Free Republic

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put...

Senate Democratic leaders, having negotiated critical last-minute commitments, Friday stood on the verge of achieving the 60 votes they need to begin consideration of the most expansive healthcare legislation to go before the Senate in nearly half a century. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who was among three Democratic holdouts, announced that he would back an all-important procedural vote set for Saturday that will allow the chamber to take up the wide-ranging bill unveiled this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). And Democratic leaders expect Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana to support a cloture...

SNIPPET: "ONTARIO, Calif. -- State lawmakers are holding a hearing today in Ontario to discuss the rise in the number of criminal gangs using networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Officials say the hearing entitled "Gangs 2.0: The Emerging Threat of Cyberthugs" will explore the use of social networking tools in gang recruitment and gang-related crime. Assembly majority leader Alberto Torrico, and attorney general candidate, says gang members both in and out of prison are making more use of technology."

Al Gore, who famously claimed to have invented the Internet, now denies –in the face of powerful evidence to the contrary— that he is in a position to make an immense fortune from global warming-mitigation efforts. Ian Wilhelm, a Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter, asked the private equity firm Generation Investment Management LLP (GIM) to respond to my latest post, The Media Ignore Al Gore's Planned Global Warming Profiteering.  In the post, I noted that Gore’s nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend $300 million on an advertising campaign aimed at convincing the American public that they urgently need to...

SNIPPET: "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida's message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings. The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers."

Glenn Beck, the controversial Fox News television host, is planning on becoming more active in the populist conservative movement he spawned, according to sources familiar with his thinking. At a rally Saturday at a massive retirement community in central Florida, Beck is planning to unveil what he has billed as a “big plan” for 2010, which is expected to involve the 9.12 Project, the group he started earlier this year and named for the day after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when he says the nation was unified. “Coming this January, my whole approach changes on this program,” he...

On 20 November 2009, emails and other documents, apparently originating from with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. If real, these emails contain some quite surprising and even disappointing insights into what has been happening within the climate change scientific establishment. Worryingly this same group of scientists are very influential in terms of economic and social policy formation around the subject of climate change.As these emails are already in the public domain, I think it is important that people are able to look through them and judge for themselves. Until I am told otherwise I...

A healthcare policy expert says there are details in the Senate healthcare bill that will frighten everyone. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has unveiled his more than 2,000-page healthcare bill with an estimated price tag of $849 billion. However, as Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute points out, one of the reasons the bill was scored under President Obama's $900 billion cost goal is because no one gets any benefit from the program until 2014. "So they start collecting taxes and fees now, and...the first ten years of full implementation of this bill is $2.5 trillion, and that's...

A GOP congressional report accuses the White House of doing favors for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and prominent ally of President Barack Obama. The report was spearheaded by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The investigation also found evidence that D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee handled “damage control” after allegations surfaced of sexual misconduct against Johnson, her now-fiance. The probe was launched after an AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, was abruptly fired in...

David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric Co., said federal governmental policies are hurting U.S. manufacturing. He cited cap and trade, health care reform and labor rules as undermining the industry and its ability to expand and grow jobs domestically. He said that his company will continue to focus on growth overseas. Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in...

ACORN and its affiliates received $200,000 in Justice Department grants between 2002 and 2009, according a report issued today by the department's Inspector General. No DOJ grants went directly to ACORN, but a handful of grants were awarded either to ACORN affiliates or to other organizations that sub-contracted with ACORN. The report, requested by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), also found a few instances of ACORN mismanagement of federally contracted work. For example, ACORN received a $20,000 sub-contract to do community outreach on crime prevention in New York. The organization that contracted with ACORN has not...

When Mac Taylor, the Legislature's chief budget adviser, declared this week that the state budget enacted just four months ago is already billions of dollars upside down, no one in the Capitol should have been surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a hand calculator could figure out that many assumptions on which the budget was based, both spending and revenues, were unrealistic, some of them conjured out of thin air to "balance" an inherently unbalanced budget for political reasons. Taylor told legislators that the current budget is $6.3 billion out of balance and the 2010-11 budget has another $14.4...

Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool. "People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference. "I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do...

Schumer, "Rough estimate from the city of New York, which I received yesterday, place the added cost of moving the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other terrorist suspects to New York somewhere in the ballpark of $75 million, that's a minimum." When questioned about security Schumer's response was that the estimate could be another $25M. And these are just the first four.

Senate confirms Obama judge pick WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed U.S. District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana yesterday for the Chicago-based U.S. Appeals Court for the Seventh Circuit, approving a nominee targeted by conservatives as a liberal activist.

A congressional investigation of the volunteer organization AmeriCorps contains charges that D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee handled "damage control" after allegations of sexual misconduct against her now fiance, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and a prominent ally of President Obama, The Washington Examiner has learned. The charges are contained in a report prepared by Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The investigation began after the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received reports that Johnson had misused some...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai is an "unworthy partner" who does not deserve a big boost either in U.S. troops or civilian aid, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Pelosi, a skeptic on sending more troops to Afghanistan, also said in an interview with National Public Radio aired on Friday that there was not strong support among her fellow Democrats in Congress for "any big ramp-up of troops" to oppose resurgent Taliban forces. She told NPR she had asked fellow Democrats to give President Barack Obama room to decide his Afghan strategy, which is expected to...

Unit­ed States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a rad­i­cal cler­ic con­sid­ered by au­thor­i­ties to be an al-​Qaeda re­cruiter, "I can't wait to join you" in the af­ter­life, ac­cord­ing to an Amer­i­can of­fi­ci­al with top se­cret ac­cess to 18 e-​mails ex­changed between Hasan and the cler­ic, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month peri­od between Dec. 2008 and June 2009. "It sounds like code words," said Lt. Col. Tony Shaf­fer, a mil­i­tary ana­lyst at the Cen­ter for Ad­vanced De­fense Stud­ies. "That he's ac­tual­ly ei­ther of­fer­ing him­self up or that he's al­ready crossed that line in his own mind." CLICK HERE FOR...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Before the Senate Judiciary Committee November 18th, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed a stunningly broad and aggressive anti-gun agenda. "The President of the United States asked that politicians not use the Ft. Hood attack to engage in 'political theater.' It appears those committed to attacking gun owners and the Second Amendment simply can't help themselves and are engaged in blaming guns and gun owners on the heels of this terrorist attack. Sadly it looks like 'politics as usual,'" said LEAA's spokesperson, Ted Deeds. After explaining and defending his decision to give enemy combatants constitutional...

With less than a year until Election Day, the stakes for this country could not be higher. Nancy Pelosi and her puppets have put our country on a path for bankruptcy and rationed healthcare.   With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to tell you about an exciting project - Reverse the Vote. This site is a tool that allows concerned Americans to directly support the challengers of 24 vulnerable Democrats who voted to take your healthcare away and put it in the hands of federal bureaucrats.This project will hold these 24 Democrats’ feet to the fire for voting...

Temperatures haven't risen this decade, as climatologists expected. Is it sunspots? Ocean currents? Secret volcano? At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average. Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth's average temperatures have stopping climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year. Ironically, climate change appears to have...

Friend -- Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn. It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists. Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform. As we approach the final sprint on health reform, we can't afford more deception and delay. We need...

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

Remember it for your grandchildren: Saturday, November 21, 2009—the day of the Transformation of America. That’s the day Global Marxism will begin its inexorable march to take down the Free World, starting with its leader the United States of America. There will be no shots fired, but the aim of the U.S. Senate’s poison arrow is right on target at the heart of humanity. While America’s Marxist President is abroad, Senate Majority House Leader Harry Reid is tying the red ribbon bow on his Christmas present, the Transformation, and Take Down of the United States of America. “Senate Majority...

by JASON WHITELY / WFAA-TV Posted on November 20, 2009 at 12:56 AM WYLIE - A canister of pepper spray is now at the center of a Wylie dispute after a North Texas man found out what most people don't know, anyone who carries it can face a felony. Jason Simpkins admitted he looked suspicious when a Wylie officer stopped him while he was driving his truck with a jet ski inside his lawn mowing trailer. It happened early on the morning of August 22. "I didn't have a problem with it at first," Simpkins said. "I gave him my...

Purdue Police arrested a Purdue student Thursday in connection with a suspicious package left in the University Visitor Information Center earlier that morning. According to a press release, around 7:50 a.m. Thursday, three college-aged men left a suspicious box in a hallway at the center, located at 504 Northwestern Ave. Police evacuated the building and used a portable X-ray machine to examine the box’s contents. Inside of the box there was a wheel lock, a Purdue parking ticket and $20. Police re-opened the center at 9 a.m. “Everything is fine,” said University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg. “They evacuated the building, X-rayed...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama predicted that professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be convicted and executed as Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed: "Failure is not an option." Even if a terror trial suspect were acquitted, Holder said, he would not be released in the United States. In one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty...

The most prominent defenders of the University of North Dakota's right to call its teams the Fighting Sioux are neither alumni nor hockey fans. They're Sioux. A group of Spirit Lake Sioux won a temporary restraining order last week to stop the North Dakota University System from retiring the nickname and logo, one of the last in the country associated with an American Indian tribe. A hearing for a preliminary injunction is slated for Dec. 9 in Ramsey County District Court in Devils Lake, N.D. Most such university team names have been abandoned in the face of criticism that they...

The federal government has no right to regulate guns made, sold and used within Utah, state lawmakers at a committee hearing decided Wednesday. The Legislature's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee advanced a bill that its sponsor, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, calls the "Firearms Freedom Act." If upheld in federal courts -- a big if, considering past rulings on states' rights -- Utahns purchasing Utah-made guns would not face federal requirements such as background checks. "I love the idea of the firearms," said Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, "and I love to swipe at the federal government on this...

Growing discontent over the economy and frustration with efforts to speed its recovery boiled over Thursday on Capitol Hill in a wave of criticism and outright anger directed at the Obama administration. Episodes in both houses of Congress exposed the raw nerves of lawmakers flooded with stories of unemployment and economic hardship back home. They also underscored the stiff headwinds that the administration faces as it pushes to enact sweeping changes to the financial regulatory system while also trying to create jobs for ordinary Americans. President Obama's allies in the Congressional Black Caucus, exasperated by the administration's handling of the...

Want to know how does the left really feels about free speech? Look no further than Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington. Huffington appeared on MSNBC's Nov. 19 "Countdown" to discuss a report by the Anti-Defamation League that alleges Fox News host Glenn Beck is "the most important mainstream media figure who has repeatedly helped to stoke fires of anti-government anger" and therefore endangering society. "It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke, as fodder for this show and the "Daily Show" and others that point out how stupid some of this stuff is,"...

Velocity Of U.S. Money Supply Is Finally Edging Up Prieur du Plessis November 20, 2009 Despite ballooning Fed reserves to bail out banks, money supply as measured by the growth in money supply with a zero maturity (notes and coins, check accounts, savings deposits and money-market accounts collectively) continues to slow. The slowing growth is contra to what normally happens when the Fed lowers the Federal funds rate. In real terms, the growth rate is also slowing.[snip]

A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church. A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow. Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result...

RALEIGH — The Army now says it will allow media limited access to Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg. Army officials had said they would prohibit coverage of Palin's on-post event, saying it would turn into political grandstanding against President Obama. The Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer objected, and the military changed its position slightly Thursday night. It will grant a pool of reporters restricted access to Monday's appearance. Fort Bragg spokesman Col. Billy Buckner said members of the media will not be allowed to interview the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and will be barred from talking to...

After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become so rife with internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money that some supporters fear it will disintegrate before realizing its full potential. The grass-roots activists powering the movement have become increasingly divided on core questions such as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align itself with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the...

Thrilled with twin victories this month, Republican governors are looking to lead a party-wide resurgence in 2010 and shape the GOP for years to come. Republicans boast of a strong crop of gubernatorial candidates who could be future party leaders, $25 million in the bank a year before the elections and a difficult environment for Democrats, particularly in financially ailing swing-voting states like Ohio and Iowa. "Next year's going to be a good year for Republican governors," predicted Haley Barbour, Mississippi's governor and chairman of the Republican Governors Association. "In states where there are Republican governors, people can see if...

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

The mayor of North Pole, Alaska is calling a recent postal service decision an assault on Christmas. For years, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered thousands of letters to Santa Claus in North Pole, Alaska. Now, in the interest of efficiency and security, the post office has changed its policy. It will no longer deliver letters to Santa here, and requests for a North Pole postmark will be filled through its Anchorage office. The decision has angered many residents, most notably the owner of the area’s primary attraction, the Santa Claus house.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14 (see trends). Today’s results match the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President and it’s the third straight day at -14. Prior to these three days, Obama’s ratings had fallen to -14 on only one day since taking office.

U.S. immigration officials put an unprecedented 1,000 businesses — including 42 in the Houston metro area — on notice Thursday that their paperwork would be inspected to make sure they don't employ illegal immigrants. The announcement marks the largest round of immigration-related business audits ever, and the latest in an ongoing Department of Home­land Security campaign to create a “culture of compliance” with immigration law among employers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton said Thursday. The audits will target businesses ICE has identified as being associated with the nation's “critical infrastructure,” which includes some industries key to...

WASHINGTON — The government is to review an air defense system established after the September 11, 2001 attacks to determine whether the costly program is still necessary, the New York Times reported Friday. The review is expected to include a complete reassessment of the threat of a terror attack by air and will consider the cumulative effects of various security measures taken since the 2001 attacks. The review was ordered by Major General Pierre Forgues, the Canadian who currently heads the North American Aerospace Defense Command, commonly known as Norad. "The fighter force is extremely expensive, so you always have...

Thanks to your quick action in contacting Congress, the House Financial Services Committee earlier today rejected Representative Mel Watt's attempt to hijack Audit the Fed by voting 43-26 to pass Ron Paul's amendment to the financial regulatory reform bill. Dr. Paul called me right after the vote to personally express his thanks to C4L members for all of your efforts! It is an incredible testament to the growing power of the liberty movement that we were able to get such an audit passed by a major House committee, but this is by no means the end of our fight. Financial...

An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today: We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people.

While the Senate is now preparing to debate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's 2000-plus-page version of the health care reform plan, 47% of Americans still believe the private sector rather than the federal government has the best chance of keeping health care costs down and the quality of medical care up. But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 33% of adults think the federal government would do a better job of reducing costs and maintaining quality of care. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided. Forty-nine percent (49%) of adults who already have insurance say the private sector would accomplish...

... In its efforts to prop up a shattered housing market, the government is greatly extending its traditional support of real estate, including guaranteeing the mortgages of middle-class and even upper-class buyers against default. In 2007, the government did not insure a single mortgage in [San Francisco], one of the most expensive in the country. Buyers here, as well as in Manhattan, Santa Monica and every other wealthy area, were presumed to be able to handle the steep prices and correspondingly hefty down payments on their own. Now the government is guaranteeing an average of six mortgages a week here....

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples. “We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says. The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an...

MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a Spanish warship looked on, a $3.3 million ransom was delivered by boat Tuesday and Somali pirates freed a Spanish trawler and its 36 crew members. Spain's prime minister did little to deny paying off the hijackers — one reason the lucrative attacks are on the rise. "The government did what it had to do," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference in Madrid. "The important thing is that the sailors will be back with us. The first obligation of a country, of the government of a state, is to save the lives...

A muslim who threatened to kill his wife and cut out her tongue after she blocked an arranged marriage for their daughter has been banned from seeing his family. In the first prosecution of its kind, Aurang Zeb has been convicted of breaching a Forced Marriage Protection Order taken out to stop him taking Rozina Akhtar out of Britain to marry. But despite his chilling threats he escaped imprisonment and was given community service. Last night campaigners condemned the sentence, saying it sent out the wrong message. 'There's clear evidence that this man threatened to kill his wife, so how...

Original article from Thursday (19), links to the Japanese "Sankei Shimbun" website. FReepranslation is provided as a summary; the original Japanese version directly by the author governs and takes precedence over the unofficial English.Troubling developments.