Free Republic

REFLEXIVELY, as if in lockstep, westerners look on in horror when citizens are gunned down. Agreed, this is a natural response. Not only that, when the “other” is the victim, well, the wailing increases to an exponential level. Nevertheless, it is good (western) advice to take a pause, to reflect on who’s who and what’s what. In other words, when addicts are eliminated by their pushers; when prostitutes fall victim to their pimps; and when Mafia thugs are buried by their bosses, are said deaths the same as the truly innocent? Get real. Skells. IN light of certain (disinfecting) truths,...

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court legalizing abortion on demand throughout pregnancy. The pro-life movement commemorates this day with marches, worship services and lobbying for bills to protect unborn children. Pro-lifers were promised by the Republican leaders they just helped elect and re-elect that the House of Representatives would pass a bill today banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a point after which infants can feel pain and survive if born prematurely. The legislation has been passed by the House in the previous Congress and is extremely popular in national polling. “One of the clearest...

Canada, were being played for a patsy on the oil sands. It’s being orchestrated by an unholy alliance headed by U.S. President Barack Obama, aided and abetted by American Democratic billionaires, hypocritical Canadian and U.S. environmentalists and Canada’s opposition parties. While Obama acts like Hamlet on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and while the rest of the usual suspects rail against the Northern Gateway pipeline, or Keystone, or both — proxy fights for the real issue, which is the development of Canada’s oil sands — Obama is upping U.S. fossil fuel production like stink. And no one among the usual...

National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s comments that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl served with "honor and dignity" has amplified GOP criticism of President Obama's prisoner swap and undermined Rice’s credibility on Capitol Hill. Independent experts have cast doubt on Rice’s judgment, given questions about whether Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban after deserting his post in Afghanistan. Even allies of the White House are suggesting she stay off the Sunday talk shows. “When I saw her on TV making that honor and distinction comment it just seems so phony to me,” said Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations...

(AFP) – Mar 25, 2011 WASHINGTON — The United States fired 16 new Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan targets on Thursday and Friday as part of the US role in the UN-mandated mission to protect Libyan civilians, the Pentagon said. The new missile launches brought the total number of Tomahawks used by US and coalition forces to at least 170 as they enforce a UN resolution to set up a no-fly zone over Libya to stop air attacks by the forces of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi. Pentagon officials said 16 new missiles were fired in the 24 hours to 0500...

A woman named Rice in a top administration job, ambitious to move up to secretary of state, hitting the Sunday talk shows to aggressively promote a Middle East narrative that’s good for the president but destined to crumble under scrutiny. Accusations that intelligence on Al Qaeda links in the Middle East was cherry-picked by American officials to create a convenient reality. A national security apparatus that becomes enmeshed with the political image-making machine. Sound familiar? Last time it was Condoleezza Rice helping her war-obsessed bosses spin their deceptive web, as they recklessly tried to re-engineer the Middle East. This time...

The same Ivy League snobbery that makes it socially unacceptable to vote for a Republican — and certainly not for a Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann despite their deep-seated and consistent support for Israel — is what allowed Yale to get away with ending its study of Islamic anti-Semitism by besmirching Small's academic achievements and good name.....................

Democratic National Committee gets new logo, slogan By: James Hohmann September 15, 2010 03:27 PM EDT Eager to bridge a daunting enthusiasm gap, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine recited a list of President Barack Obama’s accomplishments Wednesday to an auditorium packed with George Washington University College Democrats. It came as he unveiled a new web site, a new logo and a new slogan for his party: “Change That Matters.” As he went down a longer list, Kaine spoke passionately of how Democrats delivered an economic stimulus (he would only call it “the Recovery Act”) and “the Affordable Care Act”...

Timothy F. Geithner has been misidentified as a former Wall Street insider from Goldman Sachs so many times since he became the Treasury secretary that he and his advisers had taken to joking about it. Then the joke backfired. Earlier this month, Mr. Geithner had breakfast in Manhattan with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Robert Steel, a deputy mayor and former Treasury official in the Bush administration who had previously worked at Goldman. Facetiously, a Geithner aide said Mr. Steel and Mr. Geithner knew each other from the investment bank. Later that day at a public event, the mayor in...

Quixicated emphases in color and/or bold appear below within some paragraphs. The headings in bold are in the original. Some extra paragraphing also injected.].... Every time I hear someone claim to be an “ex-Catholic”, a sense of sadness comes over me.  In just about every case, people leave the Catholic Faith due to a lack of understanding.  What unmitigated balderdash! What a cop-out! What a brazen distortion of reality! Far from "just about every case," probably a major chunk of such folks were heavily well trained in the hallowed halls of the Institution. Many were instructors--even Catechism instructors for...

Energy: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Monday that his agency would look into drilling for oil in the Atlantic soon. It sounds good. But a glimpse at the strategy suggests Salazar's real aim is to block drilling. Ordinarily, even a little motion from federal bureaucrats to open America's offshore to domestic drilling is welcome news. But in a speech before Platts Energy Podium Monday, the interior secretary took back as much as he gave, announcing that the government would look into drilling in the Atlantic, but only after walking the whole process through a long regulatory gauntlet that will be...

I have checked almost every news outlet on the web - to include Google News, Yahoo Answers, CBS.com, FOX.com, even NFL.com itself - and NONE of them will tell me the true starting times of the games today. I know that they do this to try to maximize their Nielsen ratings for as long a time period as possible, but the level of deceit, duplicity, disingenousness and societal thought control in this unified front of media dishonesty is absolutely infuriating to me. For instance, look at this screen capture from nfl.com: Notice anything missing? Like the starting times of today's...

Two things that would end hypocrisy and make the world a better place: Priests should be allowed to get married, and the New York Times should update its Ethics Policy. The venerable and vulnerable newspaper finally starts talking about the “Pogue Problem” out loud to its readers. For years David Pogue has covered Apple (and other tech companies). And for years he has been authoring books on Apple products. He doesn’t get paid by Apple for the books, but his bias is clear and he has been accused to conflicts of interest more than once by other mainstream media. Dan...

“War Is Peace.” “Freedom is Slavery.” “Ignorance is Strength.” These slogans are spoken in Newspeak, the fictional language of George Orwell’s twisted utopia in 1984. By removing meaning from words and increasing state control over speech—and thought—Newspeak is designed to manipulate those who hear it. In California, Newspeak is now spoken fluently by those who seek to advance a political agenda in healthcare by avoiding scrutiny. Under the guise of “access to primary care,” the Regents of the University of California have been conducting an experiment on women in Concord, Los Angeles and San Diego. Exploiting a pilot project program...

It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and he made it clear that the preacher does not represent him, his politics or his campaign. Senator Obama has had to struggle to explain this relationship ever since a video surfaced of Mr. Wright damning the United States from his pulpit. Last month, Mr. Obama delivered a speech in which he said he disapproved of Mr. Wright’s racially charged comments but said that the pastor still played an important role in...

In 2005, the president changed policy toward North Korea. After years of withholding tribute and applying pressure, he switched to accommodation. It has not worked. He should...return to a policy of containment....the six-party talks have failed and North Korea is merely awaiting the end of the Bush administration... The United States did not have an effective way to pressure North Korea. So in 2005, the concessions began with bilateral talks with the North, meeting one of Pyongyang's main demands. State Department diplomacy achieved little, but Treasury Department sanctions succeeded. The Treasury accused North Korea of sponsoring international criminal activity, froze...

Congress is poised to give the President a $516 billion omnibus spending bill that would downgrade previous mandates for a double-layered border fence to be built along the southern border. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required “two layers of reinforced fencing” be constructed in five separate areas, but Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.) slipped a provision into a fiscal year 2008 spending bill that weakens the law. Hutchison and fellow Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R.) believe Border and Customs Enforcement should have more freedom to build fencing where they see fit instead of having to follow exact requirements...

Senate negotiators of a compromise immigration bill are writing a catchall amendment, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to bolster enforcement provisions of the bill, including a more robust "touchback" requirement for illegal immigrants. Republicans outside the negotiating team are asking that Graham's amendment, as well as a few others, get a floor vote before a cloture is attempted on the bill. "If they want the bill to have a chance, that's what has to happen," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who said he is willing to vote for the first cloture motion to proceed to the bill to allow...

Key Republican and Democratic senators, working to attract more support for President Bush's stalled immigration bill, huddled Wednesday with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to discuss tougher border security and workplace enforcement. At a Capitol Hill meeting, the bipartisan group continued talks aimed at cobbling together enough backing from skeptical Republicans to quickly revive the measure that would grant legal status to as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants. A day after Bush fielded criticism from Republicans whose opposition derailed the bill last week, the White House said it would be open to changes to the delicate bipartisan deal. Architects...

Senior GOP senators are embracing an eleventh-hour plan to pass an emergency supplemental bill for more border security money as a strategy to win over Republicans who have balked at the bipartisan immigration bill languishing in the Senate. But even as the emergency-spending approach gained momentum yesterday during President Bush’s rare visit to the Senate, the immigration bill’s strongest supporters warned that time is running out for an agreement to bring the measure back to the floor... Senate GOP Conference Chairman Jon Kyl (Ariz.), along with Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), said they supported the idea of pushing ahead...