Free Republic

Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter held captive by militants in northern Afghanistan, was freed in a military commando raid early Wednesday, but his Afghan interpreter was killed during the rescue effort.

Taxpayers face losses on a significant portion of the $81 billion in government aid provided to the auto industry, an oversight panel said in a report to be released Wednesday. The Congressional Oversight Panel did not provide an estimate of the projected loss in its latest monthly report on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. But it said most of the $23 billion initially provided to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC late last year is unlikely to be repaid. "I think they drove a very hard bargain," said Elizabeth Warren, the panel's chairwoman and a law professor at...

The reason for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's mysterious disappearance from the media radar on Monday was a clandestine trip to Russia, according to a report Wednesday by the Hebrew language daily Yediot Aharonot. Israel Radio reported that Netanyahu leased a private jet since he knew using an Israel Air Force jet would raise the suspicion of the Israeli media. For the purpose, his office used a plane of the company Merhav, a company owned by Israeli mogul Yossi Miman, one of the shareholders of Channel 10 and EMG, an Egyptian company supplying gas to Israel Electric Company. Miman was not...

Van Jones is the latest romantic, pseudo-revolutionary surrounding Obama to carve out a capitalist career in the field of duping liberals. New Communiqué from the Ministry of TruthAt one point, the Obama administration was bragging about bagging one Van Jones; Valerie Jarrett, in fact, even gushed that they had been scouting the erstwhile mostly unknown Jones for quite a while. The word czar was employed of his new responsibilities, and we were subsequently lectured that “over $80 million” in stimulus money was going to be under Jones’s control—given his innovative “green jobs” approach that married civil rights with radical...

Dame Shirley Bassey is making a music comeback by releasing a new album for the first time in more than 20 years. The Performance features 11 tracks written especially for the Welsh songstress by a stellar cast of musical talent including Take That's, Gary Barlow, the Manic Street Preachers, the Pet Shop Boys, KT Tunstall and Rufus Wainwright. David Arnold, the Grammy Award-winning producer best known for scoring five James Bond films, has produced the album.

A best-selling author and critic of Islam is pleased that a judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the founding principal of an Islamic-oriented Arabic language school in New York City who claimed her free-speech rights were violated. Debbie Almontaser, the former principal of Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy, had claimed her First Amendment rights were violated when she was fired in 2007. Almontaser had commented in a New York Post story about a T-shirt with the word "intifada" on it. She said the word had nonviolent origins and literally meant "shaking off," although some contend it means "uprising."...

When Old Media wants to “re-educate” people on how the unnecessary, regressive behavior of self-defense is inappropriate in today’s “civilized” society, it is important to dredge up “experts” to make their case. KVUE did the “best” job, finding a Texas State student to pontificate: "I'm sure it was in self-defense, but I'm very against that because they took two lives and who knows if this kid in the hospital is going to survive,” student Alejandro Salazar said. To his credit, Salazar apparently corrects himself in the comments section. Commenter “asalazar32” wrote: “I am not against self defense i did not...

BOXFORD, Mass. -- A mother of four has earned the title of "queen of coupons," as she has learned to feed her family of six for less than $10 a week. Kathy Spencer, of Boxford, Mass., said the trick is buying in bulk when items are on sale and using coupons to bring down the cost. "We freeze everything," Spencer said. "If taco shells are on sale, we pull out chicken from the freezer and make tacos."

ADELAIDE, Australia – Australia may allow female soldiers to serve in front-line combat roles under proposed equal-opportunity guidelines that stoked debate Wednesday on whether women can meet the physical demands. Defence Personnel Minister Greg Combet told Parliament Tuesday that new physical employment standards were being developed for the Australian Defence Force that remove gender and age criteria and would hopefully help recruit more women to the military. "My own view is that all categories should be open to women," Combet said. "The only exceptions should be where the physical demands cannot be met according to criteria that are determined on...

On March 13, 2008, ABC News broke the story that Barack Obama's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had made a number of incendiary statements from the pulpit of Obama's church in Chicago. The most inflammatory of those remarks was Wright's notorious "God damn America" sermon. The news set off a media firestorm. "God damn America" was in the papers, magazines, the Internet, television, radio. It was everywhere, except one place: the news pages of America's most powerful newspaper, the New York Times. In the days, weeks, and months following the ABC report, the Times' news pages repeatedly failed to...

In breaking news today, we are starting to get a taste of how Democrats are going to penalize you if you don't buy health insurance. Sen. Baucus is proposing fining American families up to $3,800 for not buying health insurance. After the Democrat healthcare plan passes, it may become cheaper to renounce your citizenship and live here as an illegal alien. Of course, Republicans can't really make too much noise, since they almost put Mitt Romney forward as their Presidential candidate. The only difference between Romney's healthcare plan in Massachusetts and Baucus' plan is that Romney's didn't violate the Federal...

Israeli policy-makers and public opinion molders tend to accept US Administrations as top authorities on the Middle East . They have sometimes chosen to depart sharply from their own ideology/strategy – under US Administration pressure - in spite of systematic and dramatic US policy blunders, which have undermined US interests in the Middle East and have jeopardized Israel 's existence. For instance, in 1948, the US State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA were convinced that establishment of the Jewish State would trigger a war, producing a second Jewish Holocaust in less than a decade , that a Jewish State...

The Heritage Foundation is making available a state-by-state analysis of climate legislation impact. Opponents have long argued that enacting the Waxman-Markey energy bill could cost Americans thousands of dollars per year in the form of higher energy costs. Under the bill, Congress would establish a system to cap and then trade carbon emissions from energy companies and businesses. Sometimes referred to as "carbon cap-and-tax," opponents claim that the so-called carbon tax levied on businesses under the bill will be passed off to consumers. Jack Spencer with The Heritage Foundation says his organization has taken the bill and has done a...

Ex-N.Y. Mets Pitcher Will Do Time For Tax EvasionFederal Judge Sentences Former Major Leaguer Jerry Koosman To 6 Months Sep 4, 2009 11:38 am US/Eastern MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former major league pitcher Jerry Koosman to six months in prison for not paying his taxes. Prosecutors say Koosman, a former All-Star who helped the New York Mets win the 1969 World Series, didn't pay federal income taxes for 2002, 2003 and 2004. He pleaded guilty in May to willfully failing to file taxes for 2002, a misdemeanor, in a deal with prosecutors. U.S. District...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - September 9 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not." - Jeremiah 33:3 There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, "I will shew thee great and fortified things." Another, "Great and reserved things." Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an...

(IsraelNN.com) Jihadists close to al-Qaeda explicitly warned in new communications that Germany will be the target of the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack. The timing of the strike, they say, will be within the next few weeks. According to analysts with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a recently intercepted jihadist communication declares that "everyone knows" that the "next strike is very near, a strike that will surprise everyone in its effect, which will be much more shocking than that of 9/11/2001." The writer of the chilling message notes that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan and that...

It is a day to get dressed to the nines, listen to the Beatles, get married and to ponder whether this is the end of the world as we know it. Sept. 9, 2009 _ or 9/9/09 _ is inspiring a number of events Wednesday: discounts on weddings, impassioned doomsday predictions and the release of the Beatles' whole, re-mastered catalog and a Fab Four-themed videogame. A new animated feature film, "9," set in a post-apocalyptic world, will also hit theaters as hotels like Las Vegas' Bellagio and even a county clerk or two offer special "9/9/09" wedding prices. [snip]

There is no more mystery about Van Jones. He was a passionate defender of cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, a self-satisfied and described "Communist," a supporter of the destruction of the Jewish state, and a promoter of the theory that the Katrina tragedy was a white racist plot, and so forth. That's okay with Democratic chairman Howard Dean, and Obama's Environmental Quality Council head Nancy Sutley. (See Ron Radosh's current blog for chapter and verse, and also the many blogs on Jones at our own www.newsrealblog.com.) This should surprise no one. The recent heads of the black caucus in the House...

It seems that in many people, a lifetime of bombardment by anti-gun messages and sentiment leads to a sort of suspension of reality when considering gun issues. The indoctrination into the gun control agenda requires a leap of faith and a refusal to consider the issue in any depth beyond parroting back emotion based arguments. An article in a student-run blog I read this morning clearly demonstrates the level of psychological denial required to accept those arguments at face value. This article raved about another student article being given a new "award" from the Austin Chronicle for "Best Way to...