Free Republic

"The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.

Just curious, but is anybody paying attention to what just happened in Pakistan? It's dribbled out in bits and pieces, but I don't recall anyone putting the whole picture in perspective. Here's what's happened. More than a year ago, Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of five, was working in the fields in the Punjab province when some of the Muslim women working alongside her asked her to fetch water. When she returned, several women said they would not accept it because she was a Christian and therefore "unclean." Insults were exchanged and in the process Bibi made some insulting remarks...

First of all, let me begin by saying that it is my duty, as a priest and pastor, to impose moral standards on you. Part of my job and function is to teach Christian morality and to get us, as a body, to adhere to Christian moral standards, so before you come to me with complaints about the separation of Church and state, be aware that I am doing my duty in telling you what the Church, as the Body of Christ, teaches about life and responsibility. [...] As Christians, we can certainly have opinions about a multitude of public...

TYNEMOUTH, England—With a tight election hanging in the balance, this seaside constituency in northeast England is core to the U.K.'s opposition Conservative Party's quest to convert a lead in the polls into control of the British government. The local race here is at the heart of the Tories' challenge: to overcome the governing Labour Party in more than 100 mainly Labour-held key swing seats, while holding off or making gains in an additional 20 seats it is contesting with the traditionally smaller Liberal Democrats, a party that has become a factor in the 2010 election. If Conservative leader David Cameron...

Manzano’s own witness does not back him.The samples from the 3/11 attack were not eliminated; they were moved to the "TEDAX laboratory" The Courts of Plaza de Castilla [provincial courts, not the heavily politizied National High Court] have welcomed this Tuesday the renewal of the cause against the former head of the TEDAX and his subordinate, the chemical expert of the unit. Although the TEDAX [officer] that coordinated the tasks of collection of rest of explosive was proposed by the defense, he contradicted his superior. OLIVIA MOYA Court number 43 from Madrid admitted a complaint filed by the Association for...

Regulation: The New York Times says the EPA should use its authority to regulate our very breath if a Democratic Congress isn't "goaded" into action. Whatever happened to government of the people? It's been a pattern of this administration that if the American people are adamantly opposed to it, ram it through anyway. So it's been with the health care overhaul, offshore drilling restrictions and now the Environmental Protection Agency threatening to become the uber-regulator of the air we breathe. The New York Times says in a Saturday editorial regarding that last item that if Congress fails to enact cap-and-trade...

MUST SEE! Pastor Stephen Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas, TX speaks out against obamacare and this administration. Speaking out against obamacare on Fox & Friends

(Davis in his editorial)I began having second thoughts about last week's column urging the indictment of former Vice President Dick Cheney for approving the use of water boarding and other forms of illegal torture, shortly after it was published and posted last Monday morning - days before the Obama-Cheney back-to-back speeches Thursday.

Lawrence Wilkerson has a must-read on what he now believes is the real reason Cheney was so insistent on torturing prisoners - he needed proof of an al Qaeda-Saddam connection to justify the war he had already decided to wage. This really is the explosive charge, because it reveals the real danger of torture in the hands of big government: it means our leaders can manufacture facts to justify anything. It gives them the crucial weapon they need to, as Ron Suskind's famous source explained, "create reality"....

Democratic candidate hopeful, Barack Obama, on the campaign trail in January of '08: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect meby Anne Broache HANOVER, N.H.--Barack Obama may be leading the Democratic presidential pack in every major poll here, but that didn't dissuade the Illinois senator from a final early-morning rally with the Facebook generation. Clearly not content to leave their votes to the whims of online politicking, the Illinois senator stepped onto a stage fashioned in a Dartmouth College gymnasium, pulled an index card from his inside jacket pocket, and launched into a familiar set of talking points centered...

Obama Signs SCHIP Law with Major Tobacco Tax Increase February 5, 2009 News Summary (excerpt:) Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Barack Obama signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill into law this week; the measure will expand healthcare coverage for children using funds from a 62-cent-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax. The Detroit Free Press reported Feb. 4 that Obama approved the $74-billion SCHIP reauthorization legislation passed by the House of Representatives earlier in the day on a 290-135 vote. The Senate had previously approved the measure, which was vetoed twice last year by then-President George Bush. The measure...

On Saturday the President challenged his country to "discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis..." ...But is that what "we the people" hired him to do? To use "great opportunities" to change the face and fabric of the nation? "We the People" were promised swift and effective action towards getting the markets repaired by President Obama, but they have dropped about 1400 points each week since he's taken power. "We the People" were promised greater fiscal responsibility by candidate Obama, yet his own proposals throw us down a black hole of debt, the likes of which we've never...

[IF] If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat...

DAD, WHAT's UNABHANGIKEITSTAG? "Is that when the thirteen colonies broke away from England?" My ten year inquired out of nowhere at 6 AM German time this morning. "Yeah, why do you want to know, eat your breakfast," I mumbled, too sleepy to be very curious. "Because I am afraid my teacher will ask me, since I am wearing this T-shirt and I'm the only American in the class." With an effort, I adjusted my gaze upward to his white T-shirt. It was brand new. Prominent on his breast was an image of the flag and below that: OLD NAVY...

Kevin Roberts told his parents he was joining the Army two months after 9/11. Soon he was wearing the "Screaming Eagle" patch of the 101st Airborne Division— the same unit his father had served with four decades earlier. On Wednesday, the 25-year-old staff sergeant was killed in eastern Afghanistan when his vehicle was blown up by a makeshift bomb, according to the Department of Defense. A fellow soldier, Spc. Jeremy R. Gullett, 22, of Greenup, Ky., was also killed in the same explosion. "He came home one day and he said, 'I'm going into the service. It's what I want...

Hillary Clinton finally acknowledged what even Howard Wolfson couldn’t spin away — that she didn’t stroll off an airplane in Tuzla in 1996 under sniper fire. In an editorial meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, Hillary called the controversy a “minor blip”, but admitted that she made a “misstatement” when it came to the danger she faced in Tuzla. That admission only came after video clearly showed Hillary and her entourage, including a 15-year-old Chelsea, smiling and moving unhurriedly to a greeting ceremony she claimed never happened: Clinton acknowleged today for the first time that it was a...

Around the Square -- Second Amendment needs clarification. http://cantondailyledger.com/articles/2008/01/29/news/news02.txt The Canton Daily Ledger Tue, 29 Jan 2008 5:26 PM PST Something that dates back to the founding of this nation was the writing of the Constitution in 1787. The Second Amendment to the Constitution has 27 words in it, and the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case for which the results could have a profound effect on the rights of Americans to bear arms.........

A Day in the Life of President Bush (with photos): 12-08-07 Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island PHOTO OF THE DAY First lady Laura Bush and President Bush wave as they arrive at the Ellipse for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2007 ~ ~ ~ QUOTE(s) OF THE DAY "Good Morning. Today I want to talk to you about some important policies affecting taxpayers and homeowners this holiday season. On Thursday, the United States Senate passed a bill to fix the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. The AMT was designed to ensure...

By Burt Prelutsky I used to believe that one of the reasons that a lot of the male movie stars of the 30s and 40s drank so much was out of guilt that they were making more money in a week than most Americans earned in a year, and that even in the middle of the Great Depression they were living like royalty. But I also suspected that they turned to alcohol partly out of shame because they were engaged in what would generally have been regarded as a passive, feminine occupation -- playing dress up, being told what to...

"[T]he former Tennessee senator has produced the most courageous proposal of the campaign." (Washington Post Editorial, 11/16/07) ... more