Free Republic

DETROIT (AP) -- U.S. car and truck sales showed signs of stabilizing in June after a year of sharp declines, but every major automaker except Honda Motor Co. reported lower sales than in May. Still, year-over-year declines last month slowed for four of the six major carmakers, with Ford Motor Co. reporting the smallest drop in a year at 10.7 percent when compared with June of 2008.

Presently, there is an unprecedented push for peace in the Mideast. President Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, along with a significant host of other powerful world leaders, clamor once and for all for a two-state solution. They have heightened concern that the writing is on the 403-mile wall currently protecting Israeli's from Palestinian terror that a Middle East war is imminent. As the clock rapidly ticks toward what will likely be the prophetic Psalm 83 showdown, Israel circles the wagons in preparation for a multi-front confederate conflict with its ancient enemies, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loosens his grip from the...

SABINA AMIDI, Special to The Jerusalem Post As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report. Underlining the climate of fear among direct and even indirect...

Sayyid Syeed remembers an interfaith event several years ago when a Jewish leader went to embrace him, saw someone snapping a photo, then suddenly pulled back. "He said to the man, 'Stop,'" Syeed recalled, "'I'll lose my job.'" Times have changed for the Islamic Society of North America and for Syeed, who leads the group's interfaith outreach. In a sign of growing acceptance of U.S. Muslims, one of the most prominent religious leaders in the country, evangelical pastor Rick Warren, will speak at the Islamic Society's annual convention this weekend. Representatives from the two largest streams of American Judaism, the...

Sam Miller is a prominent Cleavland businessman. He is also Jewish. His essay was sent to me by a friend who didn't give any information about where he found it. —————————————————————————————— Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church? Do you know—the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Your graduates go on to graduate studies at...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency to address California's deficit and has ordered state offices closed three days a month to save cash. The Legislature will have 45 days to send him a plan to balance the state's budget, which ended the fiscal year with a $24.3 billion deficit. The shortfall is expected to grow by $7 billion because the Legislature did not enact several stopgap measures Tuesday. If lawmakers fail to act within the 45 days, they cannot adjourn or act on other bills until they solve the crisis.

I asked an expatriate living in the Honduras about the current situation and whether the media reports we're receiving are accurate. Here's his answer... Yes there was coup but, unlike those in other countries, control was assumed by civilians not military. Zelaya felt he was above the law and his proposals were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and this was upheld by the military. Zelaya then fired the head of the military and he continued to press forward. The Supreme Court voted to have him ousted and directed the commander of the armed forces to do just that. The...

Ticket sales for Bush’s Saturday evening speech have been "fantastic,” said Landon Laubhan, a Woodward promoter who is handling arrangements for this weekend’s activities. The way sales are going "we will be sold out for Saturday by Thursday,” Laubhan said. The former president’s appearance, his first in Oklahoma since he left the White House earlier this year, is part of a July 4 celebration to mark improvements at Crystal Beach Park and the park’s 80th anniversary as well as the Fourth of July holiday. Bush is scheduled to speak at 6:20 p.m. Saturday in the park’s rodeo arena, which can...

It's a defining moment in a parent's life: Seeing their unborn child's image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby. The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student's PhD. Brazilian student Jorge Lopes has pioneered the conversion of data from ultrasound and MRI scans into life-size plaster models of living embryos using a method called rapid prototyping. 'It’s amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really...

The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact. Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in...

Via CNBC... Obama is expanding the homeowner bailout so that underwater homeowners with a 125% LTV ratio can refi more easily through Fannie and Freddie. Before your LTV ratio could only be 105%, because, well, as we've learned, fat loans relative to value are more likely to go bad. As many have described it, Obama's solution to the housing crisis is: more subprime loans. Like the original subprime loans, they're really only going to work out of home prices grow rapidly over the next few years, otherwise you're looking at the perpetuation of people living underwater in their homes. Update:...

<p>When Debby Smith was diagnosed with a second tumor in her kidney, causing her renal failure, she had no way to pay for health care. So she turned to President Obama.</p> <p>The president comforted the tearful questioner at the health care town hall meeting he held Wednesday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va.</p>

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press? (snip) .... What follows is the email exchange with Bill Kristol that Schmidt rooted out, where Scheunemann speculates that the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband. Read from the bottom up: ——- Original Message ——- From: Randy Scheunemann To: William Kristol Sent: Sat Oct 25 19:44:44 2008 Subject: Re: who...

Pentagon Studies Ways to Relax Enforcement as First Step; Impact on Troops Would be Minimal SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the wake of yesterday's unexpected Pentagon announcement about gays in the military, experts say the "don't ask, don't tell" policy may be on the brink of irreversible change that would speed up its demise. After speaking with President Obama last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked military lawyers to explore how to modify enforcement of the policy in ways that are "more flexible until the law is changed." The President Monday reiterated his intention to end...

Some are calling him America's Susan Boyle. This is the heart and soul of America and the American Dream. An out of work simple backwoods redneck farm boy walks onto the stage amidst laughs and jeers... But then he begins to sing. Soon the big city Chicago crowd that mocked him based on nothing more than his appearance and his accent is floored. Jaws drop. Tears fall. The crowd rises to their feet. Kevin Skinner is off to Vegas - the dream lives on...

Maybe Mitt Romney should look warily over his shoulder, lest a political calamity befall him, too. Continuing President Obama's political good fortune, a growing list of possible Republican opponents in 2012 is falling by the wayside, often due to self-inflicted wounds.

The high-profile reversal of Sonia Sotomayor’s judgment on Ricci has taken the momentum away from public support. A new Rasmussen poll shows that a previous eight-point plurality favoring her confirmation to the Supreme Court has turned into a two-point plurality of opposition. The real risk is to Barack Obama’s efforts to paint himself as a reasonable moderate on the judiciary:

There are many reasons to find problems with sharia law. In its full form, it contains numerous provisions that are barbaric and irreconcilable with any advanced society: stoning married adulterers, flogging the unmarried, throwing homosexuals from roofs or steep hills, amputating limbs for theft, and much more. But sharia is much wider than that. It moves seamlessly from the public to the private realm, and it is in the latter that we find demands that a measure of sharia be introduced to this country. Such demands have been made, not just by Muslims, but even by an astonishingly naïve...

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press?