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BAGHDAD, Nov. 4, 2008 – Though official invitations went out to only about 100 people, word of mouth caused more than 300 people to show up Nov. 1 for a tribal council meeting in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district. Sheiks representing the 15 tribes of Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, as well as tribal sheiks from other communities and various Iraqi government, military and political leaders, listen to discussions at the Adhamiyah tribal council meeting Nov. 1, 2008. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “About 75 percent of the sheiks in the room were guys in the past who had...

Why isn't anyone positing a capital gains tax cut as something that can be done to help the economy? A major cut in the capital gains tax, say to 15% for stocks held less than a year, and 5% for stocks held a year or more would bring investors back into the market. I have written my representative ( Pete Sessions of Texas ) and recommended this. All Freepers should write their representatives as well.

These are just as worthwhile even if you don't believe that human-created climate change is a big problem, or even a reality. * Reducing carbon emissions by making people poorer will never happen. Just ask people in China - now the world's No. 1 carbon emitter - how interested they are in returning to the economic conditions they suffered a few decades ago when their carbon emissions were lower. * Burning fossil fuels is a lousy idea for reasons that have nothing to do with global warming. These hydrocarbons offer important applications as fertilizers and chemical feedstocks, making it foolish...

In our daily business, good and bad seems to come our way and we definitely need a solution for all issues and to talk with someone about these issues.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2007 – The embedded provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq are looking at long-term solutions to problems in the country that undermine security progress, the chief of the team embedded with the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division said today. Paul Folmsbee said his group in Adhamiya and Sadr City is working to cement progress in place. Each of the 20 U.S. brigades in Iraq now has an embedded provincial reconstruction team that combines resources of the military, the State Department, and other government and non-government agencies. “The U.S. military's doing a fantastic job coming in and,...

With oil heading towards $100 a barrel, what are your ideas for solutions to counteract this threat to our prosperity.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's hilarious video, titled "FedEx vs. Government Bureaucracy," had attracted 421,575 separate views on YouTube by late afternoon yesterday. It shows him telling an American Enterprise Institute audience that in the world that works, you can track UPS or FedEx packages in virtual real time. The point is that private-sector companies can employ technology and train people to track millions of packages that are on the move, but the government can't track several million illegal aliens, even not moving. "In the world that fails, the federal government cannot find somewhere between 10 million and 20 million...

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2007 – As he finishes his tour in Iraq this week, the senior U.S. military official in charge of training the Iraqi police and army offered a candid assessment of the coalition-led training regimen: significant challenges remain, but progress in key areas has been realized. Army Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, has spent almost three of the last four years in Iraq. Looking back on the development of the Iraqi army, local police and national police over that time, he said the shifts in those institutions’ growth curves have...

Problem:According to the State of Black America, "African American men are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as white males and make only 75 percent as much a year. They're nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated, and their average jail sentences are 10 months longer than those of white men [for the same offenses]. In addition, young black males between the ages of 15 and 34 years are nine times more likely to die of homicide than their white counterparts and nearly seven times as likely to suffer from AIDS. Five Urban League Solutions: (1)Universal childhood...

Next time you stop at the pump and pay through-the-stratosphere prices to fill your car's tank, just ponder this: We are not — repeat, we are not running out of oil. There is no good reason you should be paying through the nose. There are only bad reasons for it. If you are also angry about illegal aliens pouring over the border, you should know that illegal immigration is the price we are paying to keep to keep gas prices from going even higher, maybe two or three times higher.

There is trouble brewing on BOTH sides of the Border. In Mexico,unsuccessful presidential candidate Obrador is threatening to take over the government on 9/16/06. In the USA,especially in the Border states,increasingly fed-up locals are threatening to take matters into their own hands - even if it means civil war !

BBAGHDAD--"How was Afghanistan?" asks an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "Dusty," I reply, pointing at my shoes, which show every evidence of having been in Kandahar hours earlier. "And remarkably stable," I add: The press corps following Donald Rumsfeld drove from Kabul airport to the U.S. Embassy compound with no significant security, a sharp contrast to the helicopter ride that prudence dictated we take into Baghdad's Green Zone. "We'd sure like to have that kind of situation," my interlocutor says. So why does he think the U.S. mission here has been so much harder? Maybe, he says, because the...

Each of us has ideas on what should be done on the immigration problem and the government is having problems working out such a complex issue. So - why not use the abilities of the FreeRepublic community as a "think tank" to resolve some of the problems faced in Immigration Reform? OhioWfan had a great thread earlier, The First Entirely Positive - "How Do We Help Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem?" Thread in which many varied ideas were presented. We need these ideas and others grouped together where the pros and cons can be discussed, and solutions will work themselves...

I’m going to try something entirely new to Free Republic………..start a thread restricted to practical, positive. pro-active things that this huge forum filled with good people who love this country can actually DO about helping to solve the illegal immigration problem, and how we can ‘encourage’ our leaders at all levels to get their acts together. This is not a thread for venting or attacking (Heaven knows, that‘s been done plenty around here!). Let’s keep it entirely positive……..no attacks on the President and ‘Bushbots’ or the GOP………or on each other, from EITHER side. No threats to ’kick the GOP bums...

The same man said all of the following things. Can you guess who it was? "Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs." "Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits, often without paying taxes." "Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world." "Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by...

Saudi king offers solutions By Claude Salhani December 12, 2005 JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia. At 85 years of age, Saudi King Abdullah remains a man full of political ambitions. After only recently succeeding his long-ailing brother, Fahd, as king, Abdullah now is running for the job of leader of the Arab and Islamic world. Vowing to fight the endemic terrorism plaguing parts of the Islamic world, and which shook the kingdom two years ago when homegrown terrorists unleashed nationwide violence, the Saudi king decided action was far better than inaction. In fact, Abdullah adopted the project of another king, also named...

"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today - more serious even than the threat of terrorism." - David A. King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government, Feb. 2004. I must admit that I'm glad this spring-like warm spell has come about this week to relieve us of last week's sudden drop in temperature. What most people don't realize, however, is that we should consider ourselves lucky to have felt those cruel and nasty temperatures. Seven of the 10 hottest years in the 20th century were in the 1990s, and temperatures are...

(This op-ed by Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, appeared August 1 in the Financial Times and is in the public domain. There are no republication restrictions.) (begin byliner) There Can Be No Moderate Solutions To Extremism By Donald Rumsfeld Last month Britain was twice attacked by an enemy that takes advantage of the openness of free societies to kill and terrorise from within. Shortly after the July 7 massacre, one American, summarising the sentiments of his countrymen, wrote to the British embassy in Washington: "Anyone who would attack London must not know history. The people who did this will...

Terror Sanitized After the terror attacks in London, a few TV commentators said they would go after those in the media who want to sanitize terrorism. Such bravado may be admirable, but it is a bravado that does not recognize how terrorism has already been sanitized. The leaders of Western democracies have sanitized terrorism because they cannot publicly admit they are helpless to prevent more attacks. Most analysts who study the so-called war on terror could have told you a year ago that there would be a terrorist attack targeting the London subway. Likewise, there are those who will tell...

Will the 21st century be another "American Century" or will it be the first "Asian Century"? A peaceful - for now - struggle has been joined. For the past few weeks Americans have been focused on news from the Vatican. And for the past few years the bulk of "foreign news" has concerned the Middle East. But in the Far East three huge fuses are burning. First, the prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, traveled to India and declared that the two countries would be the "two pagodas" of economic might in the coming hundred years - the "Asian Century,"...