Free Republic

Michele Bachmann. Friends, I am honored to have been selected by Speaker-designate John Boehner to serve on the House Intelligence Committee. As a mother of five biological children and twenty-three foster children I pledge to do whatever I need to do to keep your family,my family, and the United States safe from harm. 14 minutes ago

The US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website, according to employees. The ban is in response to WikiLeaks' decision to published classified material, including US diplomatic cables. It’s not clear when the policy first began but it joins a similar order by the US Department of Defense put in place since the leaking of Iraq and Afghanistan war documents earlier this year. Analysts suggest the State Department is temporarily falling back on traditional bureaucratic protocols in the face of a crisis that is emblematic of the shift to an online world....

The wreckage of the Democratic Party is strewn just about everywhere. President Obama’s carefully constructed 2008 Electoral College breakthrough is now just broken, a long-ago memory of what might have been a lasting shift in partisan alignment.

This defies western logic, but not the agenda of the OIC-driven, sharia compliant UN. Saudi Arabia, where a 32-year-old woman is jailed for disobeying her father, where a pregnant gang-rape victim is sentenced to 100 lashes for committing adultery, where women are not allowed to drive, where women are lashed for being in the company of any male who is not a relative, where a 75-year-old could be flogged for breaching sex segregation rules, where a Saudi father weds his daughter, 10, to an 80-year-old pervert: "according to the shari'a his marriage is legal as long as the girl's father...

After his party was handed a historic defeat by the electorate, President Obama is returning to one of the promises of his presidential campaign, bipartisanship. The principal of bipartisanship was a routine part of candidate Obama’s stump speech all through 2008, and was a constant theme running throughout the campaign. Even during his election night victory speech President Elect Obama said “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.” Ironically, after assuming...

National Democrats have asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Arizona Sen. John McCain violated campaign finance laws when his campaign paid to run ads for Republican House candidates in Arizona — charges the McCain campaign said are “baseless.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a FEC complaint Tuesday against McCain and his campaign committee, Friends of John McCain, because of recent ads backing Ruth McClung, the GOP nominee in Arizona’s 7th District, and Jesse Kelly, who is running in the 8th District. The complaint also asks the FEC to investigate whether McClung, Kelly and their respective campaign committees...

Just received e-mail from my former managing editor at Editor & Publisher (my exit was in January after 10 years) Shawn Moynihan: "The editorial staff of Editor & Publisher has been eliminated by its new owners, Duncan McIntosh Co. inc. As such, I’m writing to let you know I am no longer E&P’s managing editor/online editor." One of my old colleagues in the once-sturdy VNU/Nielsen magazine unit, Tony Case, was first with the news [1]. Top editor Mark Fitzgerald and tech editor Jim Rosenberg also were axed and the new editor works for owner Duncan McIntosh who took over in...

Talk about a teachable moment. A 19-year-old Bellevue woman has been charged with second-degree assault after she allegedly stabbed a classmate Saturday during an anger-management class at Bellevue College. Bellevue police say Faribah Maradiaga "blew up out of control" and stabbed the classmate's arm and shoulder several times after the two women exchanged words. Police said Maradiaga, who already had a pending assault charge, told them that the other woman had threatened her first, according to charging documents.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The push to produce more ethanol in Minnesota has come with a cost to the environment. Five ethanol plants in Minnesota have paid nearly $3 million in the past year for violating air and water quality standards. For example, Buffalo Lake Energy in Fairmont was fined for producing ethanol without a wastewater treatment system permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Another plant illegally discharged wastewater into a creek. Several have failed to regularly monitor emissions and discharges.

Reporting from Guatemala City, Danilo Valladares of the Inter-Press Service (IPS) notes that there will be one more barrier for Guatemalan immigrants in their trek to the United States. In addition to dodging dangerous drug traffickers and immigration officials, the latest obstacle is emerging: a wall between Guatemala and Mexico. According to the head of customs for Mexico’s tax administration, Raul Diaz, the Mexican border state of Chiapas is constructing a wall along the country’s southern border with Guatemala, along the river Suchiate which divides the countries. Diaz says the purpose of the wall is to prevent the passage of...

In a move of stunning hypocrisy, the United Federation of Teachers axed one of its longtime employees -- for trying to unionize the powerful labor organization's own workers, it was charged yesterday. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/this_oughta_teach_him_rQamwIU0sNZxyrmyNBxz4L#ixzz0y8194DhM

Planned Parenthood at 1108 16th Street NW in Washington, DC is the abortion mecca-mill where pro-lifers by the hundreds pray and protest during the annual March for Life every January, for instance in 2009.... But here's how the front of that PP looks today, 3 weeks after it suddenly posted a fence, gate, and "Private Property: No Trespassing" sign: Now Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition will challenge what appears to be PP's flagrant attempt to deny the bothersome 1st Amendment rights of pro-lifers. Mahoney (pictured left) has applied for a permit to protest to hold a prayer...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former priest and anger-management counselor who pulled a gun in a traffic dispute on two men who happened to be U.S. Marshals has been sentenced to a year in prison. Fifty-seven-year-old Jose Luis Avila of Annandale pleaded guilty earlier this year in U.S. District Court to assaulting a federal officer. In January, Avila was driving by the marshals near his home. He honked his horn because he believed they were standing in the road. When he thought one of the marshals made an obscene gesture at him, he pulled out a loaded handgun. The 12-month...

It’s probably safe to say that South Carolina Senate Dem primary winner Alvin Greene will not be hearing from anonymous senior administration officials out to offer him a cushy job in exchange for him dropping out of the race. Instead, I imagine the White House (and many others) are hoping the press will do their dirty work and solve the strange mystery of how Greene — a totally unfunded, unknown — won the SC primary last week. When asked this morning on Meet the Press whether he thought Greene was a “legitimate candidate” David Axelrod did not pull many punches....

I propose to the City of Los Angeles that they cease and desist from operating an expensive, representative business office in Tokyo, Japan, paid for totally by the tax dollars of Los Angeles residents, in the most expense office and staff-salary location in the world.The City of Los Angeles--whose budget is controlled by the City Council, currently maintains a representative office here in downtown Tokyo, through a representative agency. It can be assumed that the taxpayers of Los Angeles are funding this office (to the tune perhaps of at least US$300,000 a year) in a) a country which blatantly has...

In a year when America's tea party activists have been surging, cable news networks that slam the grassroots movement have been dying in the ratings. Is it merely coincidence? As widely reported, 2010's first quarter ratings for cable news networks were released earlier this month. Compared to the numbers in 2009, Fox News Channel, frequently reported as a favorite of the tea partiers, actually gained 3 percent over last year's numbers, but MSNBC, whose left-leaning commentary has been far more critical of the movement, has dropped 15 percent of its audience. Even more startling, however, is the ratings freefall...

Broke state declares April ‘financial literacy month’posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer April 30th, 2010, 3:00 am We hooted recently over the Orange County Business Council’s new Web site, CaliforniaSquirrel.com, which targets the “distractions” elected officials pursue at the expense of more important public business. CaliforniaSquirrel would like to call your attention to Assembly Concurrent Resolution 147 (acr 147, Lieu & Niello), which declares April 2010 as Financial Aid and Literacy Month “to raise public awareness about the need for increased financial literacy.” Irony alert! Irony alert! “The California Legislature giving us advice on financial literacy?” CaliforniaSquirrel.com practically screeches,...

So Spike goes on NBC's WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE last night. Hilarity ensues...as we watch Spike turn several shades of grey as he comes to terms with the fact that: *His great grandpa worked in a CONFEDERATE Colt pistol factory, that was burned down by Sherman. * He almost certainly has white blood. * His ancestors not only had 40 acres and a mule, they had 80 acres and a mule by the 1870 census. *His third cousin twice removed was a fine southern lady living in Texas. Now I have a soft spot for Spike, and his...

What struck me about Harry Reid’s outline for immigration reform besides the weird, almost medieval, militant framing, like “Further Fortification of America’s Border,” is how some large group of military contractors are set to make a killing at the taxpayer’s expense if this bill ever passed: As a result of this proposal, the Border Patrol will also receive substantial upgrades in technology—including: 1) clear and secure two-way communication capabilities among all border patrol agents conducting operations between ports of entry; 2) use of Department of Defense equipment at the border; and 3) increases in the number of sport utility vehicles,...

Isn't she the head of HOMELAND SECURITY? Good grief, what are we paying her for?