Free Republic

CHICAGO - A federal judge refused Monday to temporarily bar schools from observing a brief period of prayer or reflective silence for students, but he allowed a lawsuit contesting the practice to move forward. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman told talk-radio host Rob Sherman, who filed the suit, and attorneys for school District 214 and the state to come back to court on Nov. 14 to explore the issue further. Sherman's 14-year-old daughter, Dawn, is a student in the district at Buffalo Grove High School. She and her father maintain that the new law is just another round in...

A former ABC News consultant fired last year because he couldn't authenticate academic credentials is at the center of a new dispute over apparently faked interviews with Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Gates and others. The consultant, Alexis Debat, quit the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank, on Wednesday after Obama's representatives claimed an interview with the senator appearing under Debat's byline in the French magazine Politique Internationale never took place. The interview quoted the Democratic presidential candidate as saying the Iraq war was "a defeat for America." Pelosi, Gates, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former United Nations Secretary-General...

The Insipid Object Meets the Inane ForceIf you reside in the Chicago area, you are well aware of our resident Unholier-Than-Thou atheist pest Rob Sherman. If you don't, though, you probably have a clone where you live. You know the type: he scurries about the metropolitan area looking for things to be offended about. Crosses in city seals, seals wearing crosses...that sort of thing. Well, I'm happy to report that Mr. Sherman has scored a major victory for atheists everywhere!You see, the city of Chicago, having solved the problems of crime, economic stagnation and urban blight, turned its attention to...

What began three years ago as part of a highly-publicized program to help troubled boys has been quietly dropped by the 19th Judicial Circuit Court. The charter of Boy Scout Troop 19, based at the Depke Juvenile Justice Complex in Vernon Hills, was allowed to expire March 1 in response to concerns by the American Civil Liberties Union. "We decided it probably would be best served not to continue," said Bob Zastany, executive director of the court's administrative office. "We thought we were doing some good things out there." The ACLU and others, most notably Buffalo Grove resident and well-known...