Free Republic

Honduras’ deposed would-be “strongman,” Manuel Zelaya called on US President Obama to send troops to help him regain control of the Honduran government. Zelaya was president of Honduras until he was removed from office earlier this year by joint action of the country’s supreme court and legislature. “Micheletti has pissed on the agreement we made to restore my power,” Zelaya angrily alleged. “He is going ahead with the scheduled elections without my approval. He has refused to include my proposed constitutional amendment to extend my term of office. A new government will be formed without my consent.” Acting President Roberto...

<p>Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama Saturday said members of the House of Representatives face the chance of a lifetime as they consider legislation on health care reform.</p> <p>In a meeting with the House Democratic leadership, the president said he told lawmakers "that opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation.</p>

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...

*snip* When the Constitution of the United States was framed it placed the exclusive legislative authority in the hands of Congress and with the President. Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution is concise in its language: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” That is no longer true. The Bill of Rights protected Americans against loss of freedoms. That is no longer true. The Constitution provided for a balanced separation of powers. That is no longer applicable. Perhaps it...

US President Barack Obama on Friday hit out at naysayers he blamed for peddling "cynical" claims that global warming is a myth to derail a landmark climate change bill in Congress. Obama warned that the closer the Senate came to passing legislation which has already cleared the House of Representatives, the more opponents would resort to underhand tactics. "The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized," Obama warned in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder...

...and Distribute Wealth From Developed Countries to 3rd World Nations. The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations will hold their 15th conference on climate change through December 7-18th. At the conference, globalists like Obama will sign the ‘Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty’ that will replace the Kyoto treaty that is set to expire in 2012. Lord Christopher Monckton, the man who warned many this week of the treaty appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio program, he makes it clear that the treaty will create a World Government Dictatorship that will have complete authority over all nations by intervening in...

This seems so obviously correct that I feel embarrassed for not having figured it out sooner. The rationale of the White House offensive against Fox News has been a topic of much puzzlement lately. Is this just the White House lashing out? Are they trying to rally the base? But I think Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein nail the real explanation in their story today: The White House is working to prevent stories born on Fox from crossing over into more widely-viewed media. Most Americans still haven’t heard of Van Jones, for instance; and the strategy is now all about...

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters. Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be? Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey. "The whole point of...

I am "discussing" politics with a gent from the UK on Facebook. He is advocating a "benevolent dictatorship" My question are, can there be such a thing, is a "benevolent dictatorship" a good idea.

Meet Stewart Rhodes. He graduated in 2004 from Yale Law School, where his paper, “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status,” won a prize for the best paper on the Bill of Rights. Before entering the law, he served as a U.S. Army paratrooper. What’s Rhodes up to now? Many military men turned lawyers troop off to large law firms, where the discipline and diligence cultivated in the armed forces help them succeed. Others join the JAG Corps or work for defense contractors. But Rhodes, who was a non-traditional student at YLS, has taken a non-traditional career path since graduating....

1) Make it easier for individuals and families to buy their own policies and even to pool their own resources in ways that makes sense to them. The Knights of Columbus started as a life insurance association; we could have many more associations like that based on faith or geography or interest where people could pool their recourses in a way that makes sense to them. This has to be made easier. Groups must be able to sell insurance across state lines. 2) Give people incentives to spend their money wisely. The way it works right now, the employer provides...

Cuba is ready to use just about everything at its disposal, from its well-oiled civil defense system to the soldiers of a totalitarian government, to keep swine flu cases to a minimum. Everything but a vaccine. As the U.S. prepares an extensive health survey for side affects from its extensive inoculation plans, Cuba’s No. 2 health official says relying on a shot to contain a world pandemic is risky as best — and demoralizing at worst. "Nobody knows if it would work," said Dr. Luis Estruch. "How safe would it be?" Cuba’s sophisticated public-monitoring system and geographic isolation as an...

The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it. A conversation with Gore Vidal unfolds at his pace. He answers questions imperiously, occasionally playfully, with a piercing, lethal dryness. He is 83 and in a wheelchair (a result of hypothermia suffered in the war, his left knee is made of titanium). But he can walk (“Of course I can”) and after a recent performance of Mother Courage at London’s National Theatre he stood to deliver an anti-war speech to the audience.

Barack Obama is failing as President and the US is in danger of sliding into a military dictatorship, says Gore Vidal, the American essayist and intellectual. In an exclusive interview with The Times, Vidal, 83, reveals that he regrets switching his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Mr Obama during last year’s campaign to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. “I was hopeful,” he said of Mr Obama. “He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the...

Gore Vidal Predicts U.S. WILL BECOME A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP UNDER OBAMA thelastcrusade.org Barack Obama is failing as President and the America is transforming into a military dictatorship, says Gore Vidal, the American novelist, essayist, and intellectual.In an exclusive interview with The London Times, Mr. Vidal, 83, says that he now regrets switching his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Mr Obama during last year’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.“I was hopeful,” Mr. Vidal says of Mr Obama. “He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a...

The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud. He loves quoting Lincoln and there’s a great Lincoln quote from a letter he wrote to one of his generals in the South after the Civil War. ‘I am President of the United States....

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to...

During the Jim Moran Townhall, protestors were outside gathering to go in. A citizen reporter was being harassed by a local Police officer about his Obamacare sign. The exchange between the Officer and the citizen was about the sign, the officer asked him to take it down or he would be arrested. During the exchange, the citizen said "This is America!", in which the officer replied "It ain't anymore" Quite revealing.

Americans heard loud and clear what candidate Obama said about building a national security defense force. TDC Asks: Just what exactly is Obama’s AGENDA regarding the establishment of a civilian national security force, and WHY do we need one when we have our MILITARY?

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's most senior dissident cleric has criticized the ruling system under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a dictatorship in the name of Islam. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri's comments are significant because although criticism of ruling figures has increased following the disputed June presidential election, public attacks against Khamenei are rare.

Americans are finally getting a good look at the man in the White House. They've been thrilled by his speeches, love his kids, and almost desperately want to believe he was who they hoped he was when they elected him. It turns out, however, that he simply can't tolerate disagreement. In his view, those who disagree with him really ought to just shut up. His critics, after all, are the people responsible for the problems he was elected to solve, dupes and hirelings of those responsible, or dangerous kooks. The administration has moved to discredit those who oppose his health...

Alright enough already! Will someone please turn the lights back on and roll the credits for this week's episode of the Twilight Zone. First we have the brazenly Orwellian directive from the Office of Health Reform/Ministry of Truth to contact our friendly snitchboard operator to report any "fishy" communications from our neighbors/political extremists. Then from Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs I learn that the National Guard is now looking for a few good internment/resettlement specialists? Really? Internment of whom? I'm moving where? As if the seeming overnight bankruptcy of our entire country were not enough to rattle our nerves, we have...

(see the below posting before replying) "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: "From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage."

The great lumbering health care reform gears are in motion in Washington D.C., and the Big Government machine is spitting out a new recipe for the bankruptcy of America: A "health care reform" bill that pleases all the special interest groups and pharmaceutical companies but does nothing to improve the health of ordinary Americans. Health care reform in Washington today isn't about health, or reform. It's about mandating monopoly-priced western medicine for the masses. It's about fining people who wisely opt out of the criminally-operated health insurance industry, and it's designed to keep the American people sick and diseased while...

The White House has taken on a wider role in forming a backup government in case a crisis forces officials to leave Washington. Government officials familiar with the plans tell The New York Times that the initiative began during the final months of the Bush administration, and the Obama administration decided to leave it in place. The White House Military Office will now lead the way in installing a “shadow government” should officials have to leave the capital because of a terrorist strike or some other catastrophe. The contingency plans include moving those officials to Mount Weather, Va. and running...

The World’s Worst Sons The troublesome progeny giving headaches to some of the most powerful leaders on the planet. BY JOSHUA KEATING | JULY 24, 2009 SHEIKH ISSA BIN ZAYED AL-NAYHAN Dad: The late former ruler of Abu Dhabi and former president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan /snip KIM JONG NAM Dad: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il Age: 38 /snip HANNIBAL QADDAFI Dad: Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi Age: 33 /snip HU HAIFENG Dad: Chinese President Hu Jintao (shown right, meeting with Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba in better times) Age: 38 /snip MARK THATCHER Mom:...

Pages 317-325: ‘‘(C) PROHIBITION ON EXPANSION OF FA22 CILITY CAPACITY.—Except as provided in para23 graph (2), the number of operating rooms, pro24 cedure rooms, or beds of the hospital at any 25 time on or after the date of the enactment of VerDate Nov 24 2008 12:51 Jul 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00317 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 C:\TEMP\AAHCA0~1.XML HOLCPC July 14, 2009 (12:51 p.m.) F:\P11\NHI\TRICOMM\AAHCA09_001.XML f:\VHLC\071409\071409.140.xml (444390|2) 318 1 this subsection are no greater than the number 2 of operating rooms, procedure rooms, or beds, 3 respectively, as of such date. 4 ‘‘(D) ENSURING BONA FIDE OWNERSHIP...

Tyranny has sprung up from amongst us. President Obama has waged a blitzkrieg on American liberty, and, in only a short time, undercut the Constitution of the United States with a brazen arrogance that should shock Americans into action. President Obama's unconstitutional salvo exceeds even the most intolerable indulgences of the Bush Administration. President Bush was often brash and improper in his use of certain mechanisms, but President Obama has moved quickly far beyond the realm of comparatively benign Presidential Signing Statements. When our new President can appoint "Czars" to rule entire sections of American life without electoral accountability or...

Paradise lost: the downside of doing business with China For years Western bosses sung Beijing’s praises. Now they are learning the cost of dealing with a control-freak regime Carl Mortished We need a new primer on how to do business in China. Years ago, on a flight to Shanghai, you could spot an MBA graduate in every seat mouthing polite mantras — how to show “face”, how to behave at a banquet. Long on protocol, the books were short on useful information. What you really need to know is who’s in charge; which Communist Party official pulls the strings; what...

The furore around the Chinese government’s Green Dam software has raised the issue of the way modern technology is used to monitor our daily lives. Here, we list seven of the technologies that can be used to keep track of your movements. CCTV Closed-circuit television cameras were first used in Germany in 1942 to remotely monitor the launch of V2 rockets. Since then, CCTVs have become one of the most contentious pieces of technology in public use. The government and law enforcement agencies claim the use of video monitoring technology can help reduce crime and improve public safety; critics argue...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stays optimistic as President Obama calls anew on his congressional allies to push through comprehensive health care reform. To pay for the Democrats' trillion-dollar health care plan, New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, on Friday called for new tax hikes on the wealthy.

http://bigpicture.ru/?p=2824

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat. The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketeers because...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 4 -- Although the U.S. government knew for months that Honduras was on the brink of political chaos, officials say they underestimated how fearful the Honduran elite and the military were of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and his ally President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Rumors were buzzing in the capital that the fight between Zelaya and his conservative opponents had reached the boiling point, but diplomatic officials said the Obama administration and its embassy were surprised when Honduran soldiers burst into the presidential palace last Sunday and removed Zelaya from power... The overthrow, and the new Honduran...

Rush Limbaugh is suggesting that President Barack Obama and his political operatives already are laying the groundwork for a third term. “You have to wonder if Obama is just trying to lay a foundation for not being a hypocrite when he tries to serve beyond 2016,” Limbaugh told his national radio audience. “I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next number of years there is a move on the 22nd Amendment.” Limbaugh has a point. Upon Obama's taking office, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., introduced legislation in the House to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limits...

Blogger Aaron Ortiz, south of the border, puts real focus on what is taking place: "Everyone is talking about the coup in Honduras. But only because “coup” is the word Chávez spoon-fed the media a few days ago. There has been no coup. The military are not in power in Honduras. An interim president has been appointed, and almost his first statement was that elections will be held as planned in November. But almost everyone was hoodwinked." "But right now, an emergency meeting of the entire ALBA is taking place in Nicaragua. This is Venezuelan Telesur's highly biased article about...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. (snip) Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, a move that Britain's foreign secretary Sunday called "harassment and intimidation" and reflected a hardening of the regime's stance toward the West. Iranian media said eight local embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests, but gave no further details. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "about nine" employees were detained Saturday and that four had been released. The...

Iran Democracy or Dictatorship? It hurts my heart to see the Iranian people going through this anarchy for Democracy and a Free and unbiased election process. The Iranian people need to be free and able to put in power a President of their chosen by a majority vote. How could the current administration call their government a Democracy when they do not let the people’s voice be heard? This is not Democracy, this is a Dictatorship. A Dictatorship that needs to be over thrown, I believe the only way for a free Iran is Civil War. The Iranian people cannot...

The new consumer protection entity included in the Obama administration’s package of financial reforms would create an agency with significant regulatory powers, covering a wide variety of products and services. The new entity will be called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. It would have "broad authority" to regulate all providers of financial products and services, be "independent and accountable;" as well as have rule-making and enforcement authority. "In failing to check widespread abuses in subprime mortgage lending, lax consumer protections contributed significantly to the current financial crisis," the summary reads, "The financial crisis, in turn, revealed inadequacies in consumer and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration says executive compensation must be better managed to prevent the sort of risk-taking that jeopardizes the economy. Gene Sperling, who advises Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said Thursday the administration does not want to impose caps on executive pay. But he also laid out for the House Financial Services Committee a list of guidelines calling on publicly-held companies to link compensation to long-term performance, not short-term gains.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States would not accept it as a nuclear weapons state, as Asian security officials struggled to find a new way to deal with the isolated Communist nation. “We will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia — or on us,” Mr. Gates told a major defense conference here that has been dominated by North Korea’s test this week of a nuclear device and the firing of at least six short-range missiles, all in defiance of international...

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said. The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny...

A business colleague once told me that rewriting your life story line-by-line and chapter by chapter is a futile exercise. "If you want a new life," she said, "you have to throw your old life into the fire."A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

NUEVO LAREDO - In a rare move, the national military prosecutor's office has arrested 12 soldiers in the Mexican Army, including four officers, and will court-martial them on charges of murder in the deaths of three Nuevo Laredoans missing since March 14.The bodies of Miguel Ángel Gama Habif, Israel Ayala Ramírez and Aarón Rojas de la Fuente were found buried in a clandestine grave about 60 miles south of Nuevo Laredo, near the town of Vallecillos in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon. Raymundo Ramos Vásquez of the non-profit Human Rights Commission in Nuevo Laredo said the remains were exhumed...

Despite burgeoning information technologies including the Internet and digital wireless communications devices, more than 40 percent of the global population lives under regimes that do not allow freedom of the press. -Many of the countries that have held consistently “worse” scores in the study and over the last several years include Iran, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela – all countries with which President Barack Obama has sought to improve country-to-country relations. -“Iraq, actually we noted, was the only country in the Middle East this year that showed a numerical improvement, and this was primarily due to an improved security situation that...

Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has stirred controversy by his call for tighter regulation of the internet. “The Internet offers too many individualized choices,” Sunstein said. “It puts freedom ahead of democratic solidarity. This thwarts the President’s plan to bring all Americans together in one consensus behind him.” In order to ensure that “runaway freedom” doesn’t go too far, Sunstein is proposing that his office be empowered to institute a mandatory 24-hour delay on the sending of e-mails “to give us time to scrutinize them for inappropriate content.” Obama’s...

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus. Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes,...

April 28, 2009 Truth is the new hate speech. And homosexual activists are laying the groundwork for their own demise. No kidding. The "hate crimes" bill, H.R. 1913, which passed out of the House Judiciary Committee last week, is aimed at silencing speech. This thought crimes bill is scheduled for a vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives tomorrow, and when you pair it with existing law (found in Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code), it will unmistakably criminalize speech. It specifically targets anyone who dissents to the homosexual agenda as aiding in the commission of...

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.