Free Republic

Let us begin by defining who we are in terms of convictions and goals; the enemy in terms of how they are manifest. We are a contemplative, geographically disparate coalition of like-minded individuals seeking restoration of our Country by attending the Constitution, a people prepared to sacrifice, using, but not limiting ourselves to the peaceful ballot box, taking as literal the words and wisdom of Jefferson, Adams and Madison. We are humble servants, a conduit for a future generations lifeblood; an arrogant yet factually accurate statement. We are versed in the documents giving birth to our Constitution, namely the Federalist...

PARIS,-Sept.- 13.—The spectre of an empire-gobbling, culture-destroying America is arising from beyond the Atlantic horizon to the westward to vex the soul of France and Prance, taken all aback, is filled with alarms and excursions of dismay. All of a sudden, as it were, thinking Frenchmen have awakened to dlscover, in the United States, a vast menace to French institutions. The situation has brought forth an endless amount of talk, and French publicists have spoiled a great deal of excellent paper discussing it. Some of them are calling for the formation of a nsw "United States of Europe," with France...

There are no cuts made in the nuclear force in this budget.” That clear statement was made yesterday by deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter during the Pentagon’s briefing on the defense budget request for Fiscal Year 2013. We’ll have to see what’s hidden in the budget documents once they are released next month, but the statement is disappointing for anyone who had hopes that the administration’s promises about “concrete steps” to reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons and to “put an end to Cold War thinking” would actually be reflected in the new defense budget. Not so for...

Ever since the end of World War Two, the U.S. has come to regard Saudi Arabia as almost its exclusive oil producing enclave. In February 1945, after the Yalta Conference with Soviet General Secretary Iosif Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on his way home U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud met aboard the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy in the Suez Canal’s Great Bitter Lake. During the meeting, instigated by Roosevelt, he and Ibn Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security, including military assistance, training and...

VATICAN, November 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the highest ranking cardinals in the Vatican has said that the United States is “well on the way” to the persecution of Christians. Cardinal Raymond Burke Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis and now the head of the Vatican’s highest court, told Catholic News Agency that he could envision a time when the Catholic Church in the U.S., “even by announcing her own teaching,” is accused of “engaging in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality.” Asked if the cardinal could even see American Catholics being arrested...

U.S. blocks key fund in climate agreement: reportLONDON | Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:03pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. is refusing to sign a flagship global climate fund as negotiations intensify ahead of the UN climate summit next week, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. It quoted U.S. officials as saying the United States, backed by Saudi Arabia, had still not agreed to adopt a blueprint for the Green Climate Fund. Countries agreed to create the fund last year to channel up to $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries fight climate change and a U.N....

I hate to say this but if anyone who reads this blog is considering joining the US Border Patrol, think again. The same corrupt presecutors that went after agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compeon are at it again. This time the US Attorneys for the District of Western Texas have obtained a conviction against Agent Jesus Diaz. Diaz is accused of violating an illegal criminal aliens Constitutional rights by pulling him up and hurting him while the scum bag drug runner was in handcuffs. Apparently these same rogue prosecutors went after a Edwards County Sheriff in Texas after he shot...

A recent study, released on 11 October, “Biofuel Markets and Technologies” released by Pike Research states that the global biofuel market will double within the next decade to $183.3 billion from its current level of $82.7 billion, with ethanol production accounting for $78 billion of future worldwide biofuel production, while predicting that biodiesel production will reach $25.5 billion. Perhaps not surprisingly, Pike Research predicts that the US will become the world’s leading biofuel producer, accounting for 71 percent of alternative fuel by 2021. Colorado-based Pike Research on its website defines itself as “a market research and consulting firm that provides...

Winning in politics isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. But how important a factor electability should be in a voter’s calculation remains very much in the eye of the beholder, leading to an active debate within the parties about who has the best chance to win next November — and how much it should matter. That fight is played out every four years as the two parties pick their presidential nominees. The party establishment — and many members of the media — tend to focus heavily on electability while the party’s activist base prizes ideological alignment. “Electability usually doesn’t matter...

For 51 years the U.S. has imposed an economic embargo against Cuba, severely crippling the island’s economy for its effrontery in choosing a socialist path for development, a policy confirmed and intensified in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Now the unlikeliest of economic interests may be bringing the two countries closer together – oil. Specifically, oil deposits in the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba. Spain’s largest oil company, Repsol-YPF, has contracted the massive Italian-made Scarabeo 9 semi-submersible oil rig, currently en route from Singapore, to arrive in the Florida Straits by the end of the...

U.S. actor Sean Penn engaged in attempts to secure the release of two Americans freed by Iran this week, flying to Venezuela to ask President Hugo Chavez to intervene with Iran's leader, a source close to the release process said on Friday. Since Tehran freed Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer on Wednesday details have emerged about the efforts to win their freedom, which involved the United Nations, Iraq and Oman - as well as Chavez, who is a fiery critic of the United States. Venezuela's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday that Chavez brought up the case with his Iranian...

Germany—buoyed by its cadre of family-owned niche companies—appears to be weathering the global slowdown, countering fears that Europe's economic powerhouse faces a sharp downturn that could deepen the region's debt crisis. A pair of bullish reports, on German employment and manufacturing, were reassuring on Wednesday: Unemployment remained at its lowest level in nearly two decades last month, while July machine orders jumped 9% from a year earlier. The latest data suggest that Europe's largest economy, which is expected to grow 3% this year, remains resilient, even as evidence mounts that the U.S. and much of the rest of the world...

North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation. A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

The U.S. dollar may weaken and Treasury yields rise when Asian markets reopen on Monday, though any selling in response to ratings agency S&P's downgrade of the United States is likely to be tempered by the escalating crisis in the euro zone. The S&P cut in the U.S. long-term credit rating by a notch to AA-plus is an unprecedented blow and results from concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. It called the outlook "negative," signaling another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months. "The initial reaction will be a high degree of uncertainty...

Alternative energy (or renewable energy) is a new manufacturing industry paradigm that is in its infancy. However, the discussion is not new, and it looks as if the United States has positioned itself to be behind history on what can be a very promising industry for a stumbling economy. After the oil shortages in the 70’s, government officials began discussing energy policy as a matter of national security, but this misses the point of a globally competitive economic world. It was too early then to begin thinking that China could out-invest the United States in order to produce an alternative...

As noted by Richard Heinberg on June 22nd, 2011, the media has lacked the ability to connect the economic situations in the Middle East and their uprisings to what is happening in Europe. I would avoid the word “Revolution” in the case of the Middle Eastern uprisings, seeing as no dramatic systemic changes have taken place, only the ousting of dictators. Same as I would avoid the words of social upheaval in the case of European protests, which have been quite calm and only demanding to maintain the social safety nets produced through years of labor struggle. Rather, the odd...

In an incredible case of mistaking the angel for the devil, the Obama administration’s State Department has quietly placed Israel on a list of countries that “promote, produce, or protect terrorists”. Yet North Korea has been taken off the terrorism list! What's wrong with this picture? Israeli terrorism expert, political analyst, and former Israel Mayor David Rubin, responding from Samaria (in the West Bank), is blasting the Obama administration for “A bizarre manifestation of the psychological defense mechanism of projection in order to hide its failure to call Islamic terrorism by its proper name. From the moment this President entered...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A lot of politicians are weighing in with demands before they'll support raising the debt ceiling. Most of their conditions are related to debt, such as put in place a debt reduction plan or cut spending. But some conditions can't even claim to be third cousins once removed. Punish union defenders. Drill, baby drill. Revolutionize federal regulation.

- I am dumbfounded. Pre-1967 border for Israel? Obama, in announcing a Middle peace plan which pushes Israel back to pre-1967 borders, clearly has no interest in calming the Middle East situation. He is like a mad king out of control- and we, the sorry subjects must watch helplessly as this man takes our country- and the world- into chaos, bloodshed and calamity. Never have I regretted our four year presidential terms before. But no president has ever shown such little regard for his own country before. Never has any one president acted so quickly and rashly to ensure the...

The USSR collapsed because its economics couldn’t work and its politics failed too. It’s ironic indeed that the cold war victor is following Soviet footsteps toward its own collapse. Personal freedom, irreplaceable in the exploitation of opportunities, is steadily diminishing as the scope of private decision-making shrinks in response to the expansion of the scope of decision areas reserved by the state. Once, unlike the Soviets, we decided what our children would be taught, whom we would employ, what crops we would raise and what we would manufacture; our doctors decided what treatments to provide their patients. Human creativity was...

Is America Under Nuclear Threat From Within? Al Qaeda’s Nuclear Bombs in America A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet “The threats came in the mail and to date, there have been 25 letters that warn of nuclear bombs destroying America. People who got them called the FBI and CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman learned, the Bureau’s Chicago office is leading the investigation.” (Read the rest of the story here at the (SOURCE)) Above is the lead paragraph of a story which appears on the website of CBS Chicago at (SOURCE). At the time this story was published 25 letters had been...

The military junta ruling Egypt has announced that parliamentary elections will be held in September. Rather than spending the next five months complaining, those who aren’t supporting the Muslim Brotherhood better get started actually working and organizing. I’ll analyze this a lot more in the coming months but briefly the blocs are as follows: Islamists: The Muslim Brotherhood says it is aiming at getting 30 percent of the seats. I think they’ll succeed. A smaller, moderate Islamist party — whose members split from the Brotherhood because they say it is too extremist — would be lucky to get any seats....

At the start of the 112th Congress, my fellow Republicans and I made a commitment to turn the country’s economy around and get Americans back to work. Over the past two years in the minority, we could do little as the Obama Administration’s and Nancy Pelosi’s reckless spending increased our already massive debt by $3.5 trillion and our unemployment rate surged to ten percent. Republicans hit the ground running in January, voting to cut spending by $2.6 trillion by repealing the onerous ObamaCare law. In February, while the Obama administration reported a record-breaking monthly deficit of $223 billion, we simultaneously...

We can thank Providence that the earthquake was not 150 miles closer to Tokyo, else Japan's dead might number in the millions. Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls it the worst crisis since World War II. Yet, horrendous as it is, it does not, thus far, compare with that. For the earthquake dead are not 1 percent of those who perished in World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, Japan was stripped naked of an empire that embraced Formosa, Korea, Manchuria, the entire China coast, all of French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia),...

Found after a short car chase, and suspects face weapons charges. Two suspects may face additional charges after police say they were dressed as FBI agents and they were not law enforcement officers. Both suspects, 23-year-old Mohamed Diallo and 21-year-old Kwamell Smith, face charges of criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of stolen property. Police say the suspects were spotted in a car Tuesday in the area of

Mahmoud al-Zahar (BBC) The U.S. empire is in decline and will fall because of the country's "immorality," promotion of "open sexuality" and political "injustice," argued Mahmoud al-Zahar, the chief of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He also predicted the rise of China and India as new superpowers, while hailing the revolution in Egypt that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, a staunch U.S. ally. Zahar was speaking today by cell phone from Gaza to Aaron Klein on the latter's investigative program on New York's WABC Radio. It was the Hamas chieftain's first public comments on the recent chaos...

WASHINGTON— Hundreds of refugees who sought shelter in the United States during the early years of the Iraq war are coming under fresh scrutiny from US government security officials for possible links to al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq. FBI Director Robert Mueller surprised some terrorism experts Thursday when, in response to a question about threats inside the United States, he said the FBI was closely monitoring al-Qaida's Iraq-based offshoot. The group has killed thousands in Iraq but had not been viewed as a threat inside the United States. Mueller said the possible threat rested with "individuals who may have been resettled...

Mohamed ElBaradei, who has emerged as one of the leading opponents of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, said Sunday that President Obama needed to press Mubarak to give up power and that failing to take more forceful action to make that happen will cost the United States "whatever is left" of its credibility. "People expected the U.S. to be on the side of the people ... and to let go of a dictator, " ElBaradei said on ABC's "This Week." ElBaradei said the response of Mubarak so far to the protests and calls for reform by the...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will use a visit to Israel this week to assess passenger vetting and other counter-terrorism measures at its Ben-Gurion Airport, government officials said on Sunday. Napolitano, whose tenure has been dogged by two attempted al Qaeda attacks on U.S.-bound planes as well as traveler protests at intrusive airport pat-downs and screenings, was due to arrive in Israel by Monday for several low-key professional meetings. "She'll be consulting with the Airport Authority, among other things," said an official briefed on the visit, which will include other countries. Security at Ben-Gurion, Israel's main international...

Adm. Robert Willard, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun that China is deploying its new Dong Feng-21D anti-ship ballistic missile they publicly claim can sink U.S. aircraft carriers. The Admiral stated “this kind of capability should be a concern to the region, and it poses a challenge to any naval or air operations that would be conducted in that area were it to be employed.” What is a Dong Feng-21D?The Dong Feng-21D is a land-based guided missile that launches it war-head into space and returns it to earth at ten times the speed of...

As the opening decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, what is the future of the United States in an increasingly complex and fluid world order? In a prospective global scenario in which China dominates and reshapes Asia; India becomes a major economic power and extends its influence into Africa; Islam continues to spread its brand of social dominion and Europe has become a loose confederation of states trying to maintain some semblance of importance, what role will the United States play? It has become conventional wisdom that over the next 25 to 30 years the United States...

The snow is causing travel chaos across the eastern US. A swathe of the US eastern seaboard is braced for an intensifying winter storm that is dumping heavy snow as it sweeps north. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled and severe weather warnings are in place from Georgia to Vermont as temperatures continue to plummet. Blizzards dropping up to 1ft (31cm) of snow are expected to hit New York and parts of New England. South Carolina had its first Christmas snow since records began in 1887. L/Cpl Bill Rhyne, of South Carolina Highway Patrol, said people were heeding warnings to...

The Looming Iran Venezuela Crisis The knowledge of cooperation between Iran and Venezuela in turning much of Latin America against the international interests of the United States, Israel, and the West has been growing increasingly obvious for quite some time. Also glaringly obvious has been the complete lack of a plan to address this situation and preventing the coming cascade of opposition to American interests in our hemisphere. Not paying much mind to Iran in the Middle East is one thing, ignoring their infectious presence on our borders is completely different. We have sat complacently watching as Iran’s President Ahmadinejad...

The recent quick fade of the Deficit Commission was the latest reminder that America no longer seems to have the stomach for big challenges. There was a time – was it just a generation ago? – when Americans were legendary for doing vast, seemingly superhuman, projects: the Interstate Highway System, the Apollo Missions, Hoover Dam, the Manhattan Project, the Normandy invasion, the Empire State Building, Social Security. What happened?

The Middle East is usually full of deception, duplicity, and backstabbing in its political both intra-country and inter-country. There is often a huge gap between actions and words. At times, it appears that nobody says what they mean and nobody means what they say. So, it comes as little surprise that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should go through an intermediary, the United States, and that there is deceit galore, at levels beyond anything I can remember. The Palestinian Authority in their dealings with the United States perpetrates the first deceit, and then there is the deceit in the approach and manipulation...

President Obama has claimed that the Start nuclear disarmament treaty that he negotiated with the Russians is a solid treaty in the best interest of the United States. I would have to question the validity of this claim as the White House is pushing the lame duck Senate to quickly ratify the Start Treaty without the usual in depth studies usually given treaties with such deep and far reaching consequences. Sometime these consequences will not be realized for years, possibly decades, well after the time that changes or precautions could have better prepared and addressed the affects on our national...

I've seen plenty of examples confirming this, but a prime example I just found was with KFC, the fast food restaurant. They are of course an American company, but they have operations around the world, including Japan. Both KFC USA and KFC Japan have "Christmas" promotions in place on their websites (and probably in-store). The difference is, for KFC in America, the culturally Christian nation, the word "Christmas" is avoided and the word "holiday" is used as a euphemism. For KFC in Japan, the culturally non-Christian nation that has adopted the Western/Christian culture, the word "Christmas" is used unabashedly and...

United States Sees 53 Million Abortions Since Roe in 1973 Washington, DC -- Americans saw a political milestone earlier this month when more pro-life lawmakers were elected to the House of Representatives than ever before, but the nation also quietly reached a less joyful milestone at that time. http://LifeNews.com/nat-6891

A Russian Security Service official has dismissed claims that psychotropic drugs were used to interrogate a man later convicted of spying on Russia. Igor Sutyagin, one of four Russians exchanged as part of a Russian-U.S. spy swap in early July, claimed he was given the drugs dissolved in cognac when he was being interrogated in Moscow's Lefortovo pre-trial detention. He said the treatment had given him memory blanks. "The statements...are a complete fabrication," the official said on Thursday, adding that it was no coincidence that Sutyagin had chosen to start his "PR campaign" just as the scandal was beginning to...

Over one out of every four Americans now see the freest nation on earth as unfair and discriminatory. In a poll released yesterday, 27% of people responded that the United States is a nation that is inherently flawed because it intentionally puts down or otherwise is prejudiced against certain (or all) people. This number is up from previous months and is the highest in over a year. Meanwhile, only 60% of Americans see the United States as "fair and decent." Another 13% are undecided. The poll suggests that many people's faith in the US has faded over the last two...

A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz,...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned. Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period. The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim...

When the United Nations Human Rights Council, a conclave of 47 nations that includes such notorious human rights violators as China, Cuba, Libya and Saudi Arabia, meets in Geneva on Friday, its attentions will be focused on the human rights failings of a country called the United States.

As reported in the UK Independent (10/14/10), president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, has reiterated alarming comments made during a March, 2010 interview, sanctioning marital rape. Sheikh Sayeed was in fact responding to an inchoate effort at modernizing the contracts which govern Muslim marriages in Britain. The good Sheikh, representing Britain’s main Islamic Sharia court, the Islamic Sharia Council, promptly published a rebuttal of the contract, which included a statement on sexual abuse (page 6 here). He opined in the March interview:Clearly there cannot be any “rape” within the marriage. Maybe “aggression”, maybe “indecent...

The Midterm Election That Restored AmericaWarning to Republicans hoping to take control of Congress: A single ill-considered law can undo much of the good you will do. It’s not often that a midterm election changes the direction of the United States. Signs are that next Tuesday’s will. Sixty-eight years ago, one certainly did. On November 3, 1942, voters went to the polls to hand FDR and the Democrats a defeat so resounding that it halted the country’s decade-long leftward shift, while their GOP rivals found a clear mandate to reverse the biggest expansion of government in American history, the New...

On 14 October the Atlantic Council hosted an extraordinary event, a “Roundtable on Providing Security and Stability in Afghanistan: Uzbekistan’s View” as part of its Eurasia Discussion Series. Tashkent deployed its top diplomats to the event, including former ambassadors to the U.S. Abdulaziz Kamilov, now First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Sodiq Safaev, currently Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Rounding out the trio was Dr. Doniyor Kurbanov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategic and Interregional Studies. Their mission? To explain to Washington’s elite Uzbekistan’s “6+3” proposal for peace in Afghanistan. As Operation Enduring Freedom enters...

Unless we measure success by how children perform, we'll have higher standards for pop stars than public schools. Over the past few years, I have often complained about a hidebound culture that prevents many newspapers from responding to the challenges of new technology. There is, however, another hidebound American institution that is also finding it difficult to respond to new challenges: our big-city schools. Today, for example, the United States is home to more than 2,000 dysfunctional high schools. They represent less than 15% of American high schools yet account for about half of our dropouts. When you break this...

American actor George Clooney is visiting the little known region of Southern Sudan. The U.N. Security Council arrived to a raucous welcome on Wednesday, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum also made a recent trip here. The high-level visits are putting the spotlight on the Texas-sized area of Sudan that is far less known to Americans than the western region of Darfur, where mass atrocities have been committed over the last decade. Southern Sudan is three months from a Jan. 9 independence vote that could see Africa's largest country break in two. The vote _ and the potential of...

Pakistan has been in the news a lot lately. Last Monday it was reported that NATO helicopters chased insurgents over the border from Afghanistan. Then two insurgents were killed in the tribal region that spans the border with Afghanistan. It all came to a head on Wednesday when two Pakistani soldiers were killed during a fight between NATO forces and insurgents. That last event led to Pakistan to ban NATO supply convoys from entering Afghanistan. Meanwhile, since the stalemate began, dozens of those same supply trucks have been hit by insurgents from Al Qaeda and other groups. And they’re not...

In order to safeguard the Constitution and protect our nation against the continuing Islamic insurgency, our Congress should pass a bill which implements the following: Every Muslim residing in this country should sign a written oath of loyalty to the Constitution and further affirm that oath by swearing upon the Koran, a record of which is maintained as a video recording. That oath should explicitly declare that he/she disclaims any tenets of Islam that contradicts the Constitution (including amendments thereto). Any non-citizen Muslim who refuses to do this should be deported from the country. Any US citizen Muslim who refuses...