Free Republic

Geraldo resists labeling Hasan a terrorists. Speculates it could have been a toothache that set him off. VIDEO

A Widow Paints A Health Care Protest by Joseph Shapiro On a humid day this summer, in a parking lot at the long back wall of a gas station, Regina Holliday stood on a scaffold with her palette of red, black and blue and started painting a mural. At the center, there's a dying man in a hospital. It's Regina Holliday's husband, Fred. He died on June 17th of kidney cancer. He was 39 years old, with his wife and two young sons. For official Washington, this has been the season of health care overhaul. Fred and Regina's personal health...

Obama Requests More Options for Troop Levels The Washington post reported two officials as saying late Friday Obama asked the Pentagon's top generals to provide him with more options for troop levels in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama grappled Friday with the costs and consequences of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, but reached no decisions about troop levels, a top aide said, as military advisers briefed the president on an armed services already taxed by challenges around the globe. The president reviewed his options with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and made clear he wants at least one more meeting with...

Dylan Klebold's mom speaks in "O" magazine "No inkling" of plans for Columbine massacre By The Denver Post Posted: 10/10/2009 Susan Klebold wrote an essay in the November issue of O magazine. (Denver Post file photo )An essay by the mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold says she had "no inkling" of her son's inner turmoil, and her examination of his journals has prompted her to learn about suicide in an effort to understand the school shooting. The essay by Susan Klebold, which appears in the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, explores her son's role in the 1999...

America is losing the war in Afghanistan. Rather than change course, President Obama is sending 21,000 additional U.S. troops. This will bring the total to 68,000 American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, bolstering coalition forces to 110,000. The troop surge, however, will not work. Afghanistan has become Mr. Obama's Vietnam -- a protracted quagmire draining precious American blood and treasure. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces, with 47 soldiers killed by Taliban insurgents. More than 300 coalition troops have died in 2009. This is the highest toll since the war began in 2001, and there are still four months...

Updated August 18, 2008 (first published June 4, 2008) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) - Many people have walked into the Roman Catholic Church through the broad door of the “church fathers,� and this is a loud warning today when there is a widespread attraction to the “church fathers� within evangelicalism. The Catholic apologetic ministries use the “church fathers� to prove that Rome’s doctrines go back to the earliest centuries. In...

Surely this must be a trick of lighting, or a matter of blurred focus. Is it possible that the First Lady actually has six toes, as she appears to in this picture? And if she did have six toes, would she appear in public in sandals? Perhaps readers skilled in photo analysis can enlighten us in the comments section.

Annie Leibovitz is as famous as the people she photographs but now the genius behind the lens is close to financial ruin -- a victim, some say, of her own relentless artistic ambition. Among the qualities making Leibovitz, 59, the most sought after portrait photographer in the world are legendary perfectionism and the pouring of resources into lavish sets. Over the course of her long career, nothing has been too extreme in Leibovitz's pursuit of the perfect picture. She put former action icon and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on top of a mountain, submerged black actress Whoopi Goldberg in...

A group usually seen as one of Barack Obama's allies in the health care debate -- AARP -- says the president went too far Tuesday when he said the seniors lobby had endorsed the legislation pending in Congress. AARP is sensitive to the issue because polls show that Medicare beneficiaries are worried their health care program will be cut to subsidize coverage for the uninsured. At the town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama said, "We have the AARP onboard because they know this is a good deal for our seniors." He added, "AARP would not be endorsing a bill if...

Facilitated variation is the first comprehensive theory of how life works at the molecular level, published in 2005 by systems biologists Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart in their book The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma. It is a very powerful theory, is supported by a great deal of evidence, and the authors have made it easy to understand. It identifies two basic components of heredity: (a) conserved core processes of cellular structure, function and body plan organization; and (b) modular regulatory mechanisms that are built in special ways that allow them to be easily rearranged (like ®Lego blocks) into...

The midnight twilight turned out to be too much for a couple of out-of-state visitors who wanted to be rescued after spending a single night in the Bush this month, Alaska State Troopers said Wednesday. Troopers say they got a report of an emergency locator beacon registered to Washington, D.C., resident William Calomiris, 27, that was activated near Pungokepuk Lake, 20 miles northeast of Twin Hills, about 8:30 p.m. July 1. An air taxi service had dropped him and Adam Grunstra, also 27, of Bethesda, Md., off at the lake on June 30 for a seven-day stay, troopers said. Troopers...

Sarah is now unelectable on a national stage. The “quitter” specter will hang around her neck like “swimmer” does to Ted Kennedy. You’ll be able to spot the realistic, clear thinking conservatives because they see and admit this early so we can put it behind us get on with identifying the candidates who can win in ‘12. BTW - This doesn’t rule out a tangential private career ala Newt or a run for a House or Senate seat (although I don’t know where at this point) but as a national candidate she is toast. That so many conservatives can’t see...

What If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama remains publicly hopeful that Iran will emerge from its political crisis more open to international concerns about its nuclear ambitions, but the administration is preparing on several fronts for a darker outcome.

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Climate Change: NASA predicts the lowest sunspot activity since 1928. Is a major solar storm in the offing? While we worry about man-made warming, the sun may soon show us who's boss. It's the sort of news that makes one's eyes glaze over. "If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," said Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. Yes, space has weather, in the form of solar radiation that varies with...

Sen. John McCain called North Korea's latest nuclear test "disturbing" and said the world needs to join forces to stop future tests. "It's a provocative act and it's a very disturbing one," McCain said when asked about the North Korea test after he spoke at a Memorial Day observance Monday at the veterans' National Cemetery in north Phoenix. "It shows that tensions in the region are on the increase." Other countries, particularly China, must help the United States in pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, McCain said. "The Chinese need to act in cooperation with us to bring...

Bristol Palin's new abstinence campaign shines a light on the Republican Party's unhealthy attitude about sex and desire. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN The first time I ever heard about oral sex was during the Lewinsky scandal. Mostly, I remember being confused by President Clinton’s response—“it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”. When it comes to sex, politicians face all sorts of double standards: who is allowed to have sex with whom, what constitutes sex, and whether it’s appropriate, to name a few. Candie’s Foundation’s announcement that they were partnering with Bristol Palin to promote an abstinence-only campaign has caused...

Nations around the world are reporting new cases of a swine flu virus that is believed to have killed 152 people in Mexico. With more than 1,600 others believed ill in Mexico, authorities Tuesday said the number of cases confirmed in the United States also had risen - to 64. Some of the U.S. cases have been identified in states bordering Mexico, with other cases found elsewhere in people who recently traveled there. Cases of swine flu also have been confirmed in Canada, New Zealand, Britain, Spain and Israel, while other countries, like Australia, France, Denmark and South Korea are...

Last week, I asked my journalism and political science students at American University to grade the news media covering the Obama administration for the first 100 days. The consensus fell between a C+ and a B-. However, if I asked President Barack Obama’s media strategists to grade the press corps covering their boss, I bet they would mark their cards with an A. Why? With few exceptions, the mainstream news media have been dutifully pushing the Obama message, burnishing his carefully crafted image and offering few challenges when he makes questionable or misleading pronouncements, gestures or policy statements. In short,...

At the conclusion of the week-long hearing on “cap and trade” legislation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, the Democrats’ headline witness was none other than Mr. Global Warming himself, former Vice President Al Gore. One member of the panel, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), took the opportunity to ask her fellow Tennessean a multi-million dollar question on behalf of “some of his former constituents.” Throughout Gore’s earlier testimony, he had questioned the integrity of scientists and studies that found the opposite conclusions of his personal view: there is no smoking gun either proving or disproving that the...

SEEKONK, Mass. -- Shane Murphy, the second-in-command aboard the American merchant ship seized by pirates, lashed out at Rush Limbaugh for the talk show host's racial characterization in discussing the rescue of the ship's captain by the Navy. In commenting on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by the Navy Seals who shot and killed the three Somali pirates who were holding him captive, Limbaugh generated controversy when he called the pirates "black teenagers." "There you have it, three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama," said Limbaugh according to a transcript of an April...

The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments. It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track. In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree. The "right direction" number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31...

A key House Republican Thursday called for a hearing to investigate a Department of Homeland Security report that highlights security risks posed by extremist groups and disgruntled veterans. Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has asked for a hearing into the matter, one day after the committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he was “dumbfounded” by how the agency could release such a report. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who has endured a barrage of congressional criticism over the report, on Thursday made the rounds of the morning news programs, appearing in five interviews...

BY MOST people’s standards Barack Obama has had an excellent week. He enjoyed a counter-Carter moment when navy commandos rescued an American hostage, leaving three kidnappers dead. He gave a measured speech on the economy. And, to cap it all, he gave his daughters a Portuguese water dog named “Bo”. What’s not to like? Plenty, according to some people. Mr Obama may be widely admired both at home and abroad. But there are millions of Americans who do not like the cut of his jib—and a few whose dislike boils over into white-hot hatred. The American Spectator, which came of...

If the Obama administration has taken flak for suggesting that conservative groups might be home to domestic terrorists, it looks like some House Democrat leaders are willing to go even further: But in an interview on Fox TV in San Francisco, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as “AstroTurf.” “This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it's not really a grass-roots movement. It's AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class,” Pelosi said....

(CNN) -- Joel Osteen is the senior pastor for the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. It's America's largest congregation. His wife, Victoria Osteen, is the co-pastor there. The Osteens, known for their optimistic outlook on life, visited "Larry King Live" Tuesday night for a wide-ranging interview that covered President Obama, same-sex marriage, the recent outbreak of mass shootings, the state of religion in America and more. The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity: Larry King: Since you were last on, we have sworn in our first African-American president. What are your impressions [of Barack Obama]? Joel Osteen:...

  Carnival of the Clueless... http://www.seadogbytes.com/sbimages/CarnivalOfClueless.jpg   (Yeah, well I guess we're up to 'Day 69' by now, huh?  ...Sorry for being so late getting this to you.)  

On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996....

Amongst the several revenue-raising proposals in President Obama’s $3.9-trillion budget proposal is a carbon tax that will impact all American families. His budget aims to raise $646 billion through a cap-and-trade tax on energy. Last year, Peter Orszag, who was then Director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now President Obama’s Director for the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on a similar proposal. Speaking about a cap-and-trade proposal to cut carbon emissions by 15%, he said it would cost the average household about $1,300 a year through higher energy costs. He...

Tired, Frustrated Obama Inspires Zero Confidence, Scares MillionsMarch 9, 2009 **SNIP** OBAMA: By the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system, and the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people is that if coming in the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. REPORTER: Right. OBAMA: You know, I have more than enough to do without having to worry about the financial system. RUSH: Now, that's an inspiring thing to say. I have more than enough to do without having...

This administration continues to express its desire to take advantage of the economy's downturn. It's now clearer than ever what President Obama meant when he talked about "change" on the campaign trail. In his Saturday radio address, the president declared our "great crisis" to be a "great opportunity," indicating, as two members of his administration already had, that this White House is not above exploiting public anxiety to press an extremist agenda. "We've experienced great trials before," Obama said. "And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper — to discover great...

Barack Obama is a great pretender. He constantly says he's doing things that he isn't, and he relies on his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. He has made "responsibility" a personal theme, and the budget's cover line is "A New Era of Responsibility." He claims that the budget begins "making the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal discipline." It doesn't. If Obama were "responsible," he would be leading a candid conversation about government's size and role. Who deserves support and why? How big can government grow before higher taxes and deficits harm long-term economic growth? Although Obama claims to...

All we're getting is whispers from the press, of course, A raised eyebrow here, a sad shake of the head there. But the picture that is emerging of Barack Obama, the executive, is not very flattering if you look between the lines. Jennifer Rubin: Well, it's becoming obvious he's not really much of a manager, decider, legislation-craftsman, or supervisor. His vetting process is in shambles and key Treasury slots are still vacant. His Treasury Secretary is a classic under-performer and Obama encourages that tendency by talking about everything other than our immediate recovery needs. He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry...

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president has facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told. Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest. British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a...

Investor's Business Daily has a good piece correcting President Obama on his recent musings about Wall Street: Dissing The Market "What I am looking for," (Obama) said, "is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market . . . but the long term." The stock market, he continued, "is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down every day... If you spend your time worrying about that, you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong..." "(W)hat you're seeing now is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks...

On Tuesday, it was reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had written a “secret letter” last month to Russian “president” Dmitri Medvedev. The letter seemed to propose that the U.S. would back away from its planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Russia would force Iran to shut down its long-range missile program. When asked about the document, Obama stated: "What I said in the letter was that obviously to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for or the need for a missile defense system. In no way does...

From crisis to catastrophe. Off a cliff. Dark, darker, darkest. Mortal danger of absolute collapse. Armageddon. President Obama and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are deploying these and other stark predictions of doom and gloom to push through their economic-stimulus package. In terms not heard in Washington since the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter's watch, the new president has sought to terrify Americans into supporting the $800 billion-plus bailout bill. While President Bush was accused shortly after taking office in 2001 of "talking down the economy" - and for saying the economy was "slowing down" - Mr. Obama is...

In a sense it should never have come to this. George W. Bush should never have been permitted to complete two full terms in the role of president of the United States for so many reasons. Attaining the highest of offices by unsavory means — it took the Supreme Court stopping the legitimate counting of votes in Florida, disrespecting the will of the people across this country along with the spirit of the Constitution. That was only the beginning of the contempt Mr. Bush would show for the document he couldn’t even remember swearing an oath to protect and defend...

Culprit was deregulation You recently ran an article which asked if 2008 could be the start of a great depression. It could well be. I have never seen anything like this in my life and I have been around for several decades. One thing is certain: it was adherence to the neocon philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism and deregulation which brought us to where we are now. The American people were warned about this by the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s (subprime's little brother) and the recession of 1990. Reagan and his successors engaged in deregulation of the...

For a man who touts “judgment”, PEBO is hiding out in the islands…”monitoring”… but keeping his mouth shut on the latest warfare in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. While we’ve heard from him regularly on everything from the economy to the WH domestic pets - effectively nullifying his “only one President at a time bit - Obama is comspicuously silent on the ME events. Axelrod, his talking head, made the rounds to the Sunday news shows. But there was little he could shed on Obama’s position. But David Axelrod refused to offer an opinion on the fighting between Israeli Defense...

Which part of "illegal" does the New York Times not understand? In an editorial that appeared on Christmas Day, "Getting Immigration Right," the Times made the following ridiculous statements: It’s way too early to tell whether the United States under President-elect Barack Obama will restore realism, sanity and lawfulness to its immigration system... If you uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally, you uphold them for all working Americans. If you ignore and undercut the rights of illegal immigrants, you encourage the exploitation that erodes working conditions and job security everywhere. This is why it is so important to...

The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Newsday, U.S.A Today, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and a host of other news organizations recently reported that gun sales across the country increased 10 percent after Barack Obama defeated John McCain. Many of the gun shop owners that were interviewed on camera stated they had never seen sales increase to this level in 15 to 20 years. Those purchasing guns said they were doing so because of a growing fear that the spiraling economy will force desperate people to commit criminal acts. Others bought them because they believe an...

President-elect Barack Obama has spoken with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over phone to get an update on the situation in Mumbai. It is said that Obama received an intelligence briefing on the terror attacks in Mumbai in which 127 people were killed so far. Obama is spending Thanksgiving Day in Chicago at his home town but is receiving regular situational updates from the State Department Operations Center and the National Counter Terrorism Center. The President-elect, aides say, continues to monitor the situation closely and appreciates the cooperation and information sharing from the Bush administration.

This woman's quote begins in the last 30 seconds of the NBC6 coverage of the Orlando Obama rally. She is there with her two young daughters, apperently. She says: "It was the most touching moment of my life! I never thought this day would ever happen! I won't have to work to put gas in my car! I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage! You know, if I help HIM, he's going to help us!" Man... Is this woman in for a massive letdown, or what!!! This begins at the :30 second mark of the tape!! http://video.nbc6.net/player/?id=797441

More Americans believe the U.S. Supreme Court is leaning to the right, ever since President Bush nominated two Justices to the Court, according to a story published nationally from the Washington Post. The finding is the result of a survey conducted by the Washington Post. ... read more

LAPD Chief William Bratton warns that Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda could be preparing an attack to disrupt or influence the U.S. elections. Bratton said in a New York Daily News opinion piece, "Bin Laden probably realizes it could become markedly more difficult to paint the United States as the great Satan with a new president who is admired internationally."

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance. Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr....