Free Republic

December 3, 2008 Mr. Herman Munster 1313 Mockingbird Lane Hartland, Wisconsin 53067 Dear Mr. Munster: Thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome this opportunity to respond. As you may know, Hawaii became a state on August 21st, 1959. President-elect Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, making him a United States citizen at birth under the first section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. President-elect Obama's birth certificate has been made public, and is widely available online. This document has been authenticated by a variety of sources, including the Hawaii Department of Health...

WASHINGTON – In the wake of scandals involving tainted food and toothpaste from China comes word of a new concern from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission as well as the Food and Drug Administration – toys, makeup, glazed pottery and other products that contain significant amounts of lead. While lead poisoning among children was once mainly caused by old paint, U.S. manufacturers long ago banned the ingredient. Today, a new rash of high lead levels in the bloodstreams of American kids is being caused by foreign products – mainly from China. So serious is the resurgence of lead poisoning...

(AP) MILWAUKEE -- Ben Masel says his top interests include "good hash" and "getting acquitted" -- not exactly what you'd expect from a candidate for U.S. Senate. But the 51-year-old liberal activist from Madison has made a career of doing things his own way. In high school in 1969 he participated in a strike in which he says protesting students demanded and received the principal's resignation. He was arrested for his prominent role in Vietnam War protests, which he says led to his being "indefinitely suspended" from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after his freshman year in 1971. He ran for...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wisconsin Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold say they will vote against legislation this week that would increase the minimum wage and reduce the estate tax, arguing the country cannot afford the lost tax revenue. "I believe we will get estate tax reform, I support estate tax reform," Kohl, a Democrat, said in a telephone interview Thursday. "But this particular language would be very costly." Feingold, a Democrat, was unavailable for an interview Thursday, but in a statement, said he supports the minimum wage increase and estate tax reform. "But I will not vote for this cynical...

(AP) WASHINGTON -- Former Gov. Tommy Thompson said Monday he will not run for U.S. Senate this year, leaving Republicans with no clear major challenger to Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. "Governor Thompson will not run for the United States Senate in 2006," Thompson's office said in a brief statement Monday. "He is enjoying his work in the private sector and decided against a return to public office at this time." Thompson, 64, who served as governor from 1987 until 2001, had toyed recently with a run for governor or for senator. Last month, he announced he would not run for...

A small group of activists disrupted a campaign event for U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl and challenged him to sign a pledge against the War in Iraq. Calling themselves members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, seven anti-war protesters interrupted Kohl as he was about to speak to supporters at the Orpheum Theatre Wednesday evening. "We all now know that the war in Iraq was based on lies," protester Jim Murphy, a Catholic priest from Portage, read from a script. "Too many innocent lives have been lost and too many dollars have been spent. We are here tonight to appeal...

Democrats Praise President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program One Minute; Outraged The Next Dems Try To Have It Every Way On President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program: "[Democrats] Could Pay A Large Price - Though A Political One - If They Do Not Strike The Right Tone In The Debate Over The National Security Agency's Domestic Eavesdropping Program." (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Balancing Act By Democrats At Hearing," The New York Times, 2/7/06) "As They Head Into The 2006 Midterm Elections, Democrats, Eager To Pick Up Congressional Seats, Know They Must Look Tough On National Security Issues." (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Balancing Act By...

Kennedy, Schumer and Biden made bigger splashes at the Alito hearings for their overheated rhetoric. In contrast, Wisconsin Dem Sen. Herb Kohl was polite, even diffident, in the tone of his questioning. Even so, he said something that should send chills down the spine not only of Republicans and conservatives, but of anyone concerned with the survival of our constitutional form of government. Here's what Kohl said: "The neutral approach, that of the judge just applying the law, is very often inadequate to ensure social progress." There it is in black-and-white. Democrats do not want judges to be neutral. They...

“Heads Need To Roll”   Some on the left are a tad upset that the Democrats have not been able to stop the President’s Supreme Court nominees.   This is just that much more evidence of why there needs to be a major blood-letting in the Democratic party, and soon. Heads need to roll. ROLL. People need to lose their jobs, en masse. After 2000, no one took responsibility. After 2004, no one took responsibility. And now it’s happening again. Our wonderful party leaders are sitting back and scratching their heads wondering why the country isn’t simply running into...

I guess we all know that the Democrats, and especially the Democrats from the Judiciary Committee are a bunch of %#&*@!, I mean really, the Democrats that sit there are the essence of crazy lunacy. But that's not the point of this post. Recently I was doing a little research on the history of judicial nominations and I found a little information about senator James O. Eastland from Mississippi (of course a Democrat). Of course you could easily suspect that a Southern Democratic senator in the 50s, 60s and 70s would be a racist, but HE was really something: (from...

If the election for United States Senate was held today, and the choices were Herb Kohl, the Democrat or Tommy Thompson, the Republican, whom would you vote for? Herb Kohl 42% Tommy Thompson 44% Undecided 14%

The prospect of Germany reunifying made Lady Thatcher stamp her feet and scream with rage at Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor claims in a new volume of memoirs.The then British prime minister gave Mr Kohl a "great headache" over many issues but none more so than Germany's future after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he writes. Theirs, he says with masterful understatement, was a "relationship which became ever more difficult" until it reached an explosive climax as communism collapsed.   Margaret Thatcher with Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor "The feared 'Iron Lady'... played an unfriendly, indeed a...

The current eight democratic memebers of the Senate Judiciary Committee include 4 "Catholics" (Biden, Kennedy, Leahy and Durbin) and 4 Jews (Schumer, Feinstein, Feingold, and Kohl). Only one democratic member is a woman. Not very diverse. The Supreme court on the other hand (assuming Alito is confirmed) will have 5 Catholics, 2 Jews, an Episcopalian, and a nonsectarian Protestant. It will also have one woman.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Herb Kohl said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers downplayed a 1989 questionnaire in which she backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in most cases. "She made the point that it was at a different time for a different purpose," Kohl, D-Wis., said after meeting with Miers for about 45 minutes. "And (she said) we should not read too much into that in terms of where she might be on the issue of privacy, and a woman's right to choose."

Washington - Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, who supported the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, voiced serious questions Thursday about the qualifications and independence of President Bush's latest nominee, White House counsel Harriet Miers. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feingold said in an interview that he was "puzzled" by the choice. He said the selection of Miers raised at least two issues that were not present in the confirmation of Roberts, now chief justice of the United States. "The president has chosen someone here about whom objectivity and independence is a very real question. He's selling...

...Schumer argued yesterday "being brilliant and accomplished" didn't make Roberts qualified. Why? Because "there are many who would use their considerable talents and legal acumen to set America back. So, while legal brilliance is to be considered, it is never dispositive.... Roberts is clearly brilliant and his demeanor suggests he well might not be an ideologue. But he did not make the case strongly enough to bet the whole house." This is what a bad argument looks like — pressing an ideological assault against someone by claiming that person could be an "ideologue." The refusal of Schumer and four other...

I am watching a Cspan 3 of the vote. Hard to read the screen but it looks like a 12 to 5 vote for Roberts to be Chief Justice.

Bad News for Putin and Chirac: German right vows improved U.S. relationsTo France: 'Don't make us choose between you and the United States, because we probably won't choose you' By Nicholas Kralev and Tom Goeller THE WASHINGTON TIMES June 4, 2005 German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder BERLIN -- The conservative Christian Democrats and their Free Democratic partners will restore Germany's alliance with the United States and downgrade Berlin's ties with Russia if they win elections in September, leaders from both parties say. In a series of interviews, they also said that they would review their alliance with France, which they intend...

On the surface there would seem to be little to unite the Aryan racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with the terrorists of radical Islam. To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all members of ``inferior`` races; and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis are almost without exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian sects. But the reality is that there has been close cooperation between Muslim extremists and Fascists ever since the founding of the Nazi movement in the 1920`s. For all of their differences, Muslim extremists and Nazis have always been united by a common group of beliefs and...

09. März 2005 Printer Version Verbal AttackKohl Accuses Government of Foolish Anti-AmericanismVon Björn Hengst, Köln Former Chancellor Kohl has attacked his successor Schröder and the coalition in an unusually sharp manner. In an anniversary celebration of the CDU in Cologne he described the ministers of the red-green government as "foolish figures". Secretary of State Joschka Fischer has "lied his way through history". DPA Kohl (l.) und Rüttgers: "What would the union be without Kohl?" Cologne - During the celebration of the 60-year existence of the CDU Helmut Kohl criticized the Red-Green Federal Government with drastic words on Tuesday evening....