Free Republic

First there was Frist (sort of). Then Thompson. Then Bloomberg. And today Arnold Schwarzenegger will become the latest high-profile (non-Senate) Republican to sign on to the health care plans pushed by President Obama. Here's the statement: For Immediate Release: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Statement on National Push for Health Care Reform Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued the following statement urging the passage of health care reform at the national level: “As Governor, I have made significant efforts to advance health reform in California. As the Obama Administration was launching the current debate on health care reform, I...

POLK COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A Polk County man shot at two robbery suspects Tuesday morning when he thought they were going to run him down. One of the suspects was hit in the head and died, and the other is still at large. The incident happened near a citrus grove on Rifle Range Road in the Wahneta area of Winter Haven. Property owner Jamie Jones heard a commotion outside while working inside his shed just before dawn. Jones told detectives a man and woman were driving away in his Land Rover. He said after they saw him, they...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1078640272&play=1Rick Santelli this morning on CNBC takes on Ariana Huffinton. The intelectual vacuum of Ariana was on full display as she was totally exposed as a mental midget before the common sense real world observations and questions of Santelli. It was not a rebel yell, it was a surgical crushing. Santelli was asking the right questions and hitting the right points and Ariana was clueless in trying to push the usual left wing empty memes. Huffinton was 100% mentally unarmed. I have seen this with all her appearances. She is never prepared to hold her own in a contest of...

Not bipartisan? Try telling that to Sen. Olympia Snowe. On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. John McCain scoffed at the notion that the support President Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal has received from Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, constituted bipartisanship. “[T]his agreement is not bipartisan,” McCain told moderator Bob Schieffer. “I've been in bipartisan agreements, many. This is three Republican senators. Every Republican congressman voted against it in the House, plus Democrats. And all but three Republicans stayed together on this. That's not bipartisanship. That's just picking off a couple of senators.” On Monday, Snowe took issue with that...

It’s official: Marian Robinson, the 71-year-old mother-in-law of President-elect Barack Obama, will be moving into the White House, transition officials said on Friday. In fact, Mrs. Robinson is already in town, helping to smooth the family’s personal transition as Mr. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters prepare for new lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle says there's no politics in her decision not to attend a National Governors Associatoin meeting next week with President-elect Barack Obama. The Republican governor says her primary responsiblities are at home. She plans several meetings with department heads on challenges facing the local economy. The conference in Philadelphia would have taken her away Monday through Wednesday. Lingle says, "Politics played absolutely no role" in her decision. Obama invited all 50 governors to discuss the nation's economy. Forty are expected, including Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Obama's Hawaii campaign director, Andy Winer, accused Lingle of...

Lingle responds to crticism for not meeting with ObamaBy KHON News Governor Linda Lingle was a no show today in Philadelphia when President-elect Barack Obama met with more than 40 of the nation's governors. Hawaii Democrats are criticizing Lingle, a Republican, for not attending. This afternoon, Lingle defended her decision. Governor Lingle says her decision was not politically motivated, rather it had to do with timing. SNIP But some island Democrats are upset over Lingle's decision, saying it doesn't make sense. Governors from across the nation convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, for a historic face-to-face meeting with President-elect Barack...

I just wrote about the albatross about to form involving the Treasury Bond and the bailout(s). The Treasury Bond is at record levels and only giving an interest rate of 2.67% on the ten year benchmark. At the same time, we are trying to borrow several trillion Dollars. In other words, we are asking debtors to lend us several trillion dollars even though they would only get 2.67%, at least currently, as their rate. The Treasury bond, especially the ten year, is the pre cursor to most long term rates like mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc. so it's uncontrolled...

Video here.

Wealth redistribution

Larry Sinclair's press conference today at the National Press Club ended with the surprise appearance of US Marshalls, who presented a warrant for Sinclair's arrest. The DC police arrested and led Sinclair away in handcuffs. UPDATES UPDATE at 6:32 pm Wednesday June 18, 2008: Sinclair was indeed arrested by DC police immediately after his press conference and is being held, at present, by the Washington DC Police Department. Sinclair's being held at the 1st Division, 415 No. 4 Street SW. No charges have been announced. According the The Mitch and Nan Show blog: After a phone call to the Washington...

Proving just how important Barack Obama’s new rumor-busting Web site could be, a Tennessee Democratic Party member told a local newspaper that the presumptive nominee of his party “may be terrorist connected.”

Prostitution Case Features Prosecutors of Corruption BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun March 10, 2008 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/72574 Prosecutors specializing in government corruption cases are leading the investigation into what authorities say was a prostitution service that charged up to $5,500 an hour — suggesting that the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan may have evidence that a public official hired a prostitute. Federal prosecutors here recently unsealed a criminal complaint charging four people with running Emperors Club VIP, which advertised itself as an escort service. Prosecutors say the Emperors Club employed more than 50 high-end prostitutes. During a...

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), also known as Congressman Hollywood, is one of the most powerful members of the House when it comes to intellectual property issues, so when he muses aloud about "revisiting" the DMCA, people listen. Unfortunately, Berman wants to reform the DMCA because it doesn't go far enough, and his ideas sound like they're ripped right from the pages of the Big Content playbook. Berman chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, and this morning oversaw a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, a bill that could boost statutory damages for copyright infringement and create...

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., the father of a Westminster Marine who was killed in Iraq, today won his case in a Baltimore federal court against members of Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church who protested at his son's funeral last year. The jury of five women and four men awarded Snyder $2.9 million in compensatory damages. The amount of punitive damages to be awarded has not yet been decided. The jury deliberated for about two hours yesterday and much of today.

WASHINGTON - Oh, Canada! The USA is closer than ever. The Bush administration appears to have annexed a major Canadian landmark as part of a slick new campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors to America. A Disney-produced promotional video released last week by the departments of State and Homeland Security highlights majestic American landscapes, from New England's colourful fall foliage and the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains and Hawaii's pounding surf. Backed by a soaring orchestral soundtrack, shots of those attractions are interspersed with the smiling images of people of all creeds and colours. The video,...

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has taken up a new battle against pirates, but this one is different than previous legal pursuits. The UK-based organization acts as the worldwide arm for the music recording industry, but as widely reported, it apparently forgot to renew its .com top-level domain in time before it got snatched up by one of its top targets, The Pirate Bay. While the IFPI still retains control of ifpi.org, ifpi.com now points to a Pirate Bay page that reads: "International Federation of Pirates Interests." The two sides are now preparing for a fight over the...

When it comes to launching online attacks, criminals are getting more organised and branching out from the Windows operating system, says eBay's security chief. eBay recently did an in-depth analysis of its threat situation, and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University. Cullinane, who one year ago downplayed the role of organised crime in phishing ("It's not the Sopranos," he said), believes that online attackers are indeed...

Michael Goldfarb in the Weekly Standard has just broken news on the Weekly Standard that can only result in the firing of, at the minimum, Franklin Foer, editor of the once-respected New Republic. You simply cannot publish anti-military stories, inflammatory and controversial on their face, without subjecting the wild claims to the most strict fact-checking measures possible. Yet Mr. Foer, it now appears, did just that. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the husband of a New Republic staffer who previous to his military service posted anti-war material on a weblog, volunteered to recant the stories that were published in The New Republic...

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source. Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad: An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp...

It's in a subscribers only link at the Wall Street Journal. The Congressman wants $8,000,000.00 to pay for marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund research into shrimp-fishing. These are but two of the Congressman's 65 earmarks sought thus far this year to the tune of $400,000,000.00. HIs chief spokesman pulled a Tom DeLay and said "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked," the spokesman said. "What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public -- and I have...

Description on main page of website: "Some of us — hopefully most of us — are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't."

For a hearty lunchtime chuckle: Check out my interview with Ron Ott of Coptix, one of the masterminds behind the April Fools' joke that caused a Rove Derangement Syndrome feeding frenzy.

Tomkat, Bradgelina Get Pwned In Annual Banned Word ListPOSTED: 12:24 pm EST December 31, 2006 UPDATED: 12:44 pm EST December 31, 2006 DETROIT -- Online video gamers inadvertently stumbled onto a pop culture phenomenon when they began championing the use of "pwn," a misspelling of "own." Now, linguist police around the globe say it's high time to bury the cryptic term, which means to dominate or soundly defeat. "This word is just an overly used Internet typo," said Tory Rowley, of Corunna, Mich. "It has been overused to the point that people who play online games are using it in...

I really, really hope Rush Limbaugh sees and picks this up today. COURIC: CBS 'EVENING NEWS' RATINGS DISASTER Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 NEW YORK CITY WABC 7.1 WNBC 5.3 WCBS 3.7 LOS ANGELES KABC 5.9 KNBC 3.1 KCBS 1.5 WASHINGTON, DC NBC 9.3 ABC 7.8 CBS 2.5

(S10E09) Almost immediately after the events of 9/11, conspiracy theories began to crop up, and probably faster than ever before now that we had the internet and a way to instantaneously transmit gross misinformation and conclusions rife with logical fallacies. I think Cartman best summed up this episode with a line from his song about finding the truth behind 9/11: "I can't base my logic on proof." While Mr. Macke tries to find out which boy took a crap in one of the urinals, Cartman decides to finally get to the bottom of 9/11. He presents his finding in class,...

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BOSTON (Reuters) - A prostitute forced repeatedly into having sex with a Boston policeman said she feared the abuse would never stop -- until she stole his badge. When the officer, Michael LoPriore, telephoned her to get it back, the FBI was tuning in to their conversation, the 19-year-old's lawyer, John Swomley, said on Wednesday. LoPriore, 37, was charged in federal court on Tuesday with depriving the woman of her rights by using his position as a police officer to force her to perform sex in his car in September 2004. Under a plea agreement, the 12-year veteran of Boston's...

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another. Jimmy Carter, elected during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and (1) believing Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, (2) lifted U.S. citizens' travel bans to Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and (3) pardoned draft evaders. President Carter (4) also stopped B-1 bomber production, (5) gave away our strategically located Panama Canal and (6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy. That led...

AP 7-Eleven Dropping Venezuela-Backed Citgo Wednesday September 27, 12:16 pm ET 7-Eleven Dropping Venezuela-Backed Citgo As Its Gasoline Supplier DALLAS (AP) -- Convenience store operator 7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier at more than 2,100 locations and switching to its own brand of fuel. The retailer said Wednesday it will purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy Group of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City, and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp.

I quake in fear in my bed each night, shivering with the thought that a Mooooslim is about to blow me up with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Then I realize that George W. Bush is in charge, and will personally stop such things. Then I can sleep for one more night. What wll we ever do when he leaves office? I suppose we all will just die.

With the Burning Man art festival in the Nevada desert starting Monday, a group of San Francisco scientists is busy calculating how much the event contributes to global warming. Encouraged by the resurgence of the green movement, the scientists are taking a hard look at all those sacred flaming temples, gas-powered scooters shaped like cupcakes, and hundreds of rumbling RVs that converge for a week on the dry Black Rock Desert lakebed. With an idea that would make Al Gore smile, the scientists have created Cooling Man, an online calculator that determines how many tons of greenhouse gases each of...

BREAKING NEWS: The Red Sox have lost to the New York Yankees, 2-1, as the Bronx Bombers completed a five game sweep of Boston

<p>If you go to google website and search for "failure" The first thing listed is George W. Bush bio.</p>

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Rep. Cynthia McKinney is controversial and outspoken, independent and unrepentant, all of which have endeared her to a dedicated corps of loyal supporters in her metro Atlanta district -- but not to a majority of her fellow Democrats who turned out in Tuesday's primary runoff. For the second time in three election cycles, McKinney was defeated in a Democratic primary in Georgia's 4th District, this time by Hank Johnson, a former DeKalb County commissioner who thumped her by a margin of 59-41 percent. Despite her defeat, McKinney was unbowed, unleashing a stemwinder of a concession speech...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXypOf3Umf8&search=bolton%20kerryBolton smacks down this fool  

Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 12:52 PM Subject: Statement from Dan Rather, June 20, 2006 I appreciate the words and gestures contained in today's press release by CBS. I leave CBS News with tremendous memories. But I leave now most of all with the desire to once again do regular, meaningful reporting. My departure before the term of my contract represents CBS's final acknowledgement, after a protracted struggle, that they had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there. As for their offers of a future with only an office but no assignments, it...

THESE ARE THE SENATORS WHO VOTED TO GIVE SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY, THESE POLITICIANS NEED TO BE DEFEATED IN 2006, 2008 OR 2010, WHENEVER THEY NEXT COME UP FOR OFFICE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW; THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION -- THAT IS, UNLESS THEY DO NOT MIND SHARING THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY WITH FOREIGN WORKERS WHO NEVER PAID INTO IT AND AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING LEFT OUT. Grouped by Home State Alabama: Alaska: Stevens (R-AK), Yea Arizona: McCain (R-AZ), Yea Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR),...

This is an image made from video originally posted Tuesday, April 25, 2006 on the Internet showing al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced at a news conference Thursday June 8, 2006, that al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed. This image was provided via the IntelCenter, which is a private contractor working for intelligence agencies. (AP Photo/via IntelCenter)

A former Republican congressman Brian Bilbray has won a U.S. House of Representatives race in California on Tuesday by narrowly beating Democrat Francine Busby in a conservative district north of San Diego. The two were contending to replace Randy Cunningham, a former Republican congressman who was imprisoned for taking bribes. Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota also held primaries on Tuesday to select candidates for November, when all 435 seats in the House, 33 Senate seats and 36 governorships will be up for grabs. The news comes as the "first good dose" for the President...

I am curious why none of the media covers the most important aspect of the Malvo shootings. If you look at Newspapers on the dates when the shootings are underway you discover something I find quite interesting. The shootings begin to dominate the news the day before the debate on the Iraq war starts and they catch them the day after the declaration of war??? If you ask most people "do you remember the debate about starting the second Iraq war", they will all answer "yes of course". But if you followup with the question "name one point in the...

I recently received a reply to a post that stated: "This should be beneath a "freeper". Sad." So I asked.. what is it that makes a FReeper? My reply (and I will admit was tasteless) was also questioning. It stirred controversy and was removed? Why Moderators? Can you not tell me? Did it not meet with your "FReeper" mentality? According to all posted guidelines it should be listed but no, you chose to delete it. Yes.. I'm the first one IBTZ, I'm sure you'll nick me for speaking up..

Earlier today, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs emailed us about a death threat he had received, apparently from an employee of Reuters in London. It's a complicated story; you can read it all here. LGF got an email from the obviously fictitious address, "zionistpig@hotmail.com." ("Zionist pig" is revealing, I think.) The subject heading was: "You bunch of wankers." That jumped out at me; to my knowledge, the only people who use the word "wanker" (Is it a word? Beats me.) are left-wing bloggers and their commenters. This was the text of the email: I look forward to the day...

WARNING: Embedded links contain profanity World of Warcraft or otherwise known as simply, WoW is one of the most popular and successful computer games in history. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that 6 million people pay $10 -15 per month to play. This type of popularity creates a sample size that is large enough to reflect the forces that control it. In Layman's terms, with this many people playing this online game at any given time human nature tends to get a stronger representation. The first "reality" check was a bug that caused a plague to...

CQPolitics.com on Friday launched The CQPolitics Forum with this question: Is DeLay’s glass half full or half empty? Today, four professional political analysts -- Dotty Lynch, Rhodes Cook, Phil Duncan, and David P. Rebovich -- take their stabs at the question. Tomorrow, CQPolitics.com readers become the political pundits. Readers should send their responses to politicscomments@cq.com. Continue reading for more about our political analysts and what they have to say about DeLay .... Dotty Lynch, a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a CBS News political consultant. Rhodes Cook, a former...

John McCain is running for President 2008. As a republican candidate, John McCain could win the republican nomination. Many feel if John McCain runs against Hillary Clinton, he would win the presidential election in 2008. John McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958. After graduation, John McCain became a Naval Avaitor. For over 5 years, John McCain was a Vietnam captive. John McCain became a US Senator for Arizona in 1986. Senator John McCain is now Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and is known for his successful passing of Campaign Finance Reform. Express your...

I think he has a sincere desire to help everyone. he has even gone out of his way to embrace people like Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. He does not hold grudges as shown by his willingness to bend over backwards to allow terrorist supporting nations to operate our ports. We need this type of benevolent leader. Our President is not a cheapskate, as he has opened up our budget to give to anyone who might need anything. Aliens from all nations are welcomed into our great country without having to deal with mundane bureaucratic State approval. Cutting government red...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the execution of convicted killer Michael Morales. Justice Anthony Kennedy reviewed the case, then sent it to the full court, which denied Morales' final appeal at 6:29 p.m. EST, according to court spokesman Ed Turner. "The court entered orders denying the request for stays of execution," he said. The Supreme court was the only legal option left for Morales, 46, who is scheduled to die from lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison for killing teenager Terri Winchell, of Lodi. He would become the...

Fellow Americans, there comes a time every mans life when we must give up ourselves before we are worthy to recieve. There comes a time in this war on terror when in order to protect liberty, we have to give it up in the mean time for safty. That's right folks. Today, Americans have forsaken the creator for the creation and have decided that they would value our "civil liberties" than protecting western civilization and rich white people from the tender mercies of radical Islamic terrorists. Selfish liberals insist and whine that Bush has no right to spy on Americans...