Free Republic

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...

It has become a truism that House Republicans have voted dozens and dozens of times -- at least 50 in all -- to repeal Obamacare. They have been obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act, President Obama told a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington last month. You know what they say: 50th time is the charm. Maybe when you hit your 50th repeal vote, you will win a prize. Maybe if you buy 50 repeal votes, you get one free. We get it. For more than a year, Democrats and their advocates in the press have been ridiculing the...

The father of aviation engineer Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat, who was on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, refuted the possibility that his son would have anything to do with the plane's disappearance. Mr Selamat Omar, 60, was agitated when the question was posed to him, and openly declared that "my son would have done no wrong". "No authority contacted me to say they will be searching my son's house. "Even if they do, we have nothing to hide. They can come search the house if need be," he said.

Politics: The GOP victory in a Florida congressional district that was carried by President Obama as well as by the Democratic candidate in a gubernatorial race is being explained away by Democrats and their media toadies. Democratic spin doctors claim it wasn't exactly a case of Sink or swim in Florida-13, since the district had long been represented by a Republican. But fact is, Obama carried the purple district twice, and so did defeated congressional candidate Alex Sink when she ran for governor in 2010. Had Republican David Jolly lost the seat, Democrats would be chirping that it proved that...

If you listen to the chattering class in Washington, D.C., Hillary Clinton is a virtual certainty for the 2016 Democratic nomination, and the front runner in the next presidential race. But in private, rumors persist that the former Secretary of State may not even be capable of making it to Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton, these skeptics often say, will not run for president again because of health concerns. These ubiquitous rumors of her health have been fueled in part by the supermarket tabloids. The National Enquirer wrote in 2012 that Clinton had brain cancer, something a spokesman dismissed then...

Barack Obama was hailed as America's first gay president by Time Magazine, but friends of the Obama clan in Kenya, who recently visited Beijing and spoke with the Dallas Blog, claim that President Obama is not a homosexual and actually enjoys some special relationships with a few women. They spoke with such candid frankness to a conservative blogger, because they feel betrayed by Barack. "We helped get Barack into the White House and he couldn't have done it with our help, but he has done nothing to help us after getting elected in 2008," a friend of the Obama clan...

Kathleen Sebelius: No job loss under Obamacare By: Lindsay Kalter February 18, 2014 07:40 AM EST Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says there is “absolutely no evidence” that the Affordable Care Act will drive down employment, despite a report from the Congressional Budget Office released Feb. 4 predicting fewer people would be working. “There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job-loss related to the Affordable Care Act,” Sebelius told reporters in Orlando, Fla., on Monday. “Part-time physicians are actually down since 2010, not up. The number of full-time workers...

For nearly three years, the Democratic approach to the political unpopularity of President Obama's health care law was denial. Deny it played a significant role in the party's historic midterm losses in 2010. Insist, in the face of contradictory evidence, that as more voters experienced the benefits of the law, the more popular it would become. Deny it would be a major issue at all in the 2014 midterms. The latest version of the argument points to polling showing that voters don't want to repeal the law but prefer to see it fixed—perfectly in line with the newly adopted positions...

'Culture of Encounter': An Opportunity to Deny Christ? 'Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.' ~ His Holiness Pope Francis, on the Feast of St Francis de Sales Herein lies the Francis enigma, that the Successor of St Peter gives the impression that the Catholic Church does not necessarily contain the fullness of truth and inerrancy in Her teaching. Is this not precisely what the Devil, through his agents, and his whisperings, proposes to mankind in this century, as in previous centuries, that there can...

For nearly a decade, an awkward debate has raged about the U.S. military's nuclear force: Did top Air Force officials really choose "00000000" as a code that could enable the launch of a nuclear missile? Ten years later, in a document obtained by Foreign Policy, the U.S. military told Congress that it never happened. But is the Pentagon telling the truth? Bruce Blair, a nuclear security expert and former launch officer , says no. Blair, now a scholar and author at Princeton University, first raised the idea in a piece published in 2004. He accused the Air Force of circumventing...

Link only: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/1204/Norman-Rockwell-family-calls-Deborah-Solomon-s-Rockwell-bio-fiction

Need freeper advice: A close friend had serious female issues 10 - 12 years ago. The issues improved and she has only had 1 doc visit related to her problems in the last 5 years and that was 3 1/2 years ago. Wanting to avoid Obamacare, she bought a private Humana health insurance policy early last fall...

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my...

The State Department on Monday said it has no evidence that “core al Qaeda” was behind last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. “We have no indications that core al Qaeda, which I think is what most people are referring to when they talk about quote ‘al Qaeda,’ directed or planned what happened in Benghazi,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a briefing. The statement appears to leave open the possibility that associates or followers of the terrorist network were involved in the assault. The comments come on the heels of a New York Times investigation published over the...

The rise of nonphysician providers will enable more team care. Skilled health aides will monitor patients at home and alert a doctor if certain medical parameters decline. Nurses will provide wound care to diabetic patients, adjust medications like blood thinners and provide the initial management of chemotherapy side effects for cancer patients. Pharmacists will provide more counseling and urgent care. Physicians will remain essential to the proper diagnosis and treatment of disease, but will be backed up by teams who will help manage the more routine features of chronic illness.

remember when I was growing up, New York was a rough-and-tumble place where attitudes of racial animosity ran parallel to the perceptions of black-on-white crime. And despite a robust, national civil rights movement, there were feelings that blacks were almost exclusively responsible for gangs, prostitution and heroin addiction. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, believe it or not, as a young black man I too had concerns about crime being perpetrated upon me. I recall how to cross Central Park, my buddies and I would sprint top speed from Central Park West to the Fifth Avenue on the East Side...

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) says that, contrary to recent reports, he does not plan to run for governor next year. But he left the door open to changing his mind. “What I’ve said all along is I have no intention of running,” Nelson told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I wish Charlie Crist the best,” he added, referring to the state’s former Republican governor who is running for his old job next year as a Democrat. However, in an exchange with another POLITICO reporter later Tuesday, Nelson was less adamant. While he said he’s not considering the governor’s race now and again...

A REPORT that China would be relaxing its decades-long family planning policy soon to allow couples with just one spouse from a one-child family to have a second child has been denied by authorities. The National Health and Family Planning Commission said no new documents mandating such a change had been issued and there was no timetable for the issue of such a policy, the People’s Daily website reported yesterday. However, the commission said the central government was discussing the issue. Current policy allows a few exceptions to the one-child rule, such as when both parents are from a one-child...

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) went on MSNBC to run cover for President Obama’s “If like your , your ,” which has proven to be a huge political thorn in the President’s side, as Americans are losing those very healthcare plans he said they could keep. you plan you can keep plan “At the end of the day, most of those people who are having their plans transitioned will have better benefits for lower costs, All they have to do is go on the exchange and shop around, which arguably needs to be easier than it...

President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times. The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.” (snip)