Free Republic

House Democrats passed the 2,032-page Pelosicare bill on a near party-line vote Saturday night 220-215 (roll call here). The only Republican voting in favor of the measure was New Orleans-based Joseph Cao who has long ago proven to be a tax and spend (and spend and spend) liberal. After a week of intense arm twisting, threats and promises from party leaders, more than half of the 52 so-called conservative Blue Dog Democrats voted in favor of the over $1.3 trillion measure. These are the 28 Blue Dogs voting in favor of Pelosicare (who apparently fear the wrath of House Speaker...

Vocal crowd turns out for health care forum Wednesday, August 05, 2009 By NATALIE HOFFMAN Register Staff Writer A packed Napa church hosted a boisterous meeting Monday night regarding health care reform. The meeting drew some 500 people to listen to — and occasionally shout at — a panel of speakers that included Rep. Mike Thompson, D- St. Helena. The audience at First United Methodist Church demonstrated varying policy viewpoints. Some asked mild questions, others pointed ones, and still others burst into verbal attacks at panel members. Shouts of “This is America!” and “What’s wrong with profit?” emerged from a...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a...

FBI agents yesterday raided the suburban Detroit headquarters of LIFE for Relief and Development (LRD), the largest Islamic charity in the country. I first wrote about the group for The Post in 2003. Back then, FBI Director Robert Mueller was set to give an award to Imad Hamad, who heads the Midwest chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). But, after my Post article pointed out that Hamad was a subject in over a dozen terrorism-related investigations, the FBI revoked the award. One of those investigations concerned Hamad's close ties to LRD. Both the FBI and the then-U.S. Customs...

September 18, 2006 BREAKING: Largest U.S. Islamic Charity Raided by FBI Printer Friendly By Debbie Schlussel I've been writing about LIFE for Relief and Development for years, and I think my columns (especially this one), have finally made a difference. Ditto for my complaints about LIFE to Assistant U.S. Attorney for counterterrorism, Ken Chadwell. Less than half an hour ago, the FBI began raiding LIFE and hauling out documents. Well, it's about time. LIFE--the largest Islamic charity still open for business in America--openly admitted on its 1995-'97 taxes to be a major funder of HAMAS. Headquartered in the Orthodox Jewish...

Irked by state Sen. Sam Aanestad's continuing criticism of his wilderness bill, Rep. Mike Thompson Wednesday said the Grass Valley state legislator was ignorant. "He doesn't understand the North Coast or its economy," said Thompson, D-Napa Valley, in a telephone interview. Aanestad doesn't understand his bill, either, he added. Thompson, who represented Butte County in the state Senate before he was elected to Congress, has been promoting legislation to designate as wilderness more than 300,000 acres of land along California's northern coast. After Thompson introduced his latest version of this bill, House Resolution 233, in January, Aanestad attacked it as...

In September of 2002, Jim McDermott (D-WA), David Bonior (D-MI) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) traveled to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein. Before they left for Baghdad, Jim McDermott made the following public statement: "the President of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war." After McDermott returned, he continued to make similar statements. While the 3 Democrats were in Baghdad, did they make representations to Saddam Hussein that their fellow Democrats and the Democrats' friends in the mainstream liberal media were willing to commit seditious acts to buttress Hussein's increasingly...

Twenty-four hours after the dramatic U.S. presidential-election results were validated, Human Events Online published my essay (which I had been hatching for two weeks), "Declaration of Expulsion," a slightly satiric proposal to kick out of the Union the 12 most liberal states, either to join the People's Socialist Dominion of Canada or, on their own, go straight to Hell. Within hours (and I do not claim that my piece was a causal effect), liberal voices formed into an enthusiastic chorus for roughly the same idea: Democrat gurus Lawrence O'Donnelland Robert Beckel, as angry talking heads on two separate TV news...

Omega Letter Christian Intelligence Digest Who Did Saddam Bribe? List Names Top Officials in France, Russia Terror - Islam Monday, February 09, 2004 MEMRI On January 25, 2004, a daily newspaper in Iraq called al Mada published a list of individuals and organizations who it says received oil from the now-deposed regime. Among those listed is Shakir al Khafaji, an Iraqi-American from Detroit, who ran "Expatriate Conferences" for the regime in Baghdad. Al Khafaji also contributed $400,000 to the production of Scott Ritter's film "In Shifting Sands." Finally, al Khafaji arranged travel and financing for the "Baghdad Democrats"--Jim McDermott, Mike...

The following report from MEMRI's Baghdad office is a translation of an article which appeared in the Iraqi daily Al-Mada,(1) which obtained lists of 270 companies, organizations, and individuals awarded allocations (vouchers) of crude oil by Saddam Hussein's regime. The beneficiaries reside in 50 countries: 16 Arab, 17 European, 9 Asian, and the rest from sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Only a portion of the 270 recipients are listed and identified.

In Massachusetts, historic cradle of American liberties, the state Supreme Court has become the contemporary incubator of libertines, decreeing that the Legislature, like it or not, must draft a law to legitimize homosexual coupling. In Washington, DC, just a few weeks before, the U.S. Supreme Court had set the predicate for the Bay State's perversion of marriage when it decreed that states may not criminalize private and consensual adult homosexual acts. Such radical departure from the norms of society has provoked an overriding majority of Americans to demand a constitutional amendment or something to undo what the people see as...

Protect Marriage Without Constitutional Amendment Mike Thompson Friday, Dec. 26, 2003 In Massachusetts, historic cradle of American liberties, the state Supreme Court has become the contemporary incubator of libertines, decreeing that the Legislature, like it or not, must draft a law to legitimize homosexual coupling. In Washington, DC, just a few weeks before, the U.S. Supreme Court had set the predicate for the Bay State's perversion of marriage when it decreed that states may not criminalize private and consensual adult homosexual acts. Such radical departure from the norms of society has provoked an overriding majority of Americans to demand a...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Petaluma) is a strong "no" vote on going to war with Iraq. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills) is a solid "yes." Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher of Alamo, like many other Democrats on Capitol Hill, wishes the whole issue could be decided after November's elections. The state's Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have raised no qualms about President Bush's Iraq policy. California's congressional delegation is, in short, a microcosm of Congress as a whole as it grapples with Bush's request for a resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq. "The snapshot is: Republicans are supportive of...