Free Republic

The top Russian military commander, the Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister Army-General Nikolai Makarov during the Paris air show this week said: "Georgia is saber-rattling and preparing weapons to resolve its territorial problems by any means." Makarov accused NATO of supporting Georgian aggressive intentions and E.U. observers of ignoring Georgian rearmament and war preparations. Makarov stated that the Russian army and the FSB Border Guards in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are preparing together with local forces and forming new military infrastructure. He confirmed that the defense ministry will permanently station "somewhat less combat troops in...

• 26-year-old African American admitted to Atlanta lodge • Issue headed for Masonic trial and state courts There is much about Freemasonry that remains shrouded in mystery to the outside world. But a group of members in the US state of Georgia appear to have clarified one thing - the supreme being in which all Masons are required to believe is not likely to be black. Freemasonry lodges in Georgia are at loggerheads over the admission of a "non-white" member to an organisation that was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment but which is apparently still struggling to catch...

Russia will seek assurances from President Barack Obama tomorrow that Washington will cease pressing for the former Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine to join Nato — a policy that was aggressively pursued by George W Bush. On his first visit to Russia as president, Obama is due to hold nine hours of talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and share a breakfast with prime minister Vladimir Putin. Russian sources say both men will warn him about a risk of repeating last year’s war in Georgia. Russia strongly opposes Georgia and Ukraine joining Nato as this would extend the alliance’s reach...

After being nixed by bitter Obama supporters, protesters will meet at the Georgia State Capitol tonight to discuss their disgust with the government... and watch fireworks. I have very little information on this, having received the heads-up only minutes ago, but for those who live in the Atlanta area, a Tea Party will be held at the Capitol from 6:00 pm until 9:00pm tonight. According to the Tea Party Patriots website, the event is being organized by Dr. Bob Frady. Developing...

There are few places in the world Robert D. Kaplan has not visited and written about in his books and magazine articles. He travels to countries hardly anyone else even considers – to Turkmenistan, for instance, during the time of the lunatic "Turkmenbashi" who transformed his post-Soviet republic into the North Korea of Central Asia. He has an uncanny ability to see conflicts looming on the horizon well in advance and – reversing the standard relationship between journalists and officials – U.S. defense policy professionals often ask him for briefings about what he has seen.His regular dispatches in the...

In Georgia, summer brings not just sweltering days and holidays on the Black Sea, but also the lurking fear of invasion and attack. The Caucasus mountains, for so much of the year the country’s stalwart defender while heavy snow cuts off the only road linking South Ossetia and Russia through the Roki Tunnel, are powerless to deter attack from May until the snows come again around mid September. Pavel Felhgenhauer, columnist and defence analyst for Russia’s opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper has written extensively about his belief that Russia is likely to finish off this summer what they started last year...

ALBANY - The Dougherty County Commission voted unanimously Monday to reject all bids on the construction of a new Public Works building, including LRA Constructors Inc.'s low bid of $650,390, after County Attorney Spencer Lee recommended such action based on constitutionality issues. Lee outlined for the Commission the reasons for his recommendation, noting that a 2008 disparity study conducted by BBC Research & Consulting of Denver found that a system calling for minority-based participation quotas and "good-faith" efforts was unconstitutional under existing federal law. "This board needs to take action on matters like these based on the latest disparity study,...

Rarely in history has a President of the United States acted so quickly, so poorly, and so ineffectively. Not even the infamous Jimmy Carter can hold a candle to how President Obama has handled situations on the ground in Iraq, the Military Base in Guantanamo, or relations aboard the Apology Express in Europe. But no, though the "Commander in Chief" stumbled and fell throughout those mentioned, they are not the worst things he has done. No, our Chosen One has done much more egregious things that will almost definitely cripple the lives of all involved. In his very young Presidency,...

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of troops, backed by hundreds of tanks, artillery and other heavy weaponry, began rumbling through the North Caucasus on Monday, as Russia began its largest military exercises since last year's war with Georgia. The Caucasus 2009 war games are being seen by many experts as a warning shot for nearby Georgia, where the government says it has rearmed armed forces and where NATO recently wrapped up its own exercises.

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — The first and only Catholic college in the state of Georgia celebrated its first commencement exercise May 16. At the same time, the pioneering, lay-founded Catholic school also announced a new affiliation that could drive its future growth. Southern Catholic College is an institution of 240 students from 26 states on 100 acres in the foothills of the western Georgia mountains, about an hour’s drive from downtown Atlanta. It is so new that Michelle Bivins visited the prospective college in 2004 as a high school senior from Owensboro, Ky., and stayed with her mother in a resort...

Congressional computers have been penetrated, probably by the Chinese. The avionics system of the F-22 fighter may be compromised. Computers of our presidential candidates were hacked into -- and probably not by teenagers...Last year's advance of Russian tanks into Georgia was accompanied by the disruption of Georgian government computer systems. ...Attacks on computer systems will be an integral element of future conflict, and the United States is more dependent on computer networks than any other nation. ...policymakers and the military are in the early stages of coming to grips with this. We need to take some important first steps to...

Tensions in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus mounted after Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen president, said he had been authorized by the Kremlin to begin a campaign of "torture" against rebels in neighbouring Ingushetia. Russian troops appeared to be preparing to launch a major counterterrorism operation a day after Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the Ingush president, was seriously wounded in a suicide bombing. Mr Yevkurov, a close ally of Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, was on life-support in a Moscow hospital yesterday after sustaining serious injuries to his skull, ribs and vital organs, doctors said. Speaking from the hospital, Mr Medvedev ordered a "direct...

More than 50 years after a 7,600lb (3,500kg) nuclear bomb was dropped in US waters following a mid-air military collision, the question of whether the missing weapon still poses a threat remains. In his own mind, retired 87-year-old Colonel Howard Richardson is a hero responsible for one of the most extraordinary displays of aeronautic skill in the history of the US Air Force. His view carries a lot of weight and he has a large number of supporters - including the Air Force itself which honoured his feat with a Distinguished Flying Cross. But to others, he is little short...

A new internet data map offers a first-of-its-kind, county-level look at HIV cases in the U.S. and finds the infection rates tend to be highest in the South. The highest numbers of HIV cases are in population centers like New York and California. However, many of the areas with the highest rates of HIV—that is, the highest proportion of people with the AIDS-causing virus—are in the South, according to the data map, which has information for about 99 percent of the nation's counties. HIV infection rates are higher in African-American communities, and high minority populations in the South help explain...

Posted By McQ Georgia recently sent elements of its 48th BCT to Afghanistan. Within 3 weeks 3 of their warriors were killed by an IED explosion. The following video is simply magnificent. It's 12 minutes long, but it makes an incredible point - the people of America love and honor their warriors and appreciate the sacrifice they make. The video is shot from inside the procession which picked up the remains of SSG John Beale and shows the crowds which turned out to honor him as it traveled through various parts and towns in Henry County, GA, where SSG Beale...

Barack Obama and John McCain Then:"I think it is important at this point for all sides to show restraint and to stop this armed conflict."Barack Obama's initial response after Russia sent troops and tanks into the former Soviet state of Georgia - August 2008"Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory."John McCain's response to the Russian invasion of Georgia - August 2008Barack Obama and John McCain Now:"It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling."Barack Obama's response to the [rigged] election in Iran and the ensuing...

ROSWELL, Ga. — A Georgia liquor store clerk credits his police officer son with giving him two life-saving gifts — a cell phone and a gun. Joseph Wescott says the phone he slipped into his shirt pocket stopped a knife to his chest when a robbery suspect attacked him at the store in a northern Atlanta suburb. He then reached under the counter for the .40-caliber handgun and shot the man. "The knife that he had looked like it was about 10-foot long," the 67-year-old Wescott exclaimed. When the suspect lunged at Wescott, he fell back and the knife struck...

Unpublished documents produced by the European Union commission that investigated the conflict between Georgia and Moscow assign much of the blame to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. But the Kremlin and Ossetian militias are also partly responsible.From her office on Avenue de la Paix, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, 58, looks out onto the botanical gardens in peaceful Geneva. The view offers a welcome respite from the stacks of documents on her desk, which deal exclusively with war and war blame. They contain the responses, from the conflicting parties in the Caucasus region -- Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- to...

Georgia Votes to Secede From Russia-led CIS JUNE 15, 2009 06:54 The parliament of Georgia has unanimously passed decrees on the former Soviet republics` formal withdrawal from the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States, the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti said. Georgia informed the CIS executive committee of its secession after the armed conflict with Russia in August last year over the separatist movement in South Ossetia. RIA Novosti said the passage of the decrees is Georgia’s internal official approval of the secession. “Georgia has already withdrawn from the organization... Therefore, today we are wrapping up this process through the...

Kia Motors has hired almost 700 workers for its west Georgia factory, which is scheduled to go into production in December Kia’s human resources manager, Randy Jackson, told the Troup County Coalition on Monday that the South Korea-based automaker had just added 90 more employees. The assembly plant expects to have 1,000 to 1,200 workers when it starts production and 2,500 making 300,000 cars per year by the end of 2010. The new generation Sorento will be the first model in West Point, and a small number of test vehicles have been built since April. Jackson says suppliers will add...

he U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal to the oft-challenged Georgia law that requires voters to show photo identification before they cast their ballots. (from AP) Mods edit as necessary

Maggie Beck-Coon, a research and communications coordinator for the Georgia Commission on Family Violence, took exception to police reports that the violence was initiated over a watermelon. “People are not shot or killed over a dropped watermelon. People shoot their family members when that person is perpetrating domestic violence,” Beck-Coon said in an e-mail.

The US ambassador to Georgia has made a statement regarding the involvement of the Georgian military contingent in the peace operation in Afghanistan. John Tefft said, the Georgian soldiers may deploy with the American, instead of the French soldiers. `There was the idea that the Georgian troops will deploy with the American troops in Afghanistan. It was discussed in the Defence Ministry in Washington, and I don`t still have a full report on this conversation`, the US ambassador said.

Never a dull moment with the Justice Department of Eric Holder, aka "the right man at the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years ahead." In fact, it would be more accurate to say he's the right man at the right time to protect our non-citizens in the critical years ahead. Unbelievably (or, perhaps, entirely too believably), Holder has told Georgia that it may no longer verify identification in order to ensure that voting is done only by citizens eligible to vote. The AP reports: ATLANTA — The Justice Department has rejected Georgia's system of using Social...

LISTEN TO THE REAL REVEREND JESSE ON THE INTERNET OR A RADIO STATION IN YOUR AREA......BOND Action, Inc...Educating, Motivating and Rallying Americans! The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show Streamed live online from 6-9 a.m. PST / 9-12 a.m. EST. Call in the same times usually. For Live Questions or Comments Call 1-888-77-JESSE(5-3773) You can email comments and questions to radio@bondaction.org For more information on getting The Jesse Lee Peterson Show picked up on a station in your local area call Ermias Alemayehu at 1-877-WE ACT77 (932-2877)

Georgia or California: Which place has more off limits locations to bearing, i.e., actually carrying, a firearm. California has more than 50,000 people with firearms licences. California is a "may issue" state. But, if you are one of the more than 50,000 people who have a firearms license in California, are you better off than a Georgian? Prior to July of 2008, the members of GeorgiaCarry.Org, Inc.’s contended that Georgia had more places off limits to the bearing of arms than any state in the nation. Now, in 2009, Georgia still has more places off limits than California. Most people...

“NCR makes ATMs,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said Tuesday. “And to me this is equivalent to going to your ATM and finding out that your bank that you and your family have banked with for 125 years has, without even talking to you, transferred all your funds to another company.”

A few blog sites are starting to report DoJ's denial of Georgia's voter verification process. I don't understand how anyone with any common sense would not agree to citizenship and photo ID requirements to vote in a national election.The AJC Political Insider has more info including a pdf link to the DoJ six page letter from Loretta King, Acting Assistant, Attorney General, Civil Rights Division.more...

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel issued the following statement following the U.S. Department of Justice’s denial of preclearance of Georgia’s voter verification process http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/06/01/georgia-non-citizens-registering-to-vote/

LAWRENCEVILLE - Gwinnett's chairman said Thursday he would table the talk of tax increases while his staff investigates deep cuts to county services. At a press conference, Charles Bannister said residents could still face a tax increase because of short revenues in a slow economy, but he said he would table Tuesday's vote on a proposed 25-30 percent increase in the millage rate. "We ... heard from our citizens about the genuine hardship this increase may cause for some of the citizens of Gwinnett County," Bannister said, referring to public hearings where residents stuffed the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center...

ATLANTA (AP) — Armed with a handheld video camera, a Georgia university student drove with a friend in April 2005 to Washington, D.C., and captured scenes of the Capitol, the Pentagon and other locations. Investigators say Syed Haris Ahmed, now 24, wasn't a tourist but a wannabe terrorist who wanted to send the videos of potential terror targets to an overseas contact. He was attending the Georgia Institute of Technology at the time. The charges, along with an allegation that Ahmed went to Pakistan and tried to join a terrorism group a few months later, are central to a federal...

FOLKSTON - Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge officials were concerned earlier this spring that near drought conditions could mean a tense wildfire season. Now they're dealing with flooded docks after two weeks of heavy rains saturated the ground and raised water to above-average levels, they said. "It wasn't quite a drought, but water levels were dropping pretty quickly," said Blaine Eckberg, a refuge ranger. "We had to stop doing prescribed burns because of dry conditions." More than 10 1/2 inches of rain has fallen in the swamp since May 15, pushing the water about 16 inches above normal for this time...

President Obama Tuesday night proclaimed at his high-dollar, Hollywood fundraiser that the economy is on the rebound due to his “stimulus� spending orgy. Obama told the adoring crowd of limousine liberals, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!� Back in the real world, unemployment rates continued their steady rise upward this week, reaching a record high for the 17th consecutive week.  Nearly 6.8 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits despite White House claims that we have begun to spend our way into prosperity. Federal tax revenues fell a significant 34 percent in April of 2009 due to a national unemployment rate now...

Cyberwar is now a fact of life in 21st Century wars. Actual and potential enemies of America already know the dimensions of Cyberwar and have moved into full combat. With a real world combat engagement in Georgia and Estonia, the Russians have shown skill. Make no mistake; in certain arenas the Russians are smart and capable, and as the invasion of Georgia shows, ruthless. They have world class scientists and engineers. It is well known they are excellent Cyber Warfighters who have now also apparently harnessed their criminal hackers to augment their worldwide reach. This melding of Russian conventional military...

When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) hopes you'll be ringing in "the Year of the Bible." It's probably just wishful thinking. Broun's simple congressional resolution aimed at honoring the Good Book has produced a push-back of biblical proportion in the blogosphere, with critics dismissing it as either unconstitutional or a waste of time. Jews in Congress and atheist activists are dismissing the resolution, while none of the many Democrats in Congress who are Christian have bothered to sign on as co-sponsors. According to GovTrak.us, the resolution is among the most-blogged-about pieces of legislation,...

When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) hopes you’ll be ringing in “the Year of the Bible.” It’s probably just wishful thinking. Broun’s simple congressional resolution aimed at honoring the Good Book has produced a push-back of biblical proportion in the blogosphere, with critics dismissing it as either unconstitutional or a waste of time. Jews in Congress and atheist activists are dismissing the resolution, while none of the many Democrats in Congress who are Christian have bothered to sign on as co-sponsors. According to GovTrak.us, the resolution is among the most-blogged-about pieces of legislation,...

U.S. Republican senator, John McCain, said what the Georgian people had “accomplished since the Rose Revolution – in terms of democratic governance, a western orientation, and in domestic reform – is of historic magnitude.” He was speaking at an annual reception of the Georgian Association in the USA in Washington on May 20, where Senator McCain was awarded with the Association’s special award for his “outstanding and unconditional support to Georgian Independence and US-Georgian Friendship.” “Although it has been merely eight months since the world’s attention was riveted by Russia’s invasion, and while the stories may have faded from the...

In news given very little media attention, Russia has again tried to destabilize the pro-American, former Soviet republic of Georgia. Motivated by their success in ripping Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia with little penalty, the Russians are now being accused of orchestrating an anti-government coup. As Russia becomes more aggressive, the West must be prepared for Russia to take similar measures against nearby pro-U.S. countries like the Ukraine. On Mat 5, the Georgian government responded to a coup at Mukhrovani base near Tblisi by dispatching tanks, firing the commanders and ordering the soldiers to remain in their barracks. The...

The ominous storm clouds of war are gathering once again over tiny, besieged Georgia have shed their first droplets of conflict. On May 13th, Russia stood alone against the entire Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in order to veto a measure proposed by Greece calling for the extension of the OSCE's monitoring assignment along the troubled border between Ossetia and Georgia, where war broke out last August.  Not even Russia's erstwhile allies Belarus and Kazhakhstan would support the Russian demand that the OSCE recognize Russia's annexation of Ossetia following its invasion of Georgia.  As Reuters reported: "U.S. and...

One of the principle claims made in Diane Sawyer's rigged campus carry experiment, recently aired on ABC's 20/20, was that having a gun wouldn't protect a college student, that ordinary people like college students aren't trained to handle stress, that they might shoot innocent people, and that the bad guy might take their gun away. Apparently someone forgot to tell a student in College Park, GA that they were better off without having a gun ready at hand...and at least ten college students say they are alive today because of it. From Atlanta, Georgia's WSBTV: A group of college students...

Federal drug enforcement agents seized about 351 pounds of meth from two houses in Duluth, in suburban Atlanta, in an operation that began Sunday and extended into Monday morning. They arrested four Mexican nationals, three of whom are in the U.S. illegally.

A professor wanted for killing his wife and two other people at a community theater two weeks ago was found dead in the north Georgia woods Saturday, his body covered in brush and dirt, officials said. Two guns were found with the body of marketing professor George Zinkhan, who vanished after the April 25 shootings near the University of Georgia, said Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin. The guns matched those described by witnesses to the shootings, though police did not say how they believe Zinkhan died. Authorities hoped to have a cause of death by the end of Saturday....

YEREVAN, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - Armenia will not take part in upcoming NATO-led military exercises in Georgia, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. "The Defense Ministry of the Republic of Armenia announces that due to the current situation, Armenian troops will not take part in NATO's Cooperative Longbow /Cooperative Lancer 2009 in Georgia," the ministry said in a statement. The Armenian Aravot newspaper earlier said the decision was made after a meeting last Wednesday in Brussels between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at which the NATO chief supported the territorial integrity of...

MUKHROVANI, Georgia (Reuters) – Georgia said it put down a mutiny at a military base on Tuesday and accused Moscow of financing a coup on the eve of NATO war games in the former Soviet republic. Russia, which fought a war with Georgia last year, denied any involvement and said President Mikheil Saakashvili was trying to shift the blame for his domestic problems. Georgia's opposition said the incident was "a show" to deflect attention from protests against the president. Saakashvili called the rebellion at the Mukhrovani tank base a "serious threat." Police kept reporters at a distance and it was...

A mutiny at a military base near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is over, the Georgian interior minister says. Vano Merabishvili said the commander of the Mukhrovani base where a tank battalion mutined had been arrested and others were being questioned. Tbilisi said earlier it was part of a Russia-linked coup attempt to kill President Mikhail Saakashvili. Russia's envoy to Nato described the charges as "mad". The trouble comes a day before Nato exercises in Georgia. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned Nato for planning military exercises in a country "where there was just a war". Georgia and Russia have poisonous relations,...

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia sent tanks to a military base near the capital Tbilisi where it said a rebellion was under way on Tuesday and accused Russia of financing a coup. There was no official reaction from Moscow and it was unclear how many were involved in the uprising at the Mukhrovani base, home to several hundred soldiers, or what its aims were. Moscow has repeatedly said Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili might try to find ways to distract attention from opposition protests calling for his resignation. Russia's Interfax news agency said Mukhrovani base commander Mamuka Gorgishvili had made a statement...

Georgia said on Tuesday a Russian-planned coup plot had been uncovered within the military of the former Soviet republic and a rebellion was under way at a military base near the capital. The Interior Ministry said those involved in the plot had received money from Russia which has criticized NATO military exercises in Georgia due to begin on Wednesday. "The main aim of this uprising was to disrupt the NATO military exercises," Defense Minister David Sikharulidze told Reuters. "We are in negotiations with the soldiers at the Mukhrovani base and I hope this uprising will end soon." Sikharulidze said the...

Russia defied international criticism on Sunday by deploying troops along Georgia's internal border with the two breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Hundreds of troops mounted their first patrols along the contested frontier three days after Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian President, announced that Moscow was assuming formal control over the boundaries of the two rebel provinces. The President's declaration prompted accusations from Georgia that Russia was attempting the stealth annexation of the two regions, which were at the heart of last year's war in the Caucasus. Both the European Union and the United States strongly condemned Russia's actions, saying...

"If they were making the television show Miami Vice today it would probably be more appropriately called Metro Atlanta Vice, but with some distinctions," says Jack Killorin, director of Atlanta's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) unit. HIDTAs are anti-drug programmes run by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy. His comments about the seriousness of the situation in Atlanta have raised more than a few eyebrows and attracted a great deal of media attention in recent weeks.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, May 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russian border guards have started their duties as part of a joint border-protection agreement concluded between Russia and two former Georgian republics, a border service spokesperson said on Saturday. The border deals, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed with the two republics at a ceremony in the Kremlin on Thursday, have been condemned by NATO for being a "clear contravention" of a French-brokered cease fire agreement. "Border guard units...have started their duties on protecting the borders in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Sergei Livantsov said without giving details of how many personnel were involved in...