Free Republic

I think the announcers for this years Pebble Beach Pro-Am are angling to be Tigers next love interest.

WASHINGTON - The richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the last three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study. After-tax income for the top 1 percent of U.S. households almost tripled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 percent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 percent increase. "The distribution of after-tax income in the United States was substantially...

BREAKING: Federal appeals court ruled parts of health care law unconstitutional By: CNN Wire Staff

New York Times chief political blogger Michael Shear is a bit annoyed that Sarah Palin is successfully attracting media attention while ignoring reporter’s inquiries and playing hide-and-seek with the press on her "One Nation" bus tour. (Photo by the Times' David Winter.) Shear, who has filed multiple blog posts on the Palin family's historical trail through the Northeast, made Tuesday’s print edition with his gripes: (Palin Family Hits Road, if Not 2012 Trail)Ms. Palin announced her bus tour with great fanfare last week and is using it on her Web site to raise money for her political action committee. Despite...

Escape from Rikers: Bailed 'rape' banker forced to move to secret hideaway after neighbours block move to luxury New York apartmentBy Daniel Bates Last updated at 11:33 PM on 20th May 2011 **SNIP** He and his family were earlier told he was not welcome at the luxurious Bristol Plaza in Manhattan's Upper East Side by its wealthy and influential residents. The landlord of the complex also reportedly changed his mind when he realised the amount of attention his new resident would bring. As the complaints only began pouring in - hours before Strauss-Kahn was to be released - his legal...

On Friday morning, Masudur Rahman boarded a plane to attend a conference in North Carolina on Americans' distrust of Islam. Agents with the Transportation Security Administration had twice screed both Massud and his traveling companion Mohamed Zaghloul and determined that the two men were not a threat, and they were cleared to join all the other similarly screened passengers on the Delta regional flight operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines. That's why it came as a shock to the pair when the staff ordered them to deplane, reportedly because the pilot didn't want them on board. An Atlantic Southeast  spokesman...

"Eldest son Omar bin Osama bin Laden, speaking on behalf of his brothers, issued a statement disclosed by US monitoring group SITE Intelligence on Tuesday, a day after it was posted on jihadist websites. “It is unacceptable — humanely and religiously — to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims,” he said. He, Obama, was “legally responsible” for obliterating an entire defenceless family...

One by one, conservatives are expressing their displeasure in the way Speaker of the House John Boehner is leading the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Conservative talker Mark Levin has expressed his frustration on a nightly basis in recent weeks.

From where he sits, Renato Torres can see Cowboys Stadium, a gleaming white leviathan that he says symbolizes a world he can only dream about, though it's only a block away. He looks longingly at the parking lot, which on Sunday will teem with people from Coors, Miller, Pepsi, Verizon and General Motors, whose executives and invited VIPs will gather in lavish tents. Torres calls them "people from the other world," one he would love to be a part of but isn't. From where he sits on East Sanford, near the barricaded doors of Monterrey Market, he imagines them eating...

The Bowl Championship Series is the worst thing ever to happen to college football. If anything, the BCS destroys a chance for quality teams to face off every year. I like bowls. I enjoy all of the games. I enjoy watching Southern Mississippi’s offense every December. I enjoy seeing some of the smaller FBS schools, like San Diego State, Nevada and Troy get some national exposure. But I hate the BCS. It destroys rivalries, burns its chance to create new rivalries and alienates teams from getting into the national title hunt.

As the Muslim student population grows in Minnesota, some educators detect a glaring gap: a dearth of books the students can relate to and from which others can learn. "There wasn't a whole lot in our library that provided a sense of 'this is what's normal,'" said Julie Scullen, a reading intervention specialist at Northdale Middle School in Coon Rapids, where she took stock of books about Muslims growing up in America. When colleague Beth Braun, a Northdale media specialist, launched a full-blown national search, she didn't have much luck, either.

Why is this man still in jail? Why was this man forced to spend seven years in solitary? Why is still confined, languishing, festering in jail for a total of twenty five years? Solitary confinement is the most barbaric of punishments. Few people can withstand this form of torture without becoming very ill, both physically and mentally. Am I talking about the Soviet Gulag? Or about some hell-hole in Afghanistan or Iran? Last year, The New Yorker ran a piece about solitary confinement. The article concludes that this punishment amounts to torture, that it can even induce “acute psychosis with...

A year after President Obama vowed more than “empty promises” to American Indians, tribal leaders are preparing to demand that he follow through.

What's with the recent trend of tagging articles with palin or sarahpalin that have nothing to do with Sarah Palin? If your article has nothing to do with Palin, please don't tag it as such. It's bad enough that journalists use her name to get hits to their articles or as a cheap source of writing material. We don't need that attitude here too. Just because people want to increase traffic to their posts, doesn't mean they should tag their posted articles with palin or sarahpalin. This just clutters the keyword/tagging system.

Of all the players anticipating fallout from the forthcoming union of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, staffers for Newsweek's website may have the most to lose — namely, their jobs. As the two money-losing news organizations meld into one, each party to the merger is eying possible redundant operations to cut. And Newsweek Daily Beast Co. seemed early on to have its sights set on Newsweek.com, which trumps the Web-only Daily Beast in traffic but not in buzz. Indeed, less than 24 hours after the merger was announced last Friday, Nov. 12, Daily Beast CEO Stephen Colvin had already suggested...

As many as 1,800 Democratic congressional staffers will soon lose their jobs, with layoffs hitting everyone from entry-level schedulers to six-figure committee lawyers in a mass exodus that will accompany the greatest congressional turnover in 70 years. While results are still being tallied in some races, the damage is clear for Democratic staffers. At least 60 seats have been lost, meaning those offices need to start packing their boxes to clear out in December. POLITICO estimated the likely layoffs based on the average number of staffers per House office, as well as the Democratic committee staffing level, which will most...

Congressman Alan Grayson is lashing out at negative ads against his campaign paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to Politico Grayson is targeted by 20 percent of all the outside spending. An ad sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls Grayson "Nancy Pelosi's lap-dog." Grayson, whose campaign was attacked for running the negative "Taliban Dan" ads against his opponent Daniel Webster, doesn't like the ads against him paid for by outside influences. "Every single person in Orlando has seen ads an average of 70 negative ads against me on TV, 70 negative ads in the past...

Hope I don't get banned but I am sick and tired of free republic acting like nothing is going on!! Either we are under attack or the equipment is inadequate, I hate that there are no posts about the curent issue.

HALF MOON BAY -- Between budget losses and lawsuit payments, Half Moon Bay's financials have become so dire that if a local sales tax measure doesn't pass this November, officials say they may have to disincorporate. City leaders have been using the "D" word for a few weeks now as they try to persuade voters to pass Measure K, a one-cent sales tax increase that would help the city balance its budget with an extra infusion of $1.4 million per year for the next seven years. Dissolving Half Moon Bay -- handing the city's budget, operations and services to San...

Two days after being trounced in the Arizona GOP Senate primary, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t called Sen. John McCain to congratulate him. And it’s not as if Tuesday night’s outcome was in doubt for very long. McCain eviscerated Hayworth by 24 percentage points and The Associated Press called the race not even a full two hours after the polls closed. The four-term senator quickly took the stage at the downtown Phoenix Convention Center to declare victory and make it an early night. But the McCain campaign is still a bit surprised it never heard from Hayworth, a former...

Please Admins and IT Folks fix this site. The way it is operating now is tantamount to a DOS Attack.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was photographed as he appeared to shed a tear at the Kotel (Western Wall) Thursday (see photos below). President Shimon Peres hosted Emanuel with his wife Amy and their children, Zach (13), Ilana (11) and Leah (10) in the Presidential Residence Thursday. Peres gave presents to Emanuel's wife and children and taught Zach, who is in Israel to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, a lesson about the weekly Torah portion.

Mexico City - A strict new anti-immigration law enacted by the US state of Arizona is 'an obstacle to the solution of common problems' in North America , according to the Mexican government. President Felipe Calderon said Saturday that the draconian law signed by the US border state's Governor Janice Brewer the previous day would hurt US-Mexico relations. 'The criminalization of the migration phenomenon, far from contributing to cooperation between Mexico and the state of Arizona, represents an obstacle for the solution of common problems,' Calderon said.

In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests. Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them. Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform

Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet Consider the blow suffered by the liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, who issued a plaintive plea to the president on the eve of his announcement that he was sending 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. By escalating the war, Moore wrote: "[Y]ou will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says only once since Jan. 20 has White House life annoyed him. It was the Saturday in May when, trying to be a good husband, he kept a campaign promise to take his wife, Michelle, to New York after the election for one of their "date nights" - dinner and a Broadway play. Conservative commentators and Republican officials criticized him for doing so. "People made it into a political issue," Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article about the Obamas' marriage, appearing in the Nov. 1 issue. The article was posted on...

I have been a reader of the Free Republic for a long time, also I have never been a support of Obama, but I cannot belive all of the tripe that has appeared on this board today. Everything from Obama going to heaven to Obama spreading the waters of the Red Sea. I can remember when the Free Republic was a repository for breaking news, that was news. Not some board that makes fun of the President of the United States. I wonder what has happened to all of the real Freepers who met conversed and enjoyed the Free Republic...

There is the dread of leaving the house that morning. People might stare, or worse, yell insults. Prayers are more intense, visits with family longer. Mosques become a refuge. Eight years after 9/11, many U.S. Muslims still struggle through the anniversary of the attacks. Yes, the sting has lessened. For the younger generation of Muslims, the tragedy can even seem like a distant memory. "Time marches on," said Souha Azmeh Al-Samkari, a 22-year-old student at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Yet, many American Muslims say Sept. 11 will never be routine, no matter how many anniversaries have passed.

IMAGINE WAKING UP to pounding on your front door, you and your kids forced to the floor in your pajamas, heavily armed agents rifling their way through your home as the kids scream out in terror. Now, imagine armed federal agents barging into your home without legal consent! Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s recent announcement that her department will be expanding its 287 (g) program that deputizes local law enforcement to act as federal Immigration Customs Enforcement agents will increase the potential for abuse. This program will expand enforcement, leading to unconstitutional searches and seizures of American citizens...

President Barack Obama, trying to regain control of the health-care debate, will likely shift his pitch in September, White House and Democratic officials said, as he faces pressure from supporters to talk more about the moral imperative to provide health insurance to all Americans. The rethinking comes amid a struggle by the White House to clarify its view on a public insurance plan, which liberals see as a critical part of a health overhaul. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that a public plan isn't the "essential element" of a health bill, prompting sharp words from liberal...

The sponsor of the anti-Semitic hate fests known as Durban I and Durban II, Mary Robinson, can't stand even the slightest criticism of her receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. Stephen O'Farrell of the Irish Independent (Mary Robinson is Irish) reports her viewpoint: FORMER President Mary Robinson accused "certain elements" of the Jewish community of bullying after a number of pro-Israel lobby groups voiced concerns over her being awarded the top US civilian honour. ....

PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student. Mortgage: $96,000 a year. Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year. Nanny: $45,000 a year. We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet. Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half...

Hit with declines in funding from the economic crisis and the Madoff scandal, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is laying off around 20% of its staff. Roughly 30 people were let go earlier this week, according to a source who works for the nonprofit. Executives at Planned Parenthood confirmed the layoffs, but declined to give more details. “As with many other nonprofit organizations, Planned Parenthood has had to make staff reductions at our headquarters due to the challenging economic times facing our country,” said Maryana Iskander, chief operating officer at the agency. “While taking this action is never easy,...

John Kerry fighting for own image ‘I am proud that Ted Kennedy is my senior colleague. It does make it harder, that’s all.’ By Hillary Chabot Saturday, October 25, 2008 - Updated 3h ago + Recent Articles + Email EmailE-mail PrintablePrintable Comments(73) Comments LargerSmallerText size ShareShare Rate(0) Rate An exasperated Sen. John F. Kerry vowed to defend his image yesterday and lashed out at opponents’ portrayals of him as a do-nothing senator riding the coattails of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. The former Democratic presidential candidate now up for re-election to the Senate presented a stack of 50 thank-you letters from...

Deportation hurts more than just the immigrant Saturday, September 13, 2008 3:20 AM I recently read the first part of The Dispatch's series "American Divide: The Immigration Crackdown" (Sunday-Wednesday), and it, unlike many other reports, actually offered the point of view of an immigrant. However, I can offer a point of view that many reports do not. I am an American, born and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania. I moved to Ohio in 2001 and received a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University. Now I am a manager of a nationwide, very successful retail chain. I've been happily...

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, who helped reignite Barack Obama's pastor problems by mocking Hillary Clinton, said this evening he's received "thousands of hate threats" since his videotaped pulpit rant. "They want to kill me," Pfleger told parishioners during a service in a St. Sabina Church chapel on Chicago's South Side this evening. "It's been very ugly." The firebrand Catholic Priest made his controversial Clinton comments last Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ, home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor. Pfleger mocked Clinton for crying on the campaign trail, and suggested it was "white entitlement" leading Clinton...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H11x6bMu4Y

This is why Obama should have laughed off Rev Wright. Hillary would have. She would have just snorted "That's a minister for you, always preaching hellfire and damnation. Of course I'm not responsible for anything a minister says!" But Obama didn't do that. He accepted the Republican frame that he was tied at the hip to the preacher in his church. He took it all seriously. So now here we go again -- this time with a white guy, a Father Michael Pfleger, who belted out a mean-spirited, ugly, gratituous anti-Hillary skreed last Sunday at good old Trinity United: "....

Lexington, which touts itself as the Horse Capital of the World, now has a less appealing nickname: Bigfoot. A first-of-its-kind study of the carbon footprints of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas being released by the Brookings Institution on Thursday puts Lexington at No. 100 -- the worst of them all.

PDN online, (Photo District News) does not allow their material to be posted on FR but this is worth a look. A guy who works for the San Jose Mercury News has been so discouraged by the continuous layoffs in the news industry, he has started taking pictures of empty hallways and bulletin boards. You can read the story by clicking the link below. Read more here.

AVONDALE, Ariz. - In the corner of a living room in a small house that he rents in this Phoenix suburb, Juan Carlos has piled six black garbage bags stuffed with clothes and housewares along with an old vacuum cleaner. Juan Carlos, 50, said he will donate some of his possessions to a local church and send others to family in Mexico. Unable to afford a moving truck and unsure of his future in Arizona, Juan Carlos is preparing to leave behind his wife and daughter, both undocumented immigrants, for a new state and a new life. Juan Carlos, who...

Her voice quavering, Hillary Clinton spoke from the same church Friday where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. announced 40 years ago - on the night before he was killed - that he'd been to the mountaintop and seen the glory. Recalling hearing of King's assassination, Clinton, in college at the time, said: "I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room." Her voice breaking, she told the crowd at Memphis' Mason Temple, "It felt like everything had been shattered, and we'd never be able to put the pieces together again." It...

In an interview with ABC News' Cynthia McFadden to air on this evening's "Nightline," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., says it's tougher for her to run as a woman than it is for her male opponent. Asked why she thinks so many women may be feeling sorry for her, Clinton said, "I think a lot of women project their own feelings and their lives onto me, and they see how hard this is. It's hard. It's hard being a woman out there. It is obviously challenging with some of the things that are said that are not even personal to me...

Clinton and the press [UPDATED] Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, delivered some really heated criticism of the press on a conference call just now. Halperin has audio, and here's a transcript. I think it is true that every time the Obama campaign in this campaign has attacked Senator Clinton in the worst kind of personal ways, attacked her veracity, attacked her credibility, said that she would say or do anything to get elected, the press has largely applauded him. When we have attempted to make contrasts with Senator Obama, we have been criticized for it. That is a fact...

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., wipes her eye as she listens to a disabled U.S. veteran in the audience tell his story during a campaign stop at The City of Lewiston Memorial Armory in Lewiston, Maine., Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A distasteful comment about Chelsea Clinton by an MSNBC anchor Thursday could imperil Hillary Rodham Clinton's participation in future presidential debates on the network, a Clinton spokesman said. In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had "pimped out" 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother's behalf. Wolfson called the comment "beneath contempt" and disgusting. "I, at this point, can't envision a scenario where we would continue to engage in debates on that network," he added. Clinton and...

Mitt Romney on Monday told Republican rival Mike Huckabee to quit “whining” after Huckabee accused Romney of trying to suppress turnout on Super Tuesday.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton had an emotional reunion Monday with a colleague from the early days of her legal career as a child advocate. The moment came as she revisited her law school days while hosting a campaign event at the Yale Child Study Center where she first pursued her interest in child advocacy. Penn Rhodeen, a New Haven public interest lawyer who worked with Clinton as a student, recalled her showing up on his doorstep wearing purple bellbottoms. "It was so 1972," he recalled, praising Clinton for her longtime interest in helping children. "Here is...

ENJOY THE YOUTUBE, MAKE A COMMENT IF YOU HAVE A MOMENT, AND PASS IT ON TO YOUR FRIENDS Paul knows how to sing it and gets right to it.

A make-or-break primary date looms within hours, and once again the focus falls on whether Hillary Clinton can blunt the momentum of the political neophyte Barack Obama. What can she do? She can fall back on the strategy that helped her to a surprise win New Hampshire by getting misty (via The Anchoress): Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s. Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton's eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped...