Free Republic

By Ted Belman Hillary Clinton recently said, "And the Obama Administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal. It has not changed. And as the President has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." That may well be his position but it has not always been the position of the US and its presidents. In 1995, The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine and Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies co-hosted a June 2 symposium on "Settlements and Peace: The Problem of Jewish Colonization in Palestine." Geoffrey Aronson of the Foundation...

Freeze warning issued for southeast WisconsinBy Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Oct. 10, 2009 The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning for all of southeastern Wisconsin from 10 p.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday. Temperatures will fall into the 20s and end the growing season for 2009, the weather service said, noting that any sensitive outdoor plants left uncovered will perish. West winds are ushering in a polar air mass and delivering unseasonably cold air. Michael Fish, meteorologist for WTMJ-TV, Channel 4, says that overnight lows will be the mid- to upper-twenties in most places. On...

What on earth is the Republican Party thinking? Or rather, what is it foolishly ignoring? The Obama administration has handed Republicans and conservatives a huge club with which to pound their Democrat opponents and to my knowledge, it has been ignored almost entirely. Certainly the biased media has ignored any discussion of the topic but then that is to be expected nowadays. The national media no longer serve their nation; they slobberingly serve only their Democrat masters. The issue? After decades of the Democrats scaring senior citizens prior to every election with phony accusations that the Republicans would reduce or...

Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975. By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.

The National just published If they won’t make peace we may have to make it for themAfter making the case for why the Arabs and Israel can not reach agreement it therefore concludes In the absence of domestic pressure on either side to force a compromise, restarting talks would be either a repeat of the Annapolis failure or a demonstration that the gap between the two sides cannot be bridged by mutual consent. Either way, the parameters of a two-state solution will have to be prescribed by the international community, just as they were in 1947 – except this time...

American Middle East envoy George Mitchell has asked Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a "deposit," an advance commitment of a one-year freeze on construction in West Bank settlements. Mitchell raised the idea in his talks with Netanyahu and Barak in Israel last week. He argued that the Arab states will not make gestures toward normalization with Israel without a guarantee of an end to building in the settlements. Mitchell said an Israeli agreement to temporarily freeze construction would facilitate concessions from the Arab states.

[..] Apparently, Netanyahu came away from his meeting with Obama, a changed man, a shell of his former self. Imagine if you will being ordered by the Mob at a Casino to come into the back room due to your "independence". You see on entering some heavy set men around a table on which there is a hammer, a saw, a blowtorch, razor blades, a vise, acid and a number of other persuaders. Well you get the idea of what Netanyahu's meeting was like.The gloves came off and the Obama administration put there tools on the table. 1. withdrawal of...

State regulators on Wednesday proposed emergency rules to keep more people from losing electricity or heat in the winter and to ban the use of power-limiting devices, weeks after a 93-year-old man froze to death in a home with a similar gadget.

PARIS (AFP) – Scheduled shifts in Earth's orbit should plunge the planet into an enduring Ice Age thousands of years from now but the event will probably be averted because of man-made greenhouse gases, scientists said Wednesday. They cautioned, though, that this news is not an argument in favour of global warming, which is driving imminent and potentially far-reaching damage to the climate system. Earth has experienced long periods of extreme cold over the billions of years of its history. The big freezes are interspersed with "interglacial" periods of relative warmth, of the kind we have experienced since the end...

Gov. Chris Gregoire did Monday what families and businesses have been doing for months: She ordered cuts in travel and buying gasoline, a hiring freeze and a lid on major purchases for most state agencies. The effort is expected to save $90 million, making up for an unexpected $60 million drop in revenue in June. The lost income came from a slowdown in the housing market and lower business taxes than expected. "I am asking each of you to step up your efforts to increase savings. I ask that you be creative and take action now," Gregoire said in a...

I'm forced to use Opera today (not such a bad thing, but) because last night Firefox started acting weird. Clicking more than once on ANYTHING in Firefox causes it to freeze, and nothing works but hitting CTRL ALT DEL, then canceling out, and you can click again. Once. Or twice if I'm lucky. Anyone else having this issue?

The U.S. Treasury Department has announced that it has frozen bank accounts belonging to members of an alleged terrorist group from Uzbekistan that it says is trying to overthrow the Uzbek government as well as attack U.S. targets. The Treasury Department said on June 18 that the accounts belong to the leader of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), Najmiddin Jalolov, and his deputy, Suhayl Buranov. The group is believed to have ties to Al-Qaeda and has claimed responsibility for bombings and attacks in Uzbekistan in 2004. Last year, German authorities arrested three men suspected of being IJU members and charged...

The National Weather Service has issued a Freeze Warning from midnight Tuesday night until 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Paterson: New York has to cut spending, or elseBy JOHN KEKIS Associated Press Writer Published April 23, 2008 06:41 am SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. David Paterson, who aims to cut the next state budget by up to 10 percent, said Tuesday that the Division of the Budget and key members of his staff will begin work on proposals to reduce future state spending. Paterson also said he intends to take a close look at the STAR property tax relief program in the next couple of months. STAR sends about $5 billion a year in state funds that are supposed...

A Senate Republican task force on earmarks is expected to stop short of temporarily freezing funding for pet projects, breaking with the party’s presidential nominee and House GOP leaders who are trying to make it a wedge issue in the election, according to people involved in the effort. The five-member task force, convened in January by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), meets Friday to move toward a consensus position. The issue has continued to dog congressional Republicans who are under enormous pressure from their base to rein in earmarking. Final recommendations are due by March 15. Even though Republicans say...

Under pressure from employers, the Treasury issued a ruling that allows companies to freeze the pensions of older workers in certain cases without running afoul of laws meant to protect employees' nest eggs. In addition to validating some pension rollbacks that could save companies billions of dollars, the Treasury's action also could tip the outcome of long-running lawsuits alleging age discrimination by pension plans at AT&T Inc., Cigna Corp., Dun & Bradstreet Corp., El Paso Corp., and other major companies. The stakes are huge: In just the AT&T case, nearly 24,000 current and former workers had opted into a class...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's 2009 budget will virtually freeze most domestic programs and seek nearly $200 billion in savings from federal health care programs, a senior administration official said Thursday. The Bush budget also will likely exceed $3 trillion, this official said. Bush on Monday will likely present his proposed budget for the new fiscal year to Congress, where it's unlikely to gain much traction in the midst of a presidential campaign.

France is planning to freeze public spending for five years under its biggest programme of social and economic reform since the late 1960s, according to François Fillon, the prime minister. In an interview with the Financial Times, his first with a foreign newspaper since being appointed by President Nicolas Sarkozy in May last year, Mr Fillon signalled his intention to get serious about restoring French public finances to health. Mr Fillon will today take his message that France is “changing profoundly” to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the first time a French prime minister has addressed the gathering in...

From Kengor,p.205 During his first three years in office and particularly since the spring of 1983, Ronald Reagan had pushed a plan to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs), also known as Pershing II's , in Western Europe. His goal was to prompt the Soviets to remove their medium-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe. He told Yuri Andropov that if the Kremlin removed its missiles, there would be no need for the United States to deploy INFs. Reagan called this the zero-zero option: he wanted both sides to slash INFs to zero levels. If Andropov would not agree to do this,...

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Americans criticized a White House plan to help troubled homeowners as both too little and too much on Thursday, split over whether borrowers and lenders should be rescued in a bid to avert a U.S. recession. "It's not the government's problem. People got into this with the help of the banks and they overbought, most likely, and now we're seeing the bailout," said Gene Kaberline, 57, a Republican who has just moved to Iowa from California. But Democrat Sue Repplinger, 66, who worked years ago in the real estate industry but is now retired, said...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday he is confident there will soon be an agreement to help thousands of homeowners avoid mortgage defaults by temporarily freezing their interest rates. Paulson told a national housing conference that this effort involved a "pragmatic response" to current realities as the economy goes through the worst housing slump in more than two decades. The number of homeowners struggling to meet higher payments because their initial introductory rates are resetting is currently soaring.

Experts: Freeze on home-loan interest no cure-allBy ALAN ZIBEL Associated Press Dec. 2, 2007, 3:17PM WASHINGTON — If lenders temporarily freeze low introductory interest rates on home loans made to risky borrowers before they soar, it would be a modest fix for the country's fractured housing market. The problems are so far-reaching, analysts say, that an emerging Bush administration-backed plan — nicknamed "teaser-freezer" by one economist — won't spare many borrowers, or bankers, from the pain of escalating foreclosures and defaults. Edward Yardeni, an economist who runs Yardeni Research in Great Neck, N.Y., called the plan "better than doing nothing,"...

As much as $362 billion in U.S. subprime home mortgages with adjustable interest rates are due to reset at potentially higher rates in the coming year, according to Banc of America Securities, risking a wave of defaults by borrowers unable to afford the new monthly payments. That in turn could exacerbate a wave of write-offs by investors who now own those mortgages. Losses related to bad mortgages already have reached the tens of billions of dollars and have led to turmoil in the world's financial markets. Fears that the problems could accelerate have led the U.S. Treasury and the mortgage...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal judge Thursday froze the assets of Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La., who was indicted this week on charges of soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. Among the 16 criminal counts Jefferson is facing is a criminal forfeiture count, and prosecutors have already said they will seek to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars from Jefferson that they believe he obtained illicitly by peddling his influence to help broker business deals in Africa. Jefferson is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in U.S. District Court. The restraining order issued by U.S. District...

Ohio peaches and cherries could be lost after icy snap freezes flowering fruit trees In the same week Northeast Ohio welcomed record-breaking spring heat, the daffodils were drooping in the snow Thursday, and the peach and cherry crops were in jeopardy. The scene at Furnace Run Metro Park's Daffodil Trail looked like a white battlefield, with flaccid yellow-headed flowers slumped like wounded soldiers. At his orchard on South Arlington Road in Green, Charles Dunlap worried about the April blossoms on a dozen peach trees and hoped his 1,800 apple trees would come out of the cold snap without much damage....

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury officials have met North Korean diplomats to try to work out the transfer of funds frozen in a Macau bank and smooth the way for the resumption of disarmament talks, the U.S. embassy said on Tuesday. The delegation, led by Daniel Glaser, met the officials late on Monday in Beijing to discuss implementation of a deal in which $25 million was to be released into a North Korean account at the Bank of China. The funds were frozen after the United States declared Macau's Banco Delta Asia a "willing pawn" in North Korea's illegal financial...

Freeze 'condemned Neanderthals' Small pockets of Neanderthals clung on in the south (Image: Gibraltar Museum) A sharp freeze could have dealt the killer blow that finished off our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals, according to a new study. The ancient humans are thought to have died out in most parts of Europe by about 35,000 years ago. And now new data from their last known refuge in southern Iberia indicates the final population was probably beaten by a cold spell some 24,000 years ago. The research is reported by experts from the Gibraltar Museum and Spain. They say a climate downturn...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called Tuesday for farmworker housing centers to be used as emergency homeless shelters for those affected by January's cold snap that destroyed more than $1 billion in crops and left thousands without jobs. Schwarzenegger also allocated an extra $100,000 to the United Farm Workers Foundation for reaching out to freeze victims. More than 20,000 field and packing house workers lost their jobs following last month's bout of subfreezing temperatures across the state. Last week another community group, La Cooperativa Campesina de California, received an additional $1.75 million in state emergency funds to help workers in Tulare, Fresno,...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Thousands of youngsters got a second day off from school Tuesday in the midst of a bitter cold snap that combined with heavy snow several feet deep along the Great Lakes. At least seven deaths were blamed on the weather. Cold air surging from the Arctic stretched from the northern Plains through New England, and temperatures were below zero as far south as the mountains of West Virginia, but slightly milder weather was on the way. Dozens of school districts in western and central New York closed for a second day, including Buffalo and the 34,000-student Rochester...

Three nights of freezing temperatures have cost California up to three-quarters of its billion-dollar citrus crop, according to an industry estimate given Monday as forecasters warned the cold weather could batter groves through midweek. Other crops, including avocados and strawberries, also have suffered damage in the cold snap, state agricultural officials said. "This is one of those freezes that, unfortunately, we'll all remember," California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura said. Damages from the latest freeze will likely surpass those caused by a three-day freeze in December 1998 that destroyed 85 percent of California's citrus crop, a loss...

One of two Coast Guard divers who mysteriously died during a training dive in the Arctic last summer sank uncontrollably as far as 190 feet below the icy surface and suffocated, according to an autopsy summary obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. The divers had slipped into a patch of open water near the ship's bow and were planning to dive to a maximum depth of 20 feet, said William Hill Jr., whose daughter Lt. Jessica Hill, along with Boatswain's Mate Steven Duque, died Aug. 17, 500 miles north of Alaska. A support team supposedly held ropes attached to...

U.S. Traces North Korean Money to Russia // And may accuse Russia of violating nonproliferation rules Scandal The American Center for Nonproliferation Studies released a report yesterday claiming that North Korean authorities, with the help of private Russian companies, are providing ballistic missile to third countries, Iran, Syria and Pakistan in particular. This information comes at the same time as a scandal is unfolding over the North Korean regime's transfer of a considerable part of its bank accounts to Russia, skirting American sanctions. Although these accusations are only coming from NGOs right now, they may become the case of the...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration moved Tuesday to isolate a Lebanese organization financially for allegedly funneling money to bankroll terrorism by Hezbollah. The Treasury Department's action, which covers the Islamic Resistance Support Organization, or IRSO, means any assets belonging to the group found in the United States must be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from contributing to the organization. Hezbollah uses the organization to solicit donations to support terror, the department alleged. Treasury said the group solicits money for the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party through advertisements aired on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV station, which was put on the government's...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - A Chinese court has frozen the personal assets of two journalists at the China Business News after Apple iPod contract manufacturer Foxconn sued the two following a report on work conditions at its factory, the Shanghai Daily reported. The paper said that Foxconn's subsidiary in Shenzhen petitioned the city's Intermediate People's Court in early July to freeze the property of China Business News reporter Wang You and editor Weng Bao. The locked-up assets include apartments, a car and bank accounts, according to the report. Foxconn has also filed a lawsuit against the journalists, seeking 20 mln yuan...

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has indicated it is prepared to form an independent coalition to freeze Iranian assets and restrict trade if the United Nations Security Council fails to penalise Tehran for its nuclear enrichment programme, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. A Security Council resolution gives Iran until Aug.31 to stop uranium enrichment, which could provide fuel to produce electricity or possibly atomic weapons, or face penalties. US Ambassador John Bolton said in an interview late this week that the United States planned to introduce a resolution imposing penalties such as a travel ban and asset freeze for...

State tries to help vets at risk of identity theftFriday, May 26, 2006 By Richard M. Barron STAFF WRITER North Carolina's attorney general wants to make it easier for veterans to protect themselves against potential identity theft. Roy Cooper has asked the legislature to change state law to make it free for veterans to place a security freeze on their credit reports, days after the Department of Veterans Affairs said millions of its records were stolen. It now costs $10 per credit agency to put a freeze on reports, which essentially places a padlock on an account. It costs another...

SAN DIEGO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared at the University of California Board of Regents meeting at UCSD Wednesday morning to tout his proposed freeze of student fee increases at the state's public colleges and universities. In an appearance on the La Jolla campus, the governor praised the UC system as a "crown jewel" and asked its regents to help him get the Legislature to support his proposed state budget. Schwarzenegger has proposed canceling a hefty fee increase that had been scheduled to take effect this year at University of California and California State University campuses, largely because economic growth...

WASHINGTON - Amid the debate over how to fund the hurricane recovery effort along the Gulf Coast, a few lawmakers are suggesting that they forgo their pay raises for a few years. Fiscal conservatives in both the House and Senate have included a pay freeze as part of proposals in response to a federal deficit expected to reach about $330 billion this year and then heading skyward as the costs of rebuilding after hurricanes Katrina and Rita come in. "Average Americans in all 50 states are reaching into their pocketbooks and investing in relief and recovery efforts," said Rep. Mike...

A high ranking Kremlin official emphasized Wednesday, "Iran's right to take advantage of nuclear power for peaceful purposes must be internationally recognized," the official Iranian news agency reported today. Speaking to his country's official Itar-Tass news agency, the Russian official who spoke on condition of anonymity added, "Russia believes it is appropriate for the international community to recognize Iran's right to continue its nuclear programs, since that would solve the current crisis and save unnecessary problems." Meantime, IRNA reported that: senior Iranian officials warned the European Union Wednesday to stop pressuring the Islamic republic to limit its nuclear activities and...

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration moved Friday to freeze the finances of Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmad, who is on a list of the most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in Iraq. The Treasury Department's action means any bank accounts or financial assets belonging to him that are found in this country will be blocked. The government also is asking the United Nation's member countries to freeze al-Ahmad's assets. It's the latest effort by the administration to try to make it harder for insurgent groups in Iraq to get financial support. The department said al-Ahmad is currently a "financial facilitator" and "operational leader"...

Americans guzzle 65 billion gallons of fuel a year and lately we have been paying a pretty penny at the pump. NewsChannel 4 has done reports in the past on how to get the most out of your gas. Now we introduce you to a new way to save on those gasoline dollars. There is a man who fills up his tank once every two months. One tank of gas, literally, lasts him two months. He is freezing the price of gas by freezing something else.People complain about the price of gas and we are all spending dearly to stay...

Afghan freeze curtails operations of guerrillas, senior Taliban official says Sunday February 20, 6:19 PM Taliban attacks on American and Afghan troops have eased only because of harsh winter weather and will intensify with the thaw, a senior rebel leader said Sunday, even as a group of former Taliban embraced a U.S.-backed reconciliation drive. "Bad weather is the reason for the reduction in attacks. We will step up attacks as the weather changes," Mullah Obaidullah Akhund told The Associated Press. "The Taliban movement is active under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar. And Taliban will fight till the last Talib...

Bush blocks Euro plan to woo Iran over nuclear freeze By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 18/01/2005) America has hobbled an effort by Britain and other European countries to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear programme. Senior officials said privately that the US would not offer economic or political concessions to woo Teheran. President George W Bush is trying to improve relations with Europe and will visit London and Brussels next month. But in private, American officials are furious at the European Union's "engagement" with Teheran. They say they will not co-operate with what they see as the dangerous...

London 14.01.05 | Hugo Chavez, the greatest pariah ever to govern our nation, has just frozen diplomatic and trade relations with Colombia. The embarrassing thing for us decent Venezuelans is the reason for this breakage, i.e. the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is expected to propose what amounts to a freeze in spending in programs outside national security in a bid to show he is serious about meeting his goal to reduce the deficit, congressional aides and budget experts said on Thursday. White House officials said final decisions on Bush's fiscal 2006 budget have yet to be made. They said those decisions would determine the budget numbers. Congressional aides and budget experts said the White House intends to hold non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending within a narrow range that amounts to a freeze...

A trio of new and unpatched vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows were made public on security mailing lists over the weekend, nudging some security vendors to alert users that their systems may be open to attack and hijacking. The vulnerabilities, first reported by a Chinese group and then posted to the Bugtraq mailing list, are in Windows' LoadImage API function, its animated cursor files, and in the way it handles help files. All of the bugs are as yet unpatched. All currently-supported versions of Windows -- Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003 -- are affected by the three flaws,...

Scientists funded by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), used Landsat 5 satellite data to look at changes in wetlands areas in south Florida, particularly south and west of Lake Okeechobee. Using satellite data, land-cover change history, computer models, and weather records, the researchers found a link between the losses of wetlands and more severe freezes in some agricultural areas of south Florida. In other areas of the state, changes in land use resulted in slightly warmer conditions. They concluded, based on the study, the conversion of wetlands by itself may be enough of a trigger to enhance damage...

As you may have read in today's Kenosha News, the newspaper is conducting a poll of how people in Kenosha County feel about the proposal for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), which would create a limitation on how much local governments can raise property taxes in a given year. Survey responses will be collected until 12noon this coming Thursday (May 6th), and the results will be published on the Focus page of the Sunday Kenosha News. Citizens can vote in the Kenosha News poll by sending an email to focus@kenoshanews.com, or by calling 656-6205. ps. According to the new...

Rally to Support the Property Tax Freeze Thursday, April 15th, at 6:30 PM (Senator (for now) Bob Wirch, who cast the deciding vote to not override Doyle's veto of the freeze last year, will be leading an anti-freeze, pro-higher-taxes counter-demonstration at 5:30) The Brat Stop, Grand Hall Room 12304 - 75th Street Kenosha (Just west of I-94 on Hwy 50) Featured Speakers Senator Cathy Stepp, Chair of the Wisconsin State Senate Committee on Housing Representative Mark Honadel, Wisconsin State Assembly TUFF welcomes the voters and taxpayers of SE Wisconsin Join like minded people to see how we can get a...

<p>Gov. Schwarzenegger and his team have done yeoman's work on the budget. But in simply trying to slow the growth of spending, they have been caught in the "liberal flack" budget trap. Has anybody else noticed how much of every newscast is devoted to stories of the "taking wheelchairs from invalids" variety? In his effort to merely halt spending increases, not actually cut spending, the governor is tarred as Simon Legree.</p>