Free Republic

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota Ellsworth Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base near Rapid City in Meade County and Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is home to the 28th Bomb Wing of the Air Combat Command (ACC), operating the B-1B Lancer.As host wing, the 28th Bomb Wing includes an operations group, a maintenance group, a mission support group, and a medical group. The base controls all air space 40 miles (64 km) around its area, including all landings at nearby Rapid City Regional Airport,...

Congressional leaders show lack of respect for founding documentOur Constitution is in a sorry state these days. The nation’s founding document has been weakened by President Obama’s ongoing expansion of power and further diminished by his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill who don’t even bother to cite the highest law in the land properly. Consider House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s confused response to a simple question asked at her weekly press conference on Thursday. A reporter wanted to know whether she was willing to split up the deals with Republicans over expiring tax rates and raising the debt ceiling. The...

No good deed goes unpunished. In her cynical front-page story Saturday, New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir wrote on what she called on her Twitter feed "race, class, and the hurricane," fishing for criticism of the wealthy whites who donated time and money and effort to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and providing some on her own. Yet it's the alleged victims of all that generosity that look thin-skinned and insensitive, in "Helping Hands Also Expose a New York Divide." After more than a week of self-sufficiency, George Ossy, an immigrant from Africa living amid the chaos of...

he US has ordered three amphibious warships with 2,500 Marines aboard back to the eastern Mediterranean to remain on standby off Israel's shore in case they are needed to evacuate American citizens. The USS Iwo Jima, the USS New York and the USS Gunston Hall, were sailing west of Gibraltar on their way to back to Norfolk, Virginia, when they were turned around. debkafile: The United States have never before evacuated American citizens from Israel. The US notice does not say whether a possible evacuation would include the US forces posted in American bases in Israel. A mass evacuation would...

A guard in helmet carrying an assault rifle is seen in the background(circled in the photo.) Previously, an armed security guard had not been seen in the photo of his on-site tours as well as Kim Jong-il's. N. Korea recently conducted mass firing (purge) of high-ranking generals. Many top-ranking generals are either demoted or under house arrest (one-time top military man, Lee Yong-ho.) Besides, Kim Jong-eun took away military's lucrative hard currency earning enterprises. He must be mindful of backlash. His life expectancy is shrinking.

Interesting discussion yesterday with a variety of opinions. Just curious what some here might believe and why...

Snip: The majority of whites are completely unaware of the depth of distortion and myth dispersed on a daily basis against them in neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Many blacks are still engaged in a struggle that ended decades ago. They are still fighting to overcome. This explains their attachment to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It explains how a Neanderthal hate-group like the New Black Panther Party can arise. It also explains why they embrace the Obamas and scorn Justice Thomas and Rep. Allen West. White people are ignorant of the code language that permeates the black psyche and...

Georgia lawmakers sat in a seminar involving the UN’s controversial Cold War era mind control techniques used to move Agenda 21 forward. The seminar, as could be expected, was roundly mocked by the media even though the UN makes no secret of their abominable plans for the world’s future.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — With the economy taking a toll on many food banks across the Southland, donations are desperately needed before the Thanksgiving holiday. If you would like to help families in need, contact one of the following food banks: Los Angeles Regional Food Bank World Harvest Food Bank Project Angel Food San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission Orange County Rescue Mission

In a rare direct photo of a world beyond Earth, astronomers have spotted a planet 13 times more massive than Jupiter, the largest planet in our own solar system. The planet orbits a star called Kappa Andromedae that is 2.5 times the mass of the sun and is located 170 light-years away from Earth. As a gas giant larger than Jupiter, it's classified as a "super-Jupiter." Astronomers say the object's immense size places it right on the edge of the classifications for giant planets and a type of failed star known as a brown dwarf. Its official name is Kappa...

President Obama and the Democrats have made a cottage industry of peddling "tax hikes for the rich" as the way out of the fiscal crisis precipitated by ObamaCare and other profligate spending.   But with reports and polling showing that upper income spending has fallen since the beginning of September, the country may have a chance to see that "tax hikes for the rich" are not as costless as the administration and Democrats want Americans to believe.The "rich" are pulling back in anticipation of tax increases coming down the pike in 2013.  As a result, it looks like they will...

Moody's strips France of triple-A rating; a notch lower Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:05pm EST (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service downgraded France's sovereign rating by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, the agency said on Monday, citing the country's uncertain fiscal outlook as a result of "deteriorating economic prospects." Moody's said it is maintaining a negative outlook on the country due to structural challenges and a "sustained loss of competitiveness" in the country. Standard & Poor's has a AA-plus rating and negative outlook on France, which it downgraded by one notch in January from AAA. Fitch Ratings has France at...

Three U.S. Navy amphibious warships are returning to the eastern Mediterranean to remain on standby in the event they are needed to assist Americans leaving Israel in the coming days, according to two U.S. officials. The officials stressed an evacuation remains an extremely remote possibility and the Obama administration is not currently planning for one. Americans who wish to leave the region now are able to do so using commercial airlines. But the decision to send the ships even if the event is such a remote contingency underscores the growing concern about where the Israel-Gaza conflict could be headed. "This...

Organized labor may be celebrating the presidential election, but union leaders who take the long view have good cause to be worried. Proposal 2’s failure indicates the unions miscalculated the mood of Michigan voters and that a national trend of confronting public union arrangements will continue. The union machine has been showing signs of rot in the past few years. Union membership itself has been dropping for decades. State government leaders, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, have recently championed reforms to stabilize budgets and rein in the oversized influence of government unions. Voters...

By TIM TALLEY Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY November 20, 2012 (AP) A federal judge Monday rejected a request by Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. to block part of the new federal health care law that requires it to provide the morning-after and week-after birth control pills. In a 28-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton denied a request by Hobby Lobby to prevent the government from enforcing portions of the health care law that will require it to include contraceptives the company considers objectionable in its health insurance plan. The Oklahoma City-based arts and craft supply company and a sister...

A video at CNN with reporting by Sara Sidner from Gaza tells us "how a small child became a symbol of civilian casualties." Some of her narrative: A scene no parent should ever have to endure" "Four year-old Mahmoud Sadallah lies dead in the arms of a neighbor, a child of Gaza, another victim of an airstrike" "we saw no evidence here of military activity." There's even a scene where Ms. Sidner reports having to flee where she is currently reporting because "there are airstrikes" and "rockets" Since Hamas doesn't have an air force, we're supposed to assume that Israel's...

Security: As Hamas launches rockets toward Israeli population centers, Tel Aviv's investment in missile defense passes its acid test, destroying the vast majority. The U.S., meanwhile, is moving in just the opposite direction. On Sunday, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system successfully shot down two Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets aimed at the heart of Tel-Aviv by Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. It was just one of many such interceptions by what is now the world's only battle-tested missile defense system. The "Fajr" (Dawn) series are mobile-launched, unguided, solid-fuel artillery rockets developed by Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war with...

Russia continues to tighten restrictions on political opponents of President Vladimir Putin, who approved a law last week allowing treason charges against anyone who possesses state secrets. One such dissident, Pavel Stroilov, is a Russian historian living in London after he stole more than 50,000 secret Kremlin documents from the Gorbachev Foundation in 2003. He edited a book with Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Putin who was poisoned in London in 2006. One of the documents he obtained showed that a 1979 U.S. Senate delegation, led by Joe Biden, assured Soviet Union negotiators that the United States was bluffing when...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Mark in Chicago, you're next. Welcome, sir, nice to have you here. CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call, and happy Thanksgiving to you. RUSH: Same to you, sir, same to you. CALLER: Hey, Rush, I just want to know -- RUSH: By the way, you know what would be an interesting question, serious question, just randomly ask Americans on the street, "What is Thanksgiving?" Just a thought off the top of my head. Go ahead. What was it you called about? CALLER: Okay, Rush, thanks. Hey, with all due respect to John, just the flip...