Free Republic

Following the collapse of the Senate’s immigration reform bill late last week, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said he’s prepared to move onto other issues. “We’ve got the defense authorization bill coming up the week after the recess,” he said Friday. “And we have a lot of work to do on it. So that’s what we’re working on.” No wonder Kyl is preparing to move onto something else when the Senate resumes its schedule after the weeklong Fourth of July recess. The last issue exposed him to new levels of disrespect. Kyl previously enjoyed something akin to protected status in the...

CHAMBLISS: GEORGIANS HAVE SPOKEN, DEMAND BORDER SECURITY FIRST June 28, 2007 WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., today made the following statement regarding defeat of the immigration reform bill being considered by the U.S. Senate. Chambliss voted “no” on a procedural motion requiring 60 votes to cut off debate on the bill. The motion failed by a vote of 46-53. A lot of people have asked me why I became involved in this process initially, and there is a very simple answer: folks in Georgia sent me to Washington to engage in the issues that are important to America,...

Following is my resignation letter from the Roman Catholic Church and from my position as Director of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), a program designed to teach Catholicism to adults who would like to become Catholics. This letter serves to inform you that I am separating myself from the Roman Catholic Church. This decision has come about after many months of intensive research into the Scriptures, the writings of the Patristic fathers of the church, and church history. During this period of research I have considered the writings and/or oral arguments of such Catholic authors as...

The Corner is reporting that John Kerry will hold a news conference at 2PM to discuss his recent comment.

They're mostly a liberal bunch. Yet the would-be chairmen in a House under Democratic control promise to rule from the center. They'd have little choice, given the likely balance of power they would confront if elected. George W. Bush would still occupy the Oval Office, and no one thinks Democrats could win control of the House by more than a few seats next month. And that would include three dozen or more moderate "blue dog" Democrats. The dynamics ensure that despite the overwhelmingly liberal cast of the chairmen-to-be — as measured by liberal interest groups such as Americans for Democratic...

WASHINGTON - The judge in the CIA leak case ruled Thursday that if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald feels that admitting certain classified documents at the upcoming trial of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby can jeopardize national security, Fitzgerald can then move to dismiss the perjury charges against Libby. Judge Reggie Walton cannot automatically allow classified materials to be admitted at trial. He first must go through a series of closed hearings under CIPA regulations. CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act, protects and restricts the discovery of classified information in a way that does not impair the defendant's right to a fair...

(CBS) Dan Rather is leaving CBS after 44 years with the Tiffany Network. Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, made the announcement. “Of all the famous names associated with CBS News, the biggest and brightest on the marquee are Murrow, Cronkite and Rather,” McManus said. “With the utmost respect, we mark the extraordinary and singular role Dan has played in writing the script of not only CBS News, but of broadcast journalism." CBS News is working on a primetime special on the newsman’s career. It is scheduled to be broadcast sometime this fall. CBS News also will make...

Q: In your new book, "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs," you admit to having underestimated the role that religion would come to play in foreign affairs. People were unprepared for it. I was unprepared for it. What I grew up with was the "rational actor" model of foreign policy — the idea that you're dealing with someone who is going through a rational process and not a spiritual process. One could argue that it's wholly rational to be spiritual. No. Rational is logical, and not faith-based. A rational actor calculates the cost-benefit ratios...

Botched CIA operations may have handed Iran vital information on how to make nuclear weapons and betrayed the identities of America's spies in the country, according to a new book on US intelligence. The latest account of American intelligence failures includes details of how the CIA allegedly tried to slip Teheran some Russian designs for an atomic bomb, which contained hidden flaws that would have made any device inoperable. The Iranians, however, were tipped off by the very agent sent to give them the documents. In a separate incident, the book claims a CIA officer mistakenly sent an Iranian agent...

(CBS/AP) Top Department of Homeland Security officials were told that New Orleans' levees were breached the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, former disaster chief Michael Brown said Friday, contradicting previous statements by agency officials who said they did not know the levees were toppling until the next day. "I find it a little disingenuous," Brown, who at the time headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a Senate oversight committee. "For them to claim that we didn't have awareness of it is just baloney." Brown also told senators that decisions and policies by the parent Homeland Security Department doomed...

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies' mistakes in concluding that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did...

The CIA leak prosecutor refuses to turn over evidence to Lewis Libby. Watchers of the CIA leak investigation are buzzing over a series of letters between prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and lawyers for former Cheney chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. In the letters, contained in motions filed recently by Libby's defense team and released by the court, Fitzgerald steadfastly refused to reveal whether he has any evidence that Bush administration officials violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Espionage Act, or any other law by revealing the identity of CIA employee Valerie Wilson. Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction...

Senator Ted Kennedy, who lambasted Judge Alito on his membership to a Princeton alumni group that once published a satirical editorial that brought on unfounded charges of racism and sexism, was recently caught being a member of a group that did not permit women to become members, exposing his hypocrisy. In a move that can only be described as CYA, Kennedy says he will quit the group. U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy — who ripped Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for ties to a group that discriminates against women — says he’s going to quit a club notorious for discriminating...

<p>It's been a while since I've been here and I forgot my previous name, so I signed up again to post this.</p> <p>I don't think I'll be back here again. I have nothing against anyone, but there hardly seems to be a point. I've come to realize that concepts like "freedom" and "conservatism" are just illusions -- pipe dreams. The reality is that if you live in Outer Moogooland, then you need to elect somebody who will help Outer Moogooland. Better yet, elect somebody you can count on to help you personally.</p>

NBC's senior diplomatic correspondent Andrea Mitchell is claiming that her comments have been deliberately distorted in reports covering a 2003 interview where she said Valerie Plame's identity had been "widely known" before her name appeared in a Robert Novak column. "The fact is that I did not know did not know [Plame's identity] before the Novak column," she told radio host Don Imus on Thursday. "I said it was widely known that an envoy had gone [to Niger]," she insisted. "I said we did not know who the envoy was until the Novak column." But the actual exchange in question...

Interviews in the Virginia governor's race conducted by SurveyUSA tonight Monday 11/7 (but before President Bush appeared in Richmond) show a swing back towards Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore, causing SurveyUSA to now update its final projection in the Virginia Governor's Contest. This morning, based on interviews conducted Friday, Saturday and Sunday (11/4/05 through 11/6/05), SurveyUSA released data that showed Democrat Tim Kaine 9 points ahead of Kilgore. However, because of intra-day volatility in that data, SurveyUSA continued to poll throughout the afternoon and evening today Monday 11/7. When interviews from the most recent 3 days -- Saturday, Sunday and today...

Can you believe that folks actually donate money to The Free Republic.com censors/cheerleaders, when they could otherwise donate to impoverished kids! I posted the first 3 paragraphs of my home page on 10-7-05 at around 6:30 am, with a fresh identity, using treasury as the link source, at freerepublic.com. The thread was pulled in about 5 minutes and my posting privilages revoked. The first reply suggested that Europe had a debt problem as well, to which I replied that the DX might indicate that they might not be increasing their money supply as fast as we are and included a...

............My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative," as the conservative columnist Robert D. Novak first described her in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003. (Mr. Novak used her maiden name, Valerie Plame.) This is what I told a federal grand jury and the special counsel investigating whether administration officials committed a crime by leaking Ms. Plame's identity and the nature of her job to reporters. ..

WASHINGTON -- Contrary to recommendations, CIA Director Porter Goss will not order disciplinary reviews for the agency's former director George Tenet and other officials who have come under fire for their performance before the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. In a statement Wednesday, Goss said a report by the agency's independent watchdog did not suggest "that any one person or group of people could have prevented 9/11." "After great consideration of this report and its conclusion, I will not convene an accountability board to judge the performances of any individual CIA officers," he said. Half of those named in the...

In FR News today, the forum formerly known as “Free” Republic went downhill at an amazing speed. Moderators insanely restrict the postings of fellow conservatives and this long time FReeper JesseP will have no more. The $72,000 pledge drive, told to me by Jim Robinson himself is primarily going to fund his personal expenses along with two of the mods. In other words when the wife receives a gift, it is paid for by fellow FRreepers donations. This Ex FReeper will now be calling his bank and canceling the donation made this weekend and it is suggested that others do...