Free Republic

Since its inception in 1953, every new president has attended The Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball – until now. The ball was created for President Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration to honor recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. The event is sponsored by the American Legion and co-sponsored by 13 other veteran's service organizations, including the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Military Order of the Purple Heart. And while 48 of the nation's 99 living recipients of the Medal of Honor attended the event, reports the Cleveland Leader and various self-attested attendees of the ball, newly...

My friends at YesToDemocracy.com have been following the obsessed believers (called "birfers") in the whacked out conspiracies about Barack Obama's birth certificate for a long time now. The birfers' struggle to unseat Barack Obama remained under the sanity radar until around the time our Liza reported on them. Their court-clogging antics have been good for some chuckles, and not much more. But in these last hours before Barack Obama is inaugurated, I'd like to indulge them, and perhaps even vindicate them. Let's just assume Barack Obama's birth certificate is as fake as a politically motivated mugging/face-carving. Picture it under lock...

Berkeley's City Council will delve into national policy again next week when it votes whether to demand the United States charge Berkeley resident and former Bush adviser John Yoo with war crimes. Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the memos offering legal justification for torture while he worked for the White House from 2001 to 2003.The five measures attacking Yoo were drafted by the city's Peace and Justice Commission, the same group that recommended that the city tell the Marines they were "unwelcome intruders." The City Council will vote Monday on the five...

Credentials for the Democratic National Convention appear to feature their Barack Obama’s image superimposed over an upside-down American flag. The credential shows the stars of the America flag in the lower right hand corner of the pass as if it were upside down, an official sign of distress. Natalie Wyeth, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee said it was an artistic rendition of the American flag, not an actual American flag. "The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements,” she said in a statement to Colorado’s KUSA Channel 9 News. “They do not depict an actual American flag. The...

Denunciations of U.S. ‘imperialism,” which were a regular staple of Soviet TV, are back on the Russian version. ...recent guests on Russia Today have included Alexander Cockburn, “an American political journalist,” and Justin Raimondo, said to be “a top U.S. author.” Cockburn denounced John McCain as a warmonger, while Raimondo warned the Russians to investigate what’s on those humanitarian flights to Georgia. “I would check that out, if I were you,” he was quoted by Russia Today as saying. The Russian channel declared, “‘Say No to War’ has been Justin Raimondo’s slogan for over a decade―from the U.S. intervention in...

Rightwing fodder-- Barack Obama Invesco Field convention tickets picture upside down US flags- an international symbol of distress. The DNC tickets printed for Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field show an upside down US flag on both sides. This is the international symbol of extreme distress. FOX 9 reported: Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High. The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag....

Immediate Alert for Saturday Morning, Waterbury Connecticut, June 7, 2008 IN an e-mail alert from the Patriot Guard, there is supposed to be a presence of antiwar types at the FUNERAL of a fallen Marine from Waterbury TOMORROW morning early! If you can attend, be there before 9 AM maps to the location of the cemetery below, the presence of the antiwar types is supposed to be north of this location http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&dq=Riverside+cemetery+loc:+Waterbury,+CT&daddr=496+Riverside+St,+Waterbury,+CT+06708&geocode=15632629214542374654,41.548818,-73.046660&ll=41.548818,-73.046660&iwstate1=dir:to&iwloc=A&f=d The original Patriot Guard posting is here: http://www.patriotguard.org/Forums/tabid/61/postid/886371/view/topic/Default.aspx The Obituary for this Marine is located here: http://www.rep-am.com/Obituaries/346098.txt If you will not fight for right when you can easily...

From San Francisco to Berkeley to Washington, D.C., peace activists plan demonstrations across the nation today to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. More than 600 events are scheduled. Anti-war activists say their goal is to use the occasion to renew interest in the conflict when many Americans are focused on the troubled economy and the presidential election. "We want to make sure that this war is put back into the American consciousness as an issue," said Bill Hackwell, spokesman for the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism coalition, or A.N.S.W.E.R. "This has...

BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont. The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning. According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March. Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper...

Comments 1 Bureau of Economic Analysis 2 Department of Treasury 3 Congressional Budget Office 4 Bureau of Labor Statistics 5 United States Census Bureau 6 United States Census Bureau 7 Kaiser Study of Employer Health Care Benefits 8 United States Census Bureau 9 Energy Information Administration 10 Higher Education Coordinating Board of Washington State 11 Bureau of Economic Analysis 12 Insurance Information Institute 13 United States Census Bureau 14 OANDA.com: The Currency Website 15 Speaker of the House Fact Sheet, 11/29/07 16 Energy Information Administration 17 Testimony of Andrew Kohut; President, Pew Research Center; 3/17/07

Boos for American national anthem put British fans to shame Ron Lewis The crowd had been billed as one of Ricky Hatton’s biggest assets against Floyd Mayweather Jr, but it became his greatest liability when large sections of the overwhelmingly British crowd disgraced themselves by booing the national anthem of that the country that was hosting them. The crowd loudly joined in when Sir Tom Jones sang God Save The Queen. But when Tyrese, the R&B singer, stepped forward to sing The Star- Spangled Banner, the United States national anthem, he was almost drowned out. The singer gamely plugged...

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was awarded the 2007 Thomas Merton Award last night for her work within the peace and justice community. Sheehan was unable to attend the ceremony at the Sheraton at Station Square, but accepted the award in absentia. Sheehan began her career in activism after her son, 25-year-old Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed during a mission in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since that date, Sheehan has called for the country's leaders to end the war, recall U.S. troops and hold themselves accountable for the decisions that sent the troops to Iraq. Sheehan was forced to cancel...

MINNEAPOLIS - Shrouded in black, with a bandanna masking her face, a self-proclaimed anarchist slips into her combat boots and dashes through town, tossing a Molotov cocktail here, launching a bowling ball there. The YouTube video is more parody than threat: The flaming cocktail ignites a charcoal grill, and the bowling ball knocks down pins instead of crashing through a Navy recruiting office window. But as the video fades to black, the message on-screen is clear: "We're getting ready. What are you doing?" With less than 10 months to go before the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St.Paul, activists are already...

When Americans evaluate today's political landscape, most feel something between impotence and disapproval. So, while citizens shake their heads or shrug at the mainstream media's “top tier” presidential candidates, it is extraordinary how many are becoming overjoyed about one lesser covered candidate. Tens-of-thousands have joined the appropriately named Ron Paul Revolution, joining Meetup.com groups, putting up signs, and crossing states to attend rallies. Congressman Ron Paul's genuine message and untarnished record of promoting individual liberty for everyone, a free-market economy of wealth and abundance, and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace and free trade, has attracted vast support from diverse...

With its full-page “General Betray Us?” ad in the New York Times, MoveOn.org has once again put itself at the forefront of the antiwar movement. And if past patterns are any guide, a number of Democrats are embarrassed, and even angered, by MoveOn’s actions but are afraid to reveal the true extent of their feelings. MoveOn simply has too much fundraising clout — and a fear-inducing inclination to attack Democrats who stray from the MoveOn line — for many in the party to take it on...

Veteran actress and feminist Jane Fonda has been slammed for not paying her female employees working in the actress' radio network Green Stone Media. The twice Oscar winner and the radio network's co-founder Gloria Steinem have been accused of "putting their own reputations above their female employees' finances." According to the New York Post, Fonda and Steinem are 'refusing to pay severance, and the founders won't file for bankruptcy protection because it would publicly embarrass Jane and Gloria.' However, the 'Klute' star's spokesperson has denied the reports and said that the accusations are unfounded. "This is pure speculation. There is...

I'm sure everyone here has heard of Gordon Sinclair, the Canadian who made the "Tribute to the United States" speech. Well, one line he said has stuck with me. "They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the countries who gloated over their present troubles." His speech, talking about all the times America's gone to help others, yet when it comes time for them to repay their debt they don't, defines, in my opinion one of America's greatest strengths and Her greatest weaknesses. We help...

April 1, 2007 -- BROADWAY has taken notice of an anti-war student play that was banned from being performed at a Connecticut school - but it's unlikely local audiences will get to see it, either. "Voices in Courage," a drama about the Iraq war based on interviews and letters from veterans, got the ax from Timothy Canty, principal of Wilton HS, who claimed it was too one-sided.

I got an e-mail recently which just about made me throw up. I don’t throw up easily. I like to keep what’s inside of me there, unless it’s supposed to leave, but this pretty much almost put me over the edge, because my baby’s over there.This is from Kathleen. She says: I hope you inform your listeners about the anti-war protestors in Portland who burned in effigy a United States soldier. I can’t even find the words that would be printable to describe how I feel. Well, I have the words, but let me finish her letter: A car was...

MOSCOW, March 29 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to participants in the Arab summit in Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin press service said on Thursday. “The development of the situation in Iraq causes concern. In order to hold country from sliding to a full-scale civil war and disintegration, a speedy achievement of real national reconciliation and accord is necessary. A way to the realization of this priority task lies through the development of a broad dialogue with the participation of all leading Iraqi political forces and ethic-confessional groups with the clear determination of a timeline...