Free Republic

The US National Debt now exceeds 34 trillion dollars... Word that four closed border crossings on the US-Mexico border are to reopen... Politics in the USA and a USA Today/Suffolk Poll on the Presidential Contest. A two-way contest shows... Federal prosecutors dropping new charges on Democrat Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey... A big story in the Mainstream Media today is the success of Chinese owned electric car maker BYD... There have been several explosions near a merchant vessel in the Bab el Mandeb Strait just south of the Red Sea... Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigning... An Iranian-affiliated group...

My take: Well, of course, for any number of modern troops, armed with whatever modern weapons you want to arm them with, there is a theoretical huge number of primitive sword swingers who could overwhelm them in a battle. So what? Fun though.

Reports from across the nation indicated that teenage boys are suddenly much less interested in sneaking to the mailbox and taking out the mailers and fliers from Victoria's Secret in the mail before their parents get to them. The change seemed to have something to do with the lingerie and women's clothing company announcing the cancellation of its supermodels, the "Angels", who are being replaced with feminist icons such as Megan Rapinoe. "Yeah, you know what? Mom can keep this one," said one disappointed boy, Oliver Hampton, putting the catalog back in the mailbox after seeing Rapinoe on the cover....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Wednesday not to yield to "pirates" and to keep searching for energy in disputed eastern Mediterranean waters despite EU pressure to stop. Long-seated suspicions between regional powers resurfaced when Turkey sent a research vessel accompanied by warships off the Greek island of Kastellorizo last week. The European Union urged Turkey to "immediately" halt on Sunday and NATO said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed his "concern" in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday. But Erdogan sounded undeterred. "We're 100 percent right on this issue," the Turkish leader said on a...

We in the United States have all heard the haunting song, 'Taps...' It's the song that gives us the lump in our throats and usually tears in our eyes. But, do you know the story behind the song? If not, I think you will be interested to find out about its humble beginnings. Reportedly, it all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Elli was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land. During the night, Captain Elli heard the moans...

A defiant Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Monday that he again restored the voting rights of about 13,000 felons who served their time after his previous attempt was thwarted by Republican lawmakers and the state Supreme Court. Virginia's highest court ruled in July that governors cannot restore rights en masse, but must consider each offender on a case-by-case basis. That ruling invalidated a sweeping executive order issued by McAuliffe in April that had given back the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons who completed their sentences. McAuliffe blasted the court Monday for ignoring the "the clear text of the...

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made headlines and raised eyebrows Monday when he said that while Hurricane Katrina was deadlier than Hurricane Sandy, the latter storm was “more impactful” over all and “affected many, many more people and places than Katrina.” Mr. Cuomo added that Hurricane Sandy had a greater economic impact, destroyed or damaged more units of housing, affected more businesses and caused more customers to lose power. For our part, City Room decided to undertake a little truth-squadding. While apples-to-apples numbers for the two storms are very difficult to come by, especially given that Hurricane Sandy’s costs are still...

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. The 51-year-old Smith, a self-described libertarian, and his business partner, Dr. Steve Lantier, founded the Surgery Center 15 years ago, after they became disillusioned with the way patients were treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where the two men worked as anesthesiologists. In 1997, Smith and Lantier bought the shell of a former surgical center with...

a cutup of obama "singing" taxman, by the beatles - because let's face it, it's a tax.

Overregulation: The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again — this time eyeing smog standards so stringent it could actually force cities to choose between July 4th fireworks and hugely expensive new rules. When the EPA was enacting stricter smog standards in the '90s, critics said some communities would have to sacrifice things like 4th of July fireworks to comply. Then-EPA-head Carol Browner dismissed such talk as "nothing more than scare tactics" from polluters. "They are false," she said in 1977. "They are wrong. They are manipulative." Tell that to Wichita. Few would think of this south-central city in Kansas...

...With the Russian’s most recent interpretations of what the START treaty actually imposes against the United States, lawmakers in DC – even some Democrats, are pointing fingers once again at an ineffectual Obama White House. The Obama administration had assured these lawmakers the Russians would not attempt to impose limitations on America’s missile defense capabilities – that those Republicans warning of just such a thing were, “playing politics with national defense.” Now it appears the Obama White House and the Democratic Party leadership either lied, or have been utterly played for fools by their Russian counterparts.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Schwarzenegger slams Palin « - Blogs from CNN.com

Obama's Team vs Al-Qaeda Linked Al-Shabaab Drudge links to this disturbing article regarding the arguments among Obama's team in regards to al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab. Some want to strike al-Shabaab's training camps while others want a non military, more patient approach. The reasoning for the later? Senior Obama administration officials are debating how to address a potential terrorist threat to U.S. interests from a Somali extremist group, with some in the military advocating strikes against its training camps. But many officials maintain that uncertainty about the intentions of the al-Shabab organization Sure, alQaeda linked al-Shabaab want nothing more than peace and...

IsraelNN.com) The latest episode of Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem (TNL) contrasts Hevron's Jews with members of radical left-wing Peace Now. TNL, a live, monthly pro-Torah English TV broadcast well into its second six-month season on Israel National News TV, is co-hosted by Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel, with the help of special guests and Jewish music bands, who together celebrate the beauty of Torah and Judaism in the State of Israel in Holy Land. The current Episode 25 features on-the-street interviews with Peace Now members at a "peace" rally, juxtaposed with similar interviews with Jews living in Hevron. While...

This month, a jury may decide if the 54-year-old founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society was acting within his rights when he impeded the progress of a bird-stalking predator by means of a bullet. Mr. Stevenson is due to stand trial for felony cat murder. "There are people with the wrong perception of this," he said in his Chevy compact on a stormy morning, driving along a wide beach at Galveston Island's western tip, where curlews, egrets, stilts and herons strut in the tide pools. He stopped at the pilings beneath the San Luis Pass bridge: the scene of the...

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his [Juan Cole's] when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

Editor's Note: Published on Page A3 of the November 12, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer GREENPEACE, THE ENVIRONMENTAL activist group, is considering filing charges against the security guards who beat up a German volunteer during a protest against "dirty energy" in the state-run Masinloc coal-fired power plant in Zambales. The violent encounter between the National Power Corp. guards and 16 Greenpeace activists on Thursday was "the most severe attack" against its campaigners in the Philippines, said Red Constantino, Greenpeace's Southeast Asia energy campaigner. "The security personnel put the safety of the activists at extreme risk," Constantino said in...

PRESIDENTS Bush, Clinton and Carter would support it. Cherie Booth is proof of it. The first born achieves the most success in life.

Valerie Plame vs. Juanita Broaddrick? Tuesday, July 12, 2005 8:59 a.m. EDT Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff Which topic should provoke more media interest? A report that White House adviser Karl Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that the wife of showboating Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA - a revelation, by the way, that did nothing to damage her career as a desk-bound analyst, let alone endanger her life. Or a woman who NBC spent a year trying to convince to detail her allegation that she was raped by the president of the United States....