Free Republic

Prodded by a president with a weakness for racial agitation and enabled by a politically complicit media, the State of Florida persists in a prosecution that can come to no good end. The defendant is neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. The charge is the second-degree murder. The potential outcomes range from major injustice, if Zimmerman is convicted, to mayhem in the streets, if he's acquitted. And the state plods on as though the angels were on its side. They are not. The witnesses to the February 2012 shooting of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin are proving even more troublesome than the...

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Friday that "anxiety can feed anxiety," causing a market panic, but his administration is working aggressively to provide the tools to restore liquidity and sanity to capital markets. In remarks from the White House Rose Garden, the president also warned anyone against trying to make a fast buck on the financial crisis and reassured Americans that their money is safe. "We are concerned that some investors could take advantage of the crisis to illegally manipulate the stock market," Bush said. "Anyone caught engaging in illegal financial activities will be prosecuted."

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia : The image of the United States in tsunami-hit parts of Asia may have enjoyed a boost thanks to its massive aid donations, but one year on, residents say US policy speaks louder than dollars. The US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with Washington's pro-Israeli stance, have incensed Muslims across the region, and no amount of aid -- even in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia -- has soothed their anger. "I don't like the leader of the American people. I don't mind the people, I just don't like their leader," says Yan, a 35-year-old Acehnese dried fish trader who...

SACRAMENTO – Fighting global poverty and creating stronger international alliances are the keys to security and spreading democracy, former Soviet president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday. "It is hard to imagine a calm, safe and secure world" where so many people live in poverty, Gorbachev said through an interpreter. He spoke Wednesday as part of a lecture series at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. "If people's lives are not becoming better, people begin to change their minds and say democracy is worthless," he said during an hour-long question-and-answer session before...