Free Republic

The one main benefit to the financial reform effort so far is that it helps further do away with the false paradigms of "left" or "right" and "Democrat" or "Republican" - fewer and fewer people are falling for those lies anymore. Try to get an ideological conservative to explain why Republicans love spending and so eagerly give welfare to banks. Try to get your local liberal to explain why it was a good idea to make backroom deals with abhorrent corporations and drill, baby, drill. Heck, even try to get a Tea Partier to explain choosing bailout-lover Sarah Palin to...

She mentioned a couple of times that The Constitution talks about 'inalienable rights'. Conflating the Constitution with the DOI has to be one of the most irritable trends in contemporary civic life. Most people quote them interchangeably. Anyone else bothered by how common this is?

For true conservative victory, simply voting Republican won’t do Barack Obama is the most socialist president in American history. Before Obama, George W. Bush was the most socialist president in American history. Before Dubya, it was Bill Clinton, then Bush Sr., Reagan, and so on. Each successive administration, by and large, has presided over a federal government that has assumed more power and spent more money than the last. [...] Conservatives who continue to make the case that Obama is worse than Bush are right, but the fact that Rush and like-minded pundits and politicians are unable to find fault...

Why in the hell is Karl Rove on my TV? Why is Karl Rove on my radio? Why is Karl Rove on anywhere? Unless he’s on trial or being interrogated, I can’t imagine of what possible use this George W. Bush relic could be to conservatives and yet he’s everywhere, hocking his book “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” a title as credibly right-wing as Stephen Colbert and as historically accurate as the movie “Titanic.” Craig Shirley and former Reagan official Donald Devine summed up Rove’s duplicity well in this week’s Washington Post: “From William...

WASHINGTON — It was almost unthinkable. The president of the United States walked into a meeting of fellow world leaders and there wasn't a chair for him, a sure sign he was not expected, maybe not even wanted. Barack Obama didn't pause, however. "I'm going to sit by my friend Lula," he said, moving toward Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. A Brazilian aide gave the U.S. president his chair, and Obama spent the next 80 minutes helping craft new requirements for disclosing efforts to fight global warming. Along with India, South Africa and Brazil, the key member in...

Republicans will enact the health reform proposal they unveiled this week if they take back the House, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pledged Thursday. Appearing on the Republican National Committee's (RNC) online town hall, Boehner and other House and Senate leaders said they sensed momentum behind GOP efforts to halt Democratic health reform legislation, which is set for a vote on Saturday. "If we get in the majority after the election, I plan to enact our healthcare plan," Boehner said during the town hall.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told CNSNews.com yesterday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's comment that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life" has been taken out of context by critics. Then he immediately conceded that he himself had not actually read the full context of the speech in which Sotomayor made the comment. The comment, in fact, was made on Oct. 26, 2001 when Judge Sotomayor gave the Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture at the...

Over the past couple of days, I have been witness to events and behavior that has moved me to stand up and address it. I have seen people here taking a disagreement with Jim Robinson, and using it as an excuse to be belligerent and downright disrespectful towards him. Then when he gets fed up and bans that member, they immediately go to another similar website and proceed to attack not just him, but also every facet of this site, including mods and members. Well, now, I am fed up. If you have a problem with what Jim says, fine....

The Internet provides the perfect forum for cyberbullies, individuals whose aim is to gain gratification from the distress caused by provoking and tormenting others. The anonymity, ease of provocation, and almost infinite source of targets means the Internet is full of predators from pedophiles targeting children to serial bullies targeting ... anybody. Cyberbullies get a perverse sense of satisfaction (called gratification) from sending people flame mail and hate mail. Flame mail is an email whose contents are designed to inflame and enrage. Hate mail is hatred (including prejudice, racism, sexism etc) in an email...

I'll make it short and sweet... I just took the poll at the bottom of the latest posts page, and was absolutely shocked when I seen the results. Close to 50% say they will continue to vote for the GOP if they do NOTHING about the illegal immigration/border security. Granted, it is early on, but what this tells me, a guy who swings a hammer for a living, is that our general consensus is to do nothing about this situation, but vote the same folks back in...as in "That a boy, you're doing good!!"

It looks like the murder of Terri Schiavo will continue at the University of Pennsylvania on April 30 when the University’s Center for Bioethics will hold a symposium titled “The Legacy of the Terri Schiavo Case: Why Is It So Hard To Die In America?” Terri, of course, did not simply “die.” She was murdered. Thus, if this Symposium was honest, it’s title would be “The Legacy of the Terri Schiavo Case: Why Is It So Easy To Be Murdered In America?” In any event, I say it looks Terri’s murder will continue because the panel at this Symposium is...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Bush says the deal allowing an Arab company to take over six major U.S. seaports should go forward and he will veto any bill that would stop it.

SAFETY HARBOR, Florida (AP) -- Terri Schiavo's former husband has married his longtime girlfriend, friends and family members say. Michael Schiavo and his longtime girlfriend, Jodi Centonze, were wed Saturday at a church in Florida. The bride's brother says it was a very emotional ceremony. Schiavo's former wife, Terri, had suffered severe brain damage more than a decade ago and died last March after her feeding tube was removed. Michael Schiavo had argued his wife was in a vegetative state, and would not want to be kept alive artificially. ...snip..... The newlyweds first met in a dentist's office and began...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Drunken Santas on a rampage in New Zealand, armed German robbers in Santa disguises, a British St. Nick wanted for flashing, and a Swedish vandal in a Santa outfit are giving the big man in red a bad name this year. Reports of "Bad Santas" breaking the law or otherwise wreaking havoc have been circulating around the world. Armed with a gun, a man in a Santa outfit held up a furniture store in the German town of Ludwigshafen on Saturday and forced two cashiers to open the safe. He filled his sack with cash, locked the...

Terri Schiavo would be 42 today, if she had not been dehydrated to death per court order. Instead of the happy squeals and vocalizations the brain-damaged woman was known to utter, the deafening silence of loss haunts her loved ones on this anniversary of her birth. Many Americans prefer the silence. The very mention of the name, "Terri Schiavo," elicits groans from those "burned out" on what they view as simply an overblown news story. "I do not understand why you keep pumping the glory of her death," wrote one WND reader in response to continuing coverage of the familial...

should I do? We live out in the country and the dog brought it home a few weeks ago. She says she wants to keep it for decoration and it is now stuck on her fence post. When I take her the paper every day, it creeps me out. Her dog is always leaving deer horns in my yard also, so it must be out there killing deer and breaking their horns off.

We, the Witness Protection Program For Freepers, aka the Wild Turkeys, aka the Coalition of the Sane, have through mutual discussion and rigourous thought, determined that: 1. The discussion threads regarding Terri Schiavo (hereafter referred to as "TS") have become too full of innuendo, rumormongering, hyperbole, hysteria, namecalling, paranoia, and general poor behavior to warrant participation. 2. Said threads have degenerated into "echo chambers", wherein the same, common thoughts are continually posted again and again, and the same old disreputable, unconfirmed and/or false urban myths are propagated. 3. Anyone who joins in said theads with alternative viewpoints to the most...

LISTEN, Libertarian! By Tim Condon October 9, 2005 Libertarians are such losers. I know, this is not a way to endear myself to them, even when my best friends are all libertarian or near-libertarian. But success is staring them in the face, and a significant proportion of them deploy massive brainpower and argument to make sure that nothing ever gets better. It's incredible. LISTEN, libertarian! It's over 30 years later, and we're still hearing endless platitudes that keep us from gaining political power in the service of individual freedom. "All we need to do is a better job at selling...

This past weekend, Father Frank Pavone visited with the Schindlers (parents and brothers and sisters of Terri Schiavo). He went with the family to bless the tombstone that Michael Schiavo had set up his Terri Schiavo. On the tombstone, according to the family and Fr. Frank, it reads: ...passed away from this world in 1990 But we all know that autopsy was not started until after her death in the spring of 2005 -- just before the death of Pope John Paul II. Father Pavone contends that makes the disabled less than human. Listen to his one minute message... Click...

Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings are writing a book about their struggle in the epic end-of-life case that divided the country and captured the attention of everyone from the Pope John Paul II to President Bush, their publisher said Tuesday. The yet untitled memoir by parents Bob and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby Schindler and sister Suzanne Vitadamo will be published in March to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of the brain-damaged woman, whose feeding tube was removed after her husband won a court order to do so. "This book is the moving story of an ordinary family...