Free Republic

The UN General Assembly has been in session, and if typical of them, nasty things are probably in store for American gun owners as a result. The Citizen's Committee For The Right To Keep and Bear Arms (CCKRBA), in a recent mailing, said that The UN is still actively pursuing the guns you own, and the ones you want to buy. Don't count out associated non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as The International Network On Small Arms (IANSA.) IANSA's Rebecca Peters was largely responsible for the disarming of Australians and the associated increase in violent crimes there as a result of...

The International NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is once again proving once again why its top banana Ken Roth is a perennial nominee for the Self Hating Jew Awards. They have a simple strategy, Advocacy not Accuracy. HRW is famous for inventing and/or twisting facts to slander Israel. They tend to use Palestinian sources only, without bothering to verify. HRW refuses to recognize terrorist attacks against Israel as provocative. For example, a year before the Gaza War they objected to Israel's limited response to the rocket attacks on Sedrot. In Jan 2008, Joe Stork of HRW wrote a 34 paragraph...

While our media sleep, the United Nations is proceeding, with President Obama's acquiescence, to implement a global plan to create a new international socialist order financed by global taxes on the American people.The Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development that begins on Wednesday will consider adoption of a document calling for "new voluntary and innovative sources of financing initiatives to provide additional stable sources of development finance..." This is U.N.-speak for global taxes. They are anything but "voluntary" for the people forced to pay them.The most "popular" proposals, which could generate tens of...

... Am-Nasty, an organization that cares more about politics than helping the powerless. In fact Am-Nasty HARMS the cause of Human rights much more than it helps. This supposed Human Rights groups has a political obsession with harming Israel that makes it ignore some of the real human rights abuses in the world. * In 2008, Amnesty again focused disproportionately on Israel’s response to aggression from Gaza, and led the NGO campaigns accusing Israel of “collective punishment” and “war crimes.” * Amnesty’s publications in the region portray Israel as among the worst human rights violators in the Middle East (second...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- General Electric Co. is reading the tea leaves of the troubled global economy and has found a new partner to help it weather the storm: government. In the new economy, the interaction between government and business will be changed forever, with government as a stronger regulator, an industry policy champion, a financier and key partner, GE (GE 7.01, -0.59, -7.8%) Chief Executive Jeff Immelt wrote in a letter to shareholders, published late Monday. ...Another driver is infrastructure work tied to Obama's stimulus package, which seeks to rebuild highways, water systems, electrical grids and make government buildings...

NEW YORK, February 16, 2009 (C-FAM) - After two years of debate, the UN committee responsible for reviewing applications from non-government organizations (NGOs) has voted to reject Brazil’s Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros (ABGLT) over questions of the group’s position on pedophilia. ABGLT came under scrutiny by the NGO committee over allegations that one of the organization’s founders was being investigated for posting essays promoting pedophilia on his blog. The NGO Committee member from Egypt urged the committee not to make a rushed decision on any organization where there was even the “slightest shadow of doubt” about its...

I hate to hear about "partnerships" between government and business, or between government and other organizations. When there is a partnership between an ant and an elephant, who do you suppose makes the decisions? - Thomas Sowell We'll be hearing a lot about state-business "partnerships" over the months to come. Much of Obama's "stimulus" plan, and virtually the whole of the bank-bailout plan (if I'm deciphering Secretary Geithner's obscure and confusing outline correctly) are based on the concept. In fact, most of the country's financial establishment is already operating under such a compact. That being the case, a close examination...

Palestinian Muslims war crimes and anti Israel bias & Jihadists-appeasement among "human rights" NGO groups Hamas war crimes? Obviously (b'tzelem). So blame the victim http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3327751/hamas-war-crimes-obviously-so-blame-the-victim.thtmlIt’s because the war crimes by Hamas are too obvious. 'No need to probe Hamas because its war crimes are so blatant' Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304687815&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullNew Gaza study: Extreme NGO anti-Israel bias Ynetnews http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3667108,00.html

United Way of Dane County is moving forward on its mission to effect change in the community by announcing expanded programs and initiatives in its Agenda for Change for 2009. The United Way collected more than $17 million in contributions in its 2008 campaign, paving the way to continue investing in programs and initiatives aligned to respond to issues the community identified to have the greatest impact in crucial areas, including schools, early childhood development and safety. "The community responded in a very challenging economic climate, and we are excited to share details of how their investments will solve the...

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has become extremely powerful and influential, particularly with respect to "human rights" related issues and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their Anti-Israel reports, protests and lobbying activities have a dominant impact, particularly in the United Nations as well as on the policies adopted by many governments. Their words are taken verbatim by the media and projected as the truth. A key strategy of the NGO community was introduced to the world in 2001 at the initial UN Conference on Racism in Durban. The tact they took was to delegitimize Israel by turning it into a demon state, warping its...

Since the beginning of the war with Hamas, human rights organizations have accused Israel of "genocide," "willful killings," "targeting civilians" and "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions." Taken at face value, these statements appear to describe flagrant violations of international law and horrific abuses of human rights. Yet, upon closer inspection, these condemnations must be seen as part of a wider campaign to promote the Palestinian cause. The exploitation of international legal rhetoric has become a major weapon in the political war to delegitmize Israeli antiterror operations. Under this strategy, crystallized at the NGO Forum of the UN's 2001 Durban...

Left-of-center nonprofits are getting the bailout they wanted from the U.S. government, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The news comes a month after Independent Sector president Diana Aviv demanded it. Our lawmakers are intent on pissing away billions of dollars on utterly useless giveaways to their supporters in the liberal nonprofit establishment. The money will have virtually no positive impact on the economy, except perhaps that it might bolster employment at nonprofit groups. One of the more egregious line items is the $1 billion allocation for community development block grants (CDBG). These are slush funds that liberal groups like La...

Nearly 800 advocates for California's "working families" gathered in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday, and they had plenty to talk about. Deep cuts to programs that fund food and health care and affordable housing for the state's most vulnerable people. Rising unemployment and demand for social services. Alarming school dropout rates. It was enough to tear Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg away from budget negotiations at the Capitol to rally the group of nonprofit staffers, policymakers and others at the Sacramento Convention Center. Steinberg, six weeks into his new job, admitted that he has not been getting out much lately....

Through the use of holiday and religious symbols, NGOs such as War on Want, Amos Trust, and Pax Christi have been manipulating Christmas to advance a political agenda, and in some cases, have been promoting antisemitic canards. NGOs organized an event entitled, "Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols for Palestine," involving "traditional carols with untraditional lyrics, interspersed with poetry and prose readings, to highlight current reality in the Holy Land."

Talk about destroying the "Christmas Spirit!" British NGOs are using Christmas as a cover to distribute/sell anti Israel and Anti-Semitic materials. These NGOs include War on Want, Amos Trust, and Pax Christi For example they NGOs organized an event entitled, "Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols for Palestine," involving "traditional carols with nontraditional lyrics, interspersed with poetry and prose readings, to highlight the current reality in the Holy Land." The biased lyrics and themes were so "way out there" they lead to strong condemnations from Christian and Jewish community leaders. Another group War on Want is promoting an "Alternative...

A new state commission says the Alaska governor ought to get a $25,000 a year raise. Asked to figure out how much Alaska should pay its top officials, the group recommends pay hikes for the lieutenant governor, department heads and legislators too. “We need the best people we can get to do some pretty tough jobs against some often incredibility well-financed, single-minded corporate and individual interests,” said Rick Halford, a former legislator and chairman of the new State Officers Compensation Commission. Deciding how much to pay themselves is always a thorny proposition for politicians who answer to an ever-skeptical public....

Obama Praised Daschle's Federal Health Board Idea By Philip Klein on 11.25.08 @ 10:52AM Barack Obama said earlier this year that Tom Daschle's idea of creating a Federal Health Board (modeled after the Federal Reserve) to manage the nation's medical system showed "great promise." "The American health care system is in crisis, and workable solutions have been blocked for years by deeply entrenched ideological divisions," Obama wrote in a blurb on the back of Daschle's book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. "Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem, and his Federal Reserve for Health concept...

Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist. Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent's much needed “green revolution”, he believes. Speaking before a keynote lecture tonight to the British Association for the...

Staff Sgt. Kristy Van Lanen, a native of West De Pere, Wisc., talks to directors of a non-governmental organization at the Iraqi Assistance Center in Baghdad July 19, 2008. NGOs are helping improve the economic stability and education levels of their Iraqi communities through education and training. Photo by Sgt. James Hunter. BAGHDAD — Iraqis continue to take more of a lead within their communities, helping improve the economic stability and education levels of their Iraqi communities. These Iraqis are a part of non-governmental organizations that gain funding through various agencies to fund facilities and training programs within their community.NGOs...

Toll road opponents today will ask the Sunset Advisory Committee of the Texas Legislature to abolish the Texas Department of Transportation, saying the agency has become too corrupt and too dysfunctional to fix, 1200 WOAI news reports. "We want to see elected leadership at the helm of Tex-DOT," says long time toll road opponent Terri Hall, the founder of the citizen action group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. "We are done with this unelected beaurocracy that is just an arm of private road building companies and the lackeys of this governor." The idea of eliminating TexDOT and establishing a...

Anyone familiar with the threat posed by the advancing American Fifth Column understands all too clearly that our Constitution is under attack. Whether it is the insistence that the Constitution is a living document meant to conform to the will of the times or the institution of political correctness – a shadow set of laws effectively usurping the laws of our Constitutional Republic – the American Fifth Column is slowly, incrementally, systematically, chipping away at the wisdom as set forth by our Founders and Framers. With news that a non-governmentally charged commission is introducing a measure that would impose “group...

Islamic apartheid suppresses Jewish people Just another example of how Jewish people speaking the truth and reading the truth is called an "insult" and an excuse for Islamic apartheid. Why don't people protest the MIddle Eastern Islamic apartheid against the Jewish people? Why do Muslims claim to have the right to supress, humiliate and destroy everyone else? Why is apartheid, homophobia, sexism, racism, facism, religious coercion, expansionism, imperialism and mass murder of civilians ok as long as the Islamic empire chooses it? Why do they claim Islam and Arabism more important than all human beings and all human cultures? Mara...

Amidst the clangor of NGO criticisms that target Israel for its behavior it is difficult to know which ones to take seriously. Whether they allege "collective punishment" based on a simplistic calculus divorced from context, or claim that Israel is obligated to provide Gaza with the entirety of its fuel and foodstuffs, which has no basis in international law, various human rights NGOs discredit themselves with relative ease. Despite the "halo affect" these NGOs enjoy and the credibility they are afforded in international forums, many Israelis are beginning to take these claims less seriously. But there is still one community...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A small group of Indonesians in their late 40s who attended the same elementary school in central Jakarta recently gathered for a reunion and to pledge their support for an absent former classmate -- Barack Obama. Obama's late mother came to Indonesia with her young son in the late 1960s to join her second husband knowing next to nothing about the huge, developing Southeast Asian nation. While her son left after four years to study in Hawaii, for the Kansas-born mother of the Democratic Party presidential hopeful the relationship with Indonesia was to grow into a lifetime...

I'm an elitist. Eighty percent of the critical decisions affecting Israel are shaped by maybe 100 or 200 people, 300. These are my clients. Thus spaketh Prof. Yehezkel Dror, the resident blabbermouth in the Winograd Commission, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed in the wake of the 2006 war with Hizbullah. Dror made this statement in his interview with the Jerusalem Post last week. In a separate op-ed in Haaretz, Dror expanded on his theme. He explained that of these 300 decision makers who make life and death decisions in Israel, "less than thirty" are elected officials. So as Dror...

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 jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

The USCCB Committee on Migration sent a delegation to the U.S./Mexico border region to study the plight of unaccompanied minors and human trafficking victims. The ever-growing problems with these populations are some of the gravest and many times most overlooked symptoms of the broken and out-dated immigration system currently employed by the United States. The delegation met with a broad cross-section of agencies and individuals involved with or knowledgeable of these populations to gain critical insights and to understand their needs. The delegation also met with Church officials, government officials, community-based organization, and other with important perspectives. Programs established to...

A snake-rescue drive conducted by NGO Plants and Animals Welfare Society (PAWS) for the past two weeks has cost them dearly, as a mob attacked their on-duty animal ambulance on Friday and beat up the driver and volunteers. According to Sunish Subramanian, member secretary of PAWS, their office received a tip-off that a snake basket had been left abandoned near a hutment in Kalwa (E) on Friday at around 8.30 pm. Following the call, he along with a team of two volunteers and the driver left in their rescue ambulance. After rescuing the snake, the group was on their way...

UNICEF Among Sponsors of New Campaign Promoting Abortion US, Canadian government development agencies among participants in campaign By Samantha Singson NEW YORK, October 4, 2007 (C-FAM.org) - A new global initiative was launched by various UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in New York last week that includes a call for legal abortion. Among the sponsors of the initiative called "Deliver Now for Women and Children" is the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), a UN agency that persistently denies they support abortion in any way, shape, or form.  Marketed as a campaign to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...

For the past six years, the road to Bill Clinton has often run through Douglas Band, a 34-year-old former White House intern who has helped manage Mr. Clinton's time, accompanied him around the world and even fielded some of his calls. Two years ago, Mr. Band befriended a handsome and charming Italian businessman named Raffaello Follieri. The young Italian, now 29 years old, had moved to New York in 2003 to launch a business buying and redeveloping Roman Catholic Church properties. He claimed close ties with Vatican officials that would smooth the way for deals, according to business associates and...

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is a private, nonprofit organization, was founded in the early 1980's under the influence of Ronald Reagan for "supporting democracy abroad". So we've had that going on for years. The NED basically does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly. It funds civil society groups and organizations that fit within U.S. strategic interests in various countries.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - An alliance of Zimbabwean human rights groups said Wednesday that 2007 is on course to be the worst year for rights violations since the country's economic downfall started seven years ago. Legal and medical experts documented that cases of state-orchestrated torture on individuals rose to about four per day in the early part of the year, the Human Rights Forum said. Cases of gross violations — including abductions, arrests, unlawful detentions and abuses of political rights and basic freedoms — doubled in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2006, the...

JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THIS Kirsten Powers was a guest on the O'Reilly Factor last night. The subject was the Mexican woman, Elvira Arellano, who was deported back to her homeland yesterday after twice sneaking into this country illegally and the using a false Social Security card to obtain employment cleaning airplanes at O'Hare airport in Chicago. What Kirsten Powers said was so incredibly inane, so ponderously stupid, that I just had to go online and try to find out a little about her. She's a columnist for the New York Post, a regular contributor on Fox News, and a former...

Property Rights activist and ranger, Wayne Hage said, "Either you have the right to own property or you are property." The backbone of the plan was a call for "public/private partnerships." Sustainable Development is not freedom. Not one of the three principles apply.

The international battle for Arctic territory may look like a Wild West brawl but the real fight for supremacy is more likely to revolve around legal arguments and seismic data than showdowns between ice-breakers or submarines.

Whether it's storming the beach at Normandy, slugging a heavyweight champ or stealing cars in San Andreas, video game developers have made billions by letting players' imaginations run wild in increasingly sophisticated virtual worlds. Now a New York human rights group called Breakthrough is taking advantage of the same strategy -- but not for its entertainment value. The group's controversial new game "ICED! I Can End Deportation" in which players can step into the role of an illegal immigrant attempting to avoid deportation has a political agenda. "It's really important in today's world to create a dialogue about social issues,"...

The situation for civilians in Iraq is "ever worsening", the International Committee of the Red Cross says. Although it is difficult to determine the numbers of people killed in shootings, bombings and military operations, it is clear that the overall situation in the country has been steadily deteriorating, an official said on Wednesday.

NGOs: No-Good OligarchiesApril 5, 2007 If there is a group of organizations that hates Western Civilization more than the MSM (Mainstream Media) or even Liberals, it must be the NGOs (non-governmental organizations)... and the recent kidnapping of British military personnel by the ISLAMIC Republic of Iran seals the deal. Although the MSM insists on referring to the March 23rd  kidnapping of 15 British sailors and marines by the Iranians as a “capture”...it was a kidnapping. And, although this kidnapping, and its subsequent serial violations of International Law, has screamed out to many NGOs for a condemnation of the ISLAMIC Republic of Iran...there is...

In January,2007-NM Governor Bill Richardson flew to Khartoum on a whirlwind "peace mission" - returning just in time to announce his candidacy for President. Be still my heart !

MOSCOW, Jan. 23 -- The Russian Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that shut down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a Western-funded grass-roots organization that had challenged the Kremlin's interpretation of events in the continuing conflict in Chechnya. [...] Oksana Chelysheva, one of the group's leaders, promised to fight the ruling. "We are going to take our case to the European Court of Human Rights and, possibly, our Constitutional Court." [...] The law on nongovernmental organizations, signed by President Vladimir Putin in January 2006, makes it illegal for grass-roots groups to have people convicted of extremism as leaders...

Russia has allowed dozens of foreign non-governmental organizations to resume operations and was speeding up the registration process for others barred from working last week, officials said Tuesday. The suspensions had provoked an international outcry. Anatoly Panchenko, a Justice Ministry official, said about 40 of the roughly 100 nonprofit groups suspended Thursday after failing to meet a tough new law for re-registration had since been added to the list of officially sanctioned groups. He expressed optimism that the rest would also return to work soon. [...] Among the groups allowed to return to work were two U.S.-based pro-democracy organizations -...

The war with Hizbullah, like all Israel's confrontations with terror groups in the past decade, includes a political front that is as important and complex as the military front. The words and images used by journalists, politicians, diplomats and officials of powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) set the framework in which the military actions are judged. Where the Israeli response to Iranian and Syrian-supported terror is viewed as justified, which is largely the case in the United States, support for Israel is high, allowing for the dispatch of weapons necessary to defeat Hizbullah. But in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, the dominant...

MYTH: More Foreign Aid Will End Global Poverty Food and Financial Aid Often Reaches Only Corrupt Officials, Not the Poor By JOHN STOSSEL AND PATRICK McMENAMIN May 12, 2006 — - This myth may really rattle your brain. Lots of well-meaning people believe foreign aid will cure poverty. U2's lead singer, Bono, stops almost every concert to tell his fans that Western governments can end poverty. "We have the resources, we have the know-how to end extreme poverty," he said last year in Chicago. Angelina Jolie visited a model village in Africa to promote what she believes would be possible...

In December, 1989 the Armed Forces of the Philippines seriously threatened President Corazon Aquino in a coup, claiming she was corrupt and needed to be removed. The saintly housewife, affectionately called "Cory," led the movement that drove the corrupt dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, from office after the assassination of her politician husband Ninoy. The US, then still deeply concerned about keeping strategic bases in the Philippines, dispatched a couple of F-4 fighters to fly over Manila as a warning to the rebel soldiers, thus helping save Cory's presidency. At the time I was an advisor to the Administrator of USAID. Although...

Blog-Explosion is one of those web-sites that tries to help its members enlarge the traffic that patronizes their blog. Upon joining the service, they try to steer visitors to your site and they add your site to their directory of sites organized by subject, etc. As a long time member of the service, I recently received an interesting e-mail plea from Blog-Explosion asking that member bloggers blog about a new idea called "your question.org" to gain credits in the Blog-Explosion system. Apparently, the idea is that you (Joe-citizen of the world) should send your questions about what you want to...

Were The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation a public company, it would rank among the entire world's 400 largest by asset size--before getting a single dime of Warren Buffett's promised money. But the $35 billion of assets listed on the foundation's latest financial statement, as of Dec. 31, is only one measure of its gargantuan magnitude. An active, aggressive player in financial markets, the foundation turns over the equivalent of its entire asset base on average about every two months. During 2005, the cash-flow statement shows, it purchased a staggering $250.7 billion of investments while selling $251.2 billion. Turnover at...

Human Rights Watch and Saeb Erekat lack objectivity The Israeli Defense Forces recently concluded a report on the tragic deaths of seven Palestinians on a Gaza Beach. As detailed yesterday in HR's special report "Gaza Beach Libel", the IDF has carefully analyzed all evidence and proven that it was not responsible for this tragedy. In the past 24 hours, our report has generated over 500 letters to the media. While some news organizations have reported the IDF findings, it certainly does not compensate for the highly emotive front page initial accusations.At the same time, many in the media have been...

On Sunday, June 11, a boycott of Israeli academics, which had been adopted a few weeks earlier by the U.K. University and College Lecturers’ Union (NATFHE), was lifted after the move threatened to derail a merger plan with the larger U.K. Association of University Teachers. The development comes as the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) passed a resolution at the end of May to “support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions” against Israel. These actions, gaining steam on multiple continents, did not develop out of thin air. Lurking behind them, and many similar...

A coalition of radical homosexual groups put heavy pressure on the Bush administration to change its vote to allow accreditation of homosexual groups seeking UN recognition, the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) notes in its latest "Friday Fax.". Although they were unsuccessful in gaining accreditation for the groups, the gay-rights groups are claiming credit on their web sites for getting the US to change what was a No vote to a Yes. Claiming credit for the change in US policy are Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the International Gay and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Those heaping portions at restaurants -- and doggie bags for the leftovers -- may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their way. The government is trying to enlist the help of the nation's eateries in fighting obesity. One of the first things on their list: cutting portion sizes.