Free Republic

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected Al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

Imagine the government making an estimable promise of enormous proportion. Imagine the government pledging a promise so big that it would, in fact, as they would argue, actually save an entire sector of the economy. Imagine in doing so, that the same government promises blind fairness, trust, and integrity in the process. Imagine the government assuming the significant portion of funding such a program off of the hard sweat labor you and I commit to everyday. Imagine this program pledging complete utopia in helping to restore a struggling economy, even if the sector it was addressing was a largely insignificant...

Traditional Holy Mass Propers † FEAST OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS ( Virgin de los Angeles ) † "Our Lady of the Angels", William-Adolphe Bouguerau, France, 1889 A.D. Missa Spíritus Dómini super me ( "....The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...." ) 2 August 2009 Anno Dómini "....behold I send you as lambs among wolves...." "Nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us.I could attend Mass forever, and not be tired.It is not a mere form of words; it is a great action.The greatest action that...

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq as those of Captain Michael Scott Speicher. Captain Speicher was shot down flying a combat mission in an F/A-18 Hornet over west-central Iraq on January 17th, 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Captain Speicher's family for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country," said Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy. "I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home." “Our Navy will never give up looking...

Rumblings in China’s rust-belt BEIJING, July 28 — The merger of two steel companies has been scrapped after a manager was beaten to death last Friday, said state media yesterday.The incident is one of China’s most violent labour disputes in recent years and threw the spotlight back on the country’s rust-belt region, which had been a cauldron of agitation a decade back.The riot took place in Jilin province, one of three north-eastern provinces known collectively as “Dongbei” in China, a region which has suffered the most from the country’s privatisation of state-owned enterprises since the 1990s. Last Friday, privately-owned firm...

Lyndon Johnson "Johnson would come on the plane and the minute he got out of sight of the crowds, he would stand in the doorway and grin from ear to ear and say, 'You dumb sons of bitches. I piss on all of you,' " recalls Robert M. MacMillan, an Air Force One steward. Richard Nixon One evening, Nixon built a fire and forgot to open the flue damper. Two agents came running. "Can you find him?" one of the agents asked the other. "No, I can't find the son of a bitch," the other agent said. From the bedroom,...

Will China Implode? by Isabel Hilton Obama and Chinese officials met this week for high-level policy talks, and avoided exchanges on human rights. But China expert Isabel Hilton says minority revolts in China recently show it is an empire in crisis. There is a story that the Chinese government likes to tell: that China is the world’s oldest continuous, unchanging civilization (the dates vary, according to the exuberance of the moment, from 2,000 to a mythical 5,000 years). This unique history, the story continues, will determine China’s future. In this narrative of Chinese exceptionalism, the leadership remains immune to demands...

Customers sue over unpermitted "termination fees" A class action lawsuit alleging that DirecTV imposes early "termination fees" of up to $480 on customers who cancel the service--often charging the customer's bank account or credit card directly without their permission--has been cleared to proceed by a California Superior Court judge. The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2008 by Los Angeles resident Kathy Grenier, claims that when Grenier cancelled her DirecTV contract due to a malfunctioning receiver, she was hit with a $240 termination fee, withdrawn directly from her checking account. Grenier's suit was later consolidated with another...

Breaking on Fox. Body now in US for further confirmation.

The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison. Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. The officials outlined the plans — the latest effort to comply with President Barack Obama's order to close...

“Do you feel like I do?” That’s not just a title of a famous song from “classic rock” Artist Peter Frampton. That’s a question I’d like to ask of President Barack Obama. Specifically, I’d like to ask him “do you feel like I do about the United States of America?” Since its release last Wednesday, July 29, much has been said and written about the new Rasmussen Reports poll, indicating that nearly one out of two U.S. voters believe that the nation’s best days are in the past. The level of pessimism varies according to demographic categories, but overall, Americans...

McCartney dedicates 'Michelle' to FLOTUS By: Patrick Gavin August 2, 2009 12:22 AM EST Music superstar Paul McCartney is rocking out at FedEx Field Saturday night and, since he's near the White House, Sir Paul gave a special tribute to first lady Michelle Obama: Before playing the Beatles classic, "Michelle", McCartney told the packed audience that he was dedicating it to the first lady. Considering that the song's lyrics include "I love you, I love you, I love you

Just weeks into his Senate term, Al Franken's portfolio compares favorably to any of the Senate's freshman members. He loves policy. He has signed on as co-sponsor to a half dozen bills, asked thoughtful questions of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and immersed himself in a thorny debate over health care reform. Before he was seated, Franken and his aides intoned he would take a path well-trod by already-famous Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama before him. The idea is to work hard, pick a few issues and do your best to drown your celebrity by focusing on the...

You thought you'd had enough of depressing numbers after the stimulus package passed in February. But a reporter from the Heritage Foundation, out this week, shows that those numbers were just a fraction -- about one-fifth, to be precise -- of what the federal government will spend in 2009. This year's $4 trillion total -- a record, even accounting for inflation -- may look like a sudden blip on Heritage's graphs, but research shows the spike is here to stay. Three years from now, when stimulus spending has slowed to a dribble, new programs and strained entitlements will bring federal...

Sometimes President Obama knows enough to refrain from speaking when he does not have the facts at his command. Witness these words: "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak," Obama said testily. "All right?" He said these words when he tried to respond to an earlier media frenzy raised by his Administration's approval of large bonuses for employees at AIG, a firm rescued by the Federal government in 2008 with a bailout of over $150 billion. When pressed as to why it had taken several days for the...

My wife and I disagree about some of the key end-of-life issues. When such morbid subjects arise, as they must and as they have with increasing frequency as the debate over medical care rages on, she remains adamant that she does not want to linger in pain, holding on to those final months, weeks, days or moments through any extraordinary medical intervention. On the other hand, I want to live for every additional second modern medicine or Providence might permit. Dylan Thomas summed up my feelings in his most famous poem: Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage,...

Last week the president's health care reform ran off into the ditch. This week, in a flurry of flashing lights, the Beltway wrecker will doubtless try to haul it back up on the legislative highway. The mainstream media will take a look and declare the it as good as new. But we all know that after you have run a car up on the sidewalk or into a ditch is is never quite the same again. It is instructive to watch President Obama talk to the American people using center-right language about choice and incentives -- "let me be clear...

Lost mostly amid Sarah Palin's resignation hoopla was a declaration she made. The now ex-governor made the not newsworthy announcement that she'd campaign for likeminded Republicans and independents. But then she added something very telling. She'd stump for Democrats who "share her values on limited government, strong defense and ‘energy independence.'" At least in states or districts where Republicans aren't competitive. The governor, one fully suspects, is playing for higher stakes than many may suppose. The presidency -- if she ever seeks it and wins it -- will simply be the capstone of a three and a half year effort...

WINCHESTER, Va. – Virginia will be the center of political attention this fall, thanks to the first statewide election in a battleground state since the 2008 presidential election. “Here we go again,” said Larry Larsen, an independent voter accustomed to the national attention that Virginia races attract. November’s gubernatorial race matches former state attorney general Bob McDonnell, a Republican, versus state senator Creigh Deeds, a Democrat. A SurveyUSA poll last week gave McDonnell a 15-point lead. RealClearPolitics shows McDonnell as 6.3 percentage points in the lead, based on aggregate polling data. “If McDonnell were to win this, the message it...

You're Maureen Dowd, and you're scared. The self-doubt, the "Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas," the whole Robert Frost thing --you know, "The Road Not Taken" -- relentlessly nibbles at the edge of your consciousness. You're Maureen Dowd and you're scared -- Sarah Palin scared. Others -- like columnists Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker -- are jealous. But you are scared. You're celebrated, a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, famed and feared, known as the "Queen of Snots" for eviscerating prose largely directed at conservatives and middle America, which begins at the Hudson River and ends just east of zip code 90210...