Free Republic

Green groups and activists for the developing world on Thursday accused rich nations of tiptoeing away from vows to seal a binding, far-reaching UN treaty on climate change in Copenhagen next month. Their bitter response came after European Union (EU) negotiators in Barcelona spelt out the likelihood that the much-trumpeted pact would be concluded in 2010, not at the December 7-18 meeting as planned. The talks, launched under a two-year "road map" in Bali, call for a global accord to curb emissions of heat-trapping carbon gases beyond 2012 and channel funds to poor countries most threatened by drought, floods, storms...

On the day I born, June 9th, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy was asked the famous question; “Have you no sense of decency sir?”. Some members of the media who saw an opening, pounced on the opportunity, and never looked back. This would become the beginning of the end of the anti-communist mood in America. It would be the birth of terms like McCarthyism, Redbaiting, and Blacklisting. The heirs of this movement are much more numerous today than in 1954, and the true journalists have been replaced by mere actors, playing the part of journalists. We have gone from a nation...

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

I have discussed with Freepers over the last 4 months that I am back in school earning my Masters degree. Today my head about exploded when not only my professor but people (grown adults) said Communism was a fear on paper but never a real threat to the U.S. Let me give you direct quotes taken from today's lecture. "Exactly where does communism fit in today's classroom, newspapers, and television sets? It doesn't, only the right wing fringe in this country wants you to believe that is the case, where is the proof? America feared communism based on it being...

For nearly three decades the Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War - it divided a city and in effect the entire country. And then on November 9, 1989 it crumbled and with it Communist East Germany and the Cold War itself. On the outskirts of Berlin lies the Glienicke Bridge. It spans the Havel River and connects Berlin to the neighboring city of Potsdam. Its idyllic setting belies a darker history. During the height of the Cold War, it was known as the Bridge of Spies - where communist and western officials exchanged secret agents that had...

When Van Jones resigned his White House job, under fire for his pro-communist views, White House adviser David Axelrod said that Jones had himself made the decision to leave the administration. But new documents indicate that Jones didn't even write his own resignation letter. It is now abundantly clear that he was pushed out because the scandal threatened to implicate Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett in the scandal that gave him a critical White House position without proper vetting. Jones, a self-identified communist, was an anti-police activist in Oakland, California, before an extreme makeover landed him at...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro "looks wonderful," World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan said on Wednesday, after meeting the 83-year-old who resigned the presidency last year due to ailing health. Chan, speaking at the end of her first visit to Cuba, said she met with Castro for more two hours on Tuesday during which he displayed a "truly impressive" knowledge of healthcare issues and looked to be in good condition. "I'm a doctor, I understand the importance of confidentiality, but I have to say he looks wonderful," Chan told a press conference in Havana. When their...

HAVANA (AP) - Michael Douglas staged an impromptu walking tour of the Cuban capital's historic district Tuesday, posing for photos with construction workers and surprised residents. His visit came two days after fellow Oscar-winner Sean Penn arrived in Cuba, reportedly seeking an interview with 82-year-old Fidel Castro, who has been little seen since announcing he was suffering from an unspecified illness in July 2006. He stepped down as Cuba's president in February of the following year and was replaced by his brother Raul. Penn traveled to the Isle of Youth, off mainland Cuba on Monday to meet with local artists....

A BUST of Russia's muscle-flexing strongman Vladimir Putin is being created as a gift for ex-Hollywood bodybuilder and California's current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bust is currently being made in Putin's home city of Saint Petersburg on an order of Russia's Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation and will be delivered to the movie star-turned-politician in March. "Putin is such a complex personality. He's left no one indifferent," Alexander Chernoshchyokov, a Saint Petersburg-based sculptor who has been working on the Putin bust since June... In 1991 the Russian artist made a sculpture of Schwarzenegger and Vladimir Dubinin, the president of the bodybuilding...

One of Fidel Castro's sisters says in a memoir released Monday that she collaborated with the CIA against her brother, starting shortly after the United States' failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Juanita Castro, 76, initially supported her brother's 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly grew disillusioned. In a Spanish-language memoir published by Santillana USA and co-written by journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, she says the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to Cuba persuaded her to meet a CIA officer during a trip to Mexico in 1961. By then, her house had already become a sanctuary...

If Fidel Castro and Sean Penn are in the same room, which one do you think hates America more? Such a question doesn't seem to concern Vanity Fair who according to the website TMZ has hired Penn to write an article about how Barack Obama and his administration have impacted Cuba.

Here's a video from Glenn Beck which seems to show interim White House communications director Anita Dunn listing two of her "favorite political philosophers" in a speech: Mother Teresa and... Mao Tse Tung.

A Russian historian investigating the fate of Germans imprisoned in the Soviet Union during the second world war has been arrested, in the latest apparent clampdown on historical research into the Stalin era by the Russian authorities. Mikhail Suprun was detained last month by officers from Russia's security services. They searched his apartment and carried off his entire personal archive. He has now been charged with violating privacy laws and, if convicted, faces up to four years in jail. Suprun had been researching Germans sent to Russia's Arctic gulags. A professor of history at Arkhangelsk's Pomorskiy university, his study included...

On September 10th of this year the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) posted a press release informing the world that “from October 19-25, more than 60 network TV shows [will] spotlight the power and personal benefits of service,” and that this “unprecedented block of TV programming is the first wave of a multi-year ‘I Participate’ campaign.”

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development. The president issued a little-noticed "presidential determination" Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Most historians in Russia and the West agree that Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people. But now a bizarre libel hearing is under way at a Moscow court that could clear the name of the power-crazed Soviet dictator, widely considered one of history’s most vicious tyrants.

An Article Published in the October/09/ 2009 by newspaper DanTri in Hanoi indicated police arrested two suspects as they committed assault other people are journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and her Husband . http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-355166/tran-khai-thanh-thuy-bi-bat-ve-toi-co-y-gay-thuong-tich.htm The photo which shown an injured man Nguyen Manh Diep in the hospital (Anh Nguyễn Mạnh �iệp bị đánh vỡ đầu) actually a fake photo . The photo was taken in 2005 and later photoshop the date imprinted on the photo to Oct/09/2009 In order to make it looks genuinely as the recent date . The said photo above could be opened by using wordpad to...

Albert Axell, the American military writer, historian and author of Marshall Zhukov: The Man Who Beat Hitler, explains just how much the West has undervalued the Soviet Union’s contribution to victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Related Articles The Red Army saved Europe Dancing with Hitler at the abyss Hidden past inside the secret cities Do you believe people are still interested in WWII, which was over a fairly long time ago? My friend, a British professor, told me about a survey that revealed striking ignorance: 95pc of young people in the UK believe Germany was an...

<p>It began with a thinly sourced but highly explosive report Monday in a British newspaper: Arab oil sheikhs are conspiring with the Russians and Chinese to quit using the dollar to set the value of oil trades – a direct threat to the global supremacy of the greenback.</p>

Barack Obama is fighting a lot of political wars these days. The most important, is the war over the war in Afghanistan. Then there's the war over health care. And spending. And the environment. And financial regulation. And on and on. They're all serious and time consuming. But the war that has become unexpectedly intense in recent days isn't about any particular policy. It's the war over personnel -- the president's choices to fill important but not necessarily high-profile jobs in his administration. Some of Obama's choices have been people with radical pasts -- or radical presents. Others are so...

Good grief. You begin to wonder if the man has a list of Friendly Leaders I Still Need to Offend. The Washington Post is reporting that the Dalai Lama went to Washington this week – apparently expecting to be received at the White House – only to find that his meeting with the president has been “postponed… until after Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month.” According to the Post, this is the “first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president.” The snub could...

The first tank phalanx receives inspection in a parade of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, on Chang'an Street in central Beijing China today celebrated its wealth and rising might with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles in Beijing, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism. Tiananmen Square became a hi-tech stage to celebrate the birth of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, with President Hu Jintao, wearing a slate grey 'Mao' suit, and the Communist Party leadership watching the...

A libertarian non-profit organization in Washington today announced it was filing suit against the Obama administration for failing to adequately disclose global warming documents. As we reported two weeks ago the Competitive Enterprise Institute deemed inadequate the Treasury Department's response to a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on cap-and-trade. Months after the FOIA request, Treasury responded by giving CEI five documents and emails, when the group had expected 50. "Your response fails any reasonable test for compliance with FOIA and constitutes an effective denial of our request," CEI's Christopher Horner stated in the notice of appeal filed with...

Translated from the Portuguese. Author asked that his article be forwarded, so I do not believe there are any copyright violations in translating it in full. My comments and clarifications in brackets [] If you click here: http://vimeo.com/6825710, you will have access to a video which you could hear the voice of David Romero, director of Globo radio, who supports Manuel Zelaya. It is that radio which sufferd intervention from the interim government, accused of inciting violence, and which impassioned Bolibarian Brazilians. Listening to what is there, you have a notion of who these people are. Zelaya has accused that...

On the eve of the French Revolution, the aristocrats inhabiting the palace of Versailles enjoyed, “as an ironic lark, sporting the clothing of the working classes,” according to writer Charles Stenson. These pampered elites were undisturbed by the fact that their peasant getups mocked the real peasants, many of whom were dying as a result of the elites’ self-serving policies. These clueless aristocrats have descendents in spoiled college kids who think it’s trendy to idolize Communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che’s face is emblazoned on T-shirts, he was glamorized by the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and Time magazine described him...

Should one of New York's great landmarks be used to honor of the 60th anniversary of the bloody Communist uprising and takeover of China?

On the eve of the French Revolution, the aristocrats inhabiting the palace of Versailles enjoyed, “as an ironic lark, sporting the clothing of the working classes,” according to writer Charles Stenson. These pampered elites were undisturbed by the fact that their peasant getups mocked the real peasants, many of whom were dying as a result of the elites’ self-serving policies. These clueless aristocrats have descendents in spoiled college kids who think it’s trendy to idolize Communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che’s face is emblazoned on T-shirts, he was glamorized by the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and Time magazine described him...

William “Bill” Ayers is a terrorist. Just ask him. In his memoir Fugitive Days, he admits planting bombs in federal buildings such as the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol (“Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” he writes). He was one of the founders of the radical terrorist group the Weather Underground. Escaping justice because of prosecutorial misconduct, he transformed himself into a respected academic, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. There is perhaps no better symbol of the 1960s moral relativist than he. It is not every day that a self-described terrorist and...

<p>TEGUCIGALPA (AP) — The de facto government of Honduras extended the curfew until Wednesday at 6:00 AM after dispersing with gas and nightsticks hundreds of supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya, who remains at the Brazilian Embassy.</p> <p>A defiant Zelaya stated from the diplomatic compound that, for him, the motto is "restitution or death, which is an allegorical phrase that has been used since the French Revolution....we are ready for anything: for risk, for sacrifice."</p>

Link only, due to Wired's copyright complaints. Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday MachineI'm posting this without any text, because I think it's important. The "Doomsday" machine is apparently real, and still operational. Read the article for more details.

Honduras' de facto ruler does not plan to confront Brazil, but says the country's ousted president can stay at the embassy for "5 to 10 years," Reuters reported Tuesday. Deposed President Manuel Zelaya's surprise return to Honduras to reclaim his seat had him holed up in the Brazilian Embassy Tuesday, saying he feared for his life as heavily armed soldiers marched outside and helicopters buzzed overhead. Water, electricity and phone lines had been cut, and neighboring buildings taken over by the military.... Zelaya, forced out of his country at gunpoint, triumphantly popped up in the capital on Monday...Interim President Roberto...

Last night Esquire threw a party for Michael Moore's new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, which all about the vulgar displays of income inequality in this country and how Americans are suffering as a result of the recession. Then according to one person who attended the premiere, this happened: Following the Premiere, Esquire shuttles many of the attendees straight down to SoHo to the opening of The Esquire Apartment – a fully decadent penthouse where every square inch is paid for by a luxury sponsor. Hot tub, $120k pool table, $60k home theater, fine food. The only thing lacking was...

When the list of donors to the Van Jones “Green for All” organization is examined, one name stands out — the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros. The Green for All 2008 annual report is also notable for the pictures of the powerful people who associated with Jones, a known communist. They include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore. While the Open Society Institute was supporting Green for All in 2008, when Jones was running it, the Soros-funded organization was also financially underwriting the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights when Jones was in charge...

The best person to answer that question would be a communist. Since I don't have a communist under my bed (I looked), I turned to the Communist Party USA as a source. Here then, is my report on what the CPUSA has been up to recently (or at least what it is willing to post on its public web site). http://www.cpusa.org/ (Some of you might be thinking it a bit retro to call someone a communist. I am very aware that we cannot read what is written in the heart of another man. But when a person is a member...

The map of the collapse of the United States in 2010, made by Russian scientist of politics Igor Panarin, has received millions of views in the United States over one day only. The Wall Street Journal published the map on its front page at the end of 2008. Alaska is pictured on the map as a part of Russia. Hawaii were shown as a territory of Japan, whereas four new states were pictured on the territory of the USA: the Californian Republic, the Central North American Republic, the Texas Republic and the Atlantic America, which included the traditional states. BREAKING...

Events were not supposed to have turned out this way: Stalin is making a comeback in Russia, the Chinese Communist Party controls capitalism in China, Venezuela — once a friend of the United States — is now a neo-Marxist state, and Latin America itself is dominated by communist or far left regimes. When the Berlin Wall was destroyed by jubilant West Berlin youth, the nightmare was believed to be over. The communist true believers, however, are again a threat to humanity — even within the U.S. government. It is a story gets little coverage in the centralized media. Instead of...

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday. Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment. Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support. She said he was breathing unaided, had...

I really admire Van Jones, Obama's former "green jobs" appointee. Some would say it's maybe even a crush. He wrote "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems." He also co-founded both the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green for All. I met him at a Green For All conference held in Memphis several years ago and I was impressed by his vision, his leadership skills, and the way people flock to him. So I was disappointed to see that, after being the victim of a weeks-long smear campaign by Fox News' Glenn...

Michael Moore solidified his position as one of the biggest phonies of our times while at a recent Venice Film Festival outing. He debuted his latest sham documentary called “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Thanks to the free enterprise system, Moore has become super wealthy himself, which makes the two-hour flick a case study in hypocrisy. “Capitalism is an evil,” Moore proclaims, “and you cannot regulate evil.” According to Moore, regulating capitalism doesn't work, so his prescription is, “You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.” Guess it...

TeleSUR, Venezuela From 15 hours ago. (Van) Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs and Environment Innovation of the White House, submitted his resignation early Sunday, as the product of a great scandal generated when ventilating himself in support of an organization that offered that ex-President George Bush was complicit in the attacks on September 11th. This is an adviser of the current president of the United States, Barack Obama, and that worked in the Council of Environmental Quality office, had to apologize already in public, after the existence was known a recording in which he made offensive signallings against...

A mysterious YouTube member named, conveniently, “megwhitmanonvanjones,” has uploaded a May 2009 San Francisco Chronicle video of 2010 GOP California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, in which the former CEO of eBay and former adviser to Mitt Romney and John McCain gushes about suddenly controversial green jobs czar Van Jones. "There’s a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And a lot of the work he’s doing to enfranchise broader communities I’m a...

HAVANA – Cuban state media have released a second recent photo showing Fidel Castro in regular civilian clothing instead of the track suits that he commonly wore after falling ill in July 2006. In the picture, the 83-year-old Castro is shaking hands with the visiting head of the Chinese parliament in the walled backyard of an undisclosed home. Castro is wearing a red, short-sleeve dress shirt as he greets National People's Congress leader Wu Bangguo. ..

White House green jobs czar Van Jones had apologized twice this week for making regrettable statements and there may be another one coming. His name is posted online in support of an October 2006 petition to stop police brutality posted by the Revolution newspaper, which describes itself as the “Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.” The petition was created by a group called the October 22nd Coalition that seeks to "meet the intensifying nationwide epidemic of police brutality with resistance on the national level" and says it works with the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal....

Apparently science has discovered the one force in nature that can silence Michael Moore: The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the premiere of his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, looming on September 16 at the Toronto Film Festival, normally you’d expect to find Moore filling up every inch of media, shocking the bourgeoisie with his trademark Angry Guy Banging on the Palace Walls shtick, providing Matt Drudge with a new outrageous quote every news cycle. But Moore has been strangely silent in this run-up and the LA Times‘ Patrick Goldstein has learned that he plans to keep a lid on...

"The Kennedy family, in particular the assassinated President, John F. Kennedy, were representative of a new generation of Americans confronting the old and dirty politics of men in the mold of Nixon...The Kennedy family's (role) in Barack Obama's electoral victory should not be overlooked. Without that moral, political and financial support, the dirty saga of the Bush and Nixon clans would be continuing." That was a portion of an editorial last week in Stalinist Cuba's version of Nazi Germany's Der Sturmer. But no one familiar with Cuban history should doubt the editorials' sincerity. Fidel and Raul Castro, after all, owe...

Obama adviser: Republicans are "a**holes" By Tony Romm - 09/02/09 09:59 AM ET A video in which White House green jobs adviser Van Jones calls Congressional Republicans (and himself) "a**holes" is quickly making the rounds on the Internet this morning. Jones made the off-the-cuff remark in February, during his lecture at a Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) event on the green economy. At the time, the Obama administration had not yet tapped Jones to serve as a special adviser on the White House's Council on Environmental Quality. The slip happened in response to a question about the Democratic Party's...

Capitalism the villain as Moore movie hits Venice Sun Aug 30, 2009 2:59pm EDT By Mike Collett-White LONDON (Reuters) - The Venice film festival has capitalism in its sights this year, with premieres of Michael Moore's documentary on the U.S. economic meltdown and a drama starring Matt Damon as a corrupt corporate whistleblower. "Capitalism: A Love Story," in competition at the annual cinema showcase, sees Moore take on the corporate bosses with his trademark combative style, bringing the hot topic of recession to the picturesque Lido waterfront. And "The Informant!," directed by Steven Soderbergh and featuring Damon as a real-life...

I am writing a paper called "Hollywood Interference" and I would appreciate it if my fellow FReepers could give me quotes and links to their quasi-political activities. I am writing a paper on how actors and actresses have interfered and damaged the US by their interference in affairs of state.

Anyone unfamiliar with her can click below for Michelle Malkin's story: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/28/race-baiter-democrat-rep-diane-watson-praises-cuban-health-system-castro-guevara-who-kicked-out-the-wealthy/ With Lou Gosset Jr, and Dionne Warwick.The Dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks trifecta of Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee and Watson.