Free Republic

Hard to believe it was almost 19 years ago that the Star first ran this photo and feature on Barack Obama. Today, his ambitious goals and youthful views – not to mention the reactions to them – seem eerily prophetic. ..... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–Barack Obama stares silently at a wall of fading black-and-white photographs in the muggy second-floor offices of the Harvard Law Review. He lingers over one row of solemn faces, his predecessors of 40 years ago. All are men. All are dressed in dark-coloured suits and ties. All are white. It is a sobering moment for Obama, 28, who...

1990 French Promo filmed on top of World Trade Centre Tower 2

Ever heard of Nahmdi Auchi? Mr. Auchi was the financier for long-time Barak Obama friend and fund-raiser Tony Rezko. Mr. Auchi is the cousin of Saddam Hussein and his co-conspirator in the 1959 failed assassination attempt of the Iraqi Prime Minister. Although he eventually left Iraq in 1981 and became a British citizen, Auchi prospered mightily under Saddam, becoming a billionaire and pillar of British society (He ranks 279 on the Forbes list of the richest people) He was convicted of committing fraud in France in 2004 (only had to pay a fine) and has been barred from entering the...

-snip- McCain made his first million the old-fashioned way: he married the daughter of a wealthy businessman. But Barack Obama, the son of an absent African father and a mother who relied on government-issued food stamps to feed her children, became a millionaire in a more modern manner – on the back of a book deal. It happened circuitously. In 1990, Obama was already enough of a celebrity – the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review – for the New York publishers Simon & Schuster to offer a “six-figure contract” for a proposed autobiography. The only problem...

Trucker Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban is what trucker/terrorist-wannabe, Mohammed Yousef Mullawala dreamed he could be. Mullawala is facing deportation on various charges, including suspicious activities surrounding his brief attendance at the Nationwide Tractor Trailer School in Rhode Island. Unlike Mullawala, Shaaban was the real deal – a terrorist spy hiding behind the steering wheel of a big truck. The story of Shaaban is as captivating as it is unsettling. The Palestinian-born Russian-educated Shaaban settled in Greenfield, Indiana, with his family and worked as a truck driver for CLM Freight Lines in nearby Indianapolis. According to reports, his commercial driver’s...

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 700 tanks invaded the Gulf state of Kuwait in the early hours of this morning. Iraqi forces have established a provisional government and their leader Saddam Hussein has threatened to turn Kuwait city into a "graveyard" if any other country dares to challenge the "take-over by force".

There are two bans on drilling–one by Congress and one by an White House executive order put in place by President Bush’s father. Why won’t the son revoke that order NOW if he truly believes expanding American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf is an urgent priority. I quoted the Institute for Energy Research last week: “Mr. Bush, Tear Up That Offshore Drilling Ban.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Navy admiral engaged in sexual relations in the White House in 1990 with a federal employee whom he falsely told he was a widower, according to a report released Friday by the Defense Department. In March, when the report was submitted to Pentagon officials, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem was demoted and fired from his post as director of the Navy staff. Stufflebeem told investigators he couldn't remember the name of the woman he had an affair with. He also lied when he told investigators he did not engage in sexual relations with the woman, identified as...

When pressed about the harmful effects on the economy, proponents of higher taxes often fall back on what can be called the "Clinton defense." President Clinton pushed a major tax increase through Congress in 1993 and, so the story goes, the economy boomed. How then can tax increases be so bad for the economy? The inference is even stronger--that higher taxes actually strengthened the economy. The Clinton defense is superficially plausible, but it fails under closer scrutiny. Economic growth was solid but hardly spectacular in the years immediately following the 1993 tax increase; the real economic boom occurred in the...

Fewer women choose abortions, and those that do increasingly use morning-after medication to accomplish it, according to a new study from a pro-abortion group. The rate of all abortions continues to drop, and has now reached its lowest level since 1990: A comprehensive study of abortion in America underscores a striking change in the landscape, with ever-fewer pregnant women choosing abortion and those who do increasingly opting to avoid surgical clinics. The number of abortions has plunged to 1.2 million a year, down 25% since peaking in 1990, according to a report released today -- days before the 35th anniversary...

WASHINGTON - A suspected Hezbollah mole who penetrated who penetrated the ranks of the FBI and CIA pleaded guilty Tuesday to falsely getting U.S. citizenship and snooping in FBI terrorism files. Former waitress Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, of Vienna, Va., admitted arranging a sham marriage with an American in Michigan to win U.S. citizenship. She parlayed that into sensitive jobs as an FBI special agent and a CIA operations officer, sources said. Sources told The News that Prouty is believed to be a double-agent planted in the agencies by Hezbollah or its supporters, though government officials downplayed her ties to...

The word "reinvent" is a dumb term, having an overtone of redundancy. After all, when you have invented something, it exists. You can revise it or change it, but you can't "reinvent" it after you have already invented it. I never heard the term when I first entered the workforce. But somewhere in the 1970s or so, corporate executives-began using the word, and using it a lot. Then as now, the nation had its usual economic ups and downs, but suddenly after one downturn, our nation was heavily laden with companies that had reinvented themselves. What happened is that after...

From the Maha - CLINTON: I think handling the aftermath of a natural disaster is different than preventing a terrorist attack. I actually believe that the federal government has been quite good about that, in spite of the breakdowns that led up to 9/11. There were any number of terrorist attacks prevented in the 1990s and there have been a lot of terrorist cells broken up -- CLINTON: Well, I would repeal the tax cuts for upper income people. I myself have gotten four tax cuts while young Americans have gone off to risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,...

The very same day that the Clintons go to Long Island to meet with the TWA Flight 800 families, security guard Richard Jewell is patrolling the grounds of Centennial Park in Atlanta. He's a little Barney Fife-ish, but a good guy and very observant. Right around midnight, Jewell spots a large, olive-green, military-style backpack, known as an Alice pack, under a bench. He immediately shares this information with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. When the GBI cannot find the pack's owner, the GBI officer and Jewell begin to clear an area around the pack. Soon afterward, the pack explodes. Two...

For most Americans, February 14 was Valentine's Day, the most insipid holiday on the calendar. The date deserves to be better known for another reason. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader and revolutionary dictator of Iran, pronounced a fatwa (an Islamic legal judgment) against the British novelist Salman Rushdie. It said: It is not outlandish to think of the World Trade Center towers as The Satanic Verses, magnified immeasurably but not beyond all recognition. "In the name of Him, the Highest. There is only one God, to whom we shall all return. I inform all zealous...

No single act or piece of legislation by itself created the pension crisis that threatens to overwhelm the state and many local governments in California. The pension mess stems from a series of bad decisions, of fiscally reckless votes (many of them self-serving) in the Legislature, in city councils and county boards of supervisors. Still, in the state's downward spiral into a deep hole of pension debt, the passage of SB 2465 more than a decade ago stands out. On the last night of the 1990 legislative session, the innocuous contents of SB 2465 were gutted on the Assembly floor...

The Arab world is all one big happy family again. OK, dysfunctional, but happy. No, well, unhappy and as twisted as usual. While visiting Kuwait today, Palestinian presidential front-runner, Mahmoud Abbas, apologized for his people’s support of Saddam’s invasion of the Gulf emirate in 1990. Isn’t that special? (remember Dana Carvey as the “Church Lady” on SNL?). This happened just after Kuwait’s sultans (or whatever they’re called) forgave the Palestinian people for supporting Saddam’s invasion. Kuwait’s leadership went so far as to say they didn’t even expect a public apology for Palestinian support of the 1990 war. Now, isn’t that...

SEN. PELL: My time has expired. I turn to the ranking Minority member. We're both just back from a trip -- as many of us on the committee are -- from a trip to the Gulf area. Thank you. Senator Helms. SEN. JESSE HELMS (R-NC): Mr. Secretary, you remember things in life, and I think I shall never forget going to the farthest advanced unit of the Marine expeditionary force, right behind the Saudis. I was expecting to hear a lot of guys complaining and -- cause it was 125 degrees there in that hot sand. SEN. KERRY: 128 [degrees]....

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I support this resolution which I believe sends an unequivocal signal to Saddam Hussein that the Senator is in total agreement with the President and the international community in actions taken thus far to force the Iraqi, withdrawal from Kuwait. In so doing, it should be pointed out that this resolution is not a Gulf of Tonkin resolution on the Persian Gulf. Quite the contrary, this resolution reflects the near unanimity of the global community in condemning this aggressive act by a brutal dictator. Unlike our experience in Vietnam, the United States is not acting unilaterally...

The Candidate With No Name By Andrew L. Jaffee, July 29, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms ”Defeat Bush – VOTE In 2004!” I’ve seen more bumper-stickers with this platitude than I’ve seen ones that simply state, “Kerry/Edwards 2004.” While my liberal friends rarely mention Kerry and Edwards, they constantly remind me of how much they hate President Bush. This year, the politics of hate rule. The Left doesn’t even have a candidate. They are galvanized mainly by visceral hatred -- a hatred which stands on shaky assumptions, like the lies that Michael Moore sells as truths. In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore insinuates that...