Free Republic

This video from the 80s kinda says it all for right now!

Testifying before the House Budget Committee on Monday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius downplayed the importance of the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board, which has been touted in the past by the administration as a central part of the strategy for containing the program's long-term costs. Republicans have attacked the 15-member board of health care experts as a rationing panel that would have sweeping powers to impose changes to the program if Congress doesn't keep Medicare spending growth at certain targets. Sebelius spent most of her opening statement explaining

3/8/2010 - ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (AFNS) -- More than 120 retirees, veterans and their families visited Andersen Air Force Base as part of their trip to Iwo Jima March 1 through 4 in remembrance of the 65th anniversary of the battle there. The visitors learned about the base's history and received briefings on the aircraft deployed here that are part of U.S. Pacific Command's continuous bomber presence and theatre security package. These veterans of Iwo Jima also visited Naval Base Guam and other historic sites on Guam prior to travelling to Iwo Jima March 3. On Feb. 19,...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2009 – Despite a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan that entails sending 30,000 additional American forces, the more important operation for the Marine Corps is Iraq, the service’s top officer said today. Gen. James Conway, the Marine commandant who returned recently from visiting troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, called the Afghan mission more dangerous but less vital than Iraq. “What I told the troops in Iraq is that the most dangerous thing that our corps is doing today is happening in Afghanistan,” he told Pentagon reporters. “The most important thing we're doing today is happening in Iraq....

It's unusual for a woman to be a misogynist but I must admit that I much prefer the company of men to that of chattering females with interests I don't share. I found the lives of the women portrayed in "Sex and the City" to be incredibly trite and downright silly and although as a young woman I loved wearing flimsy spikes, I certainly wouldn't have paid so much for the laughable designer footwear swooned over by these nitwits. Having said that, I do admire Sarah Palin whom a scribe at Salon.com dubbed the Annie Oakley of American politics. It's...

Perhaps he's beginning to believe the hype. In his closed door meeting with House Democrats this evening, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama delivered a real zinger.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2007 – Success in Iraq and the Middle East is essential to U.S. security, American troops will stay there as long as is necessary to complete the mission, President Bush said today. Defending his request for more money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush pointed out that he is reducing troop levels in Iraq, but that troops still there need the best equipment and resources available. “If I didn't think the mission was necessary for our security, I wouldn't have our troops there,” Bush said during an address at the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2007 – President Bush spoke to Marines at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., today, thanking them for their service and explaining the way forward in Iraq. (Video) After meeting with young Marine officers and the enlisted troops who train them, Bush said he told the troops about his address to the nation last night, in which he endorsed Army Gen. David H. Petraeus’ recommendations for the future of the U.S. mission in Iraq. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker this week provided their assessment of the situation...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2007 – Defeating extremists in the Middle East is essential to America’s security, and the most important way to counter these extremists is to win the fight in Iraq, President Bush said today. “The challenge in Iraq comes down to this: Either the forces of extremism succeed, or the forces of freedom succeed. Either our enemies advance their interests in Iraq, or we advance our interests,” Bush said at the 89th Annual American Legion National Convention in Reno, Nev. The violent ideology that inspires extremists in the Middle East has two main strains, Bush said: Sunni...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, June 5, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today thanked Kyrgyzstan for its continued support for operations in Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates conducts a news conference with Gen. Lt. Ismail Isakovich Isakov, Krygyzstan’s defense minister, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, June 5. Photo by Cherie A. Thurlby  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. During a joint news conference here following a meeting with Gen. Lt. Ismail Isakov, the Kyrgyz defense minister, Gates said he looks forward to expanding the two countries’ bilateral relationship and security cooperation arrangements. Gates said his...

WASHINGTON, June 1, 2007 – It is crucial for the Iraqi government to meet benchmarks for political and economic progress, President Bush stressed to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in an Oval Office meeting yesterday. “I told the president that I'm fully committed to helping the Iraqi government achieve important objectives,” Bush said during a short news conference after the meeting. “We call them benchmarks. A political law necessary to show the Iraqi citizens that there is a unified government willing to work on the interests of all people. The president fully understands the need for the Iraqi government to...

As the world warms and scientists' warnings grow urgent, climate negotiators are counting down toward make-or-break talks later this year, hoping for progress on a long-term deal to sharply reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Experts are beginning to fear, however, that as time runs down the best that can be hoped for may be an extension of the relatively weak Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012. The alternative is a world without any carbon-reduction rules at all. The year's bad news on climate change is coming in installments. In February, a U.N.-sponsored scientific network reported that unabated global warming would produce...

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, March 30, 2007 – Slovakia is a key ally in the global war on terror, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here yesterday. Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani participated in a joint news conference with Slovak Lt. Gen. Peter Gajdos, the deputy chief of the General Staff, which highlighted military cooperation between the NATO allies. Giambastiani thanked the Slovak republic and military for support in Iraq and highlighted the Slovakian role in missions in both Afghanistan and Kosovo. “As a former NATO and supreme allied commander, this type of performance by military forces...

PHOENIX — Part of the lawn in front of the Arizona Capitol became a Fort Huachuca annex Thursday. High-tech equipment and displays of the post’s missions were part of Fort Huachuca Day at the Legislature, a project that was in the planning stages for nearly a year. State Senate President Tim Bee said it is time for the legislators to understand there is an important military post in Arizona besides Luke Air Force Base, which in the past has always received a great deal of attention by lawmakers. “My goal is to highlight Fort Huachuca,” said Bee, a Republican whose...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 -- The military is doing all it can to calm Iraq, but the country needs political and economic solutions to function, the outgoing commander of Multinational Corps Iraq said yesterday. In an interview with Baghdad-based journalists, Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who gives up command tomorrow, said military, economic, reconstruction and political efforts in Iraq must move forward at the same time. Iraq cannot succeed with one line working and the others treading water or reverting, he said. If Iraqis get back to work, the sectarian strife would lessen, Chiarelli said. Polls in Baghdad show...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 -- Although some people may call the war in Iraq a diversion from the war on terror, terrorists disagree, and they recognize that their long-term success or failure hinges on what happens in Iraq, President Bush said today during an address in Marietta, Ga. President Bush delivers his remarks on the global war on terror during a visit to Marietta, Ga., Sept. 7. White House photo by Eric Draper   '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Speaking to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Bush offered his fourth major address within the past week about the terror...

CAMP AL QA’IM, Iraq (Nov. 2, 2005) -- The 3rd Mobile Assault Platoon took sniper fire all day as they conducted a relief in place with 1st Mobile Assault Platoon. As Lacey Springs, Ala., native Lance Cpl. Bradley A. Snipes, antitank assault man, 3rd MAP, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, sat in the turret of his hummer watching his assigned sector behind his M-2 .50 caliber machine gun, it happened. “We were doing a relief in place with [1st MAP] and had been taking sniper fire across the wadi all day,” Snipes, the 21-year-old, 2002 graduate of Brewer...

Spain is much more important to Americans than most of us realize. Aside from its importance to Europe, where its rising economic might is being felt, the cultural and historic ties of Spain to the Western Hemisphere make it a cultural superpower, far more important than the French pretend to be. Only Britain had a mightier empire, and that was a chancy thing. Writing from California, the importance of Spain is obvious from all the Spanish place names. The English language blogosphere is lucky to have Franco Aleman, writing as Barcepundit, to keep us up to date on the eimportant...

Code: ZE05012901Date: 2005-01-29Home Alone -- and UnhappyReflections on the State of U.S. ChildrenSTANFORD, California, JAN. 29, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Concern over problems facing the younger generation is nothing new. A recent book, however, links juvenile difficulties with another controversial subject: changes in family structures. Commentator and author Mary Eberstadt, a part-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, argues that for some years now there has been an "historically unprecedented experiment in family-child separation in which the United States and other advanced societies are now engaged." In her recent book, "Home-Alone America," Eberstadt explains that there have been two main causes...

"I can wage a better war on terror than George Bush has." So speaks Senator Kerry in the U.S. presidential campaign's final days, again reminding voters that the key issue in this race remains as it was a year earlier - deciding which candidate will better protect Americans from terrorism.As with so many topics, the basic difference between Kerry and President Bush is one of character, with the challenger repeatedly changing his mind and the president sticking with one position.On occasion, Mr. Kerry adopts Bush-like terminology. For example, in September 2004 he talked about the war on terror being "as...