Free Republic

Colin Powell, one of the nation's most prominent African-Americans, is going after people who attacked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor because of her stand in favor of affirmative action. Powell, who's from the same Bronx neighborhood in New York as Sotomayor, said she should face "a spirited set of hearings" in the Senate. But he said the federal appeals court judge, who would be the first Hispanic justice, shouldn't be condemned for ruling against white firefighters who contended they suffered reverse discrimination. "What we can't continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor ... called a racist,...

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Alinsky was an expert at teaching “have nots” how to take power away from the “haves”. But even Saul himself would have to admire how the anti-Palin attack machine is not only waging a relentless legal (and media) campaign war on a soon to be former Governor for a political...

On July 5, 1946, French designer Louis Reard unveils a daring two-piece swimsuit at the Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in Paris. Parisian showgirl Micheline Bernardini modeled the new fashion, which Reard dubbed "bikini," inspired by a news-making U.S. atomic test that took place off the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean earlier that week. European women first began wearing two-piece bathing suits that consisted of a halter top and shorts in the 1930s, but only a sliver of the midriff was revealed and the navel was vigilantly covered. In the United States, the modest two-piece made its appearance...

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's health authorities have seized over 20,000 dollars worth of coffee mixed with sildenafil, the main ingredient in erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, a report said Sunday. "The coffee mixture had been distributed in sachets nationwide," an official was quoted as saying by the New Sunday Times newspaper. "Officers found 900 boxes containing more than 9,000 sachets of the coffee mixture which retailed for more than 80 ringgit (23 dollars) per box," the officer added without naming the coffee brand in question. Enforcement officials said the coffee was mixed with sildenafil to "perk up" drinkers beyond the usual...

Rioters in China's far west Xinjiang region burned vehicles and blocked traffic in the regional capital Urumqi, and police rushed to the scene to impose order, the state news agency reported on Sunday. Restive Xinjiang is divided between the largely Muslim Uighur people and Han Chinese...

I am really enjoying the pundits bewilderment over the calculus of Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska. I just want to point out that Sarah said she is seeking a “higher calling” and not a “higher office”. Observe also that she does not believe one needs a “title” to be an effective agent for change. Both comments indicate to me that her resignation is not, by design, the beginning of a national campaign for President of the United States. But just for grins, lets pretend Sarah is “crazy like a fox” as Bill Crystal suggests and that she is...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Police worked Sunday to unravel the relationship between slain former NFL quarterback Steve McNair and his friend, a 20-year-old woman who was found shot to death alongside him in his downtown condominium.

Mickey Kaus writes: It’s seemed to me that the Obama administration has made a mistake in the framing of the health care issue: “We’ll raise your taxes and in exchange we’re going to cut your treatments.” I mean, how could that not have widespread appeal? It’s pain/pain! Yes, but that is the nature of what the Obama administration and those pushing for a government-controlled healthcare system are advocating. It isn’t easy to disguise what you are up to when the stakes are so high. (Well, they did for a while with the mumbo-jumbo about healthcare reform paying for itself, but...

Whether the name of Richie Urso ever makes it into the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich next June is anybody's guess. You've probably never heard of Richie Urso. But the FBI sure has heard of him. His is a classic Chicago story, about a beefy yet charming guy born on Grand Avenue, who got in trouble with the law as a kid, only to make political friends and become extremely wealthy. He was arrested once for jewelry theft in the '60s by the Outfit's top Chicago police detective, William Hanhardt. Urso's alleged partner in the theft was the...

An experience of sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence is associated with an increased risk of gay men becoming HIV-positive in adult life, American researchers report in the July 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The research also showed that men with a history of sexual abuse in early life had higher levels of depression and problematic drug and alcohol use, as well as being less receptive to HIV prevention interventions. “This is the first study…to demonstrate a predictive relationship between a history of childhood sexual abuse and high rates of HIV infection among HIV-uninfected men...

The present deflation is worth putting in context. Below (click to enlarge) is the annual rate of CPI change since 1913: We are in the first deflation since the Great Depression, albeit a mild one. In fact, raw materials prices have fallen just as far, but our consumption basket has shifted to items whose prices are slower to deflate. Note that the great deflation of 1929-1933 is followed by a brief increase in inflation (to a 5% year on year CPI gain) before falling back into negative numbers. This was the result of FDR’s devaluation of the dollar against gold,...

The news from Iran may have died down, but that's a function of the mainstream media getting bored and the Presidents weak response, it does not, by any means, indicate that the revolt that began the day after the presidential election is over. The oppressive regime must be getting nervous as it is beginning to threaten the opposition candidates. In two editorials, the Iranian daily Kayhan termed Mousavi, Khatami and their followers a dangerous opposition, and called to put them on trial for treason, cooperation with foreign elements, and responsibility for the death of civilians during the recent protests. Source:...

So that you will know "the Rest of the Story": He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at Boston College. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew...

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration "misread how bad the economy was" but stands by its stimulus package and believes the plan will create more jobs as the pace of its spending picks up. Biden, in an interview airing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," said the nation's 9.5 percent unemployment rate is "much too high." "The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there," Biden said. "We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery...

A little over two centuries ago, a young and energetic country was born out of the wilderness of North America. In less than two centuries she grew into a major super power and gave the world that begs for freedom and liberty a beacon of hope. It never was a perfect country, but one that sought to be the very best that it could be. She had spirit and believed in the innate desire of humans to be free to grow and build on their dreams. Poor from all over flocked to her shores to take part in the dream...

We know that Obama is a liar about so many things. The question of whether or not he is in fact, a Natural Born Citizen and eligible to be President of The United States of America, has no importance anymore. The question of eligibility has evolved far beyond that simple question, with such a simple solution, that Obama refuses to provide. The government of Kenya has put a Gag Order on his family not to talk to reporters. What we don’t know, what there is absolutely no proof of, is his place of birth, his true father or his mother....

(CNN) — The "architect" of George W. Bush's successful presidential campaigns has questions about Sarah Palin's resignation as governor. "It's a risky strategy," Republican campaign mastermind Karl Rove told "Fox News Sunday." Palin's unexpected announcement Friday that she will step down with 18 months left in her first term has left many in her party "a little perplexed," said Rove, whom Bush dubbed "The Architect" for managing his two victorious campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

When I heard Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in a radio interview saying a never-discussed part of the budget debate was how California's failure to aggressively implement the 1996 federal welfare reform act had kept its welfare rolls far bigger than other states, I asked him to show me where he was getting his info. He pointed me to a federal web site detailing the program created by the 1996 law to help get people off government assistance and into jobs: SNIP 32 percent were from California! 1,226,362! California has 36.8 million of the nation's 304 million people -- 12 percent. (I'm...

SNIPPET - QUOTE: July 04, 2009 MATERIALS ON RELIGIOUS-EXTREMIST ORGANIZATION "HIZB UT-TAHRIR", WITH PROOFS OF ITS PARTICIPATION IN TERRORIST ACTIVITY. [Editorial note: This is the text of a document found on the website of The General Consulate of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Athens. It is presented here without editing - the English is a little non-standard, but the meaning is clear. It presents the Uzbeckistan government's analysis of Hizb ut-Tahrir and why Uzbeckistan considers the Hizb ut-Tahrir to be a terrorist organization. Of note are the allegations of inter-linkage between Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.]

On June 29Th, I posted the "Press Turns on Obama and Co.~Video", in which press members laughed in the face of Robert Gibbs as he attempted to con them. This time CBS's Chris Reid and Helen Thomas from Hearst News Service step it up a notch, and show the world what a lying fool Robert Gibbs actually is.