Free Republic

SAN DIEGO – For four years San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts has been trying to make sure the red tape didn't keep the military aircraft from jumping into action during the next local disaster. During the 2003 Cedar fire, military aircraft at Miramar Marine Corps airfield sat idle while in full sight of the flames devastating nearby Scripps Ranch. Bureaucratic controversies kept military resources from at first joining the battle against what became the worst fire in state history. Now a full four days after the latest wildfires began, military helicopters will be flying to the rescue, officials announced...

How El Niño slows the Earth's spin 21 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service El Niño has an immense impact on the weather, so great in fact that the ocean warming phenomenon actually makes the planet spin more slowly. Until now, though, no one knew why. It was also a mystery why the effect did not kick in for several weeks after ocean temperatures reached their peak. Now, Jean Dickey and her colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena says that the answer is blowing in the wind. El Niño events warm Pacific surface waters in the tropics, resulting...

October 15, 2007, 7:00 a.m. Spinning for Rudy?Just look at the numbers. By Deroy Murdock Ramesh Ponnuru responded Friday to my piece on Rudolph W. Giuliani and the Religious Right by accusing me of performing “spin for the mayor.� My dreidel impersonation, Ramesh wrote, includes “cherry-picking� data to advance my arguments. It hardly is “cherry-picking� to analyze Giuliani’s abortion record by documenting the decreases during his tenure in New York City’s total abortions, its abortion ratio (abortions per 1,000 live births), local-taxpayer-financed Medicaid abortions, and local-Medicaid-abortion spending. I suppose it also would be “cherry-picking� to invoke GDP growth, the...

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson - who has played the hard-charging district attorney on TV's "Law & Order" - found a much tougher role Tuesday during his debut at a televised presidential debate, where he turned out to be more of a lethargic bit player than a shining star amid a cast of GOP presidential candidates. The former senator and actor stumbled through the first question, appearing nervous and hesitant - though his performance markedly improved by the end of the two-hour debate in Dearborn, Mich., broadcast on the cable news networks CNBC and MSNBC. The gathering of the nine...

The past three months in Iraq have been the deadliest stretch for Florida's fighting men and women since 2005. From July through September, 15 service members who called Florida home were killed in Iraq -- including six last month. "Yes, they're Marines, they're Army, but they're our babies, too," said Donna Hunsicker, 41, mother of Marine Cpl. Christopher L. Poole Jr., killed when a suicide bomber steered a vehicle into a security checkpoint. U.S. service members are doing their job, she said, but their duty is complicated by the fact that "they don't want us over there anymore." "These people...

Many Americans pride themselves on being discriminating foodies, avoiding excessive salt, sugar and fat. However, discriminating listeners we are not. We’ll scarf down anything as long as it sounds good or vaguely logical. The once straight-talking America prefers truth-lite, and we’re big into sound-bites. Spin is slathered on with a spatula to make less marketable concepts palatable, even tasty. Presidential campaigns gave our brain cells a vigorous workout that kept us intellectually fit. Candidates waxed eloquent, but astute voters knew candidates accentuate the positive and sweeten the poison. No more. Rudy Guiliani told us “illegal immigration isn’t a crime.” There...

Many Americans pride themselves on being discriminating foodies, avoiding excessive salt, sugar and fat. However, discriminating listeners we are not. We’ll scarf down anything as long as it sounds good or vaguely logical. The once straight-talking America prefers truth-lite, and we’re big into sound-bites. Spin is slathered on with a spatula to make less marketable concepts palatable, even tasty. Presidential campaigns gave our brain cells a vigorous workout that kept us intellectually fit. Candidates waxed eloquent, but astute voters knew candidates accentuate the positive and sweeten the poison. No more. Rudy Guiliani told us “illegal immigration isn’t a crime.” There...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 08/23/2007 Pelosi Statement on New National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Below are also key quotes from the NIE: “In today’s National Intelligence Estimate, the American people were presented with yet more evidence that the Iraqi government has failed to take the necessary steps to reach political reconciliation. Our military has performed their duties excellently, but the purpose of the escalation in Iraq was to create a secure environment in which...

Reid: NIE Highlights Need For Urgent Change In Iraq Policy Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today, following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: “Today’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq confirms what most Americans already know: Our troops are mired in an Iraqi civil war and the President’s escalation strategy has failed to produce the political results he promised to our troops and the American people. Our troops have done everything asked of them and more. Unfortunately Iraq’s leaders have not. And as today’s NIE makes clear, a political solution is extremely unlikely...

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democratic leaders are aggressively strategizing a new offensive against the Bush administration's management of the Iraq war as more and more anti-war lawmakers publicly acknowledge successes ahead of a key White House progress report. Aware of the trouble Iraqi progress could mean for Democrats at home — House Whip James Clyburn recently said if the surge were successful, it would be "a real problem for us" — a revised set of talking points is being worked up by Democrats that declares the escalation of troops in Iraq has not been successful despite White House claims otherwise. That...

“Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq’s diverse political factions.” Cue the grumbling from the left. “With all this undisciplined, rambling ‘the surge is working’ talk and a Republican ad blitz coming around the corner to bolster Bush’s White House Report, it’s clear the Democrats have...

You Tube video of The O'Reilly Factor with Kristinn Taylor speaking for Free Republic. Bill O'Reilly makes claims about Freerepublic.com to spin us into a right wing hate site.

Geneva/Moscow, Jul. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Leading Protestant figures have criticized the new Vatican document affirming the central role of the Catholic Church, but the Russian Orthodox Church has welcomed the document as an "honest" statement that "shows how close or, on the contrary, how divided we are." Rev. Setri Nyomi, the general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, protested the Vatican statement in a letter to Cardinal Walter Kasper (bio - news), the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Rev. Nyomi said that the new Vatican statement, which says that Protestant groups are not "churches"...

Following the collapse of the Senate’s immigration reform bill late last week, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said he’s prepared to move onto other issues. “We’ve got the defense authorization bill coming up the week after the recess,” he said Friday. “And we have a lot of work to do on it. So that’s what we’re working on.” No wonder Kyl is preparing to move onto something else when the Senate resumes its schedule after the weeklong Fourth of July recess. The last issue exposed him to new levels of disrespect. Kyl previously enjoyed something akin to protected status in the...

Just Breaking

NEW YORK - Mass public shootings have become such a part of American life in recent decades that the most dramatic of them can be evoked from the nation's collective memory in a word or two: Luby's. Jonesboro. Columbine. And now, Virginia Tech. Since Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed a 27-story tower on the University of Texas campus and started picking people off, at least 100 Americans have gone on shooting sprees. And all through those years, the same questions have been asked: What is it about modern-day America that provokes such random violence? Is it the decline...

(2007-04-06) — While Christians around the world gather for so-called “Good Friday” observances, an intelligence analyst studying primary source documents challenged the “irrational exuberance of the true believers,” and said his research to date indicates things did not go according to plan. “At this point, you have a leader in whom a lot of people had placed their hopes, who failed miserably,” said the unnamed source who is in the process of translating and exploiting the documents. “There’s no progress — no movement at all. It’s a classic case of a bad plan, poorly executed. A rational person would ask,...

ABC News' Barbara Walters said Friday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an intelligent and passionate man -- to say nothing of heavily caffeinated. Walters interviewed Chavez this week in Caracas, discussing topics ranging from his family life to his disdain for President Bush in clips aired Friday on "Good Morning America." At one point, she urged Chavez to drink his coffee, saying "I understand you drink too much coffee?" "Yes, but you didn't drink yours," Chavez replied through an interpreter. "You want mine?" Walters asked. "Give it to me, I will drink it," Chavez said. "I drink a lot...

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines fleeing a militant ambush Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines fleeing a suicide bomber and militant ambush on Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 10 people were killed and 35 wounded in the violence, officials said. ADVERTISEMENT A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said. As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief...

The Real Root Cause of Islamic Terrorism [Andy McCarthy] http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTI1NGQ1YzdjZDI4YWMzM2E1YjIwNzMxMjVlNWFlMTg= Retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander M. Zhudi Jasser refreshingly writes in NRO today: "To this point, the Muslim community has been able to completely avoid any real debate over Islamism. In fact, we see now a movement in England and the West to blame the West’s foreign policy as a root cause of terror rather than the real root cause — theocratic Islamist ideology." I wanted to cheer until I realized that Lt. Commander Jasser, a Muslim and the head of an organization called the American Islamic Forum for Democracy,...

WASHINGTON - Federal scientists have been pressured by the White House to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress. The hearing focused on allegations that White House officials for years have micromanaged the government's climate programs and has closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public. "It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a critic of...

PC UsersMac Users

The federal prosecutor who helped convict two U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to more than a decade in jail for shooting a suspected drug smuggler who illegally crossed the border from Mexico understands why the case stirred public outrage. However, he attributes the anger to the portrayal of the case by the news media and said the media version "is unfortunately not the narrative the jury heard" before convicting the two...

C-SPAN SPECIAL PROGRAMMING Jimmy Carter ConferenceThe Univ. of Georgia will mark the 30th anniversary of Pres. Jimmy Carter’s inauguration by hosting a weekend gathering of Carter administration officials, journalists, academics and others to assess the lessons of the Carter presidency. The conference is titled, “The Carter Presidency: Lessons for the 21st Century.” Staturday08:00 AM EST 1:30 (est.) LIVE Forum Carter Administration and Environmental Policy Vinson (Carl) Institute of Government Howard H. Baker Jr., R-TN Stuart Eizenstat , White House The beginning and end of this live program may be earlier or later than the scheduled times. 09:45 AM EST 1:00...

OK, we fell for it. For all those who claim that liberal interest groups don't spin like conservatives, pay attention. In a press release from late December 2006 (and other releases dating back to at least 2004), the public-agency hound watch organization PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has many park employees as members) had intimated that employees of the Grand Canyon have been asked not to tell tourists about the scientifically-derived, geologic age of the national landmark. But to be fair, a whole lot of other people have fallen for this too, including the seeming "gag order" on...

"Despite recent statements across the country by Governor Mitt Romney claiming he’s pro-life, pro-family and a committed conservative, a broad investigation of his actual statements, actions, and public positions over the years indicates that he has spent his entire career speaking and governing as a liberal – and that his new found conversion to conservatism very likely coincides with his candidacy for the presidency." Please refer to comment #1 to see what a shoddy piece of work this is. If they are trying to convince people of something, they should at least get SOME of the facts right and not...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- While Democrats picked up 26 House seats in Tuesday's election, giving them a narrow majority, the next Congress could actually be more conservative than the outgoing one, Republican strategists tell Newsmax. The rout of Republicans was a repudiation of the Party and especially of president and the war in Iraq, "but not of conservatism," these strategists believe. They cited incoming Democrats who were far to the right of Nancy Pelosi and the current Democratic Party leadership, in addition to new, more conservative Republican Members. In Arizona's fifth district, for example, Republican J.D. Hayworth, who made border security...

For more than a decade, one piece of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s informal biography has been that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Mount Everest. The story was even recounted in Bill Clinton’s autobiography. But yesterday, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said she was not named for Sir Edmund after all. “It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add,” said Jennifer Hanley, a spokeswoman for the campaign. In May 1953, Sir Edmund and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became the first men to reach the...

For Bill Clinton, the best defense is always a good offense. That’s the Clinton the nation saw Sunday, pointing his finger and reprimanding Fox News’ Chris Wallace for the crime of aggressively questioning the former president about his role in fighting terrorism and his failure to go after Osama bin Laden. “They [the Bush administration] had eight months to try [and] they did not try. I got closer to killing him than anybody’s gotten since,” he said. Perhaps someone should have reminded Clinton that “close” only counts in horseshoes. But that aside, a day later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...

NEW YORK From the newspaper that brought you the first-ever perfume critic comes what appears to be another first -- "futurist-in-residence." The New York Times, apparently seeking to boost its image as a forward-looking paper, announced Tuesday the appointment of Michael Rogers, a former Washington Post Company executive and Newsweek.com general manager to the newly-created title. In a release, the paper described the new position as a one-year consultant appointment to work with The New York Times Company's research and development unit. Spokeswoman Stacy Green compared the appointment to that of the paper's public editor, in that it would be...

Link Only: Violent crimes rise after years of falling

Less than 72 hours before ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to air, the network is suddenly under siege. On Tuesday, ABC was forced to concede that "The Path to 9/11" is "a dramatization, not a documentary." The film deceptively invents scenes to depict former President Bill Clinton's handling of the Al Qaeda threat. Now, ABC claims to be is editing those false sequences to satisfy critics so the show can go on -- even if it still remains a gross distortion of history. And as it does so, ABC advances the illusion that the deceptive nature of "The...

Right In A Left World

Aussie Andrew Bolt takes a look at (The holey ambulance -- the backside covering begins) Melanie Phillips meditates on ( The media war against Israel.") Michelle Malkin prescribes ( No more ambulances for terror) And Secretary Rumsfeld also weighs in with (the Department of Defense has posted the complete text of the speech here): [W]e find ourselves in a strange time: * When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up 10 times as many mentions of one soldier at Abu Ghraib who was punished for misconduct than mentions of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient...

A new silicon chip capable of manipulating the spin of a single electron could ultimately allow futuristic quantum computers to be built using conventional electronic technology, researchers say. A quantum bit, or "qubit", is analogous the bits used in conventional computers. But, instead of simply switching between two states, representing "0" and "1", quantum physics permits a qubit to exist in more than one state simultaneously, until its state is measured. This means quantum computers can essentially perform multiple calculations at once, giving them the potential to be exponentially more powerful than conventional computers ... 'Breakthrough experiment' Researchers have also...

Charles Johnson continues to produce mind-boggling results in documenting the outrageous bias and outright fraudulence in the mainstream media depiction of the Lebanon war. Yesterday Charles demonstrated still more staged photojournalism from Lebanon by an AP photographer. (Charles linked to "Al-AP at it again with staged photos.") Other striking instances of similar phenomena at work are on display in "Leading BBC reporter caught lying," "Green Helmet Man admits staging photos, AP spins furiously," and in "Azzim Tamimi uncensored." For Charles, it's all in a day's work. Charles and Little Green Footballs are notable examples of what Professor Stephen Cooper of...

President Bush is known for his malapropisms. Some are merely ascribed to the president; he doesn’t hold the copyright. “Strategery,” a Saturday Night Live creation, became the title of a Bill Sammon book. But these buzzwords tell us a lot of how the people in popular culture view their leaders and their world. President Bush said on Monday, August 14, 2006, the first day of the cease fire with Hezbollah, that the “responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah.” “There’s going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon,” Bush said. “Lebanon can’t be a strong democracy when...

Pelosi: 'Democrats Propose a New Direction for a Stronger America and a More Secure World' 7/19/2006 12:38:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both of the Office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi WASHINGTON, July 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined other House Democratic leaders at a press stakeout this morning after the Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss Democrats' New Direction that will strengthen national security and protect the American people. Below are Pelosi's remarks: "As we approach the two-year anniversary this weekend of the release of the 9/11 Commission recommendations,...

July 9, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Call it the Tony Snow effect. President Bush and his team are looking more confident and relaxed since the former Fox News anchor stepped in to replace Scott McClellan as press secretary - the public face of the White House - two months ago. "Tony has chilled the White House press corps - and that is some Snow job if you ask me," said Democrat Bill Clinton's star press secretary, Mike McCurry, one of the best White House spinmeisters in memory. "They were cranky and rebellious," McCurry adds. "He's turned the thermometer down and...

Brian Springer - Spin 57 min 26 sec - Apr 9, 2006 Using the 1992 presidential elections as his springboard, documentary filmmaker Brian Springer captures the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about 'homos', Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George Bush talks to Larry King about halcyon - all presuming they are off camera. Composed of 100% unauthorized sattelite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media constructed reality.

June 9, 2006 MESSAGE FROM NATALIE, EMILY & MARTIE: To our Fans: Any reports being made about the cancellation of our upcoming Accidents And Accusations tour are completely false. We have known since March 2003 that our path in this business would have obstacles at every pass. We have enjoyed meeting each one head-on and we will continue to do so. Dixie Chicks fans are as active and dedicated as they come. This time around we are willingly feeling our way through unchartered territory. Things don't come as easy as they might have come in the past, and it makes...

This Pacific NW "drudge like" web page is doing a great job today of tracking the liberal response to Zarqawi's death.Absolutly amazing (but not surprising)

by Mark Finkelstein June 8, 2006 Thanks to a lead from FReeper YaYa123, I'm able to report the following: On today's 'Imus in the Morning', Don Imus called NBC reporter Mike Boettcher on his attempt to spin a bombing in Baghdad as a 'not good' response to the killing of Zarqawi. Here's how it went down. Boettcher was reporting from Baghdad and had this to say: "We have the response here now [to the Zarqawi killing] and it is not good. There has been another bombing. Thirteen people are dead in central Baghdad. That is apparently the current reaction from...

BBC's coverage comes under fire Hasan Suroor FOR YEARS, the British Broadcasting Corporation has been accused by the Israeli Government, its diplomats in Britain, and by Jewish groups of displaying an anti-Israeli "bias" in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the height of the Palestinian intifada, the BBC's then Middle East Correspondent, Orla Guerin, was routinely attacked by Israelis for her reporting, and there were even calls for her to be recalled. The paranoia reached such a pitch that when one BBC reporter appeared to break down while reporting Yasser Arafat's death last year it was portrayed as yet...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rep. Patrick Kennedy was still in college when he took elected office as a state representative. Nearly two decades later, he has spent his entire adult life as a lawmaker. (snip) In Congress, Kennedy has pushed for greater mental health care coverage, citing his own struggles with depression and addiction. (snip) A tennis player and avid reader of biographies and autobiographies, Kennedy has a passion for sailing. "He can go out and be out of the public eye. It's tranquil, and it's something he enjoys," Marcella said. (snip) "He's a warm, nice, optimistic, kind person. That's what...

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2006 – It's Armed Forces Week on "Wheel of Fortune." "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak chats with contestants during the popular game show's Armed Forces Week, which airs April 3-7 in most U.S. markets. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. In an effort to highlight the U.S. military, one of the world's most popular television game shows is featuring 15 members of the armed forces in this week's competition. The episodes, taped in February in Culver City, Calif., are a way for the show to express its appreciation for the military, said Amy...

The latest criticism of the war in Iraq has become so politically manipulative, so disingenuous, so over-the-top that it is undermining a critical cause that we cannot, for a variety of global security reasons, afford to lose... Let’s look at last Thursday, March 16, the day the Iraqi National Assembly opened in Baghdad and a high-profile "air assault" northeast of Samarra, as an example:

How Economic News is Spun Paul Craig Roberts Friday, March 3, 2006 Readers ask me to reconcile the jobs and debt data that I report to them with the positive economic outlook and good news that comes to them from regular news sources. Some readers are being snide, but most are sincere. I am pleased to provide the explanation. First, let me give my reassurances that the numbers I report to you come straight from official U.S. government statistics. I do not massage the numbers or rework them in any way. I cannot assure you that the numbers are perfectly...

Fargo might soon lose its only local presence in the national media. Ed Schultz, who has been on television, radio or both in Fargo since the early 1980s, evolving from sportscaster to political commentator, is thinking about moving the home base for his nationally syndicated liberal talk show. He says he’s been talking about the potential move with station managers in some of the top markets where he’s doing well, like WINZ in Miami and KPTK in Seattle. Two main reasons Schultz may split: First, he wants to have better access to a satellite uplink so he can raise his...