Free Republic

In his weekly radio address, President Barack Obama slammed Republican opposition to Senate Democrats’ efforts to pass a jobs bill that would extend unemployment benefits and send billions to states in fiscal relief. “Republican leaders in Washington just don’t get it,” Obama said Saturday morning. “While a majority of Senators support taking these steps to help the American people, some are playing the same old Washington games and using their power to hold this relief hostage — a move that only ends up holding back our recovery. It doesn’t make sense.” The president also spoke about a troubling June jobs...

... "The choice of timing was particularly refined," Lavrov said sarcastically, referring to the fact that the arrests occurred after Obama met with Medvedev on Thursday for a visit widely seen as the latest step in the "reset" of relations between the former Cold War rivals. A source in Obama's administration said the president was not happy about the timing of the arrests, but investigators feared that some of their suspects might flee, The New York Times reported. The arrests might have been spurred by an FBI sting operation on Saturday in which one of the, Anna Chapman, was given...

Is the Obama Administration preparing the ground for a Ministry of Truthiness? The President's latest wide-ranging speech at Hampton University made a halt at a very strange outpost, before moving on to education. Obama, it seems, is vexed by the idea of conspiracy theories. Apparently people aren't thinking the right thoughts. Obama's internet Yoda, Professor Cass Sunstein*, is also besotted with the idea. Two years ago, Sunstein proposed what you might call an 'active government solution' to conspiracies. The best way to counter conspiracy theories, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule argued, is with the "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups". This...

According to two knowledgeable sources, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel. ---snip--- While Steele has not purchased a plane, he continues to charter them. According to federal disclosure records, the RNC spent $17,514 on private aircraft in the month of February alone (as well as $12,691 on limousines during the same period). There are no readily identifiable private plane expenses for Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine in the DNC’s last three months of filings. --snip--- Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele...

There is a huge new public relations offensive being unleashed by the Democrats and their allies in the progressive left, one designed to limit their short term election losses and defeat any significant ObamaCare repeal efforts. It is imperative that all conservatives and opponents of government-run health care understand the Democrats' and progressive left's short-term political strategy so that we do not inadvertently aid them or fall victim to the new health care myths that they will be propagating. The new plan is designed to accelerate the public through a mass analogue of the "seven stages of grief" (shock, denial,...

This post debunks several liberal myths about ACORN that have emerged in recent weeks — many from Eric Boehlert of Media Matters and Brad Friedman.POSING AS PIMP AT ACORNLiberal Myth: James O’Keefe did not pretend to be a pimp inside ACORN. Instead, he merely presented himself as Hannah Giles’s boyfriend, trying to help her escape from an abusive pimp.Examples of the spreading of the myth:

The Tiring Nature Of Media Propaganda Posted: Feb 11 2010 By: Jim Sinclair My Dear Friends, /snip Then I see two events today of blatant QE while I hear how the Fed is going to drain huge amounts of the liquidity that was added to the market. Coming up next will be the EU having a plan to bailout Greece, but the ECB will not say what that plan is because they have no plan, only intentions. Some people have observed that I know what gold is doing without looking because I feel it. Well, I do. Right now I...

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a research group in Washington that monitors the influence of money in politics, Mr. Hayworth was the largest single Congressional recipient of donations from Mr. Abramoff and his family, his associates, his Indian tribe clients and a gambling cruise ship line that he owned, with more than $101,000 going to Mr. Hayworth and his political action committee since 1999. Mr. Hayworth was also a frequent guest in sports skyboxes controlled by Mr. Abramoff and his clients, and at Signatures, a Washington restaurant owned by the lobbyist. Mr. Mitchell said Mr. Hayworth needed to...

Oliver Willis notices Scott Brown defending the Massachusetts health care plan -- which he supported -- and trying to make the case that it's really quite different from the federal plan with which it shares key features. "They're two different programs. What we have here is a free-market enterprise where we're providing insurance in various levels to people in Massachusetts. The plans in Washington are a one-size-fits-all plan," he said.

Frum sees him as an antidote to the Tea Party madness: Strong on defense and school choice, opposed to the Obama administration’s signature initiatives, Brown voted in favor of Mitt Romney’s health plan in Massachusetts. He describes himself as pro-choice (subject to reasonable limitations), accepts gay marriage in Massachusetts as a settled fact, and told the Boston Herald editorial board he would have voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor.

The unauthorized release of hundreds of e-mails from the British University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit has outraged Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Oddly, it is not the implication in the e-mails that much of the purported climate research carried out to promote the global warming crisis is flawed, bogus, or worse that has gotten the Senator’s dander up. “A lot of people are trying to make a big deal about the irregularities of the research,” Boxer said. “However, the more critical issue is the violation of privacy. These scientists had no expectation that their communications would be made public....

As with Iraq, the troops in Afghanistan (no matter what country they are from) know, from their own experience, that their service there matters. Many of their countrymen back home do not, and the media does little to change this opinion. The main reason given by the media is that the soldiers just don't understand what they are experiencing, and fail to see the "big picture." For the troops, the violence and terror that the Taliban use is real. The fear of the local victims is also quite vivid. The troops know that their efforts against the Taliban and drug...

Sorry for the vanity - I need some Freeper help. I was defending Rush Limbaugh in a forum today, and the person I was debating presented a series of Rush quotes which was supposed to prove his "racism." I'm a huge Rush fan, and clearly the man is not racist. The mainstream media misquotes him on a daily basis, and I assume these are misquotes or taken out of context.... Does anyone have any "debunk" information/links, that I can use to address the following quotes? "I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100...

Below read a post by Hans von Spakovsky at "The Corner" blog at NationalReviewOnline about how the Eric Holder-run U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly established a disinformation unit at DOJ. The Most Transparent Administration Ever? Not at DOJ [Hans von Spakovsky] Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda? Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation’s laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a...

(My translation) Growth in Russia is not dependent on international financial markets. The Russian banking system has not been involved in speculation in derivatives from the U.S. mortgage market. Even if some Russian banks may have faced losses when their counterparts failed there is nothing that can compare to the losses suffered by the Swiss bank UBS, the big U.S. banks or some European banks. Finally, the country’s financial reserves are considerable. The situation of the Russian economy is healthier than in August 1998, but also healthier than that of many European countries. Household debt is low whereas it exceeds...

Surprise. It's not just the Obama administration and the left that's using intimidation tactics to malign and suppress WorldNetDaily. Now a few Republican bloggers are using the same bullying tactics in an effort to put WND out of business by calling on Americans to, and I quote, "boycott any of those organizations that will not renounce … support for WorldNetDaily."

Here is a new GOP ad that turns the tables on the White House's claim there is a lot of "disinformation" out there about Health Care. In fact, the ad shows that it is President Obama himself and other Democrats who are putting out "disinformation." . . . . . (Watch Video)

Welcome to the Year of the Rat. In Waltham, the city wants to pay packy employees for ratting out college-aged drinkers. In Washington, the White House Health Reform Office wants you to report any anti-Obama rumors that come your away. They’ve even set up an e-mail address for you to rat out your annoying right-winger colleague. Think I’m exaggerating? Read the message from the whitehouse.gov Web site for yourself: “Scary chain e-mails and videos are starting to percolate on the Internet. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep...

Document from Australia Document from Kenya

What have we learned from the BEA dog and pony show in Paris this morning? Not much! 1. ACARS messages were sent every ten minutes to facilitate the investigators to track the route of the aircraft “certain degree of precision on route”. 2. There 24 messages received from the ACARS system with different failures. Fourteen of those messages were sent within the space of one minute, from 02:10UTC to 02:11UTC. 3. There was inconsistency between measured velocities and indications of systems failures including the autothrust and autopilot. 4. BEA says the ACARS information was designed for maintenance and not investigative...