Free Republic

WASHINGTON, October 30 (RIA Novosti) – If you’ve always wanted to see a KGB umbrella that fires poison pellets, or a hollow tooth used to hide tiny files full of top-secret data, now’s your chance. A new exhibit that sheds light on decades of government espionage opened Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, and it’s full of the stuff spy dreams are made of, like a coin loaded with a small but deadly needle, a bug-sized robotic dragonfly used to gather intelligence information, and scores of other cool gadgets most of us can scarcely imagine....

Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht of True The Vote, another election integrity group, cite as proof what left-wing organizations are saying about how they plan to use Obamacare. Demos, a left-wing organization funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, published a report earlier this year titled: “Building a Healthy Democracy: Registering 68 Million People to Vote Through Health Benefit Exchanges.” On page six of the report, author Lisa Danetz argues that Obamacare “will enroll 68 million individuals.”

CHITA, October 31 (RIA Novosti) – A plane with US military inspectors, heading to an airport in Russia’s southern Siberia under the international Open Skies treaty, had to divert to another location because of bad weather on Thursday, a police source said. The Open Skies Treaty, which entered into force on January 1, 2002, established a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its 34 member states to promote openness and transparency of military forces and activities. Russia ratified the treaty in May 2001. The plane with military inspectors, performing an observation flight above Russia in line...

As if Rick Perry already wasn’t getting enough flak from his right flank on immigration…. An analysis of the governor’s much touted job creation in Texas concludes that almost all the new employment in our fair state went to foreigners. Worse still for Perry, many of these are said to have gone to illegal immigrants. Hard to make a campaign slogan out of that one. The analysis was done by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict controls on immigration and, by default, is not in Perry’s corner. But don’t use its position on immigration to undermine the numbers...

The current conventional wisdom floating around the media, seemingly extrapolated largely from quotes to the press from businessmen and their surrogates, is that "Big Business [is] trying to unseat the Tea Party." However, there's no evidence that this is happening. Remember the first time Tea Party House Republicans held a gun to the U.S. economy, refusing to pay America's debts unless Democrats accepted a wide-ranging set of demands, and as a result, business leaders promised to spend big to defeat hostage-taking radicals? "We'll get rid of you," said Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Tea...

The French government has decided to suspend an unpopular environmental tax on heavy goods vehicles following a weekend of protests in Brittany. The move is expected to cost the France hundreds of millions of euros in lost revenue. … The unpopular “ecotax”, aimed at encouraging environmentally-friendly commercial transport, was designed to impose new levies on French and foreign vehicles transporting commercial goods weighing over 3.5 tonnes (3.86 tons). Critics in Brittany said the tax would seriously damage the region’s precarious farming and food sectors by increasing transportation costs, driving companies out of business and leading to major job losses. …

Smokers younger than 21 in the nation's biggest city will soon be barred from buying cigarettes after the New York City Council voted overwhelming Wednesday to raise the tobacco-purchasing age to higher than all but a few other places in the United States. City lawmakers approved the bill — which raises from 18 to 21 the purchasing age for cigarettes, certain tobacco products and even electronic-vapor smokes — and another that sets minimum prices for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales. "This will literally save many, many lives," said an emotional City Councilman James Gennaro,...

Video at link.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with missteps in his own administration, President Barack Obama has frequently pleaded ignorance — suggesting he could not be at fault about things he did not know.</p> <p>It's an argument with clear benefits but also inherent risks for the White House. Used too often, the tactic emboldens critics who claim the president is incompetent, detached and not fully in control.</p>

By virtue of our unique geography”, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a 2011 Foreign Policy article, “the United States is both an Atlantic and a Pacific power.” Russia, meanwhile, has seen itself as a Euro-Asian country, as Vladimir Putin has argued from the start of his first term in the Kremlin. The American attitude, which in Secretary Clinton’s locution is about as uncontroversial a statement as an American Secretary of State can make, reflects the country’s historic “maritime” vocation. The Russian one reflects the longstanding fascination with the country’s continental scale and reflects its traditional terrestrial focus....

Chief of Police isn’t a certified officer in Michigan DETROIT, MI - When faced with an attempted carjacking of his unmarked squad car, Detroit Police Chief James Craig just drove away. As it turns out, there isn’t much that the police chief could have done. Why? The chief of police is not a certified police officer in the state of Michigan. Relaying his story to a crowd of about 50 people at a community meeting about Detroit’s carjacking problem, Mr. Craig explained that he “accelerated out of harm’s way,” rather than arresting the suspect. Because Mr. Craig is not certified...

Video link only. There is at least one lesson to be learned from this little guy.

SEOUL – Over 60 percent of South Koreans regard Japan as a military threat, according to a recent survey by Seoul-based think tank Asan Institute for Policy Studies. In the public opinion poll on foreign relations conducted by the think tank, 62 percent said they feel militarily threatened by Japan. Japan got only 2.66 on a 10-point scale of favorableness, slightly higher than the 2.43 points given to North Korea. The survey results released Tuesday likely reflect soured ties over territorial and historical issues as well as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s eagerness to allow Japan to exercise its right to...

Five Democrat representatives are asking the Obama administration to seek a refund from the company that built Healthcare.gov—"a website which has failed to work for most people trying to sign on for health insurance." According to The Hill, Reps. Ron Barber (D-AZ), William Enyart (D-IL), Pete Gallego (D-TX), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Filemon Vela (D-TX) made this request through a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. In the letter, they asked the administration to see if "CGI Federal and/or any other company involved in the construction of the website... violated the terms of its agreement or is in constructive breach...

The government is making final arrangements to set a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3.8 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, according to a government source. The source said the new target assumes there would be no restarts of nuclear reactors and takes into account energy-saving measures and renewable sources, as well as forest absorption of carbon dioxide. Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara is expected to announce the new target at the 19th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP19, to be held in Poland next month. The new target was created...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfl55GgHr5E

Long silent and out of the public eye, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s recent rumblings against nuclear power are causing many to wonder if the most popular leader of recent decades is laying the groundwork for a political comeback. The 74-year-old Koizumi has met separately with two opposition party heads — Tadatomo Yoshida of the Social Democratic Party and Yoshimi Watanabe of Your Party — to discuss his mission to rid the nation of all 50 of its nuclear reactors. A visit to a spent-fuel disposal site in Finland following the 2011 Fukushima crisis converted him to an anti-nuclear activist,...

While concern mounts over the debt ceiling, Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would grant the president more authority over increasing our debt limit, while lessening the amount of time for Congress to disapprove. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) have introduced the Pay Our Bills Act, which would “permanently allow Congress to disapprove debt ceiling increases, instead of approving them.” …

In one of the best examples of life imitating art we can think of, a postman called Pat has become friends with a black and white cat. Royal Mail postie Patrick McIntyre was delivering a parcel when he was (almost forcefully) befriended by a very affectionate monochrome moggie. The friendly feline jumped on to Mr McIntyre’s back as he was leaving a note on a customer’s doorstep and decided it was a good place to hang out for a bit. The black and white cat, whose name is unknown, proceeded to lick Postman Pat’s face and ears. Mr McIntyre, who...

India's Mars Orbiter Mission, the country's first interplanetary foray, is due to blast off on November 5