Free Republic

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...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here's what leading presidential candidates have said about climate change and energy policies, and what they want to do. REPUBLICAN ARIZONA SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: "I know that climate change is real ... we've got to address it, we can do it with technology, with cap and trade, with capitalist and free enterprise motivation." Co-authored bill to cut emissions by 65 percent by 2050, favors unspecified fuel efficiency increase and overall energy efficiency. DEMOCRATIC NEW YORK SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: "We need to start on a path to slow, stop and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions." Supports...

The epithet of choice these days for Republicans who oppose any expansion of government’s role in health care programs is “socialized” medicine. Rudy Giuliani has used the “s-word” to denounce legislation that would enlarge a children’s health insurance program and to besmirch Hillary Clinton’s health plan. Mitt Romney has added a xenophobic twist, calling the Clinton plan “European-style socialized medicine,” while ignoring its similarities to a much-touted health care reform he championed as governor of Massachusetts. Other conservative critics have wielded the “s-word” to deplore efforts to expand government health care programs or regulation over the private health care markets....

STATE SENATE President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, called the budget impasse "a Republican problem." To be precise, it is the problem of a small group of Republican senators who have allowed their egos and ideologies to trump the public interest. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, also a Republican, expressed frustration with the holdouts during a news conference Thursday. The governor effectively gave them want they wanted - in terms of the budget - when he agreed to use his line-item veto to cut the remaining $700 million deficit when it reaches his desk. The budget contains the largest reserve in state...

May 11, 2007 Unmasking Global Warming: The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev By Vasko Kohlmayer | View comments It is as paradoxical as it is revealing that the man who now parades as an angel of ecological salvation is by virtue of his actions at Chernobyl and elsewhere responsible for more environmental destruction than any other person alive. The most remarkable aspect of the man-made global warming claim is the lack of solid scientific evidence for it. Yet there are those whose apparent goal it is to advance this theory at all costs. Blatant in their disregard of the facts, they...

The fifth-graders at Paul Burbank Elementary School in Hampton are required to work on an exhibition project as part of the International Baccalaureate program. The subject of the inquiry must be a real-life issue or problem that is local or global and is of sufficient scope and significance to warrant an extended investigation. Burbank's fifth-graders came to realize that global warming remains the most complex environmental problem of our time and threatens dangerous consequences if not addressed. They chose global warming as their exit project for this year since they felt the issue merited serious attention. The students wanted to...

New York firefighters have been forced to strip their lockers American flags, stickers expressing support for U.S. troops in Iraq and cards commemorating firefighters who died in the September 11, attacks, the firefighters' union said on Wednesday. The Uniformed Firefighters Association threatened to sue the New York Fire Department, claiming it violated the free speech rights of New York's 8,800 firefighters and 2,500 fire officers. The action comes under an old policy more strictly enforced since early last month. A fire department spokesman said flags and commemorative cards were allowed but offensive material was not. "Over the past 18 months,...

Excerpt - LITTLE ROCK — Former president Bill Clinton said Monday that he remembered the moment he realized he made the shift from a world leader to a philanthropist. "One day I was shaving in my house up in New York and Ilooked at myself in the mirror, and I thought, 'My God, I've become an NGO (non-government organization),'" Clinton told a crowd of 300 people gathered at his presidential libary in downtown Little Rock. ~ snip ~ "My climate-change initiative is being funded by Barbra Streisand and Rupert Murdoch," Clinton said, delighted by the unlikely alliance between the actress...

Over the past decade, the expression public-private partnership has crept into our publiclexicon. What is a public-private partnership? What purposes were they supposedlycreated to serve? What, on the other hand, is free enterprise? Are the two compatible?In answering these questions we shall see that although advocates of public-privatepartnerships frequently speak of economic development, public-private partnershipsreally amount to economic control—they are just one of the key components of thecollectivist edifice being built up around the idea of sustainable development. Within theeconomic arena of sustainable development is the emergence of what we might call softfascism: a system that fits the dictionary definitions...

Across the country, the income gap between blacks and whites remains wide, and nowhere more so than in Manhattan. But just a river away, a very different story is unfolding. In Queens, the median income among black households, nearing $52,000 a year, has surpassed that of whites in 2005, an analysis of new census data shows. No other county in the country with a population over 65,000 can make that claim. The gains among blacks in Queens, the city’s quintessential middle-class borough, were driven largely by the growth of two-parent families and the successes of immigrants from the West Indies....

Below is an eight page review of information on the subject of "global warming," and a petition in the form of a reply card. Please consider these materials carefully. The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds. This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide...

Vatican City, Apr. 20, 2006 (CNA) - Italian Vatican analyst Sandro Magister is releasing a long dialogue Cardinal  Martini sustained with Ignazio Marino, famous Italian bio-ethicist, and director of the Center of transplants of the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, about abortion, in-vitro fecundation and contraceptionAnd the answer is: “not immediatly with conception, but after” said Cardinal Martini, about when life starts, “with the consequences that derive from it,” added Magister. The long dialogue between the two men will be released in the next issue of the weekly “L’espresso,” a center-left weekly tomorrow,  it will be made available by Sandro...

The history of Canadian peacekeeping Peter McCluskey, CBC News Online | Updated October 30, 2003 The seeds of peacekeeping can be found buried on the battlefields, in the trenches and in the graveyards of Europe and Asia. The men who fought and lived through two world wars never wanted to see another. They believed that by putting an end to regional conflicts they could reduce the potential of the world ever being consumed by war again. They would create a new international body to keep peace in the world and support social and economic progress. The newly formed United Nations...

Recipe for reducing world poverty Reducing world poverty and child mortality. Improving maternal health and providing universal primary education around the world. Doing that - and more - by 2015. Lofty goals that are easier said than done. They are among the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals that were conceived as the 20th century ended and the 21st began. The UN estimates that between 1990 and 2002, average overall incomes around the world increased by 21 per cent. The number of people living in extreme poverty fell by 130 million. And child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000...

...A leaked memo last week from Walmart's executive vice president for benefits, Susan Chambers, suggested that the next move in cost-cutting at the nation's largest private employer would be to "dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Walmart." ...You should think about this, because if you believe your company isn't harboring similar thoughts, you are living in a dream world. As a spokesperson for Walmart said after the memo was leaked, "Every business in America... [is] having conversations in their boardrooms just like ours."

Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, has labelled Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times," in her foreword to the most recent Amnesty International Annual Report. This illustrates how the world's most famous human rights non-government organisation (NGO) has become rotten to the core. This year criticism of the United States was both inevitable and justified, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. However, labelling Guantanamo Bay — home to some of the world's most fearsome terrorists — a "gulag," has raised more than a few eyebrows, and raised serious questions about Amnesty's political motivations and credibility. For...

Eight towns would love to land the new Sierra Nevada Conservancy headquarters, projected to eventually have 70 employees and a $10 million budget. But only two showed up at the historic first meeting of the conservancy board Thursday in Sacramento, and both were from Nevada County. Nevada City used a laid-back approach in its pitch, but Truckee came on like a runaway snowboarder. Auburn, Colfax, Placerville, Amador City, Ione and Jackson were no-shows. “Give us your serious consideration,” said Truckee Mayor Craig Threshie in a lengthy speech that trumpeted the town’s location, history and commitment to the range. “We have...

The Sierra Nevada, historically a majestic battleground for competing local interests, comes under the stewardship of the state's newest and biggest conservancy this week. Proponents say the 25-million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy will be more than a protector of the mountain environment - it will also be an incubator for jobs and economic growth. The conservancy's 13 voting board members - seven state appointees and six county supervisors - will hold their first meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday in Sacramento at the state Energy Commission building, 1516 Ninth St. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy is the ninth conservancy created by the Legislature...

OPEN COURT is a government-approved reading program for elementry children in California Schools. It is one of only two which are approved. I do not know what the other one is. I do know that this program is creating children who are totally socialist. Basically, it is a program in which students MUST work two and a half uninterrupted hours each day (on just Open Court (This time-requirement is set by a state mandate called, "Reading First."). The program is put ahead of math--the principal at the known school has told the teachers to "forget about math" because they will...

After President Bush won re-election, many political observers expected MoveOn.org to move into retreat. The sentiment surrounding the liberal online powerhouse was neatly summed up by The Onion, a well-known satire publication, in its spoof headline: "MoveOn CurlsUp InCorner."[snip]Armed with over $30 million raised from donors ranging from students to billionaire financier George Soros, MoveOn moved well beyond cyberspace -- organizing star-studded concerts, airing television ads produced by A-list Hollywood directors and mobilizing 70,000 members to walk precincts in key battleground states. But the efforts proved ultimately unsuccessful, and amid the inevitable postelection recriminations MoveOn came in for plenty of...

Bear River Canyon, Placer County -- Framed by a crystalline stream and steep slopes carpeted with ponderosa pine and black oak, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Thursday authorizing the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, a new state agency dedicated to preserving the 25 million acres of forest, meadow and craggy granite peaks that comprise John Muir's "Range of Light."

After signing the Sierra Nevada Conservancy bill along the Bear River, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a thumbs-up to dignitaries and the media. From left are Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz; state Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman; California EPA Secretary Terry Tamminen; and Assemblyman Tim Leslie, R-Tahoe City. The Union photo/John Hart Standing on a wide gravel bar with the Bear River flowing gently by him, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Sierra Nevada Conservancy bill Thursday to the sound of bipartisan applause. "California is where the conservation movement began, and today we are happy to continue this noble tradition," Schwarzenegger said....

09-23) 16:56 PDT COLFAX, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose a woodsy mountain setting Thursday to sign legislation establishing a 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, while also signing nearly 20 other bills to protect the Pacific Ocean, curb smog and clean up blighted urban land. With numerous strokes of the pen, Schwarzenegger opened 1,100 miles of car pool lanes to hybrid cars, established the nation's first Cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council in state government and barred cruise ships from burning garbage and dumping sewage inside state waters. He also banned commercial fishing fleets from bottom trawling along designated parts of...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces decisions on bills that would create a Sierra Nevada conservancy, require economic impact reports before local governments approve Wal-Mart-like superstores and promote recycling of cell phones. Also headed to his desk are measures that would bar kids under 14 from using tanning salons without a doctor's approval, require schools to notify parents when they serve students irradiated food and give consumers at least 30 days to claim rebates. California lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to dozens of bills as they rushed to wrap up their 2004 session by Friday. The Sierra Nevada bill,...

Dear Sierra Friends, A very good Friday afternoon to you all! In case you had not heard, I wanted to make sure you knew that the Sierra Nevada Conservancy bill, AB 2600, will be heard on the Senate Floor this coming Monday, August 23. Senator Bruce McPherson (R—Santa Cruz) will be presenting AB 2600 as the bill’s official floor jockey. Below, I am including material we’ve put together on the highlights of the consensus reached by Assemblyman Leslie and Assemblyman Laird and the Schwarzenegger Administration. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by phone or e mail....

State Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, said he fears water rights in the Sierra could be jeopardized by a conservancy aimed at protecting the mountain range's resources, such as the South Yuba River, shown here off of North Bloomfield Road. State Sen. Sam Aanestad on Monday attacked the idea of a Sierra Nevada Conservancy, fearing it will infringe on property and water rights. Despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement of the plan, the Republican legislator last week voted against a compromised version of the bill, which would create an organization aimed at gathering grants and other funds to protect and improve...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California is set to spend more than $14 million on new river parkways and open land in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges under the budget signed Saturday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Schwarzenegger sliced the nearly $50 million sought by Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, because the two new programs will start halfway through the budget year. It was unrealistic to expect to spend all the money in just six months, budget officials said. The now-$4.15 million mountain program is contingent on legislative approval of a new Sierra Nevada Conservancy, a sweeping new government...

I listened last night to John Edwards. His speech convinced me that Kerry/Edwards have a socialistic agenda planned for the U.S. and then the bombshell. What did he say? I asked my wife, because it was sort of drowned out by the crowed, it was stated in a slightly lower tone, in fact he turned his head slightly when he said it, I had to get the transcript to be sure. He will pay for his socialistic agenda by "Cutting Government Contracts". This message hit home and hit hard. I am working for a government contractor as are Hundreds of...

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=82 I am sorry I cannot post pictures so I am showing the URL. It is the personal story of one very gutsy teenager and his friends who wanted to post politically incorrect posters in his high school and the attemps to shut him up. Very well written and documented with photos, I am rather amazed at the courage it took to stand up for principal. I guarantee my fellow Freepers are going to love this story

Rosie Takes Shot At Bush During Gay-Friendly Cruise Cruise To Stop In Key West Later This Week POSTED: 12:13 PM EDT July 13, 2004 UPDATED: 6:00 PM EDT July 13, 2004 PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. -- On the eve of a possible U.S. Senate vote to make gay marriages unconstitutional, Rosie O'Donnell spoke out against the Bush administration's plans to ban same sex unions during a stop on a gay-friendly cruise, according to Local 6 News. Rosie Promotes Cruise, Discusses Possible Gay Marriage Ban "I think this cruise comes at the perfect time, when they're considering an amendment making it illegal...

Thursday, July 1, 2004 Could your kids be given to 'gay' parents? Posted: July 1, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Stephen Baskerville © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children...

Dear Sierra friends, I am seeking your thoughts. As you know, I am carrying AB 1788, which would create a Sierra Nevada Conservancy. A state conservancy is an agency that delivers state funds to areas of special value, such as Lake Tahoe or the California Coast. It makes grants and undertakes projects for a wide range of efforts, from acquisition of habitat to fire prevention and economic development. Unlike entities such as the "Coastal Commission" or the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a conservancy does not have any power to regulate lands. As a staunch defender of private property rights...

DATE: JUNE 16, 2004 TO: ALL GRASSROOTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS FROM: ROSE COMSTOCK, ALLIANCE FOR AMERICA www.allianceforamerica.org PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR LIST AND ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO RESPOND. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE! WHAT: WILD LANDS PROJECT AT WORK - JUNE 29, 2004 - HEARINGS ARE SCHEDULED FOR TWO BILLS - AB1788 & AB2600 -EACH AUTHORIZE ESTABLISHING A SIERRA NEVADA CONSERVANCY IN CALIFORNIA TO ACQUIRE, AND DIRECT THE MANAGEMENT, OF PUBLIC LANDS LOCATED PRIMARILY WITHIN THE CORE SIERRA NEVADA REGION. STATUS: BOTH BILLS ARE CURRENTLY IN THE CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WILDLIFE. THIS COMMITTEE IS CHAIRED BY ONE...

Two bills making their way through the California Assembly would create a Sierra Nevada Conservancy. If passed, the conservancy would direct money to help manage the public lands in the mountain range. The Union photo/Pico van Houtryve It spans nearly 500 miles, supplies the water that nourishes California’s economy and has provided vocations and vacations for generations, but the Sierra Nevada has no benefactor like the conservancies that care for Lake Tahoe or the state’s vast coastline. That could change this year, however, if one of the two bills now winding through the Legislature is approved - or if...

White House Suggests Media Explain Cover Up of Saddam Atrocity Video By Jeff Gannon Talon News June 18, 2004 WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan denied that the White House had a role in keeping a gruesome video of atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein's regime from the media. When asked by Talon News on Thursday to explain the virtual news blackout of the horrific images of Iraqis being beheaded, tongues being cut out, and fingers being chopped off, McClellan said that he'd "leave it to the media to address those issues." McClellan pointed out that Saddam...

Fla. Station Fined $4,000 for Castro Prank MIAMI (AP) - A radio station that crank-called Cuban President Fidel Castro and broadcast the recording should be fined $4,000, the Federal Communications Commission said. The Spanish-speaking hosts of "The Morning High Jinks" used snippets of an earlier prank involving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to move the call from a receptionist up the chain to Castro in a five-minute broadcast June 17. The hosts of the show on WXDJ-FM, Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos, fed pleasantries to Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation ended after Castro denounced the...

Spain Will Legalise Gay 'Marriages' - Zapatero Thu Mar 18, 2004 04:04 PM ET MADRID (Reuters) - Spain will legalize gay unions, although it may not call them marriages, incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Thursday, but he did not set a time-frame for the move. "We are going to present a bill to set gay unions on the same footing as marriage," he said in an interview on Spain's Telecinco television channel. "From a semantic point of view marriage may be a concept that does not cover this type of union, but it will have the...

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The parents of a first-grader are fuming over the book their daughter brought home from the school library: a children's story about a prince whose true love turns out to be another prince. Michael Hartsell said he and his wife, Tonya, couldn't believe it when Prince Bertie, the leading character in ``King & King,'' waves off a bevy of eligible princes before falling for Prince Lee. The book ends with the princes marrying and sharing a kiss. ``I was flabbergasted,'' Hartsell said. ``My child is not old enough to understand something like that, especially when it is...

It seems that the usual suspects (United for Peace and Justice, International ANSWER, National Lawyers Guild, International Socialists, Muslim American Society, etc.) have had some difficulty amassing the requisite number of sheep to do another "Mass March on Washington," so they are instead planning multiple smaller events across the country on March 20th. Heads-up North Carolina FReepers - they are coming to Fayetteville, NC. From NCPeaceHub's website, here is their announcement: March 20th: THE WORLD STILL SAYS NO TO WAR Fayetteville, North Carolina- 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Local: www.Ncpeacehub.org National: www.unitedforpeace.org One year ago on February 15th, 2003, millions...

The nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization is blasting officials at a Connecticut public library for censoring Jesus. Artist Mary Morley was asked by officials at the Meriden Public Library to display an exhibit of artwork titled "Vision, Hopes, and Dreams." The exhibit included paintings of a Nativity scene, Jesus carrying the cross, His crucifixion and resurrection, and Christ with a halo. Portraits of Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Moses, and the prophet Elijah were also included. But library officials said the five images of Jesus were not permitted because they were "inappropriate" and "offensive." Louis Giovino with the...

GAIL COLLINS, Editor Gail Collins, the editorial page editor, is responsible for the two opinion pages The Times publishes every day. Her department includes the editorial board, as well as the Op-Ed and Letters departments. The editorial department of the paper is completely separate from the news operations and Ms. Collins answers directly to the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. She is assisted by Philip Taubman, deputy editor, Ethan Bronner, assistant editor, David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page, and Thomas Feyer, the Letters editor. Under her direction, the 15 members of the board prepare the paper's editorials. The...

Sunday, November 3rd, 2002 Years from Now, They'll Call It "Payback Tuesday" Dear Friends, Well, folks, Tuesday is the day! The day that George W. gets taught a long overdue lesson. The day that we, the MAJORITY -- the 52% who never elected him -- get our chance to reclaim a bit of our former democracy (back when ALL the votes used to be counted). What if, on Tuesday, all of us, regardless of our political stripe, and just for the fun of it, decided to serve one big-ass eviction notice that said, you have two years to remove yourself...