Free Republic

Coalition complains of religious discrimination in the services By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 WASHINGTON — A coalition of atheists and agnostics wants the new White House to protect young military members from what they see as rampant religious discrimination in the services. The Secular Coalition for America held a news conference Monday urging new rules against proselytizing and more training for chaplains on how to handle nonreligious troops. "When they say ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’ it’s slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq in...

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul. Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend. Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because...

I cannot believe this is really happening in this country. Read the article very carefully! Indoctrination of kids in something called "Camp Obama" and it specifically mentions Saul Alinsky methods. First the scary logos, then singing kids, then civilian army, now this. Wahts next? Wake up everybody.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

A U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone killed at least six people on Thursday, including 3 Arabs, in a Pakistani tribal region regarded as a safe haven for al Qaeda and Taliban militants, an intelligence official said. The target was a house in Tappi, a village 20 km east of Miranshah that has been hit before in recent days, according to an intelligence official in the region.

A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release 17 detainees at Guantánamo by the end of the week, the first such ruling in nearly seven years of legal disputes over the administration's detention policies. The judge, Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court, ordered Tuesday that the 17 men be brought to his courtroom Friday from Guantánamo, where they have been held since 2002. He indicated that he would release the men, members of the restive Uighur Muslim minority of western China, into the care of supporters in the United States, initially in the Washington area. "I think the...

West Virginia Man Charged with Assaulting an Officer Wednesday, September 24, 2008 During fingerprinting, Cruz then allegedly moved closer to one of the officers and passed gas, the station reported. In the complaint, the investigating officer wrote that police noticed a "very strong" odor. The alleged stunt led Cruz to be charged with another offense — battery on an officer — in addition to DUI and obstruction, WSAZ reported.

According to CNN (ugh), it just crossed the AP Wire that President Bush has formally invited McCain, Obama, and Congressional Leaders to the White House for an emergency meeting. McCain, as we know, is on his way to Washington. It remains to be seen whether, in the middle of this gigantic crisis, Obamaface will get out of his hot tub and put his wine and cheese aside long enough to respond to an invitation from the president of the United States?

Founding Brothers What’s behind Obama’s early rise? By Stanley Kurtz New evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama has been less than forthcoming about the role that unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers may have played in choosing him to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, I have obtained an e-mail message from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling, to Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, two of CAC’s three co-founders. Bill Ayers was the third founder. In Rolling’s message, sent the morning after I first requested access to CAC records housed at the...

VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman. "PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says. PETA officials say a move to human...

New evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama has been less than forthcoming about the role that unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers may have played in choosing him to lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, I have obtained an e-mail message from former CAC executive director, Ken Rolling, to Warren Chapman and Anne Hallett, two of CAC’s three co-founders. Bill Ayers was the third founder. In Rolling’s message, sent the morning after I first requested access to CAC records housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), he admits to avoiding...

Are journalists playing favorites with some of the key political figures involved with regulatory oversight of U.S. financial markets? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews launched several vitriolic attacks on the Republican Party on his Sept. 17, 2008, show, suggesting blame for Wall Street problems should be focused in a partisan way. However, he and other media have failed to thoroughly examine the Democratic side of the blame game. Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House – Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient...

An organic wine from Chile has oenophiles in San Francisco turning up their noses. But there’s nothing wrong with the wine. It’s the name that bothers them: Palin Syrah. The wine from a boutique vineyard in Chile was once a strong seller, but now it’s an outcast in the City by the Bay because its name comes way too close to a certain governor from the state of Alaska, says Celine Guillou, co-owner of the Yield Wine Bar.

Syria has massed thousands of troops along its border with northern Lebanon in what officials in Beirut fear is a prelude to the first incursion since Syrian forces pulled out three years ago. Although Damascus insists that its forces are conducting an antismuggling operation, the Lebanese Government is eyeing the moves with unease, believing that the unusual scale of the deployment has more to do with tensions between the two countries over recent sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon. “People around here are worried. We don’t know why the Syrians have arrived like this,” said Ali, 18, a farmer in the...

Here is video of an interview done by CNN's Campbell Brown with former Hillary Clinton supporter Lynn Forester de Rothschild who has endorsed Sen. John McCain for President. Brown interviews her with an indignant attitude, almost disbelieving that Rothschild could even consider supporting McCain. At the end of the video, Brown makes the mistake of using the word "bitter" to describe Rothschild. Rothschild responds with a devastating retort worth watching . . . . . (see video at link)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission intends to temporarily ban short-selling, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday night. It's unclear if the commission has approved the move, the Journal reported.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, campaigning in Iowa Thursday, is expected to call for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Chris Cox. In his prepared remarks, Sen. McCain (Ariz.), without naming Cox, said the chairman has “betrayed the public’s trust.” “If I were president today, I would fire him,” McCain will say, according to his prepared remarks.

I have been very good about this lately too. When you go to post a story use the "Search" button and put one of the key words from the stories title in the textobx and select "Titles" in the dropdown and then do the "Search". Odds are it's been posted cause' folks are quick around here. Lately, the same story is posted 4 to 6 times right out of the box with conversations going on in most of them. I'm just saying ....

I usually can't stand vanities, but I haven't sen anything on this: McCain and Obama went to Ground Zero in NYC, and while I saw Cindy McCain, I have to ask...where was Michelle Obama? Why did she refuse to come to NYC to honor our dead?

<p>PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee is weighing in on Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and his comments are less than kind.</p> <p>During an interview with Steven Clemons from the New America Foundation, Chafee called the Governor of Alaska a "cocky whacko." He also said her "agressive, belligerent" approach is wrong for foreign policy.</p>

New Film released By the Swedes Showing McCain’s release in 1973 to the US Military in Hanoi. (Video Included in post)

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of Vietnam POW John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973 has been released in Sweden. A former reporter for Swedish broadcaster SVT says he found the video in the network's archives. SVT posted the edited 39-second clip on its Web site today. It shows McCain stepping off a bus with other prisoners. He has a pronounced limp but isn't using crutches. It then shows McCain standing in a lineup when his name is called. He walks up to salute and shake hands with U.S....

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler reportedly lashed out at Sarah Palin Wednesday, saying the Republican vice presidential candidate’s “primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.” Politico.com reports that Fowler, wife of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler, said that John McCain’s decision to choose an abortion rights opponent would not boost his candidacy among many women.

State Sen, Chuck Graham is paraplegic and wheelchair bound.

The "American" dead? KCAL-TV: Adam Gadahn has been credited with helping transform Al Qaeda's propaganda wing into a slick operation able to communicate in fluent English and produce professional quality DVDs, including one for Osama bin Laden last year.

From Farmington Hills, MI: Obama told the crowd that McCain and Palin spent most of the convention talking about their biographies. Palin's bio is "compelling," Obama said. The crowd booed. "No, it's an interesting story." More boos. "No, no, it is. I mean that sincerely. Mother, governor, moose shooter." The crowd broke out in laughter. "That's cool. That's cool. That's cool stuff," Obama said.

Now that Alaska is front and center in the news again, it is a good time to catch up on a favorite story, The Bridge to Nowhere, using the Washington Post US Congress Votes Database. Though Gov. Palin originally supported the earmark spending on the Ketchikan bridge (“to nowhere), she eventually killed the project, chosing to spend Federal money on other infrasturcture programs. However, Sen. Biden and Sen. Obama voted for funding the Bridge, even when given a second chance by Sen. Tom Coburn, who proposed shifting earmark funds to Katrina relief. Sen. McCain did not vote on the Coburn...

Just a teaser right now on Drudge, but I'd say this is a VERY significant story, given that 0bama hasn't had any fundraising troubles in YEARS.

As the Huffington Post reports, Russell Brand, British comedian, hosted the MTV VMAs, which is not really political news. However, it's what he said that has everyone astir. Here's one of the ridiculous things Brand had to say: Again and again, Brand _ a confessed former sex addict _ poked fun at young sex and abstinence. Speaking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend and would-be father, Levi Johnston, Brand sympathized with him: "That is the safe sex message of all time. Use a condom or become a Republican! I don't know why a European metrosexual is in America asking...

Bill O'Reilly will interview Barack Obama tomorrow night.

John Coale, an avid backer of Sen. Hillary Clinton's run for president, announces he is throwing his support to John McCain, arguing that Obama is not who he says he is.

Brash McCain pick of AK Gov. Palin neutralizes historic Obama speech, stunts the Dems' convention bounce UTICA, New York - Republican John McCain's surprise announcement Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate - some 16 hours after Democrat Barack Obama's historic speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination - has possibly stunted any Obama convention bump, the latest Zogby Interactive flash poll of the race shows. Data from this poll is available here The latest nationwide survey, begun Friday afternoon after the McCain announcement of Palin as running mate and completed mid-afternoon today, shows McCain/Palin at 47%, compared...

1. He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states, such as Indiana and Montana, that the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election — and very sick of the Bush years. McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike. McCain’s pick shows he is...

6 things the Palin pick says about McCain By: Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris August 30, 2008 01:44 PM EST The selection of a running mate is among the most consequential, most defining decisions a presidential nominee can make. John McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says a lot about his decison-making — and some of it is downright breathtaking. We knew McCain is a politician who relishes improvisation, and likes to go with his gut. But it is remarkable that someone who has repeatedly emphasized experience in this campaign named an inexperienced governor he barely knew...

For months, Barack Obama has complained about the poverty his family suffered while earning a mere $200,000 per year. Last night he ridiculed his political opponent for a joke he had made about high-income earners qualifying as “middle class.” Last night, the man who opposed welfare reform bragged that while serving in Illinois he had “moved more families from welfare to work.” The man who misled the public for four years about his vote to let a Chicago-area hospital continue leaving premature abortion survivors to die, and who promised that his first act as president will be to re-legalize partial-birth...

Sen. John McCain’s surprise choice of running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, has a positive association with general aviation. Considering that GA is the primary form of long-distance transportation in the forty-ninth state, it’s not surprising that Gov. Palin has taken a stand on the user fee issue. In May 2007, she signed a resolution in opposition to the FAA’s plan to increase avgas taxes, impose user fees, and slash airport funding. AOPA and the Alaska Airmen’s Association had worked together to move the resolution through the Alaska legislature. There is a family connection as well. Palin’s husband, Todd,...

Of all the criticisms an apparently panicky Dem party has heaped on Sarah Palin in the hours since her selection was announced, Keith Boykin [bio] has come up with perhaps the unseemliest. The former aide to President Clinton has accused Palin of being an "affirmative action" pick.

SPOKANE, Washington (Reuters) - A federal jury in Idaho sentenced Joseph Duncan on Wednesday to death for shooting to death a 9-year-old boy in front of his younger sister after kidnapping and sexually abusing the boy. A 12-member jury in Boise, Idaho handed down the sentence in a unanimous vote after a two-week trial during which prosecutors presented gruesome evidence that painted Duncan, 45, as a predator who carefully planned the kidnapping, sexual abuse, torture and murder of his young victims. "I haven't seen anything that comes close to the horrendous facts that were presented in this case," U.S. Attorney...

Republicans, who mock Barack Obama as a self-appointed divine savior, gleefully pounced Thursday on pictures of the set for his big convention speech, which appears to resemble a temple. The Democratic presidential candidate will accept the party White House banner before a more than 70,000-strong crowd at an outdoor football stadium here late Thursday. Pictures and an aerial film footage of the set being constructed for the speech show a curved backdrop with creamy, gray column-like structures, which could suggest Washington architecture, or a classical structure, like a Greek or Roman temple.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D's senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website. The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot...

He may have taken student as second wife The principal of an Islamic boarding school on Buffalo’s East Side has been forced to resign after allegations that he was sexually involved with one of his students and that he claimed to have taken her as a second wife. Evidence suggests Mohammed Ibrahim Memon, a father of seven, persuaded Sajidah Khan, then 21, to marry under Islamic law as a pretense to sleep with her. Memon, an Islamic scholar and imam, has agreed to leave his post at Darul-Uloom Al-Madania, 182 Sobieski St., for a minimum of seven years...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama prepared to name his running mate, perhaps as early as Friday, from a small field o0f candidates that included at least one dark horse.

OSBI agents went to gun dealers and pawnshops to create a list of .40-caliber Glock owners. WELEETKA — Authorities working to narrow their leads in the June 8 shooting deaths of two girls used old-fashioned legwork to come up with a list of area gun owners with .40-caliber pistols, one of two weapons used in the slayings. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents knew the caliber of the guns used in the killings, so they merely checked with area gun dealers and pawnshops to determine who had bought or recently pawned .40-caliber Glocks. "It's a typical procedure of any investigation"...

Two McCain offices evacuated after letter threat Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:45pm EDT By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - Two offices of John McCain's U.S. presidential campaign, in Colorado and New Hampshire, were evacuated on Thursday, and several staffers were hospitalized, after threatening or suspicious envelopes arrived in the mail, one with an unidentified white powder. The first parcel, described as containing an unspecified threat and a powdery white substance, was opened by a staff member at the campaign's Centennial, Colorado, office, near Denver, at about 3 p.m. local time, U.S. Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said.

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into the age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin, The Times of London reports. Faced with almost insurmountable evidence which suggests that He is two years younger than the birth date listed on her Chinese passport, the IOC has launched an inquiry that could result in the stripping of He's gold medals. This news comes on the heels of another Times report that details the findings of a New York computer security expert who found official Chinese documents that list He's age as 14 years and 220 days. Mike Walker used a Chinese...

John McCain’s Denver campaign office received an envelope containing white powder and a threatening note Thursday afternoon. Spokesman Jeff Sadosky told FOX News the office has been evacuated and the campaign notified federal and local law enforcement, who are taking all precautions.

LOS ANGELES - Roseanne Barr is using her personal Web site to slam Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Jolie's father, Jon Voight. Calling Jolie Voight’s “evil spawn” and Pitt “vacuous,” Roseanne’s attack seems to be directed at the actress and her family members over their opinions regarding presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. Roseanne’s post starts out as a rant against an opinion piece Voight wrote against Obama for the Washington Times in July.“God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened...

Barack Obama bumped into something hard on Saturday night. The nuanced naif of Illinois preceded -- in Paris Hilton’s wonderful snark -- the “wrinkly white-haired dude” in Pastor Rick Warren’s civility summit and came up very short. You can judge how well McCain did by the minimalist coverage in the media. The highlights reported here were virtually ignored in the Sunday papers. McCain has never been better. His self deprecation, his humor, and his life story turned the back-to-back interviews into a conclusive demonstration that he is ready for the presidency and Obama isn’t. Continued -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored Links: Amazing Japanese...

On Sunday, as I was sitting in my summer cabin in Vermont, completely absorbed in a New York Times story about John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter, I began reading a paragraph whose message shot through me like a sudden bolt of electrical current. The story centered on Ms. Hunter's refusal to take a DNA test to determine the paternity of her 5-month-old daughter, but that was not what startled me. It was this: "Ms. Hunter was born in Fort Lauderdale. Fla., in 1964 as Lisa Druck and moved to New York City in her 20s, becoming part of a...

The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery.