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Sensing defeat they are lashing out in all sorts of weird ways. As far back as 2001, Democratic stalwarts John Judis and Ruy Teixeira began making the case, to anyone who would listen, that demographic trends in the U.S. (e.g. immigration and higher birthrates in the Latino population) would lead to a semi-permanent Democratic majority in government. Their book, The Emerging Democratic Majority created a cottage industry of pollsters and political scientists who showed, with fancy charts and graphs, how Democrats, particularly Progressive Democrats, were about to be in the catbird seat of American politics. Democrats came to see this...

The alliance has intensified its military presence in Black Sea waters following a rift in relations between the western states and Russia triggered by a 2014 coup and the start of an internal conflict in Ukraine.A fleet of at least four NATO warships has docked in the Ukrainian port of Odessa on the shores of the Black Sea, Dumskaya.net online media outlet reported. The ships arrived around 9 am GMT on 10 March, according to the media. The commanders of the fleet are reportedly expected to meet with the leadership of the Ukrainian Navy during the visit to Odessa.The arriving...

Back in the day, I remember reading, the Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat had a problem. What to do to cool off all his guerrilla fighters once they were ensconced in a camp in Lebanon? The answer: get them wives. He was facing the problem with all political movements, especially lefty movements, once they have reached their goals. How do you get the activists to go home? What about the black civil-rights activists after the 1960s civil rights acts? What about the feminists after girls became the majority of college students? And now, what about gays, what with gay marriage and...

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." - Obama, July 2, 2008 What objectives? Who set them? This may begin to answer those questions, raise other questions, and perhaps point toward things needing further research. Organization of Islamic Cooperation - Criminalization of "Islamophobia" In 1990 the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued their “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam” (http://www.oic-oci.org/english/article/human.htm). It’s Article 22 states: “Everyone shall...

The intense political polarization of the United States is most clearly reflected by the dysfunctional nature of the federal government. At a more local scale, it is seen as well in the growing movement to create new states by splitting existing ones. Most of these cases involve the desire of people in rural, conservative counties to secede from the more liberal states in which they are currently located. A front-page story in the October 7 edition of the New York Times, for example, highlights a drive to devise a new state of “Northern Colorado.” Eleven Colorado counties will vote on...

Not since at least 1960 has the US standard of living fallen so fast for so long. The average American has $1,315 less in annual disposable income now than at the onset of the Great Recession. Think life is not as good as it used to be, at least in terms of your wallet? You'd be right about that. The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago. Economic Issues Economic Crisis Financial Markets Cost of Living Recessions...

Kanye West visited Occupy Wall Street in a $355 Givenchy shirt topped with wearing gold grills and chains. Alec Baldwin claims he supports Occupy Wall Street, but makes big bucks starring in commercials for Capital One Bank. Numerous other celebrities who annually pull in multiples of the average American salary also say they sympathize with the plight of the so-called 99 percent. So are the stars who say they support the Occupy Wall Street movement some of the cause’s heroes, or are they hypocrites? Producer and hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, who brought West to the protests at Liberty Square/Zuccotti...

This Did Not Work It Never Will by Reginald Firehammer Sometime in late 1940 or early 1941, Ayn Rand began efforts to form an "individualist" movement that would counter the growing collectivist, socialist, and communist movements active in those years. She expended a huge amount of time and energy on this "project" which she firmly believed would bring a kind of counter-revolution and restoration of individual liberty and free-market culture to America. One of her supporters in this effort was Channing Pollock, a drama critic, novelist, and playwrite. Her correspondence with Pollock reveals both her enthusiasm and conviction that this...

After more than five years of work, the Holy See has approved the Statutes of the Neocatechumenal Way, thus confirming the praxis in more than 105 nations for over thirty years. The decree of approval, dated the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, was solemnly consigned on June 28 to the initiators of the way, Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez together with Father Mario Pezzi, by Cardinal Stafford, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Dicastery entrusted by the Holy Father with the task of guiding the preparation of the statute. The Neocatechumenal Way has not been approved...

WASHINGTON - The Russian government had sources inside the American military command as it planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Iraqi documents released as part of a Pentagon report. The Russians passed information to Saddam Hussein on U.S. troop movements and plans during the opening days of the war, according to the report Friday. The unclassified report does not assess the value of the information or provide details beyond citing two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam...

11/23/2005 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- The U.S. Central Command Air Forces aerial port control center here makes it easier to move troops and cargo through this region each day. That includes tons of cargo and thousands of troops and is a process that takes a lot planning and coordination, officials said. The center cuts a step out of the process. The center, located in the air mobility division of the combined air operations center here, eliminates the need for theater aerial ports to coordinate travel with ports in the United States. Instead, aerial ports, terminal units and customers in...

HAVANA (AP) - Hundreds of intellectuals and politicians from Latin America's left gathered for an anti-terror conference in Cuba, but they never talked about al-Qaida, focusing instead on their own shared nemesis - the U.S. government. For decades, participants said, the United States was behind efforts to suppress leftist movements in Latin America, from the backing of the region's violent, right-wing military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s to current meddling in the politics of liberal-led countries. The policy, they said, has emerged again with the current handling of a Cuban militant wanted in Venezuela for an airliner bombing -...

Sen. Hillary Clinton is "abusing the system" -- using New York State voters as a springboard to the presidency, according to a 38-year-old Republican who would like to stop Mrs. Clinton in 2006, well before the 2008 Democratic race for president. "[Clinton] is not even running for U.S. Senate, she is running for president and she clearly has no intention of fulfilling a six-year Senate term if she is re-elected," said likely GOP Senate candidate Adam Brecht in an interview with Cybercast News Service. "Unfortunately, she's abusing the system," Brecht said. "I think putting everyone through the charade of a...

Many of you publish heart breaking letters and e-mails from our sons and daughters defending our freedoms on many fronts. Before you do so, please just take a moment to stop and think about what is in what you are about to expose to the world. Please don't identify operational units, future missions, unit movements, or times of movements. When you do you place the lives of our sons and daughters and the lives of others at risk. Remember, we are open to the world. We have our share of lurkers and trolls and loose lips sink ships. Our kids...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

<p>Report from Sankei (Japanese) newspaper (conservative) coming in today (per link).</p> <p>Said that a number of hand made circulars have been circulating widely around North Korea (Pyongyang, Nampo, Chonjin, Sinuiju), etc. The flyers are by an underground anti-Kim Jong-il group active in North Korea.</p>

Green Wealth: Funding the Enemy Green and animal rights organizations do not subsist on the sale of calendars, books, and stuffed animals. They are wealthy beyond the comprehension of most Americans and others who support them in the belief they are "protecting the environment" and saving animals from "cruelty" and "extinction." You will be astonished to learn that there are more than 4,000 environmental groups in America today. "And the number is growing," warns Ron Arnold of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, "and they are really out to get you." Worse, they have the clout and the...

Secularism According to the Chambers dictionary secularism is defined as; the belief that the state, morals, education, etc. should be independent of religion; G J Holyoak’s (1817-1907) system of social ethics. Have those of us who have defended democracy for a long time but been more vocal about secularism in recent years asked ourselves how secular are we prepared to be in a future democratic Iran? Majority of the democratic governments are secular in one shape or another. From the French and the Turkish forms of republics where principles of secularism is strictly observed and defended, to those European monarchies...

Cults, Movements, World Religions    MARY KOCHANE To many of us, the modern religious landscape appears increasingly confusing, even strange or frightening. No matter how strong in faith and regular in religious practice our families may be, we are not insulated from contact with a bewildering variety of religious expressions, a Babel of “prophetic” voices and a dizzying array of competing world views. Sun Myung Moon founder ofthe Unification Church Questions Abound in Confusing Religious Landscape Insulation is not what our lay vocation is about, anyway. Instead of insulation, what we seek is contact, the contact which makes the electric...

"FReepranslation" by "AmericanInTokyo" (Iraq War: Day Two) Summary from original Asian sources (as of 16:45 Eastern Time) Day Two, Folks. Just took a brief tour of a number of reputable Japanese, Korean and English news websites, looking for any threatening action or threats made by communist North Korea in response to the ongoing Iraq conflict. (This is an ongoing daily report for FR.) Asian news sources viewed were (from Korea): Choson Ilbo Daily, Hanguk Ilbo Daily, Dong-A Ilbo Daily, YTN TV, KBS TV, Yonghap News, Yahoo News Korea and (from Japan): Kyodo News, Yomiuri News, Mainichi News, Sankei News, Nikkan...