Free Republic

A group of Christian supporters of Barack Obama – who has a 100 percent pro-abortion Senate voting record – have created a website touting the Democratic presidential candidate as the most pro-life choice in November's election. The Pro-Life Pro-Obama website argues that Obama's economic and health care plans and support of programs for the poor will do more for reducing abortions in the U.S. than the positions of his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

RICHMOND, Va. - Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons — each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state. Finding them isn't the hard part. It's getting them to admit that a past mistake has kept them from the ballot box. "People are really, really reluctant to say, 'I lost my rights to vote,'" Bailey said of his quest, which continued in the run-up to Monday's registration deadline in Virginia for the November election. Nationally, there are roughly 4 million released...

Barack Obama called Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings on Tuesday with a promise: As president, he would revisit bankruptcy laws to give judges more leeway to prevent foreclosures. Obama didn't need to lay out a quid pro quo because the message was clear. Cummings, who voted against the financial-markets bailout on Monday, told Obama he was “open” to changing his vote but wasn’t there yet. "I have to look beyond [the bailout] to a rainbow called Obama," he said. "When you bring in the Obama factor, that's very very important." As the final high stakes vote on the bailout bill approaches...

DIVISION A--EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short Title.--This division may be cited as the ``Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this division is as follows: Sec..1..Short title and table of contents. Sec..2..Purposes. Sec..3..Definitions. TITLE I--TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM Sec..101..Purchases of troubled assets. Sec..102..Insurance of troubled assets. Sec..103..Considerations. Sec..104..Financial Stability Oversight Board. Sec..105..Reports. Sec..106..Rights; management; sale of troubled assets; revenues and sale proceeds. Sec..107..Contracting procedures. Sec..108..Conflicts of interest. Sec..109..Foreclosure mitigation efforts. Sec..110..Assistance to homeowners. Sec..111..Executive compensation and corporate governance. Sec..112..Coordination with foreign authorities and central banks....

RTA To Cut 30 Bus Routes, Help Riders Get To Polls POSTED: 7:42 pm EDT October 1, 2008 UPDATED: 11:49 am EDT October 2, 2008 CLEVELAND -- The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is cutting 30 bus routes. The cuts will start Nov. 2, which is two days before the presidential election. Congressmen are calling on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate RTA, saying the cuts will undermine a fair election. Riders are fuming about trying to find a ride to the polls. U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich agrees. "People have a right to vote," Kucinich said. "Their right to vote...

Here are some of the special-interest provisions that are now part of the Wall Street bailout legislation. The bill started at 3 pages, grew to 106 pages, and is now 451 pages. Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502) Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503) 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504) Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308) American Samoa (Sec. 309) Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310) Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311) Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312) Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315) Railroads (Sec....

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) voted yea despite receiving 85,000 calls against it -- out of 91,000 total calls.

McCain, Obama, Lieberman, and Biden have voted for the bailout. No word yet on Graham.

My interest was piqued, but the dark time lived on until my faith in others was renewed on Jan. 4 in the Iowa state primary. Obama had beat out squeaky clean southern boy John Edwards and former first lady and next in the line of political succession Hillary Clinton. I was in shock. And then I came to Jesus/Obama. I donated to the campaign. I followed every primary with bated breath, and muttered my prayers to the political gods while proselytizing the miracle of my new prophet. I got a car magnet, I bought a t-shirt; a pin and bumper...

Debate started, vote to be 8:45 eastern time

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Buzzing from the House floor interrupts Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. In a flurry of hot pink she disappears around the corner to cast her vote. Within minutes she is back, sitting on a couch in a Capitol lounge. The perfectly manicured toenails are misleading: The freshman congresswoman is a tax attorney, a full-time mom, and once worked in a fish cannery in Alaska. Before becoming Minnesota's first Republican congresswoman, she also prayed outside of abortion clinics, helped her husband start his own business, and welcomed 23 foster children into her home. She might not be Sarah Palin, but a noticeable...

LIVE VOTE What should Congress do next now that the House has rejected the $700 billion Wall Street bailout? [ ] Renegotiate the package so it can be passed quickly. [ ] Come up with a new plan. [X] Nothing. Let the markets sort it out.

President Bush will speak in a few minutes. Get to a TV and watch it, if you have the stomach for it.

WASHINGTON - House and Senate leaders yesterday anxiously pleaded with skeptical lawmakers to accept a bipartisan $700 billion financial bailout plan, saying the package was crucial to calm the markets and stave off what they warned could be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Failure to approve the package, which bleary-eyed House and Senate negotiators agreed to early yesterday morning, would cause "an event which we don't want to conceive" of, said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and a lead negotiator of the package. The House is set to vote on the bill today, and the...

On Friday, September 19, rank and file Republican members of Congress were notified of a conference call that would include Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. I would never disclose confidences, but it is quite public now that we were told an economic disaster was about to take this country that could be worse than the crash of 1929. Now, that’s a real attention-getter. It sure got mine. My years as a judge force me to demand factual evidence to support expert opinions. The factual evidence was then and is now less than satisfactory. Yes, credit was...

A side-by-side (it's a Word doc) on the various plans, from Roy Blount's office.

'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it." That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best."...

Please copy, paste, and circulate this press release from the Governor of Missouri. Note the Web domain of the press release, governor.mo.gov. This is not "someone's blog," a "rumor," or a "smear." It is the official Web site of Missouri's state government. The Governor of Missouri says openly that Barack Obama conspired to misuse his state's law enforcement resources to "threaten and intimidate his critics."We cannot overemphasize the gravity of Governor Blunt's accusation. While we are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice, "Conspiracy against rights" is a felony under the U.S. Code, Title 18 (Crimes). At present, Governor Blunt's...

It is going to be a very interesting evening!

While congressional leaders wrangled over the details of a federal bailout for Wall Street that could cost taxpayers an extraordinary $700 billion, the U.S House quietly passed an omnibus-spending bill for nearly the same amount Wednesday. The Senate is expected to pass the $630 billion measure by week’s end. Senate leaders wringing their hands over where to find $700 billion for the Wall Street bailout might start with the fine print of the omnibus bill: The measure includes more than $6.6 billion in pork-barrel spending. The 2,000-plus earmarks fill 752 pages attached to the 357-page spending bill. Sen. Ted Stevens,...

** EXCERPT ** Sarah Palin yesterday made an unscheduled tour of a visitors center at Ground Zero dedicated to those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terror attacks. The Republican vice-presidential nominee nodded her head several times and said, "Oh, my goodness," while a retired firefighter showed her pictures of the burning World Trade Center and exhibits that highlighted the moments the hijacked planes struck each tower. Her tour guide was Lee Ielpi, whose son Jonathan, a firefighter, died at the World Trade Center. Palin told Ielpi, "My parents came after the cleanup," and Ielpi replied, "The whole country...

Senator Graham said on Greta that ACORN was going to get funds in the original deal. It will be a cold day in hell if those leftist crooks get my tax dollars.

CHICAGO, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- U.S. federal agents say they have enough evidence to indict Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for fraud and conspiracy, WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported Thursday. The CBS-owned station also said an indictment of Blagojevich, the first Democrat elected to Illinois' governorship in 30 years, was "not imminent." Neither the FBI, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald nor Blagojevich's office had any immediate comment on the report. Fitzgerald's office said June 30, 2006, it was looking into "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" in the Blagojevich administration.

<p>I just saw this on Fox News by Carl Cameron.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has awesome self-confidence. Chosen by fellow Republicans to be Sen. John McCain’s running mate, she told an interviewer: “I’m ready.” That confidence reflects her naïveté about her role that puts her one heartbeat away from the presidency. In accepting the Republican nomination as vice-president, she invoked the greatness of President Truman, based on their small-town origins. But anyone who was around during Truman’s era knows there is a world of difference between Palin and Truman. Take, for example, humility. Truman was vice president for only a short time when on April 12, 1945, he...

As both doctrine and praxis, to borrow from the old vernacular, communism may have been the most vicious phenomenon of the twentieth century. Part of the viciousness was its canny competence in purporting to be the chalice of hope for mankind. Nazism was also cruel, very cruel and industrially proficient in the mechanics of mass death. But it had no pretensions to universal humanitarianism. It was a master race ideology. Given this undisguised basic principle, its enemies and victims were evident at the near-start and they were by definition counted in the multitudes. Perhaps that is one reason why Hitler's...

AP: FBI Investigating Fannie, Freddie, Lehman & AIG

Donkey jailed for theft19/09/2008 10:37 - (SA) Cairo - An Egyptian donkey has been jailed for stealing corn on the cob from a field belonging to an agricultural research institute in the Nile Delta, local media reported on Thursday. The ass and its owner were apprehended at a police checkpoint that had been set up after the institute's director complained that someone was stealing his crops, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily said. The unnamed ungulate was found in possession of the institute's corn and a local judge sentenced him to 24 hours in prison. The man who had his ass thrown...

HOW THE DEMOCRATS CREATED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS Are Americans, who are footing perhaps a trillion dollar bill, even remotely interested in how it really happened? I ask you. When we may very well be working 40-45% of the time for the government, will they inquire - how did I get here or will they listen to the complete line of bullshit the Obama, a chief moocher and looter, is inventing? I have to know. The mainstream media is depraved. It does not do investigative journalism save to smear folks on the right.And even then it is invented. They should aspire...

Frustrated by the longest budget impasse in California history, Democratic leaders are planning another ballot measure to end the two-thirds vote requirement in the Legislature to pass a state budget. Voters, by a 2-to-1 margin, defeated a similar effort in 2004 that would have also lowered the vote threshold to raise taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent. But incoming Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass say this year's budget – now 84 days late – underscores the need to re-visit the issue in 2010, or next year if there's a special election. California is one...

At the Broward Democratic Party's monthly meeting Tuesday night, it started right at the beginning — with the invocation, delivered by Mike Moskowitz, the state committeeman for the county. He called for a "blessing on the elk and moose in Alaska who have been decimated by Sarah Barracuda" and included a prayer that Palin doesn't turn her sights on the squirrels in Washington, D.C

Washington, DC -- A new commercial from the Obama slams a survivor of a botched late-term abortion and presidential candidate John McCain as "sleazy" for promoting a "despicable lie" that calls Obama into question for his votes against providing medical care to babies who survive failed abortions. As LifeNews.com reported, Gianna Jessen, a young woman who survived a failed saline abortion in the late 1970s, chides Obama for voting repeatedly against bills in the Illinois legislature to stop infanticide. She released an ad about Obama's votes against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and pointed out how even abortion advocates...

Democrat presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois put his seal of approval on the woman who attempted to storm the stage during the acceptance speech by Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska at the Republican National Convention by welcoming her to his $28,500 per person fundraiser held in Hollywood on Tuesday night.Less than two weeks after garnering worldwide attention by getting within feet of the stage where Palin stood before getting dragged away by security personnel, Obama bundler Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink, was one of about 300 donors attending the high-priced...

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says the government is crafting a plan to rescue banks from bad debts that are at the heart of Wall Street's worst financial crisis in decades. Paulson said late Thursday the plan will need congressional approval. He and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the options they are considering.

FRESNO, Calif. — Scientists plan to use satellite photos to count giant kangaroo rats, the first-ever monitoring of an endangered species from outer space. Scientists will examine images taken from the same satellite used by Israeli defense forces to find the circular patches of earth denuded by the rats as they gather food around their burrows.

Report: Rangel's Congress Parking Perk Breaks LawNY Dem Has Parked 1972 Silver Mercedes-Benz In House Of Representatives Indoor Lot Sep 18, 2008 2:16 pm US/Eastern NEW YORK (CBS) - Rep. Charles Rangel is under fire again, this time for stashing an old car without license plates in a congressional parking garage. **SNIP** The Post said Rangel's registration on the vehicle, which is covered with a tarp and has no license plates, expired in 2004. House rules require cars to display proper identification including plates and forbid use of the garage for storage. Also, the House Web site says anyone with...

Yesterday morning, I had the honor of testifying before the House Budget Committee on the situation in Iraq. The discussion was polite and civilized, and was a reminder that even now it is possible for people who disagree about what to do in Iraq to argue without raised voices and disagreeable language (apart from the Code Pink women, yelling for those who think that shouting opponents down is preferable to arguing with them). Congressman Brian Baird once again demonstrated that it is possible even for those who bitterly opposed the war to recognize the importance of doing the right thing...

Most people have not heard of Saul Alinsky. He was a radical of the first order. His tactics, strategies, and thinking influenced a number of modern leftist politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to the Washington Post, a group of Alinsky’s “disciples hired Barack Obama, a 23-year-old Columbia University graduate, to organize black residents on the South Side, while learning and applying Alinsky's philosophy of street-level democracy.” In 1990, an article Obama had written on community organizing appeared in the book "After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois." What frequently is ignored in all of this is Alinsky’s book,...

Joe Biden will deliver a high-profile first attack in a sustained anti-McCain offensive in a speech called "Bush 44" Monday in the key battleground state of Michigan. While the lines of attack have long been drawn, Biden will assert — as the title indicates — that a McCain presidency would amount to a third Bush term and will focus, in a detailed, comprehensive and aggressive way, on John McCain's domestic policies and harsh campaign tactics, a campaign aide told Politico. Biden will deliver the speech in St. Clair Shores, Mich., in Macomb County, the area whose voters inspired Democratic pollster...

Barack Obama and his senior advisers are under fire for ignoring the advice of Democratic senators and governors who are concerned that they do not know how to beat John McCain. The Democratic presidential candidate's slump in the polls has sparked pointed private criticism that he is squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to win back the White House. Party elders also believe the Obama camp is in denial about warnings from Democratic pollsters that his true standing is four to six points lower than that in published polls because of hidden racism from voters - something that would put him a...

Attack us. Show us how ugly you are and the little respect you have for our wellbeing. Belittle our religion, our faith, our God. Distort our convictions and love of country. Make a parody of our conviction to family. Call us breeders, Christian zealots, and jingoist. Let us know that you will use our grace and gentleness against us. The things we believe, all men instinctively know. Let us know that you have no desires but power. No conviction but raw greed. No love of community but self interest. No honor, but perversion. Your type uses our sins against us....

On Monday, Senator Obama uttered one sentence that could haunt him until Election Day. He said of Senator McCain and Governor Palin telling voters they would bring change, “they must think you’re stupid.” Given his stances on the surge, social issues, and his past, Mr. Obama will regret those words. Let’s start with social issues like Second Amendment freedoms. Mr. Obama denies that he’s ever supported banning handguns, right after the landmark Heller case where the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban. When a 1996 questionnaire surfaced that had asked if Mr. Obama supported banning all handguns, his...

Sarah Palin: What's Sexist and What's Not Sexist?September 10, 2008 04:31 PM ET Bonnie Erbe Women can be sexist, too, you know, just like persons of color can be racist. As the media debate whether Gov. Sarah Palin's public treatment is sexist or not, take this punch, socked to Palin by a woman, that's as clearly out of bounds as a husband slapping his wife in the face in public. As related by The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus today: My colleague Sally Quinn put it most provocatively. "Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job?" Quinn wondered. "When...

I voted today at 8:37, the page on the check book was missing, #99, so there was a delay, but since I was on the ballot as a deligate to the pubbie Convention and there are a lot of Little Bills in my town it was corrected. I Voted for Stephan and Sununu and myself.

“What is wrong with these people?” was the nigh-upon-universal reaction among conservatives at the GOP convention last week. Liberal reporters inquired of conservative journalists, Republican delegates, right-leaning janitors, free-market short-order cooks, even the guys walking around in elephant suits: Will Sarah Palin drop out? What about the Eagleton Option? For those who don’t know, the Eagleton Option refers to Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern’s first VP pick in 1972, who was forced to withdraw because of allegations of mental illness. A hybrid of myth and deceit peddled by the chattering bandersnatches of the Democratic Party’s backup offices at MSNBC and other...

GOP Leaders to Speaker Pelosi: Rep. Rangel Should Step Aside as Ways & Means Committee Chairman Washington, Sep 9 - House Republican leaders today wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), urging her to remove Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) as chairman of the Ways & Means Committee until mounting ethical charges against him are resolved. Last week, numerous media outlets reported that Rep. Rangel has failed to report to both the Internal Revenue Service and the Clerk of the House at least $75,000 in income from a luxury vacation property in the Caribbean and that he received an interest-free loan...

Protesters Say They're Proud Of RNC ActsSep 7, 2008 12:20 pm US/Central MINNEAPOLIS (AP) For two years, demonstrators had been looking toward the first four days in September -- when they'd take to the streets of St. Paul to speak out against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration and the Republican agenda. **SNIP** She pointed to Thursday night, when hundreds of people stayed on the streets of St. Paul, even after police told them to leave. Nearly 400 people were arrested, including Sundin. "I think it made a very strong statement," she said. **SNIP** "We think we were able...

Brent Batten: Gov. Palin fights back against her criticsBy BRENT BATTEN 11:12 p.m., Wednesday, September 3, 2008 ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Florida delegation to the Republican National Convention is less than 30 percent female. You wouldn’t know that, looking at the convention floor Wednesday night. State Party Chairman Jim Greer asked male delegates to give up their floor seats to women alternates and guests during the speech of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party’s first female nominee for vice president. “When the convention looks down on Florida, they’re going to see women,” Greer said. That maneuver will quickly be...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not happy with Sen. Joe Lieberman’s speech before the Republican National Convention Tuesday night.