Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Sales of new homes fell in June for the first time in four months, and the government also lowered figures for May, providing further evidence the high-flying housing market is losing altitude. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that new home sales fell 3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 1.131 million units. It was the first decline since an 11.5 percent drop in February. The government also cut its estimate of sales activity in May to a pace of 1.166 million units, substantially below its initial estimate of 1.234 million units.

Many brokers thrived last year amid record home sales, but this year the industry has taken a turn for the worse. TAMPA — The sneeze came first: Home sales in the Tampa Bay area dropped by a third from last year’s peak. For symptoms of the developing head cold, plunge into the exhibition hall at the Tampa Convention Center, where the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers is holding its annual trade show. Puffed up to handle record-breaking home sales of last year, which poured money into savvy brokers’ pockets, the residential lending industry and affiliated businesses are mostly deflating this...

You guys have had total rule of the Country for years and years and here we are with $3 a gallon gas, a mess overseas, and crappy jobs here with wages depressed by unchecked illegal immigration. Stop whining about us -- you run the darn country, and you aren't doing jack. You've got about 6 months left before you are thrown out of Congress and we run it, and impeachment proceedings begin against your President. It will happen, too, as though the bluebloods and corporate fat cats who reside here might laugh at $3 a gallon gas, I am sure...

In this war freedom should come first not after! In New Hampshire the Motto is Live free or Die! I don't need Bush spying on law abiding americans and taking our freedoms. Anyone who surrenders a square inch of freedom to the government in the name of saftey is a traitor and should be treated like one! Let the Bush Fashists all drop dead! Filthy Commys! LET FREEDOM RING!

In an especially contentious exchange on this evening's Hannity and Colmes (Friday February 3, 2006), cantankerous cartoonist Ted Rall, a guest on the program, unbelievably declared, "We do not owe our liberties to the military." The topic was the recent Washington Post cartoon by Tom Toles that has outraged many. The cartoon prompted a letter to the editor (linked at Michelle Malkin) from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who tagged the the work as "beyond tasteless." Needless to say, Rall (who himself has created bigoted trash in the past) defended Toles' cruel piece. Here's the relevant exchange (audiotape on file,...

For America's number one liberal blogger politics is like sports: It's all about winning. I hate Washington,” says Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Many people, of course, say that they hate Washington. Jay Leno says so. So do Rush Limbaugh and Monica Lewinsky. But Moulitsas, who is the world's biggest political blogger, says it differently, with a freshly arrived-at and deeply felt zeal, as if he himself has discovered the place and its pathologies anew. When Moulitsas says Washington, he's not talking about Bush's Washington with its pitched partisan camps and pay-to-play ethos. He's talking about Democratic Washington: the liberal Ivy League...

<p>A computer hacker gained access to private files at Acxiom Corp., one of the world's largest consumer database companies, and was able to download sensitive information about some customers of the company's clients, the company said Thursday.</p> <p>"The data on the servers was a wide variety of information, some of which was personal, some of which was not," Jennifer Barrett, the company's chief privacy officer, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. The AP was notified of the intrusion by an anonymous caller who would not identify himself or his connection with the company.</p>

President Bush is the target of a new "Google bomb" where he's labeled an "a-- hole" in a vulgar filmstrip when the graphic term is entered into the popular search engine. A song and video critical of the president, his Cabinet and high-profile conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter appear as the sole result in Google searches when the words "a-- hole" with a space between the words are put into Google's engine, and the "I'm feeling lucky" button is punched. A Google bomb is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEDIA MATTERS Bush labeled 'a--hole' in new Google bomb President, Cabinet, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter all targeted in vulgar filmstrip -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 14, 2005 11:59 p.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com President Bush is the target of a new "Google bomb" where he's labeled an "a-- hole" in a vulgar filmstrip when the graphic term is entered into the popular search engine. A song and video critical of the president, his Cabinet and high-profile conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter appear as the sole result in Google searches when the words "a--...

MIDI - TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME Take me to Teddy's ballgame...we'll hear him shouting loud He will tell Rummy he ought to quit We know Teddy is so full of it He will root, root, root for the bad guys If we lose it's a shame For it's one, two, three fifths he's drunk That is Teddy's game Take me to Teddy's ballgame...he'll go out on a bridge We hear a big splash and a gurgle sound He hopes the body never is found He will root, root, root for the bad guys If we lose it's...

BOISE, Idaho -- A Kansas preacher and gay rights foe whose congregation is protesting military funerals around the country said he's coming to Idaho tomorrow to picket the memorial for an Idaho National Guard soldier killed in Iraq. A flier on the Web site of Pastor Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church claims God killed Cpl. Carrie French with an improvised explosive device in retaliation against the United States for a bombing at Phelps' church six years ago. "We're coming," Phelps said yesterday. Westboro Baptist either has protested or is planning protests of other public funerals of soldiers from Michigan, Alabama,...

Yes. I am new to this website and was wondering why my account was banned? I posted an article I wrote about how Buddhism not Islam is a threat to America and is the fastest growing religion instead of Islam. I noted how Buddhism denies the existence of God and the divinity of Christ, I also made note of how Buddhists practice an evil satanic ceremony called doku. It is a ritual where Buddhist monks use a doku drum made of the hide of a white christian baby to conjure up demons for human sacrifice. Using three fingers they beat...

Wants GA Aircraft Banned Over Cities, Says Incident Justifies Closure Of Meigs Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the man General Aviation loves to hate, renewed his call for a ban on GA flight over major cities in the wake of Wednesday's light plane incursion deep into the Washington ADIZ. Daley also said the Washington incident proves he was right to destroy Meigs Field under the cover of darkness two years ago. "They should value the lives of people in large cities," he said during a City Hall news conference, quoted by the Chicago Tribune. "We need the same protection as Washington,...

First, this is NOT an April Fool's joke. I am leaving Free Republic. Over the past two years, civility and thoughtful discourse has vanished from this site, replaced with demands for ideological conformity that are straight out of Stalinist Russia or China's Great Cultural Revolution, and unrelenting uncivility if said conformance is not forthcoming. This trend began with the California recall election, where certain posters were allowed to flame the living beejezus out of those who didn't wholeheartedly support Tom McClintock, or thought that he wasn't running a campaign capable of winning. It extended into the Keyes campaign last year,...

DENVER--Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, has been crisscrossing the country for years promoting the virtues of this state's strict constitutional limits on government spending. He has repeatedly urged other states to adopt restrictions of their own, based on Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights amendment, known as TABOR. But this summer, Owens says, he will traverse his own mountainous state pushing the opposite message. Midway through his second term, Owens is working to persuade Coloradans to suspend the limits he championed and let the state government spend $3 billion more in tax money than TABOR would allow. Owens thus becomes another...

Guilt can only weigh on a person's mind for so long before they crave the act of purgation; to get the weighty feelings of shame and responsibility out of the mind - or at least the guilty parties attempt to find some kind of peace if they cannot rid themselves of a screaming conscience that implicates and indicts its possessor.That said, perhaps some readers will understand why my friends and I rip yellow ribbon "support the troops" magnets off of cars or wherever people have affixed them. By ripping off these ribbons, we find a way to deal with our...

A bitter-sounding Sen. John Kerry dismissed the historic Iraqi election on Sunday, warning Americans not to "overhype" the watershed event. "No one in the United States should try to overhype this election," Kerry told NBC's "Meet the Press." The failed presidential candidate questioned the historic referendum's legitimacy, saying, "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." Kerry also pooh-poohed reports of a surprisingly high 72 percent turnout by Iraqi voters, insisting instead that the election has "gone as expected." Asked if he thought Iraq was now less of...

Ever hear of how republican's always call the liberal left "Whiner's"? Well, take a look at Wa. State, ...who are the Whiner's now? LOTS OF LAUGHS! Boy, the shoes on the other foot now! I think it's great, don't you? These people deserve it..! Has anyone seen the comedian on HBO, who gave a discription of a "Republican"? Wow was that great, and very very true.

<p>Dems on the Judiciary Committee complained late Tuesday that White House was refusing to turn over documents that illuminated Gonzales' role in crafting memos on prisoner torture. Sen. Leahy, committee's ranking Dem, accused Gonzales of 'stonewalling.'</p> <p>'In fact, I and other Senators have requested a number of documents from you and other administration officials that have not been released,' Leahy charged.</p>

HILLARY AWARENESS DAY - Friday Jan 14th 2005 - HR is pleased to announce that a formal on line web-conference will be held on the above date. There will be many topics presented, hand out material and formal discussions. Registration for the event is free and those wishing to attend must be pre-registered to post and participate. Information on the link.