Free Republic

Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt’s memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls. Blunt talks of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he...

Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign “experts” for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia’s elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, “The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to … reanimating Stalin’s cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police].” I’m afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there...

Joseph A. Wilson IV: The French ConnectionNovember 7th, 2005 There are an amazing number of French fingerprints all over the Plame-Wilson affair. While it is not easy to penetrate the dark fog of lies, there is a highly consistent pattern pointing to French government involvement with a Watergate-style assault on the American Presidency, fronted by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.In 2002 French intelligence forged the notorious document claiming that Saddam tried to obtain Niger uranium. The Italian middle man,Rocco Martino, later confessed to French involvement in open court. Rocco Martino might sound like a small-time mafia hood from the Sopranos. Actually,...

A new film featuring Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay portrays Earle less as a partisan figure than as a messianic leader on a mission to rid American politics of the "evil" influence of money. A copy of the still-unfinished film, entitled The Big Buy, was obtained by National Review Online Friday. On several occasions in the film, Earle engages in monologues on what he believes is the sinister effect of money in politics. "The root of the evil of the corporate and large-monied...

Narrator: In A.D. 2005, weather conspiracy was beginning. Mayor Nagin: What happen ? Senator Landrieu: Somebody set up us the flood. (spoken in the Flash animation as Someone set up us the flood.) Governor Blanco: We get signal. Mayor: What ! Governor: Main screen turn on. Mayor: It's you !! ROVE: How are you gentlemen !! ROVE: All your bus are belong to us. ROVE: You are on the way to destruction. Mayor: What you say !! ROVE: You have no chance to survive make your time. ROVE: Ha Ha Ha Ha ... Governor: Mayor !! * Mayor: Take off...

It points towards Mecca Today is September 11. Michelle Malkin and other bloggers are buzzing about the proposed Flight 93 memorial, which bears a striking resemblance to an Islamic crescent. Zombie produces an animated image consisting of the memorial (rotated so the arms of the crescent point to the right) overlapped with the crescent of the Tunisian flag. The juxtaposition is nearly perfect. Zombie also links to this image credited to "Etaoin Shrdlu". What you're seeing is an azimuthal equidistant projection of the globe centered on the Flight 93 crash site. On such a projection, the concentric circles represent a...

Some people are saying the destruction is worse than Hurricane Camille. Others aren't saying anything, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the total devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Just last Thursday, Katrina hit South Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she moved through the Gulf, slowly gaining strength and growing larger until she became a Category 5 with winds of 175 mph. Monday morning, she hit Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana, then moved slowly north, slamming into the Louisiana-Missisppi line as a Category 4 storm and causing destruction of buildings and homes along the Coast and in...

While televangelist Pat Robertson has apologized for suggesting that Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez be assassinated, a former military man and an ex-CIA operative have stepped forward to say that his concerns about Chavez aren't exactly unwarranted. "Chavez is a dangerous guy," retired Col. David Hunt told Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" fill-in host Steve Malzberg on Wednesday. "We helped to elect the son of a gun [and] after 9/11 you don't get to threaten us." The issue of assassination "should be on the table," Hunt said. "I'm suggesting that we use it as a tool . . . to get...

The Washington lawyer is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market. The Washington lawyer comes in a number of...

Interesting e-mail from reader B.G.: "I believe your skepticism regarding Lt. Col. Shaffer’s memory – 'whether the otherwise obscure name of "Mohammed Atta" might have become part of their recollections after the fact because it became so famous' – deserves your reevaluation. "I would contend that whatever Shaffer knew about Mohammed Atta and the Brooklyn cell would have been reinforced in, and not 'become part of,' Shaffer’s memory on and in the days immediately after 9/11. Other elements of the story, such as having three meetings to transfer this information cancelled at the last minute, and the resulting feelings of...

Able Danger official identified. Delco Times columnist Gil Spencer, who has long covered Curt Weldon's Pennsylvania district, has just interviewed the Able Danger official who is going public tonight on Fox News. Spencer is the first journalist I am aware of to reveal the identity of the Able Danger official who originally briefed the 9/11 commission staff about Able Danger's findings back in October 2003 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. That official is DIA Ltn. Col. Tony Shaffer. He served in a liaison capacity between Able Danger and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida, and he...

Just heard from a guy I trust that the Pentagon will be releasing information regarding Able Danger in the not too distant future. The short version: Don't expect any bombshells. Thank you, Congressman Weldon, for getting just enough of this story right (the existence of Able Danger and its mission) to get folks like myself and lot of others to take you seriously. Those others weren't just bloggers, by the way - I'm talking about the New York Times, the AP, the Bergen Record... And thanks a [really bad word] heap for getting more than enough wrong that we look...

The independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks has examined a secret videotape of ex-President Clinton discussing an offer from Sudan to have Osama bin Laden arrested five years before the 9/11 attacks, former Navy Secretary and 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman revealed on Tuesday. Asked if the never-before-seen video confirms that Clinton admitted turning the offer down, Lehman told radio host Sean Hannity, "Well, that is what he said." While the video of Clinton's bombshell remarks, delivered to the Long Island Association in February 2002, had never been released prior to a request from the 9/11 Commission, NewsMax.com's exclusive audiotape shows...

Ambassador Ayalon says pullout compact with Bush administration, not Palestinians Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon, in an interview with a U.S. Jewish magazine, dispelled any notion the current forced removal of Jews from Gaza is part of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority tied to ending terrorism, saying the pullout is solely a U.S.-Israeli policy matter. Ayalon, speaking to the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, contradicted previous Israeli government positions that demanded the PA end terrorism and incitement against Israel as a pre-condition for withdrawal from Gaza. The ambassador said there is no longer the expectation of...

An important U.S. high-tech manufacturer is shutting down its American operations, laying off hundreds of workers and moving sophisticated equipment now being used to make critical parts for smart bombs to the People's Republic of China [PRC], Insight has learned. Indianapolis-based Magnequench Inc. has not yet publically announced the closing of its Valparaiso, Ind., factory, but Insight has confirmed that the company will shut down this year and relocate at least some of its high-tech machine tools to Tianjin, China. Word of the shutdown comes as the company is producing critical parts for the U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition [JDAM]...

BEIJING, June 29 (UPI) -- China expressed opposition to interference in a government-controlled oil company's bid for the U.S.-based oil company Unocal, state media said Wednesday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that China National Offshore Oil Corporation's $18.5 billion offer for Unocal was "normal commercial activity between enterprises." Liu said "economic cooperation between China and the U.S. serves the interests of both sides and commercial activities should not be interfered in or disturbed by political elements." There are growing concerns in Washington over the deal as some U.S. officials are uncomfortable with CNOOC, 70 percent owned by the Chinese...

STARVATION: DAY 7Jeb Bush urged to intervene immediatelyKeyes, Klayman in Tallahassee for face-to-face meeting Posted: March 24, 200511:35 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com With legal and legislative options apparently exhausted, former Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes are in Florida's capital trying to persuade Gov. Jeb Bush to use his executive powers to save Terri Schaivo's life. Klayman, a candidate last year for the U.S. Senate from Florida, believes that since Bush "is the supreme executive power of the state of Florida, he has the right and duty to step in and, in effect, pardon Terri Schaivo...

Religious and political groups are banding together to urge President Bush and his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to use their executive powers to order police to take Terri Schiavo into protective custody. Calling itself "The 11th Hour Coalition to Save Terri Schiavo's Life," the 20 organizations held simultaneous press conferences in Washington, D.C., and Tallahassee, Fla., arguing the president and governor have the power to order reinsertion of the brain-injured woman's feeding tube, which was removed Friday by court order. A federal appeals court early today rejected an emergency request by Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, to...

Terry Wallis' 19-year journey back to consciousness is a remarkable story. But in June 1984, the time of his car crash, he was just another statistic; one more name on the list of 1.5 million Americans who sustain a brain injury each year. Perhaps it's going too far to say that Wallis was one of the fortunate ones, but he did at least survive his brain injury. Each year in America, 50,000 people are not so lucky. Brain injury is the great silent epidemic. In the US alone there are estimated to be 5.3 million people (more than 2% of...

A mentally disabled woman whose court ordered starvation-execution began Friday attempted to contradict her estranged husband's claim that she wants to die hours before her feeding tube was disconnected, an eyewitness is claiming. Barbara Weller, an attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents, told reporters Friday afternoon that during her visit earlier in the day she told Ms. Schiavo: "Terri, if you would just say, 'I want to live,' - all of this will be over." According to pro-life activist Randall Terry, who recounted the scene to radio host Sean Hannity, Schiavo tried desperately to repeat Weller's words. "'I waaaaannt . ....