Free Republic

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's unemployment rate bolted above the psychologically important 6 percent level last month for the first time in five years -- and it's likely to go even higher in the months ahead, possibly throwing the economy into a tailspin as Americans pick a new president....A blizzard of pink slips propelled the jobless rate from 5.7 percent in July to 6.1 percent in August, the Labor Department reported Friday....So far this year, a staggering 605,000 jobs have vanished -- slightly less than the population of Alaska.

from some good friends: GET READY, GET READY, GET READY!! An Urgent Letter of Warning, Preparation and Promises Dear Friends and Family, (This letter recently came to us from people we trust.. Please read prayerfully and be warned. Be ready! For in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. Matt 24:44 The only thing the NWO people don't know is that the 4 angels of Rev 7 are still holding back the winds...till God's servants are sealed...Nonetheless, it behooves us to be ready. Europe is talking about the imminent US economic collapse which will spread...

A year ago, the Ramsey County sheriff's office began looking closely at a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee. What it found, according to an 18-page search warrant application and affidavit, led to weekend raids on two Minneapolis homes and a temporary St. Paul office for the self-described anarchist group. According to the document, investigation learned: The self-described anarchist group — whose main goal was to "crash" the Republican National Convention," according to its Web site — traveled to or communicated with affinity groups in 67 cities to recruit members and raise money. Group members discussed the possibility...

The nine people convicted in the Newsday circulation scandal were each sentenced Friday to 5 years' probation and up to $125,000 in fines, escaping potential restitution totaling $5.9 million and up to 20 years in prison. Those sentenced - in what federal prosecutors said was the end of their investigation - included Louis Sito, a former top Newsday executive who ran the newspaper's day-to-day business operations, and Robert Brennan, former vice president of circulation. Sito also served as vice president of Hispanic media at Tribune Co., which owned Newsday and the Spanish language Hoy, also implicated in the scandal. The...

A 23-year-old Michigan man faces up to 10 years in jail for illegally possessing bombs, which he allegedly intended to use to destroy the Xcel Energy Center during the Republican National Convention. Matthew Bradley DePalma, of Flint, Mich., was charged Aug. 30 with one count of possession of firearms. According to his criminal complaint, DePalma had several Molotov cocktails in his possession a week before the start of the RNC. DePalma had been under investigation by federal investigators after he attended a protester conference in Wisconsin in July. Officials said DePalma went to the Hennepin County Library on Aug. 18...

Since the leftists at Daily Kos want to declare that Sarah Palin didn’t have her last child, but her daughter did, I thought I might get some sort of evidence to show that she was actually pregnant. But before I do that, I want to you consider what the left would be saying if it were the right making these types of claims… Sarah Palin - February 10, 2008 (Harriett Fenerty) Sarah Palin - February 26, 2008 (Goodman/Van Riper Photography)

Carter: Oil Industry Will Hold Down Prices to Help Republicans Former President Jimmy Carter tells 'Early Show' crude costs will remain low to benefit GOP in 2008 election. By Paul Detrick Business & Media Institute 8/27/2008 4:57:00 PM Former president Jimmy Carter predicted on August 27 that “oil companies will hold down oil prices a little bit, you know, to try to help the Republican ticket.” Carter, who was talking to co-host Harry Smith on “The Early Show” that morning, also said that the economy would be the most important issue, “as it was when Bill Clinton was elected the...

Fire strikes Ukraine ammunition dump An ammunition dump was on fire near a town in the east Ukrainian region of Kharkiv today and some military personnel were evacuated from the area, the Emergencies Ministry and Defence Ministry said. "A fire broke out in the military depot near the town of Lozovaya, we are taking steps to localise the blaze, the size of which we are checking," said a Defence Ministry spokesman. The Defence Ministry said no one had been killed and military families had been evacuated from the area. An Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman said the situation was "very serious" and...

The Chicago bully tactics aren’t going to work. While Obama sics his lawyers and Kossack minions on TV stations that dare to air an independent ad about his close relationship with Weather Underground terrorist-turned-academic Bill Ayers, the truth is seeping out. Thanks to the efforts of NRO’s Stanley Kurtz, blogger Steve Diamond, and intense pressure from Internet readers and talk radio listeners, the University of Illinois - Chicago was forced to release a trove of papers that a former official attempted to shield from public view. There are some 140 boxes and 1,000 files to sift through — and MSM...

MOSCOW, August 25 - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday sent a message of condolences to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in connection with the crash of a Boeing-737 plane at Bishkek’s international airport Manas, the Kremlin press service reported. The Boeing, belonging to Kyrgyz Itek Air carrier, was on a fight from Bishkek to Tehran. It took off from Manas at 18:30, Moscow time, on Sunday and several minutes later requested an emergency landing. However, it failed to reach the airport and went down five kilometres away from the landing strip, near the settlement of Dzhany-Dzher. According to official reports,...

We've all read that speculators are driving oil prices artificially high — a claim that gets more interesting in light of oil's recent fall below $115. But maybe we're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Suppose that major suppliers in the oil industry are these manipulative speculators. Is it possible that oil prices are rigged? You bet. Here's how: Just how would you raise prices if you were an oil supplier? Controlling the supply — as in the 1973 OPEC embargo — has become less effective with more sources of oil worldwide. And oil suppliers clearly cannot raise prices...

"In Her Own Words" by Dodi Smith The following is a never before told interview featuring a first hand account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The interview was conducted by Daniel Zanoza, Executive Director, RFFM.org. EDITOR'S NOTE: Dodi Smith is a grandmother who resides somewhere in Texas. For obvious reasons, which will be revealed in her answers, we have taken every attempt to respect her wishes for privacy. Mrs. Smith may consider answering some of the comments that may be posted after her story on RFFM.org. Q. In 1963, John F. Kennedy planned...

Who is Randy Scheunemann? He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States. But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role. He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man. From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 -- pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in...

World Trade Center 7 Report Puts 9/11 Conspiracy Theory to Rest Conspiracy theorists have long claimed that explosives downed World Trade Center 7, north of the Twin Towers. The long-awaited report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conclusively rebuts those claims. Fire alone brought down the building, the report concludes, pointing to thermal expansion of key structural members as the culprit. The report also raises concerns that other large buildings might be more vulnerable to fire-induced structural failure than previously thought. (Thelink to article's video located at the botton of original article.) World Trade Center 7 stands...

** EXCERPT ** GAITHERSBURG -- Maryland: Fires in the 47-story office tower at the edge of the World Trade Center site undermined floor beams and critical structural columns, federal investigators concluded Thursday, as they attempted to curb still-rampant speculation that explosives or fuel fires had been responsible for the collapse of the building on Sept. 11, 2001. The long-delayed report by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in suburban Washington is intended to solve one of the lingering questions about the 2001 attacks: Why did the building at 7 World Trade Center fall, if it was not...

Fed Gov't Finds Fires Took Down WTC 7 Building Report Refutes Conspiracy Theories That Explosives Brought Down Skyscraper Next To Twin Towers GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) ― Government investigators have issued a report refuting conspiracy theories that a skyscraper next to the twin towers was brought down by explosives. The report says that fires destroyed World Trade Center 7 on Sept. 11.

Do paired dates prove Iraq-al-Qaida connection? Posted: August 21, 20081:00 am Eastern © 2008  In late April 2003, after the fall of Baghdad, CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer replayed an earlier conversation he had had with the Iraqi foreign minister, the wily Tariq Aziz.One overlooked part of this conversation caught the very sharp eye of aspiring filmmaker Chris Kusnell.When Blitzer asked Aziz about the fate of missing U.S. Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, Aziz answered that Speicher was killed in a crash on night one of the Gulf War. As proof, Aziz volunteered that Speicher was not among the POWs released...

MIAMI — Travelers crossing U.S. land and sea borders can now replace their passport book with a new passport card. Federal passport officials started issuing the wallet-size cards on July 14. More than 450,000 people have applied for the card, said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, at a news conference Monday at the Port of Miami. "The U.S. passport card is a less expensive and more affordable alternative to the U.S. passport book," Sprague said. The brand new document — which looks similar to a drivers license — can be used for people returning to...

It seems that 'Media matters' is OK with murder in its name August 15, 2008 'Media matters' is basically a radical group that poses as "fighting inaccuracy", in it's fanatical goal it even cows to Islamic militants' actvists such as "CAIR" and those that dare criticize militant Islamic terrorism against the entire world in the name of Islam and its attempts of conquest (otherwise known as Islamo-fascism) as "islamophobes" their "charge" against Michael Savage (for speaking out against this danger) who just (15 August, 2008) stopped his valid case against CAIR for defamation.. only because of advisors advising him that CAIR's tactics might...

London: Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding. As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 per cent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Petrobras has since slumped 28 per cent. Soros has increased his mining and commodities holdings, a move that accelerated in the first quarter...

One week after Barbara Bachman's husband was killed in a random knife attack in China that also hospitalized her with life-threatening injuries, she is back in her home state of Minnesota to continue her recovery. Bachman arrived at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester late Friday morning, where she is listed in fair condition and hospital officials said she was alert, talking and had good memory function. Bachman was stabbed in the abdomen at a popular Beijing tourist attraction last Saturday. Her husband, Todd Bachman, died at the scene. The assailant, Tang Yongming was identified by police as a distraught unemployed...

The world was stunned by last weekend's suicide knife attack in Beijing, in which the father-in-law of an American coach was killed. But the I-Team has learned - that wasn't the only American death at the China games. A woman from Chicago died first. The first American died in China more than a week ago - five days before the games began. Twenty-five-year old Ann DeWaters of Chicago was killed in Beijing Monday, August 4 in an incident that went unannounced and is still unexplained by both U.S. and Chinese authorities and the American relief organization she was working for....

A source in Beijing says that the murder in Beijing of American Todd Bachman and the wounding of his wife Barbara and their Chinese tour guide were committed by someone other than the individual identified in China’s state-run press. The three were attacked on August 9 while visiting the Drum Tower, a popular Beijing tourist site. The next day, Xinhua reported that they had been murdered by a 47-year-old factory worker named Tang Yongming who had recently been thrown out of work. Tang was said to have committed the murder out of hopelessness and rage at society, and then to...

Now that Colin Powell has shot down Bill Kristol's report that Powell would be endorsing Obama at the Democratic convention ("I do not have time to waste on Bill Kristol's musings"), you have to wonder: did Kristol have (gasp) ulterior motives for airing this misinformation? Steve Clemons has an interesting theory. It was a play against Powell's--and McCain's--good friend, Richard Armitage: My hunch is that Bill Kristol and friends don't want interest-calculating negotiators and balanced, sensible, pragmatic realists around McCain. They are perhaps using the Russia conflict to purge their foreign policy team of those who are not neocon or...

Kool-Aidaholics sometimes say crazy things when they are drinking. So it makes it difficult to tell when they are kidding and when they are serious. Methinks it's a little of both on this one. From HuffPo. In classic "Wag The Dog" scenario there is a neat little war brewing between American and Russian proxies, and real Russian troops, in the Caucacus Mountains on the Russian border. It couldn't come at a better time for the Republicans. McCain gets to act and talk tough against the Russians, while Obama is on vacation in Hawaii, issuing "can't we all get along statements."...

"In the meantime, it became known that the Georgian troops conducted volley-fire cleansings of several South Ossetian settlements, where people’s houses were simply leveled. “The number of victims with women, children and elderly people among them, can be counted in hundreds and even thousands,” a source from South Ossetian government in the capital of Tskhinvali said. The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters that Georgia’s actions in South Ossetia question its consistency as a state and as aresponsible member of the international community, Interfax reports. "Civilians, including women, children and elderly people are dying in South...

The situation, which is currently unfolding in South Ossetia, shows that the Georgian army follows a meticulously developed plan. However, it was not Georgia, but the Pentagon that schemed out the operation to conquer the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia 13 years ago. The Pentagon originally tested its plan on the Republic of Serbian Krajina which existed on Croatia’s territory from 1991 to 1995. Thousands of civilians were killed and numerous ethnic cleansings were held as a result of those operations. The Russian citizens residing on the territory of South Ossetia may face the same fate in the event Moscow...

08/08/08What a cosmic date! What is the significance of 8/8/8 as applied to conspiratorial 2012 Armageddon. It's got to be something bad right? The new moon falls on August 8, 2008 and it's the beginning of the Olympics in Peking (year of the RAT). Anyone making plans to dig in?

Hillary and her campaign continue to try to hold Obama and his campaign to a higher set of standards than they're willing to adhere to. Apparently Hillary and her people can mock and deride Obama all they want to. And what about Hillary's Machiavelian [sic] response to "60-Minutes" Steve Croft's question to her about whether or not she believed Obama was a Muslim? She knows very well he is a Christian. So she could have clearly and finally put an end to the untrue rumor with an unequivocol "No, there's no truth to that rumor". But she purposely chose...

The Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France. If the Holy See doesn’t comply, the warrior knights, renowned for liberating the Holy Land, will deploy that most fearsome of weapons: a laborious court case through the creaking Spanish legal system. The Daily Telegraph reports that The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ has launched a court case in Spain, demanding Pope Benedict...

Remember when I said that I believed that Asian Central Banks had threatened Paulson regarding Freddie and Fannie? Here 'ya go: "Concerns about the financial health of the biggest U.S. mortgage finance company had driven Fannie Mae's borrowing costs to the highest since March the previous week and its shares had tumbled 45 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. Investors in Asia, the biggest foreign owners of Fannie Mae's $3 trillion of bonds, were asking the Treasury to bolster the government- sponsored company and its smaller competitor, Freddie Mac, said three people with knowledge of the talks." Don't you...

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion). They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church. But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar....

If you are not yet alarmed and outraged by radical Republican John McCain’s “bipartisan” campaign finance “reform” package, which is in no way bipartisan, Monday’s revelation from the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACU) should put an end to your complacency. In its latest report, “Who’s Buying Campaign Finance Reform?” (1) the ACU unveils the secret that some conservatives have suspected all along: The campaign finance reform ‘movement’ has, contrary to its anti-big money agenda, raised and spent more than $73 million since 1996; has, contrary to its bipartisan claims, been funded by “wealthy Democratic Party soft-money donors, ultra-liberal foundations and...

Politics by Assasination? by J. R. Nyquist Weekly Column Published: 08.01.2008 Print Did the Kremlin order a hit on President John F. Kennedy in 1962? The former chief of Communist Romania’s foreign intelligence service thinks so. And he lays out his case in a recently published book with the title Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, “all Soviet-bloc espionage services were identically organized and had an identical modus operandi.” Pacepa also explained that, “Soviet espionage operations … can easily be identified by their particular patterns, of you are...

Almost 50 percent of British adults believe in captive space aliens, and topping the list of such generally-held truths is a secret plot to harbour aliens at a remote military base in a desert in the United States, says a new survey. The online poll was conducted to coincide with the UK cinema release of 'I Want to Believe', the second X-Files film, which aimed to uncover the most popular conspiracy theories. The survey uncovered that almost fifty percent of respondents believe there is some truth in the legend of Area 51, which holds that Groom Lake, in Nevada, was...

Real estate mogul Donald Trump says there is way too much oil in the world to justify the current high market prices. "Frankly, I hear there are tankers all over the world that are loaded up to the gills with oil," he told CNBC. "They have so much oil they don't know what to do with it. It's ridiculous what's going on with OPEC and all of that." Trump blames major oil producing countries for the current recession and accuses large oil companies of "doing a major number" on everyone. Trump lauds the recent dips in the price of oil,...

Who Is Funding Barack Obama? by Paul Hollrah In a July 10 installment of “The World According to Barack,” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut. Obama boasts of having built a contributor base of 1.5 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20...or, as Obama assures us, “whatever they could afford.” Please do the math with me. The Obama campaign has disclosed that one-fourth, or $66.25 million of the $265 million reported as of May 31, 2008 (he has raised an additional $70 million during the month of June), came from those contributing $2,000, or more...which means that the remainder, or...

A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to "start stockpiling food" and an ABC News Report says "there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies." Now there's concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food. "We're told that the feds bought the entire container of canned butter when it hit the California docks. (Something's up!)," said officials at Best Prices Storable Foods in an advisory to customers. Spokesman Bruce Hopkins told WND he also has had trouble obtaining No. 10 cans of...

In 15 years the Clintons have never been this far removed from the limelight. Im guessing that Denver will be something special to watch. Here's betting the notorious Michelle tape appears or a super delegate fight breaks out. I don't trust them a one bit! Your thoughts.

The government watchdog group known as Judicial Watch recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department, for that agency’s failure to turn over certain documents related to the prosecution of Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean… The suit comes after the government refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for documents which detailed the agreement made between the governments of Mexico and the United States, which allowed drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila to return to this country to actually testify against Ramos and Compean. The FOIA request was filed by Judicial Watch on April 17, 2008. The...

Henry Kissinger was reported to have said, “Control the food and you control the people.” Controlling people is as simple as controlling food, water and energy through a variety of controls. “No Farmers No Food,” the bumper sticker distributed by The Adopt a Farm Family ministry, is a message of warning. The Adopt ministry was started by Mary Myers, wife of Peter Myers, former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture who served in the Reagan Administration. She confided to me that God had instructed her to “watch over the food.” At that time there appeared to be no reason for concern. Now...

...It's obvious that Treasury has been after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for years. They are using the current crisis to put a nail in the coffin. This would not be a bad thing if it was just a case of disassembling Fannie and Freddie, and ultimately leaving the mortgage business up to the free markets. After all, Fannie Mae is a throwback to the FDR era of government make work programs and other monstrosities that should be put to sleep. But that is not what appears to be going on. What appears to be going on is a Russian...

When did the presence of conflicting evidence start implying a conspiracy? When did bringing forth conflicting evidence start meaning those who cite it are “conspiracy nuts?” Take for instance a typical murder case. Usually one theory comes together rather quickly, and tends to set the direction of subsequent investigation. If investigation yields evidence that tends to refute said theory, are those who discover and / or cite said evidence “conspiracy nuts?” No. They’re just bringing forth evidence that tends to refute the established theory. Could it be the phrase “conspiracy nut”, and similar invectives, are a way to discredit people...

A genetic variant peculiar to Africans substantially raises their risk of infection with HIV, according to research that suggests evolved susceptibility may be helping to drive the continent’s Aids epidemic. The 90 per cent of Africans who carry the DNA variation are 40 per cent more likely to contract HIV than those without it, after similar exposure to the virus, scientists from Britain and America have found. As the genetic change is common among people of African ancestry but virtually unknown among other ethnic groups, it could explain in part why HIV-Aids is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. The United...

I was reading how Phil Gramm couldn’t be more pleased with the economy while he upset John McCain greatly by saying so being McCain’s top economic advisor. Its funny but if Phil Gramm had stayed in the senate, he would likely be the Republican nominee for this presidential election cycle because he was such a favored senate leader until he quit a few days before September 11, 2001, 911. I remember his announcement about not going to seek reelection coming as kind of a shock to me personally, but not really. It was like when Enron crashed a few months...

What does everyone here think of the Federal Reserve? Does it do too much or too little? What should it's role be? Is it necessary? Should we actually have it at all? Just curious to get people's opinions.

I thought this was interesting and thought provoking at the very least: For those who may be confused by the controversies surrounding the "New World Order", a One-World-Government, and American concern over giving the UN more power; those unaware of the issues involved; and those wishing more background, I offer the following. Originally presented for an Honors Class, "Dilemmas of War and Peace," at New Mexico State University, the paper was ridiculed and characterized by Dr. Yosef Lapid, (an acknowledged and locally quoted "expert" on Terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs) as "paranoid... possibly a symptom of mental illness." You may...

Iran has really gone and done it now. No, they haven't sent their first nuclear sub in to the Persian Gulf . They are about to launch something much more deadly -- next week the Iran Bourse will open to trade oil, not n dollars but in Euros' This apparently insignificant event has consequences far greater for the US people, indeed all for us all, than is imaginable. Currently almost all oil buying and selling is in US-dollars through exchanges in London and New York . It is not accidental they are both US-owned. The Wall Street crash in 1929...

The nation’s pediatricians are recommending wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems. The new guidelines were to be issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday. The push to aggressively screen and medicate for high cholesterol in children is certain to create controversy amid a continuing debate about the use of prescription drugs in children as well as the best approaches to ward off heart disease in adults. But proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs...

You would think that this story is right out of science fiction. But the facts appear to be that the US Democrat-controlled Congress intends to destroy the Republican middle class with $11 per gallon gasoline. The Democrats’ base -- wealthy white “limousine liberals”, and very poor people -- won’t be harmed, but the families who live in suburbia will be devastated. The multi-millionaires like billionaire Senators John Kerry & Jay Rockefeller, financial speculator George Soros, filmmaker Michael Moore, and actors George Clooney & Meg Ryan can easily pay for their auto and private jet fuel. Poor people are forced to...