Free Republic

What does the Liberal Left have against 13-year-old girls? Within the space of a month, the Left has been--well, not exactly--forced to defend both Roman Polanski and ACORN. While most politicians have remained mum, an assortment of liberal bloggers, pundits and Hollywood celebs have rushed to the defense of ACORN, Roman Polanski or both. ACORN, shown on hidden camera instructing how to facilitate the importation of underage girls into the United States for the sex trade, rallied the Left first. Roman Polanski, convicted of drugging and anally raping a 13-year-old girl, is the latest to cause the Left, especially Hollywood,...

The Obama rump-swab government-run media are so shaken by the persistence of those among the American electorate who would still like to see proof of Obama's Natural-Born American Citizenship that they have adopted the Nazi propaganda tactic of referring to such inquisitive individuals as "conspiracy theorists." In fact, the only true "conspiracy theorists" in the room are the ostrich-imitating media, who use such perjorative and insulting terminology to refer to patriotic Americans who merely request a modicum of assurance that our president is actually our president under the simple and unchallenged rules set forth in the United States Constitution. People...

I am as sick to death of RINO apologists as I am the RINOs themselves. Too many real conservatives took a lot of flack here on FR during the last mid term and presidential election cycles for expecting Republicans to actually legislate like Republicans rather voting for every Obama-lite candidate with an “R” after their names who just might be electable. To too many, elections are about partisan score keeping and not about the direction and future of the country. Many conservatives received a lot of undeserved criticism because they refused to vote straight party line or choose the lesser...

MONROE – At first glance, it’s an unlikely combination. A black family seated under a tent facing a line of Civil War re-enactors, proudly holding Confederate flags and gripping their weapons. But what lies between these two groups is what brought them together: An unmarked grave about to get its due, belonging to a slave who fought for the Confederacy. Weary Clyburn was best friends with his master’s son, Frank. When Frank left the plantation to fight in the Civil War, Clyburn followed him. He fought alongside Frank and even saved his life on two occasions. On July 18, the...

Terry Lynn Barton has been released from prison after serving a six-year term for starting the worst wildfire in Colorado's recorded history. Barton, 44, pleaded guilty to arson charges stemming from the 2002 Hayman Fire, which blackened 138,000 acres, destroyed 133 homes and forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate. She was a fire spotter for the U.S. Forest Service at the time

In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra. Asked if she saw any evidence of the surge’s positive impact on her May 17 trip to Iraq she responded: Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That...

Scientists find a fingerprint of evolution across the human genome The Human Genome Project revealed that only a small fraction of the 3 billion “letter” DNA code actually instructs cells to manufacture proteins, the workhorses of most life processes. This has raised the question of what the remaining part of the human genome does. How much of the rest performs other biological functions, and how much is merely residue of prior genetic events? Scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the University of Chicago now report that one of the steps in turning genetic information into proteins leaves genetic...

Last August, during an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Barack Obama was asked whether he'd lead the nation in a "conversation about race" if he were elected president. He demurred, suggesting that Americans were more interested in having a president who would fight terrorism and economic decline than one who acted as therapist-in-chief. It was a pragmatic response from the man trying to become the nation's first black president. He'd never win over substantial numbers of white or brown or even black voters if he seemed overly focused on America's racial divide. But the issue of race...

African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant's Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people. The family of Abraham Lincoln himself, when it lived in Pennsylvania in colonial times, owned slaves.[1]...

Last week, a reporter of the Kuwait News Agency accused Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee of “linking Islam with terrorism as a tool to scare up support among US voters, an election style experts describe as ‘shameful.” ... Shameful style? Yes, if measured by Islamic standards and not those of American politics and free speech. Last Monday it was reported that the British government has drawn up a new handbook for government officials that forbids them to use phrases like “Islamist extremism” or “jihadi-fundamentalist” -- instead, police and others must refer to “violent extremism” and “criminal...

Somebody created this to rebut all the stupid communist "tributes" on YouTube to expose the truth of the ideology that has killed tens of millions. This video is being heavily argued about on another forum I read (Fark). Reading the comments there and at YouTube it seems that Communism still has a TON of apologists and defenders willing to come to its rescue every time someone tries to put the truth out there about it. You may find this movie funny or sad but it is definitely worth watching.

This past Sunday, thanks to Mayor David Cohen, the city of Newton paid special tribute to Father Robert Drinan, who was our Congressman for ten years until the Pope asked him to retire from Congress and Barney Frank replaced him. He had been the Dean of the Boston College Law School and a well-known theologian, author and educator. Since his retirement from Congress, he had been teaching at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, and he passed away on January 28. He was a frequent visitor to his sister-in-law and nieces, who currently live in Newton. At the remembrance,...

The nation's journey to $3 per gallon gas has been more like a drag race than a meandering road trip. With the partial shutdown of Prudhoe Bay last week, motorists who have felt the pain at the pump had more to moan about as the simple dynamics of supply and demand kept the prices hovering at a level that seemed unfathomable a few years ago. "I complain when I can, if anybody will listen," Victor Gianotti said Monday in Raleigh, N.C. "As long as we're involved and we stay involved in the Mideast and we're not self-sufficient we're going to...

With 29 countries in favor, 12 opposed, Arab countries pass decision according to which Council’s inspectors will prepare special report on human rights violations committed by Israel in territories, issue will be discussed in all Council meetings.Diplomatic blow: The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday accepted a resolution according to which human rights violations committed by Israel in the territories will be discussed on a permanent basis in all of the Council’s meetings. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Yitzhak Levanon told Ynet in response: “I am very sorry that the Arab group took us back to the...

"Unfortunately, all too often "Islam" and "terrorism" are juxtaposed in news reports and editorials. A word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade shows that reporters are hundred times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined. Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice. Surely all terrorists are not Muslim, neither are all Muslims terrorists."

Illegal immigration is recognized by many U.S. Citizens to be a threat to our nation. It's is a balkanizing process. It disrupts communities. It places financial strain on regions of our nation. It costs our nation tens of billions of dollars a year, if not hundreds. It is destroying our health care system. It disrupts the education system financially and in the teaching process due to language problems. It can place English speaking children at a disadvantage, in that spanish children receive elevated resources while English speaking kids take a back seat in the early years. There are problems of...

I thought I would insert a little perspective into the argument concerning border enforcement this morning? I though yesterday's conversation went so well, ya know? This one will probably be moved to chat, but even so, maybe today we can discuss what REAL border enforcement would mean, and if that is something you REALLY want to see happen in America?

A few words on the Dubai Ports World imbroglio, written without pause or editing, which is probably just as well. Short version: the administration may have thought it was helping a Valuable Ally and probably a pal, end of story. But it plays like Bush defending eminent domain to condemn a neighborhood to build a mosque. I don’t make predictions, because – well, who cares? You either repeat the conventional wisdom and hide with the herd when you’re wrong, or buck the prevailing opinions and get a reputation as a “maverick” when you’re wrong, again. Works for some. But if...

Austrian prosecutors have filed an appeal against the three-year prison sentence handed to the British historian David Irving, arguing that he escaped too lightly for the crime of Holocaust denial. Irving was left stunned and open-mouthed when the sentence was handed down after a one-day trial in a Vienna court yesterday. After entering a guilty plea and publicly accepting that he had made a mistake when denying existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, Irving had clearly expected a more lenient punishment over two speeches made to Austrian neo-Nazis in 1989. Irving's defence lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, has already appealed against the...

Rome paid tribute to the barbarians clamoring at her gates. It didn't do any good. Paying ransom only postponed the inevitable sacking, burning, and looting of the empire's capital. The UK's Neville Chamberlain sought to pacify Hitler, only to see Brits hiding in basements from the blitzkrieg a few years later. Instead of remembering history's lessons, the Washington Post today indulges in feel-good, intellectual rationalization of Muslim intolerance and hatred. In a 5-page manifesto entitled, "Anatomy of the Cartoon Protest Movement," authors Anthony Shadid and Kevin Sullivan exercise unlimited poetic license, calling Islamist hooliganism "a rare moment of empowerment among...