Free Republic

The tick-tocking sound in Afghanistan is time running out for Team America - and the enemy knows it. It's not only Beltway pundits who have picked over the fine points of President Obama's fuzzy July 2011 Afghan troop withdrawal target date, it's the Taliban, too, from Kabul to Kandahar and Khyber to Karachi. Never mind that Obama and Army Gen. David Petraeus have hedged on that date, promising any pullouts will be "conditions based."

Columnist contends Americans no longer care about Israeli-Palestinian conflict and this could eventually hurt Israel's national security interests. New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman said that many Americans are becoming "fed up" with Israel. Friedman's comments came in an interview with Channel Two reporter Dana Weiss to be aired on Saturday. Friedman stated that while the American public was by no means anti-Israel, they no longer care about the Israeli-Arab conflict and this could eventually hurt Israel's national security interests. Friedman added that he believes Israel is not doing the utmost to promote renewed peace talks with the Palestinians....

Money provided in the stimulus bill for making buildings more energy-efficient is finally starting to flow, the Department of Energy’s inspector general says. But in a report released Tuesday, his office says that in some cases it has been badly spent. An audit by the inspector general focused on some work done by the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, one of 35 agencies in Illinois that are expected to share $91 million over three years. The audit looked at 15 homes and found that 12 failed final inspection “because of substandard workmanship.” In some cases, technicians who...

The MSM in this country continues to prove everyday that their liberal bias is strong. This time it's The New York Times which has an article up with the headline: A G.O.P. Leader Tightly Bound to LobbyistsThe article suggests that Boehner has a disturbing level of ties to “lobbyist friends.” Mr. Boehner’s ties seem especially deep But hey....did you know? Nancy Pelosi has raised almost twice as much money from lobbyists this election as Boehner has?At least 18 House Democrats have raised more lobbyist cash this election than Boehner has.Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have pocketed more lobbyist cash in...

Related links Changes at the Deseret News SALT LAKE CITY — The Deseret News announced today work force reductions and unveiled a plan to refocus the quality and reach of its product. "Changes in the industry have forced some newspapers to fade or even close," said Clark Gilbert, Deseret News CEO and president. "At the Deseret News, we choose to lead and innovate." Part of that leadership, he added, is the willingness to make hard choices. "Today we have announced the reduction in our print work force by 57 full-time and 28 part-time employees, which reflects just over 43 percent...

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon is regaining control of the Washington Times after allies of the South Korean spiritual leader agreed to acquire the paper for just $1 and assumption of most if its debts, according to an internal memo. The memo contradicts rumors that a feud among the Moon's sons over control of the Washington Times prompted the father to buy it back for tens of millions of dollars. The deal is financially similar to the one the Washington Post cut in selling its money-losing Newsweek to businessman Sidney Harmon.

Notice the picture the NY Times is painting of this week’s primary results? Republican insurgents from the far right did well in Tuesday’s primaries. What their campaigns lack in logic, compassion and sensible policy seems to be counterbalanced by a fiercely committed voter base… This is an attack on voters thinly disguised as a critique of candidates: Much of the G.O.P’s fervid populist energy has been churned up by playing on some people’s fears of Hispanics and Muslims, by painting the president as a dangerous radical, by distorting the truth about the causes of the recession. Far too many Republican...

The owner of the Washington Times entered into an agreement Tuesday to sell the paper to another entity affiliated with its parent, the Unification Church, which would return funding to the cash-strapped conservative publication, POLITICO has learned. The agreement was made Tuesday afternoon between News World Communications, the paper’s parent company, chaired by Preston Moon, and News World Media Development, a Delaware-registered LLC tied to other factions of the Unification Church, according to sources close to the negotiations. It sets forth a 30-day period for both sides to conduct due diligence, after which the paper will be sold, if both...

CRITICS of the controversial decision to release the Lockerbie bomber have said he should consider himself lucky to be free, after he complained about his time in Greenock Prison. Reacting in Libya to continued outrage over his release a year ago, on the basis that he had just three months to live, Abdel-baset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi said: "They want to quicken my death. Is it up to me? "They killed me in prison a million times, denied as I was from seeing my children and family. So what more do they want?" However, yesterday Scottish Conservative deputy leader Murdo Fraser...

So the future of General Motors (and the $50 billion taxpayer investment in it) now depends on a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car. The company is moving forward on a second generation of Volts aimed at eliminating the initial model’s considerable shortcomings. (In truth, the first-generation Volt was as good as written off inside G.M., which decided to cut its 2011 production volume to a mere 10,000 units rather than the initial plan for 60,000.) Yet G.M. seemingly has no plan for turning its low-volume “eco-flagship” into a mass-market...

The world is preparing to face the end of Mubarak’s Egypt. Radio Voice of America reports: A government spokesman this week tried to downplay a report in the Washington Times newspaper that Western intelligence agencies are tracking Mr. Mubarak's decline since surgery in Germany earlier this year. The government says the president is recovering from gall bladder disease, but the Times report, along with independent media reports in Egypt, suggest his illness is more grave. Vice President Joe Biden met with Egyptian President in Sharm El Sheikh on June 7, 2010. On the official White House Photo by David Lienemann...

The nurse known around the world for a kiss in New York's Times Square at the end of World War II has died. You may not recognize the name Edith Shain, but, you'll recognize her in the iconic life magazine photo taken on August 14, 1945.

NEW YORK--Answering a question from a reader as to whether a teacher should post a cartoon on his door that disparages President Obama as a socialist, New York Times columnist Randy Cohen writes: [W]hile this teacher does not transgress ethically, he does seem to fall short intellectually, offering not deft political analysis but slogans and clichés... Incidentally...how does it defame a person to call him a “socialist” (outside of nutty far-right circles) — a set of ideas many advanced Western democracies find congenial, what with the accessible health-care, affordable higher education and good public transportation? Cohen, who writes the Times'...

Terror suspect Faisal Shahzad, who is accused of attempting to bomb New York’s Times Square, was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on 10 terror-related counts, local media reported. Shahzad was originally charged with five counts but now he’s facing 10 terror-related counts, including a new weapons charge, WNBC-TV reported.

President Barack Obama will host a “tele-town hall” at a Maryland senior center on Tuesday as Democrats work to boost support for the healthcare law in advance of the November congressional elections. The event in Wheaton, Md., is timed to the first mailing of $250 rebate checks to senior citizens as part of the broad healthcare bill Obama signed in March. The rebates are aimed at closing the so-called “donut hole” which excludes many Medicare Part D recipients from full coverage of prescription drugs.

Perhaps Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick should worry less about the GOP blocking Obama's agenda as "almost sedition," and worry a bit more about the MSM performing "possible treason": New York Times’ Front Page Announces U.S. Expansion of ‘Secret Military Acts’ in Middle East The New York Times, giving America’s friends and foes a heads-up, reports that Gen. David Petraeus signed a “secret directive” in September authorizing “a broad expansion of secret military activity” in the Middle East.

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City. Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel. The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created...

President Obama's nominee for U.S. Army general counsel, who pledges to investigate anyone leaking military secrets to the media, will receive at least $1 million in deferred compensation from the New York Times Co. even as he works for the government, records show. Solomon B. Watson IV, former chief legal officer for the newspaper, is due the money through an executive payout plan that ends in 2015, according to a recent government ethics form.

Yup, we need a Nope. A nun who is pope. The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal. .......................................................... If the church could throw open its stained glass windows and let in some air, invite women to be priests, nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry, if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children, it might survive. It could be an encouraging sign of humility and repentance, a surrender of arrogance, both...

Those paydays that New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger and President Janet Robinson received last year are once again coming back to haunt them. The Boston Newspaper Guild, which absorbed more than $10 million in pay and benefit cuts to members last year in order to save The Boston Globe, has lashed out at the Sulzberger and Robinson 2009 bonuses and are demanding their lost wages and benefits be restored... The Times Co. declined to comment. The company raised eyebrows earlier this month when it revealed in a company filing that the pair of execs got higher bonuses in...