Free Republic

I’ve reported several times over the last few months on Team Obama’s hefty funding from the health care industry/drug lobby — see here and here — as well on the deep pockets behind the Astroturf HCAN/SEIU/ACORN campaign. Culture of Corruption also hones in on the cozy cash deals involving Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Sher, and David Axelrod to create faux grass-roots support for the University of Chicago Medical Center’s patient-dumping scheme. Now, Bloomberg’s Timothy Burger brings news about Axelrod’s latest health care conflicts of interest that will come as no surprise to those who have fully informed themselves of...

El Cajon, Calif., Jun 6, 2009 / 07:58 am (CNA).- The apologetics organization Catholic Answers has filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service claiming the federal tax collection agency has “intimidated” churches and non-profit groups into silence on politically controversial moral issues. In an announcement posted at the organization’s web site, Catholic Answers president Karl Keating explained that the IRS fined the group for a 2004 e-letter it wrote saying that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry should not be allowed to receive Holy Communion. Keating charged that Francis Kissling, then-leader of the pro-abortion front group “Catholics for a Free...

U.S. stocks rose about 5 percent on Tuesday after Citigroup said it was profitable in the first two months of 2009 and a key lawmaker said he expects the restoration of the uptick rule. Citigroup's Chief Executive Vikram Pandit also said in a memo the beleaguered bank was confident about its capital strength. Shares of Citigroup, in which the government recently took a large common equity stake to help shore it up, jumped 35.2 percent to $1.42. Citi's stock has fallen about 80 percent year to date.

Tory Green, the first Eagle Scout from Troop 400 in Huntsville, met President Barack Obama at 2 p.m. this afternoon inside the White House. "It was breathtaking," said the 17-year-old Lee High School senior. "Not only did I get to meet the president, but I got to give Michelle Obama a big ol' hug." Green is in Washington D.C., to present the National State of Scouting address to Congress tomorrow morning. Today Green was scheduled to meet with President Obama, but meeting the president's wife was a coincidence. "We were walking toward the Oval Office, and she walked by, stopped...

For nearly 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America has taught timeless values, strengthened leadership skills, and guided America’s youth on their journey to adulthood. But, no Scout ever takes that journey alone. BSA Alumni also include supportive family members, dedicated volunteers, professional Scouters, and the tens of millions of Americans that benefit from Scouting in their communities every day. If you are—or have ever been—active in Scouting, we invite you to reconnect. Join us as we prepare to celebrate our biggest milestone yet, our 100th Anniversary. Visit www.bsaalumni.org to reconnect, rekindle and re-engage with Scouting.

The President walked alone across the South Lawn grass, gave a quick wave to the press and boarded Marine One. But, first he stopped to shake the hand of the very startled, caught off-guard Marine who was standing at attention at the steps to the helicopter.

JABALYA, GAZA STRIP — Most people remember the headlines: Massacre Of Innocents As UN School Is Shelled; Israeli Strike Kills Dozens At UN School. They heralded the tragic news of Jan. 6, when mortar shells fired by advancing Israeli forces killed 43 civilians in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The victims, it was reported, had taken refuge inside the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, a facility run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The news shocked the world and was compared to the 1996 Israeli attack on a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Two men released from the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service reported. One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP. Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an Al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No. 333.

A short abstract of Pierre Rehov"s next film in production. The US army and security forces are doing a great job in Iraq. Promoting freedom and democracy takes time. But fighting Muslim terrorism is the task given to the free world. Rehov does an excellent job in capturing the real environment in Iraq. One for which the people beg for democratic values and norms and where US troops place their lives on the line to provide those freedoms to the Iraq people. It would be the white flag of surrender to Islamic terrorism to abandon the people of Iraq by...

Outgoing US President George Bush telephoned President Shimon Peres bidding him farewell on the occasion of the end of Bush's term as president Tuesday. Peres said to Bush, "If the world had acted against Hitler the way you acted against Saddam Hussein, the lives of millions would have been saved." The president added, "You made a historic contribution to the entire world and to the Jewish people in particular. We will treasure this forever and will never forget it."

Video at link

Share your ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will rise to the top -- and be gathered into a Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama after he is sworn in. Book at link

Yes, indeed, let us lose 10% of our forces during a long war in order to make life marginally easier for the 1% of our forces who are gay, and really want to tell the world about it. I don't lack sympathy for gays in the military -- yes, the military is telling them to hide a fundamental part of themselves, or at least not go announcing it freely. But here is the fact: Homosexuality is considered sinful by many religious people, and religious men make up a great percentage of the services. Furthermore, the military promises, among other things,...

Armed Forces Farewell to the President of the United States (Arlington, VA) As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Arlington, VA, Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Thank you, Admiral Mullen. Some of you of a certain generation might remember a line from the John Wayne movie “Red River,” an epic story of a thousand-mile cattle drive across Texas. At one point, one of the characters says: “There’s three times in a man’s life when he has the [a] right to yell at the moon: when he marries, when his children come, and when he finishes a job he had...

Their greatest propaganda hits, that is; the other kind, involving pizzerias and high explosives, are omitted in the interest of good taste. MEMRI’s hoping this will go viral so please do pass it along, but I think they’d have stood a better chance if they focused on Palestinian children’s television. That’s one of the few aspects of fundie culture that still manages to shock; sad to say, but I think most western media consumers are inured to this sort of crypto-Nazi jihadist screeching. I do like the sign-language inset for the hearing impaired, though. What’s the symbol for “push the...

On Dec. 19, 2008. at 2 p.m., the New York-based Alavi Foundation, which supports Iranian causes, contributed between $25,000 and $50,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation. This can be best described as the ultimate chutzpah, for on the very same day, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted the president of the Alavi Foundation, Farshid Jahedi, "on a charge of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying documents required to be produced under a grand jury subpoena concerning the Alavi Foundation's relationship with Bank Melli Iran and the ownership of a Manhattan office building."

Reporting from Baghdad -- As Iraqi schoolchildren sang their country's praises and a band played, the United States formally handed over military control of the heavily fortified Green Zone to Iraqi troops today, a first major step in the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. For Iraqis, the Green Zone, a walled-off 4-square mile community in Baghdad's core, has come to symbolize the U.S. occupation of their country. Home to about 30,000 residents -- including 14,000 U.S. and coalition forces -- it also encompasses Saddam Hussein's opulent Republican Palace, which was captured by American troops in April 2003 and was,...

(IsraelNN.com) Hizbullah terrorists have vowed to open a second front against Israel in the north in retaliation for the IDF military operation against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah issued a statement on Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station Sunday, vowing that "northern Israel will burn as Gaza is burning." Nasrallah rarely appears in person; he speaks via a video hook-up from his hideout due to fears of assassination by Israeli agents, following the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Hizbullah officials were quoted in a number of Arabic-language publications on Saturday warning that they would not permit Israel to attack Gaza...

Did Saddam's daughter, who looted millions from Iraq, secretly fund both the shoe thrower and the bungled coup attempt? New revelations in Iraq point to a possible link between the shoe thrower and the Iraqi Baathists who just made a botched attempt to topple the government of Nouri al-Maliki and return Saddam’s party to power. Reports in the Arab media indicate that the Iraqi shoe thrower, Muntather al-Zaidi may have been planning his assault on President Bush for more than a year, helped by Iraqi Baathists seeking to overthrow the U.S,-backed government. One leading Arab website said the al-Zaidi’s handlers...

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has told US troops in Iraq that their mission there is in its "endgame".