Free Republic

Congress: What, exactly, does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest junket to Iraq have to do with her official duties? Her inability to keep her amateur fingers out of the foreign policy pie suggests a political power grab.Pelosi went to Iraq uninvited Saturday, and her reception was less than warm. Iraq's democratically elected Nouri al-Maliki government wanted nothing to do with her until she admitted the truth about Iraq's progress as a nation and quit braying that U.S. troops must be immediately pulled out, a proposal so naive that even radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr opposes it. Message through, Pelosi admitted that...

With proper upbringing, a boy can grow into a strong, self-reliant and sensible man. If that grown man is also well adjusted and has self-respect, he will neutralize deficiencies in his character (e.g., hubris, and that brother bugaboo “machismo”) to defray misgivings and ridicule by family, co-workers and friends – even his enemies. If a man behaves or speaks idiotically, someone eventually will call him on it. Generally, men are dreamers...like our Founding Fathers were dreamers. It was upon their collective vision that the foundation of this great country was conceived and created where we live in blessed freedom, to...

What phenomenon was abandoned by Napoleon, turned Stalin's heart to stone, evaded Hitler, and led a Paraguayan president to try to take over South America? Love. As Valentine's Day draws near, lovers around the world celebrate their intimacy. But how did some of the world's most infamous dictators experience the emotion? Nigel Cawthorne, author of Sex Lives of the Great Dictators, says the average tyrant and absolute despot seems incapable of experiencing love in the same way as the average human being. "In nearly every case, human feeling came second to ambition," he says. "Even Napoleon with his great love...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years. The justices' decision to hear the case could make the divisive debate over guns an issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. The government of Washington, D.C., is asking the court to uphold its 31-year ban on handgun ownership in the face of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate this week will pull its first all-night debate on the Iraq war in advance of a vote on whether to bring home all combat troops by next spring, Democrats said Monday. The rare, round-the-clock session Tuesday night through Wednesday morning is intended to bait Republicans into an exhaustive debate on the politically unpopular war, as well as punish GOP members for routinely blocking anti-war legislation. "How many sleepless nights have our soldiers and their families had?" said Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Democrats are trying to ratchet up pressure on Republicans who have grown uneasy...

History will record with severity the huge social, human and political cost of the activism of the erroneously named "pacifists" The so-called "pacifist" movements, articulated by leftists, and their silent accomplice, have decisively contributed to the protection of the most fierce tyrants of the XX and XXI Centuries, since Adolph Hitler and Stalin, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il, to Saddam Hussein. With their harmful political formula of "giving in so as not to loose", they paved the way for several of those dictators to increment warmonger attitudes against countries and continents, in addition to enslaving their own...

· Children to be monitored from birth to age five · New curriculum sets 69 'early learning goals' The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday March 20 2007The proposal from the Department for Education and Skills for monitoring children from birth to age five applies only to England and not to the whole of Britain, as stated in error in the report below. Babies will be assessed on their gurgling, babbling and toe-playing abilities when they are a few months old under a legally enforced national curriculum for children from birth to five published...

TWO THOUSAND years ago on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus was struck blind, fell off his donkey, heard the voice of the Lord and became St. Paul. This week on the road to Damascus, riding on the Democratic donkey, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was struck blind by a prideful ambition - the ambition to conduct a foreign policy for the United States toward the terrorist nation of Syria separate from the one conducted by the president. On the road to Damascus, St. Paul became one of the revolutionary figures of world civilization. Nancy Pelosi - not...

The Zimbabwe government announced plans to build a massive shrine to President Robert Mugabe in the President’s home district of Zvimba. A senior government source said that Mugabe wants construction of the shrine to start as soon as possible. The Zimbabwean dictator has already instructed the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to raise US$400 000 in foreign currency to buy elephant dung for the project. Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, who has been selected to oversee the construction of the shrine, said the project is his top priority. “Look, President Mugabe is 83 years-old,” Chombo observed. “He can’t last much longer....

Food Security: There's never a shortage of dictators to hurl abuse at the U.S. for its food policies. But they have no right to do it. Marxism, not freedom, is the world's foremost creator of hunger. The blame-America-first crowd often zeroes in on U.S. plenty, calling our lack of want 'excess' and our great food productivity an ecological evil. There's been a malevolent new wave of this lately as more news of failed Marxist regimes and the hunger they create comes out. Another point in communism's favor: This Reuters photo of a neighborhood in central Havana came with a caption...

THOMAS JEFFERSON God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take...

The UN on Sunday criticized the decision to sentence Saddam Hussein to death, calling upon local authorities to refuse the to hang the ex-leader. UN Human Rights Commission head Louise Arbour said that the "appeal process is reliable and a vital part of the fair judicial procedure." Army Radio reported. She said that "the results of the appeal will what they will be," and Arbour expressed hope that the Iraqi government would suspend its death sentence.

Rick Leventhal reporting many of the people in the audience have been bused in from as far away as Alaska. This event is in a very beautiful church.The Iranian is also supposed to give a news conference this morning. I thought it would be helpful to have one thread for both events.Will Kennedy and Serrano show up for the photo op? Will Chavez show up? Iranian news conference in 15 minutes!

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary September 5, 2006 President Discusses Global War on Terror Capital Hilton Hotel Washington, D.C.       Fact Sheet: The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism      In Focus: National Security 1:15 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. Please be seated. General Hendrix, thank you for the invitation to be here. Thanks for the kind introduction. I'm honored to stand with the men and women of the Military Officers Association of America. I appreciate the Board of Directors who are here, and the leaders who have given...

US President George W. Bush branded Iran's president a tyrant and compared leaders in Tehran to al-Qaeda terrorists who cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. “America will not bow down to tyrants,” he said in the second of a series of election-year speeches defending his handling of the war on terrorism and Iraq. “The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.” Mr Bush accused Iran of funding the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and other groups “to attack Israel and America by proxy” and said Hezbollah was second only to al-Qaeda in the number of...

Napolean 5'2" Hitler 5'7" Attila 4'6" Stalin 5'4" Khrushchev 5'3" Ahmadinejad 5'0"

Totalitarian killers in pursuit of a murderous utopian agenda can always count on the New York Times to transform them into noble representatives of the popular will. Whether Stalin or Hitler, Pol Pot, or Mao, Fidel, Che or Arafat, the Times will humanize them. The archetype was cuddly Uncle Joe Stalin as seen through the eyes of Walter Duranty. Count on Duranty's successors to enlighten us about how personable these tyrants are...

AP) Anti-U.S. leaders Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad met in Tehran on Saturday, pledging mutual support for one another, state media reported. Chavez' two-day visit came as Iran faces renewed international criticism for its nuclear program and as a backer of Hezbollah guerrillas, engaged in fighting with Israel since they captured two Israeli soldiers July 12. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council on Friday reached a deal on a resolution that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. Following...

DURING HIS first four years in office, President Bush made impressive strides toward achieving the improbable goal laid out in his second inaugural address — "ending tyranny in our world." American troops liberated 50 million people and midwived representative governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States also provided important support to peaceful uprisings in Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan. The ripples of those revolutions reverberated throughout the greater Middle East, long the major breeding ground of anti-Western terrorism. At a minimum, tyrants felt compelled to pay lip service to American demands that they curtail support for terrorism and show...

A HECKLER from the Falun Gong spiritual movement, who entered White House grounds as a reporter, interrupted a formal arrival ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao today, prompting President George W. Bush to apologise to his guest. After being welcomed by Mr Bush, the Chinese president was just beginning his response when a woman, who had been allowed into the press section, started shouting. She was escorted away by a uniformed US guard. "President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong," the woman yelled. US officials later identified her as Wang Wenyi, 47, a...

ATF agents discover guns not preferred weapons for ninja Ninja vs. Pirate day started as an innocent way to meet people and invite them to the Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist group on campus. Ninjas were supposed to say, “Hi-ya doing?” while pirates would introduce themselves to students with a “How arrrr you doing?” Unfortunately for Jeremiah Ransom, the sophomore detained by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm agents Tuesday, he was introduced to an agent’s knee. “I have a good bruise on my back where he had his knee on me,” Ransom said. Camera phone photos submitted to The Red &...

Protecting individual liberty is the most important thing a legislator can do. Exercising power is easy; restraining the exercise of power is hard. Legislators, therefore, have a tendency to exercise power in strange and intrusive ways. The “Noseys” were designed to call attention to the stupid exercise of power in the California Legislature. The 2005 Nosey Award winner is: 1. AB 1677(Koretz) Correctional Condoms Act. This bill provides for the legalization of, and distribution of contraband in our states correctional facilities, by allowing any non-profit or health agency to freely distribute condoms and dental dams to inmates (Just what is...

Syrian - Iranian Bloody Hands in the region... Take a note at Syrian-Iranian tactics, the pattern: 1) Sending or "letting" terrorists to butcher Iraqis. 2) Sheltering Hamas to use kids as bombs or as shields and massacring in Israel. 3) Sending-helping Hezbollah assasins in Lebanon to ethnic cleanse the Christians.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican prosecutors filed long-awaited charges on Monday against former President Luis Echeverria for a 1968 student massacre by soldiers and police that was the bloodiest moment of a brutal crackdown on dissidents. In the latest test of President Vicente Fox's pledge to punish those responsible for past repression, a special prosecutor presented genocide and kidnapping charges against Echeverria and seven others for the October 2, 1968, blood bath at a student rally in Mexico City. "It has been almost 37 years of impunity and justice denied," prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo told Reuters. "Now for the first time...

For years, Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, referring to the temperature at which books burn, has been an inspiration to me and other millions around the world who believe in the freedom to read -- particularly in those countries whose dictators forbid dissenting books. We were talking about Fidel Castro's recurring crackdowns on those remarkably courageous Cubans who keep working to bring democracy to that grim island where dissenters, including independent librarians, are locked in cages, often for 20 or more years. Bradbury knew about the crackdowns, but until I told him, was not aware of Castro's kangaroo courts often...

The first sign that a tyrant's days are numbered comes with the mocking laughter of his peopleA RARE BOOK of cartoons satirising Adolf Hitler, but officially sanctioned by the Führer himself, was sold at auction this week. On the same day, The Times reported that three internet cartoonists in Minsk who dared to ridicule Alexsandr Lukashenko, the autocratic president of Belarus, had been raided by the state security service; they were interrogated, their computers were confiscated and they now face up to five years in prison.Here, separated by 80 years, are two dictators, each trying to control the mirth that...

Hollywood star Forest Whitaker who is playing Idi Amin in the screen version of the acclaimed novel The Last King of Scotland, says the late Ugandan dictator was no saint, but was not the monster that has been portrayed in the West. In a weekend interview, Whitaker said his research for the role in the film had changed his perception of Amin, whose brutal rule over Uganda between 1971 and 1979 was punctuated by bizarre and often psychopathic behaviour, and the deaths of up to half a million people. "I'm not trying to defend Amin, the Amin I found was...

GRASSROOTS BLACK REPUBLICAN ORGANIZATION ANNOUNCES FORMATION Washington, D.C. -August 10, 2005 – A group of African American Republican activists, and their supporters from around the country, will announce the formation of a national grassroots organization August 15, 2005 at 1:00 pm (EST) in the nation’s capital. The announcement will be held at the law offices of Troutman Sanders LLC, 401 Ninth Street, NW Suite 1000, Washington, D.C. “The creation of the National Black Republican Association is the product of the dreams and efforts of scores of black Republicans across the nation,” said interim Chairperson Frances Rice, co-founder of a black...

Peter Jennings Blames the U.S. for Saddam Hussein's Cruelty03/24/2003 Last week, the Media Research Center released a report demonstrating that Peter Jennings has offered the most consistently anti-American, pro-evil dictator reporting of any U.S. news broadcast. Not surprisingly, he continues unabated. Friday night, March 21, at approximately 10:45pm EST, ABC presented a taped interview of four Iraqi women by Barbara Walters. These women, now living in the United States, told horrifying tales of Saddam Hussein's cruelty. Walters finished the interview with agreement by all the women that Iraqi citizens will be "rejoicing when the Americans arrive." Following the taped interview,...

Passage of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965 was a proud moment in U.S. history. For the first time, millions of African Americans living in the Deep South, who had been excluded from fully participating in the political process for 200 years, were finally enfranchised. The battle to secure those rights cost many lives of both blacks and whites. So why is it that some black leaders have taken the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this seminal event to engage in hate speech? On Saturday, thousands of activists gathered in Atlanta to commemorate the signing of the Voting...

Atlanta (CNSNews.com) - Celebrity activist Harry Belafonte referred to prominent African-American officials in the Bush administration as "black tyrants" at a weekend march, and he also compared the administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Belafonte, a featured speaker at Saturday's march in Atlanta commemorating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, previously ignited a political controversy in 2002 when he likened then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to a "house slave." At Saturday's civil rights march, Belafonte said the Bush administration has been "rather dismal" for the lives of black Americans. The march, which featured prominent civil...

It is a wasteland. Street after street razed in a scene that looks like a natural disaster. The hundreds of thousands who have been left homeless are calling it Zimbabwe's tsunami. But man, not nature, is to blame for the destruction enveloping this country.The full force of Robert Mugabe's state is destroying homes and lives in what it calls Operation Restore Order. But all that can be seen is chaos and trauma. There is no compassion, only carefully executed brutality. At Hatcliffe orphanage, run by Dominican sisters, the nuns, workers and 180 orphans were given a day to get out...

In unusually critical comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Josef Stalin a tyrant in a newspaper interview released Thursday and then said separately at the Kremlin that the Soviet dictator's notorious purges failed to destroy the "viability" of Russia. Putin rarely criticizes Stalin, who is widely considered responsible for millions of deaths before and after World War II. Many of them took place during the Great Terror of the 1930s and during sweeping purges that decimated top Soviet military leadership. The comments come days before Putin hosts world leaders Monday for ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory...

Author: Hollywood's Castro Collaborators Revealed What do Jesse Jackson, Danny Glover, Chevy Chase, Norman Mailer and Naomi Campbell have in common? They're all charter members of the Fidel Castro fan club. Appearing on the Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" Tuesday night, author Humberto Fontova detailed the Castro-loving proclivities of America's literati-glitterati class, as described in his new book, "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant." Fontova laid the groundwork for why the "Hollywood pinheads," as O'Reilly called them, think Castro is so great: because Castro is "the cool anti-American." And, as we all know, Hollywood is a firm protectorate of the 'blame America...

Search: chicagotribune.com >> Editorials -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Um, `Could Bush be right?' Published March 6, 2005 Who on Earth wants to be known as the last foe of freedom? Not Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who Thursday joined a chorus of leaders telling Syrian President Bashar Assad to end his nation's three-decade occupation of Lebanon. Not Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who abruptly announced plans to hold the first free, multiparty election in his country's history. Not President Mahmoud Abbas, whose path to Palestinian independence is now blocked less by Israel than by peace-averse militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas....

How can anyone believe Justice Minister Irwin Cotler when he claims the government’s same-sex legislation will not affect religious freedoms? Over and over again the Liberals have proven that they either don't understand what freedom of religion is, or they don't really care about protecting it. I would rather trust Don Cherry to run a charm school than trust the Liberals to protect the free exercise of religion. Not that long ago, amendments to hate crime legislation designed to protect religious expression were voted down by the Liberals, and church leaders were threatened with the loss of their tax-exempt status...

Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times Monday, January 31, 2005 DAVOS, Switzerland One of the most striking things I've found in Europe these past two weeks is the absolute conviction that the Bush team is just itching to invade Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Psssssssst. Come over here. A little closer. Now listen: Don't tell the Iranians this, but the Bush team isn't going to be invading anybody. We Americans don't have enough troops to finish the job in Iraq. Our military budget is completely maxed out. We couldn't invade Grenada today. If Iran is to...

London 27.11.04 | Freezing temperatures have not dented the Ukrainians to go out by the thousands and stand up in protest for what they believe was a rigged election. The hypocritical international community has deemed the election as fraudulent and has had no recourse but to take into consideration the allegations made by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who is demanding a re-run of last Sunday’s polls. Demanding, that’s right. Compare that to Venezuela, which has had two rigged elections in the past 3 months. Contrast the climatic conditions of the two countries and further try and correlate the reactions of...

The presidential election of 2004 may be just as close as the presidential election of 2000. Once again, the outcome could be determined by a handful of votes in a single state. Yet, the stakes in this election are enormous. While the vote margin between President Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry may turn out to be small, the differences in where they intend to take the country are vast. Kerry is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. But he has labored in this campaign--and especially at the Democratic National Convention in Boston--to hide his true beliefs and...

Najah Ali: Iraq's little boxing surprise Ten months ago, light flyweight Najah Ali wasn't on the Iraqi boxing team, because there was no such thing. On Aug. 18, the 4'11" 106-pounder in convincing style, 21-7, over a heavily favored opponent, North Korea's Kwak Hyok Ju, who is 5'4". In his first major international fight -- he only has about 35 bouts to his name total -- Ali controlled matters from the outset, leading 9-3 after one round. The shortest man in the Olympic boxing tournament danced around the ring agilely and snuck inside his taller opponent's reach to land...

'No gays, adulterers for Muslim villages' By PHOOLO DANNY-MAHARAJ South Bureau Monday, July 19th 2004 Maulana Imran Hosein THERE is a plan to establish Muslim villages in Trinidad and Tobago. Speaking of the plan yesterday Maulana Imran Hosein said it was born of the need to protect and preserve Islam from the ills of society such as alcohol, fornication, adultery, illegitimate children, homosexuality, lesbianism and murders. Hosein, who was earlier this year accused by ASJA of promoting "terrorist-type" ideologies, gave the lecture on the establishment of The Muslim Village in Trinidad and Tobago during a public session at the San...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A headless corpse dressed in an orange jumpsuit has been found by Iraqi police in the Tigris River and handed over to U.S. forces, but it has not yet been identified, a U.S. military spokeswoman said Thursday. She said it was not known whether the body was that of a Bulgarian hostage killed by his captors earlier this week. A deadline for the threatened execution of a second Bulgarian hostage passed last night without news. The body was found near Baiji, 112 miles north of Baghdad, Wednesday night. "The body had been decapitated. It was dressed in...

Same-Sex 'Marriage' Issue: Senators on the High Priority Contact ListAs the Senate prepares to vote on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect marriage, it is vital that all pro-family Americans contact their Senators in support of this necessary amendment.Below is a list of Senators that Family Research Council has deemed to be the highest priority. If your Senator is listed, please contact him or her immediately and tell them to cast a vote in support of traditional marriage during the week of July 12th.

Iraq's Christian population considers fleeing Iraq as the violence against them increases. Someone forgot to tell the terrorists that islam is a religion of mercy, peace and tolerance...

PARIS, July 11 (AFP) - French officials, civil rights groups and Jewish associations at the weekend expressed outrage at a new anti-Semitic attack committed just as President Jacques Chirac and his government vowed to crack down on racist acts. Chirac himself on Saturday called the attack, on a 23-year-old mother and her 13-month-old baby, "shameful" and said in a statement that the perpetrators must be found and punished with the full severity of the law. The assault occurred early Friday, when six unidentified men said to be of North African Arab and African origin grabbed the victim as she travelled...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippines - still hoping a kidnapped Filipino trucker driver will be released - rejected demands Sunday of the hostage takers for an early troop withdrawal from Iraq. The group that snatched Angelo dela Cruz, 46, near the troubled city Fallujah on Wednesday originally gave Manila until 3 p.m. EDT to advance its pullout by a month to July 20. After the government's rejection, however, the insurgents extended the deadline by two days, until Tuesday, a government official said early Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In line with our commitment to the free people of...

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim guerrillas sliced off the nose, ears and tongue of a 14-year-old girl in Indian Kashmir on Sunday, believing her to be an informer for the Indian army, police said. Mariam Begum was abducted by a group of militants from her house in Doda district south of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. "The abductee was let off by the terrorists. However her ears, nose and tongue have been chopped off," a police spokesman said. Rebels have in the past killed or maimed people who they believe are helping Indian soldiers put down the 15-year revolt in...

Reopening the Gates in Turkey? By Terry Mattingly Scripps Howard News Service There are two front gates into the walled compound that protects the home of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians. Visitors enter through a door secured by a guardhouse, locks and a metal-screening device. They cannot enter the Phanar's main gate because it was welded shut in 1821 after the Ottoman Turks hanged Patriarch Gregory V from its lintel. The black doors have remained sealed ever since. A decade ago, bombers who tried to open this gate left a note:...

Last Updated: Friday, 9 July, 2004, 16:24 GMT 17:24 UK Wrong to call terrorists 'madmen' Terrorist is a political not a psychiatric diagnosis, says Dr Silke Terrorists are sane and not paranoid madmen, a leading expert says. Dr Andrew Silke, a UN advisor and forensic psychologist at Leicester University, says terrorism is a political, not a psychiatric diagnosis. He said legal reports showed members of groups such as Al-Qaeda were motivated by violent events and the desire for revenge. Dr Silke was speaking at the annual conference of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Harrogate. Dr Silke and researchers from...