Free Republic

FBI agents aren’t allowed to treat individuals associated with terrorist groups as potential threats to the nation, according to a startling, newly discovered FBI directive. The fact that a terrorism suspect is associated with a terrorist group means nothing, according to the FBI document, “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training.” The “touchstone” document, dated March of this year, is available online but hasn’t been reported on by major media outlets. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are to be instructed that “mere association with organizations that demonstrate both legitimate (advocacy) and illicit (violent extremism) objectives should not automatically result in a...

AMID THE animated rodents, smushed test-babies, snack-food perversions, and crude humor of Sunday’s Super Bowl ads was a powerful, two-minute homage to Detroit, America’s most abject city. Over a pulsating soundtrack of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,’’ viewers were treated to panning shots of some of Detroit’s lovingly restored landmarks from the days when the auto industry made it the richest city in the United States. Today it is the poorest, with a 36 percent poverty rate. Far from avoiding its grim, rust belt image, the ad — ostensibly to introduce a new Chrysler luxury sedan — celebrated the city’s guts-and-grit industrial...

<p>If the fiery streaks of Columbia wreckage raining down on Texas over a year ago seemed like a death knell for America's space program, then President Bush's new call for a rebirth of human exploration beyond Earth's orbit is the beginning of its resurrection.</p>

In the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks on America, it is time for us to examine our national, and to some extent, local policies, as an integral part of our overall response to this “undeclared war” against America and her allies.The principle assumptions are (1) that it is not the responsibility of the United States to be everything to everybody. And, (2) the only geopolitical variable that we can realistically control is the United States.It is time for other nations, particularly developing nations, to step up to the plate and work to make things better for “their” citizens...