Free Republic

Expected Western strikes on Syria will target the military, intelligence services and possibly sites with symbolic regime links, but will not alter the balance of power in the country, experts say. The raids, if they go ahead, would be aimed at punishing President Bashar al-Assad's regime and sending him a message rather than wiping out his military capacity and handing the rebels a decisive advantage, they say. "Specific targets should include the Damascus-area headquarters, barracks and support facilities of the fourth and Republican Guard armoured divisions, two units heavily involved in the bombardment of civilian areas," said Jeffrey White of...

NEW YORK (AP) — Fast-food customers in search of burgers and fries on Thursday might run into striking workers instead. Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to pay workers higher wages. It's expected be the largest nationwide strike by fast-food workers, according to organizers. The biggest effort so far was over the summer when about 2,200 of the nation's millions of fast-food workers staged a one-day strike in seven cities. Thursday's planned walkouts follow...

Walt & Lillian Disney with Richard Nixon and his family at Disneyland, 1959 We tend to think of Hollywood as a bastion of leftism, and rightly so. Books like Ron Radosh’s Red Star Over Hollywood demonstrate the deep-seated left-wing dominance of the entertainment industry. Even with the leftism prevalent in Hollywood’s Golden Age, many unabashed conservatives found success without compromising their principles, including one of the most creative minds in the business — Walt Disney.Several biographers and writers that I’ve read have tried to declare that Walt Disney was apolitical, but I find this conclusion not to be true....

Israel Radio reported this morning (Sunday) that the United States has apologized to Israel for disclosing that Israel was behind the strikes on Damascus two weeks ago. According to the report, the decision to disclose that Israel was behind the strikes was made at a low level in the Pentagon, and the US Department of Defense is investigating how that happened. According to the report, Israel believes that it is now facing much stronger threats from Bashar al-Assad as a result of the disclosure.

A western diplomat and three regional security sources said Wednesday that Israel Air Force warplanes struck a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, hours after Lebanon reported a series of three overflights by Israel in its airspace. Israel has expressed increasing concern over the fate of Syrian chemical and conventional weapons as the country slides further into chaos after almost two years of civil war.

Regardless of who the President is after this close election, the equity markets and the U.S. economy are in trouble. Debt has spread throughout the Western world. The fallout is political dissonance, growing economic hardship and, in some places, mob violence.Ground zero for the spreading fear and panic is Greece, which was once the worldÂ’s greatest civilization and the birthplace of democracy, poetry and philosophy.There is violent evidence of the contradiction from what the ancients taught and what is unraveling in Greece. It would all just be another boring story at the end of the news day, except there is...

South Africa Is On The Brink Of Total Chaos As Strikes Are Leading To Fuel And Cash Shortages Matthew BoeslerOct. 3, 2012, 11:02 AMThe labor strikes that have engulfed the mining industry in South Africa in recent weeks have now spread to one of the country's most vital industries – trucking. Without the trucking industry facilitating the flow of goods between purchasers and suppliers, things can get ugly pretty quickly, as they did in the U.K. in 2001 when truckers went on a similar strike and brought the British economy to the brink. Truckers are already entering their second week...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be spending a lot less time at the Democratic National Convention than he’d originally planned. Originally, the mayor had planned to be in Charlotte from Tuesday through Friday morning. Now, his Communications Director Sarah Hamilton tells Newsradio that Emanuel has changed his plans. Hamilton insisted the mayor’s shortened trip to the convention doesn’t have anything to do with a possible teachers strike. She said Emanuel’s abbreviated trip likewise doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s higher murder rate this year.

<p>JOHANNESBURG — Frantic wives searched for missing loved ones, President Jacob Zuma rushed home from a regional summit and some miners vowed a fight to the death Friday as police finally announced the toll from the previous day's shooting by officers of striking platinum miners: 34 dead and 78 wounded.</p>

A protester and the crowd have a party

A senior Foreign Office official says British government ministers have been told to expect Israeli military action in the wake of the UN watchdog report "as early as Christmas or very early in the new year," the London Daily Mail reported. The ministers were told that Israel would strike Iran's nuclear sites "sooner rather than later" – with "logistical support" from the US. According to the British paper, which has good military and intelligence ties in London, President Barack Obama would "have to support the Israelis or risk losing Jewish-American support in the next presidential election." The bigger concern is...

ATHENS, Greece - Union opposition to the Greek government's austerity program intensified Monday as tax collectors went on strike, and power workers vowed to sabotage a new emergency property tax aimed at plugging a budget gap spotted by international creditors. Tax and customs workers walked off the job for two days to protest cuts in their bonus pay while the power company union said it would "not allow the company to be used as a tax-collecting mechanism" for the property levy, which will be included on household electricity bills and is expected, together with fresh public sector cuts, to reap...

10 rockets, mortal shells explode in Ehskol, Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils, Asheklon; no injuries; Erez border crossing damaged; 2 Islamic Jihad members killed, Palestinian report says. A ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza seemed distant Thursday evening as the violence in the south of the country continued with at least 15 rockets and mortar shells exploding in Israeli territory, and Israeli air strikes that reportedly left two Islamic Jihad members dead. The Code Red siren was heard throughout the Eshkol and Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils and in Ashkelon as 15 rockets and mortar shells fell throughout those areas, the IDF Spokesman's...

WEST TISBURY, Mass. (AP) — President Barack Obama was teeing off on a Martha's Vineyard, Mass., golf course on Tuesday when the ground around him was shaken by an East Coast earthquake. .. reporters traveling with him said immediately that they had felt it. .. In Martha's Vineyard, CNN broadcast video of Obama speaking on a cell phone on the golf course. It wasn't known what the call was about.

The unusually heavy barrage suggests the US has no intention of halting its drone programme despite tensions with Pakistan Three suspected US missile strikes in north-western Pakistan in less than 12 hours have killed at least 38 alleged militants, an unusually heavy barrage at a time when relations between the two countries are badly strained, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

From The Arizona Republic: Arizona may not wait for the federal government to finish building a fence along its 370-mile border with Mexico. A new law that goes into effect July 20 allows the state to build the fence itself, as long as it can raise enough private donations and get permission to build on federal, Indian, and privately owned land along the border. State Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, who sponsored the legislation, was meeting with Gov. Jan Brewer's staff Tuesday to discuss logistics. Speaking in El Paso, Texas, last week President Obama said the border fence is "now basically...

Palestinians say Hamas targets hit by IAF planes; 6 mortar shells land in Eshkol, 12 rockets fired deep into Israel; Barak condemns attacks. Palestinian officials reported on Thursday evening that the IAF carried out air strikes on buildings belonging to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Initial reports suggest that a number of people were injured during the strikes. Shorty after the IDF finished its operations in the Gaza Strip, 6 mortar shells landed in open fields in the Eshkol Regional Council on Thursday evening. No injuries were reported and no damage was caused. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel...

Palestinian sources say arms depot belongs to Hamas' military wing; attack comes after two rockets and several mortars were fired into southern Israel earlier Thursday; IDF to deploy Iron Dome next week, Channel 10 says. The Israel Air Force bombed an arms depot in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, which according to Palestinian sources, belonged to the military wing of Hamas. The attack was carried out around 8:30 P.M. local time, after two rockets and several mortars were fired from Gaza at southern Israel earlier Thursday. According to Palestinian reports, IDF forces also attacked a military facility which was...

Israeli airstrikes hit smuggling tunnels along Gaza-Egypt border as well as a Hamas training camp in central Gaza; action follows rocket attacks against Beersheba and Ashkelon; no reports of injured in attack. Talkbacks (8) IDF aircraft struck targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours on Thursday, Hamas said, a day after Palestinians fired about a dozen rockets and mortars across the border, striking deep into Israel. There were no reports of injuries in the attacks. Hamas said Israel targeted smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, as well as one of its training camps in central Gaza.

Arianna Huffington is being cast by some unpaid Huffington Post contributors as an unethical robber baron. With Huffington awash in funds from AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post, contributors have called a strike to demand proper compensation. The Huffington Post, established in 2005, emerged as a leading source of aggregated news content and liberal commentary written by unpaid contributors. With the success of the site, founder Arianna Huffington rocketed to national fame, frequently appearing as a guest on cable news programs. Bill Lasarow, Publisher and Co-Editor of Visual Art Source, announced that his organization is “now going on...