Free Republic

Of all the claims in support of John McCain's bid for the White House, perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London today, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce. For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But according to experts, the story may be no more than that. Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's past, genealogists...

Mon December 31, 2007 Will a new candidate emerge at OU? By John Greiner Capitol Bureau NORMAN — University of Oklahoma President David L. Boren and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia are convening a bipartisan group of nationally prominent political figures next Sunday and Monday to challenge presidential candidates to focus on serious issues. Those planning to attend include: •New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a possible independent candidate for president. •Former Democrat U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb of Virginia. •Bill Brock, former Republican Party chairman and former Tennessee U.S. Senator. •Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman...

Would it surprise you to know that MoveOn.org, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Arianna Huffington and many of the most liberal voices in the Democratic Party share a common belief that government -- not the free market -- should regulate growth and innovation regarding the Internet and wireless communications? Of course not! What SHOULD surprise you is that the Republican Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agrees with them. That's right, the REPUBLICAN Chairman of the FCC agrees with the Far Left Liberals! Yesterday, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced that he wants the government to decide the winners...

Rumors of the Republican Party’s imminent meltdown in 2008 are rampant. Websites and blogs bristle with headlines like “They’re screwed,” “Licking their wounds,” “Republicans really are the stupid party” and “What are Republicans thinking?” And those are from the friendly conservative sources. Some wags say the party is hopelessly divided over issues ranging from abortion and Iraq to gas prices and immigration. Other observers focus on the dissident voices of GOP moderates. Some pundits point their fingers at a president who’s too distracted by war and low approval ratings to provide much party leadership. And there’s a persistent sense on...

According to a February 1, 2007 report by the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Maria Vanderslice, a 1997 graduate of Earlham College and head of the 2 year-old PR firm called Common Good Strategies, has much to do with recent Democrat Party success in wooing Christian voters. Vanderslice has been working behind the scenes to help Democrats convince Christians that they should vote for Democrats of “faith”. Like many Democrat efforts to sway voters and stem the large numbers of political losses suffered by liberals until the past elections, this “faith” initiative is rotten from the core and built on typical...

Is the Vatican a Rogue State? The top crime neighborhood in the world isn't in Sao Paulo or Lagos. It's not the Bronx in New York, or even Wedding in Berlin. It's the small city ruled by Pope Benedict XVI, which apparently sees more criminal cases per capita than any other part of the world. Rampant crime: Pickpockets on St. Peter's Square can just trot over an international border into Italy. The Vatican's attorney general Nicola Picardi released the astounding statistic at the start of 2007: The tiny nation's justice department in 2006 had to contend with 341 civil and...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Disturbing statistics on the number of Hispanics who daily go hungry in America was released at a press conference on Wednesday by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). The national Hispanic civil rights group found that nearly one in five people lack nutritious food. NCLR officials said in a press release that increasing federal nutrition assistance programs would help decrease the growing "food insecurity" faced by 19.6 percent of Latinos in America. "Lack of access to resources is forcing far too many Latino families into choices no one should have to make, such as between...

(snip) As the Legislature's nonpartisan budget analyst, Elizabeth Hill, pointed out a day after Schwarzenegger's speech: "At this advanced stage of the current economic expansion, California should be running projected operating surpluses instead of deficits. ..." Hill believes that as the economy cools, largely due to a marked slowdown in the powerful housing sector, the state's deficits may grow, especially as it begins repaying the money that it borrowed earlier in the decade to cover immense shortfalls. And that doesn't count the billions more dollars that the state may have to spend to fix its prison crisis, or the billions...

November 8, 2006 -- THE presidency of George W. Bush ended last night. The Democratic Party turned this election into a referendum on the president - and the president lost. The Democratic successes last night don't herald dramatic shifts in policy, the way the Republican 1994 triumph did. There will be no dramatic shifts in policy. We will not bug out of Iraq. There will be no tax increase. The president will have significant trouble getting conservatives on federal courts, including the Supreme Court - but he's had that same trouble notwithstanding the comfortable Republican margin in the Senate that...

A powerful alliance of Evangelical Christians and other religious groups is challenging traditional views of environmental activism by promoting a documentary about global warming in churches across America. The group aims to convince congregations of all denominations that damage to the environment is a moral and spiritual rather than political issue that requires urgent action at every level. The Great Warming, a Canadian production narrated by Keanu Reeves and Alanis Morissette, is being pitched in particular at the powerful conservative Christian constituency, which was credited with helping to re-elect President George W Bush in 2004. Its release is timed to...

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation trumpeted it as good news. Accidents involving big trucks on our state's roads and highways declined in 2005. In fact, the State Patrol's Bureau of Transportation Safety said that the 7,762 truck crashes during the last year represented the lowest number in 16 years. Just 10 years ago, large truck crashes totaled more than 9,400, it said. The number of people killed in crashes involving semis and other large trucks in 2005 was 94, the fewest since 1992, when 90 people perished in such collisions. State Patrol Capt. Chuck Teasdale credited the better numbers to...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has flunked her first foreign policy crisis in the Middle East. She went to the turbulent region last month in the early days of the war that began when Hezbollah forces in Lebanon crossed into Israel and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Rice had orders from President George W. Bush to oppose any immediate ceasefire, which was hardly the proper policy by the U.S. if it wanted to end the suffering among Israelis and Lebanese. Rice apparently was dispatched to the Middle East to pass on to Israel the message that it has the green light...

Eighteen men who played football for the Pittsburgh Steelers have died since 2000, the Los Angeles Times reports. The former players have fallen to heart attacks, accidents, disease and suicide over the past six years. The Times said 16 of the 77 NFL players from the 1970s and 1980s who have died since 2000 were Steelers - more than one in five. Four of the deaths were unusual: Former Steelers lineman Steve Courson, 50, was killed last year when a large tree he was cutting down outside his Pennsylvania home fell on him. Former linebacker David Little, 46, was bench-pressing...

Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum. Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group rallying cry into sophisticated, mainstream movement. Most recently, a pair of churches apologized for their part in the slave trade, and one is studying ways to repay black church members. The overall issue is hardly settled, even among black Americans: Some say that focusing on slavery shouldn't be a top priority or that it doesn't make sense to compensate...

Concerned that executions were as arbitrary as lightning strikes, the U.S. Supreme Court halted capital punishment across the country in 1972. Laws were rewritten to the high court's satisfaction, and in a landmark decision 30 years ago today, states were allowed to resume executions. Since then, 1,029 killers have been shot, hanged, gassed, electrocuted or fatally injected. And since then, geography has had much to do with a murderer's fate. Though 38 states now have a death penalty, one region carries it out far more often than any other. Southern states have executed 81 percent of the national total since...

WASHINGTON -- Sometime between now and the Fourth of July, the Senate plans to revisit what over the course of 17 years has become a seasonal rite of patriotism on Capitol Hill: a vote on whether to amend the Constitution to ban protesters from burning the American flag. Each time, the arguments on both sides are passionate. Each time, the support needed to move ahead with an amendment falls short. But this year could be different, as two important trends cross paths. For one, proponents of the amendment appear to have more support than ever in the Senate. They say...

Harris Campaign Calls on Nelson to Defend Sanctity of Marriage For Immediate Release June 6, 2006 Contact:  Chris Ingram   (813) 288-8400 (Tampa, Fla.) - The Katherine Harris for U.S. Senate campaign called on Senator Bill Nelson to support the Marriage Protection Amendment today. "I believe the majority of Americans strongly support the preservation of traditional marriage. We must never undermine the uniqueness of an institution that continues to serve as an essential thread in the fabric of our society. I support the passage of the Marriage Protection amendment being debated in the Senate," Congresswoman Harris said. Campaign spokesman Chris Ingram...

ON DEC. 17, 2004, President Bush signed the National Intelligence Reform Act, which, among other things, required that the federal government hire 2,000 new Border Patrol agents a year for five years, starting in 2006. In the 2006 budget Bush proposed, he funded exactly 210 Border Patrol agents. That single act is a more accurate reflection of his border security priorities than his Monday night speech. Under President Bush, the number of Border Patrol agents has risen to just over 12,000. But the agency has become much less effective. In 1995, the Border Patrol arrested more than 1.3 million illegals....

Amalia Avila never supported the war. But after her first son, Victor Gonzalez, told her he wanted to join the Marines, she felt a mixture of fear, concern and, finally, pride. "This war makes no sense to me," Avila said last week in her Watsonville home. "I'd ask him why he wanted to go, and he'd just say his brothers needed his help. ... But when Victor did get into the Marines, when that day came, I was so proud of him." Avila paused to allow her tears. "It was a beautiful day." It was also one of the last...

University of Pittsburgh psychiatrists have found that long-term use of antidepressants could prevent recurrent episodes of major depression among the elderly. Two years of treatment with drugs that help to increase the amount of serotonin available in the brain reduced by 60 percent the chance that people age 70 and older would suffer repeat depressive episodes, according to a Pitt study published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "The news is very good," said Pitt geriatric psychiatrist Dr. Charles Reynolds III, who headed the study. "You can treat depression in old age not only to get...

A House proposal that would build 700 miles of fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border was criticized Friday in South Texas as ineffective and, in simpler terms, "a bunch of baloney." There was no mincing of words with some elected border officials, who said the bill would be a waste of taxpayer's money to the tune of $2.2 billion. Laredo Mayor Betty Flores, known for her outspokenness on border issues, didn't even want to comment on the legislation. A city spokeswoman said the mayor was confident the proposal never would make it into law. "She doesn't want to raise...

MIDI - GIRL Is there anybody here who hasn't read the story that Michelle Kosinski wants to hide It is time, I think, we're mocking her in all her glory, maybe we can do it till she cries Canoe Girl...you, girl They create a scene, how typical, that was so phony...that's the way the MSM has worked Leftists in the media are so full of baloney, do not ever listen to those jerks Canoe Girl...you, girl As they're losing market share, they know they are up Sh**'s Creek with no paddle This is a war to the end...I hope...

Baghdad. In a one of a kind military operation the US army occupied 7 mosques yesterday in the Western Iraqi town of Ramadi and turned the mosques into barracks, the Iraqi News Agency INA reported. According to information, the American soldiers have taken the praying out of the mosques, closed them and banned access to the mosques within a range of 1 kilometer.

17,000 blinded by fags By EMMA MORTON MORE than 17,000 Britons have gone blind because they SMOKE, it was revealed yesterday.  The shock statistic shows the link between fags and sight loss is as strong as that between cigs and lung cancer.The cigarettes cause a form of blindness called Age-Related Macular Degeneration, known as AMD.Smoke destroys cells in an area at the back of the eye named the macular. And smokers do not absorb nutrients from food essential for good eyesight.Cigarette puffers are four times more likely to develop AMD or lung cancer than those who shun the weed. And...

Very young children who eat French fries frequently have a much higher risk of breast cancer as adults, U.S. researchers reported Wednesday. A study of American nurses found that one additional serving of fries per week at ages three to five increased breast cancer risk by 27 percent. "Researchers are finding more evidence that diet early in life could play a role in the development of diseases in women later in life," said Dr. Karin Michels, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. "This study provides additional evidence that breast cancer may...

Something In Common The small kingdom of Swaziland in South Africa may seem not to have much in common with the United States. But it does have something. Slightly smaller than New Jersey, this largely agrarian country has no national policy of paid maternity leave. Neither does Lesotho (also in South Africa) nor Papua New Guinea. Nor does the United States. Of the 168 nations surveyed by Harvard University last year, all but five had some sort of paid maternity leave. The two largest industrialized nations that did not have it were the United States and Australia (although Australia does...

Washington, D.C., July 28, 2005—The White House announced yesterday that the United States was leading a group of Pacific nations in a new agreement on global warming. The six-nation plan emphasizes the strategy of creating new energy technologies and developing cleaner-burning fuels to address concerns about the possible future impacts of climate change. The United States was joined by Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan in releasing a “vision statement” for the new initiative, which emphasized the need for increased access to affordable and reliable energy in the developing world, and flexibility in reaching the group’s environmental goals. “Despite...

TEHRAN, IRAN – The ritual burning of the US flag is not going to stop. Nor will the chants - especially on Iranian revolutionary anniversaries - of "Death to America." Unlike every other presidential candidate who hinted at a thaw in relations, to appeal to the majority of Iranians who say they want better US ties, hard-line president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran "has no significant need" for the US. But beneath the anti-US façade is a nation that has much in common with its stated nemesis - from an ambitious self-image and public reliance on the divine, to a habit...

WASHINGTON - Helen Thomas agrees, in part, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that the White House press could use more "spine" in reporting on the Bush administration and the Iraq war. "Sure," said the Hearst Newspapers' columnist, "but Congress could use it more. And besides, she was for the war; she wanted more troops there." At a recent fund-raiser, Clinton said of the press, "If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart. I mean, come on, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake. Let's get some spine." Thomas, who has covered every president...

MIDI - P.S. I LOVE YOU Newsweek's really done it...they will soon be through Jihadists, we'll be sending...Isikoff to you You can to do him, oh, well, whatever We hope to see him never Isikoff to you...you, you, you Newsweek, not Koran, is down the crapper Still in its plain brown wrapper Isikoff to you...you, you, you Mainstream, you are finished...no longer the star Americans have turned to...FOX News and FR Newsweek, not Koran, is down the crapper Still in its plain brown wrapper Isikoff to you...you, you, you Mainstream, you are finished (BWA HA HA) No longer the...

Yolo's (county) registrar takes on governor (Schwarzenegger)She says only a judge could make her hold a $300,000 special election in November. By Gary Delsohn -- Bee Capitol Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005 County officials around the state are griping about the costs of staging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election, but none has gone as far as Freddie Oakley, Yolo County's registrar. Convinced a November statewide election would waste scarce county money, she's threatening not to hold it unless ordered by a judge. "Maybe I should just go to jail," Oakley said Wednesday. "Martha Stewart came out...

The Future of Biology: Reverse Engineering    03/14/2005 Just as an engineer can model the feedback controls required in an autopilot system for an aircraft, the biologist can construct models of cellular networks to try to understand how they work.  “The hallmark of a good feedback control design is a resulting closed loop system that is stable and robust to modeling errors and parameter variation in the plant”, [i.e., the system], “and achieves a desired output value quickly without unduly large actuation signals at the plant input,” explain Claire J. Tomlin and Jeffrey D. Axelrod of Stanford in a...

Religuous people are good people that are being led astray. They are systematically being manipulated to remove the power that they have to use their potent brains. It is easy to believe someone who says he has an alluring answer, an answer that cannot be logically disputed. The fundamental mechanics of religion are the same as a virus. It attacks those that are mentally weakened, and when they are young and suscepable to the concept of magic. Understanding of the beautiful complexity of the world is opening up to individuals that grasp the complex concepts. The universe seems to be...

Feb 5, 2005 Guys in US are taking up knitting CHICAGO - ERIC Garcia and Matthew Kane are holed up in a classroom corner, chatting casually as they each knit a sock for a school project. They ponder the thought that their actions might be a little, well, unexpected. 'Girls can be truckers,' said 11-year-old Eric. 'Yeah, girls can be truckers,' echoed Matthew, who's also 11. 'So why can't guys be knitters?' A lot of guys are taking up knitting today, especially as the hobby surges in popularity on college campuses, in coffee shops and at the many yarn stores...

Intermediate Draft, seeking FReeper input. South Boston Phoenix Special Report “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke) GW Bush dared to invoke the 'G' word, 'God', three times in his 2005 Inaugural Speech. The most talked-about reaction came from Peggy Noonan. The irony is how low the Bush Administration has sunk in order to not look 'overly'-Christian: 1. In his speech, the President, OUR President, spoke well of the Koran, the religion with scriptures that demand the killing of any infidels too weak to retaliate and too 'proud' to submit...

Strategists Eyeing Deal for Clinton Third Term Political strategists are reportedly pondering a deal that would allow Bill Clinton to run for president again by getting Republicans to agree to a change in the constitutional ban on third terms. Calling it "a long shot," U.S. News & World Report says the deal would work like this: "Congressional Democrats will OK a constitutional amendment allowing naturalized citizens like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president if Republicans help kill the 22nd Amendment." "Right now it's the talk among political strategists," says the magazine's Washington Whispers section. "But look for it...

A group of blacks sued the Waffle House chain Tuesday, claiming they were discriminated against at restaurants in three Georgia cities. The Georgia lawsuit joins three others recently filed in North Carolina, Alabama and Virginia against the Norcross, Ga.-based company and its franchisees, who are accused of maintaining a pattern of discrimination and violating federal civil rights laws (search). The Plaintiffs in the cases allege that Servers used racial epithets, refused to wait on minority patrons, provided them with slow service and poor quality food while providing whites with prompt service and quality food. Wafflehouse spokesman Pat Warner has pointed...

Excerpt from CBS press release: ----------------- This brings us to two senior figures at CBS News whose performance is discussed in some depth in the Panel's report. Based on the findings of that report, we believe the following is appropriate: The Panel found that Dan Rather was pushed to the limit in the week before the September 8th broadcast. He was finishing up the anchoring job at the 2004 Republican Convention and was covering Hurricane Frances in Florida. He asked the right questions initially, but then made the same errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm that beset many of his colleagues...

It seems as if single men are discovering what single women have known since ancient Egyptian times: Cats are worthy of worship. At least unmarried British men say so, in a recent survey conducted by Cats Protection, a leading animal welfare society in the United Kingdom. And judging by the delirious worship that single men I know lavish on their kitties, I'd like to think American men -- those brave enough to stand up and be counted -- feel the same way.

ATLANTA -- The mayor is threatening a country club with up to $90,000 in fines for refusing to extend spousal benefits to the partners of gay members. Mayor Shirley Franklin said last week in a letter to the Druid Hills Golf Club that the club violated Atlanta's human rights ordinance, which requires businesses to treat domestic partners registered with the city as married couples. Franklin said she is ordering the city solicitor to fine the club $500 a day for up to six months -- a total of $90,000 -- unless the rule is changed.

Back in the days of Jimmy Carter and killer rabbits, doomsayers were telling us that the Earth was slipping into new ice age, and that we were all going to die. Survivalists ran for the hills while stuffed-shirt academics ordered extra elbow patches for their sweaters and tut-tutted about the foolishness of the American people. This particular hysteria was fueled by a couple of cooler-than-normal winters, and the doomsday prophets gleefully told us to prepare for the end. By the beginning of the 1980`s the temperature trends had changed and global cooling went out of fashion, replaced by a trendier...

THE CHRISTMAS SONG JINGLE BELL ROCK IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER LET IT SNOW UP ON THE HOUSETOP GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER I'M GETTIN' NOTHIN' FOR CHRISTMAS I SAW MOMMY KISSING SANTA CLAUS =================================================================================== WHITE CHRISTMAS I’m dreaming of a white Kwanzaa But I guess that is not PC Kwanzaa is such baloney…it's made up and phony Karenga laughs at you and me I’m dreaming of a white Kwanzaa For pagan whites, oh what a coup I could make up the rules, you see And then you could start...

Dick Morris just predicted on Fox that the Dem '08 nominee is Hillary in a walk off. Says only R who can both get nominated (sorry Rudy)and elected is Condi Rice.

Sunday, December 5th, 2004Vote 'A.B.G.' (Anyone But Gleeson)Dear Friends,Sorry I haven't written anything on my site for a month. I've been wallowing in sorrow (and chili cheese fries) over the stolen 2004 election.Is stolen too strong a word? I think not. Consider this map of Ohio, the state which saved Bush's bacon. Mmmmm, bacon.I'm sorry, what was I saying? Read that back to me. Ohio, right.That map, my friends, proves no fewer than 67,148 counts of people having to wait in line to vote. Sometimes, in the rain. And when they finally reached the polls, at least 29 were...

Exit polls reveal that President Bush may have miscalculated in endorsing pro-abortion Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter in his primary battle against conservative challenger Pat Toomey. Immediately following his narrow win, Specter was quick to declare his independence from the President and re-assert his pro-abortion credentials. After his November 2 win, Specter repeated the mantra, asserting that if he were to become Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pro-life judges need not apply. Originally believing that a strong GOP Senate candidate in Pennsylvania could put the state's 21 electoral votes in the Bush column, the President campaigned with Specter and...

DOBBS: Jobs and the economy have been a major focus of this campaign. Now a new study suggests that millions of people who have found work over the past four years are not always Americans. Half of those people who have found jobs over the past four years are illegal aliens. CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Immigration may not be a big issue in this election campaign, but the loss of American jobs is. Now comes a new study showing the two are closely linked. The Center for Immigration Studies examined census data and found that, between 2000 and 2004,...

'MEGA FIX' PREVIEW: PART 5 TWA Flight 800: Attacked, destroyed, covered-up Posted: October 7, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: In his extraordinary new DVD documentary, "Mega Fix," Emmy-award-winning filmmaker Jack Cashill traces the roots of Sept. 11 to the political exploitation of terror investigations by the Clinton White House in the desperate 1995-1996 election cycle. This 8-part series began in Oklahoma City and today moves to the coast of Long Island. The "Mega Fix" DVD is available now at WorldNetDaily's online store. © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com On July 17, 1996 – Liberation Day in Saddam's Iraq and two days before the Atlanta...

Laurence H. Tribe, a leading Constitutional scholar and a high-profile lawyer, has become the second Harvard Law School professor this month to acknowledge that he lifted material from another scholar's works. After a magazine pointed out numerous instances in which his 1985 book "God Save this Honorable Court" echoes an earlier book by another professor, Tribe apologized for an "unacceptable" failure to properly credit the original writer. Tribe's book borrows liberally from "Justices and Presidents," a 1974 work by Henry J. Abraham, now an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia. One 19-word phrase is exactly the same in both...

When U.S. Marines were ordered to withdraw from Fallujah last April, I titled my column “Fallujah: High Tide of American Empire.” For the pullback meant that America was either unwilling to take the casualties to crush the Sunni resistance in Fallujah or unwilling to pay the price of Arab rage if they won a bloody battle. Whatever the motive of the generals in ceding Fallujah, it was a retreat. The Islamic world saw it as such. Since then, fighting in the Sunni Triangle, Sadr City, Najaf, and the Shia cities of the south has escalated. When Baghdad fell, Gen. John...