Free Republic

WASHINGTON (NNPA) — The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued updated recommendations that urge employers not to misuse criminal background checks in filling job openings. By a vote of 4-1 last week, the commissioners noted that African-Americans and Latinos may find it more difficult to find employment because of the widespread use of background checks. “Arrest and incarceration rates are particularly high for African-American and Hispanic men,” the EEOC report stated. “African Americans and Hispanics are arrested at a rate that is 2 to 3 times their proportion of the general population. Assuming that current incarnation rates remain unchanged,...

There was a brief media firestorm yesterday when Vanity Fair broke the news that Obama’s famous “New York girlfriend” was a fiction. She appears in his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, described in some detail by her appearance, voice and mannerisms. But a new biography of Obama – with an excerpt published in Vanity Fair – “reveals” that she was actually an amalgam of several different women. Politico immediately ran with “Obama: 'New York girlfriend' was composite” and Drudge headlined with “Obama Admits Fabricating Girlfriend in a Memoir.” Coming hot on the heels of the news that the...

MADISON, Wis.— The Madison School District wants background checks on any poll workers in school buildings on election days. The city is looking into the time and cost required for background checks on more than 2,000 poll workers. City clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl says they also need to settle on the criteria that would be needed to pass a background check. Currently, poll workers take an oath and attend a training session. Never before has the school district asked for background checks. Assistant superintendent Erick Kass tells the State Journal (http://bit.ly/xWFr1e ) the district is trying to improve school safety based...

Presumptuous and daring, flouting politically correct prohibitions against looking too closely at his time's Establishment, Niccolò Machiavelli went on to detail who did what to whom to establish the papacy's temporal power. Cesare Borgia's cruel triangulation between Rome's Orsini and Colonnesi factions, not miracles, had made the papal states into a major power. In our time, asking how a young man of scarce achievement got into position to win the Democratic Party's nomination for president courts the contemporary synonyms for "impious": "birther," "conspiracy theorist," and, of course, "racist." Granted, to inquire into what formed a president is not as important...

I have 2 friends who need to do background checks on perspective tenants for their 2-family homes, one friend is a single mother and doesn't want a criminal living in her house. They want to check both criminal and financial records before they let a tenant in their home. There are many internet sites out there and am not sure which ones are the better. Any help would be appreciated. thank you.

This came from a union guy in Chicago who didn't vote for Obama. Very, very interesting perspective that I never thought of in this light. It will be interesting to see what they put in his "Presidential Library" or "Presidential Mosque" about his early years when he is out of office. In a country where we take notice of many, many facets of our public figures' lives, doesn't seem odd that there's so little we know about our current president, Barack Obama. For example, we know that Andrew Jackson's wife smoked a corn cob pipe and was accused of adultery;...

An otherwise casual question has turned out to be one of the most elusive and divisive questions of the young 21st century: where was Barack Obama born? The left despises those who ask the question. Some on the right ridicule those who raise the issue, while a sizeable number of Americans are insisting that Obama was born outside of the US and hence he is ineligible to be president. Whether intentionally or not, they are either missing or distorting the real issue. An inquiry to Obama's birthplace should be viewed in light of the sheer weight of the position he...

(This is an archived page; the original has been scrubbed from the web......) Sunday, June 27, 2004 Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations. The allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days have given Obama a clear lead as Republicans struggled to fetch an alternative. Ryan’s campaign began to crumble on Monday following...

Latest research deflates the idea that the Universe cycles for eternity.Our view of the early Universe may be full of mysterious circles — and even triangles — but that doesn't mean we're seeing evidence of events that took place before the Big Bang. So says a trio of papers taking aim at a recent claim that concentric rings of uniform temperature within the cosmic microwave background — the radiation left over from the Big Bang — might, in fact, be the signatures of black holes colliding in a previous cosmic 'aeon' that existed before our Universe.

Have we found the universe that existed before the Big Bang? The current cosmological consensus is that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. But a legendary physicist says he's found the first evidence of an eternal, cyclic cosmos. The Big Bang model holds that everything that now comprises the universe was once concentrated in a single point of near-infinite density. Before this singularity exploded and the universe began, there was absolutely nothing - indeed, it's not clear whether one can even use the term "before" in reference to a pre-Big-Bang cosmos, as time itself may...

With Obama visiting Indonesia today, the New York Times has a story that is just chock-full of interesting tidbits about Obama's time living there as a child in the late 1960s. For example, the Times reports that back then Obama was "chubby" and that some of the locals referred to him as "the boy who walks like a duck." Then, of course, there's this: His nanny was an openly gay man who, in keeping with Indonesia's relaxed attitudes toward homosexuality, carried on an affair with a local butcher, longtime residents said. The nanny later joined a group of transvestites called...

Why questions about Obama’s faith, background refuse to dieBy Glenn Gilbert Published: Friday, September 10, 2010 Why do questions persist about President Obama’s faith and birth certificate? A national survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-in-five Americans, 18 percent, now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults, 34 percent, say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48 percent in 2009. The president was finally prompted to address the issue recently. “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” Obama...

Some Milestones in Israel-Palestine1834 - 1886 - 1920 - 1922 - 1929 - 1938 - 1941 - 1948 - 1950s-1960s - 1970 1972 - 1973 - 1975 - 1976 - 1982 - 1987 - 1994 - 2000 - 2001 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2010 1834 First recorded attack on native Jews in Israel by Muslims, is the one in June 1834, Safed (the Plunder), the massacres and mass rapes went on for 33 days, (an inciter, Muhammed Damoor, a self-proclaimed prophet, ‘prophesied’ the attack for which he agitated). It was repeated in 1838. 1886 First...

This lenghty Report by Steve Baldwin is well worth the read... Is Obama Stupid and Lazy? Although that’s quite a provocative question, evidence is mounting that Obama may not be as intelligent as his supporters and cheerleaders in the media constantly assure us. The reality may be that Obama is mostly a creation of the liberal media. Indeed, the more we dig into his past, the more we find very little substance and discover how a network of liberal professors, law firms, and others, gave him a pass on performance while he pursued his political agenda. We know very little...

RUSH: Mark my words, just as the truth about Tiger Woods has been exposed, so it shall be with Barack Obama. The parallels -- Lisa Schiffren had that great piece on this last week, the parallels between Barack Obama and Tiger Woods are stunning. We don't know if there's rampant sex romps going on with Obama. We doubt that. But everything else, they created for us a puff piece image of Obama, starting with his speech at the 2004 Democrat convention. We don't know who he is. We don't know anything about the man other than his years agitating the...

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson Background Back in the late 1700’s when our independence from Britain was declared, the colonies had some idea of what they didn’t want in a ruling government. They envisioned a limited government that would protect individual rights and liberty and that would rule by majority. Since then, the federal bureaucracy has evolved from its creation as a protector of liberty and individual rights to securing our welfare and...

This post , on the Orly Taitz website,claims Stanley Dunham,Obama's maternal grandfather was a Communist. A quick bit of research indicates he was an Army supply sergeant during WWII, and that after the war,he was a shoe salesman. I have found nothing, so far, to suggest he was a Communist. Perhaps one of our readers has details.

President-Elect Tries To Weed Out Controversial Candidates Applicants for President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet get ready to chronicle your life story. Those interested in joining Obama's administration have to pass an extensive background test. The questionnaire, the New York Times reported, includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps, the Times said. Obama wants applicants to “list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the...

The lowest-ranking enlisted persons in the Armed Forces of the United States who are expected to handle sensitive matters in the scores of jobs involving classified equipment or written material must be investigated before obtaining their security clearance. Could Barack Obama gain such a clearance? To begin, the clearance applicant would have to complete a detailed personal history form that includes, if necessary, government access to all health and education files. This is the starting point of all security investigations. Top Secret clearance involves a field investigation rather than the Secret version that is usually limited to a "name check"...

As the media turns over every rock in the past of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, there has been shockingly little vetting of Barack Obama’s background. Although candidates should not be judged solely by their behavior as adolescents, an examination of their overall past is fair and important, especially as we pick our next president. And former schoolmates can help provide character clues, such as the former Obama schoolmate who told Newsmax that she is surprised he is running for president.

The media was all over George Bush’s alleged past drug use during the 2000 election. All presidential appointees need to pass an FBI background check. One of the questions is have you used drugs in the past seven years. George Bush in 2000, volunteered the answer after heavy media pressure, will the media ask Obama the same question:

In recent months, [written in 2003] the nation's two largest mortgage finance lenders have come under increasing scrutiny at the hands of Congress, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac, have operated since 1968 as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). This means that, although the two companies are privately owned and operated by shareholders, they are protected financially by the support of the Federal Government. These government protections include access to a line of credit through the U.S. Treasury, exemption from...

Barack Hussein Obama is no bambi, he learned dirty politics from the pros in Chicago's political underworld. Apparently, both Obama and Biden have ties to that famous lunatic, George Soros and his one-world view. As more and more information about Obama's own statements, his choices of activities and people with whom to associate himself after graduation from Harvard Law School, one aspect of him becomes abundantly clear...he is NO patriot of the United States of America. If he is not a patriot, then what is he...what is still unknown that is being kept hidden in his closet?The Chicago-type strong-arm tactics...

Obama’s radical background Obama would describe his grandparents as ‘white folk.’ (Yeah, ‘white folk’ that would NOT abandon you, their grandchild. Shame on you Obama.) Barack has stated his support for Luo Raila Odinga (Opposition Leader in Kenya who signed a ‘Shariah pact’ with Muslims and claims to be Obama’s cousin) and is married to Ida Odinga. They have four children - two sons and two daughters. His oldest son, Fidel, is named after Fidel Castro U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s uncle has been a prisoner in his own home, trapped by post election violence that has left more than...

Quiz yourself on the Israeli Arab ["Palestinian"] conflict       1) When was the Arab immigration to [the historic Jewish land of] Israel -"Palestine" boosted?   A When they wanted to see Jewish holy sites. B When [anti French and anti British] Arab nationalism spread across the middle east. C When the Zionists Jews came and cultivated the deserted land.     2) What's [Arab "Palestinian" highest "national" icon] Yasser Arafat's country of origin?   A Israel ["Palestine"]. B Jordan. C Egypt.     3) Why were there --initially-- more Arab immigrants ["residents"] than Jewish immigrants (Arab majority)?   A Because...

ISRAEL - PEACE - SURVIVAL, NOT GENOCIDE! In the beginning...Israel has always faced genocide, from the moment the Islamo Arab fascist leader, the infamous [later on exposed as Hitler's buddy] Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini has called, incited, led to "kill the Jews" in the 1920s. The Mufti, that prior to inciting to "kill the Yahud [Jews]" & leading massacres such as Hebron 1929 and the Farhud in 1941, has participated in the massacres and genocide of Christians, the Armenian Genocide that is [http://Armenian-Genocide.org], where 1.5 Million Christians were brutally murdered. An ally of the Nazi "Fuhrer": Adolph Hitler,...

CLARION, United States (AFP) - Democratic 2008 hopeful Barack Obama argued Monday his childhood years in Indonesia and ties to Kenya would make him a better president than rivals who had seen the world on congressional junkets. Obama's comments were a veiled swipe at his party foes, including front-runner Hillary Clinton, who has questioned if he is ready for the Oval Office. The 46-year-old senator, who has family in Kenya and spent four years in Indonesia as a child, said little can be learned from tightly controlled official tours of foreign nations. "You get picked up at the airport by...

Hebron And Darfur Aug 9, 2007 Yesterday, Hebron marked the 78th anniversary of the 1929 riots and massacre during which 67 Jews were slaughtered and more than 70 injured. ...

Boston Globe's 7 pieces on Romney- A Pretty Good Endorsement posted by: jason | posted at: 9:50 AM | permalink here I finally had a chance to sit down and read the Globes 7 piece story on Mitt Romney. It's worth a read if you have the time. Long, but full of details. Before reading it what struck me, was the Boston Globe does a 7 article piece on Romney, and the most negative thing the public can take away from it is that Romney strapped a dog carrier to the top of his car. You would think with...

The post-9/11 Western world seems to regard suicide bombing as a traditional Islamic phenomenon in which repressed, underprivileged Muslims act out their frustrations by exploding themselves in the midst of civilians. This is, however, a misperception. The shahada are not merely frustrated human bombs embracing a time-honored tradition. Use of the tactic by Hamas and other Palestinian groups, by Jemmah Islamiyah in the Philippines, and most recently by members of the Fedayeen Saddam, might seem to suggest that suicide bombing is somehow embedded in Arab and Islamic culture, but it isn't. When Hezbollah adopted the tactic in 1983, it was...

Many Americans probably view Sen. McCain's statement that the Clinton administration's 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea was a “failure” as an obvious point. McCain’s comment came after Sen. Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats were all over the media suggesting the ’94 agreement as a model for how to deal with the North Korean dictatorship. McCain’s point is a simple one: if we are going to effectively deal with the North’s nuclear weapons program, we have to acknowledge how we got to this point and not make the same mistakes again. But senior Democrats -- Hillary Clinton, Bill...

Links to global terror surface in Canada Lorraine Passchier, CTVNEWS.com The ranks of al-Qaeda's mujahideen seem far away from the urban streets of Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. But a dragnet unleashed in the days following the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon is uncovering remnants of al-Qaeda's holy war here at home. A number of high-profile cases have been in the news in recent weeks as investigators zero in on their targets and court proceedings begin to unfold. Some of the suspects have been charged with immigration offences and face allegations that they pose a...

A woman lost her son in Iraq and won't leave George W. Bush alone until he sees her. Who is she, and why is she stirring such emotion? Cindy Sheehan, 48, is not a natural-born revolutionary. She speaks in a high, almost childlike voice. She says like as often as any teenager, as in, "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment." When her supporters gather to discuss strategy, Sheehan is not to be found in the circle of beach chairs; she is 50 yards up the road, doing yet another interview, hugging yet another stranger....

Love her or hate her, America can't seem to get enough of Sen. Hillary Clinton. The latest literary examination of the former first lady — "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President" by Edward Klein — has produced an interesting ripple in the Zeitgeist. Nobody much likes it. That liberals dislike the book comes as no surprise, but that conservatives are distancing themselves from Klein is interesting. As a former New York Times Magazine editor, part of the liberal mainstream media that members of the VRWC (Vast Right-Wing...

Four years ago today, President George W. Bush nominated Priscilla Owen to serve on the federal court of appeals. Justice Owen is an extraordinary Texan, an exceptional jurist, and a devoted public servant. Yet, after four years, she is still waiting for an up-or-down vote in the United States Senate. What's more, a partisan minority of senators now demands — for the first time in history — that she must be supported by a supermajority of 60 senators, rather than the constitutional rule and Senate tradition of majority vote. After four years, it is long past time to restore sanity...

He took the name Benedict[1] from the co-patron of Europe who founded over 40,000 communities of monasticism to combat widespread corruption. It should be no secret what Pope Benedict XVI's papacy will be like. For those 'enlightened' Catholics who dissent from magisterial teachings and who are grieved by the election, we bid you peace. Barely one day before his election as the 264th Pope of the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger, a formidable intellect who will not yield to modernists, delivered a remarkable homily, calling for Catholics to be 'true Adults in the faith.' He explained: "Being an 'Adult' means having...

MUMBAI: As Pope John Paul II remains hospitalised, the names of prelates from Asia, Africa and Latin America, including that of an Indian archbishop, figure in the list of those who are likely to succeed him, a media report said. Mumbai's archbishop Ivan Diaz, a friend of Mother Teresa, figures in the list, international weekly magazine BusinessWeek said in an article titled Why The Next Pope May Be A Surprise. When contacted, Diaz' office dismissed the report as 'rubbish' and said the archbishop will not entertain interviews on the matter. The College of Cardinals will select a Pope when John...

March 28, 2005 How safe is online romance?Lawmakers want dating sites to disclose background check informationBy DAVID EGGERTAssociated Press Writer State Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, shown during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting March 15 in Lansing, is sponsoring a bill that would require an Internet dating service to disclose prominently on the Web site whether it had conducted criminal background checks on users. AP File Photo Online dating safetySome tips when meeting people through Internet dating: Start slowly. Communicate by e-mail at first, looking for signs of the other user's behavior. Trust your instincts. Guard your anonymity. Sites often allow...

The American Association for Retired Persons now calls itself simply "AARP" because some members are offended by the term "retired" and it wants to appeal to younger Americans. But the organization is now trying to explain a far more serious and deceptive practice. It hired an admitted former drug user and dealer as an editor of its 22-million circulation magazine. He has emerged as a spokesman on the so-called "medical marijuana" issue, telling America that seniors might benefit from smoking dope. With the assistance of Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch International, anti-drug activists Joyce Nalepka and Dee Rathbone uncovered the...

With his 86-inch wingspan and sculpted tree-trunk arms, Chevon Troutman's tattoos are hard to miss. They are not decoration, nor were they done on a whim. Troutman designed his bodywork, and they hold special meaning. The first one, needled onto his left arm, is a cross with the words "Only the strong survive." The second, on his other arm, reads: "God knows my destiny." A 6-foot-7 senior forward on the Pitt basketball team, Troutman has looked to those words for inspiration over his five years at Pitt. There were times, especially early on, when he had his doubts about making...

A Morgantown couple fired from their jobs at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in May filed a lawsuit against the agency last week, saying they were discriminated against because of their Iranian background and Islamic faith. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Aliakbar and Shahla Afshari, released information about the lawsuit Monday. According to co-counsel Robert Bastress, a WVU law professor and cooperating attorney with the ACLU, the Afsharis went to work May 5 and were told they had failed a background check. The couple was then escorted from the laboratories....

(Excerpt:) "Kerry is an odd mix. There's Kerry the Eliot Ness crusader who takes on tough cases to serve justice. There's Kerry the dispassionate policy advocate who can appear more intrigued with issues than with making contact. His politics bounce between the two. He assails the flow of private money into campaigns; he sides with portions of the corporate political agenda. He hews to the liberal line on universal healthcare and increasing wages, but he has displayed more interest in the subject of international crime--hardly an unimportant topic, but one that does not stir many souls. Does that indicate he's...

Closing Gun-Control Loopholes The Supreme Court Monday refused to hear a legal challenge to California's ban on assault weapons. The decision sends another powerful signal to those who would use the Second Amendment as an argument for the rights of individuals to own guns, including the National Rifle Association. Surely the right to keep and bear arms, outside a militia, shouldn't include Uzis, AK-47s, and similar assault weapons. The high court's decision should also firmly set Congress on course to renew the federal ban on assault weapons when it expires next year. But when it comes to keeping guns out...

The federal appeals court in San Francisco that found the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional Wednesday is known as an activist court whose decisions regularly are overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, legal analysts said yesterday. "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' liberal record ... and its reputation as the most overturned court in the country ... have almost grown to the status of an urban myth," said Steven Fitschen, president of the National Legal Foundation. Mr. Fitschen noted that in 1996-97, the Supreme Court issued opinions in nearly 90 cases. "It reversed 27 of the 28 rulings it got from...

COUNTDOWN (454 DAYS) TO VICTORY '04 -- IN FOCUS -- NATIONAL SECURITY With the President in Crawford and the Congress adjourned for the August recess, we are going to change Countdown for the next week to provide you information from White House including In Focus reports that started last Thursday with Iraq at COUNTDOWN (458 DAYS) TO VICTORY '04 -- Operation Iraqi Freedom -- A White House Special Report -- MANDATORY READING!These Reports will give you a perspective of where the President stands on the various issues and allow you to defend the President from attacks that are coming...

Justice Department officials have linked terrorism watch lists to the system that performs background checks to clear gun purchasers, department officials said today. "We have linked up various terrorist lists to be checked by the [National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)]" a senior Justice Department official said. "But the system is there for the Brady Law. It is used only for preventing prohibited persons [such as felons and illegal aliens] from purchasing firearms, but mere suspicion of criminal activity is not necessarily a prohibitive factor." For that reason, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is working with the State Department...

<p>I can't believe the gall of Democrats who question the cost and motives of President Bush's visit to USS Abraham Lincoln ("Suicide Dems," Opinion, John Podhoretz, May 9). This, after eight years of a president who every time you turned around was at a fundraiser. How'd he get to those events? Walk? As they say, the cost of raising the spirits of our fighting men and women - priceless!</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense contractor Lockheed-Martin will develop a new system to check background information and assign a threat level to all commercial air passengers, the Transportation Department announced.</p> <p>The company, which employed Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta in the mid-1990s, was awarded a five-year contract to administer the program. The first phase of the contract is worth $12.8 million, transportation officials said.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 17 Universe Age from Microwave Background Credit: WMAP Science Team, NASA Explanation: The above sky map tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old -- but how? At first look, one only sees the microwave glow of gas from our Milky Way Galaxy, coded red, and a spotty pattern of microwaves emitted from the early universe, coded in gray. The gray cosmic microwave background is...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 9 COBE Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe Credit: DMR, COBE, NASA, Four-Year Sky Map Explanation: Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed...