Free Republic

Straight away let’s address an issue that is very important in what follows: Eyewitness evidence is often very unreliable and hearsay evidence is often very unreliable. Numerous biological, psychological, and sociological processes can distort both perception and its verbal translation. There are individual differences among persons that affect their ability to accurately gather and report information, and circumstances, such as stress and alarm, can operate either alone or in conjunction with those differences to compromise the validity of witness statements. And yet, there is no gainsaying the fact that even broken clocks are right twice a day. Furthermore, there is...

What would you think if your 8-year-old came home and told you that “white privilege is something that white people have, meaning they have an advantage in a lot of things and they can get a job more easily”? You would have heard that at the recent 15th annual White Privilege Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, attended by 2,500 public-school teachers, administrators and students from across the nation (http://tinyurl.com/lkoqj9b).The average parent has no idea of the devious indoctrination going on in classrooms in many public schools. What follows are some of the lessons of the conference.In one of the workshops, “Examining...

On Sunday, President Barack Obama traveled to Afghanistan to do a photo op with the troops amid fallout from the burgeoning Veterans Administration scandal. Announcing his visit, the White House promptly released a list of guests, including the name of the top CIA officer in Afghanistan. That officer is responsible for intelligence and drone warfare. The information was sent to over 6,000 email addresses. Oops. This is not the first time the Obama administration has compromised national security with leaks, either purposeful or inadvertent. SEAL Team Six. After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to...

The number of careers and professions available to practicing Christians is shrinking by the day. You can add a career in public health to that list. Dr. Brendan Bain, one of the leading AIDS experts in the Caribbean, has been unceremoniously cashiered from his post for having the temerity to tell the truth about the cause of AIDS. A long-time and highly respected professor at the University of West Indies until his retirement in 2012, Dr. Bain was praised by all as a "pioneer” in the effort to combat HIV/AIDS, which is at epidemic proportions in Caribbean nations. Since his...

Last January 2013, then Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the feasibility of opening all military jobs to women by 2016. This would include more than 200,000 jobs that make up the core of the ground-level combat force in the Army and the Marine Corps. Opponents of women in combat argue, rightly in my opinion, that the military's physical standards must not be compromised to expand access because our military's fighting effectiveness is at stake. Hauling 50 pounds of equipment while walking 20 miles is a standard that must not be demoted as it...

White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan 571 Share to Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Add to PersonalPost Share via Email Print Article More By Greg Miller, Published: May 25 E-mail the writer The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops. The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial...

Recently installed FBI Director James Comey tells The New York Times that his plans to refocus the bureau’s attention back toward prosecuting criminals and away from terrorism were made before he realized just how serious the terrorist threat facing the US really is. It was only after seeing the top-secret intelligence that was unavailable to him while he was publicly opposing things like the NSA’s surveillance program that, Comey says, he realized the tide of war is not "receding" as fast as President Obama has repeatedly claimed, if it is even receding at all. Al-Qaeda, Comey says, is very much...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAAY) - As conflict in the Ukraine heats-up, Russia is trying to keep the U.S. at bay, by terminating a partnership with NASA. "This is an issue we have to address if we are going to maintain America’s preeminence in space," said U.S. Rep Mo Brooks (R-5thDistrict). 
Russia has threatened to stop selling RD-180 rocket engines to the U.S., and to stop allowing U.S. astronauts to use their rockets to go to the International Space Station in 2020. "What you are seeing is the International Space Station and our military satellites have been caught up in a game...

The prohibition on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military "continually should be reviewed," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Sunday. Hagel did not indicate whether he believes the policy should be overturned. However, he said "every qualified American who wants to serve our country should have an opportunity if they fit the qualifications and can do it." A transgender individual is someone who has acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or presents themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. A panel convened by a think tank at San Francisco State University...

The U.S. Department of Justice wants new authority to hack and search remote computers during investigations, saying the new rules are needed because of complex criminal schemes sometimes using millions of machines spread across the country. Digital rights groups say the request from the DOJ for authority to search computers outside the district where an investigation is based raises concerns about Internet security and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. “By expanding federal law enforcement’s power to secretly exploit ‘zero-day’ vulnerabilities in software and Internet platforms, the proposal threatens to weaken Internet security for all of us,” Nathan...

In Making Gay Okay, Robert Reilly says the ascendancy of men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) started with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s victory over Aristotle and that once philosophy fell the triumphant march through the institutions was quick and maybe even inevitable.Reilly explains that the debate centers on the question of what is natural and not, and how to distinguish between right and wrong. He describes how the Greeks fell in love with reality when they discovered nature and that the purpose of things was knowable and unchangeable even by the whim of gods.The author writes, “A dog wagged his tail because that was the...

The USS Saratoga — the legendary aircraft carrier that played a key role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and Gulf wars and made Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi back down — is destined for dismantling after the Navy paid one penny to a Texas firm to recycle the 81,101-ton behemoth. The once-mighty vessel is the second of three conventionally-powered carriers to set to sail to the scrapyard, following another one-cent deal involving the USS Forrestal in October. ESCO Marine, of Brownsville, will pay to tow, dismantle and recycle the ship, which was decommissioned in 1994 after more than 38 years...

Obama: Dems’ Troubles Have Nothing To Do With My Policies By Tim Cavanaugh May 9, 2014 12:17 AM During his fundraising trip to Los Angeles Wednesday, President Obama discovered anew that the United States is in bad shape, and he was again left in puzzlement about what could be the cause.“You get a self-fulfilling prophecy,” the president told supporters, urging them to help Democrats avoid potentially significant losses in both houses of Congress in the November midterm elections. “The people who have the most at stake in a government that works opt out of the system. People who believe government...

I can't keep up with it. Under Janet Napolitano - and in the MSM then - an act of terrorism became known as (or redefined as) "man-caused disasters." Before that, under the Bush administration, it was defined as an act of "terrorism." In the MSM, now, and to a large degree some Ukrainians are called terrorists. Sometimes they are called anti-Kiev protesters, or sometimes anti-government protesters. Should the MSM call Right Sector and others in Ukraine "terrorists"? One hardly ever even sees the word "fascist." But when you look at the top four news articles cached on Yahoo.com, when entering...

We have written a couple of times about street artists, especially in Southern California, who are conducting a guerrilla campaign against the Obama administration. That campaign has escalated, as this is well beyond street art: a nicely produced parody movie poster titled “Saving Barack Obama.” It mimics this famous poster for “Saving Private Ryan.” Note the identical font and the teleprompters. The text says, “A Steven Spielberg ploy,” and at the bottom, “the mission is a fraud.” According to the Free Beacon, the posters “have appeared on bus stops and benches throughout Los Angeles, including just outside Melrose Avenue, the...

Nasa has released pictures of a prototype space suit, parts of which American astronauts could one day wear on the first manned mission to Mars. The public voted on three different designs for the Z-2 and the "Technology" design won by a landslide with 63 per cent of the vote. The design uses luminescent wire to form a light on the front of the suit that can be personalised to help astronauts identify other individuals on their team. The Z-2 is a prototype so will not be making any future trip to Mars itself as it does not have the...

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, No, the economy is most definitely not "recovering". Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media (shrugging off today's terrible GDP print), the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last recession. In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when the last recession finally ended. When the financial crisis of 2008 struck, it took us down to a much lower level economically. Thankfully, things have at least stabilized at this much lower...

I saw that Obama visited a mosque in Malaysia and asked the Muslims there to pray for him. He does realize they pray to ALLAH right???? Would any real Christian ask Muslims to pray to Allah for them???

In a celebration of its sensitivity on Monday, the Defense Department unveiled a revised document celebrating the department’s “diversity” and “culture of inclusion.” “I’m proud that the language of the charter has been updated to reflect the contributions of gay and lesbian military personnel, who now serve openly and proudly across America’s armed forces,” Defense Department Secretary Chuck Hagel said as he and the nation’s top military leaders signed the document at a public ceremony. The 2014 Human Goals charter says the Defense Department “must show respect for Service members, civilian employees, and family members, recognizing their individual needs, aspirations...

Hate to say “I told you so” but President Obama’s disinterest in enhancing our combat capability in favor of social egalitarianism and a warped sense of social justice is indeed having an impact on war readiness. According to the Washington Times, “A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs. Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.”