Free Republic

FRENCH officials were on alert last night after a group linked to al-Qaeda threatened to retaliate over criticism of the burka. The Algeria-based group issued a statement on Islamic websites vowing to “seek vengeance”. It followed comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week in which he said the veils would not be welcome in France. Muslim robes may even be banned in public there. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said last night: “French authorities reaffirm their determination to fight terrorism.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader. "Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction. He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said. The FBI reports, released...

Must be playing all that hardball by President Barack Obama’s administration. Attorney General Eric Holder becomes the second Cabinet official to miss travel after breaking something. Holder, the country’s top law enforcement official, cracked a tooth last night and missed a trip to Aspen, Colorado, where he had been scheduled to attend the “Aspen Ideas Festival” on the eve of a long weekend for the Fourth of July holiday.

President Barack Obama says he's never believed that affirmative action is as much of an issue as it's been made out to be. He says it hasn't been as "potent a force for racial progress" as its supporters have said, and that it hasn't been as bad for white students or job applicants as its critics say. In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Obama said affirmative action can be made an "afterthought" when problems such as malnutrition, poverty and substandard schools are dealt with, and "everybody has a level playing field."

> If there are only 2 animals, A and B, and we assume that a predator can only realistically attack one at a time, then the probability of A being attacked is 1/2 in a single round of predation. So, in a one-shot game, if B is attacked, A’s best strategy is to cut and run, since helping B may result in injury or death. But, if the same game is played over and over (that is, if they run the risk of being attacked often, as is the case in real life), then A’s best strategy is to help...

Senate Democrats unveiled their plans to create a government-run public health insurance option and require most employers to provide healthcare benefits to their workers Thursday, partially filling in the blanks on two of the biggest unsettled questions in the effort to reform the healthcare system. According to Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, their legislation would extend health insurance coverage to 21 million uninsured people over 10 years at a net cost of $611.4 billion. Combined with separate legislation being developed by the Senate Finance Committee, senators said their healthcare reform plan would bring the...

Government: It's been suggested that the White House has more czars than the Russian Romanov dynasty. Has the administration forgotten that we have a government of elected officials, not of imperial appointments?

"American Muslims are different from Muslims anywhere else". "It could never happen here". These were two of the very overused excuses I have heard over the years from Islamic apologists. Well the problems that Islam brings to the rest of the world are happening here as well and getting worse. Will those same Islamic apologists continue bury their head in the sand or finally face the reality and speak up?

Lest we forget: 20 years ago, a revolution in pictures.

Commentary: Time to worry -- they're recommending themselves One sure sign that the markets may be getting ahead of themselves this summer: Wall Street banks are recommending each other's shares again. Citigroup (C 2.89, -0.08, -2.66%) got on its squawk box Wednesday with an analyst report claiming that shares of rival Bank of America (BAC 12.76, -0.29, -2.22%) may be the best bank buy out there now. The TARP-ridden banking giant said its government cash-infested competitor will return to normalized earnings in a couple of years and slapped an $18 stock target on the shares, up more than a third...

Although I have lived in the Washington, D.C., area since 1984, I am an orthodox Baltimorean by birth, nurture, education, baseball loyalties, and a settled disdain for offering tartar sauce with crab cakes. So I should be the last person to think the unthinkable about my native city’s principal contribution to American public culture (after, of course, the Colts’ sudden-death victory over the New York Giants in the 1958 NFL championship game). Nonetheless, I shall risk the charges of heresy and treason by proposing the following thought experiment: as America celebrates Independence Day, let’s ponder a switch in national anthems,...

What a Coincidence! Buried in the story about Obama's Health-Care forum is this:The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence. Out of an audience of 200, the president just happens to choose three who are part of organizations working to pass his health care legislation. Troll extraordinaire palin steele said we should try harder to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer warned about irregularities at Bernard Madoff's financial management firm as far back as 2004, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation. Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent emails to a supervisor saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, the report said. (snip) The newspaper said the SEC staffer raised concerns about Madoff but, at the time, the SEC was under...

Lawyer Raymond Niro, for whom the term "patent troll" was apparently first coined, has been known to use the fact that he represents a company called Global Patent Holdings (GPH) to his advantage. GPH owns patent 5,253,341, but looking at it there won't do much good. You see, Niro and others claimed that the patent covered pretty much anyone running a web server, leading to quite a few legal battles, including one against a guy, Greg Aharonian, who called it a "bad patent." For claiming that, he got sued for patent infringement. In fighting the patent, it was re-examined, and...

1. GM Partners With Segway It became clear this spring that General Motors was going to have to get smaller to survive, but this was ridiculous. A week after President Obama gave the company a 60 day deadline to avoid bankruptcy, GM took time out from its turnaround efforts to unveil the PUMA, a two-seat vehicle being developed with Segway that looked more like a rickshaw than a car. The vehicle, capable of going only 35 mph and traveling 35 miles between charges, got lots of attention, but did little to change popular opinion about the company that had...

'A Funeral To Die For" declared the front page of The New York Post, as Aaliyah departed this mortal coil in a traffic-snarling horse-drawn cortege with silver casket and ceremonial release of 22 doves, one for each year of her brief life. Like almost everybody else, I'd never heard of the bestselling r'n'b'n'movie star until her Cessna crashed just after takeoff a week ago. But that's okay. Nobody's that popular any more: Popular culture is more accurately characterized these days as a lot of mutually hostile unpopular cultures.

A friend emailed this morning to say he couldn’t believe what he heard Mika Brzezinski say on Morning Joe today regarding yesterday’s press briefing where Helen Thomas and Chip Reid asked Robert Gibbs several questions about President Obama’s so-called “Town Hall” on health care yesterday: The question I would have for her [Helen] is if she felt she could ask that question during the Bush administration and get that aggressive. Seriously? I almost injured myself when I fell over laughing when I read that comment. I am no longer a spokesperson, but I feel I can speak for all of...

Independence Day 2009: We still hold these truths... "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry As we celebrate the 233rd year of our Declaration of Independence, let us look at the common parlance associated with the polar spectrum of current political ideology (while such a review is still permitted by the state), and explore what is meant by "Left versus Right," "Liberal versus...

ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) -- President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job. The president hugged her -- she's a volunteer for his political operation -- and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans. Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court was "moving the ball" on affirmative action in this week's decision favoring white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., but he added that the court had not ruled out the use of racial preferences in the future.