Free Republic

The two aerial strikes on Damascus in the past 48 hours, carried out by the Israel Air Force according to foreign media reports, are likely the result of classified intelligence indicating an imminent attempt to transfer strategic weapons from Syria to Hezbollah. With Hezbollah deploying up to half of its fighting force to Syria to help the regime of dictator Bashar Assad fight for its survival, the Lebanese Shi’ite organization will be seeking “rewards” for its actions. Hezbollah and its patron Iran may have asked Assad to make the advanced weapons available. It would seem that Assad cannot have been...

US Secretary of State John Kerry again warned Wednesday that time was slipping away to reach a Middle East peace deal, and for the first time said there may only be a year or two left. Appearing before US lawmakers for the first time since becoming America's top diplomat in February, Kerry said his three trips to the region already were proof of his commitment to try to find a way to resume peace talks, AFP reported. The Obama administration is "trying to find out what is possible," Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee, as he laid out the...

You can tell a lot about prosperity in America by observing the places people are moving to and where they are packing up and moving from. New Census Bureau data on metropolitan areas indicate that the South and the Sunbelt regions continue to grow, while the Northeast and Midwest continue to shrink. Among the 10 fastest-growing metro areas last year were Raleigh, Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. All of these are in low-tax, business-friendly red states. Blue-state areas such as Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Providence and Rochester were among the biggest population losers. This migration...

Full Title - 'She didn't affirmatively say no': Silence means consent according to defense in Ohio high school rape trial where passed out, drunken teenage girl was 'sexually assaulted' by multiple football players' Defense lawyers in the coming trial of two high school football players charged with raping a nearly passed-out-drunk 16-year-old girl are expected to argue on the issue of consent. In the case that has shocked the nation, prosecutors state that the inebriated girl was taken to a number of parties by a group of drunk teenagers, supporting her to walk when she wasn't physically capable. The prosecution...

FARGO – Former Fargo radio and TV personality Ed Schultz slapped down speculation this week that MSNBC may replace him in its weekday lineup, according to media reports. The New York Times reported Sunday, citing anonymous sources, that MSNBC was considering replacing “The Ed Show” in the left-leaning cable news station’s 7 p.m. weekday time slot, opting instead for a show hosted by Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein. MSNBC denied there prime-time programming changes in the works, TVNewser reported.

October 21, 2012 A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials

The Obama administration remained unimpressed on Thursday after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations and reiterated that the President would not set “red lines” for Iran. “As the prime minister said, the United States and Israel share the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," spokesman Tommy Vietor of the National Security Council said on Thursday, adding, “We will continue our close consultation and cooperation toward achieving that goal.” Meanwhile, officials in Washington quoted in the Israeli media praised Netanyahu for the conciliatory approach he took towards Obama but made ​​it clear that the United...

On this day in 1916, the German air ace Manfred von Richthofen—known to history as the "Red Baron"—shoots down his first enemy plane over the Western Front during World War I.

Congressman Mike Rogers [R-Michigan] gave an interview recently and said he walked out of a meeting a few weeks ago between you and US Ambassador Dan Shapiro with a sense that you were at wit’s end over American policy toward Iran. Are you? No, I am not at wit’s end. I believe we have to stop Iran, I believe we can stop Iran, and I think certain things are needed to do that. One of them is setting clear, designated limits to Iran’s nuclear weapons programs activities. I think that has not yet been done, but I am an old...

Today, on Fox News Sunday: Video at Site

Prof. Anna Geifman’s 2010 book Death Orders examines mass political terrorism in pre-revolutionary Russia as a precedent for today’s Islamist terrorism. Geifman’s study of the Russian communist terror that prepared the 1917 revolution has enormous value for students of contemporary Islamist organizations. A common sociology links the Russian terrorists and the Islamists: Russia’s “urban populace swelled from around 9 million people in the mid-19th century to about 25 million in 1913, with inhabitants of most major Russian cities increasing four- or five-fold,” leading to a “breakdown of social values.” All of Europe experienced political upheaval associated with urbanization; but, “Less...

It may be accurate to blame Barack Hussein Obama for the woes that this country is facing, but the man behind the curtain, the leftist version of a Karl Rove is solely more responsible for getting him elected than any person on the planet. Since the “historic” ascendancy and 2008 election of Obama, it has come out that Axelrod is more than just a paid political hack, more than just an “adviser.” As Paul Kengor writes in the American Spectator: “He is imager of the image and narrator of the narrative. No single person is more responsible for making Barack...

Racism is about many things but it isn’t about race. To understand the uses of race in American liberalism requires understanding its place in the political culture. When American liberals speak of race they aren’t speaking in the genetic sense. What they are doing is clumsily piggybacking class onto race and adding one dubious construct to another. The placement of racial politics at the center of liberal advocacy coincided with a growing national prosperity that seemed to be on the way to making class warfare of the old kind irrelevant. Previous liberal civil rights activity had been a subset of...

Should public school officials have the right to prevent students from wearing pro-American garb on Cinco de Mayo? This question has been at the heart of a California court battle between the Morgan Hill Unified School District and students who were told by a principal and assistant principal that they could not wear American flag t-shirts on the Mexican holiday back in 2010. Following the incident, a lawsuit against the district was launched by the students and their families. This week, the case came to a close, with a federal judge ruling against the students — a blow that is...

70 minute VIDEO- Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox speaks on ending the drug war.

Danny Cohn-Bendit, who led extreme leftist riots in Paris in 1968, in PA to identify with its unilateral bid for independence. Former student revolutionary Danny Cohn-Bendit, aka "Danny the Red," visited Ramallah Thursday together with what was termed "a delegation of French Jews," in a show of support for the bid by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for a unilateral declaration of statehood. Cohn-Bendit, who led the ultra leftist Paris student riots in 1968, joined the Green Party in the 1980s and is now its European co-president. In Ramallah, Cohn-Bendit and the other "French Jews" met in the Muqata compound with...

The city of Houston will turn its red-light cameras back on today, Mayor Annise Parker announced after this morning’s City Council meeting. According to a statement from the mayor’s office, tickets will be issued after a “short period of equipment testing.”

SYDNEY (AP) — Asian and African night owls were treated to a lunar eclipse, and ash in the atmosphere from a Chilean volcano turned it blood red for some viewers. The Sydney Observatory said the eclipse was to begin at 3:25 a.m. Thursday (1:25 p.m. EDT, 5:25 p.m. GMT Wednesday) and last until after 5 a.m. Scientists said the specific phenomenon happening Thursday — known as a "deep lunar eclipse" — often exudes a coppery color. But the intensity of the color depends on the amount of ash and dust in the atmosphere. Luckily for moon-gazers, there was plenty of...

University of Rochester What links speed, power, and the color red? Hint: it's not a sports car. It's your muscles. A new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Emotion, finds that when humans see red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. And people are unaware of the color's intensifying effect. The findings may have applications for sporting and other activities in which a brief burst of strength and speed is needed, such as weightlifting. But the authors caution that the color energy boost is likely short-lived. "Red enhances our physical reactions because it is seen...

As a schoolboy, one of Red Skelton's teachers explained the words and meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance to his class. Skelton later wrote down, and eventually recorded, his recollection of this lecture. It is followed by an observation of his own.

An 11-year-old boy in Orange, MA is in the middle of flag controversy after he and his family claim one of his teachers banned him from hanging a picture of an American flag he drew in the classroom because it might offend other students. The boy‘s dad is adamant his son’s civil rights were violated. But the school has a different take, and says the prohibition was because the boy disobeyed instruction

Red Reps 7 here; [caption id="attachment_5755" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Hansen Clarke"][/caption] Freshman Congressman Hansen Clarke (D-MI) has a close working relationship with one of the U.S.'s most extreme Marxist-Leninist organizations - the pro North Korean Workers World Party. A former chief of staff to Michigan's pro Marxist congressman John Conyers, Hansen Clarke seems to be following in his former mentor's political footsteps. In 2008 Hansen Clarke worked closely with Detroit leaders of the Workers World Party on the house foreclosures issue. Clarke drafted and sponsored SB 1306 with long time W.W.P. collaborator Reverend Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church, a...

A top Kremlin official has told the United States Russia wants "red button" rights to a new US-backed missile defence system for Europe, a move that would allow it to influence the shield's day-to-day operational use. Sergey Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister, made the controversial demand during a visit to the United States where he met with top officials including Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. "We insist on only one thing," he said of the nascent US-backed missile defence shield. "That we are an equal part of it." "In practical terms, that means that our office will sit...

Joseph Stiglitz has created a frisson of excitement among the chattering classes with his recent piece in Vanity Fair. Stiglitz thinks that maybe the uprising on the Arab street will come here. His article decries the fact that in America, a small percent of the population has the greatest amount of wealth. He says they monopolize "the nation's income." The nation's income? What exactly does that phrase mean? Stiglitz' article is a classic re-statement of Marxism's critique of free enterprise. The idea that the rich somehow "control" all the wealth in the country, that they act in concert, that their...

Isn’t it about time that the mainstream media and all others begin to examine the record and conclude that a Communist holds the reins of power in the White House? Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it is often believed that Communism died with it. Not so; Communism is alive and well in China, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Red Reps 2 here; Mark Miller No State Senator bears more responsibility for the recent events in Madison, Wisconsin than Mark Miller. As Democrat minority leader, Mark Miller led a a boycott of all 14 Democrat State Senators. The group all bailed to neighboring Illinois on February 17, denying Republicans a quorum in the Wisconsin State Senate, so they could not pass Governor Scott Walker's controversial "Budget Repair Bill". Even before thousands of socialists and labor unionists descended on the State Capital, Miller reportedly worked with Madison mayor Dave Ciesliewicz in an attempt to persuade the Secretary of State to...

Long time Latino and Democratic Party activist Edwin Vargas, Jr. has announced a bid for the Hartford Connecticut mayoralty. One of several announced candidates for the November election, Vargas, who currently serves on Hartford's planning and zoning commission, must be considered a strong contender. Vargas' activist roots go back to 1971 when Hartford Connecticut received an influx of 30 Puerto Rican university students, who came to the city to teach and study - many, including Edwin Vargas, were active members of the pro Cuban, and staunchly Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican Socialist Party.

Attention, taxpayers and Tea Party activists. The Purple Army is coming to your town. Don’t let these Big Labor goons monopolize the protest square like they monopolize government workers. Here’s there current schedule over the next four days nationwide via the SEIU website. All hands on deck: 2/21 – Helena, MT 2/21 – Carson City, NV 2/21 – Raleigh, NC 2/21 – Austin, TX 2/21 – Madison, WI 2/22 – Sacramento, CA 2/22 – Denver, CO 2/22 – Des Moines, IA 2/22 – Annapolis, MD 2/22 – Boston, MA 2/22 – Springfield, MA 2/22 – St. Paul, MN 2/22 –...

Several members of the approximately eighty strong, far left Congressional Progressive Caucus have documentable ties to the Communist Party USA, or its front organizations. These include, but are certainly not limited to, Caucus vice chair Dennis Kucinich, Caucus founder and Senate member Bernie Sanders and house members Corrine Brown, John Conyers, Danny Davis,; Rosa DeLauro, Barney Frank, Jesse Jackson, Jr. Barbara Lee, Charles Rangel, Bobby Rush and Maxine Waters Here's another for the list - none other than Progressive Caucus co-chair and California 6th district Rep. Lynn Woolsey. Below is a scan from the Communist Party's newspaper People's Weekly World...

RICHMOND - After two straight years of crushing electoral defeats, Virginia Democrats know they need to do something to start winning again - they're just not sure what. Some party leaders and activists say Democrats should keep the focus on the same policies, but also must do a better job of communicating. "I think the problem is the message is not getting out,'' said C. Richard Cranwell, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia. "We've got to overcome the disconnect." Others say Democrats need to concentrate more on policies that Republicans have been advocating: creating jobs and cutting...

A book called "Ernie" was written by Borgnine. The book was originally titled " I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to keep my nuts warm". The publishers were squeamish about using that title, thus "Ernie" became the name of his biographical book. I loved the original title. He said when he was looking for work and not having much luck, he walked by a nut vendor on the street. There on the side of the vendor's cart was " I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to keep my...

The ‘slow boat’ to Centauri concept we’ve discussed before in these pages envisions generation ships, vessels that take thousands of years to cross to their destination. And based on current thinking, that’s about the best we could manage with the propulsion systems currently in our inventory. Specifically, a solar sail making a close solar pass (a ‘sundiver’ maneuver) could get us up to 500 or 600 kilometers per second (0.002c), making a 2000-year journey to the nearest star possible. It’s hard to imagine under what circumstances such a mission might be launched.But let’s think long-term, as Greg Matloff (New York...

The Kazanjian Red Diamond, one of the most spectacular gemstones ever discovered, goes on display today at the American Museum of Natural History. Red is the rarest color in diamonds — less than 20 are known to exist in the world today. What’s more, the Kazanjian Red Diamond has an amazing back story. The gem was discovered in the 1920s in Litchenburg, South Africa. When found, it was a hefty 35 carats uncut. A diamond broker paid a modest eight pounds per carat for it. It was later sent to Amsterdam to be cut and polished by the Goudiv brothers....

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has been known to change his views every now and then. Environmentalists hope this is one of those times. Now that McCain has dispatched a conservative primary challenger and Arizona appears set to send him back to the Senate, climate advocates are optimistic they will soon regain one of their biggest champions. ... Multiple sources said McCain reassured them in private that he still believed in the climate issue... ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Racism may be less of a factor in politics than other realms of life, according to a new University of Florida study, which found few white voters in Florida to be upset by the presidential candidacy of a black man, and many to be proud of it. To assess attitudes among white voters in a southern state about Barack Obama's historic election to the presidency, two UF political scientists analyzed results from four statewide telephone surveys -- each involving between 449 and 829 respondents – conducted in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009. Their study...

Looks like the AFL-CIO is no longer even trying to hide the fact that it no longer sports a traditionally American political outlook. The labor union has announced that it is joining a voter registration drive called One Nation Working Together. This coalition is filled with some of the most extremely leftist groups in America today including the ACLU, Enviro extremists, La Raza, Code Pink, various anti-war groups, and the Communist Party USA. This new move by the AFL-CIO finds hearty support from the People's World newspaper, a publication dedicated to communism and the "direct descendent" of the communist Daily...

For decades, Wisconsin has served as a bastion of Upper Midwestern populism, which has mainly served the Democratic Party. At the moment, its entire slate of constitutional offices and its legislative leadership are all held by Democrats. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel sees change in the air, though, and reports that the state’s GOP has a shot at capturing every post in the upcoming midterms (via Lakeshore Laments): If this is a year of opportunity for victory-starved Republicans, no state in the country offers more bounty than Wisconsin, where an entire Democratic power structure is in peril this fall. Wisconsin is one...

What could be as alluring as a lady in red? A gentleman in red, finds a multicultural study published Aug. 2 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Simply wearing the color red or being bordered by the rosy hue makes a man more attractive and sexually desirable to women, according to a series of studies by researchers at the University of Rochester and other institutions. And women are unaware of this arousing effect. The cherry color's charm ultimately lies in its ability to make men appear more powerful, says lead author Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology at the University...

When his idyllic life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive.

A 60's radical who's name became major part of the 2008 presidential campaign is on his way to Fresno. Bill Ayers, the co-founder of the Weather Underground, is slated to make an appearance in downtown Fresno this Thursday evening. The event is free to the public.

<p>It is, of course, a really silly thing to even think about, given the clout of the Chicago Machine boys currently occupying the White House.</p> <p>But, just say, the Real Great Talker continues his spiraling descent in the polls over the next 12-18 months; already the Democrat is barely tied with Any Republican in opinion polls looking toward 2012.</p>

State pensions in the redUnderfunded by as much as $500 billion, study says Tuesday, April 06, 2010 By The Associated Press SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's public pension funds are underfunded by as much as $500 billion, according to a Stanford University study that was commissioned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and released Monday. The shortfall could create major financial crisis for the state. And California is not alone: states around the country are facing massive shortfalls in their pension and retiree health care obligations that academics have estimated surpass $3 trillion. The estimated California shortfall applies to the retirement systems for...

One of the most ironic aspects of our putative "Age of Obama" is how little impact it has had on the nation's urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities--particularly the president's political base of Chicago--the nation's metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.

The electoral map candidate Barack Obama remade in 2008 appears to be retreating into its familiar patterns. Obama broke the decisive role Ohio and Florida seemed to play in presidential elections, by moving from trench warfare engagement in the two states to a broader battlefield on which Republicans were placed on the defensive in states they'd once taken for granted. And his victories in places where Democrats had fared poorly in recent elections — Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, the interior West — seemed to validate his strategists' claims that he had consigned the red state-blue state presidential dichotomy to the...

The White House -- as we wrote yesterday -- is dead set on passing the health care bill and will stop at nothing politically to get it done. But, new data in the NBC/WSJ poll suggests that simply passing a bill -- whatever is in it -- won't solve Democrats' political problems on health care. Two data points stand out: * Just 32 percent of of the sample said that President Obama's plan is a good idea while 47 percent said is a bad idea. Public opinion on that question had eroded even since October when 38 percent thought passing...

<p>Laura Ingraham supports this Rally so hope that is good enough for everyone. The Tea Parties are also on board.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The federal government kicked off fiscal year 2010 by posting its widest-ever October budget deficit, the Treasury Department said Thursday. The $176.36 billion gap is more than $20 billion wider than the shortfall recorded in October 2008, driven up by lower tax receipts, stimulus-related revenue reductions and consistently high government outlays. Treasury's monthly budget statement shows receipts were $135.33 billion in October, down 18% from a year earlier and at the lowest level since October 2002. Meanwhile, outlays were $311.69 billion, down 3% from a year earlier and at their second-highest monthly level on record.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner was playing out of one of the vessels and it was a cool, clear day on the Bay near Hathaway Bridge but Saturday’s gathering of charter boat captains was not a party. It was their last stand, local captains and their supporters said. See photos from the protest >> New regulations from the National Marine Fisheries Service of amberjack and red snapper are destroying the local fishing industry, the captains said. About 50 boats, including small two-man skiffs, large pleasure boats and mid-size trawlers took part in...

Jackie and Dunlap weigh in on Obama's surprising Nobel Peace Prize win. Does he deserve it? (Youtube video)

Communist forces are invading America (again) and this is the pickup that's going to stop them. Spied on the set of the new Red Dawn remake, this Dodge Ram is a proud Wolverine.