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A former ABC News consultant fired last year because he couldn't authenticate academic credentials is at the center of a new dispute over apparently faked interviews with Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Gates and others. The consultant, Alexis Debat, quit the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank, on Wednesday after Obama's representatives claimed an interview with the senator appearing under Debat's byline in the French magazine Politique Internationale never took place. The interview quoted the Democratic presidential candidate as saying the Iraq war was "a defeat for America." Pelosi, Gates, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former United Nations Secretary-General...

SURGE TROOPS TO LEAVE VIA SYRIA President Bush announced today that US troops would be leaving the area through the Syrian port of Lattakia. US Marines will secure the port of Lattakia in preparation for the arrival of US armored forces. In addition, the US Air Force has instituted a No-Fly zone for all of Syria until further notice. In a tactic reminiscent of Sherman's March to the Sea, US Central Command issued orders for armored forces to marshall in Northern Iraq in preparation for their exit from the theater via Syria. The US Navy is stationing both aircraft carriers...

TORONTO, Ontario — "Do you think we could borrow a tank and have the students refurbish it?" This question is the reason that a Second World War Sherman tank now sits on the automobile shop floor at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute. The vehicle has created quite a stir, not only in the class but throughout the school, the city, and Canada. People from as far away as the United States and even Europe have taken note. History buffs, military antique clubs and people who just want to help have heard the story about the tank coming to the school and have...

DUBAI DUETS Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal." Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political or public affairs work on behalf of a foreign country, agency or official must register with the Department, and essentially update his status every six months. It was not clear the Clinton had done so. If his status is less clear, here is what we do know: If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not know...

The idea of digging-in disgusted Patton. A victorious army, in his mind, was always on offense, never on defense. It was one of the myriad reasons Patton was such a successful combat commander. It didn’t always make him popular with his subordinates and peers, and he frequently caught hell from the media, but the man knew how to fight and win wars. He was neither a ticket puncher nor a politician. He would have scoffed at modern political correctness. And his only objective was always the combination of a decisive defeat of the enemy and the utter annihilation of his...

DURANT, OKLA. - Alan Reese took about an hour to drive from his home in Dallas' northern suburbs to the blackjack tables of the new Choctaw Casino and Resort here, 10 miles north of the Red River. "It's not even two counties away, straight up (U.S.) Highway 75," said Reese, 58, who also has visited the nearby Winstar Casino, run by the Chickasaw Nation, just past the state line on Interstate 35. "Makes you wonder how long Texas will take to see what's going on up here." ADVERTISEMENT North Texans such as Reese are fueling a gambling boom in southern...

The Battle of the Washita. BEFORE proceeding to narrate the incidents of the pursuit which led us to the battle of the Washita I will refer to the completion of our hasty preparations to detach ourselves from the encumbrance of our immense wagon train. In the last chapter it has been seen that the train was to be left behind under the protection of an officer and eighty cavalrymen, with orders to push after us, following our trail in the snow as rapidly as the teams could move. Where or when it would again join us no one could foretell;...

This Day In History | Civil War April 16 1863 Passage of Vicksburg Admiral David Dixon Porter leads 12 ships past the heavy barrage of Confederate artillery at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He lost only one ship, and the operation speeded General Ulysses S. Grant's movement against Vicksburg. Grant had been trying to capture Vicksburg for six months. A first attempt failed when General William T. Sherman's troops were unsuccessful in attacking Vicksburg from the north. Grant now planned to move his army down the opposite bank of the river, cross back to Mississippi, and approach the city from the east. The...

I love history. I’m proud of my Southern heritage. But for me to be angry to the point of protesting a moment in Southern history that happened nearly a century-and-a-half ago would be just, well, nonsensical. And would in some ways tarnish that heritage.

Green Bay, WI (Sports Network) - The Green Bay Packers fired executive vice president and head coach Mike Sherman, the team announced during a Monday morning press conference. Sherman's fate was sealed after the Packers finished up a 4-12 season Sunday with a 23-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks. It was Green Bay's worst finish since going 4-12 in 1991. "I felt like we needed to go in another direction," said Packers executive vice president, general manager and director of football operations Ted Thompson. "I met with our players briefly. I informed them of my decision along with my high...

The Atlanta History Center has obtained Civil War field orders handwritten by Union General William T. Sherman. The history center got the field orders in a deal that was clinched with the offer of a bundle of Confederate currency that was donated to the center. Of the documents, 50 are field orders written by Sherman and two are orders written by his aides. They join another 12 orders the Atlanta History Center already had. "Sherman surrendered," said history center president Jim Bruns, who likes the idea of Sherman's orders returning to the city the general ordered burned down. The orders...

December 22, 2005, 8:57 a.m. Can You Hear the Bells? Christmas 1864. In the winter of 1864, an unexpected sense of optimism and good cheer settled on the northern states. The Civil War continued, but the news from the fronts was promising, and hope flourished that with spring the end would come and peace would return. New Yorkers in particular were in a festive frame of mind, of a like unseen since the before the war began. People skated in Central Park, and rode sleighs through the snowy fields. They stopped at shops for warm cider, confections, nuts and dried...

Free Republic: Art Appreciation/Education “class” #10: Postmodernism Now it is time to truly finish these mini-lectures on the development of modern art with this final lecture of Postmodernism. Andy Warhol and other Pop artists may have made the first forays into Postmodernism, and some textbooks begin their postmodern sections with Pop Art. But I like to save Postmodernism for the 1980’s and thereafter. One question to consider is whether postmodernism (or at least its validity) might have come to a screeching halt on 9/11, (when thinking people realized that there were indeed evil people in the world and that the...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) - TV and film art director Sherman Loudermilk, who was once a children's show host known as "Cowboy Slim," has died, his family said. He was 92. Loudermilk died Saturday of complications related to Alzheimer's disease at a convalescent home in Escondido. Loudermilk served as art director for such shows as "The Dating Game," "The A-Team," and "Battlestar Galactica." But he got his first taste of fame as the host of a Western children's show in 1948 on the then fledgling KTLA-TV. A native of Leon, Texas, Loudermilk began his work in Hollywood building sets for early...

Q: After having read many accounts of the Civil War, I still don’t understand why South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter, galvanizing the North into war.  What do you think might have happened had the South continued to let these coastal forts be manned by the Union for a longer time? Hanson: I think conflict was inevitable, because the South had little appreciation of Northern industrial power nor of the competence of a number of formerly nondescript Union officers. The best officers of the Mexican War had joined the Confederacy and there was an erroneous general impression that all superior...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

Probably the second best known of the Union Generals, William Tecumseh Sherman earned a reputation as an eccentric but tough fighter and ruthless leader in the prosecution of total warfare as practiced in the latter stages of the war. Having been born in Ohio, Sherman graduated from West Point with the class of 1840. He served in California during the Mexican War but resigned as a captain in 1853 because of the low pay and poor prospects for promotion endemic in United States Army service at that time. His business enterprises not being entirely successful, Southern secession found him in...

During the Battle of Fredricksburg, Robert E. Lee, surveying the battlefield covered with thousands of the dead and wounded, remarked to his staff that "It is a good thing war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." William Tecumseh Sherman, having been criticized for the widespread destruction his army caused in the Shenandoah and Georgia, responded "War is hell." What if war were not hell, but conducted as a sterile, antiseptic, non-invasive procedure to eliminate the "bad guys" without causing harm to "innocent civilians" and property? The hazards of this type of warfare are manifold and introduce...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

When the Civil War broke out between the Union and the Confederacy and raged on for the next four years, the state of North Carolina managed to escape any real ravages of war. As the bloodiest battles went on in its neighbors to the north and the south, Fayetteville waited for some resolution to the conflict and prayed that the war would not come to the city. One Union general would not allow the peace to last. "I will destroy the [Fayetteville] arsenal utterly," proclaimed General William Sherman in a letter written from Fayetteville on March 12, 1865 to his...

United Nations - CIA-Iraq chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, whose report cast doubt on Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, was blocked from reaching that same conclusion in 1999-2000 by the Clinton White House. Before officially joining the CIA weapons hunt earlier this year, Duelfer spent more than 8 years hunting WMD at the United Nations, first for the noted Swede Rolf Ekeus, than the flamboyant Aussie Richard Butler. Butler, known for his repeated clashes with Iraq officials, was eventually forced out of his U.N. job by the French and Russian ambassadors in June...

Many Helped Iraq Evade U.N. Sanctions On Weapons By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A01 BERLIN, Oct. 7 -- As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training. Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company...

ITHACA--According to the Ithaca Journal, "Four antiwar protesters have successfully appealed their criminal trespass convictions and been granted an unconditional discharge by Judge John Sherman."The paper reports that "Marie DeMott Grady, 18, Oona Grady DeFlaun, 18, Ana Grady Flores, 17, and Anna Ritter, 17, were sentenced in December to serve four weekends in jail for their role in a Dec. 21, 2002 "die-in" at the military recruiter's office in the Cayuga Mall," but now "Sherman ruled Tuesday that the case lacked sufficient evidence to convict the four teenagers of criminal trespass." Instead, the paper reports, Sherman dropped the charges down...

War creates its own ethical imperativesUnited States Civil War General William Tecumsah Sherman, who cut a swath across [U.S.] Georgia that devastated everything in his path, later reflected that "war is hell." He was not speaking in a regretful mode. On the contrary, he meant that war is a process of delivering hell to one"s enemies. His position was that to exercise restraint is to prolong the war and increase the number of casualties. From 1931 until 1944, along with many other countries, the United States condemned the bombing of civilian populations. We condemned the Japanese militarists for bombing the...

“… much of Sherman's thinking is currently inherent in American military doctrine of the last two decades: despite our power, our forces usually react to the aggression of others, target enemy command and control and the property of the government and elite, and seek—in Iraq, Panama, and Afghanistan—to liberate residents from an oppressive regime. Yet often such attack, however precise, makes life miserable for an enemy citizenry and therefore prompts them to act against the authors of their calamity. The Afghanis, like the citizens of Georgia in their animus shown the plantationists, will come to blame the Taliban for...

Constitution of the Confederate States of America Preamble We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity -- invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God -- do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America. Article I. - The Legislative Branch Section 1 - The Legislature 1. All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Congress of the Confederate States, which shall consist...

In his article "A Class War" Victor Davis Hanson paints the picture that General William T. Sherman and his army were fighting a war of equality. He seems to think average "agrarian" men of the northern states, were so inspired they would lay down their tools, leave their families and join the Union army to invade the Southern States on a campaign of social equality. Hanson states Sherman's objective was "freeing the unfree and humiliating the arrogant." This is a nicely packaged version of history that reads well, though historically inaccurate.The Draft - Yankees RiotSupport for invading the South was...

General William Tecumseh Sherman--a quirky, difficult, and much misunderstood man--deserves a place on the roll call of great liberators in human history. More than any other person, he destroyed the institution of American slavery and the Southern aristocracy that was interwoven with it. In the late fall of 1864 he marched an army of over 60,000 rural, voting Americans--mostly farmers from the Midwest--into the heart of the Confederacy, a patrician society based on bound labor. Sherman’s agrarian citizen-soldiers upended that world of slaves and masters, instantly liberated tens of thousands, and helped therein to destroy forever the idea of privileged...

One hundred and forty years ago this month, 100,000 Union soldiers marched into Georgia. Less than eight months later, the Yankees captured Savannah. Along the way, they fought more than 20 major battles, crushed Confederate resistance, destroyed at least $100 million worth of railroads, warehouses, plantations and factories, and left Atlanta in smoking ruins. It remains one of the most famous military campaigns in American history: Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's March through Georgia. It's still taught to cadets at West Point as an example of how to break an enemy's will to fight. And without the trauma of Yankees plowing...

Sherman woman, two kids slain; husband turns self in Sherman police say man had surgery for self-inflicted cuts10:42 PM CST on Saturday, March 27, 2004By JASON TRAHAN and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News SHERMAN – A father with self-inflicted cuts walked into the Sherman police headquarters Saturday and turned himself in hours after his estranged wife and her two children were found stabbed to death. Laura Christine Thomas, 20, was discovered about 7:30 a.m. by her father, Paul Boren, at the Arrow Wood Apartments at 1200 W. Taylor St. in Sherman. He also found the bodies of his...

Official: Kerry failed to act on pre-9/11 tip 3rd agent to say he warned security lapses made Boston airport ripe for 'jihad' attack WASHINGTON - A third federal aviation-security agent, one still with the government, has stepped forward to say he also warned Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry about security lapses at Boston's Logan International Airport before the 9/11 hijackings there. Earlier this week, two former FAA agents said the Democratic presidential hopeful failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his home airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings. Brian Sullivan, a retired special agent from...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Milwaukee - 02.04.04 By now you know that the veto override fell short by just one vote. What happened yesterday is very interesting, and demonstrates what we need to do to get a concealed carry bill passed. The Assembly went into session at about 11am and, as usual, the two parties went into caucus. However, the Democrats stayed in caucus for several hours, a sign that the Democrat leadership didn't know if they had the votes to sustain Governor Doyle's veto. Early in the afternoon, word filtered out that the Democrat leadership was putting pressure on Representative Barbara Gronemus, one...

The lobbying pressure is on Wisconsin Assembly Democrats as the lower house's Republican leadership Wednesday, for the second time, delayed a vote on overriding Governor Doyle's veto of a bill allowing Wisconsin residents to carry concealed weapons. The vote is bringing a flood of communications to assembly lawmakers both for and against the concealed carry bill. The Senate approved the override last week with one more vote than the necessary two-thirds. If the Assembly approves the override by a two-thirds majority, the bill will become law despite Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto. The Assembly originally placed the vote on Tuesday’s...

"War is cruelty. You cannot refine it." That's what Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman told Atlanta officials in 1864. But the U.S. armed forces during the past month routed both Iraq's army and nearly 140 years of military doctrine. Sherman was a military innovator, consciously going against the tradition of not waging war on civilians. During 1863, his forces in Mississippi pillaged and burned towns. In 1864 in Georgia, he ordered his men to "burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random, and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is...

The First Day April 6, 1862 With the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson in February, General Johnston withdrew his disheartened Confederate forces into west Tennessee, northern Mississippi and Alabama to reorganize. In early March, General Halleck responded by ordering General Grant to advance his Union Army of West Tennessee on an invasion up the Tennessee River. Occupying Pittsburg Landing, Grant entertained no thought of a Confederate attack. Halleck's instructions were that following the arrival of General Buell's Army of the Ohio from Nashville, Grant would advance south in a joint offensive to seize the Memphis & Charleston Railroad,...

Dear Lord, There's a young man far from home, called to serve his nation in time of war; sent to defend our freedom on some distant foreign shore. We pray You keep him safe, we pray You keep him strong, we pray You send him safely home ... for he's been away so long. There's a young woman far from home, serving her nation with pride. Her step is strong, her step is sure, there is courage in every stride. We pray You keep her safe, we pray You keep her strong, we pray You send her safely home...

  The War Lover by Clyde Wilson The American Enterprise magazine, a slick-paper, coffee-table arm of the neocon publishing empire, has recognized the premiere of the Civil War film epic "Gods and Generals" by devoting its March issue to the Late Unpleasantness. TAE brings out some deep thinkers to examine American history 1861 ? 1865 under the rubric "Just War." (Shouldn't there be a question mark in that title? Just for the sake of suspense, if nothing else.) A proverbial put-down of historical works which presume to be original and important goes like this: the part that is original is not accurate...

<!-- a{text-decoration:none} //--> CONTENT="">   The Other Reparations Movement by Thomas J. DiLorenzoJack Kershaw of Memphis, Tennessee, wants to file a class-action lawsuit against the US government for reparations. Not on behalf of the descendants of slaves but on behalf of Southerners of all races whose ancestors were the victims of the US government’s rampage of pillaging, plundering, burning, and raping of Southern civilians during the War for Southern Independence.   Sherman the Mass Murderer   In 1860 international law – and the US government’s own military code – prohibited the intentional targeting of civilians in war, although it...