Free Republic

Wooolf at CNN is having Obamasm with BO (Barack Obama) the new first dog. How symbolic, dog is black (africanamerican) and white, has first B/W president's initials for his name. Not teleprompter trained yet. Screw us and tax us so we can share our "wealth" with BO's pizza parties and dogs. Wonder if media will be directed to call unclean dog President BO? What Tea Parties?

Thank you 0'great one for all the help you extended to small businesses! Teleprompter lambasted great days ahead for the small businesses, the backbone of US economy, blah, blah, blah... Finally it is starting to filter down to us in the trenches. The reality is like this: Just received a letter from JP Morgan CHASE himself that my home equity line of credit has been frozen, I can not draw any more funds from it. As of 3/27 (letter mailed on 3/27) no mo' money for the purpose of funding the expansion and employment of staff. Using my own private...

Just received this from Michael Steele in the email: "As one of my first official acts as Chairman, I've commissioned a survey of Republican activists in EVERY state. I want to hear from each of you to understand your thoughts and opinions about our Party and how we can once again be the party of ideas. That's why I'm asking you to do two very important things for me: 1) Please take a moment right now to fill out online the State of the Republican Party Survey for the RNC. I want you to be honest and candid in your...

I tried to tune to Glenn Beck show on the NYC radio WOR 710 but instead of Glenn's fiery voice I hear pacifying voice and music of Cousin Brucie. WOR Web radio had some infomercial and John Gambling (reruns?) Will Glenn be off FOX News Channel? Hmmmm! Check of the web WOR site gives no clues, just link to another station WYXC 1270 in Cartersville, GA. There he was, sounded a bit muted. What is going on??? NaziRATs started the march on our freedoms? 0bama "fixing" America quickly before people will wake up? Looks like instead of tea parties march...

World Cup qualifier, go USA!!!

Bill grilling McLellan tonite on his show, more parade from the traitor gallery.

Howdy FReepers and lurkers Here is a great chance for FReepers and patriots to have a great time, tell the stories, taste the great German food, genuine Spaten Octoberfest beer on tap and dance some polkas. Enjoy the scenic ride and marvel at fall colors on the way to renovated MountainView Resort, 369 High Rd., (Cty Rd 41) Glen Spey, NY 12737 where NJ - NY - PA meet by the Delaware river On Saturday, October 6th, starting at 3 p.m., Special tables for FReepers with big FR will be reserved and informal meeting will start at 2:00 p.m. More...

The FBI used a novel type of remotely installed spyware last month to investigate who was e-mailing bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Wash. Federal agents obtained a court order on June 12 to send spyware called CIPAV to a MySpace account suspected of being used by the bomb threat hoaxster. Once implanted, the software was designed to report back to the FBI with the Internet Protocol address of the suspect's computer, other information found on the PC and, notably, an ongoing log of the user's outbound connections. Screen snapshot of 'timberlinebombinfo' MySpace account The suspect, former Timberline...

WASHINGTON--Politicians charged on Tuesday that peer-to-peer networks can pose a "national security threat" because they enable federal employees to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers. At a hearing on the topic, Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said, without offering details, that he is considering new laws aimed at addressing the problem. He said he was troubled by the possibility that foreign governments, terrorists or organized crime could gain access to documents that reveal national secrets. Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for...

Anyone who has sat around a poker table knows the feeling. You have been dealt a strong hand but the steely eyed fellow opposite keeps raising the stakes. Eventually, your nerve breaks. Even as your adversary scoops the pot you know in your heart it was a bluff. Pride demands you pretend otherwise. Vladimir Putin is a leader who has been enjoying his winnings. For Mr Putin, the purpose of the St Petersburg summit was to reassert Russia's role as a global superpower. The task was made easy by the fact that his fellow leaders in the Group of Eight...

An "orange coalition" is still the most likely outcome of a Ukrainian election won by the revolution's opponent, says Taras Kuzio. ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY: By Taras Kuzio Open Democracy, London, UK, Tuesday, March 28, 2006 Ukraine held its fourth parliamentary elections on 26 March in an atmosphere totally different to earlier elections. President Viktor Yushchenko can be credited with ensuring that it has been Ukraine's first free and fair poll since the country became an independent state in January 1992. The democratic breakthrough initiated by the orange revolution of November 2004-January 2005 has been consolidated. This is in stark contrast...

Ignore the broad smiles, firm handshakes, cheerful backslapping and toasts raised to "everlasting friendship" between well-dressed, smiling Russians, intense Germans, glib Americans and deceptive Brits. The Second Cold War has already begun. If forced to be perfectly frank, every diplomat, spy or banker from Boston to Baku would acknowledge this. Anyone who reads the press or watches television must have noticed by now that the most dynamic, aggressive and self-assured force in the world today is Russia. Daily reports in the media announce that Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom is buying a pipeline network here or a European gas company...

Putin and Yushchenko met in Astana on January 11 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is risking his political credibility by blindly defending the Russian-Ukrainian gas deal despite severe criticism of it by Western and Ukrainian experts and a majority of the Ukrainian parliament. Rather than addressing the agreement on its merits, Yushchenko ignores Western critics (some of the most prominent of whom are Orange sympathizers) and imputes political partisan motives to internal critics (whose affiliations range from the leftist opposition to the core pro-democracy community). Yushchenko's stance seems to reflect his quest for accommodation with a suddenly responsive Kremlin in the...

This ... long piece on Putin was not written for the Economist and is likely to stay unpublished. I am posting it here for people with a detailed interest in Russia. Comments are welcome, but I should stress that I am not the Economist's Moscow correspondent and this is not an official Economist article in any way shape or form. Vladimir Putin. Magician, Mouse or Monster I saw a lot of President Vladimir Putin when he became my neighbour. At least I saw him most days; I doubt he saw me, fuming at the side of the road as his...

Kremlin hopes Yekhanurov will tilt Ukraine eastward COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: By Taras Kuzio Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 2, Issue 185 The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C. Russian leaders were delighted, even gleeful, when Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was fired in early September. Their unabashed gloating confirms that Moscow still does not realize why its interference in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections failed so miserably (see EDM, September 23). Instead, Russian officials have continued to look wistfully toward Ukraine. Russian leaders believe that the ongoing political crisis could lead to Ukraine's disintegration or civil war between eastern and western Ukraine. If...

By Victor Bondaryuk for Ukrains'ka Pravda (UP) in Ukrainian Translated into English by Eugene Ivantsov Kyiv, Ukraine The shock that overwhelmed the entire Ukrainian society after scandal in Yushchenko's team seems to subside. The avalanche of rubbish, evoked by the scandal, was so muddy that Ukrainian people, as a rule, didn't give a damn about competent thoughts and analyses and made their own conclusions. Spin doctors' attempts to show their exceptional intellect can't stand competition with common sense of ordinary people. Old grandmas with three successful marriages turned out to make deeper analysis than those so called experts and corrupt...

A lengthy and exhaustive parliamentary investigation in the death of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze has ended with the head of the special investigative commission, MP Hryhory Omelchenko, accusing former Kuchma chief of staff and now parliamentary leader Volodymyr Lytvyn as having instigated the Gongadze slaying. KYIV, Sept. 21 (FirsTnews) -- In its final report, an interim parliamentary commission investigating the kidnapping and killing of Internet journalist Heorhiy Gongadze five years ago has accused the parliament's speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn of instigating the slaying. Hryhory Omelchenko, the head of the parliamentary commission said, quoting the findings in the report, that Lytvyn had "instigated...

Amateur radio networks help victims of the hurricane With telephones down and wireless service disrupted, at least one group of people did manage last week to use technology to come to the rescue of those in need. Often unsung, amateur radio operators regularly assist in emergency situations. Hurricane Katrina was no exception. For the past week, operators of amateur, or ham, radio have been instrumental in helping residents in the hardest hit areas, including saving stranded flood victims in Louisiana and Mississippi. Public service has always been a large part of being an amateur radio operator. All operators, who use...

Post-revolution staglution, a revolution stagnating By Peter Lavelle, Russia Profile's Weekly Experts Panel Moscow, Russia, Friday, July 22, 2005 Contributors: Vladimir Frolov, Janusz Bugajski, Patrick Armstrong, Ira Straus, Ethan S. Burger & Marc Greenfield, Gordon Hahn, and Dale Herspring Peter Lavelle: Western punditry can't accept that a so-called "colored revolution" in Russia is very unlikely. This is probably partly due to the fact there is a general built-in media bias against Russia and a very specific bias against Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, as well as the fact that local Russian spin-doctors and journalists weave the most incredible scenarios of gloom and...

TESTIMONY: By Taras Kuzio, Ph D, Visiting Professor Institute for European Russian and Eurasian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, HEARING: Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Emerging Threats United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. , Wednesday, July 27, 2005 The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), Number 532, Article One Washington, D.C., Thursday, July 28, 2005 TESTIMONY ----- Viktor Yushchenko's election as Ukraine's third president was made possible by the Orange Revolution, the third democratic revolution that followed Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003. Ukraine's democratic revolution has influenced successful revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and...