Free Republic

WOW!!! Sarah Palin's pick to be McCain's VP has given me an overwhelming feeling of hope for the USA. I never thought a single person could make this much difference. The typical considerations (in the media) of Romney/Lieberman/etc, made me think of more of the same. I've voted in every election since I've been 18 and certainly remember how "bad" it was during the Carter reign with 21% interest at the banks. So looking at the democrats and expecting a throw back to the Carter demolition of the US was very depressing, and what was going to make a difference...

In a ruling that surprised some observers, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of a pro-life group to display photos showing the bodies of babies dismembered during abortions. The conservative Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., had brought suit on behalf of the Center for Bioethical Reform (CBR), a California pro-life group. The case involved police detention for 75 minutes of two CBR pro-life activists who in March circled Rancho Palos Verdes Middle School in Los Angeles, driving a large truck displaying on three sides photos of aborted babies. School...

A federal appeals court gave an anti-abortion group the go-ahead Wednesday to drive trucks with enlarged photos of aborted fetuses past California schools, saying the Constitution protects the display of disturbing messages.  Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies interfered with free speech by ordering the driver of one such truck to move away from a middle school, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The deputies had cited a state law barring disruptive activities near public school grounds.  "The government cannot silence messages simply because they cause discomfort, fear or even anger," said a panel of three...

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Hands First Amendment Victory to Center for Bio-Ethical Reform COLUMBUS, OH– July 3, 2008 – A federal appellate panel ruled Wednesday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department violated the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's (CBR) free speech rights when two CBR associates were forced to move a mobile billboard display of enlarged photos of early-term aborted fetuses away from a Rancho Palos Verdes middle school campus.   The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), a non-profit pro-life educational foundation, sued the LA County Sheriff's Department and an assistant principal at Dodson Middle School, claiming civil rights...

""...Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where...

Robin Garrison, an off-duty 42-year-old firefighter, was walking in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, in May when he saw a woman sunbathing topless under a tree. He approached her and they started talking and getting comfortable, the woman smiling and resting her foot on his shoulder at one point. Eventually, she asked to see Garrison's penis; he unzipped his pants and complied. Seconds later, undercover police officers pulled up in a van and arrested Garrison; he was later charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor, based on video footage taken by cops who were targeting men having sex or masturbating in...

Weeks after accusing President Bush of "shameful" behavior over the imprisonment of two Border Patrol agents who shot an unarmed suspected drug smuggler along the U.S.-Mexico border, a federal lawmaker turned up the heat further, suggesting the president should be impeached if the two men are killed in prison. Speaking after the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that agent Ignacio Ramos was assaulted by inmates in his Mississippi prison at the weekend, California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had a warning for the White House. "I tell you, Mr. President, if these men - especially after this assault - are murdered...

A 75-year-old chief from Iraq's powerful Tamim tribe was thrown to his death from the top of a Baghdad building after gunmen kidnapped him from a funeral, a relative said today. Sheik Hamed Mohammed Suhail, a Sunni leader in a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite tribe, was seized from the funeral in Agarguff area near Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Monday. "He was dragged from the funeral and taken to Shuala area in Baghdad and then thrown from the top of a building,'' his nephew, tribal leader Sheik Ali Suhail al-Tamimi, said, blaming Shi'ite militants. Shuala is...

CINDY SHEEHAN, ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST: We're standing in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, America's coalition, and Iraqis who don't have enough clean water to drink, who don't have enough food to eat, who can get killed when they go to the marketplace to shop for their family, who can get raped by our soldiers just living, whose families can be killed. This war is a war crime, and our soldiers trying to survive are committing war crimes.

Come out, come out wherever you are!!! Time for SAVAGE!

There was something missing from the full-page advertisement that the American Civil Liberties Union ran in newspapers around the country last week. The ad kicked off an ACLU campaign called "Don't Spy On Me," which is aimed at pressuring federal and state regulators into investigating the phone companies that supplied domestic call records to federal intelligence analysts. Subtle the ad wasn't. "IF YOU'VE USED A TELEPHONE IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, READ THIS," shouted the headline in end-of-the-world-sized type. "AT&T, Verizon, and other phone companies may have illegally sent your phone records to the National Security Agency." The ad went...

Mike, I think you're right on most of the time. But your observation that conspiracy theorists are wrong 99.99% of the time is way over the top.

An unidentified intruder, right, shouts as he is approached by a member of the Secret Service Emergency Response Team on the North Lawn of the White House, Sunday, April 9, 2006 in Washington. The man was later taken into custody by the Secret Service. President Bush was in the White House at the time. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) The bearded man, wearing a ragged T-shirt that said "God Bless America," scaled the White House fence and ran onto the front lawn, waving his arms and screaming "I am a victim of terrorism," before Secret Service officers chased him down.

Silvio Berlusconi talked himself into another controversy at the weekend by comparing himself to Jesus Christ. The Italian prime minister's comments, made at the start of official campaigning for April's general election, prompted the scorn of his political opponents and the wrath of the Catholic Church. "I am the Jesus Christ of politics," Mr Berlusconi told supporters at a party rally on Saturday. "I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone." Marco Rizzo, a communist parliamentarian, called it a "grotesque comparison".

As was reported yesteday on NewsBusters, Democratic Senator John Kerry wasn't challenged on the Today show after he claimed that 53% of Americans don't graduate from high school. Well on this morning's Early Show, New Orleans Democratic Mayor Ray Nagin made an equally silly claim, "50% of all residents in the United States live along the Gulf Coast." I listened to the soundbite several times to ensure I heard him correctly. The claim came during an interview with Harry Smith about President Bush's State of the Union Address and the challenges in rebuilding New Orleans, but was Harry Smith even...

Here they go again .. these very sexually implicit and direct ads for Levitra or Cialis .. in the middle of a Sunday afternoon football game.

Edwards Stem Cell Vision: 'We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases... When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.' Edwards made the unprecedented campaign promises during 30-minute speech at Newton High School gym in Newton, Iowa...

Breaking - just got a call from an associate here in Washington. Some kind of explosion at the FBI building in DC. Monitor.

Chief Executives Arm-Wrestle to Settle Dispute Mon Mar 10,10:59 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A NZ$200,000 ($112,000) dispute between two New Zealand companies has been resolved in an unusual out-of-court settlement -- a best-of-three arm-wrestling match. The chief executives of the small telecommunications companies -- Teamtalk Ltd and MCS Digital Ltd -- squared off after their firms were unable to reach an agreement on access to a mobile radio network. The dispute had already been the subject of a complaint with competition regulators and was heading for the courts. "Sure, losing hurts...

Christians Repudiate the Teachings of Christ Merry Christmas 2002 By Steven S. Showers, Editor      Under a withering barrage of absolute lies, the Republican members of the U.S. Senate have finally capitulated. This Monday morning, December 23, 2002, in solemn ceremony, they all bowed down low before an altar of neon flashing falsehood, and with nary a need for a further prod (by the sharp pointed end of an underworld tail), they have offered up the shining career of Senator Trent Lott as a sacrificial lamb, desperately hoping, feverishly hoping, hoping beyond all the reasonable parameters associated with the quality...