Free Republic

OVER a series of casual dinners at neighborhood restaurants near her Flatiron District apartment in the spring, Chelsea Clinton began talking to a couple of longtime friends about something she’d been mulling for a while. She wanted to stop pretending she was not Chelsea Clinton. It was quite an assertion from someone who — despite the very public profile of her parents, one a former president and the other the current secretary of state — had lived most of her 31 years at a far remove from the spotlight. Yes, there had been sightings of Chelsea over the years, as...

Families were more dependent on government programs than ever last year. Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008. The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years. (See a timeline on the...

A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police this weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate. Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers. KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn will admit he had sexual contact with the hotel chambermaid who alleges he attacked her, but insist it was consensual, his lawyers have indicated. The International Monetary Fund chief allegedly locked the maid in his suite at Manhattan's Sofitel on Saturday and forced her to give him oral sex. He was denied $1m bail and is being held at Rikers Island jail. However in a hint at what may become his main line of defence, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said at New York criminal court: "The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter". It...

As tempting as it is to view the machinations of the left in masterfully calculated Dr. Evil terms, today's progressive is better-understood as a ranting teenager, burdened with both a disordered view of freedom and typical adolescent entitlement issues. It's not that today's lefty is unintelligent; in fact, many are very bright. It's that he is emotionally underdeveloped. By disordered freedom, I mean the 1960s-influenced, "don't tell me what to do/I'll do whatever the hell I want to do" kind of freedom. Pope John Paul II summarized the flaw in such a stunted and animalistic view of our potential when...

Here is video of RNC Chair Michael Steele being asked if he has given consideration to stepping aside as Chair of the Republican National Committee. Steele said, "I ain't going anywhere." He also said he and his fellow Republicans have a fundamentally different view of America. Steele said he believes we are an "exceptional people," while President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid "have a different view." Uh, we’ll see if Republicans agree that he should stay.

President Barack Obama's aun tZeituni Onyango, right, is the half-sister of Obama's late father President Obama's Kenyan aunt says her nephew didn't pull any strings to help her stay in the U.S. "Don't drag my child into this," Zeituni Onyango said in her first interview since she was granted asylum in May, apparently referring to Obama. Onyango, who lives in public housing and collects a $700 monthly disability check, also insisted "the system" took advantage of her. "I didn't take advantage of the system," she said. In the first of a two-part interview with WBZ-TV in Boston, Onyango said she...

How does Lisa Murkowski compare to other Republican senators from the Rocky Mountain region? Against her 68% ACU voting record, the other Republican senators in the region have these ACU voting records: Ensign (WY) 100%, Barasso (WY) 100%, Crapo (ID) 92%, Risch (ID) 96%, Hatch (UT) 88%, Bennett (UT) 84%, Ensign (NV) 100%, Kyl (AZ) 92%, and McCain (AZ) 96%. Lisa was much less conservative than Senator McCain, the archetypical RINO or Senator Bennett, the Utah Republican denied re-nomination this year. Lisa Murkowski, not Joe Miller, is out of touch with voters in the region. It gets worse. Out of...

Amid rowdy protests, a committee of the University of California regents voted Wednesday to raise student fees by 32 percent in two steps over the next year, bringing the annual cost of a UC education above $10,000 not including room, board or books. Today, the full board is scheduled to vote on the plan, which also includes increases in financial aid. Fourteen protesters – out of about 500 – were arrested at UCLA, where regents held their meeting. Roughly 1,000 protesters rallied at UC Berkeley, according to campus officials, and 300 demonstrated at UC Santa Cruz. "Look at all these...

Predictably, the push has begun to get a Kennedy into the Senate seat held for lo those many years by Ted Kennedy. The Kennedys favorite newspaper - the Boston Globe - all but annointed Joe in a news story by Frank Phillips that also handily reminded everybody that the seat is, after all, the permanent property of the Kennedy family. Said Philips: [Snip] "All eyes now are on Joseph P. Kennedy II, the former US representative, with family members and political allies expecting him to make a decision very shortly on whether to enter the Democratic primary. "No other Kennedy...

There's more fall-out over a controversial sign posted outside a local auto repair shop. The owner of Team Ramco, Flash Sharrar, has received his second threat. He had posted the sign months ago, reading "No Yobs Aqui." He said he was fed up with job applicants mistaking his business for an employment office nearby. Critics accused him of being a racist. Sharrar has since scribbled a "J" over the "Y" for good measure. A new sign is in the mail, but apparently someone out there is still not pleased. Flash says his family member received a text message containing a...

"...The onslaught, a symptom of the voracious competition for dwindling numbers of day jobs, can be surprising to the unsuspecting, and even frightening. In recent years, the Hispanic day laborers have become as much a part of the scenery at The Home Depot west of Lake Worth as the fence and hedges, and as more lose full-time jobs in construction or landscaping, their numbers seem to have grown. The Home Depot is not pleased. Blaming the job seekers for causing accidents and driving away customers, the world's largest home improvement retailer has been working to discourage them from rushing vehicles...

10-31) 10:03 PDT OAKLAND -- BART closed its Richmond. Fruitvale and Coliseum stations this morning after numerous youths heading to a protest in San Francisco against federal immigration policies jumped fare gates, authorities said. About 100 fare-evaders were reported at the Fruitvale station in Oakland about 9:45 a.m., Johnson said. The station was closed a short time later. There was no immediate information on whether a bus bridge would be set up there. The protesters were heading to a noontime rally on Sansome Street in San Francisco opposing the policies and enforcement actions taken by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

"How dare you send our citizens back to us"By Christopher Cook You can add legislators from the Mexican state of Sonora to the people whose sense of irony has been surgically removed at birth. It didn't make very big news when it happened (two weeks ago), but for those who missed it, it's a worthy showcase for chutzpah at its finest. And it's a tragic indication of just how absurdly pathetic our neighbor to the south really is: A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to say Arizona's new employer sanctions law will have...

School Budget Cuts Derail English Language Program By Dean Gray and Jackie Devereaux Coachella Valley, CA – An important English reading fluency program is threatened to end due to severe budget cuts to this year’s school budget. The Valley Partnership, is at the end of a three-year program, funded by an annual grant of $329,000. Without the matching funds the program is at risk and over 20 people lose their paid volunteer positions. Fundraising efforts are still trying to raise $55,000 by August 3rd to meet the target start-up date. The sponsors are asking for donations by philanthropists and charitable...

By Burt Prelutsky It seems to me that when it comes to foreign policy, the U.S. has two separate problems. To begin with, there are those two billion foreigners in places like China, Russia, North Korea, and all the various Islamic nations that give America and much of the rest of the world non-stop migraines. But compounding the problem for us are the millions of illegal aliens who have been flooding across our southern border for the past 25 years or so. It’s bad enough that they’ve placed a terrible burden on our schools, our prisons, and our health care...

TEA has until the end of January to change program for secondary schools.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen has said he thinks the 9th Congressional District has gotten beyond race in electing its representatives. But independent candidate Jake Ford seemed intent on proving him wrong Thursday. He kicked off the congressional campaign by blasting Cohen, who is white, and saying Tennessee deserves to have at least one black congressman. Still hot from his loss to Cohen in 2006, Ford, younger brother of former congressman Harold Ford Jr., also railed against the news media -- specifically The Commercial Appeal -- for not giving him, or his record, a fair shake in the last election. "This...

Subsidized housing tenants who say they have been harassed by the Antioch Police Department descended on City Hall on Tuesday night, demanding a change in law enforcement tactics. Carrying signs that read "Stop Harassment" and "We Want Respect," about two dozen Section 8 recipients took part in the protest. Members of Antioch's United Citizens for Better Neighborhoods gathered for a counterdemonstration, protesting eyesore properties and nightmarish neighbors. "This turnout validates that the voice of the people needs to be heard," organizer Darnell Turner said. "The fact the opposition also showed up in large numbers shows they don't care to hear...

School districts and local governments are entitled to be repaid for the cost of running programs the state Legislature requires them to operate, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled in a decision published Monday. The California School Boards Association, the city of Newport Beach, Sweetwater Union High School District in San Diego County and the counties of Fresno and Los Angeles sued the state over a bill passed in 2005. They objected because it allowed the state to avoid reimbursing school districts for the costs associated with operating state mandated-programs. In a ruling dated March 13 but published Monday,...