Free Republic

President Obama has claimed that his budget goes after the rich who supposedly will pay the cost of his spending extravaganza. But it is already apparent that the rest of us will pay plenty. Obama is continuing the crusade against offshore tax havens he began as an Illinois senator. He's targeting places like the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands Antilles and Switzerland, which have low taxes. There are about 50 such tax havens globally. It's wrong to think that a U.S. crackdown on offshore tax havens would primarily hit disgraced Wall Street high rollers...

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 3, 2009 – As U.S. forces and their NATO counterparts here were thinking recently about ways to win the trust and cooperation of local people in their fight against radical insurgents, village elders suggested a way to come together in common interest: a sporting event. Two do-rah teams battle it out while an Afghan police officer pulls security during a goodwill tournament of the traditional Afghan game in the Deh Rawood district of Oruzgan province, Afghanistan, Feb. 20, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Joseph A. Wilson.   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Such was...

LANCASTER COUNTY, Neb. (March 3, 2009)-- Charges were pending Tuesday against a Nebraska man accused of putting a kitten inside of a homemade bong. Police found the kitten after responding to a report of a domestic disturbance Sunday at the home the 20-year-old man shared with his grandfather. While investigating, they discovered the man was named in an outstanding drug paraphernalia possession warrant. As they took him into custody, they found the kitten. The man told officers he put the cat in the bong to calm the animal down, police said. The cat appeared to be shaken up, but otherwise...

March 3, 2009 O'Reilly doesn't get it O'reilly doesn't get it. He's telling Brit Hume that the market pulling back 1,200% must be shaking him up... the American people may turn against him...” O'Reilly doesn't get the fact that Hussein doesn't CARE. The media have not yet gotten what I've been saying for many months – he WANTS to tear it down. He WANTS to destroy our economy. He WANTS to tear apart our country. It is not a coincidence that he, from the day he declared his candidacy, has been setting himself up before the nation as a form...

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2009 – U.S. and Iraqi forces deterred several potentially deadly incidents in recent days by confiscating two large weapons caches and dismantling a homemade bomb, military officials reported. At least one cache was discovered with the help of an Iraqi civilian who led a combined Iraqi police and U.S. Army patrol Feb. 28 to a large cache west of Samarra. The cache contained more than 200 mortar rounds and about 1,500 pounds of explosives, which were safely disposed of by explosive ordnance technicians. A joint patrol of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers seized another cache yesterday during a...

BAGHDAD, March 3, 2009 – Deployment is never easy, especially a 15-month deployment in which soldiers face the possibility of missing the same holiday twice away from their loved ones. Army Spc. James Ott conducts personal combat checks on his M-240B machine gun from the turret of his mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle before leaving on a combat patrol mission, Feb. 24, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kevin Holden  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. This has been the reality for soldiers from the 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, who have served in Multinational Division Baghdad since April...

BEIJING, March 2 – A Chinese art collector identified himself on Monday as the winning bidder in last week’s Paris auction for two sculptures looted from Beijing in the 1800s but said that, as a patriot, he had no intention of paying. Christie’s, which had triggered Chinese anger by holding the sale, would not say what action it would take against the bidder, only that the bronze sculptures of the heads of a rat and a rabbit would not be released until it had been paid. Cai Mingchao, a collector and adviser to a private foundation in China that seeks...

Syrian Women's Rights Activist Bassam Al-Qadhi: The Syrian Government is Lenient Towards 'Honor Crimes'; 'Do We Need 10 Million Syrian Women To Be Killed Before We Face Up to the Problem?'   http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD226809 Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian women's rights activist Bassam Al-Qadhi, which aired on Al-Dunya TV on February 11, 2009: To view this MEMRI TV clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2040.htm. TO VIEW THIS CLIP AND OTHERS, YOU MUST LOG IN/REGISTER FOR MEMRI TV, AT http://subscriptions.memri.org/content/en/member_registr_tv.htm. REGISTRATION IS FREE OF CHARGE."The Problem With Us is Not That We Kill [Women], While Others Do Not - The Problem...

Foreign Policy: Appeasing Russia to "solve" Iran's nuclear ambitions is not the only disconcerting feature of President Obama's approach to the world. Vital friends and allies are getting America's cold shoulder.What sense does it make that after Ronald Reagan wins the Cold War by refusing to abandon missile defense, the United States offers it as a bargaining chip to an increasingly menacing post-Communist Russia? And where is the wisdom in withdrawing plans to use missile defense to protect the liberated former Eastern Bloc states against a Russian aggressor willing to wage war with the former Soviet state of Georgia and...

Ben Stein talks to Glenn Beck.

CALABASAS, Calif. Whether they deserve to be or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has the economy staggering. So it may come as a surprise that a dozen top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess. Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team of former company executives have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, March 3, 2009 – The provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province conducted a medical assistance mission at the Hope of Mother School and Clinic in the province’s Surkh Rod district Feb. 24. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Joshua Lackey, a medic with the provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, examines an Afghan girl from the Hope of Mother School, Feb. 24, 2009. The PRT medics treated more than 120 people during the medical assistance operation at the school and clinic. U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Dustin Hart  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. In...

Sixty Oregonians ended their lives by taking a lethal drug dose prescribed under the Death With Dignity Act, state officials reported Tuesday. That's the highest annual total in the 11-year history of the law, 11 more than in 2007. Deaths from a legal drug prescribed under the Death With Dignity Act now account for 2 of 1,000 deaths in Oregon. In all, 401 terminally ill Oregonians have died this way since Oregon became the only state to make doctor-assisted suicide legal in 1997. Oregon is about to lose its exclusive status as the only state where it is legal for...

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2009 – U.S. forces in Iraq are contributing to a new system of law and order there, equipping police stations with the latest investigatory equipment and building courthouses. Mayor Kadim Karim and Chief Judge Falah Kareem lay the first tile at a ceremony in Hayy, Iraq, signifying the beginning of construction on a new courthouse for Wasit province, Iraq, Feb. 26, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Joe Thompson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently dedicated a state-of-the-art crime lab at the police station in Basra. The...

COLUMBIA — South Carolina lawmakers have advanced a measure asserting state sovereignty, saying they want to send President Obama and Congress a message.

"I just hate the image that we give to our kids that if you're beautiful, you're beautiful and you don't have to be smart," said Del. Jeff Eldridge, (D) Lincoln County. Delegate Jeff Eldridge introduced a bill to the house on Tuesday asking lawmakers to stop the sales of Barbie in the mountain state.

Think you're mad about the wasteful spending in D.C.? Check out this guy's rant about it in the cartoon "Geeks On Caffeine!" As a bonus, he also manages to define just how bad the spending is! NOTE: the author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thank you!

Today President B.Hussein.Obama pumped Wall street as it continued its slide to the 5000's "buying stocks is a potentially good deal"

SDI: A Russian-built reactor undergoes operational tests in Iran. Tehran orbits a satellite with an ICBM. Are we about to trade away proven missile defense for unproven and unreliable Russian diplomacy?Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and our new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Friday. One of the topics on the list is sure to be something we have warned about — the trading away of American missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic for vague Russian promises to help with the Iranian missile and nuclear threat. The Russian daily newspaper Kommersant...

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, March 3, 2009 – Students may remember noteworthy teachers for the rest of their lives. But one soldier here said he wants to influence his students not so he can be remembered, but rather to positively affect them. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert Meeks, 41st Fires Brigade targeting officer, teaches criminal justice and military science courses at Camp Victory, Iraq, Feb. 19, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Debralee P. Crankshaw  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert Meeks, 41st Fires Brigade targeting officer, teaches off-duty criminal justice and military...