Free Republic

Sarah Palin certainly didn't sound interested in running for president last night. "Is a title worth it-- does a title shackle a person?" the former Alaska governor asked during a discussion of her 2012 plans with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. "Someone like me, who's maverick--you know I do 'go rogue' and I call it like I see it and I don't mind stirring it up ... [for] somebody like me, is a title and is a campaign too shackling?" "Does a title take away my freedom to call it like I see it and to effect positive change that...

10 minutes ago WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that murdered thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday. "Justice has been done," said the president in a dramatic late-night announcement at the White House. A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight Sunday at a compound in Pakistan, the president said, and took custody of his remains. American officials said they were being handled in accordance with Islamic tradition.

TUCSON, Ariz. – A veteran firefighter refused to respond to last month's deadly shooting spree that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wounded because he had different political views than his colleagues and "did not want to be part of it," according to internal city memos. Mark Ekstrum's insubordination may have delayed his unit's response because firefighters had to stop at another station to pick up a replacement for him, the Arizona Daily Star reported. While the crew was not among the first called to the supermarket where six people were killed and 13 others wounded, a memo from Ekstrum's supervisor said...

An unfitting end to an illustrious career. That's how several West Point classmates viewed the New Year's Eve discovery of a prominent defense expert's body in a Wilmington landfill. Two weeks after Newark, Del., police identified John "Jack" P. Wheeler 3d, 66, of New Castle, as a homicide victim, investigators still have released few particulars about the case, allowing conspiracy theorists of all kinds to draw pictures of their own. Although the case was deemed a homicide, police have declined to list a cause, raising questions about whether Wheeler was drugged, shot, beaten, or stabbed. New information from police sources...

In 2006, the film "Death of a President" was released. Where was the media's outrage then? Sources: Internet Movie Database entryGeorge Bush assassination film wins top awardWikipedia entry, Death of a President Where has the media been while Leftists accused President George W. Bush of murdering 3000 people, and of taking the nation to war for "unjust" reasons? 911truth.orgFahrenheit 9/11, by Michael MooreWhat about Alec Baldwin's terrible rhetoric on the "Conan O'Brien Show," where he screamed that Rep. Henry Hyde and family, including children, should be dragged out into the streets and stoned to death?

Cold case detectives say a man who died seven years ago while awaiting execution at San Quentin for murdering a 10-year-old girl is tied to the strangulation of a 29-year-old developmentally disabled woman. FOLLOWING IS MY QUICK SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE: Robert Edward Stansbury was an ice cream truck driver whose route took him through most of the San Gabriel Valley and unincorporated East L.A. He was convicted of abductions and sexual assaults dating as far back as 1959, but was always let out of prison for one stupid reason or another. He was on parole when he killed Barbara...

Although by no means complete, the following list provides the names of the most well-known celebrities to pass away in 2010. Adele Mara (actress, 'Sands of Iwo Jima') Andrew Koenig ('Boner' on 1980's sitcom 'Growing Pains', son of Walter Koenig of 'Star Trek' fame) Art Linkletter Barbara Billingsley Daryl Gates (former chief of the LAPD and radio host) Dave Fisher (founding member of singing group the Highwaymen) Dennis Hopper Dino De Laurentiis Dixie Carter Don Meredith Dorothy De Barba (little girl in 'Our Gang' series) Dorothy Provine Eddie Fisher Erich Segal (wrote 'Love Story') Fess Parker Gary Coleman George Steinbrenner...

By LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Louise Nordstrom, Associated Press – 25 mins ago STOCKHOLM – WikiLeaks' American domain name system provider withdrew service to the wikileaks.org name after the secret-spilling website once again became the target of hacker attacks. EveryDNS said in a statement that it dropped the website late Thursday because the attacks threatened the rest of its network. WikiLeaks responded by moving to a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch. EveryDNS said in a statement that "Wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the...

(CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush joined a chorus of U.S. officials calling leaks of sensitive government information "very damaging," telling a forum at Facebook headquarters that WikiLeaks' recent release of 250,000 documents may significantly hurt Washington's image abroad. "It's going to be very hard to keep the trust of foreign leaders," the nation's 43rd president said of the documents on issues ranging from Iran to Honduras to Turkey. "If you have a conversation with a foreign leader and it ends up in a newspaper, you don't like it. I didn't like it."

1 hr 24 mins ago WASHINGTON – The nation's most influential small business lobby is joining a court challenge to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, arguing that Americans cannot be required under the Constitution to obtain insurance coverage. The National Federation of Independent Business will announce Friday it is joining a federal lawsuit filed in Florida by 20 state attorneys general and governors, NFIB President Dan Danner said in an interview. All but one of the state officials are Republicans, and the case coincides with an election year. NFIB's involvement ensures that constitutional arguments for overturning the health care...

Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital late Thursday night after suffering a massive hemorrhage near his brain stem, this according to People.com. Michaels is reportedly in critical condition at an undisclosed hospital. According to the report, Michaels was suffering from excruciating headaches earlier in the day. According to the report, Michaels underwent several tests -- including CAT Scans and MRIs. The report claims it was determined Michaels suffered from a "subarachnoid hemorrhage" -- bleeding at the base of his brain stem.

1 hr 16 mins ago MINGORA, Pakistan – Civilians cowered in hospital beds and trapped residents struggled to feed their children Saturday, as Pakistani warplanes pounded a Taliban-held valley in what the prime minister called a "war of the country's survival." Warplanes and troops killed dozens of entrenched militants Saturday in the assault on northwestern Swat Valley, the army said. The offensive has prompted the flight of hundreds of thousands of terrified residents, adding a humanitarian emergency to the nuclear-armed nation's security, economic and political problems. Desperate refugees looted U.N. supplies in one camp, taking blankets and cooking oil. A...

NEW YORK – A stunning 48 percent of the nation's homeowners who have a subprime, adjustable-rate mortgage are behind on their payments or in foreclosure, and the rate for homeowners with all mortgage types hit a new record, new data Thursday showed. But that's not the worst of it. The reckless lending practices in states like Florida, California and Nevada that were the epicenter of the housing crisis are no longer driving up the nation's delinquency rate. Instead, the foreclosure crisis now is being fueled by a spike in defaults in states like Louisiana, New York, Georgia and Texas, where...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama signed a series of executive orders Friday that he said should "level the playing field" for labor unions in their struggles with management. Obama also used the occasion at the White House to announce formally a new White House task force on the problems of middle-class Americans. He named Vice President Joe Biden as its chairman. Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers.

While industry executives and shoppers will remember 2008 as the year the party ended, figure 2009 to be the year of the hangover. Already, Circuit City, Linens 'N Things and Mervyn's stores are going away. Sharper Image is too, though the company will continue to sell some of its high-end gadgets through license agreements with other retailers. More pain is on the way. One-third of U.S. women recently surveyed by America's Research Group said they plan no clothing purchases--none--in 2009. Normally, it's just 4%. That means the market is still far too saturated with stores. Expect closings and bankruptcies to...

PARIS: Music sales worldwide fell by about 7 percent last year as another sizable jump in digital sales failed to make up for a deepening decline in the compact disc market, according to John Kennedy, chief executive of the industry's main international trade group. Revenue from music sold over the Internet, via mobile phones and in other digital forms, rose by 25 percent last year, to $3.7 billion, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a report set for publication Friday. Digital sales accounted for 20 percent of the industry's revenue, up from 15 percent a year earlier....

ATLANTA - Not even a former president is immune from thieves. Two bicycles belonging to President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were snatched from inside the Carter Center near downtown Atlanta earlier this month.

WASHINGTON – It looks like Roland Burris will take President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat later this week. Senate Democratic leaders said they expect to swear in the former Illinois attorney general in the coming days, barring objections from Republicans. Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin made that statement after Burris' lawyer met with Senate officials, who said his formal paperwork was in order.

WASHINGTON - Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama say one of his first duties in office will be to order the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. That executive order is expected during Obama's first week on the job — and possibly on his first day... [SNIP] Obama's order will direct his administration to figure out what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaida and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held at Guantanamo.

Bernice Gallego sat down one day this summer, as she does pretty much every day, and began listing items on eBay. She dug into a box and pulled out a baseball card. She stopped for a moment and admired the picture. "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the card read, under a sepia tone photo of 10 men with their socks pulled up to their knees. The card itself was dirty and wrinkled in a few places. [SNIP] The card is actually 139 years old. It, and a handful of others like it, are considered the first baseball cards. This...