer reporters' questions. Bush, a Republican, will be appearing at the Williamsburg retreat one month after Democrats took control of the House and Senate. With...

TORONTO, Ontario, May 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – More people are trying out group sex and partner swapping, said a report by the Canadian Press on Sunday, after last year’s Supreme Court decision to legalize swingers clubs in Canada. Operators of private clubs offering group sexual activity said they have seen a significant increase in participation over the five months since the Supreme Court said such activity was not indecent and did not constitute public harm.Aurora Ben Zion, who runs Toronto’s largest swingers club, claiming 13,000 members, told the CP the ruling made people more comfortable about experimenting with group...

Anthony Kennedy—the new Sandra Day O'Connor. Lost in last week's cacophony about the critical role of Sandra Day O'Connor as sole and exclusive swing voter on the U.S. Supreme Court was any sign of respect for the other sole and exclusive swing voter on the U.S. Supreme Court: Anthony M. Kennedy. Kennedy's majority opinion in today's big physician-assisted-suicide case serves as the perfect reminder of who's going to call the shots in the near future. The 6-3 opinion in Gonzales v. Oregon—a decision upholding Oregon's physician-assisted-suicide law from attack by the Attorney General's Office—sharply outlines the court's Anthony Kennedy-shaped future....

MONTREAL (Reuters) - On a recent night out on the town, Michel and Chantal Delbecchi left their suburban Montreal home and drove to the L'Orage Club in the city's east end, where they had sex with a couple they had never met before. The Delbecchis, husband and wife since 1978, are "echangistes," French for "swingers," who for the past 21 years have been visiting clubs like L'Orage (Thunderstorm) to have consensual sex in a group with one or more other people. For future outings, they will no longer have to fear police will raid the club and arrest them for...

Group sex among consenting adults not a threat to society, it says. Group sex among consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday as it lifted a ban on so-called “swingers” clubs. In a ruling that radically changes the way courts determine what poses a threat to the population, the top court threw out the conviction of a Montreal man who ran a club where members could have group sex in a private room behind locked doors.

Clubs that allow group sex and partner swapping do not harm Canadian society and should not be considered criminal, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Wednesday. The high court, which was ruling on two Quebec cases, said Canadian standards can tolerate the activities, even when they are done amid spectators. The judges, in a 7-2 ruling, said the test for indecency is the harm it causes, and not simply community standards. The cases involve two swingers clubs in Montreal that allowed sex acts, including swapping. One case involved James Kouri, owner of a club called Coeur a Corps. He was...

Two Montreal "swingers" clubs did not breach Canadian standards of decency when they allowed group sex to take place on their premises, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled this morning. In its latest attempt to set guidelines that govern sexual morality in Canada, the top court said two swingers clubs in Montreal were not operating as illegal “bawdy houses,” because what went on there did not cause any harm to society. The decision could make it easier for other venues where group sex takes place among consenting adults - such as gay bath houses - to operate without the threat...

Swingers By Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Sunday, October 16, 2005 What motivates people to leave a lifelong relationship? How can they fracture a bond that began right out of high school and had the approval of parents and grandparents alike? How can they cross that dangerous line -- essentially becoming a swinger? The answer is easy: principles. Yes, principles. When the party they've been married to in name only changed its principles, they became swingers. Swing voters, that is. Since the upset U.S. Senate win of Rick Santorum in 1994, Westmoreland County has trended Republican. After years of traditional Democrat...

MUNCIE, Ind. -- Residents of a southwest Muncie neighborhood thought the 110-year-old former school with purple doors had been vacant these past 14 months. So neighbors were surprised to find out the building -- which was last used as a bingo hall -- is home to one of Indiana's seven swingers clubs. "I thought it was empty, to tell you the truth," Mary Neal, who rents a house across from the club, told The Star Press. "That shocks me. I'm just floored. There are a lot of kids that walk around here." Swinging involves having social and sexual intercourse with...

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Misty slept with her husband. Vince climbed into her bed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And Sundays? Misty had Vince's wife all to herself. The kids, meanwhile, stuck to their own mattresses. Life was good in the "quad." Two couples, several kids, one house, five years and lots of scheduled sex - first in Boston, and then in Lakewood. The quad broke up in 1999, when Vince Botinelly, 50, looked up an old flame, thereby straying outside of the de facto group marriage and having, in essence, an "affair." Today, Botinelly, remains married to his...

Nita and Ken Eaton hit the stores last month, as they do every Christmas, to find just the right gifts for the youngsters on their shopping list. The carefully chosen presents weren't for their youngsters but for their nieces and nephews. The Eatons are part of a small but growing segment of American couples who have chosen not to have children. "We spend a lot of time thinking about what we're going to get our nieces and nephews for Christmas. We want to get them something meaningful," said Nita Eaton, 38. The Eatons, married for five years, never had the...

Country superstar Wynonna Judd is being slammed by fellow Christians for agreeing to perform on a lesbian cruise. Officials at America's Traditional Values Coalition are outraged by Judd's plans to appear on a four-day Caribbean cruise organized for gay couples - and they're calling on her to cancel the working trip. In a statement, TVC bosses says, "Her involvement in providing entertainment for female homosexuals should conflict with her Christian faith. Judd should be encouraged to cancel her tour." But the organizers of the gay cruise are determined to keep Judd on board because she's a dream ticket. Tour organizer...

Tony Blair today launched an extraordinary attack on the decline of the traditional family and the rise of "different lifestyles". In a speech which risked a backlash from single parents' groups and Labour MPs, the Prime Minister said the culture of the "Swinging Sixties" was partly to blame for crime and social breakdown. "A society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to others," said Mr Blair. "All of this was then multiplied in effect by the economic and social changes...

<p>Phoenix police raided a controversial social club again Saturday and arrested the manager in an ongoing dispute over whether swingers have a constitutional right to openly engage in sex at the establishment.</p> <p>"Uniformed officers had to ask people to stop fornicating after they entered the room," said Assistant City Attorney Jimmy Hays, describing activities at Club Chameleon. "They found patent sex acts, open and obvious, occurring on the premises."</p>

MONTREAL -- Swingers clubs will spring up across Canada because of a judge ruling their activities are not necessarily illegal, the head of a swingers group said yesterday. Municipal court Judge Denis Boisvert found five people guilty of swinging-related offences, but decided "contemporary Canadian society tolerates swinging and swingers clubs if the sexual acts take place in private." Jean Hamel, president of the 8,000-member Quebec Swingers Association, said Boisvert's ruling will have national significance. "I don't think more clubs will open in Quebec but I think it will open doors for other places in Canada, like Toronto." Judge Boisvert found...

"The Clintons are swingers," and other suggestions as to their behavior.The New York Times has published a review of Hillary Clinton’s book that is, to put it mildly, not kind. (Yes, that New York Times.) Wrote Michiko Kakutani: “It is a book that purports to deal with the many controversies and scandals in Bill Clinton’s campaigns and presidency, presumably to get these issues behind her before she contemplates running for the White House herself. Yet the book skates over the problems the Clinton administration faced in its rocky debut and in the impeachment crisis and skims over details of matters...

Four years after masked sheriff's deputies exposed Broward County's salacious swinging subculture to a national audience, the men and women in the clubs are suing the raiders of the private clubs. ''They were subject to numerous newspaper articles. They were subject to notoriety that they didn't bring to themselves,'' said Daniel Aaronson, part of a legal team representing two couples arrested in the raids. ``They believe they were wrongly arrested and their lives were put in disarray for no reason.'' Lawyers have filed a total of five lawsuits, on behalf of 10 people, against the Broward Sheriff's Office or individual...

Westerfield trial TV coverage lures viewers with lurid details Remote ControlRobert P. Laurence June 7, 2002 TV is about pictures, and the David Westerfield trial has not been a pretty picture. Carried live on four local stations, and on cable's Court TV, the trial's pictures have been drawn in words, words like "sexual penetration" "putrefaction," "animal activity" and "decomposition" used in describing what might have happened to the body of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam before and after her death. To many, the pictures, again drawn in words, of adults engaged in spouse-swapping, group sex and pot smoking have been nearly...

Front Pages \Edited by Sarah Sabalos LaSpaluto     Wednesday, May 01, 2002 The Other Van Dam Story —Thomas K. ArnoldTalk show host Rick Roberts made headlines with his KFMB-AM radio show about Damon and Brenda van Dam’s allegedly swinging lifestyle. But he wasn’t the only radio personality—or media outlet—to cast a critical eye on the backstory of the Danielle van Dam kidnapping case. John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, whose John and Ken Show airs weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on Los Angeles station KFI-AM, devoted three shows to the case, even traveling to San Diego to broadcast...