Free Republic

Obama's "Truth Squads" are just another name for the "Thought Police" as portrayed in Orwell's prophetic novel 1984. See link below He is a truly scary individual... My new name for him is... THE BIG BROTHER http://www.kmov.com/video/index.html?nvid=285793&shu=1

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? Surely Ronald Reagan does not subscribe to that maxim. Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? Representative Morris Udall, who lost New Hampshire to Jimmy Carter by a hair in 1976, must surely disagree. So must a longtime Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford. Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? That didn’t stop Richard Nixon from picking Spiro Agnew, a suburban politician who became Governor of Maryland. Remember...

Councils are using anti-terrorism laws to spy on residents and tackle barking dogs and noisy children. An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph found that three quarters of local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 over the past year. The Act gives councils the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions. The findings alarmed civil liberties campaigners. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "Councils do a grave disservice to professional policing by using serious surveillance against litterbugs instead of terrorists."

To these ears, it sounded like a sophomoric line by, well, a sophomore seeking to impress classmates and perhaps his fuzzy-headed teacher. But MSNBC has proclaimed Mario Cuomo's call for a nuclear freeze because "peace is better than war and life is better than death" one of the greatest convention-speech lines ever. In the run-up to this evening's keynote address by former VA Gov. Mark Warner and Hillary's much-anticipated speech, Hardball did a segment on some of the best Dem convention speeches of the past. Now, love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that the late Ann Richards'...

The Democratic National Convention is a great time to reflect on the Conundrum of The Century: Why are our liberal buddies so amazingly gullible? Why do they fall for the most obvious scam artists? Why, when Hillary crashes, do they slobber all over the next edition of God's Anointed on Earth? When Obama went body surfin' in Hawaii before the convention, we had a chance to hear The Aloha State's very own brand of liberal love. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin quoted one sun-tanned beauty saying:   "He's genuine. You can feel his aloha," ... said 41-year-old Sama Evaimalo, a Hanauma Bay tram...

· Hundreds of public bodies to access personal details · Home Office measure driven by EU directive Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday. Ministers want to make it mandatory for telephone and internet companies to keep details of all personal internet traffic for at least 12 months so it can be accessed for investigations into crime or other threats to public safety. The Home Office last night admitted that the measure will mean...

I remember back a few years seeing Free Tibet bumper stickers on progressive Saabs and hippie VWs. Tibet is still in China's clutches, Russia is busy slapping around it's former vassal states, but the world is focused on the supposed crimes of George Bush. I can understand the argument that we never should have invaded Iraq, although I think that point is now moot. I can also understand those who think war is wrong and who insist that might doesn't make right. What I can't understand is those on the left who criminalize the Iraq invasion but see nothing wrong...

Chicago is the worst “nanny-state” city in the U.S. — the metropolis with the most stringent regulations interfering with the exercise of personal freedoms. That’s the finding of a survey by Reason magazine, a libertarian publication, which ranked cities according to the degree they treat citizens as a “nanny” might treat children incapable of making their own decisions. The magazine ranked the 35 most populous American municipalities in eight categories: sex, alcohol, tobacco, guns, movement, drugs, gambling, and a catch-all category of food and “other.” The higher the score, from 1 to 35, the more restrictive the city. In the...

Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry, says the Wall Street Journal. The Los Angeles city council is considering legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city. The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there -- 30 percent of adults, compared...

WASHINGTON — More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program. The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush’s most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late. And it represented a stinging defeat for opponents on the left who had urged Democratic leaders...

The cost of Britain’s "surveillance society" measures is now running at £20 billion, a new report reveals today. The amount is equivalent to £800 per household and includes £19 billion for the planned ID card system and £500 million for CCTV cameras.

There's a little gem of Newsweek's embarrasing polling history buried under the perpetual poll sucker Howard Fineman's latest piece. http://www.newsweek.com/id/143258/output/print But nothing like in 1984. That was the most embarrassing example of the latter kind of survey. It predates PSR but remains seared into our institutional memory. The day the Democratic convention ended in San Francisco in 1984, the Newsweek poll showed Walter Mondale 18 points ahead of President Ronald Reagan. Mondale ended up getting clobbered, 49 states to one. This is pretty good, can somebody dig out this poll? I'd love to see.

Pubs in Yorkshire have been ordered to ban people from wearing flat caps or other hats so troublemakers can be more easily recognised. The Park Hotel in Wadsley, Sheffield, is the latest to be asked to impose the rule by senior police officers.

Thousands of primary pupils were prevented from making Father's Day cards at school for fear of embarrassing classmates who live with single mothers and lesbians. The politically correct policy was quietly adopted at schools "in the interests of sensitivity" over the growing number of lone-parent and same-sex households.

Will 2008 Elections Be A Rerun of 1932? by John Gizzi “Democratic congressional candidates...won more seats than anyone had dared predict...Democrats added 97 seats in the House, expanding their margin to 313 to 117 during Roosevelt’s first two years in office. The large class of incoming freshmen was filled with liberals who would faithfully support Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. . . Democratic congressional candidates swept the South, much of the Midwest, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Coast. . .Republicans lost their tenuous grip on the Senate’s majority and with it their majority leader and most powerful...

Town hall snoopers used controversial anti-terror powers to delve into the phone and email records of thousands of people last year. They wanted to check for evidence of dog smuggling and storing petrol without permission - and even to trace a suspected bogus faith healer. In one case they were inquiring into unburied animal carcasses. Some councils are allowing middle-ranking staff to authorise covert operations under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which is intended for use 'in the interests of national security'. Many of those spied upon will have no idea they have been subjected to surveillance, as...

Good news: the war on terror is over! Charles Allen, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior intelligence official, said last week that American officials should stop calling this conflict we’re in a “war on terror,” far less the president’s term, the “global war on terror.” Why? Because it offends Muslims, of course. When they hear “terror,” you see, this hurts the feelings of peaceful non-terrorist Muslims. “[It] has nothing to do with political correctness,” insisted Allen, straining credulity well past the breaking point. “It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don’t need this.”...

MORRISON, Colo. -- A Broomfield family said their Mother’s Day celebration was ruined Sunday by what they saw and heard at “The Fort” Restaurant in Morrison. “It was shocking,” Lonza Dennis told 7NEWS Wednesday. Dennis, 37, and her husband Patrick, 38, said they were snapping photos at the table when they noticed a decorative noose hanging on the wall behind them. Patrick Dennis said he was equally unsettled by the waiter’s response when they asked about it. “My wife said, ‘We noticed a noose hanging behind the table,’ and his immediate reply was, ‘This is where we sit people who...

This is a memo to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hizbollah, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and others: Please consider changing your names to something a tad less religious sounding. Where you infuse your theological thought into radical politics and violence, things might get a little awkward for us. You see, if we point out that you identify yourselves with a religion, we might offend someone. That's the new policy of U.S. government. The Associated Press confirms other reports that federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. embassies say that words including "jihadists" and "mujahedeen" are off limits. In...

St. Petersburg, FL -- Terri Schiavo's mother Mary Schindler has uncovered a note that Terri wrote back in 1984 when she married her husband Michael. Now remarried to someone with whom he had an affair before Terri's death, Michael won a court order to take her live despite pleas from her family. Terri's brother Bobby Schindler tells LifeNews.com about the note. Complete story at: http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2440.html

Investigative Project Releases Gov't Memos Curtailing Speech in War on Terror The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to identify the "influential Muslim Americans" and "leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam" who met with Secretary Michael Chertoff in helping shape a softer approach to government lexicon about terrorists and their ideological motivations. "Our policy is we don't comment on the Secretary's private schedule," spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the IPT. Nor would she identify any of the participants' organizational affiliation. DHS and the State Department's Counterterrorism Communications Center each issued reports urging government employees to avoid words like "jihad,"...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is refusing to identify the "influential Muslim Americans" and "leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam" who met with Secretary Michael Chertoff in helping shape a softer approach to government lexicon about terrorists and their ideological motivations. "Our policy is we don't comment on the Secretary's private schedule," spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the IPT. Nor would she identify any of the participants' organizational affiliation. DHS and the State Department's Counterterrorism Communications Center each issued reports urging government employees to avoid words like "jihad," "mujahedeen" or any reference to Islam or Muslims, especially in relation...

CBS Election Night 1984 http://youtube.com/watch?v=1e4t1qKGFao&feature=related A great night. Sure to lift your spirits.

PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers. Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts." Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim...

Those who peer at children in public could find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Maine soon...

When Truth Matters, Brain Scanning Lie Detector Now Commercially Available CEPHOS, the world leader in brain imaging deception research, offers fMRI brain scanning for truth verification to the public TYNGSBORO, Mass. — After eight years of extensive research, numerous published studies and presentations to the scientific community, Cephos announces the availability of functional MRI-based lie detection/truth verification services to the general public. "In today's litigious society, an accusation alone can cause serious damage to a person's reputation, relationships and financial position," says Dr. Steven Laken, Founder and President of Cephos. "Our services have the ability to clear someone's name at...

Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today. According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements. The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers. But many serving officers fear being turned...

All cultures are equal. One culture is less equal than others. Members of a minority are never responsible for their failures. Members of the majority are never responsible for their successes. Only the Liberal elite and certain select villains on the Right have free will. Capitalism is bad because it requires empathy. Socialism is good because it requires only sympathy. No statement is ever true or false except this one. Cultural Relativism is a fact. Temporal Relativism is not. A woman has a right to her body, but no responsibility for it. Everyone is a hypocrite. Words speak louder than...

After reading that the latest attempt by the Democrats to lose the war in Iraq by attaching an unprecedented amount of ear marks to the Armed Forces funding bill, I sent an email to my 3 representatives that I was appalled at their attempt to further their agenda on the backs of our Brave Military Volunteers. From my Congressman I got a thank you. From 1 Senator I received nothing. But from this Senator I received a letter. This Senator sent me a letter addressed to Sergeant Rock. The last time I was a Sergeant was in 1970. I have...

Via Matt Drudge we learn that an appeals court in California has ruled that parents can only homeschool their children if they hold a valid teaching credential. Forget, for now, about the incredible infringement upon individual liberty this is. Or the hubris of those who assert that only WE know, and only WE have the right to dictate, what your child should be taught. Forget the objective evidence that homeschooled kids get an actual education at least as good as, if not usually better than, that doled out by the public school system. Forget what this means for kids who...

Senior police officers are increasing pressure for all British citizens to be put on a DNA database. Their call for a national debate on whether everyone should be forced to give DNA samples to the authorities follows last week's convictions of two killers identified using "genetic fingerprints" - and comes as senior Scotland Yard officials have reportedly stated that new DNA evidence "will nail" the racist killers of teenager Stephen Lawrence. Scotland Yard "is confident" that there will be a prosecution and a trial in that case, the Sunday Times has reported. DNA nabbed 'Suffolk Strangler' Steve Wright, left, and...

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists. But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns -- what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans. The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans. Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database...

Republican Debate the other night - YouTube Rudy Guiliani: We should develop a tamper proof ID card" "and if you got the tamper proof ID card, then you'd be allowed to work, pay taxes, get online, become a citizen, follow the rules...."

My favorite headline of the year so far comes from The Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As 'Anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims." Her Majesty's Government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic...

A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine. Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title. Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?" It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private...

Californians may soon have to deal with climate change on a different scale -- and this time the culprit isn't greenhouse gas. The California Energy Commission is proposing a plan which allows the government to regulate household thermostats in the event of an "energy crisis." Under the proposed rules, all new thermostats will be fitted with technology that will allow the government to adjust the temperature of someone's home by plus or minus four degrees. Originally the plans called for mandatory compliance; however, amid public outcry, the plans have been slightly altered to allow an individual to turn off the...

Golfweek magazine replaced the editor responsible for illustrating the current cover with a noose and apologized Friday for its depiction of a Golf Channel anchor's use of "lynch" in a comment about Tiger Woods. "We apologize for creating this graphic cover that received extreme negative reaction from consumers, subscribers and advertisers across the country," Turnstile Publishing Co. president William P. Kupper Jr. said. "We were trying to convey the controversial issues with a strong and provocative graphic image. It is now obvious that the overall reaction to our cover deeply offended many people. For that, we are deeply apologetic." Turnstile...

In March, 2007, Donna Holman was convicted of a charge of "harassment" as she engaged in "sidewalk counseling" to discourage women from entering a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Iowa City, Iowa. Judge Karen Egerton found Mrs.Holman guilty on the hearsay testimony of Planned Parenthood employees. The woman Mrs. Holman allegedly harassed did not even show up for the hearing. Despite being unable to confront her accuser and offer exculpatory evidence, the Iowa Supreme Court declined to review the case. "While murderers and rapists run free, a harmless 72-year-old Christian grandmother, Donna Holman, must languish in jail for having the...

STUNNED schoolkids were asked to design a politically-correct PIZZA which would not offend anyone. Pupils were told to discuss which toppings might upset religious groups, veggies or people with allergies. In response, The Sun’s culinary experts have cooked up the most unPC pizza in Britain, with ingredients to offend everyone. Greg McLaughlan, 40, whose daughter Chelsea, 12, was in the lesson, said: “It’s ridiculous to tell kids what they can put on pizza. It makes race relations more difficult.” But headteacher Jan Charters defended the lesson at Oakwood Technology College, Rotherham, South Yorks – where a fifth of pupils are...

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity". Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam. Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

The state of California is revising its building codes, and lookie what’s buried in there: Every new home and every change to existing homes’ central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT [programmable communicating thermostat] beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a “non-removable ” FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During “price events” those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would...

Although France, a country known as much for its smoky cafes as its patisseries, recently snuffed out smoking in all public places, smoking opponents in Wisconsin are facing an uphill struggle to muscle a similar proposal through the state Legislature with only a couple of months left before adjournment. The bill, which would ban smoking in all Wisconsin restaurants and bars, is poised to get its first scheduled vote Tuesday in the Senate Committee on Public Health, Senior Issues, Long Term Care and Privacy. But Sen. Roger Breske, D-Eland, a former tavern owner, wants to exempt bars from the bill,...

The National Smoking Day went well in England as festive multitudes disobeyed fraud-based antismoking laws. More information is coming in as we write. We will keep you posted as we resume regular publication next week. Of course, had Anti forces succeeded in quashing the British event, there would be press releases and coverage galore in the mainstream media. Instead, widespread disobedience was successful and vaunted attempts at a crackdown were not, thus Anti and her media minions have nothing to say. Kowtowing media must show that they are making their best effort to suppress any and all information favourable to...

If a pair of Transportation Security Administration officers strolling by a Sea-Tac Airport ticket counter wish you happy holidays and ask where you're traveling, it might be more than just Christmas spirit. Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors. TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent. But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash...

Laugh all you want at George Lakoff’s advice for the Democrats to win by framing the debate and altering the vocabulary. Language is a key battleground in culture wars, and as soon as you step into your opponent’s frame of reference and start identifying bad weather as climate change, illiteracy as public education, and freedom as desperate need of care and supervision, you may lose not just the debate but the war, the culture, and your very way of life. A recent humorous discussion about PeopleSpeak™ at the People’s Cube prompted me to take a more serious look (to the...

State rape: the horrors of government By DOUGLAS OLSON Truly, some of the dumbest, most incompetent and uncaring, most venal people in the world work for government, penetrating every level and infesting every nook and cranny. Once in, it is almost impossible to get them out, no matter how ludicrous or damaging to others their official decisions and proclamations may be — as the following sad and outrageous examples illustrate. To protect and serve Earlier this year, after convicting a man of working while also collecting welfare, a German court sentenced him to 720 hours of community service and put...

Patients could be required to stop smoking, take exercise or lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested. Health premiums slashed for gym users In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care. The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says. In his open letter to doctors, nurses and other health workers, the Prime Minister promises to press on with Tony Blair's reforms of the NHS, pledging...

BEIJING: In preparation for the Beijing Olympics and a host of other international events, some American companies are helping the Chinese government to design and install one of the most comprehensive high-tech public surveillance systems in the world.

They say that true character is seen under pressure. Perhaps the inverse is true for politicians. When it comes to the pressure of facing the electorate during voting season, some politicians will adopt the character or policies that will get them elected. But when the pressure of re-election is lifted, these officials’ true character is unmasked. Governor Schwarzenegger’s signing of SB 777 is the most glaring example of this sad truth. During last year’s legislative session the governor was wary of signing any legislation that would anger specific voting blocks that could help him win re-election. Such was the case...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Police have lost red-light cameras to traffic accidents but never to gun play. "This is the first one that's been shot," Capt. Gordon Catlett said of the wounded camera at the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Interstate 640 — one of 15 camera-equipped intersections in the city. Clifford E. Clark, 47, was charged with felony vandalism and reckless endangerment for allegedly firing at least three rounds from a .30-06 hunting rifle at the camera, knocking it out of action. He was arrested after patrol officers heard shots around 2 a.m. Sunday, spotted a minivan leaving the parking...