Free Republic

These days, being seen as a victim can be useful. You immediately claim the moral high ground. Some people want to help you. Lawyers and politicians brag that they force others to help you. This turns some people into whiners with little sense of responsibility. Joe Biden's niece was arrested recently for throwing a punch at a cop. The New York Post says she's addicted to alcohol and pills, but rather than take responsibility for her actions, she blamed them on the "pressure she faces" because her uncle is vice president. Give me a break. America was founded by people...

full title............'Oprah's a liar': Sales assistant in Swiss racist handbag row denies telling TV host that she could not view item because she couldn't afford itThe saleslady went on: 'This is not true. This is absurd. I would never say something like that to a customer. Really never. Good manners and politeness are the Alpha and the Omega in this business. 'I don't know why she is making these accusations. She is so powerful and I am just a shop girl. 'I didn't hurt anyone. I don't know why someone as great as her must cannibalize me on TV. 'If...

...Fuller was arrested and send for a psychiatric treatment yesterday, as he screamed "you're dead" at a Tea Party leader. However, this action was simply the culmination of vitriol that he has hurled at the Tea Party, both before and after the shooting. Right after the shooting, Fuller gave an interview with liberal Democracy NOW... Here is a short transcript: Fuller- "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle, and the rest got their first target...Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The man who went on a shooting rampage at a beer distributor calmly told a 911 operator that it was "a racist place" and that he had taken matters into his own hands and "handled the problem." Omar Thornton, 34, called 911 after shooting 10 co-workers - eight fatally - on Tuesday morning at Hartford Distributors. He introduced himself as "the shooter over in Manchester" and said he was hiding in the building, but would not say where......

“Conceptions of the Muslim as Enemy — Conceptions of the Jew as Enemy.” This was the title of a conference held on December 8 at Berlin’s Center for Research on Anti-Semitism. The stated aim of the conference was to employ the template of anti-Semitism in order to analyze an allegedly new form of kindred prejudice: “Islamophobia.” The announcement of the conference sparked a raging controversy in Germany. It has been all the more intense due to the fact that the Berlin-based center is the most well-known and influential research institution of its kind in Germany and, arguably, in all of...

The day after Barack Obama was elected president, Kari Fulton heard a white colleague proclaim that racism in America is dead. She cringed, worrying it might be a sign of flagging interest in the fight against discrimination. “In reality, racism is still very much alive and well,” said Fulton, who graduated last year from Howard University, a historically black college in the nation’s capital. Obama’s election has generated a euphoria among African Americans that is palpable. For some, the weight of history has finally been eased after generations of struggling for equality. But amid the postelection glow of racial harmony...

Do not say black and white Americans live in the same world or you will feel the wrath of Whoopi Goldberg. That is what Elisabeth Hasselbeck discovered on the July 17 edition of "The View." Upon suggesting that, Whoopi reduced Elisabeth to tears. On the news of Jesse Jackson’s use of the "n" word, the conversation quickly developed into the double standard involved between a white and black person’s use of the word. Sherri Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg admitted there is a double standard, but added there should be. Sherri Shepherd said she uses the word "as a term of...

As researchers ponder growing evidence that blacks have worse outcomes than whites in the treatment of chronic disease, they often theorize that members of minorities suffer disproportionately from poor access to quality care. Now a new study of diabetes patients has found stark racial disparities even among patients treated by the same doctors. The lead author of the study said in an interview that he attributed the differences less to overt racism than to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms. The problem, said the author, Dr. Thomas D. Sequist, an assistant professor of health care policy...

Manhattan grand jury has subpoenaed the university records of the controversial black Columbia Teachers College professor who found a noose hanging from her office door - signaling that the investigation is broadening to examine possible links between the teacher, her closest friends and the racially charged incident, The Post has learned. According to sources, the subpoenas obtained recently by the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force and prosecutors demanded the college hand over a laundry list of records pertaining to embattled professor Madonna Constantine, whose colleague found a 4-foot hangman's noose on her office doorknob last October. The incident happened at...

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.: that is the full name of the junior Senator from Illinois - neither a contrivance nor, at face value, a slur. But John McCain couldn't apologize quickly enough after Bill Cunningham, a conservative talk radio host, warmed up a Cincinnati rally with a few loaded references to "Barack Hussein Obama." Asked afterwards if it was appropriate to use the Senator's middle name, McCain said, "No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate." The pundits were quick to applaud McCain's fatwa against the use of Hussein,...

COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- Students at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School are waging a war on peace. Recently, sophomore Skylar Stains decided to hold Peace Shirt Thursdays at the school. Skylar and her friend, Lauren Lorraine, started wearing peace shirts and soon recruited more friends to wear them. Now, the "Peace Shirt Coalition" as they call themselves, has close to 30 students from all grades. "We've worn handmade peace shirts every Thursday since the first week of school, without fail," Skylar said. But what started out as a light-hearted gesture soon started to be taken out of context. Students started...

Muslims throughout the world celebrate Eid Al-Fitr today marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Ramadan is not only abstaining from food and drink; it is a time of intense spiritual renewal for those who observe it in a truly Islamic way. The same spirit should inform and illuminate our celebration of Eid too. This means we should spend the day and those following it in enhanced piety and with a sense of fellowship, brotherhood and unity. True, we should make our friends and relatives happy, but without forgetting those who are less fortunate. Eid should be celebrated...

Muslims are required by their faith to pray to Mecca five times a day. There is nothing sinister or criminal about people peacefully carrying out the obligations of their faith. Airlines that single out praying Muslims and deny them flight privileges permanently are no different from the five-and-dime stores that once prevented blacks from eating at luncheonette counters. It is as unthinkable to ban praying Muslims from a flight, as it would be to deny boarding to a group of praying Hasidic Jews. Both sects engage in public group prayers. Both are exercising their constitutional rights as U.S. citizens. Persecution...

They look for all the world like internment camps. The long rows of identical white trailers sit on flat, grim, barren expanses of land that are enclosed by metal fences. Armed guards are stationed at the entrances around the clock. More than a year after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of the poorest victims from New Orleans are still living in these trailer parks run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They have ironic names, like Mount Olive Gardens and Renaissance Village. A more accurate name would be Camp Depression, after the state of mind of most of the...

A SENIOR Church of England cleric whose father converted from Islam has attacked the world view of some Muslims, accusing them of incompatible double standards of "victimhood and domination". “Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taliban or in Iraq,” said the CoE's only Asian bishop, Michael Nazir-Ali. Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in southeast England, was quoted today as saying because of a “dual psychology” in which some Muslims...

What does it mean to be a black man? Imagine three African American boys, kindergartners who are largely alike in intelligence, talent and character, whose potential seems limitless. According to a wealth of statistics and academic studies, in just over a decade one of the boys is likely to be locked up or headed to prison. The second boy — if he hasn't already dropped out — will seriously weigh leaving high school and be pointed toward an uncertain future. The third boy will be speeding toward success by most measures. Being a black man in America can mean inhabiting...

Parents will be surprised -- at times shocked -- to learn that leading colleges and universities have used the February Black History Month to lash out angrily at whites, to spread socialist ideas, and to honor the Black Panthers, according to a statement released by the Young America's Foundation. They claim that missing from many Black History Month campus activities were positive messages and discussions about the accomplishments that blacks have made in business, education, government, and science. They also complain that "too few black conservative speakers, such as Ward Connerly, Walter Williams, and Star Parker, were invited to provide...

The children of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent make up a quarter of all British medical students, 12 times their proportion in the general population. They are likewise overrepresented in the law, science, and economics faculties of our universities. Among the Indian immigrants who arrived in the country with next to nothing, moreover, there are now reportedly some thousands of millionaires. Despite its reputation for being ossified and class-ridden, then, Britain is still a country in which social mobility is possible—provided, of course, that a belief that Britain is an ossified and class-ridden society doesn't completely stifle personal effort. It...

The owner of a McDonald's restaurant in the Hyde Park neighborhood scrapped a policy Thursday that required Kenwood Academy High School students to sit in a separate area from other customers, after a student protesting the policy was handcuffed by Chicago police and taken back to campus. Catherine Smith, 15, was two bites into her Chicken Selects Wednesday when a security guard ordered her and her friends to move because they were sitting in a "non-student" area, she said. "I paid for the food just like everyone else and I'm not leaving," Smith responded. The security guard then called Chicago...

DONETSK, January 20 (Itar-Tass) - Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich said he feared repressions on the part of the authorities against the people and even whole regions who had voted against his rival in the presidential race Viktor Yushchenko. "A new human rights organization, which will be certainly set up and registered in Ukraine, should take up their protection," Yanukovich told the Donetsk-based Ukraina television company on Thursday. "We must pool our efforts, defending out citizens' rights to have their own opinions," he said.

The son of a billionaire printing-company mogul who was found to be running a secret S&M sex club for gay men from his penthouse apartment is now being sued by the other condo owners. A corporation set up to manage the posh 12-story condo complex in Gramercy Park has filed suit against H. Richard Quadracci — the subject of a Post investigation — in an attempt to get him to stop running his kinky Winter Palace club, saying it violates the condo association's bylaws. "The unit owners respect his right to live the way he chooses, but when you have...

A Klein couple who had claimed their house was burned in a hate crime admitted staging the blaze to collect on insurance. Nicholas Gatlin, 31, pleaded guilty Monday to arson and insurance fraud and was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison, said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Steve Baldassano. His wife, Tracey Gatlin, also 31, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and received four years deferred adjudication. They also must pay $13,000 in restitution to Allstate, the company that insured the home, Baldassano added. The couple claimed their house in the 9800 block of Tassel Brook was torched...

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Local & State Aug. 21, 2003, 10:02AM Hate crime 'victims' admit to arson scheme By DALE LEZON Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle A Klein couple who claimed their house was burned in a hate crime admitted staging the blaze to collect on insurance. Nicholas Gatlin, 31, pleaded guilty Monday to arson and insurance fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Steve Baldassano. His wife, Tracey Gatlin, also 31, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and received four years deferred adjudication. They also must pay $13,000 in restitution to Allstate,...

The father of a Marine Staff Seargent killed in the war was shown on the news carrying a snapshot of his late son, blaming President Bush for killing his only son. Call me insensitive, but NO ONE forced his son to enlist, or in this case re-enlist more than once to serve his country. The son is a hero, as far as I'm concerned. The father, though I grieve with him, is a boob! I dare you to flame me.