Free Republic

A chilly day in February came to a boil without warning. A frenetic CNBC reporter, Rick Santelli, took the floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2009 to vent his rage against the U.S. government’s foreclosure-relief plan. “The government is rewarding bad behaviour,” he ranted to cheering traders. “Subsidized losers” didn’t deserve to have mortgages. The people who needed support were ones who “carry the water instead of drink the water.” Then, to louder cheers, “I’m going to have a Chicago Tea Party in July, all you capitalists that want to show up at Lake Michigan, I’m going to start...

(CNN) - Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum offered no insight into his own political future in a Friday CNN interview, but did offer his thoughts as to why the Republican nominee lost to President Barack Obama on Tuesday. "What Mitt Romney, in my opinion, didn't do was go out and vigorously defend the beliefs that he said he espoused and didn't go on the offense," Santorum said in an interview to air Friday on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight." "And when you're playing defense, which is what I believe the campaign was doing and Republicans were doing generally throughout the...

The Wednesday before the election, Mitt Romney sent a special message to volunteers about a special project his campaign was working on: “With state of the art technology and an extremely dedicated group of volunteers, our campaign will have an unprecedented advantage on election day.” What is it they say about something that sounds too good to be true? It probably is. That was the case with the Romney campaign’s “Project ORCA.” The idea behind Project ORCA was simple, albeit far too complex in execution. Romney’s Boston headquarters wanted a way to track who had been to the polls in...

Obama To Wealthy Americans: Read My Lips, I WILL Raise Your Taxes! By TOBY HARNDEN 9 November 2012 President Barack Obama has thrown down to gauntlet to Republican leaders, inviting them to the White House next week to discuss the so-called fiscal cliff but insisting any compromise will include higher taxes on the rich. A crisis is looming at the end of the year is agreement cannot be reached on how to avoid falling over the cliff - a scheduled combination of tax increases and spending cuts due at the end of this year. ‘We can't just cut our way...

The recent re-election of Barak Hussein Obama has served to uncover the deep Spiritual crisis in America, particularly among confessing Christians. What a blow to the cause of freedom,playing by the rules, and responsibility! On election night, most people I know didn’t expect anything less than a reprieve from the four years long nightmare that is the Obama presidency. We sat in stunned silence, contemplating the new reality. We who cherish the American ideals of limited government, Judeo Christian morality, and sane servant leadership, no longer have the prevailing consensus, for now. But perhaps our vision of the right path...

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!Happiness is a bubbling airlock! And a Cold Brew  BEER Well, the Local Homebrew Store in Shriveport, La had their opening day yesterday. I drove the 35 miles to their location and was not disappointed. They had quite a collection of craft beers. They also have a nice selection of grains, hops and other supplies. I talked to the owner for a little bit, nice people. I bought a vile of White Labs Champagne Yeast (WLP715) and a pack of Nottingham Ale Yeast and a couple of other items I...

San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents. The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. The vote was announced Thursday. The idea came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries covered under San Francisco's universal health care program.

EL CAJON — The husband of an Iraqi woman who was found beaten to death in March in their El Cajon home has been arrested in connection with her death, El Cajon police said Friday. Kassim Alhimidi, 48, was booked into jail Thursday evening on one count of first degree murder in the death of Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five. He was arrested at the El Cajon police station, authorities said. Alhimidi is being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. “After months of hard work, we determined this homicide was the result of domestic...

Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans By Heather Mac Donald November 7, 2012 The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population. If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do...

Everyone saw this coming. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic Senator from California and co-sponsor of the USA PATRIOT Act extension, has been rumored to be meeting with ATF officials in the past few days and trying to come up with an outline for her next attempt at passing a new assault weapons ban. It seems like she does this once a year anyway, but in the wake of the Obama re-election people are on high alert for anything gun control related. And this time, it seems like all that practice of introducing failed legislation is leading to a more disturbing version...

Emergency-Preps.com:Hoping for the Best Preparing for the Worst provides a laundry list of forums topics that cover every conceivable survival forums discussion group conceivable.

Frank Aquila wasn’t 100 percent positive that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was going to win heading into Tuesday’s election. Despite his strong conservative roots, Aquila – who served as a county chair for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and penned a book about the decision to go with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate – had seen too much transpire over the course of four years to count out to former senator from Illinois that cut his teeth in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics. And while certain parts of the election – like the Democrats...

David Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, abruptly resigned Friday as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, according to a new report.

The so-called “Pizza Boy Rapist” pleaded not guilty to rape and burglary yesterday as police released his creepy, barely literate, handwritten confession. “Cesar got type of disea in away he never had felted before . . . So then him self starts to check for open apartment, ” Cesar Lucas, 16, of The Bronx, allegedly wrote, recalling entering a sleeping woman’s unlocked apartment on West 61st Street early on a September morning after delivering a pie to another floor.

Short and sweet. Boehner looks like a dog that has been kicked so hard he is bleeding rectally. Utter terror. Even his tan has turned white. Boehner pool: who can come closest to the date when Boehner calls it quits? I call May 5, 2013. By then what the Left/media did to Dick Army will look like a Cub Scout jamboree. Patraeus has quit and promised not to testify re.Benghazi. Romney got fewer votes than McCain. Napolitano is to replace Holder as AG. Ham fired for trying to rescue Stevens and the others. Second pool: who will be the House...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I will repeat the EIB amnesty program, as announced in the first hour of this program today. 'Cause I see where the trend is going. I see where we're headed. I see that amnesty's heading this way. It's gonna happen, folks. You know, losing elections has consequences. There will be amnesty in this country. When you hear the phrase "comprehensive immigration reform," that's what it means. Amnesty for whoever is here. And it's gonna be blanket, and it's gonna be pretty quick. That's where we're headed. So I want to get in the game. I want to...

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development. The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation. The move is sure to rankle Republicans, who say President Obama’s grip on fossil fuel drilling in federal lands is...

Two to go and this week it's PHoenix.. To the victor the spoils and a likely leg up in the Chase for the Cup.. to the rest of the pack, it's just one more race to go after Sunday. Who has the stuff to finish ahead of the pack? Place your bets!

Ronald Kessler reporting from Washington, D.C. — The resignation of David H. Petraeus as CIA director followed an FBI investigation of many months, raising the question of why he was not forced out until after the election. In his letter of resignation, Petraeus cited an extra-marital affair he had been having. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” Petraeus said in his letter to President Obama. “Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” Petraeus, who had a distinguished...

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development. The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation. The move is sure to rankle Republicans, who say President Obama’s grip on fossil fuel drilling in federal lands is...