Free Republic

The number of Americans who believe -- wrongly -- that President Obama is a Muslim has increased significantly since his inauguration and now account for nearly 20 percent of the nation's population. Those results, from a new Pew Research Center survey, were drawn from interviews done before the president's comments about the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, and they suggest that there could be serious political danger for the White House as the debate continues. The president's religion, like his place of birth, has been the subject of Internet-spread rumors and falsehoods since before he began...

Getting Back in the Saddle: My Two Cents On Resetting the Reset Button By David J. Aland /// 22 May 2010 Osama bin Laden, the man whose dream is the ultimate destruction of the “Great Satan” United States, once noted that nations and people follow the “strong horse.” Setting aside his Charlie Manson intellect, let us consider his premise – is America a strong horse these days? Once, the displeasure of the United States was enough to deter rogue states and keep wacky heads of state in line. The threat of US retaliation kept North Korea in check, the Soviet...

President Obama has promised to “reset” relations with Moscow to find new ways to cooperate. While Washington and Moscow are cooperating to a degree, Russia is leveraging the new relationship to accelerate its dangerous resurgence at America’s expense. Under President Bush, Russia perceived the U.S. objective was to make Russia weaker by surrounding her with a missile-defense system, expanding NATO despite Russia’s objections and manipulating Moscow’s allies against her interests. At the same time Putin has reasserted Soviet-era control to a shocking degree through Russian actions against Georgia, Ukraine and Estonia. These actions combined to sour relations with the United...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2009 – As the U.S. military answers President Barack Obama’s order to reinforce efforts in Afghanistan, the Army and Marine Corps are adjusting their plans to redeploy working and serviceable equipment, top military officers told Congress today. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, and Gen. James F. Amos, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on their services’ “reset” requirements before subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee. The proceedings were a continuation of a July hearing that was interrupted because of a prolonged series of House votes. The initial hearing focused on Iraq...

Russia in a new review of its policy on use of nuclear weapons will reserve the right to undertake a pre-emptive strike if it feels its security is endangered, a senior Kremlin official told a Russian newspaper. Russian and U.S. negotiators are in talks to find agreement on a new bilateral pact cutting stocks of strategic nuclear weapons. Both sides are working to a December deadline for a new treaty to replace the landmark Cold War-era START pact. While Moscow and Washington have made progress in strategic nuclear arms talks, Russia's security may come under threat from regional conflicts and...

The U.S. Ambassador in Moscow has lodged a formal protest with the Russian Foreign Ministry over an "attempted smear" of an American diplomat with a purported sex video recorded in a Moscow hotel room. "This kind of effort to discredit an American diplomat really has no place in the sort of relationship that we are trying to build with the Russian federation," Ambassador John Beyrle told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast tonight on World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline. CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TAPE IN QUESTION. American officials say the Russian intelligence agency that replaced...

"Payment-option ARMs are about to explode," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said, according to a Reuters report."need for immediate change in the loan modification process is particularly acute at this time because a very large number of payment-option ARMs in Arizona is scheduled to reset in the near future."

Obama and Health Care: Time to Hit 'Reset'By Jane Sasseen Thursday September 10, 01:24 PM Can he do it? **SNIP** The Public-Option Problem But another question is who, if anyone, among his potential supporters Obama will be willing to anger. The two wings of the President's party are divided over the so-called "public option" for health care. Progressives in the House say they won't vote for a bill that doesn't include a public option -- that is, a government-backed competitor to private insurance -- while moderates in the Senate say including it will doom any bill there. So far, the...

EXCERPT: Poor Joe Biden. Just when the verbally-challenged vice president thought he had secured his position as the administration’s buffoon-in-chief, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called his bluff. Clinton gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a present today that was meant to symbolize President Obama’s promise to “press the reset button” on Russo-American relations. When Lavrov unwrapped the gift, he found a big, red push button imprinted with a Russian word “peregruzka.”....

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Feb. 23, 2007 – The 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team here is the first unit to employ the Army’s new “reset” process to rapidly refurbish everything from M-16 rifles to state-of-the-art Stryker combat vehicles. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefed about the reset of the 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team -- formerly the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team -- at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, Feb. 22. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Marine Gen. Peter Pace,...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1, 2007 – The combination of available money and around-the-clock work is enabling the Army to increase the pace of refurbishment of equipment that’s damaged or worn out from service in Afghanistan and Iraq, senior military leaders testified before a joint U.S. House committee on Capitol Hill yesterday. Gen. Benjamin Griffin, commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command, shows Army Secretary Francis Harvey a metal vehicle track that was to soon have new rubber tread applied to it at Red River Army Depot, in Texarkana, Texas, on Jan. 25, 2006. Army equipment that’s been worn or damaged during...