Free Republic

A predictable handful of culture ghouls have pounced eagerly on last week’s massacre at an Army post in Texas. By their reckoning, this tragedy was a wake-up call about the Muslim menace, and a needless sacrifice of security on the altar of “political correctness.” (Anybody who couldn’t see that last one coming needs to stay away from traffic.) “PC crowd has blood on their hands,” screams one of the Web headlines so livid they practically spray spittle in your face. The common theme is that the PC Police — led (need you even ask?) by President Obama himself — willfully...

The President asked that people not jump to conclusions about the incident as an investigation ensues. Washington, D.C. (WiredPRNews.com) – President Barack Obama urged people not to jump to conclusions about the Fort Hood shootings as an official investigation into the matter persists. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Obama stated Friday that the country was grieving for those killed in the shootings as law enforcement officials investigate the motive for the rampage that left 12 individuals dead and 30 others wounded. Obama is quoted by the AP as stating Friday, “We don’t know all the answers yet. And...

"4th Inf. Div. Reaches Out to Local Islamic Community Members During Mosque Visit" (May 2009) Sgt. Philip Klein 4th Inf. Div. PAO KILLEEN, Texas – Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commanding general of the 4th InfantryDivision, helped open the lines of communication when he visited a mosque at the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen community center, which is located in Killeen, May 7. The visit marks the Ironhorse Division’s inaugural effort to reach out to the sizeable Muslim community that resides in the greater central Texas region – Killeen, Temple and Austin– to foster dialogue, interaction and understanding between the...

Instead of arguing over the particulars of the health care bill, let's just go to the core of the debate. So now that the fifth bill on health care reform is out, here comes the next round of arguments. Meaning that Conservatives will have to restate everything we've already said because all the stuff we were opposed to in the first four bills has been combined into the new legislation. Personally, I'm tired of giving Liberal idiots sources they never read, reminding them of political promises now being broken, and pointing out the gross hypocrisy of the liberal Congress. Lefties...

The "Axis of Idiots"  From the Podium:J. D. Pendry, Retired Sergeant Major, USMC FROM THE PODIUMThis retired USMC Sgt. Major has his Stuff together. Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the "runner-in-chief." Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your...

I bought Glenn Beck's latest bestseller, "Arguing with Idiots," for the young adults in my family who work in Manhattan. All during last year's presidential campaign, they'd moan about the "idiots" they worked with who knew nothing about how the government worked; nor could they articulate any reason for voting for Barack Obama other than "He's not Bush" or "It's time we had a black president." Mr. Beck's book is highly entertaining and informative but, more importantly, it's also well researched. It's the title that bothers me, however, since I believe that just because people are not in agreement with...

A boy of 10 died from meningitis after doctors wrongly diagnosed a migraine and told his mother to give him calpol, an inquest was told yesterday. William Cressey saw five doctors in three days before finally suffering 'catastrophic' brain damage. His mother, Cheryl, 48, repeatedly told doctors that she suspected meningitis but each time was ignored, she said. Just hours before he died the schoolboy begged one of those doctors: 'Please help me. I'm going to die.' By then his face was so swollen that he could barely see and he was drifting in and out of consciousness. Wiping tears...

In the first Gallup daily tracking poll to include three days of interviews following the news that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, his approval rating has shot up to 56 percent, with just 36 percent disapproving. This is the best net approval number for him in the poll since July. Before the Nobel announcement, his ratings stood at 53 percent approving and 40 percent disapproving -- meaning there's been a net swing of 7 points since Friday. In late September, Obama's ratings had reached as bad as 50 precent approval and 42 percent disapproval.

Quote: President Obama took his chances on a high-profile visit to Copenhagen because the White House was getting a "clear message" that his presence could clinch the Olympics for Chicago, The Chicago Tribune reports. "The intelligence that we had from the U.S. Olympic Committee and Chicago bid team was that it was very close and therefore well worth our efforts," said Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser. "The message was that...a personal appeal from the president would make a huge difference." President Obama first tried lobbying quietly through phone calls, and had not decided until a few days before...

The President of American Electric Power says cap and trade will eventually drive up the price of electricity, but Mike Morris says it's a necessary step for the United States and countries around the world when it comes to dealing with climate change. "We think that it's probably the best way to go about addressing the issue of global warming and I underline the phrase 'global warming' because, at the end of the day, that's the challenge," Morris said on Wednesday's MetroNews Talkline. The U.S. House of Representatives has already approved the massive climate change bill that is now being...

WASHINGTON -- Reparation for the legacy of slavery and peonage may not come in the form of a check, but it must come, speakers said Friday at a forum sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Others said the apology for slavery that the House passed last year and the Senate passed this year were good first steps, and singled out U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who was on Friday's panel, for authoring the House resolution. "For him to stand up -- before even other people in the caucus stood up -- is remarkable," said Harvard Law School professor...

Joe Biden. The favorite son of Scranton, Pennsylvania currently serving in Wilmington, Delaware in the role of Village Idiot - too much competition for that role in Washington, but the President won't let him play in the federal playground, anyway - has snuck out to talk to the press again. And his words are ominous.

Last month, a judge ordered Chris Brown to stay away from ex-girlfriend Rihanna for the next five years following his February attack on the R&B singer, but Brown and Rihanna allegedly have found a way to work around the court-imposed separation. According to a report in Britain’s Star, the pair plans to have an extended meeting outside the court’s jurisdiction. “(Brown and Rihanna) spoke to their lawyers to see what was allowed, and are now planning two weeks in Mexico,” a source revealed to the magazine. “They want to spend some quality time together and know they have a lot...

Cars full of beer (and white guys) and crazy drunk driving commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHytr5GocwY

Two thieves tried to pilfer landscaping rock from next to the Keeper of the Plains early this morning, but their would-be heist sank — literally.......

When Ron Paul says the following, you know something is seriously screwed up. “Mr. Privates” himself is now calling for a National health care system, as there is absolutely no way the privatization route will work on this one. Paultards will now implode. Dr. Paultard was on CNN yesterday and went stone “WTF?” on the issue of health care. In fact, his statements go so far against his views on pretty much everything that your Editor now has a headache: “Even though I have my ideal system I would like to see, with the government out completely — because that...

Whoopi Goldberg questioned the original moon landing on today's edition of "The View." Goldberg, a co-host, wondered who shot the footage and why the flag was "rippling" if there was no wind.

Congress originally authorized the CIA to develop the secret counterterrorism program that is now drawing fierce criticism from House Democrats who say they were kept in the dark all along, a former senior intelligence official told FOX News on Monday. The program, which sources told FOX News was a plan to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives, also never came close to being operational, the intelligence official said. "This was not a program. It never began," the former official said. "The authority was given by Congress to develop this idea. ... There was no need to brief it. It wasn't...

PAMPLONA, Spain — A charging bull gored a young man to death Friday at Pamplona's San Fermin festival, the first such fatality in nearly 15 years. Nine others were injured in a particularly dangerous and chaotic chapter of the running of the bulls. The San Fermin festival Web site said the unidentified man was gored in the neck and lung during a run in which a rogue bull separated from the pack, which is among the worst things that can happen at Spain's most popular fiesta. Photographs showed the man lying on a stretcher moments after the goring, his face...

— General Motors could literally turn green as it readies itself for major management and cultural changes that will coincide with its escape from bankruptcy protection. People briefed on its plans say the company is looking into changing the background color of its corporate logo from blue to green in an effort to show consumers that it is leaner and greener...

Burner charged with desecrating a flag A teen claimed she was "making a statement" when she lit an American flag on fire with a cigarette lighter and then stomped on it in the middle of traffic, according to police. The incident occurred just hours after Americans celebrated Independence Day with fireworks celebrations across the region. Two officers said they saw Rebecca Ellen McKimmie, 18, of Ocean City, Md., light the flag on fire early Sunday morning while standing between two lanes of traffic near the Route 50 Bridge. Police said once it was lit she then stomped on it in...

I've been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it's not a polite truth, so we don't talk about it. Yet I think it's important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse. As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas. Neanderthals. (Look at the Governor of California just running the state budget into the...

California regulators are considering a proposal to impose the nation's first statewide carbon fee on utilities, oil refineries and other polluting industries. If approved Thursday by the California Air Resources Board, the measure would raise millions of dollars to help the state regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. The fee would target industries that are top sources of greenhouse gases. The typical oil refinery would pay about $1.3 million a year, while a cement plant would pay about $200,000 a year. The measure has been championed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When we first heard the phrase "cash for clunkers," we thought the reference was to a Congressional pay raise. Alas, no, it is the bright idea out of Congress to pay Americans to turn in their old cars so they'll go out and buy a new one. As columnist George Will recently observed, this isn't as insane as the New Deal policy of slaughtering pigs to raise pork prices, but it's close enough for government work. Under cash for clunkers, drivers would be offered vouchers of up to $4,500 to swap their current wheels for a more environmentally correct set...

In becoming the first government health care program in the world to draw up a formal procedure for rationing care to consumers, the Oregon Health Plan has significantly shifted priorities away from lifesaving measures, instead favoring politically popular ones, says Linda Gorman, a senior fellow with the Independence Institute. After comment from interested parties, the state health program for low-income people ranked treatments for various diseases and conditions in order of priority. The health care dollars available determine which priorities are met, and as program costs have grown, the list of covered procedures has become shorter, says Gorman: In 2009...

An American-Indonesian model who married a Malaysian prince in a "fairy-tale" wedding ten months ago, has returned to her family in Jakarta, claiming that she has escaped an allegedly abusive marriage with the help of Singapore police. Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, claimed she was held captive at the palace of her husband Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia's Kelantan state, where she claims she was treated as a sex slave. "I've been treated like an animal. I'm like his property and I was in his room and whenever he wants to play with me he just goes into...

In the Dashiell Hammet classic The Maltese Falcon, Casper Gutman discovers that the black bird he has been chasing for nearly two decades is nothing more than a crude fake. Joel Cairo, unable to contain his disappointment cries: "You imbecile. You bloated idiot. You and your stupid attempts to buy it!"Yes. Yes. Crude attempts at gaining what you covet intensely very often result in disappointment. Today, the devotees of Daily Kos and Democratic Underground are consumed by two separate and conflicting desires. The first is retribution. George W. Bush trashed our Constitution, lied us into war and authorized an illegal...

Thirty-two percent (32%) of American adults say they’d be willing to pay higher taxes so that health insurance could be provided for all Americans. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 54% say they’re not willing to pay more in taxes. Most Democrats (54%) are willing to pay higher taxes to expand health care coverage. Most Republicans (77%) are not. As for those not affiliated with either major party, 29% are okay with the higher tax bill and 60% are not. Other recent polling shows that just 35% of Americans rate the U.S. health care system as good...

This week’s endorsement of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by senior Senate Republicans is being cheered by GOP senators as a move toward the middle. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) endorsed Crist over former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, a protégé of former Gov. Jeb Bush and a more conservative candidate. The decision by McConnell and Cornyn was the first such choice since last month’s defection of Arlen Specter to the Senate’s Democratic conference. Moderate GOP senators like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine used that opportunity to publicly warn the...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) camp is not happy with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's suggestion that base Republicans had a problem with the 2008 presidential candidate's Mormonism. On Monday, Romney's camp responded to the comments Steele made Friday while guest-hosting a conservative radio show, comments a Romney spokesman said were ill-considered. . . . . . Camp Romney fired off a quick response: "Sometimes when you shoot from the hip you miss the target. This is one of those times," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told The Hill. After the Romney team expressed its displeasure, Steele offered an...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken met privately with Vice President Joe Biden late Wednesday afternoon to update him on the still-contested Minnesota Senate race. Franken, who said he is eager to join the Senate,

'The Axis of Idiots' Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief. Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings mboldened the killers. Each...

(CNN) -- An elderly grandfather was greeted with hugs and kisses from his family in Washington state after returning home from months of what he called false imprisonment in a Mexican prison. The 88-year-old's ordeal began in January, when he went to Mexico with grandson Gary Chrisman Jr. for inexpensive dental work, family members said. The pair ran into trouble in Algodones, Mexico. At a convenience store, the younger Chrisman went inside to buy soft drinks while his grandfather waited in the car. The younger Chrisman had been photographing the area and approached a woman in the store about snapping...

On Wednesday, September 24, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., phoned Reid and told him, “Harry, I am suspending my campaign to come back and help negotiate a deal.” McCain explained that he was also calling upon Obama to suspend his campaign, and together they could convene a meeting at the Bush White House to help come to a deal on a bailout for Wall Street. Reid didn't think it was such a great idea... "They were on the verge of an agreement, and any such McCain stunt would cost us valuable time," writes Reid, also noting that McCain "had no standing...

House Republicans are calling on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired in the wake of a controversial department memo that has sparked indignant battle cries from conservatives and some veterans. “Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela," said Texas Rep. John Carter, a member of the party's elected leadership who has organized an hour of floor speeches Wednesday night to call for Napolitano's ouster. “The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed...

Here’s a homeland security threat that doesn’t fit the rightwing extremist profile. Paging Janet Napolitano. Oh, never mind: The Weld County sheriff’s office is looking for whoever sent it a letter threatening to put bombs around Greeley next week unless illegal immigrants are released from jail. The sheriff’s office says the letter was handwritten in Spanish, and the threats were directed primarily toward judicial and law-enforcement officials. Sheriff John Cooke says he wants the public to know his office is working diligently to find and arrest whoever wrote the letter. The Greeley police department and state and federal law enforcement...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Meghan McCain warned a group of gay Republicans Saturday that there was "a war brewing in the Republican Party" – a war between the past and the future. "Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members. The 24-year-old daughter of former GOP presidential candidate John McCain pushed back against critics upset over her comments to CNN that she wanted President Obama to succeed, and played down her recent headline-grabbing feuds with conservative commentators Ann Coulter and...

A westward dash to power electricity-hungry cities by cashing in on the desert's most abundant resource -- sunshine -- is clashing with efforts to protect the tiny pupfish and desert tortoise and stinginess over the region's rarest resource: water. Water is the cooling agent for what traditionally has been the most cost-efficient type of large-scale solar plants. To some solar companies answering Washington's push for renewable energy on vast government lands, it's also an environmental thorn. The unusual collision pits natural resources protections against President Barack Obama's plans to produce more environmentally friendly energy.

An Orleans Parish jury Wednesday convicted a 24-year-old man of attempted first-degree murder for repeatedly shooting, cutting and threatening to kill a tourist he lured to an abandoned apartment in the Iberville public housing development in 2007. ~snip~ His sister, Marijuana Rayfield, also testified for the defense that her brother couldn't have been involved in the crime that morning.

Frances Picker taught algebra for 35 years in the Fremont schools and never smoked before she was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer in December. A slim 73-year-old with a magnetic smile, Picker copes as well as she can between bouts of chemotherapy that have robbed her of her hair. The ugly coda — the crowning insult, if you will — came when she went to renew her driver's license in mid-March at the Fremont DMV. It should have been no big deal. Knowing that the DMV has long lines, Picker made an appointment. But she had to stand in a...

A state law prevents new nuclear power plants from being built in Minnesota, and some say that means nuclear can't even be part of a discussion about the state's future energy needs. An effort to change that suffered a setback Thursday, when members of a House energy committee voted down a bill that would lift the ban. The 9-12 vote came after two days of hearings in which lawmakers heard testimony from more than two dozen people, including national experts, environmentalists, the nuclear industry and people who live near Minnesota's two existing nuclear plants. While the measure still could be...

To hear GOP Chairman Michael Steele tell it, his recent donnybrook with radio host Rush Limbaugh - and his subsequent apology - were all part of a grand "strategic" plan. "I'm a cause-and-effect kind of guy," Steele told CNN’s Don Lemon on Wednesday. "So if I do something, there's a reason for it... Even it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there is a logic behind it," he said.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Four protesters were arrested during an anti-war protest at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco this afternoon, San Francisco police said. San Francisco police spokeswoman Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said three women and one man were arrested and taken into custody at about 2:30 p.m. A boy carrying a backpack filled with rocks was also taken into custody after one of the rocks he was allegedly throwing hit an officer. Tomioka said he was freed by a group of protesters. One officer was kicked and another bitten, Tomioka said. Copyright 2009 by KTVU.com and Bay City News....

The act of bestiality is a step closer to becoming illegal in Florida now that a Senate committee voted to slap a third-degree felony charge on anyone who has sex with animals. Florida is one of only 16 states that still permit bestiality -– a fact that animal-rights activist and Sunrise Sen. Nan Rich learned to her horror when a Panhandle man three years ago was suspected of accidentally asphyxiating a family goat with which he was copulating. “There’s a tremendous correlation between sexually deviant behavior and crimes against children and crimes against animals,” said Rich, a Sunrise Democrat. “This...

Manmade climate change is set to hasten the disintegration of a massive ice sheet in Antarctica by 100,000 years, boosting sea levels some five metres (16 feet), according to a pair of studies published Thursday. The research, which matches new ice core data with a simulation of past and future changes in the West Antarctica Ice Sheet (WAIS), reveals for the first time regular cycles of "catastrophic collapse" and reformation reaching back five million years. Cycles lasted 40,000 years during the first three-fifths of this period, but have since more than doubled in length, explained David Pollard, a scientist at...

Fatah: We Do Not Recognize Israel   By Itamar Marcus and Barbara CrookFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, March 18, 2009 When Western countries met last month to pledge billions of dollars in funding to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, they stressed that Hamas would not receive funding until it recognized Israel. However, a senior Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, admitted yesterday on Palestinian Authority television that Fatah - just like Hamas - still does not recognize Israel. Furthermore, he said that the Palestinian Authority's apparent "recognition" is to make the PA "acceptable" to the international community, and therefore allow it to continue to...

A B.C. sales representative who markets equestrian products in Canada was barred from crossing the U.S. border to attend a trade show last month by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who accused him of trying to steal American jobs. "He looked at me, and in a yelling voice he said, 'You're friggin' stealing jobs away from American citizens,' and I tried telling him that I wasn't," Joel Borsteinas told CBC News. Borsteinas, a Canadian citizen, said he's been in business for 15 years, acting as a middleman between U.S. and Canadian suppliers of western wear and equestrian products...

Legendary funnyman Jackie Mason is getting jeers for referring to President Obama with a Yiddish word considered by many to be a racial epithet. During his act Thursday night at Feinstein's at Loews Regency on the upper East Side, Mason, 72, caused some fans to boo and walk out when he called Obama a "schvartze," which is Yiddish for black......."

WHAT is your carbon legacy - not the emissions you are personally liable for, but those of your descendants? Ask Paul Murtaugh, a statistician at Oregon State University in Corvallis.If you have a child, he says, you and you partner are each responsible for half its emissions. If that child has kids, one-quarter of their emissions are down to you, and so on. How it adds up depends on population trends and emission changes in the future.Murtaugh used UN population projections, which say that after 2050, birth rates in all countries will be 1.85 children per woman, on average....