Free Republic

Wisconsin Congressional candidate John Gard is one of the first Republican candidates looking to score some political points over the Wall Street bailout. He released a new campaign ad today that criticizes the proposed bailout package, while attacking his Democratic opponent, Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), for voting to “raise taxes on families by $1,800.” “Now they want to give a huge bailout to Wall Street billionaires. You play by the rules and fall further behind. While they break the rules, and Congress hands them your money,” Gard says in the ad. “Washington’s got it wrong again.” This is the second...

The House opened Sunday with a string of one-minute tirades about the tentative agreement congressional negotiators brokered hours earlier with administration. None of the speechmakers - from liberal Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio to conservative New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett - was expected to back the financial markets rescue plan, so their remarks are an inaccurate metric to chart support for - or opposition to - the bill. "It does not do what the American people are asking to do, and that is protect their tax dollars," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). But this string of angry remarks speaks to the...

Convention ends in chaos, so Dems need a do-overBy J. Patrick Coolican, Michael Mishak Sun, Feb 24, 2008 (2 a.m.) Rory Reid, right, Hillary Clinton’s Nevada campaign chairman, is besieged by supporters who don’t want the vote on delegates to the Democratic state convention delayed. Sam Morris The Clark County Democratic Convention turned into a fiasco Saturday, with a host of problems that were entirely predictable but blithely ignored by county party leadership. The convention was supposed to elect delegates to this spring’s state convention in Reno, where delegates will be selected for the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Instead,...

President Bush's commutation late yesterday afternoon of the prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will at least spare his former aide from 2 1/2 years in prison. But by failing to issue a full pardon, Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy.

During a contentious Senate hearing last week, consular chief Maura Harty took personal responsibility for the backlog of two million passport applications that has wreaked havoc on honeymoons, family getaways and business trips..... The mess occurred because Mrs. Harty's office prepared for 16.2 million passport applications this year, but that number proved too low by roughly 1.5 million.... On the heels of creating a backlog of two million passport applications and then misleading Congress about it, Mrs. Harty is poised for a promotion. And unless the White House acts to stop it, Mrs. Harty could soon ascend to one of...

Nifong’s fiasco As long as we view each other as groups, we will be manipulated by scoundrels. Most of us would like to think America is on the path to being a colorblind society in which race does not matter. Mike Nifong, the disgraced and disbarred former Durham County, N.C., prosecutor, has served at least one valuable public service by showing us just how far we have to go on that journey. Nifong cynically played the race card to keep his job for one reason only: He knew he could. Though he will now pay the price for his inexcusable...

The making of a jumbo problem A botched privatisation at a bargain price started the storm that helped bring Airbus down to earth The Economist (UK) 11/11/2006 By: FT McCarthy As French stock-exchange regulators investigate share sales by Noël Forgeard, a former co-chief executive of European Aeronautic Defence and Space, questions are being raised about a controversial deal that eventually led to the creation of EADS, the parent company of Airbus. This was a privatisation overseen by a former finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is one of two rivals to Ségolène Royal in the contest next week for the Socialist...

by Mark Finkelstein October 6, 2006 - 21:36 In State of Denial, Bob Woodward claims Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the U.S. commander for Europe, said that the Iraq war is a "debacle" and that "the Joint Chiefs have been systematically emasculated by Rumsfeld." Two reporters from two publications followed up on the story. They couldn't have reached more diametrically opposed conclusions as to whether Woodward quoted Jones accurately. How's this for dueling headlines? "U.S. European Commander Confirms Quotes in Book" "NATO Chief Denies Quotes in Woodward Book" When it comes to contradictions, it doesn't get more stark and point-blank...

The attentive reader of ''Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq'' will quickly run out of yellow ink highlighting all the misjudgments and missteps that, according to the book, have characterized the U.S. invasion and occupation. The book is a haunting catalog of prescient warnings against invading, inaccurate predictions by Bush administration officials and a few generals, and chronic mistakes in battling an unanticipated insurgency. Thomas E. Ricks could have filled 300 pages simply by compiling lists of examples. That, however, would not have made for the highly readable and disturbing book he has written. ''Fiasco'' is enlivened by on-the-record,...

The picture Ricks paints is so damning that it is, at times, too charitable to say that the military and civilian leadership failed.

Now we're cooking. We have now IBM's Reply Memorandum in Further Support of Motion to Limit SCO's Claims Relating to Allegedly Misused Material and all the trimmings: IBM's Reply MemorandumAddendum A, a timeline showing all IBM's requests for specificity, the court's orders, and SCO's "repeated failures to identify" the allegedly misused code Addendum B, chart showing what IBM calls SCO's failure "to identify lines of System V, AIX or Dynix, and Linux material with respect to any of the 198 items". Addendum C, cases Declaration of Randall DavisAddendum A, Randall Davis' credentials as an expert Addendum B, the same chart,...

EXCLUSIVE LIVE WEBCAST Thursday April 6th at 8pm est, David Hororwitz will debate Ward Churchill at George Washington University Campus, Jack Morton Auditoriumin conjunction with the Students for Academic Freedom Conference. Rightalk.com the leader in conservative webradio/podcast production will stream the debate LIVE. Go to www.Rightalk.com and click on the appropriate button on our main page! Podcast/Download of the debate will be available after the event.

George Bush suffered heavy international criticism for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but it now appears he was exactly right: The treaty is a "fiasco,” Forbes magazine declares. The treaty was negotiated in 1997 as a way to slow global warming, and formally took effect in February, without U.S. participation. The Clinton administration agreed to the protocol, but the Senate refused to ratify it, in part because developing countries that were major polluters and trade competitors, particularly China and India, refused to participate in the Kyoto accord. So right now "Kyoto is essentially a western European proposition,” Forbes reports. But "China...

Rape and murder inside dome of despair (3 September 2005, from AUSTRALIA) by Adam Harvey and Kim Sweetman 03sep05IT is a nightmare landscape of roaming gangs and random rapes. Desperate, hungry refugees are forced to huddle in hiding from armed thugs who have killed for what little food can be scavenged.This is how the richest nation on earth reacts to a disaster. More than 30,000 National Guards were sent in to New Orleans last night with orders to shoot to kill. Those who survived Hurricane Katrina inside the city's Superdome emerged yesterday from a second hell. "They're raping babies...

"A more vital piece of U.S. history would be hard to find," gushed the Boston Globe last week about a new item in the Kennedy Library and Museum, a map of Cuba. The Library obtained it from the estate of Robert L. White, a collector who had earlier received it from JFK's late secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. "This map bears the marks of history," continues the Globe story, "a series of X marks in black ink, crosshatched east and west of Havana by President John F. Kennedy, and two foreboding words scrawled above them: 'missile sites.' This map was used by...

was absolutely astounded yesterday when Florida Governor Jeb Bush held that press conference and talked about the State of Florida taking custody of Terri Schiavo. He presented to the media the opinion of a doctor that Terri Schiavo was not in a persistent vegetative state .. but rather just in some sort of a period of reduced consciousness. This doctor has never seen Terri Schiavo, except on videotape, and he's issuing findings that are completely at odds with doctors who have been personally examining Terri for many months. Think about this for a moment. Attending physicians conduct their examinations and...

A Glimpse Ahead Timothy Snodgrass The Impossible Will Come Alive In 2005 01/28/05 In January of 2004, as we began to intercede for the New Year the Holy Spirit gave us the prophetic slogan, "The Seas will Roar in 2004". This year we were given a new slogan, "The Impossible will come Alive in 2005". As the veil of darkness begins to come down over nations and regions, along with great shakings will come great breakthroughs; signs, wonders, healings and a spectacular release of miracles in impossible circumstances. This year, although we are ultimately poised to gain much ground, there...

The ACLU's "constitutional" lawsuit with this Tuesday's Presidential Inauguration is a three-way taxpayer hit: 1. By act of Congress, the ACLU is allowed to bill (likely at the highest rate possible) the government/taxpayers for the costs of bringing the suit, and automatically is paid, regardless of the suits' outcome. 2. By operation, the cost of defending against the suit is charged to the taxpayers, again, likely at the highest rate. 3. By function, the cost of hearing and adjudicating the suit is at taxpayer expense. Of course, it was members of the legal industry, Congress's largest and only functional built-in...

Former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday told blacks embittered by his narrow loss in the 2000 presidential election that "it doesn't have to be this way" and urged them to turn anger into energy at the polls. "Don't turn it into angry acts or angry words," Gore said at one stop during a tour of mostly black churches. He also urged worshippers to take advantage of a state law that permits voting before Election Day, Nov. 2. "Early voting is a good idea," he said. "You want to give them plenty of time to count all the votes." Polls...

Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco By David Rennie in Youngstown (Filed: 22/10/2004) The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election. The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election. It also prompted a surge...

I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THE TRANSCIPTS OF THIS WEEKS 9-11 HEARINGS AND HAVEN'T HAD ANY LUCK. ADMITTEDLY, I'M NOT THE MOST RESOURCEFUL FREEPER, CAN SOMEONE WHO IS HELP ME? THANKS

US Colonel Mayville asks Sadullah Kavak the coordinator of Turkish Kahramanmarash EDO Ice Cream in Kirkuk for franchise in New York. The US Colonel William Mayville, who arrested 11 Turkish special forces who were on duty in Suleymaniye and put sacks over their heads, said that he wants to open a cafe in New York and sell Marash ice cream once retired. Kahramanmarash EDO Ice Cream general coordinator Sadullah Kavak was Mayville's latest civilian visitor. Kavak, who took 50 kilos of ice cream to colonel Mayville who arrived at a meeting at the local Turkmen leader Mustafa Kemal Yaycili's house...

The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war. "What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. "The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field." Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His office was privy to classified intelligence gathered by...

<p>New analysis doubts size of state's deficit Chapman research projects a shortfall of $5.9 billion in current fiscal year.</p> <p>SACRAMENTO – The state's deficit really isn't as bad as it seems, according to a Chapman University analysis that projects the shortfall at a fraction of what Gov. Gray Davis has forecast.</p>

Having noted that all US television networks seem to be well along to devoting as much television air time to coverage of Trent Lott's politically incorrect minor gaffe as was devoted to the 911 tragedy in which well over 3000 innocent Americans lost their lives, I find myself wondering which is the bigger news story? And when Al Queda sees this coverage do they see a politician in trouble, or do they see an enemy who is so pathetically stupid that they are emboldened to strike again?