Free Republic

From a speech given in Warren, OH in 1890, introducing another political candidate. IN 1 view of the known character of the speaker who is to address you to-day, and his long public career, and association with the leading statesmen of this country for the past twenty years, it would not be becoming in me to detain you with many remarks of my own. But it may be proper for me to account to you on the first occasion of my presiding at political meetings for the faith that is in me. 1 I am a Republican, as the two...

General Ulysses S. Grant was denounced by rivals as a man who drank far too much. Many called him a drunk. They insinuated he really shouldn't be in command. In response to that, one source says: With Halleck out of the way, Grant gained command of the Union Army in the West. Grant had valuable support from several members of Congress and, more importantly, from President Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was urged to fire US Grant due to charges of Grant’s drunkeness, careless and bold style or typically large casualty figures, Lincoln said of Grant, “I can’t spare this man....

Over the last couple of days, several well-regarded Republican pundits have taken it upon themselves to educate Republican primary voters about the many shortcomings of Newt Gingrich. As I read them, I was reminded of Abraham Lincoln's reaction to the series of military and political experts who warned him that Ulysses S. Grant was an overly ambitious, incompetent drunk. When these experts demanded Grant's removal after the then-unprecedented casualties at Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Lincoln acknowledge Grant's shortcomings but responded, "I can't spare this man; he fights." Many of Grant's critics were enamored of George B. McClellan, a...

On November 6, 1861, Brig. Gen. U.S. Grant left Cairo, Illinois, by steamers, in conjunction with two gunboats, to make a demonstration against Columbus, Kentucky. The next morning, Grant learned that Confederate troops had crossed the Mississippi River from Columbus to Belmont, Missouri, to intercept two detachments sent in pursuit of Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson and, possibly, to reinforce Maj. Gen. Sterling Price’s force. He landed on the Missouri shore, out of the range of Confederate artillery at Columbus, and started marching the mile to Belmont. At 9:00 in the morning, an engagement began. The Federals routed the Confederates...

An organization affiliated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) received a new cash infusion from U.S. taxpayers in early September, amounting to $350,000. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) $350,000 in early September. This newly discovered funding is in addition to the $300,000 AHCOA secured in August, as The Daily Caller reported last week. The new grant was part of a $10 million HUD funding package announced on September 2. Unlike the $300,000 from early August, HUD specifically awarded this $350,000 to AHCOA Pennsylvania, a local...

After Barack Obama became the first African-American President, an admirer decided to sculpt a statue in his honor.  When he completed the project, the artist donated it to the city of Chicago. The 50 city aldermen eagerly began looking for a proper site for the work of art. After almost a year of considering different places around Chicago, the 50 aldermen could not agree upon an appropriate venue. Eventually, the Mayor suggested that they send the statue to Washington D.C., and with a unanimous vote the city council agreed. When the statue arrived in the capitol, the U.S. Senate,...

American Minute, with Bill FedererApril 9The Civil War began on Wilmer McLean's farm in Manassas Junction, Virginia, with the First Battle of Bull Run. A Union shell exploded in his kitchen. Wilmer McLean moved to get away from the conflict, yet almost four years later his new home, near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, was the agreed location for General Robert E. Lee to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on APRIL 9, 1865. Ken Burn's documentary film of the Civil War stated that the war began in Wilmer McLean's front yard and ended in his front parlor. The Civil War...

Whether you are for or against the building of an Islamic Mosque at the site described as ground zero, there is no way that you can support the government, your government reported plan to pay seed money for any religious construction under any condition. That would violate your sense of separation of church and state. Yet your government has been building Mosques all around the world with your money for sometime (see previous post) The latest violation of the separation of church that your government is involved in is it is about to secretly fund 5 million dollars for the...

To get some idea of the scope of the shellacking delivered to the Democrats in the 2010 midterms, it is worth noting that the new 112th Congress which convenes in January will be unprecedented in the lifetimes of most who are reading this now. No. It is not the first time the GOP has held the Majority. But it is the first time that the Democrats have failed to field a House caucus of over 200 members. Their 63 seat drubbing will leave them with 193, the first time they have fallen below the 200 member threshold since 1946. However,...

The list is lengthy. From the highly sensual Ursula Andress as Honey Rider to the electric Halle Berry as Jinx, every James Bond film is known as much for one gorgeous female character as it is for its high tech action and suave sophistication. But when it comes to the most recent selection, the casting folks hope they have broken the vault with Caterina Murino. The exotic beauty plays Solange in the latest Bond endeavor, Casino Royale, the first of Ian Fleming's wondrous Bond books. Somehow, the beautiful Murino managed only a fourth place finish in the 1996 Miss Italy...

One in 10 Americans are out of work, and this how the National Science Foundation is spending your money: The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to the Civilians, a New York theater company, to finance the production of a show about climate change. “The Great Immensity,” with a book by Steven Cosson (“This Beautiful City”) and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”), tells the story of Polly, a photojournalist who disappears while working in the rain forests of Panama. The grant is a rare gift to an arts organization from the foundation

While this doesn’t rate on a scale of White House problems, it is nonetheless remarkable how rudely and inaccurately WhiteHouse.gov treats the 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant. Here is the assessment: When he was elected, the American people hoped for an end to turmoil. Grant provided neither vigor nor reform. Looking to Congress for direction, he seemed bewildered.

The University of Minnesota has received a $7 million federal grant to create a childhood obesity center with the goal of transforming the exercise and eating habits of as many as 530 Minnesota families. Researchers will use the grant, announced Thursday, to connect families with health advocates in medical clinics, enroll them in classes about healthy foods and active lifestyles, and improve their access to healthful foods and recreation opportunities.

I just received a robo call "service call" from Obama admin to help me apply for a grant...non refundable grant for my small business. Never asked for anything. Press 1 to talk to an expert. Why would they do that??? Why are they in such a hurry to spend..er...my money? A robocall to push people to apply for a grant?

Racism is what people use to describe white people not liking people of "color". What do we call people of color that riot, destroy their own neighborhoods and shout for the death of white people? There is no word. Why? No one wants to say that ALL people are of color. White is a color. People of color shouting hate towards white people are just as racist as white people doing the same to people of color.

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government has spent $550,496 on a project that involved conducting “focus groups and in-depth interviews” with American long-haul truck drivers to learn about their sex lives in order to assess their risk of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. The project has failed to find any instances of HIV among the truck drivers studied. “Several international studies have documented substantial levels of sexual risk behaviors and high rates of STI and HIV amongst long-distance truck drivers living in diverse settings including India, Bangladesh, South Africa and Thailand,” says the abstract for the grant published by...

SAN DIEGO—The son of a Hamas founder who became a Christian and an Israeli spy will be granted U.S. asylum after he passes a routine background check, an immigration judge ruled Wednesday. Mosab Hassan Yousef got the news during a 15-minute deportation hearing after a U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorney said the government was dropping its objections. The agency denied Yousef's asylum request in February 2009, arguing that he had been involved in terrorism and was a threat to the United States.

Huntington Indiana's Mayor Steve Updike, may refuse a grant that was issued to place 6 laid off firefighters back on the job. Updike laid off 6 firefighters last fall because of a city financial shortfall. The lay offs were part of a city wide layoff that caused the closing of a fire station in the community of 37,000.

ITHACA, NY-Two months after an Africana professor allegedly called two black graduate students “black bitches,” members and allies of the Africana community — undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and alumni alike — have begun to speak out more fervently about the issue. Earlier this year, Prof. Grant Farred, English and Africana studies, invited two of his advisees — both female graduate students who wish to remain anonymous — to attend a Feb. 5 and 6 conference at the University of Rochester entitled “Theorizing Black Studies: Thinking Black Intellectuals.” The two students arrived late to a conference panel, after which Farred...

Happy Wednesday! The Gipper soon may be coming to a wallet near you, if a Republican lawmaker has his way. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Tuesday proposed putting the nation's 40th president on the greenbacks, arguing he deserves the monetary honor.

When I read a News Item about changing which Founder appears on our Currency, I hope the Item will urge DELETING Hamilton from the $10 Bill. Hamilton was our Nation's 1st Progressive! He spent his career striving against the TENTH Amendment. Twas Hamilton, that drove Washington to march against the "Whiskey Rebellion" farmers.

It doesn't buy what it used to, but will this swap-out be granted? Remember when Grover Norquist was on that tear to have one thing in every state named for former President Reagan? So adorable. We thought he mostly gave up but in truth, we quit paying attention when the plan to add Reagan to Mount Rushmore fell through. It's an election year, though, so any and all ways for Republicans to ostentatiously honor the nation's 40th president must now present themselves and be heard. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, wants to boot Ulysses S. Grant from...

Rep. Patrick McHenry's bill to replace Ulysses S. Grant's image with the 40th president's generates controversy. Ronald Reagan is honored by, among other things, an airport, a freeway, an aircraft carrier and -- ironically for a critic of big government -- one of the biggest federal buildings in Washington. Now, some of the late president's admirers are launching a new effort to add another honor: printing his likeness on a $50 bill in place of Ulysses S. Grant's. In polls of presidential scholars, Reagan consistently outranks Grant, said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), who introduced legislation to make the change....

Everyone's been trying to find a historical parallel to President Obama. Most suggest he's the second coming of FDR. Many believe he's Jimmy Carter redux. Some think he's JFK with a shorter haircut. There's one historical parallel that can't be denied, though: Obama is the black Ulysses S. Grant without the beard. I understand that's an insult to Grant, a great war hero and a true hero of civil rights, believe it or not (his reconstruction policies were far more radical than his successors'). But Grant is most remembered for corruption in his presidency. He wasn't totally personally corrupt, although...

A program that caters to the unique needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender senior citizens received nearly half a million dollars in federal funding Tuesday, opening the door for a wide range of initiatives organizers hope will assist thousands of older Chicagoans. The program, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, or SAGE, is part of the Center on Halsted, a gay and lesbian community center in Lakeview, and was profiled by the Tribune last June. Its director, Serena Worthington, said the $475,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services marks only the third time that federal...

The Mann grantTuesday, January 19, 2010 Granting more than half a million federal stimulus dollars to a professor whose Climategate role prompted a Penn State University investigation is politically motivated misuse of public money at its worst. Michael Mann received the three-year, $541,184 grant in June, according to The National Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan educational foundation in Washington. Creator of the discredited "hockey stick" temperature graph that purportedly buttressed the case for man-made global warming, he's a key figure in the leaked Climategate e-mails that show data were manipulated and destroyed and contrary research was suppressed to...

The original song done by Amy Grant and with scenes from the movie, " The Nativity".

Earlier this month and despite the public scrutiny over the voter fraud and felony criminal activity associated with ACORN, the Department of Homeland Security went ahead and granted $997,402 to ACORN under the FY 2008 Fire Prevention and Safety Program. To most people, the timing and the amount of the grant would seem off base, but when you take into account the fact that DHS awarded ACORN–an organization with no clear expertise in fire safety and prevention–a fire prevention and safety grant, it’s just plain offensive.

Many immigrants are drawn to the Midwest for the same reasons that anyone moves to the heartland: job opportunities, the strong educational system and the high quality of life. However, new immigrant workers are too often vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation or unsafe working conditions, according to Amy Weismann, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights deputy director. The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a grant of $50,000 to the UI Center for Human Rights, the UI Labor Center and Nebraska Appleseed for Law in the Public Interest to extend significant outreach activities to immigrant workforces in Iowa and Nebraska....

It's a lesson he should have learned from Plaxico Burress -- but this was worse. A 15-year-old Brooklyn boy shot himself in the penis Sunday after fumbling with a gun that had slid from his waistband, authorities said yesterday. Khamir Grant was then arrested for reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon -- the same charges levied against Burress, who shot himself at a Manhattan nightclub in 2008, law-enforcement sources said.

Changes in student loans could mean savings for youJEAN CHATZKY TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Published: July 9, 2009 **SNIP** Graduates in the Class of 2009 have an even better deal, says Edie Irons, communications director of the Project on Student Debt. "If you consolidate during your grace period, which is the six months after you graduate, you can lock in a rate of 1.88 percent." New borrowers of subsidized (need-based) Stafford loans are also going to see lower rates. Because of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, the interest rate on these loans for 2009-2010 is going to be...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will grant President Barack Obama permission next week to ship U.S. weapons supplies across its territory, or through its airspace, en route to Afghanistan, sources on both sides told Reuters on Saturday. The transit deal will open up an important corridor for the United States as it steps up its Afghan war against Taliban insurgents by sending in more troops. Routes via Pakistan have come under attack by militants. It will be one of the main agreements signed during Obama's Moscow summit next week with Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev, the sources said. "The agreement will include...

A team of flyers risks their lives to deliver the mail in a mountainous South American country.

Hollywood star Hugh Grant has run into trouble with paparazzi yet again. According to a video posted on the celeb website TMZ.com, the 48-year-old star is seen kicking a photographer below the waist, in the groin. Grant was leaving a hotspot in New York when he was followed by a group of paparazzi. When they followed him in spite of his warnings, Grant kicked a photographer. This is not the first time for Grant. A few years ago he was also accused of throwing baked beans at a London photographer.

Roman Catholic, Anti-Communist Republican classic movie director Leo McCarey's "Once Upon A Honeymoon"(1942) with Republican movie superstars Ginger Rogers & Cary Grant. is airing on TCM on Monday morning. From its title, stars & director one might think it's a light romantic comedy like Grant's "The Awful Truth" and Miss Rogers' "It Had to Be You." And while it's partly in that genre, it's also a WII spy adveture. It's loads of fun to watch if you're a fan of Ginger, Cary, Walter Slezak(as Ginger's villainous Nazi husband), McCarey or 1940s WWII propaganda films. It also provides evidence that there...

THROW AWAY THE SCABBARD What if Stonewall Jackson had survived Chancellorsville? In this alternate history, Jackson survives Chancellorsville. With Jackson leading his Second Corps in an invasion of the North, the war shifts from the Virginia wilderness to the Pennsylvania countryside. After the Army of Northern Virginia wins a stunning victory on the banks of the Susquehanna, General Ulysses S. Grant comes east to drive the Confederates from northern soil. But when Grant fails to dislodge Lee's army, President Abraham Lincoln risks all in a desperate attempt to win the war and restore the Union. Throw Away the Scabbard is...

The trouble with many of the past ratings of America's presidents is that the "consensus" has been arrived at by academics who act alike, do alike, and think alike. In the view of many, they are suspect of viewing history exclusively through the prism of Ivy League faculty lounge discourse. Alvin Stephen Felzenberg (Ph.D.) — who has taken a fresh and comprehensive look at the nation's chief executives in his book The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game — does not challenge the credentials of the conventional historians. Rather, as he explains in...

To justify their arrest warrant for BART Officer Johannes Mehserle, Oakland police claimed that Oscar Grant's hands were "restrained" behind his back when Mehserle shot him. Alameda District Attorney was only slightly more circumspect, asserting in his indictment that: After careful analysis of the video, it is clear that both of Grant's hands were behind his back, a position hands are commonly placed in by police officers in order to handcuff individuals, when the shot was fired into his body. On the contrary, however, frame by frame analysis of the shooting video proves that Grant's hands were NOT in a...

I apologize for the vanity, but I just had to ask if anyone else had seen all the ads on facebook and around the internet trying to get people to pay $3 (shipping and handling) to get 'free' information about how to get $12,000 (and more!) from Obama through a grant, "just for being married" within 30 days. I realize this is a scam, but has anyone paid the money out of curiousity and can you share with the rest of us what the scam is?

By his own admission, Bernard Madoff has catapulted himself into the major leagues of Wall Street fraud. That is no small accomplishment, given some of the more famous frauds of the past. But a $50 billion Ponzi scheme is no small thing. To be sure, the number of still unanswered questions is huge. How could a Ponzi scheme last as long as this one and reach so fantastic a sum? Why didn't he take the money and decamp to some extradition-free country instead of admitting the fraud and waiting for the cops to show up? And, of course, how could...

Adding the finishing touches to Grant ParkJames Janega | Tribune reporter November 2, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama returns home Tuesday for an Election Night rally in Grant Park that has sparked huge civic interest and many questions about how the event will work. **SNIP** Q. How many people will show up? A. Daley estimated 1 million, a number he said was a guess. The campaign's permit said there would be 65,000 ticketed guests and 7,500 "participants" at the official fenced area. But interest is high and the weather is expected to be excellent, so expect quite a throng...

City Crews To Take Work Home For Obama RallyOct 26, 2008 7:35 am US/Central CHICAGO (STNG); Off-duty Chicago firefighters and paramedics have been ordered to take all of their gear home with them to speed deployment in the event of an emergency at Barack Obama's giant election night rally in Grant Park. The order begins next Wednesday and continues until Nov. 6 -- two days after the election. Firefighters have been ordered to take home gear that includes protective clothing known as bunker gear, gloves, face mask, helmet, boots and breathing apparatus tank. **SNIP** "This way, their gear would be...

Obama-Ayers link involved Annenberg grantBy Rita Giordano Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Sat, Oct. 18, 2008 The Chicago education project that has linked the names of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and William Ayers, a former 1960s and 1970s radical turned college professor and education activist, was part of a $500 million initiative by Philadelphia publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to aid schools around the country. The half-billion-dollar "gift," as it was described by President Bill Clinton at a 1993 White House ceremony, would go on to provide 2-to-1 matching-fund grants to 18 school districts around the nation. **SNIP** The...

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent. The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for...

Grand Old Partisan salutes Ulysses Grant, the second Republican to serve as President of the United States. He was born in Point Pleasant, OH on April 27, 1822. Sometimes overlooked are President Grant's exemplary efforts to protect African-Americans from their Democrat oppressors.In 1870 and 1871, President Grant signed into law three laws known as the Enforcement Acts, one of which banned the Ku Klux Klan and other Democrat terrorist organizations. Grant then...[see http://grandpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/ulysses-grant-r.html]Each day, Grand Old Partisan celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – A grant of just $163 dollars from a group that supports military families turned out to be a really big deal -- not only for the recipients, but for the granting organization, as well. The grant put “Our Military Kids,” a group that supports families of deployed or wounded National Guard and reserve members, over the $1 million mark in grants given, said Gail Kruzel, one of the organization’s founders. This particular grant means that two young sons of Missouri Army National Guard Maj. Matt Bacon, who currently is serving his second tour in...

Soybean growers hold up University of Minnesota funds to protest biofuels paper Trade council unhappy with biofuels paper By Leslie Brooks Suzukamo lsuzukamo@pioneerpress.com Article Last Updated: 02/28/2008 09:41:51 PM CST Call it a soybean spat. The University of Minnesota isn't going to receive any research funding from the state's soybean growers council until the two parties have a heart-to-heart talk next week. The Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council voted to temporarily suspend its financial support after a study co-authored by U researchers in the journal Science said increased use of biofuel crops like corn and soybeans could worsen global...

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. -- A verdict of second-degree murder has been reported in the trial of Stephen Grant, accused of killing and dismembering his wife, Tara. Stay with ClickOnDetroit.com and Local 4 for more on this developing story. Grant will be back in court for sentencing on Feb. 21 2008. Watch Live As Stephen Grant Verdict is Announced Court officials have not released the name of the detained reporter at this time. Judge Druzinski said she will decide whether to press charges on the reporter at a later time. Earlier in the day, the jury asked the judge to provide...

I have to say at the outset that I am not impressed when someone quotes a long dead sage to “prove” a point. Appeals to authority are one of the weakest of the logical fallacies. However, sometimes the things you read about events long ago and men long dead strike a responsive cord and remind you that there are very few new things under the sun. I am re-reading Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs. Yes, THAT Grant: Ulysses S. Grant of Civil War fame. He was the Civil War General who finally commanded all of the Union armies and defeated the...