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On this we can agree with President Obama: Everything he stands for is at stake in 2012. Obama told 500 fawning sycophants in Chicago that he is unrepentant about his policy agenda and intends to treat us to more of the same, much more, in a second term. Obama said, "Everything that we fought for is now at stake in this election." Lest there be no mistake, he repeated the message in the smaller settings of private homes. We can endlessly debate whether he is such a devoted ideologue that he's blind to his policy failures, whether he's willing to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I don't know how you feel, but I just spent four absolutely wonderful, fabulous days at what I call pre-Obama America. From Wednesday night until, oh, I guess about nine o'clock last night I thought not one thought of Barack Obama. I paid not one bit of attention to any Barack Obama-related news, which meant I had to keep the news networks turned off. And it was bliss! And to realize this was only just two years ago.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., has proposed a plan for eliminating the multi-trillion-dollar national debt: Tax everything. Earlier this year, Fattah introduced H.R. 4646, the "Debt Free America Act," which would impose a massive new tax for a period of seven years, while the national debt is being paid off. And once the debt is paid, the bill would eliminate the individual income tax, supplanting it with the new, "transaction" tax instead. Specifically, H.R. 4646 would levy a 1-percent tax on every transaction of any kind that uses check, cash or credit cards (with a path in place for also...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the government is in charge of the response to the Gulf oil spill, not the oil company BP. Obama says all steps BP takes to end the huge spill must be approved in advance by the government. Obama says his administration will do whatever is needed to protect and restore the Gulf Coast from this "unprecedented disaster."

Everything! Till we meet again! :)

NEW YORK – Inauguration Day? Nope. First puppy? Negative. Triumphal tour of Europe? Not even. First lady Michelle Obama called her appearance Tuesday on "Sesame Street" probably the best thing she's done since arriving in the White House. At the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, she thanked the diplomats and staff members promoting her husband's new foreign policy of global engagement. "I'm thrilled to be here, but I was just at 'Sesame Street' — I'm sorry," she said. "And I never thought I'd be on 'Sesame Street' with Elmo and Big Bird and I was thrilled. I'm still thrilled....

Acne, agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened,  air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,   atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, ...

If 2007 was shaped by anything, it was the scuffle to pay for information about Anna Nicole Smith. Before her death on Feb. 8, 2007, I had rarely, if ever, thought about Smith. I certainly had not written much about her. The birth of her baby the previous September was not that interesting. The death of her grown son was, but not that much. He wasn’t a celebrity. She was a Grade D personality, a buffoonish comic strip, a Marilyn Monroe pretender.

Random thoughts on the passing scene: A sense of logic underlies a sense of humor. The same professor who wrote the first treatise on symbolic logic also wrote "Alice in Wonderland." "A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years," said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. If so, then we may be hearing about "diversity," "social justice" and "a living wage" for many years to come. Bill Clinton's attack on President Bush's commuting of Scooter Libby's prison sentence qualifies Clinton for the Guinness Book of World Records in chutzpa. Whenever I hear terrorists referred to in the media as "militants," it...

The world survived 2006 without a major economic catastrophe, despite sky-high oil prices and a Middle East spiralling out of control. But the year produced abundant lessons for the global economy, as well as warning signs concerning its future performance. Unsurprisingly, 2006 brought another resounding rejection of fundamentalist neo-liberal policies, this time by voters in Nicaragua and Ecuador. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Venezuela, Hugo Chávez won overwhelming electoral support: at least he had brought some education and healthcare to the poor barrios, which previously had received little of the benefits of the country’s enormous oil wealth. Perhaps most importantly for the...

The New York Times May 29, 2006 METROPOLITAN DIARY Dear Diary: The Everything bagel has always made me smile. It combines seasonings from sesame, garlic, poppyseed, onion and salt bagels -- and it's really delicious. In New York City, it makes perfect sense to order "Everything with nothing" -- an Everything bagel, plain, without butter or cream cheese. One morning this month, a mother and her boy were placing a breakfast order at the Market Cafe in Citigroup Center. The store was busy and ready to get busier, with fresh sandwiches, pizzas, fruit, rolls and salads stocked behind the counter....

May 20, 2000 marks the 7th anniversary of President Clinton's signing the National Voter Registration Act, popularly known as Motor Voter. The right to vote means nothing if people are not registered. Motor Voter works by reducing necessary and burdensome bureaucratic obstacles to voter registration. The law requires states to provide uniform registration services through drivers' license agencies, through public assistance and disability agencies and through mail-in registration. In 1995, the first full year of implementation, more than 11 million citizens registered to vote or updated their voting addresses under the law. This figure represents the largest single increase...

Things heard in Washington and elsewhere... Asbestos Reform -- "[The current asbestos bill is] an Armageddon of special interests." - Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). -- "Give me the benefit of the doubt." - Sen. Arlen Specter moments before the asbestos bill vote. -- "I think this trust fund is just doomed to fail." – Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). -- "We lost under the most extraordinary circumstances." - Sen. Arlen Specter after the vote on the $140 billion asbestos bill. Cheney Hunting Accident -- "I’ll calm down when I feel like calming down!" - NBC news correspondent...

827 Seattle students informed they will be freshmen again... Nearly one in four Seattle Public Schools sophomores is missing required credits and has been reclassified as a freshman, potentially delaying graduation. The move, effective this semester, was part of a package of changes the district announced in October to help better prepare high school students to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning and graduate. Under district policy, high school students have to complete five credits a year to advance to the next grade. At some schools, the rate was far higher than one in four students. At Rainier Beach...

DUBAI (AFP) - Arab governments expressed the hope that Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip will be followed by the evacuation of other occupied Palestinian lands and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas acknowledged the "historic and important" nature of the Israeli pullout from Gaza after 38 years but denounced an Israeli insistance it would keep hold of its West Bank settlement blocs. Saudi Arabia "looks forward to the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip being a step followed by other steps toward withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territories so the Palestinian people can build their...

“WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bursting into tears, eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap of California became the U.S. spelling champ Thursday… Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, a Pleasanton, California, student.” Indian kids have won first place in five of the last seven years.Might be there’s a pattern here? Nah. A friend in California has an Asia wife (which both he and I recommend), and so is among the few whites plugged into the state’s Asian community. He reports that the Asians are contemptuous of whites. (“Lazy, not very smart.”) The evidence...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Many Shall Call Me Lord Self-deception and believing, then living a lie. There are no quick answers to complex questions, but the questions concerning, God’s Word or “Revealed Will,” are plain for every generation to see.  Whether they are men and women who name Christ as their Lord or not, people want to play all kinds of games with God and His Word in an attempt to excuse themselves from their anti-cultural and suicidal behaviors.  These lifestyle choices center on ethical decisions requiring wisdom for greater understanding of the difference between good and evil.  From a Christian perspective, this point...

Pondering when Dan Rather will swing Timing is everything as CBS looks for an out Months before Richard Nixon's resignation, as he was facing impeachment, a "60 Minutes" commentator compared the president to a dead mouse on the kitchen floor of America. The only issue, observed Nicholas von Hoffman, was who was going to pick him up by the tail and toss him into the trash. CBS executives, much lathered by Von Hoffman's effrontery, booted him from his post as a regular commentator. These 30 years later, CBS executives are in a new lather over another Republican president, and they're...

"We did not know how to react in the appropriate fashion. We have showed weakness in the face of danger and the weak get beaten up." Vladimir Putin Former President Bubba seems to have had an emergency cardiac event -- maybe even an infarction. He needed emergency admission and has some clogged cardiac arteries. We wish him well. Stomping all over him politically and resenting the bejabbers out of the kind of politics he practised and represents has nothing whatsoever to do with our concern for his health and his soul. The DimocRATs are, frog-like, swelling up in righteous indignation,...

‘Everything on table’ GOP plans cuts, reforms, to tackle budgetary woes By Alexander Bolton and Sam Dealey House Republicans hope to enact a host of measures aimed at curbing what both centrist and conservative lawmakers decry as runaway federal spending. Emerging from a rare members-only “mandatory” two-and-a-half-hour conference called yesterday to deal with mounting budget concerns, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told reporters: “Nothing is sacred in this business. Everything is on the table.” Although Hastert didn’t say so, several initiatives under consideration would curb the power of the Republican leadership as well as House appropriators and authorizers. These initiatives...

<p>This week marks the start of the second phase of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's young administration.</p> <p>The first phase -- from his Nov. 17 inauguration through the start of the holiday season -- was a success for the new governor. He rolled back the increase in the car tax, made good on his promise to hold local governments harmless for revenue lost when he cut the tax, persuaded the Legislature to repeal an unpopular bill that gave drivers licenses to illegal immigrants and won approval of a fiscal package he said was the first step toward getting the state's finances back on track.</p>

Let's just ban everything California school officials have issued new textbook regulations that are designed to keep "offensive" material from hurting anyone's feelings. And how do you keep from offending people? Invoke censorship. Fox News reported this week that a variety of phrases, images and historic references have been suppressed in order to afford a more politically-correct environment for students. After examining the things that have been banned, it becomes evident to any clear-thinking individual that these school officials are more concerned with rewriting history and manipulating the minds of children than they are with actually teaching. Here are just...

Expect the unexpected - don't believe everything you hearSo far the third Gulf War since 1980 has contained several surprises. By Christopher Bellamy 23 March 2003 The first was that instead of a discrete, even prolonged, initial air campaign, the opening strike was an "opportunity target" – a meeting of five leadership figures including Saddam Hussein himself. The fog of war still clouds what happened. Saddam may have escaped by half an hour, may have been injured or may even have been killed. We still do not know. There were two good reasons for not having a heavy air campaign...

GUEST OPINION It's your call Get government out of licensing or lose more freedom By BILL O'NEILL Charlton Heston, president of the NRA, lectures to college students: "I submit that you and your counterparts in colleges from coast to coast also appear to be the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord bridge. And so long as you shrug your shoulders and abide by it, then by the standards of your grandfathers, you are cultural cowards." It takes years of indoctrination to trick kids to sacrifice themselves to government. Public education, i.e., government training of children, always has...