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WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2005 – A fresh supply of recent high school graduates, more recruiters and more enticing enlistment incentives are being credited with the Army's second straight successful month of meeting its recruiting goals, according to the Defense Department's acting deputy undersecretary for military personnel policy. Bill Carr offered his assessment today as the Defense Department released statistics reflecting all four services' recruiting and retention figures for July. The Army, Marine Corps and Air Force met or exceeded their goals for the month, and the Navy achieved 99 percent of its July goal, DoD officials reported. The Army recruited...

Social Security has unjustly become a political football where discussions are based on fragmented and deficient information. This has produced half truths and innuendos resulting in inaccurate ideas and resolutions as a means to validate the particular argument being presented. Instilling fear has become the method of a broader strategy in hopes of manipulating the masses thereby controlling their opinions. Perhaps the following information may aid in a clearer understanding of the program from its inception to the current state of affairs. President Roosevelt introduced the Social Security program and promised participation would be on a voluntary basis. Participants would...

German Foreign Minister to Testify to Parliament in Visa Scandal By RICHARD BERNSTEIN Published: February 16, 2005 BERLIN, Feb. 15 - Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, facing a widening scandal involving visas for Ukrainian crime figures and prostitutes, said Tuesday that he would testify before a special parliamentary commission investigating the matter, but he refused to make any public comments. Mr. Fischer, a member of the leftist Green Party and by a considerable margin Germany's most popular political figure, has been confronting what commentators here are calling the party's worst political scandal in the six years it has been part of...

For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 12, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. In my State of the Union address, I discussed the need to act to strengthen and save Social Security. Since then, I have traveled to eight states and spoken with tens of thousands of you about my ideas. I have reminded you that Social Security was one of the great moral successes of the 20th century. And for those born before 1950, I have assured you that the Social Security system will not change in any way, and you will receive your checks.  Radio Address 2004200320022001...

Remember all that talk during the just concluded presidential campaign about this being the worst economy since the Great Depression? Or that President Bush's jobs performance is the poorest since Herbert Hoover was in office? Well, with the close of the 2004 calendar year comes the end of Mr. Bush's first term. Maybe without all the distractions and distortions that accompany a political campaign we can better determine what the real economic results are since our 43rd president was inaugurated. Let's begin with jobs. This past Friday's December employment report paints quite a different picture of the U.S. economy than...

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!

I need to know (perferable sourced to a trustworthy URL) the percentage of reservist we have stationed worldwide and stateside. I am tired of hearing how thinly spread our soldiers are without knowing the true figures. Can anyone give me an idea of what the percentages really are.

NEW YORK - President Bush (news - web sites) and Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) clashed over figures showing modest monthly jobs growth Friday as they plunged into a nine-week post-convention sprint toward Election Day. Previous presidents "have faced wars and recessions, but not one of them has failed to create a single job," Kerry said. He said the most recent statistics made it inevitable that Bush's term would end with a net loss of employment. Not surprisingly, Bush offered a different interpretation. "Overall, we've added about 1.7 million jobs since August 2003. The unemployment rate is down...

Reuters 'sorry' for cribbing figures By David Litterick (Filed: 06/11/2003) Reuters was forced into a humbling apology yesterday as it emerged that the news provider had published official statistics early after one of its journalists got the information from a junior Treasury official with whom he shares a flat. Last month, Reuters published the September retail sales figures, which showed higher than expected growth of 0.6pc, an hour before their formal publication. The news increased speculation about an interest rate rise and hit the gilt futures market. It is understood a Reuters trainee journalist had a conversation with his Treasury...

— Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer. Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's...

<p>There's a tangled web of relationships between some of CalPERS' most powerful board members and the venture capital funds that receive CalPERS' investments through a middleman, Grove Street Advisors.</p> <p>Grove Street Advisors, a consultant firm, has committed $2.9 billion of CalPERS' money into 150 venture capital funds. CalPERS has so far resisted the release of the financial performance of those funds -- which are among the worst performing and most risky.</p>

<p>Judge Judith Barzilay huddled late last year with a telepathic professor and a cast of mutants to ponder an age-old question: What does it mean to be human?</p> <p>In her chambers at the U.S. Court of International Trade, in New York, the judge examined Prof. X and the rest of his band of X-Men, all of them little plastic figures at the heart of a six-year tariff battle between their owner, Marvel Enterprises Inc., and the U.S. Customs Service.</p>

Leading Hollywood liberal Norman Lear, who helped fund TV ads hitting the air this week charging that gas-guzzling SUV owners are actively funding terrorists, isn't much of an energy conservationist himself, judging by the 21-car garage he added to his Los Angeles estate five years ago. The SUV foe's garage is "built to hold 21 cars and stands 45 feet tall," according to a Los Angeles Times report on the environmentally offensive structure. "Lear's neighbors in Sullivan Canyon contend that the structure, complete with a tennis court atop, was built in violation of city height restrictions and with misrepresentations about...