Free Republic

October 28, 2008 Friends, Please consider this before you vote. Why would a “hate whitey, hate America” preacher, (Jeremiah Wright) an unrepentant terrorist and communist who says capitalist America makes him want to “puke”, (Bill Ayers) and a PLO operative who wants to destroy Israel ( Rashid Khalidi) all be pushing Barack Obama as the answer to their dream? Because they believe Obama will make their dreams come true. For 20 years in Chicago, Wright and Ayers played a major role in shaping Obama’s political career. Obama stayed under their fold all that time and steeped himself in a steady...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Tuesday that the United States has a responsibility to help "those less fortunate around the world." President Bush said Tuesday that aid programs must get results, not just make Americans feel good. "We believe the power to save lives comes with the obligation to use it," he said at the White House Summit on International Development. "And I believe our nation is better when we help people fight hunger and disease and illiteracy." He insisted that aid programs not be designed simply to make Americans feel good but to have practical results. "The interesting...

My syndicated column today tackles the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle. You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration. They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars. Screw...

Just curious. What is everyone going to do with your new wealth you will be getting within the next couple of days?

A Gannett New Jersey study finds the number of government employees with two or more public jobs that paid more than $100,000 together swelled by 20 percent last year. Those multiple job holders had a collective salary of $107.8 million. My colleague James W. Prado Roberts reports there were 6,271 multiple job holders including one woman who had 12 jobs. Sen. Stephen Sweeney asks "Is it really right for part-time workers to be in the pension system?" Does the question really have to be asked? To take a look at the double-dippers click here.... http://php.app.com/NJpublicemployees/results2.php

The fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Republicans blocked a bid by Democrats to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and businesses to the House-passed economic aid package. GOP senators banded together Wednesday to thwart the $205 billion plan, leaving Democrats with a difficult choice either to quickly accept a House bill they have said is inadequate or risk being blamed for delaying a measure designed as a swift shot in the arm for the lagging economy. The tally was 58-41 to end debate...

chicagotribune.com Commentary Handout is just that no matter its name Dennis Byrne February 3, 2008 Like the Boy Scout who insists on helping an old lady cross the street when she wants to stay put, everyone seems determined to help out seniors, whether we need to do so or whether everyone can afford it. The list of all the entitlements, benefits and freebies larded onto the elderly is way too long to publish here, other than to mention they include, according to AARP, deals on travel, financial services, entertainment, computers, gifts and insurance. As if that weren't enough, Gov. Rod...

January 30, 2008 Lou Dobbs alert: Illegal immigrants may get rebates In their bipartisan zeal to quickly cut a deal on an economic stimulus bill, GOP lawmakers overlooked something that will certainly inflame the conservative base _ illegal immigrants could receive a tax rebate check from the government.

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has launched the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program (Coupon Program), as authorized in the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. Starting January 1, 2008, all U.S. households will be eligible to request up to two coupons, worth $40 each, to be used toward the purchase of up to two, digital-to-analog converter boxes. For more details on the federal regulations, including the budget information, please the DTV Converter Box Coupon Program Rules. For a quick overview, see the Associated Press (AP) video about the digital TV converter boxes...

I watched the Democrat debate yesterday evening, not so much to learn something new, but because I have the innate curse of enjoying political speeches, even if those speeches grind against the very pit of my soul in both substance and concept. The majority of the debate uncovered no real surprises, but one particular answer to a question about drug testing sticks in my mind. The answer that Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd gave to a question about drug testing welfare recipients strikes hard at the very nature of the rampant disability and aggressive disease that infects the modern Democrat party,...

HOUSTON (AP) - In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, Katrina evacuee Samuel Smith sits on a donated futon and watches a borrowed television in a subsidized apartment the Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided for six months. The unemployed truck driver just started looking for work.That would infuriate U.S. Rep. John Culberson, a Houston Republican who wants what he calls "deadbeat" evacuees from New Orleans out of his city. "Time has long since passed for the able-bodied people from Louisiana to either find a job, return to somewhere in Louisiana or become Houstonians," said Culberson, whose district neighbors the...

Bolivia head starts land handout By James Read BBC News Evo Morales handed out land titles Bolivia's president has given more than 30,000 square km (18,600 sq miles) of land to indigenous peasant communities under a programme of agrarian reform. Evo Morales launched the programme after landowners walked out of talks with the government, warning they would take action to defend their estates.Thousands of peasants gathered in the centre of Santa Cruz to see Mr Morales launch his agrarian revolution. They cheered and waved rainbow flags symbolising indigenous resistance. The venue for the ceremony was carefully chosen: Santa Cruz is...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- For more than a year, some children at North Side Elementary School learned about the health dangers posed by candy and empty snacks. So when Monique Manigat's gifted class of fourth- and fifth-graders was asked to sell chocolate bars, potato chips and hard candy to fund class trips, the 19 children decided that would be hypocritical and refused. "If they tell us to don't eat junk food and then after school we sell it, that disobeys what they said," said Daphnie Auguste, the 10-year-old ringleader. She hasn't raised one dollar toward her personal $455 goal. "I'm...

Glacier Bay Cruiseline, a four-vessel operator based in Seattle, is canceling its 2006 Alaska season with plans to reorganize the company, renovate the ships and relaunch in 2007, possibly with a new name. The company is looking to charter its ships to a government agency or private company as part of the New Orleans relief efforts, said Robert Ferguson, vice president of sales and marketing for Great American Journeys, a sister company to Glacier Bay. "That will enable them to take the time to do the planning for truly reorganizing and relaunching, probably under a different name since the company...

With Vietnamese evacuees continuing to pour into Houston, some Asian representatives worry the community may be trying to do too much on its own. The uncounted thousands of Vietnamese storm victims are not going to the Astrodome or the George R. Brown Convention Center to seek help from the government, leaders say. Instead, many gather at Hong Kong City Mall on Bellaire, a privately run mall where they are being connected with ample free food and housing from fellow Vietnamese — help that cannot last indefinitely. "The problem is, because the Vietnamese are not in the shelters, they are not...

California's Democratic politicians often decry special tax loopholes and other corporate subsidies, but when it comes to one business sector - the movie industry - they make a huge exception. Not only is the Southern California-based movie industry heavily unionized, but its executives are almost all political liberals who donate lavishly to Democratic campaigns. That, in a nutshell, explains why the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Núñez, quietly amended a bill this week to grant movie producers tens of millions of dollars in subsidies from a state treasury that already is drowning in red ink, with multibillion-dollar annual deficits....

Cintra-Zachry, the joint construction venture that won a $7 billion contract to start work on the controversial Trans Texas Corridor project, has written a letter to the Federal Highway Administration expressing interest in a $320 million low-interest loan. Critics say Cintra-Zachry won the contract in part because it said it would not use public dollars, but the governor’s office and the consortium say the deal didn't prohibit using federal money. Only state money was mentioned. Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for the governor, says the inquiry involves a loan, not a grant. But some state leaders remain skeptical. Mike Sizemore, press...

Cabbies Blast Convention Voucher Plan 1 hour, 56 minutes ago Boston cab drivers spoke out Thursday about Mayor Tom Menino's plan to give $10 cab vouchers for each delegate that attends this summer's Democratic National Convention. NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that the drivers said that trips from Logan International Airport to hotels in the Back Bay cost a whole lot more, and they'd rather take the week off. Drivers thought they were going to make a killing the last week in July -- or at least make up for the rest of the summer if it turns out to...

VIENNA, Va. (AP) -- The head of the group trying to bring a major league baseball team to northern Virginia said he will end his efforts if major league baseball doesn't pick a new home this year for the Montreal Expos. The Expos were bought by the other 29 teams before the 2002 season. Baseball failed to meet deadlines in 2002 and 2003 on finding a new home for the team, which has struggled to draw fans in Canada. Baseball officials say they hope to decide by mid-July on where to move the Expos for 2005.... Virginia's legislation to fund...

The picture was propaganda-perfect. It showed President Bush holding the hand of Army Sgt. First Class Thomas Douglas as the wounded soldier lay in a Walter Reed Hospital bed in Washington, D.C., recovering from the bullet wounds that earned him a Purple Heart in the Iraq war. Eric Draper, who is George Bush's personal photographer, took the poignant photo last April 11 and developed it in a darkroom at Anacostia Naval Station in Washington, D.C. It was then sent to the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. The wire services -- behaving like adjuncts of the White House -- distributed...

In my social problems class my professor seems at times to be a communist, sometimes a socialist, and other just liberal. He never gives a conservative point of view, and the more he does this the further conservative I become, in the sense I feel obliged to argue the other side. In class recently the discussion was on Family and myths in America. One of many examples (some of which were accurate) came the brief discussion on welafre. Basically it was in his opinion (of course not fact) that welfare doesn't lead to damn near anything bad. The conventional wisdom...

  ATLANTIC CITY - They start walking down Virginia Avenue from the Trump Taj Mahal shortly before noon, alone or in pairs, bags slung on their shoulders.They are casino bus patrons down for the day from New York City, and they are coming to Miss Jean Webster's soup kitchen for the free lunch.Miss Jean will not turn anyone away, but this influx of casino patrons - mostly older recent immigrants from China - is bankrupting her, she said. As many as 100 a day come for lunch, many of them regulars, then head back to the casinos.They sit stoically through...

Courtesy of the Kentucky RLC Chairman, here is a Word document in tri-fold format that does a fine job of stating the case for the RLC. You can click on the link to view the document in a new window (most browsers), or right-click to download it to your machine. It's been virus-checked.

Security Screeners Get FAA Bonuses The Associated Press May 26 2002 5:35PM WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is dangling $500 bonuses as incentives to stay on a bit longer to many of the tens of thousands of privately hired airport security screeners it wants to eventually replace. The Transportation Security Administration authorized the incentive pay earlier this year to ensure a smooth and safe transition at airports. The extra pay is aimed at boosting morale and preventing screeners from bailing out of their jobs months or weeks before federally trained workers replace them. It is also aimed at encouraging the...