Free Republic

As Barack Obama departed for Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev showed he was well pleased with his counterpart's famous “reset button.” Commenting on Iran, Mr. Medvedev said: “If I understand correctly, the United States would like to establish more open and more direct relations with Iran. We support this choice. It would be counterproductive to resort to other sanctions.” Mr. Medvedev's path was at least consistent with his quick endorsement of Iran's June 12 “election” results. Inconveniently for Mr. Obama, however, widespread vote fraud, suppression of dissent, brutality and bloodshed got in the way of his moving rapidly to open...

Israel may have already started a war against Iran's nuclear program – not with bunker busting bombs and cruise missiles, but with computers. Defense analysts believe Israel has been targeting the Islamic Republic's computer networks, to gather intelligence on the nuclear program and also to launch cyber attacks against it. "This has become a very important area in Israeli strategy, and it has to be taken into account," said Alon Ben David, an Israeli defense_specialist. "It has become a more and more important element both for intelligence gathering but also for aggressive operations." Experts believe Israeli intelligence agencies have been...

If this keeps up it will be “bye bye Obama” in 2012!A record uptick in Rasmussen’s Presidential Approval Index portends disturbing news for the Hopey-Changey brigades. This is the first time that the index has gone so sharply negative.Other trends in this latest polling round include: Fifty-four percent (54%) say the average Democrat in Congress is more liberal than they are, while 36% believe the average Republican congressman is more conservative. Among all voters, Republicans now have a three-point edge on the Generic Congressional Ballot.Just 27% of voters nationwide favor passage of a second economic stimulus package. Sixty percent (60%)...

New media innovations, like Facebook and Twitter, influenced the course of last month’s unrest in Iran, panelists at the National Endowment for Democracy said Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s supporters took to Iran’s streets in June to protest the results of a disputed presidential election between Mousavi and incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Officially, Ahmadinejad won the election, but Mousavi’s supporters claim that it was rigged.

Pelosi recently rammed through federal paid paternity leave for 30 days for adopting and birth. Congressman caller this morning indicated it would be for either (both ?) male and female parents because of the "gay adoption criteria" as gays try to get more foreign born babies recruited to the their lifestyle. (Previous policy was unpaid leave.)

What You Need to Know: Subsidiarity The social teaching of the Church is based on the human person as the principle, subject and object of every social organization. Subsidiarity is one of the core principles of this teaching. This principle holds that human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected pesons. It is easiest to begin with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which enunciates the prinicple of subsidiarity in the context of man's social nature. When the principle of subsidiarity is ignored, governments often overstep their bounds in managing matters best handled on...

Al Sharpton delivered an emotional defense of Michael Jackson at the memorial services Tuesday. The event, held at the famed Staples Center, featured performances from several music heavyweights. Sharpton, addressing Jackson's children directly, defended what some would deem 'strange' behavior by Michael Jackson in his later years.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's supreme leader has imposed his will on the streets with security forces that crushed mass protests over the country's disputed election. But he faces an unprecedented level of behind-the-scenes political discontent among the Muslim clerics who form the theological bedrock of the Islamic Republic. The bitterness could represent a deeper, long-term challenge to the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The outright rejection by some clerics of election results that Khamenei ruled valid breaks a basic taboo against criticizing the man who in the philosophy of the Islamic Revolution literally represents God's rule on...

ecretary of Transportation Ray LaHood can't be serious. Or, at least, I hope not. When I had the chance recently to meet him at The Denver Post, where I work, I was fully prepared to endure a healthy dose of rambling about how antiquated, inefficient, money-losing choo-choo trains will replace cars. One also can be prepared to laugh only on the inside when a Cabinet member asserts, in all earnestness, that cycling our kids to school en masse (and this adult has yet to master the art of driving his kids to school) is the answer to our national congestion...

BRENTWOOD, Calif. (AP) Staff and visitors at the world-famous Getty Center art complex in Los Angeles were being evacuated because of a nearby brush fire. The fire, which was burning at 1200 Getty Center Drive near the northbound 405 Freeway, has scorched approximately two acres. A Getty spokesman estimated 800 employees were working in the complex Wednesday. They're being told to leave along with an unknown number of visitors. A plume of smoke could be seen from miles away, as the fire spread quickly through heavy brush. About 50 firefighters were battling the blaze along with a helicopter. The Getty...

Dear Rich, Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m starting to think that Christopher Buckley endorsing Barack Obama for President may not have been an isolated case of poor judgment. Your piece, Sarah Palin Up and Out, tells us quite a bit more about you than it does about Palin. At the risk of being sued for copyright infringement, I’ll quote the beginning of your screed: In all the speculation about why Sarah Palin quit the Alaska governorship, no one — right or left, supportive or critical, rational or conspiratorial — has credited her stated reason that she...

CONROE, Texas — Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday Sarah Palin is committed to campaigning for his re-election bid and that he welcomes the support of the soon-to-be-former Alaska governor.

Russia's top tycoons on Tuesday expressed hope that US President Barack Obama's visit to Russia would help boost lacklustre business ties as Moscow and Washington seek to warm up diplomatic relations. A host of Russian and US companies are aiming to capitalise on a "reset" of political ties expected from Obama's two-day meetings with Russian leaders at a parallel business forum. Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire tycoon and head of the Renova group, said at the forum that while there were some positive examples in Russia-US business relations, that cooperation has not become systematic yet. "We are going around in circles...

China has vowed to execute protesters responsible for the deaths of 156 people in violent protests in Xingjiang province. Li Zhi, the Communist Party's highest official in the region, said it was was stable after several days of ethnic violence. He said security forces had control of the streets. He added that many people accused of murder had already been detained and that most of them were students. The violence has already caused President Hu Jintao to cut short a visit to take part in the Group of Eight summit in Italy to return to take charge of the situation....

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION! All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

Those concerned that the United States is in danger of losing cultural strengths will enjoy this quick clip of Actor Peter Sherayko reading a poem about western virtue at the Santa Barbara tea party rally last weekend. http://tinyurl.com/mhhyx8

Still waiting on that Hope and Change, those shovel ready jobs not making it to the state of Ohio, New Poll released from Quinnipiac

Millions of American jobs have been lost in 2009, even though the Administration promised unemployment would not rise past eight percent if the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill became law. But unemployment is now a staggering 9.5 percent, and middle-class families and small businesses are asking: Where are the jobs?