Free Republic

Some so-called Birthers are resting their arguments on Chief Justice Marshall's supposed reliance a claimed "Vetter's" definition of "natural born citizenship". They believe that that court has not ruled on this issue otherwise. This is not so. This case I've linked to regarded whether a certain child was a natural born citizen because he was born to chinese immigrant parents in the United States who were in the country lawfully. The SCOTUS determined that the child was a NATURAL BORN citizen for the following reasons: 1. The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of "citizen" or "natural-born citizen" by way of...

Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means. His opposition to reparations is based on the fact they don't go far enough. [snip] Under the Democrats' plans, if a medical school wants to receive contracts and grants...

An experimental procedure that dramatically strengthens stem cells' ability to regenerate damaged tissue could offer new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases such as myopathy and muscular dystrophy, according to researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The world-first procedure has been successfully used to regrow muscles in a mouse model, but it could be applied to all tissue-based illnesses in humans such as in the liver, pancreas or brain, the researchers say. The research team, [...] adapted a technique currently being trialled in bone marrow transplantation. Adult stem cells are given a gene that makes them resistant...

On Friday's Laura Ingraham radio show (audio here), a member of the Obama campaign's National Finance Committee, Howard Gutman, directly and forcefully questioned the parenting of Gov. Sarah Palin: "This has nothing to do with gender, whether Todd Palin was the nominee or Sarah Palin was the nominee," [Howard] Gutman said. "If my daughter had just come home at 17 years old and said, 'Mom, Dad, I'm pregnant, we have a family problem,' I wouldn't say, 'You know what we're going to do? We're going to take this private family problem...and you know what I'm going to do? I'm going...

Drilling = Jobs. That's the answer to McCain...and the Republicans too...winning in November: They should be saying "How do you spell oil? J-O-B. How do you spell coal? J-O-B. How do you spell new refineries? J-O-B How do you spell nuclear power? J-O-B. The sucking sound you hear as petroleum/coal related jobs go overseas is being made by Democrats and and their litigious environmental constituency." They are ensuring that good jobs...good UNION jobs...will be performed by Arabs, South Americans, Russians, and Africans instead. McCain has touched on this a little, but he and the Republicans should be droning on and...

[...] Now the Shia-led Iraqi government focuses on its chief Shia nemesis. How the Iraqi government handles Sadr matters. In August 2004, Sadr's thugs grabbed the Grand Mosque in Najaf. Sadr was counting on Americans to bomb the mosque. The United States opted to follow the political lead of Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani's aides told coalition officers: "Let us deal with Sadr. We know how to handle him and will do so. However, the coalition must not make him a martyr." The Iraqi way often appears to be indecisive, until you learn to look at its counter-insurgency methods...

From on the ground in Najaf, Eye Raki reports Mookie has returned to home in Najaf. Also, he has lost a lot of weight. Perhaps the Britney Spears diet?: "I was introduced by a mutual friend to an officer in the Ministry of Interior who confirmed the reports. I wanted to go to look out for any unusual activity around his house but the street leading to his home was blocked off by IP's who wouldn't give us a straight answer as to why we are not allowed through...Could this be a turn around in Iranian foreign policy and possibly...

(Evil genius Muqty "Mookie" Al-Sadr controls Iraq's future with the power of his mind.) The title of this post is taken from a Stephen Cobert riff on something Rudy Guliani said of Mitt Romney (the then-perceived leader in the Republican presidential race) after having failed to place in the first three successive Republican primaries: "I think I’ve lulled him into a false sense of security.” Yesterday, (Iraqi blogger) MHZ posted about going to hear American reporter Dahr Jamail talk about Iraq. At his book-signing, MHZ took Jamail to task for (as he saw it) boosting for Sadr. Besides calling for...

New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was. That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center. After studying it,...

Stupidity gets on my nerves but my blood really boils when this stupidity is mired by ugliness. This is what Daily Kos does to me. These guys simply make me want to vomit. The last things I expected is them gleeing over the death of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the Anbar tribal leader who was killed by Al-Qaeda for leading the region’s oppositon to these mass murderers. These people at Daily Kos just make me sick. Isn’t so hard to differentiate between their hatred to George Bush and a man who lost his life simply because he doesn’t want Al-Qaeda...

Police are indebted to a woman who shot an armed carjacker in a Wal-Mart parking lot Saturday — a suspect in nine other armed robberies, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Tuesday. Harold Levar Jeffcoat, 29, was arrested Sunday at Providence Hospital Northeast after seeking treatment for a gunshot wound in his buttocks. Police said a man was shot as he attempted to rob a couple getting into their car outside the Two Notch Road Wal-Mart about 9 p.m. Saturday. The male victim, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, told police the attacker pushed a gray pistol into his stomach and demanded...

A suspect in a string of armed robberies is in police custody today after a woman reportedly fired at the man during an attempted carjacking Saturday. Police said Harold Levar Jeffcoat tried to carjack a man and woman as they were leaving the Two Notch Road Super Wal-Mart. The man told police the suspect pushed a gray pistol into his stomach and demanded the keys to the car. The woman reached into the car and pulled out a pistol from the glove box, the report said. She fired five shots at the suspect, who dropped the pistol as he ran...

Displaying indecisiveness amid the growing influence of the homosexual movement, the highest panel of leaders in Conservative Judaism voted Dec. 6 to allow the ordination of homosexual rabbis and the recognition of “gay marriage” in synagogues while simultaneously advising against it. The 25-member Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued a series of advisory reports which are “accepted as guides so that the gays and lesbians can be welcomed into our congregation and communities and made to feel accepted,” according to Rabbi Kassel Abelson, a member of the committee. But to show how divided Conservative Jews are on...

Jill Carroll's captors appear to be involved in some of the most high-profile kidnappings of Westerners in Iraq during the past two years. A Monitor investigation - including interviews with other kidnap victims, US, Iraqi, and Italian investigators, as well as court testimony in Iraq - ties her abductors, or others close to them, to at least five kidnapping incidents, including Ms. Carroll: [...] The strongest evidence suggests that the same group that took Carroll also abducted Ms. Sgrena, the Italian journalist. In early March, Abu Rasha, the leader of one of the three cells handling Carroll's kidnapping, went into...

The US 3rd Armored Cavalry regiment is leaving Tal Afar [Iraq] in a month or so. They are cycling back home to their families after a year in Iraq. They will be replaced by the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division. But the mayor of Tal Afar doesn't want them to go. "For [the 3rd ACR] to leave is like a surgeon leaving in the middle of an operation...We don't doubt there are many fine officers in the American army, but during these months, Colonel Hickey and I have created a relationship where I know what he will say...

Some other Americans expressed concern that perhaps this means America is losing its edge. Does this mean that we are NOT the Great Satan this week? Now Denmark is the Great Satan? Is America losing its greatness? Can we get it back? Is this a result of our failing competitiveness in the maths and sciences? (sigh) Americans, Americans, Americans. You have nothing to fear. Being "The Great Satan" -- just like being the original Satan -- is not a position you can apply for. Either you are the Great Satan or you aren't. You want proof? Who was the Great...

An analysis of secular Iraqi bloggers' take on the rise of Islamic parties in recent Middle East elections and other stuff they disagree on. Money Quote:"Before I go on, I have one more observation: The attitude of defeatism and paranoia and moral affrontery among many Iraqi bloggers writing in English (most of whom are educated, non-religious, and strongly backed Allawi) reminds me of the feelings among Anybody But Bush Democrats in the 2004 American Presidential election. Both were convinced that they morally, culturally and intellectually superior to those who voted differently. Both were -- as election day approached-- convinced that...

On August 2th Steven Vincent, reporter, blogger, and author of "In The Red Zone", was abducted in broad daylight in Basra and murdered by four men in police uniforms driving a police vehicle. His translator and guide, Nour (who had become a central character in his articles and posts) was also shot four times but survived. After his death, certain commentators who considered him too pro-Iraq Liberation, and some others whom Vincent had criticized for inaccuracies, gleefully speculated that "ignorant" Vincent had let himself be seen too close to Nour in public or was having an affair with her and...

In a lengthy post about several different things, "Iraqi Bloggers Central" reveals something that I was completely unaware of.Salam Pax has posted about the US Army's discovery of an civilian bomb shelter devoted to Iraqi police abuse, torture, and apparent murder of prisoners. Salam naturally cannot bypass a shot at the US military:It is slightly ironic that Americans are trying to stop a case of prisoner abuse considering Abu Ghraib and all but I guess they already blocked that memory.Well, it's not exactly the same thing. US Army personnel reported the Abu Ghraib crimes, the US Army investigated those crimes,...

MEMO-GATE On Friday, September 3, 2004, I was closing down my office and thinking about the Labor Day Weekend ahead when the phone rang and the caller asked whether I would be willing to work over the weekend on some important, time-sensitive documents. This was the beginning of my involvement in the examination of documents in the Bush National Guard Document/Memo-Gate news story. This week, the book "Truth and Duty" by Mary Mapes, former CBS producer, was released. The book contains several inaccuracies in the description of my participation. Because the book is a public document, I see it as...