Free Republic

An emerging movement to give non-citizens the right to vote in local elections should be resisted because it puts at risk national cohesion and the value of U.S. citizenship, according to a new report by a group that supports lower immigration.“The Constitution, the Congress and the courts have enshrined voting as a core indispensable element of American citizenship and democracy,” Stanley A. Renshon, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said upon release of his paper, “Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in the United States? Why Not.”Those who support non-citizen voting argue that it would actually be more democratic...

For the past seven months, a group of students and young professionals has gathered nightly to phone U.S. voters and urge them to support Barack Obama in the presidential elections. This would not be at all unusual were it not for the fact that the callers are Palestinians living in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The callers are volunteers who meet in a local Internet café or a room at a youth center equipped with computers they use to make their calls. The group was organized by Ibrahim Abu Jayyeb, a 23-year-old university student, who told The Media Line he is...

More than 50 percent of Britons believe that polygamy is legal in the United States; in fact, it is illegal in all 50 states. Almost one-third of Britons believe that Americans who have not paid their hospital fees or insurance premiums are not entitled to emergency medical care; in fact, such treatment must be provided by law. Seventy percent of Britons think the United States has done a worse job than the European Union in reducing carbon emissions since 2000; in fact, America’s rate of growth of carbon emissions has decreased by almost ten percent since 2000, while that of...

Have Russell Brand and Gordon Brown damaged Barack Obama's chances? An alarming number of Americans have been saying it is possible - that's how much their countrymen hate being told how to vote by the British. Mr Brown didn't exactly endorse Mr Obama, but he certainly suggested a preference in a magazine article. Brand, a comedian who is almost as unknown in the US as the British Prime Minister, was more blunt as he exhorted - "on behalf of the world" - the audience of the MTV Video Awards to vote Democrat. George Bush, he added, was a "retarded cowboy"....

What Europeans are Saying about Sarah Palin Europeans have greeted the news of Sarah Palin’s nomination for Vice President of the United States with a predictable mixture of anger, frustration, resentment and resignation. After more than a year of uncritically praising Barack Obama as a supernatural figure destined by fate to solve all of the world’s problems, European elites are suddenly coming to terms with the unwelcome possibility that the junior senator from Illinois might just be another human being after all. European commentary on Sarah Palin has ranged from ridicule, to ridicule, to more ridicule, to reluctant acknowledgment that...

Al-Qaida's media relations department must be seething. Or rather, they must be seething beyond the usual Destroy America/Kill the Jews/Behead the Infidels/Convert-or-Die seething that is their second nature. After years of churning out throat-slitting propaganda videos, investing in the finest video editing software and studio sets, and establishing cozy relations with sympathetic international newspapers and global network news channels, the jihadists still don't get no respect from world opinion. They are the Rodney al-Dangerfields of global mass murderers. A poll released this week of more than 16,000 people in 17 nations revealed that "majorities in only nine countries believe al-Qaida...

It's funny how the harder you look at something, the harder it can be to understand it. I can't recall a US presidential election that has attracted more attention. But neither can there have been a time when the world has watched what goes on in America with the nonplussed, horrified incomprehension it has now. Travelling in Britain this week, I've been asked repeatedly by close followers of US politics if it can really be true that Barack Obama might not win. Thoughtful people cannot get their head around the idea that Mr Obama, exciting new pilot of change, supported...

THE HAGUE, 12/09/08 - Popular support for US presidential candidate Barack Obama is higher in the Netherlands than anywhere else in Europe, according to the Transatlantic Trends 2008 survey published yesterday. At the same time relatively many Dutch also view his opponent, John McCain, favourably. Sixty-nine percent of Europeans view Obama favourably, compared with 26 percent who view McCain favourably. The highest favourability ratings for Obama were found in the Netherlands (85%), France (85%) and Germany (83%). The highest favourability ratings for McCain were found in Portugal (35%), the Netherlands (33%), Spain (33%), and the United Kingdom (33%). Transatlantic Trends...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would triumph over President Dmitry Medvedev if presidential polls were held this weekend, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. A separate survey showed that if Russians were allowed to vote in U.S. polls, they would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. The polls follow Russia's intervention in Georgia last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake a pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia.

In advance of the 2009 citywide elections, a coalition of immigrant and advocacy organizations is reigniting a fight to give noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections, drawing the ire of opponents who argue that voting is a right for American citizens only. Click Image to Enlarge Michael Nagle/Getty Protesters gather In May 2007 at Union Square for a May Day immigration-related protest. At a rally outside City Hall yesterday organized by the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, supporters of a City Council bill that would extend voting rights to 1.3 million noncitizen New Yorkers said it's...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday. http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?articleId=32140442&channelId=2951&buyerId=newsmeatcom&buid=3281

The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns forAn America that disdains Obama for his global support risks turning current anti-Bush feeling into something far worse Jonathan Freedland From The Guardian [highlighting and emphasis by Radarsite] Wednesday September 10 2008 The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: "It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more." In my head,...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would triumph over President Dmitry Medvedev if presidential polls were held this weekend, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. A separate survey showed that if Russians were allowed to vote in U.S. polls, they would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. The polls follow Russia's intervention in Georgia last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake a pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia.

Gordon Brown's article in the Parliamentary Monitor has sent Downing Street screeching into one of those clumsy reverse manoeuvres with which it has become so familiar of late. Apparently, the PM hadn't meant to endorse Barack Obama at all - in fact, he hadn't even meant to write the article, which, it is now claimed, was put together by some junior official and submitted to the magazine without so much as a cursory glance by its supposed author. Number 10 today signalled that Mr Brown had not written the article, but refused to comment on claims that he had not...

Today, I learned that the BBC has conducted a poll that indicates that the citizens of 22 countries that were polled favor Barack Obama in the Presidential election. The mainstream media reported this because they believe, along with most enlightened liberals, that this should show us that Obama is who we need to elect. The media, most college educated liberals, academics all admire modern Western Europe. They admire Europeans' supposed sophistication. They admire their ability to separate their religion from their day to day decision making. They admire their aversion to war and they admire their commitment to socialist ideals....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday. The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001. U.S. officials squarely blame al Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden has boasted of organizing the suicide attacks by his followers using hijacked commercial airliners. On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al...

Barack Obama caused another stir over his ties to Islam on Sunday when he noted that “John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith” in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos immediately corrected him, and Obama backtracked to say, “my Christian faith…What I’m saying is that he hasn’t suggested that I’m a Muslim.” A few pundits tried to make something of this, attempting to revive the “Obama is a Secret Muslim” rumors, but there really wasn’t anything more to it than a verbal stumble. Obama is not a Muslim, and there is enough to question about training, experience, ideology,...

Re: Obama, the World's President [Mark Steyn] Kathryn, having decided to elect him President and Community Organizer-in-Chief, the World will not be happy if those hopelessly parochial Yank knuckledraggers decline to endorse the World's decision as to who should govern them and their ghastly backwater. Already, there are awful mutterings from The Guardian: The World's Verdict Will Be Harsh If The US Rejects The Man It Yearns For You mean economic sanctions? Expulsion from the Olympics? Moving the Oscars to Belgium? Jonathan Freedland isn't spelling it out but he's not happy: But what of the rest of the world? This...

Now that the subject of presidential campaign is significant and almost in every gathering and discussion the subject comes up, I find myself a little indifferent. First, I am not an American citizen, and I have far more important worries such as surviving my classes and my immigrant life after all those loans I've taken from family members, friends and the university. Second, I am beginning to lose all hope and start to believe that once again Americans are going to elect someone who is less concerned about public health, education, economy or peace and human rights. It wasn't until...

Gordon Brown forced to deny he is backing Obama for President Philippe Naughton Just as John McCain pulls ahead in the US presidential race, Gordon Brown has decided to throw his weight behind Barack Obama. Or, at least, that's what it looks like for the McCain campaign. Downing Street hastily denied Tory accusations today that the Prime Minister was taking sides in the race for the White House after he showered praise on Mr Obama, the Democratic candidate, in a magazine article. Traditionally, foreign leaders try to maintain a scrupulous neutrality during election contests. Writing in the Parliamentary Monitor, a...