Free Republic

Senator Joseph Lieberman claims he is an independent Democrat; I claim he is neither a Democrat nor an independent. He is an Israeli Senator in the US Senate. He has always voted against the interest of Arabs and Muslims; he has always voted in favor of Israel, even when it was occupying, killing and carrying out a Nazi-like terrorist policy. Lieberman is not one of this kind. There are thousands others who have turned the US, a leading nation in human rights and a beacon for democracy and freedom, into the most hated country in the world. Even the Europeans...

What 'culture war'? At the conventions, they'll try to stir up red-blue divisions. But most Americans hold un-partisan views. By Dick Meyer August 27, 2008 As the nation's attention reluctantly turns to the political parties' conventions, with their scripted suspense and stage-managed sentiment, it is important to keep in mind that these are phony representations of American political life. But the slick video profiles, the teary appearance of a beloved party elder -- these are not what is most phony about the conventions. This gathering of America's civic tribes -- and the reporters who love them -- in separate cities...

Exactly what is controversial about Michelle Obama? It has become accepted that the wife of the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama, is controversial. Pundits referred to her as such during coverage of the Democratic National Convention's first night. Much energy was spent Monday night telling her story, which didn’t sound controversial at all. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in a working class family, achieved her way to college at Princeton and then Harvard, and returned to Chicago and worked as an attorney, which is where she met her future husband. She was his supervisor. Eventually,...

Open letter to President Obama Change we can believe in is needed as much at the international level as at the US national level, writes Hassan Nafaa* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Mr President, I am aware that the presidential campaign is not over and that surprises are to be expected, but I have no doubt that, all things being equal, you will be the future president of the United States of America. My reasons for saying so are many, and I do not need to go into them in detail here, as I did just that in an article entitled, "What if?"...

Leave it to the liberal print media to find some way to kill everyone's Olympics buzz. For instance, did you know that the choice by the U.S. Olympic Committee to have Ralph Lauren stitch the threads for Team USA's opening ceremonies uniform was an unfortunate nod to racism and classism and a futile, nostalgic clinging to America's waning WASP empire? That according to Sameer Reddy (pictured at right, photo via Newsweek) in an August 20 online exclusive for Newsweek

"SAN FRANCISCO (August 6, 2008) – About 50 anti-war activists targeted the video game maker Ubisoft today to “help stop the Army’s child recruitment program” in the form of the free “America’s Army” game. Organizers noted that the game “targets children as young as 13” while South Park game companies Ubisoft, Gameloft, and Secret Level were profiting from the illegal recruitment program.“America’s Army”—available since 2002 as a free download—is a game developed by the U.S. military to instruct players in “Army values,” portray the army in a positive light, and increase potential recruits. The “game” is the property and brainchild...

The designation this summer of $465 million in U.S. aid to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America — along with the valuable cross-border dialogue that helped bring about this Merida Initiative — is a step in the right direction....But given the urgency of the problems we face, this step is disappointingly small...The Merida Initiative is stingy by any standard but especially by U.S. standardsFighting drug traffickers is not only a Latin American responsibility, it is also an American responsibility...Like all developed nations, the U.S. must confront the fact that no country can be safe while poverty, illiteracy, violence,...

British attitudes towards the United States are governed by ignorance of the facts on key issues such as crime, health care and foreign policy, according to a new survey. Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein in 1983. Respondents believe the US sold over a quarter of Saddam's arsenal to him A poll of nearly 2,000 Britons by YouGov/PHI found that 70 per cent of respondents incorrectly said it was true that the US had done a worse job than the European Union in reducing carbon emissions since 2000. More than 50 per cent presumed that polygamy was legal in the US,...

BEIJING (AP) -- Alicia Sacramone's foot slipped off the 4-inch-wide tightrope that is the balance beam, her body wobbling and shaking as she fought to stay upright. Another slip, this time in the floor exercise, sent her tumbling onto her back. Mistakes of millimeters by the Americans made for just enough of an opening for the Chinese to slip through for the team gold medal in women's gymnastics Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics. "I was surprised by the mistakes made by the U.S. team," conceded Cheng Fei, who has seen enough of the Americans the past four years to know...

I wonder if the CPUSA gets a little tingle running up their legs, too. They’re endorsing the Obamamessiah for President — shocker — even though he isn’t quite the perfect little Communist: Barack Obama is not a left candidate. This fact has seemingly surprised a number of progressive people who are bemoaning Obama’s “shift to the center.” (Right-wingers are happy to join them, suggesting Obama is a “flip-flopper.”) It’s sad that some who seek progressive change are missing the forest for the trees. But they will not dampen the wide and deep enthusiasm for blocking a third Bush term represented...

George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver. Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success. Last week Yemen-born...

Hollywood A-lister George Clooney is planning to bring the story of Osama bin Laden's driver to the big screen. The actor's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, according to The Observer newspaper. The Challenge by journalist Jonathan Mahler chronicles Hamdan's capture and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay and his subsequent trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Charles Swift. Hamdan, from Yemen, was sentenced last week to 5 1/2 years in jail. It was the first sentence handed down to a Guantanamo Bay detainee by a U.S. military tribunal....

OBAMA: America, uh, is -- is no longer, uh, what it -- it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, "I don't want that future for my children." RUSH: All right, now, here he's brought it home. He had trashed his country in Germany, he has seen the result of that in his plummeting poll numbers, and now he does it again yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana, a seven-year-old little girl. You're running for president, Senator Obama. A little girl asks you a question, "Why did you start running for president?" It's a seven-year-old, Senator. You tell...

http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=22824 Today, 04:16 PM JJ4Hillary Gold Member = >500 Posts Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 630 Poster Rank: #118 Barack Obama To Little Girl: America's Not So Great (hotair) YouTube - Barack Obama To Little Girl: America's Not So Great http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d667NAI9HIM http://hotair.com/archives/2008/08/0...t-it-once-was/

When presidential candidates answer questions from children about why they want the job, most will give an answer that uplifts the child and the candidate. Not Barack Obama. At a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana, a seven-year-old girl asked the Democrat why he wants to be President — and he told her that America has gone downhill:

It’s one thing to point out what our country could do to become superior to its former self, but quite another to preface such counsel with the implication that it’s inferior to every other nation. If Barack Obama sought to win the votes of Germans, he need seek no more. Of course, his new image was all the rage in the Old World long before he gave his July 24 speech in Berlin. Along with the mainstream media and murderer Dale Leo Bishop, Senator Sweetness and Light is the man the Europeans want as our leader. Although Obama certainly has...

Predictably the ACLU are crying over the verdict of Osama's Driver in his military trial. After a trial filled with overwhelming constitutional and procedural flaws, a jury of military officers today found Salim Hamdan guilty of providing material support for terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union has been at Guantánamo Bay observing the Hamdan proceedings, which lacked the fundamental legal safeguards found in traditional U.S. courts or military courts governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Followed by bloviation and terrorist love from Anthony Romero. The Center For Constitutional Law is also pitching a hissy fit. And in a...

Majority Democrats in the California Assembly have rejected two amendments that would have allowed schools to fire any employee discovered to be part of an extremist terror network and require users of school facilities to affirm they are not terrorists. A report from Karen England at the Capital Resource Institute said the amendments were submitted by assemblymen Martin Garrick and Chuck DeVore to a plan that also would allow members of the Communist Party to teach in public schools. "I am appalled that Democrat lawmakers will not agree to these commonsense amendments," said England, executive director of CRFI. "My son...

A map of President Bush's motorcade to Camp David was found last week in the possession of a teenager accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials, according to prosecutors. With the possibility that the motorcade was a target, federal authorities have joined police in investigating Collin Matthew McKenzie-Gude, 18, who allegedly was storing the weapons and materials just outside Washington, D.C., at the Bethesda, Md., home where he lives with his parents. MyFOXDC.com reports that Assistant State's Attorney Peter Feeney disclosed the discovery of the map of Camp David during a court hearing on Tuesday in Rockville, Md. The map...

Is it possible to fall out of love with your own country? For two years, I, like many Americans, have been focused intently on documenting, exposing, and alerting the nation to the Bush administration’s criminality and its assault on the Constitution and the rule of law — a story often marginalized at home. I was certain that when Americans knew what was being done in their name, they would react with horror and outrage.

Of Human Rights and Trees by: Rachel Paulk, July 30, 2008 Scattered Pictures: Reflections Of An American Muslim is a collection of scholarly essays written by Imam Zaid Shakir on a range of issues confronting Muslims today. The book opens with Shakir’s personal story detailing his spiritual journey into Islam. Born in Berkeley, California, Shakir moved from housing project to project across the country, living in California, Georgia, and Connecticut, before attending college at Central Connecticut State University as a “part of a minority equal opportunity program.” His experience in the projects led him to search for a change through...

While campaigning in a traditionally Republican district, Sen. Barack Obama attempted to beat back rumors about him– telling the Springfield, Missouri crowd that Republicans and Sen. McCain are trying to make voters “scared” of him because they don’t have another strategy.“Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama warned, “You know he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

Oh, for the love of crumbcake, this is getting so creepy.I have been saying for weeks that Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism has really helped my understanding of Barack Obama. I have pointed it out in three other posts:Barack Obama is a 1920s-style fascist Early 20th century "progressivism" has returned... Barack Obama: I AM America Every time I do, I think to myself, oh dear, this is going to sound overwrought. I do it anyways, because truth is truth, and the truth is that Barack Obama talks about himself and his plans in the same transcendent, populist, cult-of-personality terms as...

Fourteen years and numerous judicial reviews have passed since José Medellin was sentenced to die after confessing to the brutal gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston. That's long enough, state officials say. It's time to carry out the sentence. But defense attorneys, and an unusual coalition of federal officials, including no less than the attorney general and secretary of state, say if his Aug. 5 execution is not stayed, so Mr. Medellin's case can be reviewed one more time at the behest of the International Court of Justice, Texas will be rushing to judgment and endangering...

We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset.

ANTIWAR HYPOCRITES NO MORE 'BRING THE TROOPS HOME' by Ralph Peters AM I the only one who's noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week. Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan - expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.) And the left's quiet as a graveyard at midnight. Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for...

Eventually, we will all hate Obama too What makes America such an indispensable power is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable David Aaronovitch It amuses me that some of those who criticise the present US Administration for its Manichaeism - its division of the world into good and evil - themselves allocate all past badness to Bush and all prospective goodness to Obama. As the ever-improving myth has it, on the morning of September 12, 2001, George W. and America enjoyed the sympathy of the world. This comradeship was destroyed, in a uniquely cavalier (or should we say cowboyish) fashion, through...

Welcome to your Monday morning blood-boiler. The NY Post reports that a jihadi group in NYC planning on running a series of subway ads is led by a Muslim imam tied to the terror plot to bomb the city’s landmarks. Submission: Allah board!An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.The group says its mission is to explain the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims who believe the religion is bent on acts of...

MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS LINKED TO TERROR PLOTS - New York Post Jul 21, 2008 ... An Islamic group plans to blitz 1000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom ...

...I then added that Pomerania had been historically disputed in all sort of wars, but that now, as the rest of Europe, was finally at peace. Instinctively realizing that this latter observation was the perfect leader of a thread for a nice political conversation, I quickly added that such current status of peace in Europe, and, relatively, in most of the world, was the result of America having become the most powerful nation on Earth ever. Bedazzled by my assertion, more in sheer disbelief than in amazement, he bluntly asked me why it was so. I rapidly quipped that wise...

A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists ... found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites ... had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news. Up to now ......

The New Yorker, in an attempt to point out the ridiculously over-the-top nature of some of the criticisms against Barack Obama, has the following picture on the cover of their magazine that seems to have garnered a reaction quite opposite to the stated intention. Some Dems are furious, some Repubs are snickering: Michelle Malkin has a good reminder for those who are incensed at that Obama cartoon. In other campaign news... there were rumors that the Obama campaign was going to become a NASCAR sponsor -- which is a perfect fit for Obama, as you go constantly and sharply to...

Future President Barack Hussein Obama makes so many verbal gaffes, it’s barely challenging to find and expose the ignorance. Race-pandering before the hispanic racialist group La Raza, BHO equated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government agency charged with carrying out our nations immigration laws, with terrorism. He said: “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids…when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.” Play the video below:

While to some folks the idea of dual citizenship might seem benign, it can greatly effect a person’s emotional attachment and identification with this country. Emotional attachment and identification with a country contributes greatly to a person’s willingness to make sacrifices and stand in harms way to defend our home, values and ideals. Still, dual citizenship has become acceptable because instead of promoting assimilation, diversity has become the mantra of our public institutions, undermining what traditionally binds us together; the shared values and political beliefs that make us one people… This notion and the idea that there are no consequences...

The magazine says the cover art, featuring Barack Obama and his AK-47-toting wife in terrorist garb in the Oval Office, with a portrait of Osama bin Laden above the mantel and an American flag burning in the fireplace, "satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign." But the Obama campaign is denouncing the cover, saying The New Yorker's editors might believe the picture is "a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," but it is fact "tasteless and offensive."

Obama embarrassed of America, Laughs at our society, criticizes religious, gun toting , steel working Americans. Obama lectures us and tells Americans what to drive, how much to eat and how to live

We've all heard humorless America-haters promote themselves by announcing, As Thomas Jefferson said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." The first problem with that self-righteous bull is that Jefferson never said it. On the contrary, he warned of the dangers of political dissension carried to extremes. The earliest traceable provenance of the slogan goes back to an obscure 1960s lefty who just made it up (long before activist-historian Howard Zinn commandeered it). My fellow Americans, let me ask you: Were Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Sen. Barack Obama's Weatherman Underground pals (who bombed their own country) really more patriotic...

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev today called on U.S. presidential candidates to develop alternatives to the use of military power, decrying what he called "increasingly visible signs of the militarization of politics and thinking in the modern world ... even though the military route again and again leads to a dead-end." Writing in the the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Gorbachev said the Bush administration has shown a tendency to "seek to address these problems primarily through threats and pressure. Will the candidates develop an alternative approach to these most crucial problems? This is now the main question." RIA Novosti,...

Once upon a time, patriotism was a fairly simple thing. It was tribal identification writ large, an emotional attachment to a people and their land. In most of the world, where patriotism exists at all it's still like this -- tribal patriotism, blood-and-soil emotionalism. A different kind of patriotism emerged from the American and French revolutions. While American patriotism sometimes taps into tribal emotion, it is not fundamentally of that kind. Far more American is the sentiment Benjamin Franklin expressed: "Where liberty dwells, there is my country" Thus, most Americans love their country in a more conditional way -- not...

Conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel today sternly warned Sen. Barack Obama against speaking at Berlin's famed Brandenburg Gate when he passes through Europe later in the month, with her spokesman telling reporters that such "electioneering" would be "inappropriate" at a site of such historical significance. Merkel was responding to a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel, which said "the Berlin state government has reportedly been asked" whether Obama could speak at the columned structure where Ronald Reagan implored Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall and where revelers famously celebrated the wall's demise. Obama is expected to be...

For those familiar with the antics of shock comic Sacha Baron Cohen , it was a case of déjà vu, all over again. On May 28, he outraged a crowd of unsuspecting guests at a Carrollton office park by luring them to what they thought was a new talk show on "family values." [Click image for a larger version] Hello, Arkansas. As an encore early last month, he outraged a crowd of 1,600 by luring them to what was billed as cage fighting. Police say the show was designed instead to capture the reactions of the unsuspecting to the sight...

U.S. atrocities are unworthy of our heritage. Put the fireworks in storage. Cancel the parade. Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time. This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement. For we have sinned. We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago. The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner. The America they founded should never imprison people for years without...

Put the fireworks in storage. Cancel the parade. Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time. This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement. For we have sinned. We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago. The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner. The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing. The America they founded...

As Denver dignitaries gathered today for Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City address, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem. But that's not what she did. Instead, Marie performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "Black National Anthem." When she finished, the proceedings moved forward, and few seemed to notice that the Star Spangled Banner was never performed. One who did notice was Councilman Charlie Brown, and he took to local talk radio Tuesday afternoon to blast the lack of the nation's anthem at the...

ABC News is Anti American They just released (June 30, 2008) a mandatory requirement that all reporters (maybe employees also) can no longer where American Flag pins or any type of US patriotic materials. My belief is this a direct reaction to the Obama Flag Pin debacle. I believe BHO is proud of his county, he just handled this simple hot button issue so poorly, that it may shed some light on how he will handle himself in the White House. Like most alphabet soup dinosor media, they are so far in the bag for OBH, they don't even know...

The Democrats have been saying for some time that Barack Obama will restore our reputation in the eyes of the world, and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place. The world hates us. We know this, because our own media inform us of it regularly through polls, editorials, and documentaries. Because of our actions, our policies, over the years, we have built up a reservoir of resentment worldwide that only Obama can sooth. You know, I think they are right. Let's look at the sins we've committed with an eye...

"Not surprisingly the author is N. American, a continent grown incontinent after 9/11 and where most people's knowledge of Europe fits snugly on the back of a very small stamp." "The average American citizen doesn't care about the world's problems, they only care about what brand of shoes they wear...sad but true!" -- Recent comment from a British website Really? I, for one, have grown sick and tired of these false and deceptive Old World arguments eagerly put forth against our great country, sick of the dishonest and transparent ruse of comparing the lowest forms of our American culture...

Los Angeles(Reuters) - Many Hollywood celebrities who had supported Hillary Clinton are rallying behind Barack Obama, pledging money and star power to the Democrat's U.S. presidential bid before a big fundraiser next week. Experts say that since Clinton conceded defeat this month after a grueling Democratic nominating contest, celebrities have quickly united behind Obama. The result, they said, could be a campaign cash windfall for the senator from Illinois, but star support doesn't necessarily translate directly to votes. Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at the University of Southern California, said that once a politician becomes known, voters look for...

The ACLU has announced a major fundraising drive to expand its operations in traditionally conservative states -- and the head of a conservative law firm in one of those states responds: Bring it on! The American Civil Liberties Union is has already raised $258 million through what the Associated Press calls "behind the scenes" solicitations, including $12 million from liberal billionaire political activist George Soros. The liberal legal group wants to expand operations in Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and other traditionally conservative states. *snip* One little-known detail about the ACLU surfaced in the Associated Press reporting on the campaign: the organization...

Just because the U.S. military now lacks what defense eggheads call a peer competitor — a country capable of beating us in a head-to-head confrontation — that doesn't mean it lacks for imagination in conjuring fearful foes. Sure, it was easier for John F. Kennedy to blow smoke about a non-existent "missile gap" with the Soviet Union, or for Ronald Reagan to convince us of the need for a "Star Wars" missile shield when Moscow was still our superpower rival (it may no longer be, but we're still spending $10 billion annually on missile defenses). Snip...The scientists also warn that...