Free Republic

What Are Tax Day Tea Parties Protesting? About these tax-day tea parties: It's obviously fine if citizens want to exercise their first amendment rights and hold protests. Admirable, even. And if these protests are underwritten by corporate backers or supported by various media organizations (there seems to be some debate about this), that's OK too. First Amendment rights all round! But what I don't understand is why these rallies are being held to protest, among other things, "higher taxes." (Higher spending is another matter.) There is a widespread perception that Obama is raising taxes willy nilly, so maybe this is...

WASHINGTON: South Carolina's Republican governor says his state may accept money from President Barack Obama's stimulus plan even though he is ideologically opposed to it. Gov. Mark Sanford says being against the plan "doesn't preclude taking the money."

I return periodically to the topic of how the right wing in America is murdering the English language, one word at a time. For instance, if you listen to them, you will find out that the words "appeasement" or "appeaser" are applied anytime a politician advocates any solution to an international disagreement other than a full military assault on the country with whom we have a disagreement. See an earlier article of mine on this here http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_061013_appeasement___republ.htm The latest lexical victims are "Socialism" and "Communism". The Republican and Conservative right in America now liberally apply these words to anyone who...

The crimes of georgian's army in S. Ossetia.

Why didn't the press ask Physicians for Human Rights about how weak most of their evidence of torture by Americans turned out to be? Despite claims uncritically repeated in some media outlets, medical examinations of 11 former detainees of U.S. military prison facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba advanced by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) do not provide open-and-shut examples of prisoner abuse. Instead PHR offers up one-sided accounts based largely upon allegations made by former detainees to an organization with a predefined political agenda and financed in part by Bush Administration opponent and convicted felon George Soros and his...

HOW bad does economic reporting get in a presi dential election year? Consider last week's performance by The New York Times. Exhibit No. 1: All the papers, not just the Times, made a huge deal out of job losses during last two months of 22,000 and 63,000. The latter figure, the Saturday Times exclaimed, is "the biggest monthly loss in five years." In fact, five years ago - January to August 2003 - nonfarm payrolls fell by 444,000. Did that massive job loss in 2003 mark the start of recession? Of course not.

Video raises question "Why is the left being cheerleaders for failure in Iraq?"

When the dust settles, the uproar over Barack Obama’s religious beliefs will have taught us little about the candidate and his loyalties that we don’t already know. If we look closely, however, we can learn a great deal about American Jews and their anxieties. More pointedly, we can penetrate the mystery of the power of the so-called Jewish lobby.Snip Reports of Obama’s supposed Muslim leanings began surfacing a full year ago, not in anonymous e-mail blasts but in signed articles published openly on conservative Web sites. One of the first appeared on FreeRepublic.com, an arch-conservative site based in central California....

<p>No where will you ever find Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah described as terror organizations by Wikipedia. Wikipedia will quote the US State Department or the United Nations Security Council as saying that they are terror groups, but Wikipedia itself will only describe these organizations as "militants."</p>

In the information age, misinformation is too often traded as a counterfeit currency in our marketplace of ideas.The recent Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh non-scandelettes have proven this in spades. But disingenuous attacks on individual public figures are hardly the only kind of falsehood you'll find in the partisan press. Today's merchants of disinformation also trade frequently in false stereotypes of large groups of Americans, especially those who even slightly oppose abortion. Those of you who are pro-life may not know this but despite whatever you may think, all of you are actually overweight, hyper-religious, uneducated, spouse-beating, rural, white males....

Calls for Jewish Republicans to Boycott "Republican Jewish Coalition" {Ron Paul's}...voice should be heard at any serious Republican Presidential candidates forum.

The disinformation campaign against the Haditha Marines continues despite exonerations and dismissed charges. This was quite evident during Thursday night’s discussion on Hannity and Colmes.  Jason Mattera, the young man who dared confront John Murtha about his claims of “cold blooded murder” was a guest and Jane Fleming Kleeb represented the dissenting viewpoint. Alan Colmes gave us a hint about the latest tactic to diminish the results of the 2 year Haditha investigation when he questioned the integrity of  General James Mattis. COLMES: The person clearing these people is Lieutenant General James Mattis. Let me put up on the screen...

WASHINGTON — Walid Jawad was tired of all the chatter on Middle Eastern blogs and Internet forums in praise of gory attacks carried out by the “noble resistance” in Iraq. So Mr. Jawad, one of two Arabic-speaking members of what the State Department called its Digital Outreach Team, posted his own question: Why was it that many in the Arab world quickly condemned civilian Palestinian deaths but were mute about the endless killing of women and children by suicide bombers in Iraq? Among those who responded was a man named Radad, evidently a Sunni Muslim, who wrote that many of...

Foreign spies in Russia have been handed an unexpected gift by officials in the town of Sarov who accidentally posted details of a new top secret submarine on the local administration’s website. The embarrassing leak followed what was supposed to be a confidential meeting between the commander of the secret submarine and officials in the closed town, which is home to Russia’s main nuclear research facility. Instead, overly assiduous officials wrote a press release that covered the meeting in minute detail, not only naming the prototype vessel’s commander as Capt Sergei Kroshkin but even revealing the project’s code number: 20120....

By MIKE GLOVER (AP) Iowa (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year. "Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama said in excerpts of the speech provided to The Associated Press. "The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now," the Illinois...

Ayatollahs’ Lobby In Washington Offering Human Rights as a Negotiating Item By Hassan Daioleslam Binding accountability for Iran’s suppression of its population to nuclear issues and Iran’s meddling in Iraq amounts to doing the bidding of the ruling ayatollahs. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its president Trita Parsi have organized a panel in the US House of Representatives on July 26th, 2007, titled “Human Rights in Iran and US Foreign Policy Options.”1 According to the published agenda, representatives from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch will participate. The sponsors of the program (NIAC and Trita Parsi) are key...

National Security: A judge has told the Navy that it cannot use high-powered sonar in its training exercises off the California coast. Saving marine animals, it seems, is more important than protecting American lives. The Navy has 11 training exercises scheduled for Southern California waters over the next two years. Part of the training focuses on the use of mid-frequency sonar which is strong enough to track even the quietest submarines. Environmentalists, however, believe the sonar harms marine life. They say there are several cases in which the sonar caused whales to panic and beach themselves, including an incident in...

Pro-Ayatollah Disinformation and Manipulation Campaign by Washington Think Tankers August 02, 2007 Global Politician Hassan Daoleslam The policy of United States on Iran over the past decade has been amalgamated with confusion and shortsightedness. This is not accidental. A key factor in shaping this policy has been a disinformation campaign by the pro-Iranian circles. A leading champion of this propaganda crusade is the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) and Dr. Ray Takeyh. Dr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at CFR and has testified frequently at various congressional committees and has appeared in numerous media venues. Takeyh until early 2000s was...

Determined Israeli politician gains support of top religious authorities in effort to end cooperation between Evangelical Christan world and Israel.by Ryan Jones An Israeli politician who has for years sought to put an end to Christian-Jewish relations may now be making progress after gaining the ear of Israel's top religious authorities. Jerusalem City Councilwoman Mina Fenton's past efforts have come to naught largely because Israel's religious authorities under the leadership of former chief rabbi Meir Lau were generally tolerant, and often supportive, of Christian-Jewish reconciliation and cooperation. But Lau's replacement, Rabbi Yonah Metzger, has been described as far more political...