Free Republic

USS Missouri at sea in her 1980s configuration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship?wprov=sfti1 At the link, the top of the page starts wtih specifications. Scrolling down the page you find black and white photos (1944, Kamikaze attack, General Douglas MacArthur signing Japanese Surrender in Tokyo Bay etc.) An additional 35 photos linked at the bottom continue this series. I really liked a little video clip in the first comment beneath the post. If you click on it you can enlarge the video and turn the sound up to hear a tiny fraction of the immense sound of the guns as they fire. Here's...

Look for an announcement soon about some top-tier political talent joining Herman Cain's Florida campaign team. Statewide chairs: Former St. Petersburg Mayor (and Mitt Romney supporter) Rick Baker; former State Sen. (and expected Rick Perry supporter) Carey Baker; former Jeb Bush chief Kathleen Shanahan; state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood. Tampa-based media consultant Adam Goodman is a senior strategist and media adviser and Arlene DiBenigno, a veteran of Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, and Rick Scott campaigns, is another senior strategist. Deborah Cox-Roush, former state GOP vice chairwoman and Hillsborough County Republican chairwoman - she resigned as county chair today - is...

The question from last week’s sudden shift in momentum towards Herman Cain in the GOP presidential primary race was whether Cain could actually vie for the nomination. After today’s poll from the Washington Post and ABC, the question may be whether anyone but Mitt Romney could stop him. Right now, it certainly doesn’t like Rick Perry could, whose fortunes have fallen faster than they rose after two bad debates: After a quick rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experienced an almost equally dramatic decline, losing about half of his support over the...

March Madness is here, so for the next couple of weeks, you will not be able to turn on your TV without hearing about teams seizing momentum and players getting in the zone. We all know how unstoppable athletes can be: Once a snowball starts rolling downhill, it's hard to stop. That may be true on a Rocky Mountain slope, but in basketball and other sports, the playing field is level. When squads or players get rolling, they don't keep rolling; they stop, and usually sooner rather than later. Momentum is a myth. The heat of hands, even if they...

A few other things that Ted Kennedy’s hometown newspaper forgot to mention about Lt. Col. Scott Brown: * He knows how to drive and won’t likely submerge any cars or women under water and forget to call the police and let them know about it until many hours later. * He won’t wake up his nephew in the middle of the night to go to Au Bar to pick up chicks and rape ‘em. * We won’t likely be reading about his liquid lunches at La Brasserie, where the main course is en flagrante delicto with some unselect, willing bim....

Journalists.....and the "tonge in cheek" dinner Gridiron Dinner... See below - the posting below is the speech Governor Palin (I am told) gave last night to the big media dinner in Washington, DC. I was not at the dinner but the speech was just emailed to me by someone who did go (no, Governor Palin did not email me her speech...) Congressman Barney Frank also spoke and I would love to likewise get his speech and post here. The speeches are supposed to be funny ...and poke fun at everyone and everything. Here is Gov Palin's speech to the media...

Even Timmy is slowly realizing that the Administration will need to find a way to deflect Main Steet's anger at Goldman and keep it focused exclusively on Wall Street instead of equating it with Obama et al. The problem is - you make some very serious, tentacled enemies in the process. Geithner also flip flops on his prior position on the transaction tax. While before he was more opposed to the transaction tax than even Marla, his new "windsocked" position on the topic may now provide a challenge even to Nitric Oxide inhibitors. But here is the clincher for the...

A senior Chinese official criticized foreign banks for selling derivatives with “fraudulent characteristics” that led to heavy losses for state-owned airlines and other companies. “Some international investment banks are the biggest villains,” said Li Wei, deputy chairman of the agency that oversees China’s biggest state companies, in a commentary in this week’s edition of the Study Times, a newspaper published by the school of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The comments were the Chinese government’s most pointed public criticism yet of foreign institutions. Li’s agency said in September it would support companies that want to challenge the contracts in court....

Mike Huckabee's chances of winning the 2012 GOP presidential sweepstakes died in a coffee shop in Seattle, Wash., on Nov. 29. That day, Maurice Clemmons -- a felon sentenced to 108 years in prison in Arkansas, who was released nine years ago courtesy of a clemency order signed by then-Arkansas Gov. Huckabee -- allegedly shot and killed four police officers. Huckabee is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He knows that were he to attempt to run for the GOP nomination again, his opponents would use the name "Maurice Clemmons" the way a previous GOP presidential contender...

Denver -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama acknowledged today that he has lost ground against Republican rival John McCain. But Obama plans to win through telling his story, talking about his plans for the country, and connecting with people, Obama allies said as the Democratic National Convention opens. "He loves basketball you know, and plays it," said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the senior Illinois senator and Senate Majority Whip. "We talked about the game today and we realized that over the last week or 10 days, John McCain has had a 12-0 run in this basketball game." McCain gained ground...

Men who believe in something, even if wrong, will triumph over those who believe in nothing. That is the lesson of the Bush recovery of the past four weeks. From August, when Cindy Sheehan set up Camp Casey to bedevil his vacation in Crawford – which was cut short by Katrina and then the New Orleans debacle – to November, George W. Bush seemed a man at sea. Opposition to the war was rising to 60 percent, his approval rating had plummeted to 36 percent, his credibility appeared fatally impaired. There seemed a danger that, for three more years, an...

7 day rolling average with leaners. Bush trending in FL/OH, closing in PA but not enough FL Bush 51 Kerry 47 OH Bush 52 Kerry 46 MN Kerry 50 Bush 48 MI Kerry 50 Bush 46 PA Kerry 50 Bush 48

WORD FROM SENIOR GOP CIRCLES I heard, once again, from an individual “familiar with internal discussions within the Bush campaign.” This information is what big cheeses in GOP circles are saying to middle cheeses in GOP circles. The big picture is, Bush has the momentum and is playing offense, while Kerry is on the defensive going into Election Day. A key panic button moment for Kerry campaign came on Friday, when the candidate lectured the American people to “wake up.” The 72-hour Get-Out-The-Vote Operation has been launched. Starting Friday and continuing through Tuesday, 150,000 volunteers in the most competitive states...

BUSH HAS THE MO [KJL] That's the GOP message tonight as they work to the ends of the continental U.S. and beyond--to Honolulu!! Bush/Cheney is confident this Saturday night. They believe these last days will prove they have made significant inroads throughout the U.S. at the grassroots level. Starting yesterday, 150,000 volunteers are working in the tightest states, contacting 18 million voters to get out the vote for W. They say they’ve registered 3.4 million more Republicans since the last presidential election. That those GOTVers are volunteers, too, they say is significant. In Florida alone—on Friday alone—GOP officials say volunteers...

I think Bush is now up but not by 11 points. I'd guess he's really up about 4-5 points, and that could quickly change. It sure changed quickly on John Forbes Kerry. But however much he's up, there's not much doubt that he has all the momentum at the moment. SurveyUSA has been tracking not "who will you vote for" but "who do you expect to win." They do this to capture shifts in political momentum-- or at least perceived political momentum, which is of course just a redundancy. In the big liberal cities, Bush has jumped 15-20 points so...