Free Republic

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” – Samuel Johnson Few things are more important in life than the facts and the truth. Ironically, the quest for both has waned over generations. Today, fact and truth suffer the narcissism of a generation of self-indulgent ideologues who have sought to shape the world to their belief system, doing so armed with little more than falsely elevated self-esteem. The result has been to bring our great nation to a divide not seen since the...

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2009 – People who are interested in learning more about the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review process can do so by just accessing the QDR fact sheet that was posted today on Defenselink, the Pentagon’s public-internet web page. To access the fact sheet, simply select the “press advisories” button located in the left column of the page, or click on the web link attached below. “The QDR takes a long-term, strategic view of the Department of Defense and will explore ways to balance achieving success in current conflicts with preparing for long-term challenges,” Deputy Defense Secretary...

Politically savvy gun owners have long distrusted President Barack Obama, and for perfectly fair reasons—even (or perhaps especially) after he went out of his way to tell them that lawful gun owners have nothing to fear from his administration. Perhaps, Obama seemed to be gently suggesting, they could cool it with the spike in gun purchases since he won the election. December showed a 24 percent rise in FBI instant background checks for gun purchases from the previous December, and there was a 49 percent such hike the week of his election. Obama’s famous gaffe about “bitter” people who “cling”...

The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, a Chicago public radio station. And this time, Barack Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off. Speaking on a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American — or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Barack Obama, in 2001: You know, if you look at the victories and failures...

Link only

I often find myself in discussions with Obama supporters in which I need to know Obama's policy positions. So, I've listed some of them here along with websites where you can get more information, in case you find yourself in the same situation.. I've tried to list positions I know many Freepers would disagree with. I know some of us agree with some of these, that's inevitable. (There are many goals I agree with, I just don't think government is responsible for getting us there.) I also know I've missed a lot - Obama is often quite vague on policy,...

Mumnesia is a medical fact, say scientists By Ben Farmer Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 06/03/2008 Forgetful new mothers can blame their loss of memory on the arrival of their children, according to scientists. For generations, many new mothers have noticed small lapses of memory such as struggling with names, misplacing things or forgetting what they are looking for. Now neuroscientists and psychiatrists have reported that rather than being merely an old wives' tale, the phenomenon of "mumnesia" is based on medical fact. A combination of fatigue, hormonal changes and stress can all contribute to a loss of memory. Louann Brizendine,...

Fact Sheet Updated July 16, 2006 Benefits of Stem Cells to Human Patients Adult Stem Cells v. Embryonic Stem Cells Peer-Reviewed References (not a complete listing, sample references) Adult Stem Cells Embryonic Stem Cells Cancers: Brain Cancer Retinoblastoma Ovarian Cancer Skin Cancer: Merkel Cell Carcinoma Testicular Cancer Tumors abdominal organs Lymphoma Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia Cancer of the lymph nodes: Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy Multiple Myeloma Myelodysplasia Complete list is impressive - as yet Embryonic Stem Cells have not been successful in any use other than cloning...

NTRODUCTION: Gun Facts is a free e-book that debunks common myths about gun control. It is intended as a reference guide for journalist, activists, politicians, and other people interested in restoring honesty to the debate about guns, crime, and the 2nd Amendment. Gun Facts has 84 pages of information. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), finding information is quick and easy. Each chapter lists common gun control myths, then lists a number of documented and cited facts that directly dispute the gun control claim. Thus when a neighbor, editor, or...

-snip- Liberals pretend the Reagan years--in contrast to the Bush years--were a golden idyll of collaboration between congressional Democrats and a not-so-conservative president. When Reagan died in 2004, John Kerry recalled having admired his political skills and liked him personally. "I had quite a few meetings with him," Mr. Kerry told reporters. "I met with Reagan a lot more than I've met with this president." -snip-

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Thursday, June 22, 2006 10:12 a.m. EDTSen. Santorum: Saddam's WMD Are a Fact During Wednesday’s debate on Capitol Hill on whether to resolve to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by a time certain, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., resurrected the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) issue, pointing out the claim by several Senate Democrats that no WMD had been found in Iraq is disproved by a declassified document - according to a Fox News report. "This is an incredibly - in my mind - significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate...

Former president, Jimmy Carter, has said that the United States should begin talks with Iran without preconditions. "We can't afford to upset them if we're to have any hope of gaining the release of the hostages," said Carter. Carter says he believes that the Bush administration's offer to sit down and talk on conditions that Iran gives up its uranium enrichment program may not be enough. "Also people should turn down their thermostats and wear sweaters," Carter said. "If we all pule together we can lick the malaise that is sweeping the nation." In related news, it was revealed that...

LOS ANGELES — Back during the '70s recession I was a real estate expert with Morgan Stanley. We helped banks and REITs work out billions of loser portfolios, reorganize, file bankruptcy, even advised the U.S. Dept of Housing & Urban Development on the collapsed Federal New Towns program. I've worked for developers and mortgage bankers, got degrees in architecture and city planning, taught commercial real estate at Cornell University. But oddly, like the rest of America, most of the time I don't think about the housing bubble that's about to pop. We ignore the coming storm.

In the world of Hollywood fantasy, no occupation has been quite as mythologized as the private detective - the gumshoe in the shadows bending the law while spying on cheating spouses or lying business partners. In their endless push for fame and fortune, some Hollywood power brokers bought into the character and found a real-life private eye with a dubious reputation. Federal prosecutors now say Anthony Pellicano used wiretaps, threats and blackmail to help lawyers and their clients win high-stakes legal disputes. Other private eyes complain the case has confused fact and fiction about their work while showing how far...

(CNSNews.com) -- An additional 45-day government review of the controversial bid by a Dubai-owned company to operate some terminals at six U.S. ports will do nothing to change the minds of congressional Democrats like U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader. "Congress must put an immediate halt to this deal that the (Bush) administration hastily approved in secret without input from the Congress or state officials and without a thorough review of how it might affect America 's security," Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared on Capitol Hill Wednesday. However, across town a group of current and former law enforcement officials urged...

3/1/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- A global outbreak of disease -- that is what many people think when they hear the words “bird flu.” But is it really the next pandemic or just fowl play? Properly named avian influenza, this virus has spurred global awareness and growing concerns about the possibility of the virus mutating into a more lethal form. “(Bird flu) is caused by a specific strain of flu virus (H5N1) that usually infects birds,” said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Mellinger, U.S. Central Command Air Forces public health noncommissioned officer. “The strain of flu has been around since...

Facts vs. Fiction: A Report from the FrontBy Karl Zinsmeister Your editor has just returned from another month in Iraq—my fourth extended tour in the last two and a half years. During November and December I joined numerous American combat operations, including the largest air assault since the beginning of the war, walked miles of streets and roads, entered scores of homes, listened to hundreds of Iraqis, observed voting at a dozen different polling sites, and endured my third roadside ambush. With this latest firsthand experience, here are answers to some common queries about how the war is faring. Has...

Today, President Bush Addressed Members Of The Veterans Of Foreign Wars On Progress On Our Strategy For Victory In Iraq. The President discussed the political, security, and economic elements of the strategy for victory in the central front of the War on Terror, what has been achieved, the challenges faced at the start of 2006, and what the American people can expect to see in the year ahead. The Political Component Of Victory In Iraq: In The Past 12 Months, Iraq Has Undergone A Political Transformation That Is Virtually Without Precedent. Iraqis have completed three successful nationwide elections, voted for...

The purpose of illegitimategovernor.com is to provide a central repository for facts which 1) question the legitimacy and 2) bolster the case for a revote in the WA state gubernatorial election between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire. http://www.illegitimategovernor.com is now online. I've added a couple of "facts" sections. If anyone has time to check it out, I'd appreciate if there are any inaccuracies if you could PM me with them. Also any glaring ommissions in the "Fact Taxonomy" sections... I will assign credit using your FR name unless you ask me not to. The "site builder" tool is extremely limited,...

Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think. Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

The Ecstatic HeresySeeking a superficial unity, some denominational leaders opt for feelings over facts.By Robert Sanders | posted 10/08/2004 9:00 a.m. The conflict in the mainline churches is ostensibly about sexuality—specifically, homosexuality. But more than sexuality is at stake. The faith itself, the Christian faith, is being invaded by false teaching. Theologically, this heresy is rarely articulated. Rather, it works by feeling, an ecstatic sense that transcends petty verbal differences. Consider these three quotations: The Dammann case does reveal continuing differences in the United Methodist Church concerning the issue of homosexuality. The Council of Bishops is painfully aware of this...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Whether it was Dick Cheney's faux-pas about never meeting his rival or John Edwards' oversimplifications about troops in Iraq, the vice presidential debaters stretched facts even as they claimed the high ground in setting the record straight. Technicalities were cast aside on both sides. The vice president said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry voted for the Iraq war, but the reality was more complex. The senator backed a resolution that allowed it to happen but said he took President Bush at his word that he'd exhaust weapons inspections and build a true coalition first. Edwards turned a...

Abu Ghraib’s Kitty Kelley Seymour Hersh serves up fiction in Chain of Command. Seymour Hersh doesn't like George W. Bush's America, Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon, the war we're in, or the way we're fighting it. Promoting his new book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Hersh is trying to lay the blame for the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse problem directly at Rumsfeld's feet. But Hersh has apparently invented what he could not discover; this once-distinguished journalist is working awfully hard to become the Kitty Kelley of Abu Ghraib. When the title "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist" is appended to someone's...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - When Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the stage at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, he'll be praised as a vanquishing hero - a wildly popular Republican who, like the party's most beloved icon, Ronald Reagan, parlayed Hollywood fame and cheery optimism into political power. But recently, Schwarzenegger has started to resemble Reagan in another way - his tendency to say things that bear only a passing resemblance to reality. Just as the genial Reagan infuriated his critics with outlandish claims - such as suggesting trees cause more pollution than cars or inventing Cadillac-driving welfare "queens" - Schwarzenegger's...

As News Weekly goes to press, the NZ Labour Government has rushed legislation into Parliament which will effectively legislate for gay marriage, through what are called "civil unions". The bill was tabled in Parliament on June 21, and MPs were expected to vote on it on July 23 or July 24. The bill creates a new form of legal relationship - a registered civil union - that would apply to same-sex relationships and heterosexual couples. Running alongside the Civil Union Bill will be the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill that removes discrimination based on marital status. It amends over 1000 provisions...

Recent findings that gays can go straight radically alters the debate on gay marriage, says David van Gend. The Titanic of Gay Rights, leaving all in its wake, is about to founder on a large and immovable fact. My concern is not for the glamorous first-class passengers - the prominent doctors and judges - or for the Mardi Gras exhibitionists leering and lurching across the deck, but for the unknown homosexuals down in their lonely cabins feeling sick. These are the ones who want to stop the ship and get off. The homosexuals who do not want to be homosexual,...

Terri's Threads on FreeRepublic.com - 18 Nov 2003 0351 PST I've got good news and I've got bad news................ THE GOOD NEWS There are now five hundred seventy-four ( 574 ) 'Terri' threads containing a total of sixty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five ( 67,525 ) posts....that could be counted...I couldn't find eight of the threads previously posted.) THE BAD NEWS The blog I used seems to have nullified the URL's I pasted to each thread. If one of you is a wizkid and can tell me how overcome this situation - without having to do the whole thing over...

Terri's Threads on FreeRepublic.com - 13 Nov 2003 1035 PST Today, as of 1035 PST, a total of four hundred and ninety-five threads (495!!!) related to the Terri Schiavo life or death struggle taking place in Florida have been posted by one hundred and seventy-two (172) FReepers!!! Given the astonishing and incredible number of threads which focus on a wide variety issues all reated to the same subject, I thought it might be helpful to the FR membership, and those who occasionly review FR commentary, to have a source from which they could more easily access a particular item of...

Meet Joe Dirt Stuart K. Hayashi In 2001, comedian David Spade came out with a movie titled "The Adventures of Joe Dirt." It now appears that the film was about Joe Conason, the author of "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth" and an editorialist for the liberal-biased Salon.com. In the person of Brad Pitt, you've already Met Joe Black. Now Meet the Real Joe Dirt. His book purports to expose how right-wingers harness the corporate media to brainwash society. Instead of demonstrating such, however, Joe is too busy flinging his Dirt around. In two...

This comes from a message board I post on. I thought some of you might enjoy it: It would seem to me that the left simply points things out. Like the fact that medicaid is paying less and less for drugs for the sick and elderly as the AARP site says, the fact that a tax cut for the rich is proven not a comprehensive way to stimulate jobs and the economy, the fact that the environmental situation is exactly as the EPA website and UN Earth Watch website say, very dangerous and worsening, the fact that the US deficit...

April 13, 2003 Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes People with synesthesia--whose senses blend together--are providing valuable clues to understanding the organization and functions of the human brain By Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard When Matthew Blakeslee shapes hamburger patties with his hands, he experiences a vivid bitter taste in his mouth. Esmerelda Jones (a pseudonym) sees blue when she listens to the note C sharp played on the piano; other notes evoke different hues--so much so that the piano keys are actually color-coded, making it easier for her to remember and play musical scales. And when Jeff Coleman...

A town called Bruce has come on the market in the Australian outback. For about £110,000, the lucky buyer will secure a fine Victorian railway station converted into a guest-house along with several miles of track, a derelict pub, a small cottage and panoramic views of the untamed South Australian countryside. He or she will also acquire ownership of a place-name that, thanks to the comedy sketches of Monty Python, is inextricably associated with the Australian male. With a resident population of just four people and three dogs, Bruce (200 miles north of Adelaide) is not exactly the hub of...

The peppered moths have been an evolutionary textbook icon for many years. Is this indeed evidence for evolution through 'industrial melanism', or is it simply an extrapolation from a very modest and common phenonemon, variation within a species population of different predominant characteristics?Biologist and evolutionist Kenneth Miller has written an interesting FAQ on peppered moths, calling 'industrial melanism' 'evolution in action' at http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html. Has he overstated the case? I have made a critique of Miller's arguments and presented them here. Mr. James Lippard, an atheist and part of the infidels forum on the net, has not really challenged my arguments,...

Eco - LogicOn - Line 7/15/2002 The smoking gun... How Environmentalists Intend to Rule the World By Ron Arnold Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a...

THIS WEBSITE - CLICK ME This website is intended for use as a resource, so that you can continually obtain the facts as you require them. Because we don't offer any narrative, we are able to pack a lot of information into a small area. For example, our facts about China make reference to over 55 sources. This website is different from reading the paper in that conclusions and implications are not made for you. Here, you are left to connect the dots for yourself. In order to get the most from your reading, you will find it helpful to...