Free Republic

Saudi Arabia has funneled tens of thousands of dollars into the "outreach" programs of Columbia University's Middle East Institute, which until last week was training some of the city's public-school teachers in how to teach students about Middle East politics. Since 2002, the government-owned Saudi Aramco has given the institute annual grants of $15,000 for unspecified outreach activities. The institute's outreach activities have included a 15-week teacher-training course on Middle East politics led by Columbia faculty members and graduate students. In a letter dated April 27, 2004, a scholar of Arab nationalism who took over the Middle East Institute in...

Monday, March 07, 2005 By Kevin McCullough (kmc@wmca.com) Is the Chicago Tribune toeing the Kim Jong-Il line in its reporting on North Korea? OPINION - Subscribers to the Los Angeles Times, and their parent company the Chicago Tribune, should reconsider their subscriptions. The Tribune Company's willingness to actively promote the party line of Kim Jong Il on its front pages speaks loudly to the lack of trust that can be placed in their credibility as news-reporting outlets. Such a betrayal should be cause for a horrific blog-swarm and truly objective broadcast outlets should be equally attentive. The question of whether...

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, launched a national advertising campaign to counter long-term critics of the company's employment policies. "Wal-Mart is working for all Americans. Some of our critics are working only for themselves," company president Lee Scott said in an open letter that was published as a full page ad in more than 100 newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Scott said it was time for the public to hear the "unfiltered truth" about Wal-Mart, and time for the company to stand up on behalf of a workforce that includes 1.2 million Americans....

It's been evident for a long time now that people are getting grumpier, there's a lot of violence in today's society, and too many Americans, especially the younger set, have turned to drugs, legal and illegal, to cope with the everyday tensions of modern life. When I look back to the dark ages when I was growing up, and for many years after, things were a lot less turbulent. We didn't have to turn to tranquilizers or other mood-soothing drugs when we were under tension or wrapped up in difficult tasks. We simply took a few minutes to relax, sat...

I am really tired on how the battle over incorrect use of the newsmedia story facts about this wonderful patriotic election are seemingly being false on TV and in print. The current news is wrongfully using the false term of the ememy forces as being "insurgents". They are not, in a majority of the cases. This is being proven to all with military investigations. Months ago, there was a careful press battle over the newsmedia being incessitantly WRONG and BIASED in calling the armed enemy, "insurgents". This is a liberal, soft, vague and inaccurate term. You could experience it on...

Princeton University's Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, created in 2003 and originally financed by the royal family of Morocco, is offering a new fellowship based on the righteousness of the Palestinian cause and the illegitimacy of Israel. The fellowship description of "Society under Occupation: Contemporary Palestinian Politics, Culture and Identity" reads like a Palestinian propaganda pamphlet.

California's "Happy Cows" ads might be fairly cheesy, but that doesn't mean the state can be sued over them. On Tuesday, San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal declared the California Milk Producers Advisory Board exempt from the state's false advertising laws, preventing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Inc. from suing the agency over its popular campaign showing blissful bovines in a pastoral paradise. PETA, based in Norfolk, Va., had claimed that the ads were "explicitly and implicitly untrue, deceptive and misleading" -- that California cows actually lead harsh lives in grubby fields before being slaughtered. In their...

Israel is not a democracy. Israel is an apartheid state where the government mandates official discrimination against Palestinians, who live as second class citizens within the boundaries of Israel that the UN recognized in 1967. They are 20 percent of the Israeli population, but, in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), they have only 12 out of 120 seats — one of which is held by a woman. In 2001, the parliaments of Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon all had a higher percentage of Arab women than did Israel. This poster, mounted on bus shelters around San Francisco,...

White House slammed for creating fake news WASHINGTON — Shortly before last year's Super Bowl, many news stations aired a story by Mike Morris describing plans for a new White House ad campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. What viewers did not know was that Morris is not a journalist and his "report" was produced by the government, actions that constituted illegal "covert propaganda," according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In the second ruling of its kind, the investigative arm of Congress this week scolded the Bush administration for distributing phony, prepackaged news reports that...

While the West is basking in the tunes of Christmas carols, a different tune is being played by the two leading jihadi TV channels, al-Jazeera and al-Manar. The radical Sunni al-Jazeera, broadcasting from Qatar, the flagship of anti-Western Islamist propaganda, is funded and tolerated by the Qatari royal family, reportedly to the tune of $30 million a year. It has become the main conduit of al Qaeda tapes to the Arab and Muslim world, suggesting an exclusive arrangement with the elusive jihadi leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. Al-Manar, a Shi'ite satellite and cable operation out of Lebanon,...

For a guy who loves to bash Republicans and conservatives as purveyors of selfishness and greed, filmmaker Michael Moore seems determined to emulate that kind of behavior. The vitriolic anti-Bush propagandist is making one last pre-election offer of his schlockumentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," in which he blames the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on President Bush, for viewing online. Apparently Moore's left-wing activism against this president knows no bounds. He has made it clear he will stop at nothing to ensure his defeat. Election Day is mere hours away, and still Moore is working steadfastly to bring his defeatist message to as...

As Wolfe Blitzer was finiahing his show this afternoon (4:59 CDT) he teased another show that would include Rick Santorum. The picture they used had a very distinct "shadow" under Santorum's nose, making it look like a Hitler Mustache.

US loses big in Najaf Resistance in the holy city has proven that the US won't allow democracy in Iraq By Kamil Mahdi THE GUARDIAN , London Tuesday, Aug 17, 2004,Page 9 YUSHA The US military offensive against Najaf is a dangerous and ill-judged escalation, revealing the violent reality of an occupation that has undergone only cosmetic change since the supposed handover of power to an "interim Iraqi administration" in June. For more than a week, an aggressive foreign power has addressed an essentially domestic political question by means of tanks, helicopter gunships and F16s. There had been a ceasefire...

Michael Moore's record-breaking documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" may be drawing big crowds and big bucks, but it is unlikely to be changing many minds, according to polling released Tuesday. Most of those seeing the anti-Bush movie already disapprove of the president's job performance, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found. Almost 9 in 10, or 86 percent, of those who've seen the film said they disapprove of the job Bush is doing. Thirteen percent approved. Only a small group of Republicans had seen the movie among the 5,051 adults polled from July 5 to July 25. The Republican group...

Our fire department had to send an ambulance over to cover the harness racing (horses) at the start of the Tioga County fair today. It lasted several hours, and our crew decided to go walk around. In a semi-secluded tunnel under the stands there were additional booths/areas set up. At one of them a solitary woman had a bunch of labels set out on the table. One compared the notion of a flat earth with Iraq having sovereignty. Another had an irrelevant Bible verse on it. I didn't bother looking all of them over. There were some bumper stickers too....

Will this film make a difference in how people vote in this election? Michael says it will. Anybody who is sitting on the fence on which way to go, or anybody who is an Independent, after watching the film your vote won't likely be going to Bush. And he says it is not him (Moore) saying this; it is the people who have seen the film. Immediately after accepting the Award and leaving the stage, the first words spoken to you are from two interns. One offers and says, "Champagne?" The other says, "Breath mint?" Dave laughs and says, "You're...

Lion's Gate up on Moore film deal By William Spain, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 1:25 PM ET June 2, 2004 CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Lion's Gate Entertainment rose Wednesday on word that the company will be a part of a "fellowship" formed to distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11," the latest documentary from director Michael Moore. The film, which had been seeking a distributor since a nervous Walt Disney Co. gave it pass, will roll nationally with the help of the so-called Fellowship Adventure Group, a venture formed just for the purpose by Miramax chiefs Harvey and Bob Weinstein that also will include...

Global Warming Fallacies Human-caused global warming advocates have based their propaganda campaign on several false premises: • The planet is already heating up. The historical record shows that global temperatures are not unusually warm today. Figure 1 shows the temperature of a large Atlantic Ocean region known as the Sargaso Sea during the past 3,000 years. This data, which is similar to many other studies of various world locations by means of experiment and of the historical record, shows a period of higher temperatures 1,000 years ago, and a period of lower temperatures 300 years ago. Source: "Environmental Effects of...

Bush poll numbers drop to new lowPresident seeks to assure nation about strategy in Iraq By Corbett B. Daly, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 7:17 PM ET May 24, 2004 WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- As President Bush seeks to assure Americans he has strategy for transferring power in Iraq to an interim government run by Iraqis at the end of next month, a newly released CBS News poll shows his overall approval rating has dipped to the lowest level of his presidency. More than half of Americans, 52 percent, now disapprove of the way Bush is doing his job, while 41 percent...

Have you seen the horrendously offensive HBO showing of STRIP SEARCH, in which an Arab in the U.S. is degraded and strip searched in exactly the same way as an American woman (Maggie Gylenhaal) is treated by a Red Army officer in Communist China? Both interrogators use the same banal dialogue, both subjects are innocent. The only distinction is that the Communist Chinese male officer shows MORE compassion for the American and has more doubt about what he is doing than the American (Glenn Close).The Arab is obviously innocent, the American interrogator uses offensive treatment throughout. The whole thing is...