Free Republic

Obama declares swine flu emergency 9 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has declared swine flu a "national emergency," the White House said Saturday, as the United States reels from millions of cases of infection and over 1,000 deaths.

NBC's coverage on the Miss Universe contestants. HULU still has commercials, but they are only one at a time!

In George Orwell’s allegorical novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the picture of “Big Brother” appears constantly in the adoring media. Perceived enemies are everywhere — supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The “Ministry of Truth” swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Oceania. In Orwell’s Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers “Newspeak” — recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. “Doublethink” means you can believe at the same time...

LOUISVILLE, KY—A federal grand jury in Louisville returned a eleven count indictment on August 4, 2009, against Henry M. Humphrey and Kevin Harris, both of Louisville, Kentucky, on charges of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Wire Fraud, and Submitting a False Writing to the United States. Humphrey is charged with one additional count of soliciting and receiving a kickback. The eleven count indictment charges that between February 25, 1998, and November 2005, the defendants, Humphrey and Harris, conspired, confederated, and agreed with each other and others, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to improperly divert federal grant funds,...

N.Korean Missile Train on the Move A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North may have transported a second intercontinental missile to the launch site. The North launched a long-range rocket from Musudan-ri on April 5, which had also been transported by special train. Seoul and Washington are wondering...

NEWTON, Iowa – Marking Earth Day with a pitch for his energy plan, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a "new era of energy exploration in America" and argued that his proposal would help the economy and the environment at once. "The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy — it's a choice between prosperity and decline," Obama said in his first post-election trip to Iowa, the state that launched him toward the White House. "The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that...

API has done the minimum it can to maintain interest in our blog in order to have the tape released by Fox News Network as stipulated in the agreement we can't prove to exist. Fox News Network seems to have delayed the airing of the fake tape intentionally, and yet they are unaware of the importance of the contents to API and the need to get the contents exposed to the American people before mom comes downstairs and takes away our computer privileges. API may decide to ignore the existing non-existing agreement that Fox News is ignoring if the engaging...

Melissa mayor mailing resolutions to fellow mayors to stop state from using gas tax funds for non-road projects BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette Melissa Mayor David Dorman said he sits in his office everyday and watches as cars zoom down State Highway 121, a road that will soon start collecting tolls from drivers who use it to get to Dallas, McKinney, Frisco or the Dallas North Tollway and back again. Dorman said before that happens, he wants to know the roads his citizens and drivers are paying the state to use will be maintained and built with those funds. “I...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John Brennan, president of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

S.Korea Knew Its Rice Feeds N.Korean Military South Korean military authorities have known since 2003, when the Roh Moo-hyun administration was inaugurated, that North Korea has transported rice supplied by the South for humanitarian purposes to frontline units of the North Korean Army. The South Korean military has admitted it found no fewer than 200 South Korean rice sacks transported to North Korean Army units on about 10 occasions to the demilitarized zone including Gangwon Province between 2003 and recently. This is the first corroboration by the South Korean military of testimony by North Korean refugees that the food aid...

TexDOT: No Money to Build New Hghways Agency blames diversion of state gas tax money, curbs on privately funded toll roads By Jim Forsyth Friday, September 28, 2007 At a time the Texas Department of Transportation is defending spending thousands of dollars on a public relations campaign designed to convince you to support toll roads, the department says it has no money to pay for highway construction, 1200 WOAI's Robert Wood reports. "The bottom line is, we're running out of money very quickly," TexDOT's Chris Lippincott says. Lippincott blames decisions by state lawmakers to spend more than $1.5 billion in...

NEW YORK -- A plane headed for London has been diverted to John F. Kennedy airport in New York due to a suspicious passenger on Thursday, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman. A member of an American Airlines flight crew reported a suspicious passenger on flight 136, which took off from Los Angeles' LAX airport and was bound for London's Heathrow airport, according to TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley. McCauley said the flight was canceled and all passengers have been off-loaded in New York. A passenger boarded the plane after getting off an employee bus without proper identification, according to...

U.S. cites nuke-related entity in N. Korea's UNDP fund diversion (Kyodo) _ The United States suspects North Korea has diverted funds provided by the U.N. Development Program to an entity affiliated with a North Korean bank believed involved in Pyongyang's nuclear development, according to copies of U.S. letters to the UNDP obtained Friday. Commenting on the reported U.S. letters, the UNDP said it is "deeply committed to addressing immediately all allegations," but noted that Washington has yet to provide any documents to prove the alleged fund diversion. The entity in question, Zang Lok, is affiliated with Tanchon Commercial Bank, a...

Audit finds U.N. violates own rules in North Korea By Evelyn Leopold Fri Jun 1, 8:29 PM ET U.N. agencies violated their own rules in North Korea by employing national staff handpicked by the government and paying them in hard currency, according to a report by a U.N. board of auditors. But the report, an interim survey, did not find that large-scale U.N. funding had been diverted systematically. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who ordered the audit, said preliminary findings needed to be followed up with a visit to North Korea by the auditors, drawn from France, South Africa and the...

Lang Xianping, professor of economics at Chinese University of Hong Kong, had his finance and economics talk show, "Larry Lang Live" on Shanghai Cable TV 1, suspended this past February. He now reveals that his show was suspended on account of his mentioning several times that the social security fund should not be diverted; this drew the attention of the corrupt forces in Shanghai. Chinese officials claim the reason for the show's suspension is that Lang's Mandarin is not standard. Before it was suspended, it had been on the air for one and a half years. Lang's sharp comments, along...

Nigeria: Presidency - Obasanjo Did Not Authorise Diversion of FundsThis Day (Lagos) Posted to the web September 15, 2006 Kola Ologbondiyan Lagos The Presidency yesterday reacted to Vice President Atiku Abubakar's claim that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as well as organisations where President Olusegun Obasanjo has interests benefited from the controversial MOFAS Account at the Abuja branch of defunct Trans International Bank (TIB). Besides, it said, the President did not authorise diversion of public funds to any individual or organisation. "Obasanjo has never directed or forced any individual or organization to make donations to any of the many associations...

If anyone needs further proof - not that anyone does these days - that the Republican leadership in Congress is both desperate and clueless, it's the election-year revival of that mother of all non-issues: flag desecration. The U.S. House passed this tread-worn measure last year, and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it last week. Even though Congress has no shortage of real issues, ranging from the war in Iraq to global warming, clamoring for its attention, the full Senate will begin debate next week on a proposed constitutional amendment to solve a problem that doesn't exist. As if that weren't...

Flag Day 2006 was also the fifty-second anniversary of President Eisenhower signing “Joint Resolution 243,” which added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. At the Upper Senate Park, organizations like Concerned Women For America (CWA), The Religious Freedom Coalition, Eagle Forum, Ask For America, and The Traditional Values Coalition held a press conference alongside Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ), Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) to urge Congress to pass the Pledge Protection Act. Representative Akin and Senator Kyl are sponsoring the bills in their respective houses that would protect the...

It comes at little surprise that the House, again, passed the amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag. But yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, among other Senate colleagues, announced their support for the June 26th Senate vote on the Flag Desecration Amendment. The announcement came on non-other than Flag Day. How quaint. But don't be too alarmed, it seems a 2/3 majority is still lacking in the Senate. The House has passed a similar amendment half a dozen times in the past few years. While it has never gained enough votes in the Senate, it gets closer...

WASHINGTON -- Sometime between now and the Fourth of July, the Senate plans to revisit what over the course of 17 years has become a seasonal rite of patriotism on Capitol Hill: a vote on whether to amend the Constitution to ban protesters from burning the American flag. Each time, the arguments on both sides are passionate. Each time, the support needed to move ahead with an amendment falls short. But this year could be different, as two important trends cross paths. For one, proponents of the amendment appear to have more support than ever in the Senate. They say...

Harris Campaign Calls on Nelson to Defend Sanctity of Marriage For Immediate Release June 6, 2006 Contact:  Chris Ingram   (813) 288-8400 (Tampa, Fla.) - The Katherine Harris for U.S. Senate campaign called on Senator Bill Nelson to support the Marriage Protection Amendment today. "I believe the majority of Americans strongly support the preservation of traditional marriage. We must never undermine the uniqueness of an institution that continues to serve as an essential thread in the fabric of our society. I support the passage of the Marriage Protection amendment being debated in the Senate," Congresswoman Harris said. Campaign spokesman Chris Ingram...

An ABC News poll finds that most Americans oppose gay marriage but markedly fewer — especially those outside George W. Bush's core supporters — would amend the U.S. Constitution to ban it. Opponents, however, are far more likely to call it a make-or-break issue in their vote for Congress — a finding that explains Bush's renewed push for a gay marriage ban. Among all Americans, 58 percent say gay marriage should be illegal, but fewer, 42 percent, say it rises to the level of amending the U.S. Constitution. Among conservative Republicans and evangelical white Protestants, though, opposition to gay marriage...

Governor Mitt Romney has sent this letter to every member of the Senate encouraging them to Vote "Yes" on this landmark peice of legislation--the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA). A few excerpts are below: "Americans are tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement, and we all wish to avoid hurtful disregard of the feelings of others. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage. Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a...

by Mark Finkelstein June 6, 2006 While considerable attention focuses on Ann Coulter's more superficial charms, from a conservative perspective Ann's real beauty is her absolute refusal to buy into liberal logic, no matter how pervasive. That independence of mind was on display this morning during her interview with Matt Lauer. Ann was on to tout her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, released today on . . . 6/6/6 - sign of the devil and all that. The first example came in the the context of President Bush's current push for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay...

In a year it is wrestling with an out-of-control budget, a war going badly, and one impasse on immigration and another on its own ethics, the Senate is taking time out to debate altering the U.S. Constitution by adding the Marriage Protection Amendment. The amendment is widely predicted to fall short of the needed votes to amend the Constitution for only the 23rd time in its 217-year history _ 13th if you omit the original 10, the Bill of Rights _ and well it should. At its gravest level, the amendment would make a significant incursion into federalism and state's...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue - all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives. "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all." The president was to make...

NEW YORK — As the fight over immigration reform drags on, an ominous undercurrent to the debate — racism — is becoming more pronounced. From muttered ethnic slurs to violent attacks, activists say an anti-immigrant backlash seems to be growing in America's neighborhoods and workplaces. A few political leaders have called proposed immigration measures before Congress "racist." "The climate has gotten demonstrably worse and it is racially charged," said Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community, which tracks anti-immigrant activity. "It's not simply a debate about immigration policy. ... It's about race and national identity and who and what...

Today Mark Earley and I will be at the White House, meeting with President Bush and leaders of the pro-family movement. The president will then speak to the nation in support of the federal marriage amendment [Marriage Protection Amendment]. Thank God we have a president who supports this. I have discussed it with him several times, and I can tell you that he understands fully the social, cultural, and legal reasons why amending the Constitution is the only way to protect marriage. Unfortunately, a lot of politicians don’t get it. They argue that we do not need a marriage amendment....

In 1964, just one congressman from the Deep South, Atlanta's Charles Weltner, voted for the Civil Rights Act. For all practical purposes, his righteous leadership on civil rights — he also supported the Voting Rights Act — cost him his congressional career. In 1966, he resigned his seat rather than sign an act of loyalty to the segregationist Lester Maddox, as Georgia Democrats insisted. But some analysts believe he would have lost the race for re-election. Doing the right thing is difficult because it often means losing. And the typical politician is willing to lose anything — honor, integrity, dignity...

President Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a cause dear to his conservative backers, at a Rose Garden event Monday, the eve of a scheduled Senate vote on the issue. The amendment would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. To become law, the proposal would need two-thirds support in the Senate and House, and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures. It stands little chance of passing the 100-member Senate, where proponents are struggling to get even 50 votes. Several Republicans oppose the measure, and so far only one Democrat — Sen. Ben Nelson (news,...

NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il may launch a sneak attack on the world's pop charts - with the love-song I am a front-line soldier's wife. A moribund economy and several recent severe famines have had a terrible effect on the North Korean people, destroying morale and causing unrest. Kim Jong-Il's latest attempt to deal with this problem has been to authorise a swathe of new love songs to re-invigorate the population and ensure his control of North Korea. Many people in the communist state are singing songs glorifying the women revolutionaries helping to build the nation, official media has reported....

There's no helping you. This site is now just a diversion -- like a train wreck. This site is inherently for and about raving egomaniacs, and Jim's site policies -- which amount to excluding reality and actual dialogue in favor of political/militaristic pornography -- is conducive to cognitive dissonance, which at the times your worldview is threatened leads you into psychotic breaks (on the political cognitive plane, that is, and just maybe in other realms too). Not to mention that your baseline politics is based in mythology about American demographics, science, economics, ethics etc. You spoonfeed each other in the...

LONDON — The French government tried to blame the 1985 sinking of Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior on British spy agency MI6, according to official documents released under freedom of information. The campaign of misinformation and smears - suggesting MI6 bombed the ship in New Zealand and framed French secret agents, or that MI6 knew in advance of the French mission — infuriated Margaret Thatcher's government. The documents, released under Britain's Freedom of Information Act to The Guardian newspaper, show how Malcolm Rifkind, then a Foreign Office minister, told British diplomats in Paris to demand an end to the "campaign of misinformation"....

On MSNBC a little while ago, they had a story about the "politics of the CIA leak". The reporter was interviewing Pat Buchanan and Democratic strategist Peter Fenn. What follows is the best transcript I could piece together quickly. I've quoted Fenn word for word. PAT BUCHANAN: It's very, very serious...There is a credibility problem for the press secretary...There is no legal problem for Rove...Reporters in Washington have a gleam in their eye and smiles on their faces, and there's a reason for it...Pat Fitzgerald hasn't been digging for two years and judges haven't been sending reporters to jail because...

N. Korea: Food Aid Sold at the Market (smuggled-out video: 2min 10sec, taken at 11am, 04/26/05) The following video was taken at 11am on April 26, 2005, at Nam-heung Market in Anju, S. Pyongan Province, N. Korea, which is 70km(about 44 miles) to the north of Pyongyang. It was taken by Kim Man-chul(alias,) an undercover member of RENK, which is a N. Korean human right organization operating out of Japan. He is one of the most wanted men by N. Korean security, because he had previously taken videos of aid materials being diverted by N. Korean authorities. This was...

/begin my summaryFood Aid For Ryongchon Diverted To Markets Most of the following photos are found at this link while most of the story is from another link. The following photos are from a video taken last July in Sunam Market, Chongjin, N. Korea. Due to tightened security at Sino-N. Korean border, RENK could not get hold of the video until recently. RENK is a Japanese organization dedicated to N. Korean human rights and refugees. Donated grains from international relief agencies, intended for victims of Ryongchon explosion last April, were diverted by N. Korean officials. They sold the grains to...

Was Iraq a diversion from the war on terror? Bush and McCain remind us that the answer is: NoWAS REMOVING Saddam Hussein from power a "diversion" from the war on terror, as Senator John Kerry now claims? Or was taking action against the Iraqi regime necessary in a post-September 11 world, as President Bush believes? In Pennsylvania today, the president explained why Iraq is "no diversion," but "the place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror": After September the 11th, America had to assess every potential threat in a new light. Our nation awakened to an...

Association of American Physicians & Surgeons The Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943 1601 N. Tucson Blvd Suite 9 Tucson AZ 85716 www.aapsonline.org TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO CONTACT CONGRESS: “THE POLITICS OF PAIN & PAINKILLERS” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Help stop the war on pain patients & doctors. • Contact Congress by Thurs., Sept. 16. • Forward this message to everyone on your email list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We now have an easy, one-step way for everyone to contact their Members of Congress to tell them you want them to attend the briefing "The Politics of Pain & Painkillers" to be held on...

/begin my translation Cooking Books to Fool U.N. Inspectors(Diverting Medical Aids) [Memories of the North] A tale by a former pharmacist from Ha-myun mines, Sae-byul county, N. Hamgyong province Although I was born and brought up in Pyongyang, I had lived for years in Sae-byul county(formerly Kyong-won), N. Hamgyong province, the northernmost corner of the Korean Peninsula, before I escape N. Korea. Nowadays, cheap goods from more open and reformed China are flooding the area, which boosted the living condition there. However, up until mid-90's, this was the place of exile where people with bad (ideological) background were banished. My...

A shoplifter caused a buzz in a department store restroom and made off with about $60 worth of CDs, perfume, batteries and scissors. The man released a swarm of honeybees in a Kmart restroom, creating a diversion that allowed him to escape, authorities said. Store security spotted the man shoplifting Monday and followed him to the restroom to confront him. When the worker opened the door, about 100 bees buzzed out."He probably started yelling 'Bees! Bees!' or whatever the case may be, then created that big diversion, then got out," said police Cmdr. John DeGonia. Store employees pulled cans of...

As expected by all but the most fervent America haters, our valiant young people are doing their duty in Iraq superbly. Certainly there have been casualties. Those are unavoidable in any war. But a smashing victory is just around the corner and we will be so thankful when most of them come marching home again. Early on, it was easy to develop an addiction to the cable news channels and their round-the-clock war coverage. At least it was easy for me to fall prey to them. Then noticeable flaws emerged. In "Breaking News," they’d breathlessly announce the Marines had taken...