Free Republic

Democrats say reform before end of year is highly unlikely. Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was "absolutely confident" he'll be able to sign one by then. "Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go," a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing. This may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials from...

Regardless of how lively an election season might be, a new study shows that more 3.3 million voters on current registration rolls across the country are dead. Another 12.9 million remain on voter registration lists in an area where they no longer live. The analysis was conducted by the Aristotle International Inc., a technology company specializing in political campaigns, developing software and databases for politicians. In total that means about 8.9 percent of all registered voters fall under the category of “deadwood” voters on the rolls, the term for voters who should no longer be eligible to vote in a...

Conservatives are sick and tired of being taken for granted, misrepresented, and talked down to by the same "elite" Republicans in Washington who hopelessly screwed everything up during the Bush years.         Everybody knows exactly whom we're talking about here.  The same snobby, elitist, stuffed shirt, squishy, poll-obsessed Country Club Republicans who went to D.C., forgot who put them there, wasted the incredible opportunity they had to change this country for the better, and are now pointing the finger at everyone except themselves for their mistakes.         Here are five messages for those people:         We're not going back to the Bush years:...

The Obama Administration may have found its breakthrough in dealing with Iran, but not through its diplomatic engagement. Rumors are spreading in and outside of Iran that Supreme Leader Khamenei, who at 70 years old has been known to be in poor health, is in a coma or dead. The regime denies this, but has failed to offer any proof that he is alive. Khamenei may ultimately prove to be alive, but it is clear something happened to him and his near-term fate is uncertain. The rumors that Khamenei was in a coma began to quickly spread after prominent Iran...

In assembling a new committee of Mobile County Democrats, the state Democratic party included one person who died last year, his widow and other party members confirmed this morning. Reynolds Smith, Jr., of the Eight Mile community, passed away in November at age 83, according to a Press-Register obituary at the time.

19 new swine flu deaths last week sends H1N1 child death toll through the roofSwine flu has taken the lives of 76 children in the United States including 19 in the past week, health officials said Friday, suggesting that the H1N1 virus could be unusually harmful for its youngest victims. The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. H1N1 deaths could dramatically outpace that number, experts said, if swine flu continues to spread at the rate it has so far. Children are especially susceptible to catching the virus...

Dead whale in Tampa Bay was hit by shipThe Associated Press Last Modified: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 2:41 p.m. ST. PETERSBURG - The 41-foot-whale found floating in the Port of Tampa last weekend was killed by a ship out in the Gulf of Mexico. That was the word Tuesday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which performed a necropsy. **SNIP** He said it was "a clear-cut case of a ship strike." The animal was found floating in Tampa Bay Sunday morning. It was towed to Fort DeSoto Park in St. Petersburg, where it was buried Monday.

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- At 1300 E. Warren St., you can smell the plight of Detroit. Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer. Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. "Some people don't come forward even though they know the people are here," said the former Detroit cop. "They don't have the money." Lifelong Detroit residents...

Vice President Joe Biden told the nation's governors Thursday that if the $787 billion stimulus fails, "I'm dead." Biden, who holds regular calls with governors and mayors to chart the progress of the stimulus package, said he was pushing accountability standards purely out of "self-interest." "If it fails, I'm dead," he said.

Does convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff have cancer, as two newspapers are reporting, or not, as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is stating? Under the headline "Bernie's Cancer Cell," the New York Post reported Monday that Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for swindling investors out of as much as $65 billion, wrote: "Bernie Madoff had little to lose by confessing to masterminding the world's biggest Ponzi scheme -- he's dying of cancer, sources told The Post." The story goes on to say that Madoff, 71, has been telling fellow inmates that he doesn't have long...

We're receiving reports into the WACH FOX News Center about the death of a former Tennessee Titans quarterback. According to various media sources, including FOX News, Steve McNair has been killed in Nashville, Tennessee. The incident apparently happened near 2nd South and Lea Avenue. Nashville police are saying it looks like a double homicide. A female victim was also found dead.

One of the most exciting new frontiers in medicine today is the research on the probability that medical science could revive the "dead." Sounds like blasphemy, irreverence, or total fiction? Not quite. It's purely medical science to show the God-given special attributes of His creation, called Life, that is yet to be discovered by man. Our present thinking is that, unless cardiopulmonary resuscitation is done within 4-5 minutes following a respiratory of cardiac arrest, death ensues. Our definition of clinical death states that life is gone when the heartbeat, breathing and brain activity are no longer present, in spite of...

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson spent the last years of his life buried in debt. But the King of Pop's death is likely to yield a financial bonanza more lucrative than any comeback tour ever could, as fans snap up his music and memorabilia ... "Quite frankly, he may be worth more dead than alive," said Jerry Reisman, general counsel for the Hit Factory, a recording studio where Jackson produced his best-selling album "Thriller." Jackson's death at age 50 leaves a multitude of questions about a financial empire that included his own music, as well a 50 percent stake in...

A homeowner who had twice ordered a teenager to leave the property — once while holding a rifle — shot the teen dead after the boy refused to leave and walked toward him, authorities said. “He feared for his life,” said Harris County sheriff’s Lt. Rolf Nelson. Dwayne Austgen, 69, was inside his north Harris County home in the 5500 block of Susanna around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday when he noticed a teenager in his front yard, officials said. The man went outside, confronted 17-year-old Vidal Herrera, and told him to leave, authorities said.

By ADAM GOLDMAN and VICTOR EPSTEIN Associated Press Writers NEWARK, N.J. -- The pilot of a Continental Airlines flight from Brussels to Newark died over the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, but the jet landed safely with two co-pilots at the controls. Flight 61 touched down on-time just before noon at Newark Liberty International Airport, authorities said. The Boeing 777 was carrying 247 passengers, said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Houston-based airline. Passengers weren't told of the pilot's death in flight. During the flight, an announcement was made asking if any doctors were aboard and several passengers approached the cockpit....

It seems like just yesterday that Obama announced the details of his Nationalized Health Care plan. Today, Bill Kristol and Yuval Levin write in the Weekly Standard that if the Republicans stay united against it, there are enough moderate Democrats who will vote against it and the whole thing will go down in flames. Kristol and Levin aren't just hoping for this outcome, they have contacts and have named names. This is encouraging.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican police found 11 bodies - most with their hands and feet cut off - inside an abandoned car in the border state of Sonora Thursday in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling for control of the region. Sonora's state prosecutors said in a statement that the bodies were discovered inside a sport utility vehicle on a road between the towns of Caborca and Sonoyta along with a threatening message. The SUV had been stolen in Arizona. Prosecutors did not reveal what the message said or the identities of the bodies. They said the killings are linked...

“Kill Bill” star David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room Wednesday, his manager told FOX News Thursday. While the cause of death has yet to be determined, a Thai newspaper claims the actor died in an apparent suicide.

ANNE ARUNDEL, Md. -- Millions of Americans on Social Security are receiving $250 checks as part of the president's stimulus plan -- including an Anne Arundel woman who died more than 40 years ago. ...

This afternoon I happened to look out the back and saw something black and long in the middle of the yard. I just mowed yesterday so I knew the yard was free of sticks and such. Turns out it was a big black snake! He isn't a rattler, does not look loke a water moccasin or a black snake. What the heck kind of snake is he? He has the triangular head which means he is a bad one, but I can't place his breed. Anyway, photography being as dangerous as it is, he got wrecked up some which is...

Just wondering if anyone's church advises their members to avoid these things. I work with someone who is a strict Catholic, was this close to becoming a nun, but yet she see's nothing wrong with seeing seer's of the dead. I know the Bible clearly states this is detestable to God (I'm at work and don't have my Bible so I can't give you the versus). She says she reads her Bible everyday so I did write down the book and chapters for her and asked her to read it for herself. This was done after a lengthy conversation with...

NBC NewsChannel Published: May 5, 2009 A Chicago area motorist has admitted to police that she was painting her fingernails when she struck and killed a motorcyclist over the weekend. Anita Zaffke, of Lake Zurich, was stopped at a traffic light when she was hit from behind by a Chevy Impala at a stop light Saturday evening. “It appears to be a tragic accident and it appears Zaffke did nothing wrong,“ Lake County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Scott Morrison said. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and she could not have done anything to avoid it.“...

Police filed intoxication manslaughter charges Sunday against a driver who lost control of his car while using a cell phone, plunging the vehicle into a rain-filled ditch and killing five children inside. Chanton Jenkins, 32, was in police custody facing four counts of intoxication manslaughter, one charge for each of the children found dead so far, said Houston police spokesman Kese Smith. Police said a relative told them Jenkins was the father of three of the victims. Jenkins failed a field sobriety test following Saturday's crash, which occurred after heavy rain turned the ditch into a torrent. The results of...

Police say an Iraqi soccer player has been shot dead just as he was about to kick what could have been the tying goal in a weekend game south of Baghdad.

The wife of Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been killed in a car crash in which he was also hurt, party officials say. Susan Tsvangirai was travelling with her husband south of the capital, Harare, when the crash happened. Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, formed a unity government with President Robert Mugabe last month. The two had been long-time rivals before agreeing a power-sharing deal. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters news agency that Mr Tsvangirai, who will turn 57 next week, was not in a critical condition. "We have just heard that...

The GOP's top Internet official is leaving the Republican National Committee. Arguably the most respected technocrat in the Republican Party, Cyrus Krohn is just the latest in a string of officials to resign from the RNC; last week, the RNC's finance director quit. But because GOP Chairman Michael Steele made leveraging the Internet to attract voters to the Republican Party a top priority ina tech summit two weeks ago, Krohn's departure comes as an especially heavy blow -- not just to the RNC, but to the conservative blogosphere. A veteran of Microsoft and Yahoo, Krohn joined the RNC in July...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- A car found in a Gainesville neighborhood with a dead body in the back seat had been ticketed seven times by city parking enforcement. Police found the body when a resident called authorities Monday afternoon to report the car, which had been parked on the street for days. A preliminary autopsy helped police identify the body as 42-year-old John Waldo, who had been missing since Feb. 11. Police say the autopsy revealed no obvious cause of death. Investigators are awaiting toxicology results, which may take up to six weeks. City records show the first ticket was...

An overturned gasoline tanker exploded as hundreds of people were trying to scoop up free fuel, killing at least 111 people and wounding 200 in one of Kenya's deadliest accidents, officials said Sunday. Hundreds of people were surrounding the overturned truck and blocking a road in the town of Molo on Saturday night when the petrol ignited in a blast that was felt for miles, said Charles Kamau, 22, who ran from his car as flames shot into the air. Everybody was screaming and most of them were running with fire on their bodies, they were just running into the...

BOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- A Boyd County landfill is now the focus of a search for a missing newborn baby's body. There's a fear, however, that the body already has been incinerated. Kentucky State Police investigators said a train that hauls trash from the East Coast is being held in a CSX rail yard in Greenup County. Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, a heartbroken mother fears a possible hospital cover-up. Police said if the newborn's body was discarded with the New Jersey trash, it very well may end up at the Big Run Landfill in Coalton. New Jersey police...

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” These are the words of Mahatma Gandhi. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” These are the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Their names alone conjure up the images of leaders of history that invoked change through what they called “Peaceful Militancy.” However their words define what was on their hearts; words that moved others to action with a desired peaceful result. History attests to the fruitful results of such civilized methods of protesting injustice and...

Is this Swedish town that's routing heat from its crematorium to local homes morbid or brilliant? Let's just call them brilliantly morbid.The town of Halmstad came up with the idea when trying to curb the amount of smoke emitted from the crematorium.   It was when we were discussing all these environmental issues that we started thinking about the energy that is used in the cremations and realised that instead of all that heat just going up into the air, we could make use of it somehow. It was just rising into the skies for nothing," said Lennart Andersson,...

NEW YORK—Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, the heiress who spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband, died Saturday at age 76. She died at a nursing home in New York, her children said in a statement issued by family spokeswoman Maureen Connelly.

(IsraelNN.com) A prominent pro-Israel activist was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft in a San Francisco building . The pro-Israel activist, Dr. Daniel Kliman was the co-founder of the San Francisco-based Voice for Israel, an affiliate of the national Israel advocacy group, StandWithUs. His body was found in the elevator shaft of a building where he was taking Arabic language classes. “He was the public face of grass-roots Israel advocacy in the San Franciso Bay area,” stated Mike Harris, Kliman’s colleague at Voice for Israel. Harris is unaware of specific threats against Kliman, who had previously been...

This is so true today...Replace "Gore" insert "OBAMA"

(IsraelNN.com) After more than 40 hours and a day-long siege by Indian commandos against Islamist terrorists holding nine Jews hostage in the Mumbai Chabad House, all were found murdered, including the Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. Voice of Israel government radio reported Saturday evening that at least seven of the victims are Israelis. A forensic pathology expert is being sent from Israel to assist in the identification of three of the bodies. Ben-Tzion Korman (courtesy of npv.co.il) Foreign Ministry sources told Israel National News just minutes before the start of the Sabbath in Israel that among...

(IsraelNN.com) An Indian newspaper has reported that Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka have been killed by Islamist terrorists who held them hostage in the siege on their Chabad House in Mumbai. Indian helicopters dropped commandoes on the roof of the Chabad House in on Mumbai early Friday morning, and a battle is continuing at this moment. Three blasts were heard in side the building, where four terrorists remain. One was killed in an earlier battle. It is thought that no more hostages are being held inside. The Chabad House was one of 10 sites that were...

Poll shows Obama popular among dead peopleNationwide polls conducted in cemeteries in recent weeks have shown Barak Obama to be a clear front runner among the dead."We had expected Obama to lead, but we did not realize what a huge margin he would have", pollsters said.C.T. Russell, who died on October 31st, 1916, and is buried in Rosemont United Cemetery in Pittsburgh, expressed a strong preference to vote for Obama."I feel, as do most of the departed souls I associate with, that Obama will do the best job of representing our interests", Russell explained. Obama showed strong numbers, over...

It takes terrible luck or astonishing talent for a congressional Democrat to be endangered this year. Still, there are a half-dozen Democrats who really could lose their seats a week from tomorrow. On the bad-luck end, there's Nick Lampson, the Texan who replaced Tom DeLay in 2006 and who'll probably get bumped out again thanks to the district's deep-rooted conservatism. There's Louisiana's Don Cazayoux, a conservative Democrat who won a special election only to see another Democrat enter the November race as an independent spoiler. There's New Hampshire freshman Carol Shea-Porter, whose generally likable Republican opponent from last cycle is...

CHICAGO – The only "agent of change" Princess ever supported was the person who freshened the water in her fishbowl. So election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs want to know why voter registration material was sent to the dead goldfish. "I am just stunned at the level of people compromising the integrity of the voting process," said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander, a Republican, who said she has spotted problems with nearly 1,000 voter registrations this year. Beth Nudelman, who owned the fish, said Princess may have landed on a mailing list because the family once filled in the pet's...

(10-13) 17:42 PDT SAN MATEO -- An intoxicated teenage driver ran a red light in San Mateo this morning and broadsided a taxicab, killing the driver, then fled as flames engulfed his car where two other teenagers were trapped, police said. Police were able to pull the badly injured youths from the burning Volkswagen Jetta on El Camino Real near Hillsdale Shopping Center, but there was nothing they could do for the cabdriver, 48-year-old Michael Earl Prescott of Redwood City. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?" My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice. Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot. Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage. When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the...

This is the funniest video I have seen in a very long time. Jeff Dunham is a very talented ventriloquist. ENJOY! If this is a duplicate post, please remove.

NPR has learned that the Bush administration is pushing for increased military action along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The plan is part of an effort to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders before Election Day on Nov. 4.World Pakistan Raid Start Of Concerted Bid To Hit Al-Qaida by Tom Gjelten and Tom Bowman NPR has learned that the raid by helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations forces in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership. The plan...

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters, We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of becoming fact. Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To...

It's a no good, very bad, horrible, terrible day for Musgrove WASHINGTON, DC -- Ronnie Musgrove is having arguably his worst day ever. First, he was named as the public official in the Mississippi Beef Processors Plant case. Then, the most recent defendant in the Beef case pleaded guilty to giving Musgrove a $25,000 "gratuity." News articles are even reporting there may be more action in the Beef case this week. And now, the news is reporting that former trial lawyer Paul Minor -- who gave more than $171,000 to Musgrove's campaigns -- is asking to be freed from jail....

HOUSTON — In a case that has drawn international attention, Texas executed José E. Medellín on Tuesday night in defiance of an international court ruling and despite pleas from the Bush administration for a new hearing. The execution came just before 10 p.m. Central time, shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied a last request for a reprieve. Protesters for and against the death penalty clamored in the rain outside the Huntsville Unit, about 70 miles north of Houston, where Mr. Medellín was executed by lethal injection. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses...

By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 3, 4:15 PM ET CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida confirmed Sunday the death of a top commander accused of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole eight years ago. Abu Khabab al-Masri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States, is believed to have been killed in an airstrike apparently launched by the U.S. in Pakistan last week.

The Obama Death List The following is a partial list of deaths of persons connected to Barack HUSSEIN Obama during his time inside the United States. SARAH BERKLEY - Author of "The Jihad at the Ballot Box" - a book examining Obama's relationship with radical Islam. Died in a mysterious car crash in 2003. RUSSELL MCDOUGAL - Former FBI operative, January 23rd, 2007. McDougal was known to hold sensitive information about meetings Barack Obama had with arms smugglers. His wife was murdered March 2006 after he went public with his initial reports. His father died July 8, 2006 four hours...

Authorities in Botetourt County this morning discovered the body of a well-known Democratic operative and U.S. Senate aide along U.S. 220, dead from an apparent gunshot wound. The body of Frederick W. Hutchins Jr., 26, of Roanoke was found shortly after 7 a.m. along southbound U.S. 220 by a Botetourt County deputy who had stopped to check on a vehicle parked on the highway's shoulder, according to the sheriff's office. Hutchins was an aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb, D-Va. Hutchins had been shot in the head, and a gun was found beneath his body, Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said. The...

(IsraelNN.com) The IDF announced Saturday night that a terrorist who was killed following an attack on an Israeli civilian on July 7 was the head of a Hamas foundation. The terrorist's identity was released after a delay of nearly two weeks. According to a statement issued by the IDF, 48-year-old Mahmoud O'ttaman Mahmoud A'azi was the head of the Islamic Charity Foundation in his village, Qarawaat Bani Hassan. The organization was a local source of funding for Hamas terrorist activities. A'azi had in the past also been among the heads of Hamas in the Samaria region. He was shot and...