Free Republic

CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, Japan (Oct. 11, 2005) -- Last July, when the doctors diagnosed his wife with gastric cancer, all the other problems in Sgt. Devin Mitchell’s life no longer seemed to matter. His main concern immediately turned to the health of his wife, Hisano. In September, when the cancer got so bad that doctors had to remove Hisano’s stomach, life became even more complicated. She would now need daily shots and extensive check-ups with her doctors on Okinawa to try and keep her well. But just when life seemed to be getting back under control, orders for a permanent...

QUESTION: What's your reaction to the protests in Iran around the British Embassy? This is a reaction to the IAEA vote, I presume, were there to be a U.S. embassy, they would be protesting there. MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, I'll leave it to those on the ground to describe the protests there and who might be organizing those protests. The position where Iran finds itself right now, I think, is one that is probably a surprise to them after the IAEA Board of Governors vote. And where they find themselves is more isolated from the international community than when they...

VOLKEL AIR BASE, Netherlands -- Training young pilots to push the F-16 Fighting Falcon to its operational limits is a job Lt. Col. David Stine loves as much as flying. Even better is doing both those things with the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he said. That is just what he has done for three years as an exchange pilot at this busy fighter base. The colonel is a training instructor pilot with the Dutch air force’s 306th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron. He said the job is satisfying and has an important purpose. “From the start, I try to instill in...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2005 – A new Army National Guard program is helping attract young people with native language skills and cultural expertise into the military to support the global war on terror. The new program focuses on recruiting native speakers in 20 languages and dialects, most spoken in the Middle East, into the Army's 09L "translator aid" career field, Army Capt. Bill Greer, national program manager, said during an interview today with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service. The active Army began seeking out native Middle Eastern recruits two years ago to help support the war on...

Which kind of intelligence failure is better — the kind that badly understates a threat, such as the one in London, or the kind that overstates a threat, such as the insistent warnings before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction? Even in the best intelligence services, failures are sometimes inevitable. Foresight will never be as sharp as hindsight. Only after the fact — after the Underground blows up, after 9/11, after the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons are nowhere to be found — is it clear what the picture looks like...

It seems many may be in for the shock of their lives. But you never hear this information from mainstream ‘media’. We only hear that there is ‘no’ connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda. The ‘UN’, and New York Times are not exactly conservative ‘bastions’. But they’ve recently found evidence that may soften the most stubborn liberal idealist. Even some Christians are ‘doubting’ that the existing war on terrorism is a ‘Just War’. Lest we forget, in the beatitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers”. But that same Jesus told His disciples “let him who has no sword sell his mantle...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - State officials revived California's medical marijuana identification card program Monday, saying state employees weren't violating federal law by issuing pot ID cards. "The state attorney general has reviewed this concern and said that California can issue ID cards to medical marijuana users without state employees facing prosecution for assisting in the commission of a federal crime," state Health Director Sandra Shewry said in a statement. Shewry's office shuttered the pilot program 10 days ago, citing concerns over a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Last month, the court ruled that people who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend...

Why is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime? So why is Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Javert in "Les Miserables"? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of The Washington Post wrote on June 12, 2003. President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false. The key...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Citing uncertainty prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, California health officials suspended a program on Friday that had begun providing patients who smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons with state-issued identification cards. State Health Director Sandra Shewry has asked the state Attorney General's office to review the court ruling to determine whether the ID program would put patients and state employees at risk of federal prosecution. "I am concerned about unintended potential consequences of issuing medical marijuana ID cards that could affect medical marijuana users, their families and staff of the California Department of Health...

The Bush administration has given up on the battle against Iran’s nuclear armament. This is the meaning of Washington’s decision to back the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA’s board vote Monday, June 13, to reappoint Mohamed ElBaradei as agency director for a fifth term. Israel thus finds itself alone in the ring with the Iranian nuclear menace. Nothing now remains to stop Tehran attaining its goal of a nuclear bomb or bombs by the end of 2006 or early 2007 - except for the extreme eventuality of direct Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The question is what brought about...

On Saturday May 4th, the Associated Press quoted a source from U.S. intelligence and foreign allies who avowed havingg enough evidence to prove that several top Al Qaeda operatives are hiding in Iran - with the complicity of the Iranian government. If that is confirmed (and in part it already is), it will be a huge blow to the credibility of those who tell us that Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists could never collaborate with each other. This alliance of rivals has been built as a way to wage a "holy war" on the U.S., Israel and the democratic world at...

On 11 occasions over the past nine months, the U.S. and allies cooperating in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) have successfully prevented the spread of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or related items. At least two of those incidents involved Iran, two involved North Korea and another involved an unidentified third country, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed. Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the PSI, a project launched by President Bush during a 2003 visit to Krakow, Poland. With a focus on stopping and searching ships, planes, trains or trucks, the PSI aims to prevent terrorists and rogue states...

NEW YORK (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the federal government has improperly used taxpayer dollars to fund Christian religious activities in a nationwide program called the Silver Ring Thing that uses music and comedy skits to promote premarital abstinence among teens. The Silver Ring Thing - which has held events in dozens of cities over the past five years - is an offshoot of the John Guest Evangelistic Team, a Christian ministry based in Sewickley, Pa. Since 2003, the program has received more than $1 million from the Department of Health and...

Under the Hammer-May 5, 2005 By John Hammer This news is so shocking that it made the front page of The New York Times. The Public Broadcasting System has a liberal bias. It’s hard to believe, but according to the new Republican chairman of the board of the Public Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio and Television have a decidedly liberal point of view. It has shocked the employees at the national broadcasting system that a Republican would accuse them of not being nice to Republicans. According to a rumor, one senior producer even said he had invited a Republican over...

The United States is currently embroiled in a national debate over the Social Security program of the nation. This national debate is being initiated and fueled by President George W. Bush because he aptly thinks that something needs to be changed. President Bush correctly stresses that the Democrat Party has been successful in growing the system into an American version of socialism. Like all prior socialistic programs in the past, it is too top heavy and will soon collapse under its own financial weight. He is traveling all around the nations speaking to anyone that will listen to him that...

Despite another round of talks with European diplomats, Iran has reaffirmed its determination to continue pursuing nuclear technology. That outcome is hardly unexpected. The diplomatic effort led by Britain, France and Germany is touted as a reasonable way to settle the dispute over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program without any losers. By enticing Iran to the negotiating table, we are told, the West can avoid a military confrontation, while Iran gains "economic incentives" that can help build its economy. But this deal--backed also by the Bush Administration--can only strengthen Iran and turn it into a greater menace. What Iran desires...

Duplicity is the name of the game for America’s liberals. It has been standard practice of the Democratic Party for decades to create a problem through poorly conceived and unrealistic legislation, decry and obstruct any attempts by Republicans to fix the problems the Democrats created as “racist,” sexist,” or any of the other myriad of “-ists” they concoct, and then when the problem is not solved, blame the Republicans for doing nothing about it. There is no “vast left wing conspiracy” orchestrating all of this deceit from behind the scenes. No secret bunker under Berkley’s city hall where Hillary Clinton,...

RNC finds Bush-Reid tit-for-tat The Republican National Committee (RNC) has resurrected a bill Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sponsored when he was in the House more than 20 years ago that would have kept members of Congress out of the Social Security program. RNC researchers contend that the 1983 bill belies Reid’s repeated claim that Social Security is the “most successful program in the history of the world.” The Republican salvo is in response to Democrats’ frequent use of a statement President Bush made in 1978 during his unsuccessful campaign for Congress that Social Security will “go bust in...

Editor's note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions almost no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you'd like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily's exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT! By Les Kinsolving At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about the president's view that those involved in the Minuteman Project on the U.S.-Mexican border are vigilantes and confronted the spokesman with Border Patrol comments about agents'...

By GAO (Government Accounting Office) estimates the "prescription drug benefit" program INCREASED BY 26% IN 2004, all historically accumulated, future spending obligations and committments of the U.S., including SS, Medicare, vet benefits, etc., accumulated throughout U.S. history, since before Roosvelt. http://www.babylontoday.com/#gao_financial The prescription drug benefit is the 8.1 trillion dollar portion, of the 13 trillion dollar increase, to a total 43 trillion, of current U.S. future spending obligation. But don't worry, according to the GAO, that only represents a $350,000 obligation per full-time worker in the U.S., SO FAR! But sadly the following demonstrates that the spending will be much...