Free Republic

6th Annual Rally for the Troops will be held on Sunday April 20, 2008 at 11:00 PM in downtown Cleveland’s Public Square. Free Parking at Tower City Parking lots. Last year an estimated 5000 motorcyclist attended the Rally. Bikes will stage at 8:30 AM from Cleveland Harley Davidson Sales Company (W145 and Lorain), Lake Erie Harley Davidson (Avon Ohio); South East Harley Davidson (Bedford Hts. Ohio) and Western Reserve Harley Davidson (Mentor Ohio). Bikes will depart for downtown Cleveland at 9:30 AM. Jim Mantel of WGAR will MC the Rally and Monica Robins of WKYC will sing the National Anthem....

By Ann Shibler Published: 2008-04-07 New "anti-terrorism" rules ordered up by DHS for those who fish the Great Lakes are causing a wave of dissent. While still leaving our southern border wide open, the northern border will be protected by stricter security rules heavily enforced by the DHS, particularly for those tall-tale-telling anglers. Follow this link to the original source: "Going fishing? Pack your passport" COMMENTARY: Starting with the 2008 charter fishing season on the Great Lakes, and particularly impacting Lake Erie because of its geography and popularity among anglers, fishermen will now have to have their passports or two...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Four crew members died Sunday and another was missing after a Seattle-based fishing boat began sinking in high seas off Alaska's Aleutian Islands, the Coast Guard said. The dead were among 47 crew members who abandoned ship after the 184-foot Alaska Ranger developed problems. Forty-two crew members were recovered safely, but a search was continuing for the missing person, said Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane. The vessel started taking on water shortly before 3 a.m. after losing control of its rudder 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor, which is on Unalaska Island.

A few months ago, a day before one of the occasional marches the Capital sees demanding an end to the Iraq War, I began the descent into the Metro stop near my office, looked up, and saw a number of representatives of Code Pink standing at the railing overlooking the escalator. Or rather, I heard them first. They were screaming at the parade of commuters, at the top of their lungs and in a tone somewhere between simple frustration and righteous anger, "End the war!!!" Well, I thought, that ought to take care of things. Good work, hippies! I kid...

SAN FRANCISCO, Actor Sean Penn and Peace Activist Cindy Sheehan will headline "Iraq: 5 Years Too Many", an event marking the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Also featured will be Reverend Gregory Stewart, Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; and Justin Raimondo, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com. The program will begin at 5pm on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin Street (near Geary) in San Francisco. After the speakers finish, attendees will march to the War Memorial Auditorium on Van Ness...

FOLCROFT, Pa. - A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued two PECO workers who became trapped Wednesday more than 100 feet in the air after their ground equipment malfunctioned. The men were not injured. They couldn't get down after the bucket truck they were in malfunctioned and was no longer stable, authorities said. The men had strapped themselves to the 140-foot pole to await the rescue that occurred approximately two hours later. The incident took place on the 1500 block of Chester Pike near railroad tracks. The unidentified PECO workers became stranded at 10:15 a.m. The aerial platform seemed to be...

Some columns write themselves. Some are a struggle and leave me confused, conflicted and a little angry. This is one of those. It started out as a tongue-in-cheek look at the recent action by the city council in Berkeley, Calif., to oust the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office and brand the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” I planned to compare the situation in that strange city with our fairly-liberal-but-not-ridiculously-so approach here in Corvallis. Then I started doing research. I learned that an anti-military organization has access to our high school students equal to that of the U.S. Armed Forces. The...

A U.S. Coast Guard officer and devout Catholic has filed suit to prevent being forced to receive a vaccination derived from the lung of an aborted child after a higher ranking officer disputed his understanding of Church theology. The Alliance Defense Fund filed a complaint last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Healy, charging the government with using its own arbitrary judgment of what constitutes Catholic theology while permitting religious exemptions to others, effectively discriminating against Healy's sincerely held religious beliefs. Healy's request for religious exemption cited a 2005...

Coastguard who saved girl twice quits over health and safety row     Steve Bird A coastguard who risked his life to save a teenage girl stranded on a cliff ledge has resigned after he was criticised for breaching health and safety rules during the rescue. Paul Waugh, 44, was so concerned for the 13-year-old girl that he clambered down to her in gale-force winds without waiting to fit safety harnesses. The father of three, who was hailed as a hero and received an award for stopping the girl from falling 300ft as she waited for an RAF rescue...

Recording an entry in the Coast Guard log is usually a staid affair. But once a year, on New Year's Eve, some writers show their poetic flair. This year, the tradition of applying verse to the midnight log - normally a matter-of-fact accounting of the day's events - fell at the Curtis Bay Coast Guard station to Petty Officer Stephen Park...

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have expressed interest in the 30-ft.-long Protector, which comes mounted with a machine gun and could be retrofitted for commercial use. Robots versus pirates -- it's not as stupid, or unlikely, as it sounds. Piracy has exploded in the waters near Somalia, where this past week United States warships have fired on two pirate skiffs, and are currently in pursuit of a hijacked Japanese-owned vessel. At least four other ships in the region remain under pirate control, and the problem appears to be going global: The International Maritime Bureau is tracking a 14-percent increase...

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is searching part of Prince William Sound this morning for a LifeGuard helicopter that went missing last night en route to Providence Alaska Medical Center with a patient aboard, the Coast Guard said. The U.S. Air Force is expected to launch a C-130 and a helicopter this morning to assist in the search...

11/12/2007 - Several remain closed, as crews in hazmat suits work to clean up the shoreline. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi grilled the U.S. Coast Guard Monday during a tour of her district's environmental disaster caused by last week's 58,000 gallon oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. It's clear a Congressional investigation is coming over the notification: why it took 8 hours to determine it was much more than the 140-gallon spill, they first reported. And why it took another four hours after that to notify the public. "The fact that this could happen raises serious questions about what the...

Would anyone like a free dinner at Golden Corral? Well, there is an easy way if you are an American military veteran. Golden Corral just announced this year’s Military Appreciation Monday will be November 12, 2007, from 5 to 9 pm. For the past 6 years, Golden Corral has been honoring the US Military with a free “thank you” dinner and beverage at any Golden Corral restaurant on Military Appreciation Monday (first Monday after Veteran’s Day), to honor any person who has ever served in the United States Military. In the past the only requirement to receive the free meal...

Mr. Chairmen, Ranking Members, Members of the Committees, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of the security situation in Iraq and to discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward. At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress. As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the...

The ignominious fall of Senator Larry Craig casts new light on the importance of the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning open homosexuals from military service. If preventing public sex in airport men’s rooms is important enough to justify the deployment of undercover cops, isn’t it similarly significant to avoid, at all costs, sexual encounters in military latrines? Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities? Of course, advocates for gays in the military will...

TOMS RIVER (1010 WINS) -- A fiery streak across the sky got the attention of the Coast Guard Saturday night, after the reported fireball crashed into the waters off the Jersey Shore. Concerned calls started coming in from South Carolina to Long Island about 9 p.m. Coast Guard boats were searching near the site of the reported impact, off Normandy Beach in Toms River, about 10 miles off shore. No debris has been found in the water. The Toms River Fire Department says it also got some calls and there were at least 20 people on the beach with the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2007 – The September edition of the Pentagon Channel’s monthly documentary “Recon” will focus on the Coast Guard’s efforts in the Caribbean Sea’s most perilous waterway. Small-boat crews from the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba transfer Haitian migrants from an overloaded sail freighter to the Escanaba. The 101 Haitian migrants eventually were repatriated to Cap Haitien, Haiti. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Newland  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The show, titled “Perilous Passage,” will provide an inside look at the men and women of the Coast Guard who patrol Mona Passage,...

AN EPIDEMIC of obesity could have serious consequences for America's economy and its ability to defend itself, according to a leading politician. Self-confessed "recovering foodaholic" Mike Huckabee, a Republican Party presidential candidate, told a group of governors from the American South that the increasing numbers of people who were either over-weight or obese meant more and more people were having to take time off work for health reasons. And Mr Huckabee, who lost 110lb - nearly 8st - several years ago when he was governor of Arkansas, said he was concerned by reports that nearly two-thirds of American military personnel...

Standing atop a pile of rocks in Lower New York Bay nearly four miles north of Sandy Hook, the faded Romer Shoal Lighthouse has a colorful past and an uncertain future. The 109-year-old lighthouse was recently honored with a designation as an historic site on both the national and state registries. But that doesn't ensure it will even remain in New Jersey. While the sparkplug-like, 54-foot-tall lighthouse still throws its signal of two white flashes every 15 seconds as far as 15 miles to sea, it is a forlorn sight. Dirty paint -- top-half red, bottom-half white -- is peeling...