Free Republic

Larry King's contract with CNN is set to expire in 18 months -- and the cable network's chiefs are busy lining up his successor in case he retires. King, 75, has been interviewing celebrities since 1985. Sources say CNN's first choice to succeed him would be Ryan Seacrest -- but his massive deal with "American Idol" makes him too expensive. Other contenders are CBS anchor Katie Couric, CNN "video wall guy" John King and Joy Behar, who is launching her own interview show on CNN's Headline News.

Michael Jackson is Alive !!!! The man who died June 25 looked like him, spoke like him and in fact doubled for him many times when Michael did not want to be seen. But it was not Michael. Michael is alive and well and happier than ever. The plot was 10 years in the making but it had to be done. Michael could not go on hampered with past debt , law suits , contracts etc. The Buisness Entity known as Michael Jackson had to die. to free Michael the artist to go on living..

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson spent the last years of his life buried in debt. But the King of Pop's death is likely to yield a financial bonanza more lucrative than any comeback tour ever could, as fans snap up his music and memorabilia ... "Quite frankly, he may be worth more dead than alive," said Jerry Reisman, general counsel for the Hit Factory, a recording studio where Jackson produced his best-selling album "Thriller." Jackson's death at age 50 leaves a multitude of questions about a financial empire that included his own music, as well a 50 percent stake in...

HEIDELBERG, Germany, Sept. 19, 2008 – Though he’s never regretted joining the Army, a soldier here said, his decision never felt more right than when he faced the greatest challenge of his life: battling cancer. It’s been almost nine years since Army doctors found a grapefruit-sized tumor growing in Sgt. 1st Class James Jordan’s chest. He was 33 then and stationed in South Korea. Today, Jordan has survived two bouts with cancer and is planning a long career before retiring from the Army. "I love the Army," said Jordan, a senior paralegal for the Europe Regional Medical Command judge advocate...

Obama's 10 reasons for supporting infanticide Posted: January 16, 2008 1:00 am Eastern By Jill Stanek © 2008 I was intimately involved in the five-year process to pass the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, testifying before committees twice that then-state Sen. Barack Obama sat on. Following are 10 excuses Obama has given through the years for voting "present" and "no" on the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, or BAIPA. 10. Babies who survive abortions are not protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Obama, the sole opponent ever to speak against BAIPA, stated on the Illinois...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by northwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament to spare him their outrage. "These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, told The Associated Press Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid." The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch. They were still breathing as mud was shoveled over their bodies, according to media reports, which...

The page contains a GRAPHIC cartoon of Barack Obama smashing a baby's head against a wall (which is why I am not actually posting the cartoon here--people who might find such an image upsetting, even in a cartoon, don't have to see it). The cartoon is similar to the kind that was used during the World Wars to portray the enemy as woman-raping and/or baby-killing monsters, e.g. Imperial Germany as a fanged gorilla carrying a half-naked woman over his shoulder. In politics, of course, such a cartoon must convey the absolute truth if it is not to be written off...

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Actor-politician Fred Thompson is making an eleventh-hour push to convince Iowa voters he is the only real conservative in the presidential race, contrasting his ideas and record on immigration and abortion with those of his leading rivals. His job isn't getting any easier. Thompson suffered a stinging setback Thursday, when conservative Rep. Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential running and endorsed another rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Tancredo, a Colorado congressman, is a hero to many voters who are furious at illegal immigration in this country, and a lot of them are Iowa caucus...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2007 – On a cold, rainy Christmas morning in 2004 in Iraq, a small group of soldiers huddled before a patrol. The first sergeant introduced the group to a new way to steer out of a spin if a Humvee were to start sliding into a canal. The patrol would be passing canals. If a driver were to steer incorrectly, the vehicle would overturn and drown those trapped inside, the first sergeant said. Steer correctly, the Humvee would not turn over, and everyone lives. Before pulling out that morning, the first sergeant checked again with each driver,...

Kidnapped Israeli troops 'alive' The troops were kidnapped during a Hezbollah incursion into Israel France's foreign minister says he has heard that two Israeli soldiers seized in a Hezbollah raid over the Lebanese border last year are still alive. Bernard Kouchner said he understood they were alive from talking to parties attending a conference near Paris. Rival Lebanese groups, including Hezbollah, were in France for talks on the country's political crisis. The capture of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev led to a war with Israel in which more than 1,300 people died. Mr Kouchner said he had raised the fate...

Kuala Lumpur - A baby girl declared stillborn by a Malaysian hospital shocked her grieving parents when she started moving as they prepared to bury her, a report said on Monday. The father, Azmi Masiron, said he and other mourners in a village in northern Kedah state noticed a tiny movement from the baby as she lay on a funeral shroud, shortly after being declared dead on Sunday. "When my father-in-law placed the baby on the burial shroud, she suddenly moved, shocking about 200 villagers who had gathered for the funeral," Azmi was quoted saying by the New Straits Times....

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 21, 2007 – The outgoing commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan said the United States is committed to NATO’s success in Afghanistan and will remain the single largest contributor of troops to the mission. Army Gen. John Abizaid, left, presents Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry with the Defense Distinguished Service Medal Jan. 21 in Kabul, Afghanistan, for his service as commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan since May 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “The U.S. is a member of NATO. NATO’s success is the U.S.’s success, which is...

AL-QAEDA leader Osama bin Laden, reported last week to have died, is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview published in The Times today. "It's not a hunch,'' Musharraf said. Afghanistan's eastern "Kunar province borders on Bajaur Agency. We know there are some pockets of al-Qaida in Bajaur Agency. We have set a good intelligence organisation. We have moved some army elements. We did strike them twice there. We located and killed a number of them there.'' Pakistan's military ruler also suggested links between bin Laden and Afghan warlord and former Afghan prime minister...

Reported in the minute-by-minute sidebar on El nacional (Venezualan Newspaper) Internacionales Agencia internacional desmintió información de supuesta muerte de Fidel Castro La agencia internacional de noticias EFE desmintió haber divulgado información relacionada con la supuesta muerte del presidente de Cuba Fidel Castro. En horas de la mañana una emisora de noticias venezolana dijo citando a la agencia que el mandatario había fallecido. Es por ello, que EFE informó que en ningún momento ha difundido ese hecho. La agencia dijo haber presentado su reclamo a la emisora que reconoció publicamente su error. **** google translate. International agency denied information of supposed...

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2006 – Every day, officials at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency track the status of efforts to find 20 Americans believed to still be alive but "isolated" outside the United States. In personnel recovery terminology, isolated personnel are U.S. servicemembers, Defense Department civilians, or contractors separated from their unit who are or may be in a situation where they must survive, evade, resist or escape, a specialist in these "SERE" techniques said here yesterday. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Shawn E. Cross, a SERE specialist at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, Fort Belvoir, Va., described his unit's...

A Kennewick woman was pulled alive from a northern California landfill after she reportedly was carjacked and kidnapped while driving to work. Rebecca Huston, 32, was last heard from last Wednesday evening. Friends and family began searching for her after she failed to show up for work at a veterinary clinic in Richland. A landfill employee at the Ukiah Transfer Station in Ukiah, Calif., about 100 miles north of San Francisco on Highway 101, saw Huston's feet sticking out from a garbage pile Tuesday morning. Huston spent Tuesday night at a hospital where she was treated for a cut head,...

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (April 6, 2006) -- Greg Medina awoke in the early morning hours of Nov. 12, 2004, with an intense, shooting pain in his side. Clutching the ache, Medina was unable to cry out; he could hardly breathe. After several agonizing minutes the pain subsided, but was replaced with a haunting sense that he had lost his son, Lance Cpl. Brian Medina, an infantryman then serving with B Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 3rd Marine Division in Fallujah, Iraq. Medina went to his job as usual that morning at the construction site of the new Social...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2006 – Leading up to Valentine's Day, a group of sixth graders from Chicago crafted valentines for veterans and servicemembers as a part of a longstanding tradition. Sixty-five sixth graders from Chicago International Charter School's Bucktown campus joined Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn Jan. 31 for the kickoff of the 2006 Valentines for Vets and Soldiers" program. Quinn, back center, and the students' teacher, Robert Lane, back right, joined the students for a group photo. Debi Rickert, founder of Operation Support Our Troops Illinois chapter, bottom left, lent her support to the project as well. Courtesy...

VANCOUVER, Wash. - An 88-year-old woman, trapped in her car for six days after driving off the road on the way home from the grocery store, sustained herself by wiping condensation off the windshield with a towel and sucking the moisture, her son says. Mary Lillian Anderson was in satisfactory condition Thursday at Southwest Washington Medical Center. She was rescued Wednesday by a delivery truck driver who noticed the car stuck in blackberry bushes just off Interstate 5 and peered inside. He says he was braced for the sight of a body. "She was sitting right there, staring back at...

TALLMANSVILLE, United States (AFP) - Relatives of 13 coal miners trapped for nearly two days underground reacted in anger and sorrow after hearing that only one had survived, and not 12, as had erroneously been announced earlier. Families keeping vigil at a church had broken into hymns when they heard that the 12 men had survived. Three hours later, their jubilation turned into grief when they were told the miners were dead. "The initial report from the rescue teams from the command center indicated multiple survivors, but that information proved to be a miscommunication," International Coal Group (ICG) president and...

MSNBC announced all 12 miners found alive!

Cheaper than mink or sable - fur coats made from dogs that were skinned alive By Katy Duke and Elizabeth Day (Filed: 18/12/2005) It looks like the must-have item in every glamorous woman's winter wardrobe: a sleek, black fur coat dripping with opulence. But despite the seductive appearance, the coat is not mink or sable. Instead, it has been manufactured from dog fur - possibly from an animal that was drugged and skinned alive to preserve the fur's freshness. Heather Mills-McCartney with a rug made from cats' pelts Similar coats are selling rapidly in fashion boutiques across Europe. An undercover...

REDMOND, Wash. - A professional skiing photographer attempting to document the harsh Argentine terrain where plane crash survivors once resorted to cannibalism died in a 4,500-foot fall, his family said. Carl Warren Skoog, 46, fell from the remote southern face of 22,210-foot Mount Mercedario in the Andes on Oct. 17 while working with a longtime ski partner, Rene Crawshaw. "It wasn't extremely dangerous. He just fell somehow, and he just couldn't get his ice pick in to stop him," said Crawshaw, who needed more than a day to trek out of the remote area to get aid. The pair had...

SAQLAWIYAH, Iraq (August 17, 2005) -- Although hundreds of insurgents were killed during last year’s offensive in Fallujah, those who survived fled the ruined city to blend back into the Iraqi civilian populace living in the surrounding communities. Nine months later, the ongoing task of searching for these insurgents falls to young men like Marietta, Ga. native Clinton Fort. Currently a 20-year-old lance corporal, this infantryman assists 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment and Iraqi Security Forces in rebuilding the city’s infrastructure and keeping its streets safe. Since mid-April, Fort’s company and ISF personnel have operated from a makeshift base inside...

Thousands March To 'Keep Vote Alive" Jackson Leads March To Celebrate, Protect Voting Rights POSTED: 1:40 p.m. EDT August 6, 2005 ATLANTA -- An estimated 100,000 people from all over the U.S. jammed downtown Atlanta and marched with Rev. Jesse Jackson to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act -- and to urge Congress to renew the historic piece of legislation. The march began about an hour late at the Russell Federal Building, partly because of the large number of dignitaries taking part in the event. Politicians from Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin to U.S. Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY)...

THE MOST STARTLING DEVELOPMENT IN WORLD HISTORY Tuesday, May 24, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1:00 a.m. Eastern Writer's note: You may have more trouble with this column than with anything you have ever read. I can't say I blame you. It took me a lot of research time before I fully accepted the now-well-attested fact that God has been bringing hundreds of people back from the dead in recent years. By Jim Rutz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com As I was leaving New Delhi in 2003, I called an Indian friend, Rodrick Gilbert, who leads a network of house churches with 26,000 former...

Trenton, NJ—Singer/songwriter Jon Bon Jovi, of the group Bon Jovi, says he can “still recall” the million faces he’s seen, all of which he has “rocked.” “It’s all the same,” he said. “only the names have changed.” Bon Jovi says this phenomenon happens "everyday", but that it seems they’re “wasting . . .

LAKE WORTH, Fla. - An 8-year-old girl who was raped and buried alive told a friend she remembers her attacker towering over her before she passed out, then awoke seven hours later beneath a pile of rocks and concrete blocks when she heard the voices of rescuers. The girl, who had been staying overnight at her godmother's house, was reported missing early Sunday. She was hospitalized in good condition Monday and a teenage boy who also had been staying at the home was arrested. Authorities said he confessed. "She said the last thing she remembers is that he looked over...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police have charged 80 people for burying children alive in an ancient Hindu ceremony known as "the festival of pits". The ceremony, in which children -- some less than a year old -- are buried alive briefly and then dug up, happened on Monday in southern Tamil Nadu state, The Asian Age reported on Thursday. Authorities have been trying for years to stop it and people found guilty face up to three years in jail and or a fine of 5000 rupees (60.7 pounds). Every two years, parents who have vowed to bury their first-born...

What are we to make of what has happened in the days since John Paul II died? The news outlets of American television have spent uncounted hours on the deceased leader of the Catholic Church. It explains why so many of us never quite throw our televisions onto the sidewalk. It is because when moments that matter arrive, they can do this. This is the medium's long-form potential--rarely used out of belief that the viewers' mosquito-sized attention span makes deep treatment of any subject verboten. Notwithstanding some spitballs, the coverage of the 263rd pope since Peter has been almost universally...

The Pope still alive

March 8, 2005, Pyongyang, North Korea Kim Jong il, the Chia Pet (center) Alive and kickin' folks. Live sighting. Second or third live sighting in North Korea in the last several weeks, another one at a Russian ballet presentation in Pyongyang.For the Free Republic KIM JONG-IL file (the "when was he last seen alive?" file)....

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) -- One of 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash made famous by a book and movie has gotten his wallet and jacket back 32 years after leaving them in the mountain snows. Eduardo Strauch, who survived 72 days in high mountain snows, received the aged wallet, drivers license and other personal items Wednesday, a week after they were found in the Andes by a mountain climber. Strauch, now a 57-year-old architect and father of five, was aboard a flight with fellow rugby players, relatives and friends when their plane crashed high in the Andes on...

“I see a flash of colors and the vague outlines of faces. I hear the voices of Mom and Dad as they talk to me, trying to get me to respond. Oh, God, I’m trying so hard to respond. I feel like I’m floating in a murky bubble with no control over my body and no ability to communicate my feelings. I hear my parents talking about my husband’s efforts to let me die, and I can’t state my objection. "I’ve listened to him talk to people about a statement I made many years ago when we were watching a...

Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA has initiated a long-awaited increase in cigarette prices, providing what some analysts consider the first sign of life in the U.S. cigarette market since 2002. Philip Morris on Friday confirmed earlier analyst reports that it notified wholesalers Thursday of a reduction in the current "off-invoice promotional allowance," by $1 to $5.50 a carton, for its Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament and Basic cigarette brands. An off-invoice promotional allowance is a form of wholesale discount, and analysts said the reduction effectively raises cigarette prices by about $1 a carton, or 10 cents a pack. The lower...

Reading an article in Israel Insider set me thinking. I found it strange that nobody was allowed to see the ailing Arafat, tightly guarded by the devoted Suha. That is until the Palestinian delegation forced their way into the hospital when only one of the Abus was allowed a peep at the prostrate Yasser. And what was going on behind closed doors between the PA group, Suha, and the lawyers? I thought that Arafat was dying of AIDS. This has not been protested or denied by those that know. Strange! However, thanks to Israel Insider, I now subscribe to a...

ARAFAT STILL ALIVE

NAGAOKA, Japan (Oct. 27) - A 2-year-old boy was rescued Wednesday after surviving for four days buried in a landslide from the powerful quake that ravaged northern Japan over the weekend. Rescuers also pulled Yuta Minagawa's mother, Takako Minagawa, 39, from the wreckage, but doctors later announced she had died. A daughter, 3-year-old Mayu, was still buried and her condition was uncertain. The family's white van was swept away in a wave of boulders and earth that pulverized the hillside road they were on when a 6.8-magnitude quake ripped across rural Niigata prefecture on Saturday, killing at least 31 people....

Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh tried every trick in his political playbook to make California the first state in the nation to fine parents caught smoking in cars with small children present. When his bill was killed by fellow lawmakers in public hearings, he gutted an entirely different bill and filled the empty shell with his anti-smoking measure. When that bill failed, the Los Angeles Democrat gutted another one and did it again. "We've killed this bill two or three times already and he keeps pushing it. It's crazy. We've spoken on this issue," said Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, over the...

AUGUSTA, Ga. - John Edwards (news - web sites), who has promised to stay in the Democratic presidential race even if he does poorly in the 10 Super Tuesday contests, worked Saturday to build support in Georgia, a state his advisers believe is his best chance for a win. "We need a president of the United States who understands personally what it means to lose a job," the North Carolina senator told the Georgia Association of Black Elected officials. "I would be a president who stands up every day, fighting for your jobs, fighting for trade policies that keep jobs...

Determining at what point life begins in the womb. To resolve the issue, then, let us take a look at life as it is born into the world. The new baby, most of the time, is said to be "alive," depending upon various and sundry "vital- signs, "Vital" from "vivus" being LAtin for "life, living." Yet, we do not conclude that the baby "became" alive at the moment of birth, for then we must concern ourselves with the prebirth "kicking" of the babe in the womb. Is it alive? Or is it just "thinking about life to come? ("For lo,...

"When I Woke Up..." by Rus Cooper-Dowda In February of 1985, I woke up in a hospital bed in Boston, MA. I couldn't see very well and I couldn't move much -- but boy could I ever hear! I heard a terrifying discussion then that I will never, ever forget. Around the end of my bed were a "school" of doctors in their white coats, planning when to disconnect my ventilator and feeding tube. I immediately started screaming, "I'm here!!" No one but me heard me. They did notice my sudden agitation. They heavily sedated me. For a time, every...

The consequences of death of Saddam Hussein's sons give rise to several questions. If the questions remain unanswered, the death of the two important figures in Iraq looks unbelievable. It is not ruled out that the liquidation of the brothers was in fact a special operation launched to cover them up. The question number one: what did the men do in one of the main Kurd cities while it is known that their father had poisoned thousands of Kurds? We may suppose they just picked out an unusual way of committing a suicide there. On the contrary, they merely decided...

Since 1973, when the Roe abortion decision was handed down from the Supreme Court of the United States, science has advanced our understanding of prenatal (before birth) life to a depth few could have anticipated. Most of the discoveries are unexplained for the general public, as we wend our way through daily life unaware of the amazing truths being revealed through honest hard science. The entire spectrum of prenatal discovery supports a rejection of abortion on demand and reinforces the correctness of protecting prenatal life. In an attempt to address the many discoveries through a series of easy essays, we...

CIA reported to believe Saddam is alive By Richard Sale UPI Intelligence Correspondent From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published 6/2/2003 6:27 PM The CIA has internal documents that make clear Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is alive and hiding in greater Baghdad, protected by an underground resistance network of tribesmen and former Baath officials, administration officials told United Press International. "There is a resistance network and it is stronger than we originally thought," one administration source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Saddam is moving around inside Iraq and he's got a lot of support," another U.S. government official...

Iraq Information Minister 'Comical Ali' is alive, well and still in Baghdad, it was claimed last night.Mohammed Saeed Al Sahaf--the Saddam Hussein spokesman who denied Americans were in Baghdad when they could be seen behind him-- still wears his trademark green beret and army uniform, say reports. He disappeared on the day Saddam's statue was toppled (after looting $200,000.00 from the Iraqi Foriegn Journalist 'expense account'-ed) and it was thought that he could have committed suicide or even escaped.But last night it was reported that he is now a broken man who stays at home with his wife Larnia, two...

11-year-old found alive in quake rubble By Charles Begley 25 May 2003 An 11-year-old girl was discovered alive after lying buried under rubble for three days following Algeria's earthquake on Wednesday. Rescuers hailed her survival under a partially collapsed building as "nothing short of miraculous" and were last night racing to remove her to safety as aftershocks continued to rock Boumerdes, near the capital Algiers. Two search-and-rescue teams from the UK, along with an Italian group, were involved in the effort to reach the young girl, who was well enough to tell them she was called Sabrina. A spokeswoman for...

There may be a major break in the Sabrina Aisenberg case. Attorneys for the Aisenbergs tell us authorities are now trying to determine if a little girl currently living in Pontiac, Illinois is Sabrina. In March 1998, a woman gave a baby girl to a migrant worker in McCallan, Texas. More Information Click here to learn more about the case. The migrant worker gave the baby to a nurse after she learned she was going to be deported. The nurse, instead of turning the baby over to a welfare worker, gave the baby to her sister in Pontiac, Illinois. A...

MSNBC is showing a tape made by Abu Dhabi TV which claims to be made of Saddam Hussein live on the day after the US bomb drop was made in a neighborhood where it was claimed he was seen with his sons and top Baathist leaders.

Signs of renewed Iraqi military control suggest Saddam still alive US OFFICIALS are seeing signs of renewed control by Baghdad over military and security forces in Iraq, but said they don't know whether it is coming from Saddam Hussein or his senior chiefs. The partial revival of Iraqi command comes as US forces close in on Baghdad. Air strikes are already hitting the armoured vehicles of the elite Republican Guard units guarding the city's outer reaches. American war strategists are proceeding on the assumption that Saddam is alive even though intelligence on his fate remains inconclusive. Some in the Bush...