Free Republic

IRAN'S top authority said US President Barack Obama was pursuing the same "wrong path" as George W. Bush in supporting Israel and described the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumour". The comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all policy in Iran, are likely to disappoint the new US administration which has been seeking to engage Iran but has called on Tehran to "unclench its fist". "Even the new president of America, who has come to power with slogans about changing Bush's policies, is defending state terrorism by talking about unconditional commitment to Israel's...

Buffett and much of the rest of humanity are just now coming around to Nouriel Robuini's way of thinking, the economist known as "Dr. Doom" is upping the ante on his longstanding bearish views. A year ago Roubini was forecasting an 18-month recession with a U-shaped recovery; now, he's now expecting the downturn to last at least 24 months and possibly 36-months. He also sees rising risks of a Japanese-style L-shaped stagnation, i.e. a prolonged period with little or no economic growth. "I was one of most bearish people [but] the economy has surprised the bears on the downside," says...

Playboy Magazine got its undies in a bundle over the nation wide Tea Party protests held last Friday that were inspired by CNBC's Rick Santelli's free market rant of February 19. As Noel Sheppard noted on March 1, the skin mag published a piece claiming that Santelli was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to protest Obama's socialist policies. It turns out, however, that the story has been proven false and in response Playboy has mysteriously removed the piece that first raised the question of the grand conspiracy. Happily, the facts have won over on Playboy forcing it to pull...

MICHAEL Jackson will make a "special announcement" in London this week, representatives said overnight, with industry insiders saying it will involve a series of comeback concerts in the city. Sky News reported Jackson had finally signed a contract to perform the concerts after lengthy negotiations and was set to earn an estimated $110 million for the shows. Outside Organization, the music PR company which represents Jackson in Britain, has sent an emailed invitation to a press conference at the O2 arena in London, where the concerts are likely to take place probably later this year. Jackson and representatives from music...

The American International Group has drawn scorn from legions of taxpayers and lots of lawmakers (not to mention the writers at “Saturday Night Live”). And Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, is pretty peeved at the company as well. Mr. Bernanke spoke on Tuesday of his ire about the government’s multibillion-dollar rescues of A.I.G. when asked by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, “At what point will the taxpayer no longer be on the hook for the massive A.I.G. failure? What is the endgame for American taxpayers?” Mr. Bernanke testified that nothing in the recent financial crisis...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York has been a self-styled education mayor. He's made all sorts of proposals and tried several different angles -- some good some not so good -- to improve the education of the kids of New York. He has, though, been a proponent of school choice and this advocacy looks to be a success, at least for the kids of Harlem's District 5. Recently District 5 sponsored the first ever Harlem Education Fair at which 5,000 parents and kids turned out to see what opportunities for school choice can be employed to improve their children's education....

“Start with Syria.” Thus did Aaron David Miller advise the incoming Obama administration on where its Mideast peacemaking priorities should lie. Miller, a former State Department official who first made a name for himself as a leading American negotiator in the Arab-Israeli peace processes of the 1990’s, had lost his faith that a deal between Israel and the Palestinians was possible, at least in the near term. But he was more sanguine about the prospects of an Israeli-Syrian deal, and confident about the good that could come of it. As he put it in a Washington Post op-ed in November...

Does Obama's stimulus plan have you stressed? Are you concerned that our generation might be the first in America's history to leave our kids with LESS than what we had? Do you just not see the point in working hard and giving most of it to the government for crackpot schemes and graft? Try Stimulusol XR - It "frees you from the exhausting constraints of logic and responsibility."

Dear Illinois,   Thanks for Paying me to talk to your kids.   Love, Bill Ayres,   writer, teacher, terrorist Illinois you have the honor of seeing your tax dollars go to pay terrorist William Ayers to "lecture" students at the University of Illinois. Not only will he be "lecturing" your students for a week at the Urbana campus, but your tax dollars at work will afford him free room and board at Allen Hall, as well. Isn't it heart warming that this killer and hater of America is being paid state dollars to help teach your college kids? Doesn't...

It is odd that after five weeks we can pretty much see the next four years: 1) Gorge the Beast on the home front. Shock-and-awe, "We're in the Great Depression" hysteria stuns the country into buying into what will be a multi-trillion dollar borrowing commitment. Once the desired social agenda is in place (and it is now), then there will be no alternative but to raise taxes and return wealth to its proper owners. (This is a variant of the Reagan-era "starve the beast" concept of cutting taxes, and supposedly cuts of wasteful spending follow — but a far more...

A couple drove 170 kilometres (100 miles) from South Africa's famous Kruger National Park with a highly venomous spitting cobra in their car, the Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday. Gordon Parratt, 69, felt the 85-centimetre (33-inch) long snake wind itself around his leg while he was driving. At first he thought an insect had brushed his leg and swiped it away, but when he looked down he saw the snake next to his left foot, the report said.

The Fashion Time’s style icon Charlize Theron made a striking red carpet appearance last night at the Paris premiere of her latest film, The Burning Plain. Très magnifique we ooohed, as she literally stole the show with her stylish segue and slender sophistication.

[...]The battle for Internet freedom is particularly pitched in Southeast Asia, where even nominally democratic governments are now cracking down on journalists, bloggers and ordinary Internet users. China has emerged as the region's Internet censorship role model, with its successful use of sophisticated filtering and surveillance technologies, widely known as Beijing's "Great Firewall". Those capabilities have been widened through a new government-run computer monitoring information system, known as the "Golden Shield Project". Of the 28 journalists now imprisoned in China, as tallied by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 24 of them were charged and sentenced for articles...

Peter Daou of the HUffington Post has had the jobs that political player wannabee William Rivers Pitt could only dream about. Daou has been an integral part of both the Hillary Clinton and John Kerry campaigns among many other things. Therefore, when Daou warns the Democrats that they are making a big mistake by focusing on and attacking Rush Limbaugh, smart folks should pay attention to the warning he posted in this HUffington Post THREAD, "Why on Earth Are Democrats Legitimizing and Empowering Rush Limbaugh?" Yeah, by focusing on Rush Limbaugh, Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats are making...

They may need a support group before the month is out. They could gather in New York or Washington where many victims reside. The meetings would start: “I’m Maureen [or David]. I’m a duped Barack voter. And I’m mad.” The ranks indeed are filling with the disaffected and the disappointed — Chris Buckley, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, David Gergen, and even that gynecological sleuth and blogger Andrew Sullivan. And then there is the very angry Marty Peretz. Their complaints are varied but expressed with equal amounts of remorse and bitterness. They all have been done wrong by Barack.

Yesterday was something of a trifecta for A.I.G.: the company announced a quarterly loss of $61.7 billion; the government said it would pony up another $30 billion for the company as well as ease the terms of its deal with A.I.G.; and the former A.I.G. chief executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg announced he is suing his old company for securities fraud. According to a Reuters’ report, Greenberg is accusing A.I.G. of “overstating its financial health and masking losses on credit default swaps that hedged default risk for at least $527 billion of debt.” Which “caused him to acquire shares as part...

Here in a nutshell is why I think Obama will preside over a prolonged world depression with extreme consequences for the developing world: Americans, per my Peter Pan analogy, haven't been saving. They expected their homes and other assets to appreciate instead. Now the Boomers are broke just prior to retirement and are saving as much as they can. If everyone tries to save at once, the economy shuts down and stays shut -- it has nothing to do with the credit crisis. The only way to save without shutting the economy down is to export (as the Chinese have...

Why couldn't President Obama have put on more of a show for his British guests? He looked like he simply couldn't be bothered. But on this side of the Atlantic the whole business looked pretty demeaning. The morning papers and TV last night featured plenty of comment focused on the White House's very odd and, frankly, exceptionally rude treatment of a British PM. Squeezing in a meeting, denying him a full press conference with flags etc. The British press corps, left outside for an hour in the cold, can take it and their privations are of limited concern to the...

Fellow Citizens and Taxpayers, We've crossed the tipping since I last emailed you. We've gone from 250 registered attendees to well over 1200 and counting. All the credit goes to you as you are the ones making this happen. You are the ones spreading the word and all of us working to plan the Tea Party are grateful for it. First, Brian Thomas of the 55KRC morning show has graciously mentioned us on air several times and has invited me to be on the show tomorrow at 8:35am. Brian has a great show and I hope I can do our...

Mary-Kate Olsen is totally unrecognizable on the cover and inside of the March 2009 issue of Interview. It’s a different look for her, ice goth queen meets strung-out chic in a daring dash against her previous innocence. Some would say, bring back the old Mary-Kate; others would applaud her for the new creativity. What is your verdict?