Free Republic

Fresh on the heels of announcing January fundraising numbers in excess of $4 million, Rick Santorum's presidential campaign announced a new television ad that will begin airing Tuesday in Colorado and Nevada. The ad attacks Newt Gingrich as being too liberal for the GOP nomination by arguing that he shares many policy positions with President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "All three supported radical cap and trade legislation that would destroy American jobs and drive up energy costs. All three supported giving illegal aliens some form of amnesty. All three sported the government health mandates which take...

As I reported this morning, Newt Gingrich is pleading with Florida voters not to "waste" their votes on Rick Santorum, asserting that he alone is the only conservative alternative to Mitt Romney with a chance to win. Given the state's polling picture, that's not an entirely unreasonable argument to advance, but Newt has taken his rhetoric a step further by calling on Santorum and Ron Paul to drop out of the race and unite behind him. Newt floated the same suggestion in South Carolina, which went over about as well as his latest attempt to clear the field: Rick Santorum...

Mitt Romney, his family, staff and supporters donated a combined $66,000 to help Tim Pawlenty retire the debt left over from his presidential campaign. Romney, his wife, five sons and brother, as well as his associates from Bain Capital were among those cutting maximum checks to Pawlenty, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign filings released Tuesday. Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, dropped out of the race last summer after a disappointing showing in the Ames straw poll, and quickly endorsed Romney. At the time, there was talk that Romney’s campaign would help Pawlenty’s retire its debt, then in the...

Rubio Claims The Florida Nominee Will Be The Republican Party's Nominee Against Obama http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/bestoftv/2012/01/31/sot-point-marco-rubio-florida.cnn

Mitt Romney, his family, staff and supporters donated a combined $66,000 to help Tim Pawlenty retire the debt left over from his presidential campaign. Romney, his wife, five sons and brother, as well as his associates from Bain Capital were among those cutting maximum checks to Pawlenty, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign filings released Tuesday. Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, dropped out of the race last summer after a disappointing showing in the Ames straw poll, and quickly endorsed Romney. At the time, there was talk that Romney’s campaign would help Pawlenty’s retire its debt, then in the...

If the polls are correct, Rick Santorum will not win tonight’s primary. But he tells National Review Online that he remains in the hunt for the nomination. “This is a game of survivor,” he says. “I’m under the strong belief that we are going to hang in there. You are going to see some more ebbs and flows in this campaign. We are going to get our opportunity.”

Some are describing Ginger White, the Georgia woman who claims she had a 13 year consensual intimate relationship with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, to have similar problems problems that Cain sexual harassment accuser Sharon Bialek had, including sexual harassment lawsuits and bankruptcy issues. According to Fox 5 Atlanta: (bolding is mine) “Before our interview, we checked into Ginger White's background. We found she filed a sexual harassment claim against an employer in 2001.

A neurosurgeon, vetted by Levin's staff, calls Mark and talks about what he knows about Obamacare Death Panels. From 11/22/11

WASHINGTON—William M. Daley was hired to help resuscitate Barack Obama's presidency after deep Democratic losses in 2010. Ten months into his tenure as chief of staff, Mr. Daley's core responsibilities are shifting, following White House missteps in the debt-ceiling fight and in its relations with Republicans and Democrats in Congress. On Monday, Mr. Daley turned over day-to-day management of the West Wing to Pete Rouse, a veteran aide to President Obama, according to several people familiar with the matter. It is unusual for a White House chief of staff to relinquish part of the job. A senior White House official...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boys should be routinely vaccinated against the human papillomavirus or HPV in an effort to protect them from oral, anal and penile cancers, and to extend protection of girls from cervical cancer, U.S. vaccine advisers said on Tuesday.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voted unanimously to recommend routine use of Merck & Co's Gardasil in 11- and 12-year-old boys to fight the sexually transmitted virus, with 13 yes votes and one abstention.Previously, the CDC had said doctors are free to use the vaccine in boys but had...

Testing a re-election theme, President Barack Obama is telling donors during a fundraising rich tour of three western states that the country is suffering from an economic crisis and from a political crisis. "People are crying out for action," he says. Pointing to elements of his $447 billion jobs plan rejected by Republican lawmakers, Obama said they would likely linger as campaign issues in 2012. "This is the fight that we're going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we're going to have to have over the next year," Obama told about 240 donors at...

An Islamic cultural centre close to the site where New York's World Trade Center once stood has opened quietly in spite of scenes last year of vehement protests from those who said the area should not house a mosque. The opening ceremony for the Park51 centre on Wednesday featured a photo exhibit called "NYChildren", displaying over 160 portraits of immigrant children living in New York. Sharif El-Gamal, the center's developer, said the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. "We made incredible mistakes," El-Gamal told The Associated Press in an earlier...

The Pac-12 appears to be working out the final details of a deal that would bring Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech to the conference, sources close to the situation told Hookem.com and the American-Statesman on Sunday morning.

[ Joe McGinniss interview on The Today Show 9/16/11 ]Sometimes, I think it’s a public service to sit through some of this garbage so that you don’t have to.The Today Show calls Joe McGuinness “longtime political author� — but I can think of a few better descriptive words more apt for a man who moved next door to the Palin family to stalk them and peep into the windows of young girls, the way McGuinness did last summer. “Longtime political author� is not the word I’d use to accurately convey the disgust his behavior generates.I have no idea what this...

Officials from the Department of Energy have for months been sitting in on board meetings as "observers" at Solyndra, getting an up-close view as the solar energy company careened towards bankruptcy after spending more than $500 million in federal loan money. Word of the Energy Department's unusual arrangement came as federal agents on Thursday converged on the California headquarters of the failed solar company, focusing fresh attention on the first corporate beneficiary of President Obama's stimulus program to create new clean energy jobs. The company, which closed its doors last week and laid off 1,100 workers, has been a subject...

After President Barack Obama revealed the suspect status of his support for Israel — and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wowed crowds with a sternly-worded address to a special joint session of Congress — some speculated Jewish American support for Obama would wane. But a new Gallup poll out yesterday shows a large majority still approve of the president. Jewish Americans gave President Barack Obama a 60% job approval rating in June, down from 68% in May, but statistically unchanged from 64% in April. Thirty-two percent of U.S. Jews now disapprove of the job Obama is doing, similar to their...

Democrats love Planned Parenthood so much they were willing to shut down the entire U.S. government over planned cuts to the organization. If given a choice, they would rather give taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood than pay the men and women who serve America's military. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid drew a line in the sand Friday morning while speaking from the floor of the United States Senate: “I’m not going to be part of that. I won’t do it,” he said about efforts to cut Planned Parenthood funding on the part of House Republicans. Nancy Pelosi claimed the GOP...

As Americans, we’re often taught that trusts and monopolies are the product of big business and are bad. However, if trusts and monopolies are bad when Big Business engages in monopolistic ways, why isn’t it bad when Big Labor engages in the same sort of behaviors that are condemned when committed by Big Business? For over a week now, the nation has watched tens of thousands march in protest to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan. Democrat lawmakers (aka Fleebaggers) have fled the state in order to avoid doing their duty, while Obama’s OFA has bussed in the astroturf from...

<p>Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion provider in the U.S., has told the FBI that several of its health centers were visited recently by a man purporting to be a sex trafficker but who may instead be part of an attempted ruse.</p>

The Savior, the Master Teacher    By Elder Jay E. JensenOf the Presidency of the SeventyJay E. Jensen, "The Savior, the Master Teacher", Ensign, Jan. 2011, 42–47   We are to feast upon the words of Christ—the scriptures—and, as He did, use them to teach and strengthen others.  Under the direction of His Father, Jesus Christ created worlds without number. He was the great Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. He was born of a mortal mother, Mary, and of God the Eternal Father. He was the greatest being to live on earth. He said He came “to do the will of him...

Gov. Deval Patrick said yesterday that he still hasn’t watched the parole hearing of felon turned cop killer Dominic Cinelli or reviewed the con’s lengthy criminal record even as House Speaker Robert DeLeo joined the outcry over Cinelli’s controversial release. “No, no,” said Patrick when asked if he’d examined the video of the six-member parole board interviewing Cinelli, who was serving three concurrent life sentences. The then six-member board — chaired by the governor’s former campaign driver Mark Conrad — included two other Patrick appointees who voted unanimously to spring Cinelli shortly after the 2008 hearing. The career criminal allegedly...

On Feb. 11, 2006, in Iraq, I was honored to meet a model Marine by the name of Cpl. David Stidman. He did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Commendably, he also left his post to come home and care for his ailing father, Dwayne Stidman, who tragically was hit and critically wounded by a drunken driver last May.Three months later, on Aug. 2, 2010, Cpl. Stidman was killed. Not on the battlefields of the Middle East, but on his home streets of Texas while still caring for his father and family. And not by a drive-by shooter,...

TLC and why Palin will never be president -- part 2 Last week I wrote a piece pegged to tonight's TLC pairing of Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin on Palin's "Alaska" reality TV series. The core of my commentary was that Palin will never be president because she has sold herself too cheap to low-rent reality-TV venues like TLC, and now she is being perceived as another one of the channel's freak moms like Kate Gosselin or the women on the series "I Didn't Know I was Pregant." As the title so coyly suggests, that shows features women who gave...

Britain feared that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could “cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss”, unless the Lockerbie bomber was released, leaked WikiLeaks cables show. Sir Vincent Fean, the UK's ambassador to Tripoli at the time, also warned that continuing to hold Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi in a prison in Scotland could have “disastrous implications for British interests in Libya”. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was jailed in 2001 for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives in 1988. He was freed on compassionate grounds in August 2009. The warnings were contained in secret communiqués sent from US embassy staff...

California Democratic Rep. Barbara Boxer said Monday that Democrats will need to “play defense” against efforts by Republicans to question climate science in the next Congress. “We will have to play some defense. I’m not blind to that,” Boxer, the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters at a Capitol news conference. “There are going to be a lot of moves to turn back the progress we’ve made.” Boxer’s comments come as some Republicans, particularly those emboldened by a new GOP majority in the House, have said they’d like to hold hearings on climate science as...

Climate change is expected to cause sea levels to rise -- at least in some parts of the world. Elsewhere, the level of the ocean will actually fall. Scientists are trying to get a better picture of the complex phenomenon, which also depends on a host of natural factors. When presented as a globe, the Earth looks as round and smooth as a billiard ball. To anyone standing on a beach, the ocean looks as flat as a pancake. But perception is deceptive. "In reality, the water in the oceans wobbles all over the place," says oceanographer Detlef Stammer. He...

The developers behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque have applied for about $5 million in federal grant money set aside for redeveloping downtown Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new report. The application was submitted as a "community and cultural enhancement" grant, which is a program run by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp. Developer Sharif El-Gamal discussed the grant proposal in recent closed-door meetings, according to The Daily Beast. The revelation that the developers have asked for this grant could reignite outrage about the mosque's proposed location.

Just because the motives of many climate change advocates are questionable, even evil, does that mean the entire global warming proposition is a fraud? It is an article of faith among many conservatives that climate change is sham science. Even worse, it is the nexus of a vast conspiracy involving governments, the UN, and climate scientists that is seeking to destroy the industrial economies of the West, create a one world government, and enrich people like Al Gore who have bet a bundle on a reduced carbon emissions future. They believe that either the earth is not warming at all,...

The first direct link above is to Soros' own web page. Many of you will choose not to click on it and well that's your choice. But some of you should actively look and see for yourself. Open the PDF, scroll down to the year 2008. Electronic Frontier Foundation got 300,000 dollars from Soros. Now scroll down to the year 2007. Another 100,000 dollars. So the total is 400k. And there is more. Let's take a look at who it is that sits on their various boards: http://www.eff.org/about/advisoryboard I am aware of Ethan Zuckerman being a Soros buddy because of...

"The Daily Kos, Twittergate & Obama's Birth Certificate Controversy Posted by Erica The Zapem blog has produced a video, Twittergate - The Democrats Hire A Twitter-Thug, which details how the Democrats hired Neal Rauhauser, a Daily Kos blogger, to paint the tea party movement as racist, homophobic, extremist and every other pejorative you can imagine. Rauhauser owns a company co-founded with Beth Becker called Progressive PST. Zapem says,"The evidence submitted demonstrates the systematic and deliberate provocation towards people in an attempt to elicit unfavorable responses after a series of malicious and vile attacks. The idea was to antagonize, collect and...

Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is also in talks with the Saudis about possible naval and missile-defence upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more over five to 10 years. Plans to go ahead with the package, which has been under secret negotiation since 2007, have been known for...

Presumed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney came out Wednesday against the planned burning of the Quran by a Florida pastor, saying that doing so would endanger American troops. “Burning the Quran is wrong on every level,” the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement to POLITICO. “It puts troops in danger, and it violates a founding principle of our republic.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41895.html#ixzz0yyeKLaDE

OUTRAGE Saturday, 9/4: Senator Orrin Hatch PRAISED a Salt Lake Tribune columnist named Paul Rolly who says Conservatives are "demonizing Muslims" for questioning the Ground-Zero Mosque. Senator Hatch claims he is on the side of defending the Constitution. Instead, he has chosen to demonize sincere Americans questioning the motives and sensitivies of those behind the Ground-Zero Mosque. http://www.facebook.com/OrrinHatch Orrin Hatch should issue a retraction, immediately. He should then issue a statement in support of Utahns and other Americans (and 70% of New Yorkers) who would prefer the mosque be moved and who demand more information about funding of the mosque....

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero, recently has been expanding his business dealings in the Arab and Muslim world, including opening a new "Islamic finance portal." Some critics are questioning whether Bloomberg's unpopular decision to back the controversial mosque project may be colored by his billion-dollar financial software, news and data company's decision to build a hub in the United Arab Emirates and North Africa. The mayor's privately held company, Bloomberg L.P., has been increasing its revenue in the Middle East while its U.S.-based division has...

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) this week became one of the most prominent members of his party to voice his support for the Lower Manhattan mosque. In a local television interview over the weekend, Hatch said developers have the right to build the proposed Park51 Islamic center, which includes a mosque, two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "If the Muslims own that property — that private property and they want to build a Mosque there, they should have the right to do so," said Hatch, who is a Mormon. "The only question is, are they being...

The developers behind the Islamic center planned for a site near Ground Zero won't rule out accepting financing from the Mideast -- including from Saudi Arabia and Iran -- as they begin searching for $100 million needed to build the project. When asked if they would then turn to foreign donors, Sultan replied, "I can't comment on that." Pressed on whether the developers were willilng rule out accepting donations from the governments of Saudi Arabia or Iran, he repeated, "I can't comment on that." Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, the cultural organization behind the mosque is...

Renew Your Mind Daily Today's Scripture "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5, NIV). Today's Word from Joel and Victoria So many people today are not really enjoying their lives because of the condition of their minds. They constantly dwell on negative, destructive, harmful thoughts. They don't realize it, but the root cause of many of their problems is simply the fact that their thought life is out of control. They just dwell on any thought...

New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is currently on record excoriating opponents to the construction of the Islamic Cordoba Center mosque scheduled to begin construction on September 11, 2011 in Lower Manhattan. The proposed mosque’s site is two blocks from the former World Trade Center’s Twin Towers destroyed ten years previously on September 11, 2001 by Islamic jihadists. Bloomberg’s demands of religious tolerance from his city’s citizens is inconsistent in a city with 100 mosques already in operation but with a school system that will not acknowledge Christianity or Christmas, or even allow the repairs necessary for the Greek Orthodox...

Streisand, Spielberg Listed As Hosts, Pelosi Will Also Attend Party At ER Producer's Mansion President Obama will arrive this evening at the stately $11 million Los Angeles mansion of John Wells, the executive producer of "E.R." and "The West Wing," for a star-studded fundraising reception and dinner aimed at bolstering the hopes and campaign accounts of Democrats in

Last night something happened we were deeply hoping for, but never thought — not in a million years — the current “president” would be stupid enough to do. We knew he could never resist supporting the Ground Zero Victory Mosque when asked about it directly, but we assumed reporters would be smart enough to never ask him a question that would open a window for him to let more of his anti-American, West-hating true nature shine through. So, the fact that the current “president”, and leader of the Democrat Party, has come out in favor of building a symbol of...

It was something he certainly didn't have to do. But he did it anyway. President Obama stepped into the fray of the single most divisive issue pertaining to terrorism, healing of hurt, religious disagreement, civil liberties, political fracturing, racism, and national security all in one step.

By charging headlong into the ferocious controversy over the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero, President Barack Obama may have further damaged Democratic Party prospects in the upcoming mid-term elections. For while his return to the soaring rhetoric that won him the White House in the first place will be popular with hard-core liberal supporters, it is unlikely to capture the hearts of middle-America this year. In 2008 Mr Obama was a largely unknown quantity running on the strength of untried ideas and a ringing call for moral superiority. But now all of that has changed. According to...

President Barack Obama, speaking last night at the White House’s iftar dinner marking Ramadan, defended plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero. The nation’s commitment to religious freedom he said, “must be unshakable.” “I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” he said. As WSJ reporters Devlin Barrett and Jonathan Weisman noted, the project “has generated opposition from a host of prominent Republicans, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Resistance to other mosque-building plans has sprouted around the country, but the symbolism...

Mayor Bloomberg's popularity rating has dropped to its lowest level in five years, in part because of his ardent defense of a proposed mosque several blocks from Ground Zero, according to a poll released yesterday. New Yorkers' approval of their third-term mayor (pictured) dipped to 49 percent, down from 56 percent in April, as 53 percent of those surveyed said they disagree with his position on the mosque, according to the Marist survey. "The mosque is not doing him any good . . . He's certainly on the wrong side of public opinion on that in the city," said pollster...

A new poll finds that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s approval rating has dipped below 50 percent for the first time in five years. The Marist College survey was released Tuesday. It found that 49 percent of registered New York City voters think the billionaire mayor is doing either an excellent or good job. The poll said 33 percent rate him as doing a fair job, 16 percent said poor and 2 percent weren’t sure. The last time Marist asked this question, in April, 56 percent of voters rated him excellent or good.

State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab. The planned construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City has set off a contentious national debate over religious freedom in the U.S., drawing impassioned opposition from some families of 9/11 victims. Rauf has emerged as a controversial figure because of his refusal to acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization, which is how the U.S. government classifies the group....

America is surrendering in the war against radical Islam. This is the real meaning behind the decision to build a 13-story mosque and Muslim cultural center 600 feet from the site of ground zero...Most New Yorkers and Americans do not want this mosque erected: It will be a symbolic monument to the triumph of Islamism in the United States... The Sept. 11 attacks were committed by Muslim extremists in the name of holy war against the West. They used the Koran and Islamic principles to justify their actions. Their goal was to bring jihad to America, unleashing a clash of...

In the Ottawa Citizen published on August 7, 2010, two Canadian Muslims write that "Muslims know the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation." Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, both authors in their own right, sit on the board of the Muslim Canadian Congress. They ponder the "reasoning behind building a mosque at the epicenter of the worst-ever attack on the U.S." and wonder "why its proponents don't built a monument to those who died in the attack." Furthermore, it is not as if there are no Islamic centers of worship in New York City. The Islamic...

If only the nation's unemployed would lower themselves to become entrepreneurial waiters like the man who owns the property that may just house the Ground Zero Mosque. From The Right Scoop: Geraldo: Muslim who paid 4.8 Million for Ground Zero Mosque building was waiter in 2002 Apparently this guy saved the 4.8 million for

The “Ground Zero” Mosque project should not go forward and let’s hope that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf that is behind this $100 million project gets this message and backs off. But given what he is hearing from the liberals in New York, including the city’s Mayor, the congressman in whose district Ground Zero sits, and the New York Times, it’s hard to be optimistic that he will change his mind. Opposition to the Mosque is being portrayed, as the New York Times editorial page put it, as abandoning “the principles of freedom and tolerance.” But the Times makes its own...