Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - After Congress shuffled the federal bureaucracy in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by creating the Homeland Security Department, Democrats lost control of the Senate and four seats in the House. With a new government reorganization on the table - this time a restructuring of the nation's intelligence network - Democrats fear Republicans will succeed in using a critical national security debate to play to voter fears about terrorism. "There is anxiety - you will not be surprised to hear - among some of my Democratic colleagues in Congress, based on the 2002 experience with...

If you thought we had enough to worry about with Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, and if you thought we had enough to worry about when it comes to a presidential candidate with a long and sordid history of weakening our nation’s military, homeland security and intelligence capabilities, think again. Iran’s nuclear genie may have a new carpet. Comments made by Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s defense minister, after what was believed to be the testing of an upgraded Shehab-3 ballistic missile last week, got my attention and that of certain other military and terrorism analysts. His comments mentioned increased range, among...

Why feelings of professional sympathy, empathy didn't last At the1980 Republican convention in Detroit, I came within a few telephone digits of reporting that Ronald Reagan had offered the vice-presidential candidacy to Gerald Ford before deciding my information was too soft. Seven years later, misled by a "reliable" source, I reported that a special White House panel would soon accuse presidential chief-of-staff Donald Regan of leading the Iran-Contra cover-up. I retracted that erroneous "scoop" later the same evening. ADVERTISEMENT So my initial sentiment when a major news organization like CBS botches a big one is both sympathy and empathy. I...

Maybe I'm not supposed to do this.......... If you can take the ramblings of DUmmy Land, then you'll love this one http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x837525

A new campaign ad from the left-wing Moveon.org draws Republican "ire" and moves Glen Justice to pen "Political Group's Antiwar Ad Draws Ire of the Bush Campaign" for Friday's paper: "The advertisement, which was run by the Democratic-leaning MoveOn PAC, noted that more than 1,000 soldiers had been killed and that billions had been spent on the war before saying: 'George Bush got us into this quagmire. It will take a new president to get us out.' Bush campaign officials immediately sought to paint the image in the advertisement as a soldier surrendering and called upon Senator John Kerry to...

Germany will deny visas to participants of a planned Islamic conference in Berlin next month that security officials say appears to be justifying terrorism, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Organizers of the Oct. 1-3 event call on the meeting's Web site for "the liberation of all the occupied territories and countries in struggle against the American-Zionist hegemony and occupation." Organizers say they expect between 500 and 800 participants, but have declined to say who will speak and where in Berlin the gathering will be held. German embassies worldwide have been instructed to refuse visas to anyone who says they want...

O'reilly but up right now!

John Kerry is running a new TV ad in the battleground states that apparently suggests he would not have gone to war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's terrorist regime. But the campaign ad, which focuses on the war's $200 billion cost, only adds to the growing confusion over Kerry's ever-contradictory position on Iraq and what he would now do differently there. The commercial attempts to contrast the costs of the war to what Kerry says are unmet needs at home on the economy, jobs, healthcare and the deficit. The 30-second spot begins by saying, "George Bush: $200 billion for...

George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry have similar backgrounds: New England families, prep school, Yale, Skull & Bones, etc. But going back even further, they get even more similar. In fact, they are related. Bush and Kerry are 10th cousins, meaning they share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Henry Herrick and Edith Laskin of Salem, Mass. The Herricks, however, are not their only common ancestors. Bush and Kerry can be traced back to eight different sets of shared relatives, making them alternately 11th cousins once removed, ninth cousins twice removed or 14th cousins. William Addams Reitwiesner, a genealogist and author who...

How can Kerry stand in front of a bunch of hard working coal miners in West Viginia and convince them that he's gonna keep their jobs for them when he get the endorcement of the Sierra Club and post it on his web site? The SC insist that Kerry: Championed an energy plan that increases fuel economy to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil and supports the development of clean, energy-saving technologies and renewable energy to reduce our dependence on other polluting sources of energy; And, advocated for the United States to take the lead in international efforts to cut...

THE Republicans took over New York for a week, but did they make any impact on the natives? Did the deep red and the true blue come any closer to understanding each other? We began our investigation outside Zabar's on the Upper West Side, the neighborhood that has called itself "the conscience of the nation." We were looking for liberal New Yorkers who might be re-examining their consciences, but we kept finding ones determined not even to watch the convention. "I'm on a media strike," said Jill Howell, who runs a company devising strategies for marketing to multicultural populations. Ms....

Within the armory of Psychological Operations (PSYOPS), disinformation is an ancient tactic that crosses spans millennia and cultural divides… once described it as mixing honey and dung in the vastly enlightening fictional novel, ‘Shôgun’ that wound political manipulation around the backdrop of cultural and wartime conflict between the Japanese and English protagonists. Long ago, in classes on American history, we learned to call this ‘yellow journalism,’ as if it had faded from the scene. But it is an open secret that this journalistic practice of the purposeful use of disinformation has not even been minimized, let alone abandoned, though it...

People are very surprised to learn that survey data show that guns are used defensively by private citizens in the U.S. from 1.5 to 3.4 million times a year, at least three times more frequently than guns are used to commit crimes. A question I hear repeatedly is: "If defensive gun use occurs so often, why haven't I ever heard of even one story?" Anecdotal stories published in newspapers obviously can't prove how numerous these events are, but they can at least answer the question of whether these events even occur. Here are a few examples of the 20 cases...

Readers know that when it comes to President Bush, he had me at hello. I make no apology. Instead of treating the symptoms, Bush is rooting out the cancer of terrorism. On Thursday night, he made that case in a speech to the Republican convention. Bush came. Bush spoke. Bush conquered. The president told why America is fighting in Iraq and not sitting on its heels waiting for the next attack. America is only as safe as it is free, and America is only as free as the rest of the world is. "I believe in the transformational power of...

The Times pushes yet another anti-Bush art show in Friday's Weekend section. Reviewer Anita Gates has kind words for Brian Dykstra's one-man political propaganda show, "Cornered & Alone," playing on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The review is headlined "Unkind Words for Bush, Soft Spot for Nancy Reagan," but "unkind" is hardly the mot juste for this show, judging by the samples culled from Gates' favorable review. Here's a piece of Dykstra's anti-Bush ramble: "My A.D.D.--suffering, dyslexic, drunk-driving Bush Klan president with a 13-minute attention span, leaky brain pan…." Yet Gates seems to revel in Dykstra's Republican-hating. She clucks, "There are...

RICHMOND HILL, Ga. - Barely visible from the massive dirt mounds that shielded Fort McAllister from the guns of Union ironclads, four squarely spaced posts jut from the Ogeechee River along the salt marsh. Signs warn passing boaters - "Submerged Object" - with no hint of the Civil War shipwreck that lies on the riverbed 30-feet below. The CSS Nashville, the first ship commissioned by the Confederacy in 1861, sank off Fort McAllister near Savannah on Feb. 28, 1863, under fire from the ironclad USS Montauk. The Nashville is the only Confederate blockade runner known to exist in Georgia waters....

A man who had an arsenal of firepower at his rural compound near Cadillac, including two heavily armed "war wagons," pleaded guilty to possessing machine guns and pledged to cooperate in the hunt for other shadowy rebels. "It's the best thing for me to do, sir," Norman Somerville replied when a federal judge in Grand Rapids asked if he was reluctant to admit guilt. After his capture 10 months ago, Somerville was wild-eyed and anxious as he warned of a "quiet civil war" in the countryside. That anti-government swagger was gone Wednesday as he explained he owned 13 machine guns,...

Since Ronald Reagan's death, many inspiring speeches have been delivered and adulatory articles written about his presidency. But few of the tributes have recognized Reagan's greatest achievement, which was indispensable to the U.S. triumph in the Cold War and is crucial for the current war on terrorism. Reagan tapped the creativity of America's entrepreneurs to bring about a global, not just a national, economic revolution. Poets describe creativity as "Promethean," referring to the mythical hero who brought fire to the earth. A Promethean era in world history, the Reagan presidency lit the fires of American creativity - and they have...

Presidential hopeful John Kerry has been telling the American people that he would fight a "better" war against terror, but not exactly how. At the UNITY 2004 conference for minority journalists, Kerry stated, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history." (This was the same conference, by the way, at which the neutral, non-partisan journalists broke out in wild cheers and whistling for Kerry, but heckled Bush as he...

I can’t swear this story is true but it could be. I stopped by my hairdressers to get my monthly hair cut. The Lady in the next chair was telling her hairdresser she knows a women whose brother’s sister works for a book publisher. She says the Clintons are financing the new book about John Kerry “Unfit to Command” from the sale of their two books. She says Hillary Clinton is getting even for being passed over as key-knot speaker at the DNC love fest. She says no way will Hillary let Kerry become President. She said some things about...