Free Republic

To the "Honorable" Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, California: As a citizen of the United States of America, I find your comments today beyond insulting. Your competence to hold the hallowed office of House Speaker should be questioned. During a press conference today, you said of Republicans... "They like this war. They want this war to continue." Let me be clear: No Republican I know "likes" war. I know of no Republican that woke up this morning, happy in the knowledge that someone, somewhere in the world, was the latest casualty of a war.

Anybody shacking up at the Hyatt Regency this weekend for the rally festivities besides my husband and myself?

If you want to shut down a debate, simply call your opponent a Nazi. It’s quick, easy and requires no thought whatsoever. Laugh at your opponent without allowing him to speak. Oh, and make a film about your point of view and name it “The Truth.” It’s worked well for the global warming bandwagoners – and conservatives can’t seem to get out of defensive mode. "Every time you address the Holocaust, you don’t bring somebody in that says it didn’t happen. And we’re at that stage now. We have Holocaust deniers; we have climate change deniers. And to be honest,...

SUSPECTED AL-QAEDA EMIR, ELEVEN OTHERS DETAINED IN RAIDS THROUGHOUT IRAQ BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition Forces detained 12 suspected terrorists including a suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq emir during raids Tuesday morning targeting foreign fighter facilitators and the al-Qaeda in Iraq network. During an operation in Baghdad, Coalition Forces captured a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq emir and three of his associates. Based on intelligence reports, these suspects are allegedly involved in the production of improvised explosive devices. Also in Baghdad, Coalition Forces detained two suspected terrorists who have alleged ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq and anti-Coalition Forces activities. Two suspected terrorists were...

USS JOHN C. STENNIS, At Sea (NNS) -- The USS John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group (JCSSG) entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations (AOO) Feb.19 to conduct Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in regional waters, as well as to provide support for ground forces operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. Led by Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn, Commander, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 3, the strike group includes the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON)21, the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54), guided-missile destroyers USS O’Kane (DDG 77) and USS Preble...

Henryk Broder, one of Germany’s few contrarian journalists, recently wrote a book decrying the weakness of the free West in the face of Islamic fanaticism. Tongue firmly in cheek, he called it: Hurra, Wir Kapitulieren, (Hurray! We're Capitulating). Broder was primarily addressing Europe’s political class. But if the machinations of the Democratic Congress last week are any indication, the tendency toward gleeful submission before enemy forces cannot be dismissed as an exclusively Continental phenomenon. Exhibit A in this tendency was the passage on Friday of the “non-binding” House resolution condemning President Bush’s strategy of boosting troop levels in Baghdad. If...

SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. -- He was an American hero. On his second tour of duty in Iraq, he had already served in the Western Pacific and a prior combat tour in Afghanistan. On Friday afternoon, Feb. 16, when Sgt. Joshua Frazier, USMC, was laid to rest in the soil of his native Virginia, his comrades in arms from the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines were fighting terrorists on the mean streets of Ramadi, in Iraq's bloody Al Anbar Province. As Sgt. Frazier's grieving mother was being presented with a carefully folded American flag, the Congress of the United States was debating a...

When Sulejmen Talovic entered the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City Monday night with a shotgun, a pistol, and a backpack full of ammunition, he intended to “kill a large number of people,” according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank. Talovic killed five people and wounded four before he himself was killed by an off-duty Ogden police officer who happened to be in the mall. Why did Talovic do it? No one knows. Talovic’s aunt, Ajka Omerovic, told reporters: “We want to know what happened, just like you guys. We have no idea...We know him as a...

A letter from Mosul By Cal Thomas Tuesday, February 13, 2007 With the House debating this week how much "non-binding" grief to lay on President Bush about Iraq, I e-mailed a soldier friend of mine for his impressions of the increasingly amplified protests. Army Sgt. Daniel Dobson, 22, of Grand Rapids, Mich., is on his second tour in Iraq. I asked him what he thinks of the growing opposition to the war. Writing from Mosul, he says he appreciates the freedom Americans have to protest, but adds: "The American military has shown a stone-cold professional veneer throughout the seething debate...

A sea change is beginning to occur in Iraq: for the first time since the insurgency took off, the terrorists are starting to run. This is occurring not because the United States has successfully promoted political dialogue among Iraq’s torn communities, although a successful dialogue is certainly to be desired. It is occurring not because the United States has given in to the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission and others, who have suggested a policy of unilateral capitulation to the terror-masters pulling the strings of the insurgency in Damascus and Tehran. Nor is it occurring because we have suddenly become...

USS JOHN C. STENNIS, At Sea (NNS) -- The USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) Carrier Strike Group (JCSSG) entered the U.S. 7th Fleet’s area of responsibility (AOR) Jan. 31, as part of a deployment to promote peace, regional cooperation and stability. While Stennis and the rest of the strike group, led by Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn, is scheduled to transit from 7th Fleet to U.S. Central Command to provide support for coalition forces operating there, JCSSG remains ready to respond to any mission in any theatre of operation. “Our strike group provides an agile, flexible, responsive and robust set...

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) Sailors said goodbye to their family members and friends Jan. 16, as the ship departed Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton for San Diego to onload Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9. The carrier, with its embarked air wing, USS Antietam (CG 54), and USS Preble (DDG 88), will deploy from San Diego Saturday, Jan. 20. USS O'Kane (DDG 77) and USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) will deploy from their homeport of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Stennis is the flagship for Commander, Carrier Strike Group (CCSG) 3, headed by Rear Adm. Kevin M. Quinn....

President Bush went easy on the word “victory” on Wednesday. In his entire 2,916 word speech outlining a new Iraq strategy, he used it only twice, and in the same paragraph. “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved,” the president warned. “There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world -- a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.” Precious few are the American politicians who dare...

It is difficult to make O.J. Simpson seem like a model of authorial integrity. But with the release of his latest book, a biliously anti-Israel screed titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter may be credited with that dubious achievement. Start with Carter’s cynical use of the word “apartheid” to smear the Jewish state. As Carter makes clear in his book, he does not, titular histrionics aside, subscribe to the demonstrable absurdity that Israel is an apartheid state. The alleged injustice of Israeli policies “is unlike that in South Africa—not racism, but the acquisition of land,” Carter writes toward the...

The unsurprising victory of Venezuelan song and dance artist Hugo Chavez in his re-election bid on Sunday was warmly welcomed around the world. Chavez friends in Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua were pleased. Castro and Daniel Ortega must think someone flipped a switch and they’re back in the early 1980s – only this time, there’s no President Reagan and no Contras. The Iranian Foreign ministry welcomed the Chavez victory, and didn’t even threaten to raise oil prices to $200 per barrel. That’s for next week. Al Jazeera knew the results even before the votes were cast, and showed Chavez with Mahmoud...

In current debates over gay relationships and their position in society, we’ve moved beyond a plea for acceptance and equality to an increasingly strident claim of homosexual superiority and a demand for special status and endorsement. In a recent syndicated column about Pastor Ted Haggard, the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals who confessed to a three year affair with a gay, drug-dealing prostitute, Ellen Goodman wrote of “people who heard a man wounded by the culture of demonization. Their sympathy was for a man primed for repression and deception by the teaching of homosexuality as a sin…...

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran. He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism -- my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest...

There is a big "no-no" in America today - under no circumstances is a person who engages in homosexuality allowed to be 'pro-choice.' It is of the utmost threat to the elite radicals that are guiding the homosexual agenda, and it is the fundamental issue on which the rest of the entire house of cards is built. One person engaging in homosexuality suddenly making a decision to choose - and the total lie is unwrapped - warts and all. It is this fundamental view of homosexual activity that the activists must keep alive in order to stake the rest of...

Given the right circumstances, liberal feminists, activist lawyers, and judges who should be impeached for their lack of judgement - will first allow and then defend the cold-blooded shooting of an innocent child. They did so this week. Tammy Skinner is a 22 year old mother who has now twice had her case dismissed in Virginia. On the due date of her third pregnancy, she went into contractions, and in her own words, "got scared." She grabbed her gun, drove herself to a secluded used car lot, "told the LORD that her mind was not right,"pointed the gun at her...

Terror suspect contributed to school 'religion guidelines' Issued by Clinton, rules let students pray to Allah, but banish Christmas A man arrested as a terror suspect for allegedly trying to transport $340,000 from a group tied to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and who reputedly had connections to Osama bin Laden, helped write the "Religious Expression in Public Schools" guidelines issued by President Clinton during his tenure in office. And that could explain why students at a California school were told as part of their required classes they would become Muslims and pray to Allah – and a federal judge approved...