Free Republic

I first encountered unabashed pride in being American when I came to the United States in 1951. I sailed across the Atlantic alone. Perhaps someone along the way told me tht I was going to the United States; however, as a seven or eight-year-old I knew nothing about the nation that had granted me refuge. Upon disembarking in New York what stood out was not the awe-inspiring and intimidating skyscrapers seemingly reaching to the heavens, or for the first time in my life seeing a city not lying in ruins from the ravages of war, but that there was a...

The hourglass is running low on Blake Masters and his chances to reverse course in the Arizona Senate race as Sen. Mark Kelly (D) keeps up his offensive on the airwaves, leaving Republicans pessimistic and turning their attention elsewhere on the 2022 map. Masters, the Peter Thiel protégé-turned-politician, found himself on the wrong side of the multiple developments last week, headlined by the cancellation of $9.6 million worth of ads by the Senate Leadership Fund — a group backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). In addition, a new poll on Thursday commissioned by AARP showed Kelly leading by...

CNN anchor John King on Friday sounded off on President Joe Biden’s presidency heading into the midterm elections. King provided a grave outlook on Biden given his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy. He said the country and his party are both “frustrated” with Biden and argued it is “very dark for him right now.”

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — International envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council Thursday that the situation in Syria is "bleak" and expressed alarm at reports that government troops are still carrying out military operations in towns where U.N. observers are not present. He expressed particular concern at media reports that government troops entered the central city of Hama on Monday after U.N. observers departed, firing automatic weapons and killing a significant number of people. "If confirmed, this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible," he said. The joint U.N.-Arab League envoy said the speedy deployment of the 300-strong U.N. observer force...

BOSTON (AP) -- Rep. Barney Frank's decision to step down at the end of his term is the latest jolt to the bruised ego of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which once counted Kennedys, House speakers and a president among its ranks. Instead, some of the state's best-known political figures are now Republicans, among them Sen. Scott Brown and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "For a long time, Massachusetts Democrats have felt they played a special role in the national Democratic Party," said Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry. "I think that has gone at this point. There is no one...

Fewer U.S. companies expect to hire new workers in coming months, as business economists grow increasingly pessimistic about the overall economy's growth in the coming year. Nearly 85 percent of economic experts surveyed expect the economy to grow at a meager 2 percent or less over the next 12 months, according to the National Association for Business Economists. In July only 23 percent of the survey's respondents predicted such slow growth.

WASHINGTON – The die is cast, and it's grim news for the Democrats. There's nothing now that Congress or President Barack Obama can do to before the November midterm elections to jolt the nation's stagnant economy. Friday's government report — the last major economic news before the midterm elections — showed the nation continued to lose jobs last month, reinforcing the bleak reality that it probably will be years — not months — before employment returns to pre-recession levels below 6 percent. That tightens the pressure on Democrats ahead of the Nov. 2 elections. And it also casts a dark...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year.

OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Warren Buffett is fond of newspapers -- he reads five a day -- but the billionaire investor warned shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) that the reeling industry may never recover because it lacks a sustainable business model. At Saturday's annual meeting of Berkshire, which owns the Buffalo News and has a big stake in Washington Post Co (WPO.N), Buffett said that as readership falls, so does the attraction of newspapers for advertisers, and for investors in the companies that publish them. "For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them...

A popular Christmas song tells us this is the “hap-hap-happiest time of the year,” and for many of us, it is. Of course, that is not always the case, as a look at recollections of some past Christmases shows. But despite the problems that have beset our ancestors through the years, most of them overcame — or simply survived — their difficulties. One source says the singing of the Midnight Mass by members of LaSalle’s group in the 1680s was the first documented Christmas celebration in Texas. It isn’t clear that this was an unhappy holiday for them, but having...

WASHINGTON — A growing al Qaida -backed insurgency, combined with the Pakistani army's reluctance to launch an all-out crackdown, political infighting and energy and food shortages are plunging America's key ally in the war on terror deeper into turmoil and violence, says a soon-to-be completed U.S. intelligence assessment. A U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret National Intelligence Estimate said it portrays the situation in Pakistan as "very bad." Another official called the draft "very bleak," and said it describes Pakistan as being "on the edge."

WASHINGTON - A draft intelligence report on Iran suggests a change in the Tehran regime appears unlikely any time soon despite growing public anger over the country's economic woes, U.S. officials said Thursday. The report also anticipates little progress in getting Iran to halt its nuclear program or stop supporting militant groups in the region, officials familiar with the draft said on condition of anonymity because the report has not been released. The latest in a series of reports from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is nearly complete and could be shared with...

Computers are taking over in the classroom — and nobody is challenging them. IN RAY BRADBURY’S apocalyptic tale Fahrenheit 451 firemen are employed to burn all books, driving underground those who cherish them. That such a stark warning of what happens in a bookless society should appear in the very medium made illicit in the tale is an irony not lost on his readers. We return Bradbury’s book to the shelf alongside the Orwell, Huxley and Atwood, safe in the comforting knowledge that we are far too wise in the real world to allow anything of such magnitude to happen....

Two senior Army analysts who in 2003 accurately foretold the turmoil that would be unleashed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq offer a bleak assessment in a new study of what now lies ahead in that bloodied land. They advise, however, against setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal - unless Washington finds the situation "irredeemable." A timetable "is an excuse for allowing the system to collapse," the Army War College's W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane write. Political pressure is building in Washington for a concrete plan to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq. On Tuesday, on the eve...

SAN FRANCISCO - The fiscal forecast for the University of California is bleak, and administrators said Wednesday some tough decisions are ahead. "This is really a critical time," UC President Robert Dynes said. "The erosion has been going on for decades." UC administrators gave the long-term financial rundown to the system's governing Board of Regents at their meeting Wednesday, saying the need and demand for a UC education is going up at a time when state funding continues to decline. Since 1984, California has increased spending for prisons by 126 percent and boosted spending on K-12 education by 26 percent....

Bleak future for Pakistan's 'bomb hero' (Filed: 07/02/2004) David Blair traces the career of the scientist who became a national icon but is now virtually under house arrest in IslamabadThe call to prayer echoed over Islamabad from a mighty mosque yesterday but the sound of Islamic devotion brought no apparent response from the home of Pakistan's most decorated citizen - and one of the world's most dangerous men. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the self-styled "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb and the man now revealed to have sat at the centre of a conspiracy to arm the world's most radical anti-western states...